Why don’t you get into politics?

The question has been regularly asked me, by newspaper reporters, TV interviewers, colleagues, friends, and invariably by at least one member of the audience during a political talk.

The questioners fall roughly into two groups, according to the sentiment behind the question: the empathizers and supporters who believe that my role as a political critic could be much more enhanced in active politics, and the skeptics who believe that as long as that role is restricted to the pen and the podium, it is that much less effectual. Indeed, they imply that the armchair critic deserves little attention, much less regard.

In a way, the skeptics are echoing the challenge issued by the PAP leaders when my first political article came out 15 years ago and provoked a storm: if you want to criticize, get into politics, get into the fray. Otherwise, shut up and be mindful of the out-of-bounds markers in public criticism of the government.

My answer to the invariable question has been decidedly boring: I am not cut out for politics. Sometimes, at an interviewer’s insistence, I go to great lengths to explain this very mundane fact. I cite qualities of temperament and personality, personal habits and proclivities that would make me completely unfit for the political life. I make predictions of how a political career for myself would, in a matter of months, end in shambles.

The one single truth from this welter of protestations is this: I am basically a maverick, with views that can only be described as idiosyncratic, leading a life of intense creative and mental activity that is sometimes at odds with mainstream thinking. Even in the external aspects, I may not quite fit into the normal life of a community: I am a divorcee, a feminist, an unabashedly single woman in a still largely patriarchal and traditional society, an unapologetic atheist among a religious majority. Any single one of these criteria would disqualify me from political life in Singapore!

So how dare I presume to continue with the political articles and lectures? Well, I believe that political commentators, even if they remain mere armchair critics, have a useful role to play. The condition is of course that they should make sure their commentaries are at all times, informed and principled, that is, based on proper observation and knowledge, and impelled by genuine concern and goodwill.

Above all, they must ever remain engaged with reality, and attuned to the mood of the times. The day the armchair critic becomes an ivory tower critic is when she really ought to shut up!

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About Vignettes...

A continuing flow of little, readable pieces that will constitute what I feel is an important 'legacy of values' to leave behind. Read more about Vignettes...