Singapore mounted its biggest civil emergency exercise on Sunday, staging a series of mock bombings on its public transport system to test the readiness of the public and emergency agencies for a terrorist attack.This is an interesting example of the politics of fear. Singapore is major regional economic commercial hub in SE Asia, but is it really a high profile target?
Starting before dawn, the drill involved four subway stations along the city-state's famous shopping belt and in the central business district, and a bus terminal in a residential area.
The exercise follows bloody attacks on mass transit systems in Madrid and London, and fears that the same thing could happen here.
“We hope that through exercises like these, we will be able to educate the public because such a thing can happen in Singapore and when it does happen, we have to know what to do,” Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told state broadcaster Channel NewsAsia.
How much of this exercise is about preparedness and how much about instilling fear in the population, that can only be mitigated by the State?
No comments:
Post a Comment