The Ache about Inflammatory Videos

Thinking about how this all happened, it was just a video that went viral. It is not exactly a raunchy amateur sex video that was not intended to be leaked, it was a church video meant for church audiences only that got out into the public sphere. This does not exonerate the pastor totally as he should know in this age that once he puts the relatively exclusive footage for evangelism in the open, it would be out in the wild and out of his control. A sequence of unfortunate events threw the ISD to step in, the pastor to make amends by offering an apology and a proud man was thus made to figuratively bow for his bad decision, while the Buddhist and Taoist leadership embraced the apology. All because of a video. A flap of a butterfly's wings that caused a hurricane longitudes away. But we are still in the eye of the hurricane.

The tragedy of this entire storm is that this video is still up and continues to hurt the Buddhists and Taoists although it was meant to hurt the pastor's reputation originally. The pastor already apologised, hence moving the ugly incident towards some closure. However, the Youtube video is still there cheekily provoking continued sedition by itself. A seditious storm. No closure to the wreckage.

This begs the nagging question. The video has already done its deed but it is still there. For all we know, the Youtube uploader, with no vested interest in any religion, chose to leave it there as it was orchestrated to inflame and only inflame right from the start. The storm rages on.

The Ache about Foreigners

With so many populist talk about putting Singaporeans ahead of permanent residents and other non-citizens, the government is trying to soften the ground. Ever since Zhang Yuanyuan upset Singaporeans months ago about permanent residency vs citizenship, the xenophobic movement has built up on its momentum and even the PAP is about to do something.