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Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts

Singapore: Missing the Forest for the Fees

Posted by moses @ 00:04 • , , , , • 0 comments


This post is a social commentary I wrote as the editor of sociopolitical site Inconvenient Questions.

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There is an inherent tension between preservation and development. Has Singapore leaned too much towards development in its quest for economic progress? Could this tendency have eroded Singaporeans’ sense of connection to their country?

A controversy over building the Cross Island MRT Line through part of Singapore’s Central Catchment Nature Reserve flared up recently. The government has promised to consult the public and conduct careful studies before arriving at a decision, but some are not convinced that it is willing to compromise on cost.

Yet others are asking why nature lovers are so up-in-arms about this issue. Should they not be supportive of the government’s balanced approach? Are they just being irrational treehuggers?

Facts and practical arguments aside, and indeed those are not yet settled at this point, I can understand the groundswell of anger at the prospect of damaging the nature reserve. The feeling of loss is something that Singaporeans have often experienced with regard to their surroundings, and it may not get any easier each time.

As a Singaporean, one of the strategies for coping with life in Singapore is not to get too attached to your surroundings. You may love that spot, that structure, that area or that forest; the next thing you know, they might have been altered permanently or even removed.

The reasons for this can be both public and private. Spiralling rental costs have eliminated some of our favourite haunts—places like Borders bookstore at Wheelock Place, for example. Property developers keen to ensure ever-increasing rents have also gone to great lengths to ‘upgrade’ and change familiar surroundings.

In other instances, the inexorable march of public machinery—literally and figuratively— have ripped the living proof of our memories out of existence, such as in the case of the old National Library building. If part of the Central Catchment Nature Reserve will ultimately be damaged by the construction of a new MRT line, who should really be surprised at that outcome?



 A casualty of the ever-forward march of progress: The old National Library building. (Photo: Timothy)

Sometimes we may wonder whether all this is necessary or unavoidable. Certainly, the
authorities would be inclined to say “Yes”: We cannot afford to stay still, and the desire for
preservation has to be balanced with the need for development.

But if almost no place and no sliver of sentimental attachment is sacred, if we must always
be prepared to sacrifice these things at the altar of economic progress, then who can blame
people for feeling little connection to the country they live in?

Could we seek solace in artistic forms of expression? Has much of that not also been
meticulously pruned away to satisfy both a pragmatic worldview and a narrow vision of an
orderly society? So where else can we anchor our desire for meaning in being Singaporean
that goes beyond just our location and our passports?

For many of us, the answer would be family and friends—we want to live in Singapore
because they are here. But people are more mobile than ever, and communications
technology is getting better by the day. Not being here or not having a Singapore passport
does not necessarily mean losing touch with family and friends.

We may need the time and opportunity to be attached to our surroundings in order to better
appreciate what it means to live here and to be ‘locals’. Top-down feel good campaigns or
spontaneous exhortations to shout “Majulah!” can feel empty and forced. As important, if
not more important, to our sense of identity as a people are natural outgrowths of sentiment
stemming from the places, customs and languages that we live with—things that have all
been affected by at least one official campaign or another.

As things stand, the relationship for many is merely a marriage of convenience—if we really
question ourselves, how many of us are here only because the country is safe and
prosperous? What happens when there is a better prospect out there?

It is not that we can always choose to preserve everything, or that some trade-off between
identity and growth is not necessary. However, we must recognise our national ideology for
what it is; and hard pragmatism does not come without a cost. When we wonder why, as
some people do, potentially more than 50% of Singaporeans want to leave or why many
would not die for the country, we should acknowledge that the lack of personal connection
may be a price our nation pays for taking this path.

 Top image created by Liyana Yeo; photo of MacRitchie Reservoir by RickDeye.

The tragedy of the Gracchi

Posted by moses @ 12:17 • , , , , • 0 comments




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.

Flagpins and apple pie

Posted by moses @ 13:31 • , , , , , , • 0 comments


If you've been following world news, you must have learned about the 'controversy' surrounding Barack Obama's citizenship. Simply put, some people contend that he's Kenyan. Fortunately, Obama's official birth certificate has been produced and verified. Unfortunately, some of these people are demanding to see the original long-form certificate, which may or may not exist today, and that he produce various other records that he is not obliged to produce. Worse, someone found his purported Kenyan birth certificate.

If your memory of American politics extends further back to the presidential elections, you'd remember that Obama was also accused of being an Arab and of being a "Muslin".

So who or what is Obama, really? Let's settle this issue for ourselves by looking at his real ultimate birth certificate:


Convinced?

This is America, the famous "melting pot" of the world. And the issue of the president's identity causes such an unnecessary stir, despite proofs that he is indeed American. Perhaps he's not American enough, unless he's white?

Someone asked me a few days ago if I feel a greater identification with my country when I'm overseas. Yes, I do. It's the only thing that identifies me when people ask me where I'm from. Yeah, I wasn't born here and I spent 10 years growing up in another country. I got my citizenship only when I was 21. And, yes, it seems that I have plenty of complaints about Singapore. Heck, I might even want to live elsewhere.

But this is my country. Is there any use in pretending otherwise?

So what exactly is national identity, as many people are looking out for? How do you measure 'Britishness' or 'Frenchness? This seems to be a very relevant question in Europe, where various groups of immigrants have real problems integrating; or perhaps it is the various societies that have problems accommodating the immigrants.

Perhaps the question is, in an age of globalisation, do nation states still hold the same level of significance as before? I wrote some time ago that patriotism should be about solidarity with your countrymen and not about loyalty to the state. But why stop at your countrymen? Is it because of a shared history? Surely things that happened in the country before you were born don't affect your identity directly. Rather, their legacy forms part of the country's culture. Is it then a question of cultural identity?

This is where globalisation complicates things, and where size also matters. The world is both too small and too big. Today, we readily absorb elements of other cultures that the media exposes us to. At the same time, the particularities of the sub-national regions that we come from continue to differentiate us from fellow citizens from another region. Can we pin down what makes us identify ourselves as citizens of a country?

Does essence precede existence? Are people from a country because they share a common identity, or do people share a common identity because they are from a country?

Is it possible for a Singaporean to not be Singaporean enough?

I think many people's gut instincts would be to say "yes". Otherwise, why do they regularly try to whip up some sort of esprit de corps, or why do they disapprove of those who don't have it? Labels like "unpatriotic" and even "ungrateful" testify to some sort of assumption that you have to qualify yourself as a true citizen.

And why do people regularly assume that to be Singaporean you have to be of a similar mind in some things? Do practices, perhaps, confer identity?

What I know is that it suffices that I am from this country. When people ask me where I'm from, I tell them. No embellishments are necessary, and I don't feel obligated to paint my country in a good light. I am Singaporean because I live or lived in Singapore for a good part of my life and I carry a Singapore passport. Is that not enough?

Before the idea of the nation state was born, people were parochial. They identified themselves with the little regions that they lived in. The peculiar practices of a region might have differentiated its people from those who were from another region, but I doubt a lot of them thought much about how they must cultivate regional identities. People belonged to a region simply because they lived there. In these times, I think we should be moving back towards such a picture.

But perhaps we still can't let go of the early 20th century.