Wednesday, November 25, 2009 9:40
Asia Sentinel loses a Singapore correspondent
In Top Story • 3,045 views • 54 Comments
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From Asia Sentinel. Article by Ben Bland, freelance journalist who had his visa extension application rejected by the Singapore Government.
When I moved from London to Singapore last October to set up as a freelance journalist, I finally got to meet the two officials from the Ministry of Information who had helped me secure an employment visa.
Over a cup of coffee at their office in a former colonial police station – possibly the world’s most stylish propaganda ministry – they probed me politely about my background and intentions in Singapore. They were friendly but seemed perplexed about the concept of freelance journalism, even though it forms the backbone of much foreign reporting these days.
“If we have a problem with something that you’ve written, who can we speak to?”
Obviously, I told them, you can talk to the editor of whichever publication has commissioned any particular story.
“But what if we just don’t like what you’re writing in general?”
Then talk to me, I added.
They never did. Last month, after applying to renew my visa following a successful year in Singapore, I received a one-line letter informing me that my application had been rejected.
While the governments of Burma, China and Iran tend to arrest troublesome foreign reporters or expel them without delay, Singapore’s more media-savvy government prefers a subtler approach to repression. The non-renewal of a work visa is their preferred method for getting rid of foreigners with minimal fuss or attention. It was the fate suffered last year by a group of Burmese permanent residents who made the mistake of protesting in support of their countrymen during the Saffron uprising of September 2007. They knew why they were being forced to leave, having breached Singapore’s strict laws, which effectively proscribe public protest. I have no idea why I was ushered out.
Although the government likes to brag about the Lion City’s ultra-efficient civil service, as soon as I tried to find out why my visa application had been rejected, I ran up against a brick wall. Officials from the Ministry of Manpower stonewalled me day after day while my ‘friends’ from the Ministry of Information suddenly became a lot less helpful, insisting that they knew nothing about my case and refusing to assist me.
Eventually, after an intervention from the British High Commission, I was told that the government was not willing to disclose the reasons for turning down my application, despite the fact that I met all the criteria for renewal. I was told, in no uncertain terms, not to bother appealing.
Kept out of the loop by the government, like a growing number of Singaporeans, I turned to the uncensored space of the internet to find some clues.
On the popular ‘Sam’s Alfresco Coffee Shop’ message board, one user called ‘scroobal’ seemed better informed about my enforced departure than the witless bureaucrats, suggesting it was somehow related to my work for Asia Sentinel.
He described me as “one dumb and ignorant journalist” for “staying in Singapore and doing things for Asia Sentinel”. “Might as well pee in front of the Istana gates while old man drives by,” he said, using the term many Singaporeans prefer to describe Lee Kuan Yew, their founding Prime Minister and current Minister Mentor, in private.
Elaborating on this theory, he explained that Asia Sentinel was founded by “ex-editors of publications previously sued by the old man such as Far Eastern Economic Review and Asian Wall Street Journal” some of whom were “previously banned from Singapore”.
I don’t know whether my work for Asia Sentinel irked the government as much as the presence of its editor John Berthelsen, who was refused entry to the city-state earlier this year, 21 years after he was first forced out as a correspondent for the Asian Wall Street Journal in circumstances remarkably similar to my own.
Over the last year, I have reported for a wide range of serious publications in addition to the Asia Sentinel, including The Economist, The Daily Telegraph, the Far Eastern Economic Review, the British Medical Journal and even Singapore’s government-owned Straits Times and Business Times. I have covered some sensitive subjects in the tightly-controlled city-state such as rising crime, healthcare and ageing and business links with Burma.
However I steered clear of criticism of Singapore’s first family, knowing that any negative comments about Lee Kuan Yew, his son, the Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, and the PM’s wife Ho Ching, who heads Temasek, one of Singapore’s two sovereign wealth funds, would lead to a libel suit I had little chance of defending, let alone winning.
In recent years, the Lees have won libel cases against almost every major international news organization including The Economist, the International Herald Tribune, the Financial Times, Bloomberg and, most recently, the soon-to-be-closed Far Eastern Economic Review.
Combined with the government’s direct control over the domestic press, this leads to an insidious climate of self-censorship that cows both Singaporean and foreign journalists. Yet, ironically, the government still pursues its ambition of becoming a global “media hub” as it seeks to invigorate its export-dependent economy.
While I was packing my bags, the law minister, K Shanmugam, was insisting to a group of visiting American lawyers that Singapore’s perpetually low rankings in press freedom indices were “quite absurd and divorced from reality”.
“Our approach on press reporting is simple: The press can criticise us, our policies. We do not seek to proscribe that. But we demand the right of response, to be published in the journal that published the original article.”
I was desperate to speak out against such rank hypocrisy but had been effectively gagged when my work visa was cancelled, receiving a stern warning not to engage in any “business, profession or occupation” or any activities “detrimental to the security and well-being of Singapore”.
Some news organisations are put off by the government’s bipolar approach to the media. One leading international publication decided to set up its new Southeast Asian bureau in Bangkok rather than Singapore after learning how I had been treated.
