Singapore Silver Medal

On 15 August 2008, history was made as the Singapore Table-Tennis team achieved second place in the Beijing Olympics. This ended our nation’s 48 year long wait for a medal in the Olympics. Since Tan Howe Liang won the first ever medal, also a silver, for Singapore in the 1960 Olympics, Singaporeans have been eagerly waiting for another medal from the sporting event held only once in every four years. This time, the table tennis team comprising Li Jiawei, Feng Tianwei, Wang Yuegu and Sun Beibei duly delivered as they achieved a silver medal.

I first received news while on the bus home after school. When the TV Mobile service announced that Singapore beat South Korea in the semi finals, a few of the passengers, including me and my friend, clapped. However, despite the good news, I overheard two men talking about how the table tennis players were not from Singapore. I think this is an important issue.
It is true that the team comprised of foreign talents. In fact, all of them originated from China! This is the main cause of concern for the people who are not so satisfied with Singapore’s triumph. They believe that the Singapore’s silver medal does not belong to us due to the roots of our table tennis team. The players are not true blue (or red) Singaporeans. If they had not made the decision to come to Singapore we could have never won the medal. If they had stayed in China, they could have even been on the China’s table tennis team who beat Singapore in the final this year. This “victory” for Singapore does not show the real sporting talent of Singapore. We may have not won it if we had sent Singapore born athletes. If anything, it is showing how good China’s sporting talent is.
However, I believe that the silver medal the table tennis team brought back is truly Singapore’s medal. Even though the table tennis players were born in China and not Singapore, after all they are still Singaporeans. They eat, drink, talk, walk, live, breathe... in Singapore, just like us. They made the decision to come to Singapore and become Singapore citizens. The fact that they want to represent our country shows us where their loyalties lie. We should still be happy and congratulate the team who have put a lot of effort to bring glory to Singapore.

The table tennis team are not the only foreigners breathing the Singapore air. All around us are people who come from other countries to make a living here. It is dumb not to accept their presence here in our country. They are a part of our country and that means they are also a part of us. Hence we should accept them.

Democracy creates stability in society

Democracy is a form of governance in which people are given the right to elect people to represent them in the government. Today, many nations have democracy as their chosen political system. Many would say democracy would surely create peace and stability in a society. However, in my opinion democracy does not necessarily mean peace and stability.

Democracy can create a stable and peaceful society. In democracy the people are given rights to choose who would represent them best in the government. The person whom they elect will act according to the needs and wants of the people to the best that he can. He will tend to the needs and the wants of the people. The decisions that the elected make will gain tremendous support from the majority of the people because they are the people that have voted for him in the first place. These people will be happy with the decisions made and this would lead to peace and stability for the country. Today, many nations that used democracy as a political system are successful and stable. Democratic countries like Singapore can be seen developing stably.

However, democracy does not necessarily mean a totally stable society. As said earlier, majority wins in democracy. In this case democracy makes the assumption that when the majority thinks something is right, that thing is right. This is unnecessarily true. Democracy is committing the fallacy of bandwagon. In the past, the Blacks in America were being harshly treated and the government made no effort to change this. This was because the majority of the society were Whites who thought that treating the blacks badly was okay. Of course this was unfair for the blacks but they were the minority and there was almost nothing they could do to stop it as the whites were the majority and hence they would have it their way. Although there was no real instability, there wasn’t total stability because of this.

Also, stability becomes a problem in democracy when certain parties are given more voting rights. These parties will surely get their representatives elected because of the advantage. For example, Northern Ireland had an internal conflict because the Protestants were given more voting rights than the Catholics. Hence, the laws that were formed would be in favour of the Protestants and this did not make the Catholics happy. This led to instability and violence in Northern Ireland. Hence, democracy does not necessarily create stability in a country.

However, I agree to a small extent that democracy creates stability in society. The results of democracy can be seen all over the world. Democratic countries can be seen being stable in terms of the economy, society and politically. However, in some cases, Democracy does not equate to stability. If the government act according to the majority’s needs then it might forget about the minority and this means that the country is not totally stable.

The article below is taken from the NewsLink service in AskNLearn...

Kampung boy, bus mechanic, bomb maker, wanted terrorist / Mas Selamat hated being jailed, says ex-JI leader

Section:	News
By:	NUR DIANAH SUHAIMI
Publication:	The Straits Times 02/03/2008
Page:	2,3
No. of words:	1391

THE HUNT FOR MAS SELAMAT

THE man who is now the target of Singapore's most massive manhunt had an ordinary childhood.

Growing up in Kaki Bukit, Mas Selamat Kastari led a typical carefree kampung life, playing football and marbles and flying kites with his neighbours.

