Cease & Desist What, Mr Zainudin Nordin? Discussion?

On Wednesday (8 May 2013) morning, I was looking through my Facebook news feeds during a break when I chanced upon a post on The Rice Bowl page which mentioned that a Member of Parliament representing the Bishan-Toa Payoh Group Representation Constituency, Zainudin Nordin, had made some rather controversial comments on his public Facebook page.

I was perplexed at this assertion, what with him having directly benefited from the democratic process to become a member of parliament in Singapore - one of the highest paid politicians in the world. The issue of why an MP would use gang rape to explain the concept of democracy continued to bug me and so I decided create the following meme and share it on my facebook page to ask whether he had seriously said such a thing.

My friends and I had some discussion on the matter and soon after, someone pointed me to a screenshot (below) of the statement made by Zainudin. It was actually a quotation from Terry Goodkind, an author, and the entire quotation in its entirety emphasises that democracy should not come at the price of the individual's rights (Goodkind was referring to America's attempts to install a democracy in Iraq during an interview).

I duly added this information that night to the meme that had been posted itself but still continued to wonder what the MP was implying by posting that quotation on his Facebook page. Could it be that he felt the Singapore government was infringing upon the individual's rights here? Or did he hold a dim view of democracy altogether? More questions seemed to arise from a better understanding of the post as it appeared on the MP's Facebook page than before I had that information.

Imagine my surprise when I saw an email from 'zainudinnordin@gmail.com' in my email inbox the next morning, and at first I was quite impressed that the MP had sought me out personally to discuss and clarify his position. Alas, this happy moment was shortlived when the text read:

Dear Mr Gangasudhan,

You have posted a picture of me together with a quote “Gang rape, after all, is democracy in action”, which you have attributed to me.   This is a statement by Terry Goodkind, and not me.   Your post is therefore mischievous and highly defamatory of me, and calculated to embarrass me and cause me damage.   I therefore demand that you remove your post immediately, failing which I will have no option but to take the appropriate legal action against you. All my rights are reserved.

Thank you.
Zainudin Nordin

Honestly, it was quite upsetting to see an MP resort to hostility when open discussion and honest debate could have clarified the matter. I felt unduly persecuted by a person of authority when all I had done was pose a question. At first, I just wanted to delete the meme and be over with it, never again to trust Zainudin Nordin, but after some thought, I felt it would be more constructive to use this opportunity to engage the MP and understand his stand on the concept of democracy and gain insight as to why he would endorse Terry Goodkind's statement. I thus sent the following reply to him, in the hopes that he will refrain from a hostile approach and adopt a more inclusive attitude, befitting an elected official in a democratic institution:

Dear sir, I am puzzled as to why you might feel embarrassed by the combination of your image and a reproduction of what you posted publically on your Facebook page. But more importantly, as a voting member of the public, I am very disturbed by what seems to be your endorsement of this opinion that democracy can be explained away using a heinous crime such as gang rape.

Generally, I do not bother with politicians’ Facebook pages but when I chanced upon a Facebook posting elsewhere on Wednesday morning (https://www.facebook.com/sonofadud/posts/505031336210687) that described the post you had made regarding democracy, I was shocked – to say the least. I thus reproduced the statement attributed to you together with your picture to ask my friends why a politician receiving $192,000 of taxpayer dollars would even think to say such a thing. The picture is to identify the person who said it and the quote is a verbatim reproduction, thus I do not see what there is to be embarrassed about nor how could this be interpreted as mischievous intent. In fact, this was merely an act of free speech in posing a legitimate question to my friends – how could a highly-paid elected official who has taken office to represent the people through a democratic process imply that the very same process was akin to gang rape? 

Subsequently, through the responses from my friends, I was able to find a screen-capture of the posting as it appeared on your Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=523797831010442) and noticed that you had actually reproduced a quote from someone else and not directly made the statement yourself, thus I added the relevant information to reflect this new information on Wednesday night (see screen-capture below).

 

Looking at the quotation you reproduced on your Facebook page in full though, I am no more reassured by your position on the issue of democracy. The statement by Terry Goodkind suggests that the rights of the individual should not be infringed in the name of democracy, so are you saying that the Singapore government – a democratically elected institution - does not recognise the rights of the individual?

At best, the reproduction of Terry Goodkind’s statement demonstrates poor taste in discussing the concept of democracy – not to mention makes light of the very serious crime of rape (what more, with the world reeling from the news of the many brutal rape cases in India). As an ethnic Indian, I am actually offended at the insinuation that I would use the issue of gang rape to be “mischievous” in any way.

I am also disappointed that as an elected member of parliament who purports to represent the interests of your constituents, you have taken issue with a meme meant to invite discussion – i.e. instead of engaging in discussion and clarifying your position, you have attempted to remove the discussion altogether. This is not at all what I would expect from an elected representative of the people and I have somewhat lost faith in your ability to represent the best interests of the community of Singaporeans you serve.

I therefore hope that you will use this opportunity to engage in discussion and reassure me, a citizen of Singapore, rather than continue with what appears to be an exercise to silence me, thank you. In the meanwhile, I will share this exchange with my friends through my personal blog so that others can better understand the context of the meme I created as well as your thoughts on the matter, take care.

Ganga

| www.gangasudhan.com 

| www.gangasudhan.com/blog 

| +65-90602206

I now await the reply from Zainudin Nordin and will decide what to do next depending on his reply. Hopefully, this will be just a misunderstanding from which we can come out with an insight into his opinions and philosophy on democracy and civil rights. Whatever it is, I shall update the developments here.

UPDATE 10/05/2013 @ 2345HRS

MP Zainudin Nordin replied at around 4.30pm with the following email message:

Dear Mr Gangasudhan, 

It is clear from your initial posting that it was your intention to ridicule me, and not to debate issues. To do that, you deliberately and mischievously attributed Terry Goodkind’s quote to me and even extracted, without context, part of that quote. Your motives were plain and your response, contrived. You had no choice but to correct this egregious error, but I note there is no hint of an apology from you.  

I think it is important to have open, honest debates on issues of the day. It is responses such as yours which in fact stifle honest debate and discourage people from sharing their views. 

Thank you.
Zainudin Nordin
Sent from my iPhone