But many are still attracted by the well-developed infrastructure, good transport connections and generous tax breaks and other financial inducements offered by Singapore’s inward investment agency, the Economic Development Board. Dow Jones, Reuters and BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the British state broadcaster, are among those with regional headquarters in Singapore, for whatever reasons.
It is a great testament to the unique brand of soft authoritarianism honed by Lee Kuan Yew and his People’s Action Party that they are able to convince so many journalists and media organisations to slip into voluntary restraints.
One veteran foreign correspondent in Singapore went so far as to advise me not to talk about my situation lest the government bar me from returning in future, thereby limiting my career prospects in Southeast Asia.
If self-censorship is rife among foreign reporters, who can simply leave the Lion City when they fall foul of the authorities, imagine the predicament faced by Singaporean journalists.
Even if they cross the unwritten line of acceptability unwittingly, they are subject to a form of internal exile, forced out of their jobs and made to somehow conjure up an alternative career if they are to feed and house their families.
It is little wonder that the sage advice of one professor of journalism at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University to an eager student reporter was: “If you want to do journalism, don’t do it in Singapore.”
——
Ben Bland is a freelance journalist. He was based in Singapore between October 2008 and October 2009. He blogs at Asia File.
Read also: Singapore refuses to renew foreign journalist’s visa.
—–
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54 Comments
btan
Online Shmonline
so many foreigners and foreign news agencies accept being pushed over because their agenda nowadays is not the thrill of the scoop or to reflect the will of the people – it’s to earn a living, with EARN being the operative word.
Everyone knows that you can make money in Singapore if you’re part of the establishment (which is actually the norm everywhere). FEER settled because Rupert Murdoch would rather earn money from deals with our government than lose money fighting court cases fighting over whose version of truth has more money, time and legal support.
For those freelancers out there, stay away from Singapore if you’ve ever written on anything that shows up the seedy side of any incumbent, be they a government or big business. Seeing that our government is a big business, I suppose our government administrative lackeys will be falling over each other to deny anyone who may not have the express interests of our MIW in mind.
Sad news but it’s how we’ve allowed our so called leaders to dictate what is called the truth and who is allowed to share it.
Time for a change.
Time for action.
Don’t vote white.
Vote right.
Cheers!
KCofS
Hahahahaha…. it is so darn funny that foreign journalists can be barred from entry and job visa not renewed
WHEREAS
foreign and PR ex convicts (sentenced to jail in Signapore) can continue to stay in singapore or even released early from jail to look for work
heehee.. fellow singaporeans, open your eyes wide wide ok. the elites have such thin skins that they will kick out foreigners who dare to criticise them a tiny bit, but have such thick skins that they will unleash foreign EX CONVICTS into the mainstream of the society to mix with us plebians.
Vote for more good years of swiss living with pap!!!
Oh Holy
The old man makes us suspect the intellect of the westerners…
Where are all the human rights organization?
HaiGong
Singapore is governed by rule of law.
But the rules and laws are invented in Singapore by the elites who understand how to manipulate them.
Are they fair????
Maybe only to certain categories of people.
Fortune-teller
Zimbabwe also bans BBC journalists…..maybe our elites are taking a leaf from their book and learning from them.
Our MDA should probably stamp the phrase “Report only the good stuff” in the passports of all foreign journalists in Singapore.
David
This story alone makes me fee sad living in Singapore.
A Tan
Asia Sentinel — there are equivalent of Dr Chee’s SDP in Govmin’s eyes I suspect.
I’ve given up reading their stuff as I feel that facts are skewered. OK I skim thru ST, BT and Today but what choice do I hve for commercial news?
prettyplace
Thanks for writing this article Mr Bland and letting us all know your unfortunate episode with this short sighted agency in Singapore.
It it time …people…. to put a stop to all this in Singapore. We cannot do much with the people working in these agencies, but we surly can send a message to PAP that Singaporeans are matured.
We should put a stop to these brick walling by the ministries and agencies.
We should fight for reason.
Dumb and dumber
Oxford Dude
OMG.. Ben Bland.. I love reading his articles on Asia Sentinel, Financial Times and The Guardian…
Jasper
Singpore doesn’t owe AS and his lackeys a living. The ang moh can go home to find a job. Some ang mohs here live colonial masters. The chinkies kow tow to them and patronise them and the local girls sleep with them like cheapies. At the end of the day, they will still write thrash abt Singapore for what their bo0ss pay them to write.
I don’t know why he is so hard up to stay in Singaporean when he’s not welcome?
singaporedaddy
So what we have here is a good olde fashion case of
“you are with us or against us.”
Great way to dig a hole and lie in it, if you ask me, since the last guy who elevated that deadender idea to a full fledged political theory was George Bush jr; and we all know, he created such a mess in the middle east it will probably take obama ten life times just to mop it up; along with alienating every thinker on this planet.
Besides who in their right mind would even listen to a bush; the last time, a group of people had did that they found themselves mumbling and wandering the desert and going around in circles for 40 yrs.
