Basket.

"Every civilization sees it fit to negotiate compromises with its own principles." -Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, Munich

Munich may well be the most amoral movie I've ever watched, and that's a compliment. Set against the sweeping, melancholy backdrop of the 1970s Cold War world, the movie tells the tale ("inspired by true events", I quote from the film) of an Israeli assassination squad out to avenge the nine of their countrymen who died before rolling television cameras at the 1972 Munich Olympics. History will tell you that the Israelis are renowned for this sort of thing - from the daring seizure of Adolf Eichmann in Argentina in 1968 (this episode is mentioned in the film) to the famous Entebbe Raid to the daring airstrike on Iraq's French-built nuclear reactor at Osirak in 1980, the state of Israel has never taken the norms and nuances of international law much into account when acting to protect its own interests. This in itself is morally ambiguous: responding to acts of terror with acts of terror. And it sets the tone for the rest of the film.

One of Steven Spielberg's strong suit's has always been incongruity, and he displays his talent fully in this movie. Golda Meir, looking every bit the gentle grandmother, invites Avner to tea, and chats amiably with him about his parents. The scene is of a kindly old matriach sitting down with a few friends for afternoon tea and crumpets and some friendly, harmless conversation - but she is the Prime Minister of Israel, two of her "friends" are generals in the Israeli army, one a Mossad agent and the last his boss, head of one of the most feared intelligence services in the world. And they are talking murder.

And so Avner and his team murder. One by one, the terrorists who planned the Munich attack die at their hands. But soon things spiral out of control - they find themselves killing replacements, killing other top leaders, killing and killing... until the hunters become the hunted. Then they kill those who kill their own.

The strain of this all tells on Avner, who slowly loses his mind. Earlier in the film, an anecdote is shared about a spy who took to sleeping in his closet because he couldn't even trust his bed anymore. A good laugh is had by all... and later in the film it turns (brilliantly, I might add) on Avner, who slices open his mattress in search of an imaginary bomb and then, beset with fear, goes to sleep in his closet.

Indeed, the theme that you can take the soldier out of the war but not the war out of the soldier surfaces yet again. Avner is haunted by the murders he commits, trapped between feeling them moral and justified because they were revenge (with flashbacks from Munich 1972 preying on his mind) and arguing that the terrorists should have been brought to a fair trial in a court of law instead, "like Eichmann". He cannot forgive himself for the deaths of his men, picked off one by one by the terrorists he hunts in a deadly cat-and-mouse game.

The entire movie smacks of amorality. From the Mossad chief, Ephraim (Geoffrey Rush does a wonderful job), who has few qualms about what he is doing to the shadowy organisation that helps Avner find his victims for a price and is headed by one only known as "Papa" to Avner and his men to the terrorists themselves, no one is an angel. Yet you cannot call them outright immoral either. They all fight, fought, for causes they believe in.

Those were interesting times they lived in - arguably far more dangerous than today. The Cold War arms race was at its height, and the great cities of the world were hotbeds of espionage. The KGB, CIA, MI6 and Mossad played deadly cloak-and-dagger games with each other. Double and even triple agents stalked the streets, and it was folly to completely trust someone. Meanwhile, the world tottered on the brink of anarchy as international terrorism reached new and deadly levels. The Red Army Faction carried out deadly attacks on US troops in Europe while the PLO made a trademark of hijacking passenger jets and bombing Israeli interests around the world. The Middle East was more combustible than it was today, with the Arab states openly hostile to Israel and still seeking to wipe it off the face of the Earth. The Six-Day War had been over just five years, and a new conflict would soon break out in 1973. All while the "merchants of death" - the great international arms traders - plied their deadly wares worldwide. It was not a time for morality. It was a time for violence, terror and vengeance. And the mood of the film portrays this superbly.

All in all, one of the better movies I have seen, if not exactly the best. It is violent, but the violence is used judiciously. The audience is not bludgeoned by gore, but is made to see and feel the horrifying effects of terror - and vengeance. Th melancholy, tension and cynicism of the Cold War years is amply reflected in Avner, his team ("I only care about Jewish blood", declares team member Steve) and the rest of the supporting cast. Incongruity is not just limited to the scene mentioned above - it is used wonderfully in several other scenes to portray the absurdity of daily life. Such as when Avner and his team confront Palestinian terrorists in their "safe house" in Athens, and eventually work out a tense co-existence; lying, of course, that they are Red Army Faction. Bunking with their worst enemies - that's how absurd life can get. Papa, head of an international organisation of informers, of merchants of death, owns a beautiful estate where children play happily in the sunshine. It is a perfectly domestic scene, but here is a man who can be regarded as little more than a murderer.

