That was when the Straits Times sent its reporters out to investigate a case of passing the buck between the Health Ministry and the police. If I recall the matter correctly, that was a case of child abuse that went unaddressed by both the medical as well as the law enforcement bodies. When the newspaper's reporters interviewed their spokesmen, each side used the opportunity to blame the other. Naturally, neither side looked good to the public.

The minister got mad, not at the police, his own fief, but at the Straits Times. According to a report by Ian Stewart in the South China Morning Post (18 November 1999),

Mr Wong set the cannons roaring with a fusillade against articles that, in his judgment, aroused public alarm, constituted unbalanced reporting and engaged in crusading journalism. He said these three trends "must not go unchecked or they would, over time, erode public confidence in the law enforcement agencies".

(emphases mine)

Then-Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong supported Wong. He told the press that Wong was right to be robust in his criticism, for people must have respect for the police.

Broadening the principle, he said the press should "not be the ones setting the political agenda for the country because they are not in politics".

Another report quoted him as saying, "If you want to set a political agenda, then you have to be in the political arena. Otherwise you don't have the accountability and the responsibility of looking after the place."

Six years later, Goh rehashed the same line. In a speech on 31 October 2005, in oblique response to RSF's 140th ranking of Singapore's media that year (since gone down 6 more positions to 146th), he said, "editors should take a balanced approach so as not to allow the commentary and opinion pages of their newspapers to reflect only biased or partisan views. More importantly, news should not be slanted to serve a hidden agenda."

Just in case people were still too daft to get his point, his press secretary, Stanley Loh, spelt it out more clearly in a letter to the Straits Times, saying, "in some Western countries, the media sets the agenda for the nation, and forces elected governments to react to its agenda. This would be against Singaporeans' interest as the media, unlike an elected government, is not accountable to the people.

That's another way of saying our 140th (now 146th) position is just right for Singapore.

* * * * *

 
Since toppling dictators and promoting democracy is not on the agenda, we thus find very few articles in our media about the plight of the Burmese under their military regime. 

Even less likely are we to see stories in our local media about how often the Burmese generals use Singapore's financial institutions to park their wealth, or our hospitals to nurse them back to health so that they can rule uninterrupted.

Why do I suspect this? I used to travel regularly to Burma in the 1990s, meeting with middle-ranking officers in the various ministries. That and anecdotal reports from ordinary civilians painted a picture of various banks and trading companies under the control of senior generals and their families, and frequent visits by these generals to Singapore for "treatment". Not least of those bosses was the 1990s' strongman himself, Ne Win, then already ailing.

Alas, I don't have the sources now to give you a more definitive picture of this non-agenda item called Singapore's cosy relationship with the current Burmese dictators, so I will have to leave it to other, better-informed people to tell you more.

* * * * *

A non-agenda item that I can tell you more about is gay equality. On this issue, the media seldom goes beyond the most minimal reporting. Singaporeans depending on it might never know that it is a significant issue around the world; instead they'd think that only the most self-indulgent crack-pots keep chasing after this issue while sensible governments (like Singapore's and the Bush administration) do their best to avoid such "immorality".

Here are some stories I don't think you saw in our mainstream media:

South Africa

On Tuesday, 14 November 2006, the South African Parliament passed a bill providing for same-sex marriage, the first country in the Third World to do so.

"When we attained our democracy, we sought to distinguish ourselves from an unjust painful past, by declaring that never again shall it be that any South African will be discriminated against on the basis of color, creed, culture and sex," Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula declared. 

Equality regardless of sexual orientation was written into the South African constitution when it was framed after the fall of apartheid.

"The roots of this bill lie in many years of struggle," said Defense Minister Mosuia Lekota, who reminded lawmakers that many homosexuals went into exile and prison with anti-apartheid fighters during white racist rule. "This country cannot afford to be a prison of timeworn prejudices which have no basis in modern society. Let us bequeath to future generations a society which is more democratic and tolerant than the one that was handed down to us," Lekota said.

