apparently the scholar has closed down his website. i'm curious if anything happens to him. managed to read the headlines only. heh.

Damn paiseh, isn't it, to get caught out like that?

seems like Tomorrow is a way to shut down blogs too eh? pseudo-private thoughts thrust into the limelight. :)

ermm... how about seeing Tomorrow as a way of promoting responsible blogging? ;)

pseudo-private thoughts? This is the post-post modern modern world. You want privacy, you shouldn't spout racist comments anywhere near anything with the words 'World Wide' in the title.

i think its not only about responsible blogging, but responsible blog-reading as well.

we are all free as hell to say whatever we want on our blogs, it is, in a way, a really private domain where we can voice our views on anything and get incarcerated for it.

realise that the problem only appears when you get comments for it.

take for example, Xiaxue's entry on her "cockroach religion". In a good way, it has prompted a few good discussions among Christians and Atheists. However, the comments section is a result of how ugly and yes, "infantile" blog readers can get. We see people flaming each other, often with childish and senseless comments, which generate even more flak from others.

While I don't think there ought to be any rules and regulations governing how bloggers and their readers should behave (maybe we should charge all locals $100 for starting a blog and for commenting on it), I think we all need to learn some responsibility and respect for what we say and what others say online.

Don't get me wrong. If he or anybody wants to make racist or otherwise offensive comments on a blog, I'm not saying they should be stopped (even if it were possible). What I'm saying is 1) have the wits to realize you're writing to potenially hundreds of millions of people, and 2) have the strength to stand by your convictions, even if they're racist and morally reprehensible. Sure, you'll be a racist pig, but at least they can't call you a coward!

PSC has officially reprimanded the scholar.

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Found on Today: As noted in the Tomorrow Bulletin of Singapore Bloggers: “Calling for his head, or asking for his scholarship to be revoked, serves no purpose. If he is truly racist, doing those things would not change his views. What it would......

Blogging is a totally different idea from traditional media: there exists the element of chaos and rebellion. Unlike the traditional media, people usually put thoughts down on the whim of the moment, and usually regret any hurtful remarks they make afterwards. However, these posts still reflect the person's true state of mind at that point in time.

The lack of editors to verify the posts usually make blogs a less trusted source of information than newspapers and other moderated outlets. In his case, he might have gotten away from the whole furore had he the sense of mind to express his views under an anonymous identity. That he is a future public figure makes it further inexcusable that he has written all these.

Thankfully he is rooted out early; who knows how many racist scholarship holders escape detection each year!

Let's just face the facts: there are still a large number of Singaporeans who, while I will not condemn as blatant racists ,are still insensitive to the feelings of minority races. I'm from a minority race who have a lot of friends from the majority while growing up in school. Name calling like "Mangkali" , "Babusingh", "Mats & Minahs" were commonly used, albeit in jest.

Racist jokes about skin colour and low IQs of certain races were also heard. At that time, I took it all in good humour. In retrospect, I guessed I should have chastissed them because condoning their actions makes it look as if I haven't taken offence (which in fact I did, but didn't want to tell them fearing it would ruin the dynamics of our friendships) and this encouraged them further.

My former GP teacher, an expat from Britain , summarized the situation from an outsider's point of view. He said that the majority race was like an elephant. They mean no harm but sometimes they are just too big and when they are not careful, they might just stepped on a little mice's tail without even knowing.

Having studied in States and gone through Singapore Student Association's election process, i often find our countrymen a disgrace, which explains why i seldom hang with them back in US. I am absolutely peeved by their thinking.

The PSC scholars' remarks reminds me of a Singaporean student in our school who did his degree, masters & PhD all from the same school, thus giving him some credibility as a senior member of the Association. What disgust me was when we decided to make an Indian friend the president. I see absolutely no wrong in that, especially since my Indian friend decided to volunteer and no one wanted the job. However his remarks were absolutely off the record : no Indians / Malay should be a president of our club. I reminded him gently that Nathan was our president and he's Indian and our National Pledge (Regardless of race, language or religion, to build a democractic society). He then brought out our old rules from 1983, i went "please, i was 3 yrs old then, rules have to be changed to accept current changes, Internet has changed in far more ways since 1980s". Of course, being one of the youngest student in school, i was held back from delivering more caustic remarks at the senior member. That incident left me boiling mad.

As for the PSC scholar, not only should he be given a warning, i feel he should be stoned for what he did. How could we the society of tax payers be paying a scholarship for a potential national leader, when he does not practise responsible blogging? Responsibility has to be delivered in all areas of a scholar. If he has melt out such remarks, he should not be paid an allowance nor take on the scholarship, and be dismissed of his services.

Pkchukiss has said it : blogging is a different media. Unlike papers, it reaches out to millions across the world. His thoughts of rascism doesn't project a right image for our society / country.

Sad case... oh well, glad someone got his lil' punishment.

actually, i think racist-PSC-scholar's vile rantings project a pretty accurate picture of singapore - it's not right, but it's dam accurate. bubbling beneath the blahblah of multiculturalism is blatent racism. how else do you explain the almost nostalgic use of phrases like "ma-ma shop"? [i once pointed this out to a friend who was using "ma-ma shop" like it was ajinomoto, and her response was "but it's true - they are ke-leng". (argh - bitch-slap) and she's an "educated" brain too -- not a scholar though...]

funny - folks have no qualms about writing racist, defamatory blogs under their own real genuine authentic names (hosted on traceable university servers), but people with decent (critical) opinions take to anonymous blogs ... mmm... what's wrong with this picture??

Surely the date for this entry has got to be in error.

shld look at the Posted date below 14th April 2005