Appearances are really not to be taken seriously, and the desire for revenge must always be tempered. These are worthy lessons which Spielberg teaches us, and we will do well to learn them.

Yet another of the PAP Old Guard left us this week - Sinnathamby Rajaratnam, founder-member of the PAP and Singapore's first Foreign Minister. Coming just two months after the death of Devan Nair, it is a reminder to us all that the past is receding ever more quickly - for both Nair and Rajaratnam were holdovers from another era. Men who lived and worked for Singapore when it was less clean, less efficient and far less safe than it is today. Men who worked to make it what it is today - the sparkling, prosperous city-state we have all, whether you like to admit it or not, benefited from.

We owe much to this band that fought for Singapore when there were real menaces to combat, yet no one seemed to care much that he passed on. Not that many people even knew who he was. We can gripe and joke about the lack of freedom and the shittiness of this place all we want, but the fact is that, despite all its idiosyncracies, Singapore is one of the better places in the world to live in. And we, the present generation, do owe this to them. Please, at the very least remember him as someone who gave his all to create the world you now know.

This is not National Education by any stretch of the imagination. It is the truth that the PAP Old Guard shaped Singapore into what it is today, that they fought hard to make a success out of a tiny island with no natural resources that few gave a snowball's chance in hell of surviving on its own. It is the truth that the Singapore they were leaders of is nothing like the Singapore of today - that it was far more dangerous and poor. It is the truth that they made tremendous sacrifices and defeated great odds to create the First World standard of living we now (again, whether you like to admit it or not) enjoy.

Give this man and his comrades some credit. Don't say "I don't care", don't say "fuck", don't roll your goddamn eyes in derision when tribute is paid to them. That's the very least they deserve.

Rest in peace, Mr Rajaratnam. I for one do remember what you did for us.

The weekend came and not a moment too soon, after a week marred by tiresome routine and unreasonable expectations and ended with a storm in a (Ops) TeA cup. Compromise may be defined as an agreement no one is happy with.

In any case, A01C gathered to celebrate our three February birthdays. Pity the cake was just a tad too expensive to waste on someone's face, or I would have my vengeance. Aside from that, the night was good enough fun, with good food (this time I did not touch the curry), excellent conversation (yes, the Clementi rapist is totally out for my chastity, thanks for the warning girls), mahjong and as usual, plenty of silly photographs (which I will put up once I obtain them). One mahjong game too many, though, meant I had to stay the night. Or the rest of the morning, rather. I didn't even bother to rush for the last train; Zihao and Roger did and returned crestfallen.

The result was early morning philosophising over iced Sprite (ok so we aren't that adventurous with alcohol, but what the hell, I still want my liver) before we actually caught some sleep (rare in cases like these). Was supposed to then go out in the afternoon with my army mates, but I decided to just go for driving theory lesson and then get a bit more shuteye. Life is quite tiring, honestly, when everyone is trying to drag you someplace every free day you've got. Sorry guys.

Back to camp tonight and a potentially shitty week looms ahead. I just realised that, despite my job title, I serve four bosses, sometimes more, and not just one. And the government is giving me 100 dollars in recognition of my efforts. Why, thank you, it tells me exactly how much I'm worth to you, doesn't it? Or, since 100 bucks is enough to get drunk, is the government's message "Here's some cash, go get pissed and forget for the time being about the shittiness of the whole system"?

If the whole of me is 100 dollars, I can't wait to see how much that little piece of me costs. Maybe they'll flip me a coin before I ORD, if it isn't too much trouble.

Thursday night and I'm once more the Ops TA, banging away on the keyboard while the DO watches TV and everyone else is someplace enjoying. A pleasant enough end to yet another mind-numbing day when boss was (once more) mysteriously absent.

With the kind of news that has been appearing in the papers lately, Singapore seems to have become all at once a more draconian and more dangerous place. A robbery last week in which a gun was used and fired was followed by a mafia-style "execution" yesterday and a man murdering his pregnant wife with a rusty sword early this morning. What's the world coming to? Two crimes involving firearms in less than a week? Amazing. And one a mafia-style murder too! How common is that? How common is two murders occuring less than 24 hours apart, for that matter?

