General Elections 2011

  Singapore General Elections, 2011 - Analysis

  Singapore’s 16^th Parliamentary Elections were held on 7^th May 2011. The Constitution of Singapore states that the maximum term of Parliament is five years, after which it must be dissolved by the President and the General Elections must be held by the elections department within three months. The 2011 General Elections had been described as a ‘watershed election’ by many, and marks the most furious political fight in the history of Singapore, with 82 out of 87 seats being contested, and the presence of three-sided fights. Below, I would like to analyze two of the ‘hot’ areas, Marine Parade Group Representation Constituency (GRC), and Potong Pasir Single-Member Constituency (SMC).

  Marine Parade GRC: Goh Chok Tong, Tin Pei Ling, and Nicole Seah

  Marine Parade GRC is probably one of the hottest contested GRCs in this year’s General Elections. As most parties had realized the weight of the young voters, they had begun to introduce more young politicians to contest in the General Elections. In the case of Marine Parade GRC, both the People’s Action Party (PAP) and the National Solidarity Party (NSP) had sent in their youngest candidates; Tin Pei Ling, 27, and Nicole Seah, 24.

  Without question, Nicole Seah is by far more suitable to become a Member of Parliament (MP) than Tin Pei Ling, both in reality and in public opinion.

  Tin Pei Ling, PAP’s candidate, had been criticized as being immature and lackluster. She was especially unpopular among young voters, who made use of social media to criticize her experience, her image and her maturity. She had also faced ridicule in the public media, due to her statement of supporting all present PAP policies, leading the comments about her being indecisive and weak.

  Tin Pei Ling had also faced an online backlash of her ‘acting cute’ with a Kate Spade bag, an image which had become both infamous and popular in a negative sense among Singaporean netizens. She had also been accused of exploiting her husband Ng How Yue’s position as the Principal Private Secretary of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to enter politics.

  On the other hand, Nicole Seah is an extremely popular figure among all aged groups, surpassing Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew as the most popular politician in Singapore. She could connect with both younger students by her extensive use of social media such as Facebook, her home visits reached out to older lower-income residents, and empathized with them over their predicament, even moved to the point of crying in one of the videos, thus displaying that she cared for the welfare of the residents. Her well-organized speeches also managed to convince a large chunk of voters to switch to the NSP.

  Of course, the determining factor in Marine Parade GRC is PAP’s heavyweight, Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong. SM Goh is the ace card that allowed PAP its victory despite incompetent candidates like Tin Pei Ling. As the former Prime Minister of Singapore, Goh Chok Tong’s long experience and excellent track record, as well as his good reputation, image and respect commanded in the Marine Parade residents is what convinced 56.7% of them to vote for the PAP.

  Without doubt, if Marine Parade GRC had been a one-on-one between Tin Pei Ling and Nicole Seah, Nicole Seah would emerge as the victor with a large margin of votes. However, it is SM Goh that salvaged the PAP team and led to its ultimate win. Even so, Tin Pei Ling had caused a plummet in potential voters for the PAP, with it winning by a mere 13.3% as opposed to the previous contest.

  In the end, what had the voters voted for is PAP, and not Tin Pei Ling. The majority of Marine Parade residents that had voted for the People’s Action Party did so because of the solutions and policies it proposed, its long-standing track record, its political ideology – not because of Goh Chok Tong, and certainly not because of Tin Pei Ling.

  Potong Pasir SMC: Lina Chiam and Sitoh Yih Pin

  This year, the People’s Action Party, fielding candidate Mr. Sitoh Yih Pin, had finally breached the opposition stronghold of Potong Pasir, after 27 years of its occupation by the opposition after its 17-year MP, Mr. Chiam See Tong, left to contest Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC and leaving his wife, Lina Chiam, to take his place as the Singapore People’s Party (SPP) candidate for Potong Pasir.

  Mr. Sitoh Yih Pin, contesting Potong Pasir SMC for the third time in a row, won this time by a 0.72% margin of 114 votes. It is the closest fight in this year’s General Election.

