In Hokkien parlance, tong tong chiang (the sound of lion dance
drumming) is equivalent to wayang or play-acting or Red Indian
Chief ... for a more literary and Shakespearean translation, it
means "all sound and fury but signifying nothing" ...
Our fave retired TOP civil servant (see his resume below hor),
Ngiam Tong Dow again puts out a very frank interview on the
cock-ups in Singapore's public policy following his fairly recent
"shocking" disclosure that Singapore is bigger than the PAP ... Me
feels that it is about time lah reallie, in today's world, in tons
of texts written on Singapore, all these cock-ups have been well
documented and accepted as fact ... the idea that Singapore is
bigger than PAP was seen as such a "shock" statement but it is
reallie the BASIC of Political Science 101 and the ooohs and the
ahhhs of this statement are itself indicative of our political
immaturity.
The thing about Ngiam is this : all his statements cannot reallie
be disputed coz they are already out there in the open and
realistically, it is political suicide for PAP to dispute his
statements .. do you expect the MIW to come out and proclaim "Nope
Mr Ngiam, You are wrong, PAP is bigger than Singapore" ... no way
rite? ... so what's the big deal??
The positive spin of Ngiam's "disclosures" is that it maps out a
route for offering contrary views on gahment and MIW which, SO FAR,
does not seem to invite the 3 Cs of political expression in Sg,
Censure, Censor and Chief Justice ... it can be seen as a legit
call to all the ruling regime of Sg to wake up their idea coz our
ship is heading the wrong way somehow .... somewhere along the
line, Singapore got snooked and its time to buck up ... good call
Ngiam!
Now for the conspiracy part of it ... who is Ngiam? He is
definitely still with and from the establishment ... is he a
sanctioned Mole, the person to hoodwink us into the idea of
open-ness in Singapore political expression? This is the million
dollar question! Some even whisper that he is the agent of DPM Lee
sent to pave the way for the next PM's regime by creating a
doom-gloom scenario for the knight on the white horse to make it
right again. These remain purely conspiracy theories with no way of
verification and form the fodder of Tiger Beer talk during EPL
halftime entertainment. Our crew also picked up the sole criticism
of Mr Ngiam from a Malaysian website, MGGPILLAI.com, a very
hard-hitting site, which blamed Mr Ngiam for cocking up the whole
water issue in the 1980s which made SM Lee have to go to see the
Mad Mahathir ... how true? Dunno. (see excerpt below)
The challenge? Mr Ngiam, how about forming your own political
party? The Majulah Party has a nice ring to it ... it can sort of
answer all the doubts about your credibility as a gahment critic
and it offers for once, a 'credible' opposition in Singapore? To
end lets quote Ngiam's words in the SG propaganda sheet
"HeartWorks" : "Being the first and only officer in the IPD, I was
made the "Red Indian chief" without "Red Indians" ... lets hope he
is not being only a Red Indian Chief now ... there is a sizable
number of Sg-loving people willing to be red indians rather than
white indians ... winks winks
Zhong Eh
16.01.04
www.thevoiddeck.org