July 27, 2007

I attended my first rally last week.

New York City is trying to implement a ridiculous set of laws that will require two or more people using a camera for more than 30 minutes to apply for a permit beforehand (10 minutes if you use a tripod), and have $1million in liability insurance (more details here).

If this were Singapore, we would probably shrug and say, mana oo pian? Fortunately, this isn’t and activists quickly mobilized and organized a rally. The grounds of disdain: that this is a direct violation of the First Amendment. The What? Yeah, they’re protected by these 45 words, 5 basic freedoms that every human being arguably should have the right to. Freedom of religion, speech, press, to peacefully assemble and to complain to the government. By the way, only the religion one exists in Singapore.

Back at the rally the First Amendment was recited generously, touted as the only permit filmmaker’s and photographer’s would ever need to shoot on the streets. Independent filmmakers, lawyers gave speeches and even street performer and activist Reverend Billy made an appearance with a rousing sermon complete with gospel choir adaptation first amendment song. Picture NY, an impromptu group set up to organize this rally, led the charge with Bolex camera placards and dished out little slips of paper with the First on it.

How did I feel? I was roused. I felt free. I felt that sensation of triumph, hope and even pride, the kind that makes tears well up in your eyes. At the same time I felt a sense of dread - I’m not American, and I am not protected by these same rules the minutes I step off American soil and back home. Still, it was extremely refreshing, and came at a very apt time when just 3 days before I was provoked into a large argument about why the Singapore Government is not doing a good job even though they have provided all of us with food and shelter (better than Africa right..).

Often in Singapore we are led to believe that demonstrations and rallies are inefficient and detrimental to the advancement of society. We view them as a sign of laziness (don’t want to work hard), disrespect towards establishment and somehow always compare them to be Tiananmen 89. There was none of that here. I felt friendship, community, care, concern. Not defiance.

PictureNY Website / Sign the E-Petition

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Re: first amendment rally a.k.a 40 years behind

July 30, 2007

Conversation with an American:
American: we got protesting out of our system in the 60s and now it seems so dated
Singaporean: well how do you deal with crazy people making crazy laws?
A: you just trust that other americans will stand up and do something about that shit
A: in the meantime, you just bitch about things that you don’t like over drinks and roll your eyes at everyone
S: i guess we are just 40 years behind you guys
S: except there is no ‘first amendment’ to shout

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Re: Re: first amendment rally

Aug 3, 2007

Who said all this was futile? Citizen action rocks! We spoke, they listened!
Today the MOFTB announced that they will withdraw the proposed regulations and redraft these permit laws! Yay!! We can shoot again!

Stat: The petition that PictureNY organized garnered 31600 signatures in 1 week.

MOFTB official statement / NYT Article City Blog Room / NY Daily Editorial

Below is a quote, from Karim Rashid of all people in his Karimanifesto, which is an extension of the “be a creator, not just a consumer” paradigm i wholly live my life by:

“There are three types of beings - those who create culture, those who buy culture, and those who don’t give a shit about culture. Move between the first two.”

I think the saddest thing in the world, is when people who already have had their basic food/shelter needs fulfilled, don’t strive to question and strive to achieve more meaning and enrich their lives (through whatever means).

I promise to always be creating, constantly, til the day that I die.

I have already procrastinated no fewer than 6 days to write about this. (and I don’t even dare mention the 6 months it took me to get my ass moving on starting the website redesign)

In these 6 days, 3000 people have statistically perished from the conflict that is going in Darfur.

Hence the name “Stop Genocide Now.”

With every top-down bureaucratic problem solving approach, there is a bottom-up small guy reaching from the grassroot level trying to make change. In the past 2 years, my good friends Yuen-Lin and Carol have teamed up with team leader Gabriel Stauring and a host of other caring individuals who have devoted many countless unpaid hours towards a greater good of stopping genocide, now.

SGN’s unique approach is this: Gabriel has been flying down to Sudan in person and to record videos of the real situation on the ground, interviewing key personnel in the area as well as visiting camps. The entire initiative is called i-ACT (Interactive Activism). At this very moment, Gabriel and Yuen-lin and Connie (Gabriel’s sister) are in Chad, reporting on the Darfur crisis, and from now Jul 10-20 will be sending back 1 video and lots of blog posts updating us on the situation over there. We are currently already in Day 6 of this instalment of i-ACT.

Here’s what you do:

Visit the website and take a look at the videos by clicking on the link below. Read some of the stories and experiences and write a comment. The idea is to be in the know and be mobilized and spread the word to people around you.

Stop Genocide Now.

Procrastination suddenly sounds a lot more serious when it translates to: StopGenocideLater.

A little simple something I read* made me feel very guilty about the way many of us, and certainly myself, sometimes live our lives:

“If we are affluent enough today, we live amid a mounting glut of distracting choices, killing our time mulling over what food to eat, which clothes to wear or gadgets to buy, where we go on vacation. We can easily lose our way.”

The excerpt is presented out of context and therefore there is no moral to be shared, but still is relevant as just a reminder of our own capitalist modern day lives.

* Michael Kimmelman, The Accidental Masterpiece - On the Art of Life and Vice Versa

In the spirit of the Singapore Elections, I offer you some quotes from George Bernard Shaw to be seen in the light of Singapore’s socio-political context:

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

“You see things; and you say, “Why?” But I dream things that never were; and I say, “Why not?”

“Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.”