Before anything else,
That felt good.
My hair and my pink IC have been sacrificed at the altar of national security. The experience has been distinctly mixed. My thoughts are still swirling and raw, and to try to organise and compartmentalise them would be to dilute them. So I'll just say what comes.
- The SAF is more afraid of parents then "Country A and Country B", which is the non-too-subtle code name of two larger and potentially threatening neighbours (yes, I know. their creativity astounds me too). In Pes C BMT, every person is crocked one way or another, be it physical or mental. As such, our fragile bodies are exempted from some of the shit that our Pes A and Pes B brethrens have to go through. Heck, even the immortal act of punishment by pumping is scaled down. For that, I am thankful.
- But that does not preclude us from being treated like the scum that we now are. I was talking to Victor when I realised just how… infinitesimal army makes us feel. The uniform hair (or lack of it), the hierarchy, the suffocating level of ritual and regimentation, the constant inflow and outflow of vermin year in year out… It’s all very enervating. I met a guy of VJ whom I had always saw as somewhat of a maverick in there, and when I saw him looking exactly like everyone around in, being assimilated into the system just like that, it really struck me just how capable the army was of stripping people of hubris, self-worth and individuality.
- When they say that the army is filled with the unwilling and ran by the unwilling they are not kidding. Most of my superiors are also people looking to Serve And Fuck off (SAF) as well. That may not be a great vote of confidence for our national security, but it is good news for people like me. I have been lucky to get a few sergeants who fit that description to a T. Thus, beyond the basic standards we need to abide by, they do not seem to demand anything overwhelming. But then again, it is just the first two weeks, the fabled ‘adjustment period’ where recriminations and punishments are disallowed. So maybe my superiors will unleash their inner sonsofbitches when I go back, but until then this has been a minor boon. Especially when I juxtapose my experience with the experiences of most of my friends. Relatively, I am much less of a sub-human then they are. So far.
- But, being ran by the unwilling, the bureaucracy in there is, for the lack of a better term, fucked up. Due to a mixture of administrative screw-ups and miscommunication between us, my first coveted booking out was delayed by two whole god-forsaken hours. I could actually feel my innards becoming fucking molten when that fact dawned on me. For fuck’s sake’s bureaucracies are supposed to help facilitate things, not fuck things up.
-My fellow vermin in the army are also surprisingly pleasant people. It is a composed of people from all walks of life, with an incredibly diverse range of life experiences educational qualifications. But frankly, most people can care less. In the army, all are scum. So, most differences melt away, and we only have our personalities and character to differentiate us. Under such circumstances, interaction has mostly been raw, sincere and in-your-face – we cannot but act this way, since we have all been crudely stuffed into a backwards and fucked up system together- thus stripping away the pretensions and prejudices of civilian life. If for nothing else, this is one thing that I value in there. There is a certain egalitarianism in the army, where, because none of us have anything, we gain something.
- The one overarching sentiment in the army is just how… LONG it feels like. We would spend an eternity to do one thing, and after that eternity I would look at the time only to realise, to my dismay, that barely one-tenth of the day had passed me by, and I have many more eternities to go through before I can embrace the comfort of sleep. The time in there just seem like a series of continuous eternities, and these series of eternities serve to illuminate just what a waste army is on a personal level. While friends are outside attending rallies and feeling invigorated, I am doing nothing of note on someone else’s terms.
- The army has also helped me to crystallize certain values that I had always held dear, but was unable to elucidate properly. To quote William Lloyd Garrison, ‘man above all institutions’, now and forever.
- And I just had to sneak in the prologue to my first two weeks in the army in the form of a very interesting experience with the cab driver I conversed with on my way home. Apparently, during his time, army was well and truly ‘the suck’. On the week before their passing out, they would pick out people who are inevitably ostracised and hated in there and find creative ways to get a shot in. One of many methods would be to crudely beat the ever-loving shit out of the poor sod with, among other things, fire-extinguishers. It is terrible and barbaric, but somehow I laughed. It was a very interesting chat, and my seniors were right when they told me that army creates an implicit bond among most men in the country.
On the whole, my experience in serving this country has so far has been both good and bad. But there is nothing on this earth that can convince me that it would be worthwhile to forsake the next year or so to this. I may be fine in there, but I still need to say…
~~~~~~~~~~
There is a famous Chinese curse – “May you live in interesting times”. But inside all of us lay a dormant desire to experience something that posterity would always remember. One of man’s most profound fears is to bean insignificant footnote in history. As I watched the elections and watched the status quo being excruciatingly re-established, I am really beginning to fear that I will never live in any sort of interesting times. I don’t have the energy to outline my views on the state of Singapore politics (although I don’t think that is a wise thing to do given the laws in place), but I would like to use this event to commemorate some people who DID live in interesting times by re-posting something I posted in my previous blog, and hope that eventually I would be able to either directly or vicariously experience something of such magnitude.
