by Chan Chuan Meng/
The SAF personnel being investigated for posting on his Facebook wall a picture of text that criticises Islam apparently agreed with a statement that was attributed to Lee Kuan Yew, according to another Facebook post.
On September 16, Christian Eliab Ratnam put up a link to an article from Asian Correspondent article about a released Wikileaks cable in which Lee Kuan Yew allegedly said in a meeting with a US diplomat that Islam is a ‘venomous religion’. Mr Lee’s press secretary subsequently stated that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ minutes of the conversation in question did not record such a comment by Mr Lee.
When Mr Ratnam was asked by another Facebook user if he agreed or disagreed with the statement Mr Lee allegedly made, Mr Ratnam replied that he ‘agreed with him completely’. He also claimed that he had nothing against Muslims but it was the ‘theoretical political construct ideology called Islam’ he had something against.
The controversy threw up several questions, namely:
Was Mr Ratnam self-radicalized? If so, how was he influenced?
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Old man seems to be Totallly non-RACIST and Absolutely unbiased. Thats why so many supporters.
Now old and having some medical condition, will he still have physical energy to order an isa on the ypap extraordinaire legendary creme dela creme? I think mentally he still acute but my concern, as a housewife, is his physical stamina.
Long live lky!
Regrets
Ysl supporter
A Very Old Man,
Wow, that’s a good one… I like.
Jason, Ratnam and even the great LKY may not have the leisure to ponder on the deep mysteries of Life. They must have spent their lives like calculating machines, calculating which is the best move to get their enemies succumb to them, to get more money, to take advantage of the situation as they see it from moment to moment. This restless ceaseless activity of neurons produce a host of neurotransmitters crossing synapses furiously over the whole brain causing it to freeze and be unable to cope with things that are seldom brought before it, ie uninteresting things. Other races, other religions, the Other, are intrinsically boring and these busy brains have never held these concepts or thoughts for any length of time to appreciate their salient features. Thus these seldom visited modes of thought hold for them the primeval nether world of venomous creatures and grotesque in every shape and form.
So their utterances in these realms would seem alien to us who are on a more pace in contemplating Life. The danger is that , often these harried individuals hold more power than the average man, like Stalin, Hitler, Gadhafi and all hell would break loose.
Mr Lee is a great statesman. He transformed all of us – Chinese, Malays, Indians and others.
A shady controversial site spreading third party four-times removed unverifiable transcripts of alleged casual chats that incredibly were committed to memory verbatim by the many diplomats all over the world with supposedly mindboggling robotic objective non-emotional unbiased regurgitation after the fact? You believe the cables.
You prefer to believe an unknown diplomat from a nation with a history of secret meddling and even peddling of influence in the affairs of even friendly nations?
How patriotic.
If a person believes that there is money left in The Bank, then its a believe n not mandatory a fact.
In essence there is risk when you believe too extremely strongly in anything.
Do u believe there is no corruption?
Do u believe someone never lied to you?
Do u believe got money left?
Do u believe there is yellow more yellow than yellow?
At your own risk.
You have the right to believe that a believe is true.
I must say I second Dr Syed Alwi’s question in his point about the purpose of this article as opposed to others?
It is observed that there is a change in reporting style within TOC from a more analytical, editorial basis shown in year 2010 to the current simple style of reporting situations which are unfolding as and when it comes to the notice of TOC “reporters” subject to the publishing emphasis of TOC. Also, in recent months, subjects of race and religion which implicitly divides our nation seemed to be have taken a greater emphasis.
what a crafty young man! he posted it on LKY’s birthday!
How can Ratnam be described as “radicalised” just because he agreed totally with Lee Kuan Yew? This term is used in the west to refer to terrorists who were influenced by militant clerics such as Allawi. Ratnam has done nothing of the sort. He has merely expressed an intellectual opinion. He clearly differentiates between Islam (ideology) and muslims (people). He loves the muslims and disagress with Islam as an ideology. This is basic intellectual freedom.
observer 21 November 2011
“Mr Lee is a great” and at what cost to those whose lives he indiscremately destroy. And should I wish that your and your love ones are among them destroy without proper reason and cause? You then won’t be saying this will you be!
Ever heard of rights before? Take that away from you inexplicably in LKY manner for our good and will you still claiming such superficial stuff? What a parody!
The argument that freedom of speech means freedom to do what Jason and Donaldson did with speech seems specious to me. In the heart of Formal Logic Bertrand Russell found the sentence spoken by a barber in a village:” I shave everyone who does not shave himself.” Well who shaves the barber? This was the starting point for the whole of mathematics to be examined. It was found that in any sufficiently rich axiomatic system, there exist statements that can neither be proved or disproved.
There are things which we know to be good or bad, without subjecting the thing to strict proof. Because strict proof is illusory. A strict proof might be made of the fact that freedom of speech includes taking a dig at Islam. But to accept such a proof by acting on it is going the way of the Danish Government with the Prophet Muhammad’s Cartoons. This wrongheadedness on the part of the Danish Government has caused Muslims to protest across the world and a total of 100 reported deaths.
I think that the Singapore Government should choose the easier path and prosecute Jason and Donaldson. Ratnam seems to state a point which indeed might be freedom of speech.But it is a thin line.
who will make you submit?
singapore is not a religious state and there is no place nor room for islam’s blasphemy law. it is as simple as that.
