Millions protest for Murabak to step down (Part 2)

Here are some updates on what has happened and changed thus far:

The protestors have succeeded in their campaigns so far, forcing Mubarak to step down as president himself, as well as ensuring top leaders of his party resign too.

However, the people are still unhappy with what is done, saying that keeping the party itself it is like "throwing other cards on the table for display", yet these "cards" are still corrupted and loyal to Murabak.

With tensions and pressure mounting for Murabak to totally dissolve his cabinet, and allow for new parties amongst the people to represent them in a more democratic manner, the U.S. has been observed to change their game strategy.

From a player supporting Murabak, and pressing for him to fulfill his pacifying promises to appease the people, the U.S. has apparently changed its role as one that affirms and recognizes the new cabinet formed, or rather "just other cards played on the table", as viewed by the people.

While it is a foregone conclusion that Murabak's party has been, over the past few decades, playing the middle-man role and "third-eye", to be truthful, in the region, U.S. may be looking to change its foreign policy anytime soon.

Highlighting the need for "an orderly, peaceful transition, beginning now", President Obama as reported and released by the White House, "discussed his serious concern about the targeting of journalists and human rights groups, and reaffirmed that the government of Egypt has a responsibility to protect the rights of its people and to release immediately those who have been unjustly detained".

Although this statement remains politically neutral in its facade, one can see glimpse of what looks like the Obama administration giving up on Mubarak's administration, and starting to give its support for the new administration, in a bid for a continuation of US - Egypt relations.

Since the beginning for the century, factors such as population size, historical events, military strength, diplomatic expertise and a strategic geographical position give Egypt extensive political influence in the Middle East, Africa, and within the Non-Aligned Movement as a whole. Cairo has been a crossroads of Arab commerce and culture for millennia, and its intellectual and Islamic institutions are at the center of the region's social and cultural development.

While, Egypt has been receiving economic and military aid from the US, (In 2009, the US provided a military assistance of US$ 1.3 billion (inflation adjusted US$ 1.33 billion in 2011), and an economic assistance of US$ 250 million (inflation adjusted US$ 256.1 million in 2011), the U.S. has also benefitted from Egypt because as a key ally, there is much "political access and information it gives to the region" as said by General Anthony Zinni, the former Commandant of the US Central Command. Not only so, Egypt has provided U.S. access to Persian Gulf energy resources and security of the Suez Canal, which serves both as an important international oil route and as critical route for US warships transiting between the Mediterranean and either the Indian Ocean or the Persian Gulf.

As such, Egypt is indubitably a very important ally of U.S. in the region, and to protect their bi-lateral relations, U.S. has quickly realized that it cannot stick to siding with Mubarak's administration, but instead, should adopt a flexible and changing stance that fits the situation best.

While it may give its support and assurance to Egypt of the newly "shuffled" party and start trying to build good relations with new leaders in the party, and try to keep things from changing even further, it may also choose to adopt a wary attitude, and reserve its commitment, as Egypt's political scene is still unstable.

Even if Mubarak dissolves the whole cabinet, and allow the participation of totally new parties in the nation's politics, I believe U.S.'s stance would only be clear only if the people are satisfied with their representation. With power in the people's hands presently, U.S. has to be wary with potential nationalistic feelings against the West, since the protest that started last week, thus explaining current neutral stance.

The current Middle East crisis may be a huge setback for U.S., but it may be also the re-shuffling may also benefit political relations in that region if U.S. continues to be careful with stance commitment, and chooses its ally correctly.

Millions protest for Mubarak to step down

Egypt, well-known on the global political scene as a politically stable country that has a close relationship with US, may easily lose this status should Mubarak, the country's president for nearly 3 decades, step down, amidst protests and riots from millions that began last Tuesday.

For nearly a decade, the 82 year old president has been the dictator of Egypt, known for ruling the country with an iron fist, keeping opposition at bay,. through measures such as the usage of emergency act, giving the state powers to arrest anyone without trial. Under his leadership, Egypt has become, in recent times, one of U.S. closest allies in the region, sharing mutual benefit in areas of religious security (Islamic terrorist organizations) and trade (oil exports and luxury goods import).

Being in the seat of power for nearly 30 years, although Egypt enjoys much political and economic stability, it is nonetheless rumored Mubarak is involved in much corruption, and that US-Egypt relationships are a "farce" , propagated to appease the public.

After a recent internet flaming that created an infectious spread across the country, figures now show that there are around 1.4 million Egyptians participating in the protests. At least 1500 people were in the central square, which has become a focal point for the protests and drew hundreds of thousands on Tuesday. Many had camped in tents and under blankets, determined to stay until Mubarak goes.

With a rapidly increasing number of western-educated young Egyptians wanting to make a change to the stable but stagnant country, and take matters into their own hands with more transparency, accountability and democracy, tens of thousands gather in Cairo's central square, despite persuasions by the president that he "would not stay for another office term", and warn-offs by the military, which has already brought in tanks and tear gas - armed soldiers to suppress the protests.

In spite of U.S. warnings for Mubarak to fulfill his promises of a "more democracy and more jobs for the common people" , the president not only failed in doing that, but also in the process of suppressing the oppositions, once again used "hard" measures of bringing armored vehicles to warn off the protestants, a measure that seems distant from promises of democracy.

