Gum Control

Singapore rarely basks in the tender rays of world media attention, but one issue that consistently brings the news to fawn over us is that of the ban on chewing gum, or presently, the lack thereof. In what may be seen as an extension to our draconian laws, the legality of flavoured rubber (chewing gum, not the other sort) has polarised global opinion in all of its 12 years of absence. Now that we are able to obtain, with a certain amount of effort and expense, a few sorts of chewing gum, it is perhaps time to gaze back upon the ruinous effect that such a deficiency has wreaked.

The good times of chewing gum were still rolling as I entered primary school, where the main lure was the gaily coloured packs of poorly manufactured bubble gum from Malaysia, pellets of various shapes and sizes that felt oily to the touch and whose print would often rub off on one's fingers. But we devoured these because they were chock full of dyes of a mysterious and inorganic origin and because they were so sweet. It never was the fun of chewing them, because, frankly, mastication is repetitive and exhausting. Still, children had their share of fun chewing these candies.

An ominous cloud then appeared above the pastel skies of the meadows of gum, as, in response to the flagrant and gratuitous defacement of our pristine public transport system and streets, the government decided to ban the import and sale of chewing gum, with the peripheral benefit of being able to partake the pleasure of a Wrigley's Juicyfruit painstakingly smuggled over hell and high water into one's home. With the usual dispatch, chewing gum evaporated off the shelves of corner stores, school bookshops and supermarkets, no doubt being sent to this immense landfill of stringy, tangy goodness.

The reactions to this were mixed; I had never found chewing gum to be a problem, my encounters with it only being a sticky wad of gnawed gum lurking under desks or the occasional annoyance of glancing at a piece of gum plastered to a wall like some sort of malignant wall tumour. Frequent gum users were outraged; their right to enjoy a minty fresh flavour explosion in their mouths had been flouted and they would have to seek fulfilment in other things. For others, everything went on as normal; after all, more important things than chewing gum had been snatched from them and there was not even a peep.

It was to be the dark ages of chewing gum, when some uncle or the other would return from Malaysia and there under the clothes in his suitcase, lovingly wrapped in editions of the New Straits Times, would be two boxes of Wrigley's, shimmering in their shrink-wrap like ingots of green gold. As it always is with forbidden fruit, every stick seemed sweeter and more refreshing, as though egging us on in our determination to wait out the stranglehold that was being exerted on our tasty treats.

Those were the early days, and like an occupied peoples, with each passing day the hope of liberation become bleaker. Soon we were to forget that such a ban even existed, and live our lives as though the inventor of chewing gum had been run over by a horse carriage in front of the patent office. An entire generation of children grew up without knowing chewing gun and were none the worse for the wear for it. Chewing gum existed only on the fringes of the general public's psyche, and no more as an object than as a symbol.

The ban on chewing gum has been doggedly utilised by political commentators to denote the almost totalitarian control of our government and to demonise Singapore as some sort of human-rights black hole where, since people cannot chew chewing gum they must also be languishing in derelict gulags, being beaten by burly wardens everyday. Such a simple and incidental law also fires up the boundless imagination of many foreigners, responsible for such statements such as littering and various small offences being punishable by the death penalty, and where flogging is the de facto standard of punishment, like some Arabic nation only without the oil and chewing gum. Like a sort of cancer, the ban on chewing gum exacerbated the spread of our political and social misrepresentation, until it permeated most of our legal system, which soon falsely appeared to foreigners to being like the alpha and omega of a brutal absolute despotism, resonating with the screams of the damned and dripping with the crimson blood of thousands of orphans.

This of course is mildly disconcerting, bumping into people who say that Singapore is like Soviet Russia without the funny accents (yeah, well, their country bombs weddings), only for them to be cut off by others who yell approval at our laws that keep everything so nice and clean, like some sort of mental institution. The past years have seen a continual tussle between the two viewpoints, coming to a head during the Michael Fay incident (during which, I was pleased to learn, H.E. S R Nathan was the ambassador to the US) that placed our flogging practices under the world's microscope, generating long and excruciatingly detailed accounts of exactly how canings are carried out, and how to factor in things like the period of the moon and the mean square velocity of the air molecules.

