Friday, May 16, 2014

Righteous Anger

It looks like the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) is treating the www.weibo.com screen grab as genuine proof that our national flag was burnt by Vietnamese demonstrators on Tuesday.

Declaring the flag-burning at the Vietnam Singapore Industrial Park 1 as a serious incident, the irate MFA fumed: “The flag is a sacred national symbol and should be treated with respect ... The Singapore Embassy in Hanoi promptly conveyed our strong concerns over the flag-burning incident to the Vietnamese government on May 14 via a diplomatic note and also made representations to the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Public Security to ensure such an incident does not happen again.”

The Singapore flag was designed by a committee headed by then-Deputy Prime Minister Toh Chin Chye. He originally intended the flag's entire background to be red, but the Cabinet demurred on grounds that it might be misinterpreted as a rallying point for communism. In page 342 of "The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew", Lee claims that the Chinese were influenced by the five yellow stars on the flag of Communist China, and wanted stars. The Malays wanted a crescent moon; red and white are their traditional colours for courage and purity. The five stars are supposed to represent  democracy, peace, progress, justice and inequality equality. Lee wrote that there had been much ado over the flag, as racial sentiments had to be respected.

Respect is now a distant memory. Nowadays, the 5 stars might just as well represent the India Indians, Filipinos, Burmese, Indonesians, and the Anton Casey/Mark Franklin type expatriates. With the boat shaped crescent representing the Singapore Sampan 2.0 floating hotel that provides housing, jobs and defence, latter courtesy of the National Service boys. The flag has been desecrated, but the Vietnamese are not the only ones to be blamed.

25 comments:

  1. "The five stars are supposed to represent democracy, peace, progress, justice and inequality."

    Did you mean "equality" or was it the true intention of the fifth star by design from the start? :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Lee Kuan Yew did ask this question in "Hard Truths":
      "You want an equal society with low growth? Or an unequal society with high growth then you take part of the growth and support the lower strata? With no growth, everything goes wrong...."
      So inequality was probably the game all along...

      Delete
    2. More like Fake democracy, Repressive peace, GDP progress, Kangaroo justice and INequality.

      Delete
  2. VN PM sent out SMS messages to its people urging them to protect their fatherland without violence. There was no 'disgraceful' or 'appalling xenophobic' words used on them. No mention that the looting and stealing were due to alcohol of any sort.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Many countries' get their flags burnt everyday.
    But we worked up a storm over one while China and Taiwan get their citizens killed and injured.
    Like some oldman says "where is our sense of proportion?"
    You want to make the money there, you got to take the risk.

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  4. The anti-Chinese campaign is no different from what happened in Indonesia in 1997/98.

    So which is the next one in line among our so called ASEAN brothers? Thailand or Myanmar or Cambodia?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Beg to differ.

      Viets share almost similar culture as Chinese and are of same ancestry. There is no Religious difference between the Two. Viets comprised a very high proportion of many generation Chinese in its citizenry. And Viets do not suspect the Chinese of siphoning their wealth. Currently, the Chinese are pouring in much capital to develop Vietnam.

      Delete
    2. 'Beg to differ', don't kid yourself. The Americans may have bombed Vietnam back to the stone age, but the Chinese are the most reviled of all in Vietnam. Many of the Vietnamese boat people who ended up in Australia after the Vietnam War are Vietnamese Chinese forced to leave the country due to unbearable anti Chinese sentiment including confiscation of property and use of violence.

      Delete
    3. 'Beg to differ' can beg all he or she like, fact is the Vietnamese hate the Chinese. The following Sino-Vietnamese conflicts illustrates this and the Vietnamese never forget.
      43 AD: Han suppression of the Trung sisters' rebellion
      602: Sui–Lý War
      938: Battle of Bạch Đằng (938)
      981: Battle of Bạch Đằng (981)
      1406: Ming–Hồ War
      1788: Battle of Ngọc Hồi-Đống Đa
      1979: Sino-Vietnamese War
      http://sinovietnamesewar.com/

      Delete
  5. Singapore “belongs to all of us“, including “new arrivals, people who are on permanent residence here, people who are on employment pass here”.

