and i see the struggle between Yahoo! and Google has taken on a new form
----------->
in order to communicate to the class, people don't use yahoogroups anymore... oh no! they use TAGBOARDS on other people's blogs. has google started gaining on yahoo in yet another area - communication within a limited social circle?
or maybe that was all just crap.
***
i wonder if anyone tried to blow up our parliament house, and if he'd ever make it to the list of 100 greatest singaporeans. or perhaps any person-who-speaks-against-the-ruling-party-in-parliament will get the honour. on the other hand, i sort of wonder if people will actually come up with enough names to fill up a list of 100 greatest singaporeans. perhaps 50 greatest singaporeans will be a more achievable goal.
then again, if we look at the number of years it took britain to produce 100 greatest britons... let's see, the list has boudicca, so that brings us back to circa 50 AD, which is about 1,954 years ago. while singapore has a history dating back to 1819, if we take raffles' founding as a landmark date. therefore, mathematically, if we want a list we should have a list of... 10 people.
perhaps there'll be raffles on it, and 4 immigrants - one from each ethnic group - and Tan Howe Liang, and of course PAP politicians will take up the remainder. unless we want to include sang nila utama, which will put our history back another 500 years or so, then we should have a list of about 40 people.
scanning through the britons' list, though, i see the tendency to eulogize the losers. for instance, Owain Glyndwr, who fought for welsh independence, and William Wallace, who fought for scottish independence. and there's R.F. Scott, who froze to death near the south pole.
and then of course there's david beckham.
can you imagine the singaporean equivalent? 1,700 years down the road (if singapore still exists) we have a list of 100 people, and on it we see J.B Jeyaratnam, Chee Soon Juan, Lim Chin Siong, and our 2004 Olympics swimming team. and LKY will probably occupy position no. 51 (taken by king arthur on the british list) - who knows? by then he might be equally mythological.
***
just read shawn's post on the israelis/palestinians.
firstly: "the only real long-term Arab goal is the complete destruction of the Jewish state." i don't think this is true. the arabs have realized by now that israel is too strong to destroy by any military means and that's it's better to accomodate it and recognize its right to existence. egypt started this process in 1979. the arab STATES have much better things to do than to pick a fight with israel (which they have discovered they cannot win.) however, many arab citizens have nothing better to do but to pick a fight with israel, and they do this by terrorism. (which perhaps is more effective than war, but hardly more helpful.)
secondly: israel cannot budge on the re-admission of palestinian refugees. there is no way it can remain a jewish, democratic state in the land of israel if it does so. already, if it holds on to west bank and gaza, assuming current demographic trends continue, there will be more arabs than jews in israel by the middle of the 21st century. therefore, the palestinian refugees are a lost cause - there is no way they can reclaim the land they lost in 1948. therefore i believe that eventually israel will be forced to give up both gaza and west bank, and that today's withdrawal from gaza is just the beginning of that process. israel cannot be a police state forever, sitting on the palestinians that it rules, because it will get increasingly expensive.
thirdly: "this entire thing is a fuck-up of history due to the historically better treatment muslim rulers afforded to jews (tho with limited rights like they can only ride asses and cant maintain places of worship..) thus attracting the ever-persecuted jews". actually i think this did not actually attract huge numbers of jews into palestine. the jews (particularly the sephardim) settled in anatolia and constantinople and other cities on the coast especially following their expulsion from spain, where they could carry on their traditional financial and merchantile activities. if it's anyone's "fault", it's the zionist movement's, and increasingly, the gush enuhim movement which brings their followers to settle onto territories with palestinian majorities, and refuse to move out.
fourth: i agree that it will never be fair. if one is to be fair perhaps the 1947 UN partition plan may again be reconsidered, or perhaps even a one-state solution. but it will never happen because of current realities. in any case, in successive peace negotiations the palestinians have been getting less and less. in such a situation, it perhaps will be better for palestinians to choose the lesser of two evils; to accept the "halfway measures" and get something rather than nothing. terrorism is not likely to destroy israel, it's not going to cause the jews to pack up and move away, because they also have roots in the land and they are also fighting for their survival in a hostile world.
fifth: to be pessimistic, it may already be too late for any satisfactory resolution to be achieved, especially with the fairly recent rise of organizations like Hamas, whose long term aim is to destroy the state of israel. for them there is no compromise - as long as they survive and thrive, israel cannot compromise with the palestinians. but military measures such as blowing them up one by one with laser guided missiles won't work either. (which is what israel is doing now) and it's dubious if mahmoud abbas can actually undermine hamas too. so perhaps there is nothing to do but to wait until "exhaustion nominates peace". perhaps (who knows?) one day hamas will become a legitimate political organization with achievable aims. PLO, after all, was once a terrorist organization in the 1960's.
sixth: impact on terrorism. palestine is one of the rallying cries for terrorism in and from the arab states. since it is hugely difficult to solve, it implies that the 'war on terror' will be extremely difficult to wage, and take a very long time to finish.
overall: pessimistic.
