Friend emailed this to me. Don't know who's the original source though. A diff pt of view
Dear all (including Catherine Lim),
I agree with you that there is a crisis of trust. Many people no longer trust the institutions of society, whether it is the government, the civil service and the judiciary. It's a problem for other public sector servants too: our teachers, nurses, doctors and policemen.
How did we come to this sad situation? Is it because of politicians suing each other for libel? PAP politicians' legal actions are well known: JB Jeyaretnam and Tang Liang Hong and so on. Even Mr Chiam See Tong in the 1980s sued Minister S. Dhanabalan for what was said at an election rally. Dhanabalan made a public apology and settled out of court.
Or is it something deeper than lawsuits? Is there now a climate of poison and hate in public discourse?
Critical debate is part and parcel of democracy. But writing outright lies about other people, as some commentators have done, is a different matter.
Would Catherine Lim be as sanguine if somebody accused her of wanton plagiarism in her writing? Or of embezzling money from her publisher? Would she be as conciliatory were her own author's integrity under public attack? Perhaps such things do not matter to Catherine Lim. But they matter to every public servant doing their duty, every hardworking Singaporean earning an honest living.
The problem is not that PM Lee is taking blogger Roy Ngerng to court over a false allegation. If anything, we need the authorities to support more public servants in defending their reputations against unjust, false accusations.
Otherwise the day will come when every one of us has to kowtow to super-empowered individuals who can destroy a worker's reputation at a stroke of a pen or the click of a mouse.
Dear all (including Catherine Lim),
I agree with you that there is a crisis of trust. Many people no longer trust the institutions of society, whether it is the government, the civil service and the judiciary. It's a problem for other public sector servants too: our teachers, nurses, doctors and policemen.
How did we come to this sad situation? Is it because of politicians suing each other for libel? PAP politicians' legal actions are well known: JB Jeyaretnam and Tang Liang Hong and so on. Even Mr Chiam See Tong in the 1980s sued Minister S. Dhanabalan for what was said at an election rally. Dhanabalan made a public apology and settled out of court.
Or is it something deeper than lawsuits? Is there now a climate of poison and hate in public discourse?
Critical debate is part and parcel of democracy. But writing outright lies about other people, as some commentators have done, is a different matter.
Would Catherine Lim be as sanguine if somebody accused her of wanton plagiarism in her writing? Or of embezzling money from her publisher? Would she be as conciliatory were her own author's integrity under public attack? Perhaps such things do not matter to Catherine Lim. But they matter to every public servant doing their duty, every hardworking Singaporean earning an honest living.
The problem is not that PM Lee is taking blogger Roy Ngerng to court over a false allegation. If anything, we need the authorities to support more public servants in defending their reputations against unjust, false accusations.
Otherwise the day will come when every one of us has to kowtow to super-empowered individuals who can destroy a worker's reputation at a stroke of a pen or the click of a mouse.
