Monday 23 March 2015

Reflections on the Bardo Museum tragedy

Hello everyone. My latest piece of travel writing has just been uploaded onto Alvinology: Travel, Tunisia, Tourism, Tragedy and Terrorism. My regular readers will know that I visited Tunisia last year and had many interesting, unforgettable experiences that gave me plenty to blog about.  Thus it was with great sadness that I learnt about the terrorist attack at the Bardo museum last week in the city of Tunis. Do have a read of it please on Alvinology.
Oh and whilst I have your attention: I am sick and tired of the way Singaporeans are going over the top to pay tributes to LKY upon his death today. I don't mean to take any credit away from the great man on the day of his death, but I had this friend on Facebook mention the words 'fishing village' and I just went into history teacher mode. And I'm like, great, now I know ACS sucks when it comes to teaching you history as that should have been in your secondary 1 history syllabus. He hasn't responded, probably too busy crying his eyes out but his friends went into attack mode on me: telling me that the British left Singapore in a total mess and that LKY had rescued Singapore from the jaws of death blah blah blah. Good grief. All I made was a point that Singapore was by no means a small fishing village in 1965 but actually, it was a city with 1.89 million inhabitants at the point of independence.

But no, I don't think this is the day when I want to take on the PAP supporters. I guess I just feel that today has been a bit of an anti-climax that's all - I wasn't shocked at all as I knew how sick LKY was and how long he has been in hospital, thus his death was inevitable. However, I also know that one prediction that my parents have made when I was a child was not going to come true. They used to say that Singapore would remain the same as long as LKY was alive - but the moment he died, Singapore would change:there would be multi-party politics, there would be freedom of the press and people would move away from a one-party system because LKY wasn't there to hold the PAP together anymore and that without the great LKY, there will be no PAP. I don't think that's going to be true at all - LKY has died today and it is going to be business as usual in Singapore after his death in PAP-land. Like it or not, that's his legacy.
Limpeh in Tunisia last year

I'm not saddened by LKY's death - he had a long and fruitful life; most of all, he has had the chance to put his affairs in place in preparation for the inevitable. I feel far sadder about the innocent tourists who were gunned down in the Bardo museum - they were killed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. No warning, no reason. It is incredibly tragic when lives are cut shot like that. This is an occasion to honour LKY upon his death and sure by all means, pay him a tribute - but sadness? I don't think that's the best response. Okay that's it from me for now. Thanks for reading.


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7 comments:

  1. Di Talasi23 March 2015 at 02:34

    I am tired of the people calling him sir and honorable and the saviour of Singapore. It's like all his misdeeds went out the window. Yes, he was brilliant. Yes, his vision was successfully carried out. Yes, he was a dictator.

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  2. Kevin Jang23 March 2015 at 06:57

    If you go onto Yahoo's Singapore page, you will be bombarded with a barrage of articles all in one day. I counted at least 10 articles which all deal with LKY, his legacy, and whatever is related to him. Even from what my parents told me, the central town area of Ang Mo Kio where they live has an exhibition put up right away as a tribute to the old man and whatever he has done to "lift Singapore from the slums" so to say......well, I probably would have gone onto some mode of eyes glowering and staring really widely--think, K-pop star eye size!!!--at the incredulity of some of those eulogistic claims. But well, it is definitely not the day to take on any indefatigable PAP supporters, because any kind of criticism, even constructive correcting of mistakes, over the next few days, is like adding fuel to the 'fire' of pro-PAP sympathy. Singapore will still function anyway even if the old man has passed. The stocks might dip for a while, but it is not going to be permanent.

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  3. Kevin Jang23 March 2015 at 07:41

    The Associated Press gave a rather nuanced report which is probably more pitched to admit the degree to which local media is on overdrive: " Singapore mourned longtime leader Lee Kuan Yew with raw emotion and a blanket of relentlessly positive coverage on its tightly scripted state television on Monday, mythologizing a man who was as respected as he was feared. [...]
    State television broke away from its regular programming with a rolling hagiographic tribute to Lee's life and achievements. In a live broadcast, one of its reporters called the death the "awful and dreaded" news."

    Note the words, "hagiographic", "tightly scripted", "relentlessly positive" and "mythologizing". Nobody in human history can expect to be totally lionized to the point where he has no haters at all. Even saints and religious figures have their fair share of haters and critics. This just reflects the degree to which Singaporean media is untrustworthy.

    Now that you mention the Tunisia Bardo Museum news, I realized that it was virtually relegated to the margins on Yahoo's SG page.....somewhat speechless here.....

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    1. Limpeh Foreign Talent23 March 2015 at 11:08

      Well Kev, the man did both good and bad, with the good outweighing the bad - but let's not go overboard on the mourning. I have resisted the urge to talk about LKY's death but after speaking to a Singaporean blogger this morning, I feel I have to respond to what is going on.

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  4. Kevin Jang23 March 2015 at 12:20

    Actually, my point of view about this is closer to Di Talasi's. Basically, in other words, I find that this is all just overkill. I switched off my Facebook feed so that I do not need to watch or read all the eulogies and make my eyes become as big as a K-pop star.

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  5. Di Talasi24 March 2015 at 01:34

    This public display of sorrow is tantamount to mass hysteria. I have no patience for group thought.

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    1. Kevin Jang25 March 2015 at 15:02

      Di, a friend of mine told me that he saw Khaw Boon Wan (that PAP member of parliament who suggested that maybe Singaporeans can send their old folks to JB to retire in homes there if they complain about the high costs of retirement in Singapore) crying on television, and he was seriously turned off. Based on what he noticed on the Facebook activity, some people have actually drawn attention to the great number of people at the Istana 'paying tributes' because they are 'busting the wake', in other words, attending to make sure that the old man is dead as claimed by the news because he had sworn before years back that if his successors do not do a good job, he would rise from the grave.....It was published in his book in fact. My eyes are rolling about here at this groupthink.

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