After a long day chasing stories in the desert heat of Karachi, I was hardly in the mood to be drawn into a long ideological debate. “I believe in journalism,” I quipped.

Thankfully, it worked. He smiled, and went off to bug the next person in line at the balcony overlooking the venue, who was, like me, trying desperately to catch a wisp of the miserly sea breeze.

Fast foward to the present, in the comfort of my airconditioned workspace.

Socialism? Capitalism? How many Singaporeans can actually claim to know what these mean? Feudalism? “What? Huh?” Communism? “Oh, yes, that one is bad. China, USSR, Vietnam. Bad, very bad!”

Welcome to the reality of a brainwashed society.

I’m currently tutoring a distant relative, who arrived last year from China, and was struggling with his Secondary 3 studies. And as I flip through his Social Studies textbook, I struggle with it too — for a whole different reason: what ——- rubbish! History is written by the victors, some wise guy said, but this is completely absurd.

If we’re going to teach our 15-year-olds — and have them subsequently regurgitate — the “terror” of communism and communists in Singapore, something is seriously wrong with our education system. Wait, before you haul me up to spend 20 years in Sentosa for some Marxist conspiracy, I have to clarify: I am no communist. And i’m not a communist sympathiser either. I am, at worst, a socialism-biased journalist. But I take issue with the way our history books are written.

Is it any wonder, then, that Singaporeans are widely regarded in the region and beyond as socio-political retards who are too astigmatic to see beyond the zeroes in their bank accounts?

“So, what do you think of communism?” I asked the boy.

“It’s not good,” he replied matter-of-factly.

“But you’re from China, and this is what your country believes in! Why do you think it’s bad?” I pressed.

“Because this book says so,” he answered.

And that is precisely what we learn. From that young, impressionable age, it would take many years before we hear of the writings of classical sociologist Karl Marx.

Marx described stages in the development of a state, from primative socialism, to feudalism, to capitalism (where we are now!), to socialism, and then communism, which he describes as the ideal state closest to a utopian society.

The problem is: 1) if you knew this, you’re probably in the minority, perhaps 10 percent, of the population who has even heard of this, and 2) by the time you know this, you have already been brainwashed by the education you received to that point, as well as the America-centric North-to-South information flow that taints the picture with their own set of colour-contact lenses.

Either way, you reject this notion of communism as the ideal sociological state, and continue to think of communists as the scourge of the world.

I’m NOT advocating we start calling each other “comrades”. And I’m not suggesting that you believe everything I say either. On the contrary, what I am is urging you not to believe everything you read, or hear, or see.

All I’m asking is you think. Critically. For your self.

So, what do you believe in?