Clearly the VC has bungled this, avoided the rules or made them up as he has gone along, and should fall on his sword. For the disdain that he has shown towards his faculty, he should take responsibility, apologise and resign.
All the social ills, we need policies in place that force people to learn to manage their finances and lives. If the people chose to do wrong, one strke and they are out. No welfare for them.
The last things this nation need are pesticides who cannot managed their own lives. (We do not need to publish suicide rates … like what the Singapore did)
(from the speeches of Lee Kuan Yew) There is a need to have a greater discrepancies in income distribution in order for a country to prosper.
Advance Australia Fair!
If an Australian leader did what Lee Kuan Yew did at the ANY ceremony, I think the degree would be revoked and the Australian High Commisioner would be summoned to the Istana.
I have more to add …
If we have a single-party government, all the talents will be concentrated in the ruling party and do wonders for Australia.
The less talented can form the oppositions and by establishing group representation and shifting of constituency boundaries and bankruptcy, the oppositions will remain where they are. By the way, all the shadowing positions should be done away with.
We will also pay the ruling party a salary higher than what Singapore ministers are getting. (They are the highest paid government officers in the world and their pay is tagged to the highest private-sector pay)
The ruling party will be people with integrity. Australia will not have problems with clowns such as Brian Burke’s people and the Santos type.
As a person who used to live in fear in Lee Kuan Yew regime, and left Singapore. I think Lee has got Superior form of government. When he did the spiraling down action during the interview with SBS TV, the dreaded feeling of fear returns.
Australia, with ANU help, should put in place meritocracy, detention without trail and death penalty.
Why.
1. Look at the State governments, there are few talents. The Fed govt is slow in implementing policies because the opposition parties, lobby groups and mass media are putting obstacles to a fast and agile decision making – so that Australia is able to move faster to capture the economic opportunities the world present. We need a single-party democractic system, and to do this … those who opposite will have their financials investigated, lawsuits for defamatory comments on the ruling party and revoking of press licences and confiscation of assets
2. Australia is now Number One in illicit drug and alcohol related incidents. Death penalty will do wonder for traffickers. Full stop. Alcoholics will be named and shamed in public, such as what Singapore did to its former President Devan Nair (who has to escape to US … He is no longer our problem) Drug addicts should be subject to the harsh cold-turkey detox treatment where they will be deprived of their addictions until they are cured.
3. Vandalism, graffiti and hoons should be subjected corporal punishment such as caning, Singapore military-style reforms and re-education. Once we break them and ensure that they do not pose a threat to the public, they will be released from reformative institutions.
4. By the way, the protesters at ANU need to be dealt with too … expel the students and fired the staff. The students should be marked for life, in case they cause problems in future. The staff, make sure they will not find another job in this great nation of ours.
I believe most Australians, including ANU, will not be able to related to the above regime, It is about time we establish the Australian Action Party, and with the help from the Chinese and their spies in Australia, align the new values of Australia to Singapore’s and China’s and create a utopia on this continent of ours.
sorry, I just tried to put into question some of the very arguable assumptions made up there: the murals┬┤ didactic aspect, for instance, seems to me very much on the tradition of Tai religious painting -vague though this relation may be. In relation to this, I believe that it is also important not only to think of this kind of works as directed to outsiders, but also to consider what it tells the local community itself, for whom their “exoticism” might be irrelevant -or not
Kamal said “I can’t say the same for the minorities in Australia who despite having degrees can’t get jobs.”
Kamal, speak for yourself mate. I am a minority Asian myself and me and most of my Asian friends did not have much trouble getting professional job here.
Infrequently Andrew posts a commentary that gets the troops stirred up and the comments come a-flying.
I like it.I enjoy it,and then ,because of much of what is discussed is unknown to me , google gets a hammering.
It is particularly important to establish quickly whether or not the ANU followed its own rules on honorary degrees in this case. I hope that New Mandala will be able to provide definitive information on this point soon.
Don’t let him trick you and get another doctorate for the following legal procedure. He stole the idea from the British. ANU might have to give a doctorate to Sir Raffles himself for this one.
“Caning in the city-state of Singapore is used as a form of corporal punishment on men for criminal offences….More than one thousand male criminals are caned in Singapore each year for both violent and non-violent offences such as vandalism, overstaying one’s visa or illegal immigration .”
