Monday, December 26, 2011
TR EMERITUS
The Voice of Singaporeans for Singapore
Of Race, Politics and Crisis Management
December 26th, 2011 | 
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Mr Cherian George last post - Seng Han Thong, alternative media and choosing sides – has set our thoughts wondering of some of his comments on this subject.Is it not stratospheric of exaggerated claims for him to allege that the alternative media somehow, unexplained of substantiation, exceeded its freedom from the yoke of “balance “and “objectivity” to be trampling over “basic factual accuracy”? Mr Cherian George’s talk of “basic factual accuracy”, to us, is not profundity. It looks a lot more of an academic thesis with a strong flavor of journalism than hard facts. In effect, what we saw looks more like the caricature of straw-man fabrication and attack of that.
Up till now, Seng Han Thong have not yet disputed SMRT’s position that ethnicity was not and never a factor in the crisis management fiasco. Mr Seng have publicly admitted his error of factual comprehension as to reference to any ethnic import, so exactly where The Online Citizen (TOC) is allegedly wrong of “basic factual accuracy” in Mr Cherian George’s determination needs substantiation? Mr Seng did not outwardly disputed SMRT (of his own mistaken presumption) that the race/ethnicity underpins at the relevant moment of his comment. He might have actually believe that was true (incorrectly at that) of language deficiency of those in his mention!
And his pointed “sensation” of write allegation too? We wonder in bewilderment. If in doubt, asks Madam Halimah Yacob of felt gravity. She spoke publicly of how “disturbed” she was of what she categorized as “inappropriate” and “unfair” of Mr Seng Han Thong’s remarks. And Mr Cherian George might want to take a leave of keen observation of one of our readers.
anonymous
“Illuminating your personal philosophy on journalism is fine and sharing of your thoughts. In the end, the truths stand out.The words SHT uttered were specific, identifying and exhaustively defining of ethnicity relevance, unfortunately and sadly. No one can judge his state of mind thoughts when those fateful words were uttered. His head is on his shoulder – not yours nor mine. So one must take those words for face value until SHT clarified or otherwise.
TOC could not interprete another way except at risks of being accused of possible prejudice. They showed the entire recording and allow their readers to judge – that was not just merely “considerate” as you put it but honorable and respecting of truthful exposure for everyone else to independently form their own opinion.
And as for Mr George’s attribution to possible “political naivety” of comments in TOC, we are rather amused if the coin really tossed up tail instead of head that he is looking for. Does Mr Cherian George understands that there are two basic types of crisis – controlled crisis and uncontrolled (sometimes labeled ignored) crisis?
In controlled crisis, just like the Mas Salamat episode, there is a defined solution set (apprehension of the fugitive), the Government will very loudly, even boastfully tell its citizenry with great media fanfare that the crisis is “under control” with very public display of military might and presence island-wide, helped by the controlled media skillful “creating” figment of imagination in the public mind of how the fugitive, starving in the forest looking haggard, physically worn out from weeks of food deprivation as if to suggestively imply he will be easy to nap thereafter. Yet the reality was the Government’s obvious inability to find a trace of his where-about for weeks. The limping fugitive outwitted the Government despite all this showbiz apparatus helped by community involvement, fled to safe sanctuary in Johore. Upon his arrest, the headline read of mainstream media flourishes again of how “the crisis was resolved” The hard truth is that someone else solved the Government’s created crisis.
The other type of crisis is uncontrolled crisis. Here the political “maturity” of government reacts differently. It is now the “ostrich principle” coming to good use. There is no solution set because “processes and procedures” all failed. And the Government’s best solution? Keep up the public lecture and moralizing. It, at least, helps to keep the groveling heads down of public backlash advantaging the keeping the silence in Government. They basically ignored the problem for now, hoping that it will go away, fade away, or better still, cease to be a crisis because the Government “declares” that it has been resolved – just like the 50 years freak flooding or the COI will uncover the source of the crisis later. For now, the message is everyone takes a chill pill and goes to bed – nothing serious really happened – that is precisely why the Government kept a tombstone cold silence.
