The Church also operates in the same way. Christian Nationalism has to be monitored closely. Christian Nationalists borrows Church resources to amplify its messages because there are many closet sympathisers among the clergymen.

Agree. It is a disease (religious fundamentalism of all kinds) that needs to be stamped out of the public policy space.

Unfortunately, our government seems to have no idea of the direction to take and continues to send out mixed signals in its desire to appease the “conservative majority” (a myth, in my opinion).

In the 1970s, the government forced through an abortion policy because of the perceived need to manage population growth. Today it has a toothless section 377A on the statute books (the government has acknowledged it will not be used but seems unable to repeal it). I doubt the present government would have the moral fibre to pass an abortion law today. The religious lobby is a real problem.

I am not here to argue whether the Government has abused the ISA or not in 1987, or whether the detainees were innocent or not. I simply do not know.

But I like younger Singaporeans to know that the threat of Marxist activism, if not communist insurgency, was very real, even up to the 1980s. And Marxism led to communism. And how could we be sure that Marxist activism would not have led to communist insurgency of some sorts? And it was a good thing to have a very vigilant Government.

I was a member of an organization that appeared to be an innocent student activity group that studied and discussed philosophy (in Chinese), and things like exploitation of the capitalists on the working class. All along I knew the philosophy that was being discussed had something to do with Marxism – although the terms “Marxism” and “communism” and “Karl Marx” was never mentioned. (If they were, the (Chinese) books would have been banned in those days). I joined the group to make friends and to brush up my Chinese, and I did not feel anything wrong or dangerous joining them. One day, there was an industrial accident called the “Spyros Disaster” that killed up nearly 80 people, and the group leader began to lead the discussion in the direction to blame the Government for it. I became very wary of this organisation, and I quit.

I am not saying that this organisation had a vicious and ulterior motive. I am just saying that it could be and very likely, because I could not fathom how this industrial accident could be linked with Government irresponsibility.

This was how communist cells and terrorist cells worked. Through your innocent participation, they would begin to identify possible recruits. And they would use certain events to instigate hate towards the Government, or the socio-political system, or certain racial and religious group. And except for the top leaders, people like people would never know who the behind-the-scene mastermind was,

That’s all I want to say.
(Read wikipedia for information about “Spyros Disaster”.)

Me: Actually, it is not likely for some kinds of religious “nationalism” to happen here. And Chrisitian nationalism is one. We don’t have “Christian” countries around.

Peter Sellers: “fascist regimes bent on preserving their own power. ”

Me: We need PAP in power for a long time to come. PAP has no need to preserve their power.

Peter Sellers: “Mr Tan, where is the safeguard against the ISA being misused,”

Me: My article is not about “safeguard”. Go ahead and reform if you need it.

Peter Sellers: “Operation Spectrum is a real example of such misuse of power”

Me: Then correct the abuse of power. Any piece of law can be abused. With the resources of the government, I can set you up and charge you under any law I choose, and if I am clever enough, I can easily get you convicted.

Peter Sellers:”That is why the ISA must be reformed”

Me: I did not say yes or no to this. I only said ISA is here to stay.

Peter Sellers: “(peaceful) population for voicing genuine grievances against the government??

Me: This is not my topic. I am on national security. Economic disaffection can be exploited by dark forces which leads to “peaceful protests” which then ended up in violence. That are so many examples. It is happening today in Xinjiang.

My point is that it is not wise to have the detainee know for sure that he will be set free within a certain time frame.

I remember Chiang See Dong bringing up the issue of abolishing the ISA in his GE rally in his early days. For a long time, I don’t hear him saying this any more. I believe Singaporeans want a strong and effective government and generally support the ISA. That’s why I say ISA is here to stay. Singapore is too vulnerable and fragile. We need strong laws and strong government.

I don’t visit this website often. So, I will not return to argue further. I just want to make a point and show my support for the ISA. And this second post of mine is to clarify some points you have raised.

These are arguments that have been used throughout history by fascist regimes bent on preserving their own power.

Examples of this type of control are Germany in the 1930s, Stalin’s Russia and Mao’s China. There are many other examples from contemporary history.

Mr Tan, where is the safeguard against the ISA being misused, not against genuine terrorists but (peaceful) domestic political opponents. Operation Spectrum is a real example of such misuse of power. Please answer.

That is why the ISA must be reformed, such that only genuine threats (ie by those that plan to subvert the state by force) are contained. The Terrorism Act 2006 in the UK (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_Act_2006) is an example of an act with sufficient safeguards built in to protect the innocent.

Besides, your statement “ A prolonged recession can lead to a lot of disaffection ….” as a justification for continued use of the ISA in its present form opens up a whole new avenue for discussion. Are you suggesting that the ISA should be used against a (peaceful) population for voicing genuine grievances against the government?? This is an alarming statement. It is precisely the reason the ISA needs reform.