But it seems that this is to be no more, now that chewing gum is allowed back into Singapore, it returns timidly, like some Japanese veteran who had been hiding in the steamy jungles of Malaya waiting to strike the British interlocutors, but nevertheless it is like the harbinger of civil freedom bringing his shining, blinding, gleaming torch to every pharmacy (for now) and lighting up the lives of the hundreds and thousands whose souls had been besmirched by the impure shadow of the 12 year ban.

You might say that it's a small concession to make so that Singapore can stop being classified as this gulag because people are now allowed to chew gum, and we all know gum is a very important food group and is essential for life, like converting oxygen into carbon dioxide, so with it's immense wealth and highest per capita rate of executions it ranks right up there in the nations top of the pops with our friends and now trading partners the USA.

Now we have more in common than you think. While you need to register to buy gum over here (undoubtedly so that when a wad of gum is found adhering to a lamppost, a crack team of forensic specialists can swoop down on it, seal off the scene, extract your precious oral DNA, fingerprint it, then break down your door and pistol whip you as they question you about what flavour it was – a libertarian fantasy if true) you need to register to buy guns over there. Only that a head full of hot gum never killed anyone. While they rage on about gun control, debate is beginning to be polarised about gum control and its undoubted far-reaching and social-order-obliterating consequences.

When I first came over to the UK before the ban was lifted (one would think that this development will in the future be taken to be some sort of demarcation between epochs) , one of the things that I had always intended to do was to totally legally, uninhibitedly, stroll into the newsagents, unafraid, freely picking up an entirely legal pack of chewing gum, saunter to the cashier, and unreservedly pay for my wholly lawful purchase with my wholly lawful money. As I achieved dental communion with two sticks of Wrigley's Doublemint, the flavours were sensuous and intense, but within minutes they had evaporated, leaving behind only the ingredients for a good tyre and a sour taste in my mouth. Good times never last.

He will burn in hell – I triple guarantee you

In more certain and steadfast times, when the world was not a seething mass of odium dragging you by the ankles and tearing you apart, when rivers did not threaten to turn to blood, we looked, with a slight chuckle, at the antics of Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf. While we know that we will never again hear his cocksure voice defend the dignity of Iraqis against America and the international gang of criminal bastards (which is a shame really, thus forcing us to endure less than pleasant snapshots of ass-pyramids and creative uses of duct tape) his style shall endure as a more palpable reminder of an impenetrable complex of denial that still exists currently.

[While made in jest, such comments do not attempt in spirit to deny the sheer horror of such events that have actually occurred]

"Do not believe for one moment the lies of the immoral mercenaries who are spreading these lies. Lies are the golden rules of these bandits. They are sick in their minds. They make you think that N-- is a scorched wasteland populated only by rats. There is no collapse. This is the truth I speak. Check the facts for yourself. I will take you there and show you. IN ONE HOUR. I triple guarantee it."

"Three things struck me immediately about the reports yesterday: lies, lies and more lies. They has the audacity to say that there was an accident, when we all know that he and his illegitimate cohorts will be shamed out of the office when we find that there was none. They will be the subject of laughter in the world. I can prove this."

"Believe nothing that hysterical man says. By cheating the public he has committed suicide, absolutely. If he wants to find 4 deaths he will have to find them in hell, because that is where he will be, with the added inconvenience of ravenous crows fighting over his pancreas."

"I exhort all citizens to refuse these claims in a brave manner. You will suffer no consequences, for there are no consequences to be suffered. It is safe to ignore the signs. Do not fear the wrath of the infidel. He is already in hell. Scorpions sting his eyeballs. Trust me on this."

"I can assure you there is no elitism in the education system. Lying is forbidden in schools Minister T-- will tolerate nothing but truthfulness as he is a man of great honour and integrity. Everyone is encouraged to speak freely of the truths evidenced in their eyes and hearts. Those lying cowards have no morals. They have no shame about lying. None doesn't even accurately describe the level of elitism. Their allegations are a cover-up for their failure."

