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Who didn’t see this coming? mrbrown just mentioned how his column at TODAY has been suspended, after his latest column precipitated a vitriolic response from MICA.

What was the famous column about? The title “S’poreans are fed, up with progress!” illustrates judicious use of punctuation. Acerbic fantasies and personal anecdotes aside, the premises are pretty clear: the income disparity is widening, with real salaries shrinking for the poor; the cost of living is rising inexorably, with higher prices for everything. And as the march of progress continues, more development will inevitably lead to more taxes and greater burdens on the citizens of Singapore.

So far so good, but what triggered the sharp response? Maybe it was the allusion to that outdated god, Jupiter. mrbrown really should have known better than to use anything less than the most Modern and Up To Date of anything…

Or maybe it was mrbrown’s allusions to the timing of the news releases being immediately after the election season. Oh dear.

Let’s have a look at the letter now, shall we? Condensed and italicised by myself.

Letter from K BHAVANI
Press Secretary to the Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts

[...]

[T]he Progress Package [...helps] lower income Singaporeans cope with higher costs of living.

Our IT plans are critical to Singapore’s competitive position and will improve the job chances of individual Singaporeans. It is wrong of mr brown to make light of them.

mr brown’s views on all these issues distort the truth. They are polemics dressed up as analysis, blaming the Government for all that he is unhappy with. He offers no alternatives or solutions. His piece is calculated to encourage cynicism and despondency, which can only make things worse, not better, for those he professes to sympathise with.

[...]

Instead of a diatribe mr brown should offer constructive criticism and alternatives. And he should come out from behind his pseudonym to defend his views openly.

It is not the role of journalists or newspapers in Singapore to champion issues, or campaign for or against the Government. If a columnist presents himself as a non-political observer, while exploiting his access to the mass media to undermine the Government’s standing with the electorate, then he is no longer a constructive critic, but a partisan player in politics.

Why I don’t agree, point-by-point:

1. A one-time cash payout such as the Progress Package certainly helps pay bills. But it is at best a stopgap measure, if that were indeed the whole purpose of the Progress Package. Unless the government plans to make such handout regular affairs, the money will be gone once it is spent, forever.
2. It’s nice that one has plans to improve Singapore’s competitive position; on the other hand such policies can only benefit the few skilled citizens with the appropriate inclinations and proclivities. Individual Singaporeans will benefit; what about everyone else? mrbrown’s original point remains unanswered and undefended against.
3. I doubt that at any point did mr brown claim to be an analyst or even political commentator. If one wants to take a political view, one can easily say that MICA’s response is even more polemical than mrbrown’s, thinly dressed up as an informed and balanced reply.
4. Problems do not disappear simply because the person bringing it up has no solutions. In fact, even if no one has any solutions, the fact that the problem exists is all the more reason to think up a solution.
5. No one is smart enough to have all the answers, all the time. The lack of a solution does not make the Riemann hypothesis any less important, nor does saying “well, there isn’t an answer so it much be stupid” going to solve world poverty. In fact, it’s the problems with no solutions that are the ones worth spending lots of time thinking over. Quashing debate and refusing to acknowledge that a problem exists is quite possibly the most effective way of ensuring that the problem will not go away, but will rather fester in its neglected state.
6. “His piece is calculated to encourage cynicism and despondency, which can only make things worse, not better, for those he professes to sympathise with.” This statement borders on incoherent ranting and does not offer constructive criticism. See above.
7. The Government (note the choice of Capitalization) responds very poorly to its own medicine. If the Government doesn’t like mrbrown’s writings, why doesn’t the Government offer its own alternatives and constructive criticism? The suspension of mrbrown’s column, even if it were politically motivated, is hardly constructive. Neither is writing from the platform of the moral high horse.
8. Can it be that K Bhavani has no idea who mr brown really is? Has she never heard of a nom de plume? I mean, come on, writing under a pseudonym never hurt Russell Lee, Lewis Carroll or a host of other well-read authors.
9. All communication distorts of the truth. Philosophical stands aside about the existence of an absolute truth or the perpetuation of a relativistic mesh of comparative viewpoints, the absolute truth, even if it exists, is undeniably altered by the human mind that aims to grasp it, and the limitations of the media of communication used to transmit the imperfect grasp of an idea to another human mind, and for that mind in turn to comprehend and propagate that truth. Ms. Bhavani’s claim is tautologically true, because it is true for all media, all communications, that all ideas expressed within are necessarily distorted because of imperfect transmission and imperfect comprehension, even if perfect truth did exist (which it may not). Which is of course deliciously ironic, considering that by the same inexorable logic, her letter is also a distortion of the truth, just as my post here is, and that your limitied mind is doing as it is struggling to assimilate the ideas being put forth.
10. The mass media itself cannot make a stand “for or against the Government”. But what is the Government? If the Government is the civil service then by definition one cannot campaign against it; just as one cannot campaign for it. They are also politically neutral. But if the government is synonymous with the ruling party, then the Government should have nothing to do with it unless they are feeling guilty over the consequences of the policies approved by themselves. And if they claim, as they have so recently, that they have won the mandate of the people, why should they be so touchy?
11. Note also the use of the false dichotomy fallacy. A columnist is either staunchly on political neutral ground, or a savvy politico who exploits every channel available to rouse the rabble. Like so many things in Singapore, there is no grey area.

