The Personal Is Political II
I've been thinking about AcidFlask Chen Jiahao since his premature exit from bloggerdom weeks back.
Some background for people not in the know:
AcidFlask is a first year graduate student in the chemical physics PhD program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. At the moment, he has Philip Yeo, chairman of A*STAR hot in pursuit. The latter is the incessant and ardent wooer.
In the past, AcidFlask had attracted PSC with his apparent academic brilliance only to break free due to irreconcilable differences. He ignited the passion of A*STAR when his story appeared in The New Paper (Aside: Jen Lee who wrote the article and Alvin Chiang – also TNP reporter are long-lost seniors. We all sold out! :X ) and A*STAR officials started reading his blog.
AcidFlask was subsequently found to make remarks that defame A*STAR and Philip Yeo himself. The latter sprang into action and fired an email to AcidFlask personally (important note: first point of contact at this point) to remove all defamatory posts or face legal action.
Smack of hot-headed, hot-blooded true love and lust huh.
In a nutshell, AcidFlask took down his blog altogether and issued an apology where his site used to be. Philip Yeo is immensely unhappy with the lack of proper reciprocrity, reply and response to his attentions. So A*STAR held this press conference to make public its affections for AcidFlask and gave him a dateline: 8 May (that’s today!) to review his emotions and come to terms with conscience. AcidFlask should decide by today and revert in accordance to proper protocol: That is, apologise unreservedly, retract what he had previously said in his blog and promise not to do it again. AcidFlask has exams till 14 May and they know. I think. Well.
The whole still in process saga is well-documented and kept up to date here.
AcidFlask's reality from his side - this is the latest revelation which has yet to make it to print or TV (bloggers are the ones with the newest news, trust me).
The least immediate important thing is whether AcidFlask did write what was offensive to Philip Yeo. Hell, justified and otherwise. We have no access to that information.
The most immediate and important things to consider:
(1) Whether it was necessary for Philip Yeo to act as he did. Threatening to sue a student over remarks in his personal blog?
(2) That of (1) and airing the whole saga publicly – ever thought of the PR damage done to A*STAR and Singapore?
(3) Opening up of a promising new debate as to throw up exciting, profound insights into the cross-border jurisdictional issue of whether a person based in Singapore can successfully sue a person based in the United States for messages hosted on a US server, and how the applicable law may actually turn out to be the US law of defamation which, in deference to the constitutional freedom of speech, gives much more room for individuals to criticise public figures (plagiarised from Gibert Koh who beat me to writing such well-wrought (twisty) and witty prose on the exact same theme).
(4) What can of worms does the AcidFlask saga open up for Singaporean bloggers? That we can sue and be sued anytime, everytime, over remarks made in our personal capacity in our personal blogs, unless we signed the non-official secrets pact for non-work coverage?
And so on.
For me, the most immediate and important thing is that Singapore and its government bodies, and in particular, Singapore bloggers are only beginning to experience, understand and appreciate the true meaning of Personal is Political in the local context (they probably won't know the academic term unless they read up on feminism). Bad thing for bodies, if they want be in absolute control and censor censor, because the Internet makes information (let's set aside whether info is accurate or misleading or biased) free and easily accessible. Good for Singapore as a country on the way to more openness. Hopefully.
For bloggers, our blogs, by being personal, are therefore political in nature. We invoke the wrath and irk of those in power simply by our writings, even if we are nobody to begin with. Imagine, Miss Nobody elicited an email and an invite to tea from some top (politicised) management just because he read her blog. By the power of her personal writings, she has attracted his attentions enough to initiate first contact, and the attraction for Mr LHL the public figure is strong enough to oversee any possibility of subsequent humiliation and embarrassment.
Don't you ever forget that if you blog. Together, bloggers can make a positive change to local political scene, simply by writing our life stories. Yes, you have seen how it can happen.
This blog is political, because it is personal.
And I leave you with this for thought.
