Management of Success: Singapore Revisited 9789814279864

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Management

of Success

The Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) was established as an autonomous organization in 1968. It is a regional centre dedicated to the study of socio-political, security and economic trends and developments in Southeast Asia and its wider geostrategic and economic environment. The Institute’s research programmes are the Regional Economic Studies (RES, including ASEAN and APEC), Regional Strategic and Political Studies (RSPS), and Regional Social and Cultural Studies (RSCS). ISEAS Publishing, an established academic press, has issued more than 2,000 books and journals. It is the largest scholarly publisher of research about Southeast Asia from within the region. ISEAS Publishing works with many other academic and trade publishers and distributors to disseminate important research and analyses from and about Southeast Asia to the rest of the world.

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Management o Success SINGAPORE REVISITED

EDITED BY

TERENCE CHONG

I5EA5 INSTITUTE OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN STUDIES Singapore

Published in Singapore by ISEAS Publishing Institute of Southeast Asian Studies 30 Heng Mui Keng Terrace Pasir Panjang Singapore 119614 E-mail: [email protected] Website: All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. © 2010 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore The responsibility for facts and opinions in this publication rests exclusively with the authors and their interpretations do not necessarily reflect the views or the policy of the publisher or its supporters. ISEAS Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Management of success : Singapore Revisited / edited by Terence Chong. 1. Singapore. 2. Singapore—Economic conditions 3. Singapore—Politics and government 4. Singapore—Social conditions. I. Chong, Terence King Shan. DS609 M261 2010 ISBN 978-981-4279-84-0 (soft cover) ISBN 978-981-4279-85-7 (hard cover) ISBN 978-981-4279-86-4 (E-Book PDF) Typeset by Superskill Graphics Pte Ltd Printed in Singapore by Utopia Press Pte Ltd

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CONTENTS

List of Tables and Figures

ix

Foreword Ngiam Tong Dow

xi

Message K. Kesavapany

xv

Quote

xvi

Preface

xvii

The Contributors

xxi

1. Introduction: The Role of Success in Singapore’s National Identity Terence Chong

1

SECTION 1: SINGAPORE IN THE BIGGER PICTURE 2. Singapore’s Foreign Policy: Reading and Adapting to the Fast-changing International Context Joseph Chinyong Liow

21

3. Singapore and ASEAN: A Contemporary Perspective Ong Keng Yong

38

SECTION 2: LEADERSHIP, POLICY AND POLITICS 4. PM Lee Hsien Loong and the “Third Generation” Leadership: Managing Key Nation-building Challenges Hussin Mutalib 5. Political Consolidation in Singapore: Connecting the Party, the Government and the Expanding State Ho Khai Leong

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6. The Evolving Social Compact and the Transformation of Singapore: Going Beyond Quid Pro Quo in Governance Eugene K.B. Tan 7. The Ardour of Tokens: Opposition Parties’ Struggle to Make a Difference Alex Au Waipang SECTION 3: THE RESTRUCTURING OF THE ECONOMY 8. Singapore’s Changing Economic Model Choy Keen Meng 9. Globalizing State, Disappearing Nation: The Impact of Foreign Participation in the Singapore Economy Linda Y.C. Lim and Lee Soo Ann 10. Exploring New Engines for Growth Linda Low

80

100

123

139

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SECTION 4: THE TRANSFORMATION OF SOCIETY 11. The Ageing Population Yap Mui Teng

183

12. Managing Labour Flows: Foreign Talent, Foreign Workers and Domestic Help Noorashikin Abdul Rahman

199

13. Social Mobility in Singapore Ho Kong Weng

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14. Singapore’s Print Media Policy: A National Success? Tan Tarn How

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15. Control-shift: The Internet and Political Change in Singapore Cherian George

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16. The Transformation of Meritocracy Kenneth Paul Tan

272

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17. Education in Singapore: Sorting Them Out? Jason Tan

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18. Religious Diversity in Singapore Lai Ah Eng

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SECTION 5: THE LAW 19. The Penal Code Amendments of 2007: Lessons in Love Michael Hor

335

20. “More Matter, with Less Art”: Human Rights and Human Development in Singapore Thio Li-ann

355

SECTION 6: MODIFICATION OF THE ENVIRONMENT 21. The Greening of the Global City Geh Min

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22. Recovering from the “Promethean Hangover”? Critical Reflections on the Remaking of Singapore as a Global City Pow Choon-Piew

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23. The Four Taps: Water Self-sufficiency in Singapore Lee Poh Onn SECTION 7: COMMUNITY AND NATIONAL SECURITY 24. Community Confidence and Security Yolanda Chin 25. National Security and Singapore: An Assessment Norman Vasu and Bernard Loo

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443

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SECTION 8: LIFE IN SINGAPORE 26. Culture, the Arts and the Global City C.J. W.-L. Wee

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27. Fluid Nation: The Perpetual “Renovation” of Nation and National Identities in Singapore Terence Chong

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28. Suffer the Rebellious Children: The Politics of Remaking Singapore and the Remaking of Singapore Politics Russell Heng Hiang Khng

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29. “It’s Like Rice on the Table, It’s Our Common Dish”: The English Language and Identity in Singapore Koh Tai Ann

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30. Multiculturalism and the Problem of Solidarity Daniel P.S. Goh

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31. Sexual Governance and the Politics of Sex in Singapore Laurence Leong Wai Teng

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32. Conclusion Terence Chong

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Index

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LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

TABLES Table 8.1 Table 8.2

Sectoral Composition of Output and Employment (%), 1985–2005 Industry Composition of Manufacturing Output (%), 1985–2005

129 131

Table 10.1 Table 10.2 Table 10.3

Singapore FTAs High-technology Industries Singapore’s World-class Universities

163 167 169

Table 11.1 Table 11.2

Age Composition of Resident Population, 1970–2008 Labour Force Participation Rates at Ages 55 and Over (%)

184

Table 12.1

Graduated Work Pass System

206

Table 13.1 Table 13.2

Residential Status of People in Singapore Inter-generational Education Mobility: Years of Schooling Inter-generational Education Mobility: Log of Years of Schooling

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Table 16.1

Gini Coefficients Among Employed Households

284

Table 23.1

Water Resources of ASEAN Countries, GNP Per Capita, and Population: 2000 Domestic Water Statistics

419 420

Table 13.3

Table 23.2

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232 233

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List of Tables and Figures

Table 23.3 Table 23.4 Table 23.5 Table 23.6

Water Consumption in Singapore, 1960–2000 (thousand m3) Singapore’s Reservoirs and Storage Capacity Major Sources of Water (per day) Year 2011 Expenditure with Water Sourced Domestically (at 2002 prices)

420 422 430 431

FIGURES Figure 8.1

Singapore Real GDP Growth (%), 1985–2008

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Figure Figure Figure Figure

Simplified Knowledge-based Economy Industrial Development Strategy and Value Chain Current Growth Engine Service Economy Growth Engine

161 162 164 164

10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4

Figure 11.1 Old-Age Dependency and Support Ratios

188

Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure

219 225 226 227 228

Growth of Per Capita Real GDP Educational Attainment of Resident Non-Students, 1990 Educational Attainment of Resident Non-Students, 2005 Occupation of Resident Working Persons, 1990 Occupation of Resident Working Persons, 2005 Real Annual Growth Rate of Average Monthly Income from Work Per Household Member Among NonRetiree Households by Decile from 1995 to 2006 in 2000 Dollars Figure 13.7 Shifts in Demand Curve Figure 13.8 Shifts in Supply Curve Figure 13.9 Skill-Biased Immigration

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FOREWORD

O

n a recent visit to Beijing (March 2008) for the Lien Ying Chow Legacy Fellowship Council, I was privileged to meet up with several researchers from three Chinese “think tanks”, one of which was the Chinese Communist Party School in China’s capital. We were engaged for three hours on the topic “ruling with the consent of the people”. In the Chinese political lexicon, there is a classic Chinese saying that “an emperor must have the mandate of heaven to rule”, and he rules only “with the consent of the people”. In today’s political context, the right to govern goes to the political party winning the most number of parliamentary seats in a general election. But whether the mandate to rule is won in a general election or by force of arms when one dynasty overthrows another, no emperor or government can rule without the consent of the people. In my view, it is too simple for “democrats” to argue that the only manifestation of consent is through the ballot box. We all know that the ballot box can be stuffed and the will of the people perverted by bribes and corruption. It is also true that effete, corrupt and tyrannical regimes can and, indeed, should be overthrown by force, if necessary. I am told that a basic tenet of Chinese political philosophy goes so far as to advocate that it is the duty of good men to overthrow a bad emperor. Contrary to the perception of arch conservatives, the Chinese elite are as passionate about obtaining the consent of the people as much as “true blue” democrats in the West. Chinese thinkers through the ages believe that improving the livelihood of the people is the foremost duty of the state. So it is with us in Singapore. Had we not concentrated on creating employment opportunities for our people, Singapore today would not be very different from countries much larger and better endowed than ourselves wracked by unemployment and racial conflicts seeded in poverty. East Asian countries or economies such as China, Japan,

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South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore all believe that improving the livelihood of their people is the only way to achieve social harmony. In turn, harmony provides choice in selecting leaders. Choice through universal suffrage is one, but not the only, manifestation of choice. When I was an undergraduate at the University of Malaya (1955–59), I read the works of two great development economists, namely Professor Arthur Lewis of Manchester University and Professor Walt Rostow of Columbia University. Practicing economists in the ministries of finance, and trade and industry of developing countries will find Professor Lewis very engaging dealing with problems such as unemployment, subsistence farming, low education standards, poor health conditions, and the myriad other problems finance and economic ministries face each working day. Professor Rostow’s five stages of economic growth serve better as the theoretical underpinning of thinking on how countries develop. Economic growth in most countries begins with agriculture. Agriculture is the basic foundation of most economies providing a livelihood to the larger part of the population. Agriculture occupies the most land area. Only when agriculture produces an economic surplus will there be demand for the goods produced by the craftsman. Only when the craftsman produces a surplus will there be demand for the services of the teacher, the physician and the entertainer. So economic development in countries such as China, India and Indonesia must begin with the modernization of agriculture. Self-sustaining growth takes off only when agriculture with its vast rural heartlands raises their productivity, producing more than what they need for subsistence. Professor Rostow’s model of the structure of growth applies to a closed economy. As all economies are now integrated into the global economy, international competitiveness depends on where the country or economy stands in each of the five phases of growth. The first phase of growth is characterized by low (wage) cost production requiring simple skills or technology. On opening up an economy, from a command economy as in the case of China in 1978, or a free enterprise economy behind high tariff walls, as in the case of Singapore in 1965 when we separated from Malaysia, most developing countries achieve rapid rates of growth (10 per cent plus) enjoying the low hanging fruits of cheap labour and accessible technology. As production costs of consumer products rise in advanced economies of the West and Japan, Singapore, China, Korea, Taiwan and now Vietnam are able to export garments, toys, TV sets, personal computers and other consumer products to Western markets.

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Even as their economies grow, China, India, Vietnam, Korea and Taiwan will be able to offer low cost production simply because of their large population base. Because of their respect for education, these countries have deep talent pools increasingly schooled in science and technology. In my view, these are very formidable low-cost, high-tech economies. China is such an economy today. Japan was such an economy thirty years ago. Because of Singapore’s small population base, our wages will rise whenever there is a surge in the demand for labour. Though our schools and universities are second to none, our talent pool is minuscule compared with other Asian giants. Inevitably, wage and other infrastructural costs will rise. Will we then be in danger of becoming a high-cost, low-tech economy? We have to move up to the league of high-cost, high-tech countries in North America, Russia, Western Europe and Japan. We have to aim to be a high-cost, high-tech country like Finland which overcome competition in low-cost, high-tech countries like China and India through sheer superior engineering. It is telling that in Finland, the engineer is more valued than the manager. In fact, engineers decline promotion to managerial jobs. In fifty years, Singapore has moved from a Third World city of slums and unemployment to arguably a first world city. Unlike our starting point when we plucked the low hanging fruits of a low-cost, low-tech economy, managing success is infinitely a more complex and challenging task today. How do we remain competitive in a global knowledge-based world? Most of the contributors to this publication are better schooled in political science than I am. It is said that man does not live by bread alone. True, but it is bread or livelihood that make informed political choices possible. The People’s Action Party (PAP) government has governed Singapore since 1959, winning every general election along the way. It can be said that it has obtained the “mandate of heaven”. After overcoming the ideologues of the Barisan Sosialis in 1963, the PAP has governed with the consent of the people by delivering on jobs and housing. The older generation among us still shudders at the recollection of slum housing with the system of bucket toilets. We have come a long way from the Singapore of the 1950s and 1960s. Our children are better educated than ourselves. With intellectual skills and savvy, the young Singaporean can hold his own with his counterpart in New York, London, Beijing and Tokyo. Some Singaporeans have climbed to the top ranks of international companies. Yet I detect some angst among our elite. It worries me that each year some 1,000 of our best and brightest leave our shores to be replaced by Chinese

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and Indian talents who depart from their own countries, perhaps for the same reasons our young leave Singapore. Managing economic success is tough. Managing political success is even tougher. In corporate lingo it all boils down to succession planning. In political science, there are two models of succession planning. In Plato’s Republic, the philosopher king is selected by his peers. He is the first among equals. I must confess that intellectually I am partial to this model. Why? Because the head rules more than the heart. However much the Platonic ideal appeals to us, it is still flawed. Its very virtue sows the seed of its own destruction. The philosopher king once chosen by his peers cannot be removed by them except through God’s intervention. The philosopher king fossilizes into a dictator. Or like the emperor, he and not his peers chooses his successor. In a monarchy, he chooses one of his offspring. On the other hand, succession via the ballot box is also fraught with danger. In a freak election, the electorate may well elect a government whose sole aim to get into power is to loot and plunder the treasury. Is there a middle way? I would leave it to political scientists to ponder this question. One possible way is to have the electorate realize that if they choose a rogue government they will lose everything they possess, their livelihoods, their property, even their lives. In each successive election, the PAP has offered better educated slates of candidates. Though education is not full proof against character flaws, it is better than just picking candidates off the streets. As no system is perfect, PAP candidates are not as streetwise as their less educated opponents. The first generation of PAP candidates was less educated than their successors. All constituencies were single seat. They stood and won on their own merit. Are Group Representation Constituencies (GRCs) a protective cover for young PAP rookies who are not as streetwise enough to fight their own battles? As ministers themselves begin their political careers in GRCs, is there the danger that even minister-led GRCs may one day be lost to the opposition? These are questions worth pondering. NGIAM TONG DOW Adjunct Professor Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy National University of Singapore

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MESSAGE

T

he Institute of Southeast Asian Studies is pleased to publish the follow-up volume to the 1989 Management of Success: The Moulding of Modern Singapore. This volume is a collection of essays by experts in their respective fields which delve into the numerous public policies that have shaped and influenced the everyday lives of Singaporeans since the early 1990s. In the spirit of academic inquiry, this volume serves to identify key public policies that have been deemed responsible for the success of Singapore and to re-examine them critically for a better understanding of our development and progress as a young nation. Retrospection and introspection are usually not the prerogatives of young nations like ours. Singapore’s short national history may make such a volume seem rather like an indulgence. But Singapore is no ordinary nation. In fact, its status as a nation was thought to be “an absurd proposition” many years ago by its first Prime Minister. Given the historical circumstances of Singapore’s independence, both government and people plunged straight into the business of surviving. With survival never assured or taken for granted, the achievements and progress enjoyed through the decades have demanded not just good government, diligent citizens or favourable global conditions, but have also nurtured a Singaporean culture and mindset that harbours narrow and specific definitions of success. The many chapters in this volume willingly acknowledge the tangible and material success that so many of our public policies have yielded. However, they go beyond the obvious and analyse the side effects of such policies, unintended or not, as well as to ponder alternative forms of success. For such an exercise, retrospection and introspection cannot be helped. Finally, this volume is meant to be neither a comprehensive nor final word on Singapore society, but a small contribution to the rich and ever expanding mosaic of the Singapore story. K. KESAVAPANY Director Institute of Southeast Asian Studies

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QUOTE

“My colleagues and I have repeatedly said that what we want is the open debate, a confrontation of arguments and views, with the general public as the ultimate judge. We welcome controversy; we never run away from it. You cannot carry out democratic processes without the open debate. I myself believe that in Singapore there is an inadequate amount of open debate other than on matters relating to very special interests.”

Text of speech by the Minister for Defence, Dr Goh Keng Swee, at the annual dinner and ball of the Australian Alumni held at the Chinese Chamber of Commerce on Saturday, 11 March 1967 at 8.00 p.m.

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PREFACE

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n 1989, the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) published the milestone volume Management of Success: The Moulding of Modern Singapore, edited by Kernial Singh Sandhu and Paul Wheatley. The 1989 volume was, and remains, the single most comprehensive collection of essays by scholars and professionals on Singapore. These essays delved into a wide variety of issues that were integral to the growth of modern Singapore, including political leadership, economic restructuring, societal transformation, foreign relations and national identity. Profound global shifts have taken place in the twenty years since publication. The ending of the Cold War, the economic and political rise of China and India, September 11, the war in Iraq and the global financial crisis have irrevocably changed the world that Singapore faced in 1989. Meanwhile, within Singapore, the city-state has seen two prime ministerial transitions and the installation of third generation leaders who have articulated their vision for the twentyfirst century. How has the local political, economic and social landscape changed? Is and should success still be “managed” in Singapore? What are the consequences of our success? These questions offer an invaluable opportunity to review and critique major policy decisions that have shaped modern Singapore. Given that the challenges Singaporeans faced and, indeed, our very notions of “success” were very different twenty years ago, this volume seeks to achieve two primary objectives: first, to reassess key public policies that have shaped Singapore since 1989; and second, to offer a critical update on the crucial issues that have dominated public discourse in Singapore. In this sense, the raison d’être of the new volume is not much different from the task that Sandhu and Wheatley set for the old volume, that is, “to elicit the relative degrees and quality of success attained in different sectors of the societal community”. Nevertheless, this new volume distinguishes itself by capturing the Zeitgeist of contemporary Singapore. A quick glance through the index pages of the

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old volume will reveal many glaring absences of words that are today an integral part of our lexicon. Terms like “civil society”, “sexuality”, “civil disobedience”, “gay community”, “penal code”, “human rights”, “foreign talent”, “internet”, “gender”, “social compact” and so on, all of which did not appear in the 1989 volume, can no longer be excluded from any discussion on Singapore. All this is not a criticism of the old volume, but rather, a clear indication of the keen focus on developmental concerns, the specific understanding of “success” during the industrializing years and of the undeniable shift in the socio-political climate since 1989. Another key difference between the old and new volumes is the streamlining of chapters. With 49 chapters, 57 contributors and a whopping 1,134 pages all lovingly bound in red hardcover, the old volume tips the scales at 2.5 kilograms! A more reader-friendly, slimmer publication that would reach out to younger students was needed. This unavoidably meant sacrificing some of the breadth and scope boasted by the old volume. Much of the sacrifice was borne by the section on the Singapore economy. The old volume had a total of twelve chapters on various aspects of the Singapore economy, including the oil industry, port services and price stability, while this volume carries only three chapters on the economy. Thankfully this is not too great a sacrifice because institutions like the Institute of Policy Studies have undertaken the task of furthering the discussion of the national economy on a regular basis through a variety of seminars and conferences. It was also decided that chapters in the old volume on our colonial legacy, trade unions, crime and control, the problem of corruption, and a foreigner’s reflections on Singapore need not be replaced. All this freed up the necessary space to commission chapters on more relevant issues like opposition political parties, civil disobedience, the role of the press, the internet, the impact of foreign talent and the politics of sexuality in Singapore. Nevertheless, while it is healthy to bring in new topics, it is important not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The spine of the old volume has been retained. This volume retains most of the sub-headings under which the chapters are organized, namely Leadership, Policy and Politics; The Restructuring of the Economy; The Transformation of Society; The Law; Modification of the Environment; Community and National Security; and Life in Singapore. The old volume also examined key issues like the leadership of the People’s Action Party, education, religion, national security, ethnicity, multiculturalism, and the arts and culture. It would be remiss of any book on Singapore not to update the analyses on these issues and we actively sought younger scholars to offer fresh perspectives. Where possible, contributors were encouraged to

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make references to their counterpart chapters in the old volume in order to present the reader with an intellectual and policy-making trajectory from 1989 to the present. Meanwhile, events and issues within this volume were crossreferenced so that the reader may get a sense of a dialogue between the different contributors. Finally, the most pleasant part of the job for an editor is to register his thanks to the many people who made this volume possible. First and foremost, I would like to thank the contributors for sharing their scholarly and valuable insights. Without them, this volume would not have seen the light of day. I am also, as is ISEAS, grateful to Ngiam Tong Dow for his Foreword. Special thanks to ISEAS Director K. Kesavapany for tasking me with bringing out this volume and for his kind support and helpful suggestions along the way. I would also like to thank my colleagues in the Regional Social and Cultural Studies programme, namely Lee Hock Guan, Ooi Kee Beng and Hui YewFoong, with whom many idea-refining discussions took place over numerous lunches. I am grateful to ISEAS Deputy Director Chin Kin Wah for his insightful comments, as well as Arun Mahizhnan, S. Tiwari, Asad Latif, Barry Wain and Tommy Koh for their constructive thoughts on several chapters. Last but not least, I thank ISEAS Managing Editor Triena Ong and her publications team for their professionalism and expediency. TERENCE CHONG Singapore

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THE CONTRIBUTORS

Alex Au Waipang, who has spent much of his career in the corporate world, has been a civil rights activist since the early 1990s, and is one of the key leaders of the gay equality group, People Like Us. In 1996, he started a website called Yawning Bread which has become one of the most read commentary sites in Singapore on politics and society. The photograph that he took of the Workers’ Party rally in Hougang during the 2006 General Election, which he posted on his website, became an icon of that general election. Through his activism work, he has also built relationships with many civil and political actors and is a regular speaker at conferences. Yolanda Chin is Associate Research Fellow for the Social Resilience Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. She obtained her MSc in International Relations from Nanyang Technological University in 2005. A secondary school teacher of History and Social Studies from 1999–2004, she was also a tutor at the National Institute of Education, Singapore from 2005–06 on Singapore history and social studies education. Her current research interest is in the role of education, history and politics in the construction of knowledge, identity and threat perceptions in multicultural societies. Terence Chong is Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), Singapore and Coordinator of its Regional Social and Cultural Studies programme. He has a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Warwick, UK. His research interests include Singapore civil society, middle class and identity formations, the sociology of culture, Southeast Asian studies and globalization theory. He has published in journals such as Asian Studies Review; Journal of Contemporary Asia; Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power; Social Identities; and Critical Asian Studies.

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Choy Keen Meng is Assistant Professor at the Division of Economics, Nanyang Technological University, having obtained his Ph.D. from NUS and his MSc from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Since his days as an economist at the Monetary Authority of Singapore, he has been studying and forecasting the Singapore economy. His publications are in the areas of business cycles, forecasting, and macroeconomics. He has acted as a consultant to the Singapore Department of Statistics, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, IE Singapore and the Vietnamese Government. Routledge has published a paperback edition of the book he wrote with Tilak Abeysinghe entitled The Singapore Economy: An Econometric Perspective (2007), based on a large-scale, macroeconometric model of Singapore. Geh Min (MBBS, FRCS, FAMS) is a staunch supporter and spokesperson for the environment. She was President of the Nature Society (Singapore) from 2000 to August 2008 and was a Nominated Member of Parliament from 1 January 2005 to 19 April 2006. She is an ophthalmologist by profession. She currently sits on the boards of the Singapore Environment Council and of the Nature Conservancy’s Asia Pacific Council, and also heads the Environment and Health Functional Committee of the South-West Community Development Council. She is also a committee member of the International Women Forum. Cherian George is Associate Professor at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University, where he heads the journalism programme. He is also an adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies. His main area of research is journalism and politics, including alternative media and media regulation. He is the author of Contentious Journalism and the Internet: Towards Democratic Discourse in Malaysia and Singapore (2006) and Singapore: The Air-Conditioned Nation (2000). He owns and edits Journalism.sg, a blog on journalism issues in Singapore. Daniel P.S. Goh is Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore. He completed his doctoral studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 2005. He specializes in cultural theory and comparative historical sociology. His current research projects are focused on postcolonial culture and state formation in Malaya and the Philippines and multiculturalism in Malaysia and Singapore. He has published in Comparative Studies in Society and History, International Journal of Cultural Studies and Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales. His other research interests include Chinese religiosity in Singapore and the social ecology of Asian cities.

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Russell Heng Hiang Khng has a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Australian National University. An Associate Senior Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), he researches on civil society dynamics in authoritarian polities. He is a founding member of People Like Us, Singapore’s first gay advocacy group, as well as Transient Workers Count Too, an association promoting foreign workers’ welfare. Ho Khai Leong is Associate Professor at the Nanyang Technological University, and an Associate Research Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), Singapore. His current research interests include Malaysia and Singapore politics, China-ASEAN relations, corporate governance and administrative reforms. His major works are The Politics of Policy-making in Singapore (2000) (the new edition was published in 2003 as Shared Responsibilities, Unshared Power: The Politics of Policy-making in Singapore); Performance and Crisis of Governance of Mahathir’s Administration (co-editor, 2001); China and Southeast Asia: Global Changes and Regional Challenges (co-editor, 2005); and Reforming Corporate Governance in Southeast Asia: Economics, Politics and Regulations (editor, 2005). Ho Kong Weng obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and has published in the areas of social mobility, international outsourcing, wage inequality, technopreneurship, and unemployment, including both theoretical investigations and empirical studies using Singapore data. His current research topics include inter-generational transmission of religious human capital, economic growth of a small open economy in a world of ideas, trade and indeterminacy, non-monotonic relationship between human capital and unemployment, and happiness studies. Michael Hor is Professor at the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore, where he has taught and researched on criminal law and criminal process for the last two decades. Before that he served for a short stint as a Magistrate. He is an advisor to the Law Society’s Criminal Practice Committee and has been a member of the Law Society’s ad hoc sub-committees on the death penalty and the 2007 Penal Code amendments. Koh Tai Ann is Professor of English Literature associated with the Centre of Liberal Arts and Social Science at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Her publications on the literature in English of Singapore and Malaysia explore issues such as tradition and modernity, literary tradition and cultural identity, migrants’ perceptions, self, family and

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the state, and the “domestication” of English. Her Singapore Literature in English: An Annotated Bibliography appeared in 2008 while an annotated bibliography introducing the literature in English set in Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei by local and expatriate authors is in preparation. Lai Ah Eng is Senior Research Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. Trained in Social Anthropology, her research interests cover migration and diversity, multiculturalism, ethnicity and religion; family and gender; and local histories and heritages. Her recent research projects include ethnic relations, intercultural dialogues, and ethnic and religious diversity in Singapore. Her present projects include family transformations in Asia, life histories of older women in Singapore, and migration and diversity in Asia. Her major books include Meanings of Multiethnicity: A Case Study of Ethnicity and Ethnic Relations in Singapore (1995); Beyond Rituals and Riots: Ethnic Pluralism and Social Cohesion in Singapore (editor, 2004); Secularism and Spirituality: Striving for Integrated Knowledge and Success in Madrasah Education in Singapore (co-editor, 2006); Religious Diversity in Singapore (editor, 2008); and Migration and Diversity in Asia (editor, 2009). Lee Poh Onn is Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), Singapore and Joint Coordinator of its Regional Economic Studies programme. He specializes in the environment and environmental management issues from a political economy and New Institutional Economics perspective. Topics researched include water management issues in Singapore, the impact of dam construction on indigenous communities in Sarawak, the haze issue, and forest management issues in the region. Lee Soo Ann is former Professor of Economics and Business Policy at the National University of Singapore, where he is currently a part-time Senior Fellow. He also sits on the boards of two publicly listed companies in Singapore and two non-profit organizations, both of which he was the founding chairman. He is the author of Singapore: From Place to Nation (2007) and Development Economics I (2007). He has authored four other economics books in the 1970s. Laurence Leong Wai Teng is a Sociologist at the National University of Singapore. He writes and teaches in areas such as sexuality, human rights and mass media. Linda Y.C. Lim is Professor of Strategy at the Ross School of Business, and Director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Michigan,

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Ann Arbor. A specialist on the role of trade and investment in Asian economic development, she has written extensively on the Singapore economy for over thirty years, and has also published research on multinational and local business strategies, business-government and business-labour relations in Asia. She teaches on the world economy and Asian business, is consulted by many international development agencies and corporations, and served on the boards of public companies in the U.S. A Singaporean, she obtained her degrees in economics from the universities of Cambridge (BA), Yale (MA) and Michigan (Ph.D.). Joseph Chinyong Liow is Associate Dean and Associate Professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He is the author of numerous articles in internationally refereed journals as well as The Politics of Indonesia-Malaysia Relations: One Kin, Two Nations (2005); Islam, Education, and Reform in Southern Thailand: Tradition and Transformation (2009); and Piety and Politics: The Shifting Contours of Islamism in Contemporary Malaysia (2009). Joseph’s research interests are in Muslim politics in Southeast Asia and regional security issues. He also comments regularly on these issues in the international media. Linda Low is Head of Strategic Planning at the Department of Planning and Economy, Abu Dhabi and Adjunct Professor in United Arab Emirates University and Higher College of Technology, United Arab Emirates. Her previous employers in Singapore include the Ministry of Finance, Department of Economics and Statistics, and Business School at the National University of Singapore and Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS). Her research interests include public sector economics and public policy, human resources development and international trade. Her latest publication is “A Case Study of Singapore’s Bilateral and Cross-regional Free Trade Agreements”, in Cross-Regionalism: Trade Agreements, edited by Saori N. Katada and Mireya Solis (2008). Bernard Loo is Assistant Professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He is the author of Medium Powers and Accidental Wars: A Study in Conventional Strategic Stability (2005), and the editor of Military Transformation and Operations (2009). His other publications have appeared in the Journal of Strategic Studies, Contemporary Southeast Asia, NIDS Security Reports, and Taiwan Defense Affairs. Bernard’s research interests encompass war studies, strategic theory, conventional military strategies, strategic challenges of small and medium powers, and problems and prospects of military transformation.

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Hussin Mutalib is Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science, National University of Singapore. He specializes in the politics of Singapore, Malaysia, Southeast Asia and the Muslim world. A political scientist, he is the author of five books, including Parties and Politics: A Study of Opposition Parties and the PAP in Singapore (2004) and Islam and Ethnicity in Malay Politics (1990). His academic articles have appeared in Asian Survey, Harvard Review, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Pacific Affairs, American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, and Contemporary Southeast Asia. A Singaporean active in civil society work, he was the founding chairman of the Association of Muslim Professionals (AMP) in 1990. He is a recipient of the Fulbright, Asia-Pacific Leadership and Harvard-Yenching Awards, and has been a Fellow/Visiting Professor at Oxford University, UC Berkeley, Harvard, Cairo and LSE. Ong Keng Yong is Ambassador-at-Large at the Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was Secretary-General of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) from 2003–07. His diplomatic postings took him to Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, the USA, India and Nepal. He was appointed Press Secretary to the Prime Minister of Singapore and concurrently held senior positions in the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts, and the People’s Association in Singapore from 1998–2002. He graduated from the University of Singapore and Georgetown University, Washington D.C. Pow Choon-Piew is Assistant Professor at the Department of Geography, National University of Singapore. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles and was a Visiting Scholar at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences in 2004. His research interests cover broadly the politics of urban development, urban sustainability issues, with specific focus on urban housing segregation, gated communities and private urban governance. Noorashikin Abdul Rahman was a Visiting Fellow at the Department of Geography, National University of Singapore. She wrote her Ph.D. thesis on the agency of Indonesian domestic workers in Singapore and was awarded a doctor of philosophy from Curtin University of Technology, Western Australia. Noor’s research examines the geographies of exclusion of migrant workers who are working in jobs classified as unskilled and semi-skilled in Singapore. She has co-edited a book entitled Asian Women as Transnational Domestic Workers (2005). Noor is also a social activist and is involved in advocating for the rights of migrant workers in Singapore.

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Eugene K.B. Tan is Assistant Law Professor at the School of Law, Singapore Management University. An advocate and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Singapore, Eugene is a graduate of the National University of Singapore, the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Stanford University, where he was a Fulbright Fellow. His inter-disciplinary research interests include the mutual interaction of law and public policy, and the regulation of ethnic conflict. His publications in these areas have appeared in various journals including The China Quarterly, Citizenship Studies, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Ethnopolitics, and Terrorism and Political Violence. Tan Tarn How’s research areas are in arts and cultural policy and media and internet policy. He has written on the development of the arts in Singapore, in particular, fostering partnerships between the people, private and public sectors, and also the creative industry policies in China, Korea and Singapore. He has written on the management of the media industry in Singapore and the impact of the internet and new technology on society, including regulating political expression and speech on race and religion. He was a journalist for nearly one and half decades before joining the Institute of Policy Studies. He has also been a teacher and television scriptwriter and is an award-winning playwright. Kenneth Paul Tan is Associate Professor and Assistant Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. His research interests have been in the fields of political theory, comparative politics, and cinema studies, specializing in Singapore studies and focusing on topics such as democracy, civil society, media, multiculturalism, and meritocracy. He has published in journals such as International Political Science Review, Asian Studies Review, and Critical Asian Studies; edited Renaissance Singapore? Economy, Culture, and Politics (2007); and authored Cinema and Television in Singapore: Resistance in One Dimension (2008). Jason Tan completed his doctoral studies in comparative education at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He now teaches at the National Institute of Education, Singapore. Among his recent publications are Globalization and Marketization in Education: A Comparative Analysis of Hong Kong and Singapore (co-authored with Mok Ka Ho, 2004); Going to School in East Asia (co-edited with Gerard Postiglione, 2007); and Thinking Schools, Learning Nation: Contemporary Issues and Challenges (co-edited with Ng Pak Tee, 2008).

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Thio Li-ann, Ph.D. (Cambridge), LL.M. (Harvard), B.A. (Hons) (Oxford), is Professor of Public International Law, Human Rights Law and Public Law at the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore. She has been ranked twice as an NUS Excellent Teacher and received the NUS Young Researcher award (2004). Aside from numerous law review articles, her publications include Managing Babel: The International Legal Protection of Minorities in the Twentieth Century (2005) and Constitutional Law in Malaysia and Singapore (authored with Kevin Y.L. Tan, 1997). She is a barrister (Gray’s Inn, UK) and was a Nominated Member of Parliament (11th Session). Norman Vasu is Assistant Professor and Coordinator of the Social Resilience programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He obtained his MA from the University of Glasgow in 1998 and MSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics in 1999. In 2004, Vasu received his doctorate in International Politics from the University of Wales at Aberystwyth. He has authored How Diasporic Peoples Maintain their Identity in Multicultural Societies: Chinese, Africans and Jews (2008) and edited Social Resilience in Singapore: Reflections from the London Bombings (2007). He has published widely in journals such as Asian Ethnicity, The Kantian Review and Jane’s Homeland and Security Monitor as well as writing for several newspapers on topics surrounding multiculturalism, national security and social resilience. C.J. W.-L. Wee is Associate Professor of English at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He was previously a Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, and has held Visiting Fellowships at the Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University, and the Society for the Humanities, Cornell University. Wee is the author of Culture, Empire, and the Question of Being Modern (2003) and The Asian Modern: Culture, Capitalist Development, Singapore (2007), the editor of Local Cultures and the “New Asia”: The State, Culture, and Capitalism in Southeast Asia (2002), and the co-editor of Two Plays by Kuo Pao Kun (2002). Yap Mui Teng is Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, where she works on demographic and family issues. Her current research interests include policy responses to low fertility in Singapore and elsewhere, policies on the aged, migration policies, and poverty alleviation policies. She has also

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worked at the Population Planning Unit, Ministry of Health and the Research and Evaluation Unit, Singapore Family Planning and Population Board. She has a Bachelor of Social Sciences (Honours in Sociology) from the University of Singapore, and Master and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Hawaii.

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1

INTRODUCTION The Role of Success in Singapore’s National Identity TERENCE CHONG

THE SINGAPORE STORY AS A SUCCESS STORY

T

he Singapore story is often narrated as a success story. It is a story of a little island cut from its hinterland and saddled with the challenges of mass housing, high unemployment and an uncertain future. Regardless of storyteller, the Singapore success story has always unfolded in a consistent manner. It begins with the “moment of anguish”, a painful self-realization of an unformed nation, the existential fear for one’s self, followed by the Herculean effort to overcome all the odds, and finally, the achievement of success.1 Through hard work, pragmatic policies and sound leadership, the island made the transformation from an “absurd proposition” to a global city.2 A quick glance at several mainstream narrations of the Singapore story will show just how central the concept of success has become to the nation-building project. Publications such as Management of Success: The Moulding of Modern Singapore; Singapore: The Struggle for Success; Singapore: Re-engineering Success; Singapore’s Success: Engineering Economic Growth; From Third World to First: The Singapore Story and so on have not only examined key public policies which have borne much fruit and contributed to the general levelling up of Singapore society but have also, as a body of literature, supported the implicit suggestion that success is a faithful companion of nation-building. Such publications and many others like them have framed the Singapore story with a straightforward linear narrative where events such as the 1985 recession, the 1997 Asian financial 1

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crisis, September 11, and SARS are presented to accentuate the cyclical act of meeting challenges and duly overcoming them. It is a story where the obstacletriumph binary is a necessary leitmotif. This body of literature, together with the state-friendly agents of knowledge production, including National Education and the local press, lends an evolutionary logic to the Singapore nation, thus allowing it to be imagined as dynamic, forward-looking and achievement-oriented. The Singapore success story is usually narrated in two different ways, sometimes simultaneously. First and foremost, it is a story of material success. It is a tale of rapid transition from colonial port to global financial centre that pays homage to the coherent industrialization and urbanization processes that have swept across the island over four decades. Housing slums, unsanitary sewage systems, pig farms and small orchards have been replaced by throbbing satellite towns complete with spanking new plastic malls while the city centre filled with modern skyscrapers to rival those of any global city. Vital to this narration is the role of numbers and statistics. Well-worn numbers such as the country’s GDP per capita, which grew from S$592 in 1960 to S$40,886 in 2006, put a sheen on the story.3 Other numbers include the rate of home-ownership — over 90 per cent, one of the highest in the world — and its reserves, from several billion in 1981 to about S$160 billion today.4 More recent numbers include 77,000 — the number of millionaires in Singapore in 2008.5 These numbers, by virtue of their status as fact, make the Singapore success story a compelling one. And because it is said that you cannot argue with numbers, their very evocation is often deemed a sufficient, if not convenient, rebuttal to detractors of the city-state. The other way the Singapore success story is narrated is as ideological success. With a populace divided by ethnicity, religion, language and kinship loyalties to different hinterlands, the idea of a singular and coherent nation right up to 1965 was far from reality. To further complicate matters, the main ethnic groups — Chinese, Malay and Indian — were heterogeneous in nature. The Chinese community comprised different dialect communities such as Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese, and Hakka; the Malay community, though indigenous to the region, was also largely made up of migrants who settled in Singapore from neighbouring islands and consisted of the Bugis, Minangkabaus, Boyanese, Orang Selat, Javanese, and so on; while the Indian community comprised Malayalee, Sikh, Sindhi and Tamil communities. Today, under the Singapore story, these complex and disparate histories have been streamlined into broader ethnic categories and packaged as one giant construct called “Singaporeans”. And as “Singaporeans”, we are said to have embraced the ideologies of

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multiculturalism and meritocracy as sacred principles, without which there would be no success story to speak of. To be sure, multiculturalism and meritocracy were by no means part of the Singapore story at a time when Chinese chauvinism demanded that numerical superiority deserved political superiority or when Malay nationalism insisted on special rights. That such calls today are seen as not only seditious but condemned by society is a testament to the evenhanded and far-sighted leadership in Singapore. All of this brings us to the centrepiece of the Singapore success story — the People’s Action Party (PAP) government. In the vein of folk stories of yore, the first generation PAP leaders are often portrayed by popular history as unwilling heroes called forth by destiny. Indeed, as early as 1964, the tenth anniversary issue of the PAP’s Our First Ten Years laid the foundation for popular history’s narration of the PAP’s emergence as a necessary and timely intervention in contemporary politics. In the words of S. Rajaratnam: “That was a time when only weak men and opportunistic elements thrust themselves on the local political stage. The choice then was between these opportunistic elements and a militant underground Communist Party. There were the Progressive Party and their feeble leaders. There were the clowns of the Labour Party of Singapore … It was felt that a dynamic [PAP] party should not wait for absolutely ideal conditions before venturing forth. To do so would be to wait forever.”6 Baptized by fire and unflinching in personal sacrifice, the founders of modern Singapore — Lee Kuan Yew, Goh Keng Swee, S. Rajaratnam, Toh Chin Chye, and Eddie Barker — have, upon countless retelling of their exploits, transformed into hallowed statues in the great hall of our collective memory. For a society so bereft of legends and heroes, we have sought to fashion them from our immediate past in order to do what heroes do — offer inspiration and aspiration to a young populace. First generation leaders have ceased to be mere mortals in the Singapore success story but the embodiment of virtues, such that the mere mention of their names conjures up notions of Old World values like “self-sacrifice” and “selflessness” believed to have been lost along the way as we journey towards a hyper-capitalist utopia. This legacy of embodied virtues, together with its stellar track-record, itself another familiar trope in the Singapore story, has been accentuated by the PAP such that it is able to present itself as society’s best over the years through a firm commitment to elitism.7 This goes a long way towards legitimizing the government’s position as final arbiter of public debate and guardian of society. The PAP government alone continues to enjoy the authority to define terms such as “public good”, “civic society” and “national interests” through its control over mainstream

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media and its absolute dominance in politics and parliament. Its assertion that the community’s interests supersede that of the individual is an intrinsic Asian value that has given the government moral leeway to fend off critics, both local and abroad, with culturalist arguments when it comes to issues of human rights, freedom issues or liberal democracy. All this, in effect, has allowed the PAP government to set the perimeters for public debate, define the terms of reference and, in doing so, present a semblance of public consultation that will eventually grind its way to the preferred conclusion. This has, no doubt, helped the Singapore success story move along at a more efficient, staccato-like pace. It was not long before the Singapore success story was seen as a valuable commodity that could be exported to the rest of the world. The Singapore economic model, part of an earlier quartet of the so-called “Asian Tigers”, amplifies export-driven development, the focus of which is the manufacture of products for export to industrialized countries. The state plays a central role in the Singapore economic model, often at the expense of local entrepreneurs while performing the vital task of spearheading the penetration into overseas markets. Education is singled out as the primary means of improving productivity, prompting heavy government investment at all levels of education, thus resulting in a system that is finely attuned to market needs. Meanwhile a high degree of economic freedom is deemed vital for the attraction of global capital — a greater priority than personal freedom issues. The tangible success that this model has brought about has made the Singapore story a highly desirable commodity to developing nations. The Singapore economic model is now replicated in destinations such as Suzhou Industrial Park, Tianjin Ecocity, Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, and Singapore-India SEZ, while senior civil servants have come together to set up consultancy organizations like the Singapore Cooperation Enterprise and iGlobe Advisors specifically to sell Singapore’s public sector expertise to other countries.8 Meanwhile, the blueprint and philosophy of the Singapore model are espoused by the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, which sees a diverse international cohort of graduate students each year. The Singapore success story is now sold as a global commodity. THE SINGAPORE SUCCESS STORY AS NATIONAL CULTURE Not surprisingly, the Singapore success story has become crucial to the identity formation of Singaporeans. Descending from migrant stock and severed from their great civilizations of origin — China and India — Singaporeans are often

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reminded that they are either “cultural orphans”, “rootless” or “deculturalised” — sometimes all three.9 This absence of a suitable cultural history has left an ideological vacuum that the PAP government has tried to fill with a variety of projects from the Confucian ethics discourse, Religious Knowledge in local schools, to the “Asian values” rhetoric.10 These projects were embarked upon not only for the purpose of framing a rootless people with cultural context but also to instil in the populace a desired set of ethics and values. The Parliamentary White Paper on Shared Values later in 1991 offered five concrete sets of values in the hope that they would transcend communal groups to constitute a national self-consciousness. Nevertheless, these projects came unstuck for different reasons. The Religious Knowledge curriculum, itself a response to a milestone report on the local education system in 1978 which observed that Singaporeans, particularly the Chinese, were in danger of becoming “westernised” and “deculturalised”, was completely removed because it sparked religious polarization in secondary schools. Christian students emerged as one of the most aggressive proselytizers, causing discomfort amongst Buddhist and Taoist parents. While the Asian values rhetoric lost much of its credibility in the international arena because of the 1997 Asian financial crisis, at the domestic level, especially in societies such as Singapore and Malaysia that had already achieved a substantial degree of economic success prior to the crisis, claims about distinctive “Asian values” are likely to linger.11 Meanwhile, however, the success story narrative has shown itself to be remarkably resilient. It is resilient because it is more inclusive in light of the undeniable expansion of the local middle class across ethnic groups. More importantly, it has been resilient because it has mimicked the role of national culture with distinction. It certainly shares several characteristics of typical national cultures. Like most national cultures, the Singapore success story possesses tropes such as hard work, sacrifice, delayed gratification, vision, foresight, leadership and so on, which serve to mythologize the older generations and romanticize past struggles. Like most national cultures, the Singapore success story is richly embedded with myths and heroes from which younger generations may draw inspiration, thus facilitating the transference of preferred values and morals. From stories such as “riding the tiger”, “export-oriented industrialization” and “Goh’s folly” we duly draw the lessons of self-assurance, vision, and political will.12 In acceding to decisions to dismantle trade unions and amalgamate them under a giant co-op, and imposing restrictive media regulations we imbibe the virtues of bureaucratic efficiency, political expediency and social harmony. Like most national cultures, the Singapore success story

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has its own internal logic in which the perfect narration of myth is more important than reality since it is the ultimate aim of national culture to shape perceptions of reality. But how did the Singapore success story become so pervasive? In essence, the Singapore success story is a story told by the English-educated class. Of all the immigrants into Malaya from the nineteenth century, the minority English-educated group has been and became the most politically important community in the shaping of Malayan, and later, Singaporean, politics. This heterogeneous group which included Eurasians, Indians, Ceylonese, Pakistanis and Chinese from the Straits Settlement was largely shapeless and incoherent before World War II. As a small percentage of the educated population, the English-educated only began to grow into an intellectual force with an anticolonial agendum when the Japanese surrendered, by which time greater numbers of Chinese and Malays had joined its ranks. The English-educated, sometimes known as the “domiciled community”, were among the first of the immigrant populace to see Malaya as a permanent home in which it had a stake. Homegrown institutions such as the King Edward VII College of Medicine, Raffles College, and later, the University of Malaya, helped to nurture this community with a sense of belonging to the locale. The political awakening it experienced after WWII resulted in the formation of a series of political parties that dominated the political landscape from 1945 to 1955.13 They included the Malayan Democratic Union (est. 1945), the Singapore Progressive Party (est. 1947), the Singapore Labour Party (est. 1948), the Singapore Labour Front (est. 1955), and the PAP (est. 1954). And even though the PAP comprised as much of the Englisheducated as of the Chinese-educated, the Barisan Sosialis schism is taken by popular history as the purging of the latter. These political parties shared several characteristics. They were spearheaded by English-educated individuals who had little or no connection to the Chinese-educated masses (even if their parties were infiltrated by communists to various degrees). They were largely multiethnic in personnel. They were anti-colonial, but not necessarily anti-British. And because they were in the minority, both in terms of class and culture, with no access to the Chinese cultural world, they espoused multiculturalism and championed a broad Malayan identity in order to locate their position in the political landscape. All this is not to mean that the English-educated community was evenly privileged. Indeed there were many in this community who were not well off, taking up occupations such as clerks or store assistants, and who publicly appealed to the colonial state for financial assistance.14 Nevertheless, it was the elite within this domiciled community that set the political agenda.

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It was this English-educated intelligentsia who idealistically harboured a Malayan identity in the 1950s. This Malayan identity was the composite of Malays, Chinese and Indians sealed in equal civic membership within a democratic postBritish nation. Wang Gungwu recalls that the “hypothetical” Malayan would showcase “the cultural refinements and political skills of the Malay aristocrat, the entrepreneurship and technical know-how of a Chinese and the outspoken eloquence and patient endurance of an Indian”.15 This was a Malayan identity steeped in stereotype and caricature — concerned that only the “best” traits of cultural groups would go into the formulation of collective consciousness. From this naiveté arose the ill-fated EngMalChin project. The project, through the vehicle of Malayan poetry, was the search for a localized identity based on English forms. A portmanteau word, EngMalChin ultimately possessed a style that was self-conscious. Just as the EngMalChin project was the Englisheducated intelligentsia’s attempt to domesticate the English language with the mosaic qualities of the locale, the Malayan identity too was this group’s attempt to define a collective identity that conformed to its own world view. It took the Chinese-educated masses, with their diverse views, to disabuse the Englisheducated intelligentsia of its unrealistic imaginations of collective identity. Many were still fixated on China for their political and ideological orientation, and thus presented the English-educated political parties with the harsh realities of communalism and linguistic fragmentation. Others who were committed to the idea of a Malayan identity, many taking up learning Malay as the National Language seriously, were opposed to “merger” on the basis that it was a “false” merger because it created two — Singapore and Malaysian — citizenships rather than just one “Malayan” citizenship. In short, on the one hand, the most crucial obstacle faced by the English-educated elites was that of political legitimacy with the Chinese-educated masses, while on the other, they were never accepted as equals by the British, thus forcing them to carve out their own culturalpolitical space from their sandwiched position in the Malayan landscape. As a group that was culturally closer to the British and seen as the natural inheritors of political power upon colonial withdrawal, the English-educated were naturally viewed with suspicion by the Chinese-educated. Their comfortable positions in the civil service and other colonial institutions did not endear them to other immigrants. Non-Malay elites in Malaya could not champion an ethnic identity or culture from which it could draw virtues and morals to feed into its political legitimacy, unlike the Malay elites who had the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) which was set up to champion Malay ethnic interests against the idea of a Malayan Union.

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The Malayan Union, proposed by the British colonial administration, would have given immigrant Chinese and Indians equal citizenship rights as the Malays. This proposed equality was the cause of Malay ethnic unity and because, before 1957, there was no separate Singapore and Malaya, Malayan politics were as much Singapore politics. Instead, many of these Englisheducated-led political parties emphasized their familiarity with the democratic process and, the PAP in particular, their ability to solve day-to-day problems. As the political elite, it was thus necessary for the English-educated in Singapore to shore up their legitimacy with issues of governmental competence and ability to deliver on promises of material growth, instead of their membership to any dominant ethnic culture or linguistic group. Hence the country embarked on the “modernist” paradigm of nationalism upon independence.16 Nationalism and national identity in Singapore did not spring from any primal or natural yearning but from a developmental need. Because the idea of national survival was so closely linked to economic survival, a coherent nation was not deemed necessary for identity’s sake but, instead, vital in forming a cohesive workforce compliant enough for market exploitation. The perpetuation and resilience of the Singapore success story through the years has become an implicit vindication and legitimization of the centrality of the English-educated in the local political landscape. Nevertheless, Singapore, like all postcolonial nations, has struggled with the aporia of having to be of the past and not of it, creating a perennial tension in having to be both Western (the embodiment of modernity and technological advancement) and Eastern (the embodiment of culture and civilization).17 This fine balance between looking back to the past for strength while always moving towards the future has been a recurring feature in the PAP’s mode of governance. It points to the national success story as evidence of delivering the fruits of modernity and technological advancement while underpinning the same story with market-friendly traits that may be traced to our “Asian” roots. Traits such as respect for authority, hard work, preference for strong leadership over political pluralism, and the preference for consensus over conflict, identified as “Asian values”, have been crucial to material success. This modus operandi of cherry-picking the “best” values of a culture to suit the world view and political interest of the English-educated ruling elite is not new. Just like the hypothetical Malayan identity and EngMalChin project was the amalgamation of the best cultural-ethnic values, the Singapore success story is the result of Asian values, thus fulfilling the need to be of both the past and the future. And while it has achieved Western-styled modernity, Singapore will continue

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to look to the Chinese, Malay and Indian civilizations for its position in linear history. The Singapore success story is thus not only often told as a triumph of Asian culture; it is a version of Asian culture that the English-educated elite is most comfortable with. Therein lies its limitations. For as long as civilizational values or culture continue to be cherry-picked by the Englisheducated, the official Singapore story, as authored by this group will possess a narrative steeped in determinism and essentialism. THE MANAGEMENT OF SUCCESS: A CRITICAL APPRAISAL OF SINGAPORE This volume contains thirty-two chapters which are divided into eight sections. The first section — Singapore in the Bigger Picture — takes a broad perspective of the city-state’s position and role on the global stage and within the region. Joseph Liow’s chapter on Singapore’s foreign policy examines the city-state’s relations with China and the U.S., as well as the immediate region. Liow concludes that though Singapore’s national interest and foreign policy objectives have remained constant since independence, the international landscape has become more complex since the end of the Cold War. As such, the instruments through which these interests and objectives are secured have had to change correspondingly. Ong Keng Yong’s chapter on Singapore’s relations with ASEAN examines the strategic importance of the latter to the former. Ong shows the way in which Singapore has negotiated the diverse politics of the region by subscribing to its collective identity. It is under the aegis of ASEAN that nationalism and intra-regional differences stand the best chance of being addressed successfully, while its regional grouping serves as viable partner to the rising influence of China and India. The second section — Leadership, Policy and Politics — delves into the craft of politics and the relations between state and society. Hussin Mutalib looks at the challenges facing the PAP government under Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Briefly contrasting the different styles of governance between PM Lee and his two predecessors, Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong, Mutalib argues that while the current PM is closer to the Goh Administration in terms of their consultative approach, they all share a “pragmatic” approach to governance. Mutalib concludes by suggesting that the PM’s “third generation” of leaders must contend with the processes of globalization and an increasingly educated younger polity, both of which may grow to be influential forces over public policies in the near future. Ho Khai Leong examines the relationship between

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state, government and party. In studying the overlapping structures, personalities and powers between the PAP party, the government and state, he argues that there is no longer any clear distinction between these entities. While this has no doubt facilitated an efficient and expedient mode of governance, it has also consolidated the PAP’s power and has made it harder for alternative politics and policies to see the light of day. Eugene K.B. Tan puts the social compact between the PAP state and society under the microscope. He argues that the social compact has evolved from a straightforward exchange of delivery of economic growth for political compliance in the past, towards a more complex relationship that needs to manage expectations, fears, and concerns arising from globalization. Tan opines that economic growth will remain a cardinal principle of governance but a social compact emphasizing the stakeholder-citizen at the core will be imperative. This stakeholder-centred social compact that emphasizes the virtues of inclusion and civic reflection in society-state relations, is necessary in order to reduce the PAP’s ability to use the social compact instrumentally for the purposes of governance. Alex Au Waipang surveys the political opposition parties in Singapore, with the 2006 General Election as starting point. He discusses the strengths and weaknesses of several opposition parties and their different campaign styles, and argues that the dearth of political opposition is unhealthy for the country in the long run. Faith in the PAP’s ability to remain pristine and highly efficient for eternity is dangerous for such a small polity and unless opposition parties are strengthened, Singapore will be left with no alternatives if the PAP is incapacitated. The section entitled The Restructuring of the Economy looks at both the economic landscape in Singapore as well as its global ambitions and reach. Choy Keen Meng examines the city-state’s changing economic model. He begins by noting that fundamentals such as free trade and the dependence on international capital have not changed. Instead what has altered is the purposeful shift towards higher value-added production and the development of service sector employment. Choy concludes that Singapore looks to be returning to its old colonial role as a service centre for a greater hinterland, this time encompassing the entire Asia and indeed, a globalized world. Given that three out of every four persons employed in Singapore engage in service activities and that two-thirds of the nation’s total output is generated through services, Singapore is already a “service economy”. Linda Y.C. Lim and Lee Soo Ann, in their chapter on the impact of foreign participation in the economy, continue with Choy’s note on Singapore’s return to its old colonial role. They show how Singapore transformed from colonial “hub” to “nation” and then

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back again to “hub”. They discuss globalization’s impact on the economy such as the widening wage gap, high numbers of foreign workers, skilled and unskilled, and the debatable benefits of industries such as life-sciences to ordinary Singaporeans. Linda Low surveys the new engines for growth in her chapter. She argues that the entrepreneurial PAP operates on a “government-must-know-best” philosophy (not merely “government-knowsbest”). The PAP’s belief that it is the best means to grow the economy has led to the formation of “Singapore Inc”, comprising Temasek Holdings Limited, the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) and many government-linked corporations (GLCs). Singapore Inc has been responsible for picking “the winners” for the local economy but today, with globalization and the focus on the knowledge-based economy and creative industries, the line between goods and services along the value chain is blurring in new growth industries, thus making it necessary for greater private sector input. Turning our attention to social institutions, the section on The Transformation of Society looks at a variety of socio-political issues from the ageing population, foreign labour, the press, internet, education, meritocracy and religion to present the ever-changing face of Singapore. Yap Mui Teng examines the social and political consequences of an ageing population. She reviews the Singapore state’s response to the ageing of the population beginning from the Howe Yoon Chong report in 1982 to the current policies of the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports. Yap shows that the two consistent themes throughout the last twenty-five years of policy development on ageing are that of individual independence, and the family as the first line of support. She concludes that state programmes are works in progress and that while constant fine-tuning is needed, the overall framework is headed in the right direction. Noorashikin Abdul Rahman looks at the inflow of foreign workers into the local economy and the policies that regulate them. She argues that the graduated work-pass system consolidates the transient place of lowly skilled migrants in Singapore and observes that Singapore is under greater scrutiny from local civil society groups and the international community over its perceived neglect of the welfare of lowly skilled migrant workers. She concludes that the Singapore state has prioritized longterm developmental goals and the interest of the majority of the citizenry over lowly skilled migrant workers, but warns that such a stance does not address issues of polarizations and divisions that arise from the more diverse nature of Singapore’s human landscape as a result of globalization. Deploying statistical data, Ho Kong Weng tackles the issue of social mobility in Singapore. Ho begins by noting that the primary channel of upward social mobility in Singapore

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had been economic growth. This channel of opportunities will close as Singapore matures into an advanced country with a lower steady-state growth. And while empirical studies show that absolute upward mobility was high in the past, the parental influence in the transmission of economic status such as income, occupation, and education has also been important and its role will remain strong in the future. Ho concludes by observing that parental education has a significant impact on both the educational aspiration of the teenage students and the actual educational attainment of the working young adults, and that non-Chinese and those from disrupted families have lower educational aspirations and educational attainment. In his chapter on the print media, Tan Tarn How presents the 3Cs of press management. He argues that the PAP government wants a “compliant” press, a “competent” press, and a “commercially viable” press, and surveys the regulatory policies designed for such a press. Tan makes the point that the most important measure of a successful national press is whether it makes for better government, in contrast to easier governance. Has the press been good for the country as it has been for a small governing elite? Continuing with the media theme, Cherian George looks at the internet and its role in politics. George notes that the PAP government encouraged public access to the global internet from 1994, but adopted a “wait-and-see approach” to regulation. Then in mid-1996, it introduced internet content regulations requiring internet service providers (ISPs) to block any website as ordered by the authorities. He argues that the government’s light-touch regulation of cyberspace shows that the PAP government, contrary to popular belief, is not resistant to socio-political change — as long as it is on top of it. In his chapter on meritocracy, Kenneth Paul Tan shows the ideology to be “an essentially unstable concept”. The PAP government has thus far managed to balance the contradictory egalitarian and elitist notions in the ideology of meritocracy. However, the clear shift towards a marketdriven concern with rewarding the “winners” of Singapore society is leaving the “losers” more sceptical about their own future and well-being. In the age of globalization, meritocracy is increasingly questioned as a neutral and objective gauge of talent as new forms of national crisis, alternative sources of information and beliefs about merit, and a widening income disparity are making their presence felt in Singapore. He concludes that as policy dilemmas become more perplexing, the supposedly straightforward concept of “merit” will be much harder to define, reward, and promote legitimately. Jason Tan’s chapter on education concerns itself with the increasing “marketization” of education in Singapore. He argues that the injection of market-logic into the education system, together with the

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objective of identifying elite students from an early age, has resulted in intense interschool competition. Meanwhile, government rhetoric about encouraging choice and diversity of education coexists with powerful centralizing and homogenizing policy mechanisms. The challenge, Tan concludes, is whether Singapore’s education policy-makers can prepare individuals for their future workplace roles while at the same time maintaining a sense of solidarity and shared purpose. Lai Ah Eng provides a broad overview of the religious diversity in Singapore. Lai notes that there are various complex challenges posed by religious diversity, especially for state-society and interfaith relations. Such challenges include growing binary world views, religious proselytization and conversion, the external influences on local religious communities, and political mobilization on religious grounds. She concludes that society-state dialogue as well as that between religious groups should be ongoing, and that the balance between religious diversity and national unity needs to be carefully and sensitively managed. In the section The Law, Michael Hor and Thio Li-ann examine the Penal Code Amendments of 2007 and human rights in Singapore, respectively. Hor focuses on two issues, namely 377A and marital rape laws. The government has announced that it will not actively enforce Section 377A which forbids “gross indecency” between men. Nevertheless, for Hor, there are ancillary problems for the government to resolve. For example, a HDB owner who rents out an apartment to homosexuals would be breaching HDB regulations because of the “unlawful” activity (homosexual sex) that may take place on his premises. Unlike 377A, which criminalizes consensual adults, marital rape laws in Singapore do not go far enough in criminalizing husbands who rape their wives. Currently, unless the wife is living apart from the husband or has a protection order against her husband, her husband enjoys immunity against rape. The reasons for preserving this immunity range from protection against a vindictive wife and the possibility of reconciliation between husband and wife. Hor points out that the “vindictive wife” argument does not hold because unless the uncorroborated allegations of a single witness are unusually convincing and there is reasonable doubt about consent, the accused is not to be convicted. He also argues that the “reconciliation” argument is weak because a delinquent husband may just as easily be encouraged to persist in rape by the existence of the immunity. Moving on to human rights in Singapore, Thio notes that the Singapore Government believes that human rights should not be viewed as abstract concepts but as the fruits of the rule of law and good governance. Hence, the best environment for securing human rights is one where there

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are sound national policies that promote economic growth, raise living standards and provide basic social welfare. In other words, the Singapore Government links the concept of human rights intimately with the overall economic development of a society. Thio concludes by observing that human rights issues tend to be treated in an instrumental fashion in Singapore, subject to statedefined communitarian goals. As such, the impact of human rights on statesociety relations in Singapore will remain a “marginal dialect”, even if its influence may grow incrementally. Modification of the Environment tackles three major issues, namely, the greening of the city, the architectural and urban ambitions of a global city and Singapore’s drive towards water self-sufficiency. Geh Min points out that Singapore is known internationally for both its economic success and its garden city image. However, despite its successful transformation into a garden city, some have voiced dissatisfaction with, not so much the greening itself, but the manner in which it was achieved. Such criticisms include the regimented uniformity of the roadside trees, the monotony of manicured grass verges, the sterility of public parks, the proliferation of golf courses and above all, the loss of nature areas, agricultural land and other green, open spaces. She concludes that the city-state’s global city ambitions will depend on the success in plotting an environmental trajectory that will converge with its economic trajectory. Given the resources at its disposal, the city-state is well placed to strike a balance between environmental and economic interests, perhaps even leading the way in global thinking. Pow Choon-Piew provides an overview of Singapore’s ambitions to be architecturally distinctive. He looks at several mega projects such as the integrated resorts at Marina Bay and Sentosa, and the Esplanade, and discusses the race among global cities to build icons for international attention. The danger of this is that homogeneity takes over. Furthermore, as Pow notes, it is debatable whether the idea of building a mega-downtown may be a good way of thinking about a city in a post-industrial global economy characterized by nimble, flexible business operations and polycentric economic networks that are not bound strictly to a particular locale or city. Turning to Singapore’s drive towards water self-sufficiency, Lee Poh Onn offers a comprehensive presentation of the government’s water policies. According to him, the challenge for policy-makers is to ensure the sustainability of clean water supplies in order to bring about future economic development and cater to the needs of its population. The combination of historical and economic considerations has led to the “Four Taps” strategy. The “Four Taps” are water sources from local reservoirs, Johor in Malaysia, recycling in the form of NEWater, and desalination.

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Lee notes that water management policies in Singapore have adopted newer technologies which are less cost effective (but becoming more so in recent years), while maintaining existing cost-effective measures (enlarging storage capacity of its reservoirs plus continuing to import water from Malaysia) on the supply side, and that such policies are likely to continue in the coming years. Under the section entitled Community and National Security, Yolanda Chin looks at key public policies aimed at achieving community security and confidence. Chin argues that public policies to foster community confidence from the 1990s have been motivated by the desire to secure the nation’s economic prosperity rather than to bond Singaporeans. As a result, the only coherent national vision that the state is able to offer Singaporeans is little more than the pursuit of wealth. She points out that this single-minded focus on attaining this goal has resulted in the alienation of a critical section of Singaporeans who, in turn, fuel state insecurity when they choose to opt out by emigrating. The future of Singapore and community-building, Chin concludes, rests with the group of Singaporeans who are committed to making Singapore their home. Norman Vasu and Bernard Loo turn to the issue of national security. They opine that the Singapore Government has been successful at addressing two key national security concerns since independence: the protection of Singaporean sovereignty and the maintenance of public order. However, national security in Singapore is still located within an old paradigm. For example, the process of identifying threats and responding to them is elite-driven; the process is shrouded in secrecy, and, thirdly, there is a tacit act of faith among the people not to challenge the government’s definition of “national security” and “threats”. They conclude that national security should not be left solely in the hands of the dedicated few, and that the process of securitization should be more open to include the participation of the many in order for the burden of responsibility to be shared by all. The final section — Life in Singapore — delves into the issues of arts and culture, civil society, language, multiculturalism and sexuality in contemporary Singapore. C.J.W.-L. Wee examines Singapore’s cultural policies from the last decade to the present. He notes that the government’s drive towards a culturally vibrant city is in keeping with the established pattern of fostering a competitive global city that will lure and retain foreign capital flows. In such a case, it is little wonder that culture and the arts may become commodities in the process of creating a suitable brand for the global economy. Terence Chong puts forth the concept of the “fluid nation” as a way of understanding the Singapore condition. He examines the way the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) articulates

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the nation, nationalism and national identities as a strategy to address the dynamic challenges of the political and economic environment. The long line of national discourses such as “rugged society”, “garrison mentality”, “Confucian ethics”, “heartlanders and cosmopolitans” are all part of the state’s repertoire of ideological instruments, enabling national identity to remain fluid in meaning. The fluidity of national identity is beneficial to the PAP government because it allows the ruling party to articulate its interests in response to globalization and a dynamic external environment, together with the changes that they usher in. Russell Heng Hiang Khng focuses on the growing phenomenon of civil disobedience in Singapore and suggests that it is fast becoming a new vocabulary for local civil society. He looks at several instances of “civil defiance” and argues that though their effects are gradual and cumulative, the transformation is noticeable. For example, the ways in which the police have responded suggest dilemmas and disjunctions within the political process. Heng concludes that if the situation continues, a more assertive culture of protest will be forged, thus exposing the old methodology of restricting many forms of political expression as being out of step with the demands of a maturing society. Koh Tai Ann reviews the dominance of the English language in Singapore. She shows how the government had assigned different functions to the English language and mother tongue language; the former for “utility” and the latter for “culture and values”. These strict and rigid roles leave very little ideological ground for the justification of Singlish, resulting in its demonization by the government. However, Koh observes that it is very often with Singlish that many Singaporean cultural producers have managed to produce locally relevant works, and that its place, alongside the English language, should be preserved in the linguistic landscape. Examining ethnic identities and multiculturalism, Daniel P.S. Goh looks at the different models of multiculturalism in Singapore since independence. He points out that each policy phase was in direct response to the changing social context and to the consequences of policy success in the previous phase. Goh argues that the early melting pot policy addressed the demands of separation and industrialization, while the mosaic policy was suited to a democratizing society and an emerging middle class. Today, Goh concludes, a new multiculturalism is needed to tackle the success of the mosaic policy in cultivating Singaporeans who are not open to the cultural ambivalence that globalization brings a particularly pressing challenge for Singapore’s global city ambitions. Last but not least, Laurence Leong Wai Teng addresses sexual politics in Singapore and the state’s role. Leong shows that public policies generally regard sex and sexuality as heterogeneous and reproductive activities. The relationship between the state and sexuality

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is mediated by the economy. This instrumentalist approach towards gays offers selective and limited tolerance to those who can contribute to the economy. Leong notes that in matters of sexuality, Singapore leaders acknowledge that they do not lead but adhere to the interests of a conservative society; even if such an adherence results in the acceptance of laws that are discriminatory and unfair to a certain community. These chapters were compiled to offer critical analyses of the Singapore condition. They examine the contemporary political, economic and social challenges faced by the city-state, as well as the government’s response to these challenges. In doing so, the intellectual and policy trajectory from 1989 to the present day is articulated in these chapters. This volume as a whole will benefit those who are interested in the unfolding Singapore story. NOTES I am grateful to Lee Hock Guan, Hui Yew-Foong, Ooi Kee Beng and Chua Beng Huat for their comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this chapter. 1. Lee Kuan Yew famously broke down on live television as he announced Singapore’s separation from Malaysia on 9 August 1965. He said, “For me, it is a moment of anguish. All my life, my whole adult life, I believed in merger and unity of the two territories …”. The phrase was later used in Albert Lau, Moment of Anguish: Singapore in Malaysia and the Politics of Disengagement (Singapore: Times Academic, 1998). 2. Lee Kuan Yew, quoted in Alex Josey, Lee Kuan Yew (Singapore: Donald Moore Press, 1968). 3. (accessed 11 February 2008). 4. “Asia Cannot Live by T-Notes Alone”, BusinessWeek, 6 June 2006. 5. “S’pore Now has 77,000 Millionaires”, Straits Times, 26 June 2008. 6. Our First Ten Years: PAP 10th Anniversary Souvenir (Singapore: PAP Central Editorial Board, 1964), pp. 204–5. 7. Terence Chong, “Embodying Society’s Best: Hegel and the Singapore State”, Journal of Contemporary Asia 36, no. 3 (2006): 211–25. 8. “Keen to Boost Economic Growth? He Offers Expertise”, Straits Times, 28 January 2006. 9. Kuo Pao Kun coined the term “cultural orphans”; Lee Kuan Yew, in an interview with the Straits Times observed that cosmopolitan children may grow up “rootless”, while “deculturalisation” was used to describe the increased “westernisation” of Singaporeans in the 1978 Report on the Ministry of Education. 10. Confucian Studies was part of the Religious Knowledge programme for those

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11. 12.

13. 14.

15. 16.

17.

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Chinese students who professed no religion. When the programme was removed from schools, so too was Confucian Studies. Mark R. Thompson, “Whatever Happened to ‘Asian Values’?” Journal of Democracy 12, no. 4 (2001): 154–65. “Riding the tiger” is a popular phrase used to denote the PAP’s co-option and exploitation of communist elements within the party, and was the inspiration for the cover illustration of a popular comic book entitled To Tame a Tiger: The Singapore Story which depicted Lee Kuan Yew astride a tiger, about to strike it down. “Export-oriented industralization” was preferred when the dominant trend was “import-oriented industry” and is thus commonly cited as an example of the PAP government’s willingness to buck the trend. “Goh’s folly” was once a criticism of Goh Keng Swee’s decision to develop Jurong into an industrial estate. Jurong’s success today has turned the phrase into a compliment to Goh’s vision and foresight. See Yeo Kim Wah, Political Development in Singapore: 1945–1955 (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1973). Chua Ai Lin, “Negotiating National Identity: The English-speaking Domiciled Communities in Singapore, 1930–1941”, unpublished Masters thesis, National University of Singapore, 2001. Wang Gungwu, Community and Nation: China, Southeast Asia and Australia (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1992), p. 224. The other three paradigms of nationalism are “primordialism”, “perennialism”, “modernist” and “ethno-symbolist”. The primordial paradigm explains nationalism as a result of undeniable attachments, kinship and cultural bonds amongst a people. The perennialist paradigm explains nationalism as an ancient phenomenon premised on the assertion that the concept of nation has existed in different forms throughout history. The ethno-symbolic paradigm emphasizes historical clusters, or heritages, memories, and symbols and the vital role of ethnic communities in providing a basis for the emergence and persistence of nations. See Anthony Smith, “Theories of Nationalism: Alternative Models of Nation Formation”, in Asian Nationalism, edited by Michael Leifer (London and New York: Routledge, 2000). Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986).

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Section

19

1

SINGAPORE IN THE BIGGER PICTURE

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2

SINGAPORE’S FOREIGN POLICY Reading and Adapting to the Fastchanging International Context JOSEPH CHINYONG LIOW

The experience and legacy of the political genesis of Singapore have to be borne in mind perpetually in seeking to understand and to explain the underlying premises and conduct of its foreign policy. Although that genesis is a decreasing part of the shared experience of rising generations of Singaporeans, its legacy has become an integral part of the political culture of those entrusted with responsibility for its foreign relations. That legacy is expressed in the conviction that the future of the island-state can never be taken for granted and that its margin for error is minimal. — Michael Leifer1

OF THREATS AND VULNERABILITIES

T

he above observation of the late Michael Leifer, arguably one of the most astute students of the international politics of Southeast Asia until his untimely passing in 2001, remains relevant for any attempt to understand Singapore’s foreign policy. The sense of vulnerability remains acute among Singapore’s policy elite, and comes across both clearly and coherently from numerous speeches over the years by the island-state’s policy elite. That said, when Singapore ushered in a “second generation” leadership under Goh Chok Tong, the terrain of international affairs had changed considerably. When the leadership transition took place in November 1990, the Cold War, 21

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which had defined international politics for four and a half decades, was already coming to an end with signs of definite strain on the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. This paved the way for a host of new security challenges to emerge that were fundamentally different from those faced by Singapore’s “first generation” leadership which saw the country through separation from Malaysia and independence. To that effect, while the core principles of Singapore’s foreign policy — focussing on the survival of a small island-state — remained imperative in the minds of policy-makers, the nature and source of threats, and the vehicles through which security would be ensured, had changed considerably. The challenge for Singapore’s foreign policy establishment was to navigate the island-state through the choppy waters of this new milieu. For Singapore and Southeast Asia, the immediate impact of the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the retreat of communism that followed was that it brought to a halt Vietnamese belligerence in mainland Southeast Asia that had for decades been seen as a major security threat to ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations).2 If the end of the Cold War resolved a major security concern for Singapore, it also ushered in a new, fast-paced and globalized international environment that would in turn generate new challenges and threats for the foreign policy establishment to deal with. Among the most immediate of post-Cold War security concerns was the matter of American commitment in the East Asian region. The collapse of the Soviet Union had inspired lively discussions in Washington circles about the possibility and wisdom of a gradual reduction of American strategic presence in the region. Not surprisingly, this discourse was met with reservations among Washington’s traditional friends and allies in the region, not least Singapore, who were wary about the resultant strategic vacuum and the prospects of a powerful and assertive China not too far off in the horizon. The centrality of the American forward presence in Asia has long been acknowledged by Singapore to be integral to regional stability in how it served as a countervailing force to Soviet and Chinese ambitions, managed prospects of Japanese re-militarization, and provided the conditions for economic growth and development. While Singapore has never been a formal alliance partner of the U.S., relations between the two countries have traditionally been close. Under the leadership of Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore was a firm supporter of the American presence in the region during the Cold War, expressed most vividly in the latter’s involvement in the Vietnam War at considerable cost. In this regard, talk of a possible reconsideration of troop levels in the Korean Peninsula following the end of the Cold War, as well as its inability to renew

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its presence in the Philippines (at Clarke Air Base and the Subic naval facilities) fuelled regional concern that Washington’s commitment to playing the stabilizing role in Asia was waning. In response, the Singapore Government attempted to anchor American presence in the region by offering its naval facilities to the U.S. in 1990 to offset the latter’s loss of its facilities in the Philippines, as well as deepening defence cooperation with the U.S. SEPTEMBER 11 AND BEYOND Notwithstanding these efforts, it was in the aftermath of the tragic terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 that relations with the U.S. were catapulted to new levels. As the U.S. responded to the September 11 attacks, a response that included the unpopular invasion of Iraq, Singapore emerged as one of the most supportive voices of the Bush Administration’s “global war on terror” (GWOT), even if its policy-makers harboured private reservations on how the “war” was being conducted. Singapore proceeded to back several GWOT-related initiatives such as the Container Security Initiative (CSI) and Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), and renewed American access to its military facilities. This cooperation peaked in July 2005 with the signing of the “Strategic Framework Agreement for a Closer Cooperation Partnership in Defense and Security”, where Singapore was accorded the status of “Major Security Cooperation Partner”. Support for the U.S. in the GWOT was driven by a pragmatic realization of two factors. First, Singapore found itself confronted by the threat of terrorism when Jemaah Islamiyah, the Al-Qaeda linked regional terrorist organization, was discovered to have established cells in Singapore and was intent on attacking local as well as foreign targets.3 The transnational nature of this threat necessitated close tactical and intelligence cooperation not only with regional states, but the U.S. as well. Second, Singapore’s foreign policy elite were clear that the Americans would, for all intents and purposes, remain the sole superpower in international affairs, and that it is the American presence and security umbrella that serves to forestall Chinese and Japanese ambitions, and hence has been “the determining reason for peace and stability” in Asia.4 RELATIONS WITH CHINA If perceptions of and relations with the U.S. have been characterized by continuity, then the opposite is true of ties with China, which transformed remarkably over the past two decades. Relations with China during the Cold War were

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largely constrained by residual mistrust on the part of Singapore for Beijing’s role in supporting various local communist movements in Southeast Asia. Even as relations stabilized in the 1980s, it was not until Indonesia normalized ties with China in August 1990 that Singapore followed suit in November that year.5 Since then major strides have been made in economic ties which are discernible from, among other things, active Singapore investment in Chinese economic development and increased bilateral trade. Relations on the security front, however, have been more ambiguous, and, at least in the early 1990s, far more reticent. A major concern for Singapore was the commitment of an emergent China to the regional status quo. At the time (circa 1990s), the signs were ominous. While not a claimant to any of the South China Sea islands, Singapore’s policy-makers watched with some measure of apprehension as China asserted its claims in the area, much to the chagrin of ASEAN claimants, particularly Vietnam and the Philippines. To that effect, Singapore joined with ASEAN to record its concern and call for restraint in China’s ambitions in the South China Sea. When China embarked on massive military exercises in the Taiwan Straits in March 1996 as an act of intimidation directed at what Beijing perceived to be a recalcitrant Taiwanese leadership, Singaporean leaders, most notably Lee Kuan Yew, went on record to urge caution on the part of Beijing.6 While Singapore harboured reservations towards China’s strategic and political ambitions, it was equally anxious about the hostile language that the Clinton Administration was employing towards China which the Singapore leaders felt was unnecessarily provocative. This apprehension was captured in the following remarks by Lee: We distanced ourselves from its [the U.S.] hostile rhetoric against China. We feared that talking and acting as if China was an enemy would make it into one. We did not want this to happen; no country in Southeast Asia wanted to go out of its way to make China an enemy. This was a time when America wanted to scale down its presence in Southeast Asia, and Singapore was no longer as useful as before.7

As alluded to earlier, rather than provocative name-calling, Singapore’s leadership chose to engage China on all fronts with the view to facilitating its integration into the existing regional and global political and economic systems in a way that would allow China to continue its inevitable rise, yet without sparking any trepidation on the part of regional states. For Singapore, ensuring China’s peaceful rise to prosperity was necessary for at least three reasons. First, Chinese prosperity would have a positive spillover effect on the rest of the region. Second, from a strategic perspective, a weakened China

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would pose major security threats to the region. As Goh Chok Tong described vividly: “a prosperous and globally integrated China is in all our interests. The alternative of a poor and isolated China will be like having sixty North Koreas at our doorstep. It will pose challenges without the opportunities.”8 Finally, Singapore leaders are fully aware that increasing Chinese influence and assertiveness in Southeast Asia are an inescapable reality, and hence a key objective would thence be to do whatever little they could to nudge China into assuming a role as a positive force in international politics. While ties with China have been on a decided upswing since the early 1990s, the reality of China’s weighty assertiveness, particularly if it perceived itself to be provoked, was brought home when Beijing reacted strongly to then Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s unofficial visit to Taiwan in July 2004. Belying the negative manner in which it was interpreted in Beijing, the Chinese foreign ministry declared that the visit “will damage China’s core interest and the political foundation for China-Singapore relations”.9 Despite a long-standing appreciation of the sensitivity of the Taiwan issue to Chinese leaders, Beijing’s caustic response nevertheless came as somewhat of a jolt to the island-state, particularly when its leadership believed that China understood and accepted Singapore’s long-standing ties with Taiwan, which Lee Kuan Yew described as “an older friend” compared with the Chinese leadership.10 Relations were very quickly back on track however, when Lee Hsien Loong stated unequivocally that “if Taiwan goes independent, Singapore will not recognize it”. RELATIONS WITH JAPAN While the U.S. and China are seen by Singapore leaders as the key actors in the post-Cold War security script, the role of Japan, the third prong of the triangular relationship upon which regional stability rests, is also considered to be a major factor in the regional security equation. Unlike perceptions of China, however, an increasingly active Japan in international affairs has been viewed with some measure of ambivalence in Singapore. To that effect, at least in the immediate post-Cold War years, the island-state’s leadership viewed Japan’s increased activism in international affairs with an initial tinge of hesitation. While a more assertive Japan under the rubric of the U.S.-Japan Alliance was cautiously welcomed, concerns about Japanese remilitarization remained. This was captured in Lee Kuan Yew’s reactions to the issue of Japan’s authorization of deployment to Cambodia for peacekeeping, which he likened to “giving liquor candies to an alcoholic”.11 Likewise his successor, Goh, suggested that a withdrawal from Cambodia would mean, “Japan will

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have decided not to play an international role … Japan’s ambiguity reflects the profound insecurity with which it regards the post-Cold War world … It would be helpful if Tokyo discusses even its own uncertainties with its neighbours and other countries in the region and works with them to define its role.”12 Unlike China however, Japan is restrained by the U.S.-Japan Alliance, which functions not only to anchor regional stability, but also to check Japanese re-militarization. Singapore leaders were keenly aware that given its volatile nature, the U.S.China-Japan strategic relationship, upon which regional stability was hinged, required careful management. As a small state reluctant to submit itself to the whims of great power politics, the best course of action was to fashion a new regionalism and multilateral security architecture into which these major powers could be integrated. In this respect, Singapore, while still an avowedly realist state, looked pragmatically to the neo-liberal logic of institution and norm building in order to supplement the traditional bilateral security arrangements that existed in the region. RELATIONS WITH INDIA Aside from its interest in developments in this strategic triangle, Singapore’s foreign policy establishment has in recent times also emerged as one of the stronger supporters of a larger role for India in regional affairs. Despite the fact that India had already articulated a “Look East” policy by 1992, it was only at the turn of the century that the Indian economy started to register significant growth. Together with its ASEAN neighbours, Singapore was quick to note the need to harness India’s potential economic and diplomatic influence and encouraged greater engagement with India. This initiative culminated in 2002 when India became an ASEAN Summit partner. In addition to this, Singapore actively supported Indian membership in the East Asian Summit, and has also harboured hopes that the Indian navy could be allowed (by fellow littoral states Indonesia and Malaysia) to play a more active role in the security of the Strait of Malacca. SINGAPORE AND ASEAN Singapore’s policy on regionalism remains firmly anchored in ASEAN. Formed in 1967 as a result of reconciliation between Malaysia and Indonesia after the latter’s policy of Confrontation (1963–66), ASEAN has since the end of the

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Cold War played a major role in fostering coherence in the foreign policies of its member countries, particularly in the face of the emerging powers such as China and, increasingly, India.13 To that effect, former Foreign Minister of Singapore, S. Jayakumar, has noted: ASEAN has become a tangible and important factor in the foreign policy calculations of member states. Over the years, regular and frequent consultations have engendered a high level of confidence and comfort, and more importantly the realisation that ASEAN members stand to benefit more if they can forge a common position. As small countries on the world stage, only collective action can ensure that ASEAN’s voice is heard and ASEAN’s interest protected.14

The need for cooperative multilateral structures and processes in regional security was reinforced by the Asian financial crisis and the “GWOT”, two recent transnational security and policy challenges that demanded multilateral cooperation to resolve. If anything, the Asian financial crisis proved that ASEAN was not sufficiently integrated. This in turn led to a deepening of regional initiatives of cooperation, which resulted in the inauguration of the ASEAN Plus Three (APT) process in December 1997, and ultimately the creation of the East Asia Summit, designed to give the region “a voice in global trade negotiations and a forum in which to discuss regional economic issues”.15 In the same manner, the terrorist attacks in the U.S. on 11 September 2001, and, closer to home, the Bali bombing of 12 October 2002 compelled ASEAN to reorder and increase regional security cooperation so as to counter international terrorism, which has emerged as the foremost short-term security threat to Singapore. Aside from ASEAN, Singapore’s foreign policy also stressed active participation in other multilateral processes such as the U.N., the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, and the East Asia Summit (EAS). Underlying its commitment to these multilateral processes was a belief that they had to be open and inclusive in order to be effective. Paradoxically though, this neo-liberal inclination on international affairs was driven by strong realist and instrumentalist calculations — for the island-state’s leaders, robust integration was necessary for three reasons other than the strategic imperative discussed earlier. First, Europe and North America with the EU (European Union) and NAFTA (North American Free Trade Area) had already made advances in that direction which would eventually pose major challenges for the Southeast Asian region.16 Second, in order to respond to the economic

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challenges posed by the rise of China and India, a collective response on the part of ASEAN was critical. Finally, because of its size and lack of a hinterland, the island-state of Singapore had no choice but to “go global” in terms of international trade in order to survive. As Deputy Prime Minister S. Jayakumar put it: “being a small country in an increasingly globalized world, we have no choice but to also engage global markets to make the world our hinterland”.17 As a consequence of this economic logic, it should not be surprising to see that Singapore’s instrumentalist pursuit of regionalism and multilateralism has been underwritten by a liberal approach to international economics. Christopher Dent argues that “Singapore’s fundamental FEP [foreign economic policy] objectives are oriented by its pursuit of economic security that is embedded within a deep security complex that has primarily determined the city-state’s foreign policy interests and objectives.”18 This suggests that external economic policy is linked to feelings of insecurity, which has compelled Singapore towards an aggressive pursuit of economic advancement to protect itself. Such constraints on Singapore’s international trade policies were described by former Finance Minister Richard Hu, who conceded that “with a limited domestic market and few resources, we have no choice but to be open and to compete in the world market to survive and prosper”.19 Against the backdrop of post-Cold War globalization, Singapore’s leadership continues to play the role of an interventionist government in terms of domestic policies, while at the same time operating a liberal trading state in terms of foreign economic and trade policy. The developmental state policies were extremely successful in building Singapore’s reputation as a country committed to economic growth and development. According to W. G. Huff, Singapore’s “development state subsidies benefiting the private sector had three main components: investment incentives, generous infrastructure provision, and labour force education and training”, which achieved the objectives of attracting foreign investors, encouraging them to stay and also to upgrade their investments to higher technology activities, which in turn led to a rise in wages.20 Recognizing the importance of such subsidies, Richard Hu had intimated that, “We have used tax incentives ever since Independence to promote economic development. The pioneer and postpioneer incentives have played a major role in attracting high value-added investments to Singapore.”21 Consequently, the stability, credibility and investor confidence, attributed largely to the embracing of “the developmental state’s combination of (interventionist and repressive) political attributes, economic incentives, and reputational effects, which enable it to foster economic development actively”, paved the way for successful multilateral, regional, bilateral agreement

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negotiations, with not just Singapore’s Asian neighbours, but with countries beyond the region.22 Economic growth in Singapore since 1965 largely depended on foreign direct investment, with trade policy hinging on multilateralism, regionalism and a recent emphasis on bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs). Be that as it may, the Singapore Government’s firm belief that multilateralism is the way to go is laced with the understanding that the approach is not perfect. As then Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong put it, “We need some discipline to bind all countries to multilateral, impartial rules. We’re doing better than before, but no country completely gives up its sovereignty.”23 More recently, Singapore leaders have constantly stressed that the island-state faces stiff competition for investment capital from China. This has led the country to push continuously for the realization of the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), aimed at “reasserting the region’s standing as an efficient production base for foreign investors” as well as integrating “Southeast Asia’s economies in ways that would help the region compete yet cooperate with China”.24 However the “ASEAN countries’ reluctance to embrace full-fledged trade liberalization”, coupled with the sluggish progress of WTO-led multilateral trade liberalization, forced Singapore to resort to bilateral FTAs.25 It is important to note, however, that Singapore’s commitment to multilateralism has never been at the expense of its traditional bilateral ties. This was clearly demonstrated, for instance, in its resolute support of the Bush Administration during the second Gulf War. While the world, including many of America’s traditional allies and partners, lamented Washington’s unilateralism and its affront to the U.N., Singapore’s leadership stood unabashedly beside the U.S. In the words of then Prime Minister (PM) Goh Chok Tong: “when the U.N. Security Council failed to support the preeminent world power [the U.S.] in enforcing previous U.N. resolutions, which are of vital interest to the U.S. and the international community, multilateralism and the U.N. are the losers”.26 RELATIONS WITH MALAYSIA While much has been said about the changing context of its external environment over the past two decades, as well as the recalibrated responses on the part of its foreign policy elite, it has been Singapore’s bilateral relationship with its immediate neighbours, Malaysia and Indonesia, that remains central in the strategic thinking of its foreign and security policy-makers, and, in many respects,

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remains the preoccupation of the government. Coming off the back of strained relations as a result of Israeli President Chaim Herzog’s visit to Singapore in 1986 which was met with strong objections across the Causeway, Singapore’s ties with Malaysia in the early 1990s were put back on track with PM Goh’s active interest in fronting the “Growth Triangle” concept to tie the economies of Singapore, Johor, and the Indonesian island of Batam. This initiative was greeted with statements of approval by the Malaysian federal government and the Johor state government. 1990 also saw the Goh Administration sign a water agreement supplementary to the existing water agreements of 1961 and 1962 relating to the building of the Linggiu dam on the Johor River and the purchase by Singapore of treated water in excess of the 250 million gallons per day from this river. This cooperation was cemented with Goh’s visit to Malaysia in January 1991. That said, relations in the early years did experience several hiccups. These included counter claims to ownership of Pedra Branca (a contest that has since been settled in Singapore’s favour at the International Court of Justice) and the arrest of several Singaporean fishermen in that vicinity by Malaysian authorities, as well as the implementation of a levy on Malaysian cars entering Singapore. Notwithstanding these issues, it was in the late 1990s that bilateral relations took a turn for the worse. Strains were already appearing by 1996, when then Senior Minister (SM) Lee Kuan Yew made remarks alluding to the possibility of a re-merger between Singapore and Malaysia. This issue was quickly latched upon by Malaysian politicians as an example of an opportunistic pre-election broadside on the part of the People’s Action Party (PAP) government. Later, in 1997, underlying tensions boiled over into a diplomatic crisis when Lee sought to discredit a claim by an opposition politician that he was forced to flee to Johor in fear for his life by suggesting that Johor was a place that was “notorious for shootings, muggings, and car-jackings”.27 While Lee subsequently apologized unreservedly for those remarks, the Malaysian media did not relent on its criticisms against him and Singapore. Water has been a particularly thorny issue in Singapore’s relations with Malaysia. Since independence, Singapore has met approximately half of its total water consumption needs by importing water from Malaysia. This supply has been provided for by two British-brokered agreements signed on 1 September 1961 and 29 September 1962. These two contracts are due to expire in 2011 and 2061 respectively. This dependence on Malaysian water, however, has brought with it an acute security dimension for the resource-scarce city-state, with Malaysian politicians allegorically talking of “turning off the taps” whenever

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problems arise with Singapore. Specifically, it has often been postulated that water will likely be the spark for any armed conflict between Malaysia and Singapore.28 The issue of water was tabled when then PM Goh met with Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in February 1998 in an attempt to secure a longterm supply of water for Singapore. Later, during their meeting on the sidelines of the December 1998 ASEAN Summit in Hanoi, Mahathir mooted the idea of dealing with all outstanding bilateral issues as a package, rationalizing that “if you resolve one problem and leave the other problems still outstanding then the relationship would still be affected. So it is better that we resolve everything all at once”. PM Goh was receptive to this suggestion, opining in response that “it was Dr. Mahathir’s suggestion to which I agree … I mean, you can’t discuss water for Singapore without Singapore giving something in return”. In principle, terms for the continued supply of water to Singapore were to be linked in a package that included the settlement of differences over the Points of Agreement on Malayan Railway land in Singapore, the location of Malaysia’s Customs, Immigration, and Quarantine facilities in Tanjong Pagar, Kuala Lumpur’s claims of intrusions into Malaysian airspace by Singapore military aircraft, the status of Central Provident Fund savings of Malaysian workers employed in Singapore, and the migration of Central Limit Order Book-traded (CLOB) Malaysian shares from Singapore to the Malaysian Central Depository. On Malaysia’s part, their main argument has been that Singapore was benefiting from the resale of treated water back to Johor and that the initial price of 3 sen per 1,000 gallons is no longer a realistic price in the modern context. Singapore’s response was that it in fact subsidizes the resale of treated water to Malaysia and proposed to raise its payment to 45 sen per 1,000 gallons until the first agreement expires in 2011. Malaysia’s call for an increase to 60 sen per 1,000 gallons instead was immediately seen as the first step to what Singapore called “shifting of the goal posts”. Singapore’s initial proposal of 45 sen was, in Malaysia’s view, not only too low a price but also a nonbinding agreement that they (Malaysia) did not sign.29 On the issue of price review, which the Malaysians believed to be their entitlement, Singaporean leaders voiced strident opposition. They interpreted Malaysia’s apparent reneging on agreements as a breach of its national sovereignty, citing that the Separation Agreement “is the fundamental basis of Singapore’s existence as an independent sovereign nation” and that “any variation of the Water Agreements without the consent of both Governments will be a breach of the Separation Agreement that cannot be accepted”.30 Matters came to a head with Mahathir’s letter

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on 7 October 2002, stating his wish to divorce the water issue from the package.31 Conscious of the strategic and political ramifications of deteriorating water negotiations, Goh attempted to downplay the security edge to the water dispute. He gave the following assessment of Singapore’s continued purchase of water from Malaysia: Firstly, Dr. Mahathir promised me that Malaysia would always give Singapore water, enough for our consumption. … Secondly, Malaysian water is cheaper than other means of water for the foreseeable future. … Thirdly, for good reasons, I believe in interdependency with our neighbours. If we are completely independent of Malaysia, in terms of water, vegetables, other essentials that we buy from Malaysia and there’s no economic interaction, I think that will spell more trouble between the two neighbours. So I believe in interlocking our relationships and water is a symbol of this interlocking relationship between the two countries. Say if Malaysia continues to sell us water not to meet our entire needs but to meet part of our needs, well, it is a sign to say that we are going to be interdependent forever, therefore, we must find a way to co-exist happily.32

Although this is a balanced position, it has not been able to surmount the divergent interpretation of the terms of agreement over water, and the stalemate remains.

RELATIONS WITH INDONESIA Relations with Indonesia during the early years of the Goh Administration benefited from the close ties that his predecessor had established with the Jakarta leadership, particularly President Soeharto. Defence relations, in particular, were significantly enhanced during the tenure of the two elder statesmen. Under the Goh Administration, further advancements in bilateral relations were made, particularly with Singapore playing an instrumental role in supporting several major Indonesian economic and industralization initiatives, including the development of Batam island. Despite sound relations, ties with Indonesia were not impervious to strain. In fact, a number of issues soon arose that tested the bilateral relationship. The more pressing of these included the haze problem and piracy in Indonesian territorial waters. The Singapore Government, however, was careful not to criticize Jakarta publicly for its failure to resolve either problem. Rather, it chose a more calibrated, muted response, depending on various points of contact to press the city-state’s case and raise its concerns. As a consequence, despite these

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problems, relations were generally stable and stood on an even keel. The advent of the financial crisis, however, heralded a major shift in Indonesian domestic politics that would prove to have a significant impact on bilateral relations as well. When the Asian financial crisis first struck the Indonesian economy, several Indonesian politicians accused Singapore of providing a safe haven for Indonesians who had committed economic crimes, and demanded that the city-state extradite these “criminals” to Indonesia to face charges of corruption. Echoing criticisms coming out of Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta further accused Singapore of deliberately enticing much-needed local capital away from the Indonesian economy with attractive interest rates.33 The situation deteriorated further after the fall of Soeharto. Soeharto’s immediate successor, B.J. Habibie, criticized Singapore for being an unhelpful neighbour during the financial crisis, referring to the city-state as a “little red dot” and echoing the denigrations by Malaysian politicians of the Singapore Armed Forces’ allegedly discriminatory policies that blocked ethnic Malay Singaporeans from holding high positions in the military service. It was thought that Habibie’s attacks on Singapore were motivated by then SM Lee Kuan Yew’s remarks on 7 February 1998 that “the market was disturbed by his [Soeharto’s] criteria for the vice-president that required mastery of science and technology, announced shortly after the second IMF agreement. … If the market is uncomfortable with whoever is the eventual vice-president, the rupiah would weaken again”.34 This remark was believed to have been interpreted by Habibie personally as a veiled criticism. Singapore’s delay in sending congratulations to Habibie also did not go unnoticed by the Indonesian president. Many of Habibie’s criticisms were echoed by his successor Abdurrahman Wahid, who in November 2000 accused Singapore of profiteering, and charged that the latter was manipulative and racist. Moreover, it was reported that Wahid had in the course of a closed-door discussion at the Indonesian Embassy in Singapore revealed that he had suggested to Mahathir that Indonesia and Malaysia jointly withhold water to Singapore so as to “teach it a lesson”.35 As Habibie did before him, Wahid also expressed resentment at allusions made by Lee that he may not be in power for long.36 The strategic centrality of Indonesia, coupled with concern for any ripple effect its collapse might have on the region in general and Singapore’s interest in particular, compelled the government of the island-state to rebuild relations with Jakarta cautiously in the post-Soeharto era, regardless of the rhetorical broadsides being fired by a string of Indonesian presidents and politicians. To that effect, the primary objective of this policy was to restore political and

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economic normalcy and stability to Indonesia as soon as possible. In order to do that, a pragmatic approach to handling Indonesian sensitivities was required, and this included the building of ties via less public channels. This pragmatism took the form of various economic initiatives, including the establishment of an investment fund to buy over assets of bankrupted Indonesian companies being held by the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency. Singapore leaders were, however, mindful of the political dangers if Singapore was being seen to be buying over Indonesian interests, and Goh noted in the course of announcing the policy that “we are a close and good neighbour of Indonesia and we don’t want to risk any misunderstanding in Indonesia that Singapore is acquiring assets cheap when Indonesia is in distress”.37 A major component of Singapore’s engagement with Indonesia has been the role of defence diplomacy. This has been manifested, for instance, in the extensive defence cooperation between the Indonesian and Singapore militaries over the years.38 Indeed, the contribution of defence diplomacy as part of Singapore’s overall approach to foreign relations, particularly in relations with neighbouring countries, was acknowledged recently by President S.R. Nathan, who himself had previously served as Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ambassador to Malaysia and the U.S.: Through defence diplomacy, Singapore could build confidence and mutual trust with the neighbouring armed forces and their key personalities. With that came opportunities for sharing our training and other experiences with them. In several cases, as mutual trust increased, we also secured training facilities in their countries. These contacts have resulted in joint exercises, sharing of staff training experiences and intelligence exchanges. Today, what began as defence diplomacy in the infancy of our diplomatic history has become the basis for more comprehensive military relations with our neighbours and beyond.39

CONCLUSION The chapter on Singapore’s foreign policy in the 1989 edition of Management of Success concluded that “in certain fundamental respects … there has been only minimal change in the conduct of Singapore’s foreign policy”.40 Since the end of the Cold War, however, the terrain of international affairs has become considerably more complex, and concomitantly while the core national interests and foreign policy objectives envisaged by Singapore’s ruling elite have remained constant, the instruments and vehicles through which they are secured have had to change correspondingly. Events such as the collapse

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of the Soviet Union and Vietnam’s withdrawal from Cambodia, the Asian financial crisis, and the emergence of the threat of terrorism have exemplified these new challenges which Singapore’s policy elite have had to address, and they have done so through a reliance on new regional and multilateral mechanisms, enhancement of traditional bilateral relations, and the engagement of new powers and processes in regional affairs. In the final analysis, what remains permanent insofar as the island-state’s leadership is concerned is the fact that “as a small state, we cannot ignore the dangers we face to our sovereignty and territorial integrity. … The fundamental principles of our foreign policy remain valid — maintaining good relations with our neighbours, while connecting Singapore to the world, pragmatism, non-alignment with regards to big power rivalry and preparedness to take a stand when our interests are at stake”.41

NOTES 1. Michael Leifer, Singapore’s Foreign Policy: Coping with Vulnerability (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 15–16. 2. This process ushered in a period of reconciliation between Vietnam and ASEAN that culminated in the former’s membership in the regional organization in 1995. 3. See Norman Vasu and Bernard Loo’s “National Security and Singapore: An Assessment” in this volume for a discussion on Jemaah Islamiyah in Singapore. 4. See Goh Chok Tong’s speech titled “ASEAN-US Relations: Challenges” delivered to the Asia Society, New York, 7 September 2000. 5. In order to assure its neighbours that its foreign policy would not be driven by ethnic considerations, Singapore’s leadership gave assurances to Indonesia that it would not normalize relations before Jakarta did. 6. That said, Michael Leifer rightly noted too that while Lee was the only regional leader who was confident enough to embark on a diplomatic intervention in what the Chinese perceived to be a domestic issue, “it has not affected his judgment about the priority of Singapore’s interests, especially in avoiding becoming caught up in the entrenched quarrel between Beijing and Taipei”. See Leifer, Singapore’s Foreign Policy, pp. 22–23. 7. Lee Kuan Yew, From Third World to First: The Singapore Story, 1965–2000. Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew (Singapore: Times Media Pte. Ltd., 2000), p. 541. 8. Speech by Goh Chok Tong, Prime Minister of Singapore, at the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI), Tokyo, 28 March 2003. 9. Statement on Singapore Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s Visit to Taiwan, 11 July 2004, .

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10. Lee Kuan Yew, From Third World To First, p. 631. 11. Lee Kuan Yew, From Third World To First, p. 574. 12. David E. Sanger, “Japan Asks: Who Dispatched Us To This Hell, Anyway?” New York Times, 16 May 1993. 13. See Ong Keng Yong’s “Singapore and ASEAN: A Contemporary Perspective” in this volume for a discussion on ASEAN. 14. S. Jayakumar, “Opening Statement by H.E. Professor S. Jayakumar Minister for Foreign Affairs of Singapore at the 30th AMM/PMC”, ASEAN website, 24 July 1997, (accessed 9 August 2008). 15. Richard Stubbs, “ASEAN Plus Three: Emerging East Asian Regionalism?” Asian Survey 42, no. 3 (May–June 2002): 454. 16. “As Asian Century is Planned, U.S. Power Stays in the Shadows”, New York Times, 13 December 2005. 17. Hussin Mutalib, “The Socio-economic Dimension in Singapore’s Quest for Security and Stability”, Pacific Affairs 75, no. 1 (Spring 2002): 52. 18. Christopher M. Dent, “Singapore’s Foreign Economic Policy: The Pursuit of Economic Security”, Contemporary Southeast Asia 23, no. 1 (April 2001): 1. 19. Richard Hu, “FY1997 Budget: Part I Economic Performance in 1996: A New Operating Environment”, Ministry of Finance, Singapore website, (accessed 9 August 2008). 20. W.G. Huff, “Turning the Corner in Singapore’s Developmental State?” Asian Survey 39, no. 2 (March–April 1999): 225. 21. Richard Hu, “FY1996 Budget: Part III Revenue and Tax Changes: Tax Changes for Companies: Development and Expansion Incentives”, Ministry of Finance, Singapore website, (accessed 9 August 2008). 22. W.G. Huff, “Bringing Politics Back In: Towards a Model of the Developmental State”, Journal of Developmental Studies 31, no. 3 (1995): 405. 23. Lee Hsien Loong and Moisés Naím, “The FP Interview: Singapore’s Big Gamble”, Foreign Policy 130 (May–June 2002): 33. 24. William Case, “Singapore in 2002: Economic Lassitude and Threats to Security”, Asian Survey 43, no. 1 (2002): 169–70. 25. Lee Seungjoo, “Singapore Trade Bilateralism: A Two Track Strategy”, in Bilateral Trade Arrangements in the Asia-Pacific: Origins, Evolution, and Implications, edited by Vinod K. Aggarwal and Shujiro Urata (New York and London: Routledge, 2006), p. 185. 26. Speech by Goh Chok Tong, Prime Minister of Singapore, at the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI), Tokyo, 28 March 2003. 27. “Lee Kuan Yew Apologizes for Remarks that Angered Malaysia”, International Herald Tribune, 14 March 1997.

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28. See Tim Huxley, Defending the City-State: The Armed Forces of Singapore (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 2000). 29. Malaysian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, op. cit., p. 3. 30. “Water Issue is about Sanctity of Agreements, Not Price Alone, says Singapore Foreign Minister S. Jayakumar”, . 31. See Lee Poh Onn’s “The Four Taps: Water Self-sufficiency in Singapore” in this volume for a discussion on Singapore’s drive towards water self-sufficiency. 32. Reported in “Unwise to work for full self-reliance on water”, Straits Times, 26 January 2001, and reproduced in Joey Long Shi Ruey, “On the Threshold of Self-Sufficiency”, in Beyond Vulnerability? Water in Singapore-Malaysia Relations, edited by Kwa Chong Guan (Singapore: IDSS, 2002), p. 107. 33. The fact that interest rates are set by banks and are beyond the control of the central government did not seem to prevent Indonesian criticism of Singapore’s political leadership. 34. Lee Kuan Yew, From Third World to First, op. cit., p. 315. B.J. Habibie was a qualified engineer. 35. “Singapore wants only profits, says Gus Dur”, Straits Times, 27 November 2000. 36. “Indonesia’s Wahid launches tirade against Singapore”, Agence France-Presse, 26 November 2000. 37. “Singapore’s Goh unveils investment package to help Indonesia”, Asian Political News, 17 January 2000. 38. The extent of these ties have been ably documented in Tim Huxley, Defending the Lion City: The Armed Forces of Singapore (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2000), pp. 212–16. 39. Speech by President S.R. Nathan at the MFA Diplomatic Academy’s Inaugural S. Rajaratnam Lecture, Shangri-La Hotel, Singapore, 10 March 2008. 40. Michael Leifer, “The Conduct of Foreign Policy”, in Management of Success: The Moulding of Modern Singapore, edited by Kernial Singh Sandhu and Paul Wheatley (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1989), p. 979. 41. Speech by President S.R. Nathan at the MFA Diplomatic Academy’s Inaugural S. Rajaratnam Lecture, Shangri-La Hotel, Singapore, 10 March 2008.

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3

SINGAPORE AND ASEAN A Contemporary Perspective ONG KENG YONG

LEVERAGING THE COLLECTIVE

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here are two unique man-made creations in Southeast Asia. One is Singapore. The other is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The origins of their conception are very different and completely separate but their futures are intertwined and mutually supportive. Singapore became independent on 9 August 1965 and ASEAN was founded on 8 August 1967. Both have benefited from a relationship built over the last forty years and have become stronger from it. Singapore is a founding member state of ASEAN (together with Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand while the other countries were admitted later — Brunei Darussalam in 1984, Vietnam 1995, Lao PDR 1997, Myanmar 1997 and Cambodia in 1999). Over the years, Singapore has played its part in growing ASEAN into a visible regional inter-governmental body. As with other member states, Singapore has also used the ASEAN platform to deliver specific policy goals for Singapore’s own economic, political and socio-cultural development. Singapore has not subsumed its interests under the ASEAN agenda but has used creativity and innovation to get greater value out of ASEAN. Singapore’s policy-makers have found that pushing the ASEAN button at the right moment can provide them with an advantage which Singapore does not have individually and this has enabled them to obtain benefits which are not available otherwise. Most of these are in the broad strategic arena, particularly in managing the relationships with bigger powers having an interest in Southeast Asia. Furthermore, many of the challenges confronting the region today (for 38

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example, managing the impact of the financial crisis following the financial meltdown in Wall Street, combating communicable diseases, drug trafficking, environmental degradation and terrorism, and managing natural disasters) are multilateral issues and transnational in nature. Very often, such challenges can be better managed through ASEAN diplomacy and mechanisms. The aims and purposes of ASEAN, as stated in the Bangkok Declaration giving birth to the organization, are as follows: 1. To accelerate the economic growth, social progress and cultural development in the region through joint endeavours in the spirit of equality and partnership in order to strengthen the foundation for a prosperous and peaceful community of Southeast Asian nations; 2. To promote regional peace and stability through abiding respect for justice and the rule of law in the relationship among countries of the region and adherence to the principles of the United Nations Charter; 3. To promote active collaboration and mutual assistance on matters of common interest in the economic, social, cultural, technical, scientific and administrative fields; 4. To provide assistance to each other in the form of training and research facilities in the educational, professional, technical and administrative spheres; 5. To collaborate more effectively for the greater utilization of their agriculture and industries, the expansion of their trade, including the study of the problems of international commodity trade, the improvement of their transportation and communications facilities and the raising of the living standards of their peoples; 6. To promote Southeast Asian studies; and 7. To maintain close and beneficial cooperation with existing international and regional organisations with similar aims and purposes, and explore all avenues for even closer cooperation among themselves.

MANAGING THE DIFFERENCES From the outset, Singapore realized that these ideals in the Bangkok Declaration would not be easily achieved. The historical baggage of competition, envy and rivalry among the countries of Southeast Asia would hamper cooperation on a regional scale. The prevailing circumstances in the region in the 1960s and 1970s had engendered public prejudices and antipathies. There was clear distrust and suspicion. To make matters worse, Singapore’s life-and-death struggles to overcome its vulnerabilities as a new nation resulted in a hard-nosed leadership

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style with a very clinical management of the policy options. This did not endear puny Singapore to any of its larger neighbours. Apart from its strategic geography, Singapore has no natural resources. Singapore thrives on tariff-free trade with very few non-tariff barriers. Its open economy is driven by exports and FDI (foreign direct investment). Singapore’s modern history is based largely on its development as a free port and business centre for the region. However, every state in Southeast Asia wants to control or to own its commercial activities and infrastructure, and is not willing to share such national assets with another country. It is a zero-sum game. Still, ASEAN offers a unique chance for the region’s governments to work together. Political solidarity in a complex international environment is important and ASEAN can provide this collective strength. There are also times when the converging interests of ASEAN member states do not become immediately obvious to their bureaucracies and ASEAN forums become the venues to flesh these out. ASEAN’s positions on the South China Sea (with regard to the competing territorial claims of several ASEAN countries and China over the Spratly Islands) and transboundary haze pollution in Southeast Asia came from such consultations and exchanges of views at the regional level. Singapore’s approach towards ASEAN was to avoid high expectation and to work towards gradually expanding the common space for the grouping. Singapore concentrated on cooperation to accelerate economic growth to strengthen the foundation for a prosperous and peaceful community of Southeast Asian nations. In particular, it pushed for collaboration in expansion of trade and improvement of transportation and communication. If Singapore can move and keep ASEAN on economic cooperation and stimulate growth and prosperity, tangible results are delivered and ASEAN can demonstrate real benefits of membership. This will, in turn, facilitate ASEAN’s growth and expand its cooperation in the political, security and socio-cultural arenas. Despite the downside of such a gradualist policy in a rapidly changing and technology-savvy world, there is really no other choice except to go step by step and at a pace comfortable to all. Unfortunately, even such a sensible and sensitive tack does not always produce the outcome desired by Singapore. On many occasions, the slow process and frequent delays in implementing decisions dampened the spirit of the policy-makers in Singapore and they became disillusioned with the utility of the ASEAN platform. The other ASEAN member states have their own priorities and they wish for different things from ASEAN. Very often, such ambitions are not predicated on economic cooperation alone. With largely agrarian characteristics, these

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countries prefer to focus on agricultural development, food security, poverty alleviation and social progress. This contrasted starkly with Singapore’s citystate existence and mostly urbanized predilections. Consequently, the meeting of minds and the matching of targets required a considerable amount of time and mutual persuasion. Even after cooperative projects have been launched, there could still be political pressure to restrict implementation. In some cases, what was agreed upon had to be untangled or left to wither away! Classic examples are the ASEAN Industrial Complementation and the ASEAN Industrial Joint Ventures. Trade liberalization, through the Preferential Trading Arrangement (PTA) and later through the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), has been tedious as the member states refused to give one another perceived advantages to the detriment of their respective national companies and industries. SEIZING THE OPPORTUNITIES The 1997–98 Asian financial crisis and China’s political moves to enhance its relationship with Southeast Asian countries proved to be two lucky breaks for ASEAN and Singapore. Singapore was quick to digest the strategic implications of these developments and devised policy responses to maximize the opportunities. At the same time, the imperative of having an economically competitive Southeast Asia following the emergence of China and India as new powerhouses in the global economy compelled ASEAN to re-orient itself to meet the challenge. At the most basic level, the financial crisis pressed home the need for ASEAN member states to close ranks and to groove in a collective manner as they cooperated with China, Japan and the Republic of Korea (RoK) in containing the damage in the banking sector and the stock markets. ASEAN cohesiveness was achieved when its ASEAN Finance Ministers rose above the primordial concerns to find suitable common positions to cope with the crisis and to engage the Northeast Asian countries. The Chiang Mai Initiative (a series of currency swap arrangements to help targeted countries counter speculative attacks) was agreed upon and implemented speedily. This joint effort by the thirteen countries proved useful. It is still operating today and the participating countries are expanding the scope and coverage of the Chiang Mai Initiative under the multilateralization arrangement. The mileage obtained from collaborating on such region-wide measures has reinforced the ASEAN Plus Three framework of cooperation. Indeed, the collective mechanics emerging from the aftermath of the financial crisis have enabled the regional architecture to be further defined and refined.

