Author: Gerald Giam

This was a letter I sent to TODAY newspaper which was published on 20 July, together with the editor’s reply. The text in red was edited out by the paper.

Just to illustrate how appalling the civilian death toll is, since I submitted my letter on the night of 18 July, the number of Lebanese civilians who have been killed by Israeli bombs has increased from 200 to 327. 500,000 Lebanese have been displaced by the Israeli offensive.

The US, a country which preaches so much about human rights, is deliberately delaying sending Condi Rice to the region in order to give Israel more time to annihilate Hezbollah, along with a few hundred more civilians. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has rightly said that the “perpetrators in the conflict could be held to account for war crimes”.

Death toll so far:
Lebanese civilians: 327
Palestinian militants and civilians: 96
Israeli soldiers: 12
Israeli civilians: 16

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TODAY, 20 July 2006

Unbiased opinions: Looking at the Middle East from a neutral perspective

Letter from Gerald Giam

TODAY’s coverage of the ongoing Middle East conflict needs to be more balanced. Your choice of a former Israeli diplomat, Emanuel Shahaf, as your only regular commentator on Middle East issues may not be the most appropriate for Singapore’s context.

Although your writer does not push the Israeli position every time, his views still generally reflect the thinking of the Israeli government and provide insufficient coverage of the suffering of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians caught in the crossfire.

His commentaries on the latest hostilities appear to emphasise Syria’s and Iran’s complicity in backing the Hezbollah militants, while overlooking the fact that over 200 Lebanese citizens (mostly civilians) have been killed by Israeli air strikes since last Wednesday. I was particularly concerned when your writer’s commentary appeared on the front page of Weekend Today (“The road to war?”, July 15-16). Although I understand that it is TODAY’s editorial style to place commentaries on the cover page, your readers might mistake this to be an objective report rather than an opinion piece.

I am neither suggesting that you completely ignore the Israeli viewpoint, nor that you bring in a former Lebanese diplomat to present counter-arguments. However, you could consider featuring more opinion pieces from academics from local think tanks and universities who can provide a more neutral perspective.

Editor’s reply:

In deciding to tap on Mr Shahaf as a commentator on the Middle East, Today considered two important factors: One, his intimate and up-to-date knowledge of the area, given that he is based there; and two, that Mr Shahaf — despite the fact of his nationality — has striven to formulate and express his views with impartiality. This includes having been critical of Israel’s actions on several occasions.

In the interests of offering a diversity of views, Today has published commentaries and analyses on the Middle East written by other foreign and Singapore-based commentators, including John Gee, William Pfaff and Irfan Husain. The NewsComment today on page 2 is another case in point.

The recent attacks on Israel and the kidnappings of three Israeli soldiers by militants in Gaza and Lebanon have provoked a furious Israeli onslaught which has killed scores of Lebanese and Palestinian civilians.

In response to the attacks by Hamas and Hezbollah militants, Israel has re-occupied northern Gaza and embarked on a relentless bombing campaign in Lebanon. The air strikes against Lebanon have killed over 100 civilians and destroyed vital infrastructure like the international airport, roads, bridges and ports. Over in Gaza, Israel’s campaign to free its captured soldier has so far left 82 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier dead. (The Israeli solder died as a result of “friendly fire”.) According to Al-Jazeera news channel, Palestinian doctors have reported that some patients treated in a hospital in Gaza and bodies at the mortuary had unusual burns, prompting concerns that Israel has used chemical weapons.

The attacks by Israel, which has the most powerful military in the Middle East, amounts to a collective punishment of ordinary Palestinians and Lebanese, and their democratically-elected governments for the actions of militants whom neither have much influence over. Obviously, Israel has a right to defend itself against terrorism. However, surely the killing of almost 200 Palestinian and Lebanese civilians to free three captured soldiers cannot be considered to be simply self-defence.