SD
Internet liaison officer of the brotherhood
Jack
Singapore is such a place. If you sing high praises to the leeders and
Govt, they will roll out the red carpet to welcome you.
However if you criticise them or write articles not to their liking, they sue
your pants down or throw you out in no time.
And she want to be a international media hub? my toes are laughing!
Thing will only change when the Old man passes on, which won’t be
too far away
A&E
Say it ain’t so, Joe……
Foreigner Perception of the INC
author wrote: “propaganda ministry”
very interesting way of describing.
pornsak
I used to see a ray of light for singapore’s opposition capturing more seats in future.
suddenly, i realised so many new citizens have come in.
Next ,i see the NMP scheme.
Then I see Philip accept the appointment.
I have been surprised again and again.
I do not foresee opposition winning more seats.
Because of this, I foresee my future here will be sadder than sad as time goes by because the kind of system i long for will not be realised.
that ray of hope is no more.
To all like me, we have 1 consolation prize . Its based on time. An Event that will happen INEVITABLY in every sense of the word that will make us cheer.
Keep a bottle of champaign, tiger beer or whatever ice wine or red / white wine or hard liquor.
The last laugh.
momo rocket
The journalist wrote : “imagine the predicament faced by Singaporean journalists.”
I have to disagree.
singaporeans working in the press here are given free will to leave if they choose to, anytime. No one is not allowed to resign.
I assume that all MSM journalists Consciously Choose to do what they do given the FREEDOM to leave if they somehow do not like the organization. They know full well what they wrote. They are responsible for their writings. No excuses.
I invite Ben to rebut me since i disagree with his views. I hope Ben understands my point as well.
My sympathies to Ben.
Oh Holy
The ideal Singapore will be 51% PAP and 49% opposition. Then only sg would prosper or no PAP at all:P
btan
The freedom to starve is not a real freedom.
Alibaba
pornsak on November 25th, 2009 4.31 pm
“Because of this, I foresee my future here will be sadder . . ”
shd you?
A porn star?
Yamamoto
When KS, i mean K Shanmugam, speaks about the unjustified ranking, most people know to take it with a giant pinch of salt…
Instead of trying to fix the problem, or improve on it, all we have is the cry of foul
okie dokie
“so many foreigners and foreign news agencies so easily cowed as well? ”
Only singaporeans cannot easily be cowed but somehow they have forgotten this fact.
dear Jasper
“Singpore doesn’t owe AS and his lackeys a living.”
And who do you think that singapore is composed of.
“Some ang mohs here live colonial masters”
Colonial masters have been chased out long time ago and have been replaced by emperxxxxx and princxxxxx serviced by 1st-class eunuchs ??????? Work harder please.
“At the end of the day, they will still write thrash abt Singapore for what their bo0ss pay them to write.”
HELLOOOOOOO !!!, did you get the order mixed up.
“I don’t know why he is so hard up to stay in Singaporean when he’s not welcome?”
Maybe you may want to elaborate on the type of people who do not welcome this kind of FTs. Do not keep on pulling the name of Singapore lah. I love my country ok and FTSs. Can’t integrate them meh ?
Stepford Wives
“If you want to do journalism, don’t do it in Singapore.”
Just like the Stepford Wives. So artificial and mechanical. That is why we need foreign talents.
Political SalesMaN
Now we should have an new opposition party. Call People Active Party.
Active people to throw out the PAP. Unseat Them!
N
3 cheers for this post!
Selective foreign talents wanted, ousted are the people who can perhaps make real change. Sad sad sad…
N
How about handling of human rights at home first?
XIIIblackcat
Now that’s what we called a foreign talent!
Karma went on Exile
#2 Online Schmonline,
“FEER settled because Rupert Murdoch would rather earn money from deals with our government than lose money fighting court cases fighting over whose version of truth has more money, time and legal support.”
I just like to share what a legal professional told a group of people.
He narrated a case of a foreign company vs a particular SE Asian govmin.
The moral of his story was its not wise to go be involved in a legal battle with a govmin in the country of the govmin. The reason is the future revenue that can be generated by getting business from the govmin is more important.
This is just what i heard. I am not saying what is right or wrong.
Internet
Thanks to the Internet, the shame done by PAP is read by the whole world.
Gopalan wrote an article about the new media: “The Singapore opposition has made headway.”
ahlim
Not surprising the PAP government has been using that from day one when they came into power of singling out individuals till now. The tactic is called “to kill a rooster to teach the monkeys how to behave”. Imagine how many “roosters” had been killed for PAP to secure its hold and power on the population. It is no democracy but the crudest form of politicing we called in modern day “soft genocide”. It is a crime!
winstoncheng
The truth of the matter, the nerdy PAP model (WKS, LSH……) doesn’t syn with the people any more. Unlike LKY, Goh Keng Swee, E.W Barker etc who were seen as cool and admired by their generation.
