A Rally

This week's void deck updates are amazing. I want to give a shout out to my brudders there for an absolutely great job.

I enjoyed the Torwa interview and I agree with him on many points.

But therein lies our strength and weakness. As a community we have proven that we can be an intelligent, engaged and motivated group. We have passionate members who continue to chip away at a seemingly monumental task. We also have extremely humorous takes on serious situations. We also have brilliant theorists and thinkers amongst us. Therein also lies our weakness, we know how to rant but not entirely sure how to act.

I often ask myself that question. Do we have a manifesto? An action plan? Why are we blogging? For 15 minutes of fame or just to vent our frustrations? Is this just an evolution of coffee shop banter? Are we no different from the uncles at the coffee shops with their Carlsberg and Tiger?

I sat long and hard and questioned my intentions. I realise that my goal when i first started was to rally people around a cause. To encourage more voices to speak up and speak out. My brudders at the Void Deck assure me that it was my suggestion that encouraged them to act as a clearing house for blogs. Thanks to their hard work, I actually see and hear the voice of the people.

So now I know there are others who are out there. I asked myself what now. Well the next question is who will be brave enough to organise the bloggers? Torwa has already stated he's out, so who will it be? This one I can't be for sure. I'm not free enough currently to organise anything, and my brudders at the Void Deck do a good job at organising in a sense. So perhaps the leadership is in their hands.

Well next quesiton is, why are we on the defensive? In the Goh Meng See article, who points out that Opposition is such a negative word. So similiarly we have been labelled "apathetic" by the government and media. If you allow others the power to name you, you become the thing they call you. It is so often seen throughout history. Why should we allow others to name us? Let us name ourselves. We've already proven that we're not just sitting around and taking it. We're not apathetic, we care.

So this is my call to all bloggers, let us begin a blog campaign to rewrite ourselves into Singaporean society. We already let a Straits Times article define us. Let us redefine ourselves. I will start the ball rolling by writing an article on what I think of Singapore blogs. I will make it the antithesis of the Straits Times article. I will not be named by them, I will name myself.