http://www.yoursdp.org/ Tue, 07 Sep 2010 21:25:04 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.yoursdp.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2010#josc13273 My heartfelt tribute to those who have sacrificed in trying to serve Singaporeans all along: VOICES OF STEEL,HEARTS OF TRUTH How Time worn your faith of altruism, Yet Justice even deprived, As if God turned blind to sacrifices Under unbearable pains of torture.... How will you be remembered...? By the apathetic,deafened by avarice Or like-minded hearts of steel Walking the path treaded with pride... Only History will unfold someday Courage displayed,a people awakened To see you vindicated,free... In glorious shouts of Democracy... (Arthero Lim) LIM TUNG HEE Sat, 07 Mar 2009 22:12:24 +0100 http://www.yoursdp.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2010#josc13254 ISD must distinguish detainees of the violent, terrorist type, from those like Tan Jing Quee, who in themselves are harmless, even if their ideologies are perceived to be dangerous. Political detention must not be punishment, such as the treatment Tan still agonises over in that poem, composed so long after the event. Devan Nair said, in his preface to Francis Seow's book, that he felt constrained to contribute the preface after reading Seow's account of his treatment under detention. He said even colonial masters did not treat him that way when they detained him! Tan Tai Wei Fri, 06 Mar 2009 10:31:16 +0100 http://www.yoursdp.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2010#josc13243 I suppose Jasuonemillion you are fed up with this style of petitioning politics by some Sg dissidents. But what else can they do? And we are largely a middle class society. So the middle class soap box is our comfort zone. Complaining, petitioning and saying the obvious are all hallmarks of middle class deep desire not to see too much change to society despite the rhetorics. I was at the Dissidents' Book Launch, yes...very middle classy including their constituents....flying on the wings of poesy a la Russell Heng or for that matter poet Robert Yeo who I met there! twopartystate Wed, 04 Mar 2009 14:24:42 +0100 http://www.yoursdp.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2010#josc13241 I thoroughly enjoy books written by ex ISA detainees. They need to write them. It's great self therapy and essential documentation for the wider public and of cos posterity. But the very tone of these books registering the dire human rights situation with draconian preventive detention laws entrenched in our system demands matching intensity of thought and action in order to rid ourselves of the scourge of detention without trial. I'm nothing of that sort is happening. But I do understand the task is too holistic and very few are equipped or inclined to do so. The upshot is we can continue to "kill a tartar" by prose or poetry eternally in whatever medium, and still be chasing our tails on this issue. I remember watching a play by Russell Heng years back about the 80s Marxist Conspiracy arrests. He did great disservice to the store of wisdom that we need to build up on this matter so that counter-strategies can be more effective against the powers-that-be. He tried to portray the 80s detainees as working class people representing their own class.And serious political activist as such. Nothing could be further from the truth. It took the sting of the injustice of the arrests of merely do-gooders and political virgins and at best novices. Therein lay the deep purpose of the arrest. To frighten political virgins esp young English ed professionals and set back any mental plans they might have of preparing for politics. At least Tan Wah Piow - a Singapore fugitive in Oxford U at that time - got it right when he said clearly the arrests was meant to "nip prospective leaders in the bud and to prevent any political formation, intellectual or otherwise." (Even in the PAP if I may add.)The utter cynicism of it all and the sheer draconianess of the Marxist Arrests was: It was about nothing, implicating non-politicos for nothing". Russell Heng, fashionably got it wrong. And when will the dissidents in our midst get it right and start to be really effective. jasuonemillion Wed, 04 Mar 2009 09:37:17 +0100 http://www.yoursdp.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2010#josc13239 The ISA definitely has to go simply for the reason of its gross abuse by satanic governments like Singapore's; anti-terrorism laws would do just fine and trials must be in open court. But the retention of the ISA is indicative of the PAP's pathological need to arm itself with the widest possible discretionary powers, with no absolutely checks and balances against its abuse. The PAP has a predatory mindset - great need to abuse - and that is something that needs to be acknowledged. Robox Wed, 04 Mar 2009 12:33:02 +0100