{"id":8959,"date":"2016-07-15T03:11:29","date_gmt":"2016-07-15T03:11:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/sg\/?p=8959"},"modified":"2017-07-02T13:58:28","modified_gmt":"2017-07-02T13:58:28","slug":"amy-cheong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/sg\/amy-cheong\/","title":{"rendered":"Amy Cheong [2012]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><a href=\"http:\/\/poachedmag.com\/2012\/10\/24\/mr-bean\/\">Originally posted on Poached Magazine<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/gciegyiLYtY?version=3&amp;rel=1&amp;fs=1&amp;showsearch=0&amp;showinfo=1&amp;iv_load_policy=1&amp;wmode=transparent\" width=\"532\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cIt is what you might call The New Intolerance, a new but intense desire to gag uncomfortable voices of dissent. \u2018I am not intolerant\u2019, say many people; say many softly spoken, highly-educated, liberal-minded people:<strong> \u2018I am only intolerant of intolerance\u2019<\/strong>. And people tend to nod sagely and say \u2018Oh, Wise words, wise words\u2019 and yet if you think about this supposedly inarguable statement for longer than five seconds, you realize that <strong>all it is<\/strong> <strong>advocating is the replacement of one kind of intolerance with another. Which to me\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0represent any kind of progress at all.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>We shouldn\u2019t have to be worried about comments of the sort expressed by Amy Cheong.\u00a0Her message should be perceived as <em>so obviously ridiculous<\/em> that it doesn\u2019t merit any sort of outrage. We should be laughing at how silly and small-minded her words are, and perhaps feel sorry for her \u2013 not because she\u2019s a \u2018lesser\u2019 human being than us (she isn\u2019t),\u00a0but because she clearly hasn\u2019t had meaningful interactions with people of the community she\u2019s insulting. She hasn\u2019t had the opportunity to broaden her perspective enough to realize that a few black sheep are never representative of an entire community.<\/p>\n<p>When she did finally get that chance, it was with an angry mob cornering her off a cliff. (And jump she did; she migrated to Australia. \u201cProblem\u201d solved, well done everyone!)<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cUnderlying prejudices, injustices or resentments are <strong>not addressed by arresting people<\/strong>: they are addressed by the <strong>issues being aired, argued and dealt with preferably outside the legal process.<\/strong>\u201c<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>The truth is that we\u2019re afraid.<\/strong> We\u2019re afraid to air real issues. We\u2019re afraid to talk about what\u2019s going on in our lives. We don\u2019t trust ourselves to deal with these issues in a civil, mature way- and so we brush them under the carpet. That\u2019s why we <a href=\"http:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/svfv\/\">banned Sex, Violence and Family Values<\/a>\u2013 an award-winning Singaporean film that portrays a racist Chinese director mocking an Indian actor.\u00a0<em>Why?<\/em>\u00a0 SVFV doesn\u2019t encourage anybody to be racist- Banning SVFV won\u2019t make racism go away. A film like SVFV is to draw attention to the racism that already exists, to hold the problem up to the light so that we may discuss it openly, and hopefully, eradicate it. That\u2019s a good thing! But we ban it because we\u2019re afraid. We\u2019re afraid that people are going to get offended. We\u2019re afraid because, apparently,<strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/sg\/to-singapore-with-love-does-the-mda-appreciate-the-streisand-effect\/\">Singaporeans can\u2019t be trusted<\/a> to be civil and mature about these things<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re thinking, <em>\u201cThat\u2019s true what, Singaporeans are damn immature and childish,\u201d<\/em>\u2013 well, sure, but why? Why are we an immature and childish society? Because nobody taught us otherwise, maybe. Frankly, I think we should be taught these things in school! <strong>How do you deal with intolerance? How do you deal with racism, with offensive content and behaviour? What should you do when you\u2019re hurt or upset? Nobody teaches us that.<\/strong> Why? I think it\u2019s because even our teachers don\u2019t really know what to do. Too much thoughtful conversation required, more than anything that ever goes on in most schools or households. (Hey, if we\u2019re supposed to be having a \u201cNational Conversation\u201d, this is what we should be talking about, isn\u2019t it? I want to know why the average Singaporean supposedly can\u2019t be trusted to be mature about things, and what we\u2019re doing to fix this.)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why \u201coutside the legal process\u201d?<\/strong>\u00a0Well, we can\u2019t become an inclusive, understanding and tolerant society just because the government or other authorities tell us we we have to. (Or<em> else<\/em>.) That doesn\u2019t work. You can\u2019t force someone to love you, you can\u2019t force someone to feel sorry. When a parent or teacher tells you to apologize to someone else for breaking their toy, are you actually sorry if you say it? It\u2019s far more likely that you\u2019re sorry that you got caught.