wokay. so i was flipping through the piles of secondary school history notes - yes i Totally hoard stuff, why'd you think my room's such a mess? - because i remembered having some hitlery-staliny stuff that might just be easier to read than all the jc readings we have. (i'm just that pathetic and so very frustrated with the foot-high stack of things i have left to read. and that's not including all the stuff i've decided not to read at all and just shoved under the bed instead.)

i came across an article from may 1988 in the straits times, called "mao, hitler and stalin: their people were as much to blame". i kept this thing for so long (not since 1988, silly! i think it was a sec 3 history handout - 2002) because i thought the title was interesting, but i never really properly read the article itself. i read it today and realised that it's a terribly... naive piece of writing. "to guard against any abuse of power a society needs well-drafted laws that define the limits of the power of the office-holders as well as citizens who are watchful of their leader's activities." that's true, but it's simplistic and the whole article is in the same prescriptive, annoying tone. and it's got hardly anything about mao besides calling him an "ultra-leftist utopian" who was "divorced from reality". it barely mentions hitler and stalin.

and the best part is this sentence -- "the idea that people have a right to participate and scrutinise the work of their leaders is as alien to China as snow on the desert sand." hi, um. singapore TODAY doesn't really do much scrutinising of leaders. atleast scrutiny isn't exactly very encouraged. because, you know, free press? hello? so, well. singapore in 1988?

such vitriolic-ness, aparna. whyyy are you so bitter.

must be the exams. all this studying. also, i have recently begun to enjoy reading the newspaper. and i can't decide if it's a good thing. it's interesting, and absolutely depressing. it is turning me into a Dark Bitter Cynic.

26 days until Happy Aps returns! stay tuned!