    So what's the problem when people burn the flag of the cuntry belonging to them?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Someone in our asean commie "brother" must have remembered old fart's disdain for Phan Van Dong. Actually how does a commie state fit in with supposedly capitalistic asean? The only common trait is everyone is corrupt to the core.

    Must say the vietcongs aren't totally wrong for assuming red dot is a chinese 3rd tier city, although it can also be a 4th tier Indian provincial capital, 5th tier pinoy slum, or 6th tier ang moh outback town with all the undesirable elements thrown it. But still it has the highest civil masters salaries in the world.

    ReplyDelete
  7. asshole # 2,000,0015/16/2014 4:19 PM

    Because:

    #1 We are prostitutes
    #2 We love money
    #3 We will do anything to have #2

    ReplyDelete
  8. Me thinks the SIN government has been instrumental in objecting to a joint ASEAN collaboration calling for China to exercise restraint and to show respect for their members' claim to disputed islands in the South China sea. And I am inclined to think Vietnam has reacted accordingly with the VSIP.
    Perhaps this was Brunei sultan's agenda when he made a courtesy call on LKY not many moons ago and our old fart may have said, "that's the least of Singapore's problem because with the way things are going, my son will lose our familee's island".

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  9. Indonesia slapped us with the naming of two ships after the Mcdonald House bombing. We protested and what did Indonesia do? Nothing.

    Now Vietnam is giving us another black eye by burning our flag. We protested but who will Vietnam do? Nothing.

    We have heard so much about Asean unity, co-operation and all the shit. All are just nothing but shit talk.

    Such incidents really reflect what the PAP did to the opposition. What goes around comes around. Not now, not tomorrow, but one day. I believe in Karma.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. With an adamant Sin PAP government spying for US and Australia, how to have unity in ASEAN ? It should be noted that it is futile to serve 2 masters, US and China.
      Can you ever trust such a government ? And I have no doubt US and China in their hearts despise us while taking pleasure having their balls licked.

      Delete
  10. Agree. The Papigs have done worse things than the burning of a state flag. Have they ever apologised?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Trouble is... they do these things at the expense of us. We will have to send our sons to the fore. We will have to expense the costs from our CPF... meanwhile, they collect hard cash and laugh in your face.

      The enemy is within.

      Delete
  11. Hahaha......
    So many Sinkies are saying the Enemy is within.
    Who is the Enemy within?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Everyone knows who the enemy is by default. They just know and it is not necessary to put a name to it. The name resonates with the word 'enemy'

      Hahahaha

      Delete
  12. Sinkie - the word says it all. When a sink is block one has to resort to the use of a large plunger. That will take the ha out of your face. ouch.

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  13. Someone recently said no one Singaporean will be left behind. But look at how the Papigs treated the Singaporean NTU lecturer who was promoted but contract not renewed & had to look for another job overseas.

    They can still say one thing in public but then do the otherwise as if they have no honour. Are they not sending us a message that they are no better then liars or what ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No one "correct" Singaporean will be left behind.
      Hard Truths version 2.0
      (Aspirations 1.0)

      Delete
  14. "We are a little red dot but we are a special red dot. We are connected with the world, we play a special role. And we are not going to be in anybody’s pocket." - Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, 2009

    "Singapore plays a special role." By sucking up to both China and the USA? If you play one off against the other, soon you become a pariah to all. The burning of the Singapore flag was righteous anger directed at Singapore's relationship with China. Singapore does not practice neutralism or pragmatism but hypocrisy and economic and political opportunism, making use of ASEAN, very much in line with the PAP ideology and lack of principles.

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  15. But Anton Casey is making a comeback back, with an opened arm once again. This time, with the help of spinmeister.

    Machiam the govt talking about love..all that wooing and courting and wayang only makes me think they just want our votes lah. Mostly, people think they are coming after our inheritance liao...be scared..be very scared.

    Is like seeing the spinmasters going to damage control for this fellow.
    Do you believe that their courting and wooing are genuine, or just wanting to appease us and our votes?

    http://antoncasey.org/

    ReplyDelete
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    ReplyDelete