----------->
in order to communicate to the class, people don't use yahoogroups anymore... oh no! they use TAGBOARDS on other people's blogs. has google started gaining on yahoo in yet another area - communication within a limited social circle?
or maybe that was all just crap.
***
i wonder if anyone tried to blow up our parliament house, and if he'd ever make it to the list of 100 greatest singaporeans. or perhaps any person-who-speaks-against-the-ruling-party-in-parliament will get the honour. on the other hand, i sort of wonder if people will actually come up with enough names to fill up a list of 100 greatest singaporeans. perhaps 50 greatest singaporeans will be a more achievable goal.
then again, if we look at the number of years it took britain to produce 100 greatest britons... let's see, the list has boudicca, so that brings us back to circa 50 AD, which is about 1,954 years ago. while singapore has a history dating back to 1819, if we take raffles' founding as a landmark date. therefore, mathematically, if we want a list we should have a list of... 10 people.
perhaps there'll be raffles on it, and 4 immigrants - one from each ethnic group - and Tan Howe Liang, and of course PAP politicians will take up the remainder. unless we want to include sang nila utama, which will put our history back another 500 years or so, then we should have a list of about 40 people.
scanning through the britons' list, though, i see the tendency to eulogize the losers. for instance, Owain Glyndwr, who fought for welsh independence, and William Wallace, who fought for scottish independence. and there's R.F. Scott, who froze to death near the south pole.
and then of course there's david beckham.
can you imagine the singaporean equivalent? 1,700 years down the road (if singapore still exists) we have a list of 100 people, and on it we see J.B Jeyaratnam, Chee Soon Juan, Lim Chin Siong, and our 2004 Olympics swimming team. and LKY will probably occupy position no. 51 (taken by king arthur on the british list) - who knows? by then he might be equally mythological.
***
just read shawn's post on the israelis/palestinians.
firstly: "the only real long-term Arab goal is the complete destruction of the Jewish state." i don't think this is true. the arabs have realized by now that israel is too strong to destroy by any military means and that's it's better to accomodate it and recognize its right to existence. egypt started this process in 1979. the arab STATES have much better things to do than to pick a fight with israel (which they have discovered they cannot win.) however, many arab citizens have nothing better to do but to pick a fight with israel, and they do this by terrorism. (which perhaps is more effective than war, but hardly more helpful.)
secondly: israel cannot budge on the re-admission of palestinian refugees. there is no way it can remain a jewish, democratic state in the land of israel if it does so. already, if it holds on to west bank and gaza, assuming current demographic trends continue, there will be more arabs than jews in israel by the middle of the 21st century. therefore, the palestinian refugees are a lost cause - there is no way they can reclaim the land they lost in 1948. therefore i believe that eventually israel will be forced to give up both gaza and west bank, and that today's withdrawal from gaza is just the beginning of that process. israel cannot be a police state forever, sitting on the palestinians that it rules, because it will get increasingly expensive.
thirdly: "this entire thing is a fuck-up of history due to the historically better treatment muslim rulers afforded to jews (tho with limited rights like they can only ride asses and cant maintain places of worship..) thus attracting the ever-persecuted jews". actually i think this did not actually attract huge numbers of jews into palestine. the jews (particularly the sephardim) settled in anatolia and constantinople and other cities on the coast especially following their expulsion from spain, where they could carry on their traditional financial and merchantile activities. if it's anyone's "fault", it's the zionist movement's, and increasingly, the gush enuhim movement which brings their followers to settle onto territories with palestinian majorities, and refuse to move out.
fourth: i agree that it will never be fair. if one is to be fair perhaps the 1947 UN partition plan may again be reconsidered, or perhaps even a one-state solution. but it will never happen because of current realities. in any case, in successive peace negotiations the palestinians have been getting less and less. in such a situation, it perhaps will be better for palestinians to choose the lesser of two evils; to accept the "halfway measures" and get something rather than nothing. terrorism is not likely to destroy israel, it's not going to cause the jews to pack up and move away, because they also have roots in the land and they are also fighting for their survival in a hostile world.
fifth: to be pessimistic, it may already be too late for any satisfactory resolution to be achieved, especially with the fairly recent rise of organizations like Hamas, whose long term aim is to destroy the state of israel. for them there is no compromise - as long as they survive and thrive, israel cannot compromise with the palestinians. but military measures such as blowing them up one by one with laser guided missiles won't work either. (which is what israel is doing now) and it's dubious if mahmoud abbas can actually undermine hamas too. so perhaps there is nothing to do but to wait until "exhaustion nominates peace". perhaps (who knows?) one day hamas will become a legitimate political organization with achievable aims. PLO, after all, was once a terrorist organization in the 1960's.
sixth: impact on terrorism. palestine is one of the rallying cries for terrorism in and from the arab states. since it is hugely difficult to solve, it implies that the 'war on terror' will be extremely difficult to wage, and take a very long time to finish.
overall: pessimistic.
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