I’m middle-aged but when I watch LSL do his twirl and Teh Tarik move in his National Day speech, I wanted to throw up. Only the dogs applauded. Can you imagine how the younger audience felt.
OMG!!!!!! These are our leaders???
this is one talent that Singaporeans have lost due to PAP’s self-preservation defence system. again, the PAP prioritize it’s survival over our National interests.
this is yet another step backward for Sg mainstream media development. I wonder how low would they stood in the coming election times.
I think PAP has made anoher tactical mistake of preserving the “credible” 142th status quo of Sg media. this sure isn’t a Democratic move, which the PAP is currently faking at. they are undoing themselves in the eyes of the online community, especially overseas Singaporeans in UK, Europe and Aussie(given the reoprter’s links)
vote for Change, vote the PAP out
Truth is stranger than fiction. The Straits Times and the bunch of crony editors and journalists that toll the line are the smart people of S’pore. We all know people like Chua Mui Hoong, where she came from.
So our friend Ben Bland is ain’t that smart to step on the dog’s tail and now got bitten.
He is lucky that his visa was not approved and asked to leave S’pore. He may be sued to bankruptcy if he stays on and speak too much.
So, this call press freedom and democratic freedom of speech in our totalitarian S’pore. Are we awakened !!
@35 correction:
the name should be Chua Lee Hoong not Chua Mui Hoong
Lee Hsien Hsien
Hi Ben Bland,
Please don’t give up on us so easily. Times are changing. Do try your best to make a come back.
We need more people like you, who are brave, honest and sincere, who report the news as it is without adulterations and without the propaganda stuff trying to brain-wash us into submitting to a subtle dictatorship but a cunning one at that.
Always enjoy reading your articles. And thanks for writing this one to let us know what is going on behind the scene.
Best wishes and regards. Cheers!
Oh Holy
Not everyone is a no brainer like what our PAP wants us to believe.
Take for example, in newspaper all over the world, people would discuss government policies and critize their leaders.
But our papers are voided of it lol…they are sooooooooo sooooooooo Perfect and greedy that they think they are justified, followed by their man-made laws and the poor are their shields when there is a war.
I am not going to lay my life for this kind of people. Since i got nothing, no big deal in a war.
Can you imagine a Singaporean talking his head off in say, an Aussie pub, about how stupid the Aussies are, how they only think of beer, sex and living on the dole.
He would probably get a tongue lashing from the locals and if it was in a tougher section of town, get his head knocked off as well.
That’s how Bland is probably seen in Singapore on the part of the authorities — a foreigner sneering at how things are done in this little city state that wants to be seen as the little ‘un that did well.
Having said that, I fear our Singapore journalists have lost the ability to be critical and analytical. They have been seduced by the comforts that a see-no-evil, speak-no-evil, hear-no-evil style of reporting can bring.
At this stage of journalistic development or some would say, decline, in Singapore, we should make full use of the God-sent help of the Internet to disseminate well-thought-out commentaries since MSM will not, or cannot, do what they should be doing.
Spuaknel Columbine
Ben, this is an experience for you.
You now know more about the system.
I am sure you will become a more experienced political reporter.
Goodluck!
peaball
in response to btan:
the reason why foreign news corps station themselves here instead of any other SEAsian country is precisely because they are wire agencies (i.e. quick, fast, well-connected, employees who work fast and hard, minimal disruptions) and their agenda is purely simply business. without doubt, Singapore indeed has the most developed and best infrastructure for them to set up regional HQs.
their function is unlike MSM whose mission is really to reflect the voices of the people – and whether this has happened is apparent to all.
Online Shmonline
Just read a write up by Pranay Gupte (http://www.pranaygupte.com/article.php?index=199). He’s someone who worked for the ST briefly before his integrity led to him being fired (or so I understand).
Here are some extracts from his blog page:
- about his editor, Ms Chua Lee Hoong:
“Be that as it may, I thought that the editor – who was trained as an intelligence officer, not as a journalist – was way out of line in recommending that, at age 56, I take lessons in journalism from a white man at the paper. Among the things that I was hired for, incidentally, was mentoring young people at the Straits Times. ”
- as the CECA was being signed between Singapore and India:
“Why am I sceptical that there isn’t exactly going to be an exodus from India to Singapore? Precisely because of what that Indian cabinet minister told me. Singapore can attract all the cheap coolie labour it might want, but the word has gotten around in the Indian professional community that this isn’t the place to come for personal and cultural fulfilment.”
- and his thoughts about our fair (?) country!
“Would I still recommend Singapore as a place to visit? Yes, I would, most definitely. And as a place to stay? Yes, I would, most certainly. But don’t expect to practice the journalism of fairness and forthrightness. This simply isn’t the place for that. At least, not as long as nail-pullers are running the news room. I got out before they pulled out my nails. But it still hurts.”
Quite a good read on a Thursday! Enjoy! :)
Cheers!
Utopia
Online Shmonline ,
it is better off the whole excellent article been added here as comment in case of some disappearing miracle perform by demi-God. People may just be too lazy to click.
