Here is a story about a great dilemma that the PAP is currently facing, which they are desperate to solve, even if partially, before the 50th birthday celebration of Singapore that is fast approaching. I have presented it in verse, for the reason that I’m giving below.
In my youth I read, and enjoyed thoroughly, the best known ‘nonsense poem’ in English literature. It is called ‘Jabberwocky’ and its author is Lewis Carroll who is most famous for his children’s book Alice in Wonderland. The liberal use of nonsense words that are a pure creation of the author’s very fertile imagination gives the poem a charming, childlike quality. Yet English syntax is so wonderfully serviceable that, despite the meaningless words, it is able to provide the structure for a discernible narrative. To get a detailed story, all one has to do is to replace these words with one’s own, and come up with a story all one’s own!
It had suddenly occurred to me that a poem like ‘Jabberwocky’ could be the model for adult humorous satire, since the use of the nonsense words gives rise to a rich, teasing ambiguity. They have a fill-in-the-blanks-as-you-please quality, provoking the readers to give their own individual versions. The wildly different interpretations could end up as pure hilarity.
Here are two verses from this poem, to illustrate its essentially playful quality.
‘Twas brillig and the slimy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe
All mimsy were the borogroves
And the mome raths outgrabe.
‘Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jujub bird and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!’
Now the PAP dilemma is so riddled with ambiguities that only a Jabberwocky-type poem can do justice to its complexity. In a historic transition to a new political era, nobody is clear about what the PAP leaders are thinking or planning for the long term. But everybody wants to know about the direction of future leadership in Singapore. It is a matter that is bristling with one hundred question marks, like unruly brambles sticking out of a bush. So do the PAP leaders believe they have a problem, or don’t they? Are they doing anything about it, or aren’t they? Have they tried to get the help of the wise Mr Lee Kuan Yew, or haven’t they? Are they planning some secret schemes that they will eventually reveal to the people, or aren’t they? Will they and the people ever understand each other, or won’t they?
It is a quandary of massive proportions and has given rise to all kinds of interpretations and speculations by Singaporeans. But alas, so close to the 50th birthday of Singapore, when both sides will be coming together to forget their differences and celebrate in the grandest way, the people continue to be perplexed. And the more they try to understand and interpret the ambiguities, the more they have to scratch their heads!
‘Twas going to be Singapore’s fiftieth
And the PM did ket and disquark
‘Tis our last chance, O my comrades
With all Singaporeans to ristuark!
For they’re getting to be quite klooby
In fact, they’re kloobier by the day
We must be vikreet and act now
Or they’ll tatajit all the way!
Only the other day, they saw me
With two chukkeps and one hoshtok
At first I vashed and pabblied
But came up with my own shittock!
Said the First Deputy PM
‘What about our plan of Mwugapall
With its Four Principles of Gok?
Surely it’s the best PAP nwug of all?’
Said the Second Deputy PM
‘Of course it is. It takes a while
To build more krogs, remove all flups
To make the people yume and yile!’
First State Minister groused
‘Forget about all that. Pray tell
Have you forgotten the Big Kukrip
And how it had worked so well?’
Second State Minister nodded
‘Yes, in those days we were so bulious
We didn’t have all these wumptions
We didn’t need to be seen as gulious!’
The PM fell into deep thought
He wanted to bring back Kukrip
But Singaporeans had changed
They were now more ukrap than ukrip.
First State Minister said loudly
‘Tis the opposition that’s to blame
They yakdool and fashloop
And play the maffimious game!’
Second State Minister bellowed
‘It’s those numtious blogger fraboots
Why don’t we bring back Rule 5
And watch them lose their balloots?’
First Deputy PM said gently
‘I still think Mwugdapall works the best
It will fill the people’s moutoops
And its Gok will do the rest!’
Second Deputy PM agreed
‘Times have changed, you know,
The best lesson from GE 2011
Is to soften, not sharpen our lopoh!’
The PM shook his head sadly
‘I’m at a loss about what to do
Shall we ask Minister Mentor
Who’s still so glout and broo?’
Minister Mentor will only help
Upon one very big condition
He should be free to wyre and gyre
Even plimp the Constitution.
The PM said with a heavy heart
‘The times won’t allow that now.’
Said Minister Mentor, ‘In that case
I’d rather promble than shaitow!’
As of the time of this writing
The PAP is still mired in wangst
If only Singapore’s fiftieth
Could bring some dilk and kangst!