Liner Notes

Soundscape #61: “Once More Unto The Breach, Dear Friends, Once More”

“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to my death your right to say it.” —Voltaire.

(brace yourself, it’s a long one)

Apathy comes easy to people in safe and clean countries. Everyday we wake up to news about how the economy is doing well and how crime rates are going down and so on. We tend to think that we are being so well taken care of by the government so it’s best not to rock the boat, lest it overturns and we end up in the rocky seas. I suppose we are lucky in a way not because we’ve got the “right” government but because nothing has really fucked up thus far.

Orhan Tsolak. Protest For Burma In London, Oct 2007.

But apathy is a dangerous thing. It’s easy to forget what it has taken to get us to where we are. From the serfs under feudalism to the suffragettes of the early 20th century to the Rosa Parks of the Civil Rights Movement, the fight for the rights of the individual has been a long and bloody one.What is happening around the world today negates all the bloodshed and sacrifices that had been made. Everywhere you turn, be it Burma and the ridiculous house arrest of Aung Sun Suu Kyi, Pakistan and the martial law emergency rule, Israel and the Gaza Strip, China and Tibet, Russia and Chechnya, you see a flagrant disregard of human rights.

Declared in 1948, the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” These might be rather general and hence abstract terms for practical Singaporeans but Amnesty International lists, in no uncertain terms, Singapore with the highest execution rate relative to population size. Further, it’s no secret that the government has restricted freedom of speech and freedom of the press and has limited other civil and political rights (Wikipedia).

It’s quite surprising to see how the human rights issue is actually played out in Singapore. The recent call to repeal s377a* has caused much excitement here. When the call to sign the petition came around, I wasn’t too bothered by it, not because I thought it a useless thing, but because I didn’t believe that in this day and age, after more than god-knows-how-long of so-called civilisation, we still have to protest this crap! It’s ludicrous! We are not talking about god or your precious family structure or shit like that; we are talking about the basic human right to his/her own identity! How can we still be going on about this? How is it anyone’s problem what other people do in private? Have our brains not evolved?

I realised from the furore that I have been apathetic; I should have signed the petition. It wouldn’t have made a difference to the outcome (the code wasn’t repealed in the end) but it would have made a difference to me. So now. This is my platform and I will use it as best I can. I feel strongly about this and we must see it through for lives are at stake. From Amnesty International:

At a panel session at the UN headquarters, hosted by Amnesty International on October 16, three innocent men gave their compelling personal accounts of being on death row. Each one reminded the audience, including UN delegates and journalists, how men and women – who are not guilty of the alleged crime – can be sentenced to death as a result of unfair trials, erroneous decisions and human error.

One of them, Edward Edmary, sums it up best: “The death penalty is not a punishment. A punishment is intended to reform. By killing someone you are denying them the chance to reform.”

It is time for UN member states to end this form of punishment by taking the first step to call for a global moratorium on executions in November 2007.

Let’s not fuck up again. Sign the petition here.

download

Playlist:

1. (0:00) Belle And Sebastian - I Fought In A War (Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant)
2. (4:08) The New Pornographers - My Rights Versus Yours (Challengers)
3. (8:28) The Wrens - Everyone Choose Sides (The Meadowlands)
4. (13:08) Josh Ritter - Girl In The War (The Animal Years)
5. (17:30) Wilco - War On War (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot)
6. (21:21) The National - Start A War (Boxer)
7. (24:40) M. Ward - Poison Cup (Post-War)
8. (27:22) The Decemberists - Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then) (The Crane Wife)
9. (31:44) The Thermals - God And Country (Fuckin A)
10. (34:04) Nine Inch Nails - March Of The Pigs (The Downward Spiral)
11. (37:02) M83 - Don’t Save Us From The Flames (Before The Dawn Heals Us)

*The Penal Code of Singapore, in Section 377a, provides for a jail sentence for up to two years should a man be found to have committed an act of “gross indecency” with another man.