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Today's (11/01/07) Straits Times carried an article on Jeyaratnam; going along with the same spirit of openness, I reproduce a number of articles on Singapore's "opposition" figures (quotes because they are not all in politics.

Mr Jeyaratnam's New Party

Like the similarly familiar figure Francis Seow, JB Jeyaretnam started his career within the Singapore government system:

Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam: Date of Birth: January 5, 1926 Served as a judge in Singapore District Court (1952-1957) Attorney Generals' Chamber (1957-1961) Registrar Of Singapore Supreme Court, District Judge and Head of Subordinate Judiciary (1961-1963)

I am not familiar with why he left the judiciary to start his own practice - it appears the firm did OK but he was not particularly well off - nor with why he decided to enter politics. He was very much "under the radar" till 1981 when he stood for a by-election in Anson. Again, I am not sure anyone still remembers why there was so much voter discontent in that area, only that he won over some well qualified technocrat (whom, I guess, the PAP would prefer to forget). The one story I do remember was that whereas the PAP candidate spent little time campaigning in Anson, other than attending a couple of rallies (it was said he drove there in his BMW, during the days when BMWs were still rare in Singapore), JB diligently canvassed for votes from door to door. However, since PAP had been winning all the seats in general elections that way for many years, there must have been some particular factors in that by-election causing their accustomed methods to fail.

In the 1984 general election, PAP put up Ng Pock Too, considered one of their strongest candidates, against JBJ in the hope of recovering Anson. In the same way they put up Mah Bow Tan against Chiam See Tong, leader of the newly formed Singapore Democratic Party. (you might like to see The Implosion of Singapore Democratic Party )Both electorates went against the PAP, and they had to wait for another 4 years before entering parliament. Mah joined the cabinet soon after, while Ng rose in the business world to head Sembawang Corp (till Philip Yeo took charge there some time before the 1997 asian financial crisis - Ng, however, lost in the 1991 general election and exitted politics).

In the cut-and-thrust of parliamentary debates and election hustles, JBJ remains the most effective of all the Singapore opposition figures I have seen, (Low Thia Kiang too can speak well, in Tewchiu) but he had limited chances to use his abilities as he was repeatedly disqualified because of various legal issues that arose. Forced out of parliament in 1986, he came back as a non-electoral member of parliament (for exlanation see sgsociety.com asiaval.com - singapore needs a senate ) in 1997 but soon got disqualified again. This part of the history is well covered by journalists so I wont repeat it here.

JBJ has just settled his debts and exitted from his status of bankrupcy, and is again able to stand for parliament. As the Workers' Party, of which he was founder and leader, had since then moved on without him, he will form a new party.

I actually saw him in person once: taking the escalator up from City Hall MRT station to go into Raffles City, I found him at the MRT entrance lobby just outside the shopping centre giving a speech on government persecution. No one stopped to listen, but he continued undeterred. I guess that will be his description till nature stops him.

His son Philip Jeyaretnam, a graduate of NUS and Harvard, is a major figure in Singapore legal circles, but has no involvement in politics. His view about dad's activities is not publicly available. It is also unknown what part he may have played in helping JBJ to be discharged from bankrupcy.

 The Tragicomey of the Non-bland MP Candidates

Over half a century ago William White wrote Organization Man, then a major book about modern technocracy, and made the famous (though forgotten today) quote about the kind of person suited to the system: the bland leading the bland. This happens to capture well the kind of personality that fits the Singapore system: there are few colourful characters among the government scholars (for a discussion of this see Scholars in Singapore) who rise to become members of parliament, cabinet ministers and CEOs of government corporations.

In contrast, both Francis Seow and Tang Liang Hong were colourful, and in the end, tragic figures, with an element of dark comedy thrown in as well. Seow was Solicitor General, and actually received a medal for some work in dealing with certain difficult political issues. Tang Liang Hong was being considered as Nominated Member of Parliament (for discussion of this see sgsociety.com asiaval.com - singapore needs a senate). Seow had to leave public service because of certain issues of personal morals and use of power (I heard some unconfirmed stories - the one piece of public information I have is that in a mid 80s public confrontation over some Law Society matters, he objected to some personal files being read out on the ground of privacy), while Tang's nomination was rejected after several senior political figures who were consulted over the matter provided feedback about Chinese chauvinism. Their later attempts to enter parliament on opposition tickets and subsequent events have all been well reported so I wont repeat them here.

