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Thursday, 26 November 2009 |
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Singapore Democrats
 The Young Democrat (YD) Jarrod Luo was recently in Kathmandu, Nepal to attend the annual general meeting of the Young Liberals and Democrats of Asia (YLDA) of which the YD is a member.
A seminar, entitled Globalisation: The Future of Asia, was held in conjunction with the meeting.
Among some of the topics discussed were how globalization brought about the growing importance of Southeast Asian countries and the rise of India and China and how globalization can be used as a tool for democratization.
In one of the break-up sessions, the topic of whether human rights and democracy were at odds with Asian values.
 The group discussed the views of Mr Lee Kuan Yew and the late Kim Dae Jung. While Mr Lee emphasized Confucian values, he missed the point that according to Confucius, respect for authority must be earned, not demanded.
While Mr Lee adopts Western economic practices he disregards the supporting framework provided by Western socio-political practices and values which are important complements.
Lee subjugates individual rights for the “greater good” which is vaguely defined according to the whims of the ruling clique. Participants also discussed the familial ties in autocratic states which lead to cronyistic practices.
On the other hand, Kim Dae Jung said that human rights were very much a part of Asian cultures. The former dissident turned president of South Korea brought his country from a military dictatorship to a functioning democracy that exists today.
Singapore was again the subject of discussion in another workshop. It was pointed out that the city-state is increasingly becoming a role model for repressive authoritarian states in Asia such as Burma, China, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.
Participants agreed that the so-called the Singapore way must be called out and exposed for what it is.
 Mr Jarrod Luo, the Honorary Secretary of YD, also had discussions with YLDA President, Mr Jan-Argy Tolentino, about organising an event in Singapore next year. The event theme will be centred along the lines of capacity-building and leadership training, or organisational management skills.
Mr Tolentino was receptive of the idea and will flesh out the programme in the near future.
Singapore's youth must become more politically aware and active. This will ensure that our future will not completely dominated by the PAP. Young activists must step up and shoulder the fight for democracy.
How do you do this? Simple. Email the Young Democrats at
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. We look forward to meeting you.
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Last year, I attended an international human rights forum (overseas) focussing on LGBT rights, at which one of the panellists, a dissident figure originally from China, repeated a view that should be familiar to Singaporeans: Western human rights activists [i]have to be[/i] conscious of the "culture/s" - which we are asked to fantasize is in so pure and virginal a state that it should be treaded on with extreme care - of the countries in the non-Western world when advocating LGBT rights there.
Being quite certain that I was probably the only Singaporean present, I felt obliged to speak out against this all too familiar lie because it was first promulgated by none other than Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew ("May His Pacemaker Malfunction").
While Lee Kuan Yew ("May His Pacemaker Malfunction") had indeed packaged this as 'Confucian' values and then 'Asian' ones to deflect the charge of racism against Indian and Malay Singaporeans, it was actually a shrewd and calculated ploy to maximize support from Singaporeans primarily because ethnic Chinese everywhere had always held the Confucianist ideology in reverence.
At the risk of sounding like an about turn on my part, I feel obliged to point out that packaging the political values of a feudal-age China (which incidentally doesn't differ much from the political values of the feudal age in other cultures/civilizations) was a blatant lie by Lee Kuan Yew ("May His Pacemaker Malfunction").
The philosophy - a legal philosophy which Confucianism is not - is actually based on another one called "Legalism".
Confucianism is predicated on the belief that humans are essentially good - not hard to see then, why it was held in reverence by the Chinese.
However, Legalism is the polar opposite of Confucianism: it is premised on the "essential badness of humans". Being essentially bad, the system of governance seeks to reward only those humans who can transcend their essential badness, but punish severely those who cannot. Never mentioned by the rulers who adopt such a philosophical regime is that what constitutes ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are merely – and simplemindedly - what is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ for the rulers and their stranglehold on power. (I believe that this is already resonating with many readers; it is a toxic philosophy that pervades all aspects of living in Singapore and should be quite familiar to all Singaporeans.)
It is why the racist BryanT is here continually exhorting the SDP to transcend its essential badness by subjugating itself - and Singaporeans by extension - to the PAP's cruelty; the SDP could otherwise reap the rewards of the PAP's largesse as surely as Low Thia Kiang and Chiam See Tong have.
It is why the courts assume guilt, corresponding with one's essential badness, before innocence is proven, even while they are adept at mouthing the exact opposite to throw you off from their malpractice.
It is why straight A students are feted by the PAP establishment; non-straight A students - those who cannot/will not/do not memorize the million little factoids required of them in school [i]a la[/i] China's Imperial Scholar - are condemned as 'bad' and 'stupid' and whose punishment of working at unsustainably low paying jobs is justifiable.
And so on and so forth, as the toxic philosophy dictates.
Indeed, the short reign of the Qin dynasty was attributed to its adoption of pure Legalism, replete with abject cruelty, in governance. The succeeding Han dynasty's longer reign on the other hand was attributed to its adoption of a hybrid between Legalism and Confucianism. (The two schools had clashed prior to that resulting in the hybrid philosophy.)
That hybrid philosophy in all its fosillized glory is what both China and Singapore continue to function under.