April 2006

Extremely Sporting

“Not just a Garden City but a City within A Garden. That’s what Singapore wants to be. Where open spaces mean more nature to enjoy, rather than more money to be made” (The Straits Times, Jan 28, 06). The unwritten corollary to that, I take it, should read: just leave the money-making to the State, after all, even turning religious issues away from the great Singapore casino debate is all about money in the name of economic competitiveness. As my band Zircon Gov. Pawn Starz declared in the song Media Whore – “Just look pretty/stay mum…Enjoy the scenery/ savor the luxury”. Watch Big Brother’s pocket grow for your own good (no, we haven’t forgotten that big-hearted paternalism dogma, have we?).

      In a two-page Sunday Times feature on skateboarding in Singapore titled All On Board (Feb 12, 06), a tiny question at the bottom of the feature asks in great earnest: “Is Singapore doing enough to promote a culture of extreme sports?” What it really means is – Have the authorities done enough to embrace extreme sports? Think about it, be it skateboarding, foam parties, Rochor Canal’s flea-market or nude-revues, the ‘extreme’ can be permitted ONLY when it’s ‘co-opted’ by Big Brother. So who’s not ready? Still wanna ‘empower yourself’ more? (Co-opted: Big Bro must have a hand in it to regulate, get it?) So, me petty?

     Don’t remember His good old ‘paternalistic authoritarian’ ways? Why do you think we ain’t got the entrepreneurial spirit? Except that now, He just has to air the new-agenda slogan ‘empower yourself’ to have you think that His good old paternalistic authoritarianism has somehow expired. Oh, go on, you’re mature to think for yourself now, ONLY because He ALLOWS you to think it. Get it? As in “use your brain” only when you’re told to do so. Now, how fabulous is that!

     Nobody will tell you this but it was yours truly who brought the ‘empowering the people’ notion to the authorities’ attention. In my Oct 2001 X’ Ho-Files (which became chapter 44 of my last book Attack Of The SM Space Encroachers) titled Setting The Attitude Straight, I’d quoted an entire essay by one Tan Chade Meng – Why Do Singaporeans Criticize Their Government So Much? (It had first appeared in the now-defunct Singapore Electronic Forum (SinterCom) on the Net.) In that essay, Tan talked of empowering the people as a solution to the growing problems of the Singapore culture. Check it out from my book. Of course, they’ll never tell you it came from me. (But Viv would know!)

     “Sullen youths with no social graces and hostile stares are a growing breed. Whatever happened to proper upbringing?” – went a report in the ST on Feb13, 06. And another on that same day had the headline “Being rude now the norm for youngsters here”. So, I’m right about ugly Singaporeans scowling constantly, yeah! Purely rhetorical there, I know I’ve always been right. I live in heartland with true grassroots grit endured, so I should know.

     O, how ‘sweetly’ put, the anxiety --“whatever happened to upbringing?” An upbringing managed with the help of Channel 8 and The Straits Times’ how-to-live-&-think instructions. No worries, no one will dare think that, here in dodo (or act dodo) Singapore. Big Brother implicated? C’mon, it’s your children of your upbringing! Never mind that it’s His papers, His TV and His coveted media that CONSTANTLY run your lives UNDER THE STRICTICT REGIMENTATION. And no matter how “preachy and obvious” it all gets too! (Thanks, Ms. Ong! See my essay last month.)

     Oh look! In the big obituary to old-guard-minister S. Rajaratnam in the ST on Feb 23, 06, there’s a pic of him borrowing a light from a former Malaysian deputy PM, and the cigarette (gasp!) is seen perched between the late State Minister’s lips. Now, of all the photos in the press file, why pick such a one? Can you imagine any living State Minister or pawn star from these shores being shown lighting up in the national paper? Based on the headlines of that obituary – ‘Foreign Policy Architect’ and ‘The Multicultural Man’, the only logical conclusion I can draw from that un-PC photo is that smoking must still be hip! (Now, Master, understand why the press hates me. Who else would point these things out to you?)

     I truly love those invisible OB (out-of-bound) markers in Singapore. So invisible and arbitrary, you have to be my age (!) and have lived here all your life to recognize them well. “Sex tape scandals don’t just plague mere mortals like Nanyang Polytechnic’s Tammy. Celebrities like Pamela Anderson have had to live them down too”  -- The Sunday Times advised on Mar 5, 06. Oh yeah? But dear Pam in real Hollywood had a grand moment and chance to live up her controversy too. I doubt anyone in smallsville Singapore, that doesn’t appear victim, can affect a scandal for his/her own gain. We’re gov. pawn starz, remember?!

     One more thing… Imagine… if that Singaporean Tammy were not a student but a swinging housewife with a sex tape to her name! (Students now have special privileges cos our Masters are really concern about not winning over the young in this fear-of-no-future-leaders age of an un-dynamic environment He’s single-handedly fostered.) Wouldn’t WE (all the miserable, repressed and hence self-righteous lay citizens) love to thumb down the swinging wayward in the name of ‘conservative society’!

     Some of you may have taken notice of the news that I’d shot a short film to enter for this year’s Singapore International Film Festival (check my website www.xhosux.com). I regret to inform you that I’ve chosen to withdraw my film at the suggestion of the Festival’s committee. All they said was “We’re worried about your film and we suggest you withdraw it from the program”. Always one to cover backside big-big, I did as I was advised, though I must admit that I was a little surprised by the committee’s response to my film. It was made specifically for the Festival with the hope of it being shown. So naturally, I didn’t go out of my way to create any self-defeating ‘anxiety’. Goes to show how much more faith I have in the System than it gives me credit for. But everyone who’s watched it thinks I’m crazy to reckon it can ever be shown in Singapore! No worries, Big Bro, it’s not like you’ve officially ‘disapproved’ to render our arts-driven country small-minded.

     So, was I being chicken-shit to withdraw it at the mere suggestion of a kind committee?  Of course not, as Big Brother, if in my shoes, would also defensively say. I did it to prove that I’m not prepared to be a martyr! (There, for all of you who thought otherwise!) And perhaps to prove that I can be such a sport to the film-fest committee! But if the System chooses to blow my effort up to scandalous proportions from hereon, then let it be known that the days of performance artist Josef Ng being persecuted for his art are still here to stay!

     Long live arts hub, yah? - April 2006