Will the real Singapore spirit (wherever you are) please stand up for YOG?

(To increase the size of this essay – hold down the Ctrl key and keep pressing + ) Now if you have been following this blog and reading up about how we have all taken the science of bochap, dowan lah along with sataying Singapore to renewed heights – it should not surprise you all in the least if we now turn our ongoing investigation to the serious question of what has happened to our elusive Singapore spirit?

This however should never be confused with those other spirits; though by all accounts – they seem to be having a whale of a time; as the YOG committee has considerately made arrangements for the 7th month troupe to watch the games, please see photo below of hollow man & Co.

Now back to the question at hand – what has happened to the Singapore spirit? Here I am reminded sports can be a very emotional thing – in the fleeting connections with people, the rollercoaster hopes and disappointments, and the passionate partisanship and camaraderie, this is something that we should rightly be seeing in YOG! The problem is all that I’ve just mentioned seems to be missing from YOG.

And that’s a pithy summary of what’s wrong with the Singapore spirit – its gone AWOL, taken a hike, put on tennis shoes and run off into the night – and that should provoke all of us to ask: why?

IMHO, a big reason for the mass ambivalence has to do with how YOG has become so enmeshed with the whole idea of mythologizing the origins of the PAP instead of promoting the idea of sportsmanship; as a consequence, the whole business of YOG seems dull, stolid and irritable; and in a way merely a confirmation of what we have always suspected about this event – this is basically just another ego trip by PAP to perpetuate its own crooked political agenda to ensure that they remain the effective and dominant ruling power – in other words YOG is just another grotesque instrument to enable crooked politicians to consolidate their hold on power, thus perpetuating their class politics – it has nothing to do whatsoever with the common man!

To further exacerbate matters since the apparatus of assimilation has been directed to drum up populist support for YOG – this only serves to confirm our already depressed cynicism about the endless hype and spin news culture that usually accompanies such mega events – once again, that’s just a big turn off. Worst still it merely guarantees whatever that is likely to emerge out of YOG is more of the same excruciating dullness that we have come to expect from the rhetoric of officialdom.

Government it seems can’t win even when they have the wind on their side…..why? Where did it go so wrong with YOG?

Consider this: what would the outcome have been; had YOG not been politicized and linked to the machination of the PAP? Yes we all know that Singapore was once just an obscure fishing hamlet at the tip of the peninsula yada yada yada yada….the problem is not that we do not know the yarn of how good defeated evil yada yada yada yada; it is simply that we have come to associate all these montages with everything that is designed to mythologize the right to rule rather than having anything to do with the spirit of sportsmanship.

My point is: the government pitched it’s case too vigorously with YOG; they should have just taken a hike and done themselves and everyone else a great favor.

The problem; when the games acquire such a conspicious political tenor, then it just becomes very difficult to love – and instead of clarity of vision and mission what we have instead is a polyglot of exaggerations and embellishments to produce a story that serves to satisfy everyone except those who should be the rightful beneficiary of the games – perhaps had YOG not been so willing to be used as some appendage of the government in the way the Hitler Junged was once used as an instrument of the state to cherish perfidious faced myths and besmirch the counter narrative – or that the political leaders had bothered with the whole of idea of just going out for the evening and leaving the children to do their own thing.

Then something tells me – the outcome of YOG would certainly have been very different….very different indeed.

Darkness 2010

The Brotherhood Liaison, Singaporedaddy -“Salam Malaikhum.”

Caliph of the Saffron Route, Al Mahjeed – “Malaikhum Salam…that is far enough, stay where you are Singaporedaddy….we have you sorrounded from all sides with at least 50 plasma guns…we were told earlier by the magistrate; you people may come this way!.”

Singaporedaddy: “Bismillah Rahtman…alhamduillah…we come in the name of peace my friend.”

Al Mahjeed, “Tell me Liaison officer….why did they chase all of you out of the last town?..I heard they boycotted you all…denying your caravans water, food and shelter…so now you know why, you and the others have to turn back…you cannot past through here….”

Singaporedaddy, “Tell me Al Mahjeed, do you really trust what those dirty government spies tell you?”

Al Mahjeed: “You mean they are spies!”

Singaporedaddy: “Not only that, they ride on hogs…can you imagine criss crossing your lovely deserts in pigs.”

Al Mahjeed: “You speak slander Singaporedaddy!”

Singaporedaddy” “Do I? Then tell me what separates a pig from a camel Al Mahjeed?”

Al Mahjeed: “I don’t know how to explain Singaporedaddy, but when I see a camel, I know it to be so.”

Singaporedaddy; “So there you have it Al Mahjeed..your eyes have been opened…I see a pig, so it is a pig, that is why they hate us, because we call a pig a pig!…now let us past safely my friend…and when those pig ridding government spies come this way, kill every single one of them.”  

Al Mahjeed: “Hold on Singaporedaddy, but you all ride on the same animals as they do! “

Singaporedaddy: “Al Mahjeed, the sun has fried your brains…yes, it is unfortunate that our camels are not as beautiful as yours…but what can a flower even one as odd as this do, except be the flower that it is; but they not pigs – this I assure you, they are just very unfortunate camels who happen to look like hogs….now do as I say, when they come this way Al Mahjeed…kill every single one of those government spies…now if you please, let us through the gates.”

Somewhere along the Saffron Route, in the Calyspsol Basin of the Jai Bha Harabmat Desert – in Planet D’ni – The Age of Steel – The Book of Ages, Pg 5,039 / The Brotherhood Press 2010