(Check out the post below this, or click here if you're lazy, for more background)
It all started maybe 2 weeks or so ago, when selected NUS were told that they had been invited to a dialog with a US VIP. Nothing was revealed at this stage. About a week ago, they found out that it was George W Bush, but up till today his identity was kept from the public at large; YuCheng, Lin was walking down the UCC road and the policeman claimed he couldn't walk in his own school because the President was coming, and on being queried which President, he claimed it was the Singaporean one.
I was speculating why there was all this secrecy, even in the local media (so I'm told), where a big hoo hah would usually be raised, and praise for Singapore would gush bounteously and obsequiously in the Shitty Times. I concluded that Singapore doesn't like to be associated with losers, and anyway we have our Free Trade Deal already.
People invited told me that they would be subject to strict security checks, and would not be allowed to bring signs, audio recorders or video cameras (apparently still cameras were alright). I speculated that besides the obvious fear of our exercising our Freedom of Speech, guaranteed by *both* the US and Singapore constitutions, this was because they were afraid people would capture audio and/or videographic evidence of a Bushism.
I was trying to get people to say, in the unlikely event of a Q&A, that "I think your policies in Iraq are reprehensible", and then get arrested by the Secret Service. Too late, I thought of a better question, "In pushing through the Patriot Act were you trying to make the US more like Singapore?" This way one could not be accused of causing trouble (indeed, we know that Singapore's Internal Security Act is something to be emulated, since even the USA, the Land of the Free, is trying to imbibe the Cultural Learnings of Singapore for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of America.
Inevitably, everyone asked me why I wasn't invited, so I simply said that I'd been blacklisted long ago. Hurr hurr. I doubt they'd want a repeat of the Jamie 'Despot' Han incident again anyway.
I wasn't intending to go and sightsee, but since someone created a Facebook Event, I made time in my un-Busy Schedule to have a look. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera, but we make do with what we have.
I ordered my minions to gather at the Forum at 5:15 and YIH at 6:30, but only a few of them turned up. In particular, I was missing the presence of 6 inch, who was rushing her essay, since I would be lacking legal counsel and information regarding my constituional rights (ie None). Nonetheless, she helpfully informed me that, "i bet you the police dont even understand what section of the penal code they're arresting us under. but wth they can lock us up for 48 hrs then let us go, with no repercussions. 48 hrs to search up sth to charge us with". I stressed repeatedly that I was going as an observer, and not a participant, but I had faith in the ingenuity of the prosecutorial agents to find something to charge me with, if need be.
Meanwhile, YuCheng, Lin told me that he was at the Balmoral with a friend and a motorcade sped past him. He saw a monkey waving to him in one limousine.
3 red-beret wearing SOF troopers, opposite the Central Library.
When I called the organiser of the Heckling, it turned out that they'd relocated from YIH, the original rendezvous point, to LT7A. Unfortunately when I reached LT7A, they'd relocated to the steps in front of Engineering and opposite UCC. Reaching there, I was greeted by this sight:
A brunette Caucasian girl, whose name I won't put here "just in case "they" are watching", had a black umbrella with the words "Bush is a war criminal" scrawled in white paint. As you can see, she was being questioned by our vigilant security staff to make sure she wasn't a terrorist, and her particulars taken down. I mean, she could've rigged the umbrella like the Penguin in Batman Returns, and sprayed bullets at Bush.
Or as someone commented: "excuse me ***, I think you're taking the umbrella issue a BIT too lightly here. Umbrellas will inevitably inspire political instability, protect against rain, and likely lead to democractic reforms in this perfectly funtioning soft-authoritarian society. If we allow political umbrellas today... we'll probably be running around condoning ethnic-equality sun-block tomorrow. we've got to keep these things under control here.
... Ps. That girl's my hero!! who is she?!"
News crew.
My intel on Facebook say there were some media people. This camera looks too expensive to be a ISD one. But who knows. It doesn't make a difference also. Too bad the local media didn't come down.
Road block.
If they'd time and the ability to cordon off the area, I'm sure they'd have made it look like Suntec City around the time of the IMF/World Bank meetings, ie A concentration camp. Fortunately they only had a few hours.
Crowd
I'm notoriously bad at estimating crowds, but when I was asked to estimate the crowd I gave a figure of 30-40 people. On second thought I think maybe it was 50-60. One Facebooker gives a wide band of 50-100.