  In my opinion, Mrs. Lina Chiam obtained her 49.64% of votes largely because of her husband, Mr. Chiam See Tong, who had been the MP for Potong Pasir for 17 years, who commanded enormous respect and support from long-time residents of the area. However, this is also what led to her downfall at the hands of Mr. Sitoh.

  Potong Pasir consist of mainly older HDB blocks occupied by older residents that had lived in the area for a long time, and of which most of them are supporters of Mr. Chiam See Tong, the ex-MP of the SMC. However, in the past five years, many new residences had sprung up in Potong Pasir, leading to an influx of new residents that are unfamiliar with, not to mention loyal to, the Chiams. Therefore, most of them would be convinced by the strong campaign ran by Mr. Sitoh, as Mrs. Chiam had been criticized as being uncharismatic and ‘all talk, no action’.

  Also, the PAP had managed to capture the votes of a large percentage of Chiam supporters by promising estate upgrading, which Mr. Chiam had formerly failed to secure for the SMC. Potong Pasir is much less upgraded than neighboring constituencies, with much less new features, which led to many voters who were at heart loyal to Mr. Chiam voting for the PAP only because of the carrot offered by Mr. Sitoh – estate upgrading.

  Therefore, Mrs. Lina Chiam’s main selling point is loyalty, which generated many votes for her from supporters of Mr. Chiam See Tong, which, in addition to the sympathy votes that went her way, almost tipped the scale in her favor. On the other hand, Mr. Sitoh is confident and decisive in his campaign and speeches, which led to many new residents and young residents voting for him, and this, in addition to the votes generated by the incentive of estate upgrading, had led to Mr. Sitoh Yih Pin’s close win – Capability over Loyalty.

Conclusion

  In conclusion, I believe that although the PAP is still the ruling party in Singapore, it’s support had started to diminish; for the first time, an opposition party had won a GRC, and the winning margins for most PAP candidates are down by a significant amount. This shows that more Singaporeans are starting to be discontented with the performance of the PAP. Therefore, in my opinion, Singapore may have a new ruling party in thirty or forty years, riding the dissatisfaction of the people into Parliament House. As for the readiness of an opposition party to govern Singapore, it is impossible to predict now – only time would tell. 

To Kill A Mockingbird - Rosetta Stone

  In Chapter 8 of To Kill A Mockingbird, it stated that "Mr. Avery said it was written on the Rosetta Stone that when children disobeyed their parents, smoked cigarettes and made war on each other, the seasons would change".

  The Rosetta Stone is a black granite Ancient Egyptian stone bearing three inscriptions found at Rosetta, Egypt. It carries the a royal decree that established the "divine cult" of Egypt's new ruler, King Ptolemy V. It is is a late example of a class of donation stelae, which depicts the reigning monarch granting a tax exemption to the resident priesthood.

  In the context of To Kill A Mockingbird, Mr. Avery stated that it is because of the wrongdoing of children that led to the change of weather, and claimed that it was written on the Rosetta Stone. I think that the "divine cult"in the context of To Kill A Mockingbird would be the white population, and the "tax exemption" would be the social, political and economic Superior that white people have over black people in the South, as in the South, the "resident priesthood", the people holding power, are the whites.

When Does Life Begin?

   ‘Life’ is defined as the ability to breathe, grow, reproduce, etc. However, before a fetus is born, it had none of these abilities, and depends on the mother to keep it breathing. Therefore, although biologically, the ‘life’ of a fetus begins at conception, a person does not have moral personhood until much later, after he is born.

  At conception, although biologically, the fetus was produced, but it is still unable to possess an individual consciousness and it’s unable to survive outside the womb. Therefore, at conception, a fetus is not yet a human, but only a potential human life. Renowned philosopher Professor Peter Singer defined argued that something can only be a person if it is self-aware and has temporal awareness. A fetus does not meet this definition until after it is born, so therefore, morally speaking, the life of a fetus begins at birth.

