Thanks to Reader X, who writes in with this incredibly doublespeak-laden article, which begins thus:

The Government is looking into how it can regulate the Internet with a lighter touch, a shift from its current ‘light-touch approach’.

The Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts said this in a reply to a leader of a group of 13 bloggers, from whom Mica had received 20 pages of proposals on Internet freedom.

Said Ms K. Bhavani, press secretary to Mica minister Lee Boon Yang: ‘To keep up with the fast-evolving new media landscape, we have been reviewing our light-touch approach and are considering how we could take a lighter-touch approach.’

She also set out Mica’s thinking in taking its current ‘balanced light-touch approach’.

Er, wait.

A “lighter touch” vs “Current ‘light-touch approach’”?

Huh?

That sounds like something out of the Dictionary of Newspeak. Specifically, it sounds exactly like a shining example of doubleplusduckspeak.

Think i’m being too harsh on a bellyfeeling woman clearly in the role of dealing with upsubbing? Oldthink this as the very same woman who famously wrote the following doubleplusgoodly paragraphs:

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.

mr brown is entitled to his views. But opinions which are widely circulated in a regular column in a serious newspaper should meet higher standards. 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.

Surely people remember the outcome of this ‘light touch’: mrbrown was summarily unpersoned from his position as columnist, rousing ire and dismay from many quarters. Mr Wang famously wrote of the existence of the Bhavani Commandments, wrought from the halcyon, stratosphere-dwelling Party members famous for their impeccable helicopter vision.

Perhaps Bhavani’s equivocation this time round should be taken as comparative reticence, and hence by some reckoning does indeed constitute a lighter touch. However, even the slightest motion of the Finger Of God can have grave effects on unbellyfeeling proletariats.

Bhavani shall not be malquoted, nor shall the populace bellyfeel anything but goodthink, lest they stray into deviance and ownlife.

References

  1. Zakir Hussein, Straits Times, Govt looking at lighter touch on Net, 2008-05-07.
  2. K. Bhavani, TODAY, Distorting the truth, mr brown?, 2006-07-03.