He attended the English language Kaki Bukit Primary School and didn't show interest in radical religious beliefs, said childhood friends who spoke to The Sunday Times.

Today, the 47-year-old former leader of the Jemaah Islamiah (JI) terror network, who once plotted to hijack a plane and crash it into Changi Airport, is hogging headlines.

He escaped from the Whitley Road Detention Centre at 4.05pm last Wednesday where he had been detained since 2006 under the Internal Security Act.

This was not the first time he broke out of jail.

In 2003, he tried to escape from a jail in Bintan in Indonesia where he was serving an 18-month sentence. He jumped from a high floor and broke his left leg, and now has a permanent limp.

He has been described by terror experts as the most ruthless of the JI Singapore members and someone who knows how to make bombs.

Those who have met the 1.58m-tall man describe him as soft-spoken, with a calm demeanour. But he is also very stubborn – someone who "cannot accept others' opinions", as one put it.

He is also known to be cunning. For an entire year, between 2001 and 2002, he moved his family from place to place in Indonesia and successfully evaded arrest.

Born on Jan 23, 1961 in Kendal, a province in Central Java, his family migrated to Singapore when he was a young boy.

His father worked as a gardener while his mother, a Batam native, was a housewife.

The youngest of eight or nine siblings – no one knows for sure – he grew up in a kampung in Kaki Bukit and was known as "Selamat" among neighbours.

A childhood friend told The Sunday Times: "He was a very normal kid. He played a lot like us, he was not weird and he did not spout radical nonsense."

It is not known if he went to secondary school, but childhood playmates said it was unlikely he studied in a madrasah.

He moved to a flat in the Bedok Reservoir area in the early 1980s and married a few years later.

He and his wife have five children – four boys and a girl – now aged seven to 18.

He was believed to have worked as a bus mechanic before joining the JI.

His involvement with JI began in 1990 after he heard Indonesian cleric Abu Jibril preach in Johor. He joined Darul Islam (DI), a movement considered to be the parent of JI.

In 1992, he joined the Singapore JI cell and visited Afghanistan twice in the next five years. In 1999, he was handpicked by JI chief Hambali – now in United States custody in Guantanamo Bay – to lead the Singapore cell.

In 2001, Mas Selamat fled the country when the Singapore Government began cracking down on JI members.

According to the Ministry of Home Affairs, he deliberately damaged his computer hard disk to destroy any incriminating evidence before he left the country.

He went to Malaysia and moved on to southern Thailand. There, he hatched the plot to hijack a plane and crash it into Changi Airport. He later fled to Medan in Indonesia.

He moved regularly in the country to avoid detection, spending time also in Denpasar, Surabaya and Padang.

He knew the Riau islands like the back of his hand and was familiar with all the unofficial entry points.

Wherever he went, he took his family along with him. They travelled mostly by public transport – on ferries and buses – and would take along bags of clothes, pots, pans and even crockery.

To avoid detection, he shaved his beard, changed his name many times and wore a cap pulled low over his eyes. He also got his wife a fake Indonesian passport with a false name.

The authorities said she knew about his activities and provided moral support.

In February 2003, the Indonesian police nabbed him with his family on a bus in Tanjung Pinang, Bintan. They had received a red notice from Interpol about him in relation to the plane-hijack plot. He had with him a book on the virtue of suicide.

He confessed to the Indonesian police that he had plans to overthrow the Singapore Government. Reporters from Batam Post said he did not appear nervous or afraid when he was arrested. In fact, he smiled as photographers rushed forward to snap his picture.

While he was being interrogated, his wife and children sat as if in prayer. The children did not cry or look nervous, and were observed as being cheerful at the police headquarters.

Mas Selamat was jailed for 18 months in Bintan for carrying a fake identity card and passport. It was during this prison stay that he tried to escape.

The Indonesian authorities handed him over to Singapore in 2006, but not before a controversy broke about him being released from prison earlier and being on the loose for five months in Indonesia.

Mr Fahmi Bahmid, his former lawyer in Indonesia, told The Sunday Times that he still found it hard to believe Mas Selamat was the leader of a terror network. The Jakarta-based lawyer represented him when he was arrested in Bintan.

Said Mr Fahmi: "The whole time I was with him, I saw no signs of him being a terrorist or someone capable of violence. He was a pleasant, softspoken man who spent a lot of time in his cell, praying and reading religious books."

He met Mas Selamat about 10 times, mostly during court hearings. He said he was shocked to hear that he had escaped from prison.

"Security in Singapore prisons is known to be top-notch. It's impossible he could have escaped," he said.

A former JI leader told The Sunday Times that Mas Selamat was upset with him for having cooperated with the authorities in their JI investigations.

