At eight thirty p.m. tonight, I will be at the airport, preparing to leave for my two and a half week trip overseas for the World Schools Debating Championships 2006.  Three hours later, I will be watching Singapore and its lights shrink, fade, diminish as the plane bears us up and away. 

There is a strange sensation one undergoes when taking off.  It is as though the floor beneath you is soaring, trembling, pressing upwards from its imprisonment, and yet you -- you have become deadweight, rooted to the earth that is falling away beneath you, your body unwilling to separate itself from the land.  A tension is created between yourself and the vessel of your flight.  It is inevitable that you will leave.  It is unavoidable that you will disconnect with the tarmac.  It is understood that you will soon be high above your motherland in a larger kingdom of imperturbable clouds.

But for those long moments during take-off, everything tells you to stay.

The young bird is afraid to leave its nest, yet it must learn to fly.  Only in flight will it grow, its wings strengthen, its muscles become supple and strong.  Then it will return, and then it will -- one day -- build its own nest, tougher and stronger and far more secure than the cradle of its nascence.

I contemplate this trip with trepidation.  But I welcome it for what it is: an opportunity, one of many, to learn how to fly.  And sometimes, only distance grants us perspective.  Only time and space teach us the meaning of the whole.  Singapore from far away is a small space, a red dot, a blip on the radar of greatness.  From far away it is a toy kingdom built of kids' blocks which, piled on top of one another, form HDB flats, stacked high and made so vulnerable.  Like Lego.  No, like Jenga.  No: like Babel.

I remember watching television shortly after Nomination Day.  The PAP MPs I saw featured were mournfully putting away the beautiful posters, restoring them to their musty cupboards because their constituencies would see walkovers in 2006.  "I am sorry there is no contest," I recall one of them saying.  "I would have liked to see a good fight." Games.  We play games here in Singapore.  Who has the biggest posters, the brightest pamphlets, the best smile, the most garlands? Who will be able to send more supporters in by the busloads? Who will be lucky enough to join the game, to be picked for the team, to get a piece of the action? Games.  But we all know who wins.  It is a tired game.  It is a game that, when taken too seriously, when cared about, will break your heart.

It is a matrix of constructs and programs, of causes and effects.  Caesar, Pharoah, and the latest from Sierra games: Temasek.  How many Bangladeshis would you like to import so you receive a high mark for City Cleanliness? How many Filipinas do you want to have so as to create a Friendly Service Sector? Your citizens are unhappy.  How much money shall you allocate to City Festivals and Racial Harmony Campaigns?

I was a little sad, yet amused and not surprised when I heard.  It reminded me of last year, when I participated in the LTA Book Prize competition.  I submitted an essay and did a presentation on 'Hardware vs. Heartware: Has the LTA achieved both?'.  For my presentation, which the finalists had to deliver in front of the panel of judges at the LTA centre, I went to the nearest MRT station and took a few simple pictures.  I don't have them on my computer any longer, but here's a summary of some of the shots I took:

I took these pictures within ten minutes -- I didn't have to stand around for long at all.  I placed them in a Powerpoint presentation, concluded that the LTA had done admirably in terms of hardware, and tried its best when it came to heartware, but Singaporeans just aren't doing their part.  I even composed a cheesy song that complained about it (I'll spare you the lyrics).  I guess the essence of the whole affair was that we are far too caught up in the roads, buses and trains of our daily lives to care about the person sharing the journey.  We're always on the move, always thinking about our next destination, always trying for something.  We forget who's queuing up beside us, who's also trying to wend their way along the many routes we have at our common disposal.

There are plenty of roads to success in Singapore, and most of the time the journey is comfortable.  But there are those who can't find a seat, who are handicapped, who are on the fringes of the jostling crowd, the outside looking in.  And well, sometimes it's not just all about who got there first, and who could elbow more people out of the way.  Too bad the Singa lions they've stuffed and the million-dollar campaigns they've funded haven't seemed to help Singaporeans understand that.

