In Hokkien parlance, tong tong chiang (the sound of lion dance drumming) is equivalent to wayang or play-acting or Red Indian Chief ... for a more literary and Shakespearean translation, it means "all sound and fury but signifying nothing" ...
Our fave retired TOP civil servant (see his resume below hor), Ngiam Tong Dow again puts out a very frank interview on the cock-ups in Singapore's public policy following his fairly recent "shocking" disclosure that Singapore is bigger than the PAP ... Me feels that it is about time lah reallie, in today's world, in tons of texts written on Singapore, all these cock-ups have been well documented and accepted as fact ... the idea that Singapore is bigger than PAP was seen as such a "shock" statement but it is reallie the BASIC of Political Science 101 and the ooohs and the ahhhs of this statement are itself indicative of our political immaturity.
The thing about Ngiam is this : all his statements cannot reallie be disputed coz they are already out there in the open and realistically, it is political suicide for PAP to dispute his statements .. do you expect the MIW to come out and proclaim "Nope Mr Ngiam, You are wrong, PAP is bigger than Singapore" ... no way rite? ... so what's the big deal??
The positive spin of Ngiam's "disclosures" is that it maps out a route for offering contrary views on gahment and MIW which, SO FAR, does not seem to invite the 3 Cs of political expression in Sg, Censure, Censor and Chief Justice ... it can be seen as a legit call to all the ruling regime of Sg to wake up their idea coz our ship is heading the wrong way somehow .... somewhere along the line, Singapore got snooked and its time to buck up ... good call Ngiam!
Now for the conspiracy part of it ... who is Ngiam? He is definitely still with and from the establishment ... is he a sanctioned Mole, the person to hoodwink us into the idea of open-ness in Singapore political expression? This is the million dollar question! Some even whisper that he is the agent of DPM Lee sent to pave the way for the next PM's regime by creating a doom-gloom scenario for the knight on the white horse to make it right again. These remain purely conspiracy theories with no way of verification and form the fodder of Tiger Beer talk during EPL halftime entertainment. Our crew also picked up the sole criticism of Mr Ngiam from a Malaysian website, MGGPILLAI.com, a very hard-hitting site, which blamed Mr Ngiam for cocking up the whole water issue in the 1980s which made SM Lee have to go to see the Mad Mahathir ... how true? Dunno. (see excerpt below)
The challenge? Mr Ngiam, how about forming your own political party? The Majulah Party has a nice ring to it ... it can sort of answer all the doubts about your credibility as a gahment critic and it offers for once, a 'credible' opposition in Singapore? To end lets quote Ngiam's words in the SG propaganda sheet "HeartWorks" : "Being the first and only officer in the IPD, I was made the "Red Indian chief" without "Red Indians" ... lets hope he is not being only a Red Indian Chief now ... there is a sizable number of Sg-loving people willing to be red indians rather than white indians ... winks winks
Zhong Eh
16.01.04
www.thevoiddeck.org
Oi! Penyu eh, the way I see it, dont get your hopes too high even though I think he spoke his mind la, problem is that we have been conditioned so much, so the typical reaction is a lot of initial hype and excitement and when next week comes, life and mindset is as per normal.
But respect the man who speaks his mind.
Limpeh vellie respect him but respect muz oso be earned mah ... is this a lesson on political expression in Sg? How to criticise and not get whipped? Or issit his "history" gives him a "mian si ling", if another person w/o his medals go up and tok like dat, wats the outcome? ur guess is as good as mine ... laterz
zhong