By Cherian George
Singapore sometimes seems like a metropolis in
search of a kampung spirit. And I don’t mean in a good way, like
being caring and considerate – if you’ve seen how Singaporean
drivers respond to an ambulance behind them (they don’t) you’d
realise that when Gotong Royong 101 was being taught in
kindergarten, they were probably absorbed in mental sums and other
essential skills to get ahead of the pack.
No, the kampung spirit that we Singaporeans are
cultivating is instead a kaypoh-ish petty-mindedness; a small-town
mentality that tells us that no event is too trivial to turn into a
national issue.
You may have heard of that classic formulation of
headline news: if it bleeds, it leads. But since Singapore is not a
particularly violent society, our scandal-seekers have had to make
the most of the merely unpleasant. Their twist on the newsman’s
mantra is: if it offends, it trends.
And with the internet, there’s no shortage of
anti-social words and actions to dissect and discuss if you are so
inclined. So, instead of limiting yourself to gossiping about what
you saw through the window of your neighbour’s home as you walked
by, you can peek at hundreds of thousands of Facebook walls where
people obligingly make fools of themselves.
Thus, Singapore – one of the world’s great entrepôts
and financial centres, with dreams of being a cosmopolitan world
city like New York or London – works itself into a tizzy over
inconsequential internet indiscretions of insignificant individuals
almost every week.
Our mainstream media are contributing to this
provincialism. But independent news websites play the leading role
in setting the agenda, bridging the gap between more private
sections of the internet and the more public web. Since they do not
have the resources to investigate official malfeasance, our citizen
reporters seem to have latched onto the formula of doing
investigative exposés of individual idiocy.
And so we find ourselves being served a steady diet
of news concerning the silly things that random persons happen to
be doing online. Welcome to kampung Singapore.
With the F-U-gate
scandal, we’ve reached a new low. A 17-year-old
junior college kid flames the deputy prime minister and it becomes
a national event.
Has our fascination for the frivolous gone too far,
I wonder. After this latest controversy, Yahoo! News asked me if it was time for
an internet code of ethics. Perhaps it is. But not the kind of code
you think. I think it’s time for readers to exercise more
responsibility. Here’s the kind of thing that could go into an
internet consumer code:
We, as responsible consumers of the internet in
Singapore, pledge the following:
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/-yes--it-s-time-for-an-internet-code-of-conduct-%E2%80%93-for-readers-.html
