The term "expert" has been defined as anyone talking about anything more than 25 miles away from home.
Operation Cold Store was executed in February 1963, when 24 Barisan Sosialis members were detained under the notorious Internal Security Act, and the Cultural Revolution began in the summer of 1966. Dr Poh Soo Kai, 77, should know, he was one of the key leaders, which included Lim Chin Siong and Lim Hock Siew, who were incarcerated unjustly, and led to Dr Lee Siew Choh initiating a walk-out to launch an extra-parliamentary struggle in October 1966. So how did historian Dr Cheng Ying-Hong, conclude that the decline of the Barisan Sosialis was "due to radical influences from China's Cultural Revolution"?
Cheng, 51, born in China but teaching at Delaware State University in USA, had simply picked up the terms used in the Barisan's Front and Party News newsletters. Terms like "rebellion", "eliminate", "running dogs" and "black gangsters", which he suggests are unique to Cultural Revolution propaganda. It's a tenuous link, to say the least. How about the word "thug", also a favorite of Mao's zealous Red Guards? Lee Kuan Yew used this quite effectively in those days when he grabbed a newspaper proprietor by the collar and said, "I'm a thug, you're a thug, and as one thug to another, you'll do what I say." Was Lee's exhibition of pugnacity also "due to radical influences from China's Cultural Revolution"?
Giving the speaker at the seminar of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies a lesson in real history, Dr Poh explained patiently that the Cultural Revolution, which began 3 years after the arrests, was not significant in the Barisan's decline. A critical factor for the the Barisan's radicalisation was the imprisonment of its more moderate members, like himself, Lim Chin Siong and S. Woodhull. Playing the semantics game, the stubborn Dr Cheng stuck to his flawed thesis, saying that he never claimed the Cultural Revolution was a "decisive" factor in causing the left's decline, just a "significant" one. Let W.C. Fields have the last word, "I am an expert of electricity. My father occupied the chair of applied electricity at the state prison."
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Maybe our PAP govt owes us an explanation as to how the hell a foreigner is permitted to come here and speak down to us regarding our own history when our own people are not even allowed to talk to us about their own memories ?
ReplyDeleteBecause it happens to suit PAP's manipulation of our own historical events ?
Our PAP leaders can go to hell for all I care !
Exactly. Who the hell is he to argue with someone who was actually there in history??
ReplyDeleteThis looks like the start of something ominous.
ReplyDeleteWhen the Pro Alien Party is unable to fend off
critics they import foreign talent to do it for them with a full licence to do or say whatever is necessary to shut down the opposition.
When are they going to grow some guts to do their own dirty deeds themselves?
wtf is Dr Cheng Ying Hong anyway..just a chinaman who made his way to the US. He seems to be unheard of.. what publications or research work has he done? Delaware State University.. it is not even listed in the rankings in the US "National Universities Ranking"
ReplyDeleteGoogle him and you can find none, except a link to this blog.
Not surprising for the PAP government to find a chinaman who will help propogate their story.. only one that is totally unheard of in the academic circles, from a university that is not even listed in the rankings. Who else, will speak on their behalf.. certainly not credible researchers and academics who are experts in their field.
Any researcher worth his salt can be found when googled.
Dr Cheng an "expert"? really. "Expert" in what.. polishing the PAP government, who is his host, to have invited him to speak. He must feel honoured being a NOBODY, to be recognised by the Singapore government as an "expert".. Sure, expert my foot.
This is great, a commi coming to the rescue.
ReplyDelete