All this while, the US has done little to restrain its ally Israel. President George Bush has instead blamed Syria and Iran for supporting Hezbollah, whose actions provoked Israel’s response. Since, by the US’ indirect admission, the Lebanese government is not primarily responsible for Hezbollah’s actions, why does the US appear to be turning a blind eye to Israel’s attacks on Lebanon? The US has even blocked a UN Security Council statement calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

The actions of Israeli military and the indifference of the Americans will further increase Arab and Muslim anger against Israel and the West, and will add fuel to the fire of Islamic terrorists around the world. The US needs to reign in Israel immediately to prevent any more lives from being lost in this senseless conflict.

mr brown announced on his website this morning that TODAY has suspended his column. He added that “it has been a trying few days for me, my family, my mum and my friends”.

This suspension followed a harsh rebuke that TODAY received from the press secretary to the Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts on 3 July after the daily had published his piece of political humour satirising some government policies.

This is indeed a sad day for media freedom in Singapore. It is an act of self-censorship by TODAY. There was no need to completely suspend mr brown’s column. At most, TODAY could have avoided publishing political commentaries by mr brown that may offend the Government. By going all the way and suspending mr brown’s column (which more often than not contains benign non-political humour), TODAY has demonstrated its willingness to “go the extra mile” to second guess what they think the Government Ministers want to see.

In any case, this whole saga might backfire on the Government. It has made mr brown an even greater cult hero in Singapore. Within 3 hours of his announcement, his website received over 100 messages of support from Singaporeans who are no doubt overwhelmingly against the actions of TODAY and the Government.

I am disappointed that the Press Secretary to the Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts sent such a strongly worded letter to TODAY (July 3) rebuking mr brown for his “diatribe” against some Government policies in his June 30 column, “S’poreans are fed up with progress”.

Among other things, mr brown was accused of having “poured sarcasm on many issues”, “blaming the Government for all that he is unhappy with” and making a calculated move “to encourage cynicism and despondency”. Most surprisingly, mr brown was accused of being a “partisan player in politics”.

When I read mr brown’s June 30 column, it never struck me that any of the above accusations applied to him. It is precisely because mr brown wrote the article in his trademark light-hearted fashion, that I am sure most Singaporeans (myself included) did not pay much attention to the substance of his arguments (if they can even be called arguments).

mr brown is a humourist, not a political activist (unless the ISD has discovered otherwise). Anyone who has been reading his columns and listening to his podcasts regularly would judge this to be so.

By coming down so hard on mr brown – and TODAY for publishing his article – the Government has provided more fodder for its critics who accuse it of being intolerant of those who stick their head out criticise its policies.

I am concerned that, after this admonition from the Government, TODAY will henceforth refuse to publish any of mr brown’s political commentaries. For the sake of the future of “multiple modes” of political engagement in Singapore, I hope that mr brown does not turn his political humour to silent mode.

The role of Community Development Councils (CDCs) in Singapore has come under the spotlight recently, following Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng’s speech at the swearing in of the district mayors, where he said that “CDCs should not compete with grassroots organisations in organising constituency events”.

As a CDC volunteer for the past 5 years, I know this is not the first time this issue has been raised. Grassroots organisations (GROs) are understandably unhappy with their larger and richer cousins who have the resources and manpower to organise large scale community events, sometimes “outshining” the GROs in the process.

There have been calls from some quarters that CDCs should concentrate solely on providing social and employment assistance, and leave the “community bonding” job to GROs.

I disagree with this view for two main reasons.

Firstly, CDCs have proven very successful in engaging youths. Although GROs have their Youth Executive Committees, the general perception among youths is that GROs are run by people their parents age or older. However, many more youths are joining CDC youth committees and participating in events organised by these committees. If CDCs were to revert to only providing social and employment assistance, a successful avenue for engage our youths will be lost.