“The subject to be caned is strapped to a metal frame with the buttocks exposed. The rattan cane has been soaked in water overnight to prevent the cane from splitting and to maximize inflicted pain; the Prisons Department denies that the cane is soaked in brine, but notes that the cane is treated with antiseptic before use. Parts of the prisoner’s body are padded to prevent accidental damaging of the kidneys and the genitals, but the procedure can still leave permanent scars on the subject.”
“Caning is carried out in the presence of a prison officer and a medical officer. The punishment of caning is carried out in a single session, and not by ‘installments’. Thus, a person sentenced to 24 strokes of the cane will have the entire sentence carried out at once. The persons carrying out the caning are specially trained prison officers.”
[The way they cut the hair off of young women from Burma to humiliate them before deporting them (while Than Shwe’s grandson is flying in for his daily lessons from Naypyidaw), maybe he invented that one.]
It disgusts me to hear my countrymen speaking so arrogantly in a country which is conferring him with an honourary degree.
ANU should not have done it at all. I was born and raised in SG and never liked the way he ran the country with an iron fist and with fear. It may have been warranted back in the 60’s but certainly not in this day and age. His arrogance will bring him down one day.
I think that drawing a clear line between what is nowadays the cultural items that the Tai Lu/ Lue produce “for themselves” and the state promoted, tourist-oriented, etc. ones is too easy: VCDs produced in Sipsong Panna “by Tais and for Tais” very often include sexy female dancers from the infamous “Tai Garden” in Muang Ham (Ganlanba) among other Han-created paraphernalia.
Actually the creators of those VCDs seem to be ultimately following contemporary Thai or Shan models -but you can also find that some of the “messages” they send are very close to what the PRC state expects the Tais to do, that is, sing, dance, flirt, attend public school, etc. Anyway, and although doing politics is risky in Sipsong Panna, some songs do try to emphasize a kind of traditional political identity diverse to the one the state is trying to impose
I find the discussion on art pointless: why should these murals be seen as examples of “Western” artistic influences and those produced after the 1950s not? Besides, are you sure it is not possible to find traditional Chinese art traces on these murals?
I have been living in Singapore for 34 years. I have never felt oppressed(except by neighbouring countries trying to impose their will/and so called “democracy” on us). “police state” dont make me laugh. I am a person who travels the world constantly, why dont all of you just focus on making each of your own homes a better place. let the honorary degree go, there are more important things in life. LKY sometimes does things which not all singaporeans agree with and we can always change it at the ballot boxes if we want too. We have the internet, we have the information(even this forum), if we feel strong enough against anything he or the sing gov does, they will be changed but they have helped us to a better life and i respect that. I m not even going to bother to comment about some of the countries around us.
In fact, Singapore prides itself of being a part of the “first world” (the West plus Japan). They cringe every time you put them in the same category as Thailand, The Philippines, Malaysia, or Indonesia. It is only when we talk about human rights and democracy that they suddenly discover their “Asianness.”
“Almost every mural made some effort (to my eye) to provide a hyper-exotic image of Dai life. Images of women bathing predominated on some walls; other areas depicted stylised dances, performances and ritual; while some others showed interactions between the Chinese State and the Dai.”
You can see that in Tai Lu music CDs too.
The young rock-like singers and the folk ballads are wonderful made for Tais themselves, but the PRC tourist videos feature Tai Lu women dancing in bikini tops (?) and then there is (or was) Maing La in Wa controlled Burma that people reported was a sort of surreal Pattaya or Las Vegas of sex for PRC tourists.
Thanks for the photos of De Hong. It’s nice to see what it looks like for real nowadays, having only travelled through the area via old history books. There are some really nice detailed topographical maps of western Yunnan online. If I can find them, I’ll post the link.
It’s a fair point if ANU bypassed the appropriate procedures for awarding honorary degrees, but the impression that remains is small mindedness, absence of any kind of historical context and deplorable bad manners.Whatever his faults it is indisputable that Lee Kwan Yew is a statesman of extraordinarily high achievement.Even a paragon like Mandela has his dark side, the championing of Libya for example in its murderous phase and his support for the Lockerbie bombers.
The Australian left,unfairly perhaps, has an international reputation for provincialism and an almost comical dogmatism.This incident tends to reinforce that misleading Pilgerist stereotype.
It’s interesting that the mural painteres decided to go ‘ West’ completely in their genres. There is a variety of influences but they all belonged to Western schools. Gone for good is the Russian costructivism; the genre that was influential to the art world between 1910-60s, and in many ways shaped Western modern art itself (Picasso’s cubism, eg.)