From http://www.pranaygupte.com/article.php?index=199
Letter from Singapore
Published by PranayGupte.com on 2004-11-19
Not so long ago, an important member of India’s federal cabinet took me aside and asked why was it that Singaporeans were racist. I was floored by the question, which the official asked in all earnestness. In his long career dealing with ethnicities and communities all over the world, he said, he had never quite encountered the sheer arrogance and hubris demonstrated by Singaporeans.
“They think that they know it all,” he said, noting the absurdity of a nation of four million people taking on a country of 1.2 billion people. “Even a minor Singaporean official will talk down to someone as senior as me.”
I don’t know if I fully agree with the cabinet official. Singapore and India, in fact, have been working hard at building stronger political and economic relations: they are about to sign a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA), which covers not only trade but also investment and services. The Indian government hopes that Singapore, which has US$1.3 billion invested in Indian technology and telecommunications companies, will bring in an additional US$2.5 billion to help build India’s languishing infrastructure next year. Singapore, in fact, is the biggest Asian investor in India, and third only to Mauritius and the United States. Singapore – whose GDP of US$100 billion is less than a sixth of India’s – expects to attract more Indian hi-tech professionals, and also hopes that India will use it as an offshore center for financial transactions.
Unlike my friend, the Indian cabinet official, I don’t believe that this is a racist society. Indeed, I have been overwhelmed by the good will and graciousness of everyday Singaporeans. It’s easy to make friends here, and people have been uniformly and extraordinarily kind to me. In fact, I have been genuinely touched by the gestures of sweetness and thoughtfulness from everyday Singaporeans.
But this is certainly a “rules-driven society” – in the words of my friend Ambassador Kishore Mahbubani, a Singaporean of Indian descent who was his country’s Permanent Representative at the United Nations and is now Dean of the new Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy here in Singapore.
Ironically, it was my article about the new School – named in honor of Singapore founding father – that may have precipitated my involuntary departure from The Straits Times on November 16.
But before I come to a fuller examination of the episode, let me say a word or two about the paper, which will be 160 years old next year. It’s a beautifully designed paper, with 90 percent of a typical day’s edition of 200 pages consisting of ads. I was hired in March 2004 as its global-affairs columnist. I wrote columns under my own byline three or four times a week; I also wrote at least one or two longish analytical features and profiles each week. And I wrote unsigned editorials (which are called leaders here, in the British fashion) mainly on developing countries, international finance, global politics, India, and the Middle East – subjects that I’ve long covered in a journalistic career spanning four decades.
The Straits Times has no competition in Singapore. It’s owned wholly by a company called Singapore Press Holdings, whose stock is sold publicly but whose affairs are closely monitored by the government of prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, son of Singapore’s founding father, former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew.
The paper is run by editors with virtually no background in journalism. For example, my direct editor was Ms Chua Lee Hoong, a woman in her mid 30s. She was an intelligence officer. Other key editors are drawn from Singapore’s bureaucracies and state security services. They all retain connections to the state’s intelligence services, which track everyone and everything.
At the newspaper, I was struck by the total absence of conversation or banter in the huge newsroom. Having spent two decades at the New York Times, including my student days in the United States, and having run my own newspaper subsequently, The Earth Times – not to mention my 18-year tenure as a columnist at Newsweek International, plus 16 years at Forbes as a contributing editor – I was accustomed to the spirited atmosphere of news rooms, not to mention disagreements and disputes.
I believe that what precipitated my termination from the paper on the morning of Tuesday, November 16, was my refusal to include in the article about the LKY School some falsehoods about Mr. Mahbubani that two editors suggested that I should insert. They both claimed that Mr. Mahbubani has had problems with the nation’s security services and that he was viewed as a radical when he was a student at what was then the University of Singapore (now National University of Singapore).
There was no way that I could independently confirm such suggestions. Moreover, I believe they were false. Mr. Mahbubani may have been a student activist in his writings for the university newspaper – but since then has distinguished himself for nearly four decades as Singapore’s emissary in various places. The fact that he was named head of the LKY School is testimony to the high regard in which he is universally held. (His first book, “Can Asians Think?” was a best-seller in Asia and Europe, and also did pretty well in the United States. His next book will be published in the spring by Public Affairs in New York.)
It would have been simply inappropriate to include unsubstantiated stuff about Mr. Mahbubani’s alleged radicalism during his student days. And it’s highly unlikely that he would have risen as high as he has, had he been really considered a national security risk. My own feeling is that among some of the intelligence and bureaucratic types who run the Straits Times, there isn’t universal good will toward the LKY School or its dean.
Like newsrooms everywhere, the newsroom of the Straits Times has its share of jealousies, resentments and fiefdoms.
It is also a poorly run organization. For example, my editor, Ms Lee, killed a substantial quote that I obtained from Mr. Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, chairman and publisher of the New York Times, on the grounds that he was “distracting.” When I wrote an e-mail note to Arthur, whom I’ve known for a long time, to explain why his generously given quote to me was not used, here’s what I received from Mr. Cheong Yip Seng, the editor-in-chief of the Straits Times:
we do not do this on this paper, namely apologise to a newsmaker whose quote we did not use. if i were the newsmaker, i would think poorly of the paper. if the nyt uses every quote of a noteworthy newsmaker, they will need to double the pages they use daily.
