TR EMERITUS

OPINION

In a recent study released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), over 90 per cent of Singaporeans expressed confidence in the capability and integrity of their leaders, more so than any other developed country in the world.

Are our leaders really that great or is it merely a mirage conjured by years of relentless state-sponsored propaganda via the mainstream media such that Singaporeans can no longer distinguish the truth from the myths?

Joseph Goebbels, the spin doctor of Nazi Germany once said:

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

The brand name of the PAP and the public image of its leaders is cultivated, nurtured and promoted thoughtfully and assiduously over the last 4 decades by the state media.

The three central tenets or myths which underlie the imaginary invincibility of the PAP are:

1. PAP ministers are the best talent that Singapore can find.

2. As such, they deserve the highest salaries in the world since they can earn much more in the private sector.

3. They are incapable of making the slightest mistake.

The above three blatant lies would have been exposed and debunked a long time ago if not for the Singapore media which continues to pull a wool over the eyes of Singaporeans.

During the 2006 elections, Prime Minister Lee admitted publicly that not all of  the PAP’s slate of fresh faces were his first choice as many potential candidates refused to stand for elections which implies that the current batch of ministers and MPs are not necessarily the best talents in Singapore.

Singapore’s ministers are grossly overpaid to govern a tiny island state of only 700sqkm2 in size.

No amount of reasoning or rationalizing can explain why the Singapore Prime Minister is paid more than 5 times the annual salary of the U.S. President.

The oft-repeated argument that the ministers would have made a lot more money in the private sector does not make any sense.

Mr Yeo Cheow Tong, a former minister, is earning no more than $30,000 a month as a director at Lippo group now.

Dr Yaacob Ibrahim probably earned around $10,000 to $15,000 a month as a NUS professor before he became a minister. He now earns more than $150,000 a month.

Despite their high pay, Singapore ministers are capable of the most juvenile and atrocious mistakes such as allowing a limping terrorist to escape from a detention center and evading captors for 4 days before swimming across the Straits of Johor, failing to increase the supply of HDB flats in the face of massive immigration leading to sky-rocketing prices today and causing two unnecessary deaths from food poisoning due to negligence.

Yet no matter what mistakes they make, the mainstream media will always manage to spin the story in such a way to exonerate the ministers from blame which explains why nobody ever bother to apologize to the public because doing so is tantamount to admitting one’s mistake and being the highest paid ministers in the world, they cannot afford to reveal their flaws or they can’t justify their astronomical pay anymore.

And why must the ministers be paid so highly? Because under the PAP system which ensures power remains in the hands of a few, it is difficult to attract people who are both talented and loyal at the same time to join politics.

In a healthy, functioning and developed democracy, the media is supposed to act as a watchdog of the government.

The only way for the people to assess the performance of the government objectively and accurately is through the media.

There are no avenues for them to find out the mistakes made by the government if the media does not highlight them.

In Singapore, the media has become the “lapdog” of the government instead of a watchdog.

Its role has been subverted to ensure that one political party remains entrenched firmly in the system forever at the exclusion of all others.

The state media employs three main methods to achieve these aims:

1. Selective reporting.

2. Spinning.

3. Obfuscation.

The reports carried by the Singapore media are almost always one-sided and skewed to the side of the government.

More than often, the media will report only what the government wants the people to know and choose to omit other information which will make them look bad or lousy.

For example, the mainstream media gave extensive publicity to Singapore’s third-place ranking by Transparency International, but not to international rankings which put Singapore in a bad light such as its dismal 133th ranking on the World Press Freedom Index by Reporters without Borders.

Spins are almost always added in the articles to generate a favorable impression of the subject in the minds of the readers.

MM Lee admitted recently that he made a mistake in Singapore’s education policy, but the news articles were deliberately spun in such a way to make him appeared as a magnanimous leader who have no qualms admitting his faults.

There was no mention made of his many other mistakes made in the course of his political career with serious cost to both the nation and its citizens.

When all else fails, the media will resort to throwing smoke bombs to divert public attention from the issue at stake.

The KKH medication error was simply attributed to the design flaws of the two infusion pumps instead of inadequacies within the system itself.

The Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan denied all responsibility by cleverly dwelling on the “magnanimity” of the patients to forgive the two pharmacists involved to obfuscate the real issue at stake which is the safety and reliability of SIngapore’s public healthcare system.

In the second part of the article, we shall examine the 5 common ways in which the media helps to portray Singapore leaders as much better than they really are.

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