To be ‘new’, China’s choice (in art) is quite slim. She has to abandon most of her twentieth century histories, but at the same time, can’t go back too far coz ‘faiths’ might return too hastily. I guess that’s why the authority (artists?) settled for a variety of Western genres (but no cubic or square is allowed). I hope to see more pictures to confirm this hypothesis. There’s another issue summed up in this question– is there such a thing as Chinese modern art? This has implications far beyond art, and China.
Nong Juu, you can find the ‘exotic within’ in almost every country on this planet. The Thais have a similar treatment to indigenous populations locating in the upper North. Also, I remember how the Thai authority (of Prem administration) kept preaching us to help the ‘starving nongs’ of Isan when I was young. Everytime I switched on a TV, the only image I saw perpetually is children eating soil. For China, I think the ‘exotic within’ have turned into pure commodities. The 50 plus groups of ‘minorities’ are no longer there to be looked at, the Chinese state is really making an enterprise out of them.
I’ve heard that the indepedent art scene of the Dai community is
quite lively, anybody have some info on this?
Jack, have you considered that it is your own imposition and projection of values here is what infact causes problems, seen in extreme examples with IRAQ and the WEST…?
Furthermore, it is these same prejudices that Lee Kuan Yew has used to his advantage post decolonisation.
Without the West – what do you think Singapore would be? It’s a mutual dependancy. Furthermore, one could argue that Singapore isn’t really apart of the ‘east’ anymore at all. Not as a result of its economic position, but more to do with the adoption of the cosmocrat attitude…
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Lee’s degree broke ANU rules
Clearly the VC has bungled this, avoided the rules or made them up as he has gone along, and should fall on his sword. For the disdain that he has shown towards his faculty, he should take responsibility, apologise and resign.
ANU honours Lee Kuan Yew. Why?
I have more to add …
All the social ills, we need policies in place that force people to learn to manage their finances and lives. If the people chose to do wrong, one strke and they are out. No welfare for them.
The last things this nation need are pesticides who cannot managed their own lives. (We do not need to publish suicide rates … like what the Singapore did)
(from the speeches of Lee Kuan Yew) There is a need to have a greater discrepancies in income distribution in order for a country to prosper.
Advance Australia Fair!
If an Australian leader did what Lee Kuan Yew did at the ANY ceremony, I think the degree would be revoked and the Australian High Commisioner would be summoned to the Istana.
Majullah Singapura!
ANU honours Lee Kuan Yew. Why?
I have more to add …
If we have a single-party government, all the talents will be concentrated in the ruling party and do wonders for Australia.
The less talented can form the oppositions and by establishing group representation and shifting of constituency boundaries and bankruptcy, the oppositions will remain where they are. By the way, all the shadowing positions should be done away with.
We will also pay the ruling party a salary higher than what Singapore ministers are getting. (They are the highest paid government officers in the world and their pay is tagged to the highest private-sector pay)
The ruling party will be people with integrity. Australia will not have problems with clowns such as Brian Burke’s people and the Santos type.
ANU honours Lee Kuan Yew. Why?
As a person who used to live in fear in Lee Kuan Yew regime, and left Singapore. I think Lee has got Superior form of government. When he did the spiraling down action during the interview with SBS TV, the dreaded feeling of fear returns.
Australia, with ANU help, should put in place meritocracy, detention without trail and death penalty.
Why.
1. Look at the State governments, there are few talents. The Fed govt is slow in implementing policies because the opposition parties, lobby groups and mass media are putting obstacles to a fast and agile decision making – so that Australia is able to move faster to capture the economic opportunities the world present. We need a single-party democractic system, and to do this … those who opposite will have their financials investigated, lawsuits for defamatory comments on the ruling party and revoking of press licences and confiscation of assets
2. Australia is now Number One in illicit drug and alcohol related incidents. Death penalty will do wonder for traffickers. Full stop. Alcoholics will be named and shamed in public, such as what Singapore did to its former President Devan Nair (who has to escape to US … He is no longer our problem) Drug addicts should be subject to the harsh cold-turkey detox treatment where they will be deprived of their addictions until they are cured.
3. Vandalism, graffiti and hoons should be subjected corporal punishment such as caning, Singapore military-style reforms and re-education. Once we break them and ensure that they do not pose a threat to the public, they will be released from reformative institutions.
4. By the way, the protesters at ANU need to be dealt with too … expel the students and fired the staff. The students should be marked for life, in case they cause problems in future. The staff, make sure they will not find another job in this great nation of ours.