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China’s keenness to stabilize and strengthen its ties with Southeast Asia led it to propose the ASEAN-China Free Trade Area in 2000 and a generous early harvest programme for ASEAN’s exports into the Chinese market. Singapore worked with a number of like-minded ASEAN governments to capitalize on this unprecedented offer to tap the huge potential of an open market covering China and Southeast Asia. Fortuitously, most of the ASEAN leaders of the day were able to envision such a free trade area and its benefits. They moved relatively quickly, cajoling their respective bureaucracies to seize the moment. The framework agreement for the ASEAN-China FTA was signed in 2002. Not long after, the chapter for trade in goods was done and the FTA for goods became operational in the middle of 2005. This was followed by the chapter on trade in services two years later. The chapter on investment was be signed by the leaders of ASEAN and China in 2009. Separately, Singapore attended expeditiously to a major concern of the less developed countries in ASEAN by packaging the IAI (Initiative for ASEAN Integration) and codifying it into ASEAN’s workplans. The IAI is a substantial programme to assist the poorer ASEAN member states in closing the gap between them and the more developed ASEAN countries and integrating them into the dynamic economic transformation taking place in the region. The emphasis of the IAI on human resource development and capacity building harked back to the Bangkok Declaration’s ideals of promoting and assisting member states’ educational, professional, technical and administrative capabilities. The implementation of the IAI has fostered a community spirit and inspired more confidence and trust among member countries. All of them can see that their stake-holdership in ASEAN has increased. Singapore rallied the ASEAN Economic Ministers to think beyond the ASEANChina FTA and to leverage on it to consolidate ASEAN’s attractiveness as an FDI destination. The ASEAN Competitiveness Study was undertaken and its key points subsequently underpinned the recommendations of the High Level Task Force to establish the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC). The ASEAN leaders adopted these recommendations in 2003. Moving quietly and working with the respective ASEAN Chair Countries, and the ASEAN Secretariat (based in Jakarta, Indonesia), Singapore energized the ASEAN free trade agenda and by the beginning of 2006, ASEAN was concurrently negotiating five different FTAs with Japan, the RoK, India, Australia/ New Zealand (together as one under their Closer Economic Relations [CER] policy), and China (for the trade in services and investment chapters of the ASEAN-China FTA). By 2007, the ASEAN-RoK FTA was done and ASEAN

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and the European Union had also launched their FTA talks. To be sure, this FTA strategy is not without a downside for ASEAN but for the time being, ASEAN has put itself in the centre stage of market opening and trade liberalization, attracting much international attention. As a result, more business, FDI and tourists flowed into Southeast Asia. In 2008, the ASEAN-Japan FTA for trade in goods was signed. GOING BEYOND ECONOMICS ASEAN rode on the economic dynamism and settled the plans for building an ASEAN Community based on the three pillars of political/security cooperation, economic integration and socio-cultural cooperation. Therefore, the details of the ASEAN Political-Security Community (APSC) and the ASEAN SocioCultural Community (ASCC) to complement the AEC were adopted by the end of 2004. In 2005 and 2006, more specific elements of the APSC and the ASCC were fleshed out. In the ASEAN Charter, signed in November 2007 in Singapore by the ASEAN leaders, the connecting mechanisms for the APSC, AEC and ASCC were promulgated. Singapore would have preferred the ASEAN economic integration to deepen further before plunging into the other parts of the ASEAN community. But pragmatism prevailed and Singapore went along, its enthusiasm picking up as the momentum gathered pace. The process-driven ASEAN way became regarded as beneficial to Singapore’s policy development. This proved a wise decision as the parliamentary quarters in the other ASEAN member states increasingly demanded a quid pro quo for their acquiescence on the progress towards the AEC. They wanted ASEAN to focus on political and social issues concomitantly. In their view, ASEAN should also develop a substantive programme to make the grouping more people-oriented and broad-based instead of it being just an elite-driven regional economic creature. SAFEGUARDING THE PRINCIPLES ASEAN is important to Singapore from another perspective. Singapore relies on the established principles of inter-state relations and rule of law to ensure its independence and survival. ASEAN’s principles on respect for the independence, sovereignty, equality, territorial integrity and national identity of all member states; shared commitment and collective responsibility in enhancing regional peace, security and prosperity; non-interference in each member state’s internal

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affairs; and adherence to the rule of law and peaceful settlement of disputes provide additional safeguards for Singapore’s well-being. While membership in a regional body denotes a certain diminution of national freedom of action, the consensus-based decision-making in ASEAN and the strong inter-government nature of the grouping in contrast to an all-powerful supranational regional institution mean that Singapore retains control of what is needed to advance its own interests. Where necessary, Singapore has used the ASEAN ego to prevent an unfavourable outcome. For example, when Vietnamese troops entered Cambodia in 1978, Singapore worked jointly with fellow ASEAN members to forestall a fait accompli which would have disastrous implications for the peace and stability of Southeast Asia at that time. The ASEAN campaign to maintain support for the deposed regime of Democratic Kampuchea led eventually to the setting up of the present Cambodian state. Singapore’s national interests were served by ASEAN’s rejection of such use of force against the sovereignty and independence of a neighbouring state. The notion of “suzerainty” or “client state” is clearly unacceptable to ASEAN. Singapore has had to punch above its weight in order to pursue its diplomatic initiatives and strengthen its strategic role. Several instruments have been utilized by Singapore to accomplish this. ASEAN’s diplomacy is one significant avenue even though many in Singapore would minimize such a credit. Singapore has worked hard with like-minded countries in ASEAN to design the appropriate sinews of a regional architecture for managing external powers impinging on Southeast Asia. In this respect, the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) was conceptualized and established in 1994. Today, the ARF has twenty-six participating countries and the European Union, and comprises all the major powers and the key partners of ASEAN.1 China, the RoK and Japan are additionally engaged by ASEAN in the ASEAN Plus Three framework. The use of this ASEAN platform minimizes the jingoism being employed by the combative elements in these Northeast Asian countries. The success of the ASEAN Plus Three mechanism encouraged ASEAN to develop the East Asia Summit which brought in India, Australia and New Zealand to join the thirteen countries of the ASEAN Plus Three. The East Asia Summit is seen as an innovative mechanism to link up the two rising economic giants in Asia, namely, China and India, into an orderly and peaceful engagement with one another and with the other fourteen neighbours. All these ASEAN moves have benefited Singapore. By itself, Singapore would not be able to pull off such huge diplomatic initiatives.

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BUILDING THE COMMUNITY Singapore has focussed on economic development and growth throughout its modern history. Continued growth and prosperity is dependent on trade and investment, and that is possible only through peace and an open market. Therefore, Singapore has single-mindedly directed ASEAN’s activities to advance economic cooperation and integration. China’s proposal for and subsequent conclusion of the FTA with ASEAN was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take Southeast Asia to another level. For the next stage of ASEAN’s economic development, the member states need to rationalize and streamline their often competing economies to enhance competitiveness. However, Singapore is seen by its ASEAN fellows as the most advanced economy amongst them and ought to do more for ASEAN’s community-building endeavour. They expect Singapore to be more forthcoming with resources and expertise. Yet, the socialization of policy-makers in Singapore is based on fiscal conservativeness, tight modern management and good quick results. Organic Southeast Asia favours a more informal way of organizing and sharing. There is admiration for the Singapore style and achievement but the longing is always for a less businesslike Singapore. There is also a growing feeling that the AEC will benefit Singapore more than the rest of the region given the small and easy-to-manage population in the city-state and its economic and technological advancement. Many ASEAN officials agree that economic integration will bring economies of scale and reduce costs by 20 to 30 per cent. This will substantially improve the economic competitiveness of ASEAN. They appreciate the need to increase intra-ASEAN trade which hovers around 25 per cent of ASEAN’s total trade with the world. Still, the building of the ASEAN Community is not an economic process alone, and many in the rest of ASEAN want Singapore to champion the ASEAN socio-cultural agenda and cooperation more purposefully. In that way, the region can achieve more social progress, cultural development and the raising of living standards as espoused by the Bangkok Declaration. LOOKING TO THE FUTURE Moving forward, Singapore has three key objectives vis-à-vis ASEAN, namely: • implement the provisions of the ASEAN Charter; • accelerate economic integration and strengthen sustainable development; and • entrench ASEAN’s role in evolving the regional architecture.

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The ASEAN Charter has been ratified by all the ASEAN member states. It is not a perfect Charter but it is the first time that ASEAN has allowed itself to be governed by a set of rules and principles. It would ensure that obligations are taken seriously and non-compliance addressed. The Charter has clear provisions for the settlement of disputes. The streamlining of ASEAN’s institutional structure and better coordination across the ASEAN bodies with a clear-cut mandate for the Secretary-General of ASEAN also mean a more effective organization. ASEAN leaders have decided to establish the ASEAN Community by 2015 instead of 2020 as first enunciated in the ASEAN Vision 2020. More strenuous diplomacy is required to keep ASEAN on course for the goal of a single market and regional production base as spelled out in the AEC blueprint. In all likelihood, Singapore will have to do more, both in terms of helping the less developed ASEAN member states and in terms of setting a good example for the more developed ASEAN countries to maintain the pace of integration. Specifically, Singapore has to look at its services trade sector and its role in energy security, environment protection, climate change and sustainable development to catalyse and induce more concrete actions on the part of the other member states. ASEAN has done much to keep Southeast Asia peaceful, secure and stable. There is no war among ASEAN member states. Many outside the ASEAN official circles have taken such positive conditions in the region for granted. These detractors are also focused on single issues at any given time. The current preoccupation is with the situation in Myanmar. Consequently, limited credit is given for ASEAN’s achievement on the other fronts. The fact is that ASEAN has balanced the diverse factors and varied forces affecting Southeast Asia and has facilitated an open region for all who desire peaceful interactions and mutual growth in which to flourish. ASEAN has grown into a rather different creature since its establishment four decades ago and historical categorization of ASEAN has to be moderated. For example, ASEAN is not constructed to resolve armed conflict or to participate in any regional peacekeeping arrangement. However, ASEAN is determined to ensure that it remains “in the driver’s seat” in dealing with the region’s architecture. This is essential in order to retain what ASEAN has achieved in preserving the positive scenario of peace and security in Southeast Asia. To continue being able to do so, ASEAN must be cohesive and effective. The ASEAN Charter has spelled out the requirements for realizing the ASEAN community based on the foundation of a politically stable, economically vibrant and socially salubrious Southeast Asia. As a responsible

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member of ASEAN, Singapore has to employ its skilful diplomacy to strengthen this regional edifice and to sustain the success to date. CONCLUSION Singapore seems to have concluded that ASEAN is useful and the opportunities that presented themselves should be used strategically to position ASEAN on a higher ground and to help steer Singapore’s own policy to a richer pasture. In the early days, the preoccupation was with Singapore’s national survival and when ASEAN moved too slowly, other strategies were adopted by the policy-makers in Singapore to supplement what ASEAN could offer. Often times, such initiatives were misinterpreted by others. Some were even denigrated. The atmospherics were negative and it was not easy to articulate Singapore’s policy towards ASEAN in a win-win manner. With the propitious regional developments towards an integrated market in Southeast Asia, Singapore has expressed its interests and that of ASEAN in this regard more specifically, and has garnered ASEAN efforts towards the envisioned goals of regional economic integration as a positive sum game. Nevertheless, a recent survey on awareness and attitudes towards ASEAN amongst the youth in the ten member states found that young Singaporeans were the least likely to see themselves as ASEAN citizens; the least likely to see ASEAN members as similar to themselves; and possessed below average knowledge about the region.2 A reason for this could be the global outlook of young Singaporeans, many of whom are highly educated and mobile. While this global outlook is crucial, and should be encouraged, it is necessary to broaden it to include the immediate region. In consolidating the ASEAN Charter and deepening and widening ASEAN economic integration, the ideal approach is for Singapore to be less subjective and more strategic in its action and presence in ASEAN. The key is leveraging on the common interests and group’s strength. To be successful in this respect, every government agency and official in Singapore has to play a part. The disenchantment with ASEAN in certain parts of the Singapore bureaucracy has to be assuaged. At the same time, it is also necessary to promote more public awareness about ASEAN and what ASEAN means to the ordinary citizens. That will help to correct misperceptions of Singapore’s stance on ASEAN and contribute to a greater lay-person understanding of the value of membership in ASEAN. When we look at ASEAN as a whole, it would appear that more political will and collective action are needed for the organization to achieve its goals.

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The concept of pooling some aspects of sovereignty to lift ASEAN to new heights has not gained more traction even with the momentum of the ASEAN Charter. While one can argue that the forty-year experience of ASEAN is not long enough to cement the bonds of trust and mutual support among the member states, ASEAN can only be effective and valuable if the member states are committed to, and serious about the future of the grouping. ASEAN’s tremendous potential has not been fully tapped and its best days are yet to come.

NOTES 1. They are: Australia, Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Canada, China, the European Union, India, Indonesia, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, New Zealand, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Timor-Leste, the United States of America and Vietnam. 2. Eric C. Thompson and Chulanee Thianthai, “Attitudes and Awareness Towards ASEAN: Findings of a Ten Nation Survey”, 2008, (accessed 30 May 2008).

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The “Third Generation” Leadership

Section

2

LEADERSHIP, POLICY AND POLITICS

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4

PM LEE HSIEN LOONG AND THE “THIRD GENERATION” LEADERSHIP Managing Key Nation-building Challenges HUSSIN MUTALIB

SURVIVING THE CHALLENGES

I

n his first National Day Rally Speech in August 2004, Prime Minister (PM) Lee Hsien Loong stated: “We may be small, but we have high hopes and big dreams and so long as we are a little red dot in the middle of Southeast Asia, let people know that we are a people who will keep on trying and never say die. And with this spirit, the future is ours to make.”1 In 2007, he applauded the Singaporean sailors who performed well at the Asian Games in Doha for their determination, strong will, and tenacious spirit.2 These sentiments not only illustrate the vision of the man at the helm of the republic’s national leadership, but also demonstrate his “cando, never say die” personality in battling the odds, however Herculean they may be.3 This is a characteristic of someone who had battled with lymphoma in 1992 and overcame it. Like the victorious Singaporean sailors, Lee Hsien Loong then sailed forth to receive the baton from his predecessor, Goh Chok Tong, on 12 August 2004. In his first term as Prime Minister he led his team to implement important domestic and foreign policies, aiming to keep Singapore sailing through difficult waters — waters that are now pushed further and faster by the winds of globalization. Thus far, he and his team have done well as Singapore continues to chart progress in many fields. However, in striving 51

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towards a future growth formula, officially coined as “World.Singapore”,4 his team will face challenges that are no less exacting than those that confronted his predecessors. Arguably, many of these challenges are a consequence of Singapore’s embrace of globalization — from which arises some critical nationbuilding issues that require a new type of leadership acumen. In the 1989 volume, Management of Success, when laying out the possible challenges facing Goh Chok Tong’s second generation leaders, Robert O. Tilman noted that “much of their future will depend on forces over which they have little or no control. Singapore can prosper only so long as the major market economies are also healthy, and a prolonged global economic downturn could present the new leadership with perhaps insurmountable political problems at home.”5 This observation is no less relevant today given Singapore’s deepening connectivity to global markets. Lee Hsien Loong’s “third generation” team faces challenges that include sustaining economic competitiveness, meandering democratization pressures, mapping out leadership renewal, forging social cohesion and national identity, conducting foreign policy in a rapidly changing world, and addressing the current economic and financial downturn. While it can be anticipated that the PM and his team will continue to adopt a non-ideological, pragmatic approach in managing these pertinent imperatives, the dilemma is that such an approach, while seemingly reasonable, could lead to other problems. A key area to watch is the probable tension in the state-citizen relationship,6 specifically, the danger of compromising the republic’s long-held pillars in the nation-building agenda such as meritocracy and multiracialism. Although the PM’s team can be expected to face mounting challenges at the level of party politics, no serious commentator on Singapore politics expects a radical transformation of the Republic’s electoral landscape, long dominated by the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP), in the foreseeable future. The real test will come from the PM’s leadership in galvanizing and rallying Singaporeans to keep faith with the government as it tackles some difficult issues that are bound to surface, and the bitter pills they must be prepared to swallow to enable the republic to sustain its hard-won prosperity. This chapter discusses, albeit briefly, the salient traits of PM Lee’s leadership by taking a closer look at the character and complexion of the PAP leadership team under his charge. The chapter provides a comparison of his governance with that of his two predecessors, Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong. It then focuses attention on the key nation-building challenges that his team can expect to face in the coming years and the likely policies and politics that Singapore and Singaporeans can anticipate from the “third generation” team.

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PM LEE AND HIS TEAM: A BRIEF BACKGROUND Lee Hsien Loong, born on 10 February 1952, is the eldest son of former prime minister and founder of modern Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew. After graduating from the University of Cambridge in 1974,7 he returned to serve in the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) and rose quickly to become the youngest Brigadier-General in the Republic’s history. In 1980, he graduated with a Masters degree from Harvard University and in 1984, at the age of thirty-two, cut short his military service to enter politics. His rise in politics was rapid. Immediately after being elected a Member of Parliament (MP) in 1984, he was appointed Minister of State (Trade and Industry, and Defence) and two years later, made Acting Minister (Trade and Industry) and Second Minister for Defence. In 1990, when Goh Chok Tong became PM, he became Deputy PM, and on 12 August 2004, he succeeded Goh as Singapore’s third PM. Initially perceived as somewhat aloof and humourless, PM Lee has gradually softened his public image. This could be seen from his attire and actions, especially when he meets the younger generation of Singaporeans, which now constitutes the majority of the electorate. Today, PM Lee’s Cabinet comprises a mix of old, seasoned politicians and young and relatively new faces from a diverse background of academics, technocrats and military officers. Admittedly, senior party stalwarts still have a guiding hand in the Cabinet team, such as Minister Mentor (MM) Lee Kuan Yew, Senior Minister (SM) Goh Chok Tong, Deputy PMs S. Jayakumar and Wong Kan Seng, and other Ministers who have gone through the baptism of fire after fighting and winning a few general elections and been given key Ministerial portfolios. The latter group includes Teo Chee Hean (Minister for Defence), George Yeo (Minister for Foreign Affairs), Lim Hng Kiang (Minister for Trade and Industry), Lim Boon Heng and Lim Swee Say, both of whom have experience in the labour movement. The mean age of the ministerial team in the 2009 Cabinet, excluding MM Lee and SM Goh, was about fifty-five years. However, relatively younger and newer faces are being groomed for higher office, such as Tharman Shanmugaratnam (Minister for Finance), Dr Eng Ng Hen (Minister for Education), Khaw Boon Wan (Minister for Health), Dr Vivian Balakrishnan (Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports), Raymond Lim (Minister for Transport), Gan Kim Yong (Acting Minister for Manpower). In 2008, K. Shanmugam was promoted to Minister for Law and Second Minister for Home Affairs. Lui Tuck Yew was promoted to Acting Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts in April 2009. Two women, Lim Hwee Hua and Grace Fu, were also promoted to Senior Ministers of State in 2008; and it was Lim who finally broke the glass ceiling in April 2009 to become the first woman Cabinet Minister in Singapore’s modern

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political history, after Dr Seet Ai Mee, who was Acting Minister for Community Development and Sports in 1991. Unlike Lee Kuan Yew’s “Old Guard” team, where Lee was the only Singaporeborn, Lee Hsien Loong’s team comprises mostly citizens by birth. These newer Cabinet figures also have impressive academic credentials. Some were former high ranking Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) officers, others were successful high flyers in their previous vocations as lawyers, corporate chiefs, top scholars and senior civil servants. Mostly in their early fifties now, they are expected to play key roles within the next ten to fifteen years after the departure of MM Lee and the replenishment of “second generation” leaders such as Goh Chok Tong, S. Jayakumar and Wong Kan Seng. COMPARING PM LEE WITH HIS PREDECESSORS The contrast between Lee Hsien Loong and his father, Lee Kuan Yew, cannot be clearer. While admittedly, the younger Lee also exudes a no-nonsense image like his father8 and is equally confident and decisive in his execution of policies, he does not tread in his father’s footsteps, especially in the style of governance. As is well known, Lee Kuan Yew’s style was authoritarian, top-down, paternalistic and interventionist. The older Lee himself does not hide his preferred governing style and political world views, having famously remarked that: “Everybody knows that in my bag I have a hatchet, and a very sharp one. You take me on, I take my hatchet, we meet in the cul-de-sac.”9 Lee’s other non-conformist views on issues such as democracy, the place of the parliamentary opposition, and the function of the mass media and trade unions as socialization agents of the state are all well documented. Goh Chok Tong — who succeeded Lee when the latter stepped down on 28 November 1990, having led the PAP to victory in seven successive elections, thereby claiming the record for being the world’s longest serving PM — wanted to be perceived differently. In his first National Day Rally Speech in 1991, he declared his government to be a “consultative government”. To honour this promise for an inclusive government, in the same year, he launched the national blueprint, Singapore: The Next Lap, where Singaporeans could hope to live lives of dignity and fulfilment and care for one another and where alternative views are heard and constructive dissent was accommodated.10 What ensued were numerous dialogue and feedback sessions involving hundreds of groups and individuals, the brainstorming of new policy agendas (such as Singapore 21 and Remaking Singapore) that also roped in many talented minds, as well as the launch of new institutions that were meant to relay input of public

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views and concerns to the government, such as the Feedback Unit in 1985 and the Institute of Policy Studies in 1987. For PM Lee Hsien Loong, taking over the premiership in 2004 at a time when Singapore was no longer fighting for survival as a new nation but was, on the contrary, on the road to joining the league of developed nations, meant that he had to continue with Goh Chok Tong’s style of participatory politics. In his maiden speech during the National Day Rally on 12 August 2004, Lee surprised Singaporeans by overturning a few old taboos and long-held policies that were maintained stubbornly by both Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong’s governments, introducing new initiatives such as the “Five-day work week” and longer paid maternity leave and other financial incentives for mothers. To demonstrate further his political openness, four months later, he extended his hands to all Singaporeans, challenging them to become active citizens: “I invite you to contribute your ideas, put up alternatives, debate national issues, take part. Don’t be a NATO — No Action, Talk Only. Do something, participate in building our nation, strive in what you believe in.”11 In his second National Day Rally Speech on 22 August 2005, he mapped out his vision to remake Singapore into a more prosperous, exciting and modern Republic, emphasizing six major areas, namely, (1) a city of the future; (2) more R&D to drive the economy further; (3) a service culture to entice tourists and others to Singapore; (4) an education hub where institutes and polytechnics would be upgraded to be world class; (5) greater help for lowincome families through relaxation of housing and Central Provident Fund (CPF) rules; and (6) more affordable health care where medical insurance and hospital services will be upgraded and made more equitable.12 Consequently, more financial incentives and help were rolled out to benefit the elderly and lower-income citizens. This was done through the “Progress Package” (a surplussharing initiative) and the “Workfare scheme” (greater take-home pay and more CPF contributions for workers older than fifty-five years). Lee Hsien Loong’s government also launched a slew of other policy initiatives. He revealed how he had pushed ahead with the idea of having casinos in Singapore in spite of disagreement expressed by some members of the Cabinet. The plans raised considerable opposition among the general public: more than 10,000 petitioned against it. Soon afterwards, a new Arts School was cleared by the Cabinet to demonstrate its belief in the many pathways (“peaks of excellence”) to success in different fields beyond the traditionally preferred options of science, engineering and related disciplines. Then came the successful bid to host not only the first ever Formula One night race in September 2008, but also the first Youth Olympic Games, to be held in August 2010.

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At this juncture, the question to ask is whether all these new and exciting initiatives suggest that PM Lee’s leadership heralds a new dawn for Singapore. As discussed earlier, in terms of governing style, it seems obvious that his style is markedly different from Lee Kuan Yew’s and is closer to Goh Chok Tong’s model of participatory politics. However, regarding the more substantive issue of world views and policies, it is still too early to conclude that the PM will diverge from the path of his two predecessors. However, if one is to hazard a guess, there would be a continuation of the governing ethos of “pragmatism” as PM Lee and his team confront the republic’s many challenges, challenges that arguably spring forth from globalization. After all, it is worth noting that Lee Kuan Yew’s preference for “what works” was continued, by and large, by the Goh Administration. There is no reason to doubt that PM Lee will stick to the same “ideological” strategy that has seen Singapore through difficult times in the past. Pragmatism entails the need for Singapore’s ruling elite to maintain a flexible and adaptive governing psyche. Such a mindset has seen the government take decisions and policies that were meant to protect and propagate the republic’s national interest; as such, policy-making is not bound by any fixed views or dogma. Hence, in both domestic and foreign policies, the government has embarked on decisions and other strategic moves that were relatively free from predetermined and static governing paradigms. The end objective has always been to secure the best possible outcome that will ensure the republic’s survival and progress. Nothing is cast in stone as the leadership mends and changes course wherever and whenever the situation demands it. Perhaps, one might ask if such a creatively adaptable modus operandi in governance will continue to reap its intended rewards at a time when a more globalized world will invariably sharpen the complexities of the republic’s nation-building pursuits and agenda. This chapter attempts to answer this poser in the pages that follow, beginning with a discussion of the major challenges that PM Lee’s leadership team can be expected to face in the years ahead. NATION-BUILDING CHALLENGES — AND ANTICIPATED RESPONSES FROM PM LEE’S TEAM There can be no argument that Singapore embraces globalization. While this has brought many benefits, there is no doubt that this also has its downside and cannot be underestimated. The high standard of living in this republic comes at a cost. In 2008, the costs of daily goods spiralled, and the income

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gap between the top earners and others widened, with the poorest 30 per cent being worse off than they were five years earlier;13 inflation reached a tenyear high. New “divides” — class, ethnic, and digital — have also surfaced, with probable dire consequences if not mitigated soon. Murmurings have been heard as to how the predominant middle class has become a “sandwiched class”; unskilled citizens, in spite of the government’s many subsidized financial incentives could pose a burden to society if they were to become not only unemployed but unemployable; and one is now hearing about the phenomenon of the “urban poor”. The complaints of locals over what they perceive to be the taking over of jobs by the influx of foreigners have become louder, although the government counters these complaints quickly. In his May Day Rally in 2008, PM Lee himself called on citizens to welcome newcomers into their family fold and defended the policy of inviting foreign talent as one that would benefit the country in the long run. The pragmatic approach in dealing with public controversies, pivoted on the argument that policy decisions should not be cast in stone, but should be subject to changing environments and necessities, could also mean that certain long-held values have to be compromised. A case in point was the casino (and Integrated Resort) proposal. It was eventually pushed through by PM Lee on the singular argument that it would bring economic benefits to Singapore, reversing the long-held policy on the matter. As is known, despite considerable unhappiness on the ground to the proposal, Singapore will, in fact, have two casinos. Therefore, PM Lee’s team will also have to weigh the non-economic social costs in making pragmatic decisions about the economy. It is already public knowledge, and confirmed by international surveys, that Singaporeans lead stressful lives; stress levels are reported to be the second highest in Asia.14 Other surveys like the “happiness index” point to a similar conclusion; the long hours of work needed to sustain the economy could perhaps explain the republic’s low fertility rates.15 While opening the republic’s doors to foreign talent is desirable, any plans to constantly increase the total population is a different matter. Of course, accentuating the problem is a rapidly ageing population that requires greater government subsidies for health, transport and housing needs. In the absence of these, the government might have to face a political cost.16 Democratization and Civil Society It is in the nature of maturing societies that the more global they become, the more politically active their citizens tend to be in wanting to see societal

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change. In Singapore, such a demand appears in the form of the people’s yearning for participatory politics — put in a different way, in their desire for greater democracy. Singapore is a functioning democracy, but it is different from Western-style liberal democracy. When some demonstrators gathered outside the U.S. embassy to protest against the Iraq war, the local police rounded them up and asked the then-U.S. ambassador, Frank Lavin, if he wanted to press charges against them. Recounting this incident in his farewell speech in Singapore, Lavin told his audience that he was “embarrassed” by the police’s offer.17 When the prominent capitalist and entrepreneur George Soros was asked about Singapore’s democracy, he remarked that “Singapore clearly does not qualify as an open society.”18 Amnesty International, too, criticizes Singapore’s human rights record regularly. Opposition parties have had the most difficulty in getting their views implemented. In the relatively recent episodes of the casino controversy in 2006 and the escape of Jemaah Islamiyah leader and terrorist suspect Mas Selamat from Singapore’s Whitley Road Detention Centre in February 2008, the opposition lamented that, despite public anger, the notion of “ministerial accountability” was not practised since affected Ministers were not held directly culpable for the escape. The result of the republic’s form of democracy is a non-participant political culture where citizens generally leave the business of politics to the government. Given this reality, it is somewhat far fetched to say that a liberal civil society is alive and well in the city-state. Public protests and demonstrations are discouraged. Although the earlier ban on party political films has been eased and prohibitive rules limiting the effectiveness of the Speakers’ Corner have been relaxed, it seems that the more active civic groups are those that are supported by the establishment. While a few voices have publicly called for “alternative politics” (aided by alternative media such as podcasts, blogs and internet communications in place of mainstream establishment newspapers), the majority of the polity prefers to remain quiet and uninvolved.19 Thus, even PM Lee’s calls for citizens to join hands with the government in the making of policies for the republic — “Don’t be a NATO” — have not been responded to enthusiastically. A performance in January 2008 by a group of young and educated Singaporean singers who called themselves “The Complaints Choir Project” was a clear example of such alienation vis-à-vis the state. The lyrics say it all: “What’s wrong with Singapore? Losing always makes me feel so sore, cause if you’re not the best, then you’re just one of the rest … My, oh my Singapore, what are we voting for? What’s not expressly

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permitted, is prohibited.”20 After the 2006 General Election, a columnist for TODAY newspaper, who penned his articles under the pseudonym “mr brown”, was removed from contributing any further pieces by the newspaper’s management after he questioned the timing and agenda behind the policies and goodies offered by the government. Many Singaporeans would also recall the typically robust response from the government that local novelist and government critic Catherine Lim met with when she implied that even after passing the baton to Goh Chok Tong, it was Lee Kuan Yew who wielded the most power in the Cabinet. In contrast, when establishment figures openly criticized official policies, as was the case with Ngiam Tong Dow (a long-time former Permanent Secretary) and Dr Lee Wei Ling, PM Lee’s younger sister, the official rebuttals were factual and professionally crafted. Obviously, demands for greater democracy can only increase, especially from the younger generation, and it will be interesting to see if PM Lee and his “third generation” team, particularly post-Lee Kuan Yew, are prepared to liberalize the political arena further in the years ahead, or indeed have an option not to do so. Leadership Renewal In more ways than one, political renewal has always preoccupied the PAP ruling elite. Lee Kuan Yew did not hide his belief that it is the political leadership, more than any other forms of leadership, that is most critical in determining the progress, if not destiny, of Singapore. Hence, Lee Kuan Yew and his successors have all pushed through the highly controversial policy of paying high ministerial salaries that approximate those received by CEOs and other professionals in the private sector, such as top accountants and lawyers. In Singapore, political “renewal” can be discussed at two levels; the first is the re-generation of political talent within the PAP to replenish its MPs in Parliament in every general election,21 and the second relates to the issue of political succession, specifically, who should succeed the PM when the time comes for him to step aside. For the renewal process, the PAP’s motto seems to be “thou shall not over-stay”; this is predicated on the belief that a good government cannot survive without a steady and regular replenishment of its political talent. Hence, the PAP goes about its recruitment process through a series of stages, beginning with a close scrutiny of a potential candidate’s academic and professional profile. The shortlisted ones will be invited to a tea session with a Minister, whereupon the possibility of them joining the ranks of the PAP would be discussed. What ensues are a few more meetings with

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perhaps another Minister and then the PAP’s Central Executive Committee, whose Secretary-General, the PM, will take the final decision on the slate of new candidates to be fielded in the general election. Other than one’s academic and professional backgrounds, it appears that the PAP selectors also consider factors such as ethnicity and gender to ensure a balanced representation of candidates. The idea is to produce a slate that will reflect both Singapore’s multiracial society and the recognition that half of the population consists of women. For some years, the PAP elite has been subjected to pressures to appoint women to high political office because Singapore has not had a woman Cabinet Minister for a long time. In the 2006 General Election, about half of the candidates were women and in the Cabinet reshuffle in 2008, two women, Grace Fu and Lim Hwee Hua, were promoted to the post of Senior Minister of State, with the latter becoming a full Cabinet Minister. The other challenge for the PM and his leadership team is to ensure that minority Malays and Indians are sufficiently represented, especially the former since the PAP has always maintained that it has been difficult to recruit topcalibre Malay candidates to stand for Parliament. Interestingly, unlike past practices, in the 2006 General Election, the ruling party seemed to have focused more on the academic merit of the younger Malay candidates. While this pragmatic approach is understandable given the growing electoral power of young and educated Singaporeans, the Group Representation Constituency (GRC) system virtually guarantees that these young Malay MPs will be the voice of the community in Parliament. This being the case, the PAP needs to counter perceptions on the ground that the new Malay MPs appear to be overly “secular” and possess inadequate grassroots experience. Predictably, it will remain a difficult task to talent-scout younger people and encourage them to enter politics. Since the success of political renewal is, to some degree, co-related with the general interest in politics shown by the citizenry, there is an ever increasing need to curb the political apathy of Singaporeans, an apathy that will not help Singapore’s drive to become a modern, democratic and prosperous city-state. The idea is to enthuse Singaporeans with the commitment, passion and talent to serve in political office — be it in any political party, whether the government or the opposition — to join politics and involve themselves in discussing the future of this country. On the issue of political succession, it appears that there is the urgency to groom a corps of younger leaders who are now in their thirties and early forties to succeed the PM, failing which future PMs will be those who will

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be at least sixty years old when appointed to the post. After all, not only is PM Lee already the oldest to become PM compared with his two predecessors, he himself has indicated that it takes about three general elections to hone a leader.22 Lee Kuan Yew spoke about this subject on many occasions. Once, he said, “My job really was to find my successors. I found them; their job is to find successors. There must be this continuous renewal of talented … If they can do that, they will carry on for another one generation and so it goes on. The moment that breaks, it’s gone.”23 Finally, PM Lee and his team will also have to address the question of whether Singapore is ready for a non-Chinese, non-male PM. Singaporeans still remember MM Lee’s remark in an earlier decade that the country was not ready for an Indian PM (and, by inference, a PM from the other ethnic minorities, too). National Integration and National Identity Singapore is not only a heterogeneous state consisting of a multiracial and multireligious population, but also a new state, having been independent only since 1965. Its demographic diversity and recent statehood make it even more challenging to forge a common sense of values, aspirations and unity amongst its people. This is why the Republic is a “state” but not yet a “nation”.24 The latter encompasses a strong and abiding sense of bonding and esprit de corps amongst the people and loyalty to the country. Realizing both the difficulty and the desirability of inculcating these world views and values, the Singapore Government, right from the beginning of PAP rule in 1959, but more so since independence in 1965, has initiated numerous policy measures. Ideologically, the government has adopted meritocracy as a cornerstone of the nation-building agenda, whereupon citizens’ vertical mobility will be decided on merit and qualifications, rather than on the basis of other considerations.25 Together with the equally abiding policy of multiracialism,26 these two principles have become the standard norms by which the republic has been governed. Later, the government, after a series of consultations with the people, formulated “Shared Values”, which emphasized values such as the importance of the family as an institution, consensus as the way to resolve differences, and the forging of harmonious inter-community relations. In this context, it is important for the government to address Malay concerns regarding meritocracy in the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF)27 and over official policies and programmes implemented in areas such as housing, education and defence.28 Nation-building in Singapore has to grapple not only with the recentness of statehood and the heterogeneity of the population but also with globalization.

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Take the issue of gauging the loyalty and patriotism of Singaporeans. With the government encouraging the people to “make the world your oyster”, talented and well educated Singaporeans, given their mobility, have gone everywhere in search of better opportunities. It has been estimated that in any given year, about 150,000–200,000 Singaporeans are domiciled overseas — mostly as students or employees.29 This raises the question of how this group of citizens can be expected to defend Singapore when they are physically stationed overseas. Many appear to want to return home merely to meet up with family and old friends or because they miss their favourite local food. After a short sojourn in Singapore, they go off to their more permanent “home” overseas, thereby acting as if Singapore is like a hotel. Realizing this phenomenon, the government established the Singapore International Foundation, created a special unit in the Prime Minister’s Office to oversee the welfare and activities of overseas citizens, and has been relentlessly calling on such citizens to connect with and locate their hearts in Singapore. The revelation by MM Lee in 2007 that about 1,000 well educated Singaporeans migrate annually shows the depth of the problem. After all, this is the group of highly skilled and talented professionals in whom the government has invested so much financially in the hope that they will not be lured away by better economic and other incentives overseas, and that, even if they do, they will finally return to help contribute to Singapore’s future progress. One major official response to this brain drain is the loosening of immigration policy to allow talented professionals and their families to work in Singapore and to eventually, it is hoped, become citizens. The argument has been made that their arrival will increase the economic pie and create more jobs for locals. In 2007, the government even toyed with the idea of upping Singapore’s population to about six million to replace and replenish the numbers that are said to be needed to sustain a flourishing economy. This is a persuasive argument. Indeed, another positive argument in an immigrant society is that the influx of foreigners creates cultural arbitrage, networks and a survivalist psyche that would be assets to Singapore. However, many locals do not buy such arguments, as can be seen from the many articles and letters from members of the public to local newspapers. Many have expressed concerns at what they perceive to be the negative behaviour that many of these arrivals exhibit and how they shrink economic opportunities for locals. In the light of Goh Chok Tong’s remarks on the heartland-cosmopolitan divide and other potential divides (ethnic, age and digital), PM Lee and his “third generation” team will have much to do to mend these tensions. If not

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managed well, these issues can impede the republic’s quests for national integration and national identity. CONCLUSION PM Lee’s leadership team emerges at a time of tremendous global change. The immediate priority is to cope with the severe economic and financial crisis. The overall vision and goal, however, remain: to become a prosperous, united and vibrant cosmopolis, a magnet to all, locals and foreigners alike. Under Lee Kuan Yew, the average per capita GDP was about S$12,200 (in 1990), and under Goh Chok Tong’s leadership, the figure rose to S$23,700 (in 2003). This GDP figure grew to S$25,000 under Lee Hsien Loong. If the success of a country is measured by its economic growth and unemployment figures, Singapore may be seen as extremely successful given the results for both categories, namely, 7.5 per cent and 1.7 per cent. Clearly, the non-ideological, “pragmatic” approach to governance has played no small part in Singapore’s success story. Thus, pragmatism can be expected to be the continuing principle by which the republic, under PM Lee and his “third generation” leadership, moves forward, more so with the further consolidation of the globalization phenomenon worldwide. However, and this may seem ironic, a pragmatic approach in managing issues — both domestically and internationally — does require great care since employing such an approach in dealing with the attendant issues of globalization will result in new challenges, if not problems, for Singapore’s leadership under PM Lee. One is tempted to ask: would pragmatism, given its flexible and realist characteristics, compromise long-held, ideologically positioned values that have become the cornerstones of the republic’s nation-building agenda, such as meritocracy and multiracialism? PM Lee’s leadership team has to take into account some realities that are already looming on the horizon. To mention some notable examples, the years of high economic growth are not sustainable; demography is changing towards an ageing population; social cohesion amongst a plural citizenry would face challenges given class and ethnic divides; and the grindingly slow speed of the political liberalization process is not in sync with the rapid internationalization of Singapore society. To realize the dream of “Singapore United, Singapore Unlimited” (or its official version, “World.Singapore”30) whereupon Singapore, in the prediction of MM Lee, will “move into the upper half of the First World” in the next ten to twenty years,31 the “third

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generation” leadership must explore new frontiers of governance. Finally, while focusing on what the PM and his team can and would do is useful, perhaps, the question can be asked as to how the intensification of globalization and the expectations of a new generation of Singaporeans will shape PM Lee and his administration’s policies and politics. NOTES 1. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, National Day Rally 2004 Speech, University Cultural Centre, National University of Singapore, 22 August 2004, (accessed 1 February 2008). 2. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, National Day Rally 2007 Speech, University Cultural Centre, National University of Singapore, 19 August 2007, (accessed 1 February 2008). 3. Ibid. 4. This vision was first declared to be the government’s future goal by Minister Teo Chee Hean when addressing members of the International Advisory Council (IAC) in 2007 at the Raffles Hotel. 5. Robert O. Tilman, “The Political Leadership: Lee Kuan Yew and the PAP Team”, Management of Success: The Moulding of Modern Singapore, edited by Kernial Singh Sandhu and Paul Wheatley (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1989), p. 66. 6. See Eugene K.B. Tan’s “The Evolving Social Compact and the Transformation of Singapore: Going Beyond Quid Pro Quo in Governance” in this volume for a discussion on state-society relations in Singapore. 7. He secured First Class Honours in Mathematics. 8. Given his widely perceived image of a tough guy, many Singaporeans had entertained the rumour that he slapped S. Dhanabalan (then Foreign Minister) in a Cabinet meeting, a rumour that was not helped by his own silence on the matter, although the then PM Goh denied the incident. 9. Han Fook Kwang, Warren Fernandez, and Sumiko Tan, Lee Kuan Yew: The Man and His Ideas (Singapore: Times Edition, 1998), p. 146. 10. Hussin Mutalib, “Constructing a Constructive Opposition”, in The Goh Years, edited by Bridget Welsh, Tan Tarn How et al. (Singapore: NUS Press/IPS, 2009). 11. “Make Singapore a ‘great nation’ ”, Straits Times, 6 December 2004. 12. These issues and concerns of his were also publicly reiterated when the PAP issued its General Election manifesto in 2006; see Staying Together, Moving Ahead (Singapore: People’s Action Party, 2006), p. 1.

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13. “Singapore Swing: The Island’s Economy is Booming, so Why are so many Citizens Worse Off than they were 10 years ago?” Newsweek International, 29 January 2007. 14. According to a Hudson Survey published in May 2007, 52 per cent of Singaporean workers described themselves as being stressed. 15. See The Happy Planet Index, (accessed 1 June 2008). 16. See Yap Mui Teng’s “The Ageing Population” in this volume for a discussion on Singapore’s ageing policies. 17. “US Envoy Slaps Singapore over Freedom of Speech”, MSNBC, 12 October 2005. 18. “A Liberal Speaks His Mind”, TODAY, 12 January 2006. 19. A prominent social critic and writer, Alfian Saat, highlighted this view in the Singapore Forum on Politics held at National University of Singapore in 2008, while another equally well-known literary figure, Catherine Lim, commented that the government’s preoccupation with economics will never make Singapore an excellent society that it declares its intention to be. 20. Pamphlet, “The Complaints Choir Project”, Asian Premiere, Singapore, 13–23 January 2008. 21. At every general election, the PAP would usually field between twenty-two and twenty-five new candidates. 22. “PM Still Looking for his Successor”, Straits Times, 2 April 2008. 23. Interview with China Central TV, 12 June 2005. 24. See Terence Chong’s “Fluid Nation: The Perpetual ‘Renovation’ of Nation and National Identities in Singapore” in this volume for a discussion on state discourses on nation and nationhood. 25. See Kenneth Paul Tan’s “The Transformation of Meritocracy” in this volume for a discussion on the ideology and practice of meritocracy. 26. See Daniel P.S. Goh’s “Multiculturalism and the Problem of Solidarity” in this volume for a discussion on the ideology and practice of multiculturalism. 27. It was the present PM Lee, who in 1984, created tremendous unhappiness amongst Malays when he remarked that the time had not yet come for Malays to be deployed in all areas within the SAF. He cited the argument that Singapore is situated within the Malay World, and if war were to break out with a neighbouring Malay/Muslim country, local Singaporean Malays would, in his view, be placed in a difficult position to decide where their loyalty lies. 28. For details of government policies and politics on this issue of national identity, see for instance, Hussin Mutalib, “National Identity in Singapore: Old Impediments and New Imperatives”, Asian Journal of Political Science 3, no. 2 (July 1995): 28–45. 29. “Lost and Found”, Straits Times, 2 March 2008.

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30. This was publicly declared by Minister Teo Chee Hean to be the future vision that Singapore will be heading towards, when addressing the IAC meeting on 19 April 2007. This was a re-cast of the original “TKCL” (Trust, Knowledge, Connected, Life) growth formula which was thought to be less catchy than “World.Singapore”. 31. Lee Kuan Yew, Speech at Tanjong Pagar Chinese New Year Dinner, 23 February 2007, (accessed 10 May 2008).

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5

POLITICAL CONSOLIDATION IN SINGAPORE Connecting the Party, the Government and the Expanding State HO KHAI LEONG

THE CONSOLIDATION OF POWER

T

he continuous dominance of the People’s Action Party (PAP) in Singaporean politics is a topic that opens up a plethora of discussion and debate. While many observers have marvelled at Singapore’s transformation from Third World to First World status in just one generation under the PAP stewardship, they have noted that its economic success was at the cost of limiting political democratization, curtailing freedom of speech and promoting collectivist ideals and consensual politics. There are a few signs that the PAP’s consolidation of political power will dissipate in the near future when the forces of globalization and democratization knock at its door. In the 1989 volume of Management of Success, Chan Heng Chee’s chapter on the local political system concluded that “the administrative [PAP] state of the 1970s has undergone some modification. The de-politicization of the recent past has been replaced by a re-politicization of the citizenry. Successful mass education, as well as the open economy, can directly contribute to increased political cognition and a sense of personal efficacy. This seems to be the case in Singapore. How will the Singapore political system further develop?”1

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This chapter seeks to answer Chan’s question by uncovering some of the nuances of governance in Singapore, primarily by sorting out the overlapping and mutually reinforcing roles of party, government and state, so as to draw some logical conclusions for PAP’s political consolidation in the city-state. Distinctions are made between these political structures to examine the strategies culminating in the PAP’s successful legitimization and entrenchment of its authority. A number of questions are raised: how has the PAP, voted into power in 1959, managed to convince the citizenry of its relevance through the years? How have state authorities perpetuated a seemingly paradoxical situation where political control seems to be both tighter and freer at the same time? In short, what strategies has the PAP deployed to consolidate its rule? The general argument of this chapter is that the PAP has expanded governmental institutions by institutionalizing them as state apparatus to consolidate the interest of the political party in power. In addition to conventional state institutions such as the legislature or judiciary, newer institutions, established later by legislative means, including the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC), the Elected President Scheme, the Nominated Member of Parliament Scheme (NMP) and town councils and the Group Representation Constituencies (GRCs), People’s Association (PA) and Community Development Councils (CDCs), have all played a key role in the country’s developmental process. The PAP government has been able to deliver economic progress effectively through the expansion of state institutions thereby enhancing its legitimacy to rule. However, in doing so, it has also restricted political dissent and laid down formidable obstacles to prevent any serious challenge to its power. With a strong electoral advantage, firm control of mass media and the strategic recruitment of elites, the PAP enjoys a position that seems unassailable. This chapter concludes that Singapore’s notion of governance will establish itself as a unique model in the Asian context. THE BASICS: THE SINGAPORE CONSTITUTION Politics in Singapore is characterized by a reverence for political authority and bureaucratic power. Studies show, for example, that Singaporeans display a high degree of political tolerance and support for power.2 One is tempted to think that such political culture has its roots in the Singapore Constitution. However, while the Singapore Constitution defines the limits of governmental power, it also places limitations on the exercise of human rights and individual liberty.3And though the protection against slavery is absolute (Article 10[1]), the guarantees

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for other fundamental liberties such as freedom of expression, association and assembly are not. There are qualifiers for such freedoms which are, of course, not unique to Singapore. Scholars have argued that “(t)he extent to which human rights are realized in Singapore depends on the degree to which these rights are constitutionally qualified, judicially interpreted and the ease with which they may be amended”,4 upon which the PAP government has also added historical and cultural reasons that warrant such limitations. The Singapore Constitution borrows heavily from the English Westminster system, with provisions of institutional responsibilities, procedural rationale and guarantees of individual liberties. In sum, it provides for the structure and function of the various organs of the state, such as the executive, the legislature and the judiciary; fundamental liberties, such as the rights and freedoms of citizens; and the acquisition and deprivation of citizenship. Indeed, it offers the basic framework on which all laws of the land are built. The PAP elite has, however, always preferred to follow the spirit and not the letter of the Constitution as it believed that the latter route would not work well for a nascent nation. Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s first Prime Minister, said in a recent interview that if the PAP had followed everything in the Constitution that the British provided, there would have been disorder in the city-state.5 As such, to shape the Constitution to suit what it perceives are Singapore’s needs, the PAP-majority legislature has changed the Constitution with at least twenty-three amendments since independence. The interpreters of the Constitution, the judges, according to one analyst, have more “overt concern with parliamentary intent as expressed through the speeches of politicians and parliamentarians” than with the spirit of the Constitution.6 Furthermore, while many constitutional amendments are technical and pertain to certain institutional arrangements in the government,7 some amendments have the consequence of strengthening the hand of the state in governance. An important example is the Elected President scheme in 1991. The creation of the popularly elected presidency marked a major constitutional and political change in Singapore’s history. After the Constitutional amendment, the elected President is empowered to veto the government’s budget and appointments to public office, examine the enforcement of the Internal Security Act and religious harmony laws, and to look into investigations of corruption. While the new provision calls for the President to be popularly elected, in practice, however, only one electoral contest has been held, with the PAP-endorsed candidate emerging as the ultimate winner. Some critics have charged that the stringent selection criteria to determine a candidate’s eligibility has effectively

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prevented the large majority of citizens from putting themselves forward as presidential candidates. So far, there has been little reflection on the long-term viability of the scheme, and future changes will very much depend on the initiatives taken by the PAP policy-makers. THE IMPORTANCE OF POLITICAL CULTURE Three elements of Singapore culture have special importance today because of their implications for the institutionalization of a political regime: A Depoliticized and Bureaucratic State The early analysis of the Singapore state as an increasingly depoliticized and bureaucratic state with disproportionate attention given to policy-making and efficiency remains a relevant observation thirty years on.8 Despite uninterrupted elections since 1959, ordinary Singaporeans by and large regard the political process as an aberration in their daily life. Indeed, the bureaucratic state may be one that is less comfortable with the hassle and fury of electoral politics, while some opposition parties may be tempted to exploit the opportunity to rally support to prove once again the relevance of their existence. Meanwhile, citizens who criticize the ruling party are encouraged to join political parties, while public dissent with regard to public policy from opposition parties is largely confined to Parliament.9 At the same time, the bureaucracy administers policies efficiently and effectively. If there were political negotiations, bargaining and compromises at all, they occur within this black box of the bureaucracy.10 Meaningful political life in a daily sense is almost non-existent, with only sporadic incidents and protests staged by the more aggressive Singapore Democratic Party (SDP). PAP Dominance PAP dominance simply refers to the state of governance in Singapore in which the PAP has almost complete domination over national resources and assets. The PAP leaders, many of whom unapologetically identify the PAP with the government, regard themselves as the trustees of the nation and its resources. Singaporeans, on the other hand, view the PAP’s control of resources as an extension of its political authority and have, over the years, placed their trust in the PAP to manage these state resources well. It has been observed that the PAP has strong and deep relations with the most important branches of state (including the military, commerce and industry, media and labour union)

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and has managed to co-opt many talented individuals from the private sector into public service. In cases of state employment and career advancement, some critics have observed that “the many employees in government-linked entities may be induced quietly to acquiesce to the prevailing status quo rather than be disruptive in any way”.11 Something closer to reality is the way the civil service has accommodated and groomed a powerful group of elite civil servants who are supportive of the general philosophy of many government policies. The Singapore middle-class, local businesses and entrepreneurs are better-off from the variety of goods, services and business opportunities offered by a host of government-linked corporations (GLCs), thus increasing the presence of the government in the everyday lives of ordinary Singaporeans. Today, a culture of dependency on the PAP government characterizes many middleclass Singaporeans, and it may be argued that the PAP elites display an observable attitude of patronage. An Underdeveloped Civil Society Obviously, given the level of economic affluence enjoyed by the city-state, one may be surprised to find that its civil society is relatively underdeveloped. While the rate of policy advocacy by interest groups has increased in recent years, the overall picture is hardly one of health or civic dynamism. In early 1990, there was great enthusiasm over civil society’s impending lift-off with the Singapore 21 (S21) initiative and the liberalization of the financial, telecommunication, broadcast and other economic sectors, but eighteen years later, this initiative remains relatively undeveloped. The quality of governmentled discussions on the role of civil society, as defined by the speech of the then Minister for Information and the Arts, George Yeo, in 1991, has of course, improved significantly, from a naive, one-dimensional mode to a more thoughtful and sophisticated one.12 But in praxis, if there are any gains with regard to political liberalization at all, they are at best incremental while the lack of a strong civil society has made the dominating state even stronger.13 The high state expectations placed on the ordinary citizen — that “he has to be rational, politically informed, well meaning, constructive, and consensusseeking. He has to be, in short, a super-citizen” — remain.14 THE PAP CONNECTS: PARTY AND GOVERNMENT Through unchallenged and continuous rule, the PAP has become closely identified with the government, so much so that the leaders have even declared that the

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PAP and government are one. Lee Kuan Yew is on record as having said, “I make no apologies that the PAP is the government, and the government is the PAP.”15 One, however, has to be reminded that in the 1950s and early 1960s, British-ruled Singapore had a vibrant and more pluralistic political environment where political parties of different political persuasions contested for votes with great vigour. The Workers Party and the PAP were among the dozens of political parties vying for power on the eve of and after independence. David Marshall, a flamboyant and formidable political figure during that time, was the founder of the Labour Party government and became Singapore’s first Chief Minister. The PAP under the leadership of Lee Kuan Yew won the elections in 1957 and Lee became the first Prime Minister. Later the breakaway faction of the PAP formed the Barisan Sosialis, whose subsequent demise paved the way for a PAP-majority Parliament for the following decades. The point is that the PAP did not come to power by political default or expediency, but through a bitter struggle with communalists and contestation with left-wing political parties at that time. If anything, it survived a brutal political test, and has come to savour the sweet taste of victory. Indeed, the PAP’s parliamentary dominance has made it possible to amend the Constitution and enact legislation at will. While it is a relatively small party in terms of party membership, it has been effective in pushing through its social and political agenda through governmental organizations such as the People’s Association (PA) which is supposed to be non-partisan and non-political. In reality, many PA grassroots volunteers are also PAP members or its supporters. By all accounts the PAP is an extremely centralized political party with modest resources. It has a cadre structure reminiscent of a Leninist party and with resources concentrated in the hands of a select group within the Central Executive Committee (CEC).16 The senior members are given more important positions in the governmental bureaucracy, although exceptions are made in the cases of new recruits who are deemed highly talented and bureaucratically competent.17 As such, the importance of rationality and meritocracy as criteria for the selection of party elite is strongly reflected in the overall ethos of governance. CENTRALITY OF THE STATE The PAP as government has formulated and implemented policies, and at the same time, created institutions to advance its vision and ideologies for nationbuilding, and utilize them as invaluable instruments of rule. The PAP government is characterized and supported by a large number of state institutions, whose

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functions and structures are found in numerous statutory boards, governmentlinked companies, community councils and institutions of public character (IPC). By state institutions we mean simply the claim that these institutions represent some aspect of the exercise of governmental power. While the coercive power of the Internal Security Act (ISA), censorship laws and the Societies Act are obvious and have achieved the intended effect, policies which are deemed “soft” such as the Central Provident Fund (CPF), public assistance schemes, public housing and education policies inevitably enable the government to maintain strong structural links with the governed. Other examples include the National Trade Union Congress (NTUC), often seen as a tripartite between the government, trade union and the workers, which serves as a means to convey government ideology and interests to the workforce. Given its small size, the PAP government has unsurprisingly opted to create supporting state institutions to exercise policy decisions and to leverage on for political legitimacy. In terms of functions and structure, these supporting institutions allow the PAP government to convey the political agenda as the national agenda to the public. By extension, the state may also be argued to be free from non-governmental and societal constraints but with closer ties and linkages to the ruling class which then governs in the interest of citizens. State institutions develop their own rules and function with their own dynamics. It is well known that institutions have the tendency to reproduce themselves while sharing a close relationship with each other since the effectiveness for their performance is dependent on that of the other institutions. There are many examples of such state institutions succeeding because of their strong ties with other institutions as well as the non-confrontational manner in which differences and challenges are tackled. A case in point is the National Wages Council (NWC) whose deliberations on wage and wagerelated guidelines for each year are largely accepted by the government. The “deliberation council” as a consultative arrangement linking government, business and civil society has proven to be an important stabilizing force in the policy environment, and promoting business development.18 This political framework, together with the emphasis on a dynamic political renewal process, ensures the continuity of the current PAP political establishment. The PAP-dominated party system will continue in Singapore, not because of a lack of demand for democratization from below, but because the state institutions built by the PAP have been effective in providing what seem to be essential goods and services for the populace.

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STATE AND DEPOLITICIZATION Another key feature in the centrality of the state is the de-politicization of state institutions. This is achieved, firstly, by the appointment of capable individuals in a variety of organizations. The overlapping of personalities in these organizations has long been recognized, and it reveals a network of intrinsically connected interests between the party, government and the state.19 The labour union offers another example of how state institutions are depoliticized. Through consensus-building and co-option of key personnel, the PAP government ensures that the NTUC is insulated from popular political pressures. Internal negotiations are used to resolve conflict and the conflict resolution process is often publicly staged as a peaceful one for public consumption. Subsequently, the NTUC virtually guarantees the government its public support for all its policies, and this is deemed necessary to ensure harmony and an absence of industrial conflict. However, the NTUC, insulated from popular and labour pressures, may also be ideologically insulated from ideas which go against government thinking, such as minimum wage and the protection of worker rights. The ability of the tripartite alliance to manage industrial and labour disputes has led to the creation of a labour union that is made keenly aware of the state’s interests. This co-option of the labour union is one of the key ways in which the government achieves the objective of industrial peace and state control. The state-business relationship in the city-state is even closer, especially in the last decade when the government-linked Temasek Holdings and its subsidiaries — the government-linked corporations (GLCs) — have expanded. As part of its post-independence industrialization plan, the PAP government assumed a proactive entrepreneurial role by establishing GLCs in key sectors such as transportation, finance, manufacturing, shipbuilding, and services. In taking a more global approach, Temasek has ventured abroad and now has a much higher international profile than before. The GLCs contributed substantially to the national GDP, up to 60 per cent.20 The government plays the dual role of owner and regulator. It has been observed that it is “difficult to advocate a complete withdrawal of political and bureaucratic control of the GLCs” and that reforms are necessary to improve its image of corporate governance.21 The government control of the mass media — what the Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser called “the ideological apparatus of the state” — is also apparent. Despite demands from some of its citizenry for more critical reporting and appeals from international organizations for more journalistic freedom, the Singapore mass media continues to be under the heavy restrictions of the

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government.22 The government certainly does not accept the perception that the national media is tightly controlled and often argues that Singaporeans continue to enjoy full access to media information. Indeed, it has been very careful in deregulating the mainstream mass media because its sincere concern for openness and journalistic ethos is counterbalanced by its desire to have a strong hand in shaping media discourses. Critical comments about the contradictions of an open economy and tight control of the media have been around long before the advent of the so-called “knowledge economy”.23 And although political forums on the internet have been flourishing in the last decade, this new form of communication is still confined to cyberspace, and can hardly be considered a meaningful alternative to a free and unfettered press. One unique feature of these state institutions is the low degree to which they respond to political demands and claims from below and outside them. While weak and sporadic political non-government voices try to exert their influence, they find it challenging because of interest divergences. Conversely, such state institutions, in general, have a lot of autonomy from social pressures, and do not need to manage mobilization or reach out to citizens — a task that is left largely to the political leaders who see it as their responsibility to convince and cajole citizens on policy issues. State institutions, therefore, need not develop mobilization capacities, and are thus relatively free from populist pressures, making it very difficult for social or particular interest groups to challenge them to change their policies and fundamental character. Such an arrangement provides the systemic stability that the leaders believe they need to operate efficiently. Another aspect of Singapore state institutions is the need to increase the transparency of performance criteria used to gauge their performance.24 Indeed, the criteria for good performance seem to be gleaned from international organizations which are selectively highlighted by the state, leading to an obsessive focus on ranking by foreigners rather than by citizens.25 While less responsive to domestic pressure, the centralized character of state institutions provides few opportunities for re-formulation and external checks. For the time being, the high level of trust between citizens and government means that demands for accountability and transparency are generally muted, save for opposition parties and some vocal citizens. However, the top managers of state institutions are aware of the need for accountability and transparency in this globally connected network of capitalist venture. Temasek, for example, while shielded from domestic query, did find a need to send its top officials to appear before the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee to testify on its operations in early March 2008.26

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Investments by the sovereign wealth funds (SWF), which Temasek is perceived to be, in major U.S. firms raised questions of transparency as concerns arose about the potential for political manipulation of the influence provided by such strategic holdings. The line between national security and investment flows is not always clear. While it is true that Singapore’s share of the world’s SWF is relatively small compared with the Chinese and many Middle Eastern governments, its mode of operations has not deflected criticisms from Western governments and international watchdog organizations. Despite the general de-politicization of these state institutions and international attention and criticisms that they attracted, their successes in contributing to what the PAP government defines as “good governance” should not be overlooked. The result of this is the phenomenal economic growth since independence for a country with few natural resources — a reality acknowledged by both Singaporeans and foreigners, by both admirers and critics. This feat, to a considerable extent, demonstrates the effectiveness of these politically controlled state institutions. CONCLUSION After more than four decades of independence, the Singapore political system has been transformed into a centralized structure characterized by the overlapping of party/government/state institutions. They are interrelated in astonishingly vast areas, with one helping the others to grow, resulting in the shoring and entrenchment of power. The PAP (the party), which forms the government, has acquired governmental and non-governmental organs (the state) to achieve continuous political dominance. The Singapore state, in essence, is represented by a diverse range of institutions: executive, legislature, courts, paramilitary, regulatory authorities, bureaucracies, statutory boards and community councils. The party’s control of state is the consequence of government powers and processes which enable the establishment, as well as expansion, of state apparatus. The widespread co-option of elites into the government and state, not necessarily recruitment as party members, has resulted in a symbiotic and collaborative relationship between the state apparatus and the government. At the same time, the PAP’s dominance in Parliament has made alternative policy decisions almost impossible. In recent years, however, the spread of political consciousness among the younger and better educated citizenry has put the PAP elite under growing pressure to accommodate demands for participation. In response to growing

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requests for pluralism and openness, the PAP has been making hesitant efforts. While acknowledging that “democracy is a superior form of government”, the PAP government, however, provides no apparent roadmap for the country towards approximating such a framework.27 There are no signs that the present Singapore conservative political model, together with the practice of co-option and the systematic centralization of power, will be abandoned for a liberal democracy.

NOTES 1. Chan Heng Chee, “The Structuring of the Political System”, in Management of Success: The Moulding of Modern Singapore, edited by Kernial Singh Sandhu and Paul Wheatley (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1989), p. 87. 2. Ho Khai Leong, Shared Responsibilities, Unshared Power: The Politics of Policymaking in Singapore (Singapore: Eastern Universities Press, 2004). 3. See Thio Li-ann’s “ ‘More Matter, with Less Art’: Human Rights and Human Development in Singapore” in this volume for a discussion on human rights in Singapore. 4. Kevin Tan, An Introduction to Singapore’s Constitution (Singapore: Talisman, 2005), p. 142. 5. In the interview, Lee Kuan Yew was heard saying, “We will not be here if we implemented in full the original constitution that the British gave us.” Question from reporter, “What will happen?” Answer, “Disorder. Disorder.” . “Singapore and Democracy” (accessed 10 June 2009). 6. Tan, op. cit., p. 15. 7. One such example will suffice. In June 2007, the government proposed the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore (Amendment) Bill and Public Service Commission (Amendment) Bill. In the words of the Minister for Law, Jayakumar, “This Bill makes several amendments to the Constitution. The main amendment is to make changes to the composition of the Legal Service Commission (LSC) as well as to enhance and institutionalize the personnel management system of the Singapore Legal Service. There are three other amendments: (1) to make provision for alternate members on the Council of Presidential Advisers to act in place of members who are temporarily unable to take part in Council proceedings; (2) to shorten the oaths of office for the Prime Minister, Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries; and (3) to provide that Judicial Commissioners who are appointed to hear specific cases need not be subjected to repeated oath taking. Some of these amendments affect the President’s discretionary powers, though not adversely.

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8.

9. 10.

11.

12. 13.

14. 15. 16. 17.

18.

19.

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The President has been consulted on them, and supports them.” (accessed 12 October 2008). Chan Heng Chee, “Politics in an Administration State: Where Has the Politics Gone?” Occasional Paper Series No. 11 (Singapore: Department of Political Science, University of Singapore, 1975). For example, opposition members, like everyone else, need to apply for a public entertainment licence to speak in public. As Peter Ho, Head of Civil Service, narrated in an interview, “If we (the politicians and civil servants) have a disagreement, we do so outside the glare of publicity. This is the deal, if you will. It was true for the first generation, and it’s still true now.” See the Straits Times, 17 May 2008. Alfred Oehlers, “Corruption: The Peculiarities of Singapore”, in Corruption and Good Governance in Asia, edited by Nicholas Tarling (London: Routledge, 2005), p. 159. George Yeo, “Civic Society — Between the Family and the State”, Inaugural NUSS Lecture, World Trade Centre Auditorium, Singapore, 20 June 1991. See Russell Heng Hiang Khng’s “Suffer the Rebellious Children: The Politics of Remaking Singapore and the Remaking of Singapore Politics” in this volume for a discussion on civil society’s emerging response to a strong state. Ho, op. cit., p. 361. Raj K. Vasil, Governing Singapore: Interviews with the New Leaders (Singapore: Times Books International, 1988), p. 53. Ho, op. cit., p. 43. For example, Khaw Boon Wan, the present Minister for Health, was recruited from the civil service to contest in the election in 1991, after which he was appointed as a Minister in the Cabinet. Jose Edgardo L. Campos and Joaquin L. Gonzalez III, “Deliberation Councils, Government-Business-Citizen Partnerships, and Public Policy-Making: Cases from Singapore, Malaysia, and Canada”, Asia Pacific Journal of Management 16, no. 3 (December 1999): 429–47. Ross Worthington, Governance in Singapore (London: Routledge Curzon, 2002). A look at the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) Board of Directors would illustrate the point. MAS Board of Directors (with effect from 20 May 2008) were: Goh Chok Tong (Chairman) (Senior Minister), Lim Hng Kiang (Deputy Chairman) (Minister for Trade and Industry), Koh Yong Guan (Chairman, Central Provident Fund Board), Lim Chee Onn (Executive Chairman, Keppel Corporation Limited), Teo Ming Kian (Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Finance), Tharman Shanmugaratnam (Minister for Finance), Lucien Wong Yuen Kuai (Managing Partner, Allen & Gledhill), Walter Woon Cheong Ming (Attorney-General), and Heng

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20.

21. 22.

23.

24. 25.

26.

27.

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Swee Keat (Managing Director, MAS). (accessed 10 November 2008). This figure is according to the United States Embassy in Singapore. See Ho Khai Leong, “Corporate Governance Reforms and the Management of the GLCs in Singapore: Pressures, Problems, and Paradoxes”, in Reforming Corporate Governance in Southeast Asia, edited by Ho Khai Leong (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2005). Ho, “Corporate Governance Reforms”, p. 296. See Tan Tarn How’s “Singapore’s Print Media Policy: A National Success?” in this volume for a discussion on the relationship between the local press and the PAP government. As Kuo, Holaday, and Peck wrote, “… there is the inherent contradiction between the open, free market economics system under which Singapore thrives and a media system which operates under strict external (government) and internal (selfimposed) constraints. It has become apparent that the existing system is not compatible with the goal of the government to develop Singapore into a global city and a centre of trade, services and telecommunications.” Eddie C.Y. Kuo, Duncan Holaday, and Eugenia Peck, Mirror on the Wall: Media in a Singapore Election (Singapore: Asian Mass Communication Research and Information Centre, 1993), p. 7. Garry Rodan, Transparency and Authoritarian Rule in Southeast Asia: Singapore and Malaysia (London: Routledge Curzon, 2004). The Heritage Foundation ranks Singapore the second freest economy, the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) ranks Singapore as second in world competitiveness, and Business Environment Risk Intelligence (BERI) ranks Singapore’s workforce as number one in the world. It was disclosed that Temasek pays 7 per cent of its earnings each year in a dividend to the government. Temasek Holdings’ executive director Simon Israel said, “The idea that Temasek is an instrument of the Singapore Government could not be further than the truth.” See TODAY, 7 September 2007. Interview with Lee Kuan Yew, “Singapore and Democracy”, (accessed 20 June 2008).

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6

THE EVOLVING SOCIAL COMPACT AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF SINGAPORE Going Beyond Quid Pro Quo in Governance EUGENE K.B. TAN

THE SINGAPORE SOCIAL COMPACT

A

ll societies are governed by social compacts, whether implicit or explicit. In articulating the relationship between the state and the people, a social compact is in essence the substance of state-society relations in which the government is often the proxy for the state. So embedded is the idea of social compacts in governance and contemporary political discourse that the fulfillment of the social compact has become a cornerstone of political accountability and a rich source of political authority and moral legitimacy for governments. Singapore’s social compact has been of critical importance in its transformation from an “improbable nation” to a “first world oasis” despite lacking the “ingredients of a nation”.1 This nurturing of state-society cohesion, of course, requires deliberate policy intervention in various facets of life. Of late, the social compact has gained increased importance and relevance. In making policy initiatives and changes, the People’s Action Party (PAP) government has recently made constant reference to and increasingly emphasized the ideational substance over the tangible benefits of the social compact. While differential understanding and expectations abound as to its scope and purpose, identified 80

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pressures and risks to the social compact include the growing income gap, the lack of a caring society, ethnic divisiveness, religious extremism, demographic and immigration policies, and even ministerial pay. The social compact is intimately connected with the PAP government’s legitimacy, which Khong describes as a “two-way process — claiming the right to rule, on the one side, and acknowledging it, on the other”.2 Legitimacy, premised on the government’s delivering sustained economic growth with equity, begets trust in the government. The 1989 volume of Management of Success comprehensively chronicles Singapore’s economic performance and the effective management of critical socio-political problems between Singapore’s fledgling nationhood and the 1980s. By the late 1990s, one could detect in Singapore: Re-engineering Success the sea-change in the challenges Singapore faced.3 By then, systemic maintenance and the management of success were taken for granted as the hallmarks of the Singapore brand of governance. They were, and are, regarded as the sine qua non for the continuing trust and legitimacy in the PAP leadership. To be sure, success has brought with it new challenges. Even as fundamental threats persist, the policy-making framework and governance system have to be innovatively re-engineered to cope with external challenges as well as society’s changing needs, expectations, and demands. In this regard, Singapore’s social compact has to be continually forged anew to retain its raison d’être and appeal, in tandem with the fast-changing complexion of society locally and internationally. In this chapter, the social compact in Singapore is an understanding between the government and the people on the fundamentals of societal governance as well as the rights and responsibilities of the key stakeholders, viz. the government (as the people’s representative and the agent of the state), the citizenry, civil society, the corporate sector, and the trade unions. Conceptualized and operationalized as both a means of and an end towards the productive and purposeful organization of society, the social compact is a powerful source of the people’s affective and cognitive ties with the state, government, and cocitizens. This thickening of state-society relations, facilitated by the credence of the social compact, sustains the socio-political order even in the midst of ethical and value pluralism. It embodies the social consensus, amid socio-political and economic plurality, of what is needed to build a nation, as well as reinforces the roles, rights, and responsibilities of the stakeholders.4 The social compact would include other rules, norms, and informal codes of conduct that contribute towards the promotion of harmony and the moulding of consensus in many aspects of public life. The Singapore Constitution is also part and parcel of

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the social compact as an expression of the state’s guarantee of the protection of the exercise of fundamental liberties such as equal protection, the freedom of speech and association, and freedom of religion. Singapore’s social compact is heavily utilized as a governance tool by the PAP government, pivoting on the people’s instrumental acquiescence and support cultivated through the unique political developments and dynamics of a oneparty dominant state. Of significance is the evolution of Singapore’s social compact as a powerful mediating institution between the PAP government and the people, in particular, for enforcing the patriarchal and communitarian foundations of Singaporean society. In a paternalistic, consensus-seeking polity, the self-image and ideal of harmony has gained significant traction with the Singaporean political elite vis-à-vis the goals of good governance and the Singaporean way of life. Expressions of such a world view would include the Shared Values5 (a compact on society’s core values), the Declaration of Religious Harmony6 (a code of religious conduct), and the practice and norm of tripartism in industrial relations (a compact of industrial solidarity). RIGHT-SIZING THE SOCIAL COMPACT FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY A key challenge to Singapore’s social compact is growing inequality, a byproduct of globalization which Singapore is inextricably plugged into. While enabling Singapore to move from third- to first-world status within a generation, globalization — for which Singapore routinely tops the Foreign Policy magazine annual globalization survey — has also amplified the inequalities within Singapore. In an era where incomes are stretching out, the need to reformulate the social compact is a political necessity. The PAP government is mindful that Singaporeans subscribe to the principle of shared prosperity: economic growth with equity. Thus, the globalization imperative requires that the social compact be constantly evaluated.7 In his 2001 National Day Rally, then Prime Minister (PM) Goh Chok Tong unveiled the new social compact as “an understanding among all Singaporeans, and between the Government and people [which] will ensure that we stay a cohesive nation even as economic competition intensifies and the income gap widens”. PM Goh outlined the three key principles of the new social compact. First, the government will continue to provide heavy subsidy for housing, education and health care, making them affordable to all. Second, the government will distribute some budget surpluses to the people during good performing years

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through asset-enhancement schemes and rebates. Third, the government will pay specific attention to the needs of the lower-income group. It is worthwhile to quote at length the fundamental premise of the new social compact: This policy of giving more to lower-income Singaporeans is right. The higher-income Singaporeans owe their success in part to the others who support our social compact. They must, therefore, be prepared to lend a helping hand to those among us who are not so well off. Only then can we remain a cohesive and stable society. It cannot be every man for himself. For a person to succeed, he needs a launch-pad from society. In turn, lower-income Singaporeans must support the enterprise and efforts of those who have the ability. We must not resent those who create wealth, for themselves and for Singapore. The Government, on its part, will ensure that every Singaporean has equal and maximum opportunity to advance himself, while providing a social safety net to prevent the minority who cannot cope, from falling through. This way, we can have an enduring social compact where the able can do very well, and we can use some of the wealth generated by them to subsidise and help the less able.

These principles were put into action that year when the government introduced the “New Singapore Shares”.8 PM Goh was mindful of the “negative longterm effects of too comfortable a safety net on the attitude of Singaporeans”, but believed that the new social compact struck “a careful balance” between helping lower-income Singaporeans, and not creating a dependency mentality. He also took pains to stress that the new social compact was dependent on there being budget surpluses. In 2003, then Deputy Prime Minister (DPM) Lee Hsien Loong underscored the close, if inevitable, linkage between the social compact and the economy. He pointed out that governments need “to rethink their social compacts and the protection that the state can offer citizens”. He reiterated the PAP government’s long-standing pledge to protect those marginalized by globalization. To adjust to the realities of globalization, Singapore needed to take the “adjustment pains” by the horns. DPM Lee emphasized that economic restructuring was necessary if Singapore was to maximize the resources it had to deal with the variegated consequences of globalization.9 Accordingly, the economy needed to be restructured at the macro level. At the microlevel, job redesign, skills upgrading, and wage restructuring needed to be pursued relentlessly. These tasks require the tripartite cooperation of employers, employees’ unions, and the government.

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In 2006, as Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong unequivocally endorsed a revitalized social compact as a priority for his newly elected government: “It is essential for us to tilt the balance in favour of lower-income Singaporeans, because globalization is going to strain our social compact.” This is reflected in various government initiatives that have moved from sharing the nation’s wealth equally to sharing the nation’s wealth equitably. This requires that the poor and vulnerable receive relatively more assistance and support from the state. The government rolled out the Progress Package that year, its most comprehensive “surplus sharing initiative” to date.10 By 2007, Lee’s government had put in place the Workfare Income Supplement Scheme (WIS or “Workfare”) as a new pillar of Singapore’s social compact. Targeted primarily at less welloff and less educated Singaporeans, Workfare is the latest endeavour to deal with structural poverty through wage supplements (or income support) to lowincome citizens — while requiring them to remain employed — and incentivizing employers to hire them.11 But this is not a headlong abandonment of Singapore’s apparent anti-welfare stance. Through its reinforcement of the dignity of work, the programme facilitates and rewards gainful employment. Workfare is the clearest shift in the re-conceptualization of the social compact in Singapore. Although Singapore has gained tremendously from globalization, the government recognizes the need to help those who are not able to reap the benefits of globalization. In the last few years various measures have been implemented as a pre-emptive move to emplace needed social safety nets but yet zealously stay away from conveying a welfare state mentality. Other significant changes were also signalled to the other three pillars, all linked to the Central Provident Fund (CPF) scheme, of Singapore’s social safety net. The CPF scheme is continually enhanced to help Singaporeans earn better long-term returns to their retirement savings, and to make public housing affordable.12 Similar improvements are in progress for the 3M schemes (Medisave, MediShield and Medifund) through which Singaporeans pay for health care. In January 2009, means-testing for hospital stay was introduced. These reforms were accompanied by the increase in the Goods and Services Tax (GST) from 5 to 7 per cent in 2007, help fund the reformed social compact. These changes do not remove the inequalities entirely but they help the system retain its inclusiveness, legitimacy and effectiveness in governance. Nonetheless, the government is quick to rebut criticisms that its policies have pandered to and benefited the wealthy minority.13 In 2008, income inequality, measured by the Gini coefficient, declined for the first time since 1998. From a high of 0.479 in 2007, the Gini coefficient — after adjusting for government

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benefits and taxes — was 0.462 in 2008.14 The 2008 Budget had a surplussharing package of S$865 million in Growth Dividends — cash payouts to all adult Singaporeans, with lower- and middle-income earners and the elderly getting more. The 2007 Budget included the GST Offset Package to help Singaporeans cope with the higher costs of living. The approach is clear: in distributing budget surpluses, the needs of the lower-income group especially are given special consideration. The objective of this targeted assistance is to build a resilient society and thereby sustain the social compact at a time of rising income inequality. Nonetheless, globalization is recognized as a double-edged sword that is seen as being beneficial to the well-educated and mobile Singaporeans. They were labelled the “cosmopolitans” for their relative adaptability and receptivity to globalization and their English language proficiency. At the 1999 National Day Rally, then PM Goh first drew attention to the heartlander-cosmopolitan divide in Singapore society when discussing whether Singapore would endure as a nation. The heartlanders were characterized as society’s culture carriers providing the cultural and moral anchor needed for Singapore’s continued survival and prosperity. On the other hand, the cosmopolitans were the economic dynamos whose more fluid loyalties were motivated by transient connections of mobile employment and economic opportunities. This cosmopolitan-heartlander divide was starkly conceived in terms of life opportunities, social mobility, different value systems and intrinsic loyalties. This raises the concern of the imminent development of “two Singapores”.15 As the growing income gap is a reality that will persist into the foreseeable future, what will prevent this state of “two Singapores” is to ensure true social mobility and provide adequate social safety nets that encourage risk taking while not sapping the work ethic so carefully nurtured in the management of Singapore’s success.16 Indeed, social mobility, and its promise of economic opportunity and success, has served as a powerful engine of economic growth and a source of social cohesion. Recently, Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong exhorted wealthy Singaporeans to make Singapore a “giving society”.17 High net-worth individuals are encouraged to contribute at least half a per cent of their annual income to help others and to support worthwhile causes. This recurrent, enthusiastic encouragement of the long-standing “many helping hands” approach, through volunteerism, individual and corporate philanthropy, signals the importance and urgency of maintaining and enhancing social cohesion in the years ahead, especially with Singaporean society becoming more diverse and complex. PM Lee underlined

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the importance of successful Singaporeans accepting the “obligation to take care of those who are not quite so successful”.18 It is hoped that this will in turn generate the inclusive affective chord that every Singaporean has a stake in the system regardless of his station in life. In PM Lee’s words, the average Singaporean can say of the system as one where, “I have a stake in it, and it is fair. It’s given me education, it’s given me opportunities, it’s given me basic social safety nets, but it expects me to work and if I work, I get good rewards.”19 The Community Foundation of Singapore was established in 2008 with the government’s assistance to further the objective of encouraging successful Singaporeans towards “achieving purposeful and sustained community giving over time”.20 SHAPING VALUES AND NORMS Singapore’s social compact is heavily action-oriented: it provides the means and the motivation to shape the behaviour of Singaporeans and their political elites by placing a premium on selected values and norms. While the shaping of behaviour is more relevant to the governed, the state’s behaviour is also being shaped because the social compact has to respond dynamically to societal developments and trends. Through the observance of this compact, behaviour, attitudes, and norms are influenced and moulded. Not surprisingly, the social compact is assiduously nurtured by the PAP government as society’s mobilization tool. As a manifestation of soft paternalism (“we know what’s best for you and we will help you get there”), the social compact emphasizes the communitarian mindset of the need for the individual to sacrifice and contribute to the larger good through conscious acts of self-improvement, and at times, self-denial and delayed gratification. This highlights the government’s critical role in defining and imposing its conception and vision of the social compact as a benevolent instrument to keep Singapore on the path of success. Through careful calibration and instrumental mobilization, the social compact is a dominant shaper of values and norms in various facets of Singapore life. In real terms, it means that in times of economic uncertainty the government can muster the requisite political will, support, and flexibility in tackling the urgent challenges of the day. This was amply demonstrated in the 1985 economic recession and the Asian financial crisis of 1998. In these instances, by restructuring the economy, effecting cuts in employers’ CPF contributions, and exercising wage restraint, the economy emerged stronger, more competitive, and business-

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friendly. This collective act of solidarity clothes the social compact and the governance system that it undergirds with legitimacy. Legitimacy is the lifeblood of good governance; it provides the wherewithal during difficult times and prevents societies from unravelling. Thus, it comes as no surprise that Singapore has weathered difficult periods relatively well because the government has been able to harness the mass action and cooperative spirit of Singaporeans. The Singaporean collective response bears testimony to the government’s ideological success in positioning the social compact as a necessary ingredient of socio-economic success and political stability. Workfare, as the poster boy of the refreshed social compact, is the latest innovation in the overall endeavour to shape individual behaviour and society’s core values. It is also representative of the will to tackle resolutely the longterm challenges and problems confronting Singapore. To reiterate, Workfare does not aim to eliminate inequality. Instead, Workfare seeks to ensure that rising inequality does not lead to declining equality of opportunity. It is the means to the end of strengthening Singapore’s stakeholder framework. As Singapore moves forward, the challenge is to move Workfare beyond being merely an income support scheme. It has to graduate to being a fully integrated programme to help disadvantaged Singaporeans and their families adjust nimbly to the vagaries of the global system. The government hopes to attain this through ensuring that the message of re-skilling, skills upgrading, and lifelong learning strikes a resonant chord with Singaporeans. This would enable the labour force to be flexible and adaptable to the demands of economic dynamism and competition. This enhanced social safety net is deliberately designed to build on the existing social compact without compromising Singapore’s economic competitiveness and its communitarian, anti-welfare ethos. It comes as little surprise that the bitter pill of self-sacrifice and forbearance for the larger good demanded of citizens is grudgingly accepted, and cynically viewed in some quarters, as an authoritarian fiat from a paternalistic government. But one cannot ignore the fact that the measures effected have worked relatively well and society has come off better ultimately. As Tyler notes, “People who internalize social norms and values become self-regulating, taking on the obligations and responsibilities associated with those norms and values as aspects of their own motivation.”21 The positive outcomes result in the system being viewed as normatively or morally appropriate. In turn, this engenders greater buy-in while also reinforcing the desired ethos, values and norms. Legitimacy is thus the engine of the virtuous circle, helping to entrench the

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efficiency, effectiveness and stability of the Singapore system. This secures the centrality of the social compact in Singapore’s governance even as it shapes social and economic behaviour. While equality remains a cornerstone of governance, equity (understood as justness and fairness) is increasingly relied upon to provide the ideational nuance and ballast to justify government policies and initiatives. In justifying the assertive accent of equity as another fundamental tenet of governance, the PAP government is acutely conscious that the source of its legitimacy remains economic growth with equity. In the halcyon days from the 1970s to the mid-1990s, the emphasis had been on rapid economic growth. With inequality manifesting more evidently in the last decade, it has become imperative to revitalize the source of the government’s legitimacy by re-configuring the social compact. This is increasingly articulated in terms of “what is equitable?”. Making governance decisions on equitable grounds necessarily entails value-oriented decisions about what is fair and just. While economic growth is still the mantra, the stability of the government’s legitimacy and effectiveness will increasingly be measured against the criteria of how equitable economic growth is. The government has to be concerned not only with enlarging the economic pie, but also with how the enlarged pie is to be shared, without incurring political costs and generating disequilibrium in a system that greatly values stability, consensus, and order in the economic and socio-political realms. Having discussed the significant changes to Singapore’s social compact, the chapter will now discuss some key challenges in keeping the social compact dynamic, relevant, and thereby promote social cohesion. GOING BEYOND TRANSACTIONS The social compact, with the objective of shared prosperity, is the cornerstone of Singapore’s success and stability. It is a powerful governance tool enabling the government to ask Singaporeans to make significant changes and sacrifices for their own good and for the country. Yet the social compact that has characterized much of independent Singapore’s formative years is imprinted with cold pragmatism and unbridled political necessity. The fiery idealism that Singapore strategically asserted and fought for — and which partly contributed to the failed union with Malaysia — promptly gave way to the quotidian challenge of survival, buttressed by the apparent non-ideological mooring of economic pragmatism. This pervasive sense of vulnerability and the uncompromising

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commitment of being relevant in a capricious world persist today. Such was the urgent and mundane business of eking out a living that the mutuality between the government and the people was accepted on the score of what works. The social compact evolved and became premised on the PAP government’s obligation to provide jobs and a good standard of living. So long as it did that, the reciprocal duty of the people was to vote the PAP government back to power at every general election. As an economically pragmatic response in the throes of premature nationhood, having a social compact grounded in enlightened self-interest is not surprising. This approach, however, is grossly inadequate if the social compact is to gel the disparate segments of society into a cohesive unit. Success couched and measured largely in economic pragmatic terms has its severe limitations too. Such a transactionary approach in the social compact necessarily limits its potential to function as a key driver of nation-building. Legitimacy and effectiveness of the PAP rule blandly measured in rational, economic terms will only raise the stakes for governance and stunt the nation-building process. After all, nationbuilding and the social compact are not about economic growth alone. It is evident that a rapidly ageing society with growing inequality and diversity poses potentially significant challenges to the country and the PAP government. Although the government attributes these challenges largely to external forces beyond its control, the reality is not lost on the political elites that they have to cushion the impact of these exogenous developments if the government is to maintain its legitimacy while continuing to stoke the engine of economic growth. As such, much more will be expected of the social compact in the years ahead to keep society cohesive and prosperous. Despite the growing global reputation of Singapore as a model of development, a quarter to a third of the electorate regularly do not vote for the ruling PAP even when the economy had done relatively well in the years preceding a general election. The PAP’s heightened sense of electoral insecurity has resulted in electoral mobilization with the aid of material inducements, primarily in the form of government funding for the upgrading of public housing estates (where more than 80 per cent of Singaporeans live). These funds are, however, withheld if electoral support for the PAP is not forthcoming in an electoral ward. In recent elections, this form of electoral mobilization, which revolves around the electorate’s fear of material benefits being cut off or denied outright, has become more nuanced in the messaging during the hustings.22

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But such an electoral strategy runs the risk of the PAP government being perceived as engaging in myopic pork-barrel reciprocity and tacit retaliation. The attendant consequence of such a perception is that of the social compact being mistaken as incorporating a subtle form of political clientelism. Such a misperception of Singapore’s social compact as a banal quid pro quo arrangement, unfortunately, would have an enervating effect on its centrality as a powerful tool for entrenching political accountability, reinforcing the value of citizens qua stakeholders, and the strengthening of social cohesion. Although the electoral material inducement is largely confined to the benefit of upgrading of public housing and ancillary services, it nevertheless takes away from the impressive achievements in which the social compact has endowed all Singaporeans with the larger benefits of sound governance. A more nuanced and expansive reading and understanding of the social compact is necessary, especially with the dynamics of the twenty-first century Singapore. A narrow rendition of the social compact, as one based primarily on instrumental transactions, is woefully inadequate for the state, government, and society.23 In particular, the contrasting value systems of the pre-independence generation and the post-independence (“P65”) generation necessitate a new social and political compact even as the concerns of survival, national cohesiveness, and stability remain saliently dominant.24 As Singapore society becomes increasingly diverse, the PAP government and Singaporeans alike must appreciate the fact that the social compact takes on an even greater importance in enhancing the affective ties among Singaporeans, and those between the government and the people. Although the “good life” constitutes economic well-being fused with social and moral well-being, the social compact cannot be a formulaic, soulless contractual arrangement of vested self-interests. Instead, it would be highly desirable if it affirms the societal practices, norms and values that are shared by Singaporeans. This will contribute to social cohesion and resilience which will in turn catalyse nation-building. That the social compact needs to be refreshed regularly and appeal to Singaporeans is a point not lost on the political elites. BRINGING BACK THE STAKEHOLDER Singapore’s social compact is better known for its material benefits such as high rates of home-ownership, shared economic growth and instrumental consequences such as behavioural change. Yet, often forgotten is that the core of the social compact is the virtue and imperative of stakeholding in Singapore’s

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past success and future. This hitherto understated stakeholder value should be emphasized in the discourse on and the workings of Singapore’s social compact. Even as it attempts to be accepting of ideational pluralism that comes from a better educated, well travelled, and demanding population, one cannot fail to notice the prominence given to the articulation of ideational aspirations in the evolution of the social compact in recent years. This is a step in the right direction. In the continual management of Singapore’s success, there is the need to reassert the enduring political gem of building a stakeholder society. This stakeholdership norm underlines the intimate linkage between the social compact and citizenship. This galvanizes the moral dimension of the compact with the citizenship virtues of inclusion, civic reflection and action, and long-term vision. This aspirational conception of the social compact thus encompasses and promotes not only the rights and responsibilities of political citizenship but also of social and economic citizenship. These multi-faceted dimensions of citizenship are fundamental to a fledgling nation-state as it can help secure Singapore’s future by nurturing citizens as stakeholders. Such stakeholder-citizens will not be consumed with navel gazing and the parochial obsession of maximizing one’s private benefits from the system. This internalization of such powerful norms and attitudes leads Douglass North to observe that, “Strong moral and ethical codes of a society are the cement of social stability which makes an economic system viable.”25 Stakeholdership also enhances the common bond of citizenship without dichotomizing Singaporeans as those for and against the ruling party. Furthermore, as stakeholdership entrenches the virtues of active citizenship, it encourages a willingness to consider the longer term and overarching concerns such as the well-being of society and the greater good. By giving flesh to the abstract reality of hope of a better age, a stakeholder-driven social compact recognizes that society is a tangible expression of the continuum between living, unborn, and dead citizens. It engenders in the community a purpose and meaning so essential to the longevity of nations. Ultimately, the government of the day is but the trustee of the Singaporean stakeholder-citizen. Although Singapore’s social compact is very much a creation of the PAP government, it should be borne in mind that the social compact is not just for, of and about the PAP government only.26 All too often, the PAP is conflated with the government and the state.27 What inadvertently follows is a narrow conception of Singapore patriotism in which the subscription to PAP rule is regarded synonymously as loyalty to Singapore.

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The Singapore creed cannot be so narrow and shallow. Given its limited capacity for self-correction, Singapore is prone to a systemic collapse should the PAP be unable to maintain its high standards of integrity, probity, and ability. For the social compact to be sustainable, it needs to evolve from a PAP-centred arrangement to one where the government and the people are equal stakeholders. The true test of the social compact’s resilience is whether it can sustain Singapore’s political and social institutions regardless of who forms the government, and whether it can withstand a national crisis when demagogues and false political prophets resort to charismatic appeals to upset the prevailing order. In short, the social compact is a form of political morality, providing the substratum for political accountability for both the government and the governed. With the widening income gap and the ageing population as persistent themes, the social compact must evolve from being transaction-based to being aspirationbased, and grounded in shared values and agreed norms. Furthermore, with generational values changing, the cold bartering between the ruling party and the people will surely lose its lustre. Society will be poorer if its social bond is a transaction-based enterprise denoted overwhelmingly in terms of cold, rational, and calculative self-interest in which cooperation is instrumental, but conditional. Local novelist Catherine Lim calls for a social compact that “has as much to do with what is felt deeply in the heart as with what is worked out logically in the head”.28 The call for the strengthening of the affective dimension of the social compact is not to negate the importance of the cognitive, go-getting attribute of our social compact. Rather, it is to complement the inherent strengths of a governance system that has thus far delivered the material goods.29 The social compact can be made more robust by engaging Singaporeans at the ideational level and appealing to their moral convictions. This affective connect can make the compact more viable and sustainable. We should remember that our social compact is the result of society, not its cause. In other words, the compact cannot exist without society. SUSTAINING THE SOCIAL COMPACT As Singapore progresses into the entrepreneurship and enterprise mode of long-term capitalist economic development, the inevitable Schumpeterian “creative destruction” is likely to result in regular rounds of businesses and employees suddenly finding their technologies, products, modes of organization, knowledge and skill sets irrelevant and unprofitable. This means that the dislocations to people’s livelihoods will not only be of greater severity,

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but will also occur with greater frequency. Schumpeter doubted that governments could maintain enough social insurance to counter the deleterious effects of economic dislocations. But Singapore stands out for its distinctive capacity, ability and foresight to build on the existing social safety nets to cushion the “losers” better from the inequalities that creative destruction brings in its wake. Yet, there remains the patent concern that the enhancement of social safety nets will sow the seeds of Singapore’s downfall. But this worry may be overstated given the compulsive commitment to anti-welfarism, an emphasis on a strong personal and community responsibility, and a rigorous work ethic. To sustain Singapore’s social compact, a fundamental mindset change is needed. The futility of a transaction-approach to the social compact lies in the government’s unintended creation of an “expectations trap” and the real possibility of a “performance gap” on the part of workers and the government. There are increasing limits to Singapore’s ability to grow at a developing country’s pace as the economy matures. Economic prosperity is not preordained especially when Singapore’s economy is so influenced by external economic forces. Moreover, having a social compact that places undue focus on economic prosperity can only give rise to a spiral of ever-growing expectations. The government will find it increasingly difficult to cope with the surge of expectations of private pleasures.30 Sooner or later, the bubble of expectation will burst. Furthermore, there could be a performance gap in which Singapore’s workforce is unable to adjust quickly and adequately to a rapidly-changing and volatile environment. There remains more than half a million (or 28 per cent) of Singapore’s rapidly ageing workforce without secondary qualifications.31 One cannot discount the possibility that despite the best of efforts, these workers may be unable to cope with the demands of a knowledge-based economy. Putting together the performance gap and the expectations trap, this coupling of centrifugal forces may result in rising expectations being unmatched by the performance of the workforce, government and economy. In any case, a transaction-based social compact necessarily produces a “treadmill effect” in which the marginal utility of increased wealth declines. While economic growth and increased wealth are necessary and desired, their contribution to the greater happiness of the Singapore polity will gradually decline, affecting the overall sense of subjective well-being. To compound matters, there is the creeping culture of ostentatious materialism and consumerism in an age of affluence. Many young Singaporeans, born after independence, are only accustomed to a prosperous Singapore, and have little knowledge of the dire economic situation in independent Singapore’s fledgling days.

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The economic dimension, manifested in the ever resolute commitment to competitiveness, will undoubtedly retain its primacy in the social compact. So dominant is this mindset that GDP growth rates remain the key yardstick of Singapore’s success as a nation.32 This is perhaps not so surprising to Singaporeans, imbued as they are by pragmatic and economic concerns. It cannot be denied that economic prosperity has been vital to Singapore’s transformation. But as Singapore matures, economic efficiency and pecuniary interests cannot be the talisman of the bond between the state, government and society. This is because free market capitalism, through its single-minded emphasis on the pursuit of private economic gain, alone cannot produce the social capital, social institutions, networks, and values that are needed for society to gel and to generate a shared sense of autochthonous narrative and purpose.33 In recognizing this, the PAP government has sought to leaven the economic imperative with public action in which the state, in conjunction with civil society, attends to those who have not been able to enjoy the fruits of globalization fuelled economic growth.34 This leavening of the economic imperative with civic action helps assuage to some extent the economic anxiety and fear that globalization poses to broad segments of the middle class, a traditional source of support for the ruling party. Globalization produces “winners”, “losers”, and those in-between. In tilting the balance in favour of the “losers”, government policies and initiatives need also to be mindful of today’s in-between (the “sandwiched class”) who may become tomorrow’s losers. Fundamental to the sustenance of the social compact is trust — among Singaporeans, and between the government of the day, the state, and Singaporeans. To achieve this, the social compact needs to dovetail with a vision of Singapore society as one characterized by a dense and interlocking web of social networks. The social compact cannot be about individualistic, pragmatic contracts premised on quid pro quo (the what’s-init-for-me syndrome). It has to be a lived practice, a collective compact grounded on social, moral and associational bonds that celebrates the individual citizen as an equal and participating stakeholder in the writing of the Singapore Story.

CONCLUSION We must also deepen the sense of mission in this new generation, and provide them more opportunities to take responsibility for our country and build our future together.35

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The foundation of the new social compact invariably retains a strong economic core and appeal, reflecting the vulnerability of Singapore as well as the anxieties and paranoia of the government.36 As a perpetual work-in-progress, Singapore’s social compact is increasingly relied upon to manage expectations, fears, and concerns arising from globalization. Shared economic growth as the substratum of Singapore’s success will remain a cardinal principle of governance and success. But Singapore’s success will be more meaningful and sustainable if the hardnosed pragmatism is accompanied by a deeply felt passion for Singapore by its stakeholder-citizens. The social compact is tied to and sustains the stock of social capital; its affective value and political utility are deepened by democracy, economic prosperity, and a mutually shared sense of societal solidarity. Bringing back the social compact as an institution that emphasises the stakeholder-citizen will be vital. A truly stakeholder-centred social compact will provide an enabling environment for the social compact to realize its potential of reinforcing the affective bonds Singaporeans have for their nation. The social compact must engage Singaporeans notwithstanding the inherent differences and inevitable divergence within Singapore society. Such a socio-political framework that unites Singaporeans will validate the unique communitarian constitutional and democratic order while also ameliorating the divisions within Singaporean society. Such a social compact also sustains and legitimizes the Singaporean way of life. Singaporeans are the biggest winners with a social compact that has a selfsustaining source of legitimacy and the engine of effective governance. It will also curb the nascent public loyalty to a good life, measured almost entirely and narrowly in material terms, rather than a loyalty and commitment to the founding ethos of independent Singapore so eloquently captured in the national pledge that is recited every day in national schools. While the legitimacy of the social compact will always be closely connected with the legitimacy of the government of the day, it should be remembered that the social compact is, in the final analysis, about and for the citizen-stakeholders. In responding to the clarion calls and the growing expectations for success to be repeated, the social compact has to be reconceptualized not only as a vertical bond between the government and the citizens, but also as one embracing and nurturing the horizontal bonds between citizens. Ultimately, the social compact must embrace and invigorate these mutual bonds of belonging between the state and citizens, and among citizens in an ever increasingly diverse Singapore. Only then can Singaporeans harness the collective will and engage the moral

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imagination to fire a renewed and sustained hope in Singapore’s future even in economic bad times. NOTES I am grateful for the research assistance provided by Carol Leong. Terence Chong’s thought provoking and insightful comments on an early draft also helped improve the essay. All shortcomings remain mine alone. 1. “Lee Kuan Yew, founder of Singapore, changing with times” and “Excerpts from an interview with Lee Kuan Yew”, International Herald Tribune, 29 August 2007. 2. Khong Cho-Oon, “Singapore: Political Legitimacy through Managing Conformity”, in Political Legitimacy in Southeast Asia: The Quest for Moral Authority, edited by Muthiah Alagappa (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995), p. 109. 3. Arun Mahizhnan and Lee Tsao Yuan, eds., Singapore: Re-Engineering Success (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1998). 4. Social compacts are often portrayed, misleadingly in my view, as a contract voluntarily entered into by the rulers and the ruled. However, this ignores the realities of unequal power relationships, dependencies, and the lack of autonomy, empowerment and liberty. Further, a contractual approach tends to result in an overemphasis on greater individualism, social unity, and coherence of principles than should be expected. See Jacob T. Levy, “Not So Novus an Ordo: Constitutions without Social Contracts”, Political Theory 37 (2009): 191–217. 5. Officially adopted in 1993, the Shared Values seeks to consolidate the cultural essence of Singapore’s multi-ethnic society and contribute to Singapore’s longterm growth as a distinctive Asian nation. 6. The Declaration of Religious Harmony, introduced in 2003, is an initiative that seeks to circumscribe the perimeters of moderate religious conduct through exercising moral suasion on the religious leaders and believers alike to practise their faiths fully sensitive to the multi-religious realities and secular constraints inherent in Singapore. 7. Yeoh Lam Keong, “Rethinking a New Social Compact for Singapore”, Ethos 3 (2007): 9–12. 8. The New Singapore Shares (NSS) were introduced in 2001 to help the lower income group tide over the economic downturn. In 2003, the government introduced the Economic Restructuring Shares (ERS), as part of an offset package, to help Singaporeans adapt to the structural changes in the economy, and the increase in the Goods and Services Tax (GST) rate. Both shares attract annual dividends for five years in the form of bonus shares pegged to Singapore’s real GDP growth rate. Allotment of NSS and ERS was determined by one’s age, National Service

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9. 10.

11. 12.

13.

14. 15.

16.

17.

18. 19. 20.

21.

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status, employment status, income level and/or housing type. This meant that older, and less well-off Singaporeans received more shares. “Seriously Asia”, Speech by Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at the Asia 2000 Forum, Wellington, New Zealand, 25 November 2003. For more details of the Progress Package scheme which ended on 2 January 2008, see . The scheme won the United Nations Public Service Award in 2007 for “improving transparency, accountability, and responsiveness in the Public Service”. Further details on the WIS can be found at . For a critique, see Mukul G. Asher and Amarendu Nandy, “Singapore’s Policy Responses to Ageing, Inequality and Poverty: An Assessment”, International Social Security Review 61 (2008): 41–60. See letter by Chen Hwai Liang, Press Secretary to the Prime Minister, “Not in the habit of pandering to a privileged minority”, Financial Times (Asia), 11 July 2007; “S’pore just for rich. Not possible, says PM”, Straits Times, 23 September 2007. “Key Household Income Trends 2008” (Singapore: Singapore Department of Statistics, January 2009), pp. 6–8. Foreign Minister George Yeo expresses his concern thus: “If we become two Singapores, there will be resentment, there will be opposition to doing the right things and we would not be able to seize the new opportunities before us.” For a transcript of George Yeo’s interview, see (accessed 10 February 2008). See also Lee Hsien Loong, “Singapore of the Future”, in Singapore: Re-Engineering Success, edited by Arun Mahizhnan and Lee Tsao Yuan (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1998). Speech by Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong at the Official Opening of the Refurbished Cricket Club and Conferment of the Title of “Visitor”, Singapore Cricket Club, 2 February 2007. Ministry of Information, Communication and the Arts, Singapore website, (accessed 27 June 2007). Ministry of Information, Communication and the Arts, Transcript of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s interview with Der Spiegel on 5 June 2007 at the Istana. Ibid. See Speech by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at the Official Opening of the National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre’s The Giving Place, Central Mall, 7 July 2008 (Singapore: Ministry of Information, Communication and the Arts, 2008). Tom R. Tyler, “Legitimating Ideologies”, Social Justice Research 18, no. 3 (2005): 212.

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22. The Singapore electorate is more sophisticated than is generally appreciated. For instance, in the 2006 General Election, the promise of upgrading did not help the PAP win back the two opposition-held wards of Potong Pasir and Hougang. 23. Chua Mui Hoong argues that Singapore is “transiting from a more traditional, hierarchical society which views its leaders as moral superiors making a sacrifice for the nation, to a more transactional relationship where political leaders are expected to be held to account for their performance in return for market-based pay. … The foundation of the relationship between government and people is shifting: from a moral one between a superior parent figure and a child, to a more transactional, contractual relationship”. “Basis of govt-people ties shifting — from moral to transactional?” Straits Times, 13 April 2007. 24. Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew has described Singaporeans in their teens and early twenties as “a generation that is especially blessed”. Straits Times, 8 July 2007. 25. Douglass North, Structure and Change in Economic History (New York: Norton, 1981), p. 47. 26. This is by virtue of it being the only party that has governed Singapore since 1959. 27. See Ho Khai Leong’s “Political Consolidation in Singapore: Connecting the Party, the Government and the Expanding State” in this volume for a discussion on the relationship between state, government and ruling party. 28. Catherine Lim, “Be Mindful of the Affective Gap”, Straits Times, 5 April 2007. 29. Singapore ranks very well in the World Bank’s annual governance survey, coming out in the top decile in all indicators except for “voice and accountability” (which measures political, civil and human rights such as freedom of expression and association, and a free media) where it is placed below the median. See survey results since 1996 at (accessed 10 February 2008). 30. MM Lee has said that Singaporeans are “the most dissatisfied people”. Straits Times, 31 October 2007. 31. Ministry of Manpower (MOM), Singapore Workforce 2007, Manpower Research and Statistics Department, Paper No. 5/2007 (Singapore: Manpower Research and Statistics Department, MOM, November 2007). 32. The remuneration of ministers and top civil servants includes a hefty GDP bonus of up to eight months’ pay if the economy grows by 10 per cent or more. See insightful piece by Lydia Lim, “My three hopes for the new year”, Straits Times, 4 January 2008. 33. Research has shown that for more prosperous countries, political freedom and social tolerance play a bigger role in determining how happy people are. See Ronald Inglehart, et al., “Development, Freedom, and Rising Happiness: A Global Perspective (1981–2007)”, Perspectives on Psychological Science 3 (2008): 264–85.

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34. Corporate social responsibility and social enterprise are now actively encouraged by the government as a means of helping needy Singaporeans achieve self-reliance. See further the 2007 Report of the Social Enterprise Committee submitted to the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports. 35. S.R. Nathan, “A Competitive Economy, an Inclusive Society”, The President’s Address at the Opening of the 11th Parliament, 2 November 2006. 36. In his 11 April 2007 speech at the parliamentary debate on civil service salary revisions, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong described Singapore’s model of government in the following terms: “Our model is ‘paranoid’ government — a Government which worries all the time … It is proactive and looks ahead over the horizon.”

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THE ARDOUR OF TOKENS Opposition Parties’ Struggle to Make a Difference ALEX AU WAIPANG

THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE

I

f success is defined as a political system of such stability that a single political party can expect to remain in power twenty, thirty years into the future, and therefore be able to make farsighted decisions in the long-term interest of a country, then Singapore is extremely successful. The privileging of such political stability stems partly from Singapore’s formative experience of the 1950s and 1960s when racial tension and labour agitation were common, and is also partly perpetuated by the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) upon independence for its own nation-building objectives. Indeed, the PAP government may sincerely believe that it is in the interest of Singapore to limit oppositional politics so as to check the disruptive effects competitive politics may have on the success which the ruling party sees itself as entrusted to bring about and manage. The question, of course, is whether such a definition — that success means stability at all costs — is wise. In fact, it will be argued here that it is precisely because stability appears so solid, actively defended against erosion by liberal democratic processes, that the risks of it all ending in instability are high. The recent tweaks to the electoral system, announced in May 2009, may indicate that the PAP is becoming aware of the risks. The sizes of Group Representation Constituencies (GRCs) are to be trimmed slightly to average five members; there will be an increase in the number of Single Member Constituencies (SMCs) from nine to twelve, and there will be a minimum of 100

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nine opposition Members of Parliament (MPs) including whatever number of Non-constituency MPs (NCMPs) are needed to make up the nine. The PAP government has justified these changes by saying that there was a need to raise the quality of debate in the legislature, carefully avoiding reference to any increasing desire among citizens to see opposition views represented in Parliament, if indeed there is any such increasing desire. Whether the relatively minor changes will serve to benefit opposition parties, and which ones among them, it may be too early to tell. It will probably need about two more general elections before the effects can be discerned. Nevertheless, these electoral amendments should be seen in tandem with the new Public Order Act. Armed with “move-on” powers, and the right to ban the filming of unlicensed public assemblies, the government is clearly hoping to choke off the appeal of street protests. This is the stick to the carrot of electoral tweaking; and it may be argued that the PAP government is trying to steer opposition sentiment among voters towards formal political parties that are prepared to adhere to electoral rules, rather than those that seek to defy the system. Is this yet another move to limit the disruptive effects of opposition politics? Or perhaps a new tack in ensuring political stability? Notwithstanding these recent changes, the chief defences against liberal democratic processes remain intact. Broadly speaking, liberal democratic processes include free, fair, and competitive elections, with universal suffrage and low barriers of entry, freedom of speech and assembly in order to make public debate meaningful and a justice system that is vigilant in protecting these rights. The defences have multiplied and been strengthened over the last twenty years. They include the expansion of GRCs to require as many as six candidates in a team, the reduction of the number of SMCs to just a handful, and the practice of making changes to electoral boundaries very close to the calling of elections to throw opposition parties off balance. Other well-known features of Singapore’s political landscape, while not directly elections-related, also have a large impact on the ability of opposition parties to attract support such as the mainstream media’s institutional bias towards the government, defamation suits that lead to huge sums being awarded for damages thus having a chilling effect on dissent, a wariness among Singaporeans of being seen associating with the ruling party’s opponents, and not least, a high degree of political apathy in the population. In the 1989 volume of Management of Success, Chan Heng Chee observed that while citizen consultation exercises by the PAP government in the 1980s saw “some degree of liberalisation” in “the decision-making process”, the

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ruling party was still “not fully committed to further democratisation in the sense of encouraging the presence or growth of political opposition or opposition parties”.1 Has this changed since then? In the present circumstances, what are our opposition parties doing? What is their thinking? This chapter will seek to take a snapshot of the state of affairs from 2007 to mid-2009. More interesting perhaps may be to try to see what they are not doing, and why. In other words, what strategies have they chosen in the face of daunting obstacles? Finally, there will be a discussion about what present trends may mean for the future, foolhardy as it may be to predict anything in politics. WINNOWING DOWN THE OPPOSITION PARTIES Based on the results of the 6 May 2006 General Election, the leading opposition party is clearly the Workers’ Party (WP). Formed by David Marshall in 1958, it fell dormant in the 1960s until it was revived by lawyer and former district judge, Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam in the 1970s. The latter’s victory in the Anson by-election in 1981 was a watershed, breaking the monopoly enjoyed by the PAP over Parliament since 1965. In 2006, the WP contested three GRCs and four SMCs, and polled 38.4 per cent of the valid votes cast in these areas combined. Current party leader Low Thia Khiang won Hougang outright while the WP team in Aljunied GRC came out as “best loser” among the constituencies where the PAP won. Hence party chair Sylvia Lim was given the one available Non-constituency seat in Parliament. Altogether 183,578 voters cast their votes for the WP. Low, born in 1956, was a teacher and businessman before he entered politics. He was first elected as MP for Hougang in 1991 and has retained the seat in successive elections since. He took over as leader of the WP in 2001 after J.B. Jeyaretnam was declared a bankrupt and barred from politics. Low is currently the Parliamentary leader of the Opposition. Sylvia Lim, born in 1965, has a law degree and was a police inspector for four years from 1991 to 1994. She then joined a law firm before becoming a lecturer at Temasek Polytechnic in 1998 where she remains today. The 2006 NCMP seat marks her entry into Parliament. Although the WP did not win outside of Hougang SMC, there was a noticeable media and public interest in the party as a result of its fielding a surprising number of younger candidates, some of them professionals. Immediately after the election, more young people joined the party, enabling it to convert its Hougang Constituency Youth Action Committee into a

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full-fledged, Singapore-wide Youth Wing with its own executive committee running its own activities.2 No other opposition party seems to have a Youth Wing as active as this. In terms of election results, the Singapore Democratic Alliance (SDA) was not far behind the WP. A loose alliance of the Singapore People’s Party (SPP), the National Solidarity Party (NSP), the Malay-based Pertubuhan Kebangsaan Melayu Singapura (PKMS) and the Singapore Justice Party (SJP), the SDA was formed just prior to the 2001 General Election in order to pool candidates for GRC contests. In 2006, the SDA contested three GRCs and four SMCs, and won one SMC seat. The SDA garnered a total of 145,628 votes, giving it an average of 32.5 per cent in all the areas where it contested. The one seat that the SDA won was Potong Pasir, making this the sixth consecutive victory for Chiam See Tong in this ward. Born in 1935 and a lawyer by profession, Chiam first entered politics as an Independent before forming the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP), and winning Potong Pasir under that party’s umbrella in 1984. After losing a leadership tussle with Chee Soon Juan in 1994, Chiam left the SDP to form the SPP which he continues to lead. Chiam, at this point, has no obvious successor or even much of a party.3 He suffered a mild stroke in February 2008, and what energies he and his lieutenants have appear to be directed towards running Potong Pasir Town Council rather than building a wider electoral base for the future. This may be one of the reasons that not long after the 2006 General Election, the NSP pulled out of the SDA, although all parties have remained tight-lipped about the cause of the separation. On the record, NSP leaders go no further than saying that Chiam’s “style” was key to their decision to leave. Another component of the SDA, PKMS, was in 2007 embroiled in internecine fighting and its leadership remains unsettled.4 The SDP contested one GRC and one SMC in 2006. It obtained 45,937 votes in both areas combined, an average of 23.2 per cent of valid votes cast. However, even before polling day, the party was mired in a defamation suit for a commentary in the party newsletter that was alleged to be defamatory of PAP leaders.5 SDP leader Chee Soon Juan himself had been disqualified from standing for election as a result of being made a bankrupt following a 2001 defamation suit against him. The SDP was formed by Chiam, as mentioned above, but since 1994 has been led by Chee Soon Juan. Born 1962 and with a doctorate in psychology, he once taught at the National University of Singapore, but has essentially been a full-time politician since his employment there was terminated in 1993 over an internal disciplinary affair.

