... videos of a candidate are much more powerful than e-mail, blogs or podcasts. Now imagine a people-powered video campaign for a political party should the Government loosen curbs on Internet campaigning when the next general election comes around.

-- Straits Times, 22 July 2006, 'Can YouTube
change politics?' by Andy Ho

I think readers were supposed to imagine that scenario with trepidation, not hope. In case they got the emotion wrong, Ho nailed it in:

Clips could be more than just straightforward videos of candidates mouthing their spiel. Partisan supporters may be able to splice videos together with footage from other videos to create political rants, spoofs and parodies.

-- ibid

These are exactly the same monsters that the government has been trying to scare away with laws and regulations. Ho is saying that there is good reason to fear such creativity (never mind that Singapore wants to nurture creative industries) as "registered political websites could use YouTube to turbocharge their lobbying."

Lobbying is apparently an unloved thing in Singapore, and effective turbocharged lobbying downright rude.

Balaji Sadasivan, the junior minister in the Ministry of Information, Communication and the Arts, told Parliament on 4 April 2006 that "In a free-for-all Internet environment, where there are no rules, political debates could easily degenerate into an unhealthy, unreliable and dangerous discourse flush with rumours and distortions to mislead and confuse the public." He was justifying the tough rules on politics over the internet.

Humour and caricature sit dead centre at their fears. That is why nothing blooms by way of political cartoons in Singapore. It is outside an "out-of-bounds marker". Editors will lose their jobs if they ever allowed one that poked fun at People's Action Party (PAP) ministers and parliamentarians, no matter how incompetent or corrupt they may be.

Andy Ho's commentary could be read as an "independent voice" issuing similar warnings about the dangers of "political rants, spoofs and parodies", thus adding credibility to the government's stated position.

* * * * *

 
In the same edition of the Straits Times was a syndicated column from the Los Angeles Times, titled, "Nyet, Putin is not funny". The thrust of this piece was about how, compared to the Soviet period, there are very few jokes circulating about President Putin.

But before going into an analysis of the situation, a number of jokes about him were recounted -- and happily printed by the Straits Times. Each time a joke was mentioned, I couldn't help but ask myself whether the Straits Times realised what they were doing. Did it not occur to any editor how ironic it was to have one column warning against political humour against Singapore leaders, while another was dishing it out against foreign ones?

Take for example, this joke about how Russian parliamentarians are as weak-willed as cabbage:

Mr Putin goes to a restaurant with Parliament leaders. The waiter approaches and asks Mr Putin what he would like to order.

'I'll have the meat.'

'And what about the vegetables?'

'They'll have the meat too.'

-- Straits Times, 22 July 2006, 'Nyet, Putin is not funny'
by Lynn Berry for the Los Angeles Times

How many readers couldn't avoid seeing PAP members of parliament reflected in it?

Another joke made fun of President Yushchenko of Ukraine, who last winter, when Russia cut supplies of natural gas to his country, simply tapped into -- "stole", the Russians said -- gas destined for Western Europe flowing through the pipelines.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is roasting Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko on a spit, working up a sweat as he rotates the spit as fast as he can.

'Why are you turning him so quickly?'

'I have to, otherwise Yushchenko will steal the coals.'

-- ibid

And another one about 3 former leaders of the Soviet Union, known for their respective legacies of purges, rehabilitation and economic stagnation:

Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev are travelling on a train when it suddenly lurches to a stop. Stalin has the conductor shot. The train does not move. Khrushchev rehabilitates the conductor. The train still does not move. Brezhnev closes the curtains and says, 'now, we're moving'.

-- ibid

In contrast, "the most telling thing about Putin jokes is their scarcity," the article said. It put this down, partly, to Putin's penchant for tight control of the media. For instance, the privately-owned NTV television station

dared to compare Mr Putin to God on its satirical puppet show, 'Kukly'. Shortly after Mr Putin's election in spring 2000, NTV announced that in response to pressure from presidential aides, it would do a show without the Putin puppet. Instead, Mr Putin's chief of staff was depicted as Moses bringing commandments down from a god so holy that no one was allowed to see him or speak his name. 

-- ibid

Despite the retreat, the following spring, NTV was taken over by state-controlled Gazprom. The program 'Kukly' met its death. Today, all three national TV networks are state-controlled and Putin suffers no critical commentary, said Berry, the author of the article. 

Moreover, a bill is moving through the legislature that would make "slandering the president" a crime, which would chill even jokes uttered off-media. Thus, it is state control that spares the president of anguish.

Yet, this is not a convincing explanation, for during the communist period there were similarly tight controls over political expression. Despite that, underground jokes flourished, while not today. As Berry reported in his article, Putin jokes aren't common even underground.

A better explanation, may be this one below: 

A newspaper columnist who writes on foreign affairs said, not without irony, that there are no jokes about Mr Putin because he is seen as a kind of god. 'You don't make jokes about God, do you?' the columnist asked.

-- ibid

(This reference to people seeing him as God is interesting. Perhaps NTV's satire was aimed as much at gullible Russians as Putin when they depicted him a God.)

Indeed, Putin is very popular and widely seen as an effective leader who truly works for the public good. From where we stand, you and I may not fully agree, but it is a fact that to Russians, he may be the best leader they've seen in a long time. Putin doesn't leave a sour taste that ferments into humour, at least not to the same degree as previous leaders.

The pertinent question for us in Singapore is this: is the relative paucity of political humour real, or merely because it is entirely underground? [1]

If the paucity is real, then perhaps the same explanation applies: people largely see our government as a house of gods. There's nothing funny about that.

But if so, one would have to ask why our ministers and their media hacks keep trying to justify curbs on satire and caricature? Why are they fighting a fire, unless there is one in the underbrush?

Fact is, Lee Hsien Loong, for example, is probably not as popular as Putin. Lee got 65% of the vote in his own Ang Mo Kio consitutency in the recent general election, despite being the sitting Prime Minister. Putin, a year or two ago had approval ratings above 80%, though it has fallen somewhat of late.

So perhaps one might characterise the Singapore situation not so much as one where leaders are seen as gods, hence few jokes are spun, but one where the leaders see themselves as gods and think it unseemly for jokes about them to be aired.

© Yawning Bread