SDP's National Day message viewership
explodes
The Singapore Democrats' National Day
(ND) video message this
year has received an unprecedented rate of viewership. In
less than three days since it was first posted on this website, the
number of views has exploded to nearly 4,000 - a record for the
SDP's videos.
The ND
video released last year where our Women Democrats
delivered the party's address is one of the highest watched SDP
videos and, yet, has only about 7,000 views in a period of one
year.
Entitled "The Young Ones" this year's ND message talks about the
aspirations of young Singaporeans and the society they will inherit
when they grow up. The few that are featured in this video
represent a generation of Singaporeans who have been exposed to the
Internet and want to know beyond what the PAP Government tells
them.
The
Singapore Democrats have had scores of students visiting us online
and many more in our office often expressing their skepticism about
what they read and hear in the newspapers, on television and even
in their textbooks.
This video conveys to the rest of society what we have been hearing
from young Singaporeans all this time.
Gone are the years when the Government could label activists as
Marxist conspirators or that PAP equals good and Barisan Sosialis
bad. Students nowadays have alternative sources of information and
they want to read them.
And when they hear that the Said Zahari-Lim Hock Siew videos are
banned or when Mr Alan Shadrake's book is not allowed to be sold in
bookstores or when the National Library (of all places) bars Mr
Vincent Cheng from speaking, they ask why.
When they see how editors censored the cross-examination
of Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew by Dr Chee Soon
Juan during the defamation suit hearing in 2008, they
develop a high level of suspicion of the media here.
It is the nature of human beings to want to be told the truth and
the young ones in Singapore are no different. The question is, what
kind of society will they inherit? Will they have to lose
everything in a state where trust between the rulers and the ruled
have completely broken down?
More important, how will this Government continue to execute
censorship and hope to get away with it?
With the Internet
expanding, the dissonance between official diktat and online
dissent will intensify.
This year's ND
message from the Singapore Democrats is a forerunner of things to
come.
Perhaps, this is why it is receiving such unprecedented
attention.
http://yoursdp.org/index.php/news/singapore/4008-sdps-national-day-message-viewership-explodes