If they allow Tan Cheng Bock to succeed in his bid to become elected president.

By Belmont Lay

A GERMAN variety show recently came to the tongue-firmly-in-cheek conclusion that Singaporeans are bonkers based on our quirks.

But that really is not a big deal because that was a satire, it was meant to be funny and wait until you get a load of this: Presidential hopeful Tan Cheng Bock supported the detention of the so-called Marxists conspirators in 1987 and he wants you to vote him for president this year.

Even when he hasn’t come clean about his true feelings regarding what he knew then and what he knows now about what is perhaps one of Singapore’s reigning undemocratic practices of the 20th century.

However, according to him, he had good reasons for supporting the arrests — based on the known facts THEN.

For the uninitiated, the 1987 capture, detention and subsequent release of 24 individuals was based on the suspicion that this group of so-called “Marxists” were subversives and a threat to national security bent on destabilising the government.

Recently, The Online Citizen ran a video interview with Tan about this issue, in which he said: “And I think at that point of time all the facts that were given to us were from the government source (emphasis mine)”

“And to check it out actually, as the feedback chief, I went to the people. And I presented the case to the people. And they all agreed based on what was given then, the facts and so on, that they felt that the security then was being threatened.”

He continued: “Rightly or wrongly we believed that was so because that was just from the facts of the day then.”

“And at that point of time I stand by what I said because that was the facts of the day given to us. And I thought this issue was already settled by the court… the ISD didn’t actually abuse their role.”

Let’s count the number of times he emphasised “the facts” of the day back in ’87: No less than four occasions.

And how many times did he mention the natural harbinger of doom? He said “facts… from the government” once.

But are we scapegoating him by singling him out and putting so much pressure on him to speak honestly about this case?

As far as I can tell, no, because he was the one who is putting himself out there as presidential hopeful and inviting public scrutiny in the first place.

And if you’re going to counter with the argument saying that hindsight vision is 20/20 and Tan was just doing his job as a PAP member of parliament, and it is easy to look back and say what went wrong with perfect retrospective knowledge, well, you’ve just uncovered a paradox, baby, because you’re missing the point — while getting it at the same time.

SINCE hindsight vision IS supposedly 20/20, aren’t we at the perfect juncture to resolve old problems and heal uncovered wounds based on what we know now?

And aren’t we getting ahead of ourselves if we want to talk about the FUTURE presidential elections, when we haven’t even revised our knowledge and come to terms with the past?

Especially when it is clear that the facts of the day, back in ’87, are severely lacking in light of what we can uncover now?

Because what people want to hear is whether Tan can say with the same amount of conviction and confidence that the arrests were justified then, as well as now.

And if he can’t, is it because the ISD cannot be celebrated openly as a key institution of Singaporean triumphalism, whereby quasi-democratic principles have ensured our national security endured?

Or is it because the case of the Marxist conspiracy was dodgy at best to begin with?

But if he honestly (or rather naively) thinks that this issue can be buried, he must be mad.

Which would then probably explain why he is running for president in the first place.

And if he really does win it, then we as Singaporeans are truly crazy-assed.

And the Germans weren’t that far off to being with.

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