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Yet, after the general election, it has been the SDP that has kept up with the most publicly visible activities in opposing the PAP, albeit in highly controversial ways. It has organized public forums and social get-togethers, regularly mounted small street protests, risking arrest, and sent a video to U.S. President Barack Obama on the occasion of his inauguration. The party has moved clearly towards a strategy of protest and civil disobedience, in the process differentiating itself from the other opposition parties that continue to nurture electoral hopes. It has thus opened an interesting front in opposition politics in Singapore. If there is any trend to be discerned about the electoral landscape since GRCs were introduced in 1988, it is in the transformation from a conventional electoral system to a highly complex system that now sees candidates’ “race” as political criteria and demands higher sums for electoral deposits. There has also been an upping of the ante with regard to defamation. Yet through this period, opposition parties took a steady 30 to 40 per cent of votes in every general election but one. The only exception was the 2001 General Election, which, taking place in the midst of an economic downturn and in the aftermath of September 11, saw a “flight to safety” by voters, thus giving the PAP an unusual 75.3 per cent vote share. The advent and subsequent expansion of GRCs has led to a winnowing down of opposition parties. Between 1972 and 1984, general elections saw five to eight opposition parties and as many as three independent candidates contesting each time. Even in 1988, when GRCs were introduced for the first time — there were thirteen three-man GRCs — there were still forty-two SMCs available for contest. Seven opposition parties and four independent candidates fought in that general election.6 By 2006, there were only nine SMCs left while GRCs had been expanded to five- or six-man districts. There simply was not enough room for the smallest parties to contest the SMCs, especially if three-cornered fights were considered suicidal for opposition candidates. On the other hand, putting together large teams to contest in GRCs was beyond their capabilities. The response was either to grow organically like the WP did, or for small parties to form an alliance, which was what the SDA represented. Nevertheless, the latter’s experience — poorly co-ordinated messaging in the 2006 General Election and disunity soon afterwards — suggests that this might not be a fruitful approach. The SDA’s manifesto was vague compared with the detailed one put out by the WP. At election rallies, SDA speakers tended to cover the same ground as one another, whereas WP speakers focused and elaborated on assigned parts of their party manifesto.7 The difference was probably the

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result of greater discipline among WP candidates compared with the looser arrangement within the SDA, with the result being that SDA speakers tended to preach to the choir, while WP candidates sought to engage the undecided. Although J.B. Jeyaretnam played no role in the 2006 General Election because he was barred from politics as an undischarged bankrupt, he re-emerged a year later. In May 2007, after paying the balance of the damages he owed, he was discharged from bankruptcy and his political rights restored. By then, he was no longer a member of the WP which he had led from 1971 to 2001. Instead, he launched the Reform Party8 in July 2008, with himself as SecretaryGeneral. Unfortunately, he did not live long after that, dying of heart failure in September 2008, aged eighty-two. For a few months, long-time Jeyaretnam loyalist Ng Teck Siong continued to hold the reins of the Reform Party as Chairman, but in April 2009, Kenneth Jeyaretnam, elder son of J.B., took over the leadership as the new Secretary-General. There was some acrimony and Ng resigned from the party altogether.9 K. Jeyaretnam, an economist and fund manager who has spent most of his working life in Britain, pledged to continue his father’s work: “Reform Party will focus on both civil liberties and bread and butter issues and establish beyond doubt that an alternative government can be both economically more competent than the PAP while restoring individual rights and freedoms that have been eroded.”10 At the time of writing, the party had not yet fleshed out these broad aims, nor are there any other notable faces in the party. It may take a while for it to build up resources and a following. With the SDA now essentially moribund, and the Reform Party still nascent, the rest of this chapter will focus on the activities and the competing visions of the WP and the SDP. THE POLITICAL OBSTACLE COURSE GRCs and Electoral Processes Even for the bigger opposition parties, the introduction and expansion of the GRCs have been a significant impediment. It stretches their resources to put together a slate of five or six candidates, especially if all of them have to have “credibility” — that vague sense of trustworthiness, competence, and professional qualification that has become a touchstone of local electability. Moreover, at least one person in a team has to be from a minority ethnic group, which means some inflexibility in team composition. When GRCs were first mooted, the PAP argued that in a majority-Chinese society,

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non-Chinese candidates were disadvantaged; thus the need to require mixedrace teams standing for election. The fortunes of the entire team may well ride on its weakest link, a fact that the PAP has exploited in successive general elections. In 1991, Jufrie Mahmood, a member of the WP team in Eunos GRC, was accused by then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong of playing “extremist, radical and racial politics”.11 In 1997, Tang Liang Hong, a member of the WP team in Cheng San GRC, was fingered as a Chinese chauvinist while in 2001, Chee Soon Juan of the SDP, standing in Jurong GRC, was the target of relentless attacks. In 2006, it was the WP’s turn again to take the heat. Its team member for Aljunied GRC, James Gomez, was picked on over the issue of his minority race forms to suggest duplicity on his part. As Perry Tong, one of the WP’s 2006 election candidates, described it, “Elections all follow a pattern. The first day of campaigning is about the issues; the second day onwards, it’s about just one person.”12 Another aspect of Singapore’s electoral process that puts opposition parties at a disadvantage is the way changes to constituency boundaries are announced close to an election. In some years, whole constituencies have disappeared or SMCs are absorbed into GRCs. Such changes may nullify years of effort put in by an opposition party to cultivate residents of a constituency. There is virtually nothing that opposition parties can do about the institutionalization of GRCs given the overwhelming majority that the PAP has in the legislature, large enough to change the Constitution at will. Likewise, opposition parties have no influence on how and when electoral boundaries are drawn, since the Elections Department is part of the Prime Minister’s Office, and functions as part of the executive. Meanwhile the Elections Boundaries Review Committee maintains that the rationale behind any re-drawing of constituency boundaries has always been based on the changing demographics of the constituency. For the moment the best opposition parties can do is to harp on the uneven playing field and to win public sympathy for themselves. GRCs being unavoidable, the demands of such a system have to be met. The WP’s top priority lies in recruiting capable candidates, as both Low Thia Khiang and Sylvia Lim stressed to this writer. Yet the realities of politics in Singapore make it extremely difficult to attract people to opposition politics because, according to Low, “Singaporeans are too busy with career, money and a pressurecooker lifestyle.”13 Couple that with Low’s other requirement — that potential candidates demonstrate “sustainability” over the long term, since the person can expect to fight a few elections unsuccessfully before winning — “how many Singaporeans want to serve?”14

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Bias in the Mainstream Media It is no secret that the mainstream media in Singapore does not perform the role of Fourth Estate. Instead of serving the public function of keeping the government in check as is the case in many liberal democratic societies, the mainstream media in Singapore shares the ruling party’s “nation-building” visions and objectives. As such, it is no surprise that the mainstream media, in terms of political coverage and candidate profiling, have tended to show bias towards the ruling-party. News stories are typically written from the PAP government’s perspective, while opposition parties’ views and activities are rarely given fair or due coverage beyond election periods. When there is coverage, opposition politicians frequently accuse the media of slant. For many years, Low of the WP had so little trust in the mainstream media that he kept them at arm’s length, refusing interviews. However, on the occasion of the party’s 50th anniversary in November 2007, he agreed to an interview with reporter Peh Shing Huei of the Straits Times. This was published as part of a two-page spread to mark the event,15 followed by a news report of Low’s speech the day after. For once, Low expressed some satisfaction with the way the Straits Times wrote up that feature. Asked by this writer whether there was any coverage of the party’s 40th anniversary ten years earlier, Low said there was not, let alone a twopage spread, which might indicate a shift in editorial policy. Thus, while media bias has not disappeared, there may be a softening in the Straits Times’ editorial stance. Low traced this to the 2006 General Election. Outflanked by the more boisterous digital media, newspapers found themselves “forced to open up”, in Low’s words, in order to defend their credibility.16 However, there is no guarantee that this trend towards impartiality will continue. The leeway currently given will, according to Low, disappear if “political forces” require this because “they can always pull strings”.17 In any case, Sylvia Lim’s perspective remains a sceptical one, especially over the papers’ choice of photographs: “At such events, they send a photographer who probably takes a hundred pictures, and they still choose the least flattering one to print. Surely, there must be better ones available.”18 Chee of the SDP has not changed his view of the media’s unhelpfulness. Nor has Ken Sunn, Vice-President of the NSP, who described it as “enslaved”.19 In fact, since 2006, there has been a steady reduction of media coverage of the SDP from its already low level, such that by 2009, there was virtually a total blackout of Chee and his party. Prior to 2006, there was some coverage, albeit in an adverse light, of court trials including the defamation case brought

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against him by then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong and then Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew in 2001. There was even a little coverage of his stand-off with the police at Hong Lim Park in September 2006, but his 2009 trial over the illegal distribution of flyers went unreported. It is hard to argue that when a politician is tried for distributing flyers, it is not of public interest. The distribution of flyers is common practice all over Singapore, whether on streets, or at bus and train stations. In Chee’s case, the exceptionality of it may represent persecution, and the silence of the mainstream media is puzzling for many. Estate Upgrading Since 1997, the issue of estate upgrading has featured in every election as a campaign tactic by the PAP. As an incentive for voters to support the ruling party, the PAP has tied votes directly to the eligibility for Housing Development Board (HDB) estate upgrading plans. As then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong warned, “You vote for the other side, that means you reject the programmes of the PAP candidate … If you reject it, we respect your choice. Then you will be left behind, then in 20, 30 years’ time, the whole of Singapore will be bustling away, and your estate through your own choice will be left behind. They become slums. That’s my message.”20 As about 85 per cent of Singaporeans live in HDB flats and would potentially benefit from enhanced property values should their estate be upgraded, this is seen as a major incentive to vote for the ruling party, which controls government funds. However, the potency of this tactic may be overstated, as demonstrated by the fact that the voters of Hougang and Potong Pasir have repeatedly returned opposition candidates. More generally, many voters live in relatively new estates that are not due for upgrading anyway. Of those who live in older blocks, many younger voters do not have a direct financial stake in the value of the home since they are living with their parents. And in the case of Hougang and Potong Pasir, there seems to be a bond, borne perhaps out of familiarity and trust, between constituents and their long-time MPs. Even so, it can be argued that prioritizing upgrading for areas that voted for the PAP is yet another example of an uneven playing field with the ruling party deploying state resources for party advantage, and it is an advantage that opposition parties cannot adequately counter. All they can do, and it does appear that Low and Chiam have succeeded, is to demonstrate to constituents that they are equally competent in running town councils that look after dayto-day upkeep and minor improvements.

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Limits on Anonymous Donations Opposition parties operate perennially on a shoestring. In theory, they can appeal widely for donations, but Section 8(2) of the Political Donations Act limits the amount of anonymous donations to a maximum of S$5,000 a year. Beyond that, the donors must be declared. Given the “climate of fear”, as pointed out by Sebastian Teo, President of the NSP, people will not want to give, lest their names are recorded and they are revealed as supporters of an opposition party. “There is a very common perception that the government is all powerful, and so potential donors shy away.”21 When every cent counts, selling party newsletters for S$1 or S$2 helps top up the kitty. Both the WP and NSP devote some weekends selling their newsletters, the Hammer and NSP News respectively, which is also a means of getting to know voters in selected districts. Yet, this is technically an offence under the law. Section 33 of the Environmental Public Health Act requires all hawking to be licensed, but the Environment Ministry is reported to be no longer issuing such licences.22 Licensing Difficulties Other attempts at visibility also meet with licensing problems. For example, the WP wanted to hold a mass cycling event at East Coast Park as part of its 50th anniversary celebrations in 2007. The police refused to grant a licence, a refusal justified by Senior Minister of State for Home Affairs Ho Peng Kee in Parliament on 27 August 2007. Ho said, “[Y]ou may be behaving well but there may be other people who may disagree with your point of view and there could be quarrels and debates on the ground, attracting other people.”23 Even when an indoor event is planned for which no police permit is required, it can be stymied, sometimes by quasi-officialdom. The WP Youth Wing had wanted to organize a Youth Parliament as their contribution to the party’s 50th anniversary celebrations. According to the organizers, they found considerable support from students of Temasek Polytechnic among other colleges, but the idea was quashed by the school’s management on the ground that no political activities should be permitted in educational institutions. If something as mild as a cycling event failed to get police approval, the SDP’s applications to hold outdoor protests have never stood a chance. When they still went ahead at the World Bank/IMF annual meeting in September 2006, and during the height of the Myanmar crisis in late September and early October 2007, they were met with heavy police presence, often followed by

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investigations with a view to charging them for breaking the law. With all these obstacles, opposition parties have been successfully kept at the margins. This may be exacerbated by what many have described as political apathy among Singaporeans, making the ground relatively infertile to them. But is it all the PAP’s fault? Have opposition parties made choices that end up limiting themselves? DIVERGENT STRATEGIES After the 2006 General Election, it has become very clear that the WP and the SDP are responding to these obstacles in very different ways. The WP continues to believe that the right way forward is through the electoral process, however difficult it may be. According to Low, “If you believe in democracy, you must respect the law of the land. We will make use of what is available to us to achieve what is possible.” For example, when the government announced the increase in the maximum number of NCMPs to nine from the previous three, WP’s Sylvia Lim said it was “supportable” despite being far from ideal. “Though this can never replace having elected opposition MPs, it is overall supportable because it will give greater recognition to the desire of voters who cast votes for opposition candidates in significant numbers, which would otherwise be shut out in a pure first-past-the-post system.”24 She thus indicated that her party was prepared to seize the opportunities presented despite many online comments disparaging the legitimacy of NCMPs. The Reform Party likewise “intends to work within the electoral route” and calls on “people to exercise their democratic rights through the ballot box and vote for the Opposition”.25 For its part, the SDP is convinced that the PAP will never allow an opposition party to play more than a token role. According to Chee, “At the end of the day, they’ve got control of the media and the election process”, thus explaining why SDP sees it necessary to use methods such as civil disobedience to get their message out.26 It could be argued that the SDP is just making the best of its circumstances. With its key leaders barred from elections as bankrupts, it may be choosing extra-parliamentary struggle out of necessity rather than design. New Media The internet has emerged as a key channel for communication and mobilization for politics around the world and Singapore is no exception. It is rapidly changing the communication landscape for both the ruling party and opposition parties, yet only one party has exploited it in any significant way. The SDP’s website

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is updated almost daily and, on occasion, it even contains videos. In terms of currency and content, it is miles ahead of other opposition parties’ websites. While the number of hits the SDP’s site gets is uncertain since there is no counter on the site, from time to time, articles from its website are picked up by aggregators, while other sympathizers carry its news further by mirroring the articles on their blogs. In contrast, the WP seems rather undecided about digital technology. As a party, it is careful about public statements for reasons including the desire to present a coherent and stable party image, and to avoid defamation suits. Low has seen from the experience of others how crippling being found guilty of defamation can be and he is determined never to let the party make any reckless statements. Another reason the WP is slow on the uptake of digital technology is that some of its many forms are, in fact, against the law. Nevertheless, there have been recent amendments to the Films Act, as well as the establishing of a panel to vet “political party films”. Moreover, active participation in third-party sites by individual members can be risky for the party’s image, the example being how Goh Meng Seng used harsh language in an online forum where people knew he was a leading WP member. Goh, who was one of the candidates in WP’s Aljunied GRC team in the 2006 General Election, eventually resigned from the party and Low instituted new, tighter rules for party members’ participation on such sites. But, if online speech is too risky to exploit, mainstream media unsympathetic and largescale offline outreach hampered by licensing difficulties, what is left of a party’s communication effort? Micro-politics One of the many criticisms levelled at local opposition parties and independent candidates is that they are active during election periods, only to fade away when the excitement of the hustings is over. This may have been true for some in the past, but there has been an increasing and more sustained presence of opposition political candidates on the ground in recent years. In conducting politics the tried and tested way by making the party visible on the streets of targeted areas, many opposition candidates are interacting with and listening to residents. The WP does this on a regular basis even though their plans are not publicized. Indeed there are undeniable positives from such a method: potential candidates get opportunities to demonstrate their personal touch and the party gets a better grasp of the issues that concern voters. However, such footwork is very labour intensive, especially for a party that is short on volunteers. And

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if it hopes to win a GRC at the next election, how will it cover the large area with such micro methods? Moreover, constituency walkabouts, stressing as they do the need to listen to “the people”, may pose risks to the party’s messaging and the way it is perceived by others. There is a tendency for the party to be perceived as adopting the stand of the last person it spoke to. It is in the nature of human interaction that we try to sound sympathetic to the views and ideas of whomever we are speaking to, but it can be misinterpreted as agreement by others within earshot. This may be compounded if localized views are conveyed up to party headquarters with the implication that they are pressing or representative, thus having a steering effect on the party’s stand. A party’s overall stand risks becoming a hotchpotch of ideas. Opposition parties without vast networks on the ground are particularly susceptible to this as they are deprived of a broader picture of ground concerns. Furthermore, a political party that hopes to go national needs to be able to conceptualize and articulate a comprehensive and coherent stand on various key issues in order to demonstrate leadership by sketching a vision of the future and explaining hard choices to voters. The avoidance of mass outreach events in favour of micro-work tends to risk reaching an unrepresentative small audience, and to de-prioritize higher-level messaging in favour of special interest concerns. The NSP displays the downside risks of this neglect all too clearly, as the writer sensed from speaking with party leaders Sebastian Teo and Ken Sunn. Because its strategy is almost entirely district-based, there is a tendency to mistake locally idiosyncratic issues such as annoyance with bird-droppings — an example the leaders cited — as decisive in voter behaviour. At the same time, staying within the comfort zones of the older, Chinese-speaking working class, probably the ones they encounter most often in their walkabouts, their policy leanings revealed a populist and leftist edge. Their position was strongly against immigration and a “mercenary PAP government … that does not look after the people”.27 When asked for an example of a government that does look after its people, they cited China. While the grievances of this social class whom they reflect are real and their numbers not insubstantial, such policy leanings do smack of a different age and may make it hard for the NSP to attract better educated young blood, and to reach out to different classes of voters, steps essential to winning a majority anywhere. As it is, the WP’s relative distaste for digital outreach, together with the rarity of its public forums — there was only one held in 2007, on the Penal Code — has given rise to criticisms that once again, it is going into hibernation between elections. This may not be fair. The WP’s relatively few leading members

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have to devote their time to organize a host of things, from editing and selling newsletters to giving out balloons on Children’s Day, brainstorming new ideas for better interaction with residents in targeted constituencies, not to mention holding on to their jobs. Thinking and research are a luxury that is hard to come by. “Everybody is hard-pressed for time”, Low told the Straits Times. “We do have young people joining us. But I believe we don’t have a sufficient number yet to have the critical mass of manpower that we want.”28 That being the case, even if the party wanted to be more communicative, it would still have to deal with the question of what they would have to say over a wide range of issues, often fast developing, that people might be interested in. In the absence of a comprehensive, alternative vision for Singapore, Low sees his role in Parliament as that of a watchdog. “I play the role of a watchdog to check whether the Government has delivered [on] its promises or has shortchanged the people.”29 The problem with this strategy is that it may play into the PAP’s hands. The ruling party may argue that it only shows WP up as a party that is far from ready to be an alternative government; it has no answers of its own and would not know what to do with power even if it got voted in. While the reality is that the WP is a long way from power, as it creeps forward, it needs to attend to the question of offering a more comprehensive, coherent, and compelling message to voters. Isolation from Civil Society One way of getting around the difficulty of coming up with policy ideas would be to interact with civil society. Very often, civil society groups have an indepth knowledge of their respective issues, and interaction with them provides a shortcut for party leaders towards grasping the issues and knowing what solutions affected groups prefer. This is not to say that a party should always adopt them, but the process of engagement does give the party access to policy ideas across a variety of socio-economic areas. Working with civil society is also another form of outreach and confidence building, so desperately needed in Singapore where for decades, opposition politics have been painted as irresponsible and little more than troublemaking. Yet, the striking thing is how little interaction there is between opposition parties and civil society in Singapore. While part of the reason can be found on civil society’s side — a fear that by associating with opposition parties, they would lose funding and whatever influence they have with the government — it is also remarkable how reluctant the WP, for example, appears to be. The memory of events from 1987 is still strong. In May that year, over twenty people were detained without trial under the Internal Security Act, accused

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of a so-called “Marxist conspiracy”, an accusation they denied. Some of the persons were members of the WP. Low described it as a case where “social activists infiltrated the party”. This must not be allowed to happen again, as it might “jeopardise ourselves by allowing the PAP to dig”. The SDP, on the other hand, has shown more willingness to work with local civil society groups, especially where the issues involve human rights, but they are often rebuffed by civil society activists. This is partly due to the SDP’s reputation for highly confrontational protests and, as such, their involvement in a civil society group’s cause is seen as toxic. There is also a palpable fear that the SDP may be out to hijack the group for its political purposes. All in all, it seems rather a pity that political parties and civil society hardly even talk. This seems to be both a result of an ingrained habit of seeing politics as a risky activity best left to politicians, and a perpetuation of it. Extra-Parliamentary Struggle The SDP no longer does constituency walkabouts. In fact, with the threat of dissolution hanging over the SDP,30 the party may not be standing for election again. It does not even have a printed newsletter to sell as the party lost its printer in 2006 when the business became too hot for the small business entrepreneur to handle.31 There is a history of printers being made liable in defamation suits. Convinced that the PAP will never allow any opposition party to make significant inroads electorally, the party’s message and mission have consequently been distilled to one of civil liberties. The logic is that: “You cannot function like a democratic party in an undemocratic system”, Chee explained. “The PAP doesn’t play by the rules. You just cannot go out, do your best and feel that people will vote for you.”32 Consequently the party has taken to holding periodic protests, which invariably bring them into expected conflict with the police. When asked why he would risk getting charged, Chee said, “Politically, it’s more sexy.”33 And while such protests make the occasional headlines, it is probably true to observe that the majority of Singaporeans do not hold positive opinions of SDP’s protest tactics, although it can be argued that the party has at least gained name recognition as a result and perhaps even earned some grudging respect. No doubt, a large part of that fame or notoriety, depending on how one casts it, is due to their frequent court appearances to answer various charges. Even so, Chee has made a conscious decision to make each case count: “We use each case to reflect it back to the government, to take the fight to them.”34 This tactic may explain the local media resorting to a complete blackout on his trials in 2009.

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LOOKING AHEAD Boiled down to its essence, the difference between the WP and the SDP is not about goals but about methods. They both envision a more open, democratic system. If one compares the manifestos the WP and SDP put out for the 2006 General Election, there is not much difference in their positions, with both generally adopting centrist or slightly left-of-centre policy ideas with respect to social services and income distribution. There does appear to be a difference on their stands on civil rights. The SDP’s stand is a better articulated, purely liberal one, whereas the WP tends to de-prioritize them. It is in the means that they have chosen to those goals that they differ hugely. That said, when opposition parties are still mere tokens, policy platforms matter less than establishing an alternative voice in the first place. In Low’s words, “What is important is to have a mechanism … where there is a political system that functions properly first, that is, competitive politics.”35 While the WP believes in working its way up to be a full-fledged opposition party through the electoral route — winning people over, sticking to breadand-butter issues, and recruiting credible candidates — the SDP thinks that the system is so loaded against opposition parties that this would be a futile approach: “If we don’t have space, we’re just talking in a vacuum.”36 In principle, the WP does not disagree, but Low opines that “if you want more space, then that depends on electoral success”.37 So long as citizens have the vote, that should be the instrument for opening up the process. The WP’s first-stage target of seizing a GRC is not unrealistic. All that is required is a creeping re-politicization of Singaporeans, wherein a few more “credible” people come forth as candidates, and more Singaporeans use their vote to effect. Considering that in 1988, 1991, 1997 and 2006 (they did not field any GRC team in 2001) the WP’s best GRC team consistently scored above 40 per cent, they are within striking distance of their goal. With the latest proposal to slim GRCs down slightly, thus reducing the homogenizing effect of large constituencies, the WP’s and other opposition parties’ chances of victory in a GRC can only improve. The homogenizing effect is one where in a large constituency, the distribution of voter choices approximates the national average; sheer size dilutes the impact of local particularities such as municipal grumbles and demographic profile. More importantly, the increase in the number of allowed NCMPs is likely to help the WP recruit candidates. With a higher probability of entering Parliament either as an MP or NCMP, more people might think the effort and expense involved in standing for election a gamble worth taking. Even if the WP does not, at the next election, win any GRC, the NCMP scheme will give some of its candidates exposure and experience for the following four or five years,

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which, if they perform well, can only give them and the party a boost in a future general election. The same benefit will accrue to any other opposition party that seizes the opportunity presented by the augmented NCMP scheme. What happens after the WP or any other party finally captures a GRC is the more interesting question. “The PAP will surely do something”, said Low, but he found it hard to anticipate what form that reaction would take.38 Neither could the WP Youth Wing leaders. Nevertheless, there is a sense that such a victory might be so intolerable to the PAP that changes to the electoral system could follow. One has to bear in mind that the PAP has come to rely on the GRC system as a conduit for bringing untested technocrats into its upper echelons, as Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong indicated in July 2006. So if GRCs are no longer safe seats, this can seriously hurt its own recruitment.39 Should the rules of the political game be tightened again to deny the WP further headway, its moderate approach will lose credibility and the opposition party may be dismissed as naive and perhaps irrelevant. Arguably, voter frustration may eventually manifest itself in support for the SDP’s view: that all these arbitrary and capricious laws must be confronted head on; and if that means a degree of civil disobedience, then so be it. This does not necessarily mean only marches and sit-ins. For example, if a call for voters to cast blank votes is widely heeded, it can deny the PAP legitimacy in an otherwise assured electoral victory. This would in turn create a whole host of uncertainties, taking Singapore into uncharted territory. For now however, while survey data is seriously lacking, it is probably fair to say that most Singaporeans are not sympathetic to SDP’s civil disobedience tactics. The deep de-politicization of Singaporeans through the last forty years and the sustained government rhetoric about the imperative of stability for economic progress have left many citizens extremely wary of the politics of agitation. Yet the SDP is obviously striking a chord among some younger citizens who are responding with a degree of passion that in part makes up for their lack of numbers. For example, there are bloggers such as those behind Singabloodypore and Temasek Review whose sentiments tend to be more aligned with the SDP’s positions than with any other party; there are filmmakers like Ho Choon Hiong and Martyn See whose work likewise tends to demonstrate a similar perspective. That said, the numbers are still far from critical mass. One assumption has to be carefully avoided: that a new generation of Singaporeans would think and behave very much like their parents. As they

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have better education and greater exposure to the world, there is a possibility of a culture shift. The PAP style that a previous generation tolerated for the economic benefits the party brought may simply not be acceptable in itself. In time, the SDP’s style may find resonance with this different breed of Singaporeans. In such a scenario, despite the tendency of older Singaporeans to see the dangers of street protest and demonstrations in catastrophic terms, probably through the prism of their experience of the turbulent 1950s and 1960s, the more likely outcome of the SDP’s tactics is not a collapse of law and order but a steady erosion of the PAP’s methods of control. There is a good chance that space for dissent will enlarge gradually, though how this can translate to a fairer electoral system is not so clear. Perhaps as dissent gains weight, it will become morally harder for the PAP to shape the political framework unilaterally to its advantage. Already the mainstream media are under pressure from contrasting opinions expressed online, and the latest tweaks to the electoral system, increasing the numbers of NCMPs, could be read as the first rollback. CONCLUSION In essence, the opposition scene in Singapore has become a race between the WP and the SDP as to which party and its chosen model of politics will be the first to demonstrate tangible results in pushing back the PAP’s control. While for now most Singaporeans stand back from being politically engaged, it is likely that the first party to be able to show that its methods work will capture the imagination of many more Singaporeans who yearn to have choice but are reluctant to back “sure losers” — the latter attitude being a reflection of the risk-averse habits of a middle-class society. The opposition party that first makes tangible headway against the PAP may gain a momentum that distances it ahead of other opposition parties. If it is the WP, it may be a smoother path to an eventual two-party system. If it is the SDP, then extra-parliamentary resistance will be the primary mode of politics, taking Singapore into uncharted territory. Or the PAP, fervent in its belief that Singapore’s future is not safe except in its hands, may succeed in maintaining its hegemony, but ironically, this too will eventually lead to uncharted territory. It takes a blind leap of faith to imagine that one-party rule can go on indefinitely. Scandal, corruption and schism have befallen other one-party states elsewhere and there is no reason to think that Singapore is immune to such risks. Scandal and corruption would

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eviscerate whatever legitimacy the PAP government has gained over the years, and yet by its control of media, law-making and electoral processes, it could still keep itself in power despite the loss of moral authority. Power is a potent tool for denying that anything is wrong. Schism, whether arising from policy differences or just the self-interest of competing factions, could lead to governmental paralysis. If any of these scenarios is coupled with a prolonged economic slump, perhaps because of external factors, perhaps exacerbated by a distracted government, frustration can boil over. If, going by the experience of other one-party states, scandal, corruption and schism are eventually to be expected, and economic downturns an unavoidable part of life, what then are the chances of Singapore ending in political instability? When such crises occur, they expose the state to grave uncertainty unless an alternative, democratically inclined power centre is ready to take over. Given the obstacles that Singapore’s opposition parties continue to be faced with, that is almost a pipe dream. Asked what role the WP might play then, Low remarked, “How are we to play any significant part if we don’t have enough seats in Parliament?”40 Forty years after independence, Singapore may have come a long way in many ways, economically, physically, even culturally. But in the matter of opposition politics, for all the ardour of the few from the margins, it is still very much unfinished business. NOTES 1. Chan Heng Chee, “The Structuring of the Political System”, in Management of Success: The Moulding of Modern Singapore, edited by Kernial Singh Sandhu and Paul Wheatley (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1989), p. 85. 2. Interview with Perry Tong, President of the WP’s Youth Wing, 25 November 2007. 3. Chiam leads both the Singapore People’s Party (SPP) and the Singapore Democratic Alliance, of which the SPP is a part, together with the Singapore Justice Party and PKMS. 4. Zakir Hussein, “Dispute over PKMS election”, Straits Times, 3 September 2007; Zakir Hussein, “PKMS election results in limbo”, Straits Times, 2 October 2007. 5. Singapore Window, “Lees sue opposition party for defamation”, (accessed 29 November 2007). 6. Bilveer Singh, Whither PAP’s Dominance: An Analysis of Singapore’s 1991 General Elections (Malaysia: Pelanduk Publications (M) Sdn Bhd, 1992), p. 5.

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7. Author’s own observations from attending rallies by various parties during the 2006 election campaign. 8. “J B Jeyaretnam’s Reform Party holds inauguration ceremony”, Channel NewsAsia, 12 July 2008, (accessed 10 June 2009). 9. Private conversation, 19 May 2009. 10. Email interview, 13 May 2009. 11. Hussin Mutalib, Parties and Politics: A Study of Opposition Politics and the PAP in Singapore, 2nd ed. (Singapore: Marshall Cavendish International, 2004), p. 140. 12. Interview with Perry Tong and other leaders of the WP Youth Wing, 25 November 2007. 13. Interview with Low Thia Khiang, 13 November 2007. 14. Ibid. 15. Peh Shing Huei, “Interview with WP Chief Low Thia Khiang”, Straits Times, 3 November 2007. 16. Interview with Low Thia Khian, 13 November 2007. 17. Ibid. 18. Private conversation with Sylvia Lim, 5 October 2007. 19. Interview with Sebastian Teo and Ken Sunn, 16 October 2007. 20. Quoted from Raj Vasil, Governing Singapore: A History of Development and Democracy (New South Wales: Allen & Unwin, 2000), p. 196. 21. Interview with Sebastian Teo and Ken Sunn, 16 October 2007. 22. James Gomez, ed., Publish and Perish: The Censorship of Opposition Party Publications in Singapore (Singapore: National Solidarity Party, 2001), p. 17. 23. Parliament Reports, 27 August 2007. 24. Parliament Reports, 28 May 2009. 25. Email interview, 13 May 2009. 26. Interview with Chee Soon Juan, 12 November 2007. 27. Personal interview with Teo and Sunn, 16 October 2007. 28. “Interview with WP Chief Low Thia Khiang”, Straits Times. 29. Kor Kian Beng, “My role that of watchdog: WP chief”, Straits Times, 19 April 2008. The quote comes from WP’s website, (accessed 10 June 2009). 30. The SDP faces the prospect of mandatory dissolution as a result of its legal troubles following allegations of defamation arising from an article in its printed newsletter, 2006. 31. Private conversation with John Tan, Assistant Secretary-General of the SDP, September 2007. 32. Interview with Chee Soon Juan, 12 November 2007. 33. Ibid.

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34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39.

Ibid. Interview with Low Thia Khiang, 13 November 2007. Interview with Chee Soon Juan, 12 November 2007. Interview with Low Thia Khiang, 13 November 2007. Ibid. Peh Shing Huei, “Time to Go Back to Three-member GRCs?” Straits Times, 7 July 2006. 40. Interview with Low Thia Khiang, 13 November 2007.

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Singapore’s Changing Economic Model

Section

3

THE RESTRUCTURING OF THE ECONOMY

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8

SINGAPORE’S CHANGING ECONOMIC MODEL CHOY KEEN MENG

My settlement of Singapore continues to thrive most wonderfully — it is all and everything I could wish and if no untimely fate awaits it, it promises to become the Emporium and the pride of the East. — Sir Stamford Raffles, 18201

SURVEYING THE CHANGING WORLD

T

he precursor to this volume was published when Singapore was recovering from the severe recession of 1985– 86. At the time of writing, the country is once again mired in a recession triggered by the global financial and economic crises that erupted in late 2008. There is, therefore, no better time than now to look back at the key economic restructuring efforts undertaken by the People’s Action Party (PAP) government in the intervening two decades. The present survey seeks to evaluate these reforms and their impact on the broader macroeconomy critically. In a fundamental sense, these restructuring measures did not change the economic model underlying Singapore’s demonstrable success in the earlier era. This model has always emphasized free trade, an export-led economic development strategy, and a dependence on international capital, technology, and labour, all combined with an extensive role for the government. What has altered instead is the configuration of policies, incentives, and infrastructures engineered to bring about continual economic success in a changing regional environment and a rapidly globalizing world. As we shall see, the shifts in emphases have led to a steady migration of production into higher value-added — albeit more 123

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volatile — industries within the manufacturing sector and a concomitant rise in service sector employment. Compared with the previous phase of economic development from 1965 to 1985, the macroeconomic consequences have been less benign. In particular, the unintended side effects of vigorous economic growth were increased output volatility and an amplification of business cycles. Despite attempts to mitigate the effects of these destabilizing fluctuations caused mainly by manufactured exports, the policy tools at the disposal of the government have been inadequate for the task given the constraints Singapore faces as a small and open economy. Therefore, the city-state’s economic planners have to change the economic model in the medium term by reducing dependence on foreign capital and labour and expanding the role of the service industries. ECONOMIC CRISES AND RESTRUCTURING Economic restructuring exercises in Singapore have always been soul-searching events which invariably coincided with the timing of recessions. During the last twenty-five years, the country has weathered three major economic crises and convened at least as many restructuring committees.2 The one in the mid-1980s was set up in response to the first classical recession since independence and had the overriding objectives of lifting the economy from the slump it was mired in and of restoring international competiveness. Towards this end, business costs were decisively cut through reductions in corporate tax and employers’ Central Provident Fund (CPF) contribution rates, wages were frozen, and the nominal effective exchange rate of the Singapore dollar was stabilized (or depreciated, some would argue). Beyond these short-term remedies, the first longer-term reorientation of the economy’s direction took place in reaction to a perceived shift in comparative advantage: Singapore was to be promoted as a business services gateway to firms operating in the region, and not merely as a manufacturing outpost for multinational corporations (MNCs) in the Far East. Aided by a fortuitous recovery in foreign demand, the economy rebounded and peaked in late 1990, which was followed by rumblings of the Gulf War and a fall in visitor arrivals, tipping it into a minor downturn. In the wake of the war and the first change in the top political leadership since independence, the Strategic Economic Plan (SEP) was drawn up in 1991. This document was meant to spell out the strategies required for Singapore to join the first league of developed nations by the year 2030. In the event, the growth targets envisaged by the SEP for the first half of the 1990s were easily surpassed as the economy

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entered into an upswing phase starting from late 1992, facilitated to no small degree by a relaxation of the rules on admission of foreign workers. Amongst all the post-1986 restructuring agenda, however, the SEP is conspicuously silent on concrete details of implementation and is best described as the economic manifesto of the new PAP stewardship. Even though it recognized the need to transcend Singapore’s limitations of size and population, there was no radical break with the past, as evidenced by the document’s bland “strategic thrusts” of enhancing human resources, becoming internationally oriented, developing manufacturing and service clusters, maintaining international competitiveness, and reducing vulnerability. A more concrete step was taken with the formulation also in 1991 of the first National Technology Plan worth S$2 billion to promote research and development (R&D). This marked the beginning of what was to become an ongoing effort by the state to upgrade indigenous technological capabilities and thereby preserve Singapore’s competitive edge. Successors to this early forerunner were the four-year National Science and Technology Plan, which inaugurated a S$4 billion research and development (R&D) fund in 1996, and the Science and Technology 2005 Plan announced in 2000 with a budget of S$7 billion. In addition to financing the activities of public research institutes and universities, the funding from these plans was increasingly used by the government to develop the specialized manpower and intellectual capital needed for the restructuring process (by sponsoring the post-graduate studies of young researchers and attracting top scientists to Singapore, for example). Furthermore, S$2 billion from the latest plan was earmarked for industrial R&D expenditures by private sector companies. A partial measure of the success of these plans can be seen in the following statistics: the number of research scientists and engineers increased from 3,361 in 1987 to reach 11,302 in 1997 while the ratio of R&D spending to gross domestic product (GDP) had risen to 2.3 per cent by 2004. Following the release of the SEP, an official campaign was launched in 1992 to sprout a so-called “second wing” for the economy by encouraging local enterprises to venture out and invest in the booming neighbouring countries. The raison d’être for growing an external economy is to tap burgeoning economic opportunities abroad and at the same time generate business synergies at home. Another strategic intent was to foster economic cooperation and integration with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries, which were undercutting Singapore’s attractiveness to foreign investors with lower costs. Under this initiative, the government provided fiscal incentives, tax concessions, and equity financing of overseas ventures. It also assumed

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responsibility for infrastructural development in the Growth Triangle area encompassing Singapore, Johor, and the Riau Islands, and jointly managed industrial parks in China, Vietnam, and India — all modelled after Jurong Industrial Estate. By 1997, S$75.8 billion in cumulative outward direct investments had been committed by local firms, though the lion’s share was, not surprisingly, attributed to government-linked corporations (GLCs). Sadly though, the Asian financial crisis erupted in July 1997 with the devaluation of the Thai baht and brought to a dramatic end the golden era of strong regional and domestic economic growth that had lasted for nearly a decade. This watershed event devastated Singapore’s commercial and financial services sectors and, in retrospect, ushered in a period of sub-par economic performance. The Committee on Singapore’s Competitiveness (CSC), formed earlier to examine strategies for sustaining international competitiveness in the medium to long term, reacted by proposing in November 1998 a S$10.5 billion cost-cutting package as a counterweight to widespread currency devaluations in the region, and which was promptly executed. In contrast to the SEP that preceded it, the CSC Report is remarkable for the coherence with which government planners articulated their long-term economic vision for Singapore in the twenty-first century. Against the backdrop of a decade that has yielded tremendous advances in information technology (IT) with far-reaching applications in commerce, the vision is predictably that of an advanced “knowledge-based” economy driven by skilled human capital. A development blueprint aptly called “Industry 21” followed, setting a target for high value-added manufacturing industries and export-oriented services — designated as the twin engines of Singapore’s economic growth — to contribute at least 40 per cent of GDP by 2010. Just before the Asian financial crisis broke out, an overt move was made in early 1997 to deregulate the financial services sector so as to meet the competition from Hong Kong and other financial hubs. Deregulation efforts commenced in earnest in 1999 as domestic macroeconomic conditions began to improve. A key objective was to inject greater competition into the domestic commercial and retail banking scene and rationalize the locally owned banks by encouraging them to merge and form global alliances. Clearly, the survival of Singapore banks is vital in the event of another financial crisis. A second motive was to liberalize the capital markets by allowing foreigners freer access to the stock and futures exchanges, deregulating brokerage commissions, and deepening the government bond market. From a restructuring point of view, the measures that are most pertinent are those aimed at further developing the asset and fund management business.

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For a start, government bodies began to place out some of their surpluses to local fund managers for investment, which was followed by the introduction of various tax exemption schemes to attract risk management firms and specialized insurance companies to Singapore’s shores. To enhance the existing incentives for MNCs to set up operational headquarters, new enticements were announced for the establishment of regional treasury centres. Taken in toto, these reforms represent the most sweeping changes implemented since the 1970s to promote Singapore as an international financial centre. Having diversified the financial structure, the authorities turned their attention back to industry and promulgated in 2000 a long-term strategy to develop the life sciences cluster as the fourth pillar of the manufacturing economy (after electronics, chemicals, and engineering). The most tangible manifestation of the big push into biotechnology is Biopolis, a state-of-the-art science park-cumhabitat that houses research scientists working in the field. As planning for the complex began, Singapore entered into a recession again in 2001 due to the bursting of the technology bubble the year before, forcing the government to introduce two stimulatory packages estimated at S$2.2 billion and S$11.3 billion, in July and October respectively. The anti-cyclical measures did help the economy to recover, albeit only briefly, for the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) struck suddenly and unexpectedly in early 2003. It was these repeated shocks to the macroeconomy in the short span of a few years that finally impelled the PAP government to come out with the most comprehensive and detailed set of re-engineering policies yet in the past two decades for securing Singapore’s economic future. The Report of the Economic Review Committee (ERC), released in March 2003, is nothing less than a concerted attempt to find Singapore’s place in a rapidly globalizing world besieged by relentless technological change. Besides the routine cutting of business costs and rentals, it charted new directions in virtually all facets of socio-economic life in the country in order to take full advantage of globalization. To begin with, overall economic growth was pegged at a conservative 3–5 per cent over the medium run, to be achieved by expanding both knowledge-intensive manufacturing and high-end services (this target was observed only in the breach after it was proclaimed). Industrial output is to be doubled by 2018 and novel service niches are to be carved out in education, health care, IT and the creative industries to supplement the traditional strengths in entrepôt trading, logistics, financial intermediation and tourism. Although these ideas had already been mooted by the CSC earlier, the ERC gave them added impetus and a renewed urgency.

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The ERC Report also had its own vision of remaking Singapore into a global city-state with “buzz” generated by a vibrant arts and entertainment industry. But this does not mean catering to the whole world in the first instance, for the country’s geographical destiny at the crossroads of a rising Asia meant that it must first and foremost be a regional services hub. Nonetheless, Singapore can also strive to be a key link in the international business network and a magnet for global talent. The policy recommendations made with these economic imperatives in mind include lowering corporate and personal income taxes to 20 per cent, incentivizing MNCs to base their R&D and product design operations in Singapore, setting up a downtown business and financial centre, and marketing exportable services more aggressively and liberally. The ERC also sought to address the long-standing problem of a dearth of local entrepreneurship by calling for the adoption of a risk-taking, innovative, and globalized mindset amongst Singaporeans and a revamp of the education system. Finally, what of the financial tsunami that hit Singapore after the sub-prime credit crisis imploded in the U.S. with the collapse of big financial institutions in late 2008? To date, the government has responded to the cyclical aspect of the crisis by announcing the largest budget in the country’s history — to the tune of S$20.5 billion. Of this, S$5.1 billion is devoted to a novel Jobs Credit Scheme aimed at preserving jobs by giving employers of local workers a 12 per cent subsidy on wages, subject to a ceiling of S$2,500 per month, and increased Workfare payments, an income supplement scheme for low-wage workers. Another S$2.6 billion will be dispensed to help Singaporeans tide through the difficult times in the form of direct financial assistance to households, personal income and property tax rebates, and targeted help for the most vulnerable groups in society. The rest of the so-called “Resilience Package” is intended to stimulate bank lending and improve the cash flows of businesses affected by the downturn. These measures will go some way towards alleviating the adverse effects of the recession, though they are unlikely to lift domestic demand significantly in the face of the sharp decline in external demand that has taken place. The structural response to the crisis, which is likely to be one of the worst faced by Singapore, remains to be seen. STRUCTURAL ECONOMIC CHANGE Industrial restructuring has been conceived as a process whereby the rate of growth of different industries differs systematically in such a way that the production structure undergoes significant modifications. This definition certainly

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resonates with the Singapore experience where the developmental state has systematically intervened in the industrialization process right from the outset. And unlike in other countries, most of the recommendations made by the restructuring panels were accepted wholesale by the government and acted upon. It is therefore of some interest to examine how the economic structure of Singapore has evolved over the last two decades as a result of these policies. Table 8.1 shows the measurable structural changes that have occurred in the sectoral composition of final production since 1985, recorded at a frequency of every five years.3 Apart from the lack of a primary sector to start with, the most striking observation is the constancy of the onequarter share of manufacturing value-added in GDP (putting aside the recession year of 1985), although this conceals some profound intra-sectoral changes discussed below. Industrial production has kept pace with the growth of gross product, providing ample testimony of the economic planners’ resolve and success in sustaining manufacturing as an integral part of the Singapore economy. In stark contrast to Hong Kong, there has been no “hollowing out” of the manufacturing base despite the global trend of outsourcing and offshoring operations to cheaper locations. On the other hand, the rise and decline of the construction sector in tandem with booms and slumps in the property market are equally evident in TABLE 8.1 Sectoral Composition of Output and Employment (%), 1985–2005 1985 Manufacturing Construction Services Commerce Transport & Communications Financial Services Business Services Other Services

1990

1995

2000

2005

22 9 60 15

26 4 60 16

(26) (6) (67) (25)

25 6 61 17

(22) (6) (70) (22)

26 6 61 15

(19) (6) (73) (23)

26 3 63 18

(17) (5) (77) (25)

12 10 13 11

12 10 13 10

(11) (4) (8) (17)

12 11 12 9

(13) (5) (10) (19)

13 11 12 10

(14) (6) (11) (19)

13 11 11 10

(14) (6) (13) (20)

Note: The figures are percentage shares of real GDP and may not add up to 100 due to rounding and the omission of minor sectors. Those in parentheses represent employment shares (not available for 1985). The commerce sector subsumes two smaller sub-sectors: wholesale and retail trade, and hotels and restaurants.

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Table 8.1. At its height in 1985, the building industry contributed nearly onetenth of GDP and employed about 6 per cent of the workforce. Two decades later, however, the proportion of construction works in domestic output has shrunk to a mere 3 per cent. The slack was taken up by the production of services, whose contribution increased from 60 per cent to 63 per cent over the same period. Within the sector, commercial, transportation, and communications activities became more prominent after 2000. The relative share of the financial and banking industries rose only incrementally whereas that of business and professional services actually fell, in spite of the government’s efforts to advertise Singapore as a total business centre. In Table 8.1, we also see an empirical verification of the Fisher-Clark hypothesis postulating that as income levels rise over time, the demand for services will gradually predominate and the proportion of the labour force devoted to meeting this demand will increase pari passu, owing to gains in manufacturing productivity that are unmatched by the service sector. In 2005, the tertiary sector absorbed 77 per cent of the resident labour force, compared with 67 per cent in 1990. With such a large increase in the number of jobs generated by services during the period under review, the implied growth of output per worker in the sector is less than half the rate achieved in manufacturing. The goods industries accounted for another 17 per cent of total employment, its share having declined from 26 per cent earlier, while the remainder was concentrated in the construction sector, which is notorious for its low productivity level and pervasive employment of unskilled foreign labourers. The differential impact of economic restructuring on various industries means of course that the surplus labour created by retrenchments in “sunset” industries has to be eventually absorbed by newly created or existing occupations, especially those to be found in the service sector. Such a smooth movement of workers was greatly facilitated by the lower entry barriers to service jobs and heavy governmental expenditures on education and worker training or retraining programmes. As stated earlier, investment in human resources has featured prominently in every post-1986 economic plan. Nevertheless, adjustment frictions do exist in the short run, as witnessed by a rise in the structural unemployment rate in the late 1990s and the early part of this decade. During this period, retrenchments in the service industries increased proportionately more than layoffs in manufacturing, reflecting the structural changes that have taken place since the 1980s. More worrying, the pool of long-term unemployed Singaporeans has enlarged, raising the concern that a segment of the populace — particularly less educated and older workers — is finding it difficult to acquire new skills.

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The transformative nature of the government’s proactive industrial policies is most apparent in Table 8.2, which traces the inter-industry transitions that have taken place inside the manufacturing sector itself. The statistics reveal that there was a steady migration of industrial production over the last twenty years into technologically advanced and skill-intensive clusters, in particular electronics, petrochemicals, specialty chemicals, and pharmaceuticals.4 By the time the worldwide IT industry went bust in 2000, more than half of manufacturing output was concentrated in a handful of products such as disk drives, computer peripherals, semiconductors and telecommunications equipment. The patterns in the table were mirrored in the trade statistics, where electronics typically comprised two-thirds of domestic exports prior to 2001 (excluding refined oil products, which have experienced a secular decline in their share).5 Furthermore, these numbers underestimate the true importance of electronics manufacturing to Singapore because the health of many ancillary engineering industries is indirectly affected by it via backward linkages, while the vibrancy of the seaport and airport depends on the cargo volumes generated by shipments of electronic products overseas. RESTRUCTURING AND BUSINESS CYCLES Even as manufacturing moved inexorably up the value-added ladder, the commodity mix had become more specialized and the industrial structure less diversified during the decade of the 1990s as a consequence of economic

TABLE 8.2 Industry Composition of Manufacturing Output (%), 1985–2005

Electronic Products Refined Petroleum Petrochemicals Specialty Chemicals Pharmaceuticals Machinery & Transport Equipment Other Manufacturing

1985

1990

1995

2000

2005

23.2 28.4 4.4 — 2.3 9.2 32.5

38.9 15.9 4.4 — 2.5 10.0 28.3

51.1 9.4 2.4 8.5 1.2 9.7 17.7

51.5 12.4 4.2 12.8 3.0 8.3 7.8

36.2 19.2 9.8 14.9 7.5 10.7 1.7

Note: The figures are percentage shares of real gross manufacturing output and may not add up to 100 due to rounding.

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restructuring efforts. These ominous changes were, however, masked by heady economic growth during the pre-Asian financial crisis period and a prolonged boom in the local property market that was partly fuelled by speculative activity. From 1990 to 1997, Singapore’s real GDP grew at an average annual rate of 8.7 per cent, way above the estimated potential for her purportedly maturing economy. In the financial crisis-ridden year of 1998, however, aggregate output suddenly contracted by 1.4 per cent. The growth rate recovered in 1999, only to plummet from a high of 10.1 per cent in 2000 to –2.4 per cent the following year. In both 2002 and 2003, the economy managed to expand by about 4 per cent, and in the subsequent years up to 2007, by an average of 8.2 per cent per annum. Then the global financial crisis broke out in late 2008, causing economic growth to fall to a paltry 1.1 per cent. What caused these wild cyclical fluctuations? There is suggestive evidence to link them to the increased volatility of world electronics cycles, as well as more erratic growth of foreign demand in Singapore’s major trading partners, starting from the latter part of the 1990s.6 As a result, the variability of domestic GDP growth has gone up significantly, a fact which can be seen quite clearly in Figure 8.1. This unprecedented macroeconomic volatility in Singapore’s postindependence economic history is instructive in demonstrating how a confluence of negative shocks could conspire to defeat the meticulously laid plans of the PAP government. FIGURE 8.1 Singapore Real GDP Growth (%), 1985–2008 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 -2 -4 1985

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As the currency crisis spread through Asia in 1998 and foreign investors stayed away, its recessionary effects were compounded by a downturn in the global electronics industry. The real crunch came in 2001 when electronics demand suffered a total collapse, just as the longest economic expansion in the U.S. ended. The September 11 terrorist attacks that followed hastened the onset of recession in the world’s biggest economy and also drastically reduced the number of tourists visiting Singapore. As if this was not enough, the outbreak of the SARS pandemic in the early months of 2003 aggravated the crisis of business confidence which had been sparked off by the war in Iraq. Similarly, the current slump originated from a banking crisis that shook consumer and investor confidence and quickly spread to the real sectors of the global economy. On each of these occasions, the twin engines of Singapore’s economic growth faltered at the very same time. Whilst the blame for all this cannot be laid on the industrial upgrading measures per se — after all, the causative factors we are talking about here are exogenous events that are beyond the control of policy-makers — it is undeniable that the government’s pursuit of high growth through restructuring had inadvertently exposed the Singapore economy to new vulnerabilities in the international economy. Ironically too, the SEP had already identified in 1991 the competitive and volatile electronics industry to be a source of vulnerability; as it turned out, the planners’ worst fears were confirmed. Nor should one forget that Singapore had a head start in the electronics industry, progressing from the assembly of transistor radios in the 1960s, to consumer electronics in the 1970s, and thereon to computer equipment manufacture in the 1980s. Be that as it may, the violent electronics cycles of the 1990s highlights the inherent structural weakness of over-reliance on a single industry as a source of revenue. Furthermore, the liberalization and deregulation of the financial sector that proceeded after the Asian financial crisis proved to be no panacea for avoiding financial crises, and in fact increased the exposure of Singapore-based banks to global systemic risks. The currency crisis and SARS outbreak served as timely reminders of Singapore’s perennial dependence on Southeast Asia and spurred policy-makers to develop a “third wing” for the economy, this time with the aim of reducing susceptibility to the economic fortunes of the region through the signing of bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) with the advanced economies. In this connection, an interesting if somewhat unexpected result of the “second wing” movement is worth pointing out. Fulfilling the aim of augmenting domestically generated sources of income, the gross national income (GNI) of Singapore increased steadily from 1990 to 1999 and exceeded GDP as net factor earnings were

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boosted by strong investment income inflows from abroad.7 However, the net inflows turned into outflows thereafter, except in 2001, reflecting among other things the repatriation of profits, royalties and fees by foreign companies based in Singapore as well as diminishing returns from Singapore’s regional investments. This wayward behaviour of GNI reveals the limitations of official efforts to diversify the economic base, reiterates Singapore’s stark dependence on foreign MNCs, and puts the policy focus back on GDP-driven growth. To be fair, the government has made valiant attempts to mitigate the effects of business cycles through macroeconomic stabilization policies. Regrettably though, the tools available to policy-makers have been grossly inadequate for the task of dampening macroeconomic fluctuations. The instruments most often deployed in recessions were direct cuts in employers’ CPF contributions and reductions in government-controlled fees, charges and rentals. However, econometric research suggests that such measures entail painful adjustments for workers and are inefficacious since export demand is not too responsive to them due to the high proportion of imported inputs used in the production of manufactures.8 The best that they can do is to boost business confidence and possibly ameliorate job retrenchments. Another drawback is that the government’s policy reactions were subject to a time lag; that is to say, costcutting exercises were typically carried out only after it became patently clear that the economy was in recession. Fiscal policy in Singapore is also relatively impotent given the small and open economy. The fiscal “multiplier” is actually a misnomer, for instead of magnifying the initial effect of an increase in government expenditures upon national income, saving and import leakages abroad serve to dilute its impact.9 This explains why, despite active pump-priming of the economy through escalated public construction activities during slumps, Singapore’s cyclical gyrations have not moderated. Monetary policy is not a viable alternative either under the present economic structure because of the opposing effects of an exchange rate depreciation on the export prices and imported input costs of manufactures.10 In short, the severe business cycles of the last decade can be partly attributed to the absence of countervailing forces during turbulent times. CHANGING THE SINGAPORE MODEL This final section prognosticates on the medium-term economic prospects for Singapore by posing two questions: (1) Can the basic economic model that has served the city-state so well over the last forty years continue to generate

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growth and full employment? (2) Is there an alternative model that will avoid destabilizing cyclical fluctuations in the future or at the very least allow them to be mitigated through macroeconomic policies? Taking the quest for growth first, statistical simulations of a fully fledged econometric model of the Singapore economy show what it takes for the country to attain a real GDP growth rate of about 6.5 per cent per annum over the next ten years — the same as the average achieved from 1985 to 2006, but much higher than the benchmark for mature economies.11 On the demand side, the key requirement is that world income grows at a rate no slower than that registered over the last two decades, a plausible assumption given the rise of China and India. Perhaps more critical, the supply conditions need also to be fulfilled: first, the investment ratio as a proportion of GDP must be kept at roughly one-third and second, employment has to increase at close to 5 per cent per annum, far exceeding the natural growth rate of the resident population. Hence, large-scale immigration and importation of foreign workers, with all their attendant social and political implications, will be needed to meet the shortfall in labour supply. Coupled with the increasing competition for foreign direct investment in high value-added industries, the ability of the current economic model to continue delivering the high growth rates of the past can be questioned. Attracting foreign talent is not the real issue here as Singapore can certainly do with more managers and professionals in view of its ambition to be a dynamic and cosmopolitan city supplying premium services to the region and the world. While these foreigners are easier to integrate into Singapore society, not all of them will stay on permanently. To avoid an overdependence on imported labour, however, the government ought to review its policy on the intake of low-skilled foreign workers. By augmenting the size of the labour force, these migrant workers have held down economy-wide wage increases.12 But the same workers depress earnings at the lower end of the nominal wage scale because of their low productivity, thus impacting on income distribution adversely. Worse, relying on them indefinitely implies that Singapore’s economic progress would still be achieved primarily by increases in labour inputs rather than productivity improvements. Since there are upper limits to immigration and the population size, sustainable growth in the long run can only come from the latter. Hence, a slower pace of economic growth might not be a bad thing if it is achieved through productivity gains and is accompanied by less macroeconomic volatility. Will the new engines powering the Singapore economy of the twenty-first century offer the prospect of more stable GDP growth? Where the electronics

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industry is concerned, there is every likelihood that the city-state will be an important node of the regional supply chain in the evolving international division of labour centred on production fragmentation, so the industry should continue to warrant the attention of economic planners even though its importance had declined by 2005 (see Table 8.2). In manufacturing though, the planners are banking heavily on the biomedical industry — the epitome of knowledge-driven production — to spearhead industrial upgrading. Unfortunately, the experience with pharmaceuticals has shown that biomedical output tends to be as volatile as electronics exports, being constantly subject to unpredictable demand fluctuations and changes in product mixes. Furthermore, the government is taking a calculated gamble in picking this industry as a putative winner. It is well known that the huge R&D investments in biotechnology have long gestation periods before basic research can be applied to the commercial production of new drugs and medical technologies, not to mention stiff competition in this area from other countries such as Korea, which arguably has a comparative advantage over Singapore. Hence, the life sciences drive is by no means assured of bearing fruit. By contrast, the service economy is less risky. Due to its very nature, service industries are less dependent on foreign capital and tend to be influenced to a smaller extent by business cycles. As Singapore establishes itself as a reputable exporter of final services such as financial wealth management, the media business, marketing and design services, tertiary education, and medical treatment — moving away from the current reliance on activities that are cyclically tied to manufacturing production such as intermediate trading, transportation, and banking services — the economy’s vulnerability to external shocks will be reduced accordingly. The construction of two world-class integrated resorts to attract high-spending visitors to Singapore can be construed as a step in this direction, though it must be acknowledged that international tourist traffic will remain sensitive to global economic conditions and geopolitical events. More to the point, the development of a heterogeneous and diversified service sector offers the prospect that monetary policy will be a potent tool for mitigating economic fluctuations, as a result of the greater sensitivity of tradable services to exchange rate movements. Since exportable services have much higher domestic value-added and lower import content compared with manufactured goods, theory predicts and empirical evidence confirms that a currency depreciation stimulates the foreign demand for services much more than it does commodity exports.13 For all this to come to pass, however, government bureaucrats need to intensify greatly their efforts to promote the service sector in general, and expand regional markets for tradable services in particular. Servicing the needs of the burgeoning

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middle classes in China and India could easily add a percentage point or two to Singapore’s potential growth rate. One should also not neglect to mention the untapped potential of domestically-orientated service industries catering to a richer and ever-growing local population.14 Economic planners in Singapore must, therefore, shed their long-held bias in favour of manufacturing, stemming perhaps from the perception that service jobs are less glamorous and that the average level and growth rate of productivity in the service sector are lower compared with the goods industries. However, service industries have the virtue of being relatively more labour-intensive, thus generating more employment and helping to keep both structural and cyclical unemployment at bay. The same cannot be said for high-technology manufacturing. For example, the biomedical sciences cluster currently accounts for only a small proportion of the workforce, its forward linkages with the health care industry notwithstanding. Moreover, if Singapore is going to be compared to the leading cities of the world such as New York and London, having a vibrant and progressive service sector will be essential for success. CONCLUSION At the dawn of the second millennium, it does appear that Singapore will revert back to its old role as a service centre for a greater hinterland that of the entire of Asia and indeed, a globalized world. With three out of every four persons employed in Singapore working in service activities and two-thirds of the nation’s total output generated through services, Singapore is already a “service economy”. The international experience has shown that the size of the service sector will expand with economic advancement. It is hard to envisage Singapore bucking the trend, as the earlier analysis of the Fisher-Clark hypothesis shows. Moreover, the latest global recession makes it clear that the manufacturingbased export growth engine which Singapore and other Asian economies have relied on so heavily for economic success has run out of steam and left them without domestic demand stabilizers. Therefore, it is time for the government to change Singapore’s economic model to meet the new economic circumstances and challenges. NOTES I wish to thank Tilak Abeysinghe and Linda Y.C. Lim for their insightful discussions on the issues covered in this chapter and also Peter Wilson for going through the draft carefully and suggesting major improvements.

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1. In a letter to his cousin dated 10 September 1820. 2. It is interesting to observe that the interval between the convention of one committee and the next averaged about five years, similar to the horizon of the mediumterm plans typically drawn up to catalyse economic development in Third World countries. 3. All statistics cited in this chapter are extracted from the Singstat Time Series (STS) database maintained by the Singapore Department of Statistics and the Report on the Census of Industrial Production/Manufacturing Activities published by the Economic Development Board of Singapore. 4. This finding is corroborated by manufacturing-wide figures showing that the valueadded per worker more than tripled and capital expenditure per worker roughly quadrupled from 1985 to 2000. The ratio of skilled workers also rose from 15 per cent to 35 per cent. 5. This is the category of trade that does not count re-exports. 6. See Choy Keen Meng, “Business Cycles in Singapore: Stylized Facts for a Small Open Economy”, Pacific Economic Review, forthcoming. 7. GNI was previously known as Gross National Product (GNP). 8. Tilak Abeysinghe and Choy Keen Meng, The Singapore Economy: An Econometric Perspective (London: Routledge, 2007). 9. Ibid., Chapter 8. Depending on the type of outlay, a $1 increase in public spending results in a rise in real GDP of only 70–80¢. 10. Ibid., Chapters 4 and 9. 11. Ibid., Chapter 9. 12. Ibid., Chapter 5. 13. Ibid., Chapter 4. 14. The long-term aim is to have a population of 6.5 million people in Singapore, although there is no universal agreement on this target amongst policy-makers.

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9

GLOBALIZING STATE, DISAPPEARING NATION The Impact of Foreign Participation in the Singapore Economy LINDA Y.C. LIM and LEE SOO ANN

FROM HUB TO NATION

S

ingapore has been a global city, and a hub for international trade, investment and migrant labour, since its modernday “founding” as a free port by the British colonial officer Stamford Raffles in 1819. During the colonial period, free trade and capital flows, a common currency with neighbouring British territories on the Malay peninsula and north Borneo, and the free inflow of migrant labour from China, India, and presentday Indonesia, turned Singapore into a trading, transport-and-communications, financial and managerial services hub for Southeast Asia as the region became a major exporter to world markets of tin, rubber, rice, timber, petroleum, and other commodities. As a regional hub for global markets, Singapore’s economy was heavily dependent on political as well as economic developments in the region and world at large. Thus the Great Depression of the 1930s, World War II and the Japanese Occupation of the 1940s, post-war decolonization, associated regional conflicts, and the establishment of communist governments in China, North Korea and North Vietnam in the 1940s and 1950s, all served to disrupt Singapore’s hub relations with its neighbours and the world. Flows of people in and out of the island diminished, all but ceasing in the 1950s, while its neighbours’

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new national import-substituting trade barriers and currency regimes reduced their links with Singapore as their external intermediary with world markets. By 1959, when Singapore achieved internal self-government from the British, and voted in the People’s Action Party (PAP), the island’s regional hub-based economy was faltering. Slow GDP growth and high (double-digit) unemployment were accompanied by labour unrest and political turmoil, which naturally discouraged new investment. The PAP’s initial proposal to stimulate growth was political and economic integration with present-day Malaysia, with the combined nation then following a strategy of import-substituting industrialization for a “Malaysian common market” for which Singapore would still serve as the “New York”, or commercial and financial hub. The two territories did indeed unite in 1963, but separated just two years later, in 1965. Anticipating continued decline in its regional hub function, as well as the eventual withdrawal of British military services (then accounting for nearly a third of the GDP of the newly independent nation), the PAP government embraced a new strategy of labour-intensive export manufacturing for world markets. By then such manufacturing was delivering strong growth and employment creation in Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea. Singapore already enjoyed the free trade and capital flows required by such a strategy, and had substantial domestic surplus labour, but lacked indigenous manufacturing capability. For this it turned to multinational corporations, particularly in the electronics industry, which was beginning to outsource labour-intensive assembly from developed home countries such as the U.S. and Japan, to labour-abundant developing countries. This export manufacturing strategy would integrate production facilities in Singapore into the evolving offshore supply chains of foreign multinationals producing for their home and global markets. It was thus clearly a strategy of globalization rather than localization (as import-substituting industrialization within Malaysia would have been) or regionalization (continuation of a regional hub function in traded services). But its subsequent success also derived from a set of national development policies on which the PAP government had already embarked since 1959, which had a local nation-building as well as global economy stimulating goal and function. These national development policies included: expansion of the Central Provident Fund (CPF) to mobilize domestic savings which were then invested in long-term government bonds to fund government development expenditures; compulsory state acquisition of private land for investments in physical infrastructure such as housing, roads, utilities, industrial estates, the port and

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airport; formation of the Housing and Development Board (HDB) to build high-rise public housing units for the rapidly growing domestic population; building of industrial estates to accommodate — first import-substituting then export-oriented — factories; and investments in public education and health care. Together with generous tax breaks and subsidies for foreign investors, restrictive labour and industrial relations legislation enacted in 1968, and annual wage increase guidelines recommended by a tripartite National Wages Council (NWC), these policies greatly increased the attractiveness of Singapore as an investment location for foreign companies. They provided investors with cheap land, labour and efficient infrastructure, increased the productivity of the working population, and reduced risk by ensuring political stability and labour peace. In line with the PAP’s social-democratic ideology of the time, all these public goods were provided by state agencies and enterprises.1 The government’s control of the economy increased as land went from 80 per cent privately owned to 80 per cent publicly owned in less than ten years, labour rights were reduced, foreign capital was dependent on the government for investment incentives and inputs, and local capital was increasingly crowded out by both the state and multinationals in factor and product markets. At the same time, political, legal, and media controls were enacted which weakened and eventually eviscerated any political opposition.2 Singapore’s post-independence globalization of the 1960s and 1970s was thus heavily directed by an authoritarian state, imposing some costs on the local citizenry in terms of property rights, political liberties, and human rights.3 But globalization and the “developmental state” also “delivered the (economic) goods” to a mostly grateful electorate in terms of employment generation, increased incomes and improved social welfare.4 Real GDP doubled between 1960 and 1969, and its annual growth accelerated to double digit-rates between 1966 and 1973.5 This was based not only on favourable regional and world market conditions (including a Vietnam War-induced boom in the export of commodities and traded services), but also on the domestic mobilization of capital, labour and land, and the establishment of institutions to facilitate this, beginning with self-government in 1959. In the process, Singapore was transformed from a regional hub to a national economy whose integration into world markets and the global production networks of multinational corporations was deliberately shaped by an increasingly powerful and nationally oriented state. The state’s own political legitimacy hinged not only on the economic performance it enabled, but also on a nationalist

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rhetoric of the vulnerability of a resource-poor “small island nation” cast adrift in the potentially hostile waters of a then turbulent region. The transformation from hub to nation also provided opportunities for the development of new state agencies and enterprises which steadily grew their share of the economy and of employment, gradually morphing from statutory boards headed by civil servants into publicly listed government-linked corporations (GLCs) headed by well paid CEOs. Thus the abandoned British naval base facility and the semi-skilled labour it employed became government-owned shipbuilders Sembawang and Keppel, now both major conglomerates that no longer build ships; various defence-related industries that grew up to develop the national military forces later became another conglomerate Singapore Technologies; government land and urban development agencies spun off real estate developer Capital Land; utilities provider Singapore Telecoms, the former Development Bank of Singapore (now DBS), and the iconic Singapore Airlines, among others, became profit-oriented regional and global players in their respective industries. At the aggregate level, these national development policies led to striking shifts in the domestic macroeconomy: private consumption fell from 89.4 per cent of GDP (at market prices) in 1960 to 68.5 per cent in 1969, while government’s share of GDP rose, and that of investment more than doubled, rising from 11.3 per cent in 1960 to 28.6 per cent in 1969.6 Despite the large increase in exports, the economy ran a persistent balance of payments current account deficit, with domestic demand exceeding GDP until 1985. This gap was more than covered by large inflows of foreign capital, with the result that the foreign share of the country’s GDP increased from 9 per cent of GDP in 1966 to 20 per cent of GDP in 1973 and 28 per cent by 1980.7 The foreign share comprises “the share of resident foreigners and foreign resident companies in GDP”,8 which presumably includes temporary foreign workers. When the booming economy led to full employment and rising wage costs in 1973, foreign workers were imported to increase the supply of labour and, together with conservative NWC recommendations, maintain competitiveness in the still labour-intensive export manufacturing sector.9 This continued through the global recession of 1974–75, which affected Singapore, and the subsequent recovery. By 1979, however, the government decided that low wages had discouraged capital deepening and investments in increased productivity. It launched a so-called “second industrial revolution” by raising salaries and wages (including through CPF contributions and NWC recommendations) between 1980 and 1982, to force industrial upgrading and capital-labour substitution in the export manufacturing sector. The salaries

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of government employees were also raised, even though they did not face international competition. This “high-wage” policy is believed to have contributed to the severity of the 1985–86 global recession’s impact on Singapore, following which compulsory CPF contributions by employers and employees were reduced in an effort to regain lost competitiveness versus other Asian export economies. This was successful in attracting more foreign investment, and GDP growth recovered from 1987 until the Asian financial crisis of 1997–98. However, income inequality also increased (discussed below), as did the foreign share of the economy. FROM NATION TO HUB At the aggregate level, the economy in 1985 turned from a net importer to a net exporter of capital. High domestic savings (including CPF “forced savings”) in both the private and public sectors, combined with large surpluses (net exports) in the services account of the balance of payments, and large net inflows of foreign capital, created huge external surpluses and probably the world’s largest foreign exchange reserves, as a share of GDP and in per capita terms, for a non-oil-exporter. The ratio of official foreign reserves to GDP was 102 per cent in 2004, and to indigenous GDP was 165 per cent in 2006, with the reserves valued at historical cost rather than their market value which would be two to three times larger, increasing the reserve ratio to as much as five times indigenous GDP.10 Foreign asset accumulation occurred not only through the investment of official reserves by the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) responsible for investing persistent large budget surpluses, but also through the foreign direct and portfolio investments of government-linked companies (including the holding company Temasek Holdings, which manages the surpluses of GLCs) and large local corporations. From the late 1980s, the government encouraged outward investment by Singapore firms in, and relocation by foreign multinationals manufacturing in Singapore to, neighbouring countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia and China, including in Singapore Government-owned industrial estates in Batam (Indonesia), Vietnam and Suzhou (China).11 Singapore’s fellow export-oriented Newly Industrialized Economies (NIEs), or “Asian tigers” South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong, also experienced rising production costs in the late 1980s, the result of tight domestic labour markets and more aggressive labour movements following political democratization in Korea and Taiwan, and strong appreciation of the won and New Taiwan dollar. In response, these other “tigers” also began exporting

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capital and relocating manufacturing to Southeast Asia and China, but as part of a cross-border vertical disintegration of the supply-chains of domestic companies, following shifting comparative advantage and trade policy liberalization. In the process Hong Kong and Taiwan companies in particular became regionally integrated into evolving “Greater China” production networks that also took in parts of Southeast Asia as well. But they remained linked to sources of capital, technology, and managerial skills and to sourcing, marketing and design functions in their home territories. In contrast, export producers who relocated out of Singapore, also to China and Southeast Asia, were mainly foreign multinationals, whose relocation was part of a process of globalization, which in many cases disengaged them from the Singapore economy, except as a residual services intermediary, where required, between different parts of their now regionally distributed value chains. Responding to this, the Singapore Government embarked on a strategic plan to develop “clusters” of high-value activities that would attract multinational investment in new sectors, most notably the “life sciences” or biomedical sciences and pharmaceuticals, financial services, health and medical services, and education, for foreign markets.12 These and other capital-intensive investments helped push the foreign ownership share of the economy up to 40 per cent of GDP by 2000, the level at which it remains today. As a consequence, the increasing stream of profit repatriation abroad, far exceeding inward investment income flows, portends a likely negative balance of services account in the future.13 Together with the increase in outward investment flows, continued large inward foreign investments contributed to the national economy reverting to its earlier historical role as a regional hub by importing and re-exporting capital, as well as goods and services, particularly financial, commercial, transport and communications services, and now also health and education to regional neighbours. But in the late 1990s, the Asian financial crisis put a severe if temporary crimp in demand from regional markets. So, entering the twenty-first century, these hub activities were expanded and extended to serve the world increasingly, and not just the region, particularly in financial services and the life sciences. The 2001–03 U.S. tech recession, which hit Singapore hard, reduced the government’s enthusiasm for activity in the long-established electronicscomputers-telecommunications cluster. The subsequent massive economic booms in China and India, which trickled down into Southeast Asia, appeared to validate the regional-services-export part of this post-industrial development strategy, which culminated in the government’s locally controversial 2006 decision to

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welcome international gaming casinos to Singapore, as part of what is euphemistically called an “integrated resort” for foreign (mainly Asian and especially Chinese) tourists. Singapore’s development is distinguished from that of the Northeast Asian NIEs in other ways besides its dependence on foreign multinationals rather than on local private enterprises. These include: continued state dominance of the economy, including through corporatized GLCs; continued one-party dominance and lack of government “turnover” in the political sphere; and heavy reliance on foreign labour and skills (“foreign talent”).14 In the first two decades of Singapore’s post-independence economic development, foreign labour was mainly imported to fill cyclical shortages of low-skilled labour required in labour-intensive export sectors such as manufacturing and shipbuilding, and in occupations requiring physical labour, such as domestic service and construction, which became unattractive to increasingly well educated Singaporeans. But since recovery from the 1985–86 recession, inflows of foreign labour have been expanded, though they are still subject to various regulatory controls, such as a foreign worker wage levy. Foreign labour imports were also liberalized to include workers from “non-traditional” sources besides the “traditional” source, Malaysia, and they began coming from the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, China and beyond. While there are official numbers on the number of foreign workers in the labour force, there is no breakdown of foreign-born and Singapore-born citizens. The importance of foreigners in the labour force is much greater than it seems. (Permanent residence has been made easier for skilled and even semi-skilled foreigners to obtain, and this is readily converted into Singapore citizenship after a few years.) But various indirect calculations suggest that foreigners constituted about 40 per cent of the labour force in 2006, up from 26 per cent in 1986,15 and a quarter or more of the nearly 5 million resident population of Singapore.16 With numbers such as a six million or eight million population being bandied about by government officials, and the ageing and low birth rates of locally born Singaporeans despite a quarter-century of pro-natalist population policies giving tax and other benefits to those having more children, it is clear that the government’s intention is for the share, as well as the number, of foreign-born residents and citizens to continue rising (though this has been set back by mass layoffs in the wake of the global financial crisis and severe recession of 2008–09). This will make the Singapore population resemble more closely that of its colonial past, when it was populated mostly by immigrants

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and transient workers, serving as a denationalized regional hub for inflows and outflows of labour as well as of capital, goods and services. GLOBALIZATION’S LOCAL IMPACT Whether a regional or global hub, or a national economy, any normative evaluation of Singapore’s state-led development strategy needs to consider its impact on “indigenous” Singaporeans, and on Singapore as a nation, and not just on the rate of growth of a GDP 40 per cent owned by foreigners, or employment creation for a labour force of whom 40 per cent are foreigners. As earlier literature on the economic growth of Singapore and the other Asian NIEs pointed out, rapid growth can readily be achieved by simple factor accumulation, or increasing inputs of capital, labour, skills, and technology to produce greater output, without yielding higher productivity or involving increased efficiency in the use of scarce resources.17 Adding large amounts of foreign capital and foreign labour to an economy can certainly grow that economy, and the returns it delivers to the foreign capital and labour, but the benefit to local citizens may be more ambiguous. In the early decades of Singapore’s post-independence economic development, foreign investment which brought capital, technology and foreign market access to an economy with surplus labour not only contributed to GDP, employment and income growth, but also reduced income inequality, by increasing the demand for lesser-skilled, lower-wage labour.18 While the mass import of low-skilled foreign labour beginning in the mid-1970s might be expected to depress the wages of low-skilled local labour, this effect was probably outweighed by the rising skill levels of local labour as state investments in public education started to yield results. The “high-wage policy” implemented by the government as part of its push for a “second industrial revolution” in the 1980s also raised wages and labour productivity through capital-labour substitution, and the exit of very labour-intensive activities. However, the shift to more capital- and skillintensive activities, dictated by market forces as well as state strategy, probably increased income inequality by raising the returns to capital and skills relative to the returns to low-skilled labour. The 41 per cent share of Singapore’s GDP going to employee compensation (wages and salaries) in 2007 is one of the lowest such shares in the world, as is the similarly low share of aggregate consumption in GDP,19 while the more than 50 per cent share of GDP going to corporate profits, interest and dividends is one of the world’s highest. At the same time, the foreign share of domestic production and income also increased, to around 40 per cent.

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A Department of Statistics study in 2002 revealed that between 1990 and 2000, there was “a widening disparity in the overall household income distribution in Singapore … in line with the trends observed in countries such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea and U.S.”20 Recent studies show that globalization has been accompanied by increased income inequality throughout Asian and other countries including developing ones.21 The reasons given for this that apply to Singapore include: increases in capital inflows and the complementarity of capital with skilled labour, skill-biased technological change, and “upgrading of the average product quality in export plants, which in turn generates demand for a better qualified workforce”.22 All these contribute to the widening of the skill premium or wage differential between highly skilled and low-skilled workers. Increased returns tend to be particularly high for tertiary degree recipients employed in managerial, professional, and technical jobs, whose ranks expand rapidly with the transition to a “knowledge-based economy”. While these inequality-increasing developments can happen in a closed national economy, they are likely to be exacerbated by globalization, particularly cross-border flows of capital and technology, and the “global war for talent”, which can bid up the wages of the highly skilled in developing countries, almost to developed country levels.23 In a market economy, external demand would increase domestic inequality if trade disproportionately increases demand for capital- and skill-intensive products and services, and thus the returns to scarce but highly valuable capital and skills. A shift in the comparative advantage of national economies, from activities and sectors which intensively use relatively immobile low-skilled labour, towards those which intensively use relatively mobile capital and high-skilled labour, would have this effect. In Asia over the past two decades, trade and investment liberalization, and market-oriented domestic economic reforms, especially but not only in China and India, greatly increased these countries’ competitiveness in labour-intensive export industries, based on their relative abundance of low-wage labour. The now more capital- and skill-abundant Asian NIEs, including Singapore, had to turn to capital-deepening and increased skillintensity to compete, which in turn increased income inequality within their domestic economies. In Singapore’s case, this widening in income disparities is enhanced and complicated by the strong role of the state in shaping the country’s integration into regional and global economies. The adjustment to shifting comparative advantage in the other “Asian tigers” was undertaken mainly by their national private enterprises engaging in capital-labour substitution at home, and the relocation of more labour-intensive activities abroad, in a largely market-

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determined process and increasingly democratized polities where, for example, labour movements gained strength (particularly in South Korea) and succeeded in pushing up wages. In Singapore, however, the still authoritarian state led and directed this process in a number of ways. The “second industrial revolution” and subsequent development policies, including regionalization and the move into the life sciences and high-value services, accelerated the shift out of labour-intensive activities employing lower-skilled workers, and into capital- and skill-intensive activities favouring owners of capital and the highly skilled, who received state subsidies for their investments in the form of tax breaks, R&D and training grants, together with higher education. CPF and NWC recommendations, and continued ruling party control of the union movement, together with large increases in foreign labour imports, probably limited wage increases at the lower-skill end of the domestic labour force, in contrast to developments in the other Asian NIEs. At the same time, competing with many more locations than previously to attract mobile capital and “talent” required the enhancement of a business environment, infrastructure, and regulatory framework conducive to foreigners, including relaxed residency and citizenship requirements for those with capital and skills.24 In the wake of the 2001–03 tech recession and the SARS incident, both of which hit the Singapore economy hard, the government In its bid to adapt Singapore’s economy to international competition … has tried hard to reduce business costs. This has meant slashing labor prices, which has helped push wages down. According to official figures, over the past five years Singapore’s wealthiest 10 per cent have seen their income rise by 2.3 per cent annually (and that doesn’t include nonwage earnings such as capital gains or dividends). At the same time, the poorest 10 per cent have suffered a staggering 4.3 per cent drop in their salaries each year. The government has also allowed employers to cut their contributions to Singapore’s Central Provident Fund, which pays for pensions, public housing, medical expenses and education … Together, these factors have led to lowerthan-expected private consumption, which has risen by just 3 per cent in the past two years.25

In January 2007, senior government economist Yeoh Lam Keong warned that “median real-wage stagnation and low-income decline”, despite very strong GDP growth, if left unchecked, could lead to “the formation of an underclass (and) the makings of social instability”.26 Given this coincidence of widening income disparities, an increased foreign share of the economy and of the labour

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force, and the state’s leading role in restructuring the economy and mediating globalization, including especially its encouragement and employment in GLCs, for example, of highly paid “foreign talent”, it is no surprise that there is a sense among some of the Singapore citizenry that they are no longer lords of their own nation, that the nation itself is being increasingly “taken over” by foreigners, and that their own government governs more for the benefit of foreign capital and talent than it does for local labour, capital and talent. At the same time, globalization has also meant that many Singaporeans with globally marketable skills now work abroad as expatriates for extended periods of time with foreign companies, or emigrate permanently, causing a “loss” of locally produced and subsidized talent who might otherwise be relied upon to provide economic, political, and social leadership for the nation. Concerned about this, the government in 2006 created an Overseas Singaporeans Unit in the Prime Minister’s Office to maintain links with Singapore’s own “foreign talent”, estimated at about 200,000, living abroad. Whether they stay or leave, the government has also voiced concern that a growing cultural and social as well as income gap, is emerging between a highly educated and globalized elite dubbed “cosmopolitans”, and so-called “heartlanders” who are less geographically and economically mobile.27 Or as an opposition politician vividly stated during the 2006 General Election campaign, Singapore is like a 6 star hotel. In this hotel, the elite are either managers or guests. The managers want to retain the hotel’s 6 star status and attract foreign guests who will pay the expensive room rates. You don’t need three guesses to guess who the managers are. The elite locals on the other hand enjoy the good facilities and can afford the expensive room rates. However they are guests with no ownership and have no desire to contribute to the running of hotel apart from paying high room rates. Both the foreigners and local elites use our country as a good place to make money but when it becomes uncomfortable they move out. The rest of us are the worker bees: chamber maids, waiters etc. We work hard for our children and dream they will become either managers or the guests of the hotel. This hotel although a good one is home to no one. There is no soul of a nation in a hotel.28

This disengagement of nation and economy may be considered inevitable given the transformation from national to global hub economy outlined above, and in a nation whose national identity is predicated primarily on economic progress which can be ephemeral or attainable elsewhere. The inevitability of this

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disengagement may be questioned since it is the product of state policy more than of private enterprise and market forces, and has not happened in South Korea and Taiwan, for example, where local private enterprises such as Samsung, Hyundai, Acer and Quanta have become successful global multinationals, in part with assistance from their national governments. Inevitable or not, the nature of the Singapore economy’s recent articulation into the global economy poses challenges for the state which has shaped this articulation, and arguably maintains itself in power, paying its top members the world’s highest public servant salaries, precisely by making itself indispensable to the global capital and talent which it has welcomed to the economy.29 The consequence, intended or unintended, is the “crowding out” of domestic enterprise and labour, perhaps even of the indigenous electorate, and the undermining of national identity which contributes to social stability and can help the economy “hold on” to its scarce citizen talent. There is potential political risk in the perception or actuality of a widening gap in income and economic opportunity between the locally born who are lower skilled and lower paid, and both foreign- and localborn “talent” who are increasingly compensated at “global” rates of pay, including in the state and government-linked sector. In other words, economic progress and national unity, which in an earlier era were mutually reinforcing, may now run counter to each other. We may even end up with a situation where Singaporean ‘heartlanders’, emotionally committed to their birthplace and relatively immobile in the global job market, are ruled by potentially footloose ‘foreign talent’, while members of the Singapore-born elite, raised to be ‘global’, depart for foreign shores.30

Several recent developments in Singapore’s economy illustrate the role of the state in shaping a new domestic political economy predicated on a particular form of state-mediated globalization which arguably empowers and enriches wealthy foreigners, and the state itself, more than it does average local citizens. For example, in the capital- and skill-intensive field of the life sciences, foreign talent is imported (sometimes at above world-market rates of compensation), and capital subsidies provided to foreign firms, to produce medical breakthroughs for (mostly rich) global consumers. This might make Singapore a profitable place for parts of the life sciences’ global value chain to locate. But it is not clear where Singapore the nation benefits, since the jobs, profits and products are produced overwhelmingly by and for foreigners. Employment creation for ordinary Singaporeans in this highly risky and capital-intensive sector has proved

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disappointing, and the economic, political and scientific problems of global pharmaceutical companies, to whose locomotive the Singapore state has hitched its life sciences carriage, are well known.31 As the 2008–09 recession has shown, output and employment volatility in this sector is as great as that in exportoriented electronics manufacturing. Another example is the government’s decision to develop an “integrated resort” in Singapore around gambling casinos established by international gaming companies. Responding to local objections, including from within its own ranks, based on “moral values” as well as economic concerns, the government argued that casinos would not undermine Singapore society because Singaporeans would not be involved in the business as consumers but only as workers — though casino employees may be expected to be disproportionately foreign. The near collapse in 2008–09 of this global industry, and of the larger of the two international gaming companies investing in the Singapore project,32 again highlight the volatility occasioned by yet more state-induced dependence on foreign corporations and markets. Singapore has also been expanding its financial services industry to focus on private banking for high net-worth individuals from around the world. There is a visible physical aspect to the economy’s makeover into a global services centre for very wealthy foreigners. Real estate developments led by GLCs such as Capital Land and foreign as well as local mega private property developers are using “en bloc” sales to clear desirable downtown areas of public housing and older middle-class residential properties, replacing them with expensive high-end properties affordable only to a small local elite and very wealthy foreigners, such as is seen in places like Macau, Dubai and Monaco, which have much smaller local populations. To make room for rich foreigners, the Singaporean “middle class” living in both public and private housing units is being “pushed to the margins” of the already heavily populated island. The government’s policy role in transforming extremely scarce land from a national patrimony to global real estate, replacing traditional neighbourhoods, familiar buildings, cemeteries and other social landmarks, including the elimination of much of the island’s green space, may contribute to a sense of dislocation and loss of identity.33 On the issue of urban planning, Nature Society president Geh Min has noted that viewing Singapore as a city results in its physical environment being managed by urban planners and our land resources treated as real estate, defined by their globally determined commercial market value. Open spaces are seen as having value

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only as manicured parks, improving the urban quality of life … Considering Singapore as a nation, however, would result in its physical territory, including the biodiversity found in wild areas, being valued as a national treasure and birthright. Wild lands might then be preserved in their natural state for their emotive and affective appeal for nationals.34

The shrinkage of global capital flows following the 2008–09 global financial crisis, and the anticipated tightened national and multilateral regulation of such flows as remain,35 also highlight the fragility, riskiness and volatility of a growth strategy reliant on servicing foreign financial flows. Singapore’s sovereign wealth funds such as the GIC and Temasek Holdings, with richly compensated “foreign talent” disproportionately represented in their managerial ranks, have also made world headlines with the billions of dollars they have spent to acquire sizeable shares of some of the world’s largest financial services corporations, such as Union Bank of Switzerland, Citigroup and Merrill Lynch, as they stumbled from their own errors that led to the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis and its global financial market spillovers. These assets add to already substantial portfolios held by state funds in Singapore’s neighbouring Asian developing countries. The high (and partly forced) savings of Singapore’s citizens and its numerous government entities addicted to earning massive surpluses have been converted into global capital itself, bringing the economy full circle from its early days as a recipient of inward foreign direct investment from rich developed countries to a provider of outward portfolio investment to these same countries. Unfortunately, the collapse in the financial crisis of the Western banks in which Singapore’s sovereign wealth funds invested has caused a major decline in the value of their portfolios, leaving the Singapore Government as the second largest investor and rescuer, after the U.S. Government, of Citigroup.36

CONCLUSION The PAP government has been more adept than any other at devising and implementing national policies that selectively attracted international capital and technology, and foreign labour and skills, to create competitiveness in particular niches of the global market economy chosen by the state. This nationally oriented globalization strategy worked spectacularly well for four decades in increasing productivity, employment, and incomes for Singaporeans as well as foreigners.

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The twenty-first century presents the Singapore economy with new challenges. These include its inevitably high cost structure (reflecting increasing local shortages of land and labour, but not of capital), the restructuring of global value chains in industries in which it had specialized (such as electronics and computers), and the emergence of new competitors for capital, technology, skills and global markets, particularly China and India. In response, rather than leaving the risks of restructuring the national economy to local and global market forces and the private sector, and loosening the bonds of state control with economic maturity, as other developmental states such as Taiwan and Korea and economiesin-transition such as China and India have done, the PAP government has chosen a strategy of “more of the same”. This includes bureaucratic targeting of favoured sectors for receipt of (now much more costly) state subsidies and tax breaks directed at attracting capital investment and technology from foreign companies and institutions serving international markets. But unlike the earlier era of labour- and then skill- and capital-intensive multinational export manufacturing, the newly favoured sectors (such as “life sciences”, gambling casinos and high value-added services such as finance, medicine, and education) create disproportionately more jobs for foreigners than for locals, at all skill levels, and can only be sustained by massive immigration. They are also much more capital-intensive and risky, and subject to stronger global and regional competition, than was the case in the past. Because of these simultaneous “big bets” in a small place, the reliance on external factors of production and the costs of failure are much higher, arguably requiring even greater state control to maintain social stability. Besides the greater economic risks involved in “more of the same” state policies applied to non-manufacturing sectors in an era of extremely rapid global and technological transformation, Singapore’s continued policy of importing foreign capital, foreign labour, and foreign technology, and privileging foreign/global companies, to serve foreign markets, poses obvious local political, social, and cultural challenges for the nation and the state. Whereas the past four decades have seen the state successfully mould a colonial place into a postcolonial nation, the economic policies of the past four years raise the likelihood of the local nation dissolving into a global place, through the agency of the state. These policies, together with changes in the global economic environment and the globalization processes of multinational companies, have resulted in much more ambiguous impacts on the local population. GDP growth, hinged to globalization in specific ways dictated by the state, has in the past decade

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suffered multiple setbacks that reflect continued if not increased vulnerability to the vicissitudes of volatile regional and global economies, most notably in the 2008–09 crisis which may see GDP plunge by as much as 10 per cent in one year.37 The growth which has occurred has seen low shares in GDP for labour incomes (relative to capital returns), and consumption (relative to investment and government expenditure), increased income inequality, and a decline in the relative incomes of local Singaporeans relative to foreigners. The specific forms and requirements of GDP growth have also contributed to the undermining of national identity and social cohesion which previously held together the people of this “hub economy” and sustained their support for their government. Why the government chose these state-dependent “enhanced hub” policies, rather than considering potential alternative market-determined, locally-oriented and private enterprise-led models of post-industrial development is a matter of some speculation. Lee suggests that the nation’s founders, one of whom, Lee Kuan Yew, is still active in the government, never envisaged Singapore as an independent nation, but as a hub, and have retained a deep sense of insecurity about “going it alone”.38 Besides being an argument for path dependence which is not uncommon in bureaucratic policy-making, especially given past success, this approach also suggests that being important to foreign capital, governments, and “talent” might provide some assurance of security against potentially hostile neighbours. It has also earlier been suggested that “the self-interested bureaucracy (is) likely to resist privatization (and) the ruling party is increasingly motivated primarily by the wish to keep itself in power”.39 Besides addiction to political control for its own sake, reasons for this might include lack of trust in an increasingly disadvantaged and disempowered indigenous electorate, and an understandable eagerness to hold on to the extraordinarily high salaries and perquisites given to leaders of the ever-expanding state economic apparatus, including a remarkable 60 per cent increase in salaries for government ministers already earning seven-figure U.S. dollar salaries, that generated considerable local disaffection.40 (This did not abate when ministers’ and senior civil servants’ salaries were subsequently reduced by 20 per cent at the onset of the 2008–09 recession.) The fact that government officials are rewarded economically, through salaries and bonuses, as well as politically, through promotion in the ruling party hierarchy, for delivering GDP growth,41 may also lead to “growth fetishism” (or “people for growth” rather than “growth for people”) and thus to preference for the easiest route to growth, which is through the addition of inputs of foreign capital, labour, and skills.

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Singapore’s continued rapid GDP growth in the post-industrial era has thus been bought at the price of expanding and entrenching the economic as well as political dominance of a one-party state that maintains its power in part by brokering the increased and even privileged participation of foreign capital, talent and labour in the “local” economy. Foreigners beholden to the state for its beneficence and their own presence are unlikely to challenge its authority, in the way that an independent, globally competitive and nonstate-dependent domestic entrepreneurial class — still weak and largely absent in Singapore — might. In addition to this “inward globalization” of the Singapore economy, its growing “outward globalization”, dominated by large state investments abroad, can also provide both external and internal security for the state’s denizens, expanding its scope and power through extraterritoriality.42 But “outward globalization” also has its risks, most recently seen in the antagonism towards Singapore over its sovereign wealth funds’ acquisitions of strategic telecommunications assets in Thailand and Indonesia. There are also the risks of capital loss and nationalist political backlash in foreign countries where Singapore state funds have purchased large stakes in private sector corporate “crown jewels”. State-led outward globalization may thus be politically destabilizing and securityundermining rather than the intended opposite. Add to this the uncertain longterm market success, certain high capital costs and risks, and some early failures (in life sciences and higher education)43 in “winning” sectors “picked” by an unchallenged, authoritative state, and it is not at all clear that Singapore’s transition from nation to global hub will be an easy or unmitigated success. NOTES 1. Linda Y.C. Lim, “Singapore’s Success: The Myth of the Free Market Economy”, Asian Survey 23, no. 6 (June 1983): 752–64. 2. See Tan Tarn How’s “Singapore’s Print Media Policy: A National Success?” in this volume for a discussion on political control over local media. 3. See Thio Li-ann’s “ ‘More Matter, with Less Art’: Human Rights and Human Development in Singapore” in this volume for a discussion on human rights in Singapore. 4. Linda Y.C. Lim, “Social Welfare in Singapore”, in Management of Success: The Moulding of Modern Singapore, edited by Kernial Singh Sandu and Paul Wheatley (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1989). 5. Lee Soo Ann, “Patterns of Economic Structure in Singapore”, in Singapore: Twenty Five Years of Development, edited by You Poh Seng and Lim Chong Yah (Singapore: Nanyang Xing Chou Lianhe Zaobao, 1984).

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6. Ibid. 7. Ibid. 8. Yearbook of Statistics Singapore (annual) subtracts “foreign share” from GDP to give “indigenous GDP”. Adding net factor receipts from the rest of the world, gives indigenous GNP, which in Singapore is much less than GNP at market prices. Indigenous GNP is also less than GDP, which includes production in Singapore contributed by foreigners. 9. Pang Eng Fong and Linda Y.C. Lim, “Foreign Labour and Economic Development in Singapore”, International Migration Review 16, no. 3 (1982): 548–76. 10. Lee Soo Ann, “From Nation to Hub: The Economy and Christian Life in Singapore Today”, manuscript (forthcoming). 11. Alexius Pereira, “Singapore’s Regionalization Strategy”, Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy 10, no. 3 (August 2005): 380–96; Nicholas A. Phelps, “Gaining from Globalization? State Extraterritoriality and Domestic Economic Impacts: The Case of Singapore”, Economic Geography 83, no. 4 (October 2007): 371–93; Henry W.C. Yeung, “State Intervention and Neoliberalism in the Globalizing World Economy: Lessons from Singapore’s Regionalization Programme”, Pacific Review 13 (2000): 133–62. 12. Economic Planning Committee, Ministry of Trade and Industry, Strategic Economic Plan (Singapore: Ministry of Trade and Industry, 1991). 13. Teh Kok Peng, “The Singapore Economy 2030”, in Singapore Futures: Scenarios for the Next Generation (Singapore: Institute of Policy Studies and World Scientific Publishing, forthcoming). 14. Linda Y.C. Lim, “The State and Private Capital in Singapore’s Economic Development”, in Political Economy, Studies in the Surplus Approach 3, no. 2 (1987): 201–22; Linda Y.C. Lim, Pang Eng Fong, and Ronald Findlay, “Singapore”, in Five Small Open Economies, edited by Ronald Findlay and Stanley Wellisz (New York: Oxford University Press for the World Bank, 1993). 15. Lee, “From Nation to Hub”. 16. For example, the difference between the number in the labour force and the number of CPF contributors (which includes only higher-level foreign workers eligible for permanent residence and citizenship) amounts to about one-quarter of the labour force (Yearbook of Statistics Singapore, various years). 17. Paul Krugman, “The Myth of Asia’s Miracle”, Foreign Affairs 73, no. 6 (November/ December 1994): 62–78; Alwyn Young, “A Tale of Two Cities: Factor Accumulation and Technical Change in Hong Kong and Singapore”, in NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1992, edited by O. J. Blanchard and S. Fischer (Cambridge and London: MIT Press, 1992), pp. 13–54; Alwyn Young, “The Tyranny of Numbers: Confronting the Statistical Realities of the East Asian Growth Experience”, Quarterly Journal of Economics 110, no. 3 (August 1995): 641–80.

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18. Adrian Wood, “Openness and Wage Inequality in Developing Countries: The Latin American Challenge to East Asian Conventional Wisdom”, World Bank Economic Review 11, no. 1 (1999): 33–57; Gary Fields, “Changing Labor Market Conditions and Economic Development in Hong Kong, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan, China”, World Bank Economic Review 8, no. 3 (1994): 395–414. 19. Ermisch and Huff claim that forced saving extracted through compulsory CPF contributions and high statutory board charges for providing utilities and other public services are responsible for Singapore’s high saving and low consumption rates. But Abeysinghe and Choy (2004) point out that private consumption as a share of disposable income, and not just of GDP, has also trended downward and is low, which they attribute to high residential property prices requiring rising loans and withdrawals from CPF to fund house (and car) purchases. In large part because of high asset prices, consumption and living standards are much lower than per capita income levels suggest, resulting in greater economic volatility with changes in GDP growth, since consumption is typically the most stable component of GDP. See J.F. Ermisch and W.G. Huff, “Hypergrowth in an East Asian NIC: Public Policy and Capital Accumulation in Singapore”, World Development 27 (1999): 21–38; Tilak Abeysinghe and Choy Keen Meng, “The Aggregate Consumption Puzzle in Singapore”, Journal of Asian Economics 15 (2004): 563–78. 20. “Income Distribution and Inequality Measures in Singapore” (Singapore: Department of Statistics, 2002). 21. Penelopi Kouhianou Goldberg and Nina Pavcnik, “Distributional Effects of Globalization in Developing Countries”, Journal of Economic Literature, vol. XLV (March 2007): 39–82; Asian Development Bank, Key Indicators 2007: Inequality in Asia (Manila: Asian Development Bank, 2007). 22. Goldberg and Pavcnik, “Distributional Effects of Globalization”, p. 67. 23. It should be noted, however, that these increases in inequality “are not a story of the ‘rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer’. Rather, it is the rich getting richer faster than the poor.” (Asian Development Bank, 2007), p. 6. 24. Following the government’s own reasoning, some scholars have argued that participating successfully in globalization requires increased rather than diminished state action (Shin 2005), and that meeting Singapore’s GDP growth targets requires increased dependence on foreign labour (Hui and Hashmi 2007). 25. “Singapore Swing”, Newsweek International, 29 January 2007. 26. Ibid. 27. These terms were first introduced in the 11 August 1991 National Day Rally Speech of then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong. See discussion in Tan 2007. 28. Eric Tan, unsuccessful Workers’ Party candidate for Parliament. 29. S.J. Wei, “Corruption in Economic Development: beneficial grease, minor annoyance,

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30. 31. 32.

33. 34.

35. 36.

37. 38.

39. 40.

41.

42. 43.

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or major obstacle?” Working Paper No. 2048 (World Bank, Washington D.C., 1999). Linda Y.C. Lim, “Singapore: Place or Nation?” Straits Times, 19 June 2006, adapted from a talk given at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 8 June 2006. See, for example, “Pharma companies try different routes on rocky road to renewal”, Financial Times, 13 March 2009, p. 20. “Will gambling continue to grow? All bets are off”, Wall Street Journal, 2 January 2009; “Sands project causes worry”, Wall Street Journal, 14 November 2008; “Singapore concern for casino project”, Wall Street Journal, 9 November, 2008. Rodolphe De Koninck, Julie Drolet, and Marc Girard, Singapore: An Atlas of Perpetual Territorial Transformation (Singapore: NUS Press, 2008). Lim, “Singapore: Place or Nation?”; see also Geh Min’s “The Greening of the Global City” in this volume for a discussion on conservation and urban planning in Singapore. See, for example, “Harbours of Resentment”, Financial Times, 1 December 2008. “Two years of Temasek growth wiped out in months”, Business Times, 11 February 2009; “Singapore government fund’s loss pegged at $33 billion”, Wall Street Journal, 18 February 2009; “GIC raises Citigroup stake to 11.1 per cent”, Straits Times, 28 February, 2009. “MM does not rule out GDP shrinking 10%”, Straits Times, 5 March 2009, p. 1. Lee, “From Nation to Hub”. As recently as a few years ago, Lee Kuan Yew mentioned in a surprising public speech that Singapore might one day have to rejoin Malaysia, a statement that was equally unpopular in both countries. Lim, “The State and Private Capital”, p. 222. Singapore blogs exploded with outrage at the news, while Lee Kuan Yew “painted a horrifying picture of a Singapore governed by ministers who earn no more than ministers anywhere else …”. “Your apartment will be worth a fraction of what it is”, he said, “your jobs will be in peril, your security will be at risk and our women will become maids in other people’s countries.” See Seth Mydans, “Singapore announces 60 percent pay raise for ministers”, International Herald Tribune, 9 April 2007. Note though that government officials and politicians are never penalized for growth slowdowns and recessions, which are always attributed to external market factors beyond their control. Phelps, “Gaining from Globalization?” pp. 371–93. Ichiko Fuyuno, “Singapore Pulls Plug on US Collaboration”, Nature (3 August 2006): 493; Simon Montlake, “Singapore’s Failing Bid for Brainpower”, Far Eastern Economic Review 170, no. 8 (October 2007): 46–48.

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esource-scarce Singapore is in a resource-abundant neighbourhood which attracted colonial powers and migrants. From independence in 1965 the People’s Action Party (PAP) government has been able to assess realistically Singapore’s strengths and weaknesses, and to seize opportunities and minimize threats pragmatically.1 The entrepreneurial PAP operates on a government-must-know-best philosophy, (not merely government-knows-best) to ensure Singapore’s small size and exposure to trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) are turned into strengths. Its economic development model, sometimes known as “Singapore Inc”, comprises Temasek Holdings Limited, Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) and many government-linked corporations (GLCs). Working with FDI and multinational corporations (MNCs), Singapore Inc restructured entrepôt trade into a manufacturing economy, and then to a knowledge-based economy (KBE), emphasizing intellectual capital in creative innovative industries. Nimble responses match ever-changing competitive advantage with emerging economies, globalization and information communication technology (ICT) propelling deregulation. The PAP government is unapologetic about the interventionist Singapore Inc model, given the small domestic market and a commercially inclined private sector to turn into export-oriented industrialists. Its relentless search for new growth industries is not an industrial policy based on “picking winners”, but 159

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is market-based via world-class MNCs and FDI responding to policy incentives to locate in Singapore. As it is a free port, its trade policy works with many free trade agreements (FTAs)2 designed for market access and taps global talents to complement its efficient infrastructure and political stability. This chapter amplifies the reasons for an active government industrial strategy. It identifies and describes new growth industries and analyses their potential success to the extent possible. This chapter concludes that the economic sustainability of a small, open, and government-made city-state depends on the crucial balance of the good, bad, and ugly of globalization. This balance is crucial because high-technology, information communications technology (ICT), and human resources development (HRD) create jobs, income and social security3 with associated risks which domestic policies alone cannot address. WHY SEARCH FOR NEW GROWTH INDUSTRIES? The ever-changing domestic and external environments make continuous industrial restructuring necessary. The small city-state’s population and ageing demographics are challenged by external competition with changing competitive advantage. For example, based on its geographical location and time zone, efficient infrastructure, effective HRD, and political stability, Singapore’s financial centre has been able to leverage on the processes of financial globalization such as electronic-mediated banking, electronically traded funds, and other financial innovations. However, other financial centres have risen to the occasion too, from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok. More financial and non-financial products in the goods and services sector grow with the expansion of newspapers, media, and broadcasting in the internet digital age. Singapore’s economic survival is best built on its talent for the quality products it produces, distributes, and markets in the best tradition of round-the-clock 24/7 customer-oriented packaging. The same dynamic forces led traditional industries to converge and merge in industrial clusters: whether it is for purchasing a car or an electronic product, there is a total package of financing, insurance, and the requisite cross-border warranty and terms and conditions of sale for residents or visitors. A simplified KBE (see Figure 10.1) is different from the old brick-and-mortar economy which turns raw materials into goods. Creative and innovative ways of delivering time-sensitive documents via international courier services for instance, tap the three cores of ICT, innovation-entrepreneurship and human capital dimensions in the logistics industry, often with economic and social impact, and result in many more relationships in reality. A virtual KBE operating

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FIGURE 10.1 Simplified Knowledge-based Economy

Context Information and communications technology

Innovation and entrepreneurship

Human capital

Numerous context influences Economic and social impacts

across electronic ICT highways allows Singapore-based companies to regionalize and internationalize. Ideas, technology, finance, and people move with favourable politics, social relations and global ecology. The relocation and outsourcing of some production bases in cross-border production networks (CPNs)4 enable Singapore to specialize in higher value-added goods and services. Corresponding to the value-chain concept (see Figure 10.2), these are in research and development (R&D), product design, high-end production, marketing, transport, finance, insurance, legal, and other professional services. Trade-oriented CPNs are government-designed via policies which encourage, for instance, a lead electronic MNC and local small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to work together in a virtuous partnership in a regional industrial cluster. This chapter argues that Singapore’s transition into a KBE depends simultaneously on a foreign economy policy of 30-odd FTAs (see Table 10.1) and on Singapore Inc, itself a reinvented model. Some GLCs are privatized to encourage more private enterprises while others go abroad to access markets and develop new growth clusters to expand gross domestic product (GDP).

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FIGURE 10.2 Industrial Development Strategy and Value Chain

1. RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

1

3. PROCESS & ENGINEERING

2

2. PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

3

5. MARKETING & DISTRIBUTION

4

5

4. MANUFACTURING/ PRODUCTION

This move has had far-reaching implications for the government and Singapore Inc. It was started before the 1997 crisis, grew more aggressive with several crises from the September 11 terrorist attacks to avian bird flu and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). Trade connectivity began in five FTAs all signed by 2003 with Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) economies namely, New Zealand, Japan, European Free Trade Association (comprising Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein), the U.S. and Australia. Learning from the first world, FTAs incorporate mutual recognition agreements (MRAs)5 with international standards, benchmarks and best practices locked-in with a competition law and deregulation. More trade opportunities attract FDI and MNCs, desired for knowledge and technology transfer to shape up Singapore-based firms and workers to regionalize and globalize while the Singapore Government creates incentives to encourage these trends without regulating in a customer-oriented way of business. In typical Singapore Inc-style, many institutions work together to ensure a holistic, integrated, systemic and smooth process. Since 1960, the Economic Development Board (EDB), together with other local agencies concerned with trade, productivity and quality improvement, has led the development of both hard and soft infrastructure. Competition has forced changes in current growth engines (see Figure 10.3), based on resource-based and cost-based advantages to a new value proposition. These new service growth engines (see Figure 10.4) stress qualitative features (e.g. standards, productivity, timeliness, product and service delivery) and assurance beyond mere product quality to health, security,

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TABLE 10.1 Singapore FTAs FTA

Status*

ASEAN Free Trade Area

Implement

ASEAN-Australia & New Zealand Free Trade Agreement

Implement

ASEAN-China Free Trade Area

Implement

ASEAN-EU Free Trade Agreement

Consult

ASEAN-India Regional Trade and Investment Area

Implement

ASEAN-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership

Negotiate

ASEAN-Korea Free Trade Area

Signed

East Asia Free Trade Area

Consult

Japan Economic Partnership Agreement

Implement

Australia Free Trade Agreement

Implement

India Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement

Implement

Korea Free Trade Agreement

Implement

New Zealand Closer Economic Partnership Agreement

Implement

Pakistan Free Trade Agreement

Negotiate

United States Free Trade Agreement

Implement

People’s Republic of China Free Trade Agreement

Negotiate

Bahrain Free Trade Agreement

Consult

European Free Trade Association Free Trade Agreement

Implement

Egypt Free Trade Agreement

Negotiate

Jordan Free Trade Agreement

Implement

Kuwait Free Trade Agreement

Negotiate

Qatar Free Trade Agreement

Negotiate

MERCOSUR Free Trade Agreement

Negotiate

Mexico Free Trade Agreement

Negotiate

Peru Free Trade Agreement

Negotiate

Canada Free Trade Agreement

Negotiate

Sri Lanka Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement

Negotiate

Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement

Implement

GCC Free Trade Agreement

Implement

Panama Free Trade Agreement

Implement

Ukraine Free Trade Agreement

Negotiate

Sources: , , and .

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FIGURE 10.3 Current Growth Engine

Declining unit cost (due to scale economies & learning-by-doing

Lower unit price

Increasing labour productivity

Investment to increase physical capacity & scale of production Substitution of capital & natural resources for labour

Increased consumer demand for products (due to price elasticity)

FIGURE 10.4 Service Economy Growth Engine

Declining unit cost & increasing value to customers

Lower price per unit service (increasing value) Increasing resource & labour

Investment in R&D Substitution of technology for natural resources Cutting depreciation

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Increased consumer demand for services (due to price elasticity)

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and environment considerations as in green products. The KBE framework also recognizes and identifies the need for creativity, innovation, and invention to be developed and nurtured in conjunction with the private sector in publicprivate partnerships (PPPs). This is one valid reason for reengineering Singapore Inc and the privatization of some GLCs in view of the changes in the telecommunication industry. The policy formula strives to achieve seamless state facilitation that combines foreign/local private sector know-how and capital to ensure that no stone is left unturned in exploring opportunities and new growth industries. The dominant and development-oriented government reinvents Singapore Inc with PPPs to marry the best of both sectors. Technocrats and technopreneurs, augmented by skilled global talents, utilize and exploit technology more than traditional bureaucrats and entrepreneurs. The globally mobile KBE generation has qualities and demands different from thrifty hardworking pioneer migrants of the past who have worked well with Singapore Inc. WHAT ARE THE NEW GROWTH INDUSTRIES? A full value chain (see Figure 10.2) shows alliances and synergy building on current industries and upgrading from manufacturing to converge with the services sector: witness consumer electronics morphing into the next-generation personal computer (PC) plus software solutions, telematics and robotics, embedded in multimedia and networks. To synergize competitive advantage in goods and services, the diversified industrial service-oriented base must retain some core manufacturing, which has fallen to 25 per cent of GDP.6 What remains the manufacturing backbone for new service industries is again the aggressive pursuit of MNC headquarters and R&D-cum-manufacturing science parks. They support 8,000-odd professional service establishments including accounting, advertising, health care, information technology (IT), legal and market research, all of which account for 2.5 per cent of GDP. The next-generation service growth industries include traffic management, environment, security, medical, education, national defence and more sophisticated finance as well as goods which accompany these new lifestyle services. An intelligent product system of goods-services convergence needs dedicated industrial restructuring in three types of products. These are consumables (consumed or biodegradable), durables (rented or licensed, not sold) and unsalables (toxic materials not to be sold, but disposed of or recycled in environmentally friendly ways). As part of the KBE, new growth industries treat products as capital goods which, in turn, create more jobs rather than as mere finished products to be consumed. Repair, renovation, or retrofitting

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jobs are also more skill-intensive and demand creative innovations in order to achieve total solutions where there is a concerted attempt to tackle the AZ of a problem, instead of a piecemeal approach to problem-solving. With the right education and HRD, Singapore is better equipped to compete in such new growth industries. Labour productivity will also take on a higher qualitative dimension when workers incorporate KBE skills. Instead of price reductions to generate or maintain demand for old products, or the fear of higher prices of quality products reducing demand, products actually become affordable in a sustainable progression to new wealth consumer classes as predicted in staged-growth theories.7 Singapore turns from pure price competition to non-price competitive advantage in textile and garments for instance, but remains committed to high-end market segments in the areas of accredited education and health. The right strategy and technology (S&T)-R&D environment facilitates electronic transactions, from e-commerce, e-government to e-learning and telemedicine-diagnostics. The EDB emphasizes outward-processing integrated manufacturing via fiscal and monetary incentives for overseas headquarters (OHQs) to locate in Singapore to tap resource supply and market demand. Its counterpart, the International Enterprise (IE), spearheads business headquarters (BHQs) and the external economy via connections as in the FTA-network, competency via thirty-three overseas centres offering advisory services and capital. Together, the EDB-IE duo spawns new growth clusters ranging from manufacturing in petrochemicals and electronics to pharmaceutical, specialty chemicals, and more service-related industries. The IE’s eight service clusters are business (education to professional), infrastructure (real estate construction to marine and heavy engineering), environmental (waste management to pollution), lifestyle (food and beverage to wellness), transport and logistics (traditional to e-logistics), international trading (energy to agriculture), electronics and precision engineering (aerospace to medical), and info-communication technology (e-government to wireless). The Agency for Science Technology and Research (A*STAR), as its name implies, is the lead KBE agency for world-class scientific research and talent, starting from public sector R&D in biomedical sciences, physical sciences and engineering with particular focus on fields essential to the manufacturing industry and new growth industries. Its twelve research institutes support extramural research with universities, hospital research centres, and other partners, both local and international partners. It sends scholars for undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral training in world-renowned universities since the development of human capital is recognized as vital to knowledge creation.

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Other statutory boards exist to oversee the development of respective industries, such as the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) in financial services, and the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) with its current focus on meetings-incentivesconference-exhibitions (MICE) industry, one of the fastest growing segments within the tourism industry, Info-Communications Development Authority (IDA) and the Media Development Authority (MDA) take care of the information and media industries. They represent a full menu of support and assistance for doing business efficiently and effectively from funding to HRD and technical assistance in a pro-enterprise style. Existing industries that have proved successful are also refurbished into high-technology industries (see Table 10.2). In particular, two new lifestyle products sustainable in the global new wealth stage are education and bio-medical/health care.8 With over fifty key local education providers catering to more than 70,000 international students, the EDB’s education hub as a global schoolhouse reflects a different strategy and approach. Its foreign-local universities partnership is one of an Asian English-speaking country competing in a traditionally Western-dominated industry. Singapore traditionally exports students to the U.S., UK and Australia. The global school-house concept reverses this to importing 150,000 to 200,000 international students by 2010. More than hubbing, TABLE 10.2 High-technology Industries Fixed asset investment/ Total business spending S$m

Industries

Biomedical manufacturing Health care services Chemical Education Electronics Engineering & environment services Info-comm & media Logistics Precision engineering Transport engineering

Total valueadded S$m

2005

2006

2005

2006

860 31 1,980 111 4,354 251 732 427 418 598

902 22 2,566 82 4,336 428 724 363 416 473

2,570 57 649 102 2,107 512 783 285 420 438

2,025 36 552 88 2,998 1,440 1,168 350 501 618

Source: EDB.

