| Media |
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| Saturday, April 22, 2006 |
| forum meant to provoke |
Today
Thursday • April 20, 2006
Lee Ching Wern
chingwern@newstoday.com.sg
A FEW days ago, my father was having dinner at a coffeeshop near our home when he overheard this conversation between two middle-aged uncles about me.
"You got watch the Lee Kuan Yew programme on TV or not? That girl say PAP hao lian (arrogant). How can?! Those youngsters have no respect for elders," said the first one angrily in Hokkien.
His friend replied: "Bo dua bo suay (too big for their shoes). How do their parents teach them?"
And the other day, on my way to work, I spent the entire cab journey listening to some "experts" on a Chinese radio programme slam us for being rude, lacking in public decorum and Asian values.
These views are echoed in a number of scathing letters written to me as well as to the newspapers (mostly by Singaporeans in their mid-30s and 40s) in the days following the telecast of Why My Vote Matters — the forum with Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew that I participated in together with nine other young Singaporeans.
Apart from saying we were rude, some people accused us of trying to impress our friends. Some even questioned our upbringing.
I am deeply puzzled and disturbed by the reactions.
This backlash shows not only the vast gulf that exists between the generations, but also how far Singapore is from opening up and how close-minded many still are.
Did we question Mr Lee the way we did on TV because we are a bunch of disrespectful ingrates who are blind to his contributions to Singapore?
If you thought so, consider this: All television programmes are produced with a determined angle and style.
Perhaps you were expecting something akin to the forum that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong had with Singaporeans recently, which was a lot "milder".
But was the dialogue with the Minister Mentor meant to be the same? Ask yourself, why were there so many journalists on the selected panel?
Was it, perhaps, meant in the first place to be a more provocative, vigorous and spontaneous exchange that touched on the "unspeakables"?
If you had watched BBC's infamous HARDtalk programme, you would have seen its former host Tim Sebastian accusing, snarling at, interrupting and pointing fingers at political leaders from all over the world — Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong included.
Was Mr Sebastian week after week attacked personally for having no decorum and respect for these great people? No. And not because of his Western upbringing either, but because the show and its reputation was built on just such an approach.
The show's guests knew what they would be in for — if they didn't want the nasty debate, they would not have gone on it.
That is not to say our forum last week was anything like HARDtalk. And we are obviously no Tim Sebastians. But the principle is the same.
If MM Lee wanted to give us this leeway to "speak back" to him on national television, and if we were encouraged to be uninhibited and not to cower when he pointed out our ignorance — who is to say we behaved inappropriately?
To those viewers whose criticisms of us participants were motivated by their deep personal respect for the Minister Mentor, I ask: Is it not MM Lee's prerogative how he wishes to engage us?
Certainly, we had no intention of showing MM Lee any disrespect, but should we have censored ourselves so as not to offend viewers?
To those of you who felt we raised issues that were both unrealistic and unrepresentative, for goodness' sake, this forum had a specific scope.
We were not the ones who initiated the dialogue. We did not decide the rules of play. But it seems to me now that some people have chosen to penalise us for participating.
If you ask me, I think it was a great forum.
Not because our arguments were flawless or the answers were perfect, but because, suddenly, every Singaporean — young and old, including those who never did care about politics — is talking about it in the coffeeshops, on the MRT, in schools and on the Internet.
Isn't that precisely what we set out to achieve?
The writer is a senior reporter
with Today. The participants of last Wednesday's forum reunite to tell their side of the story on the programme, "That Dialogue - Was I Rude Or ... ?", tonight at 8.30 on Channel NewsAsia. |
posted by Nobody @ 6:57 AM  |
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