News aftermath: 20/09/2006

Watching the world news today, I feel a little bit thrown of by the global "mess" we are all in. We, lucky Singaporeans have the priviledge of delusional peace, even to the extent of comforting boredom. But frankly, in today's world (as always) that peace is fragile. And the belief that stability is a "natural state" only sometimes borken by "unnatural violent occurences" is a terrible misconception.At best, idealistic. At worst, foolish. The feeling many still have is that our society have more or less reached a state after evolving through centuries of turbulent history to a relatively workable system, which allows majority of people to remain at least vaguely satisfied. Satisfied enough to keep quiet and to keep from violent rebellions. Where discontentments come in watered down forms of complaints, peaceful protests. Where people can make changes by banging on that political system, where we all have a say.

Never before have I felt so threatened that all this is a mirage, which sometimes need only a slight tilt in the balancing act of power(to keep people believing and the discontentment which follows when that belief is betrayed) War, chaos we have learnt to convince ourselves are un-civilized, a mutation, only the most un-enlightened, backward people are capable of. Not true. Never was, only it takes a lot for us who are taught to belief this to come to grips with this. History will not repeat itself. We learnt, didn't we? The last world war only ended 51 years ago. Our rapid recovery after it and our massive developments may have blinded us (and the generations after to this prosperity's impermanence. People like to think we do not revert back to early states, we only ever keep improving.

Already we are arrogant of this fragile peace we take as a given. I look at local land developers' talk about 99yr leases and laugh. Only 50 years ago we have had the last world war. 99years ago on this very day, there was still an Emperor in China. We really kid ourselves into thinking that we will all grow richer, develop faster, go further. Even to the extent of planning 99 years ahead. I have even seen a 999yr lease property.1000 yrs ago, it was still the dark ages. Who knows what will happen even only 20 years from now?

Thailand's coup, Taiwan's anti-Bian movement, Hungary's protests, Japan's newly elected, (I say elected but really he is chosen) leader Abe, and talks about Hilary Clinton "possibly stepping up to become a presidential candidate, only convince me that we are light years away from the ideal that democracy (whatever that means) boasts. But the scary thing is not that in itself, but the deep belief of so many that that ideal is achievable: a sacred ideal which should not be betrayed. Hence twice the anger, when they see how far the reality is. They feel betrayed, that their system which should have been their's, upholding their rights, justice, and the voice of the people is corrupted. Corrupted not by Corrupted leaders, but the gap between the ideal and the reality. I do not think I am a cycnic, but haven't we learnt? Of all things, if we can learn any at all through History, through Nazi Germany, Communist China and Soviet Union-- that Utopia is unattainable. What follows after a massive crazed faith in achieving the utopic paradise only resulted in destruction, deep scars and historical ridicule of failed experiments of the improbable made believable. Yet, today we can stand here, laugh at the past, yet be blind to the present. Nothing is wrong with dreaming, but we will soon learn how easily enough that dream can become a nightmare while we all continue slumbering.

It doesn't take a lot to figure out that our current politics are dominated by play-acting, all about the appearance, but what happens when we realize that our fundamental faith in this politcal system might be misplaced? (but I say might, it might also not be misplaced. We shall wait and see.)