Some background for people not in the know:
AcidFlask is a first year graduate student in the chemical physics PhD program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. At the moment, he has Philip Yeo, chairman of A*STAR hot in pursuit. The latter is the incessant and ardent wooer.
In the past, AcidFlask had attracted PSC with his apparent academic brilliance only to break free due to irreconcilable differences. He ignited the passion of A*STAR when his story appeared in The New Paper (Aside: Jen Lee who wrote the article and Alvin Chiang – also TNP reporter are long-lost seniors. We all sold out! :X ) and A*STAR officials started reading his blog.
AcidFlask was subsequently found to make remarks that defame A*STAR and Philip Yeo himself. The latter sprang into action and fired an email to AcidFlask personally (important note: first point of contact at this point) to remove all defamatory posts or face legal action.
Smack of hot-headed, hot-blooded true love and lust huh.
In a nutshell, AcidFlask took down his blog altogether and issued an apology where his site used to be. Philip Yeo is immensely unhappy with the lack of proper reciprocrity, reply and response to his attentions. So A*STAR held this press conference to make public its affections for AcidFlask and gave him a dateline: 8 May (that’s today!) to review his emotions and come to terms with conscience. AcidFlask should decide by today and revert in accordance to proper protocol: That is, apologise unreservedly, retract what he had previously said in his blog and promise not to do it again. AcidFlask has exams till 14 May and they know. I think. Well.
The whole still in process saga is well-documented and kept up to date here.
AcidFlask's reality from his side - this is the latest revelation which has yet to make it to print or TV (bloggers are the ones with the newest news, trust me).
The least immediate important thing is whether AcidFlask did write what was offensive to Philip Yeo. Hell, justified and otherwise. We have no access to that information.
The most immediate and important things to consider:
(1) Whether it was necessary for Philip Yeo to act as he did. Threatening to sue a student over remarks in his personal blog?
(2) That of (1) and airing the whole saga publicly – ever thought of the PR damage done to A*STAR and Singapore?
(3) Opening up of a promising new debate as to throw up exciting, profound insights into the cross-border jurisdictional issue of whether a person based in Singapore can successfully sue a person based in the United States for messages hosted on a US server, and how the applicable law may actually turn out to be the US law of defamation which, in deference to the constitutional freedom of speech, gives much more room for individuals to criticise public figures (plagiarised from Gibert Koh who beat me to writing such well-wrought (twisty) and witty prose on the exact same theme).
(4) What can of worms does the AcidFlask saga open up for Singaporean bloggers? That we can sue and be sued anytime, everytime, over remarks made in our personal capacity in our personal blogs, unless we signed the non-official secrets pact for non-work coverage?
And so on.
For me, the most immediate and important thing is that Singapore and its government bodies, and in particular, Singapore bloggers are only beginning to experience, understand and appreciate the true meaning of Personal is Political in the local context (they probably won't know the academic term unless they read up on feminism). Bad thing for bodies, if they want be in absolute control and censor censor, because the Internet makes information (let's set aside whether info is accurate or misleading or biased) free and easily accessible. Good for Singapore as a country on the way to more openness. Hopefully.
For bloggers, our blogs, by being personal, are therefore political in nature. We invoke the wrath and irk of those in power simply by our writings, even if we are nobody to begin with. Imagine, Miss Nobody elicited an email and an invite to tea from some top (politicised) management just because he read her blog. By the power of her personal writings, she has attracted his attentions enough to initiate first contact, and the attraction for Mr LHL the public figure is strong enough to oversee any possibility of subsequent humiliation and embarrassment.
THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL
Don't you ever forget that if you blog. Together, bloggers can make a positive change to local political scene, simply by writing our life stories. Yes, you have seen how it can happen.
This blog is political, because it is personal.
And I leave you with this for thought.
1 Comments:
wow coolz blog try this too at http://rock-your-boat.blogspot.com/
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