You forgot to include Christian Nationalism.

Don’t ever think that Singapore will survive forever. A prolonged recession can lead to a lot of disaffection and people can be worked up Tiananmen style. A major incident like Bali or Mumbai Bombing (not to mention 9/11) can destroy us economically.

Internal security cases are very different from ordinary criminal cases, in the following ways.

1. To charge and convict the detainee is NOT the primary goal. We want to destroy the entire, say terrorist, network.

2. Security threat is not an one-time event. It is a process that involves an ideology, vision, conception of actionable political goals, planning, and action to overthrow or do damage a regime.

It is relatively easy to gather evidence when a security threat has reached the planning and action stage. But it is not easy to gather evidence to criminalize an ideology (such as a pan-Islamic or pan-Buddhist Empire or Communism or Separatism or the idea to build a “pure” Singapore Chinese state).

The political goals may look innocent – such as the “freedom” not only to discuss but also to recruit like-minded members, organize activities, receive funding, build an underground or above-ground network of activist cells, etc. The intention to overthrow and to subvert a nation or its regime may never be declared by the masterminds who work behind the scene, such that cell members themselves might not even know about it. Even if you arrest the cell members, you may not get any “hard” evidence. But you might have loads of “soft” evidence against them, such their writings, reading materials, photographs (say of Osama bin Laden or Dalai Lama), their visits and stays in various places (say Afghanistan or Dharamsala).

But you need to detain these people to uncover the entire network – who else are involved, who are the leaders, who are the real behind-the-scene foreign or local masterminds, if any. The possibility that a detainee might be detained indefinitely will spur him to reveal information that will implicate others. If they know they will be detained only for six months or one year at the maximum, then there is little incentive for them to volunteer information. (Note that the price tag for Osama is US$25 million).

Internal Security are life and death matters. We do not have to follow the good advice of those very secured, developed and advanced nations. When their nations are under great threat, they will do things the same way. Like the Guantanamo prison. And when threat has diminished, they say they will close down Guantanamo.

I think that’s a good idea. Look forward to seeing your new effort!

Hi Donaldson Tan

Read your article on Internal Security Act-ISA and as far as I am concerned ie being an Ordinary Singaporean, my stand is our Internal Security Act-ISA is still very relevant today especially now the whole world is being very seriously threatened by Muslim Extremisim-Terrorisim and Singapore’s peace and security have been affected and recently we saw how the smarted Muslim extremist Mas Selamat outwitted our Singapore Police force and successfully escaped to Johor and was caught by the Malaysia Police and currently being held under the Malaysia’s Internal Security Act-ISA which had been abused by their government of the day ie the BN-UMNO led government who has been using Internal Security Act-ISA on its political opponents, unlike in Singapore where you have rightly pointed out, our Singapore Government has not used the Internal Security Act-ISA on Dr Chee and his bunch of Running Dogs in SDP (they have betrayed both the nation and fellow Singaporeans by being Running Dogs of those Foreign NGOs).

Perhaps, time for a review of our Internal Security Act-ISA ie only focuing on both domestic and international terrorisim, and only being used on our local politicians should they be caught involving themselves with these domestic and international terrorisim, and no mercies must be shown to them

Regards
Andrew Chuah

I think I rather write another TOC piece dedicated to the topic of Confucian Governance since we both can guess how this discussion thread will pan out. This reminds me of my secondary school days studying Chinese Literature.

Hi Ys and Jerome,

Ys is right that Ravi wants to have an independent committee to study proposals for ISA reform and to investigate if there were any past abuses of the ISA. That is the only way to restore the legitimacy of the ISA in the eyes of the People.

Then let me rephrase myself: Good luck with the Advisory Board.

This committee is already existent (the Advisory Board). He merely called for additional powers to be vested on this committee to give it a more central role in the issuance of ODs.

Have you noticed that with the creation of “laws” under the POA (Public Order Act), it only shows that they will tighten, not loosen up on systems that can be used against political opponents?

Good luck with that committee, maybe it will come to exist only when the PAP themselves are detained under the ISA.

Please translate, for the benefit of those who don’t read Mandarin!

Thank you

In case you think that I sound like an apologist of LKY’s Asian Values, I state my opinion that LKY reconstructed Asian Values by fusing Confucian values with Utilitarianism and this has unfairly misconstrued Confucian values as Authoritarian.

Confucius has always advocated for propriety from the Government towards the People – a fact that PAP and LKY have conveniently omitted. In fact, Sun Yet-sen’s modernist revision of Confucian values in the form of the Three People’s Principle introduced democracy as a mean to reinforce the need for propriety from the Government to the People.

Democracy is the best thing that has happened in the practise of Confucian governance principles.