slut for authority

Where I’m bound, I can’t tell.

Cya there.

This place is getting stale. Different phases require a change of scenery.

Adios.

When I heard that Ahmedi won the Iranian elections I was dissapointed, but hardly surprised. Perhaps it is due to my lefty tendency to see things along class lines, but I simply saw the situation as a Thaksin situation redux. An unpalatable ‘outsider’ candidate is hated by the vocal big city elites and bourgeois but commands great loyalty from the poor because he was the first to attend to their needs through populist measures. While it was easier to relate to the English-speaking Moussavi supporters we see on television, I felt that the hard reality was that they were simply a vocal minority.

However, gradually I was forced into a rethink. Upon closer inspection, the results were simply too inexplicable. Ahmedinejad won by a landslide amongst every conceivable constuency, by suspiciously similar margins. He won among Kurds and women, constituencies known to favour reform candidates. He won in Tabriz, Moussavi’s hometown. He even won in Tehran, which is akin to Thaksin winning Bangkok by a landslide. And it is not as if the Iranian electorate as a whole is historically supportive of the rightists currently in government – Khatami won the elections by a landslide 70% over a decade ago. That 70% could not have shrunk into a mere 33% now. Cultural and social factors are as important as class considerations in reading the plausibility of the results.

Furthermore, the conduct of the incumbent Iranian government invites questioning and bears all the hallmarks of a stolen election. The electronic blackout, the incredibly hasty announcing of the results, the subsequent arrests and violence inflicted on dissidents. This is not the conduct of a legitimate representative of the majority. Even if the inexplicable Saddam-esque results can be explained away, the regime’s subsequent conduct cannot. The regime has humiliated the people one too many times, and all the simmering discontent has finally boiled over into a demand for reform. Therefore, the hundreds and thousands of people marching the streets of Tehran and Isfahan are marching for their legitimate civil rights as guaranteed by the constitution of the Islamic Republic and one cannot help but root for them.

If there is anything about this uprising that makes me hopeful, it is that its goals and methods are decidedly conservative and restrained. I don’t mean conservative in the political sense, but conservative in approach and temperament. It’s rhetoric is deeply rooted in the ideals of the Iranian Revolution of 1979. It’s rallying cry, heard amongst the rooftops of Tehran over the last few days, is ‘Allahu Akbar’, an irreproachable phrase with deep resonance. The uprising has support in the current elite. Mir Hussein Moussavi is himself a scion of the establishment, a devotee of Ayatollah Khomeini with revolutionary blood on his hands. Bigwigs like Rafsanjani, Montazeri (currently sidelined by the regime) and Khatami are said to be supportive. The Revolution of 1979 was the biggest revolution in human history in terms of size. Its support was remarkably broad-based and included secular as well as religious elements. Its more liberal elements were later surpressed in the name of defending the revolution. This is not a repudiation of the Islamic revolution, but a demand for the reclaimation and renewal of its promise. If this is a revolution, it is a Mirabeauian one instead of a Leninist one.

The good thing about this is that it can avoid all the excesses of sweeping revolutions, which all too often result in counter-revolution, civil war and a slide towards extremism. The goals of this revolution (with a small-cased ‘r’) are worthy and not as destabalising as some of its more famous cousins, and I dearly hope it succeeds.

Am sitting at my hotel lobby in Bangkok now, sipping ice tea. Have walked through royal palaces and temples, Thai Girl Show alleys and alot in between. I have seen Bangkok at its most regal and at its most sleazy (though thankfully, unlike other countries, those two do not mix). I have stepped foot in places that emanate power and places wretched enough that my companion called it ‘poverty porn’ to take pictures there.

My impression of this place is decidedly mixed. I sense a centre that is proud, dignified and at ease with itself. But it is bursting apart at the seams, with various subcultures attempting to deal with modernity and its rigours. Some areas seem to do it with relish, while others seem to be struggling and failing to hold off the effacement of their identities. I guess the charm of this city lays in seeing it try to balance all these demands.

