The real challenge is solving the matter at the level of the root.

I dont think policing and regulating either by law or any other means is not a very effective solution.

All it does it drive the discussion to another place. It doesnt eradicate the problem as it submarines it.

However, trying to solve it at root level will also be quite challenging. Although I know your gahmen does pay lip service to the whole idea of integrating the races. Much of this is not complemented by real content changes.

For example, when you Singaporeans visit us in Malaysia, very few of you even bother to speak Bahasa Melayu. You wouldnt never ever do the same in say Beijing.

Pls try to take this constructively. And just making a point of observation.

I am not saying you should all learn our language, only I find it very funny when you are a country sorrounded by large tracts of Malay speaking neighbors yet so little effort is done to promote the language.

When Darkness of the brotherhood visited some of us in Kuala Lumpur some time bfr the GE. I went to hear him talk. I expected to see a very arrogant, brash and probably another loud mouth know it all Singaporean. You all have this general attitude. I know, I studied in NUS. Besides I dont like the online persona of Darkness very much. I find he can be very obnoxious sometimes.

When I walked in I saw a very shy soft spoken chinese young man speaking in immaculate BM.

I could tell it was book learnt. As his construction sounded woody. He could not have been more than 30.

The only reason why he did so was because there was this one elderly haji who had problems understanding English. As most of the crowd there already understood BM. He switched to BM. He was obviously struggling, but what bowled me and the crowd completely over was the effort he made.

I dont remember much abt his talk, but I do recall one thing, he said.

“Govt’s are not really important if you really think abt. They just like to come across as important (laughter).

I usually leave them with my slippers and umbrella (laughter)outside the door way.

Inside, I decide. I make the choices. To understand, to learn etc (forgot)..and no one can stop me.

When you know this. You will not feel the need to protest or to even make a point in public by showing anti establishment films or (forgot). As 90% of the problems with this world has alot to do with self effacement of hippocrisy, that means the root of the problem is usually the man in the mirror…I believe this is where real change really begins. Yourself. (forgot)”

Dr Ong Leih Kit

I didn’t say that there wasn’t any racism in the US. Of course there is, and it is very easy to see because of the lack of laws banning racist speech (as demonstrated by your link to a racist group–there are more examples too). I merely hypothesized that the racism that now exists in the US is less severe than that in Singapore. The Singapore government claims that without these laws, society may end up in riots or there may be some kind of breakdown, fighting, chaos. The US does not have this kind of chaos. Of course there are examples of racism in the US, but no one seriously thinks that their society is about to erupt in riots or race wars. I don’t really see the point of your link showing evidence of race-based laws in 19th-century US. I only want to make the point that I believe that Americans bear less racist feelings towards each other than Singapore. The only evidence I give is that they don’t need any laws banning racists or their speech and their society still functions quite well. (Their economy outperforms ours in every metric as well, including GDP per capita.) The main topic that I would like to “toss around” for debate is, would Singapore’s society breakdown, would there be racial riots if not for these anti-racist speech laws? Furthermore, with these laws in place, I don’t think it’s fair to say Singapore has “racial harmony” while criticising the US. Their racists have the power to be more vocal, but what I really am concerned about is the amount of underlying racism. How people think. And that’s what I fear about Singapore — that a large percentage of our population harbour the same feelings as Fragrance Prince but are merely unable to vent them. I feel kind of ashamed that we need these laws to shut ourselves up. I would be much happier if we all got along and the laws were not necessary.

We got to protect society from both ends, reduce people who are irresponsible by making them more mature, not shutting them up. And making readers more mature, not to take offense so easily. But like I said in the other post, its easier for me to say that.

Bloggers should be held accountable to what they say. The law isn’t the only way to do that.

why should a publisher on new media be exempt from that law from the same country?

true, the server may exist in a different country outside our jurisdiction, hence his publication might not be considered needing to follow the laws of Singapore.

actually, i have no real counter to that.

readers have probably flagged his blog to blogger anyhow.. they’d be hardpressed to not shut his blog down if their ‘investigations’ prove him to be ‘racist’

coupla thoughts before i gotta head off:

true, arresting a blogger who publishes racist posts doesn’t tackle the root problem of racism.

BUT

when we publish, we have to be responsible for what we publish online, and it is no mere thought, or something we discuss about during reservist.. etc

for the the point is “Publish”, and he has violated a Singaporean law that stops such publications from being shared.

so for me, my point of contention is not whether racism is illegal (i mean seriously, unless you lynched someone.. but you’d be charged with causing griveous hurt as opposed to actual racism), but rather, he violated some media publishing law.

same thing with everything else on the law. it’s arguable that bigotry, racism, discourtesy are all things to do with our character, morality.. but we don’t have morality police now do we?

the law targets those that break it. i think it’s fair.

so yeah, bloggers should be allowed to be racist, just don’t publish any materials on it.

society may not allow you to be racist though.