I always had the feeling that some of the players in this notorious Johore comments affair were a little batty to begin with - so I'm glad that Mr. Fock decided to come out of the ... er ... cave. What Mr. Fock has confirmed in my mind is that he & his PAP ilk are still underestimating the impact on the regional realpolitik and that their grasp of popular culture is abysmal.
Batman has a duality in his personae (as Tim Burton, the first director of the Batman movie series & the creator of Batman, Bob Kane - methinks- are concerned) There are certain characteristics that Batman is supposed to have that are not the traditional baked apple pie goodness about him. Batman has his private demons about him & there is something more that meets the eye & Mr. Fock has missed this in his piece.
What irked the Warner Bros. studio execs was that Burton's vision was too dark & confusing to young dumb American bratty kids who were supposed to buy Batman lunchboxes & toys without the morality issue hanging over purchases. If Singaporeans who viewed Burton's Batman movies didn't feel so, well that's very telling now.
Warner Bros. wanted Batman to be a commercial vehicle but Burton had emotional & artistic reasons for Batman. Interested parties both sides of the causeway have the same diametric agenda & feeling about the Johore comments & the handling thereof.
Burton tried to illustrate that there is no clear demarcation of good or evil & even the villains are not the abject spit the face type but complex (artistically, I think Burton pulled it off, albeit patchily) The Batman villains are sympathetic, for example, Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman (her character was a sexually discriminated & harassed) & even the De Vito's Penguin was an abandoned baby rejected by society because of congenital birth defects. So again, there may be some moral dilemma in judging these characters.
There is some pity to be found in all the Batman villains (I can hear someone yelling at me "yellow-bellied 'criminal as victim' liberal" already - well I'm a humanist who believes in the death penalty but I digress) To further reinforce this duality there is this dialogue about Batman & his mask, Keaton's reticent, angst-ridden interpretation of Bruce Wayne & Batman, the moral dilemmas, their complex personal histories, the gothic Gotham City, the cool Batmobile ... alright alright the Batmobile is just plain cool & no duality there.
Nothing is black and white, only shades of light and dark. So one thing is certain, Batman is not your plain variety Batu Cave bat. What's this got to do with S'pore/M'sia? Well if the emperor penguin & cave bats have replaced Aesop's Fables & you've read this far, you can bear with me & go all the way
Firstly, so long as those south of Border think that the handling of this Johore comments issue is black & white like a western movie - they are wrong. We have a lot of grey here especially when the words are spoken by LKY.
As I've elucidated elsewhere, LKY is a legendary historical figure who is intertwined inextricably with the founding of Malaysia. There are some across the Causeway who will not forget or forgive what LKY allegedly did, didn't do, said or didn't say when Singapore was part of Malaysia and after Singapore was evicted from Malaysia. There is a lot of historical baggage.
To cap it all, some of the damage control by the Singapore Govt., over this affair appeared to be patronizing & condescending. The Malaysians say friends are not supposed to be like that.
On April 2, 1997, we have Dr. M going on about Malaysia seeks as many friends as possible but will not sit back if it is criticized and said that "However, if they criticize us and are rude to us, we will do likewise," he said.
Hmmm... anyone remember Paul Keating's calling Mahatir "recalcitrant" & the firestorm that provoked. The issue is not whether the firestorm was justified or an overreaction but the issue was why was it said in the first place & the manner in which the damage control was done, namely, one does not give an apology aggravating the situation.
Secondly, what I have not seen discussed is that the parties involved in this mis-en-scene are very familiar with how some published statements intended to apologize actually cause more offense (anyone remember the civil defamation proceedings against IHT over Lingle's defamatory remarks? IHT published an apology but the plaintiffs' lawyers lambasted IHT's published statement as not really amounting to an apology & got aggravated damages)
Although I can empathize that an apology for legal defamation proceedings is rigorously scrutinized but an apology to soothe diplomatic relations and diplomatic damage control with your closest trading partner, historical neighbor & supplier of nearly all your water should be put to a much higher standard of scrutiny and tact.
If the comments and the error in the first apology was made by some wet-behind-the-ear Singapore MP, the Malaysian firestorm would not have been so virulent but it was not. We don't need Batman and Robin or any other superhero to save the day on either side of the causeway. What we need is just the respect (that real superheroes have for all creatures great & small) for & to your neighbors.
