The truth about George Yeo....and a warning to voters...
DEBATE YES, BUT DO NOT TAKE ON THOSE IN AUTHORITY AS "EQUALS'.
20 February 1995
147th Prostitute Press
REMEMBER your place in society before you engage in political debate, said Information and the Arts Minister George Yeo yesterday.
Debate cannot degenerate into a free-for-all where no distinction is made between the senior and junior party, or what the Hokkiens describe as "boh tua, boh suay".
"You must make distinctions - what is high, what is low, what is above, what is below - and then within this, we can have a debate, we can have a discussion," he added.
Speaking to reporters at the end of his Moulmein tour on the parameters of debate, an issue sparked off by the Catherine Lim controversy, he made it clear that people should not take on those in authority as "equals".
The Prime Minister responded to writer Catherine Lim for her article on his governing style because her tone showed disrespect for authority.
Brig-Gen (NS) Yeo recalled that in 1991, the National Trades Union Congress raised a rumpus when Straits Times columnist Sumiko Tan criticised then union-MP Goh Chee Wee for his speech in Parliament.
Mr Goh felt that Miss Tan was "wagging her finger at him", he said.
Likewise, during last year's Budget debate, Parliament took issue with ST columnist Cherian George for his comments on the Speaker's handling of the guillotine.
"He had no right to speak to the Speaker as an equal."
Pointing to a more recent example, he noted that the judiciary responded when American academic Christopher Lingle took "pot shots" at it in an article he wrote in the International Herald Tribune.
He added: "This is not to say that MPs, ministers, Speakers or judges cannot be criticised ... They ought to be criticised if they are wrong but it should always be done in a way which doesn't tear the social fabric."
He said that these individuals did not arrogate to themselves the right to receive respect: MPs were elected while judges were appointed in a solemn ceremony.
Turning to examples abroad, he said the British monarchy had fallen into disrepute because newspapers criticise the royals to increase circulation. But the Thais threw those who criticised the monarchy into prison.
"Every society creates immune systems to defend its own key organs and we must have the immune system in Singapore. Otherwise, by slow increments, we allow these organs to be infected and degraded. And that is not good for us, it is not good for the health of whole society."
