I'm talking about the Singaporean riot which chased Ashton Casey out of Singapore.
I'm not justifying his actions. I'm as appalled by his comments as you are and I think good riddance now that he has left this country which has helped him for the past 12 years.
What I would like to do in this post is take a step back and look at what happened in Little India vs what Singaporeans have done in the Ashton Casey case.
Firstly, my opinion of the incident in Little India, I believe, has very little to do with the living conditions of the foreign workers. I believe that this behaviour is deemed somewhat "normal" in their country and in many other countries. This has been reported in a few countries when someone runs over a resident and the whole village will mob the driver insisting that be pays for damages etc etc.
Essentially, this is herd mentality. Some one got run over, I see the guy driving the car, I shout at him, someone else sees the same incident, he stops the car, his friend drags the driver out, a crowd gathers, someone pushes the driver, the driver pushes back, someone throws the first punch, a bloody brawl breaks out, someone throws stones, someone sets a car on fire, the situation spirals out of control. This happens in many other countries.
Let's put this in the context of Ashton Casey. This bloke puts up some insulting comments on Facebook, someone takes offence, and shares the post, more people take offence, some send him threatening letters, Ashton Casey hires some PR firm to apologize, people don't buy his act, Ministers comment on Facebook saying such behaviour is unacceptable, other folks take that as an indication that since the Ministers are on their side, they continue to flame Ashton Casey, he can't take the "cyber bullying" anymore, he leaves the country.
(If you guys don't know, this is considered cyber bullying.)
Ok as I said. I'm not justifying his actions. I hate it as much as you do. And good riddance to him. I'm trying to draw parallel the situation of herd instinct in various emotional situations. I was angry at his comments. I was emotional. I was hoping that the Ministers would revoke his P.R. status. If he's not grateful to the country that has granted him his P.R. status, he jolly well should leave. Either that or he could come back and work as a toilet cleaner for 5 years and I'll probably forgive him.
But I'm trying to look at it another way. If someone throws a stone and someone else continues, eventually, everyone would be throwing stones and creating havoc. That's a riot.
Similarly, if someone sends a hateful message and someone else sends a threatening letter. Eventually, after all the messages and flaming and negative publicity, we have created a riot in another sense of the word.
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