...Found this over at tomorrow.sg. Remember it's a blog
entry:
Tuesday, July 10
PM's son's army gaffe and why we have to worry
Read this from the HardwareZone's forums and confirmed the story
with a friend in the military. A few bloggers have blogged about it
too.
2LT Lee Hong Yi, better known as PM Lee's son, had fired off an
e-mail within the military network lambasting the "quality of
leadership" in the SAF to the top brass, including the Minister of
Defence and the Chief of Defence Force.
He had done it after being punished for an error that was largely
not his.
What was his fault, however, was involving just about the entire
military force of Singapore in this one small matter of his, by
addressing the e-mail to entire battalions of people. Committed by
an ordinary serviceman, the offence would have warranted a formal
military charge - and in an officer's case, his rank may be
stripped.
Nothing so far (or so I hear) has been done to 2LT Lee, save that
the Commanding Officer of his unit gave a speech to the entire unit
the next day about "following the chain of command".
While one might argue that the e-mail comes from the military
intranet and should not have been circulated in the general public
(i.e. in HardwareZone), 2LT Lee surely could not have expected the
matter not to leak out when he addressed it to so many people, most
of them National Servicemen rather than full-time regulars.
If you looked through the thread, what's worrying is not the
blatant abuse of family ties, by a person who is highly likely to
take up an important position in our society in future.
Neither is it the fact that he is being given favourable treatment
on two counts: first, the lack of punishment for his offence, and
second, his pending disruption from the army (which he mentioned in
the article), despite not being bonded under a government
scholarship, which, as far as I know, is the only official way of
obtaining disruption.
And of course, it's definitely not the "quality of leadership" in
the SAF that 2LT Lee questioned that worries me.
No, it is the perceptible sense of fear in the Hardwarezone thread
where the topic was discussed. No one dared to give the full
details: one had to sieve through several pages of the thread
before getting the full picture. Nicknames like "Bored Dragon" and
"Golden bar" were given to the persons involved. There were even
warnings given by concerned forum members about the ISD and MSD
surveilling the thread.
If it were in other democratic countries like the US, such an
incident would have been a scandal and generated a media frenzy.
Questions would be asked about his conduct and his suitability for
an important position in future. The public would have a field day
airing their views on his actions.
What would have been the effect? 2LT Lee would learn a painful
lesson in humility, and the transparency of the government would be
highlighted, because they did not shield even the son of the most
important official when he had done wrong.
The resulting fire of the public would simmer and die down, and the
public would have been satisfied that their views were heard and
their indignation expressed. That fire would have been a cleansing
one.
Instead, the entire deed is hushed up. The original thread on
HardwareZone was deleted. But perhaps the worst thing of all is
that the public is censoring itself. People dare not to speak up
about the topic.
Instead of fire, the incident is met only with self-defeat and
fear. The public has lost its voice and its own opinion, and
surrendered its position as the main critic of the government. And
as we know, the local media surrendered its own position a long
time ago.
It shouldn't be this way.
Governments should fear people, not the other way round.
It's just a minor incident - after all, there've been worse
offences committed by officers in the SAF - but it speaks of a
larger, darker, and insiduous problem.
"It does not do to rely too much on silent majorities, Evey, for
silence is a fragile thing...one loud noise, and its gone...Noise
is relative to the silence preceding it - the more absolute the
hush, the more shocking the thunderclap.- V, V for Vendetta
