smile =) the world is watching

On my way home today I saw something - unnerving to say the least. At Dhoby Ghaut station, after you alight there are at least four to five armed security men watching your every action to make sure you don't loiter around at the platform. Once you get to the station itself, there are three "Security Personnel" who will check practically anyone who seems lost and fidgety (even people who are going on a date and worrying about how they look will ganna) and yet another team of armed security men loitering around menacingly. Why do I say menacing? After all the average Singaporean will be very happy, saying it's more secure that way. Well, that's cause last week these same people weren't there.

Yea, I know it's the IMF and WB peeps' who are making the government all jittery. Like when you visit your in-laws in future, you gotta show that you can provide the girl with security and all, or you can bear them many grandchildren, or the like. The world is watching. They can't risk having a pretty blonde bombshell stripping at PS KFC can they? Or right in front of schoolkids at AMK? So maybe the increased security is justified. And they tell people to smile, spend bomb amounts on posters with people smiling like idiots. I thought Singapore was already a friendly place? At least that is what you were taught by NE to be. So why do they need to re-remind their people to smile? And it's so bloody superficial cause they put these posters so blatantly even the WB and IMF visitors will know it's fake. I mean, so the IMF and WB are ignorant people who do not have watchmen here before they arrive? So much for putting on a smiling front.

But try going to Dhoby Ghaut just last week. The security men are basically non existent (I've only seen one pair before, and that was cause they were loading up some ATM) and the "Security Personnel" usually just slack around. This week? Dozens of security staff and the "security personnel" becomes more alert. In addition to numerous CCTV cameras already all around. What else would the big brass do in the name of security? Military police? Bugging phone lines? Recording all our online logs and chat messages? And all these are valid in the name of counter terrorism and security.

But how much more secure do we feel? Without those armed security men I somehow felt safer. Their presense had a sense of foreboding that something bad is going to happen, like they got a tip off about some terrorist plot or something. I'd be thankful if the tip-off was about a bevy of hot babes stripping in front of KFC. But these people are already banned, arrested and deported back to where they belonged. And locals don't exactly have enough balls to stage such drastic protests (prove me wrong please). Security? I've been reading a bit of other people's newspaper (peeking over their shoulders, no less) and seen images of more armed security men behind large metal fences somewhere in the Suntec Area. Reminds me of the norm in Indonesia a few years back, when there was the race riots and all. Security? Wow. What a calming effect these measures have.

But despite all that having been said,

Please smile, cause the world is watching.

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