I had decided to string together various sentences by Singapore's three prime ministers to make the speech, as a kind of spoof, but I had no idea whether the audience would recognise the sources of these sentences and recall the context. If they didn't, the whole thing would fall flat.

The one thing I wasn't concerned about was making fun of our prime ministers. It's an article of faith with me that it is wrong for our members of parliament and cabinet ministers to insist that people should not make fun of them. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong repeated this demand again in his National Day Rally speech on 20 August (and of course, I just had to include it in my draft).

I hold that it is ultimately bad for democracy when political leaders place themselves on a pedestal, reserving for themselves an aura of royalty. If they spout nonsense, then citizens should be more then entitled to treat such nonsense as their playthings.

Some might argue that spoofs and satire do nothing to further governance. Firstly, that is debatable, but secondly and more importantly, I would contest the unstated framing of such an argument: that if an activity has no useful purpose, it has no legitimate value. Once again, this is one of the fundamental weaknesses of the "Singapore system" -- what I call the utilitarian paradigm. We seem to think that the value of anything is measured by its usefulness, particularly towards materialistic ends. The result of this we see all around us: a lack of creativity, of social graces and courtesy, of civic responsibility. We have learnt not to do anything unless we're either rewarded or punished. Ultimately, we undermine even our own sense of belonging, and our maturity as a society.

Is it rocket science to know that play is part of growing up?

Thus, I resist the sanctification of political leaders There is a thin line between saying political leaders should be above jokes and saying they're above criticism. We are a republic after all.

Coming back to my worry, it's all very well to spoof, but would people get it? Would I get any response from the audience?

If none, not only would it be an embarrassing disaster for me, it should be no comfort to the government either. If the audience had no recollection of their words, it could only mean no one paid them any attention when they were originally said.

So my little speech, which germinated as a spoof, had morphed into a test of political and national consciousness. Would the people in the house prove they had a shared experience of having lived through the words -- even if nonsense -- our prime ministers have produced? Have we laughed, squirmed, or felt outraged together as a people? Or are we all politically apathetic, switched off and atomised?

I decided I should give the audience a clue as to what was coming.  On my request, Colin Goh contextualised what I was going to say when introducing me, by telling the 350 people in the chamber that "95% of [the] speech will be taken directly from speeches made by 3 prime ministers". However, on his own accord, Colin jokingly added, "there'll be a test afterwards, so you all better pay attention."

How ironic. I've made myself into a National Education course!

But let's not forget.

We can't govern based on jokes, we can't govern based on sound-bites, or distortions [1].

If we did, each time someone says

bak chor mee, I will [have to] say mee siam mai harm [1].

Right now we have Mr Brown, Talking Cock, Mr Wang, People Like Us.

We can deal with them. Suppose you had 10, 15, 20 more.... Instead of spending my time thinking what is the right policy for Singapore, I'm going to spend all my time thinking what's the right way to fi.... counter them [2].

But I recognise,

we have to adapt our message and our approach. We can't just do the old way, just issue statements and rebuttals [1].

In June 1997, in this very same chamber, I had said,

As a society we must be willing to respect and accept a greater diversity of ideas. Why do some societies, like the United States, produce more ideas and innovation than others?

We have to move beyond tolerance, to respect the different cultures in our midst, and to gain strength from diverse ideas.

The Government itself must be prepared to take a step back, and perhaps even a back seat.... and allow some free play to develop [3].

So that's why we hire gay civil servants.

Y B Lee: And that's why even hiring them does

not signal any change in policy that would erode the moral standards of Singapore, or our family values [7].

For example, when it comes to the Nation party,

Well, you can do that in Sydney, in London, in San Francisco, but I'm not sure that I want to do that in Singapore.

No gay parades. [8]

a liar and dishonest. [If you claim you're] not a liar nor dishonest, [you] can go to court to clear [your] name. [10]

© Yawning Bread