I believe most Australians, including ANU, will not be able to related to the above regime, It is about time we establish the Australian Action Party, and with the help from the Chinese and their spies in Australia, align the new values of Australia to Singapore’s and China’s and create a utopia on this continent of ours.
Advance Australia Fair!
Murals at Dai-Jingpo cultural park
sorry, I just tried to put into question some of the very arguable assumptions made up there: the murals┬┤ didactic aspect, for instance, seems to me very much on the tradition of Tai religious painting -vague though this relation may be. In relation to this, I believe that it is also important not only to think of this kind of works as directed to outsiders, but also to consider what it tells the local community itself, for whom their “exoticism” might be irrelevant -or not
ANU honours Lee Kuan Yew. Why?
Kamal said “I can’t say the same for the minorities in Australia who despite having degrees can’t get jobs.”
Kamal, speak for yourself mate. I am a minority Asian myself and me and most of my Asian friends did not have much trouble getting professional job here.
Murals at Dai-Jingpo cultural park
I’m not going to bore myself answering roger p’s group of irrelevant questions as I’ve not discussed ‘art’.
I have no interest in naive Western-centricity or simple Orientalist discourse.
Thai studies boycott? An update
Infrequently Andrew posts a commentary that gets the troops stirred up and the comments come a-flying.
I like it.I enjoy it,and then ,because of much of what is discussed is unknown to me , google gets a hammering.
“Lee Kuan Yew – ANU is not for you!”
It is particularly important to establish quickly whether or not the ANU followed its own rules on honorary degrees in this case. I hope that New Mandala will be able to provide definitive information on this point soon.
“Lee Kuan Yew – ANU is not for you!”
Don’t let him trick you and get another doctorate for the following legal procedure. He stole the idea from the British. ANU might have to give a doctorate to Sir Raffles himself for this one.
Caning in Singapore
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caning_in_Singapore
“Caning in the city-state of Singapore is used as a form of corporal punishment on men for criminal offences….More than one thousand male criminals are caned in Singapore each year for both violent and non-violent offences such as vandalism, overstaying one’s visa or illegal immigration .”
“The subject to be caned is strapped to a metal frame with the buttocks exposed. The rattan cane has been soaked in water overnight to prevent the cane from splitting and to maximize inflicted pain; the Prisons Department denies that the cane is soaked in brine, but notes that the cane is treated with antiseptic before use. Parts of the prisoner’s body are padded to prevent accidental damaging of the kidneys and the genitals, but the procedure can still leave permanent scars on the subject.”
“Caning is carried out in the presence of a prison officer and a medical officer. The punishment of caning is carried out in a single session, and not by ‘installments’. Thus, a person sentenced to 24 strokes of the cane will have the entire sentence carried out at once. The persons carrying out the caning are specially trained prison officers.”
[The way they cut the hair off of young women from Burma to humiliate them before deporting them (while Than Shwe’s grandson is flying in for his daily lessons from Naypyidaw), maybe he invented that one.]
ANU honours Lee Kuan Yew. Why?
It disgusts me to hear my countrymen speaking so arrogantly in a country which is conferring him with an honourary degree.
ANU should not have done it at all. I was born and raised in SG and never liked the way he ran the country with an iron fist and with fear. It may have been warranted back in the 60’s but certainly not in this day and age. His arrogance will bring him down one day.
Murals at Dai-Jingpo cultural park
I think that drawing a clear line between what is nowadays the cultural items that the Tai Lu/ Lue produce “for themselves” and the state promoted, tourist-oriented, etc. ones is too easy: VCDs produced in Sipsong Panna “by Tais and for Tais” very often include sexy female dancers from the infamous “Tai Garden” in Muang Ham (Ganlanba) among other Han-created paraphernalia.
Actually the creators of those VCDs seem to be ultimately following contemporary Thai or Shan models -but you can also find that some of the “messages” they send are very close to what the PRC state expects the Tais to do, that is, sing, dance, flirt, attend public school, etc. Anyway, and although doing politics is risky in Sipsong Panna, some songs do try to emphasize a kind of traditional political identity diverse to the one the state is trying to impose
I find the discussion on art pointless: why should these murals be seen as examples of “Western” artistic influences and those produced after the 1950s not? Besides, are you sure it is not possible to find traditional Chinese art traces on these murals?
ANU honours Lee Kuan Yew. Why?
