Parliamentary foot fetish – or what people get excited over

by Bertha Henson

SO MANY people have said so many things in Parliament, sometimes illuminating, sometimes downright boring. But what is more interesting is what catches the public’s eye and gets talked about. They are the throwaway lines. The gaffes. The unclear statements. Sometimes, they are a result of bad speech-making, lack of language skills or, as some people suggest, reflect the speaker’s true feelings. And sometimes, a mischievous gloss is daubed on the regrettable line, making it worse than it is.

So what have people picked up from the Budget debate so far?

1. That MP Denise Phua thinks foreign workers are walking time-bombs and wants her constituents in Little India ring-fenced from them. (She had foot-in-mouth disease?)

2. That Minister Chan Chun Sing’s description of the Singapore core – or is it Singaporean core? – includes foreigners. (His feet are planted apart?)

3. That not having halal kitchens on board naval ships is simply an excuse not to allow Muslims to serve in the navy. (Muslim feet should stay grounded?)

4. That the HDB is not a bank, which it really isn’t. (What are feet?)

 

Foot-in-mouth

Ms Phua made one of the fastest apologies ever after her speech in Parliament on Thursday. “I have no intention to undermine any specific group. I should not have used the phrase ‘walking time-bombs’ to describe congregations of high density,” she wrote in a Facebook post yesterday.

Poor woman. If you want to be generous to her, take a look closely at what she actually said during the debate on the Ministry of Home Affairs budget: “Recently, I was at Little India with Home Affairs Minister Shanmugam and members of the Police Force. It was obvious that the pre-riot crowds have returned to Little India. Madam, congregations of such high density are walking time-bombs and public disorder incidents waiting to happen. It is important that we do not take our eyes off this matter lest we want history to repeat itself.’’

Take out Little India and you have an MP wondering about “congregations of high density’’, which could mean the ang moh crowd at Boat Quay, the ah beng crowd in Geylang, or any place where there are plenty of people jostling in a defined area. Throw in some alcohol and you have… a Molotov cocktail in the making?

She might (a small “might’’) have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for her suggestions on crowd control, especially to:

Ring-fence the communal areas of residents, such as the playgrounds and void decks so that the old and the young get to use the space meant for them.

Oh dear! She’s calling for some kind of Trump-like physical fence? Or signs that say “no foreign workers allowed’’? That might gain her some points with her constituents, but it does nothing for her image as an MP who embraces diversity.

Was her apology sincere? She said: “I personally get along very well with the foreign cleaners in my constituency. To them and the other foreign workers in our country, thank you for your help and please accept my sincere apology if I have caused you concern.’’

Frankly, she probably wasn’t referring to the foreign cleaners in her constituency as among the “congregations of high density’’ but others who swamp the area on weekends. Already, criticisms of latent racism have been levelled at her. Her one consolation could be how her gaffe isn’t as bad as the one made by her long-time predecessor. In 1992, during a Budget debate, he made these comments about driving to Little India: “There was complete darkness, not because there was no light, but because there were too many Indians around there.” He said it Mandarin, which made it worse.

By several accounts, Ms Phua is a nice person. So maybe, to be even more generous to her, we can say she needs a better speech-writer, or that the complaints from her residents have been so overwhelming that they have clouded her sense of judgment. Or maybe we should just take home the thrust of her message: That people crowded in small spaces can lead to bad things happening, and the ministry should take note.

Maybe.

Or maybe someone in Parliament should have responded to her immediately, like Mr Chiam See Tong did then. It can’t be that soporific a debate…that no one caught what she said…

To be continued…Feet planted apart.

 

Featured image Eunice by Flickr user plaits. CC BY 2.0. 

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The post Parliamentary foot fetish – or what people get excited over appeared first on The Middle Ground.

- Bertha Henson