If the comments in TOC is politically naïve as asserted, where and when is the crisis publicly acknowledged and to be acted upon and where is the solution – ever? It is hard to believe Mr Cherian George when none of his writings, to our available read, illuminates his understanding of the true nature of crisis management. His urgent argument is “context” is very important and if the causal texture is seemingly missing in his mind thoughts, our suspicion must naturally be that the coin of political naivety is shown to be most likely to be belonging to him instead of cyberspace bloggers – TRE and TOC included!
As for the ethnicity relevance, we also think he could have missed the trees for the forest – again the contextual is the core of his mistaken thought. We believe SMRT could have also fallen astray in this regard.
It is, we strongly suspect, not a problem of language understanding as a primary cause of the crisis management mishandling. It is more likely “syntax” error in the “language of crisis management”. Those at the top were lost for words and, those at the bottom, have enormous difficulty in comprehending those “syntax” even if properly selected of use vocabulary. Quite simply, a seemingly simple direction could be “do not open the carriage door” does not mean do not open the carriage door “under any circumstances” or “open the door when instructed so in yet unspecified circumstances” but dead silence in between. The message conveyed to the train driver and the message filtered down through the chain of command understood is different- just different contextually, not the English language comprehension. It is a lot more than that of command of English language per se down the command chain. And we have plenty to prove here.
In practical realities, the limitation of cognitive abilities of those caught in the face of crisis will show up with increased intensity as the crisis envelopes and escalates. If Mr Cherian George had read Richard Nixon’s memoir, he would be aware of the late President’s exuberant boast of “mountaintop experiences” in which he claimed to have discovered his latent strengths which he never thought he had and only in a crisis, these qualities emerged to be discovered by him. Empty rationalization of irrational thinking is the reality!
Nixon was caught out lying in congressional testimony, pleaded impunity from impeachment proceedings, to avoid going to jail in disgrace. Nixon’s downfall has important lessons on crisis management – the real thing. In crisis situation, decision-making span is short and the lack of predictability along with the irrelevance of past experiences, SOP compounded the sins of crisis resolution communication and failures. Panic sets in and those in organized hierarchy were unconsciously perpetuating organized chaos – shouting instructions in “syntax” and vocabulary those at the bottom are unaccustomed to – all races all ethnicity and all educational levels and professional field included. Those fumbling at the bottom have other terrors of their own to cope.
- Selective filtering of information from commuters and from internal management protecting their own backsides
- Cue awareness shrinks in the fearful darkness of tunnel entrapment
- Past experience has no precedents, maybe more fearful of their own lives than even commuters who has company in distress
- Low tolerance for increasing ambiguity as hierarchy above are felt to be even more paralyzed than themselves
- Inability to empathize and sensitive to others’ perspective – commuter smash a glass window for air ventilation survival
- No clue of how to bring about the fastest closure to this seemingly endless nightmare
- Cue awareness shrinks in the fearful darkness of tunnel entrapment
- Past experience has no precedents, maybe more fearful of their own lives than even commuters who has company in distress
- Low tolerance for increasing ambiguity as hierarchy above are felt to be even more paralyzed than themselves
- Inability to empathize and sensitive to others’ perspective – commuter smash a glass window for air ventilation survival
- No clue of how to bring about the fastest closure to this seemingly endless nightmare
Simple English language comprehension is likely to be the last and most insignificant factor in the crisis failure of communication. Mr Cherian George, Mr Seng and SMRT should come to grip with these realities. It is not command of English language that was the bear bug of this fiasco. TOC reported the bare facts of words uttered. Nothing more and nothing less – no sensation, no loss of “basic factual accuracy” in brevity of headline read and certainly no political naivety – leaving all other journalistic hype where they should be buried in the media world.
All those presumptions of race, ethnicity relevance to communication breakdown, we suspect, is misplaced and displaced rationalizations after the crisis eventuated. It is naivety to conclude otherwise when they have been in their jobs for however long or short duration because they could not have function effectively in their roles, even if inefficiently. And it is an open secret now that they had no prior training in crisis management. So how could anyone conclude that they either understand or failed to understand the “syntax” of language – be that in English language- in actual crisis management except of fictional imagination?
And, Mr. Cherian George, it is contextual, absolutely.
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Many have profitted from it. earning millions a month.
In Singapore, it is like a condition that only highly educated shit heads are perfect and brainiest.
December 26, 2011 at 9:46 pm