Political Awakening
What was so deeply moving about GE 2006 was the infatigueable loyalty displayed by Potong Pasir and Hougang, their unwavering love and support for the two men who have won their hearts so, so many years ago.
The two men, have in turn, captured my imagination. For now, they represent everything that is good and true and honourable, that’s left here. Listening to them, watching them in action, I feel I almost know what it means to stand up for your principles, to fight for your cause, to die for your beliefs, all for the abstract concepts of democracy and nation.
I’m not ashamed to admit every time I see/read reports on CST’s win and the exhilaration + utter adulation/adoration of his ward, I feel like tearing. Likewise when I learn about how the Workers’ party team leading the crowd to recite the national pledge in English and Chinese - a moment so special and tremendous - that was blacked out by ST (watch videos here and here). Yes, it may be staged; it can be calculated, but at least the whole dramatic spectacle can pass off as sincere and genuine to a someone less cynical.
我很感动，很震憾。原来，这里还有希望，还有值得我相信的东西。
There are many things I don’t like here. Things I have put up with and choose to steely and steadfastly ignore. Oh I think about them all the time but that’s as far as I would go. The typical NATO, I never actually act on them, unless writing about them counts. Okay, I write a mean complaint letter (in the sense I’m excellent in making sure the words have the desired effect to produce a satisfactory outcome), but that’s like, it.
CST and LTK, they are all charisma and inspiration, because they actually made me want to do something for once. I feel what a student must feel, caught in the chaos of Tiananman Square protests of 1989. I want to do good, be true and live honourably.
And you know something is rotting in the little red dot when you have a startling epiphany, of why CSJ acts in the way he does and how this radical brand of politics makes sense to him.
CST and LTK work with and within the system.
CSJ believes the system is inherently corrupted and needs to be completely reformed, if not destroyed for the greater good. Which explains his fiery and some say, destructive, approach. Perhaps (unnecessarily so) vilified and demonized, he has been turned into a joke by the local media who cannot and will not report on his political agenda with a neutral slant. He has to seek foreign media to cover his side of the story and treacherous and traitorous he was branded thus.
Yes, I fear even CSJ is beginning to look heroic to me.
I may be too much of a romantic, but Singapore has shown sentimentality can triumph over election goodies and sillier ostentatious carrots. The question now is, will sanity prevail? Can the rest of us see beyond the bread and butter issue and believe again, in what is good, true and honourable? That it can exist in the sterilized material vacuum that we have been brought up in?
We have made a choice and the popular majority, assuming all fairness, has set the path to be led into. But it need not be another 5 years to be roused by rallies and let your restless despair and questioning lostness simmer in vain meanwhile. There can be another point, many ways and different directions.
Yes, you can start your political awakening now. It is within your grasp and you just need to reach out for it, it that is good, true and honourable.
And I hope, there is a good ending, if the story must end.
*
Me: I wish I were back in school! All I want is to debate politics all day long and be a student activist. In real-life, while I don’t churn out propaganda, I do engage in subtle but grotesquely effective politics of distraction: mass entertainment.
Mr Dimples: Haha. It’s difficult to digest and reply to such a deeply felt and expressed thought on a Monday morning. Well you had your time being a student and debating about politics. Now it’s your time to work and to distract others from their work as well.
Me: Am I distracting you? :)
Haha. Sorry, can’t resist. Apparently not distracting enough to distract Mr Dimples from work and reply to my super duh question.
The two men, have in turn, captured my imagination. For now, they represent everything that is good and true and honourable, that’s left here. Listening to them, watching them in action, I feel I almost know what it means to stand up for your principles, to fight for your cause, to die for your beliefs, all for the abstract concepts of democracy and nation.
I’m not ashamed to admit every time I see/read reports on CST’s win and the exhilaration + utter adulation/adoration of his ward, I feel like tearing. Likewise when I learn about how the Workers’ party team leading the crowd to recite the national pledge in English and Chinese - a moment so special and tremendous - that was blacked out by ST (watch videos here and here). Yes, it may be staged; it can be calculated, but at least the whole dramatic spectacle can pass off as sincere and genuine to a someone less cynical.
我很感动，很震憾。原来，这里还有希望，还有值得我相信的东西。
There are many things I don’t like here. Things I have put up with and choose to steely and steadfastly ignore. Oh I think about them all the time but that’s as far as I would go. The typical NATO, I never actually act on them, unless writing about them counts. Okay, I write a mean complaint letter (in the sense I’m excellent in making sure the words have the desired effect to produce a satisfactory outcome), but that’s like, it.
CST and LTK, they are all charisma and inspiration, because they actually made me want to do something for once. I feel what a student must feel, caught in the chaos of Tiananman Square protests of 1989. I want to do good, be true and live honourably.
And you know something is rotting in the little red dot when you have a startling epiphany, of why CSJ acts in the way he does and how this radical brand of politics makes sense to him.
CST and LTK work with and within the system.
CSJ believes the system is inherently corrupted and needs to be completely reformed, if not destroyed for the greater good. Which explains his fiery and some say, destructive, approach. Perhaps (unnecessarily so) vilified and demonized, he has been turned into a joke by the local media who cannot and will not report on his political agenda with a neutral slant. He has to seek foreign media to cover his side of the story and treacherous and traitorous he was branded thus.
Yes, I fear even CSJ is beginning to look heroic to me.
I may be too much of a romantic, but Singapore has shown sentimentality can triumph over election goodies and sillier ostentatious carrots. The question now is, will sanity prevail? Can the rest of us see beyond the bread and butter issue and believe again, in what is good, true and honourable? That it can exist in the sterilized material vacuum that we have been brought up in?
We have made a choice and the popular majority, assuming all fairness, has set the path to be led into. But it need not be another 5 years to be roused by rallies and let your restless despair and questioning lostness simmer in vain meanwhile. There can be another point, many ways and different directions.
Yes, you can start your political awakening now. It is within your grasp and you just need to reach out for it, it that is good, true and honourable.
And I hope, there is a good ending, if the story must end.
*
Me: I wish I were back in school! All I want is to debate politics all day long and be a student activist. In real-life, while I don’t churn out propaganda, I do engage in subtle but grotesquely effective politics of distraction: mass entertainment.
Mr Dimples: Haha. It’s difficult to digest and reply to such a deeply felt and expressed thought on a Monday morning. Well you had your time being a student and debating about politics. Now it’s your time to work and to distract others from their work as well.
Me: Am I distracting you? :)
Haha. Sorry, can’t resist. Apparently not distracting enough to distract Mr Dimples from work and reply to my super duh question.
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