Those who are watching the developments in the Mas Selamat Kastori manhunt would have noticed the ire and ridicule targeting the Ministry of the Home Affairs. When the Ministry issued a press statement about the escape of a Jemaah Islamiyah leader, they mentioned that the fugitive walked with a limp. The security agencies probably assumed that this description would have been a boon in their manhunt and the public would be able to help spot anyone with this physical disability.
However, the wolfs of public opinion turned that "limping" fugitive lead into the Ministry's bane and it became the main criticism of the prison break and manhunt. Questions on how a limping fugitive could have escaped and why the authorities could not catch a limping fugitive within hours tore up the credibility of the Home Affairs Ministry and its agencies.
Conspiracy theories also spawned out of this "limping" fugitive description. How could a limping man escape in the first place as it defies all sense of expectations on a jail break? Conspiracy theorists then filled in the information vacuum created by the Ministry. They concluded that the authorities are not honest about what actually happened as there is no way a limping man could escape unless the escape was not really an escape but a pretext for another event e.g. Mas Selamat died in custody.
From a public relations and not from a manhunt point of view, with the benefit of hindsight, the Ministry could have dropped that description of Mas Selamat. The photographs with and without goatee were enough for a public manhunt. Furthermore, things would have turned ugly if there were mistaken identities and people with limps were unfortunately roughed by by vigilantes on the streets, simply because they fit the description of the fugitive the agencies gave..
Comments (6)
This is the amendment to the limp description.
"Observable limp on left leg when running or walking briskly"
The mob would expectedly want to seize any small excuse to undermine the Ministry for its actual and perceived failures. Such statements only make the mob more frenzied.
Posted by The Void Deck | March 3, 2008 8:51 PM
In light of the ~err~ finessed description, looks you were prescient. The limp turns out not to have been all that something useful for the manhunt though I suppose if the limp was not announcedfirst and then subsequently revealed, the authorities would then be accused of a cover up. Heads lose, tail oso lose.
While it's good that the description has now been amended to a more accurate one, it is disconcerting is that (1) it took so long to get the right facts out and (2) inaccurate/confusing information was put out in the first place. An implementation issue or a sign of something deeper in the policy process?
Frenzied mobs. While I tend to think of online witch hunts as not always very productive, there's also possibly a structural reason why this kind of frenzy bubbles away here in Singapore (and in China) but not really in more liberal democratic polities. Pent-up demand for sincere official contrition when mistakes are made?
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March 4, 2008 4:47 PM
Good point on the frenzy of the mob as a correlation with the state of control and bottled frustration. It is hard to understand why and how what appears to be simple facts could not even be gotten right. The implications of bad judgment and information on the entire manhunt are shuddering.
....The Ministry of Silly Walks.
Posted by The Void Deck | March 4, 2008 6:27 PM
Good one, TVD, this will be great for any future class on the politics of signs and symbols that I conduct. Something to add to the pot: a typology! I think there are two kinds of frenzied mob provoked by the timed release of bits and pieces of information. The first type is the public opinion mob. The second type is the grassroots i-want-in-on-the-action mob. Aunties and uncles are joining "spontaneously-formed" vigilante groups to scour their neighborhoods, school security guards who usually have to deal with pesky parent-drivers who must drop their precious cargo at the gate now have a sense of mission to patrol school grounds, undergrads have been sent emails to be on the lookout as 'security is everyone's responsibility'. First they look for a limping left leg, now they look for discarded clothes, I hope they don't knock on my door because of my goatee.
The comparison with China is chilling, is this a red-guard cultural-revolution-like frenzy on a smaller scale? After all, the MHA is overseeing the Community Engagement Programme network of government-led grassroots organizations. Mao used the red guard to quell critics and dissent. I don't believe in conspiracy theories and I don't think the MHA is that smart or politically mad like Mao to use the second type of mob to neutralize the first type. But it is sure having that effect: Singaporeans mobilizing, dispersing the responsibility to the population. Actually, I think it is more Bush-like, activating the American people ideologically with rhetoric and bits of info which results in grassroots mob frenzy (in which many Arab-Americans were racially profiled and even abused) which then diverted attention on the intelligence failure leading to 9/11. In other words, bumbling, ad-hoc, piece-meal, short-sighted problem-solving that somehow miraculously saves the administration's skin.
Either way, both mobs do not contribute to improving the situation.
Posted by dansong | March 5, 2008 10:48 PM
Thanks Dan. Thankfully, there is still no official bounty on the fugitive. That would really make the vigilante and public opinion mobs go berserk on a witch hunt if a reward is put up.
Lau Ah Pek
Posted by The Void Deck | March 6, 2008 11:16 PM
Would you have preferred it if all people with similar descriptions were roughed up, limp or no limp? Isn't it better that a smaller number of people get roughed up?
Anyway what I'd like to know is how Mas Selamat managed to escape from Singapore. I am 90% sure that he's not in Singapore, and the authorities know this but they're fucking around with us as usual.
(A few days after Mas Selamat escaped I was 80% sure he is not in Singapore, now I am 90% sure.)
Posted by sieteocho | March 28, 2008 12:51 AM