—– Forwarded by Cheong Yip Seng/SPH on 14/11/2004 06:37 PM —–
Needless to day, Mr. Cheong missed my point entirely. Arthur Sulzberger had made a special effort to communicate with me from 13,000 miles away to give me a long personal statement about the New York Times and its directions. I used the quote in a column on the media, but, of course, it was edited out. I felt that in view of my own long tenure at the Times, and my friendship with Arthur, I owed him an explanation, at the very least. It was common courtesy on my part, not brown-nosing to Arthur, who doesn’t take to kindly to obsequiousness anyway.
Ms Chua, my editor, also killed two other exclusive interviews I’d obtained in recent days, mainly through my access to important people gained over four decades in international journalism. She said that what was said by Dr. Supachai Panichpakadi, the Director-General of the World Trade Organization, and Mr. Peter G. Peterson, Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations – and the author of a recent best-seller – was “boring.”
In fact, both were timely interviews. Dr. Supachai spoke about ending textile quotas which, starting in December, will give developing nations unprecedented access to the markets of industrialized nations. And Mr. Peterson spoke about the troubling U.S. deficits, and how both Republicans and Democrats have been irresponsible about dealing with the current-account deficit that’s expected to balloon past US$600 billion this year.
Ms Chua further recommended that I should turn to a white colleague in the news room for lessons on how to ask questions. Since I didn’t come to the Straits Times to be re-educated in journalism – after a pretty distinguished career of my own – I felt that her advice was inappropriate. She was, of course, well within her rights to kill any story she wanted, but people like Dr. Supachai and Mr. Peterson aren’t usually accessible to inconsequential newspapers such as the Straits Times.
Be that as it may, I thought that the editor – who was trained as an intelligence officer, not as a journalist – was way out of line in recommending that, at age 56, I take lessons in journalism from a white man at the paper. Among the things that I was hired for, incidentally, was mentoring young people at the Straits Times.
Now some people I know in Singapore regard Ms Chua’s behaviour as racism. I do not. But another episode in the news room last week certainly suggested racism to me. A Chinese colleague of mine – a fellow columnist named Mr. Andy Ho – had changed the thrust of my column on Diwali, which happens to be a national holiday here. While his technical editing was superb – and I told him that – what appeared in the paper subsequently simply wasn’t my voice.
When I approached Mr. Ho about this, he waved me away in our newsroom like one would a persistent beggar. Perhaps he did not realise the significance of that gesture when directed at a Hindu-born person like me, however secular I may be in my sensibilities.
But he repeated his gesture in a manner that was so dismissive that I then addressed him by the only appropriate response, a barnyard epithet. I was struck, not by his gesture alone – I’ve seen worse during a career in journalism spanning four decades – but by the expression on his face. It left no doubt in my mind whatsoever that he would qualify for what my friend, the Indian cabinet official, would most certainly call a racist.
“Racist” is a hot-button word, never to be employed lightly. As an Indian-born, US-educated journalist, I have never been exposed to racial discrimination. Quite the contrary. America – supposedly still a land of great racial divides – has been generous to me, truly a land of monumental opportunities.
But here’s another anecdote concerning a Singaporean that was certainly sobering to me when it happened.
Some time ago, a recruiter from a venerable Singaporean institution looked me up in New York, my home since I was in my early twenties. I was being offered a job, but at a salary far less than a white gentleman I knew with considerably less experience. Why was that?
“Because you are an Indian,” the woman recruiter said.
“I’m an American,” I replied.
“It doesn’t matter what your nationality is,” she said. “You are a person of Indian origin, and that’s how our compensation is structured.”
Needless to say, it was an offer that I had no problems refusing.
Years later, when I finally arrived in Singapore – which was some months ago – I was quite astonished to see how many non-Singaporean Indians in professional positions were serving with coolie-like servility that they would never display back at home. What was going on here?
“You have to play by the rules,” one Indian-born colleague said. “You cannot shake the boat too much. In fact, you dare not shake it at all. The money is good here, so I can swallow an insult or two.”
The behaviour of Ms Chua, the editor, may be simply the kind of office politics that people holding power engage in every now and then. But it’s also part of a broader attitude that I detect among many Singaporeans in journalism’s top echelons here – that no one else’s record or accomplishment or opinion counts but theirs. Any divergence of view is immediately regarded as subversive dissent.
This is an important point because if Singaporeans are going to be perceived as filled with hubris and an unbending my-way-or-highway attitude, it is going to be increasingly difficult for this country to attract the talent it needs to sustain its economic ambitions. In fact, young Singaporean professionals are emigrating to Australia and Europe in record numbers because they feel stifled here.
