However, that would be unlikely. A cursory review shows that the Singapore media has downplayed this issue. It seems a quiet campaign to promote the official line is underway. Two reports pulling up UN Special Rapporteur Alston on misrepresenting points of law. A couple of stories spouting the official line defending Singapore’s stance on the death penalty. And the ever-erudite Andy Ho dissecting the minutiae of legalese with constitutional experts and law professors. (No links: subscription-only content). I found nothing on Singapore’s apology to John Howard.

News management to inspire a casual yawn and a flip of the page.

One journalist, in an inventive spin strategy, called for local activists to be consistent when approaching the death penalty. Where was the buzz of activity when high-profile murderers went to the gallows in recent months? Is Nguyen simply a convenient and attractive platform to latch on to and garner public attention?

Well, for one thing, this isn’t double-entry bookkeeping, dear. You don’t have to respond with equal outrage to different convictions that carry the death penalty. Much in the same way that courts don’t mete out equal sentences to different crimes charged under the same statutes, material facts and mitigating factors hold sway over public opinion too. And perhaps, hanging drug mules is a particularly odious application of the death penalty that requires particularly vigorous protest (compare with the similar outcry over the hanging of Shanmugam Murugesu earlier in the year).

Another point adds to the concerns. Dr. Chee Soon Juan, an opposition party leader in Singapore, appeared on ABC’s Asia-Pacific Focus last weekend alleging hypocrisy on the part of the Singapore government viz. it’s drug policy. He pointed to Singapore’s investment relationship with Burma (here’s some evidence of it; the fourth piece on the list) and further alleges it has direct links to Burmese drug lords. The latter is likely to be fanciful, it may be true, but it’s extraneous.

That the Burmese military is facilitating the distribution of drugs produced in the Golden Triangle is widely intimated. That the Singapore government invests significantly in a country where the government has its fingers in the narco-trade kitty is questionable. That Singapore then hangs drug mules within its jurisdiction while at the same time helping develop Burmese infrastructure that aids this flow of drugs is unconscionable.

But this argument, like most dissent, is not aired in Singapore’s mainstream media.

In contrast, there’s a storm raging in the Australian media over Nguyen. There are reports like this, valorising his generous spirit and complete rehabilitation, even as his end seems to be drawing close. There have been calls for boycott of Singapore.

There is public soul-searching as Australia contemplates its relations with, and role within, the region. The Age’s political editor Michelle Grattan writes, “The Nguyen case highlights, in the starkest terms, the gulf in values between Australia and some neighbouring countries,â€? and implicates the Australian government in the state of affairs.

Philip Alston, chief adviser on the death penalty to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, has accused the Australian Government of inconsistency. Alston (brother of former minister Richard) said on Friday that Australia was willing to speak out when international standards on policing counter-terrorism were not met. But it did not fight for changes to these mandatory death penalties for drug cases — penalties that were ‘not appropriate under international law’…. Alston warned that the draconian laws in regional countries will ‘affect an increasing number of Australians’.

Space was even given to the Singaporean perspective. Former Straits Times commentator Asad Latif wrote a stirring defence of Singapore’s sovereignty and its right to apply its own laws within its lands.

With the glare of the media on the issue, a swell of public support has ensued. Last-ditch attempts to turn to the International Court of Justice have been put forward and are being considered by both sides of politics, despite the sombre acknowledgement that chances of success are remote. Nguyen’s legal team and cabinet ministers alike are still exploring options and strategies at this very late stage.

Why?

After all, the Singapore government’s arguments are air-tight. Singapore needs a strong deterrent to stop the spread of the drug scourge domestically and keeps the island from becoming a transit point in the global trade of narcotics. These are the well-publicised laws of the land, the convicted are well appraised of them and to seek to strong-arm an exception would be an insult to the nation’s sovereignty. Singapore subscribes to a different model to that of the West, which privileges the security of the community ahead of the rights of (criminal) individuals. This is a stance that brooks little dissension.

One could be cynical and attribute the persistence in Canberra to political point-scoring. The issue has captured the attention of the country, with broad expressions of disgust at the “barbaric” practice. All parties in politics could well want to be seen actively participating in a matter of such urgency and public interest.

The sentiments of ‘disgust’ expressed are no doubt fuelled, in part, by the same sense of superiority that led to labelling Indonesian judges in the Schapelle Corby trial as “monkeys” and “incompetent” and deeming the judicial processes in Bali as “backward” and “corrupt”. For these imperialist attitudes, I have no sympathy. Especially when Australians are sending out a mixed message on the issue. As Grattan notes:

Howard is not absolutist on capital punishment, although he opposes it for Australia and Australians abroad. Australia’s position is that it has no objection to a death penalty for the Bali bombers, which is a mixture of acceptance of Indonesia’s sovereignty and a stand of domestic political convenience.

This muddies the waters on Australia’s position on the issue and smacks of a malleable stance built on expediency. It suggests a nationalistic arrogance and, perhaps, even a neo-colonial mentality towards Asia that affronts.

But it would be naive to think that Australia is the only one swept up in national pride. Posts such as this point, quite correctly, to the growing flow of Australian drug traffickers. The underlying tenor of the post, though, is a reactionary defiance towards the paternalistic attitudes of the West, combined with no small measure of self-righteousness and bigotry. Thoughtful consideration is dropped in favour of a bludgeoning blame-game.

Meanwhile, a young man’s life hangs in the balance. And I suppose that is what irks.

Despite middle-Australia’s largely parochial attitudes towards Asia and Asians, I believe the intensity and persistence of the efforts to spare Nguyen from the gallows stems, primarily, from a genuine respect for the right to life. It is the result of a long, ongoing debate on the moral implications of capital punishment which engaged all levels of society (Australia abolished the death penalty years ago). This is not to say that all Australians are unified in their opposition to the death penalty, nor even that Australians could not find crimes that would not merit the death penalty. It merely affirms that, as a society, Australians do not want to reopen the Pandora’s box of capital punishment in one instance only to have it applied on a range of others. Above all else, the earnestness of that collective conviction has rallied the nation across recent incidents to apply pressure for this right to life to be upheld for its citizens.

In Singapore, the proceedings of the death penalty are largely shrouded in secrecy and kept out of public view by a compliant media. In a country where human rights are perceived as a Western concept, there is broad support for capital punishment (among over 70% of the population), which is applied to a range of crimes including kidnapping, discharging a firearm and treason. But people don’t really talk about it much; there is little opportunity to critically evaluate the policy, and even less to register a meaningful protest against it. Dissenting voices on the margins of society are easily and habitually dismissed. The silent majority are not in the practise of collectively weighing up these laws of the land, much less the underlying morality of those laws (Andy Ho dismisses considerations of morality as subjective).

And when confronted with external opposition, they retreat into a defensive posture, warding off the imperialist overtures of the West with finesse.

Morality and individual positions on affective issues such as capital punishment are indeed subjective. Perhaps, clarity lies in taking a long, hard look at the fundamental motivations on either side. At the heart of the matter, it seems to me that one is fighting to save a human life while the other is fighting to save face. It is a telling difference — and on this subjective issue, it tells me where I should stand.

On a blog I was reading, one reader commented that Australia is creating this brouhaha only because an Australian is facing the noose and would not give a damn if another country’s national were in his place. Should Australia then create a fracas when a Singaporean is facing the death penalty? Perhaps it should.

More to the point, what truly drives most Singaporeans remain silent on those instances?

The evidence is sketchy from media reports: he helped one al-Qaeda leader get Spanish residency papers, and ferried US$4,000 to another in Afghanistan. Alouni claims the two men are not terrorist operators at all. A Spanish court has sentenced each of them to over 20 years in prison. On the flipside of the story, he was a blight to the US cause, often reporting from the ground in Afghanistan, and later Iraq, with words and images that contradicted the US statements. The US had even shelled the Kabul al-Jazeera office he was heading (reportedly mistakenly). Al-Jazeera has recently been banned from reporting in Iraq.

The case for Alouni’s abettment of known terrorists is questionable. I’ve worked as a journalist, and cultivating contacts is regarded the backbone of the profession, and is sometimes lubricated with some mutual back-scratching. Whether Alouni went beyond the reasonable ethical limits to cultivate these contacts is debatable. From the interviews on Dateline, a lot of the evidence is said to be circumstantial, not explicitly implicating Alouni of wrong-doing, and some of it taken completely out of context.

Perhaps, the salient point is that we have a messenger bearing unplesant messages. Given al-Jazeera’s ambivalent relationship with the West in the ‘war on terror’, the issue is not so much about the ethical limits to journalistic endeavours, but rather which side of the story you’re covering. Contrast this case against the celebration of ‘embedded’ Fox journalists during the conflicts. The ‘war on terror’ is widely lamented as a period of withdrawing press freedoms. Whether Alouni was doing news management for a terrorist organisation or whether he is a silenced alternative voice in the conflict, this case only goes to reinforce that lament.

The 7.30 Report transcript is more convincing than it was on live television.

Howard’s rhetoric is “it’s the economy, stupid!”, distilled into a simple set of propositions (if my memory serves me well):

1. We’re in the midst of a worker’s market as never before.
2. The IR reforms hinge on these circumstances.
3. The reforms will correct labour shortages, improve productivity and strengthen the economy (highly debatable assertions).
4. This will extend economic conditions that guarantee full employment.

My reaction was (again in a set of propositions):
Does Howard then guarantee that these reforms will bring about enduring full employment? (obviously he cannot)

1. If not, do the reforms have a sunset clause that coincides with the end of full employment? (it does not, though all booms must end)
2. If not, why hinge a sweeping reform package on a transient state?
3. Is it not grossly irresponsible and misleading to predicate an enduring and unprecendented change to labour legislation on the last stages of a transitory economic phenomenon?
4. What safeguards are present when full employment ends but the legislation still exists?

Again, I could well be flawed in my notions, or perhaps it may be pretty obvious with reams of Q&As to counter this line of reasoning. And it’s absurd, I know. That’s the point.

Still, Kerry (7.30 Report) threw down the gauntlet with “Let’s go for it!”, he tried to beat the old fox at his own game, and unconvincingly. It’s that Lakoff argument, why try to show Work Choices is not about choice, not entirely succeed, and entrench the framing in the process? Sigh.

See is said to have contravened the Films Act, and we’re all waiting to see the outcome of these proceedings. In the meantime, he has become something of a cause celebre around the human rights circles, and reports suggest that his film was even screened in the European Parliament. Here is a petition you can sign to signal your support for See’s right to make this film and for his right to freedom of expression. And hope that it makes a difference.

[By the way, I am currently in love with I am a bird now by Antony & the Johnsons, which did win the Mercury, so I am not the uber-dag yet, and yes, I am a bit of a cred-peacock. So sue me....]

Now when you check out that new track from that new band mentioned on that new blog that is linked on that other new blog that you just read, you could be just part of a bigger marketing machine at work. Companies like Big Champagne are tracking what we download and listen to, for free, and feed that information back to record companies, who then decide where their A&P budgets should go to.

When you get tracks from that hot new CD leaked on the internet, days before the official release, and you’re thinking “Score!”, the recording bigwigs don’t sweat it – it’s not theft, it’s viral marketing. And this thinking extends beyond music, to all forms of online “piracy”, be it television, movies, even the new Google Talk. And the All Consuming sidebar or “On the iPod” track listing is the new band T-shirt: a badge of cred and cool for you (?), a needle into the memetic mainline (?), and free advertising for acts, writers, films, whatever for industry.

That Big Brother is mining the information superhighway to extract a few extra bucks out of each of us is nothing new. That old acts of subversion are new “edgy” marketing tools is pretty old hat as well. That “theft” can be reinvented into profit, well that’s quite a win-win situation isn’t it? I mean that’s really co-opting the founding principles, like all those fake LV handbags shoring up the market for the sale of the genuine articles, only in this case it’s the real McCoy that’s being stolen and promoted, leading to subsequent units being sold.

Central to this notion is the assumption that each of us will go out and buy that CD that we really like, or gig tickets to that act we adore. Something. Even if it’s Billy Corgan’s poetry book. Units of sale for each product are also redefined: from the album, to the single, or selected album tracks on sale through iTunes. Permutations are religiously dissected and recongfigured to optimise profitability. Strategies are developed around which sales approach would be most effective for each “artist” and how to rope in the mainstream media into the sales process.

It’s all a little scary when you think about Naomi Klein’s “No Space” ideas. But ultimately, if I can download a few songs online for free with a lesser fear of reprisal and litigation, then should I really care? Probably not.

For those of you who think cycling is a zippy travel option in lieu of dirty fuel alternatives – think again. When your sinews are burning, your chest is heaving and you’re counting the rotations of the pedal, you will question the wisdom of this notion. When you’re wondering when you’ll ever reach that crest in the horizon, stop by the side of the road to hurl the contents of your stomach (such as I did), ditch the bike and leg it half-a-mile to the train station to head home and have a lie-down, then pull a sickie from work because you feel genuinely ill, you’ll curse, if you had the strength.

For those of you who smoke a pack a day and think cycling will be a cool way to get fit, first check with your doctor, then book an appointment with your psychiatrist, sharp-ish. Try some gentler forms of exercise, such as vacuuming the carpets, or taking down to the bin the dozen beer bottles you emptied into your gut the night before to wash down two souvlakis. Then perhaps consider a short ride to the milk-bar across the road to buy your next pack of fags.

For those who think cycling is a great way to discover the highways and byways of Melbourne, noon is not a good time to set out. No doubt you will contemplate the pensioner pedalling alongside, even as you contemplate whether you will pass out first from heat exhaustion or a cardiac, and grimace as he flashes you an easy grin and overtakes. For the next 20 seconds, you will contemplate every movement in the folds of his sagging arse encased in white cycling tights before he pulls away and out of sight. You may have the higher sperm count (possibly) but there is no doubt as to who is the superior candidate for Darwinian selection.

And for those of you who think Tezza is a genius and a legend for helping you fix your bike and knowing how it’s done, he generally is. Except on occasions such as when (I suspect) he tightens the nuts (or the brakes) on the back wheel so hard that the blasted thing does not rotate and every down-pedal feels like you’re doing 100-kilo squats at the gym. Which you discover only as you’re hauling the two-wheeled hellspawn cross-town (no trains) and wonder what that infernal dragging noise is and why it is following you. Upon which you promptly wish Tezz peptic issues on the dinner you bought him last night by way of thanks. Sigh….

So for those about to bike – take the tram instead.

Personally, I hate the word, and it dates back to a couple of experiences in my childhood. (Here is an etymology provided by someone who has lived through it.) Still, I stand by the right of the playwright to frame his references as he sees fit, and I hope it is in aid of more than just stirring up shit to sell tickets.

From Sheels’ post, and she’s a remarkable journalist who gets to the low-down on things, it sounds like the writer is attempting to co-opt the word, and I’m all for that. I would link to her news report on this topic, heck, I would love to read it myself, but just as soon as it went up online, it was not to be found. I’d bet my last dollar it was taken off because it dealt with issues of race and minorities. Some things just don’t change in Singapore.

The gay community has already co-opted several perjoratives (eg. poof, queer, fag, etc.), neutralising the sting in some and using others to empower and build identity among its members. The black community has done the same, to the point that some white boys, only two generations removed from an era of racial segregation and lynch-mobs, have taken to addressing each other as ‘nigga’. Hilarious.

So to witness a derogatory reference to an aspect of my idenity being subverted into a tool of empowerment (and here I may be getting too carried away, I can’t see too many Tamils in Singapore rallying around the war-cry of ‘Keling-kia!’) is somewhat rewarding. Those who oppose use of the expression should just take a chill-pill.

I suspect this active protest is a symptom of the broader stigma and sense of ‘other-ness’ of living as a dark-skinned minority in Singapore, still simmering just below the surface in passivity. One would think that rather than turning it against someone taking positve action to have a light-hearted study of the word (so the blurb goes) and remove its barb, it would be wiser to examine the sources of one’s cultural insecurities and staunch the places from which they stem. Broader engagement and affirmative representations, beyond community self-help, is much in need and this bit of drama (I mean the play) may just be the catalyst.

PS: My interest in this topic, and many others Singaporean, brings to mind Hatter’s post touching on Geert Hofstede’s research. While I am living and loving it in Melbourne, in many ways, I still do “belong” to Singapore. Reading further, also interesting in a Singaporean context is Mr. Hofstede’s notion of uncertainty avoidance.

The new series of 24 is truly eerie in the context of the recent London bombings. Life imitates art? Truth stranger than fiction?

Apart from that, it’s heartening to see that this terrible tragedy has prompted reflection among all. The media is attempting to understand the diversity of the Muslim diaspora and make clear that radical extremists are a small minority. It seeks to locate those faultlines on the idelogical landscape and within socio-political realities that drive disaffected youth to turn into suicide bombers. (Warning: I’m starting to wax lyrical here.)

Many Muslim voices have joined this dialogue, shedding light on the complex and arcane battle that goes on in their communities over Islamic dogma. Within Muslim communities, long and hard examinations are underway about notions of citizenship and the responsibilities that come with that. Broader society is thinking about how to overcome the de facto segregation of Muslims.

Hopefully all of this will bring about greater engagement, reduce alienation and engender greater cooperation between the moderate Muslims majority and authorities. Muslim communities that are best placed to identify sources of extremism may yet be mobilised to alert authorities of threats and help prevent such devastating acts in the future. Whether in a mosque in the neighbourhood, in an internet chatroom, or on their television sets, those voices preaching destruction may lose their sway. Muslims made to see themselves equally as law-abiding citizens will step forward to thwart evil.

Perhaps Muslims will feel greater integration and a stronger sense of identity with their adopted countries. Perhaps their Western neighbours will avert suspicious eyes and open up embracing arms. Perhaps migrants will stop clinging to institutions in homelands thousands of miles away that bear no resemblance to those they remember from decades ago. Perhaps their rebellious young sons will not return from faraway madrasahs, transformed into quiet and purposeful jihadists.

The London bombings were an unequivocal tragedy of heinous proportions. And sombre hope springs from that tragedy. I really hope this time round everyone gets it right.