A climate of fear.

I stepped off the plane and two things hit me in the face. Thankfully, they weren’t literal things. That would have hurt.

The first thing was just the exhaustion. I’d only got about 2.5 hours of sleep the night before, and had been working hard and long for about 3 solid weeks, so it wasn’t really much of a surprise. It was probably actually more of a surprise that it hadn’t hit earlier.

The second thing was much more insidious. It was the fear and paranoia. It started with the special announcement on the mandatory death penalty for drugs just as the plane landed, then escalated with the crazy – and unusual – security checks. Then the comments from my family about having to be careful, having to keep my head down, not make any trouble for anyone, maybe just get the hell out of Singapore before “trouble” comes to my loved ones.

FEAR FEAR FEAR. WORRY WORRY WORRY. “THEY” ARE WATCHING.

You don’t quite notice how much the climate of fear, anxiety and paranoia weighs on you until you’ve been away for some time, enlightened, and then return to Singapore only to feel the burden drop back down on your shoulders with a palpable thud. Suddenly you’re wondering again about who is keeping track of your activities, of what they think of you, and whether they will leave you alone or think it’s time to take some sort of “action”. It’s crazy, because sometimes you’re not even completely sure who “they” are, and what “they” want you to do or not do, thanks to the completely undefined “OB markers” of Singaporean society.

Since I started this blog I have wondered often if I will get into trouble. Or, more importantly, if this trouble will spread to my family. I’m less worried about what will happen to me than about what might happen to my loved ones. I don’t want them to pay for the path I have chosen.

But if you really sit down and think about it, isn’t it just ridiculous? The thought that authorities would somehow seek “revenge” by taking out their frustrations against you on your family? It seems petty and mean, not something that governments do.

Except in Singapore no one seems to be able to be sure.

Personally I believe that Singapore’s government generally isn’t that underhand, to take things out on people’s families. No matter what criticisms I have of them, I do think that they do have enough moral integrity to not resort to such devious actions. But am I just being naive?

No one knows. And that is exactly the problem.

NO ONE KNOWS.

What are those damn OB markers? What can we talking about, what can’t we? What will be seen as constructive criticism, what will be seen as punishable dissent? What will bring social change, what will bring a lawsuit?

Until the boundaries stop being so damned arbitrary, the fear will remain. And how can we ever progress if everyone is scared to death all the time?