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A subtle shift in the PAP's mindset ?

mustpaycash

New Member
The Singapore media, ranked 147th by Reporters without frontiers on its latest Press Freedom Index, is constantly being ridiculed and villified by its detractors for being a stooge of the PAP government, in short “The PAP Times”.

Not only does it churns out daily PAP propaganda to poison and brainwash the minds of Singaporeans (I admit that I am one of its “victims” for the last 18 years before the advent of the internet) to mould them into “obedient, subservient and unthinking citizens”, it is also an indirect conduit for the PAP to monitor the sentiments on the ground through the ST Forum.

Though we know the PAP is an arrogant political behemoth which will never admit its mistakes, it is actually more adverse to public opinion than we have thought. To put it succinctly, it knows cleverly when to “steer the wheel according to the winds”. When it knows it is running against the mill, it will not hesitate to fine-tune, tone down and moderate its rhetoric and stance.

The recent IBA’s critique of Singapore’s human rights record is a slap on the face of the PAP which had spent much time and resources courting the organization. Though it carried a robust defense to exonerate itself through the state media to the extent of dismissing them as a ”Western conspiracy to do us in”, it is well aware that in this digital era where information is widely availabe at the click of a button, most Singaporeans especially the young IT-savvy, remains unconvinced by its desperate attempts to redeem its bruised credibility, if there is any left in the first place.

As such it is not surprising to see a subtle yet significant shift in the state media’s stance on human rights. Initially it tried perhaps too hard to propagate the PAP’s view that human rights is a western fallacy that is inapplicable and irrelevant to the Singaporean context amid some blatant character assassination. Now it appeared to have taken a more conciliatory and balanced approach bereft of the usual political rhetoric as evident by two articles published in the Straits Times today.
 
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