Singapore Democrats

Singapore Democrats

In passing the Public Order Act, Mr Wong Kan Seng told Parliament: "In Singapore, it is only a tiny group of irresponsible and selfish individuals who have been pushing this line of civil disobedience. They do not care for the interests and safety of other Singaporeans; they are only interested in themselves."

Coming from someone who committed the bungle of the century over the Mas Selamat escape -- and still refuses to step down despite widespread calls for his resignation -- that's a bit rich. But that's another story for another occasion.

For now, we would like to focus on the Minister's comment about civil disobedience. Let us begin by differentiating between just laws and unjust laws. The former is good because they help to regulate society and keep law and order. Examples are laws regulating contractual agreements, road traffic, and violent crime.

The latter is bad because they are put in place by ruling elites to minimise and even eradicate dissent. They contravene the constitution and the rule of law. In other words they are illegal and should be void. The Public Order Act is one such law.

The all-important question is, what should citizens do when they have oppressive laws rammed down their throats? They can do one of two things:

They can meekly submit to the law and suffer the injustice in silence. In such a scenario, they can claim to be "law-abiding" and “moderate” but in reality they are really being unfaithful to themselves and their fellow men and women. In the long run, society will suffer from such subservience.

Or they can stand up and defy such laws. In this case they will be branded by the oppressors as irresponsible and selfish, as has Minister Wong. They will even be punished for daring to speak truth to power. But if enough citizens do the same, the abuse of the rulers will be curtailed, and justice and righteousness will prevail.

Such moral resistance to immoral power is sometimes called civil disobedience. Civil disobedience, in a nutshell, refers to the defiance of unjust laws/rules without resorting to violence.

This was demonstrated in abundance during the recent Aware EGM at Suntec City. When told to “shut up and sit down”, participants refused because they knew they had a right to speak up. When the microphones were turned off, they shouted out their responses. When told to move to another section in the hall, lawyer Siew Kum Hong defied the order because there was no provision in the rules that required him to do so.

We point to these instances not to portray Ms Josie Lau and her colleagues as despots (indeed the executive members had respected the decision of the EGM and relinquished their positions after they were defeated in the vote) but to highlight the disobedience of those were opposed to the authority of the convenors of the meeting. 

But just because these participants were disobedient, were they wrong? Did they not have the moral authority and duty to speak up while remaining disciplined and nonviolent?

Similarly when the Singapore Democrats and our fellow activists defy laws that ban citizens from exercising their rights guaranteed by Article 14 of our Constitution as well as the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we may be disobedient but we are disobeying immoral laws. We have the backing of moral and legal (constitutional) authority.

To rigidly hold that we should not disobey a law even if it is unjust is to demonstrate arrested intellectual and moral development. The truth is that obedience is not always right, disobedience is not always wrong. The great religions of humanity are full of stories about good and upright persons who were defiant and disobedient to tyranny.

To be obedient and submit to repressive laws is to cooperate with foulness and iniquity.

Let us be absolutely clear: Citizens cannot go about breaking a law just because they don't agree with it. This is not what civil disobedience is about. Civil disobedience is about standing up and not submitting to despotic laws put in place by despotic governments.

But while Mr Wong points his finger at the Singapore Democrats, he disobeys the Constitution which prohibits the Government from discriminating against citizens that oppose his party.

Case in point: Allowing the Consumers Association of Singapore (CASE) members to conduct their protest while arresting Tak Boleh Tahan activists for doing the same. This clearly infringes Article 12 of the Constitution which demands that the law be applied equally to all.

For a long time, the PAP -- and even some in opposition circles -- have criticised the Singapore Democrats for breaking the law in our Nonviolent Action campaign. We do not accept such nonsense. We have said it before and we say it again: There is nothing extreme about defending our Constitution. In fact it is the noble duty of all citizens of this republic to stand up for our Constitutional rights.

In any democratic society, we would be considered a moderate party. It is only in an authoritarian system that the rulers try to brand reformers as extremists.

More on: Misconceptions about the Singapore Democrats 
Misconception No. 1: SDP not interested in elections
Misconception No. 2: SDP working through "extra-legal" means
Misconception No. 3: SDP does not offer alternative ideas

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