The Online Citizen has written an article that amongst other things makes two points about the firing of the Filipino staff from Tan Tock Seng Hospital. 1) TOC questions whether he should have been fired at all in the name of freedom of speech. I take a more nuanced view of this. If the man was fired for calling Singaporeans losers and being insulting to Singaporeans in general, this is questionable as this isnt criminal. One cant even launch a civil suit if someone calls him a loser. That said, TTSH could still fire him for being unprofessional. HOWEVER, if he was fired for making religiously offensive remarks this is justified, since in Singapore, this is not LEGALLY acceptable. But, as this could be criminal, perhaps they should have waited for the police investigations to finish. 2) TOC said that NOBODY should be fired over popular or political pressure. I agree with TOC on both counts. Like The Online Citizen, I wonder if TTSH buckled under mob anger that took to attacking them as well. This would be tragic but Singapore is not unique here. For example, in the US, the CEO of Mozilla was forced to resign after the company came in under severe mob pressure after he expressed opposition towards gay marriage, SIX years before. Rule by mob is the worst kind of populism, and Governments and Corporations should guard against it. Finally, I continue to urge everyone to not use this instance as an excuse to attack all foreigners. If it is uncivil for foreigners to insult Singaporeans, those Singaporeans who consistently insult foreigners are no better.
Posted on: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 04:59:04 +0000
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