I have been living in Singapore for 34 years. I have never felt oppressed(except by neighbouring countries trying to impose their will/and so called “democracy” on us). “police state” dont make me laugh. I am a person who travels the world constantly, why dont all of you just focus on making each of your own homes a better place. let the honorary degree go, there are more important things in life. LKY sometimes does things which not all singaporeans agree with and we can always change it at the ballot boxes if we want too. We have the internet, we have the information(even this forum), if we feel strong enough against anything he or the sing gov does, they will be changed but they have helped us to a better life and i respect that. I m not even going to bother to comment about some of the countries around us.
ANU honours Lee Kuan Yew. Why?
In fact, Singapore prides itself of being a part of the “first world” (the West plus Japan). They cringe every time you put them in the same category as Thailand, The Philippines, Malaysia, or Indonesia. It is only when we talk about human rights and democracy that they suddenly discover their “Asianness.”
“Lee Kuan Yew – ANU is not for you!”
Chris Fry, I’ll see you at the next cheese orgy. *wink wink*
Murals at Dai-Jingpo cultural park
Highly detailed topographical maps for Burma and Yunnan border area:
China and Yunnan
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/ams/china/
Burma
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/ams/burma/
Murals at Dai-Jingpo cultural park
“Almost every mural made some effort (to my eye) to provide a hyper-exotic image of Dai life. Images of women bathing predominated on some walls; other areas depicted stylised dances, performances and ritual; while some others showed interactions between the Chinese State and the Dai.”
You can see that in Tai Lu music CDs too.
The young rock-like singers and the folk ballads are wonderful made for Tais themselves, but the PRC tourist videos feature Tai Lu women dancing in bikini tops (?) and then there is (or was) Maing La in Wa controlled Burma that people reported was a sort of surreal Pattaya or Las Vegas of sex for PRC tourists.
Thanks for the photos of De Hong. It’s nice to see what it looks like for real nowadays, having only travelled through the area via old history books. There are some really nice detailed topographical maps of western Yunnan online. If I can find them, I’ll post the link.
“Lee Kuan Yew – ANU is not for you!”
It’s a fair point if ANU bypassed the appropriate procedures for awarding honorary degrees, but the impression that remains is small mindedness, absence of any kind of historical context and deplorable bad manners.Whatever his faults it is indisputable that Lee Kwan Yew is a statesman of extraordinarily high achievement.Even a paragon like Mandela has his dark side, the championing of Libya for example in its murderous phase and his support for the Lockerbie bombers.
The Australian left,unfairly perhaps, has an international reputation for provincialism and an almost comical dogmatism.This incident tends to reinforce that misleading Pilgerist stereotype.
Murals at Dai-Jingpo cultural park
It’s interesting that the mural painteres decided to go ‘ West’ completely in their genres. There is a variety of influences but they all belonged to Western schools. Gone for good is the Russian costructivism; the genre that was influential to the art world between 1910-60s, and in many ways shaped Western modern art itself (Picasso’s cubism, eg.)
To be ‘new’, China’s choice (in art) is quite slim. She has to abandon most of her twentieth century histories, but at the same time, can’t go back too far coz ‘faiths’ might return too hastily. I guess that’s why the authority (artists?) settled for a variety of Western genres (but no cubic or square is allowed). I hope to see more pictures to confirm this hypothesis. There’s another issue summed up in this question– is there such a thing as Chinese modern art? This has implications far beyond art, and China.
Nong Juu, you can find the ‘exotic within’ in almost every country on this planet. The Thais have a similar treatment to indigenous populations locating in the upper North. Also, I remember how the Thai authority (of Prem administration) kept preaching us to help the ‘starving nongs’ of Isan when I was young. Everytime I switched on a TV, the only image I saw perpetually is children eating soil. For China, I think the ‘exotic within’ have turned into pure commodities. The 50 plus groups of ‘minorities’ are no longer there to be looked at, the Chinese state is really making an enterprise out of them.
I’ve heard that the indepedent art scene of the Dai community is
quite lively, anybody have some info on this?
ANU honours Lee Kuan Yew. Why?
All these arguments by westerners?
How do you know everyone here is a westerner?
Jack, have you considered that it is your own imposition and projection of values here is what infact causes problems, seen in extreme examples with IRAQ and the WEST…?
Furthermore, it is these same prejudices that Lee Kuan Yew has used to his advantage post decolonisation.
Without the West – what do you think Singapore would be? It’s a mutual dependancy. Furthermore, one could argue that Singapore isn’t really apart of the ‘east’ anymore at all. Not as a result of its economic position, but more to do with the adoption of the cosmocrat attitude…