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it also provides a talent pool for over 7,000 MNCs. One of Singapore’s longstanding attraction to potential immigrants is the opportunity for experiential, hands-on learning and its East-West fusion in management. Top-grade Private Education Organizations (PEOs) are awarded the Singapore Quality Class (SQZ) by the Singapore Productivity Innovation Board (SPRING) to create the right branding, as well as to promote organizational merit and commendable business performances. Given the goals of attracting quality talent, creating jobs and wealth, and fostering an environment for vibrant R&D, the tertiary segment is the cornerstone of Singapore’s education hub. World-class universities (WCUs, see Table 10.3), the National University of Singapore (NUS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU) incorporating the National Institute of Education (NIE), Singapore Institute of Management (SIM), Singapore Management University (SMU) and private universities are niche centres of excellence.9 Most WCUs collaborate with local universities. Only INSEAD, University of Chicago, and Johns Hopkins have independent campuses. INSEAD was exploring an Asian campus in 1991 in Malaysia, Hong Kong or Singapore. In 1997, the EDB offered INSEAD financial incentives in the form of soft loans, S$10 million research funding and reduced land values at one-third discount of commercial value. In wooing the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business, the government, among other incentives, contributed the renovated 120-year-old heritage House of Tan Yeok Nee for the university’s use. Singapore’s other distinction is in biomedical sciences (BMS) and health care. Singapore has six of the top ten pharmaceutical conglomerates, key industry players and a growing base of medical technology companies within the Tuas Biomedical Park, a 183-hectare BMS-dedicated site to double current capacity. There is also the Biopolis, a state-of-the-art biomedical research campus situated in One-North.10 The Biopolis offers a “plug and play” infrastructure for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to share scientific facilities and services, facilitating cross-disciplinary research and public-private collaborations. Together, they help to create an influx of specialist doctors with enhanced medical and operational effectiveness, as well as international patients seeking medical expertise. Three groups populate the biomedical sciences environment: (1) EDB Biomedical Sciences Group (BMSG) working closely with A*STAR; (2) EDB’s investment arm Bio*One Capital Pte. Ltd., a dedicated biomedical sciences investment management company in Asia with worldwide presence. Funds exceeding S$830 million are focused in global biomedical companies. Bio*One

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University of Chicago School of Business Technische Universiteit Eindhoven (TUE) Technische Universität München (TUM)

The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania INSEAD

Georgia Institute of Technology

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continued next page

Partnered with NUS to set up the Design Technology Institute (DTI) to conduct research on design technology. DTI will offer a Master of Technological Design. Collaboration with NUS and NTU was established in 2002. TUM offers a Master of Industrial Chemistry with NUS, and Master of Industrial Ecology with NTU.

Collaboration with NUS and NTU called Singapore MIT Alliance (SMA) formed in 1998. Offers masters degrees in advanced materials for micro and nano systems, computer science, and high performance computation for engineered systems. SMA will have connections to industry. Johns Hopkins Singapore was set up in 1998. Its focus is on biomedical sciences. It will offer Masters and Ph.D. programmes in clinical research. The institute will enhance research in life sciences such as immunology, virology, and cancer biology. Collaboration with NUS in 1999 to set up the Logistics Institute — Asia Pacific (TLI-AP). A dual Masters in Logistics has been established. The institute will also implement research to strengthen Singapore’s logistics infrastructure. The Wharton-SMU Research Centre was established in 1999. The research areas are in technopreneurship, economic commerce and marketing strategies. The centre will offer research programmes such as Masters of Science and Ph.D. research. Established its Asian campus in 2000. It offers MBA and Executive MBA programmes. Also researches on risk analysis and entrepreneurship. Established a campus in 2000. It offers MBA and International Executive MBA programmes.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Johns Hopkins University

Objectives

University

TABLE 10.3 Singapore’s World-class Universities

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Collaboration with NTU was established in 2003. Offering an MBA programme that will be taught in Chinese for business in China. Collaboration with NTU was established in 2003. The partnership offers the NTU Masters of Science and Ph.D. degrees in Environmental Engineering. The partnership will have links to Silicon Valley, industries and government agencies. Collaboration with NUS in 2003 to set up the Graduate Medical School. The school will offer a four year postgraduate programme leading to a MD degree. The partnership with NTU Business school was established in 2004. It will offer a double Masters programme in Management of Technology. Collaboration with NTU was established in 2004 to set up the Cornell-Nanyang Institute Joint Masters of Management in Hospitality programme. France’s top tier business school announced the creation of the ESSEC Asian centre in Singapore in 2004. Collaboration with NUS was established in 2005, to create a joint graduate engineering degree programme. The programme is expected to attract up to half of the student intake from top engineering schools in India.

Shanghai Jiao Tong University Stanford University

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Sources: EDB, and Singapore Ministry of Trade and Industry (2002), “Report of the Economic Review Committee: New Challenges, Fresh Goals — Towards a Dynamic Global City”, .

Indian Institute of Technology Bombay

ESSEC

Cornell University

Waseda University

Duke University

Objectives

University

TABLE 10.3 — cont’d

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Capital plays a proactive value-adding role in bridging and supporting companies’ growth strategies in Asia; and (3) A*STAR’s Biomedical Research Council (BMRC), tasked with developing the biomedical cluster comprising pharmaceuticals, medical technology, biotechnology and health care services. It oversees core research capabilities specializing in bioprocessing, chemical synthesis, genomics and proteomics, molecular and cell biology, bioengineering and nanotechnology and computational biology. Its competitive grants support research in the wider scientific community of public universities and hospitals. In health care, it promotes traditional medicine and cross-disciplinary research, including outreach programmes for societal awareness of biomedical research. Reflecting Singapore’s own affluence and that of the region, one new growth engine taps high net-worth individuals (HNWIs) and aims to be Asia’s answer to Geneva and Zurich as financial centres.11 Building upon Singapore’s reputation for orderliness and safety, the country is now carving out a new financial niche with beefed-up banking secrecy laws and generous tax incentives for private wealth management. Some forty private banks have regional offices in Singapore, including Swiss Bank Julius Baer, Citigroup’s HQ for all private banking outside the U.S. and Standard Chartered Bank’s global banking HQ. Singapore’s estimated S$150 billion in private wealth which banks manage is still just a sliver of Switzerland’s S$1.7 trillion. The FTAs in the Middle East for oil money are as wily as luring Japanese and Europeans fleeing their home governments’ efforts to tax their offshore earnings. Singapore Inc’s new growth strategy in a whole range of services from real estate as a new asset class to lifestyle, taps millionaires and billionaires who value privacy, political stability, and sensitivity to money laundering implications. SUCCESS OF NEW GROWTH INDUSTRIES To assess the potential success of the new growth industries, this section considers two strategies for new growth industries with illustrated industry-level benefits and overall social political economy costs. Both strategies run alongside ICT, globalization, and industry convergence. Key performance indicators such as GDP and job creation and employment measure success premised on a stable global environment and best-case scenarios. Unabashed imitation by others seeking economic diversification is proof of success as well as competition. One strategy is to induce MNCs to locate their regional operational headquarters to Singapore through a “total-solutions” approach, supported by a stable and secure infrastructure. MNCs are able to enjoy one-stop integration in Singapore

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in the areas of innovation, manufacturing, regional distribution, marketing, and other services. That Singapore is the world’s third largest oil refiner despite being a non-oil producer is an example of the success of this strategy. Singapore was able to successfully entice Caltex to relocate its HQ from Texas to Singapore with a cost-competitive and synergistic environment on Jurong Island, a dedicated and vertically integrated petrochemicals complex anchoring ExxonMobil, Shell and Sumitomo Chemical.12 Similarly, in electronics, especially hard disk drive and hard disk media output, there is intense competition from Malaysia to China for Singapore’s 10 per cent global market share in semiconductor foundry wafer output and hosting the world’s top wafer foundry companies. Deeprooted long-term benefits of these MNCs in high-skilled jobs and income are superior to footloose, cost-based MNCs. Singapore makes the difference in high-end R&D, but infrastructural costs are huge. Long-term investment for production capacity and skill-based KBE industries for sustainability and stability outweigh and smooth cyclical business and innovation disruptions. Perversely, the Taiwan earthquake reminded MNCs of wiser supply-chain management offered by Singapore’s OHQ-BHQ network. The second strategy is to turn already successful national public sector entities from public housing to ports into more successful new growth sectors. Thus, some government departments have become statutory boards, in turn, spinning off into internationalized and/or privatized GLCs to serve as growth engines themselves, such as Singapore Telecommunication (Singtel). Other successful public utilities have spawned a new cluster in clean energy hub costing S$350 million, but generating S$1.7 billion worth of value-added goods and services and 7,000 jobs by 2015. The EDB’s Clean Energy Programme Office in April 2007 is to make Singapore a firstcomer in areas ranging from solar power, fuel cells, wind power, and energy efficiency to carbon trading. Singapore is cognizant of similar alternative energy ambitions in the Middle East.13 Singapore hosts one of the world’s largest membrane-based seawater desalination plants. It aims for 15 per cent of the world’s publicly listed water companies to list on the Singapore Exchange. Growing global emphasis on water and the environment makes Singapore’s R&D and water solutions commercially viable. Its water sector’s 0.3 per cent to GDP or S$0.5 billion in 2003 aims for S$1.7 billion (0.6 per cent of GDP) by 2015, doubling job creation to 11,000 largely professional- and skilled-based ones. Projected benefits to justify investment and costs are, however, as risky as unstable global and disruptive technology tend to upset the equation, not to mention the possibility of similar ideas replicated elsewhere. The National Research

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Foundation’s S$170 million initiative for cross-cutting R&D and manpower seems as much for insurance as for competitiveness. The Arabs’ oil-based ability and growth of Temasek-like sovereign wealth funds14 to finesse economic diversification projects pose as much competition to Singapore as to China in manufacturing. Singapore’s success criteria remain embedded in total development-oriented policy-making and effective policyimplementation. Where high capital needs propel Singapore Inc to lead, other emerging, less capital-intensive, new industries capitalise on existing infrastructure, pro-business environment, and technology. These seize opportunities in intellectual property (IP), information and physical security, resource management, nanotechnology and photonics. Well enforced copyright and IP legislation makes Singapore the most IP-protective in Asia, resulting in the presence of the World Intellectual Property Office’s (WIPO) regional office (its first in Asia), together with Honeywell and Hewlett Packard’s Asian IP licensing and acquisition centres, in Singapore. The same criteria for success work in favour of Singapore’s strengths such as hub-based information, physical security and resource management. These strengths allow for the controlling and coordinating of regional assets in order to bridge the gap in new frontiers between laboratory science and market need for nanotechnology.15 More than individualized sectoral cost-benefit, collective externalities are significant. Economies of scope mean photonics is applied in a wide spectrum of industries from electronics and telecommunication to sensing and imaging and health care. Collaborative industry-academia roundtables explore fibre optic sensors and organic light emitting diode-based, solid-state lighting technology. Similar technology or inputs for diverse applications and products compensate for any lack of economies of scale in market size for cost saving in bulk input purchase or lower unit production cost. Clusters start the evolution from IT to ICT and media. Successful public sector computerization extends to private sector via e-government and with more computerized applications eUpgrading Program (LIUP) as iLIUP. The IDA’s strategic goal for a vibrant and competitive infocomm industry attracts FDI via innovative competitiveness. It is the virtual arm for financial services from e-banking to information-intensive health care in telemedicine delivery processes, patients’ medical data, and laboratory results, thus minimizing medical errors, cost and time. Manufacturing logistics as high-value hub and supply chain nerve centre is similarly infocomm-powered from R&D collaboration to dynamic end-to-end value-supply chains while tourism, hospitality, and retail need trickier high-touch servicization with a human face. IDA’s digital media as a growth pole in entertainment, education, health care and lifestyle

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stems from the convergence of media, telecommunication and computing. State-of-the-art infrastructure, high-speed connectivity, and a strong IPR regime thus make digital media logical for creativity. MDA’s developmental role extends to entertainment in broadcasting, films and publishing. Both the IDA and MDA under the same ministry collaborate in creative industries, entertainment, and recreation. Furthermore, the areas such as ICT infrastructure, broadband, and internet where there are cross-cutting issues such as connectivity, censorship, copyright and legislation, are coordinated in one KBE goal. Policy and content guidelines raise public awareness of laws and regulations. Content management allows information to benefit end-users and society, give access to choice of channels for entertainment or knowledge and safeguard the young from undesirable materials. A light-touch regulation over content and standards works best among industry players as different media are guided by different codes. Meanwhile end-users’ needs help to raise standards through regular dialogue where views and feedback may be collected. Industry practices are put in place to provide media business with an operating framework and promote fair competition. The MDA also uses virtual space to create the buzz and vibrancy in Singapore as a place to work, live, and play for local and global talents. It covers the development and regulation of a creatively connected society encompassing broadcasting, cinemas, publishing and printing services, music recording, online digital and IT-related content services. The media industry generated S$10 billion in revenue, 1.56 per cent of GDP, and employed 38,000 people in 2001 with an average growth rate of 7.7 per cent annually from 1990 to 2000. The 2002 Media 21 Plan aims for 3 per cent of GDP contribution by 2012, 50,000 highskilled and high-productivity jobs, and an increase of S$66,000 to S$160,000 of value-added per worker. Its strategic thrust and recommendations are sixfold: establish Singapore as a media exchange hub; export made-by-Singapore content; deploy digital media; internationalize Singaporean media enterprises; augment media talent; and foster a conducive business and regulatory environment. Fusionpolis@one-north is an entire ecosystem, a world-class location for media and infocomm enterprises, state-of-the-art twin-tower-cum-podium complex integrated with offices, apartments, amenity clubhouse, technology showcase, media studios and retail outlets. Both strategies ensure success with inevitable varying degrees of risk underpinned by external and internal factors involving FDI, MNCs, GLCs and demographics in a new generation in lifestyle, wealth and political acumen. What makes Singapore exceptional is its reputation for delivering while managing

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hiccups and global crises deemed beyond its control. Its success is backed up by intensive policy-oriented multi-faceted studies and scenario planning which are flexible as they are agile to changes.16 People are better educated, ICTsavvy and demanding in an open global system. The perceived price of new industries compared with traditional brick-and-mortar industries due to globalization and KBE is the loss of jobs, unequal income distribution and uncertain social security. The less educated, elderly and other minority groups are more at risk in the globalized KBE. These are universal issues which no one government and society can avert or solve. Singapore is sanguine about the inevitable digital gap of IT-rich and IT-poor or IT-endowed and IT-handicapped affecting people’s performance and welfare. In laissez faire capitalism, new service industries facing global competition may commoditize people as objects. As such, a human face needs to emerge from the Singapore economic model for a greater sense of socialistic wealth redistribution because Singapore Inc must win people’s hearts as much as it must win global MNCs for success. A small, but important consolation is that propelling Singapore’s approximately 5 million population into new industries is less daunting a task compared to that of larger economies with a rural-urban divide, regional balances, and other socio-political disparities. Nonetheless, with a reputation for elitism and plans to attract HNWIs from the region with its integrated resorts as well as banking, finance, and medical services, Singapore must remain mindful of its neighbourhood’s sensitivities. Realistically speaking, the passing of the old economy into the new economy is not a matter of choice; the latter has arrived and cannot be ignored. It is a matter of managing the impact and consequences of external events like the 2007 U.S. subprime crisis imploding from the U.S. into a global financial crisis. Only a totally isolated state with no trade, FDI or exchange of any form can be safely insulated from the impact of globalization. There is no perfect recessionproof industry or any state with absolute control of critical success factors. With the competition challenge posed by the populations of China and India, instinctual survival necessarily drives Singapore’s KBE and Singapore Inc is reinvention, though not without risks. More than infrastructure, adaptive behaviour with change agents and mindset change from both the public and private sector is the hardest. Visionary and able leadership cannot be taken for granted. Neither is the chance factor which allows for seizing opportunities or averting threats. Other risks include the fact that an industry that constantly changes may not grow deep roots. For example, Hong Kong’s haute couture high fashion stayed the course from labour-intensive textile and garments industry with China as hinterland. Singapore’s departure from low skill industries and subsequent move

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into creative design services needs time and events to prove its quality and competitiveness. Another risk is that while geared towards the global economy at large, Singapore’s economic success is intrinsically tied into the region for resources and growth expansion. As such strong diplomacy is needed to address political tensions that may arise among neighbours in competition within the same basic externally-oriented growth formulation. And although these regional economies climb the same industrial ladder, aspiring to be sustainable economies, some possessing a more mature KBE than others, they can complement one another across the whole industrial spectrum. CONCLUSION The twenty-first century KBE’s value creation is about creative innovation. It is no longer the product per se, but the value attached to a good or service which gives business the competitive edge. Old or new businesses continue to prosper so long as they create or add value to products. This chapter has looked at the reengineering of the modernized entrepôt trading hub to a KBE which, inter alia reinvents Singapore Inc as a collection of privatized and outward-oriented GLCs. Technocrats from the public sector and technopreneurs from the private sector are leading the way in “know-how” and “know-what”, and as the industrial landscape changes, so too the political economy of state control and ownership accordingly. The new growth industries identified here have largely one thing in common — the blurring of goodsservices along the value chain, while their basic formula remains generally the same — high-quality investment in infrastructure, HRD, the strategic policy-supported process using PPPs and GLCs, the latter of which are growth engines themselves. The private sector infusion is the key difference in a hightechnology KBE, which needs more imagination than brick-and-mortar activities, thus making it more risky too. The petrochemical cluster is upgrading itself with specialty chemicals, just as the electronics cluster is tapping into education, health, recreational industry, with other ICT-media service industries adopting the S&T-R&D value chain. While state-led industrial policies are important today, the policies and incentives offered by EDB or IE also involve the expertise of FDI and MNCs when it comes to picking winners in new industries. However, with so many new growth industries possible and sustainable in an age of high mass consumption and wealth, Singapore Inc has to focus. It is not unconstrained financially vis-à-vis Arab Incs, but both are strapped for KBE talents. Sustainability

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means new growth industries filter their across-the-board gains beyond GLCs and MNCs down to SMEs and average Singaporeans. Singapore’s first local “bread boutique”, BreadTalk seems to be as successful as Creative Technology, both non-GLCs. Others such as Kopitiam, traditional medicine or ICT-mediated and home-based micro-SMEs can be entrepreneurial in less capital-intensive activities to support new industrial clusters. Not all need to be big and exportbased since local demand needs SMEs too in Housing and Development Board (HDB) neighbourhoods. The clearest policy initiative needed is sensible policy balancing and realizing that there is no singular best outcome, but a comfortable economic-social-political combination. Schumpeterian creative destruction as the market’s way to cope with risks and opportunities will show in time that doing nothing is not an option in an era of constant change.

NOTES 1. For industrial restructuring, Singapore Inc and related political economy, see Linda Low, ed., Developmental States: Relevancy, Redundancy or Reconfiguration? (New York: Nova Science, 2004); Linda Low, The Political Economy in a City-state Revisited (Singapore: Marshall Cavendish International, 2006); and E.H. Schein, Strategic Pragmatism: The Culture of Singapore’s Economic Development Board (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1996). 2. See Linda Low, “A Case Study of Singapore’s Bilateral and Crossregional Free Trade Agreements”, in Cross-Regionalism: Trade Agreements, edited by Saori N. Katada and Mireya Solis (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, 2008), pp. 47–70. Linda Low, “Policy Dilemmas in Singapore’s RTA Strategy”, The Pacific Review 16, no. 1 (February/March 2003): 99–127; Linda Low, “Multilateralism, Regionalism, Bilateral and Crossregional Free Trade Arrangements: All Paved with Good Intentions for ASEAN?” Asian Economic Journal 17, no. 1 (March 2003): 65–86; Linda Low, “Singapore’s Bilateral Trading Arrangements in the Context of East Asian Regionalism: State of Play, Issues and Prospects”, in Southeast Asian Affairs 2004, edited by Daljit Singh and Chin Kin Wah (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2004); Ramkishen S. Rajan, Rahul Sen and Reza Siregar, Singapore and Free Trade Agreements: Economic Relations with Japan and the United States (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2001); Ramkishen S. Rajan and Rahul Sen, “The JapanSingapore ‘New Age’ Economic Partnership Agreement: Background, Motivation and Implications”, Institute of Policy Studies Working Paper No. 13 (April 2002); and Thomas Hertel, Terrie Walmsley, and Ken Itakura, “Dynamic Effects of ‘New Age’ Free Trade Agreement between Japan and Singapore”, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Purdue University, mimeographed, August 2001.

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3. See Linda Low and T.C. Aw, Social Insecurity in the New Millennium: The Central Provident Fund in Singapore (Singapore: Marshall Cavendish International, 2004). 4. See Michael Borrus, Ernst Dieter, and Stephan Haggard, eds., International Production Networks in Asia: Rivalry or Riches (London and New York: Routledge, 2000) for an account on differentiating CPNs from standard agglomeration economies of scale and scope, to concentrating on external quantitative economies associated with co-location of producers. See Michael H. Best, The New Competitive Advantage: The Renewal of American Industry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) for an account on open systems. 5. A MRA is an agreement between two or more parties to recognize or accept mutually each other’s conformity assessment results (test reports, certificates and inspection results) to avoid duplicative testing, certification, and accreditation for products before entering the importing country, saving time and cost, and ensuring greater certainty of market access. Conformity assessment provides a means for a manufacturer or trader to comply with standards and technical regulations for a product for sale in the intended market using a third party conformity assessment body to certify compliance. Accreditation is an audit function to provide added assurance that the conformity assessment body or laboratory has the expertise to undertake the conformity assessment for compliance with the specified standard and technical regulation for which the product has to comply with. Singapore has conformity assessment and accreditation support for cosmetic products, electrical and electronic equipment, food and horticultural goods, pharmaceutical products and telecommunication equipment. 6. Advanced industrial OECD countries may have a higher manufacturing share to the GDP, up to a third or more. Both city-states of Singapore and Hong Kong fear de-industrialization or hollowing-out which Singapore proactively averts, but finds it hard to sustain the 1980s’ average of 30 per cent manufacturing valueadded. 7. Walter Rostow’s five stages start from traditional society to preconditions for takeoff, take-off, drive to maturity, and the age of high mass consumption. They are not unlike Michael Porter’s factor-driven, investment-driven, innovation-driven and wealth-driven stages. 8. More than 374,000 international patients were treated in Singapore in 2005. 9. The forerunner of the NUS was the University of Malaya, renamed University of Singapore. The NTU was the former Nanyang University. As an institute, SIM was founded in 1965, but has joined the ranks of a full-fledged tertiary institution when it began to offer courses as an Open University. Interestingly, SIM was formed in 1965 at the same time that the then University of Singapore also inaugurated its business faculty for management studies in recognition of the fact that streetwise managerial skills were insufficient.

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10. One-North is a 200-hectare space carved out to support “a catalytic community in the area of innovation and knowledge creation”, (accessed 15 January 2009). 11. HNWIs are those with at least S$1.4 million and ultra HNWIs are those with over S$42 million in assets and are tracked by Merrill Lynch and Cap Gemini’s reports, with the 2007 edition prompting comparisons to America’s Gilded Age, showing that the wealth of the wealthy in emerging markets is no different than the wealth of the wealthy in the Rockefeller days. 12. This success story is duplicated as Dubai had Halliburton’s relocation in 2007 to tap regional oilfields and customers. 13. Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has the Masdar initiative to cover R&D with Dubai in carbon trade. The Arabs invest in water-related industries, both for water supply and diversification into new growth areas too. 14. Linda Low, Sovereign Wealth Funds (Singapore: Saw Financial Centre, National University of Singapore, 2009). 15. NTU’s company NanoFrontier works with the industry on nanotechnology application, including creating new synthetic materials. 16. Singapore monitors religiously its relative ranking in two Economic Freedom Indices, respectively by the Heritage Foundation and Fraser Institute, International Management Development’s (IMD) World Competitiveness Yearbook, World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report, AT Kearney’s Globalization Index, United Nations Development Program’s (UNDP) Human Development Index, Berlin-based Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index and Business Environment Risk Intelligence (BERI) among others. These benchmarks are used for internal maintenance and sprucing, as well as external publicity and marketing.

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4

THE TRANSFORMATION OF SOCIETY

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11

THE AGEING POPULATION YAP MUI TENG

In 1980, there were 112,000 old people, about one Toa Payoh today … In 2020, there will be five Toa Payohs of old people. So, this is a tidal wave which is coming towards us. In fact, we are the tidal wave ourselves, because the 2020 people will be this generation, many of these MPs who will be standing there and expecting to be supported by the younger generation. And I know that there are many problems which people who are old and people who can see this coming worry about … — PM Lee Hsien Loong, 20061

DEMOGRAPHICS OF AGEING IN SINGAPORE

S

ingapore’s transition from a young, rapidly growing, high fertility population into a rapidly ageing one with prolonged low, below-replacement fertility and low domestic population growth is one of the most significant social transformations the country has undergone over the last fifty years. The magnitude and speed of this demographic development, which will see the population of the old growing into what Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has characterized as a “tidal wave” in the next couple of decades, and the flow of young labour force entrants slowing and even declining, has tremendous implications for the country. This was recognized very early by the Singapore Government which, under the leadership of the People’s Action Party (PAP), quite characteristically started planning for this eventuality in the 1980s, well before the population became aged.2 While this early initiative was mired in controversy, it did not dampen the government’s determination to tackle the “problem” of the ageing population. Indeed, tackling the “ageing problem” is part of the national agenda. The basic philosophy and approach 183

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underlying Singapore’s policy on the aged have remained unchanged over the years although the government has also not hesitated to reform specific components to meet present and anticipated needs. This chapter reviews the Singapore state’s response to the ageing of the population to date and assesses its viability going forward. It begins with a review of the demographics. The social, economic, and political implications of these demographic trends are also examined. This is followed by a review of the policy approach and measures that have been adopted by the government to address emerging challenges. Finally, their viability for the future will be assessed and suggestions will be made. As Table 11.1 shows, the aged,3 defined as that segment of the population aged 65 and older, are a growing presence in Singapore. From 3.4 per cent of the resident population in 1970, the proportion of the population that is aged has grown to 8.7 per cent in 2008. In comparison, the proportion of children aged 14 and below has halved from about 40 per cent to 20 per cent over the same period. As elsewhere, the main contributors to the greying of Singapore’s population are fertility and mortality declines. The country experienced an extended baby boom in the post-World War II period, lasting from about 1947 till 1964.4 The Total Fertility Rate (TFR, or average number of children a woman could expect to have over her lifetime at fertility levels prevalent in the particular year) rose to a peak at more than six children per woman in 1957 while annual TABLE 11.1 Age Composition of Resident Population, 1970–2008 1970 No. of Resident Population (000) Age Distribution (%) 0–14 years 15–64 years 65 years & over Total

1980

1990

2000

2008

2,013.6 2,282.1 2,735.9 3,273.4 3,642.7

39.1 57.5 3.4 100.0

27.6 67.5 4.9 100.0

23.0 71.0 6.0 100.0

21.9 70.9 7.2 100.0

18.4 72.9 8.7 100.0

Sources: Figures for 1970–2000 are obtained from Population Trends 2007, Department of Statistics 2007, (accessed 28 February 2008) while those for 2008 are from DOS’ Monthly Digest of Statistics, February 2009, available online at (accessed 11 March 2009). Percentages for the latter have been computed by the author.

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births averaged about 60,000 over the period 1956–65.5 Fertility declined rapidly in the years following the country’s independence in 1965, owing to the rapid pace of social and economic development as well as the implementation of a strict family planning programme. The TFR fell to the replacement level of 2.1 in 1975 and 1976, with annual births falling to about 46,000 over the period 1966–76. The TFR fell below the replacement level in 1977 and has remained below that level in the three decades since. Singapore now ranks among countries with the “lowest-low” fertility levels of 1.3 children per woman or lower — along with Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, and the Southern, Central, and Eastern European countries. The TFR among Singapore’s resident population, comprising citizens and permanent residents, in 2007 (the latest year for which data are available) was only 1.29 children per woman, with births numbering only about 37,000.6 With smaller cohorts of babies born, the proportion of the young in the population has declined while the proportion of the old has increased. The growth in the aged population is also aided by mortality decline. Life expectancy at birth rose from 64.1 years in 1970 to 80.6 years in 2007, with women outliving men by nearly five years in 2007, at 82.9 years and 78.2 years, respectively.7 Life expectancy at age 65 rose from only 8.4 years to 19.1 years (20.6 for females, 17.3 for males) over the same period. Over the decade 1990–2000, the population of the old-old aged 85 and over grew even more rapidly than the population aged 65 and over, at 6.1 per cent and 3.7 per cent per annum, respectively.8 The number of centenarians grew from 150 in 19999 to about 500 in 2007.10 Life expectancy is generally expected to rise further as future elderly are expected to be healthier than the current generation of elderly.11 The ranks of the aged will be swelled by the baby boomers when they begin to reach age 65 from 2012 onwards. An official projection by the Department of Statistics shows that the proportion of the aged will rise to 18.7 per cent of the resident population in 2030, with nearly 900,000 persons in this age category.12 It is likely that this number will be even higher as Singapore relaxes its immigration policy and increases the number of foreigners given Singapore citizenship and permanent resident status. The relative share of the aged will, however, depend on future immigration and fertility trends. IMPLICATIONS The growing population of the old has various social, economic and political implications for any country, especially an urban, industrialized one such as Singapore. This is because old age is conventionally the life-cycle stage associated

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with retirement or withdrawal from the workforce. In Singapore, labour force participation rates for both sexes decline sharply from about the mid-fifties. Age for age, the labour force participation rate among older Singaporeans is lower than that for their Japanese and Korean counterparts (see Table 11.2). This in turn has important implications for their financial well-being, especially in view of the lengthening post-retirement years. Only 63 per cent of Singapore residents aged 55 and older studied in 2005 had their own income (although this is an increase compared with the situation in 1995), with men more likely than women to have their own income.13 Old age is also associated with greater health and social care needs. A study by the Ministry of Health shows that while life expectancy has risen, Singaporean men and women spend eight years in poor health owing to heart diseases, stroke, cancer, diabetes and mental illness.14 The proportions that require assistance in their activities of daily living (such as self-feeding, dressing, grooming and going to the toilet) increase with age, as do the proportions that are bedridden or require assistance to move about.15 Hospital utilization is also higher among the elderly compared with the general population.16 Both on account of their declining health status and their economically inactive status, the elderly are more vulnerable and likely to require assistance unless personal and institutional measures are put in place to ensure their independence. In Singapore, the main provider of care and support for the old, both by tradition and policy design, has been the family. The majority of those studied in the 2005 survey (66 per cent) received financial support from their children, with women being more likely to receive such support, compared with men.17 Children

TABLE 11.2 Labour Force Participation Rates at Ages 55 and Over (%) Singapore

Age Group

Japan

Korea

Total Male Female Total Male Female Total Male Female

55–59 60–64 65–69 70–74 75+

57.8 36.6 20.7 9.7 3.4

76.6 52.5 32.6 16.1 6.6

39.4 21.3 10.4 4.5 1.2

76.7 54.7 34.8 21.7 9.1

93.6 70.3 46.7 29.6 15.1

60.0 40.1 24.0 15.4 5.4

64.9 54.6 42.6 30.3 14.0

80.7 66.7 54.3 38.4 22.4

49.1 43.4 33.1 24.6 9.8

Sources: ILO Yearbook of Labour Statistics for Japan and Korea; Yearbook of Statistics 2007 for Singapore.

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were the most important source of financial support for nearly 45 per cent of those studied (down from 64 per cent in 1995). About 27 per cent of the senior citizens also depended on their children to provide for their health care — about one third of women depended on children compared to 15 per cent for men. The report also noted that the “Family was a very important source of help for senior citizens in times of need … 92 per cent depended on their family for help when they were ill, 87.5 per cent turned to family for financial help, and 91 per cent turned to family when they needed to talk to someone.”18 However, the viability of the family as the main provider of care is being called into question. The decline in fertility means that fewer children are available to provide support. As Singaporeans marry and start their families later, the middle generation is likely to be sandwiched, having simultaneously to provide for both their parents and their children. The rising singlehood levels (which also contribute to fertility decline) mean that more Singaporeans are likely to approach old age with no children to provide for them. With globalization and increased permanent or temporary migration overseas for work or study, even those who have children may not have them readily available at hand to provide support when it is needed. At the national level, the working age population, the middle age band that powers the economy and provides support to young and old, is projected to decline to about 66 per cent in 2030,19 from more than 70 per cent currently (see Table 11.1). This will have tremendous impact on the availability of support for the growing aged population. Figure 11.1 shows that the ratio of population aged 65 and above to the working-age population (15–64 years), known as the old-age dependency ratio, has risen from 4.8 per 100 in 1965, to 9.2 per 100 in 1995, and 11.4 per 100 in 2005. The obverse of the old-age dependency ratio, the support ratio, shows the reverse declining trend — falling from 21.0 working age persons per elderly in 1965, to 8.8 in 2005. The old-age dependency ratio is projected to rise to 28.3 in 2030; this translates into a support ratio of 3.5 working age persons per elderly.20 The prolonged low, below-replacement fertility level has apparently not had an impact on the population in the working ages thus far (see Table 11.1). Singapore has been reaping the demographic bonus as the large baby boom cohorts mature and move through the productive ages. The oldest of these baby boomers turned sixty in 2007, and the youngest are currently only in their early forties. Although smaller cohorts have been entering the working age (the last of the baby boom cohorts turned fifteen in 1979), the working age population has not diminished, but has continued to grow instead as the

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FIGURE 11.1 Old-Age Dependency and Support Ratios 35

25

20 25 15

20

15

10

SR (per elderly)

ODR (per 100 working age persons)

30

ODR SR

10 5 5

0

0 1965

1975

1985

1995

2005

2030P

government relaxed its immigration policy in the 1980s and further liberalized it since the 1990s to attract foreign talent with skills and qualifications to augment the workforce. Such foreigners are encouraged to become permanent residents and eventually citizens. An average of 35,000 foreigners became permanent residents (PR) and 7,000 became citizens annually over the period 2001–04.21 The number of new PRs increased to over 53,000 in 2005 and 57,000 in 2006, while new citizens increased to about 13,000 in both years.22 The numbers increased further, to 17,334 new citizens and 63,627 new PRs in 2007, and 20,500 new citizens and 79,167 new PRs in 2008.23 Simulations by Yap and Shantakumar24 show, however, that the proportion in the working ages will not return to the current level even with very high levels of immigration (100,000 net-migrants annually from 2005) and rising fertility (to 1.85 children per woman by 2020). This is consistent with the findings by the United Nations that massive replacement migration will be needed to maintain potential support ratios.25 With a smaller projected working age population, questions to be raised include whether the economy can continue to grow, or if productivity can be raised enough to offset the decline in the size of the workforce. The workforce

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will age because there will be fewer young new entrants: Will older workers be able to adapt to changing technology, and can an older workforce adopt new technology as quickly as a young one? Immigration may help to ameliorate some of these effects, but a high level of immigration will also increase the rate of population growth and the share of “non-natives” in the population, possibly introducing social and political challenges. With a smaller workforce, there will also be a smaller tax-paying population to finance the expected increase in social expenditure, as shown below. A rising proportion of the old in the population has several implications for the nation. A greater burden on public finance is implied unless measures are put in place to ameliorate this. In Singapore, the national health expenditure is projected to grow to 7 per cent of GDP in 2030.26 Singapore is spared the problems associated with unfunded pay-as-you-go pension systems as it has adopted the mandatory-savings provident fund as the main instrument of oldage financial security. However, questions are being raised as to whether savings accumulated under current rules will be adequate in view of the growth in longevity. In the event will the government have to increase its social spending to ensure basic livelihood for its senior citizens? Moreover, spending on infrastructure is likely to increase to cater to the projected growth in demand for care facilities, for example. The increased social expenditure may have to be funded through increased taxation or provisions may have to be reduced. Both solutions are politically sensitive. Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew has also suggested that talented young Singaporeans will emigrate if they are taxed too highly to pay for the old.27 There is a silver lining, however. The baby boomers who make up the future elderly are better educated, more likely to have been employed, employed in better occupations, and have higher real incomes than the pre-baby boom cohorts.28 They are also expected to be of better health.29 For these reasons, the greying of the population is also seen as providing new opportunities. STATE RESPONSE TO POPULATION AGEING The PAP government began its response to the potential problems of the greying of the population early. In 1982, it appointed the Committee on the Problems of the Aged, headed by then Health Minister Howe Yoon Chong, to “study the problems of the increasing number of people aged sixty years or more in our population and their consequences to our society and to recommend measures to prevent, ameliorate or deal with such problems”.30 This was followed

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in 1988 by the appointment of the Advisory Council on the Aged, headed by the then Minister for Law and Home Affairs. Two Inter-Ministerial Committees (IMCs) on the Ageing Population followed in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and in 2004, the Committee on Ageing Issues (CAI) was set up. Each IMC was headed by a government minister while the CAI was headed by a senior minister of state and a parliamentary secretary. The recommendations of the committees became the basis of policies and programmes for the elderly, although not all were or could be adopted. One among the latter was the recommendation by the Howe committee for the CPF withdrawal age to be raised beyond fifty-five years. This led to an uproar and the relatively poor performance of the PAP in the general elections in 1984.31 Ageing issues are currently under the purview of the Ministerial Committee on Ageing, formed in March 2007 and chaired by the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, Lim Boon Heng. Recommendations of the CAI are being implemented under this ministerial committee. CONTINUITY AND CHANGE One consistent theme throughout the last twenty-five years of policy development regarding the aged is that of individual independence and the family as the first line of support. Thus, the Report of the Committee on the Problems of the Aged (commonly known as the “Howe Report”) recommended that “The Government should adopt a national policy aimed at keeping every elderly individual physically and mentally fit and active so that he can retain his normal living arrangements for as long as possible. The policy should comprise the following four elements: (a) “activity through continued employment and participation in family and community activities; (b) financial independence with a regular income; (c) organised community activities to involve the elderly and integrate them in the community; voluntary community organisations can provide ancillary nursing and other health care services to supplement the effort of family members; and (d) the traditional family system to be strengthened through moral education and the inculcation of the virtues of filial piety, respect for the elderly in the family and general reverence for old age.”32

The reason for advocating ageing-in-place (living out one’s old age in the familiar environment of one’s own home or community) and the primacy of family

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care, according to the Committee, was that “the alternative of institutional care is unsatisfactory”, from both the social-emotional and cost perspectives. As this author, too, has noted, most elderly Singaporeans prefer to live with their children or in the community on their own rather than in institutions; hence future demand is likely to be greater for home care than for old-age institutions.33 The Committee also considered what is now known as the “many helping hands” approach the “most cost-effective” way to augment family care. This message of individual independence, integration in the family and community, and family and community support has been repeated in the recommendations of the various committees.34 It also informs the government’s policy on the elderly today. Thus the desired outcomes, according to the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS), the lead agency on ageing issues, are: • “At the individual level: Our senior citizens should age with respect and dignity as integral members of our society. In particular, we want them to be healthy, secure and active. • At the family level: We want to see strong and caring families where members are interdependent on each other. • At the community level: We want a strong network of community services to support the family in its care of the young and old. • At the national level: We want to develop a high level of preparedness, to maintain a strong intergenerational cohesion, and to maximise the opportunities of an ageing population.”35

The guiding principles of MCYS’ approach are: • “Social integration of the elderly: senior citizens should be valued as contributing members of society and policies must enable them to remain with their families and in the community for as long as possible; • Community responsibility from all sectors: every individual has a personal responsibility to plan and prepare for old age, with the family and the community as the second line of support while the role of the state is to set out the policy framework, provide the infrastructure and resources for the other sectors to play their part; and • Long-term sustainability: the government has to implement policies and programmes in a cost-effective manner to ensure financial sustainability.”36

Notably, the discourse has shifted from one of “problems” and dependency to “opportunities” and empowerment. This is especially so in the CAI report.

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The CAI recommendations focused on “empowering seniors” through elder friendly housing, a barrier-free society, holistic and affordable health care and eldercare, and active lifestyles and well-being. Financial adequacy and employment were not included in the CAI review as these were being looked after by another committee, the Tripartite Committee on the Employability of Older Workers, and the Ministry of Manpower. Together, these recommendations are at various stages of implementation under four strategic thrusts (enhance employability and financial security; provide holistic and affordable health care and eldercare; enable ageing-in-place; and promote active ageing) identified by the Ministerial Committee on Ageing.37 The government appointed a highlevel Silver Industry Committee to oversee the development of products and services that will cater not just to the elderly in Singapore, but also take advantage of opportunities in the region.38 This function is now under the purview of the Council for Third Age which was set up in May 2007 to promote active ageing in Singapore.39 The government also began from the mid-1980s to address the root cause of population ageing, namely, the low and declining fertility level. It reversed its earlier anti-natalist stance and began to adopt a selectively pro-natalist policy from 1987. The reversal began in the early 1980s when then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew noted that university educated Singaporean women were not marrying and reproducing themselves (while the lower-educated were more than doing so) and incentive measures were introduced targeted specifically at this group of women to get them to have more (three) children.40 A high level Inter-ministerial Population Committee was also set up in 1985 to study the population problem. In 1986, Professor Saw Swee Hock, a demographer who was also a member of the IMPC, published two papers in the Straits Times on the implications of below-replacement fertility. The issue was also publicly discussed by Singapore’s political leaders and the public was also invited to share their input. Notably, these developments coincided with the transition in political leadership, at a time when the second-generation leaders took greater prominence. In 1990, Lee attributed this change in the population policy to his successor as Prime Minister, Goh Chok Tong, and his team, praising them for showing courage in taking up such a sensitive issue.41 It was Goh who, as First Deputy Prime Minister, announced the new population policy, “Have three, or more if you can afford it” on 1 March 1987. Over the years, procreation incentives were introduced and further enhanced to encourage couples to have more children. Marriage is being encouraged as well. In spite of these efforts, the TFR has remained very low, probably not helped by economic

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disruptions in recent years. As mentioned, immigration has also been increased to augment the workforce and population. VIABILITY OF POLICIES IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY Right from the start, the various committees set up to look into the ageing issue have taken a long view of the greying population. The Howe Report projected population by broad age groups (0–14, 15–64 and 65 and above) and dependency ratios at ten year intervals up to 2030. Subsequent committees have all set 2030 as the terminal date of their review and recommendations. There has also been an increasing focus on the near term, using “the current window of opportunity (up to 2012 when the baby boomers will begin to swell the ranks of the aged) to put in place proactive policies, programmes and structures in anticipation of Singapore’s ageing population”.42 However, there has been no study on scenarios after the baby boomers when the smaller “baby bust” cohorts enter old age. There will be fewer local-born elderly but their relative share of the population may not decline, and may even increase, given the decline in Singapore’s TFR to unprecedented low levels of about 1.25 children per woman. What will the public policy response be then? Can Singapore continue to increase its immigration level further? The discussions so far have also focused on only one scenario. The age structure of the population could be much different (more old people, fewer younger, working-age persons) than the projections used if fertility is actually lower than projected, and/or life expectancy (though less likely) much longer than projected. The TFR has fallen to unprecedented low levels in the early 2000s and Singapore now ranks among countries with lowest-low fertility, with its TFR below 1.3 children per woman. Hence the ageing situation could be worse than projected. Singapore currently negates the speed of ageing through immigration. These immigrants would typically be in the working ages, along with their families. However, this may eventually be stopped or slowed as the government also realizes that it is better to plan for alternative scenarios.43 As mentioned, immigration potentially increases the number of future old, if the immigrants choose to remain in Singapore during their retirement years and later life. So far, there has also been little study on the baby boomers except for the Department of Statistics paper44 and a survey commissioned by the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports.45 Various studies conducted by private financial institutions suggest that Singaporeans may not be well prepared

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for their financial needs in old age.46 This is even as other studies suggest that the baby boomers, along with those elsewhere in Asia, are a rich market for businesses to tap.47 More research on the baby boomers in Singapore is needed. Further measures to raise the fertility rate are also suggested. One of these may be to create an environment conducive to young couples to marry and raise children in this age of globalization where there is greater competition and uncertainty in the labour market.48 It would also require employer collaboration in providing work-life balance. Notably, the government in August 2008 enhanced its Marriage and Parenthood Package to include longer paid maternity leave and more days of child and infant care leave, besides other measures, such as the enhancement of baby bonuses.49 More specifically with regard to the aged, the government is constantly adjusting policies and programmes as perceived needs and challenges arise. Hence, changes have been, and continue to be, made to the Central Provident Fund (CPF) system to improve the chances of financial adequacy. A longevity annuity is also being proposed for financial protection in the eventuality that one outlives his/her CPF savings. Reverse mortgage is advocated as a way to monetize the value of housing assets that Singaporeans have invested (probably over-invested) in and a Lease Buyback scheme for smaller Housing and Development Board (HDB) flats was launched in March 2009.50 The government has, however, resisted calls to provide the old with a pension51 for the reason that it would mean higher taxes.52 As mentioned, it is feared that this would cause young Singaporeans to emigrate. Also, a higher tax rate, it is felt, may affect Singapore’s competitiveness and attractiveness as an immigration destination. Whether for old-age finances or health care financing, the government has held on to the principle that at the national level, each generation should be self-sufficient and there should not be inter-generational cross-subsidy. Social assistance is rendered to needy elderly in the same way that it is given to other needy persons or households, that is, only when there is an identified need. In this regard, it should be mentioned that the majority of the recipients of public assistance are the elderly, typically those who are unable to work and have no other means of support. While the quantum of cash is small, public assistance recipients have access to free medical treatment and waiver of rent or utility payment while they also receive in-kind support from voluntary welfare organizations under the “many helping hands” safety net approach. Be that as it may, the elderly (and other lowly-educated needy) often fall through the cracks as they are either ignorant of the assistance available or too embarrassed to seek help. For this reason, the system of identification of the needy requires improvement. In place of a cross-generational subsidy, the government is

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increasingly encouraging risk pooling in the form of various insurance and insurance-based schemes such as those mentioned above. However, it also means that households and individuals have to make complex decisions which require a high level of intelligence.

CONCLUSION Population ageing is one of the major challenges for Singapore in the twentyfirst century. This challenge has been anticipated and steps have been taken over the years to ameliorate its effects. The policies and programmes are work in progress and continue to be adapted and reformed where needed. The overall framework is in the right direction; however, the devil is in the details and these may require constant fine-tuning. Singapore’s policy on the aged will have to be adjusted as circumstances change, just as the government has shown this flexibility in responding to changing circumstances by reversing its previous anti-natalist policy and adopting a pro-natalist one and opening the country to immigration after adopting a restrictive immigration policy immediately upon attaining independence. This ability to adapt and change according to circumstances is likely to be a contributing factor to Singapore’s success. NOTES 1. Speech by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in Parliament on 13 November 2006, Singapore Government Press Release. 2. See Yap Mui Teng, “The Demographic Base”, in Management of Success: The Moulding of Modern Singapore, edited by Kernial Singh Sandhu and Paul Wheatley (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1989). 3. This term will be used synonymously with “the elderly”, “senior citizens”, “the old”, and “older persons” throughout this chapter. 4. This definition of the baby boom follows the Department of Statistics. See Department of Statistics, “The Baby Boomers in Singapore”, Occasional Paper on Statistics, June 2000, (accessed 10 February 2008). 5. Department of Statistics, “Twenty-Five Years of Below Replacement Fertility”, 2002, . 6. Department of Statistics, Population Trends 2008, (accessed 5 March 2009). 7. Department of Statistics, “Complete Life Tables 2006–2007 for Singapore Resident Population”, (accessed 5 March 2009).

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8. Department of Statistics, “Singapore’s Changing Population Trends”, 2002, . 9. Ang Seow Long and Edmond Lee, “The Old-Old in Singapore”, Statistics Singapore Newsletter, 2000, . 10. Transcript of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s National Day Rally English Speech on 19 August 2007 at NUS University Cultural Centre, (accessed 10 February 2008). 11. Committee on Ageing Issues, “Report on the Ageing Population”, 2006, (accessed 10 February 2008). 12. Department of Statistics, personal communication, April 2006. 13. Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports, “National Survey of Senior Citizens in Singapore 2005”, p. 25, (accessed 10 February 2008). 14. Salma Khalik, “S’poreans live longer but suffer 8 years of poor health”, Straits Times, 3 December 2007. 15. See, for example, the National Survey of Senior Citizens 2005, Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports, Singapore website, (accessed 10 February 2008). 16. Department of Statistics, “Statistical Highlights 2007”, p. 47, . 17. National Survey of Senior Citizens 2005 (Singapore: Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports, 2005). 18. Ibid., p. 59. 19. Department of Statistics, personal communications, 2006. 20. Computed by the author. 21. Wong Kan Seng, “Additional Foreign Residents” (Projection), Written Answers to Questions, 22 January 2007. 22. Wong Kan Seng, “Additional Foreign Residents” (Projection), Written Answers to Questions, 22 January 2007; Wong Kan Seng, “Permanent Residency in Singapore” (Figures), Written Answers to Questions, 16 July 2007; Wong Kan Seng, “Singapore Citizenship” (Figures), Written Answers to Questions, 16 July 2007. 23. DPM’s speech on population at the Committee of Supply, 5 February 2009, (accessed 5 March 2009). 24. Yap Mui Teng and G. Shantakumar, “Demographic Trends and Social Security”, in Singapore Futures: Scenarios for the Next Generation, edited by Gillian Koh (forthcoming).

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25. UN Population Division, “Replacement Migration: Is it a Solution to Declining and Ageing Populations?” 2001, S$3,500 – < S$7,000 None

P2

> S$7,000

Controls

Type of Work Pass Salary Level

TABLE 12.1 Graduated Work Pass System

Those earning S$2,500 are entitled to bring their families with them.

Eligible to apply for Permanent Residency and Citizenship

Those have worked for five years on Q1 pass and earn a fixed salary of at least S$30,000 for the preceding year are eligible to apply for a PEP.

Can bring immediate family members

Eligible to apply for permanent residency and citizenship

Eligible to apply for a PEP after two years

Can bring immediate family members

Eligible to apply for permanent residency and citizenship

Eligible to apply for a personalized Employment Pass (PEP) that is valid for a period of five years. The pass legitimizes a person to stay in Singapore for up to six months to look for work without sponsorship from a particular employer.

Can bring immediate family members

Entitlements

206 Management of Success

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< S$1,800

Source: Ministry of Manpower.

R (Work Permit)

207

Employers are required to purchase a security bond of S$5,000 for every work permit holder. The bond obligates an employer to repatriate any worker who is found to have breached any of the work permit conditions.

A work permit holder is required to be repatriated if found pregnant.

Marriage Restriction Policy (MRP) applies. Application for marriage to Singapore citizens and permanent residents must be approved by MOM.

Not eligible to apply for permanent residency and citizenship

Family members are not entitled to dependent passes.

Man year entitlement system applies for the construction sector

Dependency ratio at sectoral level

Source country restriction for all sectors

Monthly levy payable by employer

Percentage quota at the company level None

Eligible to apply for Permanent Residency and Citizenship

Managing Labour Flows 207

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of the job market and secondly, to avoid a situation where industries and companies do not exercise any initiative to restructure and move-up the value chain.30 The cut-off salary of S$1,800 for the category of S pass holders was a calculated move to ensure that middle-level skilled migrant workers are relatively more expensive than similarly skilled local workers such that the marketability of the latter in the job market will not be compromised.31 Restrictions are imposed on R pass holders and lower-income S pass holders from marrying in Singapore and bringing over their immediate family members. Such restrictions are imposed to avoid potential social burdens, as these workers are paid very low salaries and are more than often housed in dormitory-style living quarters.32 By adjusting the monthly levy, company quota, and the dependency ceiling, the government is also able to tighten or relax the admission of S and R pass holders in accordance with the needs of the economy. This makes the workforce more robust in responding to business cycles. In addition, it provides the state with some power to manage the discontentment of its citizenry over job scarcity during periods of economic downturn when those who occupy the lower end jobs in the workforce are especially vulnerable to retrenchment.33 From the above, it is evident that in addition to serving economic needs, the graduated work pass system has been shaped to place in check the potential negative social implications of an open-door policy for migrant workers. Despite this careful calibration by the government, there have been growing concerns over the increasing presence of migrant workers in Singapore. These concerns will bring about new challenges for state-society relations with implications on nation-building as well as the nation’s credibility in the eyes of the international community. It is to these tensions that I shall turn to in the following sections. CONTENTION AND ITS MANAGEMENT The inclusion of migrant workers in the geobody of the nation brings about new pressures on state-society relations. Thompson and Zhang describe Singapore as a “transnational municipality” whereby the state does not only see to the needs and interests of its citizenry, but also strives to ensure transnational openness towards capital and labour markets.34 Indeed, balancing the interests of its national citizenry and maintaining transnational openness have become one of the major challenges facing the Singapore state as these two can at times be in conflict with each other. Despite the fact that Singapore has had an open-door policy for migrant workers for over four decades now and that one in three working persons in Singapore is a foreigner, the level of comfort of the citizenry towards

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the presence of migrant workers in Singapore is rather disconcerting. A Sunday Times survey carried out in 2007 involving 448 Singaporeans, shows that an overwhelming majority (over 86 per cent) of those polled expressed fear that white-collar foreign professionals will take away jobs from them.35 Although a much lesser proportion (64 per cent) of those polled expressed similar fears towards lower skilled migrant workers, the results show that there is an inherent mindset in society that perceives foreigners as a threat to their livelihoods. The survey result also indicated that a significant proportion (43 per cent) of the respondents feel that the state cares more for migrant workers than its citizens.36 At times these feelings of discomfort are translated into tensions and frictions on the ground when the two groups encounter each other in a shared space. Over the years numerous reports have appeared in the media about disgruntled citizens complaining of R permit holders encroaching upon the public spaces of residential estates.37 The complaints are directed at the culture of these workers, who are fond of eating, drinking and gathering together in public spaces after work and on Sundays, which some Singaporeans deemed as causing problems such as littering, rowdiness, drunkenness, and urinating in public.38 Whilst these claims at times have a basis, the feelings of unease over sharing space with such foreigners also arise from feelings of mistrust and prejudice that are more than often unfounded. This is illustrated in the uproar over plans to convert a disused school in Serangoon Gardens, a private residential estate, into a dormitory to house these workers. In addition to concerns over logistical matters such as congestion on roads and existing facilities, negative stereotypes of foreign workers as criminals and thieves also dominate the views and opinions of residents of the estate who vehemently protested against the plans, citing security concerns.39 An inadequate number of purpose-built dormitories has prompted the government to seek temporary measures, such as converting disused buildings into temporary dormitories, and employers to house workers illegally in rented shophouse space, public housing units and private properties.40 As such, the increasing number of workers living amongst citizens in residential estates is attributed to poor planning on the part of the authorities.41 However, the contention expressed by citizens over the matter reflects a deep-seated prejudicial mindset against foreigners who are in low-status jobs. The Singapore Government employs discursive strategies and exercises political power in managing such discontent. Discursive strategies are targeted at educating Singaporeans of the benefit they gain from opening up to migrant workers. Significant national events have been used as a platform to articulate and reiterate the economic benefits of the open-door policy towards migrant workers.

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State officials construct the rhetoric of “survival” and “vulnerabilities” in appealing to Singaporeans to be understanding of the decision to pursue such a policy. For example, Goh Chok Tong, in his National Day Rally Speech in 2001 when he was Prime Minister, said to Singaporeans that they should adopt a more accepting attitude towards the rising numbers of foreigners in the country as it is a “matter of life and death” for the nation to do so.42 More recently, Lee Hsien Loong in his 2006 National Day Rally Speech reminded Singaporeans that the practical constraints of the local workforce, such as continuing population decline and the out-migration of home-grown talent which (is encouraged to) seek work overseas, have necessitated the need to “welcome immigrants and embrace talent”.43 In 2001, under attack by opposition parliamentarians for continuing to court foreign talent despite growing levels of unemployment amidst the worst recession Singapore had ever faced, the Ministry of Trade and Industry put out a study which analysed the economic contribution of foreign talent to overall economic expansion.44 Findings from the study were subsequently disseminated through the media in defence of the policy. To address the unhappiness of citizens over R permit holders living in their midst, the government has to a large extent accommodated the calls for greater spatial segregation between citizens and this group of foreigners. A law was introduced in 2006 disallowing an owner of a public housing flat from renting out their flats to foreign construction workers unless they are Malaysians.45 The building of 12,000 dormitory units near existing cemeteries46 and an announcement made by George Yeo, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, that the Ministry of National Development is “seriously considering how to build townships for foreign workers which are sustainable and self-contained”47 are also consistent with the calls for spatial segregation. Whilst the plans to convert the disused school in Serangoon Gardens into a dormitory will still go ahead, measures have seen put in place to ensure that there are barriers between dormitory and estate residents. The barriers are maintained by constructing a separate entrance away from the residential estate, imposing security and noise control surveillance, reducing the site area to increase the buffer between the dormitory and residents, and equipping the dormitory with provision shops and other amenities within the compound of the dormitory to ensure that its residents have very little reason to leave the dormitory.48 To counter the misconception that the government “cares more for foreigners”, it has resorted to consolidating the material privilege of a Singapore citizenship by further differentiating the financial subsidies rendered to citizens, permanent residents, and foreigners. Under the new policy, foreigners will not be entitled

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to any medical subsidies, while the subsidies allocated to Permanent Residents (PRs) have been reduced. Education fees have also been increased for foreigners and PRs, with the former paying the highest fees for all levels of schooling.49 These changes were introduced as they can help promote a dual objective. One is to reassure citizens that they come first before foreign talent and the other is to encourage more foreigners to take up PR status or citizenship.50 Despite the above measures undertaken by the government, contention over the presence of migrant workers continues to dominate parliamentary debates, signalling that more can be done to reduce the frictions that exist between Singaporeans and foreigners.51 I would argue that there needs to be complementary measures to address the much more deep-seated issue of community integration. With an increasing proportion of skilled migrant workers taking up PR status and eventually citizenship, efforts to reduce the social and cultural polarization between these new members of the citizenry and Singapore-born citizens become even more imperative for nation-building. The government has embarked on efforts to integrate PRs and newly-minted citizens with the People’s Association (PA), an umbrella body for grassroots organizations such as Residents’ Committees and Community Development Councils, leading the way in promoting and implementing various initiatives and community activities to achieve this goal.52 However, approaches in tackling social and cultural tensions between citizens and foreigners engaged in lowstatus jobs have thus far suggested that the government is more accommodating of calls to segregate these workers from the larger community, as reflected in the policies made on housing cited above. Although these workers are restricted from anchoring permanent roots in the country, it could be argued that policies that promote segregation of such workers are counterproductive as they serve to (re)produce the prejudicial attitudes that account for the tensions between Singaporeans and such foreigners. As these workers have become an enduring feature of Singapore society and will continue to do so, such an approach may not be socially sustainable and could lead to the disruption of social and cultural harmony in Singapore. The presence of migrant workers in the geo-body of the nation has also brought on new pressures for the government in negotiating the louder voices of local and international civil society groups concerned over the treatment of lowly-skilled migrant workers in Singapore, in particular the plight of migrant domestic workers. Over the years, many cases of physical and sexual abuse and blatant neglect of the welfare of these workers have been reported in the local and international media.53 In 2005, Singapore was sensationally labelled

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a “killing field” in a report published by the Institute of ECOSOC rights, a Jakarta-based research institute, on the conditions of Indonesian domestic workers in Singapore.54 The report was prompted by the high incidence of deaths of Indonesian domestic workers in Singapore from 1999–2004 which averaged out to one death per month. In its letter to the Jakarta Post on 25 May, the Singapore Embassy in Indonesia refuted the report as making “unsubstantiated allegations” and stressed the city-state’s commitment to foreign worker welfare by highlighting the then new compulsory safety awareness courses. Later in the same year, Singapore was again put under international spotlight when Human Rights Watch (HRW) claimed that live-in migrant domestic workers in Singapore suffer routine abuse and exploitation at the hands of employers and employment agencies.55 In response, the government charged that the HRW report “grossly exaggerates the abuses and lack of rights for foreign domestic workers” and offered its fact sheet for public scrutiny.56 Local civil society groups (with the support of local media) have also become bolder in exposing the vulnerabilities of lowly-skilled migrant workers in Singapore, and in being critical of loopholes in existing policies which underscore these vulnerabilities. A recent example was the uproar over the plight of male migrant workers who were largely jobless and had been living in deplorable conditions in the streets of Little India for many months while waiting for the MOM to resolve with their employers outstanding matters such as salary and workmen’s compensation claims.57 Such exposure at both international and local levels may dent Singapore’s credibility, a country that has always taken pride in its good governance. To a certain degree, such scrutiny and pressures may also force the Singapore Government to re-examine and rectify loopholes in policies and laws that underscore the vulnerabilities of lowlyskilled migrant workers. However, embarking on such a path means that the government risks compromising the economic benefits derived from having access to a large pool of cheap, compliant, and flexible transient workers which the current system of managing migrant workers (re)produces. The Singapore Government has thus far been more defensive of its policies when addressing the concerns of international and local civil society groups in granting better rights to low-skilled migrant workers. CONCLUSION The chapter has examined the place of migrant workers in Singapore. It has described in detail the role that has been carved for the different groups of

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migrant workers and their contributions to Singapore’s economy and society. By examining the graduated work pass system and other supporting policies governing the flow of migrant workers into Singapore, it highlights the special privileges given to migrants who can offer the right skills and talent important for Singapore’s long-term developmental goals. Concurrently, the work pass system also consolidates the transient place of lowly-skilled migrants in Singapore. The chapter highlights that the openness of Singapore to migrant workers has brought about various challenges to the state in managing its relationship with the citizenry. These challenges stem from discontentment over the perceived special place of foreign talent in Singapore and the increasing material presence of lowly-skilled migrant workers in the country. At the same time, Singapore also finds itself under greater scrutiny from local civil society groups and the international community over its perceived neglect of the welfare of lowly-skilled migrant workers in the country. Nevertheless, the chapter has shown that in managing these challenges, the government has prioritized, first, long-term developmental goals, and, secondly, the interests of its citizenry. The main losers in such an approach are, not unexpectedly, the lowly-skilled migrant workers. NOTES 1. Hui W.T., “Regionalization, Economic Restructuring and Labour Migration”, International Migration 35, no. 1 (1997): 109–26. 2. Pang Eng Fong, Tan Chwee Huat, and Cheng Soo May, “The Management of People”, in Management of Success: The Moulding of Modern Singapore, edited by Kernial Singh Sandhu and Paul Wheatley (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1989), p. 135. 3. Ministry of Manpower, “Employment Situation in Fourth Quarter 2007”, (accessed 11 February 2008). 4. “Jobs Bonanza”, Weekend Today, 1–2 March 2008. 5. Ministry of Manpower, “Singapore Citizens Benefit from Record Employment Creation, Securing Good Quality Jobs”, available at (accessed 3 March 2008). 6. “Jump in Number of New PRs, Citizens”, Straits Times, 7 November 2007. 7. Ministry of Manpower, “Application Requirements”, (accessed 11 February 2008).

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8. Jutamas Arunanondchai and Fink Carsten, “Globalization for Health: Trade in Health Services in the ASEAN Region”, Health Promotion International 21, S1 (2007): 59–66. 9. Pang Eng Fong and Linda Y.C. Lim, “Foreign Labour and Economic Development in Singapore”, International Migration Review 16, no. 3 (1982): 549. 10. Brenda Yeoh and Shirlena Huang, “Foreign Talent in Our Midst: New Challenges to Sense of Community and Ethnic Relations in Singapore”, in Beyond Rituals and Riots, edited by Lai Ah Eng (Singapore: Eastern University Press, 2004); J. Beaverstock, “Transnational Elites in Global Cities: British Expatriates in Singapore’s Financial District”, Geoforum 33 (2002): 525–38. 11. E. Ben-Ari, “Japanese in Singapore: The Dynamics of an Expatriate Community”, in Global Japan: The Experience of Japan’s New Immigrant and Overseas Communities, edited by Roger Goodman (New York: Routledge Curzon, 2003); E. Ben-Ari, “Globalisation, ‘Folk Models’ of the World Order and National Identity: Japanese Business Expatriates in Singapore”, in Japanese Influences and Presence in Asia, edited by Marie Soderbery and Ian Reader (Surrey: Routledge Curzon, 2000); L.L. Thang, E. MacLachlan, and M. Goda, “Expatriates on the Margins: A Study of Japanese Women Working in Singapore”, Geoforum 33 (2002): 539– 51. 12. These remarks were made in 2003, in response to two economics professors who concluded in their study that three out of four new jobs created from 1998–2003 went to foreigners. 13. Hui, “Regionalization, Economic Restructuring and Labour Migration”, pp. 109– 26. 14. Ministry of Manpower, “Launch of Manpower 21 Plan”, (accessed 18 February 2008). 15. Aaron Koh, “Global Flows of Foreign Talent: Identity Anxieties in Singapore’s Ethnoscape”, Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia 18, no. 2 (2003): 230–57. 16. Contact Singapore provides information on career opportunities in Singapore. It has offices in major cities in Canada, Australia, the U.S., China, India and Europe. 17. Pang and Lim, “Foreign Labour and Economic Development in Singapore”, p. 549. 18. “Government Eases Regulations on Hiring Foreign Workers”, Channel NewsAsia, 28 November 2007; Hui W.T., “The Regional Economic Crisis and Singapore: Implications for Labour Migration”, Asian and Pacific Migration Journal 7, nos. 2–3 (1998): 187–217; Charles W. Stahl, “Singapore’s Foreign Workforce: Some Reflections on its Benefits and Costs: A Rejoinder”, International Migration Review 18, no. 1 (1984): 160–63. 19. Saskia Sassen, “Global Cities and Survival Circuits”, in Global Woman: Maids,

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20. 21. 22.

23. 24.

25.

26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

31. 32. 33. 34.

35. 36. 37.

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Nannies and Sex Workers in the Global Economy, edited by B. Ehrenreich and A.R. Hoschschild (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2002). Ibid. Ibid. Brenda Yeoh, “Bifurcated Labour: The Unequal Incorporation of Transmigrants in Singapore”, Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geographe 97, no. 1 (2006): 26–37. Pang and Lim, “Foreign Labour and Economic Development in Singapore”, p. 549. Noor Abdul Rahman, Brenda Yeoh, and Shirlena Huang, “Dignity Overdue: Transnational Domestic Workers in Singapore”, in Asian Women as Transnational Domestic Workers, edited by Noor Abdul Rahman, Brenda Yeoh, and Shirlena Huang (Singapore: Marshall Cavendish, 2005). “At least 15 Indonesians Seek Embassy’s Help Each Month”, Straits Times, 21 February 2008; Diana Wong, “Foreign Women Domestic Workers in Singapore”, in Asian Women in Migration, edited by G. Battistella and A. Paganoni (Quezon City: Scalabrini Migration Centre, 1996). Abdul Rahman, Yeoh, and Huang, “Dignity Overdue”, pp. 231–59. Ibid. Ibid. “JTC Starts Offering HDB Housing to Foreigners”, Business Times, 28 August 1997. Ng Eng Hen, “Committee of Supply: Responses by Minister for Manpower, Dr Ng Eng Hen to Members of Parliament on Attracting Foreign Talent to Work Pass System”, (accessed 18 February 2008). Ibid. Ibid. Stahl, “Singapore’s Foreign Workforce”, pp. 160–63; Hui, “The Regional Economic Crisis and Singapore”, pp. 187–217. Eric Thompson and Juan Zhang, “Immigration and Reconfigured Ethnicity in a Transnational Municipality”, paper presented at the Eighth Southeast Asia Geographer’s Association Conference, National Institute of Education, Singapore, 28–30 November 2006. “Singaporeans Worried About Foreign Workers”, Straits Times, 14 January 2007; “The Dollars and Sense of Citizenship”, Straits Times, 20 January 2007. Ibid. “Foreign Workers Destroy Ambience of his HDB Block”, Straits Times, 8 June 2006; “Foreign Workers at Void Decks Leave Residents Seething”, Straits Times, 25 November 2007; “Barriers Clear Way for Residents at 5 Little India Blocks”, Straits Times, 31 July 1997.

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38. Ibid. 39. “Foreign Workers Housing: Act Educated About It”, Straits Times, 13 September 2008; “Workers’ Dorm: Address Residents’ Security Concerns”, Straits Times, 14 September 2008. 40. “Foreign Workers Living Nearby? It’s No Issue in Some Estates”, Straits Times, 16 September 2008. 41. “A Dangerous Divide Mah: Stop Demonising Workers, Residents and Start Accepting Them”, TODAY, 18 September 2008; “More Foreign Workers Dorm in the Pipeline”, Business Times, 18 September 2008. 42. “Goh Urges Acceptance of Foreign Workers: Singapore Won’t Use Reserves to Aid Economy”, Asian Wall Street Journal, 20 August 2001. 43. “Embrace Talent, Technology to Secure Singapore’s Future: PM”, Straits Times, 21 August 2006. 44. “Foreign Workers Made Hefty Contribution to Singapore Economy: Study”, Agence France-Presse, 31 October 2001. 45. “Foreign Construction Workers Now Can’t Rent HDB Flats”, Straits Times, 10 November 2006. 46. “Foreign Workers to be Housed Next to Cemetery”, Straits Times, 2 March 2008. 47. “Towns for Foreign Workers in the Works?” TODAY, 8 September 2008. 48. “Serangoon Gardens Dorm to Go Ahead”, Straits Times, 4 October 2008. 49. “Singapore to Raise Education Fees for Foreigners”, Dow Jones Newswires, 19 December 2006. 50. “The Dollars and Sense of Citizenship”, Straits Times, 20 January 2007. 51. Straits Times, 6 March 2008. 52. “People’s Association Aims to Better Help PRs Integrate Here”, Straits Times, 2 February 2007; “New Citizens to Get GRC Welcome”, Straits Times, 6 March 2007; “Giving New Citizens a Community Welcome”, Straits Times, 17 April 2007. 53. “Singapore Accused of Maid Neglect”, BBC News, 6 December 2005; “Hell’s Kitchen for Singapore Maids”, The Age, 24 July 2002; “Man gets 18 Years, Cane for Causing Maid’s Death”, Straits Times, 22 July 2002; “300 Maids Run Away Each Month”, Straits Times, 31 May 1995. 54. “S’pore a ‘Killing Field’ for RI Migrant Workers: Study”, Jakarta Post, 16 May 2005. 55. BBC News, 6 December 2005. 56. Ministry of Manpower, “Fact Sheet in Response to Human Rights Watch Report”, 7 December 2005, (accessed 10 October 2008). 57. Straits Times, 20 July 2007.

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13

SOCIAL MOBILITY IN SINGAPORE HO KONG WENG

CHALLENGES TO SOCIAL MOBILITY IN SINGAPORE

S

ingapore’s economic growth has been phenomenal over the past four decades. This growth has resulted in strong economic upward mobility. This can be seen in Figure 13.1 which shows the real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita of Singapore in 2004 prices and the corresponding annual real growth rates from 1960 to 2006. The real GDP per capita in 2006 was 11.2 times that in 1960, registering an average real growth rate of 5.3 per cent per annum. Supporting this upward trend of real GDP per capita are government policies which are growth-oriented, be it enhancing the human capital of Singaporeans via training and education, attracting foreign investors, importing technologies and talent, hastening R&D, or exploring export markets for Singapore goods and services. With sound government policies and an institutional setup conducive to business, the private sector, comprising both local and foreign players, is able to thrive. Nevertheless as Singapore moves up the global economic ladder, are Singaporeans also moving up the social ladder? What are the challenges faced by the next generation of Singaporeans in their ascent of the social ladder? Social mobility may be simply defined as the chance of a person changing his or her social or economic status compared with his or her origin status. In this chapter, we will focus on three aspects of socio-economic status: income, occupation, and education. If “origin status” refers to the status of his or her parent, social mobility is then known as inter-generational mobility. This chapter will examine empirically both general social mobility using aggregate data and inter-generational mobility when data linking generations is available. There is another important dimension of social mobility: absolute versus relative mobility. 217

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While it is possible to have absolute upward mobility for all, it is impossible to have relative upward mobility for all as the relative upward mobility of a person must be accompanied by the relative downward mobility of another person. Changes in the weights of each relative position in a social ladder give a measure of the changes in the distribution of people in the social ladder, and hence relative social mobility is related to inequality in society. Forces affecting social mobility, which is dynamic as it is a measure across time, will determine how a static measure of inequality will evolve over time. As Singapore experiences rising trends of inequality, it is all the more important to understand the determinants and trend of social mobility in Singapore. If rising inequality is accompanied by increasing upward social mobility, could the temporary adverse effect of inequality be offset by the benevolent effect of upward mobility? Is the relation between inequality and upward mobility always positive, or negative? Hence, it is important to understand, theoretically and for policy analysis, that both inequality and social mobility are jointly endogenous, influenced by other variables such as structural changes in technology, demography, and government policies in education and the labour market. This chapter will contribute to this understanding by developing a simple demand-supply framework of social mobility and inequality, and in particular, wage inequality. While we have attained a growth miracle in the past as depicted in Figure 13.1, there is no assurance that growth will persist at the same rate in the future. On the contrary, growth is likely to diminish in the future as Singapore moves closer to a steady state in economic development and a steady state of lower growth rate as observed in advanced countries. Based on the data used for Figure 13.1, the average growth rate from 1965, the year of independence, to 1989, was 7.0 per cent per annum. However, the corresponding average growth rate from 1990 to 2006 has dipped to 3.5 per cent per annum. A diminished growth rate means a growing but smaller pie relative to past trend for all. Will the opportunities of upward mobility be diminished as a result, too? Furthermore, Figure 13.1 also seems to suggest that volatility of growth has gone up in the later part of the period depicted. As Singapore is highly open to global market forces, external economic shocks are likely to have an adverse impact on our economy, and as other middle-tier countries gear up in the global economic competition, Singapore will face more challenges in sustaining its high growth rate. Singapore also faces other constraints as a city-state: it does not have a hinterland, its population is ageing, and there is a sizeable pool of unskilled workers in the economy. Coupled with these

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10,000

15,000

20,000

25,000

30,000

35,000

40,000

45,000

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Per Capita Real GDP

Year Growth Rate (%)

60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06

FIGURE 13.1 Growth of Per Capita Real GDP

-10%

-5%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

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S$ in 2004 Prices

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constraints, economic growth as a channel of upward mobility could be diminished in the future. This chapter will attempt to examine the influence of these constraints in a simple economic framework of social mobility. Apart from these macro influences, what is the key government policy that has influenced social mobility? According to Goh Keng Swee, former Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister, education is a powerful vehicle of social mobility; that is, families can improve their earning power through the education system … we should ask … “What portion of the original Primary 1 cohort reached Pre-U 1 and how do children from different parental educational backgrounds compare?” … Children’s performance in school is closely related to the home environment. … we should get a higher percentage of school children to get good passes at ‘O’ and ‘A’ levels, and where their inability to do so is the result of handicaps arising out of their home or family environment, we must help them to overcome these.1

While the educational attainment of the current generation is much higher than that of the older generation on average, parental background matters in the ascent of the educational ladder and could play a more important role in the future. There was tremendous investment and innovation in public education in the early years of nation-building. Starting from a small base at independence, the expansion in public education, especially at the primary and secondary levels, benefited those from poorer families relatively more than those from richer families. Will we see a similar expansion in public education in the future benefiting those with disadvantaged family backgrounds? Or are we seeing on-going and future educational reforms which complement the ability of parents in enhancing the educational attainment of their children? This chapter will examine quantitatively the extent of parental schooling influencing both the educational aspirations of youth as well as actual educational attainment of young working adults. The rest of the chapter is as follows. The following section will present a brief survey of existing studies on social mobility in Singapore. Based on the latest available data, our findings on social mobility in Singapore will be presented in the next section with a focus on inter-generational mobility in education. We will then develop a simple demand-supply framework of upward mobility and wage inequality and discuss the impact of a growth slowdown, growth-enhancing policies, educational liberalization, population expansion, and rising family disruption.

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STUDIES ON SOCIAL MOBILITY IN SINGAPORE As panel data on economic status are not available, studies on social mobility in Singapore were limited and often used secondary data or a one-time survey. Chiew was the first published work on social mobility in Singapore.2 Using secondary data from 1966 to 1986 based on the censuses and other official surveys, he performed intra-cohort analyses yielding evidence of upward personal mobility in employment status from employees to employers, occupational attainment from “humbler” occupations to professionals, technicians and managers, and the attainment of tertiary education.3 Using primary data from a national survey conducted in 1983, he found that high rates of inter-generational upward mobility in education and the influence of the father’s education on the educational attainment of the respondent diminished somewhat among the younger compared with the older respondents.4 In terms of occupational mobility across generations, the survey revealed that upward mobility rates were slightly higher than downward mobility, with the majority showing no mobility (52.3 to 56.2 per cent) when occupational categories were grouped into three classes. When occupational prestige scores were used, downward mobility was higher than upward mobility, possibly owing to the fact that as education became available to the masses, the same occupation was filled up by workers with higher educational attainment than their fathers’ time.5 Nevertheless, occupational vertical rates were very high. Chiew concluded that the primary channel of upward mobility was the sustained economic growth in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, and warned that “as the social class structure becomes entrenched or established, the advantages or disadvantages in family background will be passed on to the next generation leading eventually to some structural rigidity or status inheritance”.6 Ko had similar conclusions when he examined the inter-generational transmission of educational and occupational attainment using path analysis on the same survey data used by Chiew.7 Social origins, measured by the father’s education, mother’s education, and the father’s occupation, explained about 20 per cent of the variance in the educational attainment of the respondents — relatively low compared to the other industrialized countries. The reason given was a rapid expansion of the educational system after Singapore’s independence in 1965, providing greater educational opportunities to the less well-to-do.8 Does that mean that social origins or family background are not important determinants? No, as it was found that family background influenced the attainment of the first job through two channels: a direct channel and an indirect channel via

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its impact on the educational attainment of the respondent. The second channel is more important; in other words, according to path analysis, family background was an important determinant of the respondent’s educational attainment, which in turn determined the attainment of the first job.9 The role of education in occupational attainment cannot be ignored in an era of rapid expansion of educational opportunities, and one should be reminded that family background was found to be an important determinant of educational attainment. The above studies on social mobility in Singapore used data collected in 1983 and earlier, before the 1985 recession, thus reflecting only the economic conditions, opportunities, and government policies influencing inter-generational mobility in the past era of rapid economic growth. Has the pattern of social mobility changed more recently? Based on a 2001 study of social stratification in Singapore, Tan concluded that class (and age) mattered more than ethnicity in explaining the social orientations of Singaporeans.10 Although his focus was not on inter-generational mobility, Tan examined how the father’s occupational status was related to the respondent’s. Classifying occupations into three categories, namely “Service”, “Intermediate”, and “Working”, he found that 61 per cent of respondents with fathers in “Service” persisted in “Service” while only 41 per cent of respondents with fathers in “Working” moved up to “Service”. Similarly, only 14 per cent of respondents with “Service” fathers declined to “Working”, while 33 per cent of respondents with “Working” fathers remained in “Working”.11 The results imply an important role of the father in transmitting occupational status. Elsewhere, a study by Ng using youth data collected in 2002 and restricting the sample to those aged between 23 and 29 who were working full-time, showed that a one per cent increase in parental income will increase the income of the respondent by 0.26 per cent.12 (This value of inter-generational persistence in income can be interpreted as an inverse of inter-generational mobility: a higher value means lower inter-generational mobility.) However, once the respondent’s education was controlled for, the inter-generational persistence in income will drop from 0.26 per cent to 0.10 per cent, implying a significant mediating role of education.13 To compare findings from youth data with international data on adults, Ng used the scaling factor proposed by Corak14 and found that the scaled inter-generational persistence in income will have a lower bound of 0.58 per cent, comparable to the value of 0.47 per cent of the U.S., which was considered less mobile relative to other countries such as Canada and Germany.15 Using data from the same survey as Ng, who studied income mobility, Ng and Ho,16 and Ong and Ho17 considered the inter-generational transmission

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of educational attainment and occupational attainment, respectively. In particular, Ng and Ho found that about 16.3 to 16.8 per cent of the father’s educational attainment is transmitted to youth, and that youth whose parents are divorced had their educational attainment lowered by 1.8 to 1.9 years worth of schooling. A Swedish study has also demonstrated that children who have experienced family dissolution or reconstitution show lower educational attainment at age 16.18 A divorced mother needs to devote more time to market activities to bring in the dough; as a consequence, less time is given to the child in educational supervision. The child is burdened with psychological costs caused by the divorce of his or her parents, leading to a lower Emotional Quotient (EQ) and Social Quotient (SQ) compared with children from intact families enjoying love and care from both parents. What are the economic reasons for the transmission of educational status from fathers to their children? Fathers are usually the breadwinners. With a higher education, the father is more likely to earn a higher income, and marry a wife with a higher education and income, a process known as positive assortative matching. With higher household earning, the price of time is higher and since child bearing and bringing up a child to adulthood are time-intensive activities, the well-to-do couple is likely to bear fewer children and invest more in the education of their children relative to couples who are less well-to-do. They are more capable of doing so both financially and academically. As a result, we observe an educational- and skill-biased parental influence on the educational attainment of their children. Findings from Ong and Ho on the transmission of occupational status were similar. A simple path analysis on job attainment showed that three parental background variables, namely the father’s education, mother’s education, and father’s occupation had a stronger indirect effect on the job attainment of youth via influencing educational attainment of youth, than a direct effect on job attainment. Another parental background variable, the status of parental divorce, had a negative and stronger direct effect on job attainment than an indirect effect, which was also negative.19 Again, we see the important mediating role of education in the transmission of occupational status here, consistent with studies on the transmission of income status. In summary, studies on social mobility in Singapore, though limited owing to the lack of available data, suggest that absolute upward mobility in the past has been high and the role of parental socio-economic status has been important and will remain or become more important. A more recent study on income mobility suggests that Singapore could have become less mobile, with an intergenerational persistence in income closer to that of the U.S. rather than to

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other more mobile countries. The mediating role of education in income and occupational attainment has been significant, and related to it, the indirect effect of parental background variables via educational attainment is strong. Hence, the focus in the following section will be the empirical study of the intergenerational transmission of educational attainment using new data. NEW EMPIRICS ON SOCIAL MOBILITY IN SINGAPORE In this section, we will examine the evolution of social mobility since the 1990s. Using secondary data from the censuses and household surveys conducted by the government, and investigating inter-generational mobility in education using data from the National Youth Survey conducted in 2005 and 2002, we would get a better reflection of the impact of policies implemented in the 1990s, as well as more recent economic conditions and socio-economic trends. Figure 13.2 and Figure 13.3 show the educational attainment of resident nonstudents in 1990 and 2005, respectively. Comparing the educational breakdown of the same age group in 1990 and 2005 suggests an absolute upward mobility, as in the latter year, a higher percentage of each age group attained higher educational status. Following a cohort, say, age group 30–34 in 1990 to age group 45–49 in 2005, suggests a slight personal or intra-generational upward mobility in education. A similar transformation is observed in the occupation of (resident) working persons in 1990 and 2005, respectively shown in Figure 13.4 and Figure 13.5. In terms of occupational mobility, we observe both absolute upward mobility and personal or intra-generational upward mobility. Based on these aggregate data, we infer that the Singapore economy is climbing up rapidly in the global economic ladder and more economic opportunities are available to the skilled as Singapore matures into an advanced country. Is this absolute upward mobility driven primarily by economic growth in Singapore, as observed by Chiew? If so, a diminished growth rate in the future will then imply lower absolute upward mobility. Note that the occupational data for 1990 included non-residents, while that for 2005 excluded non-residents. Hence, if there is a large portion of immigrant workers, either skilled or unskilled, the comparison over time would be incomplete or even distorted using incompatible data. Unfortunately, we do not have available data to conduct further analysis. However, a brief check on the residential status of people in Singapore will reveal an interesting trend. Table 13.1 shows the breakdown of the residential status of people in Singapore from 1980 to 2007. It clearly depicts an upward trend of the portion

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Primary & Lower

25-29

30-34

Lower Secondary & Secondary

35-39

Age Group

40-44

Upper Secondary & Polytechnic

45-49

FIGURE 13.2 Educational Attainment of Resident Non-Students, 1990

50-54

University Degree

55-59

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30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Primary & Lower

25-29 30-34

Lower Secondary & Secondary

35-39

Age Group

40-44

Upper Secondary & Polytechnic

45-49

FIGURE 13.3 Educational Attainment of Resident Non-Students, 2005

50-54

University Degree

55-59

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0%

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70%

80%

90%

100%

Professional & Managerial

25-29 30-34

Technical

40-44 Age Group

Clerical, Sales & Services

35-39

50-54

Production Workers, Cleaners & Labourers

45-49

FIGURE 13.4 Occupation of Resident Working Persons, 1990

Others

55-59

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0%

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20%

30%

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50%

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70%

80%

90%

100%

Professional & Managerial

25-29 30-34

Technical

Age Group

40-44

Clerical, Sales & Services

35-39

50-54

Production Workers, Cleaners & Labourers

45-49

FIGURE 13.5 Occupation of Resident Working Persons, 2005

Others

55-59

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TABLE 13.1 Residential Status of People in Singapore Year

Citizen

Permanent Resident

Non-Resident

1980 1990 2000 2005 2007

90.9% 86.0% 74.0% 71.5%

3.6% 3.6% 7.2% 10.1%

5.5% 10.3% 18.8% 18.3% 21.5%

Source: Computations based on data from censuses, household surveys, and the website of Department of Statistics.

of Permanent Residents (PR) in Singapore and the portion of non-residents in Singapore. Is the observed absolute upward mobility positively related to the enlarging portion of PRs and non-residents? We can only answer this with detailed disaggregated data, which, unfortunately, is unavailable. How about the evolution of income over the years? Figure 13.6 shows the average real growth rate of household income per person among nonretiree households from 1995 to 2006.20 It is evident that household income inequality has worsened as the upper deciles have experienced higher growth rates (even progressively) than the lower deciles. Contrasting Figure 13.6 with Figure 13.1 reveals that economic growth in Singapore may be uneven, benefiting the skilled more than the unskilled, as more economic opportunities are available to the more educated. Private investment in the education of children in the lower deciles is disadvantaged compared with the upper deciles as the former lack both financial and academic capability relative to the more well-to-do. As a result, if public (or state) investment in education does not benefit the disadvantaged sufficiently, the upward mobility of the children in the lower deciles could be reduced significantly. Strictly speaking, Figure 13.6 does not provide information on the mobility of households across deciles and does not contain information across generations. Hence, it is all the more important to gather data linking generations systematically for future analysis on income mobility. Let us now turn our attention to the analysis gleaned from data from the two surveys commissioned by the National Youth Council in 2002 and 2005. The samples were drawn from sampling frames obtained from the Department

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0%

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2%

3%

4%

5%

6%

7%

1-10

11-20 21-30 31-40

41-50 Decile

51-60

61-70

71-80

81-90

FIGURE 13.6 Real Annual Growth Rate of Average Monthly Income from Work Per Household Member Among Non-Retiree Households by Decile from 1995 to 2006 in 2000 Dollars

91-100

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of Statistics and matched the national youth population by nationality, age, gender and ethnicity. Reports on the surveys are published in Ho and Yip (2003)21 and Ho and Chia (2006).22 The two samples were pooled for the regression analysis to obtain a larger sample and to consider the determinants of the educational aspiration of youth aged 15 to 18 who are students, and the educational attainment of working youth aged 23 to 29 separately. Missing observations in parental education have been imputed and the regression results on the intergenerational transmission of educational aspiration and attainment are similar with or without imputed values for parental education. For brevity, we will only report the regressions with imputation here. Table 13.2 presents the results using years of schooling, while Table 13.3 uses log of years of schooling. Table 13.2 will tell us how one additional year of parental schooling will affect the educational aspiration or attainment of youth, while Table 13.3 will report the impact of an additional per cent of parental schooling. Columns (1) and (2) of Table 13.2 and Table 13.3 report the determinants of the educational aspirations of students aged 15 to 18. One additional year of parental schooling will increase educational aspiration by 0.197 year, Column (1) of Table 13.2. When parental income is controlled for, as in Column (2) of Table 13.2, the impact of incremental parental schooling on aspiration will reduce to 0.142 year, which is still statistically significant. An additional S$1,000 worth of parental income will increase educational aspiration by 0.072 year. Now, look at Column (2) of Table 13.3. A one per cent increase in parental education and parental income will increase educational aspiration by 0.047 per cent and 0.042 per cent, respectively, implying that parental education and parental income are equally important in influencing educational aspiration. Hence, both parental education and parental income matter in the formation of educational aspiration as both are inputs to the production of education, one related to human capital while the other is related to financial capability. Table 13.2 shows that non-Chinese teenage students have a lower educational aspiration by 0.826 to 0.843 year, compared with the majority of Chinese. Teenage students from disrupted families have lower educational aspirations by 0.818 to 0.937 year. Girls are not different from boys once parental income is controlled for. In summary, teenage students with poorer and less-educated parents, who are ethnic minorities, and who come from disrupted families, are more likely to have lower educational aspirations. Turning to the results for working youths aged 23 to 29, presented in Columns (3) and (4) of Tables 13.2 and 13.3, we see that similar to the teenage students, both parental education and income matter in the educational attainment of

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TABLE 13.2 Inter-generational Education Mobility: Years of Schooling

Parental Education Student Parental Education NonStudent Female Non-Chinese Family Disruption Year-2005

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

Aspiration 0.197 (0.022)***

Aspiration 0.142 (0.031)***

Attainment

Attainment

0.259 (0.138)* –0.843 (0.160)*** –0.937 (0.289)*** 0.355 (0.139)**

Parental Income (S$k) Constant

12.873 (0.252)*** 730 0.17

Observations R-squared

Note: Standard errors in parentheses. * significant at 10%; ** significant at 5%;

***

0.156 (0.160) –0.826 (0.184)*** –0.818 (0.347)** 0.490 (0.161)*** 0.072 (0.024)*** 13.063 (0.295)*** 563 0.17

0.271 (0.022)*** 0.205 (0.160) –1.607 (0.187)*** –0.782 (0.244)*** 0.515 (0.163)***

10.869 (0.225)*** 1,068 0.19

0.183 (0.031)*** 0.190 (0.187) –1.553 (0.216)*** –0.674 (0.276)** 0.679 (0.194)*** 0.087 (0.029)*** 11.182 (0.264)*** 776 0.18

significant at 1%.

working youth. But these parental background variables have a stronger impact on educational attainment than on educational aspiration generally. A possible reason is that while in schools, students are influenced relatively more by their teachers, a more lasting effect comes from their parents when they start working. While both teenage students and working youth who are non-Chinese and who come from disrupted families have lower educational aspirations and lower actual educational attainment, respectively, the negative influence on the actual educational attainment of working youth caused by ethnicity and family disruption is greater. The coefficient of parental education in the regressions represents an inter-generational persistence in education, or an inverse of inter-generational

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TABLE 13.3 Inter-generational Education Mobility: Log of Years of Schooling (1) ln(Aspiration) ln(Parental Education Student)

0.089 (0.012)***

ln(Parental Education NonStudent) Female

0.019 (0.010)* –0.064 (0.011)*** –0.069 (0.021)*** 0.021 (0.010)**

Non-Chinese Family Disruption Year-2005 ln(Parental Income) Constant

2.490 (0.028)*** 730 0.14

Observations R-squared

(2) (3) (4) ln(Aspiration) ln(Attainment) ln(Attainment) 0.047 (0.016)***

0.014 (0.011) –0.055 (0.013)*** –0.046 (0.025)* 0.031 (0.011)*** 0.042 (0.008)*** 2.244 (0.060)*** 563 0.17

0.101 (0.012)*** 0.022 (0.015) –0.146 (0.018)*** –0.086 (0.023)*** 0.031 (0.015)**

2.350 (0.027)*** 1,068 0.13

0.057 (0.017)*** 0.023 (0.018) –0.135 (0.021)*** –0.061 (0.027)** 0.038 (0.019)** 0.040 (0.011)*** 2.120 (0.075)*** 776 0.13

Note: Standard errors in parentheses. *

significant at 10%;

**

significant at 5%;

***

significant at 1%.

mobility. Once parental income is controlled for, the persistence coefficient will be reduced, implying a mediating role of parental income. One may think that economic growth will then reduce inter-generational education persistence or increase inter-generational education mobility through the channel of increasing parental income. However, if economic growth brings about different growth rates of income across income deciles, benefiting the well-to-do more than the lower-income groups, then the mediating role of parental income actually suggests a worsening of inter-generational education mobility, with uneven or skill-biased economic growth.

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AN ECONOMIC FRAMEWORK OF SOCIAL MOBILITY AND WAGE INEQUALITY In this section, the insights from the findings above will be used to develop a simple demand-supply framework of social mobility and wage inequality. It is important, theoretically and for policy analysis, to note that both wage inequality and inter-generational mobility are endogenous, jointly influenced by other variables such as structural changes in technology, demography, and government policies in education and the labour market. It is possible to observe either a positive or a negative relationship between wage inequality and inter-generational mobility, depending on whether the socio-economic and policy shocks are shifting the supply or the demand curves something which will be explained shortly. We now consider the influence of wage equality on social mobility. Higher wage equality means a reduced incentive for parents to invest in the education of their children since the return on education will be low: a skilled worker with education has a wage which is not much different from an unskilled worker with no education. Reduced investment in education will lead to lower upward mobility. Hence, there is a negative relation between wage equality and upward mobility, which is likened to a demand curve for upward mobility downward sloping in wage equality. Changes in government subsidy of public education, which influence the parental decision on education based on returns to education, will shift the demand curve of upward mobility. Next we examine the influence of upward mobility on wage equality. When there are more conversions of unskilled children to skilled adults (higher upward mobility), there will be a larger supply of future skilled workers relative to the supply of future unskilled workers, leading to lower wage inequality or higher wage equality. Hence, the price of upward mobility (defined as wage equality) is positively related to upward mobility, giving an upward-sloping supply curve. Movements along the supply curve will trace a positive relationship between wage equality and upward mobility. Structural changes in technology or conditions in the labour market will shift the supply curve of upward mobility. An intersection of the demand and supply curves will give the equilibrium levels of upward mobility and wage equality in society. Socio-economic, demographic, and policy shocks that shift the demand curve will bring about a positive relationship between wage equality and upward mobility, as depicted in Figure 13.7, while shifts in the supply curve will lead to a negative relationship between wage equality and upward mobility across generations, as depicted in Figure 13.8.

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FIGURE 13.7 Shifts in Demand Curve Wage Equality

Supply Demand

C A

B

Upward Mobility

FIGURE 13.8 Shifts in Supply Curve Wage Equality

Supply Demand

C

A

B

Upward Mobility

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The next section will use the demand-supply framework developed here to discuss issues related to the empirical findings and future prospects of intergenerational upward mobility in Singapore. Although the theoretical framework is designed to study educational mobility, the consequence for other forms of social mobility would be similar, given that empirically we find an overwhelming mediating role of education in either occupational mobility or income mobility. IMPACT OF POLICIES AND TRENDS Using the demand-supply framework developed in the prior section, this section will first discuss the constraints faced by Singapore, leading to a slower pace of growth and the impact on upward mobility in Singapore. It will also consider the introduction of growth-enhancing policies to offset diminishing growth, but which are also skill-biased in nature. The impact of such policies on upward mobility and wage equality will be analysed. We will also examine the impact of the process of educational liberalization in Singapore. Following that, we will examine the impact of population expansion. Finally, we will discuss the possible implications of potentially rising cases of family disruption in Singapore. Diminishing Economic Growth Singapore faces several constraints in sustaining its high economic growth in the future, namely an ageing population, a sizeable pool of unskilled older workers, intensified competition from other rapidly growing cities, and the lack of a hinterland which allows mobility of people and economic activities. As the growth rate of Singapore slows down to a level as experienced by advanced countries, returns on educational investment could be reduced. An ageing society with rising health costs for the elderly is likely to cause a larger share of the government budget being allocated to the old-age sector, and relatively, a lower share allocated to the public subsidy of education. A lower public subsidy of education is translated into a lower return on educational investment by parents. Hence, slower growth and an ageing population are likely to reduce the return on educational investment, and holding other things constant, the demand curve for upward mobility will shift down, leading to lower upward social mobility and lower wage equality or higher wage inequality. Growth-Enhancing Policies To offset a possible future decline of economic growth, growth-oriented policies may be introduced to enhance the competitiveness of Singapore among global

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cities. As cities are more skilled than rural areas, such competitiveness-enhancing policies related to the attracting of foreign talent, development of the global financial market, research and development, and life sciences are inevitably skill-biased. Unfortunately for Singapore as a city-state without a hinterland, the mobility of skilled and unskilled people, and economic activities between a city and its hinterland, thus allowing a constant command of the most skilled in the city, are lacking. Hence, a skill-biased growth policy benefiting the skilled is likely to put the immobile unskilled in a disadvantageous position. Figure 13.6, showing uneven growth across income deciles, is a possible reflection of the underlying growth dynamics of Singapore as a city-state without a hinterland. Associated with this uneven growth is skill-biased parental influence which will shift the demand curve down, offsetting the initial upward shift of the demand curve, which is a direct result of the growth effect of the policy. If the induced downward shift caused by the skill-biased parental influence is stronger than the direct upward shift, we will observe reductions in both upward mobility and wage equality. Educational Liberalization The liberalization process in education would bring about a skill-biased parental influence on education. In the demand-supply framework developed earlier, the demand curve will then shift down, resulting in reduced social upward mobility and lower wage equality, which is a result similar to a process of privatization in education as private schools rely more on contribution from parents, in terms both of time and money. As Singapore is becoming the educational hub of the region and beyond, servicing the needs of the world’s skilled parents, we have to be aware of the potential adverse impact on educational mobility associated with an enlarged share of private schools in the economy.23 Population Expansion and Skill-Biased Immigration Could challenges such as an ageing resident population, a sizeable pool of older unskilled workers, and a declining fertility rate, which diminish the prospects of growth, be solved by a bold expansionary population policy? What is the implication for upward social mobility? Starting from a low total fertility rate of 1.26 per resident female in 2006, Singapore is targeting a larger population of 5.5–6.5 million within the next twenty to thirty years, from the current level of 4.6 million. If the expansion of population is facilitated by skill-biased immigration, skill-biased parental influence will be enhanced as the skilled immigrant parents will have an advantage over the existing unskilled parents

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in educational investment for their children. Intuitively, an influx of skilled parents will increase the influence of parental background, leading to a decrease of upward mobility, illustrated by a downward shift of the demand curve. However, the skilled immigrants are more capable of producing children who will become future skilled workers, leading to an increase in upward mobility. This is represented by a downward shift in the supply curve. Therefore, upward mobility may decrease or increase as the forces work in opposite directions, as illustrated in Figure 13.9. More skilled immigrants also induce higher demand for skilled jobs, increasing wage inequality. With population expansion facilitated by skill-biased immigration, increased investment in public education, especially tertiary education, is necessary; otherwise, competition for limited places in university will lead to higher wage inequality and lower upward mobility. Damage from Family Disruption In 1980, Singapore’s general divorce rate per thousand married resident women was 3.4, but by 2006, it had escalated to 8.0. More alarming, the general divorce rate for married resident men aged 20 to 24 in 2006 was 52.0! What are the implications of a rising trend of family disruption? The single parent, usually

FIGURE 13.9 Skill-Biased Immigration Wage Equality Supply Demand

A

B

Upward Mobility

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the mother, has limited time to supervise the school work of the child as she needs to work outside. The chances of the child becoming skilled will be reduced, represented by a downward shift of the demand curve. Hence, a rising rate of divorce will bring about lower upward mobility and wage equality. CONCLUSION The primary channel of upward social mobility in Singapore had been economic growth. However, as Singapore matures into an advanced country with a lower steady-state growth, this channel of opportunities will be closed, implying diminished upward mobility. Empirical studies show that while absolute upward mobility has been extensive in the past, the parental influence in the transmission of economic status such as income, occupation, and education has been important in the past and its role will remain strong in the future. Using more recent aggregate data from 1990 till 2005, this chapter documents a slight personal or intra-generational upward mobility in education, and in terms of occupational mobility, both absolute upward mobility and personal or intra-generational upward mobility are detected. The regression analysis in this chapter on disaggregated data from two national surveys conducted in 2002 and 2005 shows that parental education has a significant impact on both the educational aspiration of teenaged students and the actual educational attainment of working young adults. Non-Chinese and those from disrupted families have lower educational aspiration and educational attainment. This chapter also shows the mediating role of parental income in the transmission of educational aspiration and attainment. Uneven economic growth benefiting the upper deciles more than the lower deciles will then imply a reduction of inter-generational mobility in education. Based on the demand-supply framework developed here, skill-biased growth policies, educational liberalization, and rising divorce rates could bring about lower upward mobility and higher wage inequality. Population expansion via skilled immigrants will unambiguously raise inequality, but the impact on upward mobility is uncertain. NOTES I would like to thank the National Youth Council for the funding and data provided under the research project entitled, “Inter-generational Effects on Education, Earnings, and Social Participation of Youths in Singapore”. This chapter is an output resulting from the research project, among others.

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1. Cited in Ministry of Education, Many Pathways, One Mission: Fifty Years of Singapore Education, 1st ed. (Singapore: Ministry of Education, 2007), p. 61. The passage is extracted from a speech by Goh Keng Swee at a Teachers’ Day Celebrations, 31 August 1979. 2. Chiew Seen Kong, “Social Mobility in Singapore”, in Social Class in Singapore, edited by Stella Quah, Chiew Seen Kong, Ko Yiu Chung, and Sharon Mengchee Lee (Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1991). 3. Ibid., p. 216. 4. Ibid., pp. 210–14. 5. Ibid., p. 215. 6. Ibid., pp. 217–18. 7. Ko Yiu Chung, “Status Attainment”, in Social Class in Singapore, edited by Stella Quah, Chiew Seen Kong, Ko Yiu Chung, and Sharon Mengchee Lee (Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1991). 8. Ibid., pp. 236–37. 9. Ibid., p. 237. 10. Tan Ern Ser, Does Class Matter? Social Stratification and Orientations in Singapore (Singapore: World Scientific Publishing, 2004). 11. Ibid., Table 5.19, p. 54. 12. Irene Ng, “Intergenerational Income Mobility in Singapore”, The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy 7, no. 2 (2007): 1–13. 13. Ibid., Table 2, lower panel showing interval regression with imputation and instrumental variables, p. 18. 14. Miles Corak, “Do Poor Children Become Poor Adults? Lessons from a CrossCountry Comparison of Generational Earnings Mobility”, Research on Economic Inequality 13, no. 1 (2006): 143–88. 15. Ibid., Table 1, p. 3. 16. Regina Ng and Ho Kong Weng, “Intergeneration Educational Mobility in Singapore: An Empirical Study”, YouthScope 1 (2006): 58–73. 17. Ong Jin Hui and Ho Kong Weng, “Intergeneration Occupational Mobility in Singapore: An Empirical Study”, YouthScope 1 (2006): 22–39. 18. Jan O. Jonsson and Michael Gahler, “Family Dissolution, Family Reconstitution, and Children’s Educational Careers: Recent Evidence of Sweden”, Demography 34 (1997): 277–93. 19. Ong and Ho, “Intergeneration Occupational Mobility in Singapore”, Table 4.5, p. 35. 20. Computation is based on data from Table A2 of Singapore Department of Statistics, “Key Household Income Trends 2006”, Occasional Paper on Income Statistics, February 2007, pp. 1–11.

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21. Ho Kong Chong and Jeffrey Yip, YOUTH.sg: The State of Youth in Singapore (Singapore: National Youth Council, 2003). 22. Ho Kong Chong and Wynne Chia, YOUTH.sg: The State of Youth in Singapore 2006 (Singapore: National Youth Council, 2006). 23. See Jason Tan’s “Education in Singapore: Sorting Them Out?” in this volume for a discussion on the marketization of education in Singapore.

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14

SINGAPORE’S PRINT MEDIA POLICY A National Success? TAN TARN HOW

THE OBJECTIVES OF PRESS MANAGEMENT

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he ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) has argued that the economic growth and the social and political stability it has been very successfully delivering necessitates the illiberal politics it practises.1 The illiberalness is manifested in several ways and a variety of domains ranging from the handicapping of the opposition, to the depoliticization of civil society activism, the proscribing of public discourse, the co-option of workers’ unions, and the state’s hegemony over many institutions, such as grassroots organizations. This chapter deals with another feature of the PAP’s authoritarianism: its control and management of the Singapore and foreign print media. In the 1989 volume of Management of Success, it was observed that while editors and journalists are free to exercise their discretion in the running of local newspapers, they are regularly reminded of their responsibility to society and of reports that displease the government. “Such reminders have the effect of making the Singapore press docile, since editors and reporters wishing to operate within unspecified limits will tend to play safe and not exploit the full potential of what the government might permit. There is also likely to be another effect: knowledgeable and intelligent readers will tend to impute an element of doubt to any reporting in the local press, even if such reports are accurate.”2 This chapter examines the history of this media regime and its future implications and argues that the “success” of the media policies can be analysed from different points of view, from that of the party, the government, and the nation. It also 242

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argues that because the goals of the party, the government, and the nation are sometimes divergent, “success” in one area may mean the opposite in another. The PAP government has three objectives in the way it manages the print media, or press. It seeks to have newspapers that are: a) Compliant. It wants a local press that supports the objectives of the executive, one that serves the “national interest”, and a foreign press that does not think it can get away with whatever it writes. b) Competent. It wants a local press that is managed and edited professionally, with trained and capable editors and reporters who know their job and do it well. c) Commercially viable. It wants Singapore newspaper companies that are viable, better still, thriving businesses.

Although the PAP has never explicitly stated these three Cs together in one coherent policy statement, they emerge from numerous speeches and actions over the years. Most commentators have focused on the objective of compliance and have not paid sufficient attention to competence and commercial viability.3 It is the combination of the three objectives that makes for interesting study. While in other authoritarian countries, compliance often comes at a price, namely, incompetence as well as the need to subsidize loss-making enterprises, this is not the case for Singapore. The next section discusses each of the three Cs. A COMPLIANT PRESS The PAP regime believes that the press in Singapore cannot have the unfettered freedom enjoyed in many countries. It sees media freedom as destructive of the national interest in Western countries, such as the United States, and in developing countries, such as India and the Philippines.4 Hence, it rejects the view that the press is the fourth estate, the guardian of democracy and defender of the public interest. It does not want an adversarial press. Nevertheless, as will be explained below, the compliance required of the press is not complete or slavish, but one in which there is, within very narrow limits, room for negotiation. The PAP has argued for a compliant press from the perspective of governance. It sees a free press as a hindrance to the proper work of a government, which is to set policies and ensure that people understand and support these policies. “Freedom of the press, freedom of the news media, must be subordinated … to the primacy of purpose of an elected government.”5 The government is chosen

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by the people and earns the right to decide what is best for them. The press, on the other hand, is not elected and is not accountable to the people like the government is. Minister Mentor (MM) Lee Kuan Yew has said, “Newspaper editors do not owe you a living. They do not owe your children jobs. But my colleagues and I do.”6 He has also said that the “mass media can help to present Singapore’s problems simply and clearly and then explain how if they support certain programmes and policies these problems can be solved.”7 While these comments were made many years ago by the first Prime Minister, Singapore’s second and third Prime Ministers, Goh Chok Tong and Lee Hsien Loong, respectively, have restated exactly the same positions. The PAP government has also argued against an unfettered press on the grounds of social order. In its view, Singapore’s multi-ethnic society is too fragile to risk social unrest that an irresponsible press can spark. MM Lee has said that “because of our volatile racial and religious mix, the American concept of the ‘marketplace of ideas’, instead of producing harmonious enlightenment, has time and again led to riots and bloodshed.”8 Another reason it cites for curbing the press is concern for the values of the population. It expects the mass media to be society’s moral guardian, to reinforce the right cultural values and social attitudes. The press “must educate Singaporeans not to imitate the more erratic behaviour of the West”.9 A value that the press must show is that of respect for one’s elders. Politics and politicians are to be treated with due deference, and newspapers are not allowed to poke fun at them. The supposed decadence is not just immorality, but a poor work ethic. If Singaporeans are “confused” by the happenings in the West, they would become lazy and would not be able to do the work necessary to support economic growth.10 Hence, the media must, MM Lee has said, “create a mood in which people become keen to acquire the knowledge, skills and disciplines of advanced countries”. Yet another reason the PAP gives for curbing the press is national security. PM Lee has said, “Relations with neighbouring countries also need sensitive handling. Whether or not government can disown responsibility for your views, your actions can have repercussions on our foreign relations and even on domestic events in neighbouring countries.”11 The presumption is that only the political leaders know what is best for the national interest, and that the press, when left to its own devices, will publish articles that will jeopardise Singapore’s foreign relations. The PAP government also believes that the foreign press poses a danger to Singapore. It argues that foreign-owned media do not have a stake in the

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success of Singapore. Yet because of the large local readership, they are in effect part of a “domestic press based offshore”. That is why they must not be allowed to “interfere in local politics”. MM Lee has said that it cannot be allowed to be “invigilator, adversary, and inquisitor” of the government, or it “will radically change the nature of Singapore society, and I doubt if our social glue is strong enough to withstand such treatment”.12 LEGALIZING COMPLIANCE It took some time before the PAP government arrived at the present mode of controlling the press. Historically, the party has had a number of run-ins with newspapers since it was founded in the 1954. From 1959, when it swept into power, to the early 1970s, the PAP won, sometimes bruisingly, a number of battles with newspapers. It locked up Said Zahari, editor of the Malaylanguage Utusan Melayu, for seventeen years from 1963, under the Internal Security Act (ISA). In 1971, it accused the Chinese-language Nanyang Siang Pau of stoking Chinese chauvinism and arrested four editors and journalists under the ISA. That year, two English language dailies, the Eastern Sun and the Singapore Herald, were also closed down after being accused by the government for being “black operations” funded by unknown overseas backers. The government was able to win these often bitter and public battles because it had the legal basis for doing so. It had the ISA, and it could revoke the licence of a newspaper. The Constitution itself gives the government wide powers to muzzle public expression in the areas of foreign relations and public order or morality. It was only in 1974 that the government introduced its most powerful weapon against the press, the Newspaper and Printing Presses Act (NPPA). The Act stipulates that newspapers require a licence that must be renewed yearly. Newspaper companies must be publicly listed with no shareholder owning more than a small minority of shares. The Act provides for the creation of “management shares” which have 200 times the voting power of “ordinary shares”; these cannot be publicly traded and their owners must be approved by the government. The total voting power of management shares exceeds that of ordinary shares. The two-tier scheme allows the government to, in effect, decide on the board of directors and top office holders. Like before, newspapers can still be closed down. But the masterstroke is that the Act confers on the government additional levers of influence that guarantee control without the need to resort to drastic measures such as shutting down a newspaper, or to endure the fraught public debate that inevitably erupts in a fight with a publisher or a editor.

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Pre-NPPA, even though the government had its way in the end in each of the public confrontations with newspapers, it often lost public sympathy and legitimacy in the process. In its tussle with the Nanyang Siang Pau, for instance, the newspaper saw its circulation rise in step with its defiance. The enforced closure of Singapore Herald engendered a wider movement among students and ordinary Singaporeans to save the newspaper. The PAP leadership has never flinched from bare-knuckles bust-ups or from undertaking unpopular actions, but the engagements with the newspapers became distractions from the business of governance. One of the arts of governance it practises is the neutering of its opposition and detractors, either by setting the boundaries for its potential critics (like it did with academia), or co-opting them into the fold of the establishment (like it did with the leadership of the unions). Both fates befell the press. The most senior editors of the newspapers are anointed by the PAP government. It is no surprise that they have publicly endorsed the government’s position on the press. Leslie Fong, former editor of the Straits Times, has said that the press “should resist the temptation to arrogate to itself the role of a watchdog, or permanent critic, of the government of the day”.13 Since the enactment of the NPPA, the government has not had to close down any Singapore newspaper or even publicly question the motives of newspaper editors and top management. With regularly briefed and supportive editors, there is no need for prior censorship. This means that the editors sometimes get things “wrong”, requiring the government to take to task the newspapers, its editors, or individual journalists, either publicly or privately.14 There is also some resistance by editors and journalists.15 But these happen against a backdrop of overwhelming support for the government. The number of incidents when the government felt it needed to resort to the law to act against the press has been few indeed. One of note is the successful prosecution in 1993 of the editor and journalists from the Business Times, a private sector economist and a government official for leaking economic growth estimates under the Official Secrets Act. This incident was not even about the Business Times’ opposition to government policy, but rather about how the paper should deal with official information that it had obtained. In any case, the Business Times did not appeal against the verdict. An example of a public telling-off by the government was over a satirical commentary in 2003 by the Straits Times Deputy Political Editor Paul Jacob lampooning former Malaysian Prime Minister Tun Mahathir Mohamad. Even though the article was pro-Singapore in content, it broke the unwritten rule that politics must be treated seriously. As a result, then

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PM Goh Chok Tong’s Press Secretary criticized the article in a letter to the newspaper: “The article was in poor taste. It is an example of the type of articles that the media, on both sides of the Causeway, should avoid. Whatever others may say about us, it is better to reply in a dignified manner and set the record straight by stating the facts.”16 The press accepted the government’s point of view without public protest. Many of the admonishments from ministers, however, are made privately. Editors, and through them other journalists, would be informed by the authorities when they cross the line. These complaints are neither formal in nature nor in writing, and are difficult to prove and document. One example concerns coverage of opposition politicians. In 2006, the Straits Times ran a profile of Glenda Han, then a deputy secretary of the youth wing of the opposition Workers’ Party. The article in the lifestyle section was not about her politics or her political life, but the bar that she owned and her private life.17 The newspaper was privately ticked off for featuring her in an uncritical light. In the last few years up to the writing of this article, the government has also been concerned about what it calls the “politics of envy” that could arise in a society that is increasingly unequal in economic terms. It has taken the press to task over articles suggesting that the highly paid elite and their families were flaunting their wealth, or those that described in heart-wrenching terms the abject conditions the poor lived in. Incidentally, the English language press, where the editors have not totally surrendered to government strictures, often fared poorly when ministers felt the need to compare it with the Chinese-language press, though such criticism often has the opposite effect of enhancing the credibility of its targets. As for the foreign press, the government amended the NPPA in 1986 to allow for limiting the circulation of publications which were deemed to interfere with local politics. At first, publications such as the Asian Wall Street Journal, the now-defunct Far Eastern Economic Review, TIME, the Economist and the now-defunct Asiaweek defied the government, for instance, by refusing to print government replies in full. Though in some cases there were legitimate editorial reasons for not printing the replies in full, in many cases the publications were merely obstinate or arrogant. But after their circulations were drastically restricted, a move which affected their financial situation, they all capitulated. A number of defamation cases brought successfully by Singapore leaders and which resulted in substantial damages also blunted the foreign press’ enthusiasm for free-spirited reporting. Though not necessarily friendly, the foreign press now no longer reports on Singapore in the way it used to. It has been brought to heel.

