We're prepared to listen, says government

The government wonders why despite their efforts at reaching out, they are not getting much engagement by the public. Going by news reports, this seemed to be the tone at the 7th annual conference of the Singapore Civil Service's PR Academy now going on, whose theme this year is "Strategic Communication: Communicating in a New Media Environment".

I thought the answer was blatantly clear in Vivian Balakrishnan's speech as reported in the Straits Times:

23 May 2008
The Straits Times

Govt open to online views but will act on racial, religious slurs 
Dr Balakrishnan: Tough stand on such threats online but contrarian views are welcome

By Chua Hian Hou

The Government is willing to listen to contrarian views expressed online, but it will not hesitate to act against those who use the Net in ways that threaten the nation's racial and religious harmony.

The Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports, Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, said yesterday that the Government is willing to 'listen to honestly held views of responsible people, especially when they are different'.

However, he warned that it takes seriously its duty to 'maintain the integrity and security of the State'.

[truncated]

It basically violates the simplest rules of good PR. Notice how, in the same breath of "open" and "willing to listen" you find phrases like "will not hesitate to act against" and "tough stand".

Notice also the qualifiers "honestly held" and "responsible people".

The subliminal message is this: The government wants you to open your mouth, but when you do, they will wave a big stick over your head. They also reserve the right to dismiss your ideas with contempt as soon as they have made a moral judgement about your honesty and sincerity.

Imagine you managed a customer service department in a large company, Would it not appall you if your staff were to tell your customers: "We welcome feedback from our customers but if we think you're not being serious and helpful to us, we will shout at you or even sue you"?

But it's not just in the language of a single speech alone. It's the overall behaviour of the government as perceived through so many instances, for example -- and all these examples are from the same week -- the ongoing trial of Chee Soon Juan and Yap Keng Ho for speaking in public without a permit, the seizure last Saturday of a short film titled One Nation Under Lee, the news that another blogger has been arrested for saying wildly racist things.

22 May 2008
The Straits Times

Blogger arrested for racist post 
Man, 24, picked up after police reports were made over rant about MRT encounter 

By Sujin Thomas

A blogger has been arrested for posting a racist rant on his website that has stoked an online firestorm.

The 24-year-old was taken into custody on Tuesday evening at his Paya Lebar Way home, said police.

They accused him of making posts which 'may wound the racial feelings of another person'.

A computer, believed to have been used to make the post, was also seized for investigations.

The case came to light following two police reports made on Monday complaining of a virulent online message. It described a man whom the author saw sitting on the floor of an MRT train.

The post, which was made on March 18, described the man as 'smelling like he didnt showered in years' and said he was wearing 'some really scary dirty clothes'.

It went on to make racial remarks about the man, and even challenged anyone of that race to refute what he had written.

[truncated]

Can you blame people for seeing the government as one who that goes around with a hefty club? Which rational person would want to engage in conversation with such a bully and brute?

* * * * *

 
The story in 'Today' newspaper about the same PR Academy conference focussed less on the minister's speech and more on the audience reaction. It led with a question posed from the floor:

23 May 2008
'Today' newspaper

What happens to my feedback?

By Alicia Wong

There is Reach, then there is Rap. But where is the all-important Response?

It was a civil servant who put that sharp question to a minister at a new media conference yesterday, wanting to know what is the result of the public response to government policies that go to the feedback agency.

Implicit in the question from Ms Kathryn Ng, director of market development at SingHealth, to Minster for Community Development, Youth and Sports Vivian Balakrishnan was this: Does it all end in a big, dark hole?

[truncated]

Balakrishnan's reply was to concede that it can be difficult.

He said: "We are trying to share information ... decentralise decision making." It is easy to say "no" but to get to "yes" requires imagination and ingenuity.

-- ibid

It sounds awfully like what Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong exhorted the civil service to do more than three years ago:

It is not good enough for civil servants just to treat rules as commandments and perpetuate time-tested precedent, without realising that rules may not be perfect, or perhaps circumstances have changed and rules need to be altered. Your job is to see opportunities and solve problems, not to choose the easy solution by just saying no and transferring the problem back to the member of the public or some other department.

-- Lee Hsien Loong, Speech, Administrative Service
dinner, 24 March 2005, para 31. Link 

Looks like nothing has changed.

* * * * *

 
"I don't know why they are like that," he said to me. He, whom I will not name, was also at a forum organised by a local think tank, and was remarking on the behaviour of the civil servants present.

This think tank, either on their own initiative or on request, organises consultation forums on various aspects of government policy. I sometimes get invited to attend these things which, despite what many readers might think, yield quite free flowing discussions between academics, professionals and members of civil society.

(You don't find me writing about them because they are not for reporting.)

In many of these events, civil servants from a variety of departments also attend, their names and designations appearing in the participants' list given as hand-outs. Typically, they'd form a block of about 10 - 20% of the people in the room, so their presence is noticeable. But they are also noticeable in another way: Invariably, they sit like stone statues, never asking questions, never even speaking.

In Singapore, these would be civil servants

On one occasion, a member of a Malaysian opposition party was speaking at a forum, and in an aside he noted that Singapore government officials were in the audience -- I think he was making a joke about how he felt important to be speaking there. "There are even people from the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority," he said with a smile. "I wonder what their interest in Malaysian politics is."

Laughter rippled across the room, but the ICA officials still kept quiet, not even responding to such needling. Probably not even capable of responding in light-hearted vein.

The unsmiling silence of civil servants time and again is baffling. Here are opportunities to engage in a closed-door discussion, and yet they keep quiet.

Are there instructions from above that they may only listen but never speak? Are they terrified that they'd say something unauthorised and be taken to task for that?

Do they have no views at all, and that's why they don't speak? No questions at all?

Are they not aware how they come across sitting there silently, sullenly? They send a chill around the room, like they are surveillance agents out to keep tabs on who is saying what.

What is the point of spending money on this grandiose thing called a PR Academy with lavish annual conferences when simple truths can't even get through impervious skulls?

© Yawning Bread 

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