QotW8: "Democracy"

We are all familiar with the blogger ‘mrbrown’. On the 30^th of June, 2006, mrbrown wrote an article criticising the government for its price increases following the Elections in his column of TODAY. The government was sore that ‘his opinions were circulated in a mainstream newspaper rather than on his blog, which has a much narrower and more limited audience’ (G,Giam 2006).

Tempted to pick a more popular and entertaining blog (www.mrbrown.com or www.talkingcock.com), I have decided instead, to write on Singapore Politics (http://singaporegovt.blogspot.com/). The author goes by the pseudonym Thrasymachus, whose occupation is, as expected, undisclosed. He merely states ‘thinker’. The first post is recorded on the 27^th of June, 2005 and is ranked 139,820 on Technorati.

It is easy to see that the author of Singapore Politics is pro government. In the post ‘The Argumentative Singaporean (Part 1) – PAP-Bashing with Reasoning’ dated December 14^th, 2006, Thrasymachus urges his readers to ‘engage in a thought process to see if regular qualms and criticism of PAP are justified.’ He goes on to say that the way the Singapore government reacted to the split decision of the people to go ahead with the IR, ‘is precisely how a democratic government should and would function’. He adds, “this is the true democracy at work, and in this aspect, PAP is democratic” (G,Giam 2006).

But can we truly claim that our beloved country is governed democratically?

Singapore has a land area of 697.2 square kilometers and a population of 4.5 million people (‘Singapore’, 2007). Needless to say, we are a small, and still very young, country. Our main, and only, television and radio broadcaster is owned by Temasek Holdings, the Singapore government's wholly owned investment arm (‘MediaCorp’, 2007).

It seems that the only outlet for one to set his or her own agenda, to be publicly heard, is the Internet. Even then, we still see traces of the government’s attempt to appeal to the democratic-hungry public. In June of 2006, Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), of which Temasek Holdings has share in, launched a new web portal, Straits Times Online Mobile Print, or STOMP. Local celebrities such as musician Maia Lee, blogger-turn-celebrities Dawn Yeo and XiaXue, and TV and radio presenters Jamie Yeo and Joe Agustine have been recruited to set up a blog in the government’s attempt to reach the youth of Singapore who spend most of the time on the Internet.

Interesting how the government has decided to set up a blog too. Some might call it reaching out to the entire mass. Some might deem it ‘insecurity’.

Be it television, radio, the newspaper, or the Internet, the information that we receive about what is going on within our country, is through government owned mediums. Singapore Politics is just an extension of the arm that embraces us. It is an illusion that we are involved in the politics of the country.

Before there can be full participation in democracy, individual citizens must see themselves as an important part of political life (A. Thornton 2002). To a certain extent, we do live in a democratic country. The democracy is controlled; a fake ‘democracy’.

Imagine if we lived in a truly democratic country; a small country, divided by our beliefs. Would National Service still be compulsory? Would we still be that small, but powerful country? Would the 1964 racial riots be repeated?

So for the Elections, I rather the ‘devil’ we already know, than the ‘devil’ that we do not know.

________________________________________________________

Reference:

'Review - The Politics of Singapore's New Media' by Gerald Giam 2006
Retrieved on 22/03/07
http://theonlinecitizen.com/2006/12/31/review-the-politics-of-singapores-new-media-in-2006/

MediaCorp
Retrieved on 23/03/07
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaCorp_Singapore

Singapore
Retrieved on 23/03/07
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore#Demographics

“Does the Internet create Democracy?” by Alinta Thornton (2002)
Retrieved on 22/03/07
http://www.zip.com.au/%7Eathornto/