Obviously, they did not fit into the "system"; but since they were, or at least wanted to be, part of it, and must have shared most of its values, why did they turn so hostile towards it? I think there is more to it than just opportunism (and judging by how their choices turned out for them, they were actually quite lousy opportunists).

In a system that commands so much resources, where one door closes against you and other doors also close at the same time, if one used to be "somebody", and suddenly discovers that he has become "nobody", it is rather hard to take, especially for someone with a colourful past.

The NCMP Non-Constituency Members of Parliament Scheme and NMP Nominated Members of Parliament are unique features of the Singapore political system, with the objective of ensuring the presence of opposition party members in Parliament.

From 1968 to 1981, the People's Action Party was so predominent that it won all the seats, e.g., in the 1968 general election it only had to face 7 opposition candidates

It was only in 1981 that Worker Party's Jeyaratnam entered Parliament after winning the Anson by-election. Even then, the number of returned opposition members in the 1984, 1988, 1991, 1997, 2001 and 2006 elections were 2, 2, 4, 2 and 2. Thus, elections were not really about who will form the next government, but more a referendum giving the PAP government a "mark" indicating voter satisfaction with its performance.

The issue of whether it is necessary to have alternative voices in Parliament to keep complacency and yesmenship in check, has been frequently raised. The NCMP and NMP schemes were meant to address this issue. After each election the Electoral Office can invite up to three unsuccessful opposition party members to become NCMPs, using their vote percentages as selection criteria, in order to ensure there are at least 3 opposition members of parliament. In a separate exercise, up to 9 non-partisan members may be appointed by the government, usually based on achievement in some significant social causes.

These schemes are actually double edged: it has been hinted that, since the system guarantees the presence of alternative voices in Parliament, there is no need to ensure their presence by voting for opposition parties. In other words, people are encouraged to give the government a high "mark" and hopefully a clean sweep, and they are still going to have 3 opposition MPs.

In my view, a better way to meet the same objectives is to have an Upper House (usually called a Senate) elected by a proportionate representation system, with the right to review and discuss legislations but no executive power, since cabinet ministers are only appointed from the Lower House. Based on the vote percentages of the 2006 election, the PAP would appoint 2/3 of senators, Workers' Party and Singapore Democratic Alliance about 1/7, and Singapore Democratic Party 2-3% (meaning that, unless the Senate is quite large, SDP would not have any members). The significant points are:

1. All voters will take part in a General Election: even if their electorate has no opposition standing against the government (so called "walkover"), they still need to take part in the senate vote, and the current situation of many voters not having the chance to vote will cease.

2. PAP can send retired ministers to the Senate where they can continue to advise the cabinet using their accumulated knowledge and experience.

3. The opposition parties and prominent individuals who can gain enough votes nationally to qualify for a senate seat, have a forum to discuss government policies and national issues even if they are unable to win enough votes in an individual constituency to qualify for the Lower House.

4. The Senate can take over the task of assessing and approving the qualifications of candidates who wish to stand in the Presidential election; currently this is done by a 3-member committee appointed by the government for each election. Having this done by an elected body would make the process more authoritative.

see also: Singapore's Elected Presidency http One party government http

I am not a Yesman 

I remarked elsewhere

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-XIIfDzQobqO5oCYM9UTvZzgKHH4Org--?cq=1&p=96

that I found the recent election boring, and one reason was the repetition of certain statements by different people on the government side. One statement, though not repeated as often, was particularly irritating: I am not a yesman. The statement, expressed in various ways, was repeated by a number of the new candidates for parliament when they were introduced to the journalists.  I dont mean to say I disbelieve them; I have no doubt, when circumstances make it appropriate, they would offer criticisms and alternative ideas - I would do that too, though I have less chance than they of entering "appropriate circumstance", since I am less likely to meet important people and be asked for advice.

