Just read TOC's interview of Martyn See; it will be interesting to see if Speakers Cornered will be given the green light for public viewing. Rather ironically, if it is given the red light, then I will definitely watch it on Youtube. Just like how I had no initial interest in the Singapore Rebel film until it was banned.

Guess that's the kaypoh in me: 'Wah, kena ban ah! Must have good show to see one!' And perhaps some of the Hokkien kwailaness in me too: 'You dowan me to watch, then die die I must watch.'

In 1988, then-Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto criticized Ayatollah Khomenei's fatwa against Salman Rushdie for The Satanic Verses. I was listening to a BBC World Service interview where she argued eloquently about how the fatwa had transformed an issue of blasphemy into one of free speech which rallied the liberal West, despite their multiculturalist misgivings, around Rushdie; even worse, the dramatic nature of the fatwa generated so much publicity that it caused The Satanic Verses to become a huge bestseller, thus 'spreading the blasphemy even further' she said.

Last year, after Hong Kong University philosopher Professor Ci Jiwei spoke about agency and order, he was asked about censorship. His reply was, if my notes serve me right, that in of itself, censorship was neither good nor bad though it suggested the domination of one group over others. More importantly, it was inefficient - an important way that we feel that we have 'agency of freedom' is our ability to attribute our power to the constitution of our subjectivity, i.e. we believe that we have freedom and responsibility for our actions because we can attribute our actions to our will and decisions. What censorship does is that it makes us aware that something other than our will and decisions is acting upon us, interfering with our power and will, dominating us. And that it is in human nature to resist, in small and big ways, domination when we become aware of it.

Or to put in a Singlish way: PAP kiasu and kiasi brings out the kaypoh and kwailan in me.