A Brief Interlude (Anecdotal Accounts)

This post is not about rigour empirical or scientific analysis of the police state but rather a brief anecdotal account which I have the fortune to relate. From presenting this event, I only attempt to show that a few pointers can be learned about how someone can still see the kind of social control mechanisms that the state utilizes to curb freedom of expression or dissent.

It was a strange but not perculiar in the negative sense, rather the unpredicted pleasure to discuss about political affairs of Singapore with a retired senior citizen in a local community club premise. I will refrain from stating the circumstances where we bumped into each other and made our friendship (you should never be surprised the extent the ISA will sought to trace you down), but I will encourage the reader to just open your ears loud enough and you may detect the tone of irony and sacrasm still slightly present in our older generations. In any case, there is one important characteristic about my interlocutor. He was an ex-senior civil servant in the Housing Board Department. It doesn't matter what department was he in charge of but he was retrenched despite his years of hard work and dedication with a sour taste in his mouth.

Disclosing his own private work affairs is not something I will endorse, since the best source is still from the original voice. Needless to say, he was irrate with the type of hypocrisy and autocratic bureaucratic style of work that has, in his own concern, jeopardized many of the home-owners (or soon to be). True, lives were not totally devasted but many mistakes had occured that shouldn't have, and people's troubles exacerbated which were attributed to the responsbility of the department. During our discussion, we eventually hit upon the subject of Jamie Han's speech. With a sarcastic glitter but yet with a tone of sadness, he said that Jamie Han was probably going to be "marked" after this. He doubt that Jamie Han would be able to find any government job or that his employment opportunities may be worse off from hereon (If Jamie is reading this, my apologises if this scares you. But take his comments with a grain of salt).

Then he mentioned something that surprised me, "What's the difference between communism and Singapore now? Yeah, we chased away all the communist parties in the past, but see the way we live now, it is not that different." He then, with swerving analysis and background knowledge, compared MM Lee to Adolf Hitler, juxataposing that both had similiar political ideals and employed similiar strategies to attain their goals. He then recounted how even as civil servants in trying to improve their workplace, by orchestrating a Q&A session, were still screened out. Before the Q&A session, there was a gatekeeper that asked them to write out their questions first, and during the session, filtered the "hardcore" questions from those that could be asked. This was perhaps, I suspect, the most disappointing moment in his career, when a government administration that talks about an "open" and "inclusive" society still treats its own officials and workers as an enemy.

There are a few more such accounts one can hear if one probes their senior citizens regarding the history of Singapore (to be fair and certain, some do endorse the dominant political party and their achievements). I wouldn't illustrate this post with all the accounts I have heard, though the range and degree of skepticism and criticisms would be unusually brash and varied. This particular individual presents for me, an interesting standpoint to focus on.

It is the nature of any institution and organization to indoctrinate its own workers, to get them to conform and internalise its values or philosophy. In this case, we have an elderly man who has worked several years of his life in probably, one of the most important departments of the government administration and likely subjected to the most potent of state indoctrination, in other words, he is "closest to the source". Yet, he still has been able to escape the indoctrination and propogandistic practices and to see through the veneer of hypocrisy involved.

I wish to reiterate, the issue that lies in front of us, is not to epitomize him nor to verify his story and generalize it across the board. This anecdotal is neither intended to substantiate the police state thesis nor support it wholely by one account. What instead we should ask is how a otherwise intelligent and average citizen can work in the same organization that manages a very important aspect of the population's lives (namely housing) and routinely continue his activities despite knowing the consequences of the mistakes his own workplace never corrects. There is a good deal to learn from how we have fostered, nurtured and maintained our own apathy in the need to survive on a daily basis. It is also imperative that we should remember that ordinary workers, even those working under the dominant administration, need their own voice, and only if giving them that power, we are able to witness a wider scope of opinions and voices that truly represent a "open" and "inclusive" society. Currently, besides the "malpractice" I stated, civil servants are instructed and abid by the law not to broadcast in any medium, manner or format their opinions, criticisms or suggestions (this includes our beloved Forum section of the national newspapers). Giving them the power and right to freely express their views is therefore probably a goal that the state's citizens should advance.

After all, I think I owed that to him.