Journalism.

I believe in the power of the written word, in improving the human condition. The spread of knowledge and information in the public sphere propels public awareness of societal issues that leads to public action. My decision to study Political Science in National University of Singapore is due to this belief; that to be able to make an impact through journalism or other forms of media, I’d first have to be trained and to have a good grasp of what the world is. A few semesters into my studies, my passion for human interest and politics have been fuelled further.

Politics is more than institutions, laws, structures or a bill of rights. It is very much about people, describing how the elite make decisions that affect a disproportionate number of people, for the better or for the worse. The pronounced social inequality that the world is experiencing today is due to many factors, chief of which stemming from reasons that are political and economical. The disparity between the rich and poor is ever increasing, even as we celebrate the overall increase in standard of living globally.

Through the study of politics and political sociology, I’ve learnt that there is a need to deconstruct the meanings of “buzzwords” that disguises deliberate political action as a natural progression of human history. The spread of democracy, for example had at one time been seen as human progress but in recent years, been heavily criticized by scholars as perpetrating global American hegemony. The tension between political theory and political action is omnipresent across space. It sometimes fascinates and other times confound me. Rhetoric put forth by leaders can sometimes come across as awe-inspiring but subsequent actions taken might turn the logic on its head, most recently exemplified in the war on Iraq. Democracy forcibly imposed upon a people is a paradox by itself; the quest for American national interest in this “War for Democracy” has not escaped the notice of the world.

Moreover, phenomena such as globalization have been marketed as the latest gadget for greater economic prosperity for all, as increased global links will diffuse economic benefits to all. However, this diffusion has not occurred evenly, but developing regions such as the Middle East have continued to lag behind. The myth of a global economy disillusions those who place the most hope on it, and this I believe, is one of the mitigating factors for international terrorism today. Religious fanaticism has been fanned by such economical inequalities and allowed to flourish in impoverished conditions that many are faced with today.

Palagummi Sainath, a award-winning development journalist who has covered the reality of Indian’s most impoverished, is an inspirational figure to me. Sainath believed that news should not be “entertainment” covering the consumerism of the urban elite, but rather, he put focused his reporting on ½ billion rural Indians who live in extreme poverty in the aftermath of globalization. Through his works, he provided an unabashed and accurate political and socio-cultural explanation of the culture of poverty. It was also the first time that I learnt that “muckraking” is not necessarily a derogatory term associated with a scandal-mongering journalist, but can be a means to serve the public interest, by uncovering political fraud, waste, corruption and other actions by those in power that compromises the human condition. My encounter with his works ignited my interest in investigative journalism.