Minister for Community, Youth and Sports (MCYS), Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, gave a speech at the 7th Raffles Institution (RI) Lecture. The following are some reactions from bloggers and students who were there at the event.
Life Is Time Consuming – The RI Lecture – Freedom of speech!
I really, really wanted to ask a question but the lady said my question wasn’t specific. Sigh, should take pen and paper to next year’s RI Lecture so that I can remember the good questions I think of. Sigh some more. Anyways, who was the lady who was screening the questions? I don’t think it was a teacher because if she is doing such an important task, she must be a “senior” teacher of sorts, and I have never seen her in school before. I guess she is Dr Balakrishnan’s secretary or something?
Article 14 – The wisdom of a 15-year-old
There is a political climate that has been carefully constructed and repeatedly reinforced that ensures that we practice self-censorship most of the time. It is not persecution but the fear of possible persecution that drives the self-imposed silence that many of us are guilty of. Once in a while, a little boy would stand up and tell the Emperor that he is not wearing any clothes. 🙂
One Last Sunset – School today
After today’s talk, I gained a huge amount of respect for Dr. Balakrishnan, not only for decimating all the egoistic debators in my school, but for what he kept reemphasizing throughout the Q&A session.
Mao’s Corner – Speech by Dr Vivian Balakrishnan
Reflecting on the speech, I think that we do have to be moderate in what we do and listen to both sides of an argument before making a judgement. With all the extremists out there with the crackpot views I say we should uphold this view: “Be moderate in everything, except moderation.”
Clarine Tex – Sixty-four
The talk was a little draggy, but the Q & A was fun. Turns out that he’s quite a humorous guy. He managed to successfully answer all the questions fired at him by like 15 people
Cheng Sin – RI lecture
Dr. Balakrishnan is funny =D Alot of students’ questions were rebutted by him LOL!
Since the talk was 2 hours. obvious we had to do something to entertain ourselves.
Just Sitting Here Stoning – More hectic
Wah he damn cool. lol. “Each person has their own printing press.” “Every person is a minority race.” Wow i remembered. The talk was interesting lah. But he talk also can get a bit monotonous for some parts. The QnA part was more interesting. Must read tomorrow’s newspaper. =D
Mr Wang Says So – When the media starts to smell fishy
“New media allows wrong ideas to be reinforced,” Vivian says. And what about old media – would it reinforce only the “right” ideas?
Well, perhaps you would say so. Especially if you belong to the ruling party and the state controls all the old media organisations. Including the ideas that the media organisations write about.
————–