"There are no accidents in the SAF. Abusive officers are not even within 100 miles of SAFTI. They are not in any place. This is an illusion. They are trying to sell to the others an illusion. Do not believe any rumours you have heard about any deaths, because in truth they never happened. Our men remain together now as they always have been, and refuse to be defeated by lies promulgated by journalists intent on destroying them."

"These pirates, they are committing suicide by the thousands in the Straits. They tried to bring a small number of boats in through M-- but they were surrounded and most of their infidels had their throats cut. Today I have visited whole strait, no invaders found. You go and see how we have ousted them. They are crying and waiting to receive bullets. They will be killed shortly."

Writing all that made me feel a little ill and throw up a little at the back of my mouth. It seems dreadful, though a little comical, that people are able to devise such an elaborate ruse and deliver it with a straight face. At least when we can tell that something is so blatantly wrong then the attempted dishonesty appears laughable. But when our perception is shaped such that we cannot even determine the truth for ourselves then successful deception may be executed without detection.

A Stab in the Dark
Or four.

The relative triviality of the C—Police Force has always been a sticking point in many conversations, only as much as the wealth of T-- College or the possible uses for the expansive but ineffectual grass patches of K—College. Much like it was portrayed in the matchless Police comedy The Thin Blue Line there is not much worth policing in much of the rural, small-town UK (so senior officers make bad penis jokes and go around kicking people's doors in with garden gnomes). In fact, just a few days ago I was contemplating writing an angry letter of complaint to the C—Police about the copious one-way travel violations along T—Street after yet another errant cyclist clipped my ankles while dashing down the wrong side of the road to some imaginary appointment or the other. Having lately become used to such flagrant abuses of the Traffic Law being the pinnacle of illicit achievement I indignantly cursed under my breath and thought about some of the more colourful words I would use in this letter (inasmuch, for example, or impuissant).

But suddenly the frail peace that C—had always enjoyed was shattered, much like in the days when people holding china cups of tea looked out of their windows to see German bombers tearing houses apart and their occupants running into the streets, arms missing. Yes, suddenly our unassuming town was held captive in the grip of a deranged madman, whose sole, drugged aim was to bring hot, piping terror to our doorsteps, with a cherry on top - terror a la mode.

Lest one think that this executioner be armed with a machete the size of a large baguette, or with a revolver longer than a regulation pool cue, this scourge has the Modus Operandii of riding around on a bicycle "too small for him" and poking people with what is believed by police, after many gruelling hours of acutely ingenious detective work and immaculate forensic examination, to be a knife of some sorts, inflicting the most terrifying of injuries, a collapsed lung, on the four of his helpless, screaming, cowering, bleeding victims.

It seems the perfect satire of movies in the genre of Friday the Thirteenth and its hideous spawn of appalling sequels, but this is a true story. Imagine the large quantities of urine that I secreted in my pants when, with trepidation, I learnt that one of the attacks had occurred right outside my College, not more than a hundred paces from it, at that really dark spot with all the oak trees and high walls and graffiti.

That being the fourth attack, the police sprung into action, as if this was all they had been waiting for for the better part of their careers (and it might, unsurprisingly, be true). Warnings were issued, and the whole debacle was suddenly brought into sharp relief, capturing the part of the public imagination that was not already permanently occupied by thoughts of going to the local pub and throwing up on your shoes. You could almost imagine, once that fateful circular had been sent out by a grim-faced constable with a heavy heart, his uniform buttons pristine from several lonely nights in the locker rooms, that there was this collective swallowing sound, like when you have several friends over to watch DVDs and the final fight of Kill Bill was about to start then that would be the sound that they would make. It is probably the best thing to happen to the crime scene over here ever since those grisly double murders (they didn't even bother to take out the kidneys or write something clever in blood).

