Today's "lacking self-awareness" award goes to... Singapore's chief loving critic.So, Alfie complained a few days ago about the somewhat delayed transition in political leadership of the PAP and, by extension, the government.
He questions whether CCS, OYK or LW are really the best candidates that Singapore could find among its population (of 3.5 million citizens, to be exact).To be frank, I actually see a certain point in the argument, in that the frontrunners for premiership are not certainly the most charismatic you can imagine. I don't doubt their preparedness - their CVs are quite filled with relevant experience in seats of responsibility for public affairs.So, it's not really competences but appearances we're talking about here.I do, however, find Alfian's lack of self-awareness in making this observation quite comical - because, to be honest, he doesn't seem to have pondered whether the same question cannot be leveled in reverse. Of course, I'm not going to ask about Alfian's competences in politics - we all know how lacking and out of touch his views are. But what about the things he actually does and professes to command some expertise in?
Is Alfian Sa'at really the best Singapore could do in the field of arts, poetry, playwriting? Seriously? Out of 3.5 million people the nation's chief attention seeker in the arts is really not known beyond a few woke corners of the local scene - and mostly not for what he does but for his occasional rants on politics?Singapore is well-known for its achievements in governance, economy, trade, technology, urban-planning, crime prevention, healthcare and education - all over the world.But how many local "artists" enjoy similar acclaim?Really, out of a few million people is there nobody who can be widely recognized - even locally - not for his edgy rants but for the essence of his work as an artist? (save for a handful of popular singers and actors, perhaps)Because, let's be clear, the number of people who even tried going through Alfie's poems must be in what, hundreds? Maybe low thousands, including those forced to endure the torture surviving an arts college reading disjointed lines about the evils of urbanization, technology and HDB, occasionally sprinkled with archaic words picked up from a thesaurus to look clever and more "artsy".I've never heard about foreign tourists putting Wild Rice theatre on their must-visit itinerary in Singapore - quite unlike the great halls of art and music in the West or Japan, for instance.
It's all very ironic because the only reason Alfian Sa'at even appeared as a blip on anybody's radar is... the PAP.
I would suggest Alfian Sa'at but also people like PJ Thum, Kirsten Han, Roy, Jolovan, Terry and other wannabes, to consider what their lives would look like if they didn't have an arch enemy like the PAP to bash.
Would they ever be recognized for their actual work? What they write, do and try to claim?
I mean, it's not like Kirsten is a war correspondent known for her daring reporting from the world's frontlines - who only then expresses her disdain for the ruling party in Singapore.
PJ Thum is not some must-read historian, doing cutting edge research into the past of nations or national politics or even a great job of narrating of what is already known.
And Alfian Sa'at is not widely loved and praised for the superior quality of his work, that vast majority of people have zero knowledge of (it would be great to know how many of his 30k followers are there for the art rather than PAP bashing).
All of them have garnered attention solely on the back of posing as the opponents of the government. Without the PAP they wouldn't exist in the public psyche.
Of course this gets doubly comical given the recent Khan saga. Because just like we can fling the question back at them, we can also fling it back at the people they support.Is Pritam Singh the best Singapore could do? Sylvia Lim? Jamus? Faisal Manap...Or Raeesah Khan herself, that the left-wing crowd kept fangirling about for months?Really? Perpetuating false accusations against the SPF, failing to provide clarifications in time, stonewalling a police investigation? Or, elsewhere, mismanaging $33 million in public money, losing court trials and getting bashed by independent auditors on the way to the verdict?Is warming the cockles of public hearts somehow a superior economic policy? Is raiding the reserves the best idea to improve Singapore over what PAP has done? Elsewhere in the opposition you have the anti-immgrant xenophobia, antivax hysteria and some bloke, who's compared vaccine mandates to the Holocaust.
And so, the people who inhabit this broad camp suddenly feel in a position to question whether any of the experienced PAP ministers, handling nation's affairs for the past decade or so, is suitable to lead the country next?
Whether they're celebrating Christmas or not, I sure hope somebody presented them with a mirror.
