I refer to "Journalists can bridge gulf between top and bottom" April 1, 1996, Life, by Koh Buck Song. Mr. Koh makes a bold but irresolute assertion that journalists can be a mouthpiece for the bottom. My immediate anxiety is that even the Singapore elite with alternate views does not think that journalists represent their elite alternate views, so I truly weep for the bottom layer. In any event, being a voice is one thing, but the main point to be appreciated here is that there must be several voices. Life, at the top and the bottom, is not one grand Sing Singapore choir contest lip- synching in unison. Rather it is an unorchestrated cacophony of voices.
The fundamental reality is that since the local media, due to exhortations of the Government & the media's Management, exercises a unique Singaporean journalistic apologia of self-censorship & restraint. I really wonder whether the journalists can indeed articulate, "the inarticulable." The "bottom layer" must not only have a voice, they must have an independent means to articulate that voice.
There is an inevitable tension where journalists attempt to articulate the inarticulable on the one hand and there are the political realties, defamation laws and, the oft-used, "OB markers" on the other paw. If there is ever an example to show the gulf between the top and the bottom is that the Government has constantly used this "OB markers" golf analogy. The majority of Singaporeans don't even play golf. The bottom in Singapore only knows 4-D and not Fore! Perhaps, the Government should choose the "Offside Rule" from Singapore's true passion, soccer, to better illustrate certain positions.
Civilization has always provided other voices for the bottom and these have manifested through the performing arts. Music has long mirrored the bottom's condition with the blues, reggae and punk rock. Drama has seen Brecht, Grotowski and the poor man's theatre movement. Movies like Forrest Gump, Braveheart even the porcine parable Babe, articulate the bottom's point of view. But in Singapore, the state of the performing arts is also beset with the ubiquitous offside rule.
Before any journalist, or anyone for that matter, can espouse to represent the inarticulable bottom view, there must be the environment that permits such airing of the inarticulable. I am somewhat pessimistic that we have that kind of environment yet. But the greatest danger that the top needs to know is that even if the bottom's voice is not articulated, history has shown that the bottom's actions always speak louder than their words.