But even as the whole of C—paused to take a breath, suddenly the overtaxed, overworked ace police officers were faced with another seemingly insurmountable challenge, that of a creepy, and probably sexually inadequate man walking into colleges and TALKING TO STUDENTS. With the "assitance (sic) of students in contacting Police to tell them of (such TALKING)incidents" the Police have painstakingly assembled a composite photograph of this elusive man, probably as lethal as a zombie ninja with laser eyes and steel armour, so that his countenance of pure evil could for the first time be revealed, to collective pandemonium and fear, in front of a rapt public audience. Presumably no chin was included in the picture as it must be the source of his astounding College-invading powers where he will turn students' spleens into jelly just by humming the tune to The Poet and Peasant overture and it will just be like they have been microwaved under high power for 6.5 minutes (remove cover first) and thus it absorbs all visible light, infinitely increasing its fearsome might.

War is a dangerous place (sic) and while such criminal acts have certainly spiced up the normally quiet town it all seems terribly laughable to me, as if they were just small-time impersonators of the big-city stalkers and serial murderers that you only see in movies or read about in Patricia Cornwell novels. As I ride back home on my midnight-black bicycle vehicle of immeasurable carnage, I'll be sure to say hi.

(Please don't stab me.)

Fancy Schmancy

Updated with two new wallpapers for free use (and making what precious little output I have go further.)

Certainly the prettier form of expression for this period when my relationship with words has become severely estranged, when every germ of a sentence dies in my head, um, and so on.

I write even worse than an autistic Spanish seven year old with a red crayon and a snot-covered napkin.

The Sound and the Fury

I was copying some project files onto a floppy disc for submission (showing how much this country is still residing nonchalantly in its dream about the good old days), and under the strains of Overture to the Thieving Magpie(yes, again, for it is suitable music to do a plethora of other things to, not just cooking pasta, but also number-crunching) the disc drive purred like a contented cat in front of a warm fire, its 1950s technology patiently magnetising the millions of dipoles on a Mylar disk, like a farmer pacing up and down rows upon rows of hens meticulously picking out fresh eggs, covered in feathers and flecks of dung, enjoying it, appreciating the value of a hard day's work with the only reward of a hot vegetable stew and the pleasure of grinding his axe -- like all things past, quite charming indeed, like sepia-toned photographs.

While it was reminding me, through those delightful sounds of exertion, that it was labouring away like a frequently-whipped but still loyal-for-a-daily-bowl-of-gruel navvy, I thought back to the days when personal computers were more like pinball machines, as they started up in a most cheerful sort of way with the "duuh-duh-duh" of the floppy drive booting and the reassuring, almost soothing beeps heralding that everything was right with the world, and I would play Warcraft II with joyful abandon. In sadder times the frightful clucking of a corrupted hard drive would often be the death knell of one's computer and all the King's Quest saved games, like it were saying goodbye. Given the appalling technical construction of most sound cards, listening to the sounds one's computer made as it went about its business was the endless auditory amusement there was to be derived.

But now computers seem to be like good children -- seen but not heard, and only speaking when told to, though what melodious tunes they are capable of now. While we might have had days with those loud, boisterous machines, newer users of computers can only look upon our present days of sleek, silent and stylish computing as their own brand of nostalgia, which seems an awful waste when computing seemed a lot more real swapping floppies during games or daydreaming about your roomy 20 Megabyte hard disc or pressing the turbo button -- more earthy and connected with the difficulties of real life, unlike the inconceivably large drives and enormously quick processors that seem so effective but impersonal, always doing the job but also always seeming to snatch it out of your hands and sneering at your ineptitude.

The flashy days of computers are about as passé as say, the fear of nuclear war or heavy metal music, but there is the tendency to look upon them with a certain fondness. Some relics of this anachronistic time still lie around, like my old 486 PC, but many will not run again (because I cannibalised most of its parts, actually) and for those that still do it is difficult not to feel a twinge of sadness somewhat that even such a magnificent age had to draw to an ignominious end.

