Taboo!

It is clear that there are certain topics that we never (or never dare to) express freely, for obvious reasons. Such are the sensitive issues regarding topics like race, religion, politics, and the death of other people. This brings me to my next point - give the girl a break.

Yes, you know which girl I'm talking about. Yes, the one who made the insensitive comment on Fb and ended up having to delete all her social media accounts as part of her punishment.

True enough, people generally don't mess around with issues concerning the death of another person. This is an extremely good example as to how people react to comments. To be fair, she probably made the comment in a casual manner, unintentional to release the wrath of the mass public on her. Maybe it came out a little insensitive, but honestly I feel that all the animosity and caustic remarks directed at her were uncalled for and unwarranted.

Imagine you had a question for a GP essay which questions the combat capabilities of Gen Y soldiers. Would you not have cited this incident as an example in which how some of us may be too accustomed to air-conditioned rooms? I may, but I will not have stated he is weak. I remember coming across this particular article during my BMT. It was on the bulletin at my Coy line.

http://technews.tmcnet.com/news/2010/10/15/5069590.htm

Take a look, and you will realise that this topic has already been discussed openly before, and even published. Is "soft" a gentler word than "weak"? Maybe. It's your call.

My point would be that this entire saga has been genuinely unfair to the girl who made the comment. I see people in service dedicating notes on Fb to the deceased soldier, justifying the seriousness and difficulty of our training and rebutting the insensitive comment at the same time. Some even go further to diss and insult the girl of her upbringing. Think carefully whether this is called for. Be fair - she didn't write an entire note on how this NSF was weak, how he probably was not tough enough for training, how Singaporean young men nowadays are less capable of defending the nation etc. I mean, if she did, then fair enough, she deserved it. But the fact is she didn't. She didn't deserve all the public lashing because of a comment. In fact, she invited and exposed all the negative behaviour of Singaporeans. I see people sharing the notes written by Officers in the SAF dedicated to this young man. The notes generally justified how tough our training is, and that young men of our generation have been put through the most sturdy of training to become men who will defend our nation. The notes, as usual, did not fail to mention how insensitive the girl was with her comment.

To be frank, I was disappointed.

Even the commanders have fallen into this trap. It was never our job to boast of our capabilities, or propagate the public condemnation of civilians. Ignorant they may be, but aren't they fellow Singaporeans we have sworn to defend? And as an affirmation and consolation, the fact that there was a public uproar about the whole incident signified that Singaporeans generally shared the same sentiment that the comment was nothing more than an unsound accusation made carelessly by an ignorant citizen. I think we should have left it there and moved on, instead of continuing to humiliate her constantly and incessantly. What good does it do to the image of the SAF anyway? It just made the organisation seem a little more petty.

So before we scream "Taboo!" and start unleashing all our discontentment on a commonly determined target, think about how we have failed to realise that all we are doing is channeling our hatred onto one person who may not even be deserving of such criticism.