FORMER TODAY EDITOR P N BALJI INVITING ISIS TERROR TO SINGAPORE?

<Facebook complaint by Jackson Wee>

Among all the commentaries arising from the Paris attacks, Mr Balji’sprovocatively titled piece on Singapore being an “elusive” terrorist target stands out oddly. No matter how it is read, it just can’t seem to sit upright. 

Taken purely at face value, it is an article that proclaims that Singapore has all the ingredients to become the next victim of a major terror attack despite the heavy emphasis on security in the country.

If this is truly the purpose of the article, it serves no purpose at all. It is a well-recognised fact that Singapore has and will always be a prime target for terror attacks. We exist in a volatile region where extremism and militancy has already reared its ugly head. There is nothing “elusive” about Singapore: we are a target as much as any other country.

It is somewhat surprising that Mr Balji, with his extensive years in journalism, does not already know this?

What then is the purpose of this article?

If we put on our cynical lens, this article takes on a darker and more troubling tone: an implicit criticism of our heavy handed security policies, our social policies which has festered an underclass that should invite a terrorist retaliation. In this murkier light, this article becomes a more malevolent form of cynical writing as if it is goading for Singapore to be hit.

The most lethal poison must be perfectly ambivalent and blend perfectly into a glass of water. No one would drink it otherwise.

I would much rather that Mr Balji had written an article without purpose rather than believe that he would have ill-intention to wish disaster upon Singapore; his and his family’s well-being as with all other Singaporeans’ well-being is at stake here.

In this time and age, where messages can reach the most unlikely of places and be misinterpreted in the most warped manner, there cannot be too much complacency in such journalistic albeit allusive and ambivalent writing.