Secondly, CDCs provide a less political platform for civic-minded Singaporeans to participate in community compared to GROs. Despite the People’s Association’s recent assertion (Straits Times Forum, June 21) that grassroots leaders participate in political activities in their “personal capacity”, most Singaporeans know that many grassroots leaders have clear political leanings towards the PAP. Many grassroots leaders are PAP members who not only participate in election campaigning but also serve as election agents to PAP candidates. Of course, they are free to do so in their personal capacity, but in no other supposedly non-political organisation in Singapore does one find such a high concentration of PAP members and supporters. As a result, many politically-neutral but socially-conscious Singaporeans are unwilling to join GROs, because they do not wish to be seen to be so closely associated with the ruling party.

Having said that, there are several changes things that should be made to ensure that CDCs are more apolitical. Firstly, there needs to be more effort made to recruit CDC members from organisations other than GROs. Currently, many CDC members and councilors are also grassroots leaders. This is usually because many were invited to join the CDCs through networks established through their grassroots work. However, to avoid the misimpression that that all CDC volunteers are grassroots leaders, CDC committees should actively encourage other Singaporeans interested in community work to join the CDC committees. Singaporeans with a passion for community service can be found in abundance at voluntary welfare organisations, ethnic self-help groups, religious organisations and civil society organisations, to name a few.

At the political level, the Government should keep politics separate from CDCs. Currently, all CDC mayors and advisers are PAP MPs or members. The Opposition MPs in Potong Pasir and Hougang constituencies are excluded from the CDCs that their constituencies are part of (i.e., Southeast CDC and Northeast CDC respectively). Instead, the losing PAP candidates in those wards represent that ward at the CDC. This situation is untenable in the long-term because should future elections result in more wards being won by the Opposition, the sphere of influence of the CDCs will shrink, and the Opposition may start setting up their own CDCs to rival the current “PAP” CDCs.

The disbursement of social assistance should also be kept separate from partisan politics. I was disturbed to learn that during the 1997 election campaign, then-Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong said that only the wards which voted for the PAP would get Edusave merit bursaries and scholarships, and their elderly parents would be taken care of by the CDCs. Many Singaporeans will perceive this tactic to be unethical as it involves our children and elderly parents. CDCs have a moral responsibility to disburse social assistance purely on a needs-basis rather than political leanings.

CDCs play an important role not only in providing social assistance, but also in strengthening community ties and involvement. However, it is important not to allow partisan politics get in the way of the good work that CDCs are doing.

My comments:

Of course, none of O’Sullivan’s criticisms are new revelations to Singaporeans. Most independently-minded Singaporeans widely acknowledge that democratisation in our country needs a lot more work. But we are certainly not a pariah state like Myanmar. Ours is a problem which we can, and should, take care of ourselves.

Although Dr Chee Soon Juan is not entirely wrong in pushing for reform in our political system, his methods leave much to be desired. The number one rule in starting major reforms in a country is to get the support of the masses. The second rule is don’t invoke their nationalistic feelings against yourself by appearing unpatriotic (in Chee’s case, by badmouthing Singapore to foreign human rights groups). Chee has broken both of these rules, which accounts in large part for his party’s poor showing at the recent polls.

The confrontational style of politics does not work in Singapore – not with a PAP Government that has done such a good job of bringing about and maintaining
economic development. By championing “non-violent civil disobedience”, he attempts to draw parallels between himself and civil rights legends like Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, Jr. Surely Chee is overestimating his own sense of importance. Gandhi fought the mighty British for the freedom of his nation; Mandela and King contended against a corrupt and racist system on behalf of an entire race of people. Chee’s struggle, however important, pales in comparison.

There are high hopes among Singaporeans for political reform to come about through the new Workers’ Party led by Sylvia Lim and Low Thia Kiang. Lim, in particular, now has a prominent platform to speak up through her Non-Constituency Member of Parliament (NCMP) post. Let’s hope she does not disappoint the many Singaporeans who are yearning for greater political freedom.