He said: "When he was in prison in Surabaya, I visited him. But Mas Selamat refused to meet me. He's the sort who cannot accept others' opinions."

The two met once before, in Singapore in the early 1990s, when the JI cell was newly formed.

But at that time, Mas Selamat's attitude was different. "When I was introduced to him, he shook my hand and embraced me," said the former JI leader.

Mas Selamat, he noted, was one of the more senior members of the JI.

Although he was well-regarded in JI circles for being ambitious and ruthless, the situation at home was very different.

Friends of the family said his in-laws were upset with him for often being out of a job.

"His wife and children often went hungry because there was no money for food," said a family friend.

Whenever Mas Selamat was overseas, his in-laws would send food to their home. The family had problems paying the children's madrasah fees after he fled Singapore in 2001.

It is understood that three of his sons studied in a madrasah here until 2002 when they stopped attending school. The terror leader was also believed to have roped a brother-in-law into the JI.

When Mas Selamat was unveiled as a terrorist in 2002, his father-in-law apparently had a heart attack from the shock.

Mas Selamat was firm with his family. His wife, who wore a veil which covered most of the face save for her eyes, was not allowed to speak to friends or relatives.

Speculating on reasons for his escape, the former JI leader said Mas Selamat loathed being jailed.

In fact, Mas Selamat hated prison so much that he was even willing to betray his JI brotherhood.

According to sources, in 2003, he revealed Hambali's involvement in regional terror attacks to the Indonesian authorities in return for a lighter sentence when he was nabbed there.

Said the former JI leader: "He's probably frustrated. Many of his JI friends in Singapore have already been released, but not him."

Asked if he thought Mas Selamat's two-year detention at Whitley had reformed him in the slightest bit, he said: "If he has reformed, he would not have run away."

ndianah@sph.com.sg





The article above talks about Mas Selamat's background. It tells us of his character and how he is skilled in escaping capture. It also talks about his time in Indonesia, while evading the police who wanted to arrest him.

In my opinion, the article is also trying to tell the public how well he can evade capture. This is a man who was on the loose in Indonesia for 5 months. This shows that he will not be found easily in Singapore either. The police will really need the help of the public to find the Singapore Jemaah Islamiyah leader.

But my question is: are Singaporeans really serious in helping to find Mas Selamat?

I have no right to answer the above question based on the whole population of Singapore. However, I can answer the question from my experiences. Yesterday, when I was at a mosque with Fitri and Zaki putting on my shoes, heading for home, a man walked into the mosque, staring at a guy who had left the mosque. He then looked at us and asked with a serious face in malay, "Was that Mas Selamat?"


At first we were surprised because if it was Mas Selamat, we surely would have realized it was him. When we looked out of the mosque at the man who was already a long way away. We realized that he did have a limp in the left leg. When we looked back at the place where he was putting on his shoes, we saw a poster of Mas Selamat above the seat. In the end, we dismissed the possibility because he surely would not show himself in the public. However, thinking back, I realized that it could be a problem.


If we are always dismissing the possibility of a person being Mas Selamat, then are we truly supporting his capture? What if we really saw Mas Selamat in public and we dismissed it being just us our imagination? In the article, it is said that Mas Selamat was on the loose for 5 months in Indonesia and he was regularly in the public with his family. It could also be possible that he is appearing in the public, despite the presence of police. Hence, we should stay vigilant and be on the lookout for him.


When i was playing soccer with my friends, I realized that we were joking about Mas Selamat quite a lot. I realized that we were joking about a very dangerous man. He is the leader of a terrorist cell! How can he not be dangerous? Furthermore, the police are working very hard on his capture. I do not remember a time in Singapore when the police were working so hard to catch one man. Everywhere you go, you will surely see a poster of Mas Selamat and how many times has his name been mentioned on the television?

Should we even be joking about him? It may be fun and entertaining but it is reflecting on our ignorance on the issue. While the police are working so hard, here we are joking and making fun of Mas Selamat. Today, we could be joking about him and the next day he may be bombing our homes or schools.

In conclusion, I would like to say that this is no joking matter and I appeal to everybody to be serious towards the issue. Please stop our ignorance of the issue that is only reflecting on our own character. Put yourselves in the shoes of the police and the government who are working very hard on Mas Selamat's capture.

Welcome to my blog!

Hello, all! I am Fauzan! And this is my first post for this blog! This online blog (is there an offline blog?) is meant to develop and document my personal response to current affairs. So, I will try my best to find an article that is as hot as a hotel and give my views and opinions on it. I will try to make my posts as cool as a water cooler so that you will not get bored. Seriously, I am serious...

Signing off,
(without a signature)
Fauzan