Equally recent, far less sensational but somewhat more disturbing changes than this sudden spike in violent crime are also worthy of attention. Last week, the Government announced that exit permits will now be required for males aged 13 and up to leave the country for more than three months. The previous age limit was 16. While I applaud the Government's efforts to check NS defaulters, of which this measure is a part, I feel that it is a little too drastic. It makes me uncomfortable because it brings us that tiny step closer to being a police state - one more restriction on people leaving the country; restrictions on leaving the country being, of course, the hallmark of dictatorships. A tiny step nonetheless, but always be careful of the slippery slope.

And just today the Government puts out another measure, ostensibly to check youth crime - the police will from now be on the lookout for teenagers aged 17 and below out on the streets after 11pm. Any of these found will have their particulars noted and their parents informed via post. I do think the Singapore Police Force has better ways to spend their funding, because look here, exactly what is this going to achieve? Many of these teenagers can be out that late because their parents don't care anyway. What's a latter going to do. It will be the minority who are actually lying - and if they have to lie, they have strict parents who won't let them get into trouble anyway. It's unnecessary and restrictive - and it also means that you can fuck someone and have a child but can't be out on the streets after 11pm. Just like how you can die for your country before you can vote. That kind of thing. It's ridiculous. For heaven's sake just let our youth enjoy themselves.

So we have an interesting trend here: increasingly draconian police-state measures with a corresponding rise in violent crime.

I think the Singapore of the 1990s used to have a good mix: enough freedom but enough ludicrous measures for people to laugh at and ignore. Enough violence in our schools but not too much, such that students were more or less in line. Enough things against us being a dictatorship for us to argue convincingly that we were not one.

And we still aren't. Let's not become one. Stop the tinkering already.

Today was a 25-minute day. Reach office at 8:05am - leave at 8.30 for what else, TOTAL DEFENCE PACKAGE. For what it's worth, it was more interesting than what we used to get in school, and CO sir showed an amazing aptitude for current affairs - amazing because I've only seen him touch the newspapers in the office once ever. He also showed why he deserves to be that high up; because he knows what he is doing and truly believes in it. For that I will respect him greatly, as I would anyone else who does the same.

Valentine's Day is a Battalion off, so we all packed back home right after the indoctri- I mean, programme. Not that February 14 is anything to me other than just another date on the calendar, of course, but the off did allow me to meet up with HISSOC Core for dinner. Or part of it anyway, which in any case was always the way back in the day.

And so we went to Holland Village, a popular hangout back in the Mount Sinai era. It hasn't changed much, except for a rather increased and very visible police presence, which I have observed nowhere else. Maybe it's all the expats. Over an excellent Thai dinner, we still found much to talk about. People, the army, old times, university choices - that will last any bunch of us an evening and then some. Tse Yang all in black as usual, Aaron still stylish and chatty, Hana exactly the way she was; it did bring back more than a few fond memories. Of the days when a voice in my ear (very literally) meant a late night or a long morning making out spidery excuses of penmanship, the days of two-hour wild goose chases for mere staplets, the days of working in SR4 far into the hours of darkness cloaked in stacks of old papers, the days of balancing on rusty ladders with stapler gun in hand... the days when I thought, "Why am I doing this?" and instantly knew the answer in my heart of hearts.

I have probably said this too many times already but I'll say it again: we had some amazing times together. Irreplaceable memories that I'll always hold dear. And it could just as easily not have turned out this way.

I just wonder... whenever I meet someone new and the conversation turns to CCA (as it inevitably does), I only have to say "History Society" to watch the interest just drain from his face. I guess Sports CCAs and uniformed groups get all the glory. All the attention, all the focus. Who cares about academic clubs? Just a bunch of nerds and their facts. So few know that we did so much, and I never ever bothered to enlighten the rest. It's not like they care.

Know what you did and treasure what you remember, and nothing else matters.

I did love SR4 so. Maybe one day I'll be able to go back there.

Just to take a look. One good look.

The corridors of power were empty this week, with everyone fit to fight out at FATEP, pitting inferior skills and training against none other than Singapore's feared elite commandos. But the scary part is, sometimes, we won.

Propaganda is often not outright lies. Or skilful propaganda, that is. It is usually more a mixture of half-truths backed with statistics. As in, "There are lies, damned lies and statistics." In that case then, made-in-Singapore propaganda is anything but skilful, because all I see whenever I pass an advertisment promoting the Singapore Armed Forces, I see nothing but blatant falsehoods. 3G Army? That's a lie. A fucking big lie. It's not even a little true like most of them are. I wonder who the hell believes it. Certainly, I should hope that no NSF does.

