Foreign Minister George Yeo has been quoted as saying that criticism of the government is natural, and that it is healthy. He was quoted as saying,

“It is natural that citizens should criticise the Government. It is also natural that citizens should praise the Government for doing good. This is how a healthy relationship is established between the individual and the collective,”

Coming from a diplomat, I can’t help but wonder if it is diplomatic speak, or does it signal a yet another shift in the government’s stance towards socio-political commentary by the ordinary Ah Seng and Ah Huay. Also, George Yeo gives the impression (at least to me) that he’s one of the more progressive PAP politicians on freedom of expression. It could very well be that few of the other PAP politicians shares his opinion.

Whatever the case it, it does seem to me that the government has been slowly deciding that policing the internet is a futile exercise, although indications of this are always phrased very diplomatically. A few months back, Vivian Balakrishnan was giving cautious praise to the internet for being able to ensure greater accountability because it is very difficult to cover things up, which was eventually exemplified with the Lee Hong-yi case, where even the military was unable to prevent the circulation of an internal mail from leaking out to the general public.

There appear to be quite a number of good (although often diplomatic and indirect) signals coming from the government regarding active citizen discussion of socio-political issues in the online space, although I don’t think it’s time to pop the champagne yet. I believe that there are enough of the “old guard” in power who have subscribing to the mass effect theory of media all these years, and it will not be easy to convince them otherwise. I’m glad that there are some progressives in government, and I hope that there will be more progressives in future who understand that being critical does not equate to being anti.