The problem with the statement is: nobody would ever say "I am a yesman"; since you cannot say anything else, making the statement itself has little meaning, almost like saying "I am a human" or "I believe the earth is round". This sort of statement is sometimes useful as a rhetorical construct, e.g., "I am human" is usually used to start a defense of some moral failing, and to begin his acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention, Jimmy Carter said "I am Jimmy Carter; I am running for President", to be followed by more meaningful statements explaining more specific ideas and attitudes. But if you follow it by statements like "In the past I was not a yesman; I believe being a yesman is not a good thing; therefore I will not be a yesman in the future", then the meaninglessness is being compounded.

The issue can be discussed in terms of Claude Shannon's Information Theory: the information value of anything is measured by the ignorance or uncertainty it removes; so if you know nothing about a person, like whether he/she is male/female, and I tell you this person's sex, I have provided one bit of information, the logarithm of the no. of unknown possibilities; if however I tell you Isaac Newton was male, it would not remove any uncertainty/ignorance so the information value was zero, the log of 1 which was the only possibility of Newton's sex.

When someone makes a statement for the public to hear/read, which takes some effort since our attention gets so many distractions, but we end up with no receipt of information, we get irritated. Of course, a lot of political speeches are not meant to transfer information, but to create a psychological connection: I am taking the trouble to talk to you; I want you to like me. This kind of content requires a lot of effort to compose and deliver, and some politicians are much better at this than others. Someone who has just been plucked out of a non-political job would usually not be able to deliver such content successfully, especially as the speechwriter might not yet know the person well enough to fit the words to the style of delivery.

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One Party Government 

From Financial Times:

-----------------

Single party rule ‘best for Singapore’
By John Burton in Singapore and Leora Moldofsky in Sydney
Published: June 22 2006 01:50
Last updated: June 22 2006 01:50

Lee Hsien Loong, Singapore’s prime minister, has criticised Australia and New Zealand’s liberal democratic practices, suggesting that Singapore’s system, under which a single party has ruled since independence, is more efficient.

Mr Lee made the remarks at the end of a nine-day visit to the two countries, which are attracting a growing number of immigrants from the Asian city-state.

Although the democracies of Australia and New Zealand made for “more exciting” politics, the national interest could suffer in a multi-party system, said Mr Lee.

The comments could provoke controversy, particularly as Mr Lee’s visit was meant to improve economic and defence ties in spite of criticism about Singapore’s human rights record.

“Endless debates are seldom about achieving a better grasp of the issue but to score political points,” said Mr Lee about the political systems in Australia and New Zealand.

........

-----------------------------

I think he did not get across the basic thinking: singapore is small and has to be run as a single corporate state with a board of directors and 3M shareholders; the talent pool is too small to divide among multiple, competing groups that get to manage the corporation only for one or two elections; being a single monolithic entity allows singapore to have some weight in the international scene, and the ruling "establishment", which includes the elected government, the civil service and the government linked corporations, tries to attract all the leadership talent, based largely on education and ability with little consideration of ideology

in this scheme, elections are not so much for "choosing" the government but more like a periodic examination, to give the government a "mark" indicating people's satisfaction and provide feedback to enable it to do things better during the next term

I consider this a valid proposition, but it has not been clearly explained and debated because a monolithic system is not conducive to such discussions

Political Singlish

One of the very unique terms of Singapore's political lexicon is "OB Markers" - OB being short for "Out of Bound". While the meaning of this is very clear in Singapore, what would a foreign journalist make of this? Is this about soccer? (World Cup Round 1 is going on right now) Is it related to Outward Bound (an organization to promote youth travel to gain experience and exposure)? A brand of whiteboard pen?