It was in this mindset that I caught Jarhead yesterday with Jason, and it's no surprise that I really did like it. Any NSF worth his salt probably would, really - it's the good old cynical take on the (many, many) idiosyncracies, frustrations and (for lack of a better word) plain cock-ups of military life.

I rarely single out actors to accord high praise to - made an exception for Der Untergang (Downfall) and I shall make an exception here too, to say that Jake Gyllenhaal is brilliant in this movie. His facial expressions in particular were superb, especially the look I have come to know as "classic resignation". The very look that was on everyone's faces on my very own Enlistment Day. Yet its effects are even more potent in the movie because the US Army, unlike our own, is technically an all-volunteer force. Yet his character is forced to serve - forced by circumstances. "All you want is in, and all I want is out" - that's life for you indeed. Leading a life you never wanted to. Tell me about it.

But maybe I should begin going into the movie itself. It tells, in a nutshell, the story of a US Marine scout sniper unit, from training all the way to Operation Desert Storm and after. Intriguingly, not a single enemy soldier is seen, except very fleetingly towards the end. Yet the director somehow manages to convey that familiar sense of hopelessness, cynicism, anger and resignation that can be found in all armed conflicts - or rather, in the men fighting them. "Welcome to the Suck" - yes, welcome indeed. Only it begins long before they go to war. It began the moment they made the decision to wear green. And they face it exactly the right way - with weary cynicism. "Fuck politics. We're here. All the rest is bullshit."

Indeed, who has not heard of the idea that politicians talk while young men die? The old sending the young off to their deaths in war. It pervades this movie, because if you look at it, why did the US bother putting half a million troops into the Middle East then? For the oil, of course. If there was no oil there, do you think they would have bothered? Do you think they would have used half their army to defend a few thousand square miles of godforsaken desert? I was nodding in agreement with this theme right there in the theatre.

Something else that pervades the movie is Vietnam. Or the spectre of Vietnam, which has never really stopped haunting the American psyche. Fifty thousand of America's bright young men died there after all, shot down my Asiatics in black pyjamas, impaled on jungle traps, blown to red shreds by explosives, suicide, "fragging" (look it up)... along with virtual anarchy at home as the National Guard shoots students protesting the draft (Kent State). It was a terrible experience for the world superpower, and the memories simply will not go away. Near the end a Vietnam veteran boards the bus which the returning soldiers are on - and you can see: different wars, same men. Superb.

Then, of course, there is plenty of screen time for all the, as I mentioned above, idiosyncracies, frustrations and just plain cock-ups of military life. Sent to a foreign land to serve an obscure political purpose, the Marines find nothing to do for months. Basically they are waiting to rush. Sound familiar? It should. While they wait, they train - and then the reporters come. What are they ordered to do? Put on a show. In local terms, wayang. They are told what they can say and what they cannot (Singapore parallel: vetting questions at "no-holds-barred" feedback sessions), ordered to put on a football game in chemical suits for the cameras (Singapore parallel - display tommorrow, let's go kiwi DGU tyres) and are duly punished in a very creative manner when their performance is found to be unsatisfactory (Singapore parallel: yes, very often, that is how it works down here too). It just all shows how bloody shitty the life of a soldier is. How, when the top talks, the bottom suffers. "I want you to play football in these suits" vs "I need five men to carry (extremely heavy thing) to (extremely far place). You, you, you, you and you." Girlfriends and wives deserting their soldier partners vs Singaporean couples breaking up when the guy has to enter NS. American army vs Singaporean. Volunteer vs Conscript. All the same dog's life. Not that, of course, the director neglects to give us alternative perspectives - which to me always shows whether someone knows his stuff. "I love this job. I thank God for every fucking day he gives me in the Corps, oorah" - from the movie's main career soldier.

In any case, after all that shit, war finally comes - and the ultimate cock-up. American aircraft bombing their own troops. Friendly fire is anything but, of course. Deaths occur - yet one more shitty aspect of life as a soldier in a war zone. Following this, they come across a "Highway of Death" in miniature, complete with charred corpses. Yes, war is hell, and that is skilfully done here, without too much violence - unlike other war movies that seem to see the need to bash it into the viewer with a bludgeon.

Finally, after much suffering, it seems that their chance for glory is finally here. The shot is lined up perfectly and the finger is on the trigger... and it is time for the ultimate "top talks, bottom suffers", as an officer bursts in and orders an airstrike on the target instead. Chance for glory gone, emotion to face that with? That's right, weary resignation.