Oh well -- just my brief thoughts on the matter this time.  KTM posted a good article on Stomp about it that asks more piercing questions.  Speaking of Stomp though, it's a little funny how their bloggers are assigned topics.  It does remind me of the GP (General Paper) essays I have to do for homework.  They're even phrased like GP exam questions.  'Entrapment - legal, yes, but ethical? Discuss.' I thought Dawn Yang said in the ST article that the bloggers were being given free rein.  So far it doesn't sound like it, unless you count xiaxue being able to use four letter words in her entries.  Her writing is fun and feisty, even if I'm a bit uncomfortable with her language - but that's her prerogative, and ST's.  What I really found hilarious though, was one user jennnnnn (that's six 'N's, count them) who left a comment saying: "And cut out all the vulgarities please. May I remind you that this is a government website that you are blogging for, and that you should at least have the decency to censor it off."

I'm still laughing about that.  Hee, goodnight.

I came across an interesting interview of MM Lee today, given by TIME Asia.  It's dated December 12, 2005.  Here's one excerpt that caught my eye:

TIME: A documentary film was made locally about a Singapore opposition politician, and it was banned.
LEE: Well, if you had asked me, I would have said, to hell with it. But the censor, the enforcer, he will continue until he is told the law has changed. And it will change ...

"party political film" means a film —

...Any person who —

knowing or having reasonable cause to believe the film to be a party political film shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding $100,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 2 years.

This is the infamous law that led to the banning of Martyn See's film Singapore Rebel, a 26 minute documentary on Dr. Chee Soon Juan (the documentary has since been uploaded to Google video).  We are lucky indeed that Singapore has such laws to protect us from a 26 minute long coverage of Chee's life story that would cloud the minds of Singaporeans who are too silly and uneducated to distinguish between fact and fiction, truth and dramatization.  MM Lee said in that interview that this law would be changed.  Well we haven't seen any changes yet, but it's only been six months.  No big deal.  But wait -- didn't I recall seeing a documentary called 'Success Stories: Lee Kuan Yew', a two-part documentary series aired on Channelnewsasia in February 2002 that was produced by a Hong Kong company? Hmm, how about 'Up Close', a 2005 documentary mini-series that was aired by Channelnewsasia (again) featuring Dr. Vivian Balakrishnan, Mr. Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Dr. Ng Eng Heng, Mr. Lim Swee Say, Mr. Khaw Boon Wan? Though not strictly biographical, the programmes did spend a great deal of time examining the PAP ministers' political plans in their respective portfolios (which can be argued to be even more favourable to a political party as the content would not be limited to the individual's life history, but instead concretely encroach onto political grounds).  How? Maybe the law should be changed after all, to be more clear about what exactly is a "party political film".  Oh but then again, I found this...

Exemptions
40. —(1) This Act shall not apply to —

And this...


Now, that makes it crystal clear.  The government in its infinite wisdom, being not affiliated to any political party, can decide what is a party political film and what is not :) Whew, for a moment I was getting confused.  I guess that makes Channelnewsasia safe.  I wouldn't like them to be investigated and have lawsuits filed against them after all.  Not like what happened to that poor SDP newsletter.

Well, Singaporeans, we're still waiting, and wondering to see if this law that keeps us safe from all insidious influences will be changed, like MM Lee suggests in this interview.  But maybe it's PM Lee whose opinion counts more.  After all:

BBQ is back home.  I found her cuddling up with the big, fluffy, very handsome white cat from the 2nd floor.  If she'll have babies at least they'll be good looking! Whew...can sleep in peace now.