For example, I would be very curious to see how many top-notch Indian professionals in technology and the sciences actually wind up in Singapore once the ambitious Singapore-India Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement is signed this month by Prime Ministers Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore and Manmohan Singh of India.
Why am I sceptical that there isn’t exactly going to be an exodus from India to Singapore? Precisely because of what that Indian cabinet minister told me. Singapore can attract all the cheap coolie labour it might want, but the word has gotten around in the Indian professional community that this isn’t the place to come for personal and cultural fulfilment.
One Indian sociologist put it very succinctly, if harshly: “Yes, Singapore will get all the white trash it wants. Yes, it will get all the brown trash it wants. Anything’s better than living in villages without electricity. But it’s going to have problems getting the brown sahibs it needs.”
Without those brown sahibs, Singapore will lose out to its neighbours in the great globalisation game. Already, its consumer prices and cost-of-living are driving potential talent to places like Bangkok, Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur. Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Delhi aren’t such bad places to live and work in either, especially if you are in the technology sector.
Singapore, in short, is facing severe competition, and it’s falling behind already. Does that mean by calibrating its culture to be more welcoming to outsiders is the answer? It’s one answer, certainly. Does that mean Singaporeans should tolerate dilution of high professional standards? Certainly not. But why would any self-respecting professional coming to work here want to compromise his own standards?
And so back to that question: Are Singaporeans racist? Well, of course some of them are, just as surely some Americans are, and Australians and Argentineans and, dare I say, even Indians.
But Singapore lives in a unique goldfish bowl, and its own standards of economic excellence require its citizens to be more sensitive and magnanimous when it comes to dealing with outsiders. After all, Singapore has created a pretty well-functioning secular society for itself – even though one might argue that, in the cultural scheme of things, Tamils and Malays play second sitar to the Chinese.
This is such a beautiful place with such beautiful and giving people. It’s hard not to be a well-wisher. But the Straits Times as a model of dynamic, open-minded journalism? It will happen on the day that it starts to snow here on the equator.
So what am I going to do next? A book or two to complete. Plenty of museums to visit in Singapore. Certainly scores of great food joints. Nice people to spend time with, as long as I avoid the paper’s editors, of course.
Would I still recommend Singapore as a place to visit? Yes, I would, most definitely. And as a place to stay? Yes, I would, most certainly. SBut don’t expect to practice the journalism of fairness and forthrightness. This simply isn’t the place for that. At least, not as long as nail-pullers are running the news room. I got out before they pulled out my nails. But it still hurts.
Pranay Gupte,
Senior Writer and Global-Affairs Columnist
Lui and Lui
Pranay, i love you.
Oh Holy
High level sg officials are not racists, they just looked down on everyone else lol. Our PM earn more than 5mil sing with all his bonus and compensations. The USA President dont even earn 1/10 of ours.
Even our minor official are pay as much as a president of the most powerful state in the world.
Explain that?
Time for Change
sun tzu said an army of proud soldiers will definitely fall…with their high and mighty attitude towards their own people and foreign journalists, i think its a matter of time before our elites and their cronies take their fall from grace.
It’s time for change. Make your vote count.
No Scholar
I wonder what our top talents, so called scholars think of this? Scholars are people who are supposed to be able to reason, see logic and think. Are they so corrupted as to see black as white too?
singaporedaddy
“I wonder what our top talents, so called scholars think of this? Scholars are people who are supposed to be able to reason, see logic and think. Are they so corrupted as to see black as white too?”
Just bc you dont see anyone talking; doesnt mean they arent talking passionately abt this somewhere else; it just means the internet is a very big geography and finding them is really like looking for a needle in a haystack.
But what did you really expect? This is what typically happens when some idiot thinks its a great idea to use a hammer to solve all the problems of our age; everything just goes underground who after all wants to stick out when the hammer is around and its business as usual -lookwise at least.
SD
Moe Gan Thai
A friend just called me and said our country is a ” lan XX ” country. Govt cared for foreigners but our workers retirement is 62, but when he is over 50, he can’t find a job, he said NTUC is a useless union. His greatest regret is vote for pap when he was young. Now if he can’t get a job in 2 months, the whole family will be starved to death. This is the govt who ruled 50 years and what we peasants get ?? Not enough Cpf for retirement, depend on the $2 lego, si liao lah !!!
No Scholar
singaporedaddy :
“Just bc you dont see anyone talking; doesnt mean they arent talking passionately abt this somewhere else”
- Did I say they are not talking…..? I said I wonder what will scholars think of this.
singaporedaddy:
“This is what typically happens when some idiot thinks its a great idea to use a hammer to solve all the problems of our age”
- Can you please be more specific. I don’t want to guess wrongly what you are saying.
singaporedaddy
I spoke in plain and simple English; which part of it do you not understand?
Where is the mystery to what I have just shared here? There is nothing to be specific about when one looks for a needle in a haystack, that is the nature of the thing.
Just as there no logic to the man who only knows how to use a hammer to solve all the problems of the world; is it such a wonder all he sees in the world is nails and nothing else?
This I think most people can understand without too much difficulty what I am saying here.
