TR EMERITUS

The Temasek Review has outscored the PAP's official REACH forum and Facebook on all counts in soliciting and voicing the genuine views of Singaporeans on Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's recent National Day Rally speech. Despite the desperate attempts of the PAP regime to engage Singaporeans via REACH, the response from the ground is lukewarm at best with an increasing number of Singaporeans preferring to air their uncensored grievances on the Temasek Review and its Facebook, which is run by another team of volunteers. The Temasek Review website has a daily readership which is more than 20 times that of REACH: Traffic ranking for temasekreview.com on 31 August 2010 - 170: Traffic ranking for reach.gov.sg on 31 August 2010 - 3261: At the same time, TR's Facebook has more than 8,000 fans which is more than 3 times that of REACH's 2,399 fans though it was only set up less than nine months ago. Our thread on PM Lee's National Day Rally speech has drawn more than 140 responses from readers: Even grassroots leaders and civil servants are now making use of TR as a platform to offer indirect "feedback" to the PAP regime, a sign of our growing clout and strength. Many Singaporeans are finally seeing the futility of offering their feedback to the PAP regime whose minister Lim Swee Say had admitted unwittingly in Parliament of late that they are "deaf to all criticisms." The only way to get our voices heard is to vote in sufficiently large number of opposition MPs into Parliament to hold the PAP accountable to its words and actions so that it will not be able to pass bills and legislations at its wimps and fancies without first consulting the people. PM Lee said that competition from foreigners will benefit young Singaporeans. Similarly, having more political competition will only help the PAP in its governance of the nation.   Please join our Facebook page here and invite your friends to do so to create awareness of the current affairs affecting Singaporeans. Please use our online web form to contact us  Read More →

If the PAP think they can run roughshod over Singaporeans like they did in previous decades, they are sorely mistaken. The younger generation of citizens are no longer content to obey this regime like serfs. Two recent cases stand out: Mr Abdul Malik and Mr Abdillah Zamzuri (left). Mr Malik was arrested for his much publicised "burn" comment while Mr Abdillah was questioned by the police for his criticisms of the way a photojournalist was treated.Like many younger Singaporeans, we find these two gentlemen unwilling to sit by and let the PAP run this country like a fiefdom. Where they find the authorities stepping over the boundaries of power, they will speak up. In the latest case Mr Abdillah was questioned for his comments involving the handcuffing of Lianhe Wanbao photojournalist Mr Shafie Goh when he was taking photographs of a recent flood in June this year. The police said that the photographer was handcuffed for his own safety. Mr Goh disputed this as he said that he was never in a dangerous position nor was he obstructing the work of any police officer. A Police National Servicemen himself, Mr Abdillah was incensed that our officers could act in such a dreadful manner towards a photographer who was just doing his job. He posted on his Facebook that the officer "acted stupidly" and that the police should be sued. This earned him a questioning session by the police who said that Mr Abdillah was still a reservist and therefore under the Singapore Police Force Act, his comment was "prejudice to the conduct of good order or discipline" of our men-in-blue. The Singapore Democrats salute Mr Abdillah for his courageous stand. As a citizen of this country, Mr Abdillah is not only right but it is also his duty to speak up when he sees the authorities abuse their power. The encouraging note in all this is that these two men are in their 20s. Mr Malik is 27 and Mr Abdillah is 26. Not only are they young, they are also articulate. Most important, they care about this country. The Democrats see this trend growing. There are numerous other young Singaporeans who have taken the lead in advocating and working for change. Ms Rachel Zeng is one of them. Still in her 20s, Ms Zeng has been working tirelessly to bring the issue of the mandatory death penalty to the fore. Mr Seelan Palay, also a twenty-something, is a leading socio-political activist who has been speaking out against repression in Singapore. He produced a video entitled One Nation Under Lee (ONUL) which is one of the most viewed videos on Singapore on the YouTube. Indeed several youths were politically awakened after watching ONUL.    The chief editor behind The Online Citizen (TOC), a popular progressive portal pushing for a more open and democratic Singapore, is Mr Choo Zeng Xi who is also in his 20s. Mr Shafi'ie, one of the three activists who was convicted for contempt of court and served a seven-day jail-term for donning the now famous kangaroo T-shirt, is one of the youngest activists in Singapore. He has yet to finish his full-time National Service duties. IT specialist Mr Chong Kai Xiong has been in the thick of protests in Singapore. The 29-year-old was found guilty by High Court Judge Choo Han Teck on appeal by the prosecution for walking down Orchard Road together with other SDP leaders in 2007.   Another young activist is Mr Alex Tan who caught the attention of netizens when he repeatedly challenged members of Young PAP on the Internet to debate him. He subsequently started the Vote for Change, Vote the PAP Out group on Facebook. There was Ms Natalie Koh who after reading Dr Chee Soon Juan's A Nation Cheated decided to, under great familial opposition, speak out on the unjust system created by the PAP. Students are the Nanyang Technological University went a step further. When the university's president banned a report on Dr Chee's visit to the campus in 2009, the students held a protest at the Speakers' Corner to express their frustrations at the lack of freedom of expression.     Also the majority of members of the SDP's Young Democrats are in their 20s, many of whom are not afarid to stand for their rights. For example, Mr Teoh Tian Jing was charged together with SDP's leaders for taking part in the WB-IMF protest at the Speakers' Corner in 2006. Likewise YD vice-president Mr Jufri Salim chose to go to prison to demonstrate his resolve to fight for his right to peaceful assembly after he was fined for taking part in the Tak Boleh Tahan protest in 2008. We are even seeing a number of teenagers expressing interest in joining our youth wing. This is despite the heavy-handedness exercised by the ruling party and the social conditioning exercised at home and in school. So if the PAP thinks that it is going to run Singapore like before and that its actions are going to frighten Singaporeans into silence like before, it should think twice. With the burgeoning of the Internet and its communication tools, youths in Singapore are proving adept at using them to steer the political discourse in Singaporean cyberspace. The autocrats of this country must either keep up with the times, that is open up democratic space in this country, or force greater political conflict that will not be healthy for this country. Unlike previous generations, citizens are able to obtain information that would otherwise have been covered up by the Singapore Press Holdings and MediaCorps. News about the dismal handling of the Youth Olympic Games, for instance, are being reported by netizens. This has forced the traditional media to play catch up and report on the happenings. It was either that or risk discrediting themselves even more. Younger Singaporeans are beginning to feel that power does not just reside in the Government's hands. They realise that they too have the power to affect the course of political action in Singapore, even if only by calling out the shortcomings of the authorities. PAP's leaders would do well to heed this signal. If the ruling party wants to govern this country wisely - and that's a big if - then it will know that it cannot prosecute the Maliks and the Abdillahs into silence, not without running Singapore into the ground. Young Singaporeans are no doormats.   Singapore Democrats  Read More →