...and again I agree.  I mean, obviously.  But what I find far more astonishing than MM Lee's prediction of China's behavior is his prescription for it:



Erm, can we not anyhow go around recommending imposing sanctions on China? Perhaps I'm interpreting his remark in a wrong fashion, but that definitely raised my eyebrows.  Of course, MM Lee did qualify his remark by saying that China  has 'done its sums' and knows that tariffs will not significantly harm them.  But even then he does sound just a little bit condescending:


Perhaps I'm just reading too much into things and have too much time on my hands.  Well, this is my last post for a couple of days.  Time to get more sleep - I've been sick lately and it's worrying.  I don't fancy a 14 hour flight to London with a blocked nose and a headache.  Cheers all.

According to Alex Au of Yawningbread.org, 'Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has jeopardised Singapore's relations with Australia for the sake of his own party politics'.  While I agree that PM Lee's remarks, cited in that article, may have been judgmental and a little insensitive, I do challenge the impression that PM Lee has jeopardised these relations.  I think at the end of the day, Australia may not like us very much - or at all - but it is still our 11th largest trading partner and wants the benefits we can bring to them much more than it cares about whether or not PM Lee thinks they should be governed by a single authoritarian party too.  I've come to the sad conclusion that Western nations and their media in particular may make a lot of noise about Singaporean politics but at the end of the day they don't really care, lah.  And neither do we care what they say about us.  You know what sticks and stones can do that words can't.  But in any case, Au's article is an engaging read, do check it out.

...and I agree.  Am I the only one who thinks that the furore over North Korea and Iran's nuclear programs is one big, tired, outmoded, dead-horse scam? Let's face it, we can't stop them from attaining nuclear weapons any more than we could stop India and Pakistan.  The only two differences between the former bloc and the latter is (i) the latter are US allies and the former are hostile to the superpower, and (ii) the latter are not party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968, while the former are.  Those reasons are why India, today, can happily warm its seat on the Governing Board of the International Atomic Energy Agency - irony of ironies! - which is supposed to enforce the NPT.  It's also why India can sign agreements with the US to actually share civilian nuclear technology with the acknowledgment that India has an existing military nuclear regime, but Iran and North Korea are the 'axis of evil' instead.  So the question is: what now?

I believe North Korea and Iran are adamant on pursuing their nuclear weapons programs for two main reasons.  Firstly, aggressive US foreign policy.  Ideological differences and a history of tension dating back to the Cold War and the Arab-Israeli conflict have set these states on a defensive backfoot against the Western hegemon.  The March 2003 invasion of Iraq can only have set alarm bells ringing for them as well.  The perception of being under siege by the Western powers has more than likely precipitated the rapid arms build-up.  But at the same time, this very reason is the disincentive for them to go too far, or to ever actually use their nukes.  Ahmadinejad, for all his ravings, is no fool.  He knows if he ever does launch against Israel, the US will invade in the blink of an eye.  Israel is staying put on the map.  North Korea has not only the Western powers to be wary of, it also has watchdogs in the form of Japan, another US ally, and China, etc.  Neither North Korea nor Iran is going to press any red buttons any time soon because the incentive for building up a nuclear arsenal in the first place simultaneously acts as a disincentive to ever use it.  It's like Cold War mentality all over again: they'll avoid direct confrontation at all costs because they know they will lose.

But the second reason why they are adamant on pursuing their nuclear weapons programs is the one that has caused me much consternation: the promise of civilian nuclear energy and economic engagement in return for disarmament.  Here is where I find myself mystified as to why we continue to dangle carrots in front of them, proving that it's profitable for them to persist in their nuclear regimes and occasional displays of military prowess as it gains them the attention of the international community and the promise of more foreign aid with which to build nuclear plants.

On the first level, I very much doubt such a promise works.  When we started planning the two light water reactors for North Korea back in the 90's, Kim Jong Il rewarded us with a Taepodong-1 long-range missile launch in August 1998 that flew over northern Japan.  We immediately retracted our promise of the reactors, and today, what are we using as a carrot for disarmament again? A light water reactor.  Yet North Korea is today, again threatening to launch another test missile, albeit riddling the event with coy delays.  The track record of using civilian nuclear energy as bait for dismantlement is hardly inspiring. 

On the second level, not only is it a failed disincentive, it is actually an incentive for rogue states to continue stringing along the international community because it gets them attention and results in the Western states falling all over each other trying to come up with lucrative reasons to stop their development.  The EU and the 5+1 Group (Security Council members and Germany) have come up with attractive economic and security incentives for Iran to disarm.  To me, this sounds like the perfect reason for a state, Iran or otherwise, to use the threat of nuclear development to gain concessions from the international communities, meanwhile using delays, threats, empty promises, and mixed signals to keep them on their toes, continuing to try to come up with something impressive.  

I suppose the chance that all this might actually be successful this time is attractive enough to keep trying.  But I can't help but wonder what would happen if we called their bluff one day.  Do whatever you want, and suffer the consequences.  What will Ahmadinejad or Kim have to rail at us with, then? I'm tired of my newspapers being filled with reports of these two states hijacking the attention of the international community and playing games with everyone.

---

A digression before I go to bed.  My cat is having her sexual awakening or something like that, and has started yowling at full volume depressingly late into the night.  She wants a boyfriend! :( I don't want to lose my cat to some horny furball! Should I let her out in the void deck to find a mate and will she come back to me if I do? I miss my innocent sweetie:

This is a fascinating issue for me that I've been meaning to comment on for a while.  While I agreed that the vehement racism of the anti-Muslim bloggers warranted legal action, I think that was largely spawned out of an instinctive disdain for bigots and extremists who have no respect for others.  Now that Char is being investigated for images that were satirical/insulting to the Christian faith posted on his blog, however, I find myself more vaguely amused by the uproar stirred up by this episode and concerned for this blogger than angry. 

I think it's because I am, myself, a Christian.  To me, faith is intensely personal.  It is tried and tested, influenced, shaped, challenged and confirmed by exogenous factors, but at the end of the day it is set apart.  In Corinthians II 6:17, the Bible says: "Come out from among them and be ye separate", and in John 18:36, Jesus says: "My kingdom is not of this world" - the tribulations the Church may undergo in its manifestation as a physical institution of society are unsurprising, for Christians are called to live a different life from those around them.  Furthermore, tribulations come both from without and within.  Even those in the Church will disappoint us.  Priests may embezzle money, pastors may commit adultery; it is little wonder if we are to submit to the Scriptural acknowledgment that all men are sinners saved only by grace.  If we were to let a few cartoons on the Net shake our faith and make us angry, horrified and/or disturbed, then well - we shouldn't.  Salvation is between God and what's in your heart.  God will judge, not men.

Which is why I say: let Char go.  Let him publish what he wants; either he will be held accountable to a higher authority or, even if he doesn't believe in judgment in the afterlife (I have read that he is a 'free-thinker') he will have to deal with the flak that comes from everyone who has read his blog and found him to be crude and offensive, just like anyone does when they run the risk of putting up their opinions all over the place.  The Net has its ways of dealing with that.  Char didn't post anything new, after all.  If you were to do a Google image search of 'Jesus cartoon' you would come up with numerous images depicting Jesus in offensive ways.  Are we going to go through a crisis of faith because those images are up on the Net in full view? Not I.  I'm simply going to click the little box at the top right-hand corner marked 'x', and close the blooming window.

How should Christians deal with this episode? Matthew 18:21-22 says:


The law may not be so forgiving.  To my understanding the Sedition Act deems the intention of the person irrelevant to the seditious tendency of the publication, as seen in this Very Long Clause:



I may be reading it wrong of course, it's hard to tell.  I am so not going to study law at university.  The point is this: it is possible that Char will be charged and sentenced even if he put up the cartoons not to incite disaffection among the races, but simply as a joke, or a means of petty retaliation against the person who e-mailed him asking him to take it down. 

