Think of it as viral. Someone searching for information may stumble upon what you have recorded, and your work is fed into whatever he will be doing, I said.

The Straits Times may have plenty more readers today, but unless one pays for access to their archives, in the long run they will be relatively inaccessible to the popular reader. What you say, on the other hand, will be freely accessible and citable for years to come.

I didn't say it then, but a thought immediately crossed my mind that Singapore's popular history, as opposed to our academic history, will largely be written by bloggers.

That popular history can be different from academic history should be no surprise. For example, going by what I have read -- not that I'm in any way an expert on American history -- academics give a lot more credit to US President Lyndon B Johnson, especially in domestic policy, than popularly conceded. Johnson's place in popular history is, however, heavily clouded by the Vietnam War.

His predecessor, John F Kennedy's place, on the other hand, was laser-carved into the national consciousness by the Cuban missile crisis. But outside of that single issue, academics, I'm given to understand, think less of Kennedy's actual achievements than the public imagination does.

Or take Imelda Marcos. Historians generally think she and her husband, President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, were a disaster for the country, but millions of Filipinos continue to see her in quite a different light. To what extent this lingering romance plays a part in explaining the failure of successive Manila governments to win mass appeal, I can't say.

Popular history may bear little relation to substantive facts -- that's precisely why it can depart from critical academic enquiry -- but we dismiss the impact of popular history on the course of nations to our peril. National myths move people in ways that historians in ivory towers cannot.

In Singapore's case, because our mainstream media is considered too friendly to the government, so all the more, future generations may discount the history as recorded in their pages. Thus it will be interesting to see how popular history in Singapore evolves -- as it must, for with every passing of an era, history will be revised.

Our government may be strenuously trying to paint our blogosphere as full of half-truths and polemics, not worth anybody taking it seriously. Maybe so, maybe not, though reason tells us the quality spectrum must surely be very wide when so many different individuals participate. "Very wide" means there will be good stuff among the bad, not that it's all bad.

The question may be whether, at the end of the day, the blogosphere is what remains standing, in which case, its unreliability may be beside the point. Its permanence may be what counts. For example, we know much more of the Pharaohs' Egypt, because they built in stone, than we do of sub-Saharan civilisations in Africa that built in (perishable) wood.

* * * * *

So what's making history this month in Singapore?

Hindsight may read things differently, but from the perspective of the here and now, it's probably the jailing of opposition politician Chee Soon Juan and his compatriots Yap Keng Ho and Gandhi Ambalam.

There's no need for me to recapitulate the blow by blow sequence of events, since there's plenty of it available on the internet, both domestically and on international news sites. However, especially because there is so much detail out there, I think I need to stress one simple point

Essentially, they are being jailed because they were found guilty of speaking in public without a permit. If we believe that they, as all of us, should have the right to address the public, then prosecuting them for that is morally unjustifiable.

All the subsequent details, whether they should have paid the fine rather than choose to march off to jail, whether they should or should not have gone on a hunger strike, is inconsequential. They should not have been placed in a position where they had to highlight their plight.

When the originating issue is unjustifiable, everything else done by the Attorney-General's Chambers, the courts and the prison authorities, is unjustifiable.

With or without the "help" of the government and the courts, Chee's point is a simple and potent one: that without civil liberties, no real change can come to Singapore. It's a simple point to grasp and a simple point for bloggers and the foreign press to write about. So whether the government likes it or not, Chee, like J B Jeyaretnam, another veteran opposition politician similarly bankrupted by defamation suits launched by Lee Kuan Yew et al, will be part of Singapore's popular history and national myth.

* * * * *

Last week, a book was launched that mostly featured the Workers' Party's role in the recent general election.

All those huge crowds they attracted to their rallies are likely too to be part of the national myth, though long-time political watchers have pointed out that in past elections, opposition parties tended to pull in similarly great crowds. As far as the vote count went, the Workers' Party's result this election was not that different from some earlier ones, so in that sense, there is really nothing new about the 2006 election.

But there was -- the blogosphere, and that may be why even though objectively the crowd sizes and election results of 2006 were comparable to those in the past, this year's experience is making its way into popular history in a manner that previous years' did not.

Yet I would add a word of caution. At this stage when popular history is not yet set, opinion can turn with head-spinning quickness. Even more than the People's Action Party, the Workers' Party appears to be unsure what is needed to be in sync with the times.

It gives off two unhelpful impressions: firstly that it tries to be all things to all people, and secondly, that it is way too careful, thus, way too slow, especially in the internet age.

In a way, its strategy is understandable. It believes, pace Chee Soon Juan and his Singapore Democratic Party, that no change is possible unless one first gets into parliament. Consequently there is a lot of attractiveness in sticking to the middle ground and being as broad a church as possible. How else to get votes?

On the other hand, appealing to voters requires constant communication, on matters that are topical for the day and those that are close to people's hearts. Alas, in this respect, the party's extreme caution works against it.

Again, one can understand that fear of defamation suits can be debilitating -- it's a political climate they have to work within, yet not of their making. But if bloggers, by the hundreds, can write about the impending increase in the Goods and Services tax, the proposed amendments to the Penal Code, the problems with our transport system, etc, it is strange that as of 6 December 2006, the Workers' Party's website has just the following press releases, post-general election 2006:

• 12 October 2006 – Time for real action on the Indonesian haze.
   
• 22 September 2006 - WP Youth Wing Press Statement Transparency Works 
   
• 16 August 2006 - Workers' Party National Day 2006 Press Release
   
• 11 June 2006 - PAP'S Selective upgrading policy belies staying together, moving ahead.

Other than these 4 press releases, there are no other pages in their website explaining the party's stance on various topical issues.

Popular history can be a dangerous tiger to ride. It can carry you very far in the politics of a country, but it requires regular feeding and you have to be alert to the danger of it turning against you. It can just as easily turn around and bite.

I know that bitter experience has made the party wary of engaging with the (mainstream) media, but it would be very foolish if that stops the party from engaging with an emerging new media, for, as my opening point makes, history may well be written by them. You want to be part of that surging tide that carries you to a brighter future. If you give them nothing to write about, it's going to be hard to be part of the making of history, when history is the sea upon which, in the life of nations, one sails into the future. 

© Yawning Bread