Sunday, November 20, 2005

A Verbose Entry Expressing My Loss For Words

A 49-year-old pianist, Melvyn Tan, has been fined $5000 for evading National Service about three decades ago.

Before one applauds the unfailing state mechanism or scampers to a corner out of fear, it is interesting to first examine the disastrous reactions amongst some of the 25 people polled by The Sunday Times.

In the article “Did pianist Melvyn Tan get off too lightly?”, More than half (13 out of 25) people “felt that Mr Melvyn Tan should do time, one way or another.” An excellent way of phrasing the survey question, in my opinion. Whether your answer is “Yes” or “No,” you are agreeing that Melvyn Tan has to be punished and that The System is right. A punishment for a wrong against him something everyone has been conditioned to believe is wrong. Yes, effectively, everyone believes in Tan’s guilt. Therefore Tan is not only liable legally, but also liable morally, ethically, publicly.

In the same article, it is revealed that “[s]ome were in favour of a short jail sentence, while others wanted him to do two years of national service.” Yes, a 49-year-old doing two years of National Service. Perhaps I should write in to the press to demand specifically that he serves two years of COMBAT service. After all, following the suggestions of people who wanted him to serve two years of national service, it would not make sense to simply give him any position. For if any position were to count as National Service, people might start demanding that they serve their national service that way.

Incarceration might, of course, be the better option. For he who does injustice to The System needs to be punished. The notion of deterrence might ironically be even more pertinent here than in the case of the death penalty.

One cannot help but be impressed by the myopia people who “argued that a mere fine would be unfair to those who had spent two years of their life serving NS.”
1. Is this to be taken to mean that fairness is not inherent in The System, but has to be established by the incarceration of someone who has gone against The System? No. It is not possible. Isn’t the system always Fair and Equal?
2. Or should we slam these people for implicitly suggesting that NS is not a very desirable experience (for, if it weren’t, why would it be so unfair that someone did not serve).

Or perhaps both the above questions have to be thrown into the rubbish bin as soon as possible. The pro-incarceration camp “also brought up examples of how their friends, who had been charged for being absent without official leave, had to do time in the detention barracks.”

Dear readers, I don’t know what to say. Thus, allow me to digress and talk about something else entirely unrelated. Since people like to bring up their friends, I also wish to talk about my friends.

I have a female friend who was raped by her stepfather. To be fair, I think all stepdaughters need to be raped by their stepfathers. If I could convince enough people of this rationale, perhaps one day all stepdaughters would be raped.
Ok, let me get back to the issue before I get slammed for digressing. After all, Digression is a patented style of the Livejournal Molly Meek. “Many also felt that even if Mr Tan had paid the maximum fine of $5,000, the amount was not enough to deter people from committing such an offence.”

I have already mentioned deterrence. But did I mention that the people want this mechanism of deterrence so that they themselves would be deterred from committing the heinous sin of evading NS? From the people, by the people, for the people. The state apparatus can relax in the latest Osim massage chair or in the latest aromatherapy spa since it no longer needs to do much manual work these days.

The article quotes a 24-year-old man (whom, I presume, has been through a minimum of 2 years of NS or even 2.5 years of it) as saying: “Money is no problem, everyone can pay the money.” This is right. Everyone can pay the money although, if your mind is as warped as mine, you might ask if everyone who can pay the money has the same chance to pay the money.
I suddenly have a mental block. Allow me to talk about my friends again. I had two friends, May and June, who liked to canoe. Once, May wanted to canoe northwards and June wanted to canoe southwards. They ended up fighting and both fell into the sea and drowned. They were in the same boat, you see.

Let me get back to the topic. An 18-year-old student said that Tan “should not be let off lightly just because he is an accomplished pianist.” Which brings us to the most interesting reply of the day. The argument is that Tan should not be simply fined just because he is accomplished. After all, isn’t NS supposed to be blind to individual merits, backgrounds, etc? Yet, by making such an argument, the 18-year-old is lending his support to The System. NS is natural to him. Probably something as inviolable and fundamental as human rights. Or perhaps not. Human rights are decadent Western human constructs whereas NS is really something basic and unquestionable. Such is the laudable worldview of our youth.
No matter what, NS is unquestionable. So is The System. A female student, Amy Foong says that “Tan should not even be fined since he went away to 'nurture his talent'” (paraphrased by article). Perhaps a very enlightening reply. He should not even be fined. This sounds like a radical suggestion, doesn’t it? Yet, the reason Foong gives should reassure The System: since he went away to nurture his talent. Foong is not saying that Tan should not be fined because the State Mechanism should not be working this way. It should be working the way it is working, still.

But doesn’t this bring one back to the comment: “He should not be let off lightly just because he is an accomplished pianist”?
At this point, I suspect that there are already defensive readers (whatever they are defensive of) pointing fingers at me and accusing me of being anti-NS. Allow me to clarify: this is NOT an anti-NS article. If the gracious reader could pardon me, let me frankly confess that I don’t dare write any article that is anti-NS in the first place. This does not mean that this article is pro-NS or even that it is neutral. In fact, this article is not even about NS. If you need a guiding word, let it be “experience.” What is your experience? What is his/her experience?

What sort of experience? Experiences of justice; experiences of oppression. Also, what experiences create your value systems?

I have no answer.

I have nothing to say.

I can't say anything.

8 Comments:

Blogger Ellipsis said...

wonderfully written, and so funny as usual.;)

9:41 PM  
Blogger Green Ogre said...

Hmmm... I don't know. I think that it's been such a long time ago that we should just forget about it. Life's not about being vindictively fair and equal. So he evaded NS. US Presidents have avoided the draft. It's not like he's committed a capital crime or harmed anyone, since all males have to do NS anyway, regardless of whether he escapes. It think it's all rather pointless.

10:56 PM  
Blogger Molly Meek said...

a.ball.of.yarn, didn't know it's funny. haha. What a sexy eye for an avatar.

Green Ogre, Yes why not forget about it. But the media must spin it into an issue of someone getting off too lightly--not to criticise the authorities for letting him off too lightly, but perhaps to further entrench NS into innocent young minds.

4:47 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Actually the govt is trying to tell us that we shd all emulate Tan's good example.

Go oversea study branded uni, make it big, and pay $5000 to come and hold concert or watever. NS is only for ppl who cannot afford to go oversea la. U all dunno meh?

5:35 AM  
Blogger Molly Meek said...

Go overseas, then don't ever come back and pay fine unless you can't help it.

6:07 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

hahaha...

7:58 AM  
Blogger benleong said...

Harlo Molly, I dun understand leh. Can you explain to me why the piano man now got Queen people still want him to do NS leh? If got war, he will take plane come back to Singapore and fight for us meh? Some more he a bit lao kok kok alreadi.

1:45 AM  
Blogger Molly Meek said...

Eh meepokman, maybe they can use his aged parents to force him tp come back and fight war mah.

Lao kok kok also never mind. Just look at some old and fat... I mean authoritiative warrant officers around.

3:32 AM  

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