Re-Writing History

I’m sorry and the truth is that I have tended to feel irritated around practically every single commentary Mr. Paul Gilfeather has ever written for the newspaper, Today.

Mr. Gilfeather is described as ‘the principal correspondent at Today’ and I seem to remember that he used to write for one of the British Tabloids – The Mirror, I think.  Most recently, he decided to focus Singapore’s attention on Oliver Stone.

What was it about Mr. Stone that heated Mr. Gilfeather’s blood to boiling point?  Mr. Stone has revealed that he is making a 10-part documentary series called The Untold History of the United States, which he has suggested will serve to re-examine certain elements in history ‘more sympathetically than ever before’.

‘Surely there is more historical value in a film project like Steven Spielberg’s brilliant, fact-based drama The Pacific, in which we are reminded of the incredible sacrifice made by the Americans fighting tyranny and evil?’ writes Mr. Gilfeather.  But why should Mr. Gilfeather choose to use such exceptionally powerful language, I wonder?

He must recognise the extent to which his stated opinion sounds even more ‘hysterically outspoken’ than Mr. Stone’s; he is billed as ‘the principal correspondent’ after all; any journalist worth his or her salt, particularly the British ones, knows he or she should apply words such as ‘tyranny’ and ‘evil’ only with extreme caution.

The last time I looked online, which was on the day of publication, Mr. Gilfeather’s commentary had attracted just three comments.  I added a fourth one myself.  Another commentary, A New, post-Lee Kuan Yew Era, written by Assistant Professor of Law, Eugene K B Tan, had attracted 40 or more comments and yet Today preferred to print a written response to Mr. Gilfeather’s piece as well as an extract from one of the on-line responses rather than any kind of response to Mr. Tan’s. 

In this morning’s print edition, the newspaper carries a second letter that refers to Mr. Gilfeather as having raised ‘an important question about who should write and present history’.  We might equally well ask ‘Who should write and present political commentary?’  For now, it seems the answer to that, at least in the context of the Today newspaper is Mr. Eugene K B Tan and only Mr. Eugene K B Tan.