The Promise

Today we explore competition, we review promises and we look at blogosphere.

No holds barred.

In my previous entry, I explored the concepts of bureacracy and politics. How the incumbent regime has sought to cross-breed both into one to give birth to the following oxymoron :

Practical and procedural-minded politicans.

As Max Weber has explained, the bureaucrat cannot be a politician as a politician cannot be a bureaucrat.

"If a bureaucrat's superior gives him a directive he considers wrong he should object, but if the superior insists, it is his duty and even his honour to carry it out as if it corresponded to his innermost conviction"

"... the politician must publicly reject the responsibility for political actions that run counter to his convictions and must sacrifice his office to them."

These words reveal the serious structural flaw in the Singapore State.

These words reveal why the representatives of the people end up rubber stamping legislation after legislation which fail to consider the wishes of the people.

These words explain why, it is no use for a Minister to cry in Parliament when the Government decided to proceed with the Casino. If it was morally wrong to the convictions of the politician, the politician would have sacrificed his office. Instead, we have a bureaucrat response where the policy was agreed and carried out with duty and honour. Whats the use of crying in Parliament?

Bureaucrats masquerading as politicians.

But humans are humans. Some sparks always fail to conform to the system. In the last GE, the PAP lauded SDA candidate Steve Chia. They said he was good, like the PAP. But how wrong that assessment was for the PAP.

Midway in his tenure as NCMP, Steve Chia asked a question in Parliament. Are there White Horses in Mindef. And with this question, he slayed a Minister of State. Anybody remember Cedric Foo? Given a backdoor pass into Parliament, appointed as a Minister of State for Defence, no less.

What was Cedric Foo's reply to the question? Like all bureaucrats, he stated the reason why there was a White Horse classification system. To prevent NS dodgers, to prevent influential persons' children from receiving preferred treatment.

And what a storm that created. The bureaucrat set up the rationale of the White Horse policy but the application of the policy and the spirit of the policy was totally reversed. Totally reversed. But the ex Minister of state was trenchant in his initial response. just like a good civil servant. No the White Horse system was to prevent preferential treatment.

The response by the people? Yeah right. And the stories flew in cyberspace, in real-life.

Faced with this public outcry, the ex Minister of State conceded that there may have been misapplication of the policy. He promised an enquiry. And to this day, which bootlicking military man has been surfaced? But yet, we all know that White Horses existed. And we all know that preferential treatment was indeed practised.

So Cedric Foo is no longer a minister, no longer a PAP MP, no longer a PAP candidate in this GE.

And that should be so for a bureaucrat masquerading as a politician.

And who do we have to thank for this? A NCMP. A real NCMP, I should add. Without whom to this day, all Singaporeans who have served NS will look at this white Horse classifcation system and snigger. A fact that can exist only in coffee-shops, back-room talk when it was indeed a fact.

You tell me whether we need competition in Parliament. Whether we need a real Opposition MP backed by a constituency in Parliament. Whether we need a team of Opposition MPs backed by a GRC in Parliament.

Let us look back again and refresh our memories of what happens when a bureaucrat is cross-bred into politics.

Year 2003. Event : SARS outbreak.

While Singaporeans were grieving, fearful and despondent. While Singaporeans were trying to save lives at the risk of their own. While the country was in a crisis. A bureaucrat-politician steps up and pins the blame right down to a "super-infector". A Singaporean whose family died, whose life had crumbled around her. She was to blame. She was the "super-infector".

Now tell me what happens when a bureaucrat is bred into politics.

Singaporeans become digits, useful only when economically productive.

Promises, promises, promises.

For those of us who thrive in the Net, what was PM's most encouraging promise in his maiden rally speech? Change. A more open society. A hundred flowers. And what have we seen?

Clampdown, media barrage, threats and so forth especially when the GE loomed nearer and nearer.

But there is really hope. I really believe it. I see so many blogs with entries on politics in this GE, speaking with so much conviction, so much eloquence; drawing with so much effort, so much thought; flickr-ing with so much passion, so much precision.

I see the massive amounts of video clips coursing through cyberspace on this GE in open defiance against the MDA edict issued so recently.

This is power.

This forces the state into paralysis.

This shows us the simple fact that the world has moved on. And Singaporeans are gradually but surely moving on as well despite the fact of the State trying to chain us down to an anachronistic interpretation and instrumentalisation of new media power.

I no longer am a political savant. Because there are so many more around and so many more to come who are pushing the envelope to the State.

You made a Promise.

A more open society, more freedom.

And we will not let you renege it.

Quote of the Day --

"Here comrades! Why do you look so gloomy? Fight on, fight on! ... There are two hundred million of us! You cannot hang us all!?" -- Kosmodemyanskaya, Zoya (1923-1941)