Neither do I agree that this is the end of the story though; there are Things To Be Said to make an example out of this episode. Remember, Ac*dflask, how he supposedly distorted the truth to the point of making alleged defamation. mrbrown, of course, is a much larger fish to fry. He has the popular appeal, the identification with the regular Singaporean, the esprit de temps that made his blog so popular, and no doubt lent his readership and reputation to increasing the circulation of TODAY. TODAY is going to take a hit on its readership, if at least temporarily, while this débâcle continues. Had they tried (and showed that they tried) to defend their columnist, TODAY would have taken a giant step in showing that yes, Singaporean society and Singaporean goverment are mature enough to admit that Singapore has Issues and they have to be resolved. By their suspension, they instead are only going to maintain that atmosphere of “cynicism and despondency” that Ms. Bhavani was so concerned that mrbrown’s column was going to have “for those he professes to sympathise with”.

And as others have already pointed out, it’s not like the Government’s position is a clear-cut high-ground. Here’s a summary of the salient points brought out by others:

1. how come no one ever raps the mainstream journalists for being partisan? Can it be that of the hundreds of thousands of articles written by journalists over the decades, not a single one is partisan?
2. If politics is a game only to be played by partisan players, how does one ever expect a grassroots movement and greater involvement by individual citizens? A well-informed and opinionated citizenry is a prerequisite for engaging the entire nation in planning its collective future and should not be limited to card-carrying cadre members.
3. Isn’t the ad hominem attack, especially by making reference to mrbrown’s autistic daughter, also reeking of partisan politics? Answer: No, because the Government decides what is partisan, and what isn’t.
4. Why can’t the Government take a little good-natured ribbing from a clearly satirical piece without reading so much into it and taking it at face value? Especially when it appears to be practicising double standards when it allows crass and tasteless jokes from within itself about bombing the country with F18s.
5. Humour is irrelevant when issues of national importance are at stake.
6. Nobody has all the answers. Isn’t that why we pay tax dollars for top civil servants to tackle our country’s most pressing woes head-on? Normal citizens usually lack sufficient information to do much about them. Nor do they have the time to, considering how productive they have to be at their paying jobs.
7. That afro is doing a good job of hiding mrbrown’s true identity. That, and the woefully insufficient labelling on his families’ photos.
8. Very little has changed since Catherine Lim’s famous piece on the Great Affective Divide.
9. The government is making a clear distinction between MSM and blogs, judging from part of the complaint that as a newspaper column, mrbrown’s article should have been held to undisclosed “higher standards”.
10. Criticism doesn’t necessarily mean anti-government. It is the slippery slope and lack of a middle ground that makes political debate so incredibly difficult in Singapore. One cannot criticise without immediately being labeled as unpatriotic, a “quitter”, and a whole host of other unsavory characteristics.

Think this story is yet another ho-hum episode of Big Shots v. the Little Guy? Well, other people are noticing: boingboing, Reporters Without Borders, to name just two.

The irony of it all? It wasn’t that long ago that over dim sum with The Screwy Skeptic, Kevin and Penny, that we were speculating on what would happen if mrbrown antagonized the government…

And don’t forget the Youtube video made in response to this whole incident.

Chicago fireworks, originally uploaded by Elia Diodati.

Happy belated Fourth of July!