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A COMMERCIALLY VIABLE PRESS The control over the newspapers is not just political. The government, through its proxies, the owners of the management shares, ultimately calls the shots in the running of the press companies as commercial enterprises. The government, for instance, argued in 1982 for the merger of two competing Chinese-language dailies into one company, Singapore News and Publications Ltd. (SNPL), so that they could be more economically viable instead of engaging in an “unhealthy” war of attrition.18 The declining Chinese language readership also prompted the government to allow the new company to start an English language daily. The aim was obviously to allow the company to have a new source of income so that it could remain profitable. The new arrangement resulted in a duopoly of newspaper companies, with the Straits Times Press being the other. In 1984, the two companies were merged. The near monopoly enjoyed by the new entity, Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), became an absolute one when it bought over the only other independent daily, a small Tamil language paper. In 2000 there was some liberalization when SPH was given a television licence “in exchange” for national broadcaster Mediacorp getting a licence for the TODAY daily. The arrangement was short-lived as, within four years, in a move to staunch losses from both companies, Mediacorp absorbed SPH’s television operations in exchange for a SPH stake in TODAY. It could be argued that these mergers and acquisitions, competition and consolidation were decisions made by the media companies independently of government wishes. But several facts point otherwise. The first is that, as already mentioned, the government has indirect, but ultimate management control of SPH through management shares. It also owns all of Mediacorp via the government investment arm, Temasek Holdings. The second is that in some of the restructuring exercises, the government had already given clear hints of impending actions. In the case of the 2004 consolidation, for instance, MM Lee warned in 2003 about the sustainability of the losses suffered as a result of the competition in television between SPH and Mediacorp. Then Minister for Information, Communication and the Arts, Lee Boon Yang, also made clear the government was worried that SPH and Mediacorp were not able to cope commercially with their new ventures: “If our market proves too small for this degree of competition, the players will have to reassess their business strategies and ambitions.”19 Both companies at first said that the status quo would remain. But a year later, they announced the consolidation of their businesses. From these examples, it can be seen that the government wants press companies that are financially strong as part of the “commercial” goal of its media management

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strategy. It is a policy that is not without rewards to shareholders of SPH. The monopoly has allowed SPH to enjoy profit margins of 40 to 50 per cent, in contrast to the 15 per cent margin that well-managed newspapers in competitive environments typically see.20 A COMPETENT PRESS The government has also said many times that it did not want a sycophantic press, and that professionalism is one of its goals. That the government sees fit to tell the professionals how to practise their craft is telling. Senior Minister Goh has said that although the press should be supportive, he did not want “a Government mouthpiece. You best serve Singaporeans by accurate reporting, clear analysis, and intelligent interpreting of events and developments through Singapore eyes for Singapore minds.”21 Singapore’s model should be one of “responsible press freedom”, he said. PM Lee has said that the Singapore government “tells no lies, and asks the press to tell none. Elsewhere newspapers get into trouble for printing the truth. But Singapore is unique: here newspapers get into trouble for telling lies.”22 Indeed, there seems to have been extremely few instances when one can suspect that the government has been economical with the truth. PM Lee also exhorted the press to improve, adding that “for the next phase of nation-building, if the press is to live up to your full responsibilities, you have to educate the journalists, and continue to induct able young men and women, train them, promote them in your organisation, and create a strong team.”23 The Singapore press takes this call seriously. For instance, it awards its own overseas scholarships, sending students with topnotch results to good universities overseas at great cost. Meanwhile, it continues to induct the bright; the Editor-in-Chief of the SPH’s English and Malay newspapers division, Patrick Daniel, an Oxford graduate, and the Straits Times Editor Han Fook Kwang were formerly high-flying civil servants. The call to be professional and interesting stems from the PAP’s view about the function of media as powerful tools for the government to get its message across. If newspapers become so boring that no one reads them, then their utility as communication channels would be compromised. Indeed, there were times in the past when the newspapers became so assiduous in giving good play to everything government ministers said that they were told to stop splashing everything they said on the front page. The example shows the tough balance that the newspapers have to maintain between being supportive and being professional. It also shows that the government is fully aware of the dangers of a subservient media.

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MEASURING THE SUCCESS OF THE SINGAPORE PRESS The question of whether the PAP government has been “successful” in its management of the press can be answered at three levels. One level measures success by the internal goals of the regime: a press that is commercially viable, competent, and compliant. The print media have more than met these objectives. This is no mean feat. Although pro-government, the Singapore media still enjoy a remarkably high level of trust among readers. For example, in a 2007 international survey by the British Broadcasting Corporation, 32 per cent of the Singaporeans polled gave a “good performance” rating in terms of accuracy in reporting to privately owned media reported news, while 49 per cent rated them “average” and 6 per cent “poor”. The corresponding figures for government/publicly funded news organizations are 42, 44 and 6 per cent.24 Furthermore, the compliance is achieved without any need for subsidy as SPH is extremely profitable. In view of this, the government could not have achieved a better arrangement for itself. The foreign press may not have been beaten so much into submission as acquiescence. It knows that if it wants to report on and circulate in Singapore at all, it has to do so by local rules and regulations. Although the PAP government gets bad press every time it acts against a foreign publication, it has not baulked at doing so; however recently there has been less need to crack down on the foreign press. In truth, the PAP government is not afraid of being criticized so long as it is able to have its full right of reply and there is no defamation. Indeed, these days it gets highly positive coverage even from publications it had once clashed with and punished. Again, like for the local press, there could not be a better arrangement with the foreign press for the Singapore Government. Nevertheless, it must be said that the government does have an eminently justifiable position with respect to the foreign press, which it rightly points out has no interest in the well-being of Singapore. Furthermore, the right of reply, which should be sacrosanct so long as it is reasonable in response to the perceived damage to a government or any other party, ought to be observed by the press, whether foreign or local. By not observing this principle, the foreign press, including TIME, Asian Wall Street Journal and Asiaweek, lost much of its moral high ground. The domestication of local and foreign media has made the task of governing easier. Unlike in other countries, local politicians are not kept busy fending off attacks and answering embarrassing or nettlesome questions. The Singapore Government wants to set the agenda and not have it determined or challenged

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by the press and has been very successful in enforcing this state of affairs. At another level, the success of the PAP government’s management of the press can be measured by whether it is good for the media in general. As mentioned above, the near monopoly enjoyed by SPH has allowed it to remain very profitable. The shareholders have enjoyed the benefits of the company not having to contend with competitors. Harder to discern is whether SPH would have done even better if it were free to print as many papers as it wanted and to print whatever it wanted. The liberalization of radio and the ensuing growth of that sector show that opportunities exist for a more lively media scene, in terms of both content and commercial viability. There is no reason that such growth could not occur following similar liberalization of the newspaper sector. The large number of newspapers that are profitably supported by other similarly-sized markets, such as Hong Kong, also shows that the potential is there. Additionally, there is no reason other than licensing restrictions that SPH could not enter into other media businesses. Despite the failed experiment at liberalization of the market from 2000 to 2004, it is not also clear whether over the longer term, SPH, for instance, would not have made a success of its Mediaworks television station. A further point is that the habitual appointment of politically trusted former politicians or civil servants to helm SPH as chairman and chief executive has often deprived the company of deep commercial expertise in media. There seems to be no room for local Rupert Murdochs. Whether SPH would have done better if it were run by a different group of people can only be speculated on. The most important measure of the success of the press control regime is whether it makes for better government, in contrast to just easier governance. That is, has it been good for the country, and if so, to what extent will it continue to be beneficial? The PAP government has argued that it does and will continue to be so for long. Just from one measure of national success — economic growth — it can be seen that Singapore’s economic expansion from 1959 to 1974 (the year the NPPA was put in place) is as good as, if not better than, the period after. Indeed, Singapore achieved double-digit growth for eight straight years between 1965 and 1974, the longest running streak of over 10 per cent growth in its history to date.25 Of course, Singapore started from a low base, so growth is expected to be higher than when it became more developed. But the figures give the lie to the assertion that a more fractious society and one with a free press would suffer economically. The question that is difficult to answer in making an assessment of historical economic growth is whether the economy post-NPPA could have done even

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better, and whether a freer press is helpful towards this end, or perhaps (as the government would argue) would have created conditions that would have impeded growth. It could be argued, though never proved, that if the press had greater freedom to air criticism about the rising costs of doing business, then the government would have been made aware of the problem earlier than it eventually did and have averted the recessions of 1998 and 2001. However, this is not just a problem of press freedom alone, but a symptom of the larger bureaucratic and intellectual realities of society at large. Although the government likes to assert that Singapore is one of the most open societies in the world, it is only open as far as allowing information from outside to flow freely into the country, while it continues to retain a monopoly over data and information pertaining to a variety of local areas, such as immigration issues and foreign reserves, which are perceived to be sensitive. Without the backing of detailed data, academics as well as other thinkers and commentators, including journalists, would find it hard to say anything beyond generalities. The case of the two economists, Tan Khee Giap and Chen Kang, who in 2003 used official figures to show that foreigners took three out of four jobs created is illustrative of the dangers and difficulties of doing research on Singapore. They retracted their study when the government released neverrevealed figures showing otherwise. The government explained that it had not released the statistics because of “national interest”. CONCLUSION All in all, the absence of critical discourse in the media is merely a reflection of the absence of a culture of open access to data and lively intellectual debate. One wonders if all the policy U-turns could have been avoided, or the damage limited by a quicker reversal, if the press — and society at large — had debated the issues fearlessly and thoroughly: streaming in schools, the second language policy, affordable health care, and the fourth university. As for the present, there are a number of issues of national importance, and which affect every citizen and necessitate open and rigorous debate. These include the furious pace of immigration and the way in which the government manages economic growth and inequality. Additionally, there is also the issue of the scrutiny of institutions such as the Government Investment Corporation and Temasek Holdings. Although these matters are dealt with occasionally in the press, they do not get the sustained debate and deep thinking by those outside the government that they deserve.

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One of the central pillars of the government’s defence of its control of the press is based on the idea that peace in a multi-ethnic society would quickly unravel if the press were allowed to write and publish as it wishes. In the early stages of nation-building, this argument might have had a grain of truth. In those times, loyalties of some groups of people were arguably divided. Most of the population were also uneducated. Also, the citizens of the new nation had not yet learned how to live together peacefully and to depend on debate, rather than violent action, to fight over contentious issues. In those conditions, perhaps an editor with bad judgement, misplaced views, or even ill intentions might spark off something regrettable. But now things have changed, and it would seem that ethnic peace would not be so easily threatened anymore. Indeed, it might be argued that the lack of debate in the national press about race and religion is a hindrance to nation-building and mutual understanding. In any case, even if there is no instrumental benefit from a freer society, a principled argument can be made that a more democratic society made possible by an informed and interested citizenry — one that is underpinned by a relatively free press and the larger society it reflects — is a commendable end in itself. In other words, there are intrinsic human benefits from living in a free rather than an unfree society, and to participate in its politics. The way in which the press is managed, indeed the entire system on which Singapore is run, is based on the idea of a benevolent authoritarianism that is in many ways similar to imperial China’s rule under the emperor, but leavened with a modicum of democracy through elections and other processes. Regular elections are a key check against an inept ruling party. Between elections, however, the state is all powerful, and the checks against it are largely internal to the ruling elite. In times when the elite is effective and has the good of the people in its heart, then a good case could be made that at least it is delivering “the goods” — prosperity, social justice, and law and order — in lieu of democracy. The PAP government has argued that it could not provide both democracy and the goods, because democracy actually undermines its ability to deliver the goods. But what happens if rot starts to set in the ruling elite? The present system puts in its hands powerful instruments for suppressing both the truth, and dissent when the truth does emerge. Even if the press rises up to the challenge, which is doubtful, will it survive a purge by the government? Since the system also stacks the odds in favour of incumbents, a good opposition may not emerge as a viable alternative to the ruling party. In that case, even elections will not help because they will not provide the choices the electorate deserves. Of course, it is true that in a truly democratic system, there is no

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guarantee that any of the parties on offer would be worthy to govern, or that people would elect the deserving party. Nevertheless, it would seem that the chances of an alternative emerging in a liberal democracy would far surpass those in an attenuated democracy that Singapore is now. It has been suggested that one phenomenon may make the discussion academic in time to come: the internet. This new medium poses tremendous challenges to old ways of censorship, including Singapore’s control of print media.26 The argument of the optimists is that internet will make newspapers as well as the television less important as people increasingly turn to news sources online and hence render controls on such traditional media irrelevant. It is true that the internet has put some pressure on the press to change.27 It is now harder for newspapers to hide the truth. During the 2006 General Election, for instance, the newspapers were shown up for not telling readers about the crowds at opposition party rallies when bloggers posted photographs of the huge attendance at some of these events.28 This author, however, is not so sanguine about the democratizing effects of the internet.29 In the decade since the use of the internet became widespread here, the Straits Times continues to hold its own very well in readership and revenue. While many blogs and websites have appeared that provide alternative, even oppositional, narratives to the mainstream/traditional media, nothing similar to the alternative Malaysian news site Malaysiakini has surfaced. If any were to make its appearance there is no guarantee that the numerous laws at the government’s disposal would not be deployed to chilling effect. In other words, things may change, but still stay the same.

NOTES I would like to thank Arun Mahizhnan for his invaluable suggestions on this article. 1. See Chua Beng Huat, Communitarian Ideology and Democracy in Singapore (London: Routledge, 1995). 2. Hans Christoph Rieger, “The Quality of Life in Singapore: A Foreigner’s Reflections”, in Management of Success: The Moulding of Modern Singapore, edited by Kernial Singh Sandhu and Paul Wheatley (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1989), p. 1034. 3. See Francis Seow, The Media Enthralled: Singapore Revisited (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1997); and Tan Teng Lang, The Singapore Press: Freedom, Responsibility and Credibility (Singapore: Times Academic Press for the Institute of Policy Studies, 1990).

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4. Lee Kuan Yew, “Why Singapore Disallows the Foreign Press to Interfere in Domestic Politics”, Address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Washington D.C., 14 April 1988 (Singapore: Ministry of Communication and Information, 1988). 5. Lee Kuan Yew, “The Mass Media and New Countries”, Address to the General Assembly of the International Press Institute, Helsinki, 9 June 1971 (Singapore: Ministry of Culture, 1971). 6. Francis Seow, The Media Enthralled: Singapore Revisited (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1997). 7. Lee, “The Mass Media and New Countries”. 8. Lee, “Why Singapore Disallows the Foreign Press”. 9. Lee, “The Mass Media and New Countries”. 10. Ibid. 11. Lee Hsien Loong, “An Honourable Profession”, Speech by Brig-Gen (Res) Lee Hsien Loong, Minister for Trade and Industry and Second Minister for Defence at the Singapore Press Club, Mandarin Hotel, 26 February 1988 (Singapore: Ministry of Communication and Information, 1988). 12. Lee, “Why Singapore Disallows the Foreign Press”. 13. Leslie Fong, “Role of Singapore Press in the Next Lap”, Straits Times, 1 November 1991. 14. Ang Peng Hwa, “The Media and the Flow of Information”, in Singapore in the New Millennium: Challenges Facing the City-State, edited by Derek da Cunha (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2001). 15. Cherian George, Contentious Journalism and the Internet: Towards Democratic Discourse in Malaysia and Singapore (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 2006). 16. “Let’s Reply with Dignity”, Straits Times, 23 February 2003. 17. “The Sweet Life”, Straits Times, 2 July 2006. 18. Tan Yew Soon and Soh Yew Peng, The Development of Singapore’s Modern Media Industry (Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1994). 19. Lee Boon Yang, “Towards A Global Media City”, Lunch Talk by Minister Lee Boon Yang at the Singapore Press Club Lunch, Raffles Hotel, 12 November 2003 (Singapore: Ministry of Information, Communication and the Arts, 2003). 20. Ang, “The Media and the Flow of Information”. 21. Goh Chok Tong, “The Singapore Press: Part of the Virtuous Cycle of Good Government and Good Society”, Speech by Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong at the Straits Times 150th Anniversary Gala Dinner, Singapore International Convention and Exhibition Centre, 15 July 1995 (Singapore: Ministry of Information and the Arts, 1995). 22. Lee, “An Honourable Profession”. 23. Ibid.

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24. “World Divided on Press Freedom”, British Broadcasting Corporation, 10 December 2007, (accessed 19 February 2008). 25. Singapore Department of Statistics, “Economic Indicators: GDP at 2000 Market Prices and Real Economic Growth”, (accessed 27 December 2007). 26. Steven Yeo and Arun Mahizhnan, “Developing an Intelligent Island: Dilemmas of Censorship”, in Singapore: Re-engineering Success, edited by Arun Mahizhnan and Lee Tsao Yuan (Singapore: Institute of Policy Studies and Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 138–49. 27. See Cherian George’s “Control-shift: The Internet and Political Change in Singapore” in this volume for a discussion on the internet. 28. Tan Tarn How and Arun Mahizhnan, Citizen Journalism: First Steps of a New Baby (Singapore: Institute of Policy Studies, forthcoming). 29. Tan Tarn How and Arun Mahizhnan, “Big Stick, Soft Touch; Big Stick, Hard Ball: Variations in Political Internet Censorship”, Media Asia: An Asian Communication Quarterly 33, nos. 1 and 2 (2006): 3–9.

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15

CONTROL-SHIFT The Internet and Political Change in Singapore CHERIAN GEORGE

NET-IMPACT

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ne night in May 2006, a Singaporean man went to Hougang town to attend an election rally organized by the opposition Workers’ Party. He found the rally site impenetrably packed, so he tried to get a better view from an adjacent apartment block. The lift lobby was full of other people with the same idea, so he climbed the stairs. Only on the thirteenth floor did he finally find some space in the open corridor overlooking the field. He took photographs of what he saw below: a sea of people surrounding a brightly lit stage. He listened to the opposition candidates talk about rising medical bills and other trials of life under People’s Action Party (PAP) rule. Later he observed how one elderly man near him was moved to tears. Then, he went home. It was what Alex Au did next that cemented his place in the story of the 2006 General Election. He posted his report of the rally, “On Hougang Field”, on his blog, Yawning Bread.1 His photo of the crowd was picked up and passed around online with the kind of enthusiasm reserved elsewhere for exposés of sex scandals or high-level corruption. Like these more sensational genres of news, the image of Hougang field was not supposed to go public. For more than two decades, the national newspapers and broadcasters had obeyed an unwritten rule never to show wide shots of opposition rally crowds, which are usually more engorged and energized than the ruling party’s events. 257

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Websites such as Alex Au’s Yawning Bread blog showed that the elite media could no longer dictate what would go public in Singapore. Their impact, however, should not be exaggerated. The profusion of independent writing and video recordings during the election campaign did not have an appreciable effect on the outcome. The PAP was defeated only by the two incumbent opposition Members of Parliament; it secured two thirds of the popular vote. The lack of any immediate impact on PAP hegemony is not surprising. After all, the independent online media was not revealing anything that the public did not already know. They were not uncovering government misdeeds. Au’s Hougang Field picture did not contain new information; it simply held up a mirror to the public. Any consequences of such media activism would be long-term and subtle. REGULATING THE INTERNET Although the internet has come to be regarded as one of the most powerful forces of change in Singapore, its arrival was also part of a continuous process. Singapore had been an early convert to the idea of computer networks and information technologies as key infrastructures. The government’s National Computerization Plan (1981–85) pushed for the computerization of major functions in all government departments. In 1992, the government launched its IT2000 masterplan, envisioning an “intelligent island” in which IT would permeate every aspect of the society. The strategy was initially centred on Teleview, the world’s first national interactive videotext system. Up to that point, the networked society was conceived as a centralized system. Its intelligence — and thus its ultimate controls — would be built into its core, much like telephone networks. Internet architecture offered a radically different proposition. Here was a way of exchanging data based on shared protocols. Its intelligence lay at the edges of the network — the applications controlled by users — and not with the telecommunication provider or other authority. The managers of the network could not dictate how the network would be used. This architecture made the internet the greatest shared platform for innovation ever devised. In Singapore, it also challenged the government’s traditional paradigm of control. Nevertheless, the internet was irresistibly attractive to policy-makers. While its future impact was unknowable, the officials knew this much: Singapore could not afford to miss this trend. The government enabled and encouraged public access to the global internet from 1994. Like most other governments at that time, it took a wait-and-see approach to the question of

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regulation. It waited two years. In mid-1996, it introduced internet content regulations requiring internet service providers (ISPs) to block any website as ordered by the authorities. ISPs had to route all traffic through proxy servers, where filtering could be done. The new regulations also required websites identified as political or religious in content to register with the authorities. The government later rolled out regulations covering the use of the internet for election campaigning. Political parties were allowed to use the internet to campaign, but were prohibited from exploiting some of the medium’s most powerful features: they could not stream audio or video online, nor use the medium for viral marketing. Websites not belonging to parties or candidates, but registered as political sites, were banned from online electioneering. In addition to regulations specific to the internet, online activity was also subject to other laws of the land, such as defamation. While the possibility of regulating the internet was not in itself surprising — except to those who had been seduced by the myth of cyberspace as some kind of libertarian sanctuary — Singapore’s approach to regulation was remarkable for its paradoxical breadth and selfrestraint. On the one hand, the regulations were sweeping in their scope. For example, the regulator could order ISPs or content providers to take down any content that it deemed to be “against the public interest, public order or national harmony” or offending “good taste or decency”.2 Regulations dealing with political websites and online electioneering defined these so broadly that many content providers could never be sure if they were covered. This was in keeping with the PAP’s style: it handed itself maximum flexibility to tackle any conceivable threat, unencumbered by the kinds of checks and balances associated with the rule of law as internationally understood. On the other hand, the authorities exercised equally considerable self-restraint in the exercise of their legal powers. The government promised that it would regulate with a “light touch”, and largely kept to its word. In 1996, it assured the public that it would not attempt the futile exercise of censoring all objectionable material, but only a “symbolic” list of 100 sites, to signpost Singapore’s societal values. It said its target would be pornography and racial or religious extremism, not politics. A decade later, there were still no reports of even a single political site being banned or blocked. The Open Net Initiative, which monitors internet filtering globally, has found in Singapore “no evidence of filtering” of content related to politics or conflict and security, or of internet tools.3 Thus, while Singapore pioneered the technology of national gateways or proxy servers to make internet censorship technically feasible, other jurisdictions raced ahead in actually applying such filtering.

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The “light touch” assurance never meant no touch, of course. Communicators were expected to be accountable for their words, and the state wielded a wide range of laws, such as criminal defamation and sedition, to press home the point. However, these actions were few and far between, and merely chipped at the tip of the iceberg. The most provocative content — such as a venomous site dedicated to a former cabinet minister or Sammyboy, which reviews politics and prostitution with equal abandon — was simply ignored. Even the general election period, when the government is most sensitive to dissent, was a nonevent on the internet regulation front. Before the 2006 election, the government warned netizens that they would have to abide by the internet electioneering laws. The regulations empowered the authorities to require any website to register as a political site, effectively banning it from covering the elections. In the end, this power was not used. During the campaign period, several citizen websites carried videos of opposition rallies and cutting commentary on PAP speeches, without any interference or punishment. Alex Au emerged unscathed from his Hougang escapade. The government’s “light touch” approach was partly due to the internet’s symbolic and technical status as the foundation for a wired, intelligent society. Unlike earlier mass media, the internet was to be part of the country’s economic infrastructure. The government had to promote it, and be seen to be promoting it — which meant accommodating a technology lobby vociferously protective of the internet as an uncensored platform for innovation and the exchange of ideas. Thus, a National Internet Advisory Committee — set up to institutionalize community consultation in internet policy formulation — was able to secure modifications to the 1996 framework, making it a little less sweeping and arbitrary. The government’s self-restraint was also due to its accurate assessment that responding to every breach would be both impossible and counter-productive. Internet regulation would have to be part of a three-pronged approach that also included industry self-regulation and public education efforts. This was not only because the internet is difficult to censor, but also because self-restraint in the use of force is, paradoxically, a vital means of consolidating authoritarian rule. This principle of calibrated coercion has meant that a large proportion of internet activity that violates the PAP’s so-called “out of bound markers”, or even flouts the law, has gone unpunished. The government has understood that it does not need to silence every dissonant voice, or even those that are loud and strident. Instead, maintaining control requires that it act against potential conductors who are able to get isolated voices to rise in concert against the government. Therefore, the authorities have focused on the selective use of

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state power against the mobilization and organization of dissent — most of it offline — rather than on cleaning up cyberspace.4 They can also count on co-operative mainstream media, although this part of the equation has also been subject to major change. THE ELUSIVE AGENDA The PAP came to power at the high noon of media modernity. In the 1950s and 1960s, the power of radio was already well established and television was arriving. Newspapers were strong and getting stronger with rising literacy. It would have appeared that the only types of media that mattered were large, industrial entitites. Symbolic power was concentrated in a few centralized institutions. Mass media was the key to the minds of mass society. Through them, a leader could command the attention of most of the people, most of the time, it must have seemed. Politicians at the time could not have known that the media environment they considered natural and permanent was in fact historically exceptional. Today, the PAP has yet to come to terms with the fact that its policies and instincts for managing symbolic power were honed in an anomalous context that is increasingly no more real than Second Life. It is no longer realistic to count on commanding the attention of most people even some of the time. This change is not only — and perhaps not even mainly — due to the internet. Broadcasting went through a revolution that has arguably been even more impactful, though less commented on. Like most other countries, the Singapore Government in the 1980s decided that radio and television — originally introduced as propaganda vehicles — should be treated primarily as commercial entertainment media. What happened next was an explosion of consumer choice, with a proliferation of FM music channels and cable television stations. Choosing a national cable network instead of removing the ban on private satellite dishes enabled the government to cut into all TV channels if necessary, such as for armed forces mobilization exercises and national emergencies. However, since this would only be done in exceptional circumstances, the television audience is highly fragmented most of the time. The government can no longer count on reaching the majority of television viewers for its public communication campaigns and key agenda setting messages, such as the Prime Minister’s National Day Rally Speech. In 1989, before cable TV and the World Wide Web, half of Singapore’s adult population tuned in to watch the National Day Parade on Channels 5 and 8. In 2007, less than one-third did so.

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Print media has also undergone a transformation. As in all other industries, the periodicals business has seen greater market segmentation, by gender, age, lifestyle, interests, social class and spending power. This has been most visible in women’s magazines, but it is also the case with more serious genres such as business and finance. In the early 1970s, the business reader in Singapore had nothing other than the Straits Times’ business pages. Its sister paper, the Business Times, was launched in 1976. Today, the national newspapers’ business and financial pages compete on a daily basis with the Wall Street Journal Asia, Financial Times and International Herald Tribune. There are also weeklies such as the Economist and the Edge and monthlies such as Smart Investor. These are merely the more familiar news-stand titles in a diverse industry that includes specialized titles for specific sectors, such as the Asian Banker. The trend towards niche media has been hugely accelerated by digital technologies, which make it economically feasible to create and distribute specialinterest media products serving the “long tail” of demand, instead of catering only to the mass market peaks.5 But the internet has not merely fragmented the consuming audience. Its more profound impact has been to challenge what had seemed like a natural division of labour between consumer and producer. The power of the old mass media was not just a function of its reach, but was also buttressed by the popularly held assumption that inequality of media access was legitimate. Publics in modern society took for granted that their main stories and images should come to them via a small and exclusive set of media institutions. It is this assumption that is being shattered by various participatory forms of media, largely on the internet.6 If the PAP’s model of media management was mainly directed at the negative — prohibiting the undesirable — the transformations that are underway would be worrisome enough. At least it would have plenty of company: every government is troubled by the difficulty of policing cyberspace. However, the bigger concern for the PAP is the positive thrust of its media strategy — its insistence that the media not only conform with the law, but also play an active, supportive role in nation-building. PAP ideology posits that, as a small and vulnerable nation state, Singapore’s survival requires a collective, consensual response to national challenges, with its elected goverment — and no other institution — having the mandate to the lead. Accordingly, the PAP rejects the Fourth Estate role of the press in liberal democratic thinking. The government alone has the obligation and the right to shape the national agenda. While it sees some value in debate, this should precede the point of decision, after which the media is expected to help rally the nation behind what needs to be done.

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In the 1970s, the PAP translated this philosophy into a media system dominated by establishment news organizations, with independent, alternative media virtually eliminated. As a result, PAP leaders have grown utterly unused to operating in the kind of contentious media environment that politicians in most other countries consider normal. To the PAP, this is not a weakness but a strength of the Singapore system, for it allows policies to be formulated on a long-term and rational basis, without its governance being held hostage to the vagaries of a public opinion misled by irresponsible media. The problem that the PAP now faces is that its tried and trusted operating system software (to use a computing metaphor) is incompatible with the emerging media environment. The PAP of the 1970s believed it could achieve mass attentionon-demand through the mass media. If this was ever true, it ceased to be the case by the late 1990s. Singapore’s mass media are still powerful agents for the construction of social reality, but their dominance is waning. The core it occupies is shrinking, while the fringe is exploding. As attention dissipates into niche media, constantly murmuring with myriad unregulated voices, officials feel — rightly — that the mass media has an undiminished responsibility to serve as a unifying national forum and as a source of reliable, trustworthy information. Appreciation of this fact, however, provokes in the government two contradictory impulses. The first is to hold on jealously to what remains of its instruments of ideological domination. Just as families are supposed to stick together and accept a father’s authority in times of crisis, so too the national media must stand by the government in what is turning out to be an interminable informational and cultural war. This strategy, however, may be counterproductive, hastening the perceived irrelevance of the national media in the eyes of the public. Therefore, the second, opposing, impulse is to invest in the credibility of the national media by being scrupulously hands-off in their operations. Media professionals must be allowed to get much closer to their audiences — even, or especially, when this means distancing themselves from government. Only then can the press hope to retain and strengthen its influence, and play its social role effectively. Investment in the credibility of the press is a necessary long-term strategy for the state. However, expediency may win out in the short term. Officials wishing to defend their cherished policies and to avert potentially embarrassing public scrutiny of their mistakes have been able to count on a subordinate and cooperative press. Whether such a press system is an indispensable part of Singapore’s much vaunted governance model is an open question, but it is certainly true that many younger officials have had no practical experience

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of dealing with anything other than a non-confrontational press. Thus, shortterm rationality dictates that officials continue to exploit whatever leverage can be obtained from their inherited press system, pressuring editors to slant coverage this way or that, despite the long-term cost to both the press and the state. While the government has been giving the press more room, the pace of change has not kept up with the segments of the public that have been drifting into cyberspace. Largely because of their belief that they, and they alone, have the mandate to lead, the governing elites continue to see the relevance of a non-confrontational press. Breaking this addiction requires a strength of will on the part of the government’s seniormost leaders that has not, so far, been evident. NATION-BUILDING 2.0 The argument in the previous section might be read as suggesting that the national news media is the sole agent for nation building, while alternative online media is always anti-national. Neither is the case. At their best, mainstream and alternative media can play positive and complementary roles. The former is where the broadest national issues are discussed, consensus sought, and negotiation and social conciliation practised. It is where people figure out their common interests and work through their shared problems as a public. This role is akin to what social theorists have termed the formal public sphere. This is a necessary part of the communicative life of a democratic community. But, it is not sufficient. The norms and protocols necessary for the proper functioning of the formal public sphere typically exclude and marginalize certain groups and ideas. The informal public sphere, epitomized by alternative media, is more inclusive; it is the space where people can share ideas more freely — often within smaller communities of trust — and develop a sense of their interests. If one defines nation-building in old-style, top-down terms — equating it merely with treating the nation’s leaders with deference and amplifying their messages — then the mainstream media is indeed the main agent of this enterprise. However, if we adopt the contemporary understanding of nation-building as a bottom-up process of active citizenship — as reflected in the Singapore 21 and Remaking Singapore national vision statements — then the role is shared with the alternative media functioning as an informal public spheres. Indeed, in some sectors, the alternative media is a more self-conscious and responsible nation-builder than is the national media. The mainstream media everywhere is becoming increasingly commercial in its impulses, treating people as consumers

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to seduce, and as eyeballs to sell to advertisers, instead of as a public to be formed and informed. Some national media even expect government subventions for fulfilling their nation building responsibilities towards, for example, youth development, local sports coverage, and arts education. With this media retreating from its public service role, several of the resulting gaps have been filled by the alternative online media. Digital tools for citizen participation and collaboration have been embraced by various public sector agencies. One notable example is Yesterday.sg, a web log supported by the National Heritage Board and managed by heritage enthusiasts and museum promoters. Anyone is allowed to register as a member and post content, resulting in a regular flow of articles and images ranging from history undergraduates’ essays to a personal account of 1960s school life and a grassroots history of Hock Lam Street Beef Kway Teow, an old hawker food favourite. The site is plugged into a network of independent, heritage-related blogs such as Citizen Historian and Bullockcartwater.7 It is probably no accident that this outstanding example of a government-linked community blog is in the heritage area, which has a large number of non-state experts in the form of academic historians, cultural groups, serious collectors and “pro-am” enthusiasts — individuals who blurr the distinction between professional and amateur. Furthermore, information about the past is less monopolized by the state than, say, data pertaining to macroeconomic policy — an area which, predictably, has no equivalent of Yesterday.sg. This highlights the limitations of the state’s embrace of so-called Web 2.0 technologies. Coming a decade after the internet’s big bang of the mid-1990s, this new phase in digital culture invites an unprecedented degree of inclusiveness and collaboration in innovation. The government’s thought-leaders are well apprised of Web 2.0’s defining principles such as the “wisdom of the crowd”. However, much less mention is made of the closely associated idea of “open source”, which says that the most powerful innovation is unleashed when all relevant information is simply unlocked and given away, empowering users not just to add to a predefined box but also to reshape it. When taken beyond its origins in computer programming, the open source principle calls for providing freedom of information — requiring governments to release all information by default and to justify any intended exceptions to independent bodies such as the courts. In keeping with this new Zeitgeist, the introduction of freedom of information legislation has been one of the major recent trends in information policy around the world. Singapore, however, shows no sign of wanting to jump onto that particular bandwagon. In most areas of public

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life, therefore, limited access to official information constrains the volume and quality of citizen participation. A DYNAMIC EQUILIBRIUM: FOR HOW LONG? Entrenched PAP dominance is the sine qua non of government media policy. While critical observers of Singapore politics correctly apprehend this fact, they often misinterpret it to mean that Singapore leaders are entirely resistant to change. This is a profound misunderstanding, for it fails to account for their active promotion of the internet, a medium that could not be contained within their traditional media management paradigm. The government’s light touch regulation of cyberspace makes sense only when it is understood that it is not after a static outcome, but a dynamic equilibrium, with the PAP delicately poised like a surfer — of the aquatic, not the electronic, kind — riding the waves without being crushed by them. The PAP is not against change so long as it is on top of it. Therefore, it insists on retaining its illiberal and sweeping reserve powers, and would not of its own volition reverse the balance of power between ruler and ruled by entrenching civil and political rights or extending the rule of law in its fullest sense. Within this framework, it permits the media environment to evolve. A gradual pace of change gives the government time to adjust. Even a radical transformation of Singapore society would not be anathema to the PAP, so long as it remains the single institution able to exercise power within the new environment. To achieve this dynamic equilibrium, the PAP needs to manage change in a way that buys it time. Several of the government’s internet policies seem designed as temporary holding positions. Regulations governing the use of internet tools during election campaign periods are an example. The restrictions imposed for the 1997 General Election were partially liberalized for the following elections. After the 2006 elections, the government indicated that further revisions could be expected before the next polls. In early 2009, it confirmed that many of the rules would be loosened, in line with the recommendations of the governmentappointed Advisory Council on the Impact of New Media on Society (AIMS).8 Liberalization cannot be avoided entirely, due to technological changes that undermine enforcement. However, the government has certainly been able to slow down the opposition’s use of the internet by its succession of holding positions. This is a strategic retreat in its fullest sense — while conceding space on the internet for independent activity, it does not necessarily sacrifice any political power, which is shored up through a host of offline policies that would be outside the scope of this chapter to describe.

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As for the rampant use of the internet to resist the PAP’s ideological dominance, it would be naive to conclude from this that the ruling party’s days are numbered. While the government appears increasingly liberal towards individual self-expression, it continues to intervene strategically at points at which such expression may become politically threatening. The government is especially vigilant at the border between individual expression and more collective dissent — a line policed through laws regulating societies and public gatherings. In the arena of sexual politics, for example, there is a vibrant underground gay culture, promoted by sophisticated gay websites. However, attempts to register a gay rights lobby group, People Like Us, have been blocked by the Registrar of Societies, limiting its scope. A freewheeling cyberspace can actually help the government in its unabated determination to police collective challenges. Clandestine conversations that were once conducted in homes and coffeeshops are now carried out by email and phone text messages — which are considerably easier for the authorities to track. The surveillance aspect of cyberspace is hardly studied and rarely discussed in Singapore. Nevertheless, it is safe to assume that the government’s digital surveillance capabilities far outstrip even its most technologically competent opponents’ evasive abilities. That being the case, it is in the government’s interest to permit free play within the limited confines of the cyberspace sandbox. A block-and-ban approach would only drive anti-government discussions offline, where they are harder to monitor. In any case, the vast majority of critical commentary on the internet is not directed at removing the PAP from power, but merely at venting frustrations. This is not particularly threatening to the ruling party, and may even serve as an early warning system that helps it to fine-tune its policies. It is helpful to think of Singapore as a networked autocracy. The system is autocratic in its centralization of power within the hands of a small number of individual leaders in the executive branch, with few of the institutionalized checks and balances associated with full-fledged democracies. Authoritarian regimes are conventionally associated with a high risk of calamitous collapse, because they tend to become increasingly unresponsive to citizens’ needs and preferences. It is the networked quality of Singapore’s authoritarian model that may account for its exceptional resilience. Unlike most highly centralized states, Singapore’s regime has kept itself open and connected — to its mass base to which it remains highly responsive, to elites whom it works hard to co-opt, and to global economic forces with which its policies are kept in tune. Such openness does not amount to democracy as widely understood, since the PAP has erected formidable barriers to political competition. However, the government

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has instituted increasingly elaborate systems to ensure its responsiveness to the nation’s needs. The internet has been harnessed as part of that system, with agencies creating their own online feedback channels, as well as monitoring discussions in the rest of cyberspace. Thus, the government has correctly recognized that a transformative technology like the internet need not completely rearrange power. Indeed, powerful institutions are often best placed to benefit disproportionately from new technologies. E-government has already improved dramatically the efficiency of the state in a wide range of its functions. The Infocomm Development Authority’s next plan, i-gov, will further improve the public sector’s inner workings. The AIMS 2008 report devoted considerable attention to the subject of “e-engagement”, encouraging the government to use digital technologies to get closer to the people. The government replied that it was building its capacity on this front, investing more in its Reach portal.9 As noted earlier, however, there is no move to use the technology to empower citizens in their dealings with the government through freedom of information laws, for example. Instead, media policy has been largely pro-business in ways that continue to depoliticize the citizenry and activate Singaporeans as consumers. Thus, if the Singaporean of the 1970s could be characterized as cowering and voiceless, the Singaporean thirty years later seemed far better able to signal to the government about his wants and needs, and even to engage in entrepreneurial activity that would add to the country’s social capital and economic wealth. What is neglected, though, is any notion of a public with civic duties and rights. In this framework, customers are assured efficient handling of their specific requests, but citizens have limited ability to probe the workings of the system. For more than a decade after the internet’s big bang swept through Singapore, the government’s gamble appeared to pay off. This was achieved partly through a neat regulatory dichotomy between mainstream media and alternative media. The former, such as the national newspapers and broadcasters, have been subject to discretionary licensing, ownership restrictions, and political out-of-bounds markers. Alternative online media is free of all these. This dual regulatory system paralleled the differences in characteristics between mainstream and alternative media. The former employs analog technologies, is profit driven, resource rich, professionally run, high in quality, mass oriented, large in readership and viewership and highly public. Alternative media such as independent websites and blogs are associated with the converse cluster of attributes: digital, not for profit, resource poor, run by amateurs and volunteers, inconsistent or low in quality, niche oriented, limited in penetration, and semi-public.

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In theory, digital convergence would render unsustainable regulations that are not platform-neutral, since the same content can be reformatted for practically any dissemination platform: a video, for example, could be broadcast over the airwaves or released on disc or screened in a hall or watched on a mobile phone or viewed via a website. The government has been able to operate its dual regulatory regime because convergence had not run its course; the dichotomy between mainstream offline media and alternative online media persisted. Increasingly, however, it will feel the strains of internal contradiction. For example, it is becoming increasingly untenable to stereotype alternative media as uniformly unreliable, irresponsible, or small. While often associated with amateurism, alternative online media is witnessing growing participation of experts and specialists who are no less authoritative than full-time professional journalists. In many cases, these individuals are going online precisely because they are frustrated by the inadequate coverage of their area of expertise by mainstream mass media that lacks the knowledge or patience to deal with complex issues in a sustained and in-depth fashion. Similarly, universities, think tanks, civic groups, and foundations are increasingly contributing to the broad citizen journalism movement, investing resources to support online ventures in the public interest. The low barrier to entry will continue to mean that a large volume of online content is of dubious quality and relevance. However, sections of the online community are responding to criticisms by developing their own systems to encourage higher quality content. The growing sophistication of peer-to-peer and collaborative methods allows part-timers and amateurs to approximate, and sometimes even exceed, professional standards. In place of the hierarchies that help maintain standards in formal media organizations, alternative networks tap into the “wisdom of crowds” to help correct individual errors. More serious online projects that aim for wider influence are already developing a culture of community moderation peer review — internal checks that can rival the professional ethical codes of mainstream journalists. CONCLUSION While alternative media is shedding its negative image, mainstream media has been careless with its mantle of professionalism. It is getting harder to define the mainstream news media as the natural or default home of quality journalism. The hold of neoliberal values globally, including in Singapore, has led to a worldwide erosion of the public service tradition in journalism and its replacement

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by an overwhelmingly profit-driven mindset. Associated with this is the growing influence of entertainment and consumerist values on how news organizations allocate their scarce resources of editorial manpower, airtime, and newspaper space. The fudging of lines between news and entertainment and between news and commerce has allowed media executives to reduce their commitment to news and current affairs. Thus, for example, “reality” shows and hybrid genres such as “infotainment” and “docudramas” have replaced current affairs and documentary programming, which are generally embarked on only if outside funding is secured. While the lines are getting blurred between mainstream and alternative media, Singapore’s regulations continue to assume a clear division. Publishing a magazine or newspaper is treated as an exercise in mass communication, requiring an annual permit. In contrast, publishing a website — even if its content, intent and reach are identical to what would have been done with a print publication — comes under the Class Licence scheme and requires no special permit. Also problematic is the unequal treatment of websites and email. When the regulations were introduced in 1996, it made sense to treat email as purely inter-personal communication and thus outside the scope of content controls that were intended to supervise mass communication. Since then, however, email has grown in sophistication, such that an e-mailed newsletter can contain all the bells and whistles of a web page, and can be pushed out to a mailing list the size of a magazine’s circulation. Yet, while a political website can be asked to register with the authorities, a newsletter with identical content that is disseminated entirely through email apparently falls outside the registration requirement. Regulators will sooner or later be forced to respond to the contradictions in the current framework. One fear among netizens is that media laws will be harmonized by tightening the controls on online media to keep them in sync with those on print and broadcast media. Some in power may be tempted to come down on online media with a heavy hand when they see this media maturing to become as influential as traditional media. Such a solution would not only backtrack on the “light touch” promise, but also go against domestic and global trends towards greater freedom and democracy. Most likely, it would also not work. Ratcheting up the level of freedom enjoyed both offline and online is the more rational response. How to do this while maintaining its dominant position in Singapore will consume the government in the years to come.

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NOTES 1. (accessed 10 October 2008). 2. Broadcasting (Class Licence) Notification, 15 July 1996. 3. (accessed 10 October 2008). 4. Cherian George, “Consolidating Authoritarian Rule: Calibrated Coercion in Singapore”, The Pacific Review 20, no. 2 (June 2007): 127–45. 5. Chris Anderson, The Long Tail (New York: Hyperion, 2006). 6. Nick Couldry, “Beyond the Hall of Mirrors? Some Theoretical Reflections on the Global Contestation of Media Power”, in Contesting Media Power, edited by Nick Couldry and James Curran (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2003). 7. and (accessed 10 October 2008). 8. (accessed 5 January 2009). 9. (accessed 5 January 2009).

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16

THE TRANSFORMATION OF MERITOCRACY KENNETH PAUL TAN

CLASS POLITICS IN SINGAPORE?

I

n the 1989 volume of Management of Success, Ezra Vogel identified a “strong central meritocracy” not only as one of the pillars of good government in Singapore, but also as a type of government that Singapore leaders — namely, the People’s Action Party (PAP) government — had historically chosen to establish.1 Remarkably, meritocracy in the selection of bureaucrats, commonly practised among the East Asian countries, extended, in Singapore’s case, to the selection of political leaders as well, with academic performance as a pivotal measure of merit. Amidst triumphant though spurious attempts to explain the East Asian economic miracle of the 1980s in terms of “Confucian” virtues such as meritocracy, Vogel could already point critically to the way that meritocracy in Singapore also emitted an “aura of special awe for the top leaders … [which] provides a basis for discrediting less meritocratic opposition almost regardless of the content of its arguments”. In 1984, for instance, then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew publicly compared the GCE ‘O’ Level results of the PAP candidate and his electoral opponent, suggesting that if the former were to lose, democracy’s one-man-one-vote principle would itself need to be questioned. Articulate, confident, and energetic, political leaders in Singapore were part of what Vogel vividly called a “macho-meritocracy”. Meritocracy is an essentially unstable concept, binding aspects that work together in productive tension.2 Over the decades, the delicate balance between the contradictory egalitarian and elitist aspects of meritocracy, preserved so skilfully by the PAP government in the decades following Singapore’s 272

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independence, has shifted towards a market-driven concern with rewarding the winners, leaving the losers more sceptical about their own prospects for upward mobility. Today, meritocracy and, in particular, its macho manifestations are coming under strain as fast-globalizing Singapore gears up to deal with new forms of national crisis, alternative sources of information and beliefs about merit, and widening income disparity, all of which the government finds itself less able to control fully. More deeply embedded in the networks and flows of globalization, Singapore is facing new forces that are threatening to pull apart and destabilize this long-standing pillar of governance. In 2006, an eighteen-year-old school girl criticized a thirty-five-year-old man for complaining about job security and the problems faced by older Singaporeans. She wrote in her blog: i am inclined — too much, perhaps — to dismiss such people as crackpots. stupid crackpots. the sadder class … we are a tyranny of the capable and the clever, and the only other class is the complement … if you’re not good enough, life will kick you in the balls … my future isn’t certain but i guess right now it’s a lot brighter than most people’s. derek will read this and brand me as an 18-year old elite, one of the sinners who will inherit the country and run his stock to the gutter. go ahead. the world is about winners and losers … dear derek is one of many wretched, undermotivated, overassuming leeches in our country, and in this world. one of those who would prefer to be unemployed and wax lyrical about how his myriad talents are being abandoned for the foreigner’s … please, get out of my elite uncaring face.3

In response to this blog entry were long threads of angry online messages from outraged Singaporeans. This young lady was a top student on an elite school’s scholarship programme, recipient of a prestigious academic prize, and daughter of a PAP parliamentarian and president of a government-linked company. By most accounts, her life circumstances and qualifications would put her on a trajectory to a bright future and possibly to a place among the political elite. At roughly the same time, Singaporeans read media reports about a jobless man who, unable to deal with his financial problems, jumped to his death at an MRT station, leaving behind his wife and children. The stark contrast between the image of a cocky and disdainful youth from a privileged background on the one hand, and a helpless and desperate working man, on the other, strongly emphasized the gap between winners and losers in the Singapore system, crystallizing the mounting frustrations of ordinary Singaporeans who are

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increasingly worried about their well-being and life prospects, and about a future when an elite government might turn intolerantly elitist. Journalist Seah Chiang Nee’s prediction that this episode will “threaten the PAP’s long-term rule” as it foregrounds “political elitism and arrogance” that breed “resentment and friction”4 is perhaps a slight exaggeration, but such perceptions can accumulate and mount significant pressures that have already threatened to pull apart the inherently unstable concept of meritocracy which binds together such potentially incompatible aspects as equality of opportunity, efficient resource allocation, competition, and reward. Accordingly, the government more recently has had to take a more visibly positive and active position on the egalitarian aspects of meritocracy. THE EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES ASPECT Meritocracy can be thought of as a system of selection that is blind to race, gender, sexuality, age, or class differences where these attributes should not matter. However, blindness to differences should not extend to cases where real advantages and disadvantages are ignored, where some kind of positive discrimination may be necessary. What matters is that there is equality of opportunity, at least where starting points are concerned. No one, therefore, should be systematically excluded from opportunities to pursue their life plans, achieve their potential, and profit from their success; and from basic resources such as safety, housing, education, and health that will be necessary for these. In Singapore, the government’s social policies over the decades have ensured that nearly all Singaporeans have had access at least to basic goods through the public provision of affordable and high-quality housing, health care, and education. Stridently against comprehensive state welfare, the government has developed a basic system of social security, mainly in the form of the Central Provident Fund (CPF): through individual compulsory savings that are built up by joint contributions from individuals and their employers, and through occasional government top-ups, Singaporean workers can expect to withdraw a large sum of money upon retirement. Medical and home ownership expenses can also be paid by drawing from CPF accounts. The state also provides a number of social assistance schemes, including a modest Public Assistance Scheme for the neediest Singaporeans. “Multiracialism” celebrates a harmonious society made up of distinct “racial” communities neatly categorized as Chinese, Malay, Indian, and others that include the Eurasians. These ethnic identities and their respective practices are encouraged

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to flourish in the private sphere. In the public realm, decisions, selections, and promotions are made in ways that officially do not disadvantage any particular racial community (although prejudices and biases can never be fully eradicated in practice). Focusing only on pure merit, all Singaporeans should have an equal voice as citizens to affect decisions on matters of general importance, and this equality is constitutionally guaranteed. When differences are perceived to matter in one’s life chances, efforts have been made to recognize them. For instance, when the government in the late 1980s thought that Singaporeans from minority ethnic groups could be underrepresented in a future parliament, an electoral innovation was introduced to its basic Westminster system which allowed for most of the electoral seats to be clustered into multimember teams — called Group Representation Constituencies (GRCs) — of which at least one member from each had to be identified as an ethnic minority. This innovation, critics were quick to point out, gave the incumbent government more structural and tactical advantages in political elections; but, ostensibly, it was instituted in the interest of equal opportunities for political office and representation.

THE RESOURCE ALLOCATION ASPECT A second aspect of meritocracy relates to efficient resource allocation. Here, the focus is on “revealing” the best person for the job, rather than giving people equal opportunities. The former focuses on outcomes, while the latter focuses on fairness. Notionally, meritocracy is efficient because it identifies individuals with valuable qualities and qualifications and matches them to the appropriate roles and positions in the market and in the state. Such a system finds an easy fit in Singapore’s survivalist culture that constantly identifies resource scarcity as a key limitation on prospects for sustained survival and success. And with a population of 5 million, human capital — limited, it seems, in quantity and quality — lies at the heart of national anxieties (and incidentally provides justification for nearly all accounts of why Singapore must make itself attractive to foreign talent). Talent needs to be identified and deployed carefully and meritocracy would seem to be the mechanism for doing this. President’s scholar and former top career diplomat Kishore Mahbubani observed how the nation’s historical leaders decided that Singapore’s only resources were human resources. None should be wasted. Any talent anywhere in society would have an opportunity

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to grow and flourish. Hence, with financial aid and scholarships, and through a merit-based promotion system, I escaped the clutches of poverty.5

The PAP government regularly insists that there are not enough good people to join the government. Meritocracy is valued for its ability to “reveal” the best people from the widest possible pool of talent for positions in an elite government. Even if candidates appear to be drawn from a range of social backgrounds, recruitment of parliamentary candidates depends principally on academic qualifications and professional achievements. But PAP politicians from humble backgrounds often make their personal success stories publicly known as this can help to generate political capital and faith in a system that not only is efficient in allocating scarce talent, but also shows signs of fairness and equality. Stringently meritocratic, the PAP leadership selection mechanism reinforces the paternalistic strains of a culture that has been described as deferential and hierarchical. If, through a properly functioning meritocracy, the best talents are revealed and installed in positions of power, then this leadership is most capable of understanding the national interest and formulating policies that will, at least technically, be most effective in securing this interest over, perhaps, the short-term and fragmented interests of the masses. With the highly selfconscious selection of people with academic and professional credentials for a technocratic leadership, public administration aims to replace “politics”, yielding what Chan Heng Chee famously described as an “administrative state”.6

THE COMPETITION ASPECT Competition is a third aspect of meritocracy and one that is closely related to the question of incentives and effort. Meritocracy does not only sort out scarce talent, it also encourages talented people to compete with one another for position, reward, and prestige, and in that way to try harder than they otherwise would. Human capacities are thus developed to their potential and society can potentially benefit from the kind of competitiveness that brings out the best in everyone. Through a highly competitive system of awarding prestigious government scholarships to students, the PAP government has been able to ensure that the best academic talents are channelled into public service. These scholarships have been more about harnessing talent than equalizing life chances, although these two objectives do not need to be mutually exclusive. But the competitive

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basis on which these scholarships are awarded also means that students push themselves harder to win these prestigious awards. As “straight A” results become more common, students have to find other ways to distinguish themselves from their equally accomplished peers, which often means that achievements in sports, community service, the arts, and so on are taken more seriously. Through a rigorous process of applications, interviews, and written tests, government scholars are selected from a pool of top students in the cohort, the best among them sent to study at well-known overseas universities, where their tuition fees and living expenses are well taken care of. A contractual bond specifies an obligation (of five or six years) to public service upon graduation, a bond which scholars have a moral (beyond legal) responsibility to honour. If they obtain good results at university and perform well at subsequent rounds of interviews, they can expect rewarding and challenging careers, especially in the elite Administrative Service, where their performance will be scrutinized and “Current Estimated Potential” (CEP) annually reviewed.7 A number of government scholars eventually get picked, again through a stringently meritocratic selection process, to join the PAP as party candidates and, when in Parliament, may be picked to serve in the Cabinet. The PAP government’s claim to competitive meritocracy, however, has not extended into the realm of multiparty competition, a central tenet of liberal democracy. Almost half a century in power, the PAP enjoys the support, cooperation, and even obedience of the mass media, civil service, and parapolitical grassroots networks. The PAP is so deeply entrenched that Singapore’s formal institutions of democracy do not present a reasonable opportunity for any regime change in the foreseeable future. From 1968 to 1981, the PAP held all seats in Parliament, and the most impressive performance by the opposition was in 1991 when four out of eighty-one seats were lost by the PAP. And the PAP can hardly be expected to make things easier for the opposition in its struggles to win even a few seats in Parliament. A widely shared belief is that Singaporeans want the opposition parties to succeed in gaining a meaningful and credible presence in Parliament as a check on the PAP government, but not to actually take over the reins of government from the PAP, a party with a proved track record. A culture of apprehension, furthermore, prevents many Singaporeans from voting for the opposition, much less coming forward as candidates of alternative political parties.8 The government often explains that Singapore is too small for its scarce leadership resources to be dissipated through the competitive process, arguing that competition is wasteful when it comes to multiparty or even two-party

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politics where parties try to outdo one another to win popular support. Lee Kuan Yew famously illustrated the problem by suggesting that the elite, then numbering about 300, could all fit into a jumbo jet and that Singapore would be in deep trouble if it were to crash.9 Lee has more recently revised his estimate of the elite — “the people at the top, with proven track records not just in ability, but in character, determination, commitment” — to number no more than 2,000. “[T]heir biodata”, he said, could be saved “in a thumbdrive”.10 In the mid-1980s, Goh Chok Tong argued against liberal democratic practices for Singapore by pointing out, first, the difficulty of forming a good Cabinet of ministers if parties won only by small majorities;11 secondly, that “sampan” (small boat) Singapore cannot “zig-zag” like “supertanker” Britain without capsizing;12 and, thirdly, that the “political instability” of changing governments would have a negative impact on investor confidence, all-important to Singapore’s economic well-being.13 Liberal democracy — when framed in terms of these kinds of arguments — would seem to be opposed to, and not facilitative of, meritocracy. THE REWARD ASPECT A fourth aspect of meritocracy, and one which provides the incentive for competition, is reward. Reward for individual merit can take the form of social rank, job positions, higher incomes, or general recognition and prestige. But other than a prize to drive competition, reward can also be seen as recognition of talent and compensation for one’s effort. In the 1990s, Singaporeans started hearing about “bond-breakers” — government scholars who, realizing their earning potential beyond Singapore’s horizons, did not want to be constrained by the obligations to work in the public sector. Some of these scholars came from families that were sufficiently affluent to buy them out of their bonds. Some were bought out of their commitments by other interested parties in and out of Singapore, an attractive deal since the costs of selecting and training these talents had already been borne by the Singapore Government. While being selected for a scholarship was still a mark of prestige worth earning, the prospects of a career in the civil service were perhaps less attractive than they might once have been, particularly as the career horizons of top Singaporeans opened up internationally. If meritocracy could not adequately reward the meritorious, then talent would flow elsewhere. Singapore could no longer expect its talented young citizens to opt for a career in the government or public sector out of a sense of altruism or passion for public service.

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As the opportunity cost of choosing a public sector career began to rise, talented Singaporeans needed to be offered higher “compensation” which would also act as an incentive to join the civil service. In the 1990s, this way of thinking motivated the government to put in place higher salaries for top civil servants and ministers. The arguments for this also included the need to give civil servants fewer reasons to resort to corruption. Legislation to peg these salaries to a “market rate” was swiftly passed in 1994. Today, ministers earn salaries that are two-thirds of the median salary of the forty-eight highest-earning professionals in banking, law, accountancy, and engineering, and of executives in multinational and manufacturing companies. Singapore’s ministers and top civil servants are now the highest paid in the world by far, with the Prime Minister earning approximately five times what the U.S. President does.14 ELITISM Meritocracy is a finely balanced system that brings together contradictory aspects, including an equal opportunities dimension and a reward dimension. Elitism often sets in when the balance shifts significantly in favour of rewards, particularly when the winners, fearful of competition, try to set the rules of the game in their favour so that they can continue winning and make the winners’ circle more exclusive. From within that circle, the elite start to develop an exaggerated sense of superiority, overvalue their own capabilities, define merit in their own image, and treat the masses with disdain and despair. Those outside the winners’ circle may start to lose faith in the system when equal opportunities and upward mobility appear to be eclipsed by a marketdriven obsession with reward and status.15 Amidst the rising cost of living and visibly increasing disparities in lifestyle opportunities, ordinary Singaporeans have become sceptical of the reasons for increasing top-level government salaries to such phenomenal heights — as copious discussions in cyberspace would indicate — boldly questioning claims about the scarcity of leadership talent and the very qualities of the leaders themselves. Apart from responding to the government’s insensitivity in raising top official salaries very shortly after raising a regressive goods and services tax (GST) in 2006, Singaporeans were also critical of the official justification of high salaries as a means of preventing corruption. At about the same time, the CEO of highly successful charity organization, the National Kidney Foundation (NKF), was being investigated for corruption, revealing in the process that he earned S$600,000 a year, travelled first class, and led an organization that used only 10 per cent of donations for the direct benefit

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of its kidney patients. Singaporeans were also bruised by the reported description of the CEO’s salary as “peanuts” by a senior minister’s wife. Detractors and even some admirers of the PAP government would not deny that some of their political leaders have often shown themselves to be arrogant, insensitive, and lacking in compassion when they dismiss the problems and concerns of ordinary Singaporeans as irrational, self-serving, and irresponsible. Novelist Catherine Lim was rebuked severely by the government in 1994 when she ironically pointed out in a commentary published in the Straits Times that the government was gradually losing the affection of ordinary Singaporeans even as it continued to provide for their material well-being.16 The government’s style, Lim asserted, was “deficient in human sensitivity and feeling — ‘dictatorial’, ‘arrogant’, ‘impatient’, ‘unforgiving’, ‘vindictive’ ”. More than a decade after these observations were made, journalist Seah Chiang Nee noted that only “a few newer MPs are social workers or people with good community links, but compassion, charity and humility generally rank low in priority in a candidate’s qualities”.17 In Singapore, the disintegrative effects of elitism have not fully set in, but the finely balanced meritocratic system is almost certainly coming under strain. The rest of this chapter will explore how the inherent contradictions bound together in meritocracy are being disarticulated by three sets of evolving circumstances that are all in some ways related to globalization: more complex national problems, more alternative world views, and a wider income gap. MORE COMPLEX NATIONAL PROBLEMS In the most recent general election in 2006, the PAP won 82 out of 84 seats in Parliament and garnered 66.6 per cent of the votes, winning a very convincing popular mandate by international standards. The government’s considerable authority has been largely supported over the decades by the widespread belief in the value of meritocracy and that PAP leaders embody these meritocratic ideals, not only in their displayed credentials, but also in their ability to actually solve Singapore’s problems, ensure the nation’s survival, and deliver material success. 1985 and 1997, however, were two critical years when Singapore’s open economy was hit by a world recession and a regional financial crisis, respectively. In both instances, the Singapore economy stood resilient and emerged stronger since the crises provided occasions for implementing necessary but painful restructuring policies. During the 1997 Asian financial crisis, ordinary Singaporeans

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were exhorted to rally behind their government, whose wise policies, they were conditioned to think, had built a fundamentally sound economy that could weather the storm: the government, it seemed, was their best hope for survival and so they endured retrenchments, pay cuts, and reductions in employers’ contributions to their CPF, all calculated to keep the economy attractive to foreign capital. Sim Soek-Fang interviewed thirty-two Singaporeans in 1997–98 and observed that The PAP was so ideologically successful that its citizens, despite believing that the crisis was “regional” and thus beyond the PAP’s control, also believed that the PAP was the only option to lead Singapore out of the economic storm. This is a remarkable feat because it is tantamount to an ideological short-circuit: if the crisis is regional and beyond the control of the state, how can it be conquered by the PAP or by any government? Not surprisingly, the converse question of “if the government is so good, why did the crisis happen” was a thought that none of my interviewees articulated.18

Such ideological short-circuitry is possible as long as the technocratic government is able to keep problems more or less under control and, through the assistance of the national media, manage its public communications effectively. But as Singapore embeds itself more deeply in the networks and flows of globalization, national problems are becoming much more complex, compounded, unpredictable, perplexing, and out of any one government’s control. It is too early to provide a deep and comprehensive analysis of the political impact of the current global economic crisis, but most accounts — expecting it to be long and deep — point to this as the worst that the world has ever faced. Problems of the global economy have been further compounded by the impact of natural disasters, environmental hazards, energy security issues, the global transmission of disease, and terrorism. Set deeply in all of this, the utopian project that was Singapore is transforming into a well governed but much more “normal” developed society where things cannot be perfect and a government cannot be expected to guarantee perfection. Ironically, it is the PAP government’s impressive ability in the earlier decades to provide the “right” solutions, the sign of meritocracy at work and the basis of government legitimacy, that will make it harder for Singaporeans with high expectations to accept the inevitable and costly policy inefficacies and mistakes that a new security environment posing more difficult dilemmas will almost certainly bring.

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MORE ALTERNATIVE WORLD VIEWS Singapore is today the most internet-connected country in the world. As a media hub, its people enjoy enormous access to the world’s news sources. Traditional media restrictions and censorship practices, although they continue to be exercised by the government in its more authoritarian moments, cannot completely isolate Singaporeans from alternative, mainly online, news originating abroad. Online forum discussions and the “citizen journalism” of bloggers, although often criticized for lacking credibility, professional standards, and editorial review, are real competitors to mainstream state-influenced media like the Straits Times, TODAY, and MediaCorp News. Through these alternative sources, Singaporeans gain access to a range of viewpoints, ideological positions, and critical vocabularies that may not sit comfortably with Singapore’s official rhetoric, including the belief in meritocracy and its practice in Singapore.19 Alternative political websites from around the world can re-politicize the citizens of this administrative state, providing them with ideas and resources through which they can reinterpret and articulate their condition and propose political changes more effectively and forcefully. One aspect of Singapore’s practice of meritocracy that may be challenged by these alternative world views is the very notion of “merit” itself, which to the PAP government is best signalled by academic and professional credentials. In 1997, then Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew described the PAP’s slate of MPs as “the best since the PAP first fielded candidates in 1955”.20 The twentyfour new “third-generation” leaders were all graduates, a third of whom were prestigious government scholars, including three President’s scholars. The humble backgrounds of several of these new candidates were highlighted in the media; as were the various explanations given for entering politics as a moral obligation to repay society.21 In this administrative state, meritocratic government is conceived of mainly as a technocratic one, where leaders should have technical and specialized knowledge to deal scientifically with a modern and global society’s problems whose high levels of complexity will diminish even further the usefulness and legitimacy of more widely democratic (and non-expert) involvement in national decision-making and effective policy-making. By limiting the policy-making roles to a proficient and bureaucratic elite of professionals and specialists selectively recruited and earmarked in some cases for political leadership, the administrative state strives to depoliticize policy practices in the belief that this will make them and their outcomes more “rational”.

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However, as government technocrats, no matter how expertly qualified, find themselves making mistakes more frequently in a less controllable global environment, and as alternative media makes these mistakes more difficult to deny or put a positive spin on, the government’s political legitimacy will come under pressure. Its uncompromising claims about the need for high salaries to attract the best talent for government, for instance, will become less convincing; pointing instead to the stereotype of arrogance and insensitivity. These salary claims will also become more grating in an environment where the rising cost of living, the ostentatious lifestyles of an exclusive (often “foreign”) elite, and the greater obstacles to upward mobility are transforming meritocracy into elitism, largely by silencing its egalitarian aspect. Catherine Lim’s and Seah Chiang Nee’s criticisms of the government’s lack of empathy, compassion, and connection with ordinary people, as well as the outraged reactions of Singaporeans towards the arrogance of the privileged schoolgirl and the corrupt behaviour of the NKF’s former CEO, all reflect a wider sense that merit must include more than just academic intelligence and career success. A WIDER INCOME GAP In 1996, Minister George Yeo reminded the PAP to “remain true to its origins as a mass movement, inspiring and uniting all segments of our society regardless of race, language, religion, intelligence, age or gender”.22 One of the PAP government’s greatest achievements was to turn the working-class masses into a middle-income society, all within a couple of decades after independence. Singapore is today popularly described as having developed “from Third World to First” and, by 1987, Lee Kuan Yew was able to describe 80 per cent of Singapore’s population as “middle-class”.23 But in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis of 1997, this assertion of classlessness could no longer be sustained: the stratification of Singaporean society that was exacerbated by globalization and economic development had to be acknowledged so that it could be dealt with decisively. In a speech in 2000 to the trade unions, for instance, then Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong admitted that the income gap was widening as elite and mobile Singaporeans could earn internationally competitive salaries, whilst the wages of less skilled Singaporeans were depressed by competition from the surrounding region’s army of low-waged workers.24 The hardest hit by the 1997 crisis were lowerskilled Singaporeans who also made up the majority of workers who were retrenched during the period.25 Singapore’s Department of Statistics reported

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that the incomes of the lowest 20 per cent non-retiree households had generally declined from 1997 to 2005 and that the Gini coefficients among employed households had increased after 1999.26 TABLE 16.1 Gini Coefficients Among Employed Households Year

Gini Coefficient

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

0.442 0.455 0.455 0.458 0.463 0.468 0.472

Source: Singapore Department of Statistics.

A Sunday Times feature in 2007, titled “We can barely stay afloat, say lowincome folk”, reported a sixteen-year-high inflation rate of 3.6 per cent, a 20per cent rise in the price of food staples, and rising petrol and electricity prices owing to “soaring” oil prices. It also reported that the monthly wages of cleaners and labourers had dropped from S$860 to S$600 since 1996.27 In 2001, the Department of Statistics explained that the lowest 10 per cent of households “are not necessarily poor”.28 Nevertheless, the perception that conspicuously lavish global city lifestyles are out of reach of average Singaporeans can evoke a wounding sense of relative deprivation, exacerbated by their memories of having supported the government over the years and made sacrifices for their nation, including doing national service. Today, even expatriates — including the foreign talent whom the government has been eager to attract — are affected by rentals that have risen by 32.2 per cent in 2007, making Singapore the ninth most costly Asian city for expats that year.29 As globalization and economic development cause the income gap to widen, ordinary Singaporeans (and not just the poor) will feel relatively deprived, discontented, and even envious. Failure to address the rising cost of living will be perceived as policy ineffectiveness or even as a mistake, a perception that can eventually erode confidence in the government’s ability and the purportedly meritocratic basis of this ability. Liew Kim Siong predicted, already in the early 1990s, that “the welfare question will dominate the next stage of Singapore’s development, as the citizens of this got-rich-quick nation try to imagine a sense

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of community”.30 As Singaporeans become more exposed to a wider range of world views, including praxially renewed ideologies that promise a viable “third way” between capitalism and socialism, the idea of state welfare can no longer be uncritically demonized.31 In fact, Yeoh Lam Keong, a director in the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation, explains in an article published by Singapore’s Civil Service College why the government must rethink its “paradigm for social security”: Yeoh makes some compelling welfare policy recommendations and offers reasons why Singapore has a good chance of successfully implementing them.32 Already strained, the government’s anti-welfare position shifted slightly when, in 2007, it very modestly raised the monthly public welfare allowance from S$260 to S$290 and introduced the Workfare scheme to top up the salaries of gainfully employed Singaporeans over thirtyfive years of age whose salaries were S$1,500 or less. These gestures, along with monthly food handouts and occasional cash rebates are, however, still only a very basic and limited welfare provision that may not properly address the emotive concerns of Singaporeans who feel relatively disadvantaged and sceptical of meritocracy, or at least of its equal opportunities aspect. CONCLUSION Meritocracy is a desirable practice that brings together the egalitarian concerns (associated with traditional socialism) with concerns about efficiency, competition, and reward (associated with traditional capitalism). The PAP government’s ability to maintain this difficult balance has been challenged in recent years by a more profoundly globalizing Singapore. As policy dilemmas become more perplexing, as informational sources become more diverse and difficult to manage, and as rising income inequalities create a politics of envy and discontent, merit will be much harder to define, reward, and promote legitimately. But the government will have to find skilful ways of managing expectations and turning elitism back to meritocracy so that faith in meritocracy can be renewed as the foundation of its authority. NOTES 1. Ezra Vogel, “A Little Dragon Tamed”, in Management of Success: The Moulding of Modern Singapore, edited by Kernial Singh Sandhu and Paul Wheatley (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1989). 2. For a Gramscian reading of meritocracy as a hegemonic articulation of contradictory ideological fragments, see Kenneth Paul Tan, “Meritocracy and Elitism in a Global

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City: Ideological Shifts in Singapore”, International Political Science Review 29, no. 1 (January 2008): 7–27. 3. Derek Wee’s and Wee Shu Min’s posts are reproduced on “The Hubris of a GEP student at RJC”, discussion archived on Sammyboy.com’s Alfresco Coffee Shop, (accessed 1 November 2007). 4. Seah Chiang Nee, “Political Elitism Takes an Emotive Turn”, Sunday Star, 29 October 2006. 5. Kishore Mahbubani, Beyond the Age of Innocence: Rebuilding Trust Between America and the World (New York: Public Affairs, 2005), p. 5. 6. Chan Heng Chee, “Politics in an Administrative State: Where Has the Politics Gone?” in Trends in Singapore: Proceedings and Background Paper, edited by Seah Chee Meow (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1975). 7. The CEP, a tool adapted from the Shell companies’ talent management practices, measures each officer’s highest attainable position in the organization. 8. See Alex Au Waipang’s “The Ardour of Tokens: Opposition Parties’ Struggle to Make a Difference” in this volume for a discussion on opposition parties. 9. Lee Kuan Yew, “Singapore’s Fate Depends on 300 Men”, in Lee Kuan Yew: The Man and His Ideas, edited by Han Fook Kwang, Warren Fernandez, and Sumiko Tan (Singapore: Times Editions, 1998), p. 315. 10. M. Elliott, Z. Abdoolcarim, and S. Elegant, “Lee Kuan Yew Reflects”, TIME, 5 December 2005, (accessed 1 February 2007). 11. Goh Chok Tong, The Gordian Knot: Is There an Upper Limit to our Prosperity? (Singapore: Ministry of Communications and Information, 1985), pp. 32–35; and Goh Chok Tong, A Developed Economy, A Cultivated Society, A Nation of Excellence (Singapore: Ministry of Communications and Information, 1986), pp. 9–11. 12. Goh, A Developed Ecnomy, p. 16. 13. Goh, The Gordian Knot, pp. 2–5. 14. “Singapore PM to Donate Pay Hike After Salary Furore”, Reuters News, 11 April 2007. 15. See Ho Kong Weng’s “Social Mobility in Singapore” in this volume for a discussion on social mobility. 16. Catherine Lim, “The PAP and the People — A Great Affective Divide”, Straits Times, 3 September 1994. 17. Seah Chiang Nee, “Political Elitism Takes an Emotive Turn”, Sunday Star, 29 October 2006. 18. Sim Soek-Fang, “Hegemonic Authoritarianism and Singapore: Economics, Ideology and the Asian Economic Crisis”, Journal of Contemporary Asia 36, no. 2 (2006): 143–59.

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19. See Cherian George, “Control-shift: The Internet and Political Change in Singapore” in this volume for a discussion of alternative media. 20. “Line-Up ‘the Best Since 1955 Election’ ”, Straits Times, 27 May 1996. 21. Derek da Cunha, The Price of Victory: The 1997 Singapore General Election and Beyond (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1997), pp. 19–22. 22. Young PAP, Young PAP 10th Anniversary 1996 (Singapore: Young PAP, 1996), p. 4. 23. Garry Rodan, “Class Transformations and Political Tensions in Singapore’s Development”, in The New Rich in Asia: Mobile Phones, McDonalds and MiddleClass Revolution, edited by Richard Robison and David Goodman (London: Routledge, 1996), p. 30. 24. Lee Hsien Loong, Speech at the National Trade Unions Congress Triennial Delegates Conference, Singapore, 12 April 2000. 25. Singapore Department of Statistics, “Is Income Disparity Increasing in Singapore?” Occasional Paper on Social Statistics, May 2000, (accessed 1 April 2007). 26. Singapore Department of Statistics, “Key Household Income Trends 2006”, Occasional Paper on Income Statistics, February 2007, (accessed 1 April 2007). 27. Jamie Ee Wen Wei and Nur Dianah Suhaimi, “We Can Barely Stay Afloat, Say Low-Income Folk”, Sunday Times, 2 December 2007, p. 10. 28. Singapore Department of Statistics, “Income Distribution and Inequality Measures in Singapore”, paper presented at the conference on Chinese Population and Socioeconomic Studies: Utilizing the 2000/2001 Round Census Data, Hong Kong, 19–21 June 2002, (accessed 1 April 2007). 29. Mavis Toh and Shuli Sudderuddin, “Expats Here are Feeling the Pinch Too”, Sunday Times, 2 December 2007, p. 11. 30. Liew Kim Siong, “Welfarism and an Affluent Singapore”, in Debating Singapore: Reflective Essays, edited by Derek da Cunha (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1994), p. 54. 31. See Eugene K.B. Tan’s “The Evolving Social Compact and the Transformation of Singapore: Going Beyond Quid Pro Quo in Governance”, in this volume for a discussion on the social compact between Singaporeans and the government. 32. Yeoh Lam Keong, “Rethinking a New Social Compact for Singapore”, Ethos 3 (October 2007): 7–12.

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17

EDUCATION IN SINGAPORE Sorting Them Out? JASON TAN

THE DECENTRALIZATION OF EDUCATION FROM THE 1980s

T

his chapter focuses on macro-policy trends and initiatives in the Singapore education system since the publication of the 1989 volume of Management of Success. It highlights the growing marketization of the education system, the continuing preoccupation with fostering social cohesion through the schools, and the all-encompassing Thinking Schools, Learning Nation initiative that aims at promoting changes in teaching and learning in schools in support of national economic competitiveness within the global economy. The chapter also points out ongoing policy tensions, challenges and dilemmas. Policy rhetoric that promotes social cohesion appears at odds with a well-entrenched view of education as a tool for sorting the elite out from the rest at an early age, as well as with policies encouraging aggressive inter-school competition. At the same time, rhetoric about encouraging choice and diversity coexists with powerful centralizing and homogenizing policy mechanisms. In 1982 the then Director of Schools John Yip announced that the Ministry of Education (MOE) wanted to decentralize educational management from the ministry’s headquarters to the schools. He listed several benefits of decentralization. First, it would encourage greater efficiency. Principals and teachers would be stimulated to become innovative and creative. Students would be the ultimate beneficiaries of principals’ strong educational leadership.1 Secondly, decisions on how to meet students’ diverse needs were best made by individual schools rather than by the MOE. Yip noted, however, that the MOE would continue 288

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to maintain sufficient centralized control and supervision in order to ensure uniform standards. Furthermore, principals would continue to be accountable to the MOE through regular inspections. A major boost to the idea of freeing schools from centralized control was given by then Deputy Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong in 1985. He spoke of the need to allow more autonomy within schools, and of giving the right to appoint staff, devise school curricula, and choose textbooks, while conforming to national education policies such as bilingualism and common examinations. Goh asserted that prestigious schools had lost some of their special character through centralized control. Goh’s sentiment was echoed the following year by then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew who felt that government domination of educational provision meant a lack of competition and diversity. At the end of 1986, twelve school principals were invited to accompany then Minister for Education Tony Tan to study the management of twenty-five “acknowledged successful schools” in the UK and the U.S., and to see what lessons could be learned for Singapore. The principals’ report, which was accepted by the Education Minister, recommended greater autonomy for selected schools. In 1987, three well established secondary boys’ schools announced their intention to go independent in 1988. Their applications for independent status were approved by the MOE. They were followed a year later by two prestigious government-aided girls’ secondary schools. By 1993, a total of eight secondary schools, all of them well established and prestigious, had become independent. Right from the introduction of the independent schools scheme, there was intense public criticism over its elitist nature and the high fees charged by the schools. In the wake of the 1991 General Election, which saw the governing party returned to power with a reduced parliamentary majority, the government took steps to defuse public criticism of the scheme. First, it limited the number of independent schools, thus reversing its earlier announcement that it wanted to see more schools turn independent. Another step was the establishment in 1994 of a new category of schools called autonomous schools. In the first three years, eighteen existing non-independent secondary schools, all of which had outstanding academic results, were designated autonomous schools. These schools receive 10 per cent more in annual per capita government grants than non-autonomous schools. They are supposed to provide a high-quality education while charging more affordable fees than independent schools. The MOE claimed that parents and students would thus have a wider range of choices. In 2009, there were six independent four-year-type secondary schools, four specialized independent secondary schools, four independent six-year-type

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secondary institutions, and twenty-seven autonomous secondary schools. None of the mainstream primary schools was an independent or autonomous school. To date, both the independent schools scheme and autonomous schools scheme have been confined entirely to the secondary sector. The results of increased school autonomy have been mixed. Despite the principals of independent schools enjoying greater flexibility in decision-making, it is still clear that the MOE continues to wield considerable control over the independent schools. The School Boards (Incorporation) Act of 1990 provided for the establishment of governing boards in independent schools. All appointments to governorship have to be approved by the Education Minister. The minister may also vary or revoke individual governing board constitutions, or appoint the Director-General of Education to take over the running of schools. The latter provision has been invoked twice in the case of an independent school, The Chinese High School, once in 1997 and again in 1999. On both occasions, factional squabbles among governing board members resulted in the minister appointing new governing board members. The independent schools have also exercised greater control over the curriculum. For instance, several independent schools have scrapped subjects that are compulsory in non-independent schools or have made certain other subjects non-examinable. Teacher recruitment is another area in which the independent schools have taken advantage of their increased autonomy by recruiting as many teachers as their finances will allow. The schools have thus improved their teacherstudent ratios vis-à-vis their non-independent counterparts. However, in some other respects, the degree of choice and diversity is still rather limited. The government still exerts a great deal of influence over all secondary schools. In particular, the imposition of national curricular requirements and the pressures imposed by common national examinations and quality assurance mechanisms (discussed below), restrict the scope for curricular innovation. None of the independent schools or autonomous schools has moved away from a subjectbased curriculum, even with the recent advent of integrated programmes in a few independent schools, in which students need not sit for the General Certificate of Education Ordinary Level (GCE ‘O’ Level) examinations. In addition, the range of subjects offered in these schools is largely identical to that in non-independent, non-autonomous schools. As long as principals are held accountable for their students’ performance in national examinations, they cannot afford to stray too far from the mainstream curriculum. Possibly, it is the specialized independent schools such as the National University of Singapore High School of Mathematics and Science and the Northlight School that have the most curricular autonomy, as they are not bound by the common national

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examinations. None of the independent schools or autonomous schools is allowed to stray from key national policy initiatives such as the Information Technology Masterplan and National Education (NE). THE INTENSIFICATION OF INTER-SCHOOL COMPETITION A major feature of Singapore education over the past decade, and one that has gone hand-in-hand with increased school autonomy, has been the intensification of competition among schools. Besides improving the quality of education, competition is supposed to provide parents and students with a wider range of choices and to improve accountability by forcing schools to improve their programmes. This competition has been fostered in various ways. For instance, in 1992 the various local newspapers began publishing the annual ranking league tables of secondary schools and junior colleges. The official justification is that parents and students must be provided with better information in order to make intelligent and informed choices.2 Secondary schools have been ranked on three main criteria. The first of these is a composite measure of students’ overall results in the annual national GCE ‘O’ Level examinations. The second measure evaluates schools’ valueaddedness by comparing students’ examination performance with their examination scores upon entry to their respective schools. The third criterion is a weighted index that measures a school’s performance in the National Physical Fitness Assessment Test (NAPFT), as well as the percentage of overweight students in the school. The introduction of explicit measures to promote competition among schools aroused a great deal of controversy and criticism, both within and outside the government. For instance, the then Senior Minister of State for Education told Parliament in 1992 that public ranking of schools in terms of their academic results was “undesirable”. It was “absurd” and “nonsense” to say that one school was ahead of another because of minuscule differences in their overall academic results. It would also increase tension and stress among parents while not improving education for children at all.3 At the beginning of that year, the principals of all the junior colleges reached a collective agreement not to publicize their students’ General Certificate of Education Advanced Level (GCE ‘A’ Level) examination results.4 However, the results of the first annual ranking exercise were still published five months later. It is highly contestable whether fostering competition does improve the quality of education for all students and promote greater choice and diversity for parents and students. First of all, competition among schools does not take place on

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a level playing field. Non-prestigious, non-academically selective schools are simply unable to compete effectively with well established, academically selective schools. The former are caught in a vicious cycle: because they are unable to attract high academic achievers, their academic results fall far below those of the well established schools. This in turn means that they remain unable to attract high academic achievers. The government has claimed that the independent schools and autonomous schools will serve as role models for other schools in improving educational standards. However, it is not clear to what extent the experience of independent schools and autonomous schools can be valid lessons for the bulk of Singapore secondary schools, struggling with less-than-ideal student ability and motivational levels. More research appears to be needed on the role played in schools’ academic success by a selective student intake, the students’ socio-economic backgrounds, as well as the thriving private tutoring industry. Another criticism is that competition leads some schools to focus narrowly on those outcomes that are relevant for public ranking and that may be useful for attracting students and parents during increasingly frequent advertising and student recruitment activities conducted by various schools. There has been press coverage on how several reputable secondary schools have decided to make the study of English literature optional rather than compulsory for their graduating students. This is because English literature is perceived to be a subject in which it is difficult to do well during national examinations. Furthermore, there are periodic allegations by parents and students that principals and teachers are restricting students’ curricular options in a bid to boost their schools’ overall examination performance.5 In addition, some schools have over-emphasized preparation for the NAPFT at the expense of the acquisition of skills in sports and games, a phenomenon that was publicly acknowledged by the then Education Minister in 2005.6 Even though an external review team commissioned by the MOE heavily criticized the detrimental aspects of the practice of school ranking exercises in a report published in 1997,7 the ministry has refused to consider scrapping the exercises. It took a number of years before it announced in 2004 that it would be moving away from raw numerical rankings of secondary schools in favour of broad performance bands. The public ranking of all junior colleges was halted that year. Another response to public criticism of school ranking exercises has been instead to broaden the range of indicators upon which schools are to be assessed, through the use of the School Excellence Model (SEM). This quality assurance model, which was implemented in all schools in 2000,

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is meant to help schools appraise their own performance in various areas such as leadership, staff management, staff competence and morale, and student outcomes. Part of the SEM involves the annual presentation of awards to schools for achievement in various categories such as aesthetics, sports, uniformed groups, physical health, character development, NE, organizational effectiveness, student all-round development, staff well-being, and teaching and learning. It is arguable that the use of the SEM may result in some schools using more of the same covert strategies that they have been using thus far, this time in a wider spectrum of school processes and activities in order to boost their schools’ performance in as many of the aspects that are being assessed as possible. For example, a few years ago the website of a prominent secondary school stated that “CCAs [co-curricular activities] with good track records will be accorded ‘Priority Status’. Those with poor performance will be phased out.”8 This phenomenon may have been exacerbated by the recent introduction in 2003 of the Enhanced Performance Appraisal System used to appraise school principals and teachers, a system that puts a premium on quantifiable indicators of personal accomplishment. Furthermore, the practice of assigning most principals to schools on a limited tenure may lead some principals to resort to “quick-fix” solutions in order to boost their schools’ reputations. The competitive stakes have now extended to student recruitment as the MOE formalized the practice of Direct School Admission (DSA) for secondary schools in 2004 and for junior colleges in 2005. The scheme allows these schools full discretion to conduct selection interviews and devise their individual selection criteria to offer admission to a limited percentage of their annual student intakes before the students sit for the qualifying national examinations. The DSA will certainly further fuel school competition over recruiting (and competing for) students with academic, artistic, or sporting abilities, as well as poaching coaches with proven track records in securing medals for their teams in competitions. It may intensify the tendency on the part of some schools to focus narrowly on co-curricular activities that are proven award winners, to concentrate obsessively on student participation in co-curricular activities more for competitive stakes than for intrinsic enjoyment, and to exclude students without a proven track record of competitive achievement from participation in high-profile co-curricular activities. Another serious consequence of all this intense competition, which is part of an overall marketization of education as a commodity, is that of a growing prestige hierarchy of schools and social stratification. The trend of academic selectiveness on the part of top schools, which has been extended to other

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fields of endeavour with the introduction of the DSA, will inevitably lead to a further stratification of schools, with the independent schools and autonomous schools at the top and the rest below. Equally worrying is evidence that students from wealthier family backgrounds are over-represented (as are students from the majority ethnic Chinese community) in independent schools. The New Paper published an article in 1995 that claimed that about one in three secondary school students living in three posh residential districts were studying in independent schools.9 The government is well aware of the potential impact of social stratification on social cohesion as well as on its own political legitimacy. While maintaining that all Singapore schools are “good schools”, it claims that it is only right to nurture the more able students as the whole country will ultimately benefit.10 What strikes the casual observer of the Singapore education scene is how hardly any schools (with the notable exception of the Northlight School, which offers courses for students who have failed repeatedly in the Primary School Leaving Examination) show any overt interest in positioning themselves within the education market as schools that cater to disaffected or low-achieving students. FOSTERING SOCIAL COHESION THROUGH “NATIONAL EDUCATION” Forging a sense of national identity has been a preoccupation for the Singapore Government for over four decades. This is linked to the top political leadership’s “garrison mentality”,11 which manifests itself in a perennial concern with issues such as the country’s limited territorial and natural resources, the maintenance of the country’s economic and social achievements, and the country’s vulnerability as the only majority-Chinese state in the midst of a majority Malay/Muslim region.12 At a Teachers’ Day Rally in September 1996, then Prime Minister, Goh Chok Tong lamented the lack of knowledge of Singapore’s recent history among younger Singaporeans, as reflected in the results of a street poll conducted by a local newspaper. The MOE had also conducted a surprise quiz on Singapore’s history among 2,500 students in schools, polytechnics, and universities. The results proved equally disappointing. Goh claimed that the gap in knowledge was the direct result of a deliberate official policy not to teach school students about the recent political past and the events leading up to political independence. However, he felt that this ignorance was undesirable among the younger people, who had not personally lived through these events. He claimed, too, that these events, constituting “our shared past”,

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ought to “bind all our communities together, not divide us … We should understand why they took place so that we will never let them happen again.”13 Goh highlighted the possibility that the young people would not appreciate how potentially fragile inter-ethnic relations could prove to be, especially in times of economic recession. Not having lived through poverty and deprivation meant that young people might take peace and prosperity for granted. Calling on all school principals to throw their support behind this urgent initiative, which he termed National Education (NE), Goh pointed out that NE needed to become a crucial part of the education curriculum in all schools. Emphasizing the importance of nation-building in existing subjects such as social studies, civic and moral education, and history would be insufficient. More important was the fact that NE was meant to develop “instincts” in every child, such as a “shared sense of nationhood [and] understanding of how our past is relevant to our present and future”. NE was to make students appreciative of how Singapore’s peace and stability existed amid numerous conflicts elsewhere around the world. Goh announced the establishment of an NE Committee to involve various ministries, including MOE, in this effort. Goh’s remarks came on the heels of the increasing concern on the part of senior government officials over how to satisfy the consumerist demands and material aspirations of the growing middle class. Since the mid-1980s, access to higher education has widened tremendously. By the year 2000, more than 60 per cent of each age cohort was enrolled in local universities and polytechnics. This massive expansion of a better educated citizenry was also a cause for official concern. For instance, in 1996 former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew commented that thirty years of continuous growth and increasing stability and prosperity have produced a different generation in an English-educated middle class. They are very different from their parents. The present generation below 35 has grown up used to high economic growth year after year, and take their security and success for granted. And because they believe all is well, they are less willing to make sacrifices for the benefit of the others in society. They are more concerned about their individual and family’s welfare and success, not their community or society’s well being.14

Likewise, Goh had in 1995 claimed that [g]iving them [students] academic knowledge alone is not enough to make them understand what makes or breaks Singapore. … Japanese children are taught to cope with earthquakes, while Dutch youngsters learn about

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the vulnerability of their polders, or low-lying areas. In the same way, Singapore children must be taught to live with a small land area, limited territorial sea and air space, the high cost of owning a car and dependence on imported water and oil. Otherwise, years of continuous growth may lull them into believing that the good life is their divine right. … [students] must be taught survival skills and be imbued with the confidence that however formidable the challenges and competition, we have the will, skill and solutions to vanquish them.15

The NE initiative was officially launched in May 1997 by then Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Lee claimed that countries such as the U.S. and Japan, with longer national histories, still found it necessary to have schools transmit key national instincts to students. Singapore, being barely one generation old, therefore needed a similar undertaking in the form of NE. NE aimed at developing national cohesion in students through • Fostering Singaporean identity, pride and self-respect; • Teaching about Singapore’s nation-building successes against the odds; • Understanding Singapore’s unique developmental challenges, constraints and vulnerabilities; and • Instilling core values, such as meritocracy and multiracialism, as well as the will to prevail, in order to ensure Singapore’s continued success.16

Lee called on every teacher and principal to pass on six key NE messages: • • • • • •

Singapore is our homeland; this is where we belong; We must preserve racial and religious harmony; We must uphold meritocracy and incorruptibility; No one owes Singapore a living; We must ourselves defend Singapore; and We have confidence in our future.17

Several major ways were suggested for incorporating NE in all schools. Social studies at the primary level would be started earlier, at primary one instead of primary four. It would also be introduced as a new mandatory subject for all upper secondary students in order to cover issues regarding Singapore’s success and future developmental challenges. The upper secondary history syllabus would be extended from 1963, where its coverage had hitherto ended, to include the immediate post-independence years up until 1971. In addition, students would visit key national institutions and public facilities to foster a sense of

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national achievement and undergo six mandatory hours of community service each year. And to ensure that NE was taken seriously, the students’ sense of national identity, and social and moral development was included as assessment criterion in the School Excellence Model.18 An NE branch was established in MOE headquarters to spearhead this initiative. One can read in the importance accorded to NE three pressing concerns among the top political leadership. First, how, on the one hand, to satisfy the growing desire among an increasingly affluent and materialistic population for car ownership and bigger housing amid the rising costs of both commodities, and on the other, to maintain civic awareness and responsibility. A related concern is that the population might translate its dissatisfaction with unfulfilled material aspirations into dissatisfaction with the ruling party. The second concern is that social cohesion might suffer should the economy falter and fail to sustain the high growth rates of the past few decades. Social stratification has assumed growing prominence on the government’s policy agenda, especially in the wake of the 1991 General Election, when the PAP was returned to power with a reduced parliamentary majority.19 When referring to the growing income disparities, Goh Chok Tong claims that “we cannot narrow the [income] gap by preventing those who can fly from flying. … Nor can we teach everyone to fly, because most simply do not have the aptitude or ability”.20 This philosophy of not holding back the elite is reflected in the differentiated NE messages for the various levels of schooling. For instance, students in technical institutes are to understand that they would be helping themselves, their families, and Singapore by working hard, continually upgrading themselves, and helping to ensure a stable social order. They must feel that every citizen has a valued place in Singapore. Meanwhile, polytechnic students, who are higher up the social prestige ladder, are to be convinced that “the country’s continued survival and prosperity will depend on the quality of their efforts, and that there is opportunity for all based on ability and effort”.21 Junior college students, about four-fifths of whom are bound for university, must have the sense that “they can shape their own future” and must appreciate “the demands and complexities of leadership” as future national leaders.22 One sees in these differing messages, clear and unmistakeable vestiges of the stratified view of society espoused by Lee Kuan Yew more than thirty years earlier. Speaking to school principals in 1966, Lee stressed that the education system ought to produce a “pyramidal structure” consisting of three strata: “top leaders”, “good executives”, and a “well-disciplined and highly civic-conscious broad mass”. The “top leaders” are the “elite” who are needed to “lead and give the people the inspiration

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and the drive to make [society] succeed”. The “middle strata” of “good executives” are to “help the elite carry out [their] ideas, thinking and planning”, while the “broad mass” are to be “imbued not only with self but also social discipline, so that they can respect their community and do no spit all over the place”.23 The task of holding on to citizens’ sense of loyalty and commitment will come under increasingly severe strain as globalization and its impact mean that Singaporeans are exposed via overseas travel, the internet and news and print media to social and political alternatives outside of Singapore. It has also been government practice for over four decades now to sponsor top performing students in the GCE ‘A’ Level examinations for undergraduate studies in prestigious universities such as Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and Stanford. It is perhaps ironic, if somewhat unsurprising, that the well educated elite, in other words, the very individuals who have been accorded generous support and funding in their schooling in the hope that they will take on the mantle of national leadership, are the most globally mobile, and who are best placed to take advantage of economic opportunities around the world, to the point of contemplating emigration.24 The third concern is the persistence of ethnic disparities in educational attainment. Ethnic Chinese are heavily over-represented in local universities and polytechnics, forming 92.4 per cent and 84.0 per cent of the respective total enrolments in 2000, compared with their 76.8 per cent representation in the overall population. Ethnic Malays (2.7 per cent and 10.0 per cent, respectively), and Indians (4.3 per cent and 5.2 per cent, respectively) are correspondingly under-represented.25 Despite ethnic Malay and ethnic Indian students having made tremendous quantitative improvements in educational attainment over the past four decades, their public examination results continue to lag behind those of their Chinese counterparts. Disproportionately large percentages of Malay and Indian students are streamed into the slower-paced streams at both primary and secondary levels. This gap also translates into ethnic minority under-representation (and working class under-representation) in some of the most prestigious schools, and a corresponding over-representation in some of the least prestigious schools.26 In the wake of public revelation that Malay students were proportionately over-represented in some non-prestigious secondary schools, a few of these schools claimed that having high percentages of Malay students had not adversely affected their schools’ GCE ‘O’ Level examination results.27 There is evidence that four decades of common socialization in a national school system have still not managed to eradicate racial prejudice among school students.28 The existence of Special Assistance Plan schools, which are almost

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entirely ethnic Chinese in enrolment, has been the subject of periodic discussion because of their perceived ethnic exclusivity.29 Moreover, the practice of streaming students into various tracks at the primary and secondary levels within the context of a highly competitive, high-stakes education system has, since its inception in 1979, contributed to prejudice on the part of students in fasterpaced streams, and teachers as well, towards students in slower-paced streams.30 The marketization of education may further accentuate the segregation of students along ethnic and class lines across schools as more and more schools scramble in a very utilitarian fashion to, on the one hand, recruit students who are “assets”, in other words, students who can best contribute to measurable indicators of school performance (through official mechanisms such as the DSA), and minimize the recruitment of students who are perceived to be “liabilities”, on the other hand. In the past few years, there have been belated policy reforms as part of a tacit official admission of the divisive impact of education policies.31 For instance, there have been moves to blur some of the boundaries across different academic streams at the primary and secondary levels; to encourage greater interaction between primary students enrolled in the Gifted Education Programme and their other schoolmates; and to provide some semblance of upward mobility from lower-prestige academic streams to higher-prestige academic streams.32 MOE has also tried to encourage the teaching of conversational Chinese and conversational Malay in a bid to stimulate crossethnic mixing among students. Further compounding the situation in recent years has been a renewed heightening of awareness of religious differences, especially between Muslims and non-Muslims. For instance, in early 2002 another domestic controversy broke out over the Education Ministry’s insistence that female Muslim students not be allowed to don Islamic head veils in state-run schools. In February 2008 the principal of Boon Lay Garden Primary School was ordered by MOE to reverse his earlier decision that all food served or consumed in his school canteen had to be halal (suitable for consumption by Muslims). These ethnically and religiously based controversies have been complicated in recent years by the influx of new immigrants and individuals on temporary work permits from such countries as the People’s Republic of China and India. Permanent residents formed 10.1 per cent of the total population in 2005 while “nonresidents” (which includes foreign students and transient workers, among other categories) comprised 18.3 per cent.33 These new immigrants have had to cope with resentment from some Singaporeans at times over perceived

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competition for jobs, a phenomenon that has been acknowledged by Goh Chok Tong.34 NE will have to grapple with the task of socializing the children of the new immigrants, as well as how NE ought to play out in the case of students whose parents may have no intention of seeking Singapore citizenship, but who have chosen nevertheless to enrol their children in Singapore schools. Even in the schools arena, there is worry among some parents, teachers and local students over the added competitive element that talented foreign students are perceived to represent.35 TOWARDS THINKING SCHOOLS Another policy initiative that has contributed to a veritable deluge of reform in the past decade has been Thinking Schools, Learning Nation (TSLN), which was launched in 1997 by Goh Chok Tong. Driven explicitly by official concern about Singapore’s economic competitiveness within the global economy, TSLN included a reduction in curricular content from primary to pre-university levels to allow more time to be devoted to thinking skills and processes, and the revision of assessment modes. A whole list of desired outcomes, such as creative, critical, analytical and flexible thinking, the exercising of initiative, communication skills, problem solving, co-operative team work, and research skills, was announced. Goh claimed that TSLN had to instil a passion for learning among students instead of having them study merely for the purpose of obtaining good examination grades.36 Several skills, such as creativity, entrepreneurship, innovation, knowledge application, independent thinking, and the ability to work in teams, were subsequently listed in an official MOE document that outlined the final desired outcomes of formal education for every Singaporean.37 In a sense, the launching of the TSLN initiative echoed the call made by then Deputy Prime Minister Goh Keng Swee in 1967 for schools not to neglect the cultivation of the “creative imagination”.38 TSLN has since become a major policy umbrella encompassing multiple policy prongs such as Innovation and Enterprise, the Information Technology Masterplan, Ability-Driven Education (where every child’s potential is supposed to be developed to its fullest), “Teach Less, Learn More”, the review of primary, secondary and pre-university curricula, as well as the revision of university undergraduate admission criteria. Just after the announcement of the TSLN initiative, the Education Ministry published the report of an external review it had earlier commissioned to study the school system.39 Team members noted that teachers’ adeptness at drilling students in answering examination questions had extended to those questions

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involving “higher-order thinking skills”. The report also noted with disapproval the pernicious effects of the public ranking of schools. Although project work was praised for its potential to develop creativity, teamwork, communication skills, and independent learning, the report lamented the fact that students often viewed projects as chores instead of a means to develop their learning. In addition, teachers lacked adequate knowledge and time to guide students in their research. These comments came on the heels of comments in the local press that rising GCE ‘O’ Level and ‘A’ Level examination pass rates merely reflected the high prevalence of examination preparation techniques,40 as well as laments by parliamentarians over the apparent lack of creativity and thinking skills among students and members of the workforce.41 Furthermore, they create a sense of déjà vu as one contemplates Goh Keng Swee’s claim in 1967 that schools were over-emphasizing examination preparation and engaging in “parrotlike teaching”.42 What was perhaps ironic about these criticisms of the school system in the mid-1990s was that they coincided with Singapore students’ emerging ahead of their peers in other countries in the Third International Mathematics and Science Study. This accomplishment was lauded by the Education Ministry as affirming “confidence in our school system, curriculum and teaching methods”.43 It was pointed out that the study was “not made up of typical examination questions that our pupils are familiar with. [The test items] assessed them on creative problem-solving skills and their ability to respond to openended questions”.44 On the surface, TSLN appears to be an inclusive concept that benefits all students. Over the past ten years, MOE rhetoric would have it that TSLN has been a steady and consistent success in all schools. Within the context of a relatively small education system where the rises and falls of individual school heads’ reputations are widely known, what, in fact, are the prospects of wide-ranging and sustained change as far as the teaching of critical and creative thinking skills as embodied in TSLN are concerned? It appears that intense inter-school competition and quality assurance mechanisms may serve as inhibitory brakes on the flourishing of creativity and critical thinking skills in schools. The gradual emergence in more schools of alternative forms of teaching and assessment aimed at promoting critical and creative thinking, as part of a multitude of reforms, may not prove enough to persuade principals, teachers, students, and parents that these are not additional hoops to be cleared through more of the same teaching strategies, such as repeated coaching and practice of previous years’ examination questions that have proved successful

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in enhancing success within an aggressively competitive climate. In other words, many teachers and students may be co-opting new policy initiatives, well intentioned though they might be in theory, into well-entrenched modes of teaching and learning within the context of a highly competitive school system.45 It is common knowledge that in a number of secondary schools, the better half of the final year of secondary schooling is spent on intensive preparation for the GCE ‘O’ Level examination. A decade on, there is little evidence that TSLN has reduced the prevalence or profitability of private tutoring and the sale in public retail outlets of numerous workbooks and school examination papers. CONCLUSION At the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, Singapore’s education system appears to be fully in the grips of a culture of performativity.46 The discourse of performativity is marked by the use of the terms “accountability” and “competition”, and has profound implications for the way schools and educators go about their work. Ball speaks of how some schools become preoccupied with presenting a worthy image of themselves in order to flourish within the education market, and of how “authenticity is replaced by plasticity” as schools cultivate current and potential parents through “promotional publications, school events, school productions, open evening, websites … and local press coverage”.47 Amid all this publicity, there is a marked tension or confusion between “information-giving and impression management and promotion”.48 Statistics and indicators are vulnerable to manipulation in a bid to enhance individual and organizational reputations. Terms such as “choice”, “competition”, “diversity”, “pleasing one’s customers”, “stretch goals”, and “accountability” are commonplace in the Singapore education system. The government has attempted to delegate some decision-making authority to school principals through such means as the independent schools scheme and the autonomous schools scheme. This chapter has demonstrated that the government continues to exert considerable influence over schools even as these marketization initiatives are pushed onto the schools. It controls national curricular requirements and examinations and retains ultimate control over independent schools’ governing boards. The intense inter-school competition over the past decade, as well as the implementation of the SEM, has served as a powerful centralizing influence on all schools and has worked, to some extent, against the promotion of diversity and innovation. Equally

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worrying is the possibility that educators may sometimes implement policies more in terms of form than substance. In view of the primary roles that the government continues to assign to the education system in supporting economic development and fostering social cohesion, it is highly unlikely that centralized control will ever be relaxed. This is manifested, for instance, in the cautious tone adopted in the MOE’s report, which was published in 2002, on the subject of encouraging more privately funded schools.49 However, inter-school competition is still encouraged and the government shows no signs of reversing this policy. In fact, it is likely to encourage further competition among schools. This is part of its urging all Singaporeans to constantly “stay ahead of the pack” in terms of global economic competitiveness.50 At the same time, it has urged Singaporeans not to allow “our children to be softened” by the alleged denigration of academic excellence and the promotion of a “soft approach to life” by “liberals in the West”.51 Its response to criticisms of the elitist nature of independent schools has been confused at times. For instance, it has tried to dispel the notion that non-independent schools are inferior to independent schools.52 At the same time, though, it has stated that the independent schools are to be developed into “outstanding institutions, to give the most promising and able students an education matching their promise”.53 It remains to be seen how central policy dilemmas will play out. These include the tension between aggressive competition and inter-school collaboration. Another is the balance between conservatism brought about by the yoke of central control, and the quest for genuine diversity and innovation. There is the question of whether TSLN will really take off in schools, or whether it will simply fall victim to the culture of performativity and fail to take root in a fundamental manner, being adopted instead in a piecemeal, patchy fashion and being co-opted to suit the well and entrenched culture of intensive coaching and practice in answering examination questions. One might well ask if TSLN is in fact meant for all students in all schools across the prestige spectrum, or whether the growing stratification of schools and of students within the education market will mean that the “winners” in this competitive education system receive a bigger slice of the pie. To its credit, the Singapore Government has recognized the potential divisive impact of some of its policies and has attempted to address some of the problems. Its policy approaches in education have reflected the urgent desire of a small nation to achieve hugely ambitious economic goals without sacrificing social cohesion. It remains to be seen whether Singapore’s education policy-makers can juggle the task of sorting out individuals

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for their future workplace roles while at the same time maintaining a sense of solidarity and shared purpose.

NOTES 1. A major boost to the autonomy of all principals came in the form of the Education Endowment Scheme in 1993. Here the government deposits part of its annual budgetary surplus into an endowment fund which may be used to provide annual per capita grants to all schools. These grants may be used, among other purposes, to introduce enrichment programmes for students. In addition, each Singaporean between the ages of six and sixteen receives an annual grant that may be used to pay for enrichment activities and co-curricular activities organized by schools. Grants are also available for the provision of various scholarships and bursaries. 2. Goh Chok Tong, National Day Rally Speech 1992 (Singapore: Ministry of Information and the Arts, 1992); Parliamentary Debates 64, 1 March 1995, col. 27. 3. Parliamentary Debates 59, 13 March 1992, cols. 991–92. 4. The then Senior Minister of State for Education told Parliament that he was “glad” that the junior college principals had decided not to publicize their colleges’ public examination results (Parliamentary Debates 59, 13 March 1992, col. 991). 5. See for instance, Ibrahim Noorjehan, “Nurture Students, Don’t Discourage Them from Trying”, New Paper, 5 March 2009; Tan Doris S.M., “Students being Asked to Drop Tough Subjects: Don’t Leave it to School to Make the Decisions”, New Paper, 6 March 2009. 6. Alvin Foo, “More Sports for Pupils, Please”, Straits Times, 15 January 2005. 7. Ministry of Education, “Learning, Creating, and Communicating: A Curriculum Review”, a report by the External Review Team for the Ministry of Education, Singapore (Singapore: Ministry of Education, 1997). 8. Victoria School, “Co-curricular activities”, 2005, (accessed 4 January 2005). 9. Sandra Davie, “1 in 3 Students from Districts 9, 10 and 11 Goes to an Independent School”, New Paper, 6 June 1995. 10. Parliamentary Debates 59, 20 January 1992, col. 365. 11. Kenneth Paul Tan, “ ‘Civic Society’ and the ‘New Economy’ in Patriarchal Singapore: Emasculating the Political, Feminizing the Public”, Crossroads: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 15 (2001): 95–124; see also David Brown, The State and Ethnic Politics in Southeast Asia (London and New York: Routledge, 1994). 12. Hussin Mutalib, “The Socio-economic Dilemma in Singapore’s Quest for Security and Stability”, Pacific Affairs 75 (2002): 39–56.

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13. Goh Chok Tong, “Prepare Our Children for the New Century: Teach Them Well”, in Education in Singapore: A Book of Readings, edited by Jason Tan, Saravanan Gopinathan, and Wah Kam Ho (Singapore: Prentice Hall, 1997), p. 425. 14. Lee Kuan Yew, “Picking up the Gauntlet: Will Singapore Survive Lee Kuan Yew?” Speeches 20, no. 3 (1996): 23–33. 15. “Teach Students to Live with S’pore’s Constraints: PM”, Straits Times, 5 March 1995. 16. Lee Hsien Loong, “The Launch of National Education”, 1997, (accessed 8 February 2005). 17. Ministry of Education, “About NE”, 1997, (accessed 8 February 2005). 18. All schools were called upon to remember a few major events each year such as Total Defence Day (to commemorate Singapore’s surrender to the Japanese in 1942); Racial Harmony Day (to remember the outbreak of inter-ethnic riots in 1964); International Friendship Day (to bring across the importance of maintaining cordial relations with neighbouring countries); and National Day (to commemorate political independence in 1965). 19. Whereas the issue of income stratification was largely taboo in public discussions up till 1991, there has been growing acknowledgement on the part of the People’s Action Party (PAP) government since then of the potential impact of income disparities on social cohesion. For instance, Goh Chok Tong has acknowledged that highly educated Singaporeans are in a more advantageous position compared with unskilled workers and that there is a great likelihood of widening income inequalities and class stratification; see Goh Chok Tong, “Narrowing the Income Gap”, Speeches 20, no. 3 (1996): 1–4. 20. Goh Chok Tong, “Narrowing the Income Gap”, Speeches 20, no. 3 (1996): 3. 21. Ministry of Education, Launch of National Education, Ministry of Education press release no. 017/97, Singapore, 1997, p. 3. 22. Ibid. 23. Lee Kuan Yew, New Bearings in our Education System (Singapore: Ministry of Culture, 1966), pp. 10, 12, 13. 24. This policy dilemma was exemplified in the late 1990s when parliamentarians debated the merits of publicly naming and shaming individuals who had been sponsored for their undergraduate and/or postgraduate studies in elite foreign universities, only to repay the government the cost of their studies upon completion of their studies instead of returning to Singapore to work for the government; see Parliamentary Debates 68(7), 1998, Cols. 855–996. 25. Leow Bee Geok, Census of Population 2000: Statistical Release 2 — Education, Language and Religion (Singapore: Department of Statistics, 2001), pp. 34– 36.

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26. See for instance, Sandra Davie, “Malay Enclaves in Schools a Concern”, Straits Times, 23 February 2002. In the late 1980s, the Malay/Muslim Members of Parliament urged the Education Ministry to impose an upper limit of 25 per cent on Malay enrolment in every primary school. This quota was implemented in 1987, but was later quietly scrapped because of official concern over the feasibility of its implementation (Parliamentary Debates 74, 21 May 2002, col. 1906). A Malay Member of Parliament told Parliament that he had been told that once schools had an over-representation of Malay students, non-Malay students, especially ethnic Chinese students, shied away from choosing such schools (Parliamentary Debates 74, 21 May 2002, col. 1893). 27. “More Malays = Better Results”, New Paper, 5 March 2002. 28. Christine Lee, Mary Cherian, Ismail Rahil, Maureen Ng, Jasmine Sim, and Chee Min Fui, “Children’s Experiences of Multiracial Relationships in Informal Primary School Settings”, in Beyond Rituals and Riots: Ethnic Pluralism and Social Cohesion in Singapore, edited by Lai Ah Eng (Singapore: Eastern Universities Press, 2004). 29. See for instance Parliamentary Debates 55(4), 1990, col. 371; 64(5), 1995, col. 486; 70(9), 1999, col. 1027; 76(10), 2003, col. 1635. 30. Trivina Kang, “Schools and Post-secondary Aspirations among Female Chinese, Malay and Indian Normal Stream Students”, in Beyond Rituals and Riots: Ethnic Pluralism and Social Cohesion in Singapore, edited by Lai Ah Eng (Singapore: Eastern Universities Press, 2004); Jason Tan and Ho Boon Tiong, “ ‘A’ Levels or a Polytechnic Diploma? Malay Students’ Choices of Post-secondary Options”, in Challenges Facing the Singapore Education System Today, edited by Jason Tan, Saravanan Gopinathan, and Wah Kam Ho (Singapore: Prentice Hall, 2001). 31. In 2002, Goh Chok Tong remarked that schools provided all Singaporeans a “common space … to mingle and socialise as Singaporeans, and not as Chinese, Eurasians, Indians, Malays, Buddhists, Christians, Hindus or Muslims”. Goh Chok Tong, “Opening remarks by Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong at the dialogue with young Malay/Muslim professionals organised by Mendaki Club, on Saturday, 2 February 2002, at 4.00 pm, at CSC-IPAM auditorium”, 2002, (accessed 5 August 2007). 32. See Ho Kong Weng’s “Social Mobility in Singapore” in this volume for a discussion on the role of education in social mobility. 33. Department of Statistics, General Household Survey 2005, Statistical Release 1: Socio-Demographic and Economic Characteristics (Singapore: Department of Statistics, 2006), p. 3. 34. “Cracks in Society are Showing”, TODAY, 17–18 November 2007. 35. “China Whiz Kids: S’pore Feels the Heat”, Straits Times, 13 February 2005; “But Montfort Principal Says: We Are Improving Local Standards”, New Paper, 15 February 2005.

