Sorry No Cure.
I see so many of my Malay friends say the same thing: ‘penatlah’. It means we’re tired. We’re exhausted. Why are we facing this again and again? — Alfian Sa’at
Mediacorp (a government-linked corporation) has demonstrated a history of recalcitrant “brownface” behavior — nevermind their constant apologies to the contrary. We have a saying in Singapore: “Sorry no cure”. Their repeated actions cast aspersions on the authenticity of their apologies. They should be investigated by IMDA, and slapped with the appropriate punitive measures sufficiently painful to jog their organizational memory the next time they get similarly bright ideas.
In a similar vein, Preetipls and Subhas’ expletive-laden MV clapping back at Mediacorp alleged that they were only taking aim at “(racist) Chinese”, adding a disclaimer that “Not all Chinese people are racist”. But like Mediacorp, the sincerity of their qualifying statements are suspect.
We have a saying in Singapore: “Sorry no cure”.
Preetipls and her co-star and brother, Subhas used the cover of a diss track to sneak in two seditious suggestions. One, that Singapore’s voting is rigged in favour of ethnic Chinese (“…it’s actually accurate of the city we in, no matter who we choose, the Chinese man win”). And two, that the loss of ethnic enclaves is lamentable — in a city where disunity and disingenuous media outlets encouraged Singaporeans to slaughter each other in two major race riots. Neither of which are remotely funny — and as I have explained, wholly untrue.
Ethnic enclaves where people of different colors huddle around each other are not “kitschy”, “exotic destinations”, or “authentic experiences”. They are symptomatic of a society split along ethnic fault-lines.
This is the aftermath of a lynching in ethnic-segregated America. I hope you see their gleeful grins standing over the twisted contortions of a screaming man burnt alive. I hope you cry and even puke. I hope this image of Man’s inhumanity to Man is forever burned into your skull whenever you close your eyes to sleep.
I hope that the next time someone tries to laugh it off as a “joke”, you will remember this caricature of cruelty. This is what disingenuous media content enables. This is what ethnic enclaves enable. This is what Subhas wants us to lament that we’ve supposedly “lost”.
Two parties have committed egregious errors. There are good reasons in both cases to doubt the sincerity of their apologies, and to suppose instead that their caveat-laden explanations are a nothing more than a paean to political correctness. There is reason to believe that, if gone unpunished, they are likely to persist in their patterns of pathological speech.
The time for talking about racism in Singapore is over. It’s time to act.
“You will never find me, You should never try me” — Subhas
On the contrary, Subhas, law enforcement agents will find you — and you should be tried at the stands — along with Mediacorp.