Throughout the tortuous presidential campaign that encompassed much of this blog’s lifetime, I directed most of my words against the then-candidate Barack Obama. I held a deeply-felt skepticism towards hs intentions, and an even more deeply-felt hopelessness at whether he can undo the vicegrip of the forces that decide policy in Washington. I enjoyed his nuanced and intelligent speeches and flights of rhetoric, while at all times drawing a clear line between my viscereal enjoyment of political theatre and my true political convictions. The one area I was especially cynical about was his ability to effect meaningful, effective change in American policy in the Middle East, a region whose conflicts affect even Singapore.

Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo did not dispell that cynicism, but it has forced through a small trickle of hope. Aesthetically, it must surely rank as one of his best speeches, combining high-flown idealism with the uniquely Obama relish in explaining details and nuance. Furthermore, you have an American president in one of the great Arab cities, addressing the entire Muslim world less then 8 years after 9/11, showing a comfort with Arabic terms and quoting liberally from the Holy Qu’ran. This was inconcievable just a year ago, and counts as a PR and propaganda success of the highest order.

The most encouraging thing about this speech stemmed not from any policy specifics. His policies on Iran and Palestine are a much-needed leftward shift from the neo-conservative dogma of the past, but implementing them is daunting and arguably inadequate (the right of return of Palestinian refugess hang silently and oppressively on any proposed peace deal). Obama is an innately conservative political operator who seeks incremental change, which while frustrating is entirely understandable. The greatest, most perceptible change is in tone and worldview.

For so long American politics have suffered a purblindness to the consequences of its own policies, borne of the hubris of unipolarism. The link between cause and effect, between its policies towards the rest of the world and the blowback to the most harmful of these policies, is unacknowledged and deemed unpatriotic. This was epitomised by the Bush administration’s insistence that terrorists wanted to hurt Americans because “They hate our(American) freedoms”. This purblindness reflect a wide-eyed ignorance that has had a hugely damaging effect on public discourse in America, and its ability to effect any change in policy.

How refreshing, then, is it to hear an American president acknowledge the fact that America had abetted a coup on the democratically-elected government of Iran in 1956 and imposed a sadistic dictator in his place. How unusual to hear an American president placing the sufferings of Palestinains living under blockade and Israeli occupation (yes, he used the word occupation) side by side with Jewish grievances, instead of placing the latter over the former. Of course, this was accompanied by the usual rhetoric of American nobility, but that is only naturally for a head of state. This was not just a better-packaged PR move, it was a profound shift in tone, lifting the public veil over the full scope of history and the ramifications of American actions and shoving it into the mainstream. I think, in the long run, this is the most significant impact of this speech, which gives any American statesmen who want solve the seemingly untractable problems of that region the ability to make decisions based on all the realities of the situation, instead of being forced to take action based on the urgings of narrow-minded ideologues.

It has always been my political mantra that I never give my devotion to an individual politican, only to individual worthy causes. Today I make no exception. But I admit that my measure of the man was far too cynical. Whilst I am not in full agreement with all of Barack Obama’s policies, he has done the world a much-needed service with this speech. I can spend the whole day to poke holes in his policy specifics, and he may go on to break all of his promises, or this shining moment may prove temporal, but for now I would rather look at the possibility of real change on the horizon.

“I saw one group of of boisterous, laughing men, who were speaking Swedish. They were wearing stag party style t-shirts which proclaimed – “Warsaw, Krakow, Auschwitz – 2009″. It was a genuinely appalling experience. But not quite for the reasons I had expected.” – Gideon Rachman, on his visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Is a vulgar disregard for those who perished before us the price to be paid for progress and prosperity?

The Wrestler – Bruce Springsteen

Have you ever seen a one trick pony in the field so happy and free?
If you’ve ever seen a one trick pony then you’ve seen me
Have you ever seen a one-legged dog making its way down the street?
If you’ve ever seen a one-legged dog then you’ve seen me

Have you ever seen a one-legged man trying to dance his way free?
If you’ve ever seen a one-legged man then you’ve seen me

Is it time?

A few things about me:

I consider myself liberal and globalised.

Patriotism is a foreign concept to me. I find nationalism fruitless and even evil at times.

English is my primary mode of communication. My command of my mother tongue is verging on pitiful.

I HATED studying Mandarin in school.

I grew up reading Livy and Harry Potter, watching Ninja Turtles, eating McDonalds and sipping Starbucks coffee.

Many aspects of the mother country’s politics and culture either repulses or alienates me.

