Ever since I got that list, I've been reading and wikipediaing a lot more educational stuff recently. More than halfway through 1984, and I already see how it resembles Singapore so much in the past. Big Brother was watching then, and he still is watching now. Of course extreme measures like telescreens and the thought police do not exist, but I don't really see the concept of the novel being on the dystopian extreme of the societal spectrum.
Frankly, oligarchy is a mirror of Stalin's reign in Soviet Russia, but at the same time, politically speaking it makes a lot of sense in establishing cults of personality to enforce nationalism around a 'leader'. While no doubt Orwell was mocking the lack of personal freedom under Socialism, his novel takes this lack of freedom to a new extreme: the all pervasive thought police and telescreens remind us that this circumstance is a possibility in today's society. While my relatively western concepts of freedom scream aghast at the society depicted in the book, I think that this situation would be a way of encouraging social unity and the promulgation of a warped 'aristocracy' to control the population - the smart people at the top of the governing body. I mean it in the way that the regulation of freedom and ideology would create the situation where people are ignorant of their circumstances and are happy living their lives, without the need to express belief or indignation at whatever issue they may deem to be unfavourable. This constant challenge of authority is something that creates political and social unrest, which is far from utopia, isn't it?
Reminds us of something known as that 'Little Red Dot', doesn't it? What with the concern over political apathy and all. But really, we don't really care because we're happier off not knowing. Sounds like an elitist thing to say, but I frankly thing a politically and ideologically apathetic or ignorant person is always happier. Think about it, how many of us care that MM Lee just called Chee Soon Juan a near-psychopath? And why is it that if Chee Soon Juan was to counter-sue MM Lee for defamation for the use of those terms, he wouldn't win anyway? I really love our judicial system, don't you?

The more important issue to me at this point is agreeing with Dr. Catherine Lim's letter to the forum today. Why do you penalise everyone, from the Gurkha guards up to the superintendent of the detention center, but not a single bigshot gets it? Quite frankly Wong Kan Seng deserves the sack, not just because he is the Cabinet Minister involved and the amount of damage it has done to our reputation, but also because the government should not be hypocritical and do what the MOE tells us students to do: lead by example. You cannot expect your underlings to take the blame for your own incompetency and still be respected as a leader. I'd really like to see how much the support for the PAP has dropped by now, i.e. from that 'strong mandate' of 66% which is quite frankly rubbish.
Let sleeping dogs lie. Let the PAP continue imagining it's as great as it think it is.