<\/p>\n<p>Amy said a line that I found laughably sad on her Twitter, she said, \u201c<strong>After this episode, I have realized how one generic post can create so much hurtful and cruel posts from strangers<\/strong>\u201c.<\/p>\n<p>Read that a few times. Her racism and ignorance was \u2018generic\u2019, and it\u2019s \u2018strangers\u2019 who are \u2018hurtful and cruel\u2019! Let\u2019s not pretend that we Singaporeans are kind, loving, understanding and tolerant \u2013 <strong>we Singaporeans love a good witch-hunt. <\/strong>(I wonder why? Were we like this during our kampong days? Or did we pick up the habit from our gracious leaders?) But isn\u2019t it pretty obvious she\u2019s not nearly as sorry about hurting people as she is sorry at receiving a taste of her own medicine? We\u2019ll never know for sure now.<\/p>\n<p>The goal isn\u2019t to twist someone\u2019s arm or threaten them into saying sorry. The goal is to make them realize how hurtful they might have been, to realize how they have caused pain to others, and to evoke sincere, genuine regret. I\u2019m not sure if we achieved that with Amy. I wish we could have been\u00a0accommodating\u00a0enough to let her stay without feeling threatened. I wish we could have allowed her to learn and grow, and to continue to contribute as a member of Singaporean society. None of that. She\u2019s gone.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cWe need to build our immunity to taking offence, so that we can deal with the issues that perfectly justified criticism can raise. <strong>Our priority should be to deal with the message, not the messenger.<\/strong>\u201c<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"ezAdsense adsense adsense-midtext\"><ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6371375235959943\" data-ad-slot=\"6952835840\" data-adsbygoogle-status=\"done\"><ins id=\"aswift_1_expand\"><ins id=\"aswift_1_anchor\"><iframe id=\"aswift_1\" name=\"aswift_1\" width=\"300\" height=\"250\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/ins><\/ins><\/ins><\/div>\n<p>The problem isn\u2019t with Amy Cheong, or Sun Xu, or those that came before them, or those who will surely follow. They are the symptoms, not the disease. How do we deal with the disease? With proper fundamentals. With robust discourse. We have to talk about it in our schools and our households, and on blogs and social media. We stave away the dark by providing our own light.<\/p>\n<p>With regards to Amy, DPM Tharman Shanmugaratnam said, \u00a0<em>\u201cGood that NTUC acted quickly.\u201d<\/em> Good for who? For Amy? For the Malay-Muslim community? For Singapore? Or for the political well-being of NTUC? Good thing we burned the witch! Now the citizens of Singapore will be safe from racist witchcraft!<\/p>\n<p>Really?<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cThe person\u2019s comments were offensive not only to Malay-Muslims, but all the rest of us who value Singapore\u2019s multiracial spirit and who want to take it further,\u201d<\/em> DPM Tharman added.<\/p>\n<p>I too value Singapore\u2019s multiracial spirit. But hey, if we\u2019re talking about \u201coffensive\u201d- personally, I\u2019m offended by the idea that Singaporeans can\u2019t handle a mature, civilized discussion. <strong>I\u2019m offended that our DPM has to advocate the hanging of a scapegoat as the solution to a systemic problem.<\/strong>\u00a0He\u2019s an intelligent, educated man- I don\u2019t believe that he genuinely thinks that sacking Amy achieves anything. It simply placates the masses. It\u2019s politically convenient.<\/p>\n<p>If we are to be an inclusive, gracious and tolerant society, we have to learn to forgive, and to love, and above all, we have to learn to be nicer to one another.<\/p>\n<p>Time and time again, we\u2019re told not to take our racial harmony for granted. <strong>But what kind of racial harmony is it if we have to be afraid that if one person says something stupid, we\u2019re going to have riots in the streets?<\/strong> That\u2019s an awfully shallow harmony, isn\u2019t it? Fair-weather friendship.<\/p>\n<p>If we \u2018want to take it further\u2019, we\u2019re going to have to learn to stop being so bloody offended by every little thing.<\/p>\n<p>Please. Less outrage. More humanity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Originally posted on Poached Magazine. \u201cIt is what you might call The New Intolerance, a new but intense desire to gag uncomfortable voices of dissent. \u2018I am not intolerant\u2019, say many people; say many softly spoken, highly-educated, liberal-minded people: \u2018I am only intolerant of intolerance\u2019. And people tend to nod sagely and say \u2018Oh, Wise [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[149],"tags":[143],"class_list":["post-8959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-race","tag-race"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6cErj-2kv","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8959"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8963,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8959\/revisions\/8963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}