Gerald Giam

YouthQuake 6 – The Influence of Online Media on Singaporean Youths

The Workers’ Party Youth Wing will be holding its sixth session of its YouthQuake series this Saturday at the Workers’ Party HQ.

The Workers’ Party Youth Wing will be holding its sixth session of its YouthQuake series this Saturday.

Speakers:

Making Sense of Virtual Reality – Agenda, Audience, Action
By Elvin Ong, 24, SMU Business Undergraduate
Elvin will explore the question to what extent can online media in the virtual world motivate people to take action, in particular, political action, in the physical world?

Fighting in the Trenches: The New Media Jungle
By Terence Lee, 23, NTU Communications Undergraduate & News Editor of The Online Citizen
Having served as a writer, reporter, and editor of The Online Citizen, Terence will share unique and penetrating insights of his dip into the public sphere, some which he picked up the hard way.

Implications of Singapore Law on Online Media
By Sangeetha Yogendran, 23, NUS Law Undergraduate
Sangeetha will be examining the rights one has regarding online media, focusing on censorship and defamation laws. She will also examine the potential implications of the cooling-off day and talk about whether the current laws should be changed in this new online era.

Too Much of Anything is Poison
By Ruth Komathi, 19, TP Psychology Student
Ruth will be exploring the increasing usage of online media and its detrimental effects when used in excess.

Event details:

Date: Saturday, 16 January 2010

Time: 14:30 – 17:00

Venue: Workers’ Party Headquarters, 216-G Syed Alwi Road #02-03 Singapore 207799

To register, please contact Bernard Chen at bernardchen@wp.sg.

Silver lining in the church attacks

It seems these unfortunate incidents are forcing many Malaysians into a time of introspection. The reset button on race relations will have to be hit. Hopefully cool heads will prevail over impetuous acts of bigotry. This could the the silver lining in this whole sad saga.

I feel sad for our neighbour, Malaysia, for what happened over the past few days, with four churches coming under arson attack, presumably linked to the controversial “Allah” ruling by the High Court. According to reports, this is the first time in the history of the country that churches have come under attack of this sort. Even through the turbulent period of the 1960s, including the 1969 race riots, houses of worship were deemed sacrosanct. All that has been shattered now.

The Metro Tabernacle Church, a 1,500-member Assembly of God church in the Kuala Lumpur area, had its first floor 80 per cent destroyed by the fire. According to the KL police chief, the perpetrators broke all the glass window panels on the ground floor of the building before pouring petrol into the building and setting it alight. Three other churches in the Klang Valley — the Catholic Church of Assumption in Kuala Lumpur, Life Chapel Church in Petaling Jaya and Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Petaling Jaya — were also torched, although none seriously.

It goes without saying that these fanatical crimes deserve to be condemned in the strongest terms possible. I find it rather insensitive that demonstrations at some mosques against the High Court’s ruling still went ahead on Friday after the arson attacks happened, although according to Marina Mahathir, the turnout was lower than expected.

Despite the reprehensible actions of a few individuals, it is reassuring to see so many prominent Malaysians speaking out strongly against these attacks. PAS, the opposition Islamic party, has been particularly forceful in its condemnation. Their spiritual leader Nik Aziz Nik Mat said the culprits behind the attacks are committing a sin and will reap what they sow, while their president, Abdul Hadi Awang, called the firebombings “uncivilised” and against Islam. Prime Minister Najib Razak has announced a government allocation of RM500,000 to rebuild the Metro Tabernacle Church. Even UMNO Youth Chief Khairy Jamaluddin, who is better known for his firebrand comments defending Malay rights, said that this was a “despicable act” and that this is “not the Malaysia I know”.

It seems these unfortunate incidents are forcing many Malaysians into a time of introspection over how a dispute over semantics could have boiled over into attacks of this nature. The reset button on race relations will have to be hit. Hopefully cool heads will prevail over impetuous acts of bigotry. This could the the silver lining in this whole sad saga.

Military is no place for foreigners

I am of the view that non-Singaporeans should be prohibited from being members of our security services, especially the military.

Today’s newspapers were flush with stories of foreigners who are serving in the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF). The Straits Times highlighted some Russians, Chinese and Indian nationals, as well as Malaysians, who are serving in various leadership capacities in the SAF.

This uniquely Singaporean quirk has come about because our law requires children of first generation permanent residents (i.e., second generation PRs) to serve their National Service (NS) or forfeit their PR status. With the influx of foreigners into Singapore over the past 10 years and the liberal way in which PR status is dispensed to so many foreigners, it is inevitable that we are seeing many more foreigners donning camouflage green uniforms these days.

I feel that non-Singaporeans should be prohibited from being members of our security services, especially the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF). I know I am treading on sensitive ground by saying this, especially in the context of the debate between the privileges and obligations of citizens and foreigners in Singapore.

Continue reading “Military is no place for foreigners”

Training real “thinking soldiers”

The SAF’s idea for current affairs discussions between commanders and soldiers is something along the lines of what I suggested three years ago in an article written for Singapore Angle (reproduced on my blog) titled “Israel’s unprepared reservists: Could the thing happen to Singapore?”.

The Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) has planned a revamp of the Basic Military Training (BMT) programme. Apart from adjusting the length of BMT for several categories of less-fit recruits, the revamped BMT will also “teach military customs and traditions, and will set aside time for commanders and soldiers to discuss current affairs”.

According to TODAY, for the past two to three years, recruits have been encouraged to keep journals on their training and urged to write letters to their loved ones during “mail runs” on field training. This is part of the SAF’s efforts to engage the troops “intellectually and emotionally”, according to Chief of Army, Maj-Gen Neo Kian Hong.

