Two Warnings to Opposition Camp

Warning to Opposition Camp I

It has come to my attention that there is a group of "opposition supporters" (well, in fact, just a particular party supporters) which is ultra left and does not really believe in the Universal Values of Democracy, Rule of Law, Justice and separation of powers.

This group is actually "Ultra-Left" which has a slanted view of Great China which I suspect is basically Chinese Chauvinistic in nature. For Opposition supporters in Singapore to support tyranny rule of CCP in China, hitting out any Democratic Movement against the tyrannic rule of CCP in all possible opportunities, have exposed their ideological idea of Dictatorship.

From my observations so far, this group of "Opposition supporters" does not really believe in Democracy. If they ever have the chance to influence or even control any opposition party to come into power, most probably they will be MORE PAP THAN PAP in all aspects.

From my observations, they are basically holding the same Dictatorship ideology or tendency which PAP embraces... the Monopoly of Power is their strategic positioning. They will encourage multi-corner fights to prevent any other opposition parties other than the one they support, so to prevent other opposition parties to be successful in GE and make sure that the party they support will be the only viable party to become ruling party.

I hope all of those people who believe in Democracy as our core value and our basis in our struggle against PAP, to be extremely careful of this group of people. Else, we may just end up with a group of people who are More PAP than PAP to be ruling party in future.

Warning to Opposition Camp II

I have to concede, the big word "Opposition" is built around mostly on the concept of "Anti-PAP". We must also admit that among the "Opposition Camp", Opposition people, be it opposition party members or supporters, aren't really "perfect" in every sense.

Politically speaking, I find certain tendencies among Opposition people quite troubling. There a few points I wish to raise here:

1) Lack of Understanding or even doesn't believe in simple Universal Core Values of Democracy, Rule of Law, Social Justice, Basic Human Rights, Fairness, System of checks and balances, Accountability and Transparency etc. We have to apply these values in assessing BOTH the ruling party as well as our own opposition parties.

2) Extremist tendency in Racial aspects (Racial Chauvinism), Religious aspects (insensitive Religious based attacks or comments) and Party Affiliation aspects.

3) Some party supporters are very defensive of their own party's shortcomings while attacking almost every other opposition parties in all other ways. Ironically, they have the same monopolistic tendency just like PAP. This is unhealthy for Singapore democratic development.

4) The more worrying tendency is the rise of Religious and Racial assertions in the daily social-political discourses. We must understand that no party will be able to rule effectively or even win elections, if it does not show the ability and capability to take care of the interests of ALL races and religious groups in Singapore. PAP will discourage positive religious and racial discourses in the name of "possible sedition" but the truth is, one of the main reason why PAP is still able to stay in power is because it has used all mechanism and machinery available as the ruling party, to show that it is the "ONLY" political party which can take care and balance the interests of all racial and religious groups. Opposition people are not going to progress if they are still stuck with divisive extremist tendency in Racial and Religious aspects.

5) While we may position opposition as "Pro-Singapore", "Pro-Singaporeans", but there is really a fine line between Nationalistic vs Xenophobia. Based on the Universal Core Value of Democracy and Social Justice, we should also help those foreign workers who have been ill-treated or exploited by their employers or even the whole system to seek justice and redress. Instead, we are seeing people attacking foreigners all across the board regardless of the context and situation. A balance must be struck between Anti-Liberal Immigration Labour policy vs Anti-Foreigners. We are against the policy, not Foreigners who behave themselves in Singapore. Of course, for those Foreigners who misbehave themselves here but consistently just get a slight slap on their wrists, we detest that. That concerns the unfair judiciary system run by PAP government which antagonized and planted the seed of public hatred against such unfair treatment. Such issue has wider implication as in rising social tension between local Singaporeans vs foreigners. But as opposition supporters, we should not fall for the extremism while we raise the red flag against such systemic bias.

It is not going to be easy to strike a balance in this era due to the change in the political landscape both in Singapore and the world. Without a strong belief in Universal Core Values of Democracy, Social Justice, Rule of Law etc etc, many of us will fall into the traps of extremism which may be detrimental to the whole Opposition movement.

But we must try very hard, to constantly remind ourselves and people around us who are with us in this difficult journey of effecting Political Change.

Goh Meng Seng