Thank you, Vincent Wijeysingha. By censuring Ngerng and demanding that he verify his claims in court, we are pretending that in terms of access to information, Ngerng is on a level playing field when clearly he is not. Over almost six decades of unbroken government, the PAP has thrown a veil around the nuts and bolts of our governance, particularly – especially – the Temasek-GIC-CPF nexus. The first tentative questions about public administration in an almost entirely non-transparent regime are bound to contain methodological limitations. Scientists know this instinctively. To imagine that the first questioners can be held to the same level of accuracy that would obtain in, say, a country possessed of Freedom of Information legislation is to consciously misunderstand the situation from the standpoint of the questioner. In short, it suits ministers to demand such a high standard of transparency that they themselves do not meet. It also makes safe our own position as citizens while benefitting in the long term from the audacity and courage of the questioners. Because, when speaking ones mind attracts such exemplary (and effective) correction, discretion has most certainly become the better part of citizenship. Or, in rather more pedestrian language, we don’t want to get sued. This, it appears, has become the price of our integrity. Do we measure the circumference of our humanity, our dignity, beyond their proximity to the libel courts? Lamentably, it appears not.
Posted on: Sat, 24 May 2014 11:07:43 +0000
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