  Infanticide, the homicide of an infant, is illegal in most countries, although the charges vary from infanticide to homicide and manslaughter. However, currently, abortions are legal in most countries, even abortions that allow babies to be aborted at 30 weeks. This shows that the law recognizes the human status of an infant, but not a fetus.

  In religion, many religious academicians take the birth-view stance. This stance is supported by quotations from the respective holy books; the Jewish Talmud holds that a fetus's life is less valuable than a woman's; if the woman's life is endangered by the pregnancy, it requires an abortion. However, if the "greater part" of the fetus has emerged, then its life may not be taken even to save the mother's, "because you cannot choose between one human life and another", therefore implying that a fetus becomes a human life after it is born. Some Christian theologians hold that ensoulment occurs when an infant takes its first breath of air. They cite, among other passages, Genesis 2:7, "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."

  Also, although the body of the infant develops at birth, the brain of the infant does not develop and start functioning until much later, after the birth of the infant. Legally and biologically, the brain is the representative of a human; a human is considered dead only if his brain is dead. Therefore, as the fetus’s brain isn’t functioning until it is born, legally, the life of a human begins at birth.

  A favored argument of the opposition is that life begins at conception. However, there are major flaws in this argument. In human cloning, there is no conception at all. Then, could you say that a cloned human is not a human? Conception isn’t even a specific point in time; it is a period over which the sperm meets the ovum, and not a specific time. Also, the life-begins-at-conception argument also ignores parthenogenesis, when the gamete of a female is not fertilized by a male, yet produces viable and unique offspring that are not clones. Only DNA from the mother is inherited, but it is not identical to her. This had been done before; in 2004, Japanese researchers led by Tomohiro Kono succeeded after 457 attempts to merge the ova of two mice, the result of which developed normally into a mouse. Could you then say that it’s not a mouse?

  In 2003, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act was enacted in the United States, which prohibits an abortion if "either the entire baby's head is outside the body of the mother, or any part of the baby's trunk past the navel is outside the body of the mother." Meaning that, after most of the baby is born, the baby will be granted human status, and thus could not be aborted, as it would no longer be a fetus, but a human, thus abortion would not be an abortion, but infanticide.

  Therefore, I conclude that medically, philosophically and theologically, the life of a fetus begins only after it’s born, therefore, I believe that life begins at birth.

To Kill A Mockingbird - Lula

  In the novel To Kill A Mockingbird, Lula is the black woman at the First Purchase African M.E. Church, which Calpurnia brought Scout and Jem to in Chapter 7. Upon seeing the two children, Lula confronted Calpurnia for bringing them to the church, saying, "they've got their church, we have ours". This parallels the way most white people in Maycomb treat the black people.

  Lula is the only African American that protested of the presence of Scout and Jem at the church, while most of the congregation welcomed them and respected them because their father, Atticus Finch, is trying to prevent one of them, Thomas Robinson, from being convicted of rape, a capital offense. However, Lula objected to their presence and rudely demand that they be removed. This is possibly because she had been a victim of racism since her youth, and is bitter towards all white people for this. She felt unfair that she could not go to the white people's church, but white people could go to her church, and thus wanted the whites and the blacks to be segregated, and thus took her anger out on the two innocent children. I feel that this is cowardly behavior, as taking her anger out on the children will not achieve anything (and resulted in her being asked to leave the church), and if she really wanted to object, she should take it up with the white men that gambled in the church on weekdays.

  Lula's single appearance in the novel is memorable, as she is the only African American that is openly hostile towards white people, while all others are more docile and appeared resigned to their social status. I do not think that this is very likely, as it is more likely that a significant chunk of African Americans will protest such unfair treatment at the hands of the whites, and some of the more aggressive ones, like Lula, may even form anti-white terrorist groups.

  Therefore, Lula is a complicated figure in the novel that complicated the role of African Americans, in which she seemed to be the only person that dared to speak her honest (albeit twisted and wrong) views.