Thirdly, the manner in which the Johore comments affair was handled is the other problem when you have a leader to say that he is surprised that it would take time to restore relations etc. and you have everyone else baa baa-ing the same. Four legs good, two legs bad. (I didn't start with the animal analogies now!) This is adding fuel to the fire!
Fourthly, Mr. Fock parrots BG Yeo's analogy that S'pore/M'sia is like Germany/Switzerland. Well, I wonder how would the Germans feel if an elder statesman of Switzerland remarks that Berlin is notorious for neo-Nazis, religious persecutors and Stasi killers (this is only a rhetorical postulation & I have been to Berlin in 1996 & I didn't see any of these things).
This European analogy is also too glib to be true & there are tensions between the Germans & the Swiss. Switzerland, historically, has always managed to be all things to all their more powerful neighbors but I do not think that the Swiss have a superiority complex to their neighbors or at least they don't voice it out and if they did they quickly & correctly apologize. Point in question, the Nazi stolen Jewish gold in Swiss banks incident.
Fifthly, the notorious Johore comments is akin to that situation because, some of the Swiss - like Singaporeans, can never really feel or empathize with the Holocaust victims. The Holocaust was quite far removed from one's life experience and one only has an MTVesque or Spielbergian Schindler's List version of the Holocaust.
Some of the Swiss are quite perturbed at the Jewish reaction & have become defensive & downright intransigent. I remember the ex-Swiss Ambassador to the US warning the Swiss home government, that this issue is "a war". Now you know why he is the ex-Swiss ambassador to the US? I wonder what is the code behind Dr. Mahatir's use of the word "wound" from the unpleasant row that is remaining?
It is the same for one living in the relative sheltered enclave in Pasir Ris new town, getting daily Straits Times pick-me-ups of mantra-like Isn't-it-great-to-be-in-Singapore- while-the-rest-of-the-world-is- full-of muggers-anti-Asian racists-drugs & violence.
We have this someone from Pasir Ris actually believing this circumlocution. The only distinction here is that someone at the Istana Annexe believed it. This type of information gathering & belief system should not be encouraged. The perception of having an insulated and biased local media coverage affecting opinions is not good. I remember one of the George Bush follies raised in the 1992 US election when Bush didn't even know the supermarket barcode reader - Bush was out-of-touch with modern America & the normal Joe-in-the-street American.
Another point is that some Swiss are offended at the Swiss bank scandal over Nazi gold because these revelations attack the foundation of what they always felt was neutral peace-loving, honorable Swiss (home of the Red Cross, swatch & other useful things in life). Likewise some Singaporeans have expressed total outrage at the Malaysian reactions & these Singaporeans think that the Malaysians are overreacting & should be put in their place.
But my beef is not with these hotheads who speak off the cuff but my real concern is with those of Mr. Fock's ilk who still have this sang froid attitude only because of the main actors in this episode.
They try to pooh pooh it away as a minor hiccup coming up with AFTER-the-fact Rodney Kingesque "Can't we all get along?" pleas; but like Nero, they are playing the fiddle while Rome is burning. Perhaps, there isn't a raging inferno but I believe that there are smouldering embers that flame up with misplaced comments & diplomatic missteps.
Mr. Fock & his ilk quickly brush aside the Malaysian overreaction from the vocal UMNO Youth chief whatshisname or radical Malaysian student activist or that is a dissenting voice in the Malaysian political wilderness.
They think its okay for these characters to release some steam because those that matter will know what to do and know which side of the bread is buttered. Well let me remind everyone, one such dissenting voice in the 1970s Malaysian political wilderness is none other than Dr. Mahatir.
I also remember one vocal UMNO Youth Chief & ex-radical Malaysian student activist is Anwar Ibrahm, heir apparent. Before Mr. Fock starts giving the brownie points, I hope he remembers where is the cookie jar & whether he has any cookies in that jar!
Some Singaporeans are seduced by a superiority complex just like the Warner Bros studio executives are seduced by the number of Batman lunchboxes & toys that they can sell. They fail to see the tree from the forest & fail to learn the lessons of history in making comments & mishandling relations & upsetting our ASEAN & other international friends.
But the people who take the cake are those Singaporeans who have come out ... of the cave or ice pack whatever ... & say that we don't owe the Malaysians anything & what have you. These people actually believe in all the propaganda that is shoveled on a daily basis by the ST & The New Paper.
This is where Batman comes in again (you thought I've left that didn't you?) because there is more than meets the eye than just Batman, there is also Robin but that is meat for another story, another time.
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