Hong Lim Park protests: What’s wrong with being emotional?

COMMENT

After the first protests against the population White Paper on 16 February at Speakers’ Corner, Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong said that he was “happy that Speakers' Corner is serving its purpose.”

However, he added, "Cannot say that I think much of [the] speakers' rhetoric. Too political, too one-sided, appealing to emotions only and not shedding light on important issues."

Although some 5,000 people had turned up that day to register their unhappiness over the government’s 6.9 million population figure for 2030, there was hardly any reaction – besides Goh’s – from government ministers over the event itself.

Two and a half months after that first event, an even larger crowd descended on Hong Lim Park on Labour Day to support what organisers called the sequel protest against the White Paper.

“I think we want people to know that we are not here just once,” said Gilbert Goh, the man behind both protests, “but we will be here for a long time.” He promised to hold such an event at the park every May Day.

There have now been two such protests, both attracting the biggest crowds for such events since Singapore’s independence in 1965. The message is unmistakable, as one person posted on Facebook, “Hong Lim packed for the second time with ordinary citizens. The message is loud and clear.”

The danger is that the government might dismiss the event entirely for being “emotional”, as Goh did for the first protest. Being “emotional”, it seems, is a bad thing to be. Indeed, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong preferred, apparently, that we resolve our differences or disagreements “in a mature, adult way, which is constructive”

“In Singapore, if there’s a problem, let us find out early,” Lee said in his May Day message, on the same day some at the protest were calling for him to be voted out of office at the next elections. “Let’s talk about it, let’s nip it in the bud, resolve it harmoniously and if necessary through arbitration.”

But who would or should arbitrate between the state and its citizens on the unhappiness over a potential population increase? The president himself, who was touted as “a unifying figure for all citizens”, has not breathed a word about the matter since the White Paper was released in early February. He has not said anything about the two protests either.

It is thus left to the ordinary Singaporeans to speak up in the best way they know how, and at the only public space allowed for them to do so. Yet, it is quite disheartening – and disappointing – that when they do, their voices are dismissed as being “emotional”, as if that discredits the genuine sentiments behind the expression.

Let’s not forget that the most famous instances of emotional public displays have come from members of the ruling party – Lee Kuan Yew’s tears on television when Singapore parted with Malaysia; Lim Boon Heng’s emotional outburst when denying that there was groupthink in the party; and Desmond Choo’s tearful desperate calls for voters to support him during the Hougang by-election. Even the prime minister himself got emotional at several of his public speeches.

Yet, in recent years, Singaporeans have had to put up with serious failures of government policies which have affected them in very personal ways indeed. Thus, instead of dismissing them just because they all chose to gather at a government-sanctioned park for protests, and expressed themselves in very passionate ways, the authorities should instead pay heed to what is being expressed.

If there is sincerity in wanting to discuss problems “harmoniously”, as the PM said in his message, then the first thing the government would do is to dialogue with those who were at Hong Lim park.

This writer understand that in fact Gilbert Goh had invited minister Heng Swee keat to speak at Wednesday’s event, and had also asked for a dialogue with Heng. However, he did not receive any response from the minister. Heng is the minister in charge of the ongoing “Our Singapore National Conversation” project.

The distrust has been further deepened in recent months because of the various legal actions by the authorities over online postings and the arrests of netizens. “Now, they even arrest a cartoonist!” one of the speakers on Wednesday said. Not a few feel that the government is still set in its old ways, even as it promises to change and do better, to be more open and consultative.

Goh’s off-hand and rather condescending dismissal of the first protest reaffirms in some minds that change is not possible with the ruling party. The party still views dissenters as those to be shunned and ignored, or worst, to be ridiculed, to discredit, or indeed to be dealt with by the strong arm of the law.

Be that as it may, the voices will not go away unless and until the government recognises that these are genuine voices – not some anonymous, insignificant ranting from some deep recesses of cyberspace.

The best thing the government could thus do is to step forward and engage with those behind these two protests – and to understand that being emotional is not a sign of unreasonableness, but one of deep frustration, just as it was for Lee, Lim and Choo, who desperately pleaded to be understood and to be listened to.

The thousands who turned up at Speakers’ Corner are asking for nothing more than the same.

Now, who is going to be the mature one?

Andrew helms publichouse.sg as Editor-in-Chief. His writings have been reproduced in other publications, including the Australian Housing Journal in 2010. He was nominated by Yahoo! Singapore as one of Singapore's most influential media persons in 2011.