Tuesday, July 3, 2007
June Hol Assignment
Blogging taskSinger believes that freedom of expression is essential to any democracy and therefore should not be limited. On the other hand, Szilagyi believes that more focus should be placed on social responsibility.
In the context of Singapore’s multi-racial society, where there is cultural and religious pluralism, which author’s view do you think should be adopted?
Write a response of at least 300 words and 2 content paragraphs, and include materials from both articles as well as your own knowledge and experience.
Through the revolution of time, the theory of humanism evoked increased emphasis on one's freedom, especially the freedom of expression in the recent years. So, to be able to express at one's own free will has been a sensitive topic especially since the emergence of the media. The question on whether or not this freedom should be practised freely will depend on the eye of the beholder. Even though Singer's view of unrestricted free expression is amiable, Szilagyi's view of prioritising social responsbility before expressing strikes more coherence with the way Singapore's cosmopolitan society should work.
As what Singer believes, freedom of speech is essential to democratic regimes, and it must include the freedom to say what everyone else believes to be false, and even what many people find offensive.,"We must be free to deny the existence of God, and to criticize the teachings of Jesus, Moses, Muhammad, and Buddha, as reported in texts that millions of people regard as sacred. Without that freedom, human progress will always run up against a basic roadblock." This can be supported by Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.”
Thus, free expression strengthens sense of belonging to the country as the people can voice out their views and they will feel that they are part of the country as they have a say. Take for example, when individuals have different views on an article or reports, sources like online and newspaper forums will allow them to exchange ideas and if necessary, debate on them. This is also a way to foster social cohesion and a way to understand how different races or religions feel about different issues.
On the other hand, Singer's view of free expression has its ill effects too.
Applying it to Singapore's context, it is known that herculean amount of effort were required from the Singapore government to reach a state of racial harmony of what it is now. It is especially true when broad media was the culprit of increased racial tension which led to disputes among the races during the year 1964 and the existance of the fear of it to arise again. Think about it, without the Utusan Melayu (Malay Newspaper) which intentionally published the malay propaganda in the 1960s,would the Singaporean Malays be inflicted with the negative image of Singapore Government being anti-malay and would their unhappiness with the Chinese be aroused? This leads to the next point which discuss about the reason why Szilagyi’s view on sense of social responsibility should be adopted and more widely practiced than freedom of expression in Singapore.
The majority of parents and the school have been trying to instill sense of responsibility and positive moral values into the young through many different methods like character development programmes. This is necessary because there has to be a certain extent of sense of social responsibility, especially while publishing or broadcasting certain sensitive issues regarding different races and religions. In Feb 2006, the Danish and Norwegian newspapers published provocative cartoons depicting Prophet Muhammad and raged the Muslims. They obviously had no intention of setting off mass demonstrations, diplomatic rows and economic boycotts of their products in the Middle East. They simply wanted to make a statement about the extensive self-censorship that has developed within news media and artistic circles since the murder of the Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh in 2004. This shows the importance of being socially responsible while presenting the facts to the audience, especially of the media’s. Because the media is a powerful and influential source of information and many people rely on it. One inappropriately used word may lead to a grave misunderstanding by the audiences. If the media decides to be socially responsible and filter/censor out all the potential social-poison, the world would be a better place to live in.
Sense of social responsibility should be practiced especially in our multi-racial Singapore, where there were experiences of racial unhappiness among different races. Moreover, we can’t deny that social cohesion is fragile and racial difference is still a sensitive topic. More the more it is important to be socially responsible.
However, being socially responsible will mean that freedom of expression will be limited due to that fact that people should only express the right things at the right time. This denied the purpose of the media - presenting the facts. When certain facts are to be hid, the presented 'facts' might not be true anymore.
Well, making a choice between being able to express freely and being socially responsible while one expresses himself is not tough. It can’t be denied that a certain degree of freedom of expression is required to run a nation. If not, citizens’ dissatisfaction will certainly be aroused, leading to government failure.
But when this is applied to the multi-racial Singapore, there has to be a certain extent of sense of social responsibility as any racial or religious comments will spark off unhappiness. Freedom of expression should be practiced in consideration to the public's interest - whether or not this may cause dissatisfaction among different types of people.
In addition, Singapore government has been adopting policies of transparency, meritocracy and others which regulations clearly state that there is no depending factor on races as all races are equal.
So, I believe that Singapore should adopt Szilagyi’s view to run the country even though it would be optimal if Singapore can strike a balance between freedom of expression and social responsibility.
*10.46pm*
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