And so the war ends without them ever firing a shot. They proceed to put that right in the grotesquely over-the-top celebration at the end. To pour out all their cynicism, frustrations, resignation. It must have felt really good.

Lest you think all that there was to the movie was cynicism, the ending is touching and poignant. I won't spoil it, though. Watch it yourselves to find out, because this is one movie that is worth the price.

Best quote: "Whatever else he may do with his life - build a house, love a woman, change his son's diaper - he will always be a jarhead. And all the jarheads killing and dying, they will always be me. We are still in the desert."

Yes... the age-old dilemma of soldiers returning from war.

Go watch it. Now.

What the Chinese New Year weekend made me realise is, there is a fine line between tradition and stagnation.

In any case, it was all very quickly over, and so was the truncated work week that followed. We then sat down for yet another sumptuous SFI spread, where there is more flour in the fried fish than fish, where the crab claws are practically synthetic and where everything is unnaturally tasty due to the undoubtedly vast amounts of MSG present within. But hey, free lunch buffet, right? Yet they managed to be incompetent enough to provide one container of cordial for nearly 200 people. Unbelievable.

I haven't touched the education system for a while, not since I got out of it anyway. But it's always a hot topic, now included - as the debate rages on whether school should start later.

I am in full agreement to school starting later, and doing that is very easy (at least for secondary schools onward, because primary schools have all these issues with schoolbuses which I cannot be arsed to make half-sense of): just eliminate morning assembly. It's morning assembly that makes sure students have to be in school almost an hour before lessons actually begins (or that was how it was when I was schooling). Eliminating it and letting students come right in for lessons would solve the problem easily.

Because look, morning assembly is utterly useless. I know the rationale behind making every student sing the national anthem and say the pledge every morning (did you know that's the main point of morning assembly?) - it is to promote national unity and forge a common Singaporean identity. But seriously, does it help? I am skeptical. I also remember my RI days when as a reward for good performance morning assembly was cancelled for up to a few days at a time (the infamous NMAs, remember?). As a reward. So well, what does that tell you about how the school administration treats morning assembly?

Just cut it out, let students come in by 7.50am or so for lessons, give the important announcements over the PA system and solve at least in part the well-established problem of sleep deprivation amongst our secondary and especially JC students.

That aside, I do believe our system is changing for the better. Because it is true - there are more choices now. In fact, there may even be too many choices. I certainly can't list all of them, but I believe the government is making an effort at last to accommodate everyone, instead of the old one-size-fits-all system we all went through hell and back in. Then again - one ominous change is the ruling that has ensured the disappearance of my A-Level subject combination: at least one Humanities subject for science students and one Science subject for Arts students. Thousands are currently suffering, and for nothing. We can't take this all-roundedness thing too far. That's one part of the old system they should not have changed.

The system is now also gentler - maybe too gentle. It's well-known that teachers generally don't really dare lay a finger on their students these days, because parents are all too ready to raise hell if they do. While I am glad that teachers no longer can abuse their power, I am concerned about the emasculation of their authority in our classrooms. And this will affect me in future. There's not always a nice way to make students sit up and listen. I can only hope our parents of now and future will understand that.

But generally, it's been an improvement; less abuse of power by teachers and safer schools. The tricky part is achieving a balance. I speak from experience that the system is a lot gentler now.

For it was 1997 and the place was the school hall of Nanyang Primary. Together with at least 20-odd other students, with many more in the hall, I as an 11-year-old watched as a teacher savagely assaulted a Primary Six student, who was in turn slapped, kicked and shouted at. His hair was also pulled. And the teacher who did it? A tall and muscular PE teacher who knew martial arts. Mind you, this was a guy who had broken wooden boards with his bare hands and feet in stage demonstrations before. Not someone you want to mess with. And here he was, beating the shit out of a 12-year-old kid while 20 others looked on in horror. As far as I know, nothing significant happened to him and he left the school the next year.

If any teacher tries that now, he has balls of iron. Truly.

I also believe (and hope) that our schools are safer these days. Because my primary school was a veritable death trap. I remember many window panes on higher stories always being on the verge of breaking off and tumbling onto unsuspecting students below, and I remember when it actually happened once. Several students were injured. Then there was the time when a metal waterbottle plummeted three stories and my friend was pushed clear at the last moment. Or the time when we saw a student being wheeled into an ambulance and a large, mysterious stain on the basketball court...

But enough of the stories now. That was the 1990s, and people cared a lot less about each other. Things now, they are definitely different. But we really should not make things too nice and clean.