(Oozes with geeky, but perhaps a parable for the evolution of social behaviour as well, on hindsight)

Dis May

Interestingly, the way by which anti-capitalist protesters justify their own anger is mainly through statistics, for example, There are 15 individuals in the world who are worth more than the whole of sub-Sahara Africa (or the impoverished region of your choice), or Europe spends 3 times more on ice cream (or the dessert of your choice) than Africa spends on clean water, and so on. Whilst these are effective at communicating the sheer disparity between the "West" and the 3rd world, it does after all seems quite biased. Most of these fit into the mould of "The (thing associated with the West) does (some decadent, frivolous activity) and spends more money than (thing associated with the impoverished) does on (vital, life-sustaining activity or good). Either that or time comes into play. "Every (short period of time), (some destructive, evil event) happens. Every two seconds a football pitch-sized patch of rainforest is cut down, every 5 seconds an angsty blog appears on the internet; and so on. Statistics should give the facts straight, like "110 million people are homeless in the world" and not create a greater than necessary impact. The people who seriously would like to help do not need and want to know how many times over Bill Gates could buy Malawi.

Ever since the movement gained momentum not so long ago, May 1st has become a day for the left-wing and environmentalist expression and celebration of virulent anti-capitalism and anti-globalisation. The demonstrations are often riots that entail the destruction of property and violence, much in the same way that 19th-century workers had rallied against their oppressive masters. But unlike these combatative predecessors, present day fighters for justice have hardly any reason to embark on their nihilistic and destructive crusade which, since they see it as analogous to past, more justified struggles, they think is for a just cause and hence fight like it is one. Recent wars tell us that there will be deep resentment if severe actions are carried out without a suitable causus belli.

Socialists used to be idealists. On May Day they used to march for better rights and, at the centre of that, the creation of a communist state. Their cause was just because they were oppressed – the people who marched were those who were oppressed. They had the motivation; they were fighting for something. History has demonstrated the collapse of the socialist experiment, shattering the dreams of socialists everywhere though they loath to admit it. One thing that we may observe about the nature of anti-globalisation protests is that they are against many things – global capitalism, big business, polluters, but they are never FOR anything. They are fighting against these institutions and trends, but not for any particular cause. History has demonstrated the collapse of the socialist experiment, shattering the dreams of socialists everywhere though they loath to admit it. Their only reason for battle, the idealised, industrialised socialist state with total equality, has been ruined. Perfect equality, even in the presence of state-enforced asset equality, is not ever possible. Jealousy can never be eliminated – we cannot eliminate, for example, a veiled smile, or a stolen glance. Without their rallying call to bond them, the only means for preserving unity is to fight a common enemy, that greatest enemy of socialism, capitalism.

These protesters have many grouses, which they propose idealistic solutions for (nothing constructive, in line with my view, for they all advocate the destruction of the capitalist system). One is that global corporations exploit 3rd world nations for their cheap labour. Rather mercenarily, it is often either low wages or no wages. Then these people would go cultivate narcotics, which leads to problems for a whole different set of people. Another is that development by global corporations destroys the environment of the nations they expand into. This is true, but if environmental regulations as strict is those proposed by these environmentalists had been imposed on the 18th century industrial west, they would probably still be 3rd world nations by now. Rapid economic growth and the creation of wealth is more imperative; there is no right to deprive smaller countries of their only path towards this which unfortunately harms the environment – to do so would be, in the words of these people, even more economically tyrannical. It is possible to preserve the environment after industrial development, for example, in Germany, possibly the most industrialised yet the most environmentally-conscious country in Europe.

Socialism in this respect has lost its relevance. As a professed socialist sympathiser, I think that such acts by so-called leftists are appalling. They may be fighting for equality, but taking capitalism to be the adversary as a standard left-wing practice is not the way towards this. They want to annihilate the system that has produced the very prosperity, happiness and freedom that their system could not produce. Capitalism is the system of true social justice where people are free to produce and keep what they earn. This is also how I interpret it, that socialism should be taken as a quest for greater, but not total equality, and not just in the antiquated sense of labour and capital. Socialism benefits not only workers but also the marginalised in society, those who do not fall under the umbrella of charity. If these left-wingers had used even half their fervour and energy in campaigning for, say, anti-discrimination laws or greater social welfare then these causes would surely already be far advanced. Socialism has ceased to be merely an economic system and description and as such, unthinkably, it is something that should co-exist with capitalism, especially global capitalism. The very festival of socialism, instead of being a perversely symbolic day for the fight to destroy capitalism should be a celebration of capitalism and the hope for greater social equality and justice.