Chitchat Mothership struggles with depth - Bilahari / Pritam Debate

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

Despite being founded by establishment figures, I found the sociopolitical news site "Mothership" rather objective and usually the first to break the news and obviously privy to details that others struggle to get hold of.

But below you can see they struggled with the response that Pritam sent out. Its probably the worst article on an important subject. This is what happens when you have well meaning people stepping up to help very similar to PA but do not understand the underlying currents or why the PAP stacks the cards undemocratically and unfairly in their favour.

Clearly they must have assumed that a former Perm Sec can do no wrong. They must have also assumed that an opposition figure by Singapore's definition is much more inferior than the Govt's counterpart as the latter had identified and recruited the cream of the country. Its obvious they either did not read Pritam's response or did not understand it. Their biggest achievement however must be the word count of the response which seems to be the highlight in their view.

My suggestion is to recruit people who do not have the National Flag as blinkers and look for people who are qualified to handle depth and complexity. Either that or change it to a Food Blog.

Here is their terrible article.
http://mothership.sg/2016/05/wps-pri...hari-kausikan/
Quote:
WP’s Pritam Singh wrote a 1,932 word essay to respond to Ambassador Bilahari Kausikan
May 28, 2016
S'poreans have exhausted their quota of reading this week by reading Bilahari's speech and Pritam's essay.

Martino Tan

Topic 1: “Singapore Ambassador asserted that the manner in which the opposition has approached foreign policy does not inspire confidence that they have any concept of the fundamental national interest”. Discuss. (Word limit: 2,000 words).

And discuss was what Pritam Singh of the Workers’ Party (WP) did.

The WP member of parliament for Aljunied GRC wrote a 1,932 word essay to respond to Ambassador-at-large Bilahari Kausikan’s 26-page speech on the relevance of Singapore in a post Cold War.

In the speech, Bilahari criticised the opposition’s approach to foreign policy, pointing out that Pritam asked a question in Parliament about Singapore’s Middle East policies that could have stirred up the feelings of the Malay-Muslims against the government.

Pritam however argued that “the Palestine issue is on the minds of a not an insignificant number of Singaporeans”, adding that one of the 2014 question on the Middle East that Bilahari referred to, “was actually filed by a PAP politician”.

In case you prefer not to forgo the latest episode of Game of Thrones by reading Bilahari 26-page speech (his criticisms are on page 7) and Pritam’s 1,932 word essay, you can click here for the tl;dr version of Bilahari’s speech and read below for the tl;dr version of Pritam’s essay:

1. Praising your opponent first: Pritam praised Bilahari for his “acute sense of Singapore’s interests and the trade-offs that determined Singapore’s foreign policies priorities”. He patted Bilahari on his back again by complimenting Bilahari’s insightful “reflections on the management of rising China in the years to come and importance of avoiding invidious choices”.

2. Criticism 1: Pritam felt that Bilahari’s point about WP’s approach towards foreign policy is partisan, as he anchored them on the basis of one parliamentary question.

3. Pritam’s reason for asking the question: He said that some of his Malay-Muslim constituents followed the Israel-Palestine issue closely. Hence, some of them wondered why Singapore, a supporter of a two-state solution, abstained from a vote that brought Palestine closer to the reality.

4. Criticism 2: Pritam felt that Bilahari “would have to offer a compelling reason why he considers such foreign policy questions off-limits”, especially in a democratic government.

5. WP’s approach on defence and foreign policy issues: Pritam said that WP adopts a “measured approach” to asking questions about defence and foreign policy, and “do so with the interests of Singapore and Singaporeans at the centre of our objectives, and in the context of a multi-racial society where every community has a right to have its reasoned voice heard in parliament”.

6. Your move, please: Pritam concluded WP is open to achieving a unity of purpose on foreign policy. He added that “nothing is stopping the government and ambassadors like Mr Kausikan from engaging opposition politicians with a view to achieve this unity outside parliament too”.




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