SD
singaporedaddy
Why should I tell you what they are talking about? Tell me if a man and woman makes love in the privacy of their room; are you suggesting that I film them and post it here?
That I think is a private matter; if they want to share it here; they can do so on their own steam; as for me, my lips are sealed – I am a man who simply respects the privacy of others – surely even you can understand why I cannot be specific abt such things.
maybe the man who only knows how to use the hammer and nothing else will have more luck in answering your questions? But he first needs to learn to use something beside the hammer? That may be a problem.
SD
(Internet Liaison officer of the brotherhood)
The Singapore Daily » Blog Archive » Weekly Roundup: Week 48
[...] funds by Boon Lay CC for grassroots event at condominium to promote “community bonding” – TOC: Asia Sentinel loses a Singapore correspondent [Recommended] – Balderdash: Why I shall [try to] wear a Black Ribbon on Wednesday (25th November) – [...]
Oh Holy
I saw this article from the Asia Sentient in 2008, no wonder you got boot out for reporting it in detail and truthfully.
http://yoursdp.org/index.php/news/singapore/1048-singapore-goes-after-dow-jones-again-
The island republic’s attorney general files contempt charges against the Wall Street Journal Asia for unfavorable editorials
In January of 1984, JB Jeyaretnam, Singapore’s then-lone opposition member of parliament, and mortal enemy of then-Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, was acquitted by Senior District Judge Michael Khoo in a Singapore court of making a false declaration about the accounts of his Workers’ Party.
Shortly after that, Senior District Judge Khoo lost his job and was unceremoniously moved to the attorney-general’s chambers, widely considered to be a much lower posting. The Jeyaretnam episode is the last time on record that a high-profile case ever went against any members of Singapore’s ruling Lee family or the government.
Given this unbroken record of legal victories, the Singapore government looks set to attempt to improve on it, filing contempt of court charges against the Wall Street Journal Asia for three articles published in June and July that “impugn the impartiality, integrity and independence of the Singapore judiciary,” according to the complaint. “These allegations and insinuations are unwarranted.”
One of the editorials concerned a 72-page report by the International Bar Association that has become an embarrassment both to the government and the Lee family. In a court case against the embattled opposition leader Chee Soon Juan, Lee Kuan Yew testified under oath that the Singapore Law Society had received a laudatory letter from the association, praising Singapore’s judicial system. Instead, the 72-page report, titled “Prosperity versus individual rights? Human rights, democracy and the rule of law in Singapore,” makes 18 recommendations which the association urges the Singapore government to implement as a matter of priority.
Singapore’s government, the report continues, “is currently failing to meet established international standards in these areas.” Reports of opposition candidates being targeted for criticizing the government, it says, “are of significant concern and threaten democracy and the rule of law in Singapore.” It describes an “apparent climate of fear and self-censorship surrounding the press in Singapore,” and that the “increasing tendency for high profile and respected publications to pay large out-of-court settlements to avoid litigation with PAP officials and the continued run of success within in-court claims is worrying.”
The Journal’s editorial called the report a ‘good primer’ on Singapore’s use of defamation suits against opposition politicians and the foreign press.
Christine Glancey, the managing editor of the newspaper, now owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., said she would have no comment and referred all questions to Robert Christie, Dow Jones corporate spokesman in New York. The contempt charges, and another case hanging fire in Singapore against the Far Eastern Economic Review, another Dow Jones publication, are rapidly becoming a test of News Corp’s nerve. It is the first time News Corp, which in the past has shown little stomach for taking on governments, has come up against the immovable object that is the Singapore regime, as other publishers have, usually to their sorrow.
The decision to file contempt charges comes a few days after another Singapore judge, Justice Woo Bih Li encouraged lawyers for the Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and his father, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, to amend their defamation petition against the Far Eastern Economic Review to make sure they included Woo’s own more defamatory reading of an article about the two ministers. Woo’s ruling, two years after the filing of the original charges, appeared to be unprecedented.
Singapore and the Lee family have long been famous for suing journalists, both foreign and domestic – and they have never lost a suit in Singapore. The Far Eastern Economic Review was a favorite target. The media watchdog organization Reporters Without Borders ranks Singapore 140th out of 167 countries surveyed in terms of freedom of the press. The country has been kicking foreign journalists out for writing critical articles about the republic since the early 1970s.
An official enquiry requested by Jeyaretnam into allegations of executive interference in judiciary appointments in the wake of Khoo’s demotion found that there was no truth to the claims. In fact, Justice T S Sinnathuray, the sole commissioner who examined the case, said: “The wholly unfounded allegations of Mr Jeyaretnam (of executive interference) were scandalous statements that should never have been made.”
Yes, please tell this to Bryan Caplan who thinks that the fear in Singapore is non-existent or at worst trivial.
Even foreign journalist like yourself can be “fixed”, let alone Singaporeans whose very livelihood, family and roots that are intertwined to this land.
What really makes me perplexed is why are there so many foreigners and foreign news agencies so easily cowed as well?