I don't want to diminish the horror that was the beheading of Kenji Goto and Haruna Yukawa. It was, as Anne Applebaum clarified "grotesque" and "terrifying" (The Washington Post: Europe has survived terrorist attacks before), reminding me of latent darkness of the human heart, the kind of senseless cruelty it's capable of, and the crippling fear the international community now lives under. However, Applebaum's main point really is this: Even as we struggle to find a response that befits the actions of Jihadist terrorists, let's not play into the hands of the terrorists by responding to attempts to strike fear with actions that speak of fear. Let's be like the French, who marched in defiant unity.
Could Singapore have done otherwise? Well, the national narrative of being constantly under threat since Independence in 1965, whether of a social, economic or political nature, has meant that the national psyche instinctively operates on a siege mentality. Or in more colloquial terms, "kiasi" and "kiasu" (i.e., scare to die and scared to lose out), which translates into pulling all stops to make sure you nip any problem in the bud. No qualms about killing an ant with a sledgehammer in Singapore, just in case the ant morphs into a Godzillaesque monster. No issue with histrionics.
What Would Singapore Do? I am trying to imagine Singaporeans stoically refusing to be intimidated. But I can't.
Would Singapore have done the same? Looking back at all that's happened with regard to internal national security, I would say Singapore's probably the paragon of overreaction. Just consider what happened the last time the alleged terrorist Mas Selamat escaped from the Internal Security Department Whitley Detention Centre? Suddenly Home Affairs and Defence went into overdrive, and just to be sure, every other Ministry made sure they did something. Even the Ministry of Education started factoring in terrorist threats into school-based emergency exercise drills! (I should know - I played the role of a nosey Straits Times reporter during one of our exercises @ National Junior College!).
Could Singapore have done otherwise? Well, the national narrative of being constantly under threat since Independence in 1965, whether of a social, economic or political nature, has meant that the national psyche instinctively operates on a siege mentality. Or in more colloquial terms, "kiasi" and "kiasu" (i.e., scare to die and scared to lose out), which translates into pulling all stops to make sure you nip any problem in the bud. No qualms about killing an ant with a sledgehammer in Singapore, just in case the ant morphs into a Godzillaesque monster. No issue with histrionics.
What Would Singapore Do? I am trying to imagine Singaporeans stoically refusing to be intimidated. But I can't.
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