And now the backlash...
So, the General Elections furore is still not yet over. The saga of Gomez-gate still continues unabated, it seems, now that he's been arrested for "criminal intimidation" of the Elections Office. I could not believe my ears when i heard this news over the Internet. The more pertinent question here, i believe is : Who exactly is intimidating who?
Elections is over, the spin-doctors have got lots of repair work to do.
The waves of backlash will now be felt, and i think the coming elections, the Pappies will learn their lessons and clamp down more on bloggers and the Internet. The newspaper report one day after the elections stated the govt will be studying the impact of Internet on this 2006 elections. For those who didnt know, this is the year of the Internet Elections -and why might you ask? This is the year, when the govt passed a flimsy law against political podcast and blogging, thinking that this will shut up effectively dissenting voices. They know that the mass media is already under their thumb, but the internet posed a far bigger dilemma with its far reaching threat. Journalists can be controlled. What to do with the masses not under the govt's direct control with the internet at their disposal? Enter the law. But then Alex Au of Yawning Bread and creative bloggers like Mr Brown found legal loopholes and encouraged a floodgate of singaporeans to speak up.
For the next elections, knowing the pappies bullying tactics, i wont be surprised if bloggers will be fined for any political, veiled or unveiled content (see Mr Brown's podcasts). I also wont be surprised if they say, only Pro-pappy content will be allowed to be published on the Internet.
I worry that websites by Mr Wang, Yawning bread, Xenoboy, Alfian, Singabloodypore will be next to be investigated. Certainly these have left a deep impact on many this Elections. Eradicated or shut down, the masses of singaporeans will not have a focusing point to gather alternative points of views and find a common rallying point against the govt or for the AP. All i hope for, is that the voices of reason and the intelligentsia will still continue to make themselves and of each other heard, despite the shallow victory of the govt. I was talking to Fauz yesterday and discussing the signficance of the percentages of the votes and how the PM translates the percentages to what he calls "a strong mandate". How laughable that he thinks singaporeans are so stupid they can't do math, they cannot translate the 33% in Ang Mo Kio or 66% overall, for what it is.
Elections is over, the spin-doctors have got lots of repair work to do.
The waves of backlash will now be felt, and i think the coming elections, the Pappies will learn their lessons and clamp down more on bloggers and the Internet. The newspaper report one day after the elections stated the govt will be studying the impact of Internet on this 2006 elections. For those who didnt know, this is the year of the Internet Elections -and why might you ask? This is the year, when the govt passed a flimsy law against political podcast and blogging, thinking that this will shut up effectively dissenting voices. They know that the mass media is already under their thumb, but the internet posed a far bigger dilemma with its far reaching threat. Journalists can be controlled. What to do with the masses not under the govt's direct control with the internet at their disposal? Enter the law. But then Alex Au of Yawning Bread and creative bloggers like Mr Brown found legal loopholes and encouraged a floodgate of singaporeans to speak up.
For the next elections, knowing the pappies bullying tactics, i wont be surprised if bloggers will be fined for any political, veiled or unveiled content (see Mr Brown's podcasts). I also wont be surprised if they say, only Pro-pappy content will be allowed to be published on the Internet.
I worry that websites by Mr Wang, Yawning bread, Xenoboy, Alfian, Singabloodypore will be next to be investigated. Certainly these have left a deep impact on many this Elections. Eradicated or shut down, the masses of singaporeans will not have a focusing point to gather alternative points of views and find a common rallying point against the govt or for the AP. All i hope for, is that the voices of reason and the intelligentsia will still continue to make themselves and of each other heard, despite the shallow victory of the govt. I was talking to Fauz yesterday and discussing the signficance of the percentages of the votes and how the PM translates the percentages to what he calls "a strong mandate". How laughable that he thinks singaporeans are so stupid they can't do math, they cannot translate the 33% in Ang Mo Kio or 66% overall, for what it is.
posted by Medusa aka expiringpoet at 12:38 PM
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