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36. Goh Chok Tong, “Shaping Our Future: ‘Thinking Schools’ and a ‘Learning Nation’ ”, 1997, (accessed 20 December 2007). 37. Ministry of Education, Desired Outcomes of Education (Singapore: Ministry of Education, 1998). 38. Goh Keng Swee, The Economics of Modernization (Singapore: Federal Publications, 1995). 39. Ministry of Education, “Learning, Creating, and Communicating: A Curriculum Review”, a report by the External Review Team for the Ministry of Education, Singapore, 1997. 40. M. Nirmala and Braema Mathi, “Do More A’s Mean Brighter Students … or Just Students Who Are More Exam-smart?” Sunday Times, 31 March 1996. 41. Parliamentary Debates 53, 20 March 1989, cols. 550–51; Parliamentary Debates 55, 15 March 1990, cols. 310–11. 42. Goh, The Economics of Modernization, p. 128. 43. “Singapore Students Top Maths and Science Practical Test”, Straits Times, 20 September 1997. 44. Chiang Chie Foo, “Education: New Directions”, in Singapore: The Year in Review 1998, edited by Ooi Giok Ling and Ramkishen S. Rajan (Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1999). 45. See for instance Anneliese Kramer-Dahl, “Negotiating What Counts as English Language Teaching: Official Curriculum and its Enactment in Two Singaporean Secondary Classrooms”, Research Papers in Education 23 (2008): 85–107. 46. The term “performativity” refers to “a technology, a culture, and a mode of regulation … that employs judgements, comparisons and displays as means of control, attrition and change. The performances of individual subjects or organizations — serve as measures of productivity or output, or displays of ‘quality’, or ‘moments’ of promotion or inspection. They stand for, encapsulate or represent the worth, quality or value of an individual or organization within a field of judgement”. See Stephen Ball, “Performativities and Fabrications in the Education Economy: Towards the Performative Society”, The RoutledgeFalmer Reader in Sociology of Education, edited by Stephen Ball (London: RoutledgeFalmer, 2004), p. 143. 47. Ball, “Performativities and Fabrications in the Education Economy”, p. 149. 48. Ibid. 49. More recently, the Education Minister confirmed this conservative approach by announcing that only a few more private schools will be allowed to open. Even though these schools will not receive state funding, none of them will be allowed to operate primary classes. The minister claimed that this step was necessary in order to support the task of national integration that was to be accomplished through six years of compulsory education in mainstream state schools. In other

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50. 51. 52. 53.

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words, these privately run schools may operate classes only at the secondary and junior college levels. They will have to abide by a few conditions: ensuring at least half the students are Singaporeans or permanent residents; supporting the government’s bilingual education and NE policies; and staging daily flag-raising and national anthem rituals. See Jane Lee, “Door is Open for New Private Schools”, Straits Times, 14 August 2003. Lee Hsien Loong, “The Government, the People and the Future”, Speeches 18, no. 4 (1994): 15–19. Goh Chok Tong, National Day Rally Speech 1992 (Singapore: Ministry of Information and the Arts, 1992). Parliamentary Debates 63, 25 August 1994, col. 398. Parliamentary Debates 59, 6 January 1992, col. 18.

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18

RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY IN SINGAPORE LAI AH ENG

RELIGION IN SINGAPORE

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eligious and ethno-religious issues are inherent in multi-ethnic and multi-religious societies, and Singapore is no exception. It has long been a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-religious society, being historically and contemporarily at the crossroads of some of the world’s major and minor civilizations, cultures, religions, and traditions. Today, every major religious tradition in Singapore probably has within it a full religious spectrum, from orthodox, traditional orientations to reform movements and independent spiritual clusters, while other minor religions and movements have created or renewed spaces, membership, and expressions in the rapidly evolving city landscape. Most have regional and global links and influences. Religious affiliation is high and religious identification is strong among the population. These have also occurred against a background of growing religiosity and religious change since the 1970s. Global, regional and local events and developments since September 11 have further put the spotlight on religion, and raised issues concerning religious identity, politics, and inter-religious relations, and their impact on social cohesion. Despite the diverse and dynamic religious landscape, however, there is a lack of in-depth knowledge, nuanced understanding, and regular dialogue about various religions and the meanings of living in Singapore’s multi-religious world. Indeed, claims of ignorance, lack of inter-religious understanding, dialogue, and interaction, negative stereotyping and other inter-religious encounters among individuals and groups present potential points of misunderstanding and tension. Some 309

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overlaps between ethnicity and religion further lend a heightened dimension and significance to ethno-religious identities and issues. While much is happening on the ground, recent studies and published literature are few or limited in scope and research has generally fallen behind realities and developments. Literature on various religions, while abundant, tends to be focused on their respective religious concerns and congregations. There is a lack of systematic studies or surveys and little on religion in national census coverage. This chapter provides an overview of religious diversity in Singapore. In a broad examination of the larger religious landscape, it highlights some general developments and trends among the multi-religious population, in relations between the secular state and the multi-religious society, and within specific religions. The complex religious landscape is then illustrated and explored through relevant or significant aspects, issues and examples in some specific domains and among particular populations: schools/education and the young, media and social services. Finally, it discusses some “inter-religious” dimensions of diversity, and the implications and challenges of religious diversity on social cohesion. THE LANDSCAPE OF RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY The religious landscape in Singapore is highly diverse, complex and fluid, involving both macro forces, particular religions and inter-religious relations which give meanings to its specific contexts, expressions and nuances. Multi-religious Society, Secular State Tham points out that the long journey travelled by religion in general from about the fifteenth century to the present has impacted on Singapore through various impulses and influences, particularly on state-religion relations on the one hand, and between religion and society on the other.1 He notes that along religion’s journey, the religion-based meaning system or “sacred canopy” of the past has undergone change and differentiation consequent on several interrelated processes of secularization, globalization, modern capitalism, democratic liberalism and pluralism. The religious impulse remains, but now has to take into account the dominance of the state where the “laws of man” supersede the “laws of God” in the management of contemporary problems and needs. The religious response itself to pluralism and secularism is manifested in different forms, from accommodation to rejection and opposition. How these developments impact on Singapore has to bear in mind its particular feature as a multi-religious society and secular state, in which the society’s multi-religious character is derived from various streams of immigrants originating from various parts of the world

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and from a variety of religious backgrounds and movements throughout Singapore’s history, while the state’s secularism is a direct inheritance from the British colonial system. The high degree of multireligiosity in which the vast majority of the population professes to have a religion (87 per cent in 1980 and 85.2 per cent in 2000) is further marked by significant changes. In different periods, religions have waxed and waned, with significant changes occurring in the last twenty-odd years. Census data show that Christianity has been highly successful in recruiting members (from 10 per cent in 1980 to 14.6 per cent in 2000) and so has Buddhism (from 27 per cent in 1980 to 42.5 per cent in 2000), while Taoism has seen its membership decline sharply from 30 per cent in 1980 to 8.5 per cent for the same years.2 Census data also shows that there is a correlation between religious affiliation and several socio-demographic variables, including age, education, occupation and socio-economic status. Christians and Reformist Buddhists in Singapore tend to be younger, more educated and have a higher socio-economic status, whereas Taoists and Chinese Shenists tend to be older, less educated and come from lower socio-economic groups. Another key variable is ethnicity. Religious affiliation is culturally or ethnically structured to some extent, with most Malays being Muslim, the majority of Indians being Hindu, and the Chinese, to a lesser degree, adopt Chinese religions and Buddhism although it is the most heterogeneous religion-wise. Another outstanding feature of religious change is the growing separation of culture and religion, with the privatization of religion taking place rapidly and with individuals claiming personal religious faith as opposed to kinshipbased or community-based religious faith. Alongside the disillusionment with “traditional” religious beliefs and practices that underlies this change is the understanding of individual choice and freedom of worship and faith. As such, over the past two decades, large numbers of young people are switching religions, in which non-Christians are turning to Christianity and Reformist Buddhism while Christians are switching to Reformist Buddhism or other Christian denominations. It is also significant that nearly 15 per cent of the Singapore population has declared itself without religion in 2000. At the level of the secular state, its management of religion and religious diversity stands out as a dominant feature of Singapore’s religious landscape. It is a particular feature of the Singapore state that while it is secular, it envisages religion to have a role in nation-building. Its institutional and legal framework for secularism and the management of religion in Singapore within the governing ethos of multiculturalism involve a plethora of institutions overseeing various faiths, such as the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of religion, the

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Presidential Council for Minority Rights and the Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act (1991). It ought to be pointed out that the 1991 Act has often been interpreted as being passed by the state to exercise control over the political mobilization of religion in the face of the 1987 arrests of alleged “Marxists”, a few of them Catholics with alleged liberation theology leanings, and the majority of others of a left or critical-of-government bent, for involvement in a conspiracy to overthrow the state some time in the future. This interpretation overlooks the fact that the arrests took place during the same time period as aggressive religious proselytization after many complaints and several serious incidents involving proselytization and conversion. Unlike the alleged Marxist conspiracy that was covered extensively by the local media, religious controversies arising from proselytization and conversion were kept under wraps and unreported.3 At the same time, these legal institutions nestle within a coercive, preemptive legislative regime in forestalling any religious extremism and interfaith conflicts. As pointed out by Tan, the fear of vulnerability in the post-September 11 “war on terror” and of political religion in general has meant that scrutiny, surveillance, and security are hallmarks of the state’s tightrope walk between secularism on the one hand, and wielding control and influence over religion and its expression for the purposes of state- and nation-building, on the other.4 In the latter, the state co-opts religion to reinforce the teaching of moral values, to sustain economic vitality, to share the responsibility of social welfare, and to urge the practice of one’s religion in keeping with the secular and multiracial mores of Singapore society. Concretely, relations between Singapore’s secular state and multi-religious society have been tested regularly through several contentious issues involving religion, such as abortion (since the 1960s), human organ transplants (since the 1980s), religious proselytization (since the 1980s), stem cell research (since 2002), the building of integrated resorts which include casinos (which in turn raise issues of gambling addiction and prostitution) (2004), and gay rights (2003 and 2007). State-society relations can be expected to continue being affected by these issues, some of which have yet to be resolved or continue to develop, and as society’s religious and multi-religious features continue to evolve dynamically, possibly raising other testy issues in future. Some Trends and Changes in “Old” and “New” Religions Against the above broad trends and macro contexts, it is now useful to provide specific examples of religions which make up and add to the dynamic local religious landscape, each through its own particular developments, features, and

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expressions. These include both “old” and “new” religions, such as Islam that arrived in the Southeast Asian region five centuries ago; Christianity which came alongside colonialism and is now returning via global evangelical circuits; Hinduism and India-derived religions; Buddhism; the Baha’i Faith and Sikhism. Islam Given that Islam is the religion of the majority of the population in the larger Southeast Asian region, its discourses, particularly in Malaysia and Indonesia, have an impact on the Singapore Muslim public. Azhar Ibrahim identifies the following as the main subjects and issues in the dominant discourses on Islam in Singapore: Islamizing trends in Muslim intellectual and cultural life; the denunciation of secularism and humanism; the advocation of plurality, diversity and moderation; and the debate on reformism versus traditionalism in which both competitively claim authenticity.5 However, reformism tends to be absent in public discourse, while traditionalism continues to be favoured. As religious belief, traditionalism is distinguished by a deep sense of cherishment for religious traditions which are deemed complete, infallible and unquestionable. As practice, traditionalism is characterized, among others, by the unquestioning acceptance of authority and opposition or reluctance to change. This traditionalism is strong among the local dominant Muslim religious elites or ulama,6 and is expressed, among various ways, in their writings found in the Malay media and in other sources, such as their sermons. Their traditionalism can also be found in their responses to some recent significant issues and events affecting the Malay Muslim community, such as organ donation and transplant, stem cell research, secular knowledge (versus religious knowledge), reason (versus traditionalism), the wearing of headscarves in schools, the arrests of local Jemaah Islamiyah members, and madrasah education, as well as to larger societal issues such as government and politics, the economy, globalization, poverty and development. This religious elite seeks to be recognized and legitimated as the sole experts and authority on Islam and on knowledge and modern issues affecting the Muslim community. As such, one broad concern among Muslims is the impact and ramifications of traditionalism on the general development of the Malay community, particularly in the relative absence of a strong stream of reformism in public discourse. Christianity The other impactful religion in Singapore’s religious landscape is Christianity. While the main Christian churches and denominations such as Catholicism,

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Methodism, and Presbyterianism have long established themselves in Singapore since early colonial days, it is contemporary evangelical Christianity that accounts for the trend of conversion from other religions to Christianity and the leap in the Christian population between 1980 and 2000. Within the diverse forms of evangelical Christianity in Singapore are several common forms of evangelical practice and proactive ways in which Christians interpret the call to be evangelical. These are supported and enhanced by global Christian networks whose leaders often propose innovative Christian practices using mass media and contemporary technologies, although these are sometimes construed by non-Christians as aggressive proselytization and detrimental to peaceful interreligious relations. New “India-derived” Religious Movements While Hinduism remains the main religion associated with local Indians, new religiously inspired “India-derived” movements and groups have added much diversity to Singapore’s religious landscape since their importation in the mid1960s and which now attract a substantial number of followers, including from outside the Indian-Hindu community. Sinha points out that many of these groups, including the Ramakrishna Mission, Radha Soami Satsang, Brahma Kumari Raja Yoga Centre, Satya Sai Baba Movement and Sri Aurobindo Society, do not perceive themselves to be “religious” or “Hindu”, even if some have developed within the framework of Hinduism, and show a considerable variety of beliefs, practices and organizational structures.7 At the same time they share some generic or common features such as the founder guru; claims to universal appeal and membership by individual choice and a personal quest; “difference” from mainstream, institutionalized religions, especially in promoting a de-ritualized stance; a claim to a logical, rational, and modernist approach to life and spirituality while also asserting a connection with ancient wisdom and tradition; and a focus on the individual and his/her self-development while at the same time subscribing to the notion of seva (community service) as essential practice. The functioning of some of these groups is also conditioned by local multi-ethnicity and multireligiosity while being connected with centres in India and elsewhere, and this offers some explanation for their appeal to English-speaking, literate, middleclass and upper-class professionals and members of different ethnic groups and religious sensibilities. One outstanding example is the Satya Sai Baba movement. Buddhism The “traditional” Buddhism (Theravada, Mahayana, syncretic) commonly associated with many local Chinese and the larger Buddhist landscape has

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not escaped reformism and change in recent decades, and the varied groups now include Shenist-Taoist-Mahayana Buddhists, Mahayana Buddhists, Therevada Buddhists, Reformist Buddhists, Nichiren Shoshu Buddhists and Soka Gakkai Buddhists. Also, since the 1990s, Reformist Buddhists have become a formidable group within the Buddhist community, and include the nonsectarian Buddhayana Reformist Buddhists, the Mahayana Reformist Buddhists and Theravada Reformist Buddhists. Kuah-Pearce notes that the processes of religious modernization and rationalization within the Singapore Buddhist landscape since the early 1980s have resulted in the movement towards Reformist Buddhism and a unifying religious ideology, this development generally appealing to modern needs.8 This can be broadly attributed to the younger, better-educated and middle-class Chinese population being dissatisfied with the syncretic Chinese religious belief system for consisting of only ritual practices (and hence theologically inadequate to meet spiritual needs) as well as being focused on funerary rites instead of on the living. At the same time, Reformist Buddhists reject a God-created world, which they argue features notions of superior versus inferior, and authority versus subordination, and instead favour the egalitarian approach of Buddhism. They also believe in personal effort in religious spiritualism and the attainment of enlightenment. Other Buddhist reformists’ primary focus is not the attainment of enlightenment, but with this-worldly needs. However, unlike Engaged Buddhism elsewhere, Reformist Buddhism in Singapore takes on the welfare and charity role without encouraging political consciousness and activism. In general, Reformist Buddhism adopts relevant and selected scriptural tenets from the different Buddhist traditions that best suit the needs of adherents and answer their contemporary spiritual and social needs. In the case of the Nichiren Shoshu, it is an imported sect which, since the late 1970s, has become entrenched on the Singapore Buddhist scene. It gained substantial members through its ability to attract disenchanted Shenists who want a change in their religious affiliation, as well as through its aggressive proselytization, simple ritual practice, exclusive membership, and well-organized social activities. Similarly, the Soka Gakkai Association, formed as a breakaway group from the Nichiren Shoshu in the early 1990s, is now firmly part of the Singapore Buddhist landscape, with older members drawn from disenchanted Shenists and younger members who seek spiritual meaning in life. Like the Nichiren Shoshu, it is well known for its simple ritual practice and high level of organization of activities which it mostly labels as “social” and “cultural”. Indeed, its members attribute its ability to be highly organized in such activities for its inclusion in the annual National Day Parade.

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Bahá’í Faith A less known and “new” religion in Singapore that arrived in the 1950s, but saw a growth of membership only in the 1980s and 1990s largely through conversion is the Bahá’í Faith. Foo’s and Thomas’ study show Bahá’í converts and adherents to be mainly young, English-speaking, middle-class with tertiary education, and Chinese, many of whom were formerly Taoists or Christians but were dissatisfied with their former religions.9 Many had also converted when they were overseas students in North America or were Malaysian in origin, while a significant percentage of adherents are from “other” ethnic backgrounds. The decision among converts to embrace the faith is also attributed to the attractiveness of its spiritual principles — Progressive Revelation, the Oneness of God, and the Unity of Mankind — and its social teachings, located in the independent investigation of truth, the need for harmony between religion and science, and the principle of equal opportunities for men and women. Sikhism Another religion that is not as well known as the main faiths is Sikhism, which is exclusive to the small Sikh community in Singapore. Although the Sikhs are a visible and ostensibly homogenous community owing to their unique physical appearance and established places of Sikh worship (gurdwaras), a different reality prevails. Arunajeet points out that, over time since immigration in the early 1900s, Sikhs in Singapore have evolved away from the Sikh religious ideals propagated by the religious authorities in the original homeland of Punjab, with only one third of local Sikhs maintaining their unique appearance and a further select minority within this third understanding and practising the religion as institutionalized by the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbhandak Committee (SGPC) in Amritsar, Punjab.10 The reality is at once a story of immigration and settlement and of inter-generational adaptations and changes, with the latter reflected most visibly in the physical differences among the Amrit Dharis, Sahaj Dharis and “cropped”, and intricately in the identity and community issues involving the Khalsa/Amrit Dhari identity, the gurdwaras’ leadership, language, and competing lifestyles for families, genders and youth. Finally, it ought to be mentioned briefly that the diversity of Singapore’s religious landscape is expressed not only through the many religious sites that dot the city-state and are visited regularly by their respective religionists, but also through the many annual events and processions some of which appear to be revived through greater participation and embellishment of paraphernalia and rituals. Both Thaipusam and the Nine Emperor Gods’ Festival, for example, are among

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the most colourful, organized, and long-lasting religious processions in Singapore, and by their very visibility speak of their sacred meanings and sacred experiences for their participants while contributing to a construction of identity and community amongst them. RELIGION IN SCHOOLS AND AMONG THE YOUNG Education and the school being the major site and agent of state and institutional policies, as well as of personal development and group dynamics, its religious orientations and influences are important aspects of early religious socialization, experiences, and inter-religious encounters among the young. These aspects, as well as religious orientations and shifts among the young themselves, reveal much about religious diversity and change in Singapore. Religious Education The teaching of religion in schools has undergone various experimentation and change. The government’s initial attempts to teach religious beliefs and practices in Singapore schools for the purposes of inculcating moral values and promoting citizenship education, through the compulsory Religious Knowledge (RK) subject introduced to all secondary schools in 1987, was quickly abandoned in 1989. This was due to allegations that the study of individual religions led to emphasis on religious differences and to religious proselytization. RK was replaced by a new Civics and Moral Education (CME) programme in 1992, and to a lesser extent by National Education (NE) launched in 1997. Charlene Tan argues that the government’s approach of introducing various religions to students in a historical, objective and detached manner makes it difficult for students to imbibe the moral teachings propounded by religions, or be committed to promoting religious harmony.11 Given the intrinsic problems and challenges associated with the teaching of religions among the young and in a multi-religious society, the secular state has stayed away from it despite calls for the teaching of world religions in the aftermath of September 11, preferring to leave religious institutions, individual religionaffiliated schools and parents themselves to attend to religious education. Instead, it focuses on moral education and National Education as a means to foster social cohesion and citizenship. Madrasah and Christian Mission Schools In religious education, two distinct types of schools — the Muslim madrasah and the Christian mission schools — both long-time institutions in the educational and religious landscape of Singapore, warrant some brief discussion.

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In the case of the madrasah, religious education is expected to offer a curriculum that focuses on religious subjects in keeping with its role as an institution to produce Muslim religious elites. Sa’eda Buang points out that historically, the national and economic development and demands of the state, particularly during the post-World War II period, necessitated the madrasah to revisit its long-held position as classical curriculum practitioner time and again.12 An earlier resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism in the early twentieth century also sought to effect madrasah curriculum reform which was indeed swiftly put in place but was short-lived. In recent years, the curriculum purpose of the six remaining full-time madrasah has again come under scrutiny and reformulation, to make them be more responsive to larger economic and sociopolitical transformations and which includes the employability of madrasah graduates beyond traditional religious sectors. In particular, the government, through the Islamic Council of Singapore (MUIS), is pushing for English, Maths and Science subjects to be given more emphasis, as well as for higher standards of academic achievement among madrasah graduates to match those of Muslim students in state schools. However, this has encountered resistance from some quarters of the madrasah education elite, Muslim religious elite and the Muslim public, who variously perceived the state’s motive to be that of closing down madrasah schools altogether and thus of removing what has become a symbolic marker of Muslim identity.13 Sa’eda Buang argues that both the socio-historical aspects of madrasah education and main curriculum issues, such as syllabuses, subjects and texts with their underlying philosophical considerations, make reform in madrasah education multifaceted and formidable. Power assertions between elite groups and the Muslim public within the Muslim community itself have also directly stunted the growth and progress of early madrasah education, and the curriculum itself has been in subsequent dire need of reform. In the case of Christian mission schools which came alongside colonialism and the spread of Christianity, the role of religion as providing moral and spiritual “benefits” has contributed to their reputation for excellence, even after independence and the creation of a national school system. Goh points out that though mission schools have had to negotiate their distinctive character in the light of national educational imperatives and currents, the quality of a distinctive school “spirit” and its “moral” benefits, which have been built up largely through non-curricular or structural means, have persisted throughout their history.14 The result is a distinctive character of Christian mission schools which has been broadly acknowledged to play a significant part in the Singapore educational landscape not only or primarily in academic terms, but also in

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terms of the “moral” training for which these schools are held in high regard by both Christians and non-Christians. He argues that the superior efficacy of moral influence (which arises from the inherently Christian culture of the mission schools) over a Religious Knowledge curricular approach (in which a multi-religious, pluralistic curriculum is inculcated through abstract classroom dictates) arises from and enhances the structural leeway given to mission schools to carry out their project of Christian moral influence. At the same time, a number of safeguards have been set in place to protect the religious sensibilities of non-Christian students and to avoid Christian evangelization. Religious Switching and Knowledge among School Adolescents In the “religious” landscape of schools that is shaped by school adolescents, their religious conversion and switching and knowledge stand out as important features. The study by Chew reveals a notable permeation of religious influence in adolescent life, with 82 per cent of adolescents identifying themselves as having a religion, primarily the Buddhist, Christian, and Muslim faiths.15 The most common period for adolescent religious switching to occur is between the ages of fifteen and sixteen, with switchers mainly from the Buddhist/Taoists, Christian and Hindu faiths, and often facing parental opposition initially. On the whole, adolescents switch not because of a personal quest for truth but because of peer group influences and the need to “solve a problem”. The popular choice for a switch is from Taoism to Christianity, and/or from Buddhism to free-thinker status. When the switch is to Christianity, it is also to a church that is youth-focused and that preaches a this-worldly gospel of care, cheer and prosperity. The switch away from the Taoist/Buddhist faiths is because of adolescents’ disenchantment with the practice of their rites/rituals and their inability to operate in the adolescents’ preferred language choice of English or Mandarin. The study also reveals adolescents’ knowledge of religions to be poor, drawn mainly from the internet and chat room sites and peer groups. At the same time, most are aware of the need to be tolerant of religions in multi-religious Singapore and not to be offensive. RELIGION IN THE MEDIA One of the most public spaces for information and exchange of views — the media — provides the ground for religious diversity in Singapore to be expressed and discoursed. Two important religion-related issues — internet use for religious purposes and media discourse on homosexuality — exemplify and illustrate this phenomenon. They also surface two main issues pertaining to religious

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diversity: the potential for religious harm and harmony through cyberspace, and the secular-religious distinction in the public sphere. Religion and the Internet The internet is becoming a popular medium for gaining access to religious information, teachings, communities, and experiences, and is an abundant source of both useful and false and sometimes inflammatory information about religious faiths. The study by Kluver et al. pays attention to the way the internet might increase or decrease religious understanding and harmony among diverse faith communities.16 The study found that the internet has become an important source for religious information and activity in Singapore, in line with global trends, and that Singaporeans use the internet more for matters related to their own religion than to learn about other religions. Singaporeans are also more likely to use local sites for religious purposes than foreign sites. While most religious leaders see the internet as a helpful medium for users to learn both about their own and other religions, some religious leaders believe that the internet provides an easy context for religious conflict through the posting of harmful materials, and are concerned over the authenticity of religious information online. Interestingly, most survey respondents believed that the internet can be a potential threat to religious harmony, and firm support is expressed by Singaporeans and religious leaders for government regulation of the internet on religious matters. It is clear that the widespread dissemination of information and communication technologies presents new challenges and opportunities for religious communities, in terms of outreach and mobilization of believers. But it is also true that it provides greater potential for offence as the internet allows individuals and groups to post material online that might insult or offend others.17 In 2006, three bloggers who posted negative material about Muslims were arrested and charged under the Sedition Act for their actions, indicating that the government is watchful about the internet becoming a site for religious conflict. As new technologies are integrated into societies, religious organizations, modes of practice, systems of authority, and modes of interaction are all likely to be challenged. Kluver et al. argue that a proactive stance which seeks to understand how the technology can be utilized for positive purposes is likely to be more meaningful than one that seeks solely to limit potential harm. Media Discourse on Homosexuality In 2003, the national print media managed a public debate over the question of non-discriminatory hiring policies in the Singapore civil service with respect

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to homosexuals. Kenneth Paul Tan examines this debate through a close reading of mostly “pro-gay” and “anti-gay” arguments voiced, in particular, the religiously inflected arguments of authorities from the Muslim, Buddhist, Roman Catholic, and Protestant Christian communities.18 He locates obstacles to an open, free, empirically supported, normatively justified, and sincere discussion that should ideally characterize a mature public sphere, and suggests that it is two approaches — the artificial distinction between the religious and the secular, and the insistence on formal secularism that excludes all religious reasons from the public sphere — that have been responsible for a public sphere that is defensive, dogmatic, and disengaged, and that distorts the capacity for more open public dialogue motivated by a collective pursuit of higherorder knowledge of what is good. Strict and formal secularism can also have the effect of demonizing religious reasons and transforming them into a defensive discourse, with complexity, subtlety, variety, and engagement being distorted into simple “us” versus “them” modes of reasoning. He points out that the discourse clearly shows that religious people and even the authorities can have a range of views ranging from the conservative to the most liberal, but a siege mentality reduces discussion into a battlefield of rigid notions of good and evil and right and wrong, all marked by suspicion and hostility between the forces of religion and secularism. This case is an important one. It points to the need to develop a culture of public debate and discussion that can produce and admit more nuanced arguments that destabilize simple “pro” and “anti” modes of discussion. Here, a start can be made by removing the religious/secular and “us” versus “them” distinctions in the public sphere so as to free up discussion, remove suspicion, and increase good faith in one another. RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS IN SOCIAL SERVICES The social services is a domain in which many religious organizations — Muslim, Buddhist, Christian and others — have traditionally and long participated strongly and even initiated. Indeed, the religious and social motivations, roles, and activities of each major religion and its affiliated organizations in the development of the social services sector can be traced and detailed historically. Broadly, their involvement all similarly arises from their respective religious and social teachings of charity, compassion, and love of humanity, and one common and outstanding feature is that they cater to all, irrespective of religion or ethnicity. They have continued to remain active in the field through a continuous reinvention of themselves, and flexible adjustments to the larger multi-religious environment

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and secular state, including collaboration with state bodies and other selected intra-, inter-religious and secular organizations. Muslim agencies and mosques both play major roles as social service providers.19 For Muslim agencies, they have evolved historically from providing help to Muslim immigrants and the needy, such as orphans, to their present role as providers of a large range of services catering to the poor and needy. While the majority of their clients are Muslims, they also service a sizeable percentage of non-Muslims. They have also established external relationships and collaborations with state agencies and other non-Muslim organizations, both faith-based and secular. Working with non-Muslim organizations seems to be part and parcel of their experiences and a practical necessity, Muslims being a minority. However, they ensure that the collaboration effort is consistent with Muslim beliefs and practices. In the case of mosques, besides being primarily places for prayers, they have become important institutions which address social issues in the community. They offer a huge range of social services to meet different needs of various segments of the Muslim population, although they are varied in their resources, collaboration, and leadership and orientations/values. Although the mosques’ social services programmes cater mostly to Muslims, there are spaces in which interaction between Muslims and people of other religious groups takes place, including those for fostering inter-religious understanding and correcting misperceptions about Islam — this feature having developed mainly since September 11. Another major player in the delivery of welfare services is Buddhist institutions. The Buddhist temple, through its Buddhist Sangha and the Buddhist notion of compassion, has always been simultaneously a sacred and a welfare space as it evolved over time, first as home for the destitute and tea house for the needy, and then to benevolence hall, free medical clinic and provider of shelter and services. Today, the intersection of state ideology of “many helping hands”, including those of religious organizations, and Buddhist ideology, produces a philanthropic and compassionate Buddhist culture that encourages Buddhist organizations and individuals to become actively involved in charity work and social and welfare services.20 Christian churches of various denominations have historically been long involved in social service provision, especially among those strongly rooted in “social gospel” theology which emphasizes good works for the betterment of humanity. The Catholic Welfare Services, the Methodist Welfare Services, and the Presbyterian Welfare Services are examples. The Catholic Church and

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some of its individual members further provide services where others may hesitate to undertake, such as with AIDS sufferers and immigrants. The case of evangelical Protestant churches, which began to enter the social services in the 1980s, is interesting. According to Mathews, to a large extent they are theologically conservative and traditionally have been more concerned with “soul saving” than “bread giving” but, together with church-affiliated social service organizations, they now form the largest bloc in Singapore’s social service landscape.21 The main types of services they offer include help for families and youth; half-way houses, care facilities, including hospitals and institutional homes; and facilities for the disabled. Their motivations for involvement lie in integrating faith and works and obtaining legitimacy vis-à-vis the state and community, and they are adept at mobilizing ideological, spiritual, and material resources. Overall, Protestant churches and their organizations have been successful in adapting to the secular state and a multi-religious society and have become strongly entrenched in the social service landscape, even as the common perception exists that their social service provision is a front for proselytization. The role of Hinduism and Hindu temples in social services is the exception compared with the other religious organizations, and is relatively recent. Historically, the temple evolved from being a focal centre for worship, interaction, and safe haven for early Hindu immigrant workers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, to their position as largely places of ritualistic worship by the 1970s. However, temples have been increasingly subject to pressures for change towards greater performance of the mandatory seva (community service) since the 1980s, such pressures coming from more informed and educated devotees and neo-spiritual movements, loss of youth members unable to identify with rituals, and examples set by organizations of other religions.22 As noted earlier, some new India-derived religious movements, such as the Satya Sai Baba, are now active in the social service landscape through the concept of seva as essential practice. INTER-RELIGIOUS ISSUES AND INTERACTION Inter-religious issues and interaction probably constitute the most difficult and challenging dimensions of religious diversity in Singapore. Given their inevitability and their potential for both peace and conflict, it is necessary to understand their specific contexts, forms and expressions, and the principles and values by which they are approached by individuals and groups, leaders and laities, and society as a whole.

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According to Ten, the existence of genuine but sometimes incompatible or even conflicting beliefs about religious matters should be acknowledged as a starting point, in order to face a central political issue: the basis on which people with such differences are to live together harmoniously and in cooperation with one another.23 In his view, the first step is to establish good grounds for religious toleration: having a proper understanding and application of religious beliefs, showing respect for sincere believers of all kinds by letting them lead their lives in accordance with their fundamental values so long as they do not harm others, and rejecting a theocratic state in favour of a secular one. At the same time, he sees mere toleration as being insufficient as it is compatible with mutually tolerant religious groups living compartmentalized lives without any dialogue or interaction. He observes that in Singapore, several other social ingredients have been added in order to avoid this, including housing and educational policies and a meritocratic approach. He argues in particular for a meritocratic society, which, properly tempered, not only provides opportunities for social mobility but also encourages the emergence of multiple and crisscrossing social identities whereby religious divisions need not coincide with, and be amplified by, other social divisions. Two examples illustrate the complexities and challenges of interfaith dialogue and interaction in reality. How Christian clergymen negotiate their religion with other religions is one particularly significant example, given that the steady growth of Christianity in Singapore, especially the more conservative segment of it, is a cause for concern in terms of inter-religious harmony as this category is allegedly more resistant in entering into dialogue and partnerships with other religious groups and opposed to making concessions and compromises to their exclusivist faith and practice. In Mathews’ study of Christian clergymen’s negotiations with other religions in four areas — inter-religious dialogue, interreligious relations, evangelistic practices, and participation in non-Christian ritual — he demonstrates the difficulties and complexities in negotiating the tensions between their evangelistic mission and their need to coexist peacefully with other religions within a secular nation-state setting.24 While clergymen provide theological and social rationalizations while being always mindful not to dilute their exclusivist stance in their negotiations, the processes and outcomes are far from being easy or resolved. An “older” example of interfaith dialogue and interaction is that of the only inter-religious body in Singapore: the Inter-Religious Organisation (IRO), set up in 1949. In tracing the IRO’s historical development and major activities, Lai points to some of the inherently difficult issues raised and problems

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encountered in inter-religious relations and collaboration, even as such an organization aspires to spread inter-religious goodwill and understanding and members share similar values drawn from their respective religious traditions.25 Some of these problems and issues include organizational issues of structure, leadership, qualification for membership and representation within the body; theological differences and their negotiation; religious proselytization; the public portrayal, representation, and referencing of religions and “others”; the content and the nature of dialogue and interaction; public representation of an interreligious organization; and its relations with the secular state. In general, the more ritualistic and symbolic aspects of interfaith representation and interaction have been developed and agreed upon over time, even though these remain open to question by religious others from outside the organization. It is the complex issues of representation, and of the theological and social justifications for interfaith dialogue and interaction that are deeply contested. However, in assessing the IRO’s contributions to interfaith awareness, peace and understanding, Lai argues that an inter-religious institution such as the IRO is a necessary one in a multi-religious society. A new dimension of interfaith dialogue among youth leaders appears to have been emphasized after September 11 and other terrorist attacks involving young adults. However, the nascent youth interfaith dialogue is limited and hampered by several conditions, including the social taboo of religion as being sensitive that has contributed to the abstinence from and lack of interest in youth interfaith work, and the inter-generational gaps between religious leaders and youth. Interfaith relations and dialogue in multi-religious Singapore after the occurrence of September 11 and terrorist attacks elsewhere as well as the arrests of Jemaah Islamiah terrorists in Singapore warrant mention here.26 In brief, the state was quick to organize events and set up new structures since 2001 which have brought religious and community leaders to the table and on common platforms in the interests of religious harmony and social cohesion.27 However, it was Muslim individuals and Muslim organizations such as Majlis Ugama Islam Singapura (MUIS, The Islamic Council of Singapore) and the Association of Muslim Professionals (AMP), under the glare of suspicion and negative reporting on Islam and Muslims particularly in Western media, which initiated several events and activities for the public. These included lectures, dialogues, conferences on religion and peace, and joint celebrations, many in collaboration with secular and religious organizations such as the Catholic Church, Buddhist organizations and the IRO (which also organized similar events and activities). In the response

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of the Catholic Church and its members to such activities and expressions of inter-religious solidarity, it may be said that they were guided by their church’s document Nostra Aetate, which recognizes the good present in all the major religions of the world and acknowledges the Catholic Church’s own recognition of the world’s major religions, as well as by the Pontifical Council for Interreligious and Ecumenical Dialogue. CONCLUSION The dimensions and meanings of religious diversity are wide-ranging and multilayered. In Singapore it spans an entire spectrum within a dynamic and fast-evolving landscape: society as a whole, global and regional impulses and impacts, the state’s management of religion, the secular and the sacred, public and private religion, individuals and their religions, individual religions and intra-religious aspects, and inter-religious dimensions. This chapter does not offer a comprehensive picture nor does it offer strong and firm conclusions about Singapore’s religious diversity in view of this vast scope and the huge gaps of knowledge.28 Broadly, religious diversity in Singapore speaks of the strength of religiosity and religion’s many positive contributions to society and the lives of individuals and groups. At the same time, there are some complex and difficult issues and challenges posed by religious diversity, especially for state-society and interfaith relations: growing binary world views and artificial and antagonistic distinctions made between secularism and religiosity, religious proselytization and conversion, external religious influences and their impact on local communities and their orientations, political mobilization by religion and its management by the state, and inter-religious issues. Arising from these difficult issues and challenges is the consequent need to clarify and balance diversity and unity. It is generally accepted that diversity is such that all, religionists and non-religionists alike, should be able to practise their beliefs, maintain their attachments and identities to their religious/other communities, as well as participate effectively in the shared multi-religious and multicultural nation-state, including in the definition and attainment of social goals affecting all. At the same time, unity is to be held uppermost by all, failing which fracturing and divisions along religious as well as other lines threaten the nation-state and society itself. Religious and other identities would have to sit comfortably with the larger interests of social cohesion, national unity, and the common good of society. The balance between diversity and unity needs to be sensitively managed within an “always under construction and in dialogue” approach. The scope

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and meanings of “diversity” and “unity” will need to be regularly reviewed, clarified, and nuanced. Here, who holds dialogues, manages, and constructs with whom and by what mechanisms and processes are important. In the Singapore experience, some major challenges and tensions have been managed through a range of mechanisms and processes, such as using state power, experiential learning, and dialogue, debate and negotiation. The role of the state in particular, since it is the key player, needs to be carefully considered and managed in seeking the diversity-unity balance. In academic and intellectual discourse on Singapore’s cultural diversity, much focus has been placed on the hegemonic role of the state in social control and management. This is understandable as the state has historically set the larger institutional and legal frameworks for social-cultural policies and practices and been strongly interventionist in its political approach to issues. On religion, it maintains a clear stand on Singapore being a secular state and a distinction between political and social religion. It also claims the maintenance of religious harmony as one of its primary roles, and will no doubt respond strong and hard to any perceived organized threats to security and social stability and to this role. Religions and religious communities, however, have their own worlds and realities which offer motivations, fulfilments, meanings and lives into which the state cannot or would hesitate to enter without being perceived as being hegemonic or anti-religion. Religion appeals to people in ways that no amount of state power exercised can have complete control over or deliverables offered can substitute for. In the delicate balance between unity and diversity, the state’s part has to be sensitively managed. Too much intervention by the state and its emphasis on unity and the result can be hegemony and religious repression. On the other hand, too much diversity without sufficient unity can result in society being fractured and divided. Dealing with diversity can be especially difficult when there is a history of serious inter-religious conflict or when religions come into play in aggressively competitive, exclusivist and/or literalist forms, or are interpreted without sufficient contextualization and sensitivity into local multi-religious conditions. In Singapore, diversity is viewed broadly and lived by people as a condition to be tolerated and even appreciated ritually and culturally for its enriching qualities, but feared socially and politically for its divisive potentialities. Singapore’s history and record thus far are not strewn with frequent occurrences of open and violent conflict, but there exist some potential areas of inter-religious tensions that reiterate the need for sensitive management.

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Finally, interfaith education, dialogue, and collaboration, despite their inherent difficulties, are likely to become an important mechanism and process in the ongoing construction of religious harmony and in seeking the unity-diversity balance. Aside from the recent top-down state moves at promoting religious harmony and interfaith dialogue, much is left to religious organizations, groups and individuals themselves to initiate and participate in interfaith dialogue and collaboration. It should be remembered that it is possible to have a multireligious society but not much inter-religious interaction, and that interfaith dialogue and collaboration may be considered desirable by some but are avoided by others for fear of inter-religious tension or faith pollution and dilution. Indeed, the conditions for dialogue or resistance to it can be as difficult to manage as the scope and content of dialogue itself, and both ought to be carefully assessed. How sustained, extensive, and deep interfaith dialogue and collaboration will go, beyond elite and top leadership involvement, remains a guess. While not an engagement that all will want to participate in or can be forced into, those with belief, interest, and passion can tap into dialogue and collaboration and take the lead to set the example on how to make peace and achieve harmonious living without resorting to harmful means to settle conflicts. The religious landscape in Singapore and, indeed, the world can only get more diverse. We will need higher-order social knowledge and insights into this unprecedented diversity, towards better understanding and management of religion for the common good of all living in a multi-religious and at the same time shared environment and nation-state.

NOTES Parts of this chapter appear as earlier versions in the Introduction and Conclusion sections of the book Religious Diversity in Singapore, edited by Lai Ah Eng (Singapore: Institute of Policy Studies and Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2008). This book is based on recent research conducted under the Religious Diversity and Harmony in Singapore Project (2005–06) undertaken by the Institute of Policy Studies. The project had the following objectives: to understand the background and current state of religious diversity and complexity in Singapore; to identify key trends and issues; to offer insights and suggestions for policy and practice, and to contribute to interreligious dialogue, understanding and harmony, in the interests of social cohesion and the common good in Singapore. The project involved the collective effort of thirty academics, researchers, graduate students, and practitioners. The author has drawn

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material from some chapters in the book, and wishes to thank their respective contributors. She is solely responsible for all views expressed in this chapter. 1. Tham Seong Chee, “Religious Influences and Impulses Impacting Singapore”, in Religious Diversity in Singapore, edited by Lai Ah Eng (Singapore: Institute of Policy Studies and Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2008). 2. Census of Population 2000 (Singapore: Singapore Department of Statistics, 2000). 3. This has perhaps led some scholars such as political scientists, who relied largely on reports and government speeches rather than difficult fieldwork on religious proselytization which required local knowledge and access, towards the first interpretation which has become accepted “truth”. 4. Eugene Tan, “Keeping God in Place: The Management of Religion in Singapore”, in Religious Diversity in Singapore, edited by Lai Ah Eng (Singapore: Institute of Policy Studies and Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2008). 5. Azhar Ibrahim, “Discourses on Islam in Southeast Asia and Their Impact on the Singapore Muslim Public”, in Religious Diversity in Singapore, edited by Lai Ah Eng (Singapore: Institute of Policy Studies and Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2008). 6. Noor Aisha Abdul Rahman, “The Muslim Religious Elite of Singapore”, in Religious Diversity in Singapore, edited by Lai Ah Eng (Singapore: Institute of Policy Studies and Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2008). 7. Vineeta Sinha, “ ‘Religiously-inspired’, ‘India-derived’ Movements in Singapore”, in Religious Diversity in Singapore, edited by Lai Ah Eng (Singapore: Institute of Policy Studies and Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2008). 8. Khun Eng Kuah-Pearce, “Diversities and Unities: Towards a Reformist Buddhism in Singapore”, in Religious Diversity in Singapore, edited by Lai Ah Eng (Singapore: Institute of Policy Studies and Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2008). 9. Foo Check Woo and Lynette Thomas, “Baha’is in Singapore: Patterns of Conversion”, in Religious Diversity in Singapore, edited by Lai Ah Eng (Singapore: Institute of Policy Studies and Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2008). 10. Arunajeet Kaur, “The Evolution of the Sikh Identity in Singapore”, in Religious Diversity in Singapore, edited by Lai Ah Eng (Singapore: Institute of Policy Studies and Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2008). 11. Charlene Tan, “From Moral Values to Citizenship Education: The Teaching of Religion in Singapore Schools”, in Religious Diversity in Singapore, edited by Lai Ah Eng (Singapore: Institute of Policy Studies and Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2008). 12. Sa’eda Buang, “Religious Education as Locus of Curriculum: A Brief Inquiry into Madrasah Education in Singapore”, in Religious Diversity in Singapore, edited by Lai Ah Eng (Singapore: Institute of Policy Studies and Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2008).

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13. For details of the issues and protracted negotiations between the state and various Muslim players over madrasah educational reform, see Noor Aisha Abdul Rahman and Lai Ah Eng, eds., Secularism and Spirituality: Striving for Integrated Knowledge and Success in Madrasah Education in Singapore (Singapore: Marshall Cavendish (Academic), 2005). 14. Robbie Goh, “Mission Schools in Singapore: The ‘Religious Harmony’ State, The Construction of Social Identities, and the Negotiation of Evangelical Cultures”, in Religious Diversity in Singapore, edited by Lai Ah Eng (Singapore: Institute of Policy Studies and Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2008). 15. Phyllis Chew, “Religious Switching and Knowledge among Adolescents in Singapore”, in Religious Diversity in Singapore, edited by Lai Ah Eng (Singapore: Institute of Policy Studies and Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2008). 16. Randolph Kluver, Pauline Hope Cheong, Benjamin Detenber, Lee Wai Peng, Shahiraa Binti Sahul Hameed, and Chen Yanli, “The Internet and Religious Harmony in Singapore”, in Religious Diversity in Singapore, edited by Lai Ah Eng (Singapore: Institute of Policy Studies and Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2008). 17. See Cherian George’s “Control-shift: The Internet and Political Change in Singapore” in this volume for a discussion on the internet, local politics, and the state’s management of cyberspace. 18. Kenneth Paul Tan, “Religious Reasons in a Secular Public Sphere: Debates in the Media About Homosexuality”, in Religious Diversity in Singapore, edited by Lai Ah Eng (Singapore: Institute of Policy Studies and Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2008). 19. Enon Mansor and Nur Amali Ibrahim, “Muslim Agencies and Mosques as Social Service Providers”, in Religious Diversity in Singapore, edited by Lai Ah Eng (Singapore: Institute of Policy Studies and Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2008). 20. Khun Eng Kuah-Pearce, “Delivering Welfare Services: A Strategic Partnership between Buddhism and the State in Singapore”, in Religious Diversity in Singapore, edited by Lai Ah Eng (Singapore: Institute of Policy Studies and Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2008). 21. Mathew Mathews, “Saving The City Through Good Works: Christian Involvement in Social Services”, in Religious Diversity in Singapore, edited by Lai Ah Eng (Singapore: Institute of Policy Studies and Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2008). 22. Sinniah Vivakananda and Nagah Devi Ramasamy, “Hindu Temples in Charities and Social Services”, in Religious Diversity in Singapore, edited by Lai Ah Eng (Singapore: Institute of Policy Studies and Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2008).

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23. Ten Chin Liew, “Religious Diversity, Toleration and Interaction”, in Religious Diversity in Singapore, edited by Lai Ah Eng (Singapore: Institute of Policy Studies and Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2008). 24. Mathew Mathews, “Negotiating Christianity with Other Religions: The Views of Christian Clergymen in Singapore”, in Religious Diversity in Singapore, edited by Lai Ah Eng (Singapore: Institute of Policy Studies and Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2008). 25. Lai Ah Eng, “The Inter-religious Organisation of Singapore”, in Religious Diversity in Singapore, edited by Lai Ah Eng (Singapore: Institute of Policy Studies and Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2008). 26. See Yolanda Chin’s “Community Confidence and Security” in this volume for a discussion on community efforts towards religious harmony. 27. These include the Inter-racial and Inter-religious Confidence Circles (IRCCs) and the IRCC National Steering Committee (2002); the Inter-Religious Harmony Circle (IRHC 2003), and the Community Education Programme (CEP 2006). 28. These gaps include: 1) The impact of globalization, development, and modernity on religion and religious life in Singapore, including global and regional impulses and influences, and secular-religious distinctions and issues; 2) Various religions, movements, communities and groups, examples of which are Jainism, Chinese folk religions, “New Age” religions and new spiritual movements, “free thinkers”, non-religionists and secularists, immigrants’ religious organizations and orientations, and histories of religious communities and their religious lives; 3) Religious trends, processes, and issues, including proselytization, conversion and religious switching; religious syncretism and hybridization; everyday life religiosity; religious socialization in families, among youths and in schools and religious institutions; and religious representation in public and private spheres; 4) Gender and religion issues; 5) State and religion, such as issues pertaining to the secular state-religious society relationship and collaborations and collisions between state and religious organizations; 6) Interfaith issues and interactions in various domains, such as within families, schools, workplaces, neighbourhood localities, and public spaces; by various agencies and actors such as organizations, leaders, colleagues, parents, and students; local histories of inter-religious issues and interactions; and interfaith dialogue initiatives and challenges; and 7) Religious responses to specific political, economic, social, scientific, and environmental issues.

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5

THE LAW

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THE PENAL CODE AMENDMENTS OF 2007 Lessons in Love MICHAEL HOR

CRIMINAL LAW — TOO MUCH OR TOO LITTLE

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t is unusual for a criminal lawyer to think about concepts as abstract as “space”. However, a moment’s thought is enough to realize that criminal law is all about space — liberty, or the freedom to choose to do what we want to do, is circumscribed by a number of things, but in a significant measure by criminal law. Where a particular activity is designated a crime, that much space is taken away from the individual. That we do have criminal law at all, and all societies have some form of it, is a clear indication that good government is not about the mindless maximization of individual space. It should nonetheless afford presumptive value to space. Freedom or liberty is, all else being equal, good — after all our Constitution has a number of key provisions collectively called “Fundamental Liberties”. Yet we all expect the government to restrict space where there is a good reason to do so. What is or is not a good reason is often not controversial — no one in stable societies would think twice about denying someone the liberty of murdering, raping or thieving. Such activity harms others in a significant enough way, or in the language of space, giving space to the individual who would do such things will destroy the space of others to live their lives in peace and security. So the line between criminalization and non- or decriminalization is to be drawn according to a balance between the legitimate interest of the individual to engage in that kind of activity and the legitimate interest of others who would be affected by the same. To criminalize too much 335

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would be to infringe unjustifiably on the space of those who would engage in that kind of activity; to criminalize too little is to fail to preserve the legitimate space of the victims of such activity. The Penal Code amendments of 2007 were, in ambition, unremarkable — a collection of more or less housekeeping changes which had been on the cards for years.1 So it was to my surprise that two issues arising from the proposed amendments came to dominate public discourse for weeks, perhaps even months — no mean feat in an age of short attention spans. 377A — A TIME FOR US Of the two, one matter, for better or for worse, had the lion’s share of what was for Singapore an unusual intensity of activism and counter-activism. Things would probably not have boiled over if the government had not decided to decriminalize “sexual intercourse against the order of nature” — the less famous Section 377 of the Penal Code which prohibited, at least on the books, unnatural sex, straight or gay. Although the professed purpose of the repeal of 377 was targeted at straight sex, the repeal also meant that gay sexual intercourse was decriminalized as well,2 as far as this particular provision was concerned. That left the now famous, or infamous, Section 377A which forbade, at least on the books again, “gross indecency” between men — a provision targeted only at gay male sexual activity, or at least the kinds which might be thought to be “gross indecency”. The debate which was to ensue flared up over whether or not 377A was to be repealed as well. Wittingly or unwittingly, the government was to be caught in a vociferous crossfire between two factions of Singapore’s small but influential upper-class intelligentsia — the essentially Christian conservatives (joined, rather interestingly, by Muslim leaders who were, significantly, less publicly expressive) who fought to preserve 377A, if only on the books, and the gay and liberally-inclined communities who pushed for its repeal — with the majority “heartlanders” looking on with what must have been a degree of detached amusement. A publicity campaign to repeal 377A was met with a campaign to keep it.3 Uncommonly eloquent and impassioned speeches in Parliament were topped off by a fascinatingly anguished and ambivalent pronouncement by Prime Minister (PM) Lee Hsien Loong explaining why 377A was to be retained after all, but never to be enforced.4 My purpose is to explore the extent to which this governmental decision to preserve 377A, apparently and for the foreseeable future, in name only, draws a defensible line between what is criminal and what is not. In the

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language of space, I ask whether the space of those who would engage in the relevant activity was properly infringed. But first perhaps some scale to the significance of the subject matter of the controversy is required. Nothing of great practical moment was immediately at stake — it was not about indefinite detention without trial, nor about the use of the death penalty, where any movement in the official position would be of tremendous significance. It wasn’t even about the right to hold peaceful demonstrations. It was about preserving an offence, whose prosecution had not, for a number of years, been enforced, with an assurance that it would not be enforced in the future. Nonetheless, it is a shift, although perhaps one which is too subtle, from the usual top-down or paternalistic — “let us tell you what is good for you” — philosophy of governance to one in which the role the government is one of an arbiter of conflicting sectarian views. Why, according to the government, was 377A retained? What is clear is that it was not preserved for any of the conventional aims of the criminal law — that of desert, deterrence, incapacitation, or even more exotic ones such as denunciation. PM Lee’s exhortation in Parliament that we should not make it any more difficult for gays to grow up than it already is dispels any notion that the government thinks there is anything wrong with 377A activity or that it causes any harm to the self or society. One only needs to compare PM Lee’s statement of the government’s position with that of the key speech arguing for the retention of 377A5 — primarily on the basis of the usual litany of “harms” — to see how different they are. There is no doubt that PM Lee did not buy into any of them. Were it otherwise, it would have been completely incomprehensible to have announced the continued non-enforcement of the retained 377A. Nor was it the case, as appears to have been suggested in Parliament, that non-enforcement was caused by the difficulty of doing so — with the resources and technology at the disposal of our law enforcers, it would have been all too easy to enforce 377A. Even if were difficult to enforce, where there is real harm to be prevented, the response cannot be to abandon enforcement, but to redouble efforts to find ways of doing so effectively, even at great cost — one only needs to observe the government’s response to apparently difficultto-enforce crimes such as drug trafficking and terrorism. The reason for the retention of 377A is far more intriguing. It is, apparently, to be a symbol or signpost of heterosexual orthodoxy, in particular of the heterosexual family unit.6 Justifications of a symbolic nature are notoriously difficult to unpack, simply because they are so nebulous — but try we must, because the erection of the symbol here is of understandable interest to those

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who are inclined to partake of 377A activity. First off, even if we assume that a symbol is somehow and in some manner needed, should it be in the form of a criminal prohibition of an activity which is not actually prohibited? Are there no other possible symbols? Symbols are generated and disseminated in so many different ways. One only needs to look at what is done in official campaigns to discourage smoking to see that there is no necessity for symbols to be in the form contemplated. Yet even a moment’s thought on the shape and thrust of a potential campaign for heterosexuality is enough for anyone to realize how ludicrous it would all sound. The campaign against smoking sounds convincing simply because of the real, tangible and incontestable harm it causes to those who smoke and those who have to breathe in the smoke others create. Our notional official campaign for heterosexuality, or perhaps against homosexuality, is unlikely to persuade similarly simply because the government is unpersuaded that there is any significant harm involved. Now the more basic question — why is such a symbol needed? Perhaps it might be argued that such a symbol will tip the balance when someone who is sexually ambivalent decides where his inclinations lie. This raises the issue of choice — another matter on which the government and the ardent supporters of 377A are not ad idem. It is clear that the government is of the view that sexual preference is primarily, if not entirely, predetermined — it is not a matter of choice. If this is what the government believes, then it cannot be that heterosexual symbols are needed to persuade people to be heterosexual. Even if it is possible that for a small minority of homosexually inclined persons, it is to some extent a matter of choice, the government clearly does not think that the numbers we are talking about here will ever have any national or societal impact. There is simply no evidence that in jurisdictions which have repealed legislation similar to 377 and 377A, people have lined up, as it were, to “convert” to homosexuality. Nor is there any evidence of a higher proportion of homosexuals in jurisdictions which have never had such legislation. Then there is the question of women — why is heterosexual symbolism necessary only for homosexual men, but not women who comprise, conservatively, at least half the population of Singapore? The retention of 377A cannot then be properly called a “signpost” — a signpost is needed when someone wants to go somewhere but does not know how to get there. Just who these people are, in the context of 377A, is unknown. It might yet be a symbol, but of what? It is clear that it is not a symbol of any substantive social policy, say to preserve the “traditional family” — for, as we have seen, such a symbol is not needed, or at least the government clearly does not think so. To put it bluntly, it could only have been a symbol of the government’s desire to appease those who are, for some reason, and

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in some manner, against homosexuality, or at least the wish not to offend them too much. The anti-gay movement is thought to comprise essentially two components — both religiously inspired — the Muslims and Christians of, for want of a better term, a “fundamentalist” persuasion.7 That the government would not be dictated to by the anti-gay movement is clear — not only were the movement’s essential beliefs that homosexuality is harmful and that everyone has a choice concerning sexuality roundly rejected, but the openly announced non-prosecution policy must surely have dismayed many of its members. Perhaps it was out of a desire not to annoy them any further, and to avoid offending them even more by leaving them “empty handed”, that 377A was retained in that un-enforced incarnation. It is this apparently Solomonic decision which I find fascinating to explore further. To what extent ought the government to heed sectarian religious sensibilities concerning homosexual activity? It is important to bear in mind what is not at stake here. It is clearly not about the freedom of religion, at least for those who wish to preserve 377A — those who believe 377A activity to be wrong as a religious conviction are free to continue to hold that view, whether 377A is repealed or retained. It is not, as some appear to have implied, a case of those who are in favour of repeal imposing their will on the unwilling — that would have been so if, for example, we are speaking of a patently ridiculous law to force everyone to have at least one homosexual experience in their lifetimes. Indeed it is quite the opposite — it is about those who believe that homosexuality is wrong, primarily, if not exclusively, on religious grounds, imposing their views on others who do not share their belief. Again, it is important to understand the nature of the difference of beliefs here — it is not about values which almost all right-thinking members of our society share as a society — one can think of offences which prohibit activities that violate societal norms of physical or sexual integrity, honesty, or non-corrupt behaviour. These values, presumably, also stem from religious belief, but they are given expression in our criminal laws uncontroversially because they are also shared by those who do not ascribe to particular religious beliefs, or to any religion at all. The clash of convictions over 377A is significantly different for two reasons. We cannot assume that all Christians, and perhaps all Muslims, believe that being antigay is a religious imperative — the existence of a large segment of gay-friendly churches around the world is proof enough.8 For the government to take theological sides here will be to impose on, for example, Christians who do not think that being gay is wrong is a religious norm which they do not agree with — indeed, that looks very much like an infringement of their freedom of religion. More importantly, for those who are of neither religion — indeed,

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the majority of Singaporeans — to give legislative effect to a norm which stems almost exclusively from Christian or Muslim beliefs does appear to be a curiously misguided decision. Take the example of the prohibition against eating pork — certainly a tenet of Islam and of Judaism. No one would even suggest that we enact a law banning the consumption of pork in Singapore, even for Muslims, no matter how strongly these two religious communities feel about it. It remains to be observed that the absurdity and unacceptability of such a law would not be made less so by a governmental declaration that it would not be proactively enforced. I move from the perspective of good governance in plural societies to constitutional law. The Parliamentary speech sponsoring the putative repeal of 377A was, interestingly enough, based on the constitutional norm of equality — that it was unconstitutional discrimination against gays to criminalize gay sexual activity.9 The reply of PM Lee was equally interesting — the opinion of the Attorney-General had been sought and he was of the view that 377A was not unconstitutional. The content, or even the gist, of the Attorney-General’s advice was not disclosed but I am of the view that there is, at least, a very credible argument that the retention of 377A is in violation of the constitutional norm against unjustifiable discrimination. The seemingly innocuous constitutional guarantee of “equality before the law” and “equal protection of the law” bears within it a metric to measure the legitimacy of any piece of legislation. It is variously expressed — law must not be “arbitrary”; there must be a “rational nexus” or “reasonable classification” between what the law targets and the purpose for which it is laid down. Simply put, there are two aspects of equality, conveniently called “fit” and “weight”. For a given legislative purpose, the way in which the law classifies people or activity for attention must be reasonably fitting. To be sure, it need not be perfect, but there ought to be substantial coincidence. Thus blood alcohol limits on driving are not irrational or unreasonable although the “fit” is not perfect — alcohol does not affect every driver in the same way and to the same extent, but the correlation between increased alcohol in the bloodstream and impairment of driving skills is close enough. The requirement of “weight” is not quite as obvious. The reason for its existence is a particular semantic device which can potentially render the test of “fit” meaningless. One can always semantically phrase or rephrase the legislative purpose to fit the classification substantially or even perfectly. Thus an obviously ridiculous legislation to deny all women the right to become a lawyer or doctor cannot be allowed to be met with an answer that the legislative purpose is to prevent women from practising

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law or medicine. Naturally, one needs to look behind that kind of an answer to ask — why is it thought to be necessary or desirable to do that? It is only with the real legislative purpose or motive that a particular classification is to be tested. How does 377A fare? It can be quickly seen that the legislative decision to retain 377A is gravely problematic on both fronts. It does not fit very well at all. Equality protection cannot, of course, insist on perfect fit — that would make government impossible or nearly so. But there must come a point when the line between permissible over- or under-inclusion (to use the technical terminology) and irrational or unreasonable classification is crossed. If, as we have seen, the legislature was acting in some manner on the antipathy of certain segments of society towards homosexual activity, then the non-inclusion of women in 377A is a very huge omission indeed — more than half our population, and presumably half of all homosexual activity. It would be akin to subjecting half of all our cars to a certain speed limit rule based on the colour of the car. Permissible or legitimate over- or under-inclusions are characteristically based on some sensible practical or rough and ready (though clearly not watertight) assumption — for example, that cars travelling over 90 km per hour are more dangerous than those travelling below that speed; or that citizens of Singapore are more likely to do things abroad which affect Singapore than non-citizens.10 The singling out of male homosexual activity is incapable of being so described — it simply bears no substantive sense. It surely cannot be suggested that whatever the antipathy might be, it is any less for female homosexual activity. The element of “weight” is no less shaky. Can the sole purpose of accommodation of sectarian sensibilities ever be weighty enough to justify the criminalization of private sexual conduct between consenting adults? If the answer is “yes”, then it is hard to imagine for what earthly purpose the equal protection clause was written into the Constitution for. It is not the case that the Legislature has made a judgment that 377A activity is sufficiently harmful to society to attract criminal sanctions — there is no question here of the law “second guessing” the Legislature’s determination of what is or is not harmful to society. Indeed the speech of PM Lee shows a clear belief that it is not so harmful — but 377A was to remain for, apparently, the sole purpose of appeasing those who disapprove. Again, it is not the case of anyone trying to impose anything on those who disapprove — who will in all probability be free to live and believe as they do with or without 377A. It is in fact the reverse — those who disapprove trying to use the power of the state to criminalize activity which they do not like, on the sole ground (as far as the government is concerned) that they

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do not like it. Since governments, or at least Singaporean ones, do not (thankfully) act randomly — and surely it cannot be the only remit of equal protection to prevent legislative activity of this nature — the question is whether the reason is one which is good enough. It is not difficult to see that if the desire to accommodate a disapproving segment of society is reason enough, that would result in the evisceration of equal protection. In situations where the government is itself unconvinced that criminal sanctions are necessary or desirable, but nonetheless choose to retain them, there must obviously be some disapproving portions of society the government is trying to appease. To deny that equal protection can reach such a situation would be to deny constitutional protection where it is most clearly needed. Equal protection is about protection against prejudice, and if the government does not buy into the substantive arguments (of those who disapprove) for criminalization, then those putative reasons become, as far as the government is concerned, prejudice. One example should make this clear that the government decides to bar women from being lawyers or doctors, not on the grounds that women are not good enough, or that any calamity will befall us if there were no such bar, but only because certain segments of our community who think otherwise disapprove (because they think it is harmful). It simply cannot be that the law is powerless in this situation. Prejudices, especially powerful ones, will always have adherents whom it might be thought expedient to appease. Equal protection is there to prevent prejudices from being acted upon. Just as it cannot be an answer to equal protection scrutiny that the purpose of the legislation is to do what it does, it cannot also be sufficient to say that we need to discriminate for the sole reason of accommodating those who disapprove. Constitutional interpretation is not about infallible predictions — the AttorneyGeneral, for reasons not disclosed, thinks that the 377A is constitutionally defensible. However, the retention of 377A does present our courts with a unique opportunity of putting the Constitution and the whole idea of judicial review on the map. The usually overwhelming apprehension that striking down legislation will only provoke the Legislature to amend the Constitution to allow it to do what it wants to do is,11 I would argue, considerably less here — it does not appear likely that the government will push through a constitutional amendment to restore 377A, should the courts strike it down. What then is the score for social space? It is perhaps an irresistible temptation for academics to focus on the evils of what they observe and to gloss over the good — but there is the undeniable need to be fair. We have indeed come

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a long way from the days of active police entrapment of the early 1990s.12 A firm policy of non-enforcement is in place, and barring a substantial shift in governance, very likely to remain. Assurances have been given that those who engage in 377A activity will not be prosecuted, unless there is no consent or minors13 are involved — rightfully criminal behaviour for which new provisions in the Penal Code render resort to 377A unnecessary. More than that, the government assures homosexuals that there is a place in Singapore society for them — an assurance offered, at least explicitly, to no other class of criminal offenders. To that extent the cup is half full. On the other side of the balance sheet is the fact that 377A remains. There is a theoretical possibility that assurances of non-prosecution might not be honoured — but that seems most unlikely, given the impassioned guarantee PM Lee made in Parliament. It is not clear what the courts are going to do with such a prosecution, if it ever materializes. The policy could, of course, be reversed — a possibility apparently hoped for by some supporters of 377A — and that can be done without going through the legislative process. The very existence of 377A, albeit not enforced, remains an unnecessary problem for the homosexual community. There are also ancillary problems which the government was reluctant to resolve — the example of an HDB owner contemplating renting out an apartment to homosexuals who might presumably engage in “unlawful” 377A activity — and therefore exposing the owner to a breach of HDB regulations — was expressly avoided by the government.14 Another example might well be the potential use of 377A by the Registrar of Societies to refuse to register gay-related associations. On a broader social scale, the decision to retain 377A appears to be problematic, given the government’s own stance that homosexual activity is not harmful and that homosexual orientation is not a matter of choice. The official motive of accommodation of those who disapprove, while understandable, bodes ill for the satisfactory management of pluralism in Singapore. For the lawyer, this has given rise to the issue of the constitutionality of the retention of 377A itself — an issue raised by the opponents of 377A, but not answered in any significant way in Parliament. On the assumption that it is potentially unconstitutional — and there are powerful arguments to that effect — one can either be concerned that the government did not realize that it was acting unconstitutionally, or looking on the bright side, one can be excited about the opportunity presented to the courts to inaugurate an era of meaningful constitutionalism and judicial review, an apparently invariable attribute of all first-world jurisdictions. The cup is also half empty.

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MARITAL RAPE — FALLING OUT OF LOVE A quieter, but no less interesting, battle was at the same time being waged over the survival of marital immunity in rape law. It is unfortunate that this debate did not receive anywhere near the kind of publicity and attention lavished on 377A, for the stakes here were in fact much higher. While 377A concerned a criminal provision which the government, if it is honourable (and we have no reason to believe it is not going to be), is never going to enforce, the marital rape immunity exempts from criminal liability non-consensual sexual intercourse imposed by the husband on his wife. Forced sexual intercourse is, of course, in all other situations rape — uncontroversially a crime — and a serious one — punishable with a maximum penalty of twenty years imprisonment with caning, or if violence or threat of violence is involved, a mandatory minimum of eight years imprisonment and twelve strokes of the cane.15 It does appear, at least on the face of it, very odd that the same behaviour inflicted by a man on his wife is not a crime at all. While the primary criticism of the retention of 377A was that the criminal law was punishing too much, the obvious problem in marital rape is that it does not seem to be punishing enough. The Penal Code enshrined the historical English common law position that a husband cannot under any circumstances be guilty of raping his wife. Traditional rationales sound as if they come from another world — that wives are the property of their husbands to enjoy as and when they please, or that implicit in marriage is a once-and-for-all, irrevocable, consent of the wife to sexual intercourse at any time the husband deems desirable. The immunity was finally abolished in its place of origin in the early 1990s by judges who were so embarrassed by it that they were at pains to say that it actually never really existed.16 Once again, we in Singapore have chosen to retain a law which its progenitors have now disavowed. It is true that the amendments of 2007 have narrowed the immunity by denying it where there is some formal indication that the marriage has broken down or is in real danger of going that way,17 but it is also true that the core immunity has been retained. What is perhaps surprising is that marital immunity, albeit in an attenuated form, received the support of very respected women scholars of family law and enjoyed a strong enough following for the government to choose to preserve the core immunity. It is disappointing that when we turn to the official reasons given for the partial preservation of the immunity, we see a jumble of cursory arguments. Labelling the decision as “measured”, “calibrated” and seeking to strike the “right balance” is all very well, but what critical consideration could there be

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to weigh against the criminalization of an obvious and serious wrong done to the wife? The first strand appears to be a very specific evidential concern — lifting the immunity will allow a “vindictive wife” who in fact consents to sex to subsequently falsify an allegation of rape. Anyone with even a limited understanding of the criminal justice system will realize that the creation of any crime in which non-consent is an element, or perhaps any crime whatsoever, carries with it the risk that false allegations can be made. That risk has never been thought to be sufficient to move the legislature to repeal punishment for such crimes, or to dissuade it from creating the punishment. Presumably, the criminal process is not unaccustomed to dealing with false allegations. Presumably also, criminal due process has evolved ways and means to ensure that those who are faced with false allegations will not be convicted. The law tells us that uncorroborated allegations of a single witness must be unusually convincing, and that if at the end of the day there is reasonable doubt about consent, the accused is not to be convicted. If these rules are thought to be protection enough of innocent accused persons in general, it is a mystery why they are not enough for the wronged husband.18 If it is felt to be insufficient for husbands, then there is no conceivable reason why it is sufficient for everyone else. The government has indeed cooked up a different sauce for the gander — but only for the offence of rape. The fear of vindictive wives does not, apparently, extend to any other offence — thus the hapless husband is vulnerable to a myriad of false spousal allegations ranging from causing hurt to theft. Closer to home is the criminal prohibition of someone who knowingly suffers from AIDS having sex without the informed consent of the partner — an offence for which there is no immunity for husbands. Whither the concern about the innocent husband open to the depredations of the “vindictive” wife? We can safely assume that this could not actually have been a significant consideration. The other strand evident in the official pronouncements is the fear that abolition of marital immunity “will likely change the complexion of marriage drastically with negative impact [sic] on the marital relationship”.19 This is a startling claim indeed and one must wonder if the institution of marriage in Singapore has become something quite so fragile, and if it has indeed become so, whether something so exotic as the partial marital immunity to rape has any chance of saving it. Impressionistic arguments of this kind are notoriously difficult to assess because of their sheer generality. A host of questions must first be answered — just how is it that the abolition of marital immunity to rape might be thought to threaten these catastrophic consequences? As is in the nature of such rhetoric, specifics are rare. The conduct we are here concerned with

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is a husband subjecting his wife to sexual intercourse when he knows that she does not consent to it. The only obvious effect that the lifting of the husband’s immunity has would be to prohibit, and therefore deter, such behaviour. This, one might have thought, has the positive impact of deterring husbands who would contemplate doing such a thing to think twice, and hopefully to abandon their evil intentions. Just where the negative impact might be is not easy to see. Academic discourse takes over where official justifications fail to persuade. The criminal law, it is said, ought to “take the cue” from family law. It being a principle of family law that both husband and wife are to behave reasonably, the wife who has been wronged in this manner ought not to complain about it, if she were a reasonable wife — she should take other more constructive measures such as reasoning with the husband and going for marriage counselling. This is a view, coming as it does from our most eminent scholars of family law, deserving of the greatest respect. However, I have the misfortune to disagree. There is no doubt in my mind that this line of thought grows out of the best of intentions — the desire to salvage a troubled marriage. There is sense in trying to promote reconciliation and in discouraging spouses from taking adversarial positions against each other, as might happen if a rape charge is pursued. But my problem with this reasoning is just why it is necessary to preserve the husband’s immunity in order to encourage reconciliation — or to put it another way, why is it feared that the lifting of the immunity would undermine efforts to reconcile spouses in any significant way? The lifting of the immunity does not mean that the wife is forced to make a complaint — it merely gives her the choice of doing so. Denying her that choice is hardly likely to have much of a positive impact on her exploring the possibility of reconciliation. It is not likely that a wronged wife will reason that because she cannot pursue a rape charge against her husband, she should then try to reconcile. Put another way, it is not at all likely that a wife who is inclined or open to a reconciliatory path would be tempted to abandon that route by the mere existence of the possibility of laying a criminal complaint. We enter into the uncertain world of spousal psychology. Is it not equally possible that the wronged wife might harbour greater ill will against her delinquent husband because she was not given the choice of whether she should make a criminal complaint? Is it not also possible that the delinquent husband is emboldened in his wanton disregard of his wife’s wishes by the existence of the immunity? In short, we have no reason to think that the preservation of the immunity is more likely than the abolition of it to bring about the desired reconciliation in a troubled marriage. My own guess, if it is indeed possible to generalize, is that in the vast majority of marriages on the rocks the existence or not

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of the immunity is irrelevant — whether or not spouses decide to make up and do so successfully must depend on matters as varied as there are personalities and contexts — but that the existence of the immunity is unlikely to figure prominently, or even at all. Almost all of the developed world has abolished the immunity, and if it is thought that there is some kind of Asian difference here, India, Thailand, the Philippines and Malaysia (where violence is used) have followed suit. It would be extraordinary if such developments had taken place in the face of any credible concern about the “negative impact” that such a move might have on the institution of marriage. I shall also go on to speculate that the government does not really buy into all this talk of the immunity being needed to preserve the institution of marriage. If it did, the immunity would have to be much more extensive for it to have any impact at all. Supporters of the immunity seem to admit that it is tolerable only because it is so narrow. The fact that it is narrow, of course, does not justify its existence. And narrow it is. It only applies to the offence of rape and to no other. If the immunity rests on the fear is that a malicious wife will falsely accuse the innocent husband, then it makes no sense to limit it only to rape — the intimate knowledge of the husband a potentially malicious wife would possess and use against the husband is surely not restricted to rape. Similarly, if the fear is that the absence of the immunity will somehow poison the spousal relationship or distract the parties from reconciliation, then again it would be senseless to restrict it only to rape and no other offence. In a face full of blemishes, another pimple is unlikely to change the complexion drastically. In a fragile marriage, if indeed the husband commits an offence against the wife, it is unlikely that he does so only through non-consensual intercourse — why is it not even suggested that we extend the immunity to other offences as well? Those who are partial to the immunity sometimes frame the issue to be whether the husband ought to be treated like a stranger for the purpose of non-consensual intercourse, no doubt to elicit the natural response that he ought not to be treated so. But the truth is that he is treated as none other than a stranger with respect to every other conceivable offence he may commit against his wife. It is clear that the government is not really persuaded by these professed reasons for the preservation of the immunity. A word about what is possibly a third strand in the attempted defence of marital immunity — that when a woman is raped by her husband, it is somehow less serious or less harmful than when she is raped by someone else. The argument is not explicitly made, but might be thought to be inherent in the way marital rape is described and labelled in the relevant literature — it is conduct “not to be applauded”, the experience for the wife is “awful”, but every wife or

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husband will have some awful experience in the course of marriage so there should be give and take, the husband’s conduct is not really “deserving of criminal punishment”.20 Thankfully, a recent and very erudite judgment of the Court of Appeal shoots to pieces any such attempt to justify marital immunity.21 In the course of dealing with whether or not intimacy between the rapist and his victim ought to be a mitigating or aggravating factor, the Court appeared to adopt arguments used elsewhere concerning the sentencing of marital rapists to hold that it is wrong to generalize that “relationship rape” is less serious than stranger rape. The woman, the Court held, is not less defiled or violated simply because she has previously had consensual sex with the accused. The Court also decided, wisely, that neither is relationship rape always to be treated as more serious than stranger rape. It all depends on the circumstances — and here the Court is surely correct. The Court was not, to be fair, talking directly about marital rape — which of course does not exist in Singapore — but I cannot imagine how its reasoning can stop at the door of marriage. If the fact of a pre-existing history of intimacy between the rapist and the raped is not even presumptively a mitigating factor, a fortiori it cannot be allowed to immunize the rapist from any liability whatsoever. Indeed the Court recognized that there will be situations where the violation of the woman will be greater because she has been raped by someone with whom she has in the past experienced sexual intercourse as an act of love and who now abuses it to dominate and humiliate her. The problem with marital immunity is of course that it is rooted in the very generalizations which the Court has firmly rejected. If these do not appear to be the reasons which actually moved the government, then what other motive could there be? Inferences from silence are always risky, but I take that risk to speculate that the decision to retain the core marital immunity was fuelled not by any real fear that the institution of marriage would somehow be jeopardized, but by the desire to placate those who feel that the spectacle of a husband being found guilty of raping his wife is simply wrong or unacceptable.22 If I am right, the parallel with the 377A decision is uncanny. Marital immunity in rape was preserved although the government did not buy into the arguments put forward by its advocates, but out of a wish not to let them leave empty-handed. So the exceptions to the immunity were kept, and two others added after public consultation, but the core immunity remained. It was not a substantively reasoned decision, but one born out of political compromise. Again, as with all legislative decisions crafted in this fashion, it stands in danger of being constitutionally infirm by virtue of the equal protection clause which enjoins all legislative classifications to be (substantively) rational. The one difference here is that the government has not openly said that it

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doesn’t accept the substantive justifications advanced in Parliament, but the extreme narrowness of the immunity must surely make it at least an arguable case that there is no real official conviction that it is necessary to either protect the innocent husband or to protect the guilty one in order to preserve the institution of marriage. To single out husbands apart from all other men to be immunized from the offence of rape, or to single out wives apart from all other women to be denied the protection of the criminal law of rape is, it may be contended with considerable persuasion, irrational. As we have seen, the alternative justification, that the government is only trying to effect a political compromise by simply giving the pro-marital immunity lobby something to placate them with, must surely be violation of constitutional equal protection, if that provision is to mean anything at all. Although it may have been politically expedient to do as the government did, when official discrimination prejudices wronged and harmed wives without credible substantive reasons, the Constitution, in my view, must constrain it to act in a principled manner. The score is again mixed. On the one hand, it is fair to say that the situation is not as bad as it may sound. The immunity, applicable only to rape and to nothing else, was a narrow one to begin with. The 2007 amendments did create exceptions, empowering the wife to trigger the lifting of the immunity by means which do not appear to be very onerous — for example, she can simply apply for a personal protection order. But on the other hand, the situation is bad enough, for there is no convincing reason that she has to trigger one of the exceptions first before sex forced on her becomes a crime. It is not as yet known whether the requirement of this additional step will deter, in practice, wronged wives from resorting to the law for protection against their husbands. As with 377A, the retention of the husband’s immunity from rape presents an opportunity for our courts to adjudicate on its constitutionality in a context in which the Legislature is unlikely to amend the Constitution in order to reverse a judicial decision to strike down the immunity. Whether or not the court will so rule cannot, once again, be predicted with certainty — but there are definitely credible grounds on which it may so decide. PUNISHMENT AND PROCESS — WORK IN PROGRESS Drawing away from 377A and marital immunity, the “half full, half empty” thesis seems to run through many of the other significant amendments. Perhaps one example will be enough for flavour. In a fit of punitive zeal, the government introduced the now infamous mandatory minimum penalties in the 1980s to force the judges to sentence offenders of particular crimes to minimum periods

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of imprisonment.23 This meant that the sentencing judge no longer had the discretion to give anything less. Critics of the day pointed out that the reasons for the move — apparently rising crime rates and low sentences — were not at all convincing, and that mandatory minimum penalties would not serve its purpose, but would only impose unnecessarily long terms of imprisonment for the least serious offenders. In a rare climbdown, the 2007 amendments have removed mandatory minimum terms for three motor vehicle theft-related offences, and after public consultation, one other unrelated offence. The fact that this has happened at all is a minor miracle for a government particularly sensitive to any possibility that it might be perceived to be “going soft”. Yet, there remains a host of other offences for which mandatory minimum penalties remain, with presumably the potential of unnecessary imprisonment: there is no reason to think that there is anything special about motor vehicle theft. CONCLUSION I offer a final word about the process employed in the Penal Code amendments of 2007. As an observer of the criminal law in Singapore for the past twenty years or so, I was very pleasantly surprised that the 2007 amendments were preceded by a very comprehensive public feedback process. The proposed amendments were available online and time was given for anyone to make representations. Many representations were received and studied, and some proposals were dropped or amended in the process. This is a very significant step indeed and indicates a degree of commitment to a more consultative and open style of law and policy-making. However, I have to discharge my academic duty to point out what I feel were some serious shortcomings, at the risk of sounding mingy, perhaps in the spirit of improving the process for future law reform. The most serious problem was the non-inclusiveness of the agenda — for only government officials were involved in the construction of the draft Bill. Subsequent feedback is all very well, but once the draft Bill is in place, the agenda is set, and the focus tends to shift to only those issues raised in it. It is not surprising that a great majority of the amendments have a clear prosecutorial bias24 — for only the prosecutors were asked, not defence counsel. The Law Society sought valiantly to overcome this by introducing the issue of mandatory death penalties in its representations, but to no avail — it all seemed too late in the day to raise it and the government would not even consider it.25 Future criminal law reform must be inclusive from the start, with the agenda set by a wide spectrum of stakeholders — judges, prosecutors, defence

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counsel, prison and probation officers, the police, academics, eminent laypersons and perhaps even responsible opposition politicians. Simply presenting the public with a draft Bill together with an obviously inadequate statement of why the changes were thought to be desirable only fuels the suspicion, although one which is not in my view entirely fair, that it is substantially a fait accompli and that the government is only interested in minor tweaking of the proposed provisions. Each and every significant amendment ought to have been comprehensively described and explained. This was unfortunately not done, with the result that the call for feedback was essentially meaningless for those proposals which left the reader in the dark as to why they were being made in the first place. The desire for openness seemed to fizzle out after the representations were received — some changes were made, but most were preserved, but the public was given no information about what the representations were and how the government reasoned through the different views, and why some changes were made but not others. The Parliamentary speeches provide some clues, but they did not, indeed could not, be sufficiently comprehensive. A final disappointment is the sheer breadth of issues raised by the amendments. There were clusters of related proposals — for example, the sexual offences — but these were dumped into the pot with a jumble of unrelated provisions. Appearing as they do in a single exercise, the risk was high that many significant proposals simply slipped through the cracks. With the more “glamorous” issues hogging the limelight, other proposals which are not so easy to appreciate never received a proper hearing. I feel that to a certain extent that was what happened to the marital rape issue — dampened though not drowned out by the noise of 377A. Other issues like mandatory minimum penalties were left with only a fleeting mention. Others never surfaced at all. The solution is not difficult — simply present the proposals in related clusters, and perhaps at different times, where that is possible. For example, the sexual offences formed a clear cluster, the punishment provision is yet another. As with content, so it is with process. Some aspects of what has happened in the 2007 amendments would have been unthinkable twenty years ago, but there is still a way to go before we can say we have achieved the kind of consultations consonant with a mature democracy. NOTES 1. The Penal Code (Amendment) Act 51 of 2007, which came into force on 1 February 2008.

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2. It is not clear why those who so furiously sought the retention of 377A did not also battle for the preservation of 377 for same sex intercourse. While 377A carries a maximum term of two years imprisonment, 377 came with a whopping maximum penalty of life imprisonment — surely a stronger “symbol” for those who think such things are needed. 3. See, for example, and . 4. Parliamentary Debates, Penal Code (Amendment) Bill 83, 22 and 23 October 2007. The views contained in the Prime Minister’s speech can be safely assumed to be the collective position of the government, and they are treated as such in this piece. 5. That of NMP Thio Li-ann. 6. See Laurence Leong Wai Teng’s “Sexual Governance and the Politics of Sex in Singapore” in this volume for a discussion on gay and sexual cultural politics. 7. See, for example, the view of the National Council of Churches, , which appears to rest solely on the theological position that it is a “sin”. See also the allusion to “religious roots” as the reason for the Malay Muslim unease with homosexuality in the Parliamentary speech of Dr Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim. I use the term “fundamentalist” in the sense of belief based dispositively on what appears to be the literal meaning of certain passages in the respective scriptures. 8. One can think of, for example, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, Nobelist Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and closer to home Rev Yap Kim Hao, once Bishop of the Methodist Church of Singapore and Malaysia — people of impeccable credentials in Christian theology — who do not believe that homosexuality is a “sin”. The author is far less knowledgeable about their Muslim counterparts, but they do presumably exist, though rather less prominently. See, for example, the Islamic gay-friendly movement Al Fatiha, . Even on the assumption that homosexuality is theologically a “sin”, it is not a religious imperative that that ought necessarily to be reflected in secular criminal law — one can think of many other “sins” for which no one would argue should be made a criminal offence — for example, the sin of non-belief in, as the case may be, Christianity or Islam. 9. That of NMP Siew Kum Hong. 10. See “Public Prosecutor v Taw Cheng Kong” [1998] 2 Singapore Law Reports 410 in which the court upheld extraterritorial corruption offences based on nationality. See also more recently, “Nguyen Tuong Van v PP” [2005] 1 Singapore Law Reports 103 which upheld the mandatory sentence of death for traffickers of more than 15 gm of heroin — the reasoning being that the line had to be drawn somewhere, and that 15 gm was not an insubstantial amount.

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11. Witness the reaction of the government when faced with a decision that Internal Security Act detentions were judicially reviewable, albeit narrowly — amendments were swiftly enacted to neutralize the court’s ruling: Constitution of the Republic of Singapore (Amendment) Act, January 1989, following the decision in “Chng Suan Tze v Minister of Home Affairs” [1988] Singapore Law Reports 132. 12. The prosecution in “Tan Boon Hock v PP” [1994] 2 SLR 150 following active police entrapment, even back then, “disquieted” then Chief Justice Yong Pung How. 13. There is a report of a post-amendment prosecution under 377A (“HIV Man Admits Having Oral Sex with Teenage Boy”, Straits Times, 7 May 2008). It is unlikely that this marks any significant change in the general moratorium on prosecutions, although it does raise questions about the precise boundaries of the policy of non-prosecution. The accused had also violated the Infectious Diseases Act, an act for which he was also charged. The 377A charge is likely to have been on account of the age of the partner — reportedly sixteen years old. It is not known with precision what the prosecutorial authorities consider to be the age of majority for the purposes of a 377A prosecution, but if heterosexual conduct is any guide, it ought to be sixteen years of age. The decision to charge in this case must mean that the policy of non-prosecution does not abide by the sixteen years rule. It could be eighteen or twenty-one, but exactly what it is, the authorities have not disclosed; nor presumably are they obliged to do so. This ambiguity aggravates the general unsatisfactory nature of taming 377A through an administrative policy of non-prosecution — the criminal law fails in its key function of providing clear rules of what is or is not in practice prohibited. 14. Raised by MP Baey Yam Keng, only to be met with the Prime Minister’s response that we have to somehow live with the “untidiness”. 15. Section 375 of the Penal Code. 16. The House of Lords in “R v R” [1992] Appeal Cases 599 called the immunity a “common law fiction” — a fiction which has proved remarkably persistent in Singapore. 17. Listed in Section 375(4) of the Penal Code. 18. Indeed one might have thought that the wrongly accused husband would stand a far better chance of being believed in court than a stranger — being the husband, he will naturally have much less to explain why he thought his wife consented to sex. 19. The words of Associate Professor Ho Peng Kee in Parliament. 20. The words of Professor Leong Wai Kum, “Other Ways to Punish Violence”, Straits Times, 27 November 2006. 21. “Public Prosecutor v Mohammed Liton Mohammed Syeed Malik” [2007] SGCA 48.

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22. It would be natural to assume that as the immunity is in the interests of men, it is the male lobby which is being appeased. But unlike the proponents of 377A, the supporters of marital immunity are not so easily categorized, for they include respected women lawyers and scholars in their ranks. Curiously, of the four academics who have said anything about this, the two men (Professor Tan Cheng Han, “Marital Rape — Removing the Husband’s Legal Immunity”, Malaya Law Review (1989): 112; Associate Professor Chan Wing Cheong, “Lift Marriage Veil on Rape”, TODAY, 14 November 2006) were in favour of abolishing the immunity, but the two women (Professor Leong Wai Kum and Associate Professor Debbie Ong, cited by Associate Professor Ho Peng Kee in Parliament) were not. 23. Penal Code (Amendment) Act 23 of 1984. 24. I discuss this in a rather more “legal” fashion in “Changing Criminal Law — Singapore Style”, in Lives in the Law, edited by Dora Neo, Tang Hang Wu, and Michael Hor (Singapore: Singapore Academy of Law and Singapore Journal of Legal Studies, 2007), p. 121. 25. In Parliament, Associate Professor Ho Peng Kee dismissed it in a single sentence.

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“MORE MATTER, WITH LESS ART”1 Human Rights and Human Development in Singapore THIO LI-ANN

STATE IDEOLOGY AND SHIFTS TOWARDS HUMAN RIGHTS POLICY

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sian countries such as Singapore have viewed human rights with a strong degree of suspicion for various reasons. While not denying the concept of universal human rights as individual or group entitlements asserted against state and society, what remains disputed is the identification of those rights falling within a recognized core, the interpretation of their content and scope against competing interests, and the acceptable modes of implementation or enforcement. Aside from how an empowering, rights-based discourse could impact on the domestic politics of control, human rights criticism from international actors are considered a form of neo-colonial imperialism, dismissive of diverse histories and cultural practices. As human rights ideology is intensely ethical and highly politicized, states resent being hectored by other imperfect actors. Singapore is a leading proponent of “Asian values” whereby cultural particularities and the contingencies of economic development are invoked to qualify the universality of human rights. While recognizing that “No country has rejected the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)”,2 then Foreign Minister Wong Kan Seng stated at the 1993 Vienna World Conference on Human Rights that an overemphasis on individual rights at the expense of community interests in the “early phase of a country’s development” would “retard progress”. Human rights are but one method of securing the open-ended goal of human 355

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dignity,3 and welfare, to which economic growth was a prerequisite, as “poverty makes a mockery of all civil liberties”, and “order and stability are essential for development”. Thus, to serve social order, civil-political rights were curtailed through strict controls on the press, free speech, and associational rights, as were socio-economic rights in relation to leashing the strength of trade unions.4 Singapore’s success in attaining First World standards of living and human development in areas of housing, education, clean environment, recreational amenities, and so on has informed the government’s attitude towards human rights as a facet of human welfare. The government is impatient towards abstract moralizing, preferring to focus on “matter” or substantive results, rather than “art” or empty, if zealous, rhetoric. A pragmatic, “clinical” approach towards human rights within an “imperfect world” of self-interested states is advocated. The government justified itself to Singaporeans, not foreign critics, “by the more rigorous test of practical success”.5 These neo-Confucianist “Asian values” were concretely expressed in the 1991 White Paper on Shared Values6 and influence the contours of human rights practice. These include a commitment to communitarianism (“nation before community and society above self”), focusing on individual need rather than rights (“Regard and community support for the individual”), preferring a conciliatory rather than adversarial ethos towards managing state-society relations that a rightsorientation might engender (“consensus instead of contention”), and prioritizing socio-political order as foundational to a stable business environment. Particular attention is given to threats to disrupt racial and religious harmony within a plural society, and governors were cast as honourable men or Confucian junzi, duty-bound to “do right for the people” who trusted and respected them.7 While eager to benchmark its commercial legal framework against international standards, Singapore has demonstrated reticence towards incorporating more rights-friendly approaches in the field of public law and human rights8 which implicates social justice and activism. However, when Singapore formally acceded to three topic-specific United Nations (UN) human rights treaties in 1995, this indicated a “sea-change” of sorts. These were the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,9 Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW),10 and Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).11 Human rights were legitimated as a facet of political and legal discourse, being used to frame arguments and issues raised before Parliament, the courts and amongst informal social actors. Singapore now has

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fourteen years of experience in interacting with UN human rights bodies mandated to monitor state progress with treaty standards, through preparing periodic state reports and participating in conciliatory dialogue with such bodies. This chapter examines how Singapore’s cautious engagement with international human rights norms and institutions has translated domestically and affected public law12 and politics. It considers how human rights have influenced People’s Action Party (PAP) policy in managing state-society relations within the context of a “paranoid” and “proactive” government which constantly “looks ahead over the horizon”.13 Clearly, human rights issues can no longer be ignored; indeed, the government issues detailed responses to critical reports authored by foreign states14 or non-government organizations like Amnesty International,15 and Human Rights Watch16 on death penalty and migrant worker problems, respectively. In 2007, Singapore endorsed the Charter of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) which includes a clause contemplating the establishment of a human rights body.17 This came into force in 2008 and the terms of reference for the human rights body are still being negotiated. The in-principle acceptance of protecting “human rights” as a government objective to which it is not “allergic”18 is significant as Singapore’s brand of communitarianism valorizes public order and social harmony, considerations which limit rights which, as justiciable entitlements contained in a constitutional or human rights text, limit abuses of state power. However, the willingness to engage in human rights discourse does not signal an unequivocal embrace of a rights-oriented approach to law and public policy. Official wariness towards human rights issues persists, evident in excluding from automatic registration groups seeking to lobby for “any civil or political right (including human rights, environmental rights, and animal rights)” under the Societies Act (Cap 311). Human rights are based on liberal individualism and egalitarianism, raising fears about the anti-social dimension of such claims. The deployment of human rights rhetoric might heighten rights consciousness and legal culture which is not currently robust,19 insofar as there is minimal recourse to formal avenues to vindicate rights claims, despite the existence of a judicially enforcement constitutional bill of rights. I have offered a more comprehensive legal analysis of Singapore human rights practice20 and how our courts handle human rights-based arguments elsewhere.21 Thus, this chapter focuses on how the official attitude towards human rights influences the parameters of political and legal discourse, through illustrative examples, in managing state-society relations.

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HUMAN RIGHTS AS A FACET OF CIVILIZED GOVERNANCE The government accepts that human rights, in tandem with the rule of law,22 democracy23 and good governance standards, is a civilizing force promoting “humane standards of behaviour” and that how a state treats its own citizen “is no longer a matter for its exclusive determination”.24 Historically, international human rights law was born as a reaction to European barbarism exemplified in Nazi genocidal measures during World War II (WWII).25 Human rights seek to curb abuses of public power through erecting a normative framework and external institutions26 to promote norm-compliance, supplementing rather than supplanting the deficiencies of domestic methods of protecting rights. Rights are “trumps” insofar as they are prioritized over community interests. Rights are a prudential necessity, representing an ideological commitment to a principle of moral individualism which celebrates the intrinsic worth of human persons. This derives from the Judeo-Christian doctrine of personality which accords infinite worth to humans created in God’s image,27 an idea later secularized by philosophers like Immanuel Kant. This flows in the natural rights tradition that rights inhere in persons by dint of their humanity rather than as state grants, and are given positive expression in constitutional texts; indeed, the High Court recognized constitutional liberties as “inalienable” rights rather than “stick and carrot privileges”.28 Human rights “reflect no single comprehensive theory of the individual to society”.29 The 1948 UDHR merely asserts as self-evident the “inherent dignity” of human persons but does not justify this faith. This theoretical gap is problematical as we need to define what a human being is before we can define what human rights are, and to assign priorities where interests clash. For example, does an unborn child have a right to life or may it be aborted as pursuant to a woman’s “reproductive rights?” Where consensus is absent, such issues are left open-ended through ambiguously drafted clauses.

RANGE OF HUMAN RIGHTS RECOGNIZED BY THE SINGAPORE GOVERNMENT Constitutional Liberties Since WWII, human rights claims, divisible into three “generations”, have proliferated rapidly. Individuals or recognized groups like ethnic minorities or indigenous peoples are rights holders whose rights are detailed in international treaties or resolutions of varying authoritativeness.30 Most fundamental liberties

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in Part IV of the Singapore Constitution are “first” generation civil-political rights (Articles 9–15 relate to right to life and liberty, prohibition against forced labour, due process rights, equality, freedom of movement, speech, religion). These largely negative, judicially enforceable liberties require the government to refrain from intervention, although the Constitution authorizes broad rights limitation. For example, Article 14 authorizes Parliament where considered “necessary or expedient” to restrict free speech rights in the interests of public order and morality. Part IV does not contain any “second” generation socio-economic rights such as the housing rights nor references to “third generation” solidarity rights like the nebulous, “right to development” which Singapore declared a fundamental inalienable right in international settings31 and which many criticize to be an unquantifiable state right.32 While exhibiting an anti-welfare state approach and the dependent mentality it engenders, the government actively addresses social welfare issues through assistance programmes relating to rent and student fees,33 while encouraging self-reliance and family support34 as integral aspects of social safety nets. For example, assistance is conditioned on “active job search and skills upgrading for employability”.35 This programme-oriented method of meeting basic needs and adequate living standards may be characterized as securing “human welfare without human rights”. Indeed the CEDAW Committee was concerned that the advancement of women in Singapore “was being implemented as a welfare framework rather than a human rights framework”.36 The latter approach entails clearly articulated, measurable obligations owed by the state to individuals, which individuals may launch formal complaints about. The successful delivery of these programmes provides performance legitimacy, as where a public housing agency has enabled more than 90 per cent of Singaporeans to own their own homes,37 promoting social cohesion. One could put it this way: would Singaporeans want a right to housing, or a house? Much depends on the will and vigilance of the legislators in securing social welfare and highlighting the needs (rather than rights) of vulnerable groups, such as the elderly, during parliamentary debates. Specific government programmes such as the Assistive Technology Fund allows needy individuals to purchase assistive devices to facilitate their education or employment.38 This focus on the vulnerable sectors of society is not dissimilar to human rights-based guidelines that neglecting such groups would constitute a “violation” of socio-economic rights.39

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International Obligations Singapore is generally bound to the range of human rights CEDAW and CRC contain, including rights of political participation, employment, education, health and other socio-economic benefits. Since 1995, Singapore has submitted three reports40 before the CEDAW Committee and one before the CRC Committee.41 Together with a constitutional bill of rights, ministerial statements and case law jurisprudence, this engagement with the United Nations Human Rights regime42 forms the “meat” of Singapore’s human rights practice, together with various International Labour Organisation (ILO) treaties including Convention No. 100 on equal remuneration for equal work, ratified in 2002.43 These treaty rights are positive rights rather than moral obligations. Notably, Singapore is not party to the major human rights treaties like the 1966 Covenants on Civil and Political Rights44 and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR).45 Both these treaties, together with the 1948 UDHR46 constitute the “international bill of rights”. While technically non-binding, UDHR norms are authoritative standards and certain ones through state acceptance are recognized as universally binding customary international law norms.47 The Singapore Court of Appeal has acknowledged as much, with the proviso, following British practice where Parliament is supreme, that an inconsistent domestic statute prevails over a customary norm.48

Excluding Rights to Serve Developmentalist Objectives The deliberate exclusion of rights like the right of property from Part IV reflects the priorities of a developmentalist state. This was because property rights, which are constitutionalized in Malaysia, could hinder national development by precluding compulsory acquisition on nominal terms. In 1990, then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew invoked communitarianism to justify this subordination of property rights to economic development imperatives, such as cancelling the compensation rights of individual sea-front owners for sea frontage, where their land was acquired for reclamation.49 In 2003, Opposition MP Chiam See Tong invoked human rights rhetoric before Parliament in relation to property rights. He argued that paying S$1 for the compulsory land acquisition was “almost like an outright confiscation” and “certainly a violation of human rights”. However, the UDHR itself contains no property clause, indicating its controversial nature at the international level. By reducing property rights to an interest regulated by the Land Acquisitions

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Act (Cap 152), the government rejected Chiam’s argument that human rights were violated “when we are acting in accordance with our laws”.50

IDENTIFICATION OF “RIGHTS” FROM “INTERESTS”: POLITICIZING AND CHEAPENING HUMAN RIGHTS Human rights are an intensely politicized aspect of national and international politics; given the moral force the term wields, it is unsurprising that activists seek to appropriate this language to legitimize their political agenda before courts of law and of public opinion.51 However, invoking rights as a political strategy can easily degenerate into a cloak for promoting self-interests rather than universal rights. Proliferating political claims masquerading as universally recognized human rights can cause “an inflationary debasement of the human rights coinage”, and precipitate legal uncertainty. Detached from a philosophy of naturalism where man is viewed as an “intrinsically social being” and where natural rights are a fundamental component of the common good which frames the fashioning of positive laws, human rights become an “ideological weapon for social revolution”.52 “Human rights” becomes an empty category prey to capture by the political fashion du jour, where law and politics become conflated. As Minister Wong noted in 1993, apart from a “hard core” of “truly universal” rights like the prohibition against torture, most rights were “essentially contested concepts” and subject to “fundamental disagreements” within the international community. By way of illustration, he observed: Singaporeans … do not agree … that pornography is an acceptable manifestation of free expression or that homosexual relationships is just a matter of lifestyle choice. Most of us will also maintain that the right to marry is confined to those of the opposite gender.

It is central in assessing the legal validity of human rights claims to distinguish genuine legal rights from political posturing or moral aspiration. Indeed, AttorneyGeneral Professor Walter Woon at the launch of the Law Society’s Public and International Law Committee in May 2008 while affirming that Singapore officialdom had “no quarrel with human rights, nor the UDHR”, warned against “people who use human rights to advance their own personal agendas”. One example he highlighted was the same-sex marriage controversy: “This is phrased in terms of human rights. Is it a question of human rights?” Another example

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of the careless invocation of the language of human rights was when someone argued that it was a breach of human rights that they should have to pay costs for a failed lawsuit against the government who was sued because the litigant’s son fell and hurt himself in school.53 A misuse of the label “human rights” could undermine the consensus underlying core human rights, by trivializing the whole issue of rights. THE AMBIT OF “MINORITY” PROTECTION IN SINGAPORE A local example of how human rights have been invoked as political rhetoric is the assertion, in the context of debates concerning the criminalization of homosexual sodomy under Section 377A of the Penal Code,54 that such a law violates the rights of “sexual minorities”.55 The legal term “minority” indicates a group of persons with a distinct identity which warrants affirmative protective measures or special rights.56 Aside from the deliberate ambiguity of the category “sexual minorities”, which obfuscates the moral issues at stake and would presumably include minority sexual practices like necrophilia, bestiality, and paedophilia, the term as a matter of law is non-existent. It is deployed as a political strategy to draw legitimating associations with recognized legal minorities such as racial groups. As Hall astutely points out, the characterization of a preferred political claim, such as a right to homosexual sodomy as a privacy “right”, erects “a serious juridical and pseudo-moral obstacle” towards challenging such claims, thus loading “the dice of public discourse heavily in favour of a desired outcome”.57 This politicization of human rights is an “illiberal rhetorical card” played to “quarantine” morally controversial issues “from normal contention”. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong unequivocally noted during the October 2007 Penal Code debates that homosexuals were not considered a minority “in the sense that we consider … Malays and Indians as minorities, with minority rights protected under the law” in the form of language and cultural rights and guaranteed legislative representation.58 This is consonant with both human rights standards and Singapore constitutional law which only recognizes “racial and religious minorities”59 and obliges the government to care for their interests through positive programmes.60 The Constitution does not recognize enforceable collective or group rights, as the basic philosophy is that the rights of minority groups would be realized by securing the rights of their individual members under the Article 12 equal protection clause.61

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INTERPRETATION: CONTENT VS. DEGREE Conflicts of interpretation may relate to differences of kind or degree. While Singapore may accord greater weight to group interests than certain Western liberal democracies, conflicts abound within the “West”, as Minister Wong pointed out, over such matters as capital punishment, education rights, abortion, and jury trials as a facet of due process. Indeed, although the U.S. issues critical reports on Singapore human rights practice, Singapore courts have pointed out that Singapore and U.S. rights jurisprudence overlap in matters like the legality of the death penalty. For example, Singapore may recognize the human right not to be subject to cruel, inhumane treatment, embodied in Article 5 UDHR, while disagreeing that “death by hanging” or the mandatory death penalty falls within its ambit. This was the judicial holding in the drug-trafficking case of “Nguyen Tuong Van v Public Prosecutor”.62 Quoting from a 2003 UN Human Rights Commission report63 the Court noted that the number of death penalty abolitionist and retentionist states were roughly equal as of 1 December 2002. The judiciary thus buttresses the executive policy in this regard. UN Special Rapporteur on Extra-judicial killings Philip Alston was criticized as exceeding his mandate in trying to intervene in the Nguyen case, which was a judicial case.64 As a matter of principle, Singapore leads the defence of capital punishment before the UN, evident in a 99 to 52 vote on a resolution seeking a worldwide moratorium on capital punishment.65 Singapore’s resistance against attempts to limit its sentencing discretion is also reflected in its domestic resistance towards domestic lobbying efforts. For example, the police barred the display of an image of a man hanged in May during an indoor concert staged in August 2005 on drug trafficking charges, though some participants wore T-shirts stating “Abolish Death Penalty”.66 Such indoor demonstrations, as is academic debate, are allowed, but similar leeway does not extend to potentially more disruptive outdoor demonstrations. This reflects the authorities’ calibrated approach towards managing rights of political expression to express dissent.67 Singapore courts have deferred to government policy in not considering pacifist conscientious objection to military service part of the religious freedom guarantee and have considered determinative the executive position that conscientious objection did not apply to Singapore, as opposed to certain Western European countries, because otherwise, “National Service will come unstuck”.68 Military service was considered a “secular issue, subject to government laws”, rather than an exercise of religious freedom rights. In 2002, Singapore issued a joint

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statement with fifteen other countries before the UN Human Rights Commission stating they did not recognize the universal applicability of conscientious objection to military service.69 It becomes virtually pointless to assert contrary interpretations of the religious freedom guarantee before legal and political forums, where the executive and judiciary speak with “one voice”. Even fundamental rights like religious freedom suffer continuing debates over their substantive content, as in the divergent approaches of Singapore and Malaysia,70 both proponents of “Asian values”, over whether religious freedom entails the right to change religion or whether apostasy laws negate free conscience.71 QUESTIONS OF DEGREE Interpretive questions of degree relate to how a balance is struck between a recognized individual right like free speech and other competing liberties or public goods. Cultural norms espousing different visions of state-society relations can impact on such balancing exercises. “Rights” alone are an incomplete moral language72 and are “counter-productive” where civic responsibilities and the common good are discounted. Notably, human rights are not absolute, but qualified by the requirements of public morality and order, the general welfare of a democratic society, respect for others’ rights, and duties to the community, as Article 29 UDHR stipulates. However, exceptions must not be construed too broadly to swallow up the general norm. The White Paper on Shared Values stated that the “major difference” between “Asian and Western values” was “the balance each strikes between the individual and the community”, a “question of degree”; Singapore “weighted” governmentdefined “group interests more heavily than individual ones”.73 On this basis, Singapore had laws which prioritized community concerns, which “irked” foreign critics as being unduly “intrusive” or “harsh”. Minister Wong at Vienna identified Singapore’s stringent laws on drug taking which authorized the testing of urine of “suspicious” persons as one of them, which would attract invasion of privacy suits elsewhere. This position refuses to allow community interests to be “sacrificed” to the human rights of drug traffickers and users and is a statement on social priorities. OF DEFAMATION, DEMOCRACY AND DIFFERENCES IN DEGREE Local particularities are invoked to justify the difference in degree Singapore strikes in balancing rights like free speech against competing interest. For example,

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in 1998, late Opposition MP J.B. Jeyaretnam in Parliament unsuccessfully called for a Commission to inquire whether Singapore defamation law should be changed, to allow fearless debate and to guard against unwarranted incursions into free speech rights. The government rejected foreign case law developments, as “defamation laws are society oriented”, there being “no international approach”.74 This reflects the judicial rejection of cases75 cited before Singapore courts76 from the European Court of Human Rights where free speech was weighed more heavily as the lifeblood of democratic debate. The Courts feared the insufficient protection of politicians’ reputations would deter honourable, sensitive men from entering public life; they were not required to be “thicker skinned”. The government in alluding to a particularity of Singapore political culture explained that government leaders regularly brought political libel suits as this served the public interest to maintain a high societal view of politicians and “high standards of truth in politics”,77 as good government required that “political leaders” had the electorate’s “trust and respect”. However, this reasoning fails to consider that robust debate serves the community’s interest in a democratic order. This prioritization of public reputation is also evident in relation to that of public institutions like the Central Provident Fund78 and in contempt of court cases.79 Rights are not “trumps” but merely one of many competing factors. IMPLEMENTATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS Singapore considers that national institutions are primarily responsible for implementing human rights,80 and has only been willing to submit to the weakest forms of international oversight, through state reporting and dialogue with CEDAW and CRC Committees which can only issue recommendations to urge compliance with treaty standards. True to its preference for “consensus over contention”, Singapore avoids submitting to rights-oriented complaint mechanisms. For example, it refuses to accede to the CEDAW Optional Protocol which allows individuals to issue communications to an international body.81 The CRC Committee voiced concern about the “absence” of an “independent mechanism” able to receive complaints about CRC violations from individuals and empowered to monitor compliance with CRC standards regularly.82 The government considered that the CEDAW Optional Protocol provisions “infringe on a nation’s sovereignty” by enabling the EDAW Committee to consider individual complaints alleging CEDAW violations and to commence inquiry proceedings. It was a “fundamental principle of governance” that Singapore would, without “foreign interference”, investigate and redress complaints of gender discrimination through “the Government Ministries, the Courts and

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ultimately, Parliament”.83 The preference was thus to ensure the enjoyment of women’s rights through domestic institutions and processes. DOMESTIC FORUMS FOR PROTECTING RIGHTS However, apart from judicial review, which may be statutorily excluded or limited as under the Internal Security Act (Cap 43) which allows detention without trial, and which plays a limited role in protecting rights given the “communitarian” judicial philosophy, Singapore displays an anti-institutionalism towards creating specific rights protective mechanisms.84 Unlike Malaysia, it has not created a national human rights commission85 or any specific mechanism to implement CEDAW and CRC standards. Dedicated rights bodies serve as focal points for specific human rights concerns; perhaps this institutional deficit reflects a desire to discourage a rights-oriented culture. CROSS-CUTTING INTER-MINISTERIAL RESPONSIBILITIES The government prefers to implement human rights through a partnership/ consultative model, such as setting Inter-Ministry Committees on the CRC and CEDAW86 to monitor progress and solicit non-government views, especially in preparing state reports. This signals the cross-cutting nature of gender and child issues for all ministries. Nonetheless, while not creating a Women’s Rights body, a Women’s Desk was located within the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS) to serve, administratively, as the national focal point for policy matters and international cooperation. The CEDAW Committee expressed concern about the symbolic location of the Women’s Desk within the MCYS Family Development Group, its limited resources and authority, and urged Singapore “elevate the status of the national machinery for the advancement of women” by enhancing its mandate and enabling it to develop and monitor the implementation of gender equality policies.87 INFORMAL OR “SOFT” IMPLEMENTATION Education and Persuasion The preference for “soft” educative and persuasive measures over a formalized legal sanctions-based approach is evident in how problems like racist advertising are handled. Preferring promotion to legislation, a set of recommendatory tripartite

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guidelines were adopted in March 1999 by the government, National Trades Union Congress (NTUC), and Singapore Employers Federation to dissuade employers from specifying discriminatory job criteria in advertisements.88 This was reportedly effective: as of October 2000, less than 1 per cent of advertisements stipulated discriminatory criteria such as race, age, and gender, a drop from 32 per cent in January 1999.89 This same educative approach was adopted to address employer abuse of foreign workers, by initiating a mandatory orientation scheme for first-time employers and employees, where a third party explains what it means to work in a household. This “sends a signal to the maid that there are rights” and avenues to ensure their protection.90 Minimal Resort to Legislation: Modifying General Legislation In general, Singapore has not enacted or modified existing law to incorporate international treaty standards into domestic practice. For example, the CEDAW Committee was concerned91 that unlike Malaysia, Singapore did not take the formal step of amending its Constitution to prohibit gender discrimination, as the government considered that existing laws already met this concern.92 Rather than enacting laws, the government prefers to adopt guidelines or soft, “non-binding standards” to induce conformity to a desired norm. For example, no specific laws was adopted to give effect to CEDAW or CRC although even the CRC Committee, in giving credit to results, noted that in practice, most CRC principles were in fact implemented, although domestic legislation did not fully reflect CRC provisions.93 Existing general law has been amended to implement treaty obligations as when the 2007 amendments to the Penal Code created the crime of genocide as defined in the Genocide Convention, though this is likely to have little practical effect.94 So too, in 1998, the Penal Code95 was amended to provide deterrent sanctions through harsher penalties for maid abuse, which apparently caused a significant decline in abuse cases.96 This piecemeal approach which recognizes the special vulnerability of migrant workers is preferred over adopting comprehensive legislation to handle the problem.97 Soft “Law” or Promotional Guidelines The preference is to give effect to treaty norms through “soft” guidelines rather than “hard rules”. ILO Convention No. 100 was to be implemented by adopting a 2002 Tripartite Declaration to uphold the principle of equal remuneration for equal work.98 Notably, the CEDAW Committee in 2007 urged the adoption

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of equal remuneration legislation to close wage gaps between men and women,99 a principle enshrined in Article 11(1)(d) CEDAW. In relation to children, the government in 2002 issued the Statement on the Interests of the Child which sought to ensure their well-being through ethical principles of behaviour and the National Standards for Protection of Children,100 which guides child protection professionals in discharging their duties. “Privatization” Furthermore, to implement Convention No. 100, companies were encouraged to incorporate equal remuneration clauses in their collective agreements, by the Manpower Ministry “working closely” with the Industrial Arbitration Court and the NTUC.101 This “privatization” approach is evident in the tack taken to promote good employment practices by urging that standard employment conditions be mutually agreed on, rather than legislating minimum standards for foreign workers. In so doing, Singapore discharges its duties under instruments such as the 2007 ASEAN Declaration on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Migrant Workers,102 which enumerates state duties such as the promotion of decent living and working conditions, rather than workers’ rights. Relationalism and Soft Law The government since independence has taken steps to weaken trade unions to ensure social stability and thwart communist activism, measures crucial to its developmentalist objectives. The main method has been relational rather than rights-oriented, through its system of “Tripartism” between employees, management and the government. Indeed, the Secretary-General of the umbrella National Trade Union Congress (NTUC) which represents 400,000 workers, is a PAP minister. The late J.B. Jeyaretnam in moving a parliamentary motion to debate widening inequalities in society,103 challenged this and urged that trade unions “be run on democratic lines”. He also called for an Unfair Dismissals Act to protect workers against unfair termination; only then would they enjoy dignity rather than remaining “serfs” on “bended knee” to employers. The PAP defends its policy of tripartism in shaping industrial relations by downplaying rights-based mechanisms to protect workers, and highlighting the practical results achieved by trade unions, including fair remuneration, fair play at workplaces and job security, noting that workers benefited from Singapore’s full employment situation.104 In addition, worker interests (rather than rights) could be represented by the NTUC Secretary-General, who, as a Minister,

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could, with regards to “workers concerns go direct to the Cabinet and it has helped the workers”.105 Complaints — Diffused Outlets rather than Dedicated Procedures The CRC committee expressed concern about the insufficient awareness amongst the public and professionals, of the “rights-based approach” enshrined in the CRC106 and the absence of “an independent mechanism” mandated to receive individual complains and monitor and evaluate progress.107 This is because the government prefers not to designate a specific institution to handle complaints, but allows for feedback from a variety of methods, such as where children with complaints could approach their “carer, teacher or family”, non-government groups like the National Youth Council, or utilize ministry hotlines or emails to give feedback.108 Within each ministry, it was stated that there was a “formal channel” to monitor complaints about alleged CEDAW violations; women could also, where appropriate, lodge police reports aside from resorting to general consultation and dialogue sessions.109 Other ministries like the Ministry of Manpower undertakes routine worksite inspections to address child labour issues, and investigates complaints received.110 To ensure that other vulnerable sectors of society like foreign workers have avenues for complaints, they are given advisories (which have been written in seventeen languages), as well as a hotline number to report abuses which the ministry or police investigates. Parliament, Rights Protection and Accountability Parliament provides a forum in which to raise human rights issues, though this is not a regularized process. As the Constitution contains no justiciable socio-economic rights, parliamentary questions are one method of ensuring government accountability over social welfare issues. For example, it was reported during the 2004 Budget debates that 2,100 of the 4,000 applications under the Work Assistance Programme introduced in 2003 had been successfully placed in employment. The issue of homeless or destitute persons was raised in Parliament in 1994111 with the minister pointing out that under the Destitute Persons Act (Cap 78) some 1,341 destitute persons (including beggars or persons without visible means of subsistence or place of residence) were living free of charge in three government houses, and some of them were being trained for employment or engaged in suitable work to contribute towards their maintenance. The Constitution under Article 10(2) prohibits forced labour, excepting laws on compulsory national

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service. In response to ILO criticism that the Act violated the ILO Forced Labour Convention to which Singapore was party,112 the Act was defended as a piece of social legislation that provided shelter, care, and rehabilitation of destitute persons with a view to societal reintegration Singapore’s engagement with international human rights bodies has also affected domestic politics insofar as MPs have taken up concerns expressed by the CEDAW Committee in their non-binding concluding observations. These are publicly available on the internet and the MCYS website, and may be used to exert moral-political pressure to urge the government towards a certain rights-oriented, normative direction, consonant with international obligations, or to highlight a problem for possible attention.113 For example, it was concerned with the low representation of women in politics, far short of the recommended 30 per cent,114 bearing in mind that Article 7 CEDAW enjoins state parties to take “all appropriate measures” to eliminate discrimination against women in political and public life of the country”, beyond formal rights to vote. The government reported an improvement from 2004 where 12 per cent of elected MPS were women, which increased to 20 per cent after the 2006 General Election. Human rights norms are useful in constructing political issues. REITERATION OR TRANSFORMATION OF STANDARDS? Attitudes In acceding to human rights treaties, Singapore operates on the understanding that international obligations reflect existing domestic standards and are not primarily meant to transform municipal law. In ratifying CRC, Singapore stated this did not imply accepting rights “going beyond the limits” constitutionally prescribed or accepting obligations to introduce new rights as Singapore laws provided “adequate protection and fundamental rights … in the best interests of the child”.115 Even in courts, international norms are approvingly cited only where these reiterate domestic rules.116 This attitude minimizes the transformative potential of international law on domestic law and policy Singapore is not in a rush to sign any more human rights treaties; a precursor to this would be a careful review of existing laws and practices to ensure full satisfaction that “we can give effect to its provisions”,117 providing the treaty in questioned served the national interest, as Singapore took its international obligations “seriously”. Suggestions to sign the Convention for the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) have not received favour.118 The government in 2004 stated that Singapore was “more concerned about substance

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than form”, noting the “good track record” on race relations and desire to sustain this through “community bonding” efforts. Reservations: Buttressing Inegalitarian Cultural Norms As human rights ideology is not philosophically neutral, it clashes with competing universalisms such as Islamic values or cultural particularities such as communitarian conceptions of state and society. Where Singapore cannot or will not conform to international standards, it attaches a reservation which effectively “severs” part of a treaty from application, insulating domestic law from change. Singapore appended two significant reservations to CEDAW Articles 2 (methods of ending discrimination) and 16 (discrimination in marriage and family matters), in considering the multi-ethnic and multi-religious nature of its society and “the need to respect the freedom of minorities to practise their religious and personal laws”, where compliance with CEDAW norms would be contrary to these laws. Thus, inegalitarian laws governing family planning, marital, and inheritance rights in relation to Muslim women under the Administration of Muslim Law Act (Cap 3)119 are immunized from Article 2(f) of CEDAW, which urges states to abolish “existing laws … customs and practices which constitute discrimination against women”. This truncates CEDAW’s potential to reform domestic law. The Language of Rights vs. Expediency? (At Home and Abroad) Reference to human rights norms in political discourse is not consistent. Domestic legal reform cast in instrumentalist terms are justified to external human rights bodies as progressive human rights developments. For example, while Article 28(1) CRC refers to compulsory primary education, this was not referenced in the 2000 debates concerning the Compulsory Education Bill,120 although it was subsequently reported before the CRC Committee as a “positive aspect” of Singapore’s initial treaty report.121 Originally, Singapore had attached a reservation stating it did not consider itself bound under Article 28(1), as such a measure was unnecessary since most Singaporeans in practice attended primary school. By insulating existing law from change, the state can buttress patriarchal attitudes, despite the exhortation in Article 5 CEDAW to take steps to dismantle gender stereotypes. The justification for past policy which was discriminatory in extending medical benefits only to the families of male civil servants was that husbands in Asian societies were household heads and primarily responsible

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for his family’s needs; it would be “unwise” to so tamper with how “our society is structured”.122 This stance perpetuated the paternalistic status quo by state designation of familial responsibilities, rather than letting individuals decide this themselves. Thus, legal reform may represent shifts in cultural attitudes or a willingness to recast local particularities. Previously, Singapore’s citizenship law discriminated against Singapore women who married foreigners as only children born overseas to a Singapore father would automatically get citizenship. The original rationale was that Singapore did not recognize dual nationality and “its prevailing social values and norms considered it primarily the father’s duty to provide for the child” and thus, to register his child as a citizen of his own country.123 In its reservation to the CRC, Singapore had asserted its rights as one of the smallest and most densely populated states to determine its own immigration policy. The CRC committee expressed concern about this law but when it was amended in 2004, this was not presented as a meeting of CRC standards; nevertheless, it was presented as the advancement of women’s rights in relation to Article 9 CEDAW rights to equal nationality,124 before the CEDAW Committee. Similarly, the one-third quota limiting the intake of women medical undergraduates, a qualification to Singapore’s meritocracy policy, was justified on the basis that women doctors were less productive than male ones in preferring certain forms of outpatient work, and tended to stop work after marriage and having children. As such, “certain jobs are more suitable for men than for women”.125 Such statements reflected the government’s reinforcement of traditional gender roles which ascribe paramountcy to a woman’s child-rearing responsibilities, where CEDAW urges the equal sharing of familial responsibilities. This policy attracted the criticism of the CEDAW Committee and parliamentarians asked whether it contravened Article 10 CEDAW which relates to equal educational rights.126 As there was no quota on the number of female medical practitioners in Singapore, the government did not consider such policy a violation of CEDAW obligations. When this policy under the Medical Registration Act was finally reversed in 2003, the Minister made no reference to CEDAW standards. However, to an external constituency, this policy shift was presented as a positive implementation of CEDAW standards before the CEDAW Committee which commended this development in 2007,127 and when a parliamentary question was raised in relation to compliance with CEDAW standards in 2007.128 The language of human rights is spoken internationally to demonstrate compliance

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with international standards, while it is muted domestically, presumably to mute a rights-oriented political discourse. CONCLUSION The Singapore Government considers that human rights should not be viewed in abstract, but as an “inter-related” facet of “the rule of law and good governance”. It considers that the best environment for securing human rights is one that is “underpinned by strong economic, cultural and social foundations”, mediated by “sound national policies that promote economic growth, raise living standards and provide basic social welfare …”129 Thus, “it is absurd to talk about human rights independent of the overall economic development of a society.”130 Human rights is a language of legitimation in both political and legal arenas; as it is a facet of good governance, the government is apt to discuss its human rights gains before international bodies. It is also a language of “moral empowerment”131 and resistance spoken by the powerless against their oppressors. As rights can limit state power, the government appears more reticent about addressing domestic actors in rights language which can promote adversarial rights-conscious individualism to the detriment of “communitarian” values and conciliatory methods of resolving state-society issues, as where the government urged those involved in the “tudung controversy” not to litigate the school ban on Muslim headscarf as a violation of religious freedoms, but to resolve the issue through dialogue.132 The focus is results-oriented, celebrating the high standing of living attained. This mutes the potential effect of human rights law in transforming local political culture. Furthermore, despite the stress on national modalities for protecting human rights and the existence of formal processes to pursue rights claims, the government does not have a rights-oriented policy. This is manifested in its focus on community goods, discouragement of rights litigation, and reticence towards building rightsspecific institutions in favour of education and persuasion as methods of promoting compliance with desired standards. Thus, the flourishing of human rights is subject to the imperative of the developmentalist state which prioritizes economic growth and socio-political stability as integral to achieving this objective. Human rights issues tend to be treated in an instrumental fashion, subject to utilitarian or state-defined “communitarian” goals. Thus, the impact of human rights on state-society relations in Singapore continues to remain a marginal dialect, though its influence is likely to grow incrementally.

