from green to black

'por'litically incorrect

singapore is a young nation. kindda conjures up images of
kids who cant stop squabbling. kick, pinch, bish-bash,
push, i'm telling mom. it happens between governments;
like when our dear leaders bicker with their counterparts
across the strait, when banks cant settle structured
investment products with their "ignorant" customers, or
when a civil society group goes into a power struggle. of
course if you are more AWARE, you'd just call it a catfight.

the solution is always the same though, kids run to papa
and mama to redress their grievances. so governments run
to the world court to resolve differences over white rocks,
we've got CASE to save "poor" ignorant investors, and we've
got the government to tell us that religion and politics
shouldnt mix. that is a funny thing because the last thing
i remembered from school is that civil society groups are
politically autonomous. read, free from government intervention.

but i guess the idea is the same, squabbling singaporeans
dont grow up and we always need someone else to do our
thinking for us and tell us what to do. why do you think
our administrative nannies hold on to their jobs for so
long? definitely not because of fixing the opposition!

of course the objective of this article isn't to criticize
anyone. i wouldnt want a lawsuit from stiff necks who cant
laugh at themselves. i just want to air inflammatory views
that mature audiences can neutralize by rationalizing it.
ok, maybe not. my point is that we cant be expected to grow
up when we always resort to having higher ups resolve a
local problem for us.

now, what i found rather interesting was the instances of
polarization that i noticed. upfront would be christians
against the rest, a subset would be religious groups
against each other. christians among themselves as they
disagree over methods, which really isnt the issue since
the group in question was secular, obviously the methods
used would be closer to what is seen in the secular world.
the mistake these christians make was the assumption
of a prior religious agenda on which the actions appeared
aggressive. yeah, they have a feminist mentor and they are
from the same church, but i dont see where they have deviated
from helping homosexuals rather than supporting their beliefs.

and as they were democratically elected *ahem* i seriously
doubt that they were voted in because of their religious
platform. i also hate the way democracy is abused in this
manner because singaporeans seem to be unable to accept
the results of an election, arent we destroying democracy
by calling it illegitimate because the results did not
fall in line with our expectations? its like the pap saying
the opposition's victory is illegitimate because they should
have won! elections work if we can live with the results
of their consequences, if not the executive should just
be appointed. no wonder Churchill said that democracy is the
worst system save the rest.

now that i've addressed the petty issue of conflation and
methodology, i'll go back to the idea of discourse. we
know why suspicions abound in the religious arena, like
businesses, better advertising and marketing result in
more sales, if you're losing out in this area you should
solidify your support base by preventing transfers. ok,
things dont work like that, we were afraid when far right
islamists tried to take over the world by trying to drop
planes and towers on our heads. vitalstatistix was right!

the thing is, we shouldnt impose one religion's view on
the rest of the world, no arguing with that, but to prevent
discourse by linking a person to his religion is pure
discriminatory. that they go to the same church is a fact, but
to say that they *must* have a religious agenda is not.
and i have already made the distinction between supporting
homosexuals and supporting homosexuality. using christianity
as a punching bag to discriminate before they have acted
is cheap and below the belt.

what should be done however was to find an internal
consensus without *hints* by the government or spectators
who are disinterested except for having a platform to
meddle. i would say one is disinterested if he is not
a part of the organization, interest should be consistent
with internal change, exceptions would be like the opposition
telling pap how to run itself. meddlesome behavior is just
a platform to achieve political ends without the costs.
discourse is essential even if another's view makes us
uncomfortable, that is the key to tolerance. we dont
tolerate something we like.

christianity has always been discriminated against because
the costs of persecuting christians are low. othering by
racial groupings are also popular because of the sense of
estrangement having different beliefs cause, especially
with the sense of cognitive dissonance it brings about.

in the chinese case for example, one would say christianity
is a western religion but so is buddhism but no one says
that. pure chinese religions would be confucianism or
daoism, because they originated in china. buddism in my
understanding originated from india which is WEST of china.
in the same way, chrisitany originated in israel which
is to china's west, but in the middle EAST. if my knowledge
of geography doesnt fail me, it is still on the asian continent.
wouldnt it be great if we kept people ignorant of the facts
to prevent them from jumping onto the bandwagon of
increasing popular christianity. preventing the public
dissemination of all information means people will
be forced to rely on others to make their choices.

however discourse is discouraged because if we can prevent
singaporeans from being sure of their decisions, they will
always be dependent on governmental input. and that, to
any ruling power is necessarily a good thing. it has been
said that one who will not stand for anything will fall
for everything. taking a stand may make others uncomfortable
but discourse allows a truly organic equilibrium, fear
mongering by the government in claiming that it will result
in chaos in multi-ethnic singaporean is testament to their
irresponsibility in building a truly responsible population.
one that they refuse to trust anyway.

it is most certainly very easy to be well liked when one does
not need to stand up against the norm, ( for proof that its
easy to fall in love with bums, most women will tell you
they married one) the opposite according to adrian tan a few
posts earlier is to be hated. but maturity is just that,
to give voice with confidence and be ready to stand corrected
with humility. polarization or no, what we should say yes
to is growing up.

posted by green unseen @ 6:44 PM