By Andrew
Loh | SingaporeScene – Thu, May 2, 2013
Reuters/REUTERS
- People listen to a speech during a May Day protest against high
living costs and immigration policies at Hong Lim Park in Singapore
May 1, 2013. REUTERS/Edgar Su (SINGAPORE - Tags: CIVIL …more
COMMENT
After the first
protests against the population White Paper on 16 February at
Speakers’ Corner,Emeritus Senior Minister Goh
Chok Tong said that he was “happy that Speakers' Corner is
serving its purpose.”
However, he added,
"Cannot say that I think much of [the] speakers' rhetoric. Too
political, too one-sided, appealing to emotions only and not
shedding light on important issues."
Although some
5,000 people had turned up that day to register their unhappiness
over the government’s 6.9 million population figure for 2030, there
was hardly any reaction – besides Goh’s – from government ministers
over the event itself.
Two and a half
months after that first event, an even larger crowd descended on
Hong Lim Park on Labour Day to support what organisers called the
sequel protest against the White Paper.
“I think we want
people to know that we are not here just once,” said Gilbert Goh,
the man behind both protests, “but we will be here for a long
time.” He promised to hold such an event at the park every May
Day.
There have now
been two such protests, both attracting the biggest crowds for such
events since Singapore’s independence in 1965. The message is
unmistakable, as one person posted on Facebook, “Hong Lim packed
for the second time with ordinary citizens. The message is loud and
clear.”
The danger is that
the government might dismiss the event entirely for being
“emotional”, as Goh did for the first protest. Being “emotional”,
it seems, is a bad thing to be. Indeed, Prime Minister Lee Hsien
Loong preferred, apparently, that we resolve our differences or
disagreements “in a mature, adult way, which is constructive”
“In Singapore, if
there’s a problem, let us find out early,” Lee said in his May Day
message, on the same day some at the protest were calling for him
to be voted out of office at the next elections. “Let’s talk about
it, let’s nip it in the bud, resolve it harmoniously and if
necessary through arbitration.”
But who would or
should arbitrate between the state and its citizens on the
unhappiness over a potential population increase? The president
himself, who was touted as “a unifying figure for all
citizens”, has not breathed a word about the matter since the
White Paper was released in early February. He has not said
anything about the two protests either.
It is thus left to
the ordinary Singaporeans to speak up in the best way they know
how, and at the only public space allowed for them to do so. Yet,
it is quite disheartening – and disappointing – that when they do,
their voices are dismissed as being “emotional”, as if that
discredits the genuine sentiments behind the expression.
Let’s not forget
that the most famous instances of emotional public displays have
come from members of the ruling party – Lee Kuan Yew’s tears on
television when Singapore parted with Malaysia; Lim Boon Heng’s
emotional outburst when denying that there was groupthink in the
party; and Desmond Choo’s tearful desperate calls for voters to
support him during the Hougang by-election. Even the prime minister
himself got emotional at several of his public speeches.
Yet, in recent
years, Singaporeans have had to put up with serious failures of
government policies which have affected them in very personal ways
indeed. Thus, instead of dismissing them just because they all
chose to gather at a government-sanctioned park for protests, and
expressed themselves in very passionate ways, the authorities
should instead pay heed to what is being expressed.
If there is
sincerity in wanting to discuss problems “harmoniously”, as the PM
said in his message, then the first thing the government would do
is to dialogue with those who were at Hong Lim park.
This writer
understand that in fact Gilbert Goh had invited minister Heng Swee
keat to speak at Wednesday’s event, and had also asked for a
dialogue with Heng. However, he did not receive any response from
the minister. Heng is the minister in charge of the ongoing “Our
Singapore National Conversation” project.
The distrust has
been further deepened in recent months because of the various legal
actions by the authorities over online postings and the arrests of
netizens. “Now, they even arrest a cartoonist!” one of the speakers
on Wednesday said. Not a few feel that the government is still set
in its old ways, even as it promises to change and do better, to be
more open and consultative.
Goh’s off-hand and
rather condescending dismissal of the first protest reaffirms in
some minds that change is not possible with the ruling party. The
party still views dissenters as those to be shunned and ignored, or
worst, to be ridiculed, to discredit, or indeed to be dealt with by
the strong arm of the law.
Be that as it may,
the voices will not go away unless and until the government
recognises that these are genuine voices – not some anonymous,
insignificant ranting from some deep recesses of cyberspace.
The best thing the
government could thus do is to step forward and engage with those
behind these two protests – and to understand that being emotional
is not a sign of unreasonableness, but one of deep frustration,
just as it was for Lee, Lim and Choo, who desperately pleaded to be
understood and to be listened to.
The thousands who
turned up at Speakers’ Corner are asking for nothing more than the
same.
Now, who is going
to be the mature one?