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NOTES 1. William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act II, Scene II, lines 92–99. 2. Singapore Government Press Release 20/JUN/09-1/93/06/16, “The Real World of Human Rights”, 16 June 1993, available on STARS (Speech-Text Archival and Retrieval System). 3. Oscar Schacter, “Human Dignity as a Normative Concept”, American Journal of International Law 848 (1983): 77. 4. Anthony Woodiwiss, “Singapore and the Possibility of Enforceable Benevolence”, in Globalisation, Human Rights and Labour Law in Pacific Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). 5. Singapore Government Press Release 20/JUN/09-1/93/06/16, “The Real World of Human Rights”, 16 June 1993, available on STARS (Speech-Text Archival and Retrieval System). 6. Singapore Parliament, Cmd 1 of 1991. 7. Para. 41, White Paper on Shared Values, Cmd 1 of 1991. 8. See Eugene Kheng-Boon Tan, “Law and Values in Governance: The Singapore Way”, Hong Kong Law Journal 30 (2000): 91. 9. UNTS 78, 277. 10. Thio Li-ann, “The Impact of Internationalisation on Domestic Governance: Gender Egalitarianism and the Transformative Potential of CEDAW”, Sing JICL 1 (1997): 278–350. 11. GA Res. 44/25, annex, UN GAOR, 44th Session, Supp. No. 49, UN Doc. A/44/49 (1989): 167, entered into force, 2 September 1990. 12. Constitutional, administrative, criminal, and family law. 13. Lee Hsien Loong, “Parliamentary Debate on Civil Service Salary Revisions”, 11 April 2007, available at (accessed 5 June 2007). 14. S. Jayakumar, Singapore Parliament Reports 68, 20 April 1998, col. 1973 (Human Rights Practices) where Singapore human rights practice is criticised, as when the U.S. State Department in its 1997 Singapore country report criticized the politicization of the judiciary, the government issues responses to rebut “errors of fact and misleading allegations”. 15. “Singapore: The Death Penalty — A Hidden Toll of Executions”, ASA 36/001/ 2004, 15 January 2004. This alleged that Singapore had one of “the world’s highest per capita execution rate, relative to its population”. The government issued a legalistic point by point rebuttal: “Govt. points out 12 ‘grave errors’ in Amnesty report”. 16. Ministry of Manpower, “Fact Sheet in Response to Human Rights Watch Report”, Press Releases, 7 December 2005, available at . 17. Text of the ASEAN Charter, .

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18. Raymond Lim, “Setting up of ASEAN Human Rights Commission: Implications for Singapore”, Singapore Parliament Reports 83, 27 August 2007. 19. Lawrence M. Friedman defines legal culture as “the values and attitudes which bind the system together and which determine the place of the legal system in the culture of the society as a whole, the network of values and attitudes relating to law, which determines when and why and where people turn to the law or turn away”. See Legal Culture and Social Development, Law and Society Rev. 4 (1969): 29, 35. 20. Thio Li-ann, “Pragmatism and Realism Do Not Mean Abdication: A Critical Inquiry into Singapore’s Engagement with International Human Rights Law”, in Singapore Yearbook of International Law (Singapore: National University of Singapore, 2004), pp. 41–91; Thio Li-ann, “Taking Rights Seriously? Singapore and Human Rights Law”, in Human Rights in Asia: A Comparative Legal Study of Twelve Asian Countries, France and the USA, edited by Randy Pereenboom, Albert Chen and Carole Petersen (New York and London: Routledge, Curzon, 2006), pp. 158–90; Thio Li-ann, “Singapore Human Rights Practice and Legal Policy: Of Pragmatism and Principle, Rights, Rhetoric and Realism”, Singapore Academy of Law Journal (2009). 21. Thio Li-ann, “ ‘Beyond the Four Walls’ in an Age of Transnational Judicial Conversations: Civil Liberties, Rights Theories and Constitutional Adjudication in Malaysia and Singapore”, Columbia Journal of Asian Law 19, no. 2 (2006): 428–518; Thio Li-ann, “Reading Rights Rightly: The UDHR and its Creeping Influence on the Development of Singapore Public Law”, Singapore Journal of Legal Studies (2008): 264–91. 22. Thio Li-ann, “Lex Rex or Rex Lex: Competing Conceptions of the Rule of Law in Singapore”, UCLA Pacific Basin Law Journal 20, no. 1 (2002): 1–76. 23. Thio Li-ann, “The Right to Political Participation in Singapore: Tailor-Making a Westminster-Modelled Constitution to fit the Imperatives of ‘Asian’ Democracy”, Singapore Journal of International and Comparative Law 6 (2002): 516–24. 24. Statement by Singapore Foreign Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng, “The Real World of Human Rights”, Singapore Government Press Release No. 20/JUN/ 09-1/93/06/16. 25. Michael Ignatieff, Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003); Paul Gordon Laurens, The Evolution of Human Rights: Visions Seen (Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003); Thio Liann, “The Historical Origins and Contemporary Evolution of International Human Rights Law: Retrospect and Prospect”, Singapore Academy of Law Journal (2009). 26. International mechanisms for promoting or protecting human rights, unlike domestic judicial mechanisms, cannot adjudicate rights claims and issue binding legal judgments. Human rights are “promoted” through educative and persuasive methods

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27. 28. 29. 30.

31.

32.

33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39.

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and “protected” through legal or quasi-legal structures such as international committees which review treaty obligations and issue non-binding “recommendations” exhorting states to comply with treaty based norms. While there are regional human rights courts, such as the European Court of Human Rights, no regional mechanism exists in Asia. This indicates the low priority accorded to human rights issues compared with matters such as trade, investment, or even environmental issues in the region. Carl J. Friedrich, Limited Government: A Comparison (New Jersey: PrenticeHall, 1974), pp. 12–13. “Taw Cheng Kong v Public Prosecutor” [1998] 1 SLR 943 at 965, para. 56. Louis Henkin, “Rights: American and Human”, Columbia Law Review 79, no. 3 (1979): 409. Declaration on the Rights of Persons belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious or Linguistic Minorities Ethnic, adopted by General Assembly Resolution 47/135 of 18 December 1992; Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, A/61/L.67, 7 September 2007; Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, General Assembly Resolution 45/158 of 18 December 1990. See paras. 17–18, Final Declaration of the Regional Meeting for Asia of the World Conference on Human Rights (Bangkok, 1993) A/CONF.157/ASRM/8; A/ CONF.157/PC/59 (7 April 1993). The right to development does not simply entail economic growth per se, but contemplates a participatory mode of decision-making and equity in wealth distribution. See the 1986 Declaration on the Right to Development A/RES/ 41/128. See generally, Thio Li-ann, “Taking Development Seriously: Beyond the Statist Rhetoric of the Human Right to Development in ASEAN States”, in Human Rights and Development: Approaches to the Reform of Governance in Asia, edited by D.K. Srivastava and C. Raj Kumar (Butterworth: LexisNexis, 2006), pp. 47–64. Charles Chong, Singapore Parliament Reports 17, 16 March 2004, col. 1935. Yu-Fu Yee Shoon, “Financial and Non Financial Assistance for Needy Singaporeans”, SPR 83, 22 May 2007. Yaacob Ibrahim, Singapore Parliament Reports 77, 16 March 2004, col. 1935. Para. 30, CEDAW/C/SR.514 (7 September 2001), Summary Record, 514th Meeting, CEDAW Committee. Kevin Y.L. Tan, “Fifty Years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: A Singapore Reflection”, Singapore Law Review 20 (1998): 239–80 at 271. Yaacob Ibrahim, Singapore Parliament Reports 77, 16 March 2004, col. 1935. The Maastricht Guidelines on Violations of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 22–26 January 1997, available at .

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40. CEDAW/C/SGP/1 (1999); CEDAW/C/SGP/2 (2001); CEDAW/C/SGP/3 (2004). These are available on the website of the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports, . 41. CRC/C/51/Add.8 (2002). 42. The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, UN General Assembly Resolution 260A (III) of 9 December 1948 obliges state parties to enact necessary legislation to give effect to treaty obligations (Article 5). 43. Singapore is party to twenty-two ILO Conventions, several anti-slavery and trafficking conventions, and has signed the Optional Protocol to the CRC on the involvement of Children in Armed Conflict. See Singapore Treaties Database, . 44. 999, United Nations Treaty Series 171. 45. 993, United Nations Treaty Series 3. See generally Thio Li-ann, “Implementing Human Rights in ASEAN Countries: Promises to Keep and Miles to Go before I Sleep”, Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal 2 (1999): 1–86. 46. General Assembly Resolution 217 A (III) of 10 December 1948. 47. Hurst Hannum, “The Status of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in National and International Law”, Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law 25 (1995): 287; Johannes Morsink, The Universal Declaration on Human Rights: Origins, Drafting and Intent (Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000). 48. “Nguyen Tuong Van v PP” [2005] 1 SLR 103 at 128, para. 94. See comments by Thio Li-ann, “The Death Penalty as Cruel and Inhuman Punishment before the Singapore High Court? Customary Human Rights Norms, Constitutional Formalism and the Supremacy of Domestic Law in PP v. Nguyen Tuong Van”, Oxford Univ. Journal 4, no. 2 (2004): 213–26. 49. Lee Kuan Yew, “Prime Minister’s Address”, Singapore Law Academy Opening, 31 August 1990, published at Sing.Ac.L.J. (1990): 155–56. 50. Singapore Parliament Reports 76, 15 August 2003, Land Acquisition Act (Compensation at current market value), col. 2458, 2462–63. 51. Philip Alston, “Conjuring Up New Human Rights: A Proposal for Quality Control”, American Journal of International Law 78 (1984): 607–21. 52. Stephen Hall, “The Persistent Spectre: Natural Law, International Order and the Limits of Legal Positivism”, EJIL 12 (2001): 269–307, 276. 53. “Politics, Law and Human Rights ‘Fanatics’: AG Walter Woon”, TODAY, 30 May 2008, p. 6. 54. See generally Yvonne C.L. Lee in “ ‘Don’t Ever Take a Fence Down Until You Know the Reason It Was Put Up’ — Singapore Communitarianism and the Case for Conserving 377A”, Singapore Journal of Legal Studies (2008): 347–94. 55. See, for example, Ho Chi Sam, “Religion, Politics and Sexual Minorities”, Straits

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56.

57. 58.

59. 60. 61. 62. 63.

64.

65. 66. 67.

68.

69.

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Times Online Forum, 28 May 2007; Angela Thiang Pei Yun, “Beware Loose Use of Term ‘Sexual Minorities’ ”, Straits Times, 10 August 2007. On defining “minorities” at law, see Thio Li-ann, Managing Babel: The International Legal Protection of Minorities in the Twentieth Century (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers/ Brill Academic, 2005), pp. 1–16. Stephen Hall, “The Persistent Spectre: Natural Law, International Order and the Limits of Legal Positivism”, EJIL 12 (2001): 269–307, 302. Lee Hsien Loong, Singapore Parliament Reports 83 (Penal Code (Amendment) Bill), 23 October 2007. Attempts by certain blocs of countries to promote before certain UN human rights bodies homosexual rights, which are by definition not universal, by including sexual orientation as a prohibited ground of discrimination have been resisted, showing the controversy surrounding the morality of homosexuality. There is by no means universal consensus on issues pertaining to laws criminalizing sodomy or endorsing same sex “marriage” even though this has been recognized in certain Western liberal jurisdictions and regional systems. See, for example, Kazi Mahmood, “Malaysians Protest UN Resolution on Sexual Orientation”, Islamonline.net at (assessed 10 November 2007). Article 152, Singapore Constitution. Articles 152–53, Singapore Constitution. S. Rajaratnam, SPR 25, 16 March 1967, col. 1329 at 1356–59. 1 SLR (2005): 127–28. Question of the Death Penalty: Report of the Secretary-General submitted pursuant to Commission resolution 2002/77, UN ESCOR, 59th Session, UN Doc E/CN.4/ 2003/106 (2003). E/CN.4/2006/53/Add.1. For a detailed record of communications, see Project on Extrajudicial Executions, Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, New York University School of Law, Singapore Visits and Communications at . Andy Ho, “UN Moratorium on Capital Punishment: The Moral Case for the Death Penalty”, Straits Times Review, 24 November 2007. “Protest Punk, Blogs and Gay Pride: Dissent takes root as S’pore Turns 40”, Agence France-Presse, 7 August 2005. On the policy towards outdoor and indoor gatherings, see Singapore Parliament Reports 83, 27 August 2007 (Workers’ Party 50th Anniversary Cycling Event Rejection of Police Permit). “Chan Hiang Leng Colin v Public Prosecutor” [1994] 3 SLR 662 at 685E-F, quoting BG Lee Hsien Loong’s second reading speech during the Maintenance of Religious Harmony Bill debates (Hansard, 23 February 1990, p. 1181). Letter, Permanent Representative of Singapore to Chairperson, 58th Session,

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71.

72.

73. 74. 75.

76.

77. 78. 79.

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Commission on Human Rights, E/CN.4/2002/188 (24 April 2002). Such objections, by demonstrating a lack of general state acceptance, indicates that the relevant norm is not universally binding customary law. Singapore and Malaysia differ radically in the scope of religious freedom and views on religion’s role in public law. See Anthony J. Langlois, The Politics of Justice and Human Rights: Southeast Asia and Universalist Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 13–16. Contrast the understanding of “accommodative secularism” in Singapore where “the protection of freedom of religion under our Constitution is premised on removing restrictions to one’s choice of religious belief” in “Nappalli v ITE”, SLR 2 (1999): 569 at 576, para. 26, with the Malaysian case of Lina Joy, CLJ 6 (2004): 242 where it was declared that a Malay woman remained a Muslim until her “dying days”. See generally Thio Li-ann, “Apostasy and Religious Freedom: Constitutional Issues Arising from the Lina Joy Litigation”, MLJ I 2 (2006). Julian Rivers, “Beyond Rights: The Morality of Rights-language”, Cambridge Papers, Jubilee Centre, 1997, . White Paper on Shared Values, Cmd 1 of 1991, paras. 24, 26. Peng Kee Ho, Singapore Parliament Reports 69, 26 November 1998, col. 172ff (Commission to examine Defamation Law), col. 1765. “Lingens v Austria” (1986) 8 EHRR 407. For a critique of Singapore jurisprudence, see Tey Tsun Hang, “Singapore’s Jurisprudence of Political Defamation and its Triple-Whammy Impact on Political Speech”, Public Law (Autumn 2008): 452–62. “J.B. Jeyaretnam v Lee Kuan Yew”, Sing.L.R. 2 (1992): 310. The particularities of the socio-political situation in Singapore and cultural differences in relation to defamation law was recently underscored in Re Millar Gavin James QC [2007] SGHC 178. The most extensive discussion (and rejection) of cases from Australia, New Zealand, and Britain is contained in Woo Bih Li J’s judgment in “Lee Hsien Loong v Review Publishing Co Ltd”, 1 SLR (2009): 177. See also “Lee Hsien Loong v Singapore Democratic Party”, 1 SLR (2007): 675. Peng Kee Ho, Singapore Parliament Reports 69, 26 November 1998, col. 172ff (Commission to examine Defamation Law), col. 1762–63. “Chee Siok Chin v PP”, SLR 1 (2006): 582. See the judgment of “Lai Siu Chiu J in AG v Chee Soon Juan”, SGHC (2006): 54; 2 SLR (2006): 650 where she stated in para. 25 that “conditions unique to Singapore” required that “we deal more firmly” with attacks on judicial impartiality. This was recently affirmed in “Attorney-General v Hertzberg Daniel”, SGHC (2008): 218, where the court averred that being a “small island” was a unique condition to be taken into account in determining contempt of court law, citing

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80. 81.

82. 83. 84.

85. 86.

87. 88. 89. 90. 91.

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the Privy Council decision from “Mauritius Ahnee v DPP”, 2 AC (1999): 294. Interestingly, despite its smallness in geographical size, the Mauritian courts adopt the more speech protective test of requiring a “real risk” that speech might impair the administration of justice, compared with the Singapore test of requiring merely an “inherent tendency”. Para. 9, Final Declaration of the Regional Meeting for Asia of the World Conference on Human Rights (A/CONF.157/PC/59 of 7 April 1993). “UN Convention on Women: Govt Has Reservations”, Straits Times, 11 July 2001 at H10. The CEDAW Committee has encouraged Singapore to improve its complaints procedure regarding constitutional equality rights so that women can challenge discriminatory acts and also urged that it become party to the Optional Protocol: paras. 89 and 94, Report of the CEDAW Committee, 24th Session (2001), General Assembly Official Records, 56th Session, Supplement No. 38 (A/56/38). Para. 12, CRC/C/15/Add.220 (Response to Initial State Report before CRC Committee). Yu-Foo Yee Shoon, Singapore Parliament Reports 83, 22 May 2007 (Optional Protocol, CEDAW). Calls for an independent elections commission, Women’s Affairs Ministry and Equal Opportunities Commission have been shot down: Thio Li-ann,“Pragmatism and Realism Do Not Mean Abdication: A Critical Inquiry into Singapore’s Engagement with International Human Rights Law”, Singapore Yearbook of International Law 8 (2004): 41–91, 59–61. Amanda Whiting, “Situating Suhakam: Human Rights Debates and Malaysia’s National Human Rights Commission”, Stan.J.Int’lL. 39 (2003): 59. Singapore’s approach towards setting up an Inter-Ministry Committee on CEDAW to monitor the implementation of CEDAW was lauded as a model for other countries to follow, Singapore Parliament Reports 3, 22 October 2007 (CEDAW: Singapore’s Third Report, 2007). Para. 14, CEDAW/C/SGP/CO/3 (10 August 2007), CEDAW Committee Concluding Comments. “Guidelines on Non-discriminatory Job Ads”, online: MOM, . Para. 7.6, CEDAW Second Report. Ng Eng Hen, Singapore Parliament Reports 75, 27 August 2007 (Abuse of Foreign Maids: Standards of Employment and Welfare), col. 772–80. The Committee in its concluding comments on Singapore’s Third CEDAW Report continued to urge the state to incorporate in the Constitution or Statute “a definition of discrimination against women” consistent with Article 1, CEDAW, CEDAW/ C/SGP/CO/3 (10 August 2007), CEDAW Committee Concluding Comments

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92.

93. 94.

95.

96. 97. 98. 99. 100.

101. 102.

103. 104. 105. 106. 107.

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Para. 14. The government responded that Article 12(1) which guaranteed equality to all persons included both women and men, but the delegation presenting the Third CEDAW Report stated that discussion on a specific gender-discrimination law would continue. Para. 4, Response to the list of issues and questions with regard to the consideration of the third periodic report, Singapore, CEDAW/ C/SGP/Q/3/Add1. Para. 3.6, CEDAW Initial Report stated that prior to accession, the Singapore constitution and laws already contained principles to promote gender equality; “Equality for Women Move in Malaysia Hailed”, Straits Times, 24 July 2001. Para. 391, CRC/C/133 (2003). See Second Reading Speech, Peng Kee Ho, Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 22 October 2007, available at (assessed 22 November 2007). The High Court in “Farida Begam v PP” [2001] SGHC 335 noted that an aggravating factor in sentencing was the recognition that maids “have been recognised as a category of persons in need of greater protection”. Singapore Parliament Reports 75, 27 August 2007 (Abuse of Foreign Maids: Standards of Employment and Welfare), col. 772–73. Singapore Parliament Reports 75, 27 August 2007 (Abuse of Foreign Maids: Standards of Employment and Welfare), col. 772–86. Singapore Parliament Reports 70, 18 August 1999 (ILO Convention on Equal Remuneration and Minimum Age), cols. 2130–35. Para. 30, CEDAW/C/SGP/CO/3 (10 August 2007), CEDAW Committee Concluding Comments. Part III, Written Replies, Singapore Government, List of Issues (CRC/C/Q/SGP/ 1) received by CRC Committee relating to Singapore Initial Report (CRC/C/ 51/Add.8). Ng Eng Hen, Singapore Parliament Reports 83, 21 May 2008, Equal Remuneration for Men and Women. Singapore is not party to the UN International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families, adopted by the General Assembly, 45th Session, 18 December 1990 (A/RES/45/158). The implementation of this treaty is monitored by the Committee on Migrant Workers. SPR 72, 25 August 2000, Widening Inequalities in Society, col. 721. Hawazi Daipi, SPR 72, 25 August 2000, Widening Inequalities in Society, col. 756. Hawazi Daipi, SPR 72, 25 August 2000, Widening Inequalities in Society, col. 759. Para. 401, CRC/C/133 (2003). Para. 395, CRC/C/133 (2003).

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108. Para. 3, Written Replies, Singapore Government, List of Issues (CRC/C/Q/SGP/ 1) received by CRC Committee relating to Singapore Initial Report (CRC/C/ 51/Add.8). 109. Para. 5, Response to the list of issues and questions with regard to the consideration of the third periodic report. Singapore, CEDAW/C/SGP/Q/3/Add1. 110. Para. 1g, Written Replies, Singapore Government, List of Issues (CRC/C/Q/ SGP/1) received by CRC Committee relating to Singapore Initial Report (CRC/ C/51/Add.8). 111. “1,341 Destitute persons in govt homes”, Straits Times, 8 March 1994, p. 25. 112. U.S. Country Report (1999) online: U.S. State Department, . 113. These reports may be found on the website of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights at . Other useful websites are: and the University of Minnesota Human Rights Library, . 114. CEDAW General Recommendation No. 23 (16th Session, 1997), para. 16. 115. Para. 3, Instrument of Accession, 2 October 1995. 116. The idea of joint parental responsibility embodied in Section 46(1) Women’s Charter (Cap 353) is endorsed by Article 18 CRC: CX v CY (minor: custody and access) SGCA 37 (2005); 3 SLR 690 (2005): 700, para. 26. 117. S. Jayakumar, Singapore Parliament Reports 69, 30 June 1998, col. 539 (Accession to Human Rights Treaties). 118. Derrick A. Paulo, “Conventional Wisdom: Why has Singapore not Signed UN’s Anti-racial Discrimination Treaty, CERD?” TODAY Online, 20 April 2004, pp. 1, 3. 119. The relevant minister acknowledged that the reservations were meant to accommodate the Administration of Muslim Law Act (Cap 3) whose provisions are “not strictly consistent with the full gender parity definition under CEDAW”, given that Islam allows polygamy and sets out different marital obligations for men and women. Singapore Parliament Reports 77, 16 March 2004, col. 1935. 120. Singapore Parliament Reports 72, 9 October 2000 (Compulsory Education Bill), col. 838ff. 121. CRC/C/133 (2003), para. 387. 122. “Disturbing Reasons for Not Extending Benefits to Women”, Straits Times, 27 November 1993, p. 35. 123. Para. 23, CEDAW/C/SR.514 (7 September 2001), Summary Record, 514th Meeting, CEDAW Committee. 124. Singapore Parliament Reports 83, 22 May 2007 (CEDAW). 125. “No to Removal of Quota on Female Medical Students”, Straits Times, 26 August 1994.

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126. Singapore Parliament Reports 75, 25 November 2002 (CEDAW, Compliance with Article 10). 127. CEDAW/C/SGP/CO/3 (10 August 2007), CEDAW Committee Concluding Comments, para. 8. 128. Singapore Parliament Reports 83, 22 May 2007 (CEDAW). 129. George Yong-Boon Yeo, Singapore Parliament Reports 73, 9 April 2007 (ASEAN Commission on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Women and Children (Establishment), col. 37. 130. Singapore Government Press Release, Media Division, Ministry of Information and the Arts, Minister George Yeo, Colloquium on Human Rights and Human Responsibilities, Hamburg, Germany, 20 November 1998, . 131. Michael Ignatieff, Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999), pp. 73–74. 132. “ ‘Muslims urged to discuss tudung issue: Legal action is not the way to resolve matter,’ says MP Zainul Abidin Rasheed, adding ‘it’s better to have more dialogue’ ”, Straits Times, 28 January 2002 (available on Lexis, accessed 22 May 2002). For a discussion of the tudung controversy, see Thio Li-ann, “Recent Constitutional Developments: Of Shadows and Whips, Race, Rifts and Rights, Terror and Tudungs, Women and Wrongs”, Singapore Journal of Legal Studies 328 (2002): 355–69.

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The Greening of the Global City

Section

6

MODIFICATION OF THE ENVIRONMENT

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THE GREENING OF THE GLOBAL CITY GEH MIN

To achieve First World standards in a Third World region we set out to transform Singapore into a tropical garden city. — Lee Kuan Yew, 20001

THE GREEN CITY

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he two characteristics that define modern Singapore, both at home and abroad, are its economic success and its clean and green image. Few would be surprised to hear that the policies for both originated from one man — Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s first Prime Minister. They might, however, be surprised to find exactly how inextricably linked they were, both in their conception and implementation. In Minister Mentor (MM) Lee’s own words, “After independence, I searched for some dramatic way to distinguish ourselves from other Third World countries. I settled for a clean and green Singapore”, and on pronouncing the success of this policy, MM Lee opines that “No other project has brought richer rewards to the region … it was good for morale, for tourists and for investors”, and “Greening is the most cost-effective project I have launched.”2 No one would quarrel with the effectiveness of these policies or that their successful implementation has transformed Singapore into a garden city that has brought the benefits so accurately predicted by MM Lee. But even successful policies invite criticism and it would be both interesting and instructive to examine some of the pertinent ones. In the 1989 volume of Management of Success, Stephen Yeh concluded that the Singapore Government’s vision of a garden 387

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city will be one where “desirable economic and socio-cultural characteristics for individuals and society will [be] integrated with the highest possible environmental quality of the city”.3 This chapter will assess the balance between national economic priorities and nature conservation from the early 1990s by examining the evolving relationship between the state and the green movement in Singapore. A LACK OF DIVERSITY Despite the successful transformation of Singapore into a garden city in a remarkably short time, some sections of society have voiced dissatisfaction with, not so much the greening itself, but the manner in which it was achieved. Criticisms have been made on the regimented uniformity of the roadside trees, the monotony of manicured grass verges, the sterility of public parks, the proliferation of golf courses (the ultimate in manicured green), and above all, the loss of nature areas, agricultural land, and other green, open spaces. The underlying theme appeared to be a sense of marginalization or even alienation of the average Singaporean in this whole exercise. “Instant greening”, while softening the harshness of the burgeoning built landscape and providing shade for the proliferating network of roads was hardly interactive or engaging to the general public, some of whom had been displaced from a more rural and rapidly disappearing Singapore. It began to appear to some that the garden city was a mere backdrop for the urban landscape; a highly engineered and managed showcase for good government superimposed on Singaporeans who had no role other than as passive spectators and recipients. This negative perception was exacerbated by the fines imposed on those caught defacing or damaging the plants, shrubs and trees planted by the Singapore state. The well-publicized case of a doctor caught and fined for stealing a tree planted on a roadside verge, while gaining no sympathy for the perpetrator, served to underline the message that the state stood between citizens and their environment. The garden city might be a physical success but it still needed to win the hearts of the populace. Policy-makers were not slow to realize the importance of engaging Singaporeans in the greening effort. Indeed as stated by MM Lee himself, this was one of the anticipated results of the policy. Having achieved the physical transformation in the shortest time possible they set out to generate community support for their efforts. Tree planting and other clean and green campaigns had been initiated earlier but these efforts tended to be exhortation without consultation. This, coupled with the fines for vandalizing greenery, created a certain cynicism in

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the public mind regarding government campaigns. Some of the earlier and less sensitive government campaigns seemed to have increased mental resistance rather than win hearts. Far more successful were the concerted efforts directed at increasing the number, variety, and quality of public parks. This was a constant challenge for the Parks and Recreation Department (PRD), later the National Parks Board (NParks Board), as government agencies competed keenly for all available land, and parks were not a high priority. Ingenious schemes such as the establishment of “park connectors” — landscaped green corridors developed on drainage and road reserve land — serve to optimize parks and open spaces while side-stepping the problem of setting aside more land. Another successful strategy for developing greater ownership was the Adopt-A-Park scheme involving schools, institutions and organizations. The Singapore Botanic Gardens was recently credited as the most popular venue in Singapore for both tourists and locals and this success must have been instrumental in the decision to set aside another 101 hectares of land for a second Botanic Gardens to be sited on valuable real estate in the Marina Bay area. While a garden city that raised the morale of the people and gave them pride in their surroundings was a challenge, this was achieved by introducing a more participatory and even consultative form of greening. It is interesting to note, however, that while Singaporeans are clearly proud of their garden city, this has not noticeably resulted in citizens taking an active role in cleaning and greening. Despite many efforts both by the government itself and by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) like the Singapore Environment Council (SEC),4 Singaporeans still prefer “to leave it to the government”. The government could be seen here as a victim of its own success. Nevertheless a far greater challenge was posed by local nature lovers and conservationists. Their objections were not so much about the lack of diversity as the loss of biodiversity. The fundamental problem to them was not the bureaucratic way the greening was achieved, but that the government had the wrong greening agenda. The garden city was criticized as being sterile, artificial, and superficial. Initially led by nature lovers and conservationists whom the government regarded as a narrow interest group, their voices grew in strength and gained increasing public support as more and more nature areas and even nature reserves succumbed to the bulldozer. While accepting that land was urgently needed for housing, roads, and industry, these nature lovers and conservationists felt that greater efforts could have been made to conserve nature as well. Laws protecting biodiversity and ecosystems were inadequate, and there seemed a certain irony to the heavy penalties imposed on the public for damaging

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bits of introduced greenery when government agencies were destroying great swathes of natural greenery to make way for urbanization or industry. Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) were not mandatory in Singapore despite it being a signatory of both the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) treaties on biodiversity conservation. The only remaining nature reserves, Bukit Timah Nature Reserve (BTNR) and the central catchment area, previously a continuous stretch of Singapore’s only remaining primary and mature secondary forest, was bisected by an expressway without any EIA or apparent attempt at finding a less damaging solution to prolonged travel time. There was a sense that Singapore was paying an excessively high price for narrowly focused targets and short-term, cost-cutting measures set by overzealous bureaucrats. But the government’s consistently held standpoint was that land was in scarce supply and only it had a sufficiently broad overview of often conflicting demands to allocate land-use strategically and efficiently for the overall good of Singapore. In the words of then CEO of NParks, Tan Wee Kiat, “Land-use prioritization is, from first to last, the main point of contention in balancing nature, landscape and the city … But recreational space has traditionally been accorded lower priority than revenue generating ones. This is the crux of the problem for the parks personnel.”5 Clearly, nature was accorded an even lower priority ranking. As noted by law academic Alan Tan, “Due to Singapore’s acute shortage of land, conservation of huge swathes of biodiversity-rich areas beyond the existing nature areas has been viewed to be impractical. Priority is accorded instead to man-made greening of highways, streets and residential areas.”6 Despite this, the government, especially NParks personnel, did strive to preserve nature areas where possible and a target of five per cent of Singapore’s total land area set aside for nature. (This target has yet to be achieved). By the late 1980s and early 1990s, certain milestones in nature conservation had been put in place. Sungei Buloh, an abandoned prawn and fish-farming site, which had become a rich feeding ground for migratory and local birds, was declared a “nature park” in 1989, following a proposal by the Malayan Nature Society (MNS) now Nature Society (Singapore) (NSS) for its conservation. However, gazetting Sungei Buloh as a reserve with legal protection did not occur till 2002. Nature conservation was also given more recognition in the National Parks Act (1990) which gave greater commitment and protection for national parks and reserves. The nation’s first Singapore Green Plan (SGP) was published in 1992 with the incorporation of twenty-three listed nature areas, based on NSS Master Plan of 1990.7

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While these were definitely positive moves towards conserving Singapore’s natural heritage, its ecosystems and biodiversity still occupy a tenuous foothold. Mandatory EIAs are still not introduced and almost all the twenty-three listed nature areas have no clear boundaries or legal protection. Even those gazetted areas such as BTNR and the central catchment were subjected to constant decimation and degradation, leading to the popular conclusion that the government had a flexible interpretation of the legislation for nature protection. Sceptics wondered at the time whether many of these commitments were a mere paper exercise aimed at boosting Singapore’s image at the then forthcoming Rio Summit in 1992. Subsequent events were to show that even if Rio had given added impetus to their decision, the government was making a genuine attempt at a more consultative approach to policy-making. And though nature was still accorded a low pecking order and insufficient legal protection, many policy makers were prepared to listen and keep an open mind. The issue here, as we shall see, was not so much one of diversity, but of identity. A PROBLEM WITH IDENTITY Singapore’s political leaders have frequently voiced the sentiment that despite not being endowed with rich natural resources, Singapore could and would survive and thrive on a combination of sheer grit and hard work. Not surprisingly therefore, nature’s whim of not blessing us with luscious grass was overcome with the same determination. MM Lee himself requested horticulturalists and soil experts from Australia and New Zealand to come to Singapore in 1978, study conditions here, and make their recommendations. Strenuously applied, these soon transformed our “bare patches” and “tired-looking yellow grass” to a “carpeted green” that was in keeping with our First World image, thus leaving Lee understandably gratified when complimented on this “verdure” by visiting dignitaries.8 Since almost all First World countries are in the temperate zone, and most if not all, had already subjugated nature into agriculture, it is not surprising that the first templates for Singapore’s greening should be based on luscious green grass, rather than lush tropical forests. It has never, however, been Singapore’s practice to repeat successful formulae without constant review and refinement. Greater confidence and a desire for a distinctive national identity aided by the advice of naturalists, both local and foreign, and perhaps the increasingly apparent cost of working against rather than with nature, resulted in the gradual modification of our greening. Rather than striving to be a temperate lookalike, we emphasized the tropical nature of our landscapes, and where as exotica

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imported from all over the globe was prized, there is now a growing awareness that local biodiversity is what makes us unique. A more perplexing problem than a nascent nation’s shedding of its colonial values and the metamorphosis into its true identity was the question of what this national identity might be. Policy-makers quite clearly view Singapore as a city-state, a man-made construct in which urban planners have left no space unaccounted for. As local scholars have noted, Singapore is a fully conquered island in the imaginary, where every foot of space has been allocated a particular use, such that no space has been left to chance, and even nature has had to seek the permission of urban planners to survive.9 It was not oversight or coincidence that government planning agencies were dominated by town planners, architects and engineers. Their job was not to conserve, but to create a Singapore based on the blueprint set up by her visionary chief architect and first prime minister. This is evident from a speech by then Permanent Secretary for Ministry of Environment Tan Gee Pow: “Singapore as a Garden City represents a unique case of a created environment with a balance in nature, landscape and the city. It is unabashedly a city built by man and which is at his disposal and for his pleasure and convenience.”10 Rather than regret our loss of hinterland, our founding fathers set out to prove that Singapore could survive without it and, instead, draw its sustenance from the region and the world. One of the smallest and most densely populated nations in the world, Singapore was acutely aware of the challenge of space constraints and while wresting more land from the sea by land reclamation (increasing its land area by about 10 per cent) and juggling valuable land for necessary installations such as airports, sewage treatment plans, incinerators and water catchment, it is hardly surprising that city planners should grudge land for nature. This is expressed by then NParks CEO Tan who notes that “There is no room for the city to expand its boundaries. The hinterland of Singapore is its inner land and this comprises the central nature reserve that also serves as water catchment. It is tempting to view these 2,800 hectares of nature reserves as a land bank.”11 Many policy-makers and central planners did obviously regard nature areas as spare land to be utilized as the population grew. Even gazetted nature reserves with legal protection were subjected to the practice of multiple use and in addition to serving as a reservoir and water catchment area, the central core of “protected” nature became riddled with roads, an expressway, water storage facilities and pipelines, military installations, telecoms relay stations, and even golf courses. The fact that Singapore has 2,500 hectares of developed

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park space and 2,300 hectares of “ubiquitous amenity green” such as greenery beside (lining) roads and canals compared with 2,800 hectares of “protected” reserve has been cited proudly by policy-makers as proof of their commitment to a green city. Certainly these figures are impressive when compared to other cities, but for those who feel that Singapore should be more than a city they are hardly reassuring. This gap between the city-state’s green city image and reality did not seem to concern policy-makers unduly in the first few decades after independence. This was largely because green advocates were often viewed as representatives of a small sector of anti-progressive conservationists and those nostalgic for a more rural past; a group that could be expected to decrease as Singapore became progressively more urbanized and affluent. Interestingly however, the opposite trend began to emerge and by the new millennium this group could not be dismissed as a vocal minority, but viewed as an apparently growing majority. What were the possible factors for this? Growing international support for nature and biodiversity conservation, especially after the 1992 Rio Summit; the destruction and degradation of nature areas both in Singapore and abroad leading to enhancement of its rarity value; a better informed, affluent and educated public; continued efforts by the green lobby; a supportive media; all these have been cited as contributory factors. After the Earth Summit and following the first SGP, NSS protested the proposed development of two nature areas listed in the Green Plan. The first of these, Senoko, was a mix of mangrove, former prawn ponds and grassland situated at the estuary of the Sungei Sembawang and rich in birdlife. Despite the fact that it was earmarked by planners for public housing, 25,000 signatures were collected in a petition calling for its retention as a nature area. The second was a proposal for a 36-hole golf course in a 142-hectare forested site in Lower Peirce Reservoir, part of the Central Catchment and therefore part of a gazetted nature reserve. Over 20,000 signatures were collected, opposing the construction of the golf course, together with an EIA compiled by NSS were submitted. Petitions are not a favoured or even approved mode of negotiation by government policy-makers as they have frequently reiterated. No constructive dialogue arose as a result of these two petitions. While the construction of Sembawang New Town went ahead, the golf course was put on hold, and no one outside the government was much the wiser as to what effect public opinion had on these decisions. A more reasoned and clearer indicator of public opinion was an independent survey conducted by the SEC in 2001.12 This showed a remarkably high level

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of commitment to nature conservation for such an urban population. Over 85 per cent of all respondents felt it was as important to conserve nature reserves and parks regardless of their visitorship. When asked if Singapore should allocate more or less land in future to nature reserves, 52 per cent wanted the current number maintained, 40 per cent wanted an increase and only 3 per cent felt that less land should be allocated for nature in the future. What was particularly notable was that the level of support was significantly greater amongst the younger and the more educated sectors of the respondents. Government agencies in the meantime also took the initiative to garner and collate their own feedback. The Urban Redevelopment Authority’s (URA) Concept Plan Review on Land Allocation, which involved a genuine effort at extensive consultation and dialogue with multiple stakeholders, revealed that members of the public also showed an overwhelming support for greening. Amongst its proposals were the better protection, restoration, and an increase in the number of nature areas and reserves, more provision and variety of public parks and (the only greening that received a thumbs down) a cap on golf courses even if the population increased. A simultaneous Concept Plan Review involving a different group of stakeholders came up with remarkably similar views and recommendations on nature conservation, greening and golf courses.13 Essentially, it noted that nature areas and parks were vital to the identity of Singapore as a garden city and a tropical city. It also highlighted that the country’s natural heritage contributed to national identity and sense of place, offering Singaporeans a sense of permanence and pride in a fast-changing world. A similar picture emerged in an online internet survey by a different government agency — the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources (MEWR) — in 2002 for their review of the Singapore Green Plan 2012.14 These indicators of a population which increasingly came to regard Singapore’s own natural heritage as part of its national identity did not escape policy-makers. But they, and even environmental conservationists, were totally taken by surprise at the strength of public opinion which led to the reversal of imminent land reclamation at Tanjong Chek Jawa in 2001. Unlike previous attempts to conserve nature which were spearheaded by NSS, this was a spontaneous mass response involving not just environmental NGOs, but a visibly expanding sector of concerned and vocal public opinion. Aided by the media and information technology, this unstructured, bottomup dynamic made the issue truly politically significant and policy-makers, including two cabinet ministers and the Prime Minister, were sufficiently sensitive and responsive to go down and see for themselves what the cause of the excitement

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was. The subsequent surprise announcement to reverse land reclamation by the Minister for National Development (MND) after consultation with his cabinet colleagues is an event that has gained iconic status in the annals of civil activism in Singapore. What is interesting is that the issue involved not just nature conservation alone, but nature pitted against land reclamation — a key thrust in Singapore’s land use policy. Furthermore, political leaders have given as much, if not, more public mention to it than civil society itself. Unlike Sungei Buloh’s conservation, Chek Jawa actually required the expensive last minute reversal of an important land-use policy indicating that Singapore leaders were well aware that there was much more at stake here than nature conservation alone. It was the merging of our natural heritage and national identity that made the difference. Despite policy-makers according greater priority to nature as part of Singapore’s greening effort in the last decade, particularly after Chek Jawa, a large piece of the big picture was apparently still missing. Singapore is an island with an extensive coastline, (drastically altered by land reclamation) with approximately sixty smaller offshore islands and marine areas that are, or were, as rich in biodiversity as their mainland equivalent, the tropical rainforest. Yet no laws exist that specifically protect Singapore’s marine life in contrast to the detailed laws protecting her terrestrial green, especially her trees. There are also no gazetted marine protected areas despite constant calls for these by NSS and the increasing number of blue NGOs that have sprung up in recent years.15 This neglect is in striking contrast to the myriad of government agencies that are responsible for the protection and development of the commercial and economic aspects of Singapore’s seas. The absence of marine conservation does not reflect an oversight or neglect of her island identity on the part of policy-makers but rather, a strong prioritization of its economic value in terms of shipping, port facilities and space for land reclamation, to the effective exclusion of her marine biodiversity. “Keep nature areas for as long as possible” is the ambiguous phrase much favoured by policy-makers when stating their commitment (or relative lack of it) to the conservation of nature areas. It also reflects the reluctance of a government proud of keeping its word to make promises it feels unable to fulfil in the long term. Clearly, while the public is consulted earlier and more frequently, the Singapore Government is still very much the decision-maker: it decides and sets the conditions under which it wishes to consult members of the public, and having received their views, it reserves the right to reach its own conclusions. Even Chek Jawa, the icon of public consultation, was no exception to this rule.

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A QUESTION OF SUSTAINABILITY Not only did Singapore’s founding fathers think beyond short-term survival to conceive a long-term vision, they also worked hard against huge odds to make it a reality. Singapore today represents the successful fruition of this vision. This is all the more remarkable because although its vision was primarily economic and entirely pragmatic, perhaps no other country in the Third World has had such a deliberate policy of greening and cleaning from the start. Initially conceived largely as an investment strategy, it was modified and expanded to strengthen national identity and ownership, and thereby moved beyond mere economic goals to a greater emotional investment by its population. But while the Singapore brand of greening has won many accolades and benefits for the nation and encouraged her present leaders to expand on the garden city formula, many now wonder how sustainable it will be. Recognizing that sustainability cannot be achieved by a top-down approach alone, but must have strong foundations within the Singapore population, the government has modified its style of greening and perhaps even its substance by becoming more consultative and giving greater recognition to nature as part of Singapore’s national identity. This has allowed civil society to grow and expand its reach, notably in the last decade, although it is apparent that this growth is in inverse relation to the government’s perceived efficiencies. Keeping Singapore clean is still considered by most to be the government’s responsibility and true grassroots initiatives have been sparse in these areas. Marine conservation, on the other hand, has been perceived as being neglected by the government and has generated much passionate support from the public. The dilemma for policy-makers is to decide when, where and by how much they are prepared to step back if they wish for a robust civil society. The whole governmental machinery, constructed to maximize profits and micro-manage processes, may try (now that nature has gained value both locally and internationally) to wring further economic and social profits. Or as Koolhaas opines rather ominously, it seems as if nature may be the next project of development.16 Future threats may also come from a public who see nature as a recreational resource alone. The dual needs of economic development and nature-based recreational activities are putting enormous pressure on our natural heritage. One such pressure is demand of competing land use. On one hand, nature reserves are Singapore’s natural heritage and should thus be protected, while on the other, the public feels that it should not be denied access to them. The danger posed by a government and a populace who both view nature through a short-term utilitarian lens should not be underestimated.

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Furthermore, rapidly shifting global environmental paradigms, loss and degradation of natural ecosystems, diminishing natural resources, rapid urbanization and population growth and the threat of global warming have all undercut the advantages Singapore had in the past. Singapore’s ideology of pragmatism has meant that the economic bottom-line was always given priority and while greening was considered a useful adjunct. There was never any attempt at greening for its own sake. It was always subjugated under the economic yoke. Now that the environmental bottom-line has gained significance and even ascendancy, Singapore will have to rethink it entire strategy for survival and sustainability. While Singapore has consistently performed well on economic rankings and performance indicators, the reverse has been true with environmental rankings such as the Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI) commissioned by the World Economic Forum, and World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) ecological footprint. Some of the reasons are inevitable — such as its small size, urbanization and lack of resources. But many have been further exacerbated by the government’s aggressive and single-minded pursuit of economic goals. Singapore has developed a culture of high consumption and demand, rather than a culture of conservation and stewardship. With the spectre of land scarcity ever looming, the island is often seen as real estate to be developed in successive waves, with prices pushed up accordingly. Without legislation to enforce ecological stewardship, or popular ethic that regards land as a biotic resource, nature is nothing more than a resource for our insatiable needs. CONCLUSION The government also sees Singapore’s economic future in a rapidly expanding population fed by immigration and tourism. This puts even more of a burden on the land and resources and, as rightly noted by NSS Chairman of Conservation Ho Hua Chew, everything will be scarce if subjected to excessive or unrealistic demands.17 Recognizing the lack of a hinterland, the government has chosen instead to depend almost completely on the region and wider world for all resources except for water, which it rightly regards as a strategic resource for sustainability. Singapore’s energy however, is still entirely fossil fuel-based and import-dependent. Furthermore, as a manufacturing, transportation and petrochemical hub, her economy is inextricably linked to fossil fuels. She has not attempted till very recently to look at renewable energy. Above all, while playing an active and even prominent role regionally and internationally on economic and trade issues, Singapore has not done so on

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environmental matters till very recently. Singapore was, for example, the ninth of ten ASEAN member countries to ratify the Kyoto Protocol although it is not on the list of Annex I countries. The country’s greening and environmental awareness for the first four decades has been distinctly local in stark contrast to its global economy. Singapore, to be sustainable, will have to modify or exchange its high maintenance man-made greening and huge ecological footprint for a more sustainable model of environmental management. Given its vulnerabilities and indeed, interdependency, on the global environment, Singapore will also have to persuade its neighbours and the rest of the world to do likewise. But to be credible, it cannot depend on being exempted from doing its share. While handicapped by the ecological realities of being a city-state, Singapore cannot be perceived by the world as an environmental free-rider. Singapore, upon independence, has not merely survived, but thrived on challenge. Its economic miracle was achieved by a combination of visionary leadership and effective government. These assets are still much in evidence and it is hoped that they will now be brought to bear on a completely different and even more formidable set of challenges. As United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Executive Director Achim Steiner noted: “It is in cities that climate and sustainability solutions for more than half of humanity will be found.” Singapore’s present leadership has now brought global environmental challenges well into their field of vision without taking their focus off economic priorities. The city-state’s future sustainability as a global city will depend on its success in plotting an environmental trajectory that will converge with its economic trajectory, and in convincing both citizens and the rest of the world to travel this route. In the future “Greening the Global City” will have a different meaning.

NOTES 1. Lee Kuan Yew, From Third World to First: The Singapore Story (1965–2000) (Singapore, Times Publishing, 2000), p. 201. 2. Lee Kuan Yew, From Third World to First, pp. 199–205. 3. Stephen H.K. Yeh, “The Idea of the Garden City”, in Management of Success: The Moulding of Modern Singapore, edited by Kernial Singh Sandhu and Paul Wheatley (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1989). 4. SEC is sometimes referred to as a government-initiated NGO (or GINGO), rather than a true NGO. 5. Quoted from Ooi Geok Ling, ed., Model Cities: Urban Best Practices (Singapore: Urban Redevelopment Authority and Institute of Policy Studies, 2000), p. 211.

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6. Alan Tan, “Preliminary Assessment of Singapore’s Environmental Law”, APCEL Report: Singapore, (accessed 1 February 2008). 7. Ministry of the Environment, The Singapore Green Plan: Towards a Model Green City (Singapore: SNP Publishers, 1992). 8. Lee, From Third World to First, pp. 202–3. 9. Chua Beng Huat, Political Legitimacy and Housing: Stakeholding in Singapore (London and New York: Routledge, 1997). 10. Quoted from Ooi, Model Cities, p. 215. 11. Quoted from Ooi, Model Cities, p. 211. 12. Singapore Environmental Council (SEC), Independent Survey of Environmental Attitudes Amongst Singaporeans (Singapore: SEC, 2001). 13. Concept Plan Review Focus Consultation Group, Identity vs. Intensive Use of Land (Singapore: Urban Redevelopment Authority, 22 December 2000). 14. Ministry of Environment and Water Resources, “3-Yearly Review of the Singapore Green Plan”, (Singapore: Ministry of Environment and Water Resources, 2006). 15. Nature Society (Singapore), “Feedback on the Singapore Green Plan 2012”, (accessed 1 February 2008). 16. Rem Koolhaas, “Singapore Songlines: Portrait of a Potemkin Metropolis … or Thirty Years of Tabula Rasa”, in S, M, L, XL, edited by Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau (New York: Monacelli Press, 1995). 17. Ho Hua Chew, “The Place of Nature in Singapore”, in Our Place in Time: Exploring Heritage and Memory in Singapore, edited by Kwok Kian Woon, Kwa Chong Guan, Lily Kong, and Brenda Yeoh (Singapore: Singapore Heritage Society, 1999).

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RECOVERING FROM THE “PROMETHEAN HANGOVER”? Critical Reflections on the Remaking of Singapore as a Global City POW CHOON-PIEW

Our most important task at the present moment is to build castles in the air. — Lewis Mumford1 After its monumental achievement, Singapore now suffers a Promethean hangover. A sense of anticlimax is palpable. The “finished” Barthian state is grasping for new themes, new metaphors, new signs to superimpose on its luxurious substance. — Rem Koolhaas2

THE GLOBAL CITY RACE

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n the 2005 National Day Rally, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong delivered his national day speech at the University Cultural Centre against a stage backdrop that depicted a panoramic view of the future skyline of the new downtown at Marina Bay. Not coincidentally, the 2007 National Day Parade was staged on a giant floating platform in the bay area, set against the physical background of the emerging Marina Bay mega development. Apparently, the decision for selecting Marina Bay as the thematic 400

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backdrop for both national events was deliberate and even symbolically significant as the new downtown represents, in the words of the Prime Minister, the “sparkling jewel” and “signature image of Singapore” in the global era. Singapore, however, is not alone in such a fervent drive to project the global prominence of its new downtown on the world stage. Urban places in recent decades have experienced dramatic transformations as they adjust to new economic, social, and political imperatives and challenges brought about by globalization. More specifically, the intensification of global economic competition between cities, countries, and regions has engendered a new “place war” pitting different localities in a neck-to-neck competition to capture increasingly footloose capital and global talent.3 While successful global cities have often been characterized as premium “command and control nodes” in the global economy with a high concentration of advanced producer services, cities with global aspirations and ambitions are also reimaging themselves with attractive skylines and spectacular urban landscape in what Robinson calls “city-visioning” — a series of high profile developmental projects and initiatives aimed at envisaging the future of the city in an effort to boost its world city ranking and global status.4 Kong, for example, notes in her study on three aspiring Asian cities — Shanghai, Singapore, and Taipei — that global cities do not just derive their status only on the basis that they are networked economic nodes, but also through the production of new urban prestige projects and cultural icons such as national museums, libraries, art districts, and grand theatres, as well as the staging of hallmark events — all of which have now become the standard toolkits for urban planners and city officials throughout the world.5 Indeed, every “global city wannabe” from Dubai to Shanghai is in competition with one another to construct ever larger and more grandiose urban development projects in order to lay claim to their purported global status.6 Notable examples in Asia include Kuala Lumpur’s Putrajaya and the Multimedia Super Corridor, Beijing’s Zhongguancun Science and Technology Park, Vietnam’s Saigon South new city centre development in Ho Chi Minh, Tokyo’s Rainbow town, Yokohama’s Minato Mirai 21 project and Shanghai’s Pudong New Area.7 While these superlative-laden mega projects and the accompanying urban boosterism have generated much excitement and media buzz, they are also often mired by local conflicts and contention, with opposing camps of supporters and detractors debating the social benefits and economic costs accrued from these expensive undertakings. This chapter critically examines the “global visioning” of Singapore’s contemporary urban landscape by first reviewing the planning ideologies and

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rationale underpinning Singapore’s urban development in the past decades. This will be followed by an examination of the spatial reimaging and rebranding strategies of Singapore and the resultant cityscape. Focusing on the new downtown at Marina Bay, the chapter argues that the new downtown manifests an “exhibitionary complex” that is aimed at projecting outwards the city-state’s global ambition while at the same time performing the important task of cultivating a “globally savvy” and competitive citizenry that is congruent with the rhetoric and pragmatics of globalization articulated by the Singapore state.8 The urban landscape, in this sense, is not just an inert backdrop or spatial context where economic and social activities unfold, but the medium through which urban processes and social life are themselves being constituted and even contested as local residents negotiate and interpret the dominant meanings encoded in these urban landscapes in often divergent ways. To the extent that Singapore has often been held up as an exceptional (and even “extraordinary”) urban success story that extols the virtues of rational and pragmatic planning, this chapter takes a deliberate stance to steer away from providing yet another celebratory account. Rather, the aim of this chapter is to reflect critically on the relative “success” of Singapore’s contemporary urban planning terrain by highlighting some of the challenges and pitfalls of wholly embracing the “mobilizing myth of becoming a global city”.9 EMBRACING THE BRAVE NEW WORLD OF URBAN ENTREPRENEURIALISM The role of the Singapore state in urban planning has been well documented.10 Virtually every sphere of the Singapore society bears the imprint of state policies with planning of the entire city-state implemented and enforced assiduously according to the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s (URA) Concept Plans, the overall blueprint for guiding urban development in Singapore. In the First Concept Plan in 1971, the development of physical infrastructure to facilitate economic growth clearly ranked high on the planning agenda with the building of a new international airport at Changi, improvement in land transport through a network of expressways and the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT), as well as urban “renewal” to make way for the construction of a new CBD and the “revitalization” of the city core to develop it into an international financial, commercial, and tourist centre. In its zeal to modernize the country, the state undertook massive destruction and eradication of the traditional inner city neighbourhoods, slums, and squatters, leading critics

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to label the city-state’s urban development as being built on a clean slate or a tabula rasa. As William Lim remarks: “From the decimated traditional city and its memories rose a new modernist city with numerous high-rise buildings, and an image reminiscent of the New York skyline.”11 By the late 1980s and early 1990s, with the physical infrastructure mostly in place, subsequent concept plans in 1991 and 2001 began to focus on making Singapore a more liveable, enjoyable, and distinctive city to “live, work and play”. More recently, the government also embarks on various campaigns to capitalize on the “softer” cultural allure of the city-state by emphasizing the creative arts, urban heritage, and aesthetics in order to transform Singapore into a “Renaissance City” and a “Global City for the Arts”.12 To be sure, these initiatives are not aimed at purely developing the “arts for art’s sake”, but are ultimately commercially driven responses to the intensification of global competition for tourism revenues. In tandem with this heightening of intercity competition, the priorities of Singapore’s urban planning agencies such as the URA have also shifted from just managing urban growth and planning for basic infrastructural development to actively promoting and even selling the city as an attractive and vibrant global city. As Minister for National Development Mah Bow Tan aptly sums up the intensifying competition: “Cities around the world are experiencing a new burst of energy, be they New York, London, Dubai from further afield, or Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Shanghai or Hong Kong nearer home … We are all fighting for the same global pool of investors, talent and jobs.”13 In an article in the Straits Times entitled: “URA’s new role: ‘Selling Singapore to the world’ ”, URA is reported to have allegedly shed its traditional image as a purely regulatory body and “broken out of its mould” to promote Singapore to the world.14 It was further detailed that URA’s entrepreneurial skills in marketing and selling the city-state have garnered some S$9 billion worth of overseas investment from the Marina Bay megadevelopment alone. In the words of URA Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Cheong Koon Hean: “In the old days, we just set regulations for people to react (but) there’s global competition among cities and we need to be on the radar screen.”15 Unmistakably, the remark by the URA’s CEO bears the signature hallmark of what some scholars have described as the shift in governance towards “urban entrepreneurialism” when planners gradually turn from just regulating urban growth to an obsession with encouraging growth “by any and every possible means”.16 Specifically, it has been argued that globalization and urban restructuring have resulted in the formation of a new entrepreneurialism where city officials

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now focus on the speculative deployment of local resources in order to attract (or “leverage”) private investments and stimulate local economic regeneration in cities.17 In the context of Singapore, what is noteworthy is that state entrepreneurship has largely dominated the urban planning scene with major planning decisions often undertaken and influenced by political elites.18 While the novelty and efficacy of such entrepreneurial stance are widely disputed, it is evident that cities all over the world are now increasingly pursuing place-marketing strategies and policies that are aimed at enhancing local economic conditions through the construction and repackaging of urban places, as well as the boosting of city images. With the rise of the entrepreneurial city, urban spaces are now being reimaged and “imagineered” (to borrow the term from Walt Disney Studios) and transformed into conspicuous landscapes of hyperconsumerism, centred on extravagant commodity displays, seductive urban spectacles, and symbolic consumption. In this new logic of urban entrepreneurialism, Singapore’s urban landscape has been undergoing major makeovers as the state attempts to overwrite the country’s sterile and staid image by rebranding it as Asia’s new “capital of fun and creativity”. Major initiatives include the staging of international sporting events such as the Formula One Grand Prix from 2008 and the inaugural Youth Olympic Games in 2010. Other plans are underway to rejuvenate the Orchard Road shopping district to the tune of S$1.6 billion as “one of the world’s greatest shopping streets”. A new National Arts Gallery and Sports Hub are also currently being planned and built, alongside scores of luxurious waterfront residential enclaves such as the Sentosa Cove, the first full-scale gated community in the country. Even the usually monotonous-looking Housing and Development Board (HDB) housing estates are now given a new “spunky” look with the introduction of design-and-built flats constructed by private developers. Indisputably, the most prestigious and high profile development to date is the new downtown at Marina Bay, the ultimate manifestation and fulfilment of Singapore’s ambition to join the superleague of premium “world-class” global cities.

BUILDING THE NEW DOWNTOWN AND THE ART OF BEING GLOBAL To remake the economy and attract talent, we’ve also got to remake our city. This has to be a city which is full of life and energy and excitement, a place where people want to live, work and play, where they are stimulated to be active, creative and to enjoy life … — Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, 2005 National Day Rally Speech

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Conceived over thirty years ago, the new downtown at Marina Bay is hailed as the centrepiece of Singapore’s effort to transform itself into a vibrant, global city for the twenty-first century. Designed as a self-contained city-within-acity, the 360 hectares of new urban space have been projected to accommodate the global headquarters of leading financial institutions and other advanced producer services, ultraluxurious residences and hotels, as well as entertainment retail complexes. Built almost entirely on reclaimed land, the new downtown is designed to extend Singapore’s existing downtown district and further support the city-state’s continuing growth as a major business and financial hub in Asia.19 Amongst some of the landmark developments in the area are the Marina Bay Sands Integrated Resorts (designed by celebrity architect Moshe Safdie) and iconic cultural infrastructure such as the Esplanade — Theatres on the Bay. In addition, the new downtown will also feature the Marina Barrage — a dam built across the mouth of the Marina Bay channel to turn the bay into a hub for water sports activities complemented by three large waterfront “Gardens by the Bay”.20 An iconic 280-metre “Double Helix” pedestrian bridge will also be constructed to connect the Bayfront area with the convention and hotel hub in Marina Centre. To top it off is the 3.55-hectare Business and Financial Centre (BFC) comprising state-of-art office towers, luxurious hotels, and six-star residential developments such as the Sail@Marina Bay. In a nutshell, the entire design of the new downtown predicated on spectacular landscapes conjuring up imaginaries of global modernity and progressive urban futures bears testament to Singapore’s unencumbered drive and ambition towards achieving premium global city status. Like many business districts in globalizing cities, the new downtown at Marina Bay is a showcase of the city’s economic might and displays what Bennett calls the “exhibitionary complex” of the city.21 As a monumental, built environment adorned with gleaming skyscrapers and prestige projects, the new downtown not only symbolizes urban prestige, but also attests to the “astute” role and power of the state in facilitating and underwriting the development of such grandiose projects. As Cartier points out, the exhibitionary complex is “the state’s public side of the Janus face of power” as it reverses the orientations of the state’s disciplinary apparatus by seeking to render the forces and principles of social order and state power visible to the populace through the deployment of urban spectacles.22 According to this perspective, the exhibitionary complex of the new downtown at Marina Bay thus becomes a space where people could see and be seen in a productive and orderly manner by the state and the intended world audience. Instantiated by the awe-inspiring spectacle of towering skyscrapers and ultraluxurious spaces accentuated by “world-class” designs, the new downtown

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provides formidable “object lessons in power”.23 Through such public/visual display, it is hoped that the local populace will be able to identify with the power of the state and its elite alliances and more importantly be convinced of the necessity of such an expensive undertaking. To this extent, the urban spectacle revolving around the Marina Bay area is not merely “grand spaces” but also an ideal pedagogical site where the state may impart to the people important lessons on nation-building and the need to stay globally competitive. It is thus not surprising that Marina Bay downtown has been featured so prominently in national events both as a way to dramatize the power of the state and also to construct and project symbolically the image of a unified citizenry ready to take on the challenges of globalization. The need to stay globally competitive while promoting nationalist sensibilities thus takes concrete form in the gleaming urban landscape and prominent flagship projects such as the new downtown at Marina Bay.24 If Shenton Way/Raffles Place business district represents the apotheosis of Singapore’s transformation as a modern metropolis in the 1980s, the new Marina Bay downtown is further aimed to herald the city-state’s arrival at the threshold of a new global modernity for the twenty-first century. Since the independence of the city-state, the ruling elites have ceaselessly pursued their vision of modernity as a national developmental project and duly modelled the urban landscape after a modernity inflected by Western/corporate culture. William Lim, for example, laments that amongst the local business communities, developers, and even within the government circles, “mainstream foreign corporate architects were preferred in the endeavour to make Singapore a modernist city in the visual imagery of American capitalism”.25 While this homogeneous mainstream architecture is often pleasing to the eye, it is on the whole conservative in its outlook and culturally and aesthetically unchallenging. In the 1989 volume of Management of Success, Tay Kheng Soon similarly observes that in Singapore’s effort to globalize its economy, the international (“Western”) corporate style of architecture has become the desired motif and was seen to provide up-todate symbols of progress and modernity in the 1980s and 1990s.26 Tay went on to describe how a gigantism in the expression of Shenton Way can be seen in the stacking of building volumes, either horizontally or vertically as gigantic elements in the architectural component. After almost two decades, the volumetric gigantism and “globalized corporate style” still hold sway as the dominant paradigm in the new Marina Bay downtown. Through the ostentatious display of what Tafuri calls the “metaphysics of quantity” (the tallest, the longest, the largest), the physical prominence of the megastructures in the new downtown

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seeks to dramatize and signify the financial prowess and extraordinary achievements of the city-state.27 Yet as Short and Kim remind us, even though urban representations and rebranding often portray the city in a flattering light to attract businesses, “every bright light casts a shadow, the dark side that has to be contained, controlled or ignored”.28 Critics in particular have charged that place-marketing strategies appeal almost exclusively to the young, professional and affluent while marginalizing the old, disabled, and urban poor. “As cities re-evaluate the nature of their relationship between the local and global, they set in motion a simultaneous politics of ‘forgetting’ and ‘remembering’, of ‘inclusion’, ‘exclusion’ and ‘revalorization’ ”.29 Even as urban place-marketing often attempts to mask the social-spatial polarizations and inequalities by mobilizing seductive place images or deploying the “bread and circus” approach to enthral and beguile urban residents, these strategies are by no means accepted without question or internalized by the local population. As the next section will illustrate, spectacular urban landscapes at Marina Bay do not always go unchallenged as their apparently hegemonic meanings and significations can indeed be negotiated and even contested by urban residents. As the following section will demonstrate, the often differentiated and fragmented consumption of place images and meanings serves to illustrate how grassroots interpretations of prestigious flagship projects may actually contrast with the hyperbole of boosterism promoted by the state and place-entrepreneurs. CRITICAL REFLECTIONS: GRASSROOTS RESPONSES AND SYMBOLIC DISCONTENTS One of the earliest public contentions to emerge in association with the new downtown development was over the Esplanade — Theatres on the Bay which opened in 2002. Seated on six hectares of prime waterfront land and built at a cost of over S$600 million, the Esplanade theatres boast of a main concert hall with a seating capacity of 1,600, as well as three smaller theatres and a 2,000-seat Lyric theatre. When the theatre was first unveiled to the public, a flurry of criticism was unleashed over the architectural design and symbolism of the structure which local critics felt do not relate to local cultures and conditions. As Yeoh notes, the locals were quick to rechristen the twin domes of the theatre as “durians”, “soursops”, “porcupines”, or the “gigantic housefly’s eyes”, thereby unsettling and even challenging the meanings and symbolisms conferred by state or corporate powers.30 Chang further notes that local arts practitioners

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had expressed concern that the Esplanade with its megastructures and high rentals would only draw blockbuster events such as foreign pop concerts and Broadway shows, thus marginalizing the less well-endowed local arts community.31 There were also worries that the expensive theatre might end up as a white elephant in the city, while others complained that local architects and theatre practitioners were sidelined in the design of the “national” theatre.32 However, as Kong recently argues, public reactions to the icon have become somewhat more positive as “the vociferous criticisms levelled at its architecture in the early planning stages by members of the public and architectural critics seem to have given way to tacit approval”.33 In contrast to the Esplanade theatres, the same has yet to be said about the Singapore Flyer, a state-of-the-art gigantic observation wheel that is touted to be “more than just a traditional Ferris wheel” and unabashedly “Asia’s most visible iconic visitor attraction”. According to the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), the S$200 million Flyer was conceived after extensive study with similar observatory attractions such as the London Eye, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and the Empire State Building in New York. Designed by the famed Japanese architect — Kisho Kurokawa, the Singapore Flyer consists of a 492 foot high wheel built over a three-story terminal building, giving it a total height of more than 541 feet that surpasses “The Star of Nanchang” in China’s Jiangxi province as well as the London Eye. Not everyone, however, is impressed by the Singapore Flyer attraction, with members of the public questioning the need for a “copycat” version of the London Eye. A Singaporean netizen wrote to Cut Waste Panel, a government feedback website, questioning the feasibility of the project: It is doubtful whether STB’s touted newest Singapore attraction — the Singapore Flyer will be sufficient to attract tourists. Is STB running out of ideas such that it has to build the Singapore Flyer? Why must we be a copycat? I understand that a similar structure in UK is suffering from a low number of visits from the public and tourists. What is so attractive about Singapore that it is likely to succeed while a similar structure in UK is suffering from a lack of visits?34

Others have expressed concern over similar competing attractions such as the “Eye on Malaysia” in Kuala Lumpur, the proposed “Berlin Ferris Wheel”, and the “Shanghai Star”, not to mention a litany of other small-sized Ferris wheels in cities throughout the world. There are also doubts that the Singapore Flyer can indeed offer the much promised breathtaking views of the city and neighbouring islands, especially during the hot and dry season from August

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to October, when the haze generated by uncontrolled forest fires in Indonesia threatens to engulf the city-state and the region. More recently, the Singapore Flyer was plagued by a series of technical glitches with the most serious one caused by an engine short-circuit on 23 December 2008 which stranded 173 visitors for six hours in mid-air. The incident left several people questioning the safety procedures and contingency plans of the Ferris wheel as well as its future appeal.35 Not only are specific projects within the new downtown held under public scrutiny, but the entire branding exercise of the Marina Bay project also came under fire as some members of the public questioned the URA’s decision to use public funds to hire a North American consultancy firm at a cost of S$400,000. A letter written to the local press labelled the URA branding project as “An Expensive Naming Game”. According to the letter writer: I am truly surprised that the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) had to spend $400,000 to figure out that the best name for Marina Bay is indeed Marina. Also, the new logo for Marina Bay leaves much to be desired — it could easily be mistaken for a new brand of DVD player.36

Another disgruntled member of the public further chastized the planning agency for its profligate use of public funds, complaining that it is “a waste of money for the URA to spend S$400,000 on a branding exercise which included seeking a new name for Marina Bay, only to decide to keep the name as it is”.37 A hard-hitting letter published in the Chinese-language Xin Min Daily News on 4 September 2005 was further critical about the decision to construct three extensive gardens and a golf course in the new downtown. According to the letter writer, after spending an enormous amount of public resources and money to reclaim the Marina Bay area, it seems unjustified that the reclaimed area only caters to a small group of well-off people (alluding to the golf course). Overall, the new Marina Bay downtown risks being perceived as an elitist and socially exclusive landscape that caters only to well-heeled Singaporeans and wealthy foreign elites and tourists. Arguably, the absence of plans to incorporate public housing in the vicinity further reinforces the notion that the new downtown is the playground for the elites. While prestigious megaprojects may often be deemed structurally relevant for globalizing cities, these grandiose projects may be socially disengaged with the majority of the “heartland” population who, apart from being awe-struck by the monumental scale and extravaganza of these developments, have little emotional depth or input in these spectacular spaces. While policy decisionmaking/urban planning in Singapore is often considered a top-down process

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reserved only for the planning elites, greater public consultation and solicitation of feedbacks have been implemented in recent years. However, it remains to be seen whether such consultative processes actually translate into sincere efforts to incorporate the public seriously into planning and decision-making.38 In the broader context, urban planning, to be sure, is not divorced from the exercise of power. Insofar as Singapore’s success story has often been attributed to its pragmatic and rational planning philosophies, Flyvbjerg however reminds us that rationality is context-dependent and that the context of rationality is power.39 To that, we may further question whose rationality is being valued and who determines what successful urban models are? While critical scholars such as Flyvbjerg have highlighted the “dark side of planning” and the unequal power relations inherent in planning practices, Forester sees the urgent need to foster greater public involvement and deliberations in what he calls the “participatory planning process”.40 Indeed, this concern for greater public participation and consultation has been voiced time and again by concerned citizens, most recently in a letter written to the Straits Times Forum Page on the newly proposed Sports Hub. As the writer points out: “In order for Singapore to get the best value for money on such megaprojects, we must have a citizens’ consultative process beyond just informal polls.”41 Apart from concerns about incorporating greater civic participation and sense of ownership in public infrastructure projects, other critical challenges abound for the Marina Bay downtown. It has been well documented that mega urban projects do not always guarantee success. Alluding to what he calls “Machiavellian Megaprojects”, Flyvbjerg argues that even the most treasured icons in recent urban history such as New York’s Brooklyn Bridge, London’s Big Ben clock tower and Sydney’s Opera House, would never have been undertaken “if some form of delusion about costs and benefits weren’t involved”.42 (Reportedly, these projects suffered cost overruns ranging from 100 per cent to 1,400 per cent). Beyond the extraordinariness of its size and spectacular effects, it remains contentious what megaprojects can actually offer to cities and urban residents. As David Harvey questions, just “how many successful convention centers, sports stadiums, Disneyworlds, harbour places and spectacular shopping malls can there be?”43 Besides, the construction of prestigious megaprojects often replicate the “innovative” designs of successful commercial projects elsewhere (not to mention the reliance on a narrow band of “celebrity architects”), thus rendering any competitive advantage within a system of cities transient and ephemeral. Richard Marshall remarks that the new Marina Bay downtown is a trophy to the Singapore state’s conviction that urban spaces can be completely

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controlled and fashioned in response to utopian concepts of idealized social situations.44 However, it is unclear “how does one think about the urban form of a tropical city and how might this be different from a city at 42 degrees north latitude. It certainly appears that the design of New Downtown does not respond to its tropical setting, and rather appropriates its urban imagery from other world cities, in other climatic zones”.45 In URA’s promotional document “New Downtown — Ideas for the City of Tomorrow”, it is uncanny how the glossy brochure detailing Singapore’s future downtown is filled with images resembling other “world cities” such as Battery Park in New York City and the Manhattan city skyline, while eliding questions and debates on the appropriate “tropical” identity of the city-state.46 Even the proposed Gardens by the Bay (arguably one of the few features in the Marina Bay that faces up squarely to the tropical elements of the island-nation’s hot and humid climate) are often held up to “more famous” temperate urban parks elsewhere such as the Central Park in New York City or Hyde Park in London. Ultimately, it is questionable whether the whole idea of building a megadowntown may increasingly seem like an outdated and obsolete way of thinking about and planning cities in the post-industrial global economy characterized by nimble, flexible business operations and polycentric economic networks that are not bound strictly to a particular locale or city. Scott et al., for example, have pointed out that the blurring of once rigid and clearly defined urban boundaries (with the rapid growth of multiclustered urban agglomerations, outer cities, and edge cities) have unsettled traditional functions of cities and, by extension, downtowns and central business districts as urban functions become reconstituted through the simultaneous and complex processes of decentralization and recentralization.47 With the rapid changes in the ways global economic forces are transforming the business environment in highly dynamic ways, the euphoria over the new downtown as “the magnet for global business headquarters” may well be short-lived, particularly in view of the current financial crisis which has already dampened the demand for GradeA office spaces and high-end residential projects in cities worldwide. CONCLUSION As the pace of urban reconstruction intensifies in globalizing cities throughout Asia and the world, it is worthwhile to pause for thought and question the multifarious implications and pitfalls of cities going global. While globalization has often been blamed for wrecking urban dishevel, pitting cities against cities

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in a “zero-sum game” to secure elusive economic and human capital, it also presents opportunities for us to rethink and reshape urban places and envision alternative and more progressive urban futures. To return to the words of Lewis Mumford, building castles in the air, far from being a futile task, is an important and urgent task in contemporary times even if the process is often fraught with challenges and difficulties. Yet city planners and managers, especially those from developing countries, have a tendency to look up to “world standard designs” emanating from New York, Chicago, Tokyo, London, and Paris as paradigmatic examples of defining urban success and symbolizing global modernity.48 Amin and Graham, in particular, take umbrage at such paradigmatic models and ways of thinking where “analysis inevitably tends to generalize from very specific cities (purportedly “world-class” or “First World” case studies) both in identifying the changing nature of urban assets and highlighting normative suggestions for policy innovation elsewhere”.49 Offering a corrective to this, Robinson argues that instead of seeing only some cities as originators of urbanism or mimicking the well-trodden pathways of “successful” urban models elsewhere, city officials should look at a world of “ordinary cities” that are all dynamic and diverse (even conflicted) arenas of social and economic life. “Whereas categorizing cities tends to ascribe prominence to only certain cities and to certain features of cities, an ordinary approach takes the world of cities as its starting point and attends to the diversity and complexity of all cities.”50 By making the case for ordinary cities, Robinson underscores that “ways of being urban and ways of making new kinds of urban futures are diverse and the product of the inventiveness of people in cities everywhere”.51 More specifically, urban officials, planners, and local residents themselves need to confidently assume the modernity of their own respective cities and formulate strategies and policies that enhance a wide variety of urban environments by responding to the distinctive features of each city’s context. Fundamentally, it is the specificity of the local social, cultural, and political context and economic diversity of cities that can form the basis for reimagining new urban futures. In this regard, Singapore’s urban planners and officials could take a leaf from Robinson’s insights. Instead of hankering after spectacular “Promethean feats” by constructing ever more “creative”, “bold”, and extravagant “world-class” developmental projects, the task of building great cities and improving urban life, as Robinson suggests, will be greatly enhanced “by letting cities be thought of as ordinary and allowing new and diverse kinds of urban imaginaries to emerge” from within.52 This may well be the critical challenge for Singapore’s planning success in the global era.

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NOTES This chapter has benefited from the insights and comments by Victor R. Savage and a course co-taught with Tim Bunnell in the Geography Department at the National University of Singapore. Suggestions from Terence Chong are also gratefully acknowledged. 1. Lewis Mumford, The Story of Utopias (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1922), p. 307. 2. Rem Koolhaas, “Singapore Songlines: Portrait of a Potemkin Metropolis … or Thirty Years of Tabula Rasa”, in The City Cultures Reader, edited by Malcolm Miles, Iain Borden, and Tim Hall (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 22–23. 3. Donald, Haider, “Place Wars: New Realities of the 1990s”, Economic Development Quarterly 6, no. 2 (1992): 127–34. 4. Jennifer Robinson, Ordinary Cities Between Modernity and Development (New York: Routledge, 2006). 5. Lily Kong, “Cultural Icons and Urban Development in Asia: Economic Imperative, National Identity, and Global City Status”, Political Geography 26 (2007): 383– 404. 6. John Short, “Urban Imagineers: Boosterism and the Representation of Cities”, in The Urban Growth Machine Critical Perspectives, Two Decades Later, edited by Andrew Jonas and David Wilson (New York: State University of New York Press, 1999). 7. See Carolyn Cartier, Globalizing South China (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2001); Tim Bunnell, “Views from Above and Below: The Petronas Twin Towers and/in Contesting Visions of Development in Contemporary Malaysia”, Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 20, no. 1 (1999): 1–23; Larry Ford, “Midtowns, Megastructures and World Cities”, The Geographical Review 88, no. 4 (1998): 528–47; Roman Cybriwsky, “From Castle Town to Manhattan Town with Suburbs: A Geographical Account of Tokyo’s Changing Landmarks and Symbolic Landscapes”, in The Japanese City, edited by P. Karan and K. Stapleton (Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky, 1997); Kris Olds, Globalization and Urban Change: Capital, Culture, and Pacific Rim Mega-Projects (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001); Richard Marshall, Emerging Urbanity Global Urban Projects in the Asia Pacific Rim (New York: Spon Press, 2003). 8. It has been argued that globalization, far from being a universalizing set of discourses and practices, is rooted in local specificities and discursively constructed and deployed by the state as a mechanism to shape and legitimize various unpopular economic and social policies in order to make them more palatable to the local population. Koh, for example, alludes to the “local babble” on globalization generated by the Singapore state to regulate the Singaporean habitus and create new subjectivities suitable for the new economy. As he points out: “That globalization means

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9.

10.

11.

12.

13. 14. 15. 16.

17.

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‘competitiveness’, ‘innovation’, ‘creativity’, ‘techno/entrepreneurship’, and ‘foreign talent’, has become deeply enculturated and embedded in the Singaporean consciousness” and used to persuade Singaporeans to accept the implementation of certain policies. See Aaron Koh, “Living with Globalization Tactically: The Metapragmatics of Globalization in Singapore”, Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia 22, no. 2 (2007): 180. Brenda Yeoh, “The Global Cultural City? Spatial Imagineering and Politics in the (Multi)cultural Marketplaces of South-east Asia”, Urban Studies 42, nos. 5– 6 (2005): 946. See Chua Beng Huat, Political Legitimacy and Housing: Stakeholding in Singapore (New York: Routledge, 1997); Chua Beng Huat, The Golden Shoe: Building Singapore’s Financial District (Singapore: Urban Redevelopment Authority, 1989); Martin Perry, Lily Kong, and Brenda Yeoh, Singapore: A Developmental City State (New York: Wiley, 1997); O.J. Dale, Urban Planning in Singapore: The Transformation of a City (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1999); Victor Savage and Pow Choon-Piew, “Model Singapore — Crossing Urban Boundaries”, in International Urban Planning Settings: Lessons of Success, edited by Jack Williams and Robert Stimson (Oxford: JAI Press, 2001); Lily Kong and Brenda Yeoh, The Politics of Landscapes in Singapore: Constructions of “Nation” (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2003); Shirlena Huang, “Planning for a Tropical City of Excellence: Urban Development Challenges for Singapore in the 21st Century”, Built Environment 27, no. 2 (2001): 112–28; Harvey Neo, “Challenging the Developmental State: Nature Conservation in Singapore”, Asia Pacific Viewpoint 48, no. 2 (2007): 186–99. William Lim, Baseline Paper Architecture and Identity in Singapore, 2004, (accessed 21 December 2007). T.C. Chang, “Renaissance Revisited: Singapore as a ‘Global City for the Arts’ ”, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 24 (2000): 818–31; Kong and Yeoh, The Politics of Landscapes in Singapore. “Marina Bay the New Brand Name”, Straits Times, 22 July 2005. “New URA Role: Selling Singapore to the World”, Straits Times, 27 September 2006. Ibid. Peter Hall, Cities of Tomorrow: An Intellectual History of Urban Planning and Design in the Twentieth Century (London, New York: Basil Blackwell, 1988), p. 343. Hall, Cities of Tomorrow; Tim Hall and Phil Hubbard, “The Entrepreneurial City: New Urban Politics, New Urban Geographies?” Progress in Human Geography 20, no. 2 (1996): 153–74; Tim Hall and Phil Hubbard, eds., The Entrepreneurial

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18.

19. 20.

21. 22. 23.

24. 25. 26.

27.

28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

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City: Geographies of Politics, Regimes and Representation (Chichester: John Wiley and Sons, 1998). Pow Choon-Piew, “Urban Entrepreneurialism, Global Business Elites and MegaUrban Development: A Case Study Of Suntec City”, Asian Journal of Social Science 30, no. 1 (2002): 53–72. Urban Redevelopment Authority, New Downtown: Ideas for the City of Tomorrow (Singapore: URA, 1996). In 2006, the Ministry of National Development organized an International Design Competition that attracted participation from twenty-four countries. The panel eventually short-listed eight entries from a total of seventy proposed plans before selecting two winning designs from UK firms Grant Associates and Gustafson Porter, . Tony Bennett, The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics (London and New York: Routledge, 1995). Cartier, Globalizing South China, p. 243. According to Bennett, the “object lessons in power” refers to “the power to command and arrange things and bodies for public display” and “sought to allow people, and en masse rather than individually, to know rather than be known, to become subjects rather than objects of knowledge” (Bennett 1995, p. 63). In this sense, urban megaprojects such as the new downtown are key sites for the dramatization of state powers, where people come to know power and thence to regulate themselves, “knowing what power knows, and knowing themselves as (ideally) known by power” (ibid.). Yeoh, “The Global Cultural City?” op. cit., p. 946. Lim, op. cit., p. 18. Tay Kheng Soon, “The Architecture of Rapid Transformation”, in Management of Success: The Moulding of Modern Singapore, edited by Kernial Singh Sandhu and Paul Wheatley, (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1989). Manfredo Tafuri, “The Disenchanted Mountain”, in The American City from Civil War to the New Deal, edited by G. Ciucci, F. Dal Co, M. Manieri-Elia and M. Tafuri (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1979). J.R. Short and Y.H. Kim, Globalization and the City (England: Addison Wesley Longman Ltd., 1999), p. 97. Y.S. Lee and Brenda Yeoh, eds., Globalisation and the Politics of Forgetting (London: Routledge, 2006), p. 298. Yeoh, “The Global Cultural City?” op. cit., p. 946. Chang, “Renaissance Revisited”, op. cit., pp. 818–31. Chang, “Renaissance Revisited”, op. cit., p. 824. Lily Kong, Singapore’s Hawker Centres (Singapore: Singapore National Printers, 2007), p. 398.

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34. Cut Waste Panel, . 35. “Flyer Drama 173 Rescued after being Stranded in Capsules for Several Hours”, Straits Times, 24 December 2008. 36. TODAY, 25 July 2005. 37. “Name Search a Waste of Money”, Straits Times, 26 July 2005. 38. Huang, op. cit., 2004. 39. Bent Flyvbjerg, Rationality and Power: Democracy in Practice (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1998). 40. John Forester, The Deliberative Practitioner: Encouraging Participatory Planning Processes (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999). 41. Straits Times, 10 November 2007. 42. Bent Flyvbjerg, “Machiavellian Megaprojects”, Antipode 37, no. 1 (2005): 21. 43. David Harvey, “Poverty and Greed in American Cities”, in Reflections on Architectural Practices in the Nineties, edited by S. Saunders, P. Rowe, M. Scogin, K. Hays, C. Burns, and R. Ferris (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996), p. 108. 44. Marshall, Emerging Urbanity Global Urban Projects. 45. Marshall, Emerging Urbanity Global Urban Projects, pp. 159–60. 46. The issue of tropicality in architecture and urban identity has been taken up by local architects such as Tay Kheng Soon who argues for the development of a new tropical aesthetics that is “predicated on both an understanding and appreciation of shade and shadow as well as parallel process of deconstructing modern Western hegemonic aesthetics and culture”. However, the critical application and articulation of tropicality as well as related ideas on “critical regionalism” have been widely debated, in particular, the reductionist notion of culture-as-climate, or what Kusno (2000) terms as climatic essentialism where “the whole cultural patterning of the city is reduced to the problem of an apolitical ‘climate’ ”. Abidin Kusno, Behind the Postcolonial: Architecture, Urban Space and Political Cultures in Indonesia (London: Routledge, 2000), p. 201. 47. Allen Scott, ed., Global City-Regions: Trends, Theory, Policy (Cambridge, UK and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001). 48. Marshall, Emerging Urbanity Global Urban Projects, p. 1. 49. Ash Amin and Stephen Graham, “The Ordinary City”, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 22 (1997): 417. 50. Robinson, Ordinary Cities Between Modernity and Development, p. 1. 51. Ibid. 52. Robinson, Ordinary Cities Between Modernity and Development, p. 173.

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23

THE FOUR TAPS Water Self-sufficiency in Singapore LEE POH ONN

This (water) dominated every other policy. Every other policy had to bend at the knees for water survival. — Lee Kuan Yew, 20081

THE JOURNEY TOWARDS WATER SELF-SUFFICIENCY

T

he story of Singapore’s journey towards water self-sufficiency is not only a story of the country’s will and ability, but also one of insecurity and paradigm shifts. According to Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, two incidents underlined Singapore’s water insecurities. The first was in 1942 when the Japanese troops advancing from Malaysia blew up pipes transporting water to Singapore. The second was on the day of Singapore’s independence in 1965, when the then Malaysian Prime Minister Tungku Abdul Rahman threatened that Malaysia would threaten to cut off supplies of water to Singapore if its foreign policy was prejudicial to that of Malaysia’s.2 Since then, the challenge for policy-makers has always been to ensure the sustainability of clean water supplies in order to support the country’s future economic development and population needs. However, in recent years there has been a paradigm shift over the use of the country’s reservoirs. Not too long ago reservoirs in Singapore were offlimits to the general public. As precious sources of water, the city-state’s reservoirs were restricted areas jealously guarded by the Singapore state. They were sealed from the public, to be seen but not to be touched. Today, reservoirs are regarded by policy-makers as a site the public can engage with through a variety of 417

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water activities and sports. The Bedok and MacRitchie Reservoirs for instance, are now home to wakeboarding, sailing and kayaking enthusiasts. From a site of restriction to one where Singaporeans are encouraged to form a sense of ownership, Singapore’s reservoirs demonstrate the mindset change undertaken by policy-makers with regards to water. This chapter examines Singapore’s policies for managing its scarce water resources. What have been some of the challenges facing policy-makers? At what expense has additional water supplies been created? Was the decision to increase locally sourced water supplies economically and politically expedient? Singapore is an island and urban city-state with no rural hinterland. The main island and a number of islets scattered off its north-east and southern parts occupy a land area of around 699 km2. Singapore is not short of fresh water as it receives an average of about 2,400 mm of rainfall annually, well above the global average of 1,050 mm.3 The only constraint faced by the country is capturing and storing as much of this rainfall as possible, on limited amounts of land areas. Although Singapore has the highest GDP per capita in Southeast Asia, it is disadvantaged and categorised as a “water-stressed” country, as less than 1,000 m3 of water per person is available from within the country (see Table 23.1). However, as Kog points out, this figure does not imply a future shortage of available water, since supplies are affected by actual water usage and the efficiency with which water is used and reused.4 The ratio of annual per capita of internal renewable water resources in Malaysia — its closest neighbour, and presently supplying around 40 per cent of Singapore’s water needs — is 168 times that of Singapore’s (see Table 23.1). From the same table, the potential for Indonesia, Singapore’s other close neighbour, to meet Singapore’s water needs is favourable as its per capita annual renewable water resources is around 91 times that of Singapore’s.5 SOURCES OF WATER SUPPLY IN SINGAPORE: THE FOUR TAPS STRATEGY Singapore has adopted a “Four Taps Strategy” for its water needs. The “four taps” are water from its own reservoirs; water from Johor in Malaysia; recycled water in the form of NEWater; and lastly, desalination. Presently, the two major consumers of water in Singapore are the “domestic” and “commerce/industry sectors” (see Tables 23.2 and 23.3). Fifty-three per cent of total water supply was used up by the domestic sector, and 43 per cent by the commerce and industrial sector. The per capita domestic consumption has been falling gradually

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476 2,830 334 580 1,046 479 1 410 891 32,876 12,749 57,638 23,316 20,870 5,884 139 6,459 10,805

Annual Renewable Annual Renewable Water Resources: Water Resources: * 3 Total (km ) Per Capita (m3) 4.1 82.8 3.0 9.0 33.2 28.5 — 87.1 71.4

Annual Water Withdrawals: Total (km3) 311 391 567 392 699 377 — 1,429 914

Annual Water Withdrawals: Per Capita (m3) 274 750 328 3,870 142 981 23,071 1,963 403

2000 GDP Per Capita (US$)

12.2 203.5 5.2 23.2 49.0 76.3 4.0 62.4 77.7

Population 2000 (millions)

Note: *Data from Table 9 “Water Resources and Fisheries” in World Resources 2005: The Wealth of the Poor — Managing Ecosystems to Fight Poverty (Washington, D.C.: World Resources Institute in collaboration with United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme, and World Bank, 2005), p. 208. The data produced in Table 9 was in turn obtained from the FAO in 2004 and represent longterm averages originating from multiple sources and years. See . Source: World Resources 2005: The Wealth of the Poor — Managing Ecosystems to Fight Poverty (Washington, D.C.: World Resources Institute in collaboration with United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme, and World Bank, 2005); ASEAN Statistics, (accessed 19 February 2008); ASEAN Statistical Yearbook 2001, (accessed 19 February 2008).

Cambodia Indonesia Laos PDR Malaysia Myanmar The Philippines Singapore Thailand Vietnam

Country

TABLE 23.1 Water Resources of ASEAN Countries, GNP Per Capita, and Population: 2000

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TABLE 23.2 Domestic Water Statistics

Number of raw water reservoirs in Singapore Number of NEWater Plants (for recycling water) Number of Desalination Plants Volume of Used Water Treated Per Day (1,000 m3/day)* Water Tariffs Domestic (consumption ≤ 40 m3 per month) (cents/m3) Domestic (consumption > 40m3 per month) (cents/m3) Shipping (cents/m3) Sale of Potable Water in Singapore Domestic (1000 m3/day) Non-domestic (1000 m3/day) Domestic water consumption per person (litres/day) Sale of NEWater (1000 m3/day)

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

14

14

14

14

14

15

2 0

3 0

3 1

3 1

4 1

4 1

1,360

1,369

1,352

1,399

1,469

1,410

117

117

117

117

117

117

140 192 1,224 690 534

140 192 1,203 686 517

140 192 1,206 694 512

140 192 1,230 702 528

140 192 1,248 724 524

140 192 1,262 742 521

165 27

162 55

160 73

158 81

157 134

156 180

Note: *The treated water in this row refers to a lower grade of non-potable water for industrial use in Singapore. Source: Key Environmental Statistics, Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources, Singapore, various years.

TABLE 23.3 Water Consumption in Singapore, 1960–2000 (thousand m3)

Year

Domestic

Shipping

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

40,786.9 71,024.0 113,478.0 177,343.3 241,388.0

NA 2,276.9 3,347.0 2,914.4 1,841.0

Commerce/ Government and Industry Statutory Boards 21,697.6 35,718.3 75,991.3 113,148.6 181,477.0

Total Annual Consumption

36,997.2 43,923.6 23,750.0 29,391.8 30,742.5

99,481.7 152,942.8 216,566.3 322,798.1 455,488.5

Source: Kog, “Natural Resource Management” and Singapore Department of Statistics.

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in recent years. Between 2003 and 2008, consumption per head fell from 165 litres per day to 156 litres per day, while the demand for water by industry and the domestic sector has not significantly increased during the same period (see Table 23.2). Nevertheless, the demand for water has been increasing if decade-by-decade consumption rates are taken into consideration (see Table 23.3). However, with the Singapore Government’s stronger drive towards water conservation and efficiency measures, and the production of water from alternative sources such as NEWater and desalination, the issue of water scarcity will not hinder Singapore’s economic development prospects or its population’s needs in the future. The introduction of NEWater and desalination has made Singapore more self-sufficient on the supply side, but the Singapore Government has continued to express the view that it would like to continue to purchase water from Malaysia under fair terms or, for that matter, from any other country willing to be its long-term supplier.6 Then Prime Minister, Goh Chok Tong, alluded to water from Malaysia as being a symbol of the interlocking relationship between both countries, and a sign of their interdependence and coexistence.7 Previously known as the Ministry of the Environment (ENV), the new Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources (MEWR) was created in September 2004 in conjunction with the handover of government to the new Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong. Besides managing the environment, the new MEWR placed greater importance on strategically managing water as a resource.8 The Public Utilities Board (PUB) operates under the MEWR to ensure that there is enough water to meet the needs of Singapore’s domestic and non-domestic (industrial) users. Since then there has been a mindset change within the PUB which has begun to engage the Singapore citizenry actively to “share ownership” in water, thus moving beyond its previous role of campaigning and educating the public on water conservation, to engaging the 3P (people, private, public) sectors, comprising of individuals, businesses, and the community9 to enjoy public amenities such as reservoirs. RESERVOIRS: THE FIRST TAP Presently, around 680,000 m3 (or 149.58 million gallons) of Singapore’s water consumption is sourced from catchment areas around the city-state.10 In 2005, there were fourteen raw water reservoirs in Singapore that covered around 50 per cent of its land area. Since 1965, the Water Department of the PUB has been enlarging Singapore’s capacity to provide its population with water. In Singapore, three storage reservoirs — MacRitchie, Peirce, and Seletar —

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have been in operation since the 1960s (see Table 23.4). PUB also expanded the capacity of the Seletar Reservoir (renamed Upper Seletar Reservoir in 1992) by more than thirty-five times in 1969. By 1986, fourteen storage reservoirs were in operation, up from the then existing three, with the total storage capacity increasing from 31.1 to 140.00 million m3.11 Reservoirs were either built by damming river estuaries or from ground up. It was also in 1986 that the Sungei Seletar/Bedok Reservoir Scheme was completed.12 This involved the simultaneous building of two reservoirs, a water catchment plant, and a network of storm collection depots.13 Singapore has also embarked on the Reservoir Integration Scheme to connect the various reservoirs through a system of pumps and pipelines when the system is completed in the near future. Excess water collected from one reservoir will be pumped into another for storage, therefore reducing the wastage of such water. Perhaps most eagerly anticipated is the up-coming Marina Reservoir. As Singapore’s first reservoir right in the heart of the city, it will have the largest catchment of about 10,000 hectares. It will, together with the new Serangoon and Punggol Reservoirs, increase Singapore’s land catchment area from the present half to two-thirds by 2011. The barrage itself was officially opened in November 2008 while the reservoir is expected to increase Singapore’s water supply by another 10 per cent when it becomes fully operational. Plans to convert the Marina Basin into a freshwater reservoir have been estimated to cost between S$250 million to S$300 million. Certainly the Marina Reservoir is the result of an engineering feat. Dammed by the 350-metres wide Marina Barrage spanning the Marina Channel, this TABLE 23.4 Singapore’s Reservoirs and Storage Capacity Name of Reservoir MacRitchie Lower Peirce Seletar Upper Peirce Kranji/Pandan Western Catchment Bedok/Sungei Seletar Total

Year Completed

Storage Capacity (million m3)

1867 (enlarged in 1894) 1912 1935 (enlarged in 1969) 1974 1975 1981 1986

4.2 2.8 24.1 27.8 22.5 31.4 23.2 142.0

Source: Adapted from Table 6 cited D. Segal, “Singapore’s Water Trade with Malaysia and Alternatives”, Masters thesis submitted to John F. Kennedy, School of Government, Harvard University, 30 March 2004 with amendment made to some dates.

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reservoir, in addition to being a water source right in the city centre, also performs the role of flood control to alleviate flooding in the city’s low-lying areas such as Chinatown, Boat Quay, Jalan Besar, and Geylang. To prevent floods, seven large pumps, each with a capacity of 40 m3 per second, flush out excess storm water into the sea when the storm coincides with a high tide. The barrage also has nine steel crest gates, each 30 metres long, built across the Marina Channel, to separate sea water from the reservoir, and to act as a barrier to keep out high tides. The PUB has said that it will take about one to two years to flush all the seawater out after the barrage has been built. In addition, the technology used in NEWater to process recycled water will be used in this reservoir to ensure that the water that flows into it from the Singapore River and Rochor Canal is as pristine as that of protected reservoirs. The third function of the barrage is its role as a lifestyle attraction, providing an ideal venue for recreational activities like boating, windsurfing and water-skiing. As such, there will be three functions performed by the 3-in-1 Marina reservoir project. The reservoir is also built on environmentally friendly principles with its iconic green roof, which acts as an insulation layer to lower indoor temperatures of the building below, and also to serve as an open recreational field. In addition, the Barrage has the largest collection of solar panels to date, 405 in total, to supplement its daily energy requirements. Importantly, the Marina Barrage is part of the “new generation” water catchment areas open to the public for recreation, similar to the Bedok and MacRitchie reservoirs where community spaces coexist with reservoirs to generate a sense of “joint ownership” of Singapore’s water resources. To entrench the notion of “shared ownership”, the Active, Beautiful and Clean (ABC) Waters Programme was launched by the PUB in April 2006. The purpose of ABC is to transform Singapore’s network of drains, canals, and reservoirs into beautiful and clean streams, rivers, and lakes. The ABC Waters Programme also challenges the previous mindset of keeping the public away from amenities in order to keep Singapore’s waters clean. Policy-makers have come to the realization that by bringing the public closer to water amenities, and by educating them on the importance of water resources, a sense of ownership and value could be nurtured. WATER FROM MALAYSIA: THE SECOND TAP An important source of water supply to Singapore comes from the state of Johor in neighbouring Malaysia. Malaysia began supplying water to Singapore in 1932, five years after the first water agreement was signed in 1927, and

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only three years after the Gunung Pulai Scheme was completed. Between 1937 and 1941, Gunung Pulai’s treatment capacity doubled. A subsidiary reservoir feeding the Pontian Reservoir in Johor was also completed. The 1927 Agreement, in full, is known as “The Agreement as to Certain Water Rights in Johor between the Sultan of Johor and the Municipal Commissioners of the Town of Singapore signed on 5 December 1927”.14 The 1927 Agreement was signed three years after the completion of the causeway between Singapore and Malaysia in 1924. In the 1927 Agreement, Singapore did not have to pay for raw water, although rent was paid for the land surrounding where Singapore was to exercise the full and exclusive rights to impound, treat, and store water. In addition, Singapore was responsible for building, paying, and maintaining the infrastructure that was used to impound, process and transport water. The 1927 Agreement was succeeded by the 1961 Water Agreement known as Gunung Pulai/Pontian Tebrau River and Scudai River Water Agreement. Singapore’s present water supplies are guaranteed by the 1961 and 1962 Water Agreements, in force until 2011 and 2061 respectively.15 The 1961 Water Agreement is known as the “Tebrau and Scudai Water Agreement”, while the 1962 Agreement is referred to as the “Johor River Water Agreement”. Both agreements have been confirmed and guaranteed by the Governments of Singapore and Malaysia as part of the 1965 Separation Agreement, and lodged with the United Nations. The 1961 Agreement allows Singapore to draw up to 86 million gallons of water per day (mgd) from the Pontian and Gunung Pulai Reservoirs, as well as the Tebrau and Skudai Rivers, while the 1962 Agreement allows up to 250 mgd of water to be drawn from the Johor River. In total, these agreements allow Singapore to draw up to 336 mgd (1.53 million m3 per day). Under these agreements, Singapore pays the Johor Government 3 cents (RM 0.03)16 for every 1,000 gallons (4,546 m3) drawn from the rivers.17 In turn, the Johor Government pays Singapore a sum of 50 cents (RM 0.50) for every 1,000 gallons of treated water.18 Both also contain a provision that allows for a review of water prices in twenty-five years’ time,19 and arbitration in the event of a disagreement.20 Prices can be revised in line with the purchasing power of money, labour costs, and cost of power and materials used to supply water.21 Malaysia did not revise water rates in 1986 and 1987 because if the Johor Government raised the price of raw water, it would concurrently have to pay higher prices for the treated water it buys from Singapore.22 Nevertheless, these agreements have not prevented the issue of water from becoming central to political negotiations between Malaysia and Singapore (discussed below).

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NEWATER: THE THIRD TAP It must not be forgotten that Singapore has been exploring the possibility of recycling water since the 1970s and such plants had already begun supplying water to Singapore’s reservoirs since 2003 (see Table 23.2). Recycled water, also known as NEWater, is similar to distilled water. Not only is it clean enough for drinking, it is mixed with reservoir water so that it will not be “too clean” for drinking. Singapore experimented with recycling water back in 1974 when it began treating its sewage instead of dumping it into the sea. The first test recycling plant was however closed in 1975 because it was expensive and unreliable. A new water reclamation study was conceptualized in 1998 as a joint initiative between the PUB and the then Ministry of the Environment (ENV). The prototype plant located on a site downstream of the Bedok Water Reclamation Plant (formerly known as Bedok Sewage Treatment Works) began operations in May 2000. The plant produced 10,000 m3 (2.2 million gallons) of water per day, and had to undergo a sampling and monitoring programme for two years before an expert panel concluded on its robustness and reliability. Not only did the plant pass the physical and engineering tests, the quality of NEWater was found to be in line with parameters and standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the World Health Organization. This verdict was made after some 20,000 comprehensive chemical and microbiological tests and analyses were conducted.23 It was found that the quality of the water produced was purer than that of potable water now produced by the PUB. NEWater involves a three-stage process comprising of filtering out elements — bacteria, viruses, and solids, passing the water through a semi-permeable membrane, and then exposing the water to ultraviolet light. The first two stages involve stringent purification and treatment processes using an advanced dualmembrane technology (micro filtration followed by reverse osmosis). Microfiltration is necessary to remove particles and bacteria larger than 0.2 microns in size. This prevents the reverse osmosis membrane from clogging. Reverse osmosis in turn removes and filters out particles as small as 0.001 microns. This includes viruses, salts, and dissolved organics. Alkaline chemicals are then added to restore the pH balance. And the membranes are cleaned with citric acid every sixty days. NEWater will be used primarily for non-potable purposes. Water fabrication plants which require high grade water will be one of the industries using NEWater. It will become the primary source of water for Singapore’s industrial and commercial sectors. Semiconductor and water fabrication plants, and some air

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conditioning cooling towers have begun using NEWater since February 2003. The present production cost of NEWater is around 50 to 60 per cent less than that of treating seawater.24 About 300 industrial and commercial sectors have, so far, taken up the use of NEWater. Although NEWater is safe to drink, the government has decided to allow it to be treated before being piped to homes. This is to overcome the psychological barrier of drinking previously used water. Initially, two million gallons (9,092 m3) per day were blended with raw water supplies in reservoirs (less than one per cent of the total raw water). At the end of 2004, four million gallons of NEWater were mixed with raw water supplies in reservoirs, making up to one per cent of Singapore’s daily consumption. This will gradually be increased to 10 million gallons (45,460 m3) per day by 2011, eventually making up 3.5 per cent of Singapore’s daily drinking water consumption. In January 2005, the PUB lowered the price of NEWater to S$1.15 per m3.25 In April 2007, the price of NEWater was again lowered from S$1.15 per m3 to S$1.00 per m3. The price adjustments were because of rising demand and operational efficiencies.26 The Singapore Government has also stated that the country will be able to partly replace quantities of water imported under the 1961 Agreement with NEWater. Presently, the four NEWater plants at Bedok, Kranji, Seletar and Ulu Pandan produce 6 mgd, 5 mgd, 9 mgd, and 32 mgd respectively on a daily basis, totalling 52 mgd. By 2011, Singapore plans to supply 102 mgd of NEWater. Potentially around 30 per cent of Singapore’s water supply could be met through this means with the completion of the Changi plant and also the planned expansion of the existing Bedok and Kranji Plants.27 DESALINATION: THE FOURTH TAP Singapore also supplements its water supply with its desalination programme. The PUB has been assessing desalination technologies since the 1970s.28 For decades, high costs have prevented this venture from fully bearing fruit, and it was only in 1995 that Singapore ascertained that desalination was technically feasible and financially viable, after conducting study trips to plants in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Malta. Subsequently, in 1996, the PUB started exploring potential sites for building such plants. Two years later, Singapore built a test desalination plant through a joint effort between Singapore Power, AquaGen, and Singapore Technologies.

