Just some highlights of the trip, for my own memory as well as for those curious. 

Well...yeah.  That's myself, Kenneth Nicoll from Scotland, and Chere, another teammate.  But, if you think you've seen everything --

I'm sorry everyone, no championship trophy this year, and I'm very sorry if I've let you guys down.  I know I let myself down a little bit.  Things aren't completely unsalvageable though -- we were semi-finalists, ranking overall 3rd if I am not mistaken, and displacing old hands at the game.  Joshua, Suhas and I were ranked individual 11th, 29th and 16th respectively.  This year's Worlds tournament was the largest ever with 36 countries represented (including Montenegro, who for the very first time was competing internationally as an independent country!) and almost 200 debaters.  We were defeated 4-1 at semi-finals by Australia, who then went on to claim the championship 5-2 by beating Ireland at the grand finals.

I'm still settling in.  More thoughts and pictures will follow, regarding the trip.

In the meantime though, I heard about the Mr. Brown affair while I was overseas and was thoroughly disgusted.  What culture of fear indeed? Some gems of quotes from the MICA letter:


Perhaps MICA should employ better intelligence officers than it presently does if it is still ignorant of mr brown's real name, Lee Kin Mun.  I had thought it was common knowledge, silly me.


How can anyone write this with a straight face? Perhaps our civil service should go back to Democracy 101 - Separation of Powers, where a free and independent media is meant to be upheld as a check of the government.

I've read the mr brown article.  Yes, it's bitter.  No, it's not objective.  Yes, MICA is right to say that rising costs of electricity, or cabs, etc., is due to oil selling at a record $78 a barrel.  But how juvenile, to not be able to take a little criticism.  How petulant, to publicly shame a man who disagrees.  How uncalled for, to countenance his losing his job with Today, because he wrote a satirical piece which didn't give the PAP full glory. 


Hoorah, our national strategy and our nation-building effort is so participative, open and inclusive that I Really Feel Proud To Be a Singaporean!

I feel so proud that I, whilst debating in Cambridge, London and Cardiff, had to endure two and a half weeks of jibes, veiled jokes and open criticisms of Singapore's death penalty, prison conditions, and 'restrictive' regime where 'human rights are being gradually stripped away from its citizens'.  I kid you not, that last bit was actually uttered by the second speaker of the Australian team at the Grand Finals in front of delegates from 36 different countries! Well done, Singapore.  Our national strategy is clearly earning us lots of respect abroad.

The first few times I heard Singapore being joked about or insulted like that, I was so indignant I practically cried.  I want to be able to be proud of my country, damn it.  And I know these ang mohs are speaking from a skewed perspective, that they don't know what it's really like to live in Singapore, and they can't appreciate it because they don't understand it.  But at the same time, I can't say they're wrong.  I can't say hey, wait a minute, there aren't really so many restrictions, it's not so bad, a one party system is great because that one party is open to peaceful discourse.  Because halfway through my trip, I receive an sms informing me that Mr Brown's column has been suspended because of a humorous article on rising costs of living.

So.

Whatever.

I'm Really Proud To Be a Singaporean.

Anyway, even if my trip went a little sour because of the loss and the news that came from home (if they can crack down on one blogger, they can do so on another -- how long do I have, was the question I kept asking myself), it honestly is very good to be home.  I've missed Singapore tons while I was away. Thanks also for visiting even while I was gone :)

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: