El Classico

At about two-fifths through this video, I was about to gush how ridiculously good the standard of the El Classico was, and state how it probably edges any top-two premiership dogfight.

At about three-fifths through I realised I was wrong. I should just leave the El Classico aside and let you watch how Fifa/PES 09 comes to life when Barcelona play.

Attempting to comment on their play would be an injustice.

POA-ed

Ok here’s what I think about the recent Public Order Act passed in Parliament:

1. The ‘move on’ nonsense allows police to do so if they suspect’ someone’s behaviour “shows that he is just about to commit an offence”. Ambiguity open for exploitation/abuse anyone?

2. An ‘Assembly’ can = 1 person. Ms Thio Li-Ann said it was ‘violence on the english language’. Haha.

3. Is it conceivable how the media/govt could possible say this is a liberalization of the political space here?

4. Singapore’s size is its ’strength as weakness’.

Our size appeared as an economic weakness but now its an economic strength – we avoid suffering from stuff like Dutch Disease. As a city-state, our size allows for efficient government, but also for legislation to be crafted in support of the particular as opposed to the general. So because of the APEC summit, such legislation is decreed. There are worse examples – abolishing privy council appeals after the council reversed a decision in favour of JBJ, the Films Act almost relating specifically to Chee SJ (in that videos can only be about a member who can stand for election into parliament; CSJ is bankrupt and disqualified).

5. If we thought the democrat controlled us congress removed any chance of positive republican contribution, its far worse here! Even Siew Kum Hong basically admitted that he realises his role is that of a mouthpiece, and nothing more.

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Singapore is chugging along fine economically right now. However, civil liberties are restricted and ISD of course around. But the average person like me is unaffected, because, generally we have an honest and respectable government. What happens when it stops becoming honest and respectable? One day, this will surely happen (no such thing as perfection, we’re human), though perhaps later rather than sooner. But all these laws will be in place. What on earth will we do then?

I’m sorry but the mental notes Mr Orwell has imprinted on our minds in secondary school keep emerging from memory. I think the true test of a political system is not how things are when it works well – but how bad it doesn’t become when some nut comes (or breaks) loose. I don’t quite think we’re meeting that now.

People of the week

1. Federico Machena – For getting the soccer blood boiling again

2. Sam Mendes – For American Beauty, Jarhead and Winter’s Tale

3. I’m supposed have one more so it looks substantial but I don’t.

Turkish Delights

Turkey has got to be one of the most fascinating political experiments around, yet somehow (maybe because we’re singapore), we never really get wind of what is happening there.

Here’s the story:

Turkey is an Islamic country. More specifically, it is a country with an Islamic majority. Turkey’s pride however, rests on its secular constitution and its adherence to democracy. The obvious irony here is that Islam, as a religion, presupposes that the state and religion are one. There is no distinction like in Christian society. Furthermore, Islam itself demands an authoritative rule, and insists its followers migrate to lands that are governed by Islamic governments .

The second one helps wind the rope another round. In its democratic elections, the Turkish population elected an Islamic party, known as the “AK party”. Their Prime Minister, a guy called Erdogan, reminds us of a Jose Mourinho like figure. He made himself famous recently by storming out of the World Economic Forum whilst on stage. So anyway, what do you do when a secular democracy elects an Islamic party to power? Do Muslims have to migrate then?

btw, speaking of ironies, Istanbul used to be Constantinople!

Then, to further complicate matters, the ‘democracy’ itself is under question. The secular constitution is generally regarded as sacred, and its Father, a guy called Kemal Ataturk (renamed, obviously) is its patriarch – think LKY with Obama’s cult following. In fact, Turkey has deeply entrenched, constitution-guarding powers such as its judiciary (which recently, tried to ban the AK party) and the military. These are fierce guardians of the secular constitution, but, as a result are protected by the constitution itself.

So in reforming the constitution, you limit their powers, for the sake of democracy. But does that allow the AK party to hold reforms further, and sow the seed for an Islamic state take place? And we don’t know if that is necessarily worse.

As a fourth complication, Mr Erdogan and his AK party are extremely confusing and no one knows what their motives are. They are pushing for EU membership and have undertaken reforms, but this has died down. So economically they appear to be ‘westernizing’. Culturally though, they recently tried reimposing the headscarf rule! So are they trying to make it an Islamic state? I would think people in general are quite confused.

Its quite astonishing the number of historic things happening at a given time. I thought Obama and the financial crisis was probably it. Truth is, there’s a whole lot of important stuff out there that we in Singapore don’t really know about. In the past I knew Turkey for two reasons. The first was its gastronomical name. Like Hamburg. Second was a fear that United would draw a Turkish team lest some stadium massacre repeat itself. “Istanbul”, had this ominous ring to it. I had no idea it was even a secular state – I thought it was some den for terrorists! Turns out its a pretty interesting social experiment after all.

The Winter’s Tale

I forked out about a fifth of my monthly salary to see the winter’s tale with roobs and ethan, which, I must say, was money well spent – we got the meet the cast after the play.

If you read life’s review on the play on saturday, you would’ve read the part on ‘chilling out with the stars’ in a ‘low-key, by-invitation-only-after-party’. Well the invitations to the ‘by-invitation-only-after-party’ happened to be distributed to anyone and everyone on their way out from the theatre.

I was qutie skeptical of the guy waving cards at us declaring that we could meet the cast, and thought it was some cheap gimmick to get more money from us. Thankfully, Reuben, wanting to meet Mr Sam Mendes, wandered right in.

So in my deuter backpack, ethan in his polo shirt and reuben in his jeans, we walked right into a clearly out-of-our league bar sort of place (later discovered to be indochine) and right into waiters serving champagne, fancy little finger food in little shiny saucers, and our good friends dick lee and adrian pang hanging around. It was er, quite interesting, and awkward, obviously, until finally the cast actually came!

We soon found ourselves chilling out with ethan hawke and discussing philsophy with mendes. We even got rebecca halls number and a lunch on tuesday with her before she leaves for new zealand. We didn’t bring our cameras so I can’t show you all the chummy poses we struck with them that got snapped by mediacorp lenses. Do watch out for them in this weeks urban, though.

Ok really, we DID talk to both Rebecca Hall and Simon Russell Beale, AND got their signatures,  AND managed to get reuben cast as actor extraordinaire, getting Mr Beale quite interested in his work. Mr Beale said reuben should really try acting on the esplanade stage, because, for its size, its apparently the best in the world. Not kidding here.

Our good friends

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Anyway, as much as it was a fantastic performance, I wouldn’t have thought it to be a really good script  if I didn’t know Shakespeare wrote it.