But will doing so help to breed more contentment and harmony in our society or simply highlight the schisms and present us as a community of factions, with each faction paranoid in its defensiveness against an offender with a contrary belief? Yes, there are lines which should not be crossed, but I am far more inclined to treat this as a tasteless joke.  Just as I would not turn my friends and acquaintances in for the countless racist jokes I have heard told, I also would not convict Char for his transgression.  It is more important to cure the root of the problem than its symptom.  The root of the problem is a community that, for all its posters and moral education textbooks, is perhaps not as mature and bonded as it would like to believe.  The Net has thrown some of the ugliness into the spotlight where previously it would have silently simmered beneath the surface.  So now what? We could hit back, a wounded animal, with laws, prison cells and sedition acts - or we could take a longer, closer look at the problem.  Most likely it should be a mix of both.  To me, laws still need to be there to punish bigots who may incite hate.  But what Char did was not the work of a hateful anti-Christian extremist.  I dare say he's a young man who made a mistake and learnt his lesson.  Now maybe it's time to move on.

This article did not so much enlighten as it did reinforce many of my misgivings about the culture of governance in Singapore.  Take this excerpt:

I took the liberty of deciphering this rather cryptic remark, and if anyone feels I err in my interpretation, do feel free to disagree.  But it sounds to me like PM Lee is saying that the PAP must be different from the opposition, hence gives HDB priority to PAP wards.  Otherwise, there would be no difference between voting for the Opposition and voting for the PAP.  That is why voters in Aljunied would be able to vote for the Opposition and still have the PAP in power.

With all due respect, there are some comments I feel need to be made about this mentality.

1.  There are many ways the PAP can distinguish itself from the Opposition without the use of preferential upgrading.  Off the top of my head I refer to: sound economic policies, care for the residents, knowledge of their needs, amount of time spent in the grassroots, gentlemanly conduct, detailed plans for the future -- gee, sounds like what's needed to get a party voted in for any democracy.  Using upgrading as a carrot, or perhaps a stick, depending on which way you look at it, does indeed distinguish the PAP from the Opposition -- but on what grounds? Does it make them different because they are necessarily a better team fielded, or because they have access to manymanymanymany money in budget surpluses? Should the results of general elections be dependent on who has a better plan for the residents, or who has access to more cash?

2.  There is nothing wrong with the people voting in the Opposition because they feel secure that the PAP will remain the ruling party.  If the people decide they want a strong, intelligent party in power and yet have opposition members in parliament to act as a check for the ruling party's decisions, and to provide transparency to the processes of Parliament, what, pray tell, is wrong with that? Even if we suspend our disbelief and for one moment suspect that if the PAP does not use upgrading as a threat, Singaporeans will vote an Opposition party into power and that party will somehow bungle things up and ruin everything we have slogged to build in the last 40 years, then hey -- we will learn, and the results of the next election will be different.  I don't believe for an instant that Singaporeans are too dumb to choose the government that best brings improvements to their welfare.  I also don't believe that the PAP will run away, tail between their legs, if they happen to lose an election.  I have far more faith in them as a party.  They'll be back the next election stronger than ever.  But all that is if we even suppose the remotest chance of the PAP being defeated in the polls with the present line-up of Opposition candidates.

3.  Such policies do not help democracy, they distort it.  A democratic election should be won on the basis of what will be done with budget surpluses, not who has access to them.  We should go to the polling box thinking: tomorrow, if these surpluses were in the hands of Low Thia Khiang, would he accomplish more for Singapore with them than if they were in the hands of Eric Low? We shouldn't be thinking: oh no, Low Thia Khiang will not have any surpluses to deal with, therefore even if he has better ideas he will never be able to implement them.  The plans that these men have for the future should be the determinant in deciding who should be elected into power. 

