Qotw8: Blogs – Highway to Democracy?

As we dabble in cyberspace and bring our lives to the “second life”, we engage in online chats instead of phone calls, blogs instead of written diaries, emails instead of the tradition of sending handwritten letters. With all these going on, it isn’t surprising to see serious topic of politics jumping onto the bandwagon and going online too.

The Internet today is place for everyone and reaches out to all kinds of people of all demographics and from all walks of life. Thus, it is essentially the most important tool today for anyone to get his or her message across to an audience. In the advent of the growth of cyberspace and the explosion of the Internet age, politicians and government bodies have taken the initiative to bring their campaigns as well as thoughts online to reach a wider spectrum of audience.

Although Singapore has only recently caught the “political blogging” wave, one local blogger, mrbrown, has already carved out a name for himself in the blogosphere. He is already one of the top bloggers in Singapore and is loved by many for his wit and satires poking fun at social issues as well as the government on his blog (http://www.mrbrown.com/) entitled, mrbrown: L'infantile terrible of Singapore.

The person hiding behind the pseudonym of mrbrown, is actually Lee Kin Mun. He used to write a weekly opinion colunm for the TODAY paper in Singapore but got fired after writing the article, titled "S'poreans are fed, up with progress!" with regards to the rising costs of living in Singapore. Prime Minister Mr, Lee Hsien Loong responded to this by saying that "mrbrown had hit out wildly at the Government and in a very mocking tone", and that the government had to respond to such criticsms for fear of them eventually being treated as true (mrbrown, 2007). He felt that it was not the job of journalists or newspapers to campaign for or against the Government. Also, the Government was very unhappy that mrbrown’s opinions were circulated in a mainstream newspaper rather than on his blog, which has a much narrower and more limited audience” (Giam, 2006).

Mr Brown is widely loved by Singaporeans and his podcasts “attracts some 20,000 downloads per day” (mrbrown, 2007). It was no wonder why so many Netizens held a protest in favour of Mr Brown when he was dismissed from TODAY. Fortunately, no further action was taken against mrbrown and he continues to blog and has been at it for years since his first entry on February 27, 1997.

With a citizen blogger like mrbrown contributing to insights on politics and the societal issues of Singapore, more people who seldom read the papers are now more informed of current affairs and also of the political scene in Singapore. There is no doubt that such blogs like mrbrown’s allow for more freedom of speech and discussions of poliyical issues and also increase awareness of the political scene in Singapore. But the question is, do blogs allow for greater democracy in Singapore?

It is great that citizens can air their thoughts freely in cyberspace but sadly, there is a limit to this. Citizens may be able to use their blogs for discussions of political issues or rant about how unhappy they are with the government; it seems that we can write almost anything in our blogs! However, we need to remember that our very own private blogs are also accessible to millions of people out there and who may both agree or disagree with our opinions. To have greater democracy is to have greater “political or social equality; democratic spirit” (Democracy, 2007). Blogs may give us more space to rant but it does not necessarily lead to greater democracy. People whom the government may see as a threat may still receive warnings by the government on their blogs. Recently, the government has even taken the initiative to surf citizens’ blogs and leave comments anonymously to defend the government or dissuade a blogger from thinking in a certain way.

Despite disputes over this matter of freedom of speech, citizen rights, or the government being accused of being sneaky, there really is no wrong or right to this issue. Power to the people may sound like the ideal, however, we have to acknowledge the fact that the government is after all, ultimately the one in control. Thus, another blogger, Dharmendra Yadav, has suggested self-regulation and a blogger’s code of ethics as a solution to this problem. However, “Netizens were against the idea of any sort of regulation or code of ethics on a platform which some saw as the “last bastion of truly free expression” in Singapore” (Giam, 2006).

My take on this? I just think it’s going to be very hard to strike a balance with regards to this issue of “freedom of speech”. Blogs may encourage freedom of speech, but will this freedom of speech lead to more havoc and disruption here in Singapore? Blogs may be a tiny steppingstone to bring us one step closer to greater democracy, but there is more to it than this. Will another blogger get arrested for saying something on his blog thinking that he is protected by the unspoken rule of “freedom of speech” and democracy? We’ll just have to wait and see.

As for the matter of internet election voting, I may be a little concerned about the aspects of privacy and safety. Honestly, I feel that some things, are better done the old fashioned way.


Reference

Democracy. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Retrieved March 24, 2007, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/democracy

Giam, G. (2006). “The politics of Singapore’s new media in 2006.” Retrieved on March 24, 2007 from http://theonlinecitizen.com/2006/12/31/review-the-politics-of-singapores-new-media-in-2006/

Mrbrown. (2007, February 25). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 08:03, March 24, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mrbrown&oldid=110772983