@conan,
and the west has the benefit from such intellectual freedom and the society benefits from it. the people on the whole benefit from it. some laws will just make ordinary people stupid and keep people stupid in general.
the danish people’s party won !! they shall not be threatened….by some archaic religious law.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlA9Tj2yGb4&feature=youtu.be
I am Denmark. My core values are freedom of speech, democracy and tolerance…. I am Denmark. But. I am a country that will challenge cultures that want to change what I have been fighting for. I will not back down in the face of violence and terror. I will not be forced to accept medieval traditions. I am a country that has the courage to say STOP. I am a country that will stand guard to protect my own culture. Because I am Denmark.”
Exactly, finally everyone seems to be seeing the light. There is a great difference between Jason’s and Donaldson’s act and Christian’s act. Christian is entitled to his opinion. Also, I find it very interesting that everyone keeps refering to his surname instead of his first name. Why so?
Lastly, over-punishing these guys, will make the way for more complaints. Already there seems to be people all over threatening others with action against them for supposed “seditious comments”. This is going to lead to misuse of that law if the govt isn’t careful. We don’t want to stamp out freedom of speech because of fear of being accused of sedition.
@pbum
@Freedom
Well you have freedom. Say what you want to say. We’ll see what comes next.
@Freedom
Entitled to opinion??
In a country where the national television barks like a dog day in day out trumpeting the propaganda with no one else having any access to ask a question which is way softer than calling a religion as venomous?
Where people buy news paper paying a dollar to read what there aren’t any space for anyone else to say something which is even slightly difficult to listen?
Where tax payers money are being used to provide them news what regime wants them to hear everyday in the morning in MRT stations?
Where political opponents are being jailed and bankrupted and considered as traitor to the nation and ‘loose cannon’ just because they didn’t agree with the regime?
Where even political oppositions are being chosen as preferred based on the way the oppose the agenda of regime?
Where democracy is being imposed on people without even having the minimal foundation of it and let people believe they live in a democratic society with freedom of choosing their government?
That’s what you call FREEDOM? You are having a lurf..
Whether Mr Lee had made the statment,it is still not certain.Mr Lee had not made such comments in his Facebook or his personal blog.This information are diseminated by wikileaks.So his views can’t be classified as an official statement.
An SAF reqular,with this form of mentality,will he help his fellow singaporen muslim in term or crisis or will he pull the trigger on them?????
It is indeed demeaning,that person with such form of shallow ideology,serve in our armed forces
If I say i worship an old geeser, does it mean he has to be dead?
@doppelganger,
you tell us here at toc and for singaporeans.
is it a crime for a muslim to reject islam and post his thoughts online. –
who would want to go after them for his new belief.
do they suddenly become a racist even if he has not changed his race.
what would be the ideology behind those seeking to punish him/her.
i also agreed with our great leader LKY on his views on Islam. he speaks nothing but the truth.
is the ISA coming after me?
if so, then i am most willing to be apprehended along with our great leader LKY!
Hail LKY!
@hard truth,
i am sure there are more than a few who is willing to be apprehended for speaking truthfully.
Ratnam has state clearly that he has nothing against homosexuals. He is against homosexuality. Because he thinks that homosexuality is wrong, is he guilty of racism? Has he violated the Sedition Act? Likewise, he says that he loves muslims but is against Islam as a political ideology. Again, how is he guilty of racism? Must all non-muslims commit intellectual suicide? Perhaps his greatest crime is to agree with Lee Kuan Yew.
@conan,
some laws are made so that they cannot never be questioned. and some religious laws are such that no one can question them too either.
must non-muslims submit to blasphemy laws?
aren’t religious laws also political in nature?
Ratnam said in his page “I apologize thoroughly if I have offended you but opinions on different ideologies/religions should be allowed without judgement.” This sounds entirely reasonable to me. Osman replied “Yes different opinions should be allowed but if that different opinion is greatly flawed..” Who is Osman to say that his opinion is greatly flawed? This is like saying, you are allowed to have your own opinion as long as it does not contradict mine. And if it does, it must be corrected. This attitude is remininescent of conditions in the Soviet Union. Those who criticised communism were arrested and sent for rehabilitation.
in principle, if anyone witness a theft or a murder he should have the conscience to report it. but other religions being insulted does not seem to affect these people, in principle.
@iron
The answer it is simple.If start critizing a race or religion.There will be counter action by this community’s.If you don’t believe me,why don’t we have social experiment??? Say the same thing’s which christian ratnam say’s,the only thing you need to change is religion.You can use whatever religion you want???? I can bet my entire life savings,there will be reaction…ISD OFFICERS will indeed make a house-call to your residence…..why don’t u try it out?????
There is no need to start a social experiment. There are real life instances that you can study. The DaVinci Code movie was shown in Singapore a few years back. The govt announced its approval 4 days after the previous election. What happened? No one was killed. No one was threatened. ISD did not arrest anyone. The Christians earnestly organised forums and lectures to refute the insults and allegations contained in the movie. A peaceful reaction IS possible. This was recognised by Marina Mahathir.
so why is this pap government practicing double standards? it is not even an islamic government?
@SOCIAL EXPERIMENT,
the sedition laws are there hence it becomes convenient to use for those sensitive to questions about their faith. so the real social experiement is to do away with sedition laws and see for yourself the real outcome.
This is the truth. If Singaporeans start criticizing one another religions, i bet you there will be chaos. Please be humans and stop this nonsense. We have to be rational not just for the sake of arguments we are divided.