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Projecting Singapore’s future water needs, it was reported that the PUB was planning to build a S$900-million plant to begin production in 2005. Initially, the construction of the proposed plant by the PUB was to be based on the multi-stage flash (MSF) distillation or the multi-effect distillation (MED) technology. However, due to energy efficiency benefits and cost-savings, seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) technology was ultimately used in Singapore’s first desalination plant.30 In June 2002, from the tenders submitted to the PUB in Singapore, estimated costs of processing sea water ranged from S$0.78 per m3 (RM 7.42/4.546 m3) to S$1.40 per m3 (RM 13.34/4.546 m3).31 Cost estimates have varied markedly because of the different range of methods chosen to desalinate water. The contract was ultimately won by SingSpring (a consortium consisting of local water specialist Hyflux and foreign French water-treatment company Ondeo. In June 2003, Hyflux took over Ondeo’s stake in Singapore’s desalination project, making it the sole owner of the desalination plant when it was completed in 2005. On 13 September 2005, SingSpring, a subsidiary of Hyflux, commenced operation of the first desalination plant in Singapore (costing S$200 million), with a capacity to produce 30 mgd (or 136,000 m3 per day), about 10 per cent of Singapore’s daily water needs.32 By 2011, it is estimated that the desalination programme will produce about 30 per cent of Singapore’s water requirements of around 88 mgd (400,000 m3).33 CONSERVATION MEASURES Complementing the “four taps” strategy are national conservation measures. The Singapore Government has been actively promoting conservation practices since the 1970s. The PUB launched public education campaigns and advertisements, seminars, and printed pamphlets to emphasize the prudent use of water. Besides educating the public on the value of saving water through the price mechanism,34 measures have also been in place over the years to enforce the mandatory instalment of water saving devices in homes, factories, and public amenities; to promote the use of non-potable water and recycling where appropriate in industries; and to reduce the loss of non-revenue water (NRW) through better leakage control, water audits, strict penalties for water theft, and the replacement of old and faulty pipes. To this end, NRW has been reduced from an already low 11 per cent in the 1980s, to a present 6 per cent.35

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On the consumer front (domestic users), the PUB has been educating the public on making their dwellings water-efficient homes (WEH) through the use of water-saving devices such as thimbles and cistern water saving bags.36 By 2005, over 200,000 homes had been installed with such water saving devices and over 750,000 kits have been distributed so far. The PUB has also been imparting the message “Water for All: Conserve, Value, and Enjoy”37 to the community and businesses in recent years. On the industrial front, the PUB has been collaborating with the Economic Development Board (EDB) of Singapore to guide industries to use non-potable water where appropriate.38 PUB encouraged industries to install water conservation devices like low-flow or self-shutting delayed action taps in the factories and plants, and commissions full-time regulators to monitor their water usage. The PUB also implemented policies to incentivize “thirsty” industries (and consumers) to conserve water consciously. In addition, both domestic and industrial users have to pay a conservation tax of 30 per cent to push across the message that water is a scarce resource.39 MALAYSIA-SINGAPORE WATER NEGOTIATIONS Malaysia’s supply of water to Singapore has at times been subjected to the politics between the two countries. In close proximity to one another with interdependent economies and a common historical past, there has been the occasional political sparring and exchanges between Singapore and segments of the Malaysian polity (ruling and opposition members) and some of its constituents, especially when Singapore pursued specific diplomatic, economic or political stances which run contrary to Malaysia’s interests.40 In the mid-1980s, negotiations over future supplies of Malaysian water were intermittent. The issue was centred more on the need to review upwards the price that Singapore has been paying Johor for raw water under the existing water pacts. This was because the twenty-five-year period clause which allows for a price revision by Johor was due in 1986. In the mid-1980s, negotiations were also centred on drawing up a new agreement — the construction of the Linggiu Dam in the early 1990s was the by-product of these negotiations to ensure that Johor could continue to enhance and develop its own water supply capabilities, and that it could supply Singapore with water beyond the 1990s, and even after the expiry of the second water agreement in 2061. Throughout the 1990s and up to 2003, negotiations over supplying water to Singapore beyond the present water agreements continued with nothing concrete emerging. Then Malaysian Prime Minister, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohammad,

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mindful of the price paid by Singapore for raw water in the present water pacts, was hesitant about committing Malaysia to a new water pact. As such, there were many roundabout turns from the Malaysian Government with regards to a new agreement, often referred to as the “shifting of the goal posts” by the Singapore Government and media. This made negotiation impossible for Singapore. There were also calls from the Malaysian Government and public to increase the price of raw water paid by Singapore. According to the Singapore Government, the water dispute was not about money or pricing. Rather, it was an issue of adhering to and honouring the sanctity of the terms contained in the existing water agreements that were signed in 1961 and 1962 (enshrined in the Separation Agreement, and registered at the United Nations in 1965). Singapore also accepted the Malaysian view that this price could be revised, but that the proposal for a higher price should be undertaken in compliance to what had been set in the Water Agreements and that any departures from the terms and conditions must be agreed upon by both countries. In July 2002, Singapore stated that it would allow the 1961 Agreement to lapse when it expires in 2011. It would be replacing that amount domestically rather than importing it from Johor. Since late 2003, the tiffs over the bilateral negotiations on various issues between the two countries settled into a more amiable relationship with Datuk Abdullah Badawi succeeding Dr Mahathir at the helm as Malaysia’s Prime Minister.41 In January 2004, Prime Minister Abdullah expressed the view that both Malaysia and Singapore should engage in bilateral talks instead of arbitration to resolve the deadlock in the present water negotiations. Subsequently, both Prime Ministers (Abdullah and Goh Chok Tong) agreed to resolve issues through negotiations, where such matters have not been already sent for arbitration, such as the case of Pedra Branca. Both countries also brought up the possibility that the package of issues might have to be “unscrambled”.42 Talks have now resumed with both sides agreeing not to discuss details of their negotiations with the media (or the so-called “quiet diplomacy” approach). With the political air now more positive between both countries, relations seem to be entering a new phase where there is newfound will to resolve bilateral differences.43 Because of the “quiet diplomacy” approach adopted from 2004, little has been reported to the media on the details of the ongoing bilateral negotiations. The Abdullah era has, nevertheless, fostered a more amiable environment with negotiations proceeding with less ostensible fanfare and the resolve to look ahead without allowing old issues to affect bilateral cooperation. While it is

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too early at this point to state the stance of new Prime Minister Najib Razak and his administration, the more amiable environment is expected to continue. ACHIEVING WATER SELF-SUFFICIENCY Singapore is now moving closer to achieving self-sufficiency in water. By 2011, together with water from its reservoirs and desalination and recycling plants, Singapore should no longer be in a “water scarce” condition (see Table 23.5).44 This however, begs the question: would Singapore’s population increase by 2011 create undue pressures on its future production capabilities? It has been reported that Singapore consumes between 1.2 to 1.4 million m3 (264.2 to 300 thousand gallons) of water per day.45 That water consumption will not increase dramatically can be supported by data from the PUB which indicates that water consumption per head has, in fact, fallen in recent years: from 165 m3 in 2003 to 160 m3 in 2005 (see Table 23.2). Drastic population increases are also unlikely to occur. Total fertility rates have decreased from 1.7 in 1996 to 1.4 in 2001, with Singapore’s population (comprising citizens and permanent residents) projected to hover around 3.3 million in 2010.46 The total population of Singapore residents should not climb above 5 million by 2010, assuming that the number of non-residents remains between one million to 1.3 million. Compared with the present population of around 4.6 million in 2007, this projected figure suggests

TABLE 23.5 Major Sources of Water (per day) 1.2 to 1.3 million m3 (264 to 286 million gallons)

Total Water Requirement for Singapore Currently Domestic Reservoirs and Catchments (a) Desalination (b) NEWater (c) Total: a+b+c (Year 2012 Projected)

0.68 million m3 (149.58 million gallons) 0.40 million m3 (88 million gallons) 0.46 million m3 (102 million gallons) 1.54 million m3 (339.58 million gallons)

Source: Long, “On the Threshold of Self-Sufficiency”; Straits Times, various issues.

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that any additional pressures created on water production should be manageable in 2011. But what are the financial costs of Singapore sourcing its entire water supplies domestically through its own reservoirs, NEWater plants, and desalination? (see Table 23.6). For comparative purposes, water consumption is assumed at around 1.2 million m3 per day. Secondly, the government draws water from its reservoirs and NEWater sources first, before drawing from its desalination plants as the first two sources are relatively cheaper. Based on these assumptions, the expenditure based on using desalination and NEWater technologies would add up to S$398,265 per day. This compares with the cost of S$304,806 per day with water sourced domestically from Singapore’s own reservoirs and imported from Malaysia.47 Self-sufficiency may not be too high a price to pay, if such is the cost. In addition, the cost of producing water is also likely to fall in view of the adoption of newer and more cost-efficient technologies. In the quest for water self-sufficiency, Singapore’s water companies and the PUB have also been making inroads to the lucrative global market and water industries such as sanitation, water recycling and pollution control. The efforts towards self-sufficiency a few years back have not only enabled the country to develop economically viable ways to recycle water, but also spawned a whole industry of private water players which are now expanding overseas.

TABLE 23.6 Year 2011 Expenditure with Water Sourced Domestically (at 2002 prices) Sources of Water Water from Reservoirs and Catchments Desalination Plants NEWater Plants Total

Volume (million m3) 0.68 0.06 0.46 1.3

Cost (RM) 358,997 (0.68m*2.4/4.546) 97,932 (0.06m*7.42/4.546) 375,444 (0.46m*3.71.4.546) 832,373

Source: Calculations based on data obtained from published newspaper sources. Figures on the cost of desalination (RM 7.42/4.546 m3) is based on the price of the lowest tender submitted to the PUB. This was obtained from the Straits Times, 1 June 2002. The cost of producing NEWater approximates 50 per cent of the cost of desalination (Straits Times, 30 July 2002). Based on the lowest cost of desalination, NEWater would cost RM 3.71/4.546 m3. Costs may decrease further when cheaper technologies come into play. The Malaysian currency (RM) is used instead of the Singapore dollar to maintain consistency with prices published in the press reports in Singapore and Malaysia, which priced water in RM.

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A survey by Deloitte Singapore showed that the percentage share of Singapore water companies overseas has shot up by 50 per cent between 2004 and 2006, from 0.24 per cent to 0.36 per cent of the total world share. Though small in global terms, this represents a compounded annual growth rate of 24 per cent for Singapore.48 For example, Hyflux has established recycling and desalination projects in China and the Middle East. SembCorp Industries is collaborating with Zhangbao Industries, an investment arm of the Zhangjiagang city government, to set up and run an industrial water recycling facility in China’s Jiangsu province.49 Singapore has also been cited by Andrew Benedek, a pioneer in developing membrane technology for water treatment plants, as one of the first countries outside the Middle East to demonstrate that membrane-based seawater desalination can be carried out at an affordable cost. Benedek also cited Singapore as one which has pioneered direct water re-use to the extent that more than 20 per cent of the country’s water needs can be currently met.50 NEWater has also clinched the “Environmental Contribution of the Year” title in the Global Water Awards 2008.51 At the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), two membrane-based projects that utilize solar energy are currently in progress, with a similar project also undertaken by Keppel-Seghers and the PUB. At NTU, the Singapore Membrane Technology Centre was established as part of the Nanyang Environment and Water Research Institute. Major water companies have also set up base at the National University of Singapore, as well as the various polytechnics.52 To date, companies in Singapore include the Siemens R&D Centre, the Singapore-Delft Water Alliance,53 and a water research centre by General Electric (GE).54 During the inaugural Singapore International Water Week which was held from 23–27 June 2008, a S$443 million water fund with an Asian focus was launched in Singapore between a Singapore company, Konzen Group, and the Malaysian AmInvestment Bank,55 which decided to set up the fund in Singapore because of its budding “global hydrohub” reputation. More than 8,500 representatives from governments, utility providers, businesses, and academia were at this meeting.56 Besides the launch of the water fund, deals valued over S$367 million were signed at this meeting.57 One of the biggest was the S$272 joint venture between Singapore-based Technische Corporation and Acuatico to design, construct, and operate private water infrastructure projects in Indonesia. Marmon Water, a U.S. firm, also announced that they were building a S$24 million water filter manufacturing plant in Singapore.58 In addition, Nitto

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Denko from Japan announced that it will be investing S$6 million by setting up a Research and Development Centre at Singapore’s WaterHub.59 At the same meeting, five MOUs were signed to facilitate the export of Singapore-grown technologies and expertise to different parts of the world. There were tie-ups between Singapore and the United Arab Emirates to develop technologies and capabilities in environmental protection and water management. PUB and the Electricity and Water Authority of Bahrain will also work together to improve water distribution and conservation. In addition, PUB will offer consultation and training in the area of sanitation in Bahrain. Sembcorp Industries and the Nanyang Environment and Water Research Institute signed a research agreement to develop and apply cutting-edge technologies for water and waste management treatment. The International Desalination Association and Singapore Water Alliance signed an agreement to encourage greater networking, and to facilitate the exchange of research and ideas between member companies.60 It was also reported at the Singapore International Water Week that the government was planning to set up an Institute of Water Policy which will receive funding of $7.5 million over the next five years.61 CONCLUSION Singapore’s decision to move towards water self-sufficiency has been both politically and economically motivated. It has been essential for the government to consider on the one hand the strategic need to be self-sufficient and on the other, the economics of importing water (at a lower cost) which comes with a greater element of vulnerability. The premium to be paid for water self-sufficiency (and national sovereignty) may therefore be justifiable for Singapore from a strategic and national interest perspective. It would provide Singapore with greater leeway in future negotiations with Malaysia on many bilateral issues, and put both countries on a more equal footing.62 As such, Singapore’s water management policies entail an adoption of newer technologies which are more costly (but becoming less so in recent years), while maintaining existing lower cost measures such as enlarging storage capacity of its reservoirs plus continuing to import water from Malaysia on the supply side.63 Singapore has already allocated 50 per cent of its land area for reservoirs, a considerably disproportionate amount considering its land scarcity. This land area will increase to two-thirds (67 per cent) with the completion of the new Serangoon and Punggol reservoirs and the recently completed Marina

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Barrage. The new mindset of policy-makers in their pursuit to make water resources relevant to the public is commendable. Singaporeans have now been brought closer to domestic water sources because of the community spaces created in reservoirs for them to better appreciate and enjoy this resource. For strategic reasons and its own national interests, Singapore has had to ensure that it has the capacity to be self-sufficient in meeting its water needs. For economic reasons, however, it also has had to consider the least-cost option of meeting such requirements. Nevertheless, the quest towards water selfsufficiency has also spawned a host of new economic possibilities for water companies based in Singapore and also for the PUB. Exorbitant financial costs have prevented Singapore from achieving water self-sufficiency in the past. This will, however, become reality by 2011. Singapore’s water management strategy in the coming years will incorporate acquiring water from newer technologies like recycling (NEWater) and desalination, and also from its domestic reservoirs (and imported water should a new agreement come into play after 2061 when the second water agreement with Malaysia expires) from the supply side. On the demand side, Singapore has been implementing policies to encourage conservation as well as a sense of ownership over water. Per capita consumption of water has been falling over the years, suggesting that the conservation measures implemented by the Singapore Government have been effective over the years. NOTES This chapter is a revised version based on feedback and comments from participants in the “Water in Mainland Southeast Asia” workshop, 29 November–2 December 2005, Siem Reap, Cambodia, organized by International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS), Netherlands, and the Center for Khmer Studies (CKS); and from the Sixth Asian International Forum at Fukuoka, 6–7 September 2006, organized by the Committee of Asian International Forum in Fukuoka, Fukuoka City, Japan. 1. Quoted in Tan Yong Soon, Lee Tung Jean, and Karen Tan, Clean, Green and Blue: Singapore’s Journey Towards Environmental and Water Sustainability (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009). 2. “Rising to the Water Challenge from Day 1”, Straits Times, 26 June 2008, and see also Irvine Lim Fang Jau, “Water Spike! Hydropolitik and Conflict in SingaporeMalaysia Relations”, in Beyond Vulnerability? Water in Singapore-Malaysia Relations, edited by Kwa Chong Guan (Singapore: Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, 2002), p. 54.

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3. Joey S.R. Long, “On the Threshold of Self-Sufficiency: Toward the Desecuritisation of the Water Issue in Singapore-Malaysia Relations”, in Beyond Vulnerability? Water in Singapore-Malaysia Relations, edited by Kwa Chong Guan (Singapore: Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, 2002), p. 109. 4. Kog Yue Choong, “Natural Resource Management and Environmental Security in Southeast Asia: Case Study of Clean Water Supplies in Singapore”, IDSS Working Paper No. 15 (May 2001): 11; Kog Yue Choong, “Natural Resource Management and Environmental Security in Southeast Asia: A Case Study of Clean Water Supplies to Singapore”, in Beyond Vulnerability? Water in Singapore-Malaysia Relations, edited by Kwa Chong Guan (Singapore: Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, 2002), pp. 34–35. 5. In October 1989, Singapore announced a decision to study the feasibility of buying water from Batam in Indonesia. In August 1990, Singapore and Indonesia signed the Agreement on Joint Development of Riau Province to cooperate on the development of water as well as tourism and industries in Riau. In June 1991, Singapore and Indonesia signed a long-term water agreement which would ensure the supply of Indonesian water from Riau well into the twenty-first century. Indonesia, in this context, presents a not-too-distant and a potential source of water for Singapore. Nevertheless, the high cost of building the pipeline has put the project on the backburner at this point in time. 6. “S’pore Wants Water Price Pegged to NEWater’s”, Business Times, 24 July 2002. 7. Joey Long, “Desecuritizing the Water Issue in Singapore-Malaysia Relations”, Contemporary Southeast Asia 23, no. 3 (December 2001): 522. 8. See for more information. 9. See the revised Singapore Green Plan 2012 at . 10. See, for example, Long, “On the Threshold of Self-Sufficiency”, p. 112; and “Greater Self-reliance in Water is the Way to Go”, Straits Times, 10 April 2002. 11. Joey Long, “Desecuritizing the Water Issue in Singapore-Malaysia Relations”, Contemporary Southeast Asia 23, no. 3 (December 2001): 510. 12. At the Lower Seletar Reservoir, there are plans to create new reservoirs downstream. The development of such reservoirs downstream of the existing Lower Seletar Reservoir to tap water from the north-eastern coast of Singapore operates under the Seletar Serangoon Reservoir Scheme under the PUB. The first stage has been completed while the second stage is scheduled to be completed by 2010 or 2011. Singapore also plans to continue with the construction of stormwater collection depots, as these serve to collect water in urban areas, a proven case in point is the Sungei Seletar/Bedok Reservoir Scheme. 13. Ibid. 14. Extracted from the Administration Report of the Singapore Municipality for 1927.

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15. Collectively known as the Johor Water Agreements. The first was the “Agreement made on 1st September 1961 between the government of the State of Johor and the City Council of the State of Singapore” relating to the use of water from the Tebrau River and the Scudai (Skudai) River. The second was the “Agreement made on 29th September 1962 between the Government of the State of Johor and the City Council of the State of Singapore” relating to the use of water from the Johor River. Singapore was then a state in then Malaya (now Malaysia). 16. RM denotes the Malaysian currency “Ringgit Malaysia”. In the chapter, the exchange rate between the RM and the Singapore dollar is set as RM 2.09 to S$1 (at 2002 exchange rates). 17. Section 16(i) of the 1961 and Section 13(1) of the 1962 Agreement. 18. Section 16(ii) of the 1961 and Section 13(2) of the 1962 Agreement. 19. Section 17 of the 1961, and Section 14 of the 1962 Agreement. 20. Section 17 of the 1961, and Section 17(iii) of the 1962 Agreement. 21. Section 17 of the 1961 and Section 14 of the 1962 Agreement. 22. This view was expressed in 1987 and reiterated by Mahathir in October 2002. Mahathir said that Malaysia did not revise (increase) prices fifteen years ago because it was believed that Singapore would respond by increasing the price of treated water sold to Malaysia (New Straits Times, 12 October 2002). However, there could also be other possible explanations why prices were not revised in 1986 and 1987. There were domestic issues plaguing the country in the mid1980s like the short but severe recession, and also Operasi Lalang in 1987 which diverted the attention of the Federal Government towards consolidating its rule rather than focusing on an issue like the revision of water prices. See Francis Loh Kok Wah, “Developmentalism and the Limits of Democratic Discourse”, in Democracy in Malaysia: Discourses and Practices, edited by Francis Loh Kok Wah and Khoo Boo Teck (Surrey: Curzon Press, 2002), pp. 38–45 for a discussion of such issues. 23. Public Utilities Board (PUB), Annual Report 2002 (Singapore: PUB, 2002). 24. “Four Big Taps will Keep Water Flowing”, Straits Times, 23 May 2005. 25. Public Utilities Board, Annual Report 2004. This compares favourably to S$1.17 per m3 charged for potable water. 26. “NEWater to Supply 30% of Singapore’s Water Needs by 2011: PM”, Channel NewsAsia, 15 March 2007. 27. “PUB Calls for Public Tender for fifth NEWater Plant”, Straits Times, 4 September 2007. A tender was called in 2006 to expand the Bedok NEWater plant from 32,000 m3 to 82,000 m3 per day. The expansion plans is expected to be completed by end of 2008. See Public Utilities Board, Annual Report 2006/ 7 (Singapore: PUB, 2007). 28. “Singapore Scores Milestone with Completion of 1st Desalination Plant”, Channel

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29.

30.

31. 32. 33. 34.

35.

36. 37.

38. 39.

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NewsAsia, 12 September 2005 and “PM Lee Opens Asia’s Largest Water Desalination Plant in Tuas”, Channel NewsAsia, 13 September 2005. Both multi-stage flash (MSF) and multi-effect distillation (MED) are based on evaporative desalination techniques, with MSF being the more common and mature technology (albeit more costly method due to its higher energy consumption). MED requires less energy than MSF as it uses a different method of evaporation and heat transfer where evaporation is from a seawater film in direct contact with the heat transfer surface. In MSF, a convective heating of seawater occurs where “flash” evaporation takes place from brine flowing across the bottom of the stage. RO is based on passing seawater through filter membranes which remove suspended particles and salt. RO also uses less energy per m3 of production compared with general MSF and MED desalination technologies. Water-technology.net, “Tuas Seawater Desalination Plant — Seawater Reverse Osmosis (SWRO), Singapore”, (accessed 18 March 2008). In 2005, the selling price for desalinated water by the plant was S$0.48 per m 3, lower than the initial tender price of S$0.78 per m3. “Desalination Plant Gets Four Bids”, Straits Times, 1 June 2002. Ibid., and Towards Environmental Sustainability: State of the Environment 2005 Report Singapore, p. 19. Long, “Desecuritizing the Water Issue”, p. 518. For households, consumers pay S$1.17 per m3 (and 30 per cent conservation tax plus a water-borne fee of S$0.30 per m3 for the first 40 m3 of water). Thereafter they pay S$1.40 per m3 (and 45 per cent conservation tax plus a water-borne fee of S$0.30 per m) for amounts in excess of 40 m3. Industrial users pay a flat rate of S$1.17 per m3 (and 30 conservation tax plus a water-borne fee of S$0.6 per m3). Goh Kim-chuan, “Quenching Thirsty Cities in Southeast Asia: Issues and Challenges”, in Challenging Sustainability: Urban Development and Change in Southeast Asia, edited by Wong, Tai-chee; Brian J. Shaw, and Goh Kim-chuan (Singapore: Marshall Cavendish International, 2006), pp. 99–100. See Singapore Green Plan 2012 at . Conserve by promoting water-efficient fittings and appliances that reduce water consumption, value by encouraging the community to treasure water resources and to change their water usage behaviour, and enjoy by taking ownership through water sport and recreational activities. Long, “On the Threshold of Self-Sufficiency”, pp. 113–15. For water tariffs, please see the following: (accessed 10 February 2008).

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40. See, for example, Andrew Tan, “Malaysia-Singapore Relations: Troubled Past and Uncertain Future?” Monographs on South-East Asian Studies and Institute of Pacific Studies, The University of Hull, 2001; Tim Huxley, Defending the Lion City: The Armed Forces of Singapore (Australia: Allen and Unwin, 2000), for a discussion of some of the bilateral issues existing in Singapore-Malaysia relations. 41. See Saw Swee-Hock and K. Kesavapany, Singapore-Malaysia Relations: Under Abdullah Badawi (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2006), p. xvi. 42. In the past, several issues have been tied together with water. These are the use of Malaysian airspace by Singapore’s air force, the withdrawal of Central Provident Funds (CPF) by West Malaysians, the location of Malaysia’s customs, immigration and quarantine facilities, land reclamation, the development of Malayan Railway land in Singapore, and the construction of a bridge to replace the present causeway. For the land reclamation issue, Singapore and Malaysia signed an agreement in April 2005 which has effectively ended the three-year dispute. See “S’pore-M’sia Relations Have Improved — S’pore FM”, Bernama.com, 12 October 2005, (accessed 31 October 2005). 43. “S’pore-M’sia Relations Have Improved — S’pore FM”, Bernama.com, 12 October 2005, (accessed 31 October 2005). 44. See Long, “On the Threshold of Self-Sufficiency”, pp. 122–23. 45. See Kog, “Natural Resource Management”, p. 36; and Long, “On the Threshold of Self-Sufficiency”, p. 131. 46. Saw Swee-Hock, The Population of Singapore (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1999), p. 229. 47. Drawn from Lee Poh Onn, “The Water Issue Between Singapore and Malaysia: No Solution in Sight?” Economics and Finance no. 1 (2003), ISEAS Working Papers (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2003); and Lee Poh Onn, “The Singapore-Malaysia Water Issue: Trade-Off and Alternatives”, in Regional Outlook: Southeast Asia 2003–2004, edited by Russell Hiang-Khng Heng and Denis Wei-Yen Hew (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2003), pp. 80–81. Recalculated here as there were errors present in the calculations then. 48. “Singapore Water Companies Making a Splash Overseas”, Straits Times, 13 June 2008. 49. “SembCorp in Tie-up to Set up China Water Plant”, Straits Times, 29 March 2008. 50. “Prepared for Water Crisis? Singapore Shows the Way”, Straits Times, 21 June 2008. 51. “Newater Wins Global Water Prize”, Straits Times, 22 April 2008. 52. “Cashing in on Singapore’s Liquid Assets”, Straits Times, 17 May 2008. 53. A collaboration between Delft Hydraulics, the PUB, and the National University of Singapore. 54. Speech by Dr Tony Tan Keng Yam, Chairman for National Research Foundation,

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55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62.

63.

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at the Water Leaders Summit Plenary Forum on “Good Governance, Sustainable Cities”, Suntec Ballroom Level 2, 24 June 2008. “New Moves on Cites, Water Launched 3: New $440m Water Fund with Asian Focus”, Straits Times, 26 June 2008. “Deals Worth $367m Signed at Water Week”, Straits Times, 30 June 2008. Ibid. “US Giant to Build $24m Plant Here”, Straits Times, 27 June 2008. “Japanese Firm to Invest $6m in Water R&D Centre”, Straits Times, 24 June 2008. “5 MOUs Signed to Improve Water Ties”, Straits Times, 26 June 2008. “Water Security could Spark Conflicts”, Straits Times, 24 June 2008. The crucial question would be the “price” or value that the Singapore Government and its citizenry attach to self-sufficiency, national sovereignty, and being placed on a more “equal footing” in its future bilateral dealings. If the premium on selfsufficiency is “x” dollars, then the price that Singapore is willing to pay for selfsufficiency would be the current price of water (say “y”) plus this premium “x”. As such, the price for self-sufficiency in water is S$(y + x). Water supply from Malaysia after 2061 is dependent on the signing of a new agreement, currently still in the process of being negotiated. Should an agreement take place then, Singapore would still be importing water from Malaysia. However, an eventuality may arise where Singapore will be producing all its water requirements from its reservoirs, and from NEWater and desalination, should external sources not be available.

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Community Confidence and Security

Section

7

COMMUNITY AND NATIONAL SECURITY

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24

COMMUNITY CONFIDENCE AND SECURITY YOLANDA CHIN

COMMUNITY SECURITY IN SINGAPORE

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ingaporeans are constantly reminded that Singapore is only a state and a sovereign entity, but not yet a nation. While the state as a major political subdivision of the globe can be readily defined in quantitative terms, namely by its territorial boundaries and its inhabitants, in contrast, the essence of a “nation” is intangible, although most attempts to articulate it implies a feeling of sameness, of oneness, of belonging, or of a consciousness of kind.1 Moreover, according to official rhetoric in Singapore, the survival of the state depends on the existence of a nation which generally follows closely to the definition by Rupert Emerson as “a single people, traditionally fixed on a well-defined territory, speaking the same language and preferably a language all its own, possessing a distinctive culture, and shaped by a common mould by many generations of shared historical experience”.2 Following from this, Singapore only meets the territorial criterion and is thus a sovereign state, but not a nation. However, the notion that Singapore’s culturally diverse populace impedes the cultivation of a national consciousness is consistently challenged by quantitative studies surveying the attitudes and opinions of Singaporeans. Studies measuring the strength of Singaporeans’ national identification conducted as early as 1969 both indicated very positive results. For example, a 1970 study by John MacDougall found that 75 per cent of the respondents preferred being referred to as a Singaporean rather than Chinese, Malay, or Indian; when asked to rank the top three countries in the world they would choose to live in given the choice, 443

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60 per cent ranked Singapore as their first choice, and 62 per cent ranked Singapore higher than their ancestral country.3 Chiew Seen Kong’s 1969 study on the national integration of Singaporeans found intolerance to structural integration to be low, for example with a mere 4 per cent of Singaporeans rejecting interethnic participation in community centre activities to a “high” of 26 per cent who reject neighbourhood desegregation.4 Although these studies do not suggest that perfection was achieved, it was nonetheless an impressive report card for a plural society with barely five years of nationhood. Subsequent studies indicate a trend of a commitment to the nation that is growing from strength to strength.5 Why then does the state continue to harbour reservations about the commitment of Singaporeans to the nation? In the 1989 volume of Management of Success, Ong Jin Hui’s rich account of “community security” examined the importance of racial integration, the emergence of a state-sponsored moral education programme, and the role of the community in enhancing security.6 By tracing the government’s justification of key state policies implemented since the 1990s to consolidate a Singaporean community, this chapter moves the discussion along by arguing that shoring up a sense of belonging among Singaporeans is consistently a means to secure Singapore’s future economic prosperity, rather than an end in itself. As a result, the mere existence of a strong sense of belonging to the nation-state is insufficient to convince the People’s Action Party (PAP) leaders of Singaporeans’ commitment to the nation-building project as long as they perceive that the future economic survival of Singapore is not secured. The analysis will draw on government discourses pertaining to the initiatives introduced in the 1990s and post-September 11 to enhance the Singaporean identity. While evaluating latent motivations has its merits, this chapter chooses to interrogate the government’s manifest motivations on grounds that it is only reasonable to hold them accountable on the basis of their own word. The assessment proceeds in three parts. The first section examines the justifications provided by the government for the initiatives to enhance community confidence in the 1990s and post-September 11 to illustrate that strengthening community relations is not an end in itself, but rather a means to engineer a citizenry focused on securing the economic sustainability of the nation. By evaluating the successes and limitations of the initiatives, the second section makes the case that the economic calculus driving the state’s construction of Singapore’s national values perpetuates, rather than alleviates, the security challenges to the country’s economy identified by the state, namely the unabated brain drain and the lingering prospect of a successful bomb attack by homegrown terrorists.

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The chapter concludes with an assessment of the implications of this utilitarian approach to nation-building for Singapore’s future. SINGAPORE’S PURPOSE AS A NATION: IT’S THE ECONOMY, STUPID This section examines three government initiatives to define the boundaries of a Singaporean identity to enhance community confidence at the national level: the Shared Values project and Singapore 21 in the 1990s, and the programmes to forge closer inter-communal relations post-September 11. The Shared Values project is chosen because it is the first endeavour by the government to promulgate a national ideology involving a form of public consultation. The Singapore 21 exercise was another attempt at engaging the public in formulating a vision for the nation with the specific goal of widening the notion of a Singaporean identity that encompassed more than the pursuit of material gains. Other public consultation exercises at formulating a common vision, such as the introduction of National Education in 1997, and the Remaking Singapore report in 2003, are not discussed as they are essentially a refinement of the two case studies. With the threat of terrorism identified as the dominant threat to Singapore’s security after the uncovering of the thwarted Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) plot in January 2002, there has been a noticeable increase in the government’s attention towards boosting inter-communal bonding. Moreover, Singapore’s multicultural heritage is not only a distinguishing feature of the Singaporean identity, but the basis around which policies are formulated. Hence it would be instructive to examine what is being secured through these initiatives. The analysis demonstrates that the only purpose as a nation that the government can offer the people is a robust economy. As a result, the ideal Singapore identity is defined in terms of attributes that the state believes will secure the future competitiveness of the national economy. SHARED VALUES In 1988, in a speech to the PAP Youth Wing, then Deputy Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong mooted the idea of formulating a national ideology to counter what he claimed to be a shift in the orientation of Singaporeans, especially the younger generation, from communitarianism to individualism. The economic imperative was clearly stated in his worrying that “it will determine our national competitiveness, and hence our prosperity and survival as a nation”.7 Following

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from this, the need for a national ideology to anchor a Singaporean identity was reiterated in Parliament in January 1989 by then President Wee Kim Wee who proposed a “formal statement [that] will bond us together as Singaporeans, with our own distinct identity and destiny” as a bulwark against a “Westernised, individualistic, and self-centred outlook on life”.8 The five values that were eventually identified to form the basis for the Shared Values were: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Nation before community and society above self; Family as the basic unit of society; Regard and community support for the individual; Consensus instead of contention; Racial and religious harmony.

According to the White Paper presenting the government’s position on the proposal, Singapore’s success was attributed to Singaporeans “putting the interests of society as a whole ahead of individual interests”.9 Hence enshrining communitarianism as the core value Singaporeans should all aspire towards was justified by the state on grounds of sustaining the country’s economic competitiveness. The economic imperative was more explicitly reinforced in a speech delivered in June 1989 by the then Minister of State for Finance and Foreign Affairs BG George Yeo to participants at the annual Pre-U Seminar. The theme for the seminar was “Shared Values for all Singaporeans”. This is especially significant as the annual seminar is traditionally attended by the cream of the pre-university cohort, the very target audience that the initiative set out to address in anticipation of a future brain drain. In his speech, Yeo opined that “[t]he values we share must be the values which enable us to survive and prosper in this new age”.10 A common thread running through his argument was the equation of success and survival with economic prosperity. Firstly, threats to Singapore’s national security posed by regional political instability was explained in economic terms as follows: If the Americans leave a power vacuum in SEA [Southeast Asia], ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] fragments as a result. There are economic dangers if political antagonisms lead to disruptions in trade flows. Our trade is three times our GNP. Our economic vulnerability is therefore extreme … To prosper, indeed just to survive, we must respond quickly to threats and opportunities.11

Secondly, Singapore’s racial diversity was also rationalized as necessary as a trading advantage:

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Properly managed, they reinforce the network of trading links which make us a great city-state … Multiculturalism enhances our national strength … Indeed, in addition to Chinese, Malays, Indians and Eurasians, we accommodate at any time in Singapore, a large expatriate population of Americans, Japanese and Europeans and others … We are fundamentally a trading nation … We succeed because we are open and cosmopolitan. It is therefore our multi-racial character that has enabled us to become a centre of commerce in Asia.12

Yeo went on to suggest three contradictions that Singaporeans had to reconcile to weather the challenges ahead, once again using the economic calculus. The first contradiction was between being cosmopolitan and being nationalistic. He maintained that “Our outlook must always be cosmopolitan … After all, trade is our life and with better communication and easier travel, we will become even more internationalized. The number of foreigners coming to Singapore increases every year … The more we succeed, the more open we will become. The more open we are, the more we will prosper”.13 On the other hand, internationalization carried with it risks because “we are still a young nation and our sense of belonging is not strong. It is because we do not have a strong national identity that we need this seminar on shared values”.14 He voiced concern that “If the lines of trade which brought our forefathers to Singapore also lead our children to leave Singapore, all will be lost. No nation can endure very long, deprived of its best talents.”15 Hence there is a need to instil in Singaporeans a strong sense of rootedness so that they stay on to contribute to the country’s economic success. The second contradiction was between being democratic and being centralized. His illustration of the advantage limited democracy in Singapore brought was couched in economic terms: Parliament has vested our government [with] great powers to compulsorily acquire land, powers which ride roughshod over individual property rights. In the early days, it was a system of rough justice. But without such powers, Singapore would not have been able to develop the infrastructure needed for trade and economic development. Municipal issues are important and must be debated, but they should never crowd out larger national considerations.16

By equating “larger national considerations” with “trade and economic development”, it is clear that the function of national institutions were subordinated to the needs of the economy. Yeo then suggested that the contradiction could

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be reconciled if democracy in Singapore is deployed to “achieve political consensus” because “as a small country, we need centralized decision-making to survive in an uncertain world environment … For this reason, we need traditional Asian values to center balance the individualizing effects of the free market”.17 The third and last contradiction outlined by Yeo was that between being efficient and being humane. Efficiency was defined as “competition in the free market”. However, he noted that “in any competition there will be winners and losers. The losers are also our citizens. For the system as a whole to survive, the losers must be looked after, and their dignity preserved. Efficiency and competition must therefore be tempered by compassion and humanity”.18 His suggestion of how this problem was to be mitigated was to Let the government concentrate on being efficient but let us, as members of the community, be compassionate in the way we treat our fellow human beings … Thus there is a balance to be struck between being generous and exhausting the source of that generosity. To be completely ungenerous will demean us as a people and undermine the moral basis of our society. To be overly generous will lead us to economic collapse and the loss of the very means which enable us to be generous in the first place.19

Implied in this line of argument is the belief that inculcating the values of compassion and altruism serves the utilitarian purpose of freeing the government of the responsibility to focus on generating wealth for the country. As such, it should be cultivated to the extent that it does not impede economic efficacy. From the above analysis, it appears that the goal of strengthening the emotional ties of Singaporeans to their community is not an end in itself, but to engineer a people amenable to fuelling the economy. Hence even though the project was conceived to arrest the purportedly strong orientation of youth towards individualism and materialism by developing a Singaporean identity, the purpose of nationhood was consistently justified to the very target audience as necessary for the generation of wealth, an endeavour which thrives on individualism and materialism. SINGAPORE 21 However, the government was to acknowledge in 1997 that the promise of affluence alone was not enough to guarantee the survival of the nation-state. In an address to Parliament on 5 June 1997, then Prime Minister (PM) Goh opined that “[i]f Singaporeans are like economic animals, materialistic with no

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sense of belonging, they will be like migratory birds, seeking their fortunes in other lands when the season changes”.20 He explained that globalization meant more intense competition and so to “sharpen our competitiveness to stay ahead … Singaporeans must have a goal to chase and a vision to carry the country forward”.21 This led to another government-led initiative, Singapore 21, to strengthen the “heartware” of Singapore by formulating a vision for the future built around the deliberation of the following five dilemmas facing the nation involving the input of over 6,000 Singaporeans from all walks of life: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Less stressful life vs. Retaining the drive. Needs of senior citizens vs. Aspirations of the young. Attracting talent vs. Looking after Singaporeans. Internationalization/Regionalization vs. Singapore as home. Consultation and consensus vs. Decisiveness and quick action.22

However, this attempt to give Singaporeans a cause to fight for other than the blind pursuit of wealth accumulation was undermined, because the noble ideals outlined for Singaporeans to strive towards were ultimately subordinate to the economic imperative. Acknowledging that “a narrow definition of success has helped maintained Singapore’s competitive edge by feeding the desire to excel”, the report also noted there were unintended and undesirable social effects, namely an unforgiving society, a culture of risk aversion, talents under-utilized and a loss of buzz. However, the report argued that since the “harsh reality of global economics is compete or perish”, it was unlikely that Singapore could slow down “if we want to maintain our high standards of living”, the suggestion put forward by the subject committee was to encourage Singaporeans to “widen our notions of success, and consequently, our self-worth”. Although it was stated that stress management was not the answer, the recommendations to expand the notion of success were in effect vague and idealistic suggestions on coping with stress, such as the need for Singaporeans to “realize that drive and stress are not opposites”, and “be the best that we can be”. Economic justifications were also given to explain the need for strong families. An illustration of a “happy symbiosis” among the various generations was the important role that grandparents could play in the family “by keeping an eye on the children, with the help of the maid” so that they lighten the burden on “working parents”. The economic calculus is clear as the elderly were encouraged to be actively involved in raising their grandchildren so that both parents can contribute to the workforce. Alternatively, the better educated

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and skilled elderly of the future “can continue to be economically active” and be employed in places where young people predominate. By increasing contact with the young in this manner, not only will the elderly be provided with “opportunities for gainful employment”, but it also “enables the young to see for themselves how the elderly remain useful to society”. Implied in this logic is the notion that one’s worth to society is still measured in terms of one’s potential contribution to the country’s wealth. Maintaining the economic competitiveness of Singapore is also the decisive factor in tipping the balance between attracting “foreign talents” (local parlance for highly skilled and professional foreign workers) and looking after Singaporeans in favour of the former. The subject committee noted “most Singaporeans can accept at an intellectual level the need for foreign talent to boost the economy”. At the same time, they also conceded that “people are afraid that foreign talent will crowd them out of the job market. Some feel aggrieved that as they get closer to the ‘Singapore Dream’, the goal posts seem to shift further”, stoking fears among some of “becoming ‘second-class citizens’ in their own country”. That the economic opportunity cost trumped the prospect of disenfranchised citizens losing their sense of affiliation to the country was clear in the subject committee’s suggestion to this dilemma, which was to “explain more comprehensively why Singapore needs foreign talent”. As a result, an initiative set out to strengthen the “heartware” of Singapore was arguably little more than an exercise to achieve buy-in from Singaporeans disillusioned with the materialism dictating the Singapore Dream. PROMOTING RACIAL HARMONY AFTER SEPTEMBER 11 Singapore’s multicultural identity has been regarded both as a source of national pride and a constant source of state insecurity since its inception as a sovereign nation. Nevertheless it was generally believed that over the years, inter-communal relations, although not perfect, have stabilized.23 However, the grim reality of homegrown terrorists in Singapore surfaced with the uncovering of the thwarted JI plot in January 2002, reviving concerns that racial tensions may resurface, especially between the Muslim and non-Muslim members of the population. Then PM Goh expressed concerns of heightened suspicions among the non-Malays towards the Malays in Singapore. Citing anecdotal evidence, he made the case that “mutual suspicion and distrust will soon set in” because unlike at “the leadership level … people on the ground … tend to react emotionally based on rumours,

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hearsay and prejudices … A minor incident could blow up into a major confrontation between the races and religion. We must prevent this”.24 As a result, a slew of programmes to systematically deepen interracial and interreligious understanding were introduced to minimize the possibility of hate crimes arising in the event of a terror attack on local soil. Following from this, community bonding became synonymous with racial harmony. The first step was to form the Inter-Racial Confidence Circles (IRCCs) comprising leaders of various racial, religious, social educational and business groups in each constituency, with the aim of enhancing inter-communal interaction on the ground.25 The IRCCs complements the ongoing efforts in the community — schools, religious institutions, civic organizations, corporations — to strengthen community bonding and social harmony.26 Four years on, the Community Engagement Programme (CEP) was launched in February 2006 to remind Singaporeans that the threat of terrorism remains real and thus the need to remain vigilant. While highlighting the need for the CEP in view of the persistent nature of the threat, PM Lee reiterated the urgency for “a community response, which is even more critical in the long term, to hold our society together”.27 The twin objectives of the CEP are to (1) create a network of people to help prevent racial and religious conflict after a crisis; and (2) implement response plans to cope with the shock of a terrorist incident.28 The network encompasses community leaders from the following five clusters: (1) religious groups, clan associations, and voluntary welfare organizations; (2) grassroots organizations; (3) business and unions; (4) the media and the arts; and (5) educational institutions. The Muslim community was also called upon to be actively involved at both the intra-communal level to neutralize radicalism, and the inter-communal level to allay the anxieties of the non-Muslim population. For example, at the intra-communal level, the Religious Rehabilitation Group (RRG) was formed by a voluntary group of Muslim religious scholars and teachers on their own initiative to provide religious counselling to terrorist detainees and those under Restriction Orders, as well as their families. The Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (MUIS) also set up the Asatizah Recognition Scheme to enhance the public standing of religious teachers (asatizah) in Singapore and to serve as a reliable reference guide for members of the Singapore Muslim community. At the inter-communal level, efforts have been made to educate the public on Islam and facilitate interracial and interfaith interaction. For example, the Harmony Centre that was set up to provide facilities and a platform for forums and activities aimed at deepening interfaith relations. The RRG also serves as a resource panel on religious extremism and radical ideology,

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and engages both the Muslim and non-Muslim public on this topic through talks, publications, and the internet.29 At first glance, it appears that the on-going attempt to secure stable interracial and inter-religious relations is an end in itself. However, an examination of the rationale for maintaining racial harmony reveals that securing intercommunal relations is but a means to securing the economy. To begin with, prior to the uncovering of the JI plot, public deliberations of inter-communal relations tensions were still considered by and large taboo by both the authorities and the public in the interest of internal security.30 However, the radical change of policy to engage the public actively on the issue seems to be precipitated by the implications for investor confidence should racial relations become strained in the event of a terror attack on the island. In a parliamentary speech on the White Paper on the Jemaah Islamiyah Arrests and Threat of Terrorism, Minister for Home Affairs Wong Kan Seng argued that: the White Paper and this debate in Parliament will be scrutinized not only by Singaporeans but also by the world outside. They will watch whether we are united across parties and communities and are determined to deal with the threat or are we divided and in denial, squabbling over secondary issues and who to blame. Whether our foreign investors will view us with confidence or with anxiety will be influenced by how we respond as a Government and as a people.31

In this sense, communal fallouts are perceived to be undesirable from an investment point of view. This economic justification for racial diversity is also reiterated to students, for example, in the Social Studies textbook for secondary schools.32 On the chapter “Bonding Singapore”, which covers the challenges and approaches to managing Singapore’s multi-ethnic diversity, the two reasons to explain the importance of managing ethnic diversity were (1) security and peace; and (2) economic progress. First, it was argued “One of the benefits of living harmoniously in a multi-ethnic society is the security and peace that all Singaporeans enjoy. People feel safe in Singapore.”33 Then the benefit of keeping Singapore safe is further elaborated as a function of ensuring economic progress as follows: With peace and stability comes economic progress. Foreign investors invest and set up their companies in Singapore because their investments would be protected.

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An example of an economic benefit of maintaining peace and harmony in Singapore is the tourist industry. Tourists generally avoid visiting countries that are caught in violence and conflict. In addition, the multi-ethnic characteristics of Singapore’s population attract tourists from all over the world.34

Hence it seems the only justification the state can provide to its citizens to refrain from ethnic discrimination is predicated on the promise of economic prosperity, rather than the flawed logic of racial profiling, stereotypes, and prejudices. Moreover, it also suggests that internal security concerns are dictated by the needs of the nation’s economy as well. To sum up, this section demonstrates that key state-sanctioned community bonding initiatives since the 1990s have been first and foremost driven by the state’s concern over Singapore’s economic prosperity, rather than a genuine attempt to develop a sense of belonging. In this manner, the only coherent purpose as a nation that the state is able to offer Singaporeans is nothing more than the pursuit of prosperity as an end in itself. “MONEY NO ENOUGH” The analysis of the initiatives in the previous section has shown that sustaining Singapore’s economic competitiveness has been the foundation on which initiatives to develop the Singapore identity are developed since the 1990s.35 By evaluating the reasons motivating (1) Singaporeans to leave for greener pastures; and (2) the JI detainees for plotting to attack their fellow citizens, this second section makes the case that the economic calculus driving the state’s construction of Singapore’s national values perpetuates, rather than alleviates, the threats to the economy it sets out to arrest. The Brain Drain One of the aims of both the Shared Values and Singapore 21 projects was to arrest the problem of the brain drain facing Singapore. However, according to an assessment by Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew in 2008, Singapore continues to lose about 1,000 capable people every year and that this exodus can only grow.36 Anecdotal evidence gathered in response to Lee’s comments showed that factors compelling Singaporeans to sink their roots elsewhere included pull factors of the prospect of better pay, and push factors centring on complaints of life in Singapore as stressful, with an overemphasis on scholastic achievements,

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the high costs of living and the lack of political freedom.37 These factors generally mirror the sentiments of concerned Singaporeans raised in the Singapore 21 report and also in studies of those who chose to leave in the 1990s.38 Hence this highlights the fact that the intimate link between the Singapore identity and the single-minded pursuit of economic excellence is not likely to resonate with the very group of Singaporeans the state has been trying to retain. Moreover, it is also worth noting that most of the Singaporeans surveyed in the reports and studies continue to maintain close ties to Singapore,39 suggesting that national identification is relatively strong among the majority of overseas Singaporeans. Following from this, it is possible to suggest that the lack of emotional ties is not a reason Singaporeans choose to uproot. In this sense, state-led policies to shore up affective bonds to the nation are not likely to serve their intended purpose of stemming the brain drain. National Insecurity Although Singapore’s economic success has often been touted as the foundation of Singapore’s social stability, the motivations behind the JI detainees to undermine national security suggests that a materialistic society may alienate those who aspire for more. Scholars have noted that contrary to secularization theories postulating that economic development results in a decline in personal religiosity, the religious orientation of affluent Singaporeans seems to show otherwise. A study by Tong Chee Kiong suggests that rapid industrialization has not led to the abandonment of religion by increasingly affluent Singaporeans. Rather, the shift has been towards the rationalization of religion, a process which involves “the clarification, specification, and systematization of the ideas which men have concerning their reason for being”.40 Evidence that religiosity continues to thrive in Singapore today is also evident in data collected by the Worlds Values Survey-Singapore in 2002 which indicates that (1) many Singaporeans are of the opinion that religion is important in their lives; (2) they maintain a high level of belief in the metaphysical aspect of religion; and (3) they continue to fulfill their religious obligations and activities.41 A survey of the profile of the thirty Singaporean JI detainees does suggest that indeed the attainment of affluence befitting of a First World country did not result in the decline of religiosity but on the contrary fuelled its fervour among some of its adherents. According to the JI White Paper, except for two of the detainees, the remaining twenty-eight were gainfully employed.42 Abdul Basheer Abdul Kader, a self-radicalized individual arrested in 2007, held a white collar job as a polytechnic law lecturer, prompting Member of Parliament Zaqy Mahamad

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to note that “You would think that those who are well-educated and have good careers would be more rational.”43 While the factors motivating Kadeer is unclear due to the paucity of information pertaining to his case,44 an evaluation of the JI detainees’ motivations by a RRG member who counsels them is rather revealing: One of the more significant structural causes that may push individuals towards fringe ideology is the rapid economic progress that has been enjoyed by Singapore in the past years. Though widely believed to be a major stabilizing factor for Singapore’s multiethnic society, Singapore’s emphasis on economic concerns has also been seen by some to have created a nation lacking in creativity and spirituality. Indeed, the JI recruits arrested by the Singapore authorities are a prototype of the successful Singaporean: educated in secular schools, holding respectable jobs and possessing ownership of their homes. Yet by placing religion as their top priority above economic values, these JI recruits are effectively saying that their search for excellence goes beyond material concerns … It is in pursuit of filling this spiritual void that the JI recruits sought to deepen their knowledge and practice of Islam.45

Thus a Singapore identity under-girded by a culture dominated by materialism is evidently unsatisfying to a critical minority whose actions are believed to have dire consequences on the economy. Moreover, the economic justification provided by the state for the need for racial tolerance is not likely to compel them to integrate.46 While those who pose a security threat in this manner are the exception rather than the rule, they are nonetheless the significant deviant minority who perpetuate the insecurity perceived by the state. To surmise, the analysis in this section demonstrates that the economic calculus that forms the basis of a Singaporean identity serves to perpetuate, rather than alleviate, the security concerns of the state. CONCLUSION This analysis demonstrates two things. First, the impetus for state-led initiatives to foster community confidence since the 1990s has been motivated by the desire to secure the nation’s prosperity rather than to bond Singaporeans as an end in itself. As a result, the only coherent vision as a nation that the state is able to offer Singaporeans is little more than the pursuit of wealth. Secondly, the single-minded focus on attaining this goal has resulted in the alienation of a critical section of Singaporeans who fuel state insecurity when they choose to opt out.

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At this juncture, it would be instructive to ask: Would Singapore’s social fabric and economy unravel in the face of a national security crisis, such as a terror attack?47 Until such an incident materializes, one can do little more than speculate. Nevertheless, it is possible to make some preliminary observations. Firstly, in spite of the looming threat of a terror attack, public opinion on communal relations consistently reaffirms the people’s confidence and commitment to social cohesion. For example, according to a 2005 survey by the Feedback Unit, 73 per cent of the respondents felt that terrorism posed a threat to Singapore’s security. Nevertheless, 90 per cent believed that all Singaporeans, regardless of race or religion, will stand united in the event of a terrorist attack in Singapore.48 This concurs with the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports’ survey which suggested that in spite of September 11 and the exposure of the Jemaah Islamiyah cell in Singapore, there was still “an overall positive state of racial and religious group relations in terms of Singaporeans’ attitudes on a variety of issues related to race and religion”.49 Moreover, although the foiled Jemaah Islamiyah plot included American targets, a U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreement, a first ever between the U.S. and an Asian nation, was inked a year later in May 2003,50 suggesting that investor confidence was not easily shaken by security threats. More recently, a security lapse that led to the escape of a JI leader, Mas Selamat Kastari, from an Internal Security Department detention centre also failed to dent the nation’s robust inter-communal relations or economy. On the contrary, Singaporeans of all racial and religious backgrounds were united in the search for the Jemaah Islamiyah leader.51 Others have also observed that the average working Singaporean are more concerned about bread and butter issues like rising food costs, and “don’t bother about this Mas Selamat … they’ve got no time to think about this”.52 Moreover, according to Minister for Trade and Industry Lim Hng Kiang the serious security lapse was also not perceived as an issue among the business community in the country and the region.53 While it would be imprudent to assume that Singaporeans and investors will always react in a sensible manner to any future security crises, their response thus far seems to indicate that irrationality does not easily overwhelm reason in times of uncertainty, a trend if continued into the future bodes well for Singapore’s social fabric. This leads us to another question: What then is the purpose of a national identity and for whom? A review of the literature on Singapore’s national identity reveals that much of the scholarly work have been centred on how best it can be conceptualized and developed in order for the nation to remain viable.54 This analysis has illustrated that the nation-building project has primarily been

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orientated towards the production of economically viable citizens, rather than an emotionally committed citizenry as an end in itself. Although such a utilitarian calculus on which the Singapore nation is founded is unlikely to satisfy every Singaporean, it is also likely that the country’s meteoric rise from a Third to First World nation is a source of pride for the majority of Singaporeans. Moreover, it is possible to make the case that the nub of the issue lies not in the absence of an common identity or purpose, but in defining the boundaries of the responsibilities of government to its citizens. The core responsibility of governments in our capitalist world is to ensure its citizens a decent standard of living and security of which economic sustainability is a key means to that end. Not only is this a tall order in itself, citizens calling for a stronger presence of the state in their lives beyond this pragmatic transactional relationship may unwittingly get more than what they bargained for. That said, the fact remains that without a pool of committed, well-integrated and driven people, Singapore’s future remains uncertain at best. While there is no denying that there are grounds for concern that there are Singaporeans who have chosen to opt out, this should not obscure the reality that the overwhelming majority remains committed to making Singapore their home. Efforts to bring the former group back into the fold are commendable, but ultimately, it is the latter group of Singaporeans who will shape the nation’s future. NOTES 1. Walker Connor, “A Nation is a Nation, is a State, is an Ethnic Group, is a …”, Ethnic and Racial Studies 1, no. 4 (1978): 379–88. 2. Definition of “nation” provided by PM Goh Chok Tong in a speech in Parliament on Singapore 21 debate delivered on 5 May 1999. 3. John A. MacDougall, “Birth of a Nation: National Identification in Singapore”, Asian Survey 16, no. 6 (June 1976): 510–24. 4. Chiew Seen Kong, “National Integration: The Case of Singapore”, in Studies in ASEAN Sociology, edited by Peter S.J. Chen and Hans-Dieter Evers (Singapore: Chopmen Enterprises, 1978), pp. 130–46. 5. Chiew Seen Kong, “National Identity, Ethnicity and National Issues”, in In Search of Singapore’s National Values, edited by Jon S.T. Quah (Singapore: Institute of Policy Studies, 1990), pp. 66–79; Tan Ern Ser and Ooi Giok Ling, “Citizens and the Nation — IPS Survey of National Pride and Citizens’ Psychological Ties to the Nation”, a press statement released on 18 February 2000; Ooi Giok Ling, Tan Ern Ser, and Soh Kay Cheng, The Study of Ethnicity, National Identity and

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6.

7.

8. 9. 10.

11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

24. 25.

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Sense of Rootedness in Singapore (Singapore: Institute of Policy Studies, 2002); Ministry of Community Development and Sports, Attitudes on Race and Religion: Survey on Social Attitudes of Singaporeans (SAS) 2002, (accessed 20 April 2007). Ong Jin Hui, “Community Security”, in Management of Success: The Moulding of Modern Singapore, edited by Kernial Singh Sandu and Paul Wheatley (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1989). Goh Chok Tong quoted in Jon S.T. Quah, “National Values and Nation-Building: Defining the Problem”, in In Search of Singapore’s National Values, edited by Jon S.T. Quah (Singapore: Institute of Policy Studies, 1990), p. 1. White Paper on Shared Values, presented to Parliament on 2 January 1991. Ibid. George Yeo, “Evolving a National Identity in a Changing World Environment”, Keynote Address by Brig-Gen (Res) George Yeo, Minister of State (Finance and Foreign Affairs), at the Pre-University Students’ Seminar at the National University of Singapore Lecture Theatre 27, 19 June 1989 (Singapore: Ministry of Communication and Information, 1989). Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Goh Chok Tong, “Singapore 21 — A New Vision for a New Era”, debate on President’s address in Parliament on 5 June 1997. Ibid. Singapore 21: Together We Make the Difference. Report available on the Singapore 21 website, (accessed 30 January 2008). That the government leaders believed this to be so is implied in a comment by Minister for Home Affairs Wong Kan Seng that although the objectives of grassroots organizations such as the People’s Association was to promote social cohesion and racial harmony, the many years of social stability that Singapore has enjoyed has resulted in the expansion of outreach activities to focus on other social goals. See “DPM Wong Explains why Govt Won’t Drive Crucial Community Programme”, TODAY, 13 February 2006. “Forge Closer Ethnic Ties, Tackle Irrational Fears”, Straits Times, 30 January 2002. Ibid.

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26. National Security Coordination Centre (Singapore), The Fight Against Terror: Singapore’s National Security Strategy (Singapore: Atlas Associates Pte. Ltd., 2004), p. 66. 27. “How to Stay an Oasis in a Troubled World”, Straits Times, 10 February 2006. 28. Community Engagement Programme website, (accessed 30 January 2008). 29. Information on the various initiatives taken by the Muslim community can be found at the MUIS website, . 30. In the report submitted by the Subject Committee for the Singapore 21 project on recommendations to mitigate the dilemma of “Consultation and Consensus versus Decisiveness and Quick Action”, the committee called for the establishment of a transparent set of out-of-bounds (OB) markers to encourage civic participation without endangering national security and social stability. It suggested that the OB markers “should be limited to racial and religious issues which affect social harmony, as well as issues which threaten national security”, a clear acknowledgement that it was in the best interest of social cohesion that inter-communal discontent remain mitigated by the authorities behind closed doors. Summary of Deliberations of the Subject Committee on the dilemma of “Consultation and Consensus versus Decisiveness and Quick Action” submitted to the Singapore 21 Committee, p. 9, available on the Singapore 21 website, (accessed 30 January 2008). 31. Wong Kan Seng, “Motion on the White Paper on the Jemaah Islamiyah Arrest and Threat of Terrorism”, speech addressed to Parliament on 20 January 2003, available at (accessed 30 January 2008). 32. This Social Studies syllabus is significant as it is a compulsory examinable subject for all upper secondary students pursuing the ‘N’ Level and ‘O’ Level certification. 33. Curriculum and Development Planning Division, Ministry of Education, Singapore, Upper Secondary Social Studies 3 Textbook (Singapore: EPB Pan Pacific, 2007), p. 154. 34. Ibid., p. 155. 35. For a good empirical analysis of the manner in which Singaporeans’ sense of belonging is articulated in material terms, refer to Selvaraj Velayutham, Responding to Globalization: Nation, Culture and Identity in Singapore (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2007), pp. 158–201. 36. “S’pore Losing about 1,000 Capable People Every Year”, Straits Times, 14 February 2008. 37. “Lost and Found”, Straits Times, 2 March 2008. 38. Gerard Sullivan and S. Gunasekaran, Motivations of Migrants From Singapore to Australia (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1994); Yap Mui Teng,

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39.

40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45.

46.

47.

48.

49.

50.

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Singaporeans Overseas: A Study of Emigrants in Australia and Canada (Singapore: Institute of Policy Studies, 1991). “Lost and Found”, Straits Times, 2 March 2008; Gerard Sullivan and S. Gunasekaran, Motivations of Migrants From Singapore to Australia, pp. 8–9; Yap Mui Teng, Singaporeans Overseas, p. 36; Selvaraj Velayutham, Responding to Globalization, pp. 159–201. Tong Chee Kiong, Rationalizing Religion: Religious Conversion, Revivalism and Competition in Singapore Society (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2007), p. 5. Alexius A. Pereira, “Religiosity and Economic Development in Singapore”, Journal of Contemporary Religion 20, no. 2 (2005): 161–77. White Paper on the Jemaah Islamiyah and the Threat of Terrorism, presented to Parliament on 7 January 2003, pp. 43–50. “Lawyer’s Profile Takes Leaders by Surprise”, Straits Times, 9 June 2007. Kumar Ramakrishna, “Self-Radicalisation: The Case of Abdul Basheer Abdul Kader”, RSIS Commentaries, 11 June 2007. Mohamed Bin Ali, “Identifying Key Concerns of the Jemaah Islamiyah: The Singapore Context”, in Social Resilience in Singapore: Reflections from the London Bombing, edited by Norman Vasu (Singapore: Select Publishing, 2007), p. 72. A similar observation was made by Bill Durodie. In his assessment of the threat posed by terrorism in the West, Durodie observed that the phenomena of terrorism cannot be explained by the attraction of extremist ideology alone. Instead, it is also a reflection of society’s failure to provide a clear sense of purpose and inspiring vision of its own future. Bill Durodie, “Cultural Precursors and Psychological Consequences of Contemporary Western Responses to Acts of Terror”, in The Psychology of Resolving Global Conflicts, edited by M. Fitzduff and C.E. Stout (Westport: Praeger Press, 2006), pp. 307–26. Singapore’s national security framework identifies a terror attack as the dominant security threat facing the nation. See National Security Coordination Centre (Singapore), The Fight Against Terror: Singapore’s National Security Strategy (Singapore: Atlas Associates Pte. Ltd., 2004). The statistics were from a 2005 report by the Feedback Unit comparing Singaporeans’ attitude towards terrorism in 2003 and 2005, available from the Feedback Unit website in July 2006. However, the unit has been revamped into Reach and its new website no longer carries the survey results. Ministry of Community Development and Sports, Attitudes on Race and Religion: Survey on Social Attitudes of Singaporeans (SAS) 2002 (Singapore: Ministry of Community Development and Sports, 2003), p. 10. Office of the Press Secretary, White House, U.S., “Joint Statement between the United States of America and Singapore”, (accessed 30 April 2008).

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51. Clarissa Oon, “S’poreans Ace Test of Racial Cohesion: Swee Say”, Straits Times, 12 March 2008. 52. Zakir Hussain, “Views Aplenty, from ‘Govt Should Do More’ to ‘Move On’ ”, Straits Times, 24 April 2008. 53. Lynn Lee and Li Xueying, “Escape ‘Has Not Spooked Investors’ ”, Straits Times, 22 April 2008. 54. A comprehensive review of the literature illustrating this can be found in Velayutham, Responding to Globalization, pp. 36–41.

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NATIONAL SECURITY AND SINGAPORE An Assessment NORMAN VASU and BERNARD LOO

NATIONAL SECURITY IN SINGAPORE

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ational security has traditionally been thought of in terms of the employment of military power to protect the territorial integrity of the state. Thus, national security is, according to such traditional conceptions, the necessary foundation for the “good life” of its citizens to be realized. Consequently, stemming from this, the military was viewed to be the primary instrument of national security, and, if non-military instruments of national security existed, the latter was clearly secondary to the former. Arguably, this relationship between the military and non-military instruments of national security has now changed and securing the nation has become significantly more complex than it used to appear. Despite the sharp decline of interstate wars especially with the end of the Cold War, the porosity of territorial boundaries with rapid globalization1 has ensured that the cohesion and survival of nation states remain vulnerable. Recent events such as the Asian financial crisis in 1997, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and, most notably, September 11, have been instructional for the realization that traditional security concerns such as an invasion by a foreign country need not be the only manner by which the national security of a state can be threatened. Moreover, these recent security aberrations have clearly illustrated that security threats are constantly evolving and that no amount of planning can completely eradicate the element of strategic surprise. Without the luxury 462

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of 20/20 hindsight, September 11 and SARS remained off the radar of most governments until after the fact. In other words, the components of national security — the things to be secured — have not only expanded but the threats have also become more unpredictable. In light of this, national security is made even more difficult owing to the finite resources at the state’s disposal. Full protection is a near impossible task as every possible target cannot be secured fully. For instance, to protect every building in a country from a terror attack would overstretch the resources of the state — hence, an attempt to protect every building would be to protect every building poorly. This problem of finite national security resources is compounded by the difficulty in knowing beforehand what the threats are, where it emanates from, and how it will manifest itself. Even the technological wizardry of pervasive, multi-dimensional and redundant reconnaissance and surveillance systems cannot confer upon the national security apparatus omniscience.2 Against this backdrop of an expanded threat horizon and a state’s limited ability to mitigate all of them, this chapter assesses the measures implemented by the Singapore Government in order to secure the nation-state and the “good life” for its people. The chapter argues that the Singapore Government has been remarkably successful at addressing two key national security concerns of the city-state as identified since independence: (1) the protection of Singaporean sovereignty; and (2) the maintenance of public order. However, due to the expanding threat horizon and the complexity of ever-evolving threats, for continued success, the process of securitization in Singapore — that is, who is permitted to frame a threat, who decides what the best response is — may have to alter with time. In the 1989 volume of Management of Success, Seah Chee Meow provides a comprehensive account of early practices of statecraft and Total Defence.3 This chapter seeks to update the issue of national security with the literature on “strategic culture”, the emergence of international terrorism, and the more recent government structural changes in response to new security threats. It is broadly divided into three sections. In section one, an overview of the concepts underpinning the conventional division of roles and responsibility of governments and citizens as well as the strategic culture that influences the process of securitization in formulating and enacting national security, is discussed. It shows that while there may be an implicit social compact founded on a common strategic culture between government and the governed — where the roles and responsibilities vis-à-vis national security is clearly defined — this distinct

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division of roles may be untenable due to an altering international context and threat spectrum. The second section both locates and assesses the case of Singapore within this framework. In its analysis, the process of identifying and mitigating issues pertaining to national security in Singapore is revealed. The process of securitization in Singapore is marked by three salient factors: (1) the process of identifying threats and responding to them is state-centric and elite-driven; (2) the process is shrouded in secrecy; and (3) the process is conducted with the tacit act of faith among the people not to challenge the sanctioned paradigm in exchange for protection against the identified threats. The section concludes that this process of securitization has undoubtedly been a success thus far. Finally, by discussing two possible threats to Singapore’s national security, the chapter three will illustrate why securitization in Singapore, though successful thus far, may have to alter in response to future challenges. UNDERSTANDING NATIONAL SECURITY Following from Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan, it is conventionally understood that the state is committed to the protection of its citizens from external and internal security threats. Following Hobbes, fearing the unrelenting mercilessness competition found within the state of nature where there is a no central governing authority, life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short” and “everyman is enemy to everyman”. In order to transform this state of affairs, members of a society enter a social compact where they relinquish their right to defend themselves to a Leviathan tasked with doing so for them.4 More succinctly, security is devolved to a higher authority for order and stability to prevail. The implications of this for the process of securitization — defined in this chapter as the power to frame national security threats and decide on the best response to mitigate them — and national security is as follows: the state is seen to be empowered with the ability to articulate threats to the nation’s collective security and execute the means necessary to obtain this end — often with the acquiescence of the people.5 This process of securitization is akin to what some strategists refer to as strategic culture.6 Strategic culture, as a concept, may be understood as an integrated system of symbols (i.e., argumentation structures, languages, analogies, metaphors, etc.) that acts to establish pervasive and long-lasting grand strategic preferences by formulating concepts of the role and efficacy of military force in interstate political affairs, and by clothing these conceptions

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with such an aura of factuality that the strategic choices seem uniquely realistic and efficacious.7

Specifically, for the purposes of this chapter, however, it is the so-called second generation of strategic culture theory that is pertinent. Second generation theory“argues that strategic culture may be nothing more than the creation of images and myths that serve to legitimize the strategic choices of the political elites.8 A key element then to the process of securitization and what is considered national security is how political elites use images and symbols both to make sense of their strategic environment, as well as to generate an identity and self-image of the state.9 It first begins with the way policy-makers perceive the complex strategic environment in which their state exists,10 and how they then make sense of why specific events occur.11 Strategic cultural images and symbols provide a focus that helps policy-makers prioritize and make sense of the overwhelming amount of information coming from the strategic environment.12 Policy-makers are constrained by their ability and willingness to devote limited time and attention to all incoming information; more often than not, information that is dissonant with prior expectations and dominant symbols and images tend to be ignored or filtered out. In so doing, the strategic cultural lens through which policy-makers perceive and make sense of their operating environment may be the cause of misperceptions and strategic miscalculations. For example, misperception and miscalculation may unwittingly influence policy-makers into believing there are preparations for war by a putative adversary when none exists. Why is this elite manipulation so important? One answer lies in the importance of political mobilization for the attainment of these national interests. Another answer lies in the relationship between identity and threat. Strategic culture not only provides the conceptual lens through which policy-makers can perceive the strategic environment, but it also allows policy-makers to identify the putative adversaries and assess the immediacy of the threat. There is any number of state and non-state actors in a given state’s strategic environment. Which of these actors comes to be identified as the putative adversary is as much a result of rational analysis of “objective” conditions, as it is of cultural perspectives. By filtering the vast amount of information from the strategic environment, these symbols and images create the basis for understanding the specific roles and policy actions that are commensurate with this national self-image. By telling policy-makers what their state is like, strategic culture influences and

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shapes the sorts of interests and objectives that these policy-makers will pursue.13 Expressed differently, strategic culture informs the process of securitization — the culture determines what is considered a threat and the “proper” response to the threat. Strategic culture helps policy-makers to identify the national security interests of the state, and provides the tools with which policy-makers can define and understand the situation they are in, interpret adversarial motives, and suggest approaches by which such challenges to state interests can be dealt with.14 Finally, however, the legitimacy of elites becomes a function of the preservation or realization of that conception of national security.15 However, while elite manipulation of images and symbols is central to the strategic culture of a state, it does not mean that strategic cultures can change from situation to situation. This resistance to change is due to strategic cultural images acquiring a life of its own once they are employed for political mobilization. The process of internalization of these strategic cultural images and symbols does not occur solely at the mass level; elites are also affected by this process of socialization such that the political legitimacy of these elites comes to be tied to the specific conception of national security that they created in the first place.16 Hence the historical foundations of strategic culture play a large role in development of a particular culture. The elite manipulation of strategic culture does not occur in a vacuum; it necessarily occurs in a historical foundation, it is part of a wider process of socialization that is informed by historical events, and must therefore correlate with some form of historically derived inferential logic.17 The images and symbols elites use to mobilize popular support for any given objective must draw from and correlate with widely held societal belief systems; otherwise, such attempts at political mobilization will likely fail. The process of national self-identification discussed earlier and the related process of identifying the putative adversary cannot be divorced from the historical context. States do not become hostile to one another because of negative stereotypes; those negative stereotypes are the result of a particular interpretation of historically driven inferences.18 Besides the manner in which national security is conceived and the way strategic culture impacts on the process of securitization, the Herculean responsibility of ensuring national security has oftentimes earned the security sector of governments — even among the staunchest democracies — the privilege of blanket secrecy.19 Following from this, it has become customary for deliberations and the framing of national security threats and strategies to operate away from the prying eyes of the public to enable the professionals to work. By tackling the gamut of challenges to the nation’s sovereignty and public order

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in this manner, the state assumes the two weighty burdens of constant monitoring as well as ceaseless mitigating of security threats. To complicate matters for security agencies tasked with this role, in today’s context, non-traditional threats — defined as non-military threats to the security of nations, such as transnational terrorism, environmental degradation, and pandemics — are beginning to feature prominently in security agendas worldwide. These issues are becoming increasing difficult to secure with increased globalization and greater movement of people, goods, and services across borders. Unlike traditional threats which are by and large identifiable, non-traditional security threats such as ideologies and diseases are often not only faceless but also almost impossible to prevent from permeating the territorial boundaries of the state as its ubiquitous perpetrators make them unfeasible to nip in the bud. To complicate matters, unlike in a conventional battlefield where trained military personnel are at the forefront of an enemy attack, the first casualties of an amorphous non-traditional security threat are civilians. In addition, the majority of these citizens have limited access to the black box of their country’s securitization process. In this respect, the ability of a society to survive any unanticipated national disasters will be shaped by their response to the incident. This response in turn is determined by their understanding of their role in national security which is in turn informed by society’s shared strategic culture. On this note, the next section will examine the strategic culture and the current approach to securitization in Singapore. SINGAPORE’S NATIONAL SECURITY: DRIVERS (AND PASSENGERS) OF CHANGE From its independence in 1965 up to September 11, it is possible to argue that while identifiable threats to Singapore’s national security have been dynamic and continually varying, Singapore’s national security strategy remained primarily driven by the conventional twin security concerns of protecting Singapore’s sovereignty and public order. The historical foundation of Singapore’s strategic culture and, following from this, the process of securitization in Singapore arguably begin with Singapore’s exit from Malaysia in 1965. This exit, so the historical narrative goes, left it without a defence force to protect its newfound independence as a small state located precariously between much larger and possibly hostile neighbours coupled with volatile communal relations among its multicultural populace prone to sporadic outbreaks of racial riots. It was thus perhaps no surprise that this

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historical foundation has impacted on the ruling People’s Action Party’s (PAP) policies vis-à-vis national security. This ubiquitous historical narrative — known as the “Singapore Story”20 — has fertilized an ideology of survival predicated on Singapore’s presupposed innate vulnerability. As such, the urgency of building an armed force to protect Singapore’s fragile sovereign status and a police force to maintain law and order topped the pressing concerns of the government. To this end, the Ministry of Interior and Defence (MID) was established in November 1965 to strengthen the country’s external and internal defence with control of both the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) and police force. In the 1970s and 1980s, Singapore’s national security strategy then saw a shift in emphasis towards external defence. The division of the MID into the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Home Affairs reflected the acknowledgement of the evolving roles in the internal and external security agencies of Singapore with time.21 There were two key reasons for this shift. Firstly, this was partially due to the assessment that the two internal security threats of communism and communalism by and large had been effectively contained by the 1980s as Singapore’s economic success steadily undermined their appeal. Moreover, the Internal Security Department (ISD) and rigorous anti-subversion legislation had also been effective in keeping domestic social and political threats in check.22 Secondly, while the threats to internal security had diminished over time, this was not the case with Singapore’s external defence. The sobering lessons of history of both the Japanese invasion and the tumultuous years in Malaysia ingrained in the psyche of the old guard leaders that Singapore’s borders must be secured at all cost. The lingering fear that there still existed in Kuala Lumpur leaders who feel that Singapore should not have been allowed to leave Malaysia but “clobbered” into submission,23 was a constant fuel that fanned the historical mistrust between the two countries. While Indonesia was viewed as the lesser of the two security threat from its neighbours, especially with the end of the Confrontation, there have been sporadic comments from the leaders of the vast archipelago that have served to remind Singapore leaders that they should not let their guard down. One such comment was made by then President Habibie to then Second Minister for Defence Teo Chee Hean that “Singapore lies inside [Indonesia]”.24 As a result of the desire to deter external powers from entertaining thoughts of violating Singapore’s territorial integrity, the citystate has invested considerably in strengthening its armed forces.25 Undeterred by constraints such as its lack of strategic depth and manpower, the leaders developed the SAF from scratch to what it is today — arguably the most

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modern, well-equipped and technically proficient armed forces in maritime Southeast Asia. Hence, it may be argued that before September 11, Singapore’s national security strategy at the point of independence focused on both domestic and international threats. In the 1980s, the national security strategy evolved to focus largely on building strong external defensive capabilities. These external defensive capabilities were “tasked with meeting clear military challenges from state-based threats” and “geared towards fighting a conventional war”.26 However, since September 11 and the rise of transnational terrorism worldwide, terrorism has reinvigorated the domestic dimension of national security as it is viewed as one of the key threats to public order. In the literature produced by the National Security Coordination Centre (a centre set up in response to the threat of terrorism), terrorism is described as “the most serious security threat” Singapore faces “in the immediate future”.27 Unlike the incidents of terrorism in Singapore’s past, such as the Macdonald House bombing in 1965, the Laju Incident in 1974, and the SQ 117 hijacking in 1991, which were “isolated and episodic” and “not at all representative of the transnational terrorism facing us today”,28 the current threat transcends borders, has a global reach, is rooted in ideology, employs sophisticated methods to achieve catastrophic outcomes,29 and is likely to pose a “serious and prolonged threat to Singapore’s national security”, requiring that Singaporeans “learn to live with the real prospect that a terrorist attack could occur in this country”.30 The uncovering of the foiled local Jemaah Islamiyah plot in 2002 reinforced the existential nature of the threat to Singapore. Consequently, to turn Singapore into a “hard target”, even five years on, more resources have been allocated to the ISD to better equip themselves in the fight against terror, with more resources to be made available “whenever needed”.31 Hence, the shift in the identification of security threats notwithstanding, Singapore’s national security strategy remains rooted to the historical foundation of its genesis. Rupture from Malaysia, coupled with periodic communal tension was a strong narrative upon which a strategic culture concerned with both external and internal threats to the state emerged. The National Security of Singapore: Roles and Responsibility of the State With this strategic culture in place, the division of roles and responsibilities for securing the city-state of Singapore by and large conforms to the conventional model of securitization whereby the government sets the security agenda and

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appropriates the role each segment of society should play. In the case of Singapore, three salient factors underline the process of identifying and mitigating issues pertaining to national security: (1) the process of identifying threats and responding to them is elite-driven; (2) the process is shrouded in secrecy; and (3) the process is conducted with the tacit act of faith among the people not to challenge the sanctioned paradigm in exchange for protection against the identified threats. Elite-Driven Process With regard to the process of securitization in Singapore, the relationship of trust and the elite-driven nature of the process of securing security are not merely due to the inescapable reality that governments by and large remain the only credible agency with the legitimacy and resources to assume this responsibility. For Singapore, the process is elite-driven as result of one important situational factor — the political dominance of the PAP. With scant opposition members being voted into Parliament since independence, the government bureaucracy has effectively been under PAP rule, affording it the opportunity to shape and implement policies across all aspects of government unchallenged.32 Moreover, policy-making in the area of defence has been relatively opaque and dominated by key political leaders especially in its formative years, namely Goh Keng Swee and Lee Kuan Yew.33 For example, in order to impress upon the SAF the lingering communist threat, Goh Keng Swee proposed that a course on Marxism-Leninism for selected SAF officers was necessary to enhance their understanding of what communism was so as to combat the threat effectively. The first course on this topic began in 1977 and was conducted by Goh himself, senior civil servants, and university lecturers. This course was extended to senior officers in the Singapore Civil Service and statutory boards the following year.34 The elite-driven nature of the securitization process in Singapore is further supplemented when the little resistance to the government’s efforts to gain the compliance of the masses with regards to its defence policies is considered. Aside from the Barisan Sosialis’ efforts at galvanizing public support to oppose the implementation of National Service (NS) in the 1960s which by the 1976 General Election had become a non-issue, the rationale behind the state’s defence policies have seldom come under public scrutiny.35 Except for the two immediate years following independence during which social services (Education and Health) topped the expenditure list of Singapore’s national budget,36 the security sector (Defence, Home Affairs, and Civil Defence) have received the highest appropriation.37 Underlying the republic’s uncompromising take on securing its borders from external attacks was its unabated investment in its defence

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during the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s when its regional neighbours were adhering to a more austere budget. This was justified by the government on the grounds that Singapore had to see through its defence commitments even in times of financial belt-tightening to avoid paying the price of being caught off-guard in future.38 Moreover, with transnational terrorism dominating the security agenda, even though terrorism “[u]ltimately … does not threaten Singapore’s very existence as an independent, sovereign nation”39, that does not necessarily mean the role of the SAF in protecting Singapore from external threats reduces in significance. On the contrary, while “[o]ur defence policy [of diplomacy and deterrence] has served us well” and should remain the “fundamental tenets” of our defence policy in the twenty-first century, there is a need to “define our security in wider terms to include not only traditional security challenges but also new ones that may arise to threaten our interests in the globalised era”.40 Consequently, the SAF will have to “develop a broader range of capabilities and prepare itself to work with others to tackle some of these challenges”.41 While the defence budgets of recent years have been kept between 4.5 per cent and 5 per cent of the GDP and have not exceeded the stipulated maximum of 6 per cent, in response to a question raised in Parliament on whether the defence budget was sufficient, Minister for Defence Teo Chee Hean replied that even though the ministry had been provided with what it asked for, “I will not hesitate to ask for more if I feel that I need it and I have confidence that I will be able to persuade my colleagues in Ministry of Finance to provide it for me if I do because there is strong commitment for defence in this country and strong support in this house.”42 Secrecy in National Security As for the process of securitization being conducted under a veil of secrecy in Singapore, the sensitive nature of matters pertaining to national security — especially with regards to operational secrecy — reinforces the argument that secrecy is of utmost importance. This is encapsulated in a comment by Chandra Das when he was Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Defence and Foreign Affairs in 1987. Das maintained that his committee would rely on “quiet diplomacy” in their role of scrutinizing policies on defence and foreign affairs as “[these affairs] are such that certain issues can be raised in Parliament, certain issues cannot …”.43 This need for secrecy was further driven home in 1989 when a constitutional amendment was passed to prohibit judicial review of the substantive grounds of detention under the ISA and anti-subversion laws.44 In effect, the constitutional amendment ensured that,

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in cases constituting a threat to national security, judicial review is confined to the decision-making process rather than the merits of the decision itself.45 This was illustrated in the threat assessment of the Ministry of Home Affairs with regards to the threat posed by the Jehovah’s Witnesses in the case of Colin Chan vs. Public Prosecutor. During the case, the presiding Chief Justice opined that “it was not for this court to substitute its views for the Minister’s as to whether the Jehovah’s Witnesses constituted a threat to national security”, and that “[f]rom the evidence adduced, it appeared that the Minister was of the view that the continued existence of a group which preached as one its principal beliefs that military service was forbidden was contrary to public peace, welfare and good order.”46 Moreover, the issue of security goes beyond the amount of information that is available to the public as the withholding of information even between security agencies themselves appears to be inherent to the job. In addressing the need for information sharing among security agencies in the wake of September 11, Minister for Home Affairs Wong Kan Seng acknowledged that such a practice may nonetheless seem “counter-intuitive to intelligence officers as compartmentalization is used to prevent the leakage of sensitive information”.47 Furthermore, not all detentions under the ISA are made public in the name of national security. When answering a Parliamentary question pertaining to specifics of those detained under the ISA between 1999 and 2007, in addition to addressing the questions, Wong added that “[a] few of the cases have not been publicized. This is because publicity can compromise on-going operations, or seriously harm national interests”.48 From the discussion above, it is clear that the framing and definition of national security threats in Singapore fall within the exclusive purview of the state’s security agencies and are conducted in great secrecy, often with the tacit endorsement of the masses. In order for the state to carry out its function of protecting its citizens effectively, it appears that public participation should be kept to the minimal. Tacit Support and Faith of the People There exists a paucity of studies on public opinions of Singapore’s external defence policies. Indeed, this may not merely be due to apathy but the clear drawing of “out-of-bound’ (OB) markers by the government with regard to public discussion on matters pertaining to national security. For example, in the recommendations proposed by the Subject Committees to the Singapore 21 Committee, one recommendation was that:

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[i]t is important to establish the out-of-bounds (OB) markers so that civic participation does not adversely affect national security and social stability. The OB markers should be limited to racial and religious issues which affect social harmony, as well as issues which threaten national security. (emphasis added).49

As such, public responses to certain incidences have to be relied upon to provide a glimpse of views from the ground. A recent debate in the forum section of the Straits Times seems to suggest that the privileged status of the security sector resonates with a segment of the population. It began with a letter calling for the “old sacred cow” of defence spending to be reviewed.50 By highlighting the disparity between the expenditure for defence vis-à-vis the social sector, the writer opined that “[j]ust a small percentage in savings from spending on defence/security could substantially fund social and financial-help programmes without having to raise the Goods and Services Tax rate”.51 Acknowledging the “critical importance of a strong defence force”, it was clarified that “what is needed is to objectively strike a balance between the dollars spent on hardware, etc, which are subject to regular scrapping due to depreciation and obsolescence and have not seen real battle, and the dollars needed for the welfare and betterment of the people”.52 The letter provoked a string of responses from members of the public defending the status quo — illustrating how many members of the public have also enmeshed with the dominant strategic culture. These responses served to reassure the Defence Minister who was “gratified to read the recent series of forum page letters to the Straits Times on defence spending [which] showed that many Singaporeans understand the need for a strong defence”.53 It is possible to infer from the view — “Singaporeans understand the need for a strong defence” — that many Singaporeans agree that the threats described to them are genuine. Furthermore, not only was the essence of the letter appealing for more funding and attention to be paid to addressing the social welfare of the people to “mitigate worsening income disparity and prevent the emergence of an economic underclass in the face of global competition”54 missed by all the rejoinders, an assumption made was that any reduction of defence spending will inevitably severely compromise Singapore’s formidable Armed Forces’ ability to carry out its duty to protect (“military capability, once sacrificed as a result of funding cuts, can take on an inordinate amount of time to restore”), leading to the demise of the nation’s sovereignty in the hands of external powers (“[Singapore’s] tiny size makes it a tempting target and only a strong SAF keeps potential aggressors

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in check”).55 It is notable that these arguments mirror very closely the siege mentality of the old guard and the faith in the SAF to fulfill its responsibility of securing Singapore’s sovereignty. Hence as long as perceptions of threats to the nation writ large exist and are articulated by the traditional security agencies, these threats are generally accepted by the people as genuine owing to the acquiescence of the public towards traditional security concerns. Thus far, the analysis has illustrated that the framing of Singapore’s national security strategies over the years has generally been: (1) an elite-driven process; (2) the process’ characterized by secrecy; and (3) the process is conducted with the tacit act of faith among the people. While the roles and responsibilities of the state are clear, what is expected of the citizens with regard to the national security framework? The National Security of Singapore: Roles and Responsibility of the Citizen Based on government initiatives over the years, it can be said that the role of the masses with regard to national security is to galvanize government policies and respond in an appropriate manner as determined by the state during a crisis. For example, the rationale and concept of Total Defence, spearheaded by the Ministry of Defence, illustrates this point clearly. Implemented in 1984, Total Defence provides the framework for a comprehensive and integrated response to deal with all kinds of threats and challenges. Whether it is a security threat such as global terrorism, or a national crisis like SARS, Total Defence brings together all relevant government agencies, private sector organisations and all Singaporeans in a total effort to deal with threats and challenges to Singapore’s continued survival and success … To help Singaporeans understand how they can be involved, Total Defence is divided into five aspects — Military Defence, Civil Defence, Economic Defence, Social Defence and Psychological Defence. When we take National Service seriously, volunteer in civil defence exercises, help to keep the economy going, build strong ties with one another regardless of race and religion, and stay committed to defend the country, we are doing something in every sector of our society to strengthen Singapore’s resilience as a nation.56

In this sense, the identified roles each individual can play — taking National Service seriously, volunteering in civil defence exercises, keeping the economy going, building strong ties with one another regardless of race and religion,

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staying committed to defending Singapore — all pertain to actions to be taken in order to secure Singapore’s sovereignty from external threats and public order — especially in terms of communal relations. To ensure that Singaporeans were clear on their role within the Total Defence framework, the government embarked on a nationwide media campaign. A Total Defence Committee was also formed to look at government policies from a Total Defence viewpoint and individual ministries were given responsibility for the various components of the concept.57 Moreover, public opinion surveys on the public’s attitude towards Total Defence in 1985 and 1986 indicated a high proportion of respondents (85 per cent and 88 per cent respectively) agreeing that every Singaporean had a role to play in Total Defence.58 The command and control paradigm evident in the dissemination of the public’s roles and responsibilities demonstrated by the concept of Total Defence is also consistent in the current national security framework to combat terrorism contained in the National Security Coordination Secretariat’s publication 1826 Days: A Dairy of Resolve. The “shared responsibility” to confront terrorism is based on networks that “prevent, protect and respond”.59 In accord with the customary division of responsibility vis-à-vis national security, the current national security framework does divide the domestic and international dimension of national security into two parts: the Ministry of Defence which “develops and directs policies, plans and allocates resources to defend Singapore against external attacks”, and the Ministry of Home Affairs which “looks after security within Singapore’s borders”. 60 However, in recognition of the fact that “a strict demarcation of the responsibilities for internal and external security would leave gaps in the defence of Singapore against transnational terrorists”, the new national security framework does stress the importance of a “whole-of-government” approach that “brings together all ministries and agencies to deal with this challenge”.61 At the “highest level” is the Security Policy Review Committee (SPRC) which “meets regularly” to study Singapore’s “critical national security goals”, “analyse the changing threats and decide how to tackle them”.62 Next, the National Security Coordinating Committee (NSCComm) “supports and executes SPRC decision”, “guides projects to enhance our security” and “oversees other multi-agency working groups and committees”.63 Following on, the National Security Coordination Secretariat (NSCS) at the Prime Minister’s Office — comprising the National Security Coordination Centre (NSCC) and the Joint Counter Terrorism Centre (JCTC) — “supports” the SPRC, NSCComm and Intelligence Coordinating Committee (ICC).64 The “three vital roles” performed by the NSCC to “keep Singapore secure in the long-term” are national security

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planning, policy coordination and anticipating strategic threats.65 As a strategic analysis unit, JCTC “studies our level of preparedness in areas such as maritime terrorism and chemical, biological, and radiological terrorist threats” and “maps out the consequences should an attack in that domain takes place”.66 Hence, it is evident that the securitization process — the framing of threats and the appropriation of the necessary means to mitigate them — is exclusively within the purview of the government. In addition, the division of responsibility on the ground between government agencies and the civilians is also clear. At the forefront, the Home Team and the SAF lead the other government agencies in protecting Singapore’s critical infrastructure and external borders.67 To support their work, after the lead security agencies and all other government agencies, is the public. The new national security framework calls “all Singaporeans — family, friends, neighbours, colleagues, regardless of race, language or religion, to stand together for each other” in face of the challenges ahead “with the same resolve as we have done so far” by proceeding “[f]rom knowing the threat to knowing how to act in a crisis”.68 Hence, Singaporeans from all walks of life are encouraged to participate in initiatives designed to manage community relations in a crisis, such as the Community Engagement Programme (CEP), and various civil defence exercises.69 Following from this clear demarcation of responsibilities between government agencies and the public, it appears that the “shared responsibility” to “prevent, protect and respond” in 1826 Days can generally be appropriated as such: the government’s duty is to “prevent” and “protect” while the civilian population’s is to “respond”. ASSESSING SINGAPORE’S NATIONAL SECURITY To reiterate, this chapter seeks to assess the Singapore Government’s management of national security. Thus far, the chapter has shown that the strategic culture of Singapore is framed by a narrative of vulnerability as manifested in the determined protection of both national sovereignty and the maintenance of public order. Furthermore, this culture has led to a process of securitization marked by three salient factors. They are: (1) the process of identifying threats and responding to them is state-centric and elite-driven; (2) the process is shrouded in secrecy; and (3) the process is conducted with the tacit act of faith among the people not to challenge the sanctioned paradigm in exchange for protection against the identified threats. Since independence, the national security framework has been tested by various issues. High profile national security issues pertaining to both the twin concerns

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of national sovereignty and the maintenance of public order include the “Marxist conspiracy” in 1987, the Asian financial crisis of 1997, the outbreak of SARS in 2003, and, of course, the arrests of Singaporean Jemaah Islamiyah terrorists seeking to strike targets in Singapore, as well as the recent arrests of “selfradicalised” Muslim Singaporeans. With regard to the government’s management of national security, testimony of success lies in the fact that the yardstick employed to indicate ultimate failure — that is, an assault on Singaporean sovereignty or widespread public disorder — has not transpired. Singapore has managed to weather these crises swiftly without any long-term effects. However, past performance may not be a good barometer to measure future success. It is arguable whether the framework is to be sustained owing to a possible growing disconnect in the process of securitization between the public and the process of securitization. This disconnect lies with the manner in which matters of national security are considered and acted upon — that is, the very securitization process in Singapore. As discussed, the process by which threats are identified and responses decided upon has continually been elite-driven, shrouded in secrecy, and enacted with the tacit faith of the masses. In this process of securitization, the masses only enter the process well after threats are identified and responses put in place — they are educated and instructed to respond in an appropriate manner as determined by the state during a crisis. What significance does this situation have for Singapore’s national security in the near future? Based on the preceding analysis, the following section presents two scenarios for Singapore in 2030 with implications for national security. The first scenario discusses implications for Singaporean national security if indeed a crisis that is planned for occurs. The second discusses the implications for Singaporean national security if a crisis occurs that does not correspond to the government’s current playbook of possible threats. Such a crisis would be marked not only by its unconventionality and uncommonness, but it would also be as surprising and have as intense an impact as SARS and September 11 did. The occurrence of such a surprising crisis is ironically to be expected.70 After all, it is impossible for any government to be able to foresee, plan and prepare for all possible threats. For ease in discussion and due to the impossibility of articulation, this crisis will be referred to as Crisis X. Scenario One This scenario is essentially a reflection of the future painted by the state and its manifestation vindicates the securitization process in Singapore. This scenario, of course, does not have to be a terrorist attack. It could, for example, be

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a pandemic or any other possible scenario the national security model has prepared for. In this scenario, the fragile over-arching Singaporean identity carefully constructed after sixty-five years of nation-building buckles under the pressure of the long-suppressed primordial instincts of the people. As a result and according to script, there are post-event outbreaks of communal violence. Faced with sporadic outbreaks of violence and public disorder, some Singaporeans flee the country and investors intimate that they may consider pulling out of the country if security and order are not promptly restored. This scenario is not cast in complete gloom though. Over time, thanks to government-sponsored initiatives pre-crisis such as the Inter-Racial Confidence Circles (IRCCs) and the Community Engagement Programme, calm and order are eventually restored. Moreover, the government is assessed by the public to have conducted itself to the best of its abilities pre- and post-crisis. Having eventually weathered a national crisis together, the social fabric of Singapore is strengthened as bonds of trust are reinforced among Singaporeans from all walks of life. Scenario Two In this scenario, the unthinkable occurs — a Rumsfeldian “unknown unknown” of Crisis X. Crisis X severally tests the social bonds of the Singaporean public and perhaps even results in sporadic episodes of violence. In addition, like Scenario One, Crisis X also prompts some Singaporeans to leave the country while investors also intimate that they may consider pulling out of the country if security and order are not promptly restored. Of greater significance, Crisis X results in a severe erosion of trust between the government and the people as the government is viewed to have failed to bear the responsibilities it has been given in the social compact. This disappointment is aggravated by the tacit division of roles in the security compact — the masses having trusted the government to ensure that they are secure.71 This feeling of disappointment and the disintegration of trust are further exacerbated because the Singapore public had never been let down in matters of national security before. As a result, the government’s ability, in the long run to protect the people from security threats is persistently questioned by the people now that the myth of invincibility has been compromised. Furthermore, besides the ability of the government to protect its people being called into question, another significant result of this scenario is that the loss of trust results in a more cynical populace predisposed to contesting future measures enacted by the government in the interest of national security.

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CONCLUSION From these two scenarios, it is possible to see that though the occurrence of Scenario One would be unfortunate and trying, it admittedly would not be the worst case scenario. Because of the finite resources of the state and the ever evolving nature of threats appearing over a foggy horizon, the state cannot and should not be expected to prevent and avert all exigencies. Instead, what can fairly be expected of a state is for contingencies, if and when such crisis occurs, to be put in place and for responses to be competently executed when put to the test. Also, with the current planning and preparation invested by the Singapore Government into national security, it is possible to have great confidence that Singapore as a nation will be able to absorb the shock of a crisis and bounce back to normality fairly rapidly in the eventuality of a planned crisis occurring. In view of the fact that Scenario One is not the worst case scenario, it is the “unknown unknown” of Crisis X that would have to be prepared for in planning Singapore’s national security framework for the future. Preparation for Crisis X — that is, putting in place a plan — cannot be done by the very indefinite nature of the crisis. Thus, preparation has to focus on the process of securitization itself. As the analysis of this chapter has shown, because of the elite-driven, secretive, and devolved nature of securitization in Singapore, the public is only brought into the process of national security downstream at the stage when an emergency occurs. This disengagement of the public, where security is communicated rather than dialogued with the people, may then result in the erosion of trust occurring when an unthinkable crisis occurs — responsibility for security is seen to fall ultimately within the sole purview of the government. In order to prepare for this eventuality, the public may have to be partially brought into the black box of national security. The benefits of bringing the people into the process of securitization are threefold. Firstly, by drawing the people in further up the process, they can gain a better appreciation, or, to employ the term used by management consultants, gain or achieve “buy-in” into what is being done for them, why it is being done, and also be convinced that everything that can be done is being done. Secondly, security agencies too will profit from an expansion of the number of people involved in the securitization process. Since globalization continually churns out new challenges and threats, it would be sensible to utilize the “views from the ground” in order to pick up weak signals of impending but yet overlooked threats to and concerns with repercussions for, national security. Thirdly, and perhaps

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most importantly, the drawing in of the people at a much earlier stage of the securitization process may strengthen the social compact. Instead of treating national security in a service provider/consumer relationship, national security can then be better understood by all as something everyone has a stake in. Additionally, the public will also better understand the limitations of the government and have a more nuanced appreciation of national security. This call for greater inclusion of the public into the process of securitization will possibly meet the greatest resistance from security agencies owing to the need for operational secrecy. Although admittedly important, operational secrecy should not and does not have to override greater upstream inclusion. In his analysis of the impact of excessive secrecy in undermining the capacity of governments to perform their mission of enhancing national security, Alasdair Roberts argues that contrary to conventional wisdom, a move towards openness in the security sector may actually improve the capacity of societies to preserve security by (1) promoting better policy decision; (2) improving agency coordination; and (3) fighting bureaucratic inertia.72 However, Roberts does not argue against the abolition of secrecy in the security sector per se. Instead, he proposes that the bar for withholding information in the name of “national security” should be set high. He proposes two “critical elements’ to be observed by the security sector in decisions to withhold information. Firstly, he argues that the standards for withholding security information should be rigorous as a law that requires “a mere apprehension of possible harm is likely to be abused”.73 Hence the onus should be on officials to substantiate that the disclosure of information to public scrutiny would pose a serious security threat. Secondly, he contends that decisions to withhold information on security grounds should be subject to effective review by an independent office for three pertinent reasons. These are: (1) it serves to encourage officials to make their initial decisions about disclosure more carefully; (2) it keeps in check the temptation of agencies to use national security as a pretext for avoiding embarrassment or accountability for misconduct; and (3) the process of independent review encourages public discussion about where the line should be drawn between secrecy and openness.74 Ultimately, illustrative of the amount of effort put in by Singaporean national security agencies, it is heartening that an assessment of the management of national security in Singapore has not revealed a fatal flaw that will cause sleepless uneasy nights. Instead, the analysis here has shown that the Singapore Government has indeed done a sterling job at identifying and responding to threats to national security since independence. However, if Singapore is to meet the threats of the future successfully, security should not be left solely in the hands of the

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dedicated few. The process of securitization should become more open to include the participation of the many in order for the burden of responsibility to be shared by all. NOTES The argument presented in this chapter is derived from a paper by Norman Vasu and Yolanda Chin titled, “Singapore and the Threats to National Security”. The paper was presented at the conference on Singapore Futures: Scenarios for the Next Generation, Shangri-la Hotel, Singapore, 1 February 2008. 1. Globalization here is understood as a process marked by its velocity, intensity and extensity. This process has led to the expansion of national security concerns as states now have to contend with border porosity as faster and cheaper movement (velocity) increases the speed of flow of, for example, ideas, people, material goods, and diseases; this interaction is occurring at significantly deeper and more intense levels than ever before (intensity) through, for example, a more integrated world economy as well as the creation of an international labour market; and finally, the reach of this interaction is wider than it has ever been (extensity). Hence, if one considers diseases, the process of globalization now threatens interconnected states as its spread is fast, it has multiple ways of reaching large segments of society, and, no state is fully insulated from its spread. David Held, Anthony McGrew, David Goldblatt, and Jonathan Perranton, Global Transformations: Politics, Economics and Culture (London: Polity Press, 1999). 2. For example, see Kumar Ramakrishna, Norman Vasu, and Tom Quiggin, “Iconic Soft Targets: Public Housing Estates, Terrorism and Social Resilience”, IDSS Commentaries (Singapore: Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, 2006). 3. Seah Chee Meow, “National Security”, in Management of Success: The Moulding of Modern Singapore, edited by Kernial Singh Sandhu and Paul Wheatley (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1989) 4. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (London: Penguin Books, 1985), p. 186. 5. S. Neil MacFarlane and Khong Yuen Foong, Human Security and the UN: A Critical History (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2006), p. 6. 6. For instance, see Desmond Ball, Strategic Culture in the Asia-Pacific Region (with some implications for regional security cooperation (Canberra: SDSC, 1993); Ken Booth, Strategy and Ethnocentrism (London: Croom Helm, 1979); Ken Booth and Russell Trood, eds., Strategic Cultures in the Asia-Pacific Region (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999); Colin S. Gray, Nuclear Strategy and National Style (London and Lanham: Hamilton Press, 1986); Carl G. Jacobsen, ed., Strategic Power: USA/ USSR (Basingstoke and London: MacMillan, 1990), pp. 10–49; Carnes Lord, “American Strategic Culture”, Comparative Strategy 5, no. 3 (Spring 1995): 269– 93; Alan Macmillan, Strategic Culture and British Grand Strategy 1945–1952

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7. 8.

9.

10.

11.

12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

18. 19. 20.

21.

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(Ph.D. thesis, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, 1996); and, David T. Twining, “Soviet Strategic Culture — The Missing Dimension”, Intelligence and National Security 4, no. 1 (January 1989): 169–87. Alastair Iain Johnston, Cultural Realism: Strategic Culture and Grand Strategy in Chinese History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), pp. 35–36. For instance, see Lowell Dittmer, “Political Culture and Political Symbolism”, World Politics 29, no. 4 (1977): 552–83; Bradley S. Klein, “Hegemony and Strategic Culture: American Power Projection and Alliance Defence Politics”, Review of International Studies 14 (1988): 133–48; Robin Luckham, “Armament Culture”, Alternatives 10, no. 1 (1984): 1–44; Reginald C. Stuart, War and American Thought: From the Revolution to the Monroe Doctrine (Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1982). Valerie M. Hudson, ed., Culture and Foreign Policy (Boulder and London: Westview, 1997), p. 101; Peter J. Katzenstein, ed., The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), pp. 54–65; Charles A. Kupchan, The Vulnerability of Empire (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1994), pp. 5–22. Herring, op. cit., pp. 72–74; Yaacov Y.I. Vertzberger, The World In Their Minds: Information Processing, Cognition, and Perception in Foreign Policy Decisionmaking (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), pp. 50–144. Khong Yuen Foong, Analogies At War: Korea, Munich, Dien Bien Phu, and the Vietnam Decisions of 1965 (Oxford and Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992); Jack L. Snyder, The Ideology of the Offensive: Military Decision-Making and the Disasters of 1914 (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1984). Kupchan, op. cit., p. 41; Vertzberger, op. cit., pp. 50–144. Hudson, op. cit., pp. 1–26, 174. Hudson, op. cit., p. 7. Kupchan, op. cit., p. 22. Kupchan, op. cit., pp. 22–23. Daniel Johan Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (London: Abacus, 1996), pp. 28–34; Kupchan, op. cit., p. 41; Twining, op. cit., p. 177. Asher Arian, Security Threatened: Surveying Israeli Opinion on Peace and War (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1995), pp. 24–25. Alasdiar Roberts, “Transparency in the Security Sector”, in The Right to Know, edited by Ann Florini (New York: Coumbia University Press, 2007), p. 311. For a better understanding of the “Singapore Story”, see , a webportal to Singapore maintained by the Ministry of Information, Communication and the Arts (accessed 20 February 2008). Tim Huxley, Defending the Lion City: The Armed Forces of Singapore (Singapore: Talisman Publishing, 2004), p. 16.

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22. Jon S.T. Quah, “Meeting the Twin Threats of Communism and Communalism: The Singapore Response”, in Governments and Rebellions in Southeast Asia, edited by Chandran Jeshurun (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1985), p. 210; Tim Huxley, Defending the Lion City, pp. 14–16. 23. Lee Kuan Yew, From Third World to First: The Singapore Story (Singapore: Times Edition, 2000), p. 22. 24. Bernard Loo, “Explaining Changes in Singapore’s Military Doctrines: Material and Ideational Perspectives”, in Asia in the New Millenium, edited by Amitav Acharya and Lee Lai To (Singapore: Marshall Cavendish Academic, 2004), p. 365. 25. Singapore has a cap on defence spending at 6 per cent of GDP. Through the 1990s onwards, spending on defence has continually matched or exceeded the military expenditure of its much larger Southeast Asian neighbours. For more on Singapore’s defence spending, refer to Tim Huxley, Defending the Lion City, pp. 27–30. 26. National Security Coordination Centre (Singapore), The Fight Against Terror: Singapore’s National Security Strategy (Singapore: Atlas Associates Pte. Ltd., 2004), p. 27. 27. Goh Chok Tong, “Forward”, in Phoenix: The Story of the Home Team, by Felix Soh (Singapore: Times Edition, 2003). 28. National Security Coordination Centre (Singapore), The Fight Against Terror, pp. 19–20. 29. Ibid., p. 27. 30. Ibid., p. 7. 31. Alfred Siew, “Fighting Terrorism: ISD to Get More Money and Men”, Straits Times, 10 April 2007. 32. Ho Khai Leong, Shared Responsibility, Unshared Power (Singapore: Eastern University Press, 2003). 33. For a discussion on the defence policy-making process, refer to the chapter “Command and Control”, in Defending the Lion City, by Tim Huxley, pp. 73–92. 34. Jon S.T. Quah, “Meeting the Twin Threats of Communism and Communalism”, p. 207. 35. Chin Kin Wah, “Threat Perception and Defence Spending in a City-State”, in Defence Spending in Southeast Asia, edited by Chin Kin Wah (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1987), p. 203. 36. Ibid., p. 205. 37. Ho, op. cit., p. 233. 38. Michael Leifer, Selected Works from Southeast Asia, compiled and edited by Chin Kin Wah and Leo Suryadinata (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2005), p. 550. 39. National Security Coordination Centre (Singapore), The Fight Against Terror, p. 59.

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40. Ministry of Defence (Singapore), Defending Singapore in the 21st Century, 2007, p. 13, (accessed 14 January 2007). 41. Ibid. 42. Speech by Teo Chee Hean, Minister for Defence, at Committee of Supply Debate on Defence Budget, 5 March 2007. 43. Quoted in Chin Kin Wah, “Threat Perception and Defence Spending in a CityState”, pp. 203–4. 44. Ho, op. cit., pp. 306–7. 45. Thio Li-ann, “The Secular Trumps the Sacred: Constitutional Issues Arising From Colin Chan v Public Prosecutor”, Singapore Law Review 16, no. 1 (1995): 83–84. 46. Ibid. 47. Speech by Wong Kan Seng, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs at the ISD Intelligence Promotion Ceremony on 9 April 2007, (accessed 14 January 2008). 48. Written Answer to Parliamentary Question on (1) how many persons are currently detained under the Internal Security Act (ISA); (2) how many persons were detained under the ISA for each of the years between the period of 1999 to 2007; and (3) what was the nature of the threat to internal security posed by those detained since 1999, (accessed 14 January 2008). 49. Summary of the Deliberations of the Subject Committees to the Singapore 21 Committee, (accessed 27 February 2008). 50. “Examine the Old Sacred Cow of Defence Spending”, Straits Times, 27 January 2007. 51. Ibid. 52. Ibid 53. Speech by Teo Chee Hean, Minister for Defence, at Committee of Supply Debate on Defence Budget, 5 March 2007. 54. “Examine the Old Sacred Cow of Defence Spending”, Straits Times, 27 January 2007. 55. The extracts were cited by the Defence Minister in his speech. Lu Junwen, “Arms Unused? Money Well-spent on Deterrence”, Straits Times, 12 February 2007; Xiao Fuchun, “Hefty Spending on Defence Justified”, Straits Times, 30 January 2007. 56. From the Total Defence website, (accessed 14 January 2008). 57. Lee Boon Hiok, “Leadership and Security in Singapore: The Prevailing Paradigm”, in Leadership Perceptions and National Security, edited by Mohammed Ayoob

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58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64.

65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70.

71.

72. 73. 74.

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and Chai-anan Samudavanija (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1989), p. 173. Survey findings quoted in Ibid. National Security Coordination Secretariat (Singapore), 1826 days: A Dairy of Resolve (Singapore: SNP Reference, 2006), p. 12. Ibid., p. 56. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., p. 58. The Intelligence Coordinating Committee (ICC) “analyses developments in terrorism-related issues and trends, and provides strategic direction to the Joint Counter Terrorism Centre (JCTC)”. Ibid., p. 57. Ibid., p. 58. Ibid. Ibid., p. 8. Details of the various measures to harden Singapore’s key infrastructure is covered in the section on “Securing Singapore”, pp. 18–53. Ibid., pp. 8–9. Ibid., pp. 72–85. These predictably unpredictable events are sometimes referred to as “wild cards”. For more on wild cards, see for example, Joanna Ng and Hoo Tiang Boon, “A Brief Look at the ‘Wild’ Side”, Cognito (Singapore: S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, 2008). An interesting insight into the disappointment that would be felt if the public were let down during Crisis X may be found in the public reaction to the escape of JI leader Mas Selamat Kastari from a detention facility in Singapore on 27 February 2008. Straits Times online edition captured the immediate feelings of disappointment well with an article summarizing the public’s reaction to the escape titled, “Escape of JI leader: How Can This Happen in S’pore?”. With quotes from the public such as “How can we feel safe anymore?”, “Please, Home Affairs Minister, say something or more importantly, DO something!” and “The whole Singapore is waiting for an answer”, these reactions may offer some idea of how the public would react if a major unforeseen crisis occurs, (accessed 28 February 2008). Roberts, “Transparency in the Security Sector”, pp. 309–36. Ibid., p. 327. Ibid.

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Culture, the Arts and the Global City

Section

8

LIFE IN SINGAPORE

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CULTURE, THE ARTS AND THE GLOBAL CITY C.J. W.-L. WEE

Although [cultural and media] policy guidance has helped to spur institutional reform, the legacy of authoritarianism engenders a cautious approach to industry restructuring and complacency among audiences and the creative community. MediaCorp has the institutional capacity to produce prodigious amounts of programming, but whether it has the creative culture to make it a successful regional producer remains an open question. — Michael Curtin1

S

ingapore, with a population of about 5 million, including foreigners, is a distinct society which perhaps more than other postcolonial societies, in its pursuit of economic growth and development, forsook not only many of the political dimensions of democratic life but also its cultural dimensions, taken in both the “high culture” and “way-of-life” senses. An industrial and commercial understanding of culture was left, and manufacturing and productive institutions became the collective basis of social life. And yet, it was this economic growth and the eventual expansion of the middle class that led to a flourish of experimental theatre and visual art in the 1980s as an increasingly educated citizenry began to ponder larger questions of national culture and national identity. These cultural and artistic developments, as well as the subsequent cultural policies of the People’s Action Party (PAP) state, soon caught the attention of the international media. The 19 July 1999 issue of TIME asked on its cover: 489

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“Singapore swings: Can Asia’s nanny state give up its authoritarian ways?” The magazine said, “Culturally, Singapore is permitting artists to stage a range of socially and politically controversial performances.”2 The year 1990 saw the naming of Goh Chok Tong as Lee Kuan Yew’s replacement as Prime Minister. This soon led to a formulation of cultural policy by the government. The National Arts Council (NAC) was set up in 1991 under the then Ministry of Information and the Arts (MITA), a ministry that had — in TIME’s inimical, overwritten literary style — “PAP intellectual-in-waiting [George] Yeo in charge. The new minister enthused about fostering a global renaissance city, about making Singaporeans more creative, about forging a civic society …”3 It is understood in the city-state, though, that the government has not simply gone humanistically soft. In order to be a “creative economy” and a “happening” global city that can retain the “best” foreign and local business and industrial talent, Singapore cannot now display only a philistine modernity. New public policies have been set in place that would foster artistic creativity and even create an arts market, in the thinking that such creativity would in its turn encourage technological and entrepreneurial innovation. This newer circumstance, ironically, poses challenges for the very innovative artistic energy that the state professes to want to foster. This chapter explores some of the tensions, if not actual contradictions, of the recent changes. ARTS DEVELOPMENTS IN THE 1990s The city-state of Singapore, under PAP leadership since 1959, represents a capitalist modernity that put far less emphasis on cultural and artistic development in contrast to industrial progress. In a fundamental way, this was the argument that literary critic and academic Koh Tai Ann, in the 1989 volume of Management of Success, made of the Singapore state’s approach to cultural matters from the early years of independence to the late 1980s, when “culture” was used for the central purpose of nation-building.4 Since then, though, it has been open to creating a cultural superstructure that would match its status as a major regional financial and industrial hub. “Culture”, in the twenty-odd years prior, had referred more to multi-ethnic cultures and values, though by the 1980s to the mid-1990s, “culture” also signified the mythicized “Asian values” that were the alleged foundation of Singapore’s “East-Asian Miracle” status. Cultural policy — policy that fostered the arts and high culture — was not a priority, resulting in a national reputation for being an uncreative society that has pragmatic, petit bourgeois, hard-working and modern.

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By 1989, a recognizable cultural policy started to be articulated with the government’s Report of the Advisory Council on Culture and the Arts.5 By then, there was already a burgeoning theatre scene led principally by The Theatre Practice (TTP), The Necessary Stage (TNS), and TheatreWorks (Singapore), among the first three professional theatre companies in recent times. There was also a nascent and experimental visual arts development. Before we can assess the impact of official arts policy on the contemporary arts, it is necessary to have some sense of these artistic emergences, and then their relationship to official culture. In the theatre, TTP’s Kuo Pao Kun (1939–2002) was the major enabling personality. He had been detained without trial by the state from 1976 to 1980 for alleged communist activities. Kuo bounced back into prominence in the 1980s with plays that examined the destruction of culture and cultural memory in the wake of a statist modernity with totalizing impulses, and that held out the possibility of trans-ethnic understanding. He also broke the mould of singlelanguage theatre and created plays such as the now iconic Mama Looking for Her Cat (1988) that encompassed a range of the languages spoken in Singapore. Significantly, Kuo was a natural institution builder able to recognize and generously support younger talent. He was thus able to harness the energy of visual artists involved with newer arts practices such as performance art — introduced to Singapore by visual artist and Fukuoka Cultural Prize winner Tang Da Wu — and thereby helped nurture an emerging multidisciplinary contemporary arts scene pioneered by Tang. The three companies created adventurous theatre productions, often formally bold (many of the plays were “devised”, with scripts created in a workshop setting), dealing with issues of memory, ethnic and other identity issues in works such as Still Building (1992), Rosnah (1996), and Pillars (1997). These were artistic reactions against the singular and sometimes strident, top-down disciplinary modernization of Singapore since the mid-1960s, which had allowed little space for reflection on cultural or historical issues. What was notable about the 1980s to mid-1990s theatre was that “difficult” theatre — even if text-based — formed the mainstream of the theatre groups; devised theatre even coexisted with indigenized Broadway-style musicals within the companies as part