MG Neo said that “rather than just teaching them, we are also telling them the reason behind it.”

The idea for current affairs discussions between commanders and soldiers is something along the lines of what I suggested three years ago in an article written for Singapore Angle (reproduced on my blog) titled “Israel’s unprepared reservists: Could the thing happen to Singapore?”.

Continue reading “Training real “thinking soldiers””

Fixing a problem that doesn’t exist

Why does this government have so much time on their hands to solve non-existent problems? When was the last time we had anything close to a riot on Polling Day? Not that I know of in the last 50 years. But perhaps our far-sighted government is preparing for a “freak event”.

When I first read the lead story in TODAY this morning, I thought to myself, “Oh no here they go again.”

True enough, the “proposal” (read: decision) by PM Lee to allocate a day before Polling Day as a “cooling-off period” had all the characteristics of a typical PAP election engineering hit job: Conjure up a problem that doesn’t exist, come up with some pleasant sounding proposal to “solve it”, play on the fears of Singaporeans, and then fix the Opposition while making it sound like it is fair and square because “the same rules apply to everyone”.

PM Lee said that, in addition to Polling Day, the day before will also be a campaign-free day — no campaigning except of course “news reporting” by the state-controlled media duopoly.

Continue reading “Fixing a problem that doesn’t exist”

Where is Singaporekini?

Former journalist Cherian George wrote a piece entitled, “Malaysiakini turns 10. So where’s Singaporekini?”

My hypothesis is that we don’t have a Singaporekini (i.e., an alternative media outlet that enjoys broad readership) simply because we haven’t found our Steven Gan and Prem Chandran — a combination of an experienced journalist and a good business mind to lead the team. Popular sites like The Online Citizen and Temasek Review all have people who are passionate about what they do, and love to write, but don’t know how to make money. (I point back at myself, as I was a writer for TOC until August this year when I stepped out.)

It will require a few bold professional journalists and businessmen to start up something truly credible and sustainable that Singaporeans can flock to. We had an unfortunate false start with SingaNews. I’m told there is a new news portal being started by a few ex-mainstream media editors come next year. Hopefully that will give our government-aligned mainstream media a run for their money.

PUB knew canal was not big enough but didn’t act?

I don’t expect to have no floods in Singapore, and I think Singaporeans are willing to forgive the occasional lapse in planning that leads to floods of this nature. But I would have expected at least an ounce of contrition on the part of the Minister for his ministry’s failure to act on a known problem in time. Instead, Singaporeans just got excuses and extreme examples. “Sorry” seems to be the hardest word for our leaders to say.

Environment Minister Yaacob Ibrahim attributed last Thursday’s floods in Bukit Timah to a “freak” event that occurs “once in 50 years”.

He said: “What happened was very unusual. The intensity was tremendous.”

Flood waters partially submerged ground-floor buildings and cars. The Straits Times carried a picture of a car in car park with the water mark reaching almost the side view mirrors. The flooding occurred along two stretches of Bukit Timah Road — from Coronation Road to Third Avenue and from Wilby Road to Blackmore Road. The damage from all this has yet to be tallied.

A businessman TODAY interviewed remarked: “This is like those news footage you see of floods in Manila or Jakarta. This is a prime housing area. I don’t understand how the flooding could have happened.”

According to a PUB spokesman, the heavy rainfall caused the 1st Diversion Canal from the main Bukit Timah canal to burst its banks. The canal was built 37 years ago, in 1972.

I was therefore surprised was to hear the Minister say: “We knew the diversion canal was not big enough to take this.”

Continue reading “PUB knew canal was not big enough but didn’t act?”

My struggle with Chinese

Hearing MM Lee Kuan Yew admit that his bilingual policy caused generations of students to pay a heavy price because of his “ignorance” made me feel somewhat vindicated, after the years of struggling with learning Chinese in school.

In his speech at the launch of the Singapore Centre for Chinese Language two days ago, MM Lee talked about how Singapore schools’ emphasis on reading and writing Chinese, instead of on listening and speaking, was the wrong approach. He singled out 默写 (memorising an entire Chinese passage and regurgitating it in a test) as “madness” (疯狂). I couldn’t agree more!

Continue reading “My struggle with Chinese”

Was our phenomenal GDP growth worth selling our soul for?

When I listen to the painful experiences of ex-political detainees like Dr Lim Hock Siew, I question whether our phenomenal GDP growth over the past 40 years was worth selling our soul for (if indeed the two were interchangeable). Would I settle for a less developed country that did not have such a shameful past? It’s a hard question to answer, even though the morally correct answer should be obvious.

Watch Martyn See’s recording of a speech by Dr Lim Hock Siew, Singapore’s second-longest detained political prisoner, who was imprisoned without trial from 1963 to 1982. This is the kind of stuff that needs to go into our national education curriculum and screened in Singapore Discovery Centre. Our young people need to know the sacrifices these opposition politicians made for the sake of their beliefs and their convictions on how to forge a better Singapore for all of us.

Continue reading “Was our phenomenal GDP growth worth selling our soul for?”

How schools kill creativity

“Kids will take a chance. If they don’t know, they’ll have a go. They’re not frightened of being wrong…If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.”

I watched this very entertaining and thought-provoking video on TED by Sir Ken Robinson, an expert in creative and cultural education. He talked about how children don’t need to be taught to be creative, because they already are — but schools are educating them out of their creative capacities.

Continue reading “How schools kill creativity”