Oddly enough, there were quite a lot of PRCs. Maybe they were curious what peaceful protest in a democratic country looked like. Oh wait...
Police.
I think there were more police than civilians
Umbrella girl being questioned.
Crowd
Police camera. Note how lousy it is compared to the media camera.
We were playing this game called "Spot the ISD Agents/Plainclothes Policemen". Really, I don't know why they bother.
Another "Where's the ISD agent?" picture. This also shows the 5-6 active hecklers - the rest of us were just there to lend moral support, look at the show and copy down 4D numbers in case someone got arrested.
4 of my minions.
*removed*
The last minion, who came in time to proffer legal advice. He said he saw snipers on the roof while coming.
Bush's extremely long motorcade, and the heckling. At first I thought NUS Campus Security brought up the rear, but it turns out they were police cars. No wonder the former shares the latter's colours. Actually you can't hear the heckling. I'm quite sure I took a video of it ("Boo!", "Go home!", "We don't want you here!"), but maybe something went wrong (d'oh!) or it just can't be heard due to technical problems. You can see the umbrella being waved at the motorcade though. Also this video would've been longer, but Gayle called me while I was shooting it. Grr.
A contributed photograph of the booing
Umbrella girl shows her umbrella to the police cameras, to applause from the onlookers.
Protestors and locals flash the V-sign with the umbrella. YuCheng, Lin suggested we do that. On second thought, we should've.
There was this Sikh policeman who had a really funky turban - it had vertical stripes going down it, alternating between grey and white, like the body of the Aedes mosquito.
Contributed pictures from the inside: it's even worse than a Potemkin Village. Whoever did the design should be shot.
Contributed pictures of Dubya speaking
Contributed pictures of the fortress security
SOF buses at Kent Vale
Interestingly enough, I didn't see any US security officers. They must trust us a lot. Or the Gurkhas, at least.
Other reports; please leave a comment if you find other posts on this; videos of the heckling are especially appreciated:
"To those of you who have concerns about holding an anti-bush protest overseas, I'm of the opinion that is exactly the place to be doing it. This isn't about votes, it's not about influencing the internation political order of the world, it's about expressing our feelings as people who are impacted in very real ways by the policies which this man has enabled to come to pass. The implications of US policies have far reaching results, and if we can be affected anywhere we are in the world, then we can, and should, protest anywhere in the world we are.
Being in Singapore, social protest is all the more important, we are not only acting against Bush but also against a (semi-)authoritarian regime which repesses its citizens into a psudo-democracy at best. If Singapore wasn't such an important economic ally of the US we would be bombing it along with the other repressive regimes around the world that dont sell us oil (those bastards how dare they not sell us oil!)
To those who want to wait to see what he has to say before we protest, he's had 6 years to say ANYTHING that might even come close to redeeming himself...and has failed at every turn, at least in my opinion. I will not sit by and watch as "my" president embarrasses "my" country and makes me more ashamed, and more afraid of being a US citizen with every word he says and every policy he suggests.
His words and his visits contribute nothing but fear (and some comic relief) to the international political order and accomplish nothing but draining national funds from other countries (and cause major political backlash for the leaders of those countries...like President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia who is facing a no confidence vote because of Bush's visit yesterday)
The man takes bad news and worse vocabulary wherever he goes. He bleongs in the hole in the ground in the mid west that the US embassy thinks I should be hiding in because the world is to dangerous...thanks to bush
Well, we were about 50-100 when bush arrived...about 20 when he left.
Got hell from the police and campus security: The guy in white (those who were there know who I mean) threatened one of the others with something along the lines of "you want to dare me? go on, I'll show you I mean business and I'll make you sorry" all because the guy was answering his questions properly :)
We got asked if we were "with an organization"
Photos from the DPA (german press?) and 2 others as well as one TV camera and hundreds of digi cam and phone pictures, we'll see if it shows up anywhere.
That's about it..not much interesting...although there were 5-6 police officers and one plainclothes following the umbrella at all times...good ratio there, those umbrellas are scary things :)
Oh, and the police got everything on camera and I would like to point out that one of the soldiers spit on the street and nobody did anything...
and the reason we got for having security/police try to confiscate the umbrella was that we were "drawing a crowd" which apparently is high treason in Singapore...I thought it was Bush drawing a crowd <shrug>"
Someone who was there on the speech (transcript):
"the news makes it sound like he said a lot when..
he basically said nothing
it's true right
he said things we can all write in our gp essays"