THAM CHANG XIAN
First Year NUS Law

Tokenism or not, the lifting of the restrictions on the Speakers’ Corner in Hong Lim Park is indeed a watershed event. The baby steps towards a freer means of expression have been taken, and this can only be a good thing. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step and these small shuffles represent at least an intention of moving in the right direction.

The irksome part however is still the not-quite-invisible hand of the government pulling the marionette strings, despite the transfer of control from the police to the National Parks Board. It is one thing to limit the topics of protest for the purposes of “public order”, but to think that Singaporeans are unable to discern the wheat from the chaff is eyebrow-raising to say the least. After all, what is the use of all this education if we could fall for the ruses of quacks selling snake oil?

Hyde Park’s Speakers’ Corner is a free for all, where onlookers may heckle the speakers for all their worth. Without the internet’s Harry Potter cloak of invisibility to hide behind, onlookers can see for themselves the faces of the brazen few (if any) who would dare make inflammatory remarks. It would take much guts (and indeed a few shooters) to believe oft repeated rhetoric that has been rendered blasé by a certain postage pinching individual. Singaporeans in all our pragmatic glory do not suffer fools easily, and irrelevant or irreverent renditions would sooner be swept out than allowed past the door threshold.

Let those who have something to say take the stand (or mound in this case) and make their case. The public will not be so easily swayed by rustlings in the grass.