High Crimes and Misdemeanors

I know what treason means, it's actions disloyal to your country, but sedition is different; it's actions to destabilise or foment opinion against the Government. Wikipedia defines it thus:

"Put simply, sedition is the stirring up of rebellion against the government in power. Treason is the violation of allegiance to one's sovereign or state and has to do with giving aid to enemies or levying war. Sedition is more about encouraging the people to rebel, when treason is actually betraying the country."

The reason I'm explaining this is because Singapore has a sedition law and it's getting used against people who publish on the Internet, ie, bloggers. The latest was Tuesday; a Chinese man was arrested and had computer equipment seized for a blog post 2 months ago. Unfortunately for him, someone actually read it and linked to it on a popular socio-political blog (tomorrow.sg) saying how stupid this guy was. Then people complained. Then the police turned up.

So what did he say? It was an unnecessary, ignorant, crude tirade about a guy sitting on the floor of an MRT carriage. Where he got into trouble was that he stated and taunted the guy's race so he potentially fell foul of Section 3(e)

"(e) to promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between different races or classes of the population of Singapore"

Previous cases of sedition include (from the ST article):

• April 2008: Ong Kian Cheong, 49, and wife, Dorothy Chan Hien Leng, 44, charged under Sedition Act and Undesirable Publications Act for allegedly distributing evangelistic publication that cast Prophet Muhammad in negative light.
• 2006: 21-year-old accounts assistant given stern warning for putting up offensive cartoon of Jesus on a blog.
• 2005: 27-year-old man becomes first since 1966 to be jailed (for a month) for posting racist comments online. In connected case, 25-year-old given day's jail and fined maximum $5,000. Later that year, 17-year-old blogger given probation.

As an Englishman, this feels very strange. Robust personal speech in England is not protected by a constitution as in America but having an angry, both-barrels rant doesn't feel like a criminal offense. I haven't read the full blog post (he has already deleted it and plans to write an apology) but I don't see incitement or a subversive intent. If he was a Hollywood celebrity, he would issue a written apology, check into rehab then tearfully repent on Oprah. Better to shun intolerance; gagging the source is at best unimaginative, and at worst, generates publicity.

England has not had race riots in recent memory (unless you count Brixton and Toxteth?) whereas Singapore has (1964) and the Government is determined to not just create but enforce a peaceful, multi-racial society. The issue of public expression is contemporary with the British Government's attempt to frame a Racial Hatred law so strict that comedy clubs would have to close due to lack of source material.

Only last week, the Singaporean Government wrote in response to an open letter from a group of prominent bloggers that its regulatory light touch of the Internet was clearly working and is now open to an even lighter-touch regime. So far, it's all sledgehammers and crushed nuts.

So I started off a teensy bit smug that England doesn't have or need a law on sedition but the Internet is turning every home into a printing press (which must be registered in Singapore) and the legal balance between this new-found public expression and social responsibility is in flux.

Singapore is Middle Earth

J.R.R. Tolkein's Middle Earth is populated not so much by characters but races where each individual Orc, Elf, Dwarf, Troll or Human has the same morals and ethics. This makes it extremely easy to follow the stories as any character can be assessed by their race. There might have been an Elf who swore but she never survived the final draft.

Singapore relies on large numbers of foreign workers to operate. I don't mean foreign like me, I mean Indonesian and Filipino maids, Chinese construction workers, Indian maintenance guys, Malay factory workers, and so on. One sees guys on push bikes with a pair of large 10-gallon, ex-paint tubs on the handlebars washing cars in the HDB lots (one is soapy, one is for rinsing): all Indians. There are scavengers of the HDB rubbish collecting cardboard, electronics, metals and aluminium drink cans (going rate +60 cans for SG$1): all Chinese.

This suggests that not only are many jobs just not done by locals, but on the other axis, jobs divide into neat racial buckets. Maybe it's because people tend to hire in their own image? Maybe it's old-boys-networks? Traditional trades? Racial stereotyping? Or just a cognitive bias such as the Halo Effect causing me to reinforce an initial perception by rejecting non-fitting data. You tell me.

Race, the final answer

As part of my Singapore PR application, my race is coded as European, again. They must have copied it from my original Employment Pass (EP) but I quizzed the chap taking my thumb prints and I could have had Caucasian but also English is in their official list.

It also shows my religion as Free Thinker, but that's another story.

Race (Redux)

I've written before about my quandary over what to enter in forms for Race:. Where locals would just enter Chinese, Indian, Malay, and so on, I'm left with no obviously correct choice.

My latest perspective on this is the explicit acknowledgment that my Western origin should be exploited for its difference, diversity and ability to impress (!). Examples include a recent conference where I was told "we need people like you to come to Singapore" and at work where my boss wants to "capitalise on my ethnic background".

I feel special, but not in an entirely good way.

What I have noticed is a settling out of where I try to fit in and where I am happy to stand out as different. I haven't gone as far as wearing a bowler hat to customer meetings but it would be an interesting experiment. And as for the forms? Perhaps I should just put Different and go ahead and exploit myself.

State Race

Maybe I'm being dumb but what race am I? I've been asked this question on several forms and struggled to think of an appropriate response. The forms are of little help, although one offerred "Chinese, Malay, Indian or Other (please specify)". So I'm clearly an Other, but what?

I considered Caucasian, but even after a whole childhood of Starsky & Hutch, The Streets of San Francisco and even Hill Street Blues, I'm not confident enough to use it. My main issue with Caucasian is it's one of those technical words that America seems so good at finding and exporting (Homocide [Murder], Hydrate [Drink], Deposition [Statement], Extreme Prejudice [Violently], Extraordinary Rendition [Moving Prisoners]). Did you know that at US airport security checkpoints, you empty your pockets into Divestiture Bins [Plastic Trays] and get everything back at Composure Tables?

Apparently even Caucasian would be dated as American law enforcement are switching to European American (mirroring African American). I settled for European which was accepted, probably proving it wasn't important, rather than correct.

I pointed out to an HR lady that the Chinese were lucky in having an easily identifiable race for such situations but she didn't seem relieved at this stroke of collective fortune.