To KIll A Mockingbird - Cover Analysis

  On the cover of To Kill A Mockingbird, there was the door of a prison cell, from the side view. Two dark-colored hands are stretched through white-painted bars, one holding the bars, the other stretched through the bars.
  In my opinion, the dark-colored hands belong to a Negro prisoner, who is resigned to his fate, as he is not making any violent efforts to get out, although I suspect that he is falsely accused of a crime. This prisoner would symbolize the character Tom Robinson in the novel and is used as foreshadowing to prepare or hint at readers about the role of Tom Robinson.
  On the cover, the pair of hands is viewed from the side view. This could imply that the 'common folk' - the ordinary Maycomb townsfolk - knew about the wrongful fate of the Negro prisoner in the cell, but watched indifferently from the sidelines without doing anything to help him.
  Also, the bars of the prison cell was originally painted white, but some parts of the bars had been eroded by black rust. This could symbolize good and evil - one of the main themes of the novel. The bars would represent the legal and justice system - originally, they were uncorrupted and efficient, but over time, it had became corrupted and biased because of racism and prejudice. Hence, the black rust had eroded the white paint of the bars over time.
  In my opinion, the cover played a major part in hinting to the readers of the contents of the book beforehand, as well as acting as a short 'summary' of themes, albeit in a symbolical way.

Mockingbird - Analysis

  The title of To Kill A Mockingbird is taken from a conversation between Atticus and Jem, on page 96, line 14 - "I'd rather you shoot at tin cans in the back yard, but I know you'll go after birds. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."
  Although it is used as the title, technically, mockingbirds have no appearances in the novel. Instead, mockingbirds are both used as symbols and also to refer to one of the main themes of the novel, good and evil.
  In the novel, a mockingbird is a symbol for innocent, pure and good people that is persecuted by evil. The two most prominent mockingbirds in the novel is Tom Robinson and Boo Radley - they have both done no harm, with Tom Robinson being a picker who's kind enough to help Mayella Ewell chop up the chiffarobe for nothing, and Boo Radley a man who left the children presents and eventually save them from Bob Ewell. Yet, their fates are both sad - Tom Robinson was convicted of rape by the biased jury and shot in his attempt to escape, and Boo Radley becoming a social outcast, abused and isolated by his father and brother.
  The theme of good and evil in the novel transcend to hatred, prejudice, ignorance, which is applied to innocent people like Tom Robinson and Boo Radley, the 'mockingbirds'. After Tom Robinson's death, Mr. Braxton Underwood, a hardcore racist himself, written in his editorial that it is a sin to kill cripples, and likened Tom Robinson's death to 'the senseless slaughter of songbirds (mockingbird)'. Also, in a later conversation between Scout and Atticus, Scout said that people hurting Boo Radley is "like shootin' a mockingbird". The reference to the mockingbirds showed the death of the good at the hands of evil, like Tom Robinson and Boo Radley.
  The To Kill in the title suggested an instructional text, which was proven untrue by the novel; instead of about how to kill a mockingbird, the story actually described how mockingbirds are killed. A subtle difference, but a fundamental one.

Debate - Capital Punishment

  In To Kill A Mockingbird, Tom Robinson will be executed if he was convicted of a capital offense, rape. On this, Jem said, “maybe rape shouldn’t be a capital offense…” The only thing that separate capital offenses from other offenses is the punishment used, capital punishment, the death penalty. Indeed, the question of capital punishment had come under fire many times, sparking numerous debates worldwide. Thus, I will share my views on capital punishment.