To explain using, again, unique Singaporean expressions, OB Markers draw the line where "sensitive" ends and "insensitive" begins; in other words, where you get into trouble. You are allowed to talk about "sensitive" issues, as long as you do not become so "insenstive" that you begin to say things you should not say. How do you know when you have strayed across the OB Markers by talking insenstively about sensitive issues? When someone in power gets upset at you of course. But if you mean before that... It is up to your own judgement not to become insensitive when talking about sensitive matters... If you are unable to judge that, you should not be talking about sensitive matters.

Now foreigners might say "someone gets upset; what's the big deal?" Well, Singapore is a company town, the headquarters of Singapore Inc, and everyone is working for the same employer; so people are anxious about being "insensitive" and would like to see all the OB Markers; unfortunately, people who determine where the markers are might prefer not to lay all their sensitivities out for others to see.

"Civic Society" was once a frequently heard expression; I even vaguely remember people organizing public seminars to discuss how to promote it. Obviously, a civic society exists and consists of many aspects; by doing something to improve a particular aspect, say public facilities for disable people, art museums, or antique car restoration, you have in some way made a contribution to "civic society", but what exactly does "promoting the concept of civic society" mean?

It is first necessary to explain that "civic society" is generally speaking not "sensitive" and does not give rise to the need for "OB Markers". If people are involved in those aspects that interest them, they cease to be apathetic; if they are involved in organizational activities, they get experience in following democratic procedures and public rules of conduct. Hence. promoting "civic society" gives people scope to learn to be good citizens without risking the crossing of OB Markers and upsetting someone with power.

I can cite two incidents to show how naive this idea was. First is the case of National Kidney Foundation. Second is the Singapore Roundtable (Now does anyone still remember it?) The first has already generated a series of lawsuits, including a current criminal case involving its former CEO and Management Board. The second simply disappeared. The first involved large sums of money from the public; its experience shows that ultimately the government has to exercise authority to manage public money. The second thought that there are meaningful things which they can discuss and organize besides power and money, and soon found that nobody, themselves included, was interested.

Since  Hegel and Marx are long dead, people forget that ideas progress through thesis, antithesis and synthesis. You need antithesis to fully understand thesis and to progress through synthesis, whether you are talking about civic society or politics and money. I already forgot which Greek philosopher said "Give me pivot and I shall move the earth"; I say "give me marker and I shall show where theses end and antitheses begin".

 Opposition!

added on 13/7/08

singapore government's treatment of opposition figures came under strong criticism in a report by the International Bar Association, which held its conference here half a year ago.singapore probably spent a lot of money and effort to get IBA to hold its conference here, and usually well treated visitors would go home with good feelings and at least say some polite things about the host; the negative report therefore must be a very disappointing outcome, especially as the authors chose to virtually ignore the 15 page response to the draft report when producing the final version

whereas the law ministry brief justifies the individual items (defamation suits, barring bankrupts from standing for parliament, etc), the IBA report authors saw the final result (CSJ and JBJ excluded from elections). one could say "we used A, B, C to achieve D; there is nothing wrong with each of A, B, C; so there is nothing wrong with D"; this of course assumes that D is a worthwhile objective to start with; if the purpose of the 15 page brief was to persuade the IBA authors to change their views; this did not occur, because the two sides were not looking at the same things; It was a dialog on two different tracks.

I assume the IBA authors also know about the dafamation cases involving foreign news organizations and have taken these into consideration in forming their impressions of singapore.

we have reached the situation when meaningful political opposition is non existent; the civil disobedience acts of Chee Soon Juan might attract some attention, but they do not advance any kind of economic and social policy; Workers' party, despite its success, has almost no political programme to advance either; it basically sees its own survival in parliament as successful "opposition" already

you could say that the government, the voters and the opposition have all got what they wanted: an opposition exists, but there is no meaningful political action from it; the government believes it can monitor and improve itself through self criticism; by preventing meaningful opposition from occurring, all it got is meaningless opposition; the voters simply want an opposition to exist, while the opposition parties simply hang around and believe they are doing a good job; it is win-win-win...