A king sate on the rocky brow
Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis
And ships, by thousands, lay below,
And men in nations;--all were his!
He counted them at break of day—
And when the sun set where were they? -Lord Bryon
It was September 480 BC. The straits of Salamis, off the coast of the charred and sacked city of Athens. 2 rival armadas were about to go to battle. But this was one of those battles that, with hindsight, represents so much more then a clash of arms.
On one side was the mighty fleet of the Persian Empire. The world’s first superpower, led by a God-King who legitimises his authority not just by the consent of men, but by the grace of the Great God Ahura Mazda. The Great King’s domains sprawled across Asia, from India to the Balkans. Babylon, Egypt, Phoenicia – all these great civilizations of antiquity lay under his heel. The empire had brought peace and prosperity to all who submitted to the Great King. The advance of the Great King and his numberless hordes seemed inexorable. Sooner or later, all of mankind must become his subjects, and the world will be better off for it. The end of history seemed to be in sight. Yet Greece refused to submit, and even defeated the army sent by the Great King’s father, Darius. Now, Great King Xerxes has come for payback, and he seeks to overwhelm Greece with the full might and resplendence of his empire. It seemed only a matter of time.
On the other end of the straits stood the Greek fleet, led by the fabled Athenian navy and it’s unscrupulous commander, Thermistocles. Through deceit and subterfuge, he had tricked the Great King’s fleet – which outnumbered his at least 3 to 1 – into this narrow strait to do battle. Many Greek cities had sensibly submitted to the Persians. But a few chose to continue resisting, in order to preserve their freedom and their way of life. Athens. Sparta. 2 distinctly different societies. Xenophobic, petty and extreme, these rogue states had only their own belief in their freedom as citizens of a polis to sustain them. They fought for their right to continue fighting between themselves instead of allowing a greater king to grant them peace. They fought for the freedom to rule themselves.
On a wider scale, these 2 fleets represented ideals that they themselves could not fathom. The Greeks fought not as subjects, but as
citizens– free men who had a stake in their city-state, and would inflict terrible slaughter to ensure no despot impugns on their freedom. Yet the Greeks were intolerant, prone to petty squabbles and political instability. The Archaemenids who ruled the Persian Empire were an absolute monarchs with a God-Given right to rule. The men who fought in their armies were certainly not citizens – they were slaves and subjects to the Great King. This holds true for the entire empire.
Everyone, no matter how rich, powerful or capable, were subjects of the Great King, and must be subservient to his every whim and fancy. Yet this empire was also the first in recorded history to issue a bill of human rights. They were enlightened rulers, tolerant and efficient in its administration of the disparate cultures and peoples under its rule. But to the stubborn Greeks who fought this did not matter. An enlightened despot was still a despot. Better to be downtrodden free men then prosperous subjects.
If the Persian Armada does as predicted and overwhelmed the Greek fleet in the battle of Salamis, then all of subsequent history would be radically different. The Greeks, as subjects of the Great king, would have lived a prosperous life under a peaceful, stable government. But this stability would sterilise Greek thought, for the Greeks would cease to be citizens. Democracy would be strangled in its cradle. There would be no Plato, no Aristotle, no concept of the civic state. Free thought and enquiry as we know it would not have a birthplace.
The fight was not pretty, and belied the great ideological battle it represented. It was brutal and savage. The narrow straits that the Persian fleet had been tricked into proved to be their undoing. The much smaller Greek fleet butchered the Persian Armada and all its soldiers. Thermistocles and Hellas had prevailed. Their victory did not have the panache of an Alexander or a Caesar, but its importance to history is incalculable.
The victory of the Greeks at the Great Battle of Salamis did not put an end to Persian interference in Greek affairs. Nor did it make the Greeks any less xenophobic or reduce the petty squabbles and internecine wars between them. The bloodshed was far from over. But after this day, the Greeks would never come under the Persian yoke. East and west would not become one, and despotism would not reign over all men. Instead, the Greek civic state and the Persian God-King would continue to interact, and would affect history at different points. The concept for a God-King and universal empire would permeate into the West. Free thought, enquiry and philosophy would penetrate what was once the domain of the Great King. Empires and nations would rise and fall, but these ideals would continue to live and thrive. The battle of Salamis, by keeping the Hellenic flame burning, ensured that the radical ideals of the Greek City States would not pass into obscurity. It ensured that these dynamic mixture of ideals would continue to exist in Europe and Asia.
So a toast to the men on both sides who fought in that savage battle, not knowing that their deeds would still resonate after so long, and that they were participating in one of the most pivotal moments in history. I wonder if anything that is to happen in my lifetime would be looked upon by posterity with such awe.
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