The above quotes came from a story in the International Herald Tribune.

I'm sure you can understand, when Home Affairs and Defence ministers express such views in another country, why our media cannot afford to report them. Such stories might be read as "crusading journalism". They might also erode confidence in our own ministers. [1]

Scenes from a gay pride parade in Cape Town. The float in the lower photo was sponsored by the Metropolitan Community Church, going by the banner on the bus.

 
Philippines

Coincidentally on the same day that the lower house of the South African parliament voted, the Filipino newspaper The Inquirer reported that a gay group, Ang Ladlad (The Outing), would register to contest the Philippines' party-list elections next year.

A week later, on Tuesday, 21 November 2006, the international headlines were back to gay marriage again.

The Israeli Supreme Court ruled 6:1 that the government must register and recognise same-sex marriages performed in other countries. This is a significant ruling because marriage in Israel is a matter for the Jewish rabbinate, which is in the grip of the Orthodox branch of Judaism.

The suit was brought by 5 couples, including Yossi Ben-Ari and Laurent Schuman who have been in a 21-year relationship. After Canada legalised gay marriages in 2003, they got married there, then sued to have their marriage recognised in their home country. Their winning argument was that since Israel recognises heterosexual civil marriages performed in Canada, so it should recognise gay civil marriages from there.

Gay Pride rally in Jerusalem, Nov 2006 -- MSNBC.

Among the more significant consequences of this judgement will be that gay couples can now adopt children, since in Israel only married couples are permitted to adopt.

As expected, the religionists from the Orthodox branch were up in arms over the decision, but as the yellow box on the right makes clear, that's only one branch of Judaism. The Conservative branch applauded it, and the Reform branch welcomed it. Judaism shares the Old Testament with Christianity.

Likewise with Christianity. There are Christian leaders who think it is wrong to discriminate [2], a fact that you seldom see reported in our local media. Here, the approved position statement is "Many religious groups also do not condone homosexual acts," as can be seen in the Explanatory Notes issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs in relation to the proposed stasis of the Penal Code with respect to homosexuality [3].

On an earlier Tuesday, 7 November, the US had its mid-term elections. In the state of Wisconsin, a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages was passed.

The Associated Press reported the reaction of faculty members of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

16 Nov 2006
The Associated Press

Wisconsin Faces Potential Gay Brain Drain

(Madison, Wisconsin) Gay and lesbian faculty and staff at the University of Wisconsin-Madison say they might quit their jobs because of the state's passage of a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and civil unions.

"I think that a lot of people are looking elsewhere," said Concha Gomez, an academic staff member in the mathematics department.

Meeting Wednesday with about 100 concerned students, faculty and staff, UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley said the amendment makes it unlikely that Wisconsin's legislature will add health insurance benefits for domestic partners.

UW-Madison is the only school in the Big 10 that doesn't offer health insurance coverage for domestic partners -- which puts the university at a competitive disadvantage in recruiting and retaining employees, he said.

Gomez said she started looking for jobs in other states the day after the amendment passed. She said she and her partner entered into a civil union in Vermont in 2000, but now they fear they have no legal rights in Wisconsin.

[truncated]

As you can imagine, if such news were carried by our local media, some Singaporeans might ask, aren't we too at a competitive disadvantage in recruiting and retaining talent? 

That won't do. It might arouse public alarm.

 
China

On 13 November 2006, BBC reported that Sun Yat Sen University in Guangdong, China, has allowed students to officially register a gay group on campus. This is the first known instance where a university administration has recognised such a group.

Fudan University in Shanghai, however, has been running a course on gay issues for a few years already. It's very popular and is said to have to turn away students wanting to sign up.

China does not have any laws against homosexual behaviour.

* * * * *

The above are reports from 5 different countries in the space of just 2 weeks. But if you had depended on our local mainstream media, you would be in the dark.

The sad thing is not just that Singapore stands still, but that Singaporeans are led to think, through the absence of news, that the rest of the world is also standing still.

© Yawning Bread