QotW8: Taboo or not Taboo

Mention the word “politics” and it could cause a stir. While some people are passionate about it, to some it’s taboo, and maybe for others, it unleashes a pent up dam.

What is Democracy?
To answer the question on whether blogs allow for greater democracy in Singapore, let us first look into the meaning of democracy. According to Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law, democracy is defined as “government by the people; especially rule of the majority”.

Singapore, a democratic society…?
Singapore claims to be a “democratic society”, (as least it says so in our national pledge). Are we really? Are we, as earlier defined, a “government by the people”? Well, there is a significant segment of Singaporeans who don’t seem to think so, and we tend to find more blogs that present disdain toward the Singapore government than there are those for it.

The battle continues…
In Singapore, the mainstream media is strictly controlled by the government, and one political party — the People’s Action Party (PAP) — has had complete control of all centers of government. And recently, Minister of Communication and Arts, Balaji Sadasiva, announced that blogs and podcasts would be shut down if they ran overt political content in the runup to the May 6 election (bbc.co.uk, 2006).

Immediately, the move was denounced by the free expression rights group Reporters Without Borders. “Once again the Singapore authorities are showing their determination to prevent the holding of a genuinely democratic debate on the Internet,” the group said in a statement. And the Internet crackdown was aimed squarely at two new media platforms — blogs and podcasts — that have been embraced by opposition parties such as the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) to get around censorship in other media (Reporters Without Borders For Press Freedom, 2006).

Silence of the lambs
There seems to be an unspoken fear that if anyone is caught bad-mouthing the Singapore government, they would get arrested by the authorities and thrown straight to jail – like sheep awaiting slaughter.

Braveheart
“Hear ye! Hear ye! - Comments, opinions and an occasional ramble”. This is the headline that screams from Aaron Ng’s blog. He is just one of the many other bloggers who seem to have escaped the plague of “the fear”.

Aaron is a citizen blogger, and is currently a final year undergraduate in CNM Programme, National University of Singapore. The URL http://aaron-ng.info/blog is apparently Aaron’s new site as he addressed “followers” of his previous blog, and introduced this domain to them in his new first entry on 6th April 2006. His URL is not ranked in Technorati, but there are 763 links to it.

In his most recent entry on 23rd March 2007 – “Conflicting Signals from Government”, Aaron questions the government’s new censorship policy - ‘ceremonial censorship’, implying that the government is giving out mixed signals through contradicting responses.

Some readers of Aaron’s blogs may feel that he is not concerned about appearing brutally frank or even insensitive at times. It seems as if he doesn’t really care about making his viewers feel uncomfortable - he would rather be taken at face value.

So, do blogs allow for greater democracy in Singapore?
It may not seem like blogs are making significant enough impact to how the government is running now, but I can confidently say that yes, blogs have grown from making ripples to making waves in getting voices that used to be unheard, heard.

To conclude, I quote an extract from Thornton’s (2002),“Does Internet Create Democracy” :
“Democracy has become the dominant ideology of modern political life. Yet the gaps between ideology and practice are now so glaring that serious observers feel increasingly bound to ask “Are we able to believe even in the possibility of a role for mass communication in the furtherance of democratic ideals?” (Blumler and Gurevitch)”.

And once again, my answer is yes.


References

Ng, A.(2007, March). Conflicting signals from government. Hear ye! Hear ye! - Comments, opinions and an occasional ramble. Retrieved March 23 2007 from http://aaron-ng.info/blog/conflicting-signal-from-government.html

democracy. (n.d.). Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law. Retrieved March 23, 2007, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/democracy


(2006). Government steps up online censorship in run-up to elections. Reporters without borders for press freedom, http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=16935


(2006). Singapore attacked over blog gag. BBC News. Retrieved March 23, 2007 fromhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4882746.stm

Thornton, A. (2002, October). Does Internet Create Democracy. Retrieved March 23, 2007 from http://www.zip.com.au/%7Eathornto/thesis_2002_alinta_thornton.doc

Blumler, J and Gurevitch, M. "The Crisis of Civic Communication". The Crisis of Public Communication. London: Routledge: 1.