This is a sad story of political repression.
Repression always makes for a sad story, no matter what they would have you believe. That might sound amazingly obvious to those accustomed to living in a free society, but in authoritarian ones, things get rather muddled. Repression leads to stability and prosperity, the official tune goes. If the government and the people had to deal with politics, they would have less time to concentrate on the economy.
That is utterly simplistic, of course. There is no reason why healthy political discourse cannot contribute to greater stability and prosperity. As a matter of fact, political accountability is an important factor in creating stability and prosperity in the most economically developed nations. And how do we have real accountability without healthy political discourse?
Certainly, the happy story of repression is a way to justify control.
Recently, five activists in Singapore were acquitted of "participating in a procession without a valid permit", a charge brought against them for simply walking down the street with slogans written on their T-shirts. A small victory, perhaps, but what should concern people is the fact that an assembly of more than four people is illegal. Worse, the law has been changed to ban any gathering of people that is in any way political, no matter the number. And that, supposedly, is for security reasons.
I really doubt that docile Singaporeans are going to riot, especially a mere handful of them.
What seems clear is that such laws are part of a long tradition of political paranoia.
On that note, let's assume for a while that the authorities are right. Let's say that even without hostile armies ravaging its countryside like in the Russian Civil War, a country needs to crack down on dissent in order to establish a semblance of stability. How long can such a circumstance last before all legitimate reasons evaporate if the country is not to be considered a failed state?
It's like taking a loan to keep afloat. Perhaps necessary in the short run, but if one does it for 40 or 50 years, one creates an unhealthy dependence, if one is not already bankrupt.
How long has it been since Singapore needed to be paranoid about dissent? If the authorities think that they have always been doing well, why are they so afraid? And a few decades ago, they had the cover of the Cold War. Now, with the Communists out of the way, the country that stands for freedom still doesn't bat an eyelid when its ally persists in its own internal Cold War against freedom.
It is said that politics is the art of the possible. I think politics is an art where any absurdity is possible.
But what's so bad about crushing dissent if things are working fine, you might ask. The first sign of a problem is the lack of substance in the political discourse. As differing opinions are suppressed and people are indoctrinated in the official line, no effective opposition remains to put the government in check when it is blundering into a catastrophe.
Such conditions have become an entrenched reality in Singapore. A small group of elites from the same schools and institutions are constantly being pulled into the government, which is essentially synonymous with the ruling party. People who dare speak out are hit with charges of libel and various legal-political methods of silencing them. As a result, people become reluctant to speak, and whoever is not co-opted is generally unable to match the intellectual muscle of the ruling group. The political culture is dead. The existing ideas are the ideas of the ruling class, and they exist to reinforce the position of the ruling class.
Hubris and bad luck are the only ingredients needed for a disaster.
So what can be done in this situation? Perhaps change has to come slowly; perhaps gradual change can happen. Or perhaps there will be an explosion of discontent one day; perhaps there will be crowds in the streets, trying to effect immediate change.
When that happens, will the rulers themselves march out to club their opponents to death? If they are determined to continue writing the story of repression, yes, they would.
And if they succeed, the blood on their hands would merely be what is needed to grease the economy.
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