作者:李显涛 【总理不是CEO】 总理国庆群众大会我是从小看到老，少不更事的时候就随着家中长辈守候在电视机前准时收看，44次的群众大会总算也看会了一些门道。 我拿梁文道在凤凰卫视的《开卷八分钟》来做个类比，梁文道可说是《开卷》的灵魂人物，虽然有时也有其他人代他的班，就是少了他那一分的神韵。无论是评到好书还 是坏书，听他道来就觉得五脏六腑都被熨得很舒服，因为他有一种高于一般的水准，能够一下子就捉到重点和诀窍，所谓“外行看热闹，内行看门道”，文道就是有 门道。 按行动党对政治领袖的要求，总理首先必须是个君子，然后还要是个哲人。领袖 魅力来自于一种哲人般的演讲，在哲理上推动全民、在情理上感动全民、在道理上说服全民去达致一个人人认可的目标。所以这里借用黄明德的概念：“总理不是 CEO”。满脑子想得只是引擎冷了就不好推动，要维持高GDP来保住自己的百万年薪，于是就想用种种甜言蜜语来迷惑自己的“员工”，让他们觉得一切的作为 都是为了他们好。 按照过去三四十次的群众大会，我的总结是一国的总理和他的人民一 年一度的交心谈话，他必须站在高处，反思他一年来的治理，提出一些哲理性的探讨议题，对于今后说明他忧心和关心的所在，形塑全民的思想境界。但是自从李显 龙接手后，境界是一年比一年低，每次都好像是小学生在炫耀自己的成绩册，不好的科目要嘛不谈，要嘛就把它合理化，真的是把全民当白痴吗？ 【车资起价的教训】 我觉得李显龙应该吸取车资起价的教训，尽管之前跟车资有关的官员倾巢而出，如何甜言蜜语出来说明车资起价的“合理性”，主流媒体全面封杀不利言论，结果民调出 来交通公司声望还是逐年降低二三巴仙。我想服务不是问题，有没有准时到站也不是什么大问题，而是大家对与事实不符的甜言蜜语感到反感。 远的就不说，就在总理演说隔天（2010年8月30日）的第一次官方民意对话会上，有六成的出席者对总理在移民课题上的解释不满。会出席民意对话会的人士一般 上可说是对行动党没有成见，这些人里面如果有六成的不满，再加上不喜欢行动党的几成，那李显龙或行动党的民调还要跌多少呢（如果可以做民调的话）？这是为 什么呢？这是因为李显龙的演讲终究没有达到一定的高度来动摇人们的固有看法，说的白一点就是：搔不着痒处。 【随笔南洋网】 随笔南洋网被总理“钦点”，除了李叶明暗爽之外，其实有更多的弊端。新加坡人在网上有那么多的论坛和个人博客关注和积极参与新加坡政治，为何只提一个新移民且是个亲主流、亲行动党的网页，你李显龙是不是全民的总理，还是只是亲PAP人士的总理？ 【要移民融入当地社会的大头梦】 随着资讯网络的进步，有线电视的普及，很多土生土长的新加坡华人了解台湾、大陆比新加坡还多，更何况来自外地的移民？报纸、电台、电视都可以通过网络照旧习惯看家乡的。这点维斯瓦在去年国庆后的国会演讲就曾提及，可是当政者好像不相信。 在新加坡，所有的基层组织都是行动党的，就好像一块肥肉，有很多甜头和滋养，而逐臭之夫去亲近肥肉的目的也千奇百怪，大家只不过照着游戏规则玩，我们的政客就满足于在基层看到这些新移民中的一小部分？他们得到好处之后，会不会也像一些坡人一样消失得无影无踪呢？ 大马论坛  Read More →