Strong words. Strong sentiments. Strong stand.
Starting with Tommy Koh and various local illuminaries including Dr Anne Lee, a cultural medallion winner and poet Gwee Li Sui, and ending with veteran architect Tay Kheng Soon, they all took a stand with poet Alfian to tell Minister Ong Ye Kung (OYK) to back off.
The backdrop is what OYK had said about Alfian. He took his poem, written about 20 years ago, when he was only 21, out of context. The poem is entitled “Singapore, I assert you are not a country at all.”
This is the selective quote OYK used in Parliament: -
“Singapore, I assert you are not a country at all/ Do not raise your voice against me, I am not afraid of your anthem" and "...how can you call yourself a country,/ you terrible hallucination of highways and cranes and condominiums/ ten minutes' drive from the MRT?"
OYK however qualified by saying that it is a poem, so we might concede some artistic licence. “But Mr Alfian Sa’at continues this attitude consistently in his activism,” he nevertheless said.
Mm...I wonder, when OYK said that the government can concede some artistic licence, what does he mean by that?
Well, being all too familiar with a strictly rule-based leadership, you can understand that there will be OB markers for such artistic creativity. Mind you, the Freudian slip here is “licence”.
But, by airing a small part of the poem in parliament, while leaving the rest unsaid, isn’t that like feeling only one part of the elephant whilst blindfolded and being expected to identify the whole animal?
Be that as it may, Alfian came forward to say in his FB post that his 100-line poem was taken out of context. He said he is not an activist. He is a poet. And more relevantly, he affirms his love for his country. He is just critical of her development over time into one that is, well, rather soulless, with the class and social divide and the obsession with material tangibles, if I may add.
In his defence, Tommy Koh said: “We should not demonise Alfian Sa’at. He is one of our most talented playwrights. I regard him as a loving critic of Singapore. He is not anti-Singapore. I admire very much his plays, Cooling Off Day and Hotel.”
He added: “It is of course true that some (of) his writings are critical of Singapore. But, freedom of speech means the right to agree with the government as well as the right to disagree.”
Demonise? That is a strong word.
Well, I am sure OYK does not have that intention, at least not intentionally. Architect Tay said: “Mr Ong is a good guy, I like his honesty and activism - that’s why I think he made a mistake to run down Alfian Sa’at by referencing his poem.”
So, between demonise and mistake, between out-of-context and good guy, I feel that the ones who hold/set the ”licence” in our country has this tendency, almost knee-jerk, to rally (or dig up) disparate evidence of one’s past and then select the incriminating part and air it to support its case.
(For a minute, reading OYK’s mischaracterisation by one-part poetry, it almost felt like the GE 2020 came earlier than scheduled).
In any event, levity aside, I think of all the defences, Dr Anne Lee made the most intimate sense.
She said: “Singapore You Are Not My Country was the work of a young person bewildered by the whole struggle to grasp the anomalies in the life he had paused to try to make sense of.”
“Unfortunately, it seems that it is all too common to find that unless one overtly expresses love and praise of country anything that voices distaste, doubt and dissent tends to be labelled “unpatriotic””.
She added: “Admitting suffering and uncertainty seems to me more honest in a search for the truth, than claiming a clarity that is still beyond one’s reach.” Kudos to that.
I think Dr Anne Lee smoked out the fear of our government. It is a fear that is liable to turn them dualistic, even tribalistic. That is, seeing things from a binary perspective - black and white, with little tolerance or patience for the greyish expression or ventilation in-between of “a young person bewildered by the whole struggle to grasp the anomalies in the life he had paused to try to make sense of.”
So, patriotism, from this limited interpretation, has only one rule-of-thumb definition: if you are not for us, you are against us.
And the effect of that dualistic/tribalistic sentiment mutates into knee-jerk reactions of defence and attack should you be someone of some repute and influence in society, like an artist or a professor.
As such, you are either an activist for the government, or you are, well, an unpatriotic dissident.
Now, at this juncture, I want to be clear that I am not talking about the controversial program that Yale-NUS had scrapped, though the process could have been more transparent and organised. I am however specifically referring to the poem taken out of context just to shore up one’s point.
And although I do not always agree with what Alfian writes at times, yet on this issue aired in Parliament, I felt that OYK could have left out Alfian and his work altogether without sacrificing an iota of his reasonably crafted speech in parliament. In fact, that segment about Alfian’s poem only tainted the aim and intent of his speech about balancing academic freedom, its cultural and social context and the autonomy of tertiary institutions.
Let me however end with a segment of OYK’s speech about exercising common sense.
“I much prefer the test of an ordinary Singaporean exercising his common sense. He would readily conclude that taking into consideration all the elements and all the personalities involved, this is a programme that was filled with motives and objectives other than learning and education.”
“And MOE's stand is that we cannot allow such activities in our schools or IHLs. Political conscientisation is not the taxpayer's idea of what education means.”
In other words, OYK is reminding Singaporeans not to play politics in schools. That’s not the taxpayer’s idea of what education means.
But, the question is, will a Singaporean exercising common sense also view his taking the poem out-of-context in his speech another means whereby one plays politics in society?
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