  The two most common arguments against the death penalty are human rights – essentially, a human’s right to live – and the value of life. The human rights arguments states that the death penalty violated the basic rule of human rights – a human’s right to live – which is included in the constitutions and documents of most countries and international organizations, such as the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, while the value of life argument place the emphasis on the value of a human life, and argued that the human life is so valuable that its value isn’t affected by even the most brutal murders, and therefore even the most brutal killers should not be deprived of their lives.
  As for the for camp, the best argument for the death penalty is retribution - the argument that criminals need to receive appropriate punishment for their crime according to the crime. The retribution argument states that in order for justice to be done, each criminal have to 'get what they deserve', and in the case of homicide and drug-related offenses, the criminals deserved death. Another argument is that it deters potential murderers from committing the offense, and that it will remove any possibility of the murderer murdering people again. By executing murderers, then, we would have saved the lives of more innocent people, which justifies the death penalty under the utilitarian view, as even if death penalty is replaced by life imprisonment without parole, the murderer would still be a danger to fellow inmates and prison staff.
  In my own opinion, I support the use of capital punishment. Although in certain cases, such as that of Tom Robinson in To Kill A Mockingbird, who tried to escape because he feared being executed, wrongful executions may occur, objectively, capital punishment will deter more potential murders and stop convicted murders from committing murder again, and therefore, from the utilitarian perspective, capital punishment will save more lives than it will end, and should thus be used. This is proven by the case of Singapore, which had one of the lowest crime rates in the world, and is one of the only five developed countries that still permits the death penalty.
  

TKaMB Feature Article Assignment - The Trial

The Maycomb Tribune

VERDICT: BLACK MAN CONVICTED OF RAPE

By JOSEPH T. UPPERSTONE, LEGAL CORRESPONDENT  Friday, July 09, 1931

  MAYCOMB: In the Maycomb County Courthouse, there are two concrete pillars, left over from when the original courthouse burnt down in 1856. These two pillars are the perfect symbols of justice in this place of law and order; justice will forever stand in the gallant south. This truth was yet again upheld when the verdict is unanimously passed by the representatives of Maycomb citizens, the jury, sentencing Thomas ‘Tom’ Robinson, a black man convicted of rape, a capital offense, to death.

  Thomas Robinson, aged 25, formerly a cotton and pecan picker for Mr. Link Deas, a Maycomb landowner, had been convicted of one charge of rape, a capital offense, for raping Ms. Mayella Violet Ewell, 19, unemployed. Despite a valiant fight by defense attorney Atticus Finch (top), the clear evidence from reliable, white witnesses had proved beyond a doubt that Tom Robinson is guilty of rape.

  Atticus Finch, the defense attorney for Tom Robinson, had accused the victim, Mayella Ewell, of ‘breaking a time-honored code of our society’, by which he implied that Ms. Ewell voluntarily kissed Tom Robinson and was beaten up by her father afterwards, the marks which she and her father claimed that was caused by Tom Robinson. He had also accused the case of being ‘a case of black and white’. He had indicated that he wished to file an appeal with the Supreme Court.

  Mr. Samuel Gown, President of the African-American Welfare Association, had praised Mr. Finch to be a “distinguished man who was the sole hero who dared to speak up on this time-honored taboo.” Mr. Gown also pledged the support of the AAWA to Tom Robinson.

  There had been 12 recorded cases of capital charges against Negroes, all initiated by white men. Of those, all of them had been convicted, and sentenced to death. The attorneys for them are all appointed by the court. None of the attorneys had filed appeals or taken further action, except Atticus Finch. Mr. Finch had hinted that he has received death threats from Mr. Robert Ewell.

  According to the Ewells, on the night of November twenty-first, Mayella Ewell was sitting on the front porch of the Ewell dwelling, when Tom Robinson passed by, and she asked him to help her chop up an old chiffarobe, but when she turned to return to the house, Robinson forced her onto the ground and “took advantage of her”.

  There had been small-scaled protests in Mobile over this crime in the black community. Reverend Skyes of the First Purchase African M.E. Church, which Tom Robinson belonged to, had expresses grief and condemned the verdict of Guilty. The trial had taken a full day for the jury to return a verdict, a record amount of time for the trial of a black man. Senior trial judge Matthew Hall told us, “This is yet one more testimonial to the skill of Atticus Finch…I think he’s the best lawyer in Maycomb County.” 

   There had been an unconfirmed report that Jean Louise Finch and Jeremy Atticus Finch, Atticus Finch’s children, was present at the trial and had watched from the colored balcony. Also, according to the report, Jean Louise Finch had asked Mr. Finch after the trial, “Will there ever be justice for all in this land, Atticus?”

  “Well,” Atticus Finch replied, “We’ll see.”