This has instead only increased public anger. Should protests turn violent, it would greatly affect the internal peace, causing deaths of thousands of innocent civilians and protestants, as well as threaten the social and economic stability of the country, just as the market rides on a global bull drive.

Furthermore, the insistence of Mubarak to use "hard" military suppression on the people, disrespecting human rights, may not only potentially affect its political ties and relationship with the U.S., but also in a way, detach itself from the mostly-democratic modern world.

On the other hand, assuming that Mubarak's regime is taken over - be it through resignation or rebellion, the new extremely unstable democratic system would cause much chaos in Egypt's political scene, making the country unable to focus on crucial economic and social development.

In addition, the new ruling party may very probably cut off certain political ties with the U.S., in order to appease and satisfy the nationalistic public, that has been viewing Mubarak-US relations as a "farce". This will greatly affect Egypt's economy, which has been receiving important imports of technology, luxury goods, innovative products etc. that has been supplying much market demand, and improving the quality of the citizen's lives.

As such, either ways would have adverse impacts on Egypt, and thus, in response to U.S. and the people's call, the wiser decision would be for Mubarak to step down now, or never.

Media Censorship in Singapore

With reference to Today 06/11/2010 headline article, "Good for US, but not for Singapore".

Media censorship has long been a controversial topic debated over elite schools, criticized among netizens, as well as younger Singaporeans who have been influenced by the Western culture and idealogy of "freedom" and "liberialism".

The fact that the PAP is carrying out media-censorship over media platforms such as local newspaper, online and TV news reporting etc. is definitely. If one visits foreign online news portals, he would only find the same "breaking" news only days after in our Straits Times newspaper.

Although this matter has been ignored by many of the older generations, it started to become a hot topic for the younger generation elites at the turn of the century, with advancing information technology that effectively connects Singapore to Western culture. Complaints of "lack of sensational news", "inability to see the true story behind bigger events that happen in Singapore" are rampant, but slowly died down as they get ignored by the government.

As such, many are confused and determined that Minister of Home affairs, Mr Shanmugam, is indeed digging his own grave, when he released a press statement, that is predicted to be controversial, and will spark up past debates and more controversy over this issue.

However, it is instead understandable why the government is explaining its stand. There are really only a few controversial actions that the government is doing that raises public unhappiness, especially with increasing number of educated population. As such, with the General Elections around the corner, the PAP tries to "clear up" some of the unhappiness raised among the public, which one significant one is the complain of lack of democracy, freedom and liberalism.

However, what Mr Shanmugam said is not all bullshit. Although it is true that with one of hthe few motives of making government policies look good, there is an element of party interest involved in censorship, there are also true advantages of controlling the media, and giving news presses less freedom and independence to do whatever they want.

In U.S., 4/5 of newspapers published report mainly sensational news - deliberately finding faults in governmental policies, satiring of recent nationals events, focusing more on actors and actresses etc., so much so that the news reported have already deviated from its objective of reporting news. This motivation is fueled by the need and desire to earn more money, as the public would no doubt be more interested in sensational news, and it strips the public of real or sufficient news information and updates.

Furthermore, over-fast news reporting often leads to riots and rebellions in developing and less-developed countries. Sometimes, when a chain of undesired, sometimes small events that portray the government in "bad light" happen together, and get published in succession, it often leads to great public anger, leading to undesired riots that threaten the stability and peace of the country. As such, although there are ineffective or perhaps unfair governmental policies that have not been reported in the newspaper, it is understandable that PAP cannot be perfect. What is definitely more important is the peace and stability of that country.

Although there are clear disvantages of not being able to know both sides of certain stories, being hidden from some governmental failures, and being unable to get sufficient sensational news to entertain our lives, let us nonetheless accept the wiser choice for our society.

Why China kicked Google out?

If we take a closer look at modern China, we would find that things are really different from before. To start with, whilst in the past, most Chinese have always been living in agricultural areas, in 2 to 3 years time, this number would be overtaken by people living in the city. For Chinese living in cities, already about 45% use the computer or the internet, and this percentage will no doubt grow quickly in the years to come, as Chinese become increasingly wealthy.

Today's China is definitely not a true blue communist country, nor is it a democratic country, but one day, with more Chinese being western-educated, and with the world being increasingly globalized, it would have to path its way to democracy, or part-democracy.

However, in this path, what determines the speed of its progress to socialist or democratic ideals, and what determines the weight of democracy it places in its current political system? There are many factors - the receptivity and tolerance of the people towards the government, the freedom of people - economically and socially etc.

And in the center of these factors and the people's concerns is the fact that there are still many sensitive issues yet to be solved - the Tibet and Xin Jiang political instability, the rapidly appreciating yuan, the widening gap between rich and poor, the challenge to urbanize rural and agricultural areas etc.

If the central government does not solve these problems before releasing democratic powers to the people, it would cause too much political instability in China due to unresolved unhappiness, which is detriment to the developing China, whose current government is responsible and efficient.

As such, if the citizens are too quickly exposed to Western values, especially online, where un-backed criticism of China's political system is rampant, then it would not be beneficial to the current gradually steady regime, where problems need to be solved and tackled by a firm and responsible government.

As such, I think China has made the right decision to part ways with Google, when the company threatened to quit after attempts by the Chinese government to hack and censor information. Political freedom is not what China needs at the crucial moment of its development. It needs one single firm government that can concentrate on tackling economic and social issues.