The Implosion of Singapore Democratic Party

I visited Singapore for the first time in September 1981 for my NUS job interview, in between two important events occurring there: the new airport in Changi was opened just before my arrival, and SDP was formed during my visit, each heralding further progress in its respective domain, economic for one and politcal for the other. Little did I know the very unexpected directions each sphere would take in the next 25 years. In economics there was computerization (the reason for expanding the computer science dept thus giving me a job), property booms and busts, and 1997/sars crises. In politics the idea of opposition not being required.

I came for the interview despite advice from the association of australian academics against moving to NUS, because of a recent campus meeting during which LKY himself announced to the academic staff that they could not register a union. The senior professor who interviewed me and then talked to me in private was concerned enough to specially mention this to me, with the explanation that the government wanted to ensure foreign staff, who cannot join unions, are not discriminated against. Nice try, but unnecessary. Singapore's political system may have its unique features, about which I was quite curious and would study first hand over the next 15 years (please see result, Leninism, Asian Culture and Singapore

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-XIIfDzQobqO5oCYM9UTvZzgKHH4Org--?cq=1&p=5  )

from a middle management level so that I experienced the use of administrative control from both ends, but Singapore was generous towards education and NUS in particular, and the opportunity to build up something from nothing was tempting. After an interlude in which I started a small Computer Science department in Hongkong, I joined NUS in 1983 and was department head from 85 to 93 overseeing its growth (but not its "rise", which must be credited to others in the next period).

During the same intelude, Jeyaratnam was elected into parliament in 1981 on the Worker Party ticket, and shortly after my arrival, Chiam See Tong in 1984 on the SDP ticket. 1984 was also the year in which LKY reached 60, the normal retirement age for civil servants, and when government companies like SIA were moving towards privatization by listing their shares on the stock exchange. People were expectant of change. However, soon Jeyaratnam was expelled parliament because of some technical violation of party laws, his Anson electorate disappeared into the new Group Representative Constituency system, and his repeated attempts to return have all failed in one way and another, involving various transient characters such as Francis Seow, his son Ashley, Tang Liang Hong, etc, whcih I wont discuss here. In the mean time, the Worker Party managed to score some successes without him, which too wont be discussed here.

Chee Soon Juan came into public view in 1991 when he stood for parliament on an SDP ticket. It was cosidered a major coup to be able to recruit a university lecturer/PhD, and that election was the party's high tide winning three seats. Stories went around that one PAP member (a recently recruited cabinet minister) lost because she washed her hands after shaking the hand of a fishmonger during her campaigning, and another (running a major government corporation) lost because he refused to talk to some school bus drivers over parking problems. However, since then SDP went steadily downhill.

I did not like it when I heard Chee say during his campaign "It is ironical that NUS rejected me as student but later hired me as academic staff" - quite aside from whether one should publicly bite the hand that feeds it, the statement lacked logic, since there must be many harvard professors who were unsuccessful freshman applicants; his repeated expressions of fear over losing his job because of opposition politics sounded like artificial tearjerking. After an unsuccessful election, his numerous letters to the newspaper also got annoying. When he was actually dismissed, officially because of using his research grant to send his wife's thesis to Georgia, I thought it unnecessary because his contract was about to end in any case. The story then came about that he tried to taperecord his department head - who happened to be a PAP member of parliament, and who was quite positive towards him in their earlier relationship - hoping to get a statement like "any lecturer that stands for parliament on opposition tickets would probably lost his job", which made me feel even less sympathetic - it reminded me of Spy versus Spy in Mad Magazine. The matter kept the newspapers, as well as the NUS Director of Personnel who wrote the dismissal letter, very busy for a period, extended by his brief hunger strike, then dropped off the radar screen.

The next thing I knew, Chiam See Tong had lost his job as SDP leader and been replaced by Chee Soon Juan. The story went about that the town council under one SDP member of parliament hired Chee as researcher, and Chiam objected. Having expanded SDP just before the 1991 election by accepting some transfers from another party, Chiam found himself outnumbered on the central executive committee, threatened to resign thinking that he was indispensible, and was surprised to find that others did not think so. He had to form a new party to contest the next election in 1997, and managed to build it up to the Singapore Democratic Alliance for the 2006 election during which it was able to field 20 candidates.

