my next commentary

“In violence, we forget who we are.” We forget who we are because our spirit is engulfed by it, and what we do is often hard to explain and harder to get away with. In violence, we lose everything.

Perhaps someone should have told these three men exactly that last year. Mr. Seow was a businessman running a shop at Golden Landmark Shopping Complex, Mr. Low his assistant; and finally Mr. Wong, a regular customer of the abovementioned shop. Following a dispute between Mr. Low and Mr. Goh, a total stranger on the street, they attacked this man together with a can of pepper spray when he returned to the shopping mall. They managed to blind and severely hurt the victim, along with spreading the pepper spray into the building’s air circulation vents and hurting the people in side as well. Quite a feat for three middle-aged men in shorts.

Yet we must look through the façade of a Singaporean-styled gang attack to what this really means for our society. I can only speak for myself, but I am disturbed by what this attack means for us Singaporeans. We usually hear about such assaults in countries such as the U.S, half the world from where we are. It turns out that immature men such as these three do exist in our country, men who are unafraid to make use of violence aggressively. Having grown up in a paradigm where Singapore has been a safe and peaceful society to live in, I cannot help but feel that this streak in our society must be ironed out.

And it must be said that such organized crime is radically different from thefts or movie piracy, other issues we would like to concern ourselves with at the moment. This form of assault is a directed, concerted attempt to use force to deliberately harm a human being, for no apparent reason but retaliation and self-satisfaction. We cannot condone these attacks on anyone in our society. Period.

I’d like to believe that the sadistic motivation of the assault has made you pretty disgusted thus far, so maybe let’s talk about the law. Naturally, committing an attack on anyone is a crime, listed under assault. Yet perhaps it is unknown to you that the use of pepper spray in Singapore is illegal, as listed under the Corrosive and Explosive Substances and Offensive Weapons Act. We could see well why in this case; the rather inconsiderate use of the spray entered the ventilation system of the nearby building and contaminated it, causing much pain to people within. And since these people are really quite innocent in all this, it’s clear that these weapons should stay illegal.

So now that these men have been brought to court, one could say that the ending is quite a happy one. To stop the wrong weapons from falling into the wrong hands, we’ve managed to illegalize the former and criminalize the latter. But perhaps there is one more lesson to be learnt here. I personally believe that the victim was partially responsible for his own misfortune. In Singapore, where I come from, there is usually an emphasis on the idea of being ‘street-smart’, or in other words, not being intellectually gifted alone but with the ability to keep yourself out of trouble in, well, the streets. Angering someone you don’t know only gives them the incentive to get back at you, and they certainly can do so in painful ways, as we’ve seen in this instance.

Isaac Asimov once said, “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” Let us strive not to be incompetent, or the victims of the incompetent. That should be what we realize from this disaster.

my first commentary.

When a prefect sets rules & enforces them, students cannot be in direct defiance. When a student sets the rules, will it be the other way round? Not necessarily. Indeed, if we can find it within us to allow the student body to set the rules for us, it could turn out to be a step forward.

People often say that rules must be strict, rules must be enforced; otherwise, we'll have a school descending into chaos and disorder. But here's the problem: a lot of the rules that exist don't fall into this "must have" category; for instance, my earlier example about defiance. Instead there exist many rules which fall into the gray area, and questions over their importance will definitely exist. I say that when they do fall into this area, we let the students decide, simply because there is no better judge of these rules than students themselves.

After all, we entrust our students with plenty of things. We tell them to vote for "The Dynamic Duo" or "Peter PANG" based on how much we trust these prefectorial candidates. We bring them overseas to be the face of our school, so why not let them set it along its course? To judge whether an act is unacceptable enough to warrant a rule banning it is a show of responsibility within the capabilities of our students. It's just ridiculous to believe that rational students (as most are) cannot be reasonable enough to make intelligent, justified decisions. All the more so when you consider how the student body is led by the CEC Council, so no worries there.

Instead it is fairer to believe that students only become more responsible when it is thrust upon them. We want our leaders to have a say in running the school as much as our prefects, simply because the CEC Council is as much a representation of the student body as the RIPB. To be fair, there should not be an artificial and arbitrary distinction between the two based on the relative power that one has been accorded. In fact, if I may be so bold as to introduce some jargon here, as the judiciary the prefects should have no say in creating the law and the rule, but surrender that power to the students. Principally as much as anything, both the prefects and student leaders should serve different, contrasting purposes in the school, and the duty of crafting the regulation must fall to the masses.

“If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders.” (Abigail van Buren) If anything, remember this line, for it is the essence of what the concept of allowing students to write the rule dictates. It dictates that our students can take up this responsibility, and that they should. Perhaps it is time that you see so too.

What is an exposition?

An exposition is a piece of writing that aims to explain, describe or inform about a particular topic or issue at hand. It should aim to do so in a clear and concise manner, without assuming that the reader has any prior knowledge about the topic. Furthermore, because this form of text is non-fiction and has a very specific goal in mind, it has to be well-organized and structured in a more orderly format. Examples could include newsletters, manuals, pamphlets, reports and guidebooks.

No this isn't from wikipedia. Go check.