32. Citizen

1. Who is to say the noise from the neighbour would not cause the owner to have a nervous breakdown? Especially when he is targeted.
 
2. Nature of the noise at times are loud, sharp and heavy; types of noise are rumble, knock, thump and others; and, in connection with their work, a noisy drainpipe. Noise is through the day including early in the morning and late at night. Workers are seen, and there is collaboration with officers.
 
3. It has been going on for years despite complaints to the authorities. In fact the complaints is cause for the officers to force the owner out of his flat. They could not be disciplined because of their connection, and the stationing of the-people-in-the-flat-across-the-neighbour is part of their strategy.
 
4. Noise may be reduced for a time after the owner had seen a MP or when he posted in his blog, but there has been no let up in their work. Noise was reduced considerably after he emailed the President in Sep 11, a month after the presidential election. The email is President (26).

5. To a casual observer the noise may have seemed acceptable for two weeks after the Administrative Service dinner referred in News (31), but the noise had increased. Over the next four weeks some days were better and other worse. Better, because noise was muffled and less frequent. Worse, where rumble, knock, thump, drag and drain were heard clearly and frequently. Previously rest days and public holidays were usually worse but, of the five public holidays last week, the two at Labour Day were worse and the three at Vesak were better. They would maintain a level, start up, reduce for a time being when asked, but not stop, having persisted in this way for five years now. The administration in the government may have caused the neighbour to reduce noise for a time but the main problem has been, as always, the officers behind them.
 
6. It is unconscionable to allow the neighbour to carry on. For a long time noise was undisguised, which forced the owner to consider alternative before selling his flat. He went to see the MPs about ten times then wrote a blog. In it he lined up facts, including actions by insiders, to show officers and the neighbour collaborated. These were listed and explained under various contexts, but the problem continued to be left unattended. The neighbour continues with their work because HBO (Head, Pasir Ris HDB Branch Office) is in a position to use his influence and the-people-in-the-flat-across-the-neighbour watches out for them. 
 
7. Thump and rumble could only be from machine-tools, and noise for many hours each day could only be from a trade. It was not that they were not found out, rather the owner was blocked from bringing the case forward. Why the authorities have not taken action has been shown in a letter and two emails to the President. The two emails are at President (26) and Dissent (30).
 
8. The owner also wrote to the Singapore Police Force (SPF), Public Service Commission (PSC), Ministry of National Development (MND) and Housing Development Board (HDB); and he informed through his blog the media, companies, people he found in the government directory and, where he could find their email addresses, citizens in general. He did it after seeing the MPs many times over a year.
 
9. It may seem the administration in government is overly legalistic by being silent, but it implies more. The connections between the officers, the-people-in-the-flat-across-the-neighbour and the neighbour are telling. If there were nothing, the authorities would have said so and put a stop to an issue the owner had brought up many times to support his case. Silence means not disclosing, which muddles the issue, shields the officers and allows the neighbour to go on.
 
10. When rules make no allowance for how it is to be used, there is no justice and equality. It is not neutrality either. In the case HBO answered all letters MPs wrote to HDB even after it was made clear to him it was intended for HDB, and HDB gave no direction nor conducted investigation.
 
11. In any case the government should respond. Impartial conduct, standard procedure and authority of the state are values that would apply. Until the owner wrote to the President after the presidential election, he was like a hostage having to cope with the noise as best as he could.
 
12. Democracy is supposed to create the conditions where ordinary citizens could find their voice. There is no freedom when its citizens would not speak up against wrongdoing because they have reservation about speaking up. 
 
13. Citizenship  Richard Bellamy, A Very Short Introduction series
 
Now any reasonably stable and efficient political framework, even one presided by a ruthless tyrant, will provide us some of these benefits. For example, think of the increased uncertainty and insecurity suffered by many Iraqi citizens as a result of the lack of an effective political order following the toppling of Saddam Hussein. However, those possessing no great wealth, power, or influence - the vast majority of people in other words - will not be satisfied with just any framework. They will want one that applies to all - including the government - and treats everyone impartially and as equals, no matter how rich or important they may be. In particular, they will want its provisions to provide a just basis for all to enjoy the freedom to pursue their lives as they choose on equal terms with everyone else, and in so far as is compatible with their having a reasonable amount of personal security through the maintenance of an appropriate degree of social and political stability. And a necessary, if not always a sufficient, condition for ensuring the laws and policies of a political community possess these characteristics is that the country is a working electoral democracy and that citizens participate in making it so. Apart from anything else, political involvement helps citizens shape what this framework should look like. People are likely to disagree about what equality, freedom, and security involve and the best policies to support them in given circumstances. Democracy offers the potential for citizens to debate these issues on roughly equal terms and to come to some appreciation of each other's views and interests. It also promotes government that is responsible to their evolving concerns and changing conditions by giving politicians an incentive to rule in ways that reflect and advance not their own interests but those of most citizens.
 
Above all, the appeal of a society of civic equals who share in fashioning their collective life remains a powerful one. Citizenship informs and gives effect to central features of our social morality. It underlies our whole sense of self-worth, affecting in the process the ways one treat others and are treated by them. It stands behind the commitment to rights and the appreciation of cultural diversity that are among the central moral achievements of the late 20th and 21th centuries. It has become fashionable to try and detach these effects of citizenship from any involvement in politics or democracy. What I hope to have shown in this book is that that is not possible. Citizenship and democratic politics stand and fall together. To seek to divorce the two undermines not just the possibility of political citizenship, but the values associated with the very idea of citizenship itself. The reinvigoration of citizenship, therefore, depends on revitalizing rather than diminishing political participation and with it the sense of belonging and the commitment to rights that are its prime benefits.