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The writer, Leslie Wee, is a graduate student at the University of Toronto.
mrbrown first came into the Government's crosshairs with the bar chor mee podcast. It was serious enough to warrant the attention of Minister Lee Boon Yang which in turn created an uproar in blogosphere. But it was mrbrown's article (let's call it Rising Costs, Shrinking Incomes) in Today that compelled the Government to pull the trigger.
It was left to Ms. Bhavani, arguably Singapore's most recognisable bureaucrat for some time to come, to respond on the Government's behalf. Hot on the heels of the recently concluded General Elections, Ms. Bhavani's primary intention was to dispell the notion that Singaporeans had only bad tidings to look forward to.
With reference to the General Household Survey, she wrote, "[t]here was no reason to suppress the information. It confirmed what we had told Singaporeans all along, that globalisation would stretch out incomes." Not that there would be any reason to highlight the information in the first place. Economic reality defies the Singapore Dream, at least for a third of Singaporean households who have seen their incomes shrink.
Though muted, the Father-knows-it-all, Father-knows-it-best attitude is still prevalent: we told you that globalisation was going to hurt your pockets, don't say that we didn't warn you. But what is heartening about Ms. Bhavani's response is the implicit admission that the Government is no longer the omnipotent economic manager that it used to be.
Nor was it ever the case. We were taught, rather simplistically, that the good times Singapore enjoyed was all due to the good work of the Government. Geopolitical factors, favourable though they were to the Singapore Story, were not given a role in it. Now that the heat is on, the cat is out of the bag. Point your fingers at globalisation. Throw in terrorism and rising oil prices to the list. It isn't our fault that you are poorer, we were helpless in the face of these forces. To which we might add, watch out for bird flu.
So at some level, Minister Lee Boon Yang was correct. The medium does mask the message, or so they hope: let these bloggers eat their cake while they rant and rave over freedom, let them forget those without bread. This is the real issue at hand: the social contract -- give up your liberties and I'll give you your bread -- is breaking down. That is the issue to be masked.
MICA is the foil. Let it slay the messenger, in this case, mrbrown. It would be conceding too much for the brainiacs at MTI to have to do it themselves. Although this is not to trivialise the real concerns of the "serious", politically-minded blogging community, mrbrown's bid to highlight the small matter of widening income gaps albeit through satire has now turned into a debate over media issues, pitting the mandate of the Newspaper against the frivolity of the internet.
The Government has shown itself to be adept at flexing its muscles in dealing with the latter. No worries there. But all the huffing and puffing may be useless to deal with the original issue that mrbrown raised.
The good-old Singapore Way of 'all perspiration and no inspiration' might just fall short in the global marketplace of ideas. It used to be the case that we just had to work harder than the West in order to keep up with the Joneses. Now, that plainly isn't enough. Besides, if it was still the old game that we were playing, there are others who are more than capable of putting in longer hours than we do, and for a much lower price too.
It is not so much humour, but humour at the expense of the have-nots as the Government sees it that it cannot tolerate. Now, that is a potent mix. The Singapore Dream is a sacred cow whose hide cannot be flogged.