The Singaporean system has many such distortions.  For instance, government-affiliated individuals are at the helm of our press.  This compromises the daring and willingness of journalists to report against the PAP during elections in particular.  Our knowledge of the outside world today is severely limited to what we hear and read in the media.  Little wonder then, that Denise Phua can be so shocked by the amount of anti-PAP content on the Internet.  It is the only medium so far where government involvement has been minimal, leading to the  emergence of outlets for groundswell opinion.   To her, or to anyone little exposed to the Internet, it would seem that the PAP has an infallible mandate, and that all is well and dandy in our sunny city-state.   That is a distorted impression, because of the government-weighted material and the monopoly that SPH holds over our media industry.   That's why in other liberal democracies, the arguments stand for an independent press and the separation of powers.  It's not some alien Western concept that we should reject as being un-Asian and non-Singaporean, it is a thoroughly sensible check and balance mechanism meant to guard and enrich democracy from such distortions.

---

So there.  I'm sorry if I'm being repetitive, but I just felt there are some statements which should not go unchallenged and simply taken at face value as the God-given truth.  Yes, it is true that Singapore is a unique democracy, and in some ways are the better off for it.  I consider it a blessing that we have a strong, smart party in power.  But the question is if they will continue to form our government because of how strong and smart they are, or because they have managed to surround themselves with distortions of the system that are friendly to themselves, such as a government-influenced press, and access to manymanymanymany money to be used for the upgrading of HDB flats.  I'm really disappointed that they're going to persist in that policy.  Singapore's money or PAP money? To treat it as money to be used to further the PAP's political interests is only going to alienate voters from the party.  I like to think we don't only want 'fresh young faces' -- we want fairness as well.

Depressing.

The matches are kicking off, and Singaporeans have their eyes -- and wallets! -- peeled on the various flags that comprise the competitors of Germany 2006.  Like most people, I'm excited at the onset of World Cup fever.  But as I watch the oceans of spectators painted in their national colours, waving their countries' flags and roaring out their national anthem, a little voice in the back of my head makes its ugly appearance once in a while, asking that guiltily uncomfortable question: So...where's Singapore?

In 1999, the Goal 2010 project was launched with great aplomb.  It stated in no uncertain terms that its aim was to secure World Cup qualification by the year 2010.  A mere four years after, the project was scrapped -- it was renamed 'Football Excellence', a far less catchy and ambitious moniker.  Since then, the issue of World Cup qualification has been rather waffled over, with the stance morphing into its present, "Qualifying in 2010 would be nice, but there's still 2014 and 2018!" To this end, we have resorted to our all-time favourite tactic: recruit foreign talent.  Creatively entitled the Singapore Foreign Talent Scheme, it has thus far gained us Daniel Bennett (England), Mirko Grobovac (Croatia), Egmar Goncalves (Brazil), Itimi Dickson and Agu Casmir (Nigeria).  The extent of its success is disputable, considering our latest exit from the Asian Zone qualifying rounds of the World Cup where we lost 5 out of 6 rounds.  Not a heartening result, and one that distances us further from our dream of Goal 2010...oh sorry, I mean, Football Excellence.

Elsewhere in our sporting scene, however, we have perhaps had more success.  The Committee on Sporting Singapore in 2001 set themselves the target of being one of Asia's top 10 sporting nations by the magic year, you guessed it, 2010.  There, our efforts to lure in foreign talent seem to be paying off a little better.  Li Jiawei (China), Ronald Susilo (Indonesia) and Jing Junhong (China) are memorable examples.  But it seems each time these talents score big for Singapore, their achievements are overcast by debate on their suitability to represent Singapore because of their previous nationalities.  Understandably, questions will always arise such as: where do their loyalties lie? To themselves? Is that why they changed nationalities -- so they can play internationally where previously in their homelands they would not have qualified? For the lucrative contracts? Is that why Agu Casmir ran off so quickly after he was dropped from the national squad, not exactly nursing a broken heart? After all, he hastened to sign up with Indonesian club Persija Jakarta.  But take heart, he bears Indonesia no loyalty either; he went AWOL to go for trials in Russia, England and Canada instead.  This is the man to whom we gave $50 000 as an 'incentive' after we won the Tiger Cup win in January 2005.  By the way, he spent every cent.  Are these the actions of someone loyal to Singapore and appreciative of the privilege of representing our nation?