Between the event and the 1997 election, Chee's main activities were the production of a report claiming that the government did not subsidize medical services in public hospitals, which was easily refuted, and giving a speech at Williams College as part of the protest to Goh Chok Tong's award of an honorary degree there. He then virtually disappered from the radar screen till the 2001 election, which he and his sister Siok Chin contested in Jurong East as part of the SDP team, after she quit her teaching job to become a full time political activist. That election was notable mainly for his heckling Goh  when both happened to be campaigning in the same neighbourhood, about some loans Singapore supposedly made to Indonesia in 1997. Some lawsuits from the PAP people soon put him into bankrupcy, preventing him from standing as candidate in 2006 though his sister persisted. However, a new round of lawsuits should ensure that she too would soon be out of action. In the mean time, the other SDP people dissociated themselves, so that SDP basically ceased to exist as an organized group.

I have always felt that a group that claims to fight for democracy should first show that it knows how to organize itself democratically, and a group that criticizes the government need to explain what alternative policies and programmes it would implement if it were the government. This is necessary not just as a demonstration of competence, but also allows the other side to have the chance to criticize it in return. While asking for a level playing field is right, that the organs of the state should not be used by the party in control of it to advance party objectives, the other aspect of level playing field is there too, that one side actually has a job to do while the other side only has to talk. Like I advising the students taking my classes, first you need to get the basic concepts right.

Catherine Lim - Prospective Politician

Catherine Lim is a well known novelist - see for example the following web pages:

http://www.thecore.nus.edu.sg/post/singapore/literature/c.lim/c.limov.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_Lim

http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2732

However, in 1994 the then Prime Minister of Singapore Goh Chok Tong, suggested the idea of her becoming a politician in a public letter addressed to her responding to two articles she published in Straits Times. The suggestion might be rhetorical, but it was deadly serious all the same. She did not however take up the suggestion, and apologized to him for any distress her articles might have caused him, thus putting an end to the storm-in-teacup might-have-been. Her occasional returns to the political forum, usually to make some statements about the lack of prospect for real changes, are still eagerly anticipated, but probably disappointing when one actually occurs.

So why is she such a sought-after political commentator, even prospective politician? Whenever anything "sensitive" need to be done, one looks for a safe choice, someone with a sort of "stamp of approval", so that even if something unexpected arises, you do not get blamed for making a bad choice. Political commentary is obviously "sensitive", but getting someone with stamp of approval to do political commentary probably makes the exercise redundant, since what he/she has to say is quite predictable. Getting Catherine Lim to do political commentary was obviously a brainstorm that occurred to someone at Straits Times: She has considerable social and behavioural insight from her material for writing novels, and is sufficiently well known and well off to be able to speak independently. These factors make choosing her a relatively easily defended move - after all, if her comments upset anyone, you can always say, oh well she was a novelist.

In passing, let me mention another prominent figure who was for a brief period seen in the same light, the retired senior civil servant Ngiam Tong Dow, but his discussion of bureaucratic practices in the government soon petered out.

Catherine Lim's  first 1994 article talked about an "affective divide" between the government and the people, but it was the second one that caused problems: she basically said Goh Chok Tong was not to blame for some of the "harsh" things that were taking place (e.g., suing opposition politicians for defamation was not yet the familiar practice, but became commonplace after the 1997 election). She might have thought she was being helpful, but failed to realize that the implication that the Prime Minister was not in full control, was unacceptable to the incumbant, whose letter simply told her to go into politics formally if she wished to "set the political agenda", leading to her apology and (for a few years) hasty exit from the political forum.

While the reaction among the English newspaper readers were predictable, the few Chinese paper columnists who commented on this turned out to be much more interesting: as a mere novelist, she should not have "talked down" to the Prime Minister, and her violation of protocol deserved a quick rebuke. Presumably they have the same attitude towards others that might presume to know better than the government. Given that the Chinese paper columns usually provide a more diverse set of views compared with the Straits Times, their failure to address her ideas and their deep concern for her manners, explain why this diversity has produced so little impact.

