Don’t taint Games with Politics

A non-sequitor moment, our Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong decides to run the Respect Route of the Asian Youth Games torch relay. Together with Dr Vivian Balakrishnan and their tag-alongs, the PAP has decided to grace the AYG with their sporting presence. While this isn’t the first time non-sporting public figures have run the torch relay, it is to my memory the first time a political figure runs a leg in an official sporting torch relay. And the Respect route at that.

While others might correct me on the aspect of political leaders past who have run the Olympic torch relay, I wonder at the point of our PM doing so. The political significance might be small but the Malaysian contingent having pulled out most of its athletes from the Games for “precautionary measures” ranks as a political snub. Sporting events should never be tainted by political agendas (recall 1936, 1972, 1980 et al), with athletes as unwitting pawns and political leaders trussed-up peacocks.

I pray that our government decides to pull its overinflated head out of next year’s Youth Olympic Games and let the deserving ie the athletes grace such momentous events.

MM Lee & SM Goh: building bridges and mending them

Singapore’s involvement with Myanmar has been much derided of late, Singapore’s naming of an orchid after PM Thein Sein, Singapore’s economic investments in the country and recently SM Goh’s recent visit to Myanmar. Many ponder on the rationale behind Singapore’s cosying up to the military junta. Let me posit one.

Powerful and successful diplomats have risen to their stations by sometimes being put between a rock and a hard place. US diplomat Christopher Hill, now Ambassador of Iraq, cut his teeth with the Bosnia and Kosovo crises and at one time served as envoy for the Koreas. It is sometimes through a soft touch with hardliners that displomacy works its magic.

With Myanmar essentially closing its doors to the outside world, much like North Korea, the only country thus far with any sort of inroads to the nation is Singapore, apart from the other otherwise fruitless visits by dignitaries, aid workers and the odd diplomatic tussle over Aung San Suu Kyi, and like North Korea, Myanmar refuses to bend to any foreign political pressure.

With the Singapore smooze campaign off into a good pace with this visit by SM Goh, a level of trust and coorperation has been established with the junta. It is very likely however, that whatever Singapore tries to do will hardly effect any change within the regime, but much like Christopher Hill’s efforts in East Asia, in this world arena of power brokerage, sometimes the efforts are in building bridges first and crossing them later. Critics of Singapore’s involvement with Myanmar should consider this first.

Similarly, MM Lee’s visit to Malaysia has shaken the regional media, political watchers and online pundits. His motives have been analysed and questioned. One would reasonably posit that the PAP would do itself a favour with some fact finding after Malaysia’s dramatic shift of people power from BN/UMNO to Pakatan Rakyat. His visit to Penang is strong indication of that. I seriously doubt that the purpose of MM Lee’s visit is to undermine the Malaysian political tectonic plates. As Malaysia’s closest geographical and economic neighbour, it is for Singapore’s and the PAP’s very survival that we understand how the Malaysian machinery works. Even more so with a Malaysian PM. With new partners, we build bridges. For old friends, we cross the bridges to mend the bridge posts.

Kill 1 Warn 100

杀一警百

A chinese phrase to literally mean kill one to warn one hundred. In other words, make an example of one person and the rest will fall in line. I once mentioned a couple distributing controversial Chick Publication materials in Singapore and 6 whole months later the courts are finally hearing the case. Their defence? That they had no clue on the potential damage that the material could cause. Ludicrous.

That the district prosecutor wants the courts to slap them with a heavy sentence to make an example of them, I fully support and agree with. What with the recent events juxtaposed against this case, even more so that the government and authorities need to put forth a clear message that any form of religious militancy is not tolerated by not only the government and authorities but also the vast public.

But our courts haven’t been famously known for its jurisprudence. Is there really one law for the rich one law for the poor?

Why bother with charity shows anymore?

While packing my bags and in one of my rare moments I’m actually able to watch local TV, I decided to channel surf our local stuff and came upon one of our Uniquely Singapore charity shows.

You know the kind, our TV artistes stage artistic or dangerous performances in the bid to squeeze sympathetic dollars from homeviewers. This particular show went the extra mile to include the very people they were performing for, handicapped children, in the acts. One performance I recalled was a blind kid playing a white grand piano.

What surprised me was reading the news online that the show collected more than S$3mil from the show, exceeding their targets. Huh? When I turned off the telly at 9pm the count on the screen showed only around S$60k. It is obvious that bleeding heart corporations and other immensely wealthy individuals made up the vast bulk of the donations, likely cattle-prodded by invisible puppet-masters to do so.

Which begs the question, if private entities make up the vast majority of donations for these performances, why bother with them in the first place? With CSR very so the buzzword today (glaringly exposed by our women Everest team), is it worth the time and effort to stage such ostentatious performances only to squeeze what, a GST’s worth of donations from the viewing public? Why not just get the donations straight from these rich entities sans TV shows?