I guess those are the questions which cause me to be helplessly sceptical when I read about foreigners' achievements for our nation.  There's a lot of taint and doubt to overcome in those circumstances.  But I've never been a bigot nor xenophobic.  I realise that our very country is built on the backs of immigrants, 'foreigners' streaming into Singapore to seek better opportunities for themselves, not for the sake of some nationalist abstraction.   Those immigrants are in fact our ancestors.  And today, Singapore continues to be a bastion of free opportunity.   I just find myself struggling to appreciate that emotionally as well as intellectually.   Perhaps it is a success for nation building that I feel affronted when we buy talents who have no affinity to our country aside from the flag they have emblazoned on their sports jackets.   I continue to tell myself that each and every foreigner, besides being under the label of 'foreign talent', is also a person unto him/herself, with different motivations for their desire to represent our country.  Some of them are in it for the money, others are here at least partly because they have lived here for a longtime and developed a real appreciation -- perhaps even a love? -- for Singapore. 

I think that's what's really important.  Not where you were born, not the colour of your skin, not the number of digits to your salary, but whether or not you really are a proud representative of the Republic of Singapore.  Foreign-born and local talents alike can aspire to this.  I know I do.  Come July, five teenagers will be debating in Wales as Team Singapore.  I don't imagine this will gain much attention.  Debates are far less invigorating to watch than soccer matches.  No debate ever got thousands of feet stomping, the drums banging, the voices soaring.  But -- wow.  We will be Singaporean.  And we will do our level best not to disgrace that.  The prospect of sitting at a table with the Singaporean flag draped over it is as thrilling as it is humbling.  When the World Cup Finals are being screened in Cardiff on the evening of 9th July, that little voice that asks 'where's Singapore?' will be answered by a louder voice saying 'Singapore is right here: now do her justice'.

It is time for our 110% to be given.  Singapore has a decent track record in the Worlds Schools Debating Championships, having reached the semi-finals in South Africa 2001 and the finals in Peru 2003.  Jonathan Pflug was ranked Best Speaker of the tournament -- effectively making him World No. 1 -- in 2001, and in 2002 Rohini Singh was ranked 2nd.  To my knowledge the Singapore team has never ranked below number 10 since we first took part in 1995.  We have beaten nations with millions more native speakers and talents to their name, so we're not half bad.  WSDC is admittedly a small tournament comprising of 37 English-speaking nations.  It's not earth shattering.  But we really will do our best to live up to our predecessors.

We will be leaving at the end of June for two and a half weeks.  For that duration, and for the two weeks or so until we depart, I won't be posting so much.  Happy World Cup viewing, and in your free moments, perhaps just one or two of them, spare a thought, a good wish or a prayer for a Singaporean team somewhere out there in that big wide world, competing under our national flag.   And regardless of whether we win or do badly, I promise you the spirit of love for Singapore under which the tournament will be undertaken is world-class.

As for 2010, who knows what it will bring? Perhaps we'll qualify for the World Cup.  Perhaps we'll be one of Asia's top 10 sporting nations.  Perhaps not.   Singaporeans always want results, results, results.  How many bronzes, silvers, golds? Got A*, or just A? Why just A? Stupid is it?!

Relax lah.  We don't need medal tallies to make ourselves feel good.  They would be nice, yes, but the objective of having Singapore represented in international competition has ever been to empower us with a sense of identity and passion to want to see our country do well.  As long as we hold on to that, as long as we don't let our quest for medals supercede our quest for identity, as long as we don't sell our souls in our bid to let anyone and everyone play for Singapore if they can wield a racquet or kick a ball, I frankly don't care what's happening in 2010.  It's enough to be assured that in four years, we'll still be Singaporean -- and proud to be.  Though I've rambled a lot in this article, for which I apologize, that's the most important message I have for today.

Singapore boleh.