YET,

I am incredibly proud of my race. I can’t bloody help it.

I have to be very careful and circumspect about what I write here, because I do not want to offend people I really care about. That is also why I have often held my tongue about the role of evangelical Christians in my country’s politics. I have generally taken the view that while separation between religion and politics is non-negotiable, religious groups generally have a positive impact on politics because they place a great premium on conscience and welfare. I disagree vehemently with much of their social policies, but I genuinely believe that on balance their contribution to Singaporean society has been very positive.

The recent coup de ‘tat by a Christian Church group in AWARE, however, alarms me greatly. And now, the seeming ringleader of the group, Thio Su Mein, has came right out and declared that the coup has been engineered in order to rectify the pro-homosexual slant within AWARE. The have infiltrated the AWARE en mass without any real commitment to the ideals of the organisation, toppled the incumbent leaders and now aim to purge it of all the undesirable renmants of the old regime. Regardless of whether one agrees with their stance, the way they went about doing this is beyond the pale. They are operating exactly like the communists did, infiltrating an organisation through subterfuge in order to ultimately impose their own beliefs on the organisation whilst piggy-backing on the name value and apparatus already in place to advance their own agenda. It is no exagerration to say that the old Comintern would be impressed.

However I acknowledge that Thio and her cohorts are merely acting as all interest groups do to advance their goals, albeit in a distasteful way. The larger problem is the ease with which they were allowed to do so. The well-organised putsch-by-stealth was only possible becase Christian interest groups are one of the very few in Singapore with the organisational discipline and freedom of movement to pursue their objectives. The government’s avowed rejection of independent civil society groups with a political agenda is well-documented. Even today the government is loath to allow for the flourishing of political groups that can influence the government’s agenda from outside. Consequently, over the last 4 decades Singapore has been fallow ground as far as civil society is concerned, with AWARE being one of the few allowed to take root. However, conservative Christian interest groups have not been viewed with such opprobium by the government. The reasons for this is too complex for this blog. Suffice to say, the conservative activist church is one of the last few abodes of independent political activism in Singapore. Its leaders and members are among the meritocratic elite of the country: affluent, English-educated, capable, highly influential and with a sincere belief in the rightness of their cause.

My problem with this state of affairs goes beyond my disagreements with certain aspects of their politics . My problem with it is the disproportionate influence conservative Evangelicals have over the political discourse of the country. They are not representative of the majority of the country in terms of faith, language, income and poitical beliefs. They are fully entitled to thei corner in the political arena, but the lack of alternatives have meant that the discourse is distinctly lop-sided. Furthermore, their organisational capabilities and influence means that they will have a much greater say in the course Singapore will take then nearly any other interest groups, entirely disporportionate to their actual numbers. That should be sufficient to give anyone pause.

When Iran was ruled by the Shah, he suppressed all secular centres of political opposition with his infamous SAVAK secret police. The only place where the fingers of the SAVAK did not reach were the mosques, which gradually became the only credible alternative source of political power. When the revolution came and the Shah was deposed, the only group with the organisational will and capability to grab power from the gutter at the exclusion of everyone else were the mullahs. If this state of affairs is perpetuated in Singapore, then people should not be outraged when political power is suddenly disproportionately accumulated in the hands of an unrepresentative minority.

“It must be the Southern air. It’s filled with rambling ghosts and disturbed spirits. They’re all screaming and forlorning. It’s like they are caught in some weird web – some purgatory between heaven and hell and they can’t rest. They can’t live, and they can’t die. It’s like they were cut off in their prime, wanting to tell somebody something. It’s all over the place. There are war fields everywhere … a lot of times even in people’s backyards.” – Bob Dylan, talking of the South.

Sounds like it inspired Blind Willie McTell, the greatest song that almost never got released. One can only hope it had some part in inspiring Together Through Life.

I remember my trip to Bali just last year. Something akin to a genocide (though since it was based on class/politics it isn’t strictly classified as such)took place there not too long ago, but there was nary any trace of that. The place seemed to be engaged in some sort of collective amnesia, with the victims buried and unseen. There was something both vulgar and admirable about their determination to focus on the here and now. Is this really better?

I hope a forthcoming trip to Vietnam can add something to this thought.