Currently Catherine Lim has a regular column in Today publishing her poems;  here is an example:

http://www.todayonline.com/articles/123014.asp

Like such individuals as Janadas Devan, Philip Jeyaratnam, Cherian George, Elinor Wong... by virtue of her unique attributes, she occupies a niche as an alternative voice to be called upon now and then when such a voice is needed.

MrBrown:OfficiallyEndorsedCriticOfSingaporeGovernment

In an open and democratic society, anyone criticizing the government is considered to be merely exercising his/her rights as a participant in public affairs; it is unnecessary for any critic to get prior approval. So the title of this article might strike you as being very strange, reflecting the unique nature of this city state.

The first point to remember is the special nature of the public media here.  (See: Press and Blogger Bias in Singapore

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-XIIfDzQobqO5oCYM9UTvZzgKHH4Org--?cq=1&p=132 )

Virtually all the public affairs media are under government macro control; government owned Mediacorp has a broadcast media monopoly, while singapore press holdings, whose principal executive officers are nominated by the government, owns all the daily papers (the free tabloid Today is a joint venture with Mediacorp). Without officially saying so, the public media are acting as the PR department of Singapore Inc, with the mission to report news and shape public opinions in a way that is positive for economic development, and it is for the foreign press and media to provde the wider diversity not available in the local media.

What amount of criticism of the government should the local media present? Everyone, the government included, knows that it is necessary to allow criticism so as to allow improvement, but this implies one need to make judgement about whether a particular piece of criticism would cause improvement and is worth reporting, and the person making the criticism has that objective in mind and a certain level of competence as a critic. In other words, to judge that he/she is suitable to be an officially endorsed critic. A critic whose objective is judged to be trying to help an opposition party or foreign government, or to arouse attention to himself/herself, or just to stir something up, would not deserve to be reported as if he/she was a fair critic.

In this, an officially endorsed government critic has a similar press role to a domain expert, with a reputation for professionalism and competence so that he/she could be trusted to be not speaking to advance particular commercial or political interests. Tay Kheng Soon, for example, is frequently in the press criticizing architectural designs, while Ho Khai Leong is consulted on election issues. However, whereas domain expertise and professionalism are relatively easy to judge, officially endorsed critics are far harder to certify.

The press's rather obsessive, almost desperate search for the next messiah almost always goes through the same cycle of rise and fall: someone appears full of promise, writes/speaks a few times arousing much excitement and eager anticipation, says/does something that passes an OB Marker

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-XIIfDzQobqO5oCYM9UTvZzgKHH4Org--?cq=1&p=160

leading to an official reprimind, and ceases to be carried in the media like before. He/she might be hauled out now and then by various reporters on some particular occasions when an alternative voice is needed, but most of the time he/she is treated more like the carrier of a highly infectious virus, not to be approached without a decontamination process. (e.g. see "Catherine Lim, Prospective Politician"

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-XIIfDzQobqO5oCYM9UTvZzgKHH4Org--?cq=1&p=139 )

Part of this excitement/anticipation about the latest prospective officially endorsed critic is: what would he/she say next? will it cross an OB marker?When he/she does say something that looks "insensitive", speculation goes rife about whether someone will get upset and send forth a reprimind. This speculation has elements of both hope and resignation - hope that the OB marker has been relaxed so that more "sensitive" matters can be discussed, and resignation that sooner or later someone will catch up with the critic's "insensitivity". If remarriage is the triumph of hope over experience, with our officially endorsed critics, experience usually results in resignation...

This process has just claimed its latest victim, the Today columnist/blogger who goes by the pseudonym of Mr Brown. When his column was "suspended" by Today (obviously, he could be revived now and then when an occasion requires his kind of domain expertice so he has not been "dismissed"), 30 people including a number of foreigners actually turned out for a 30-minute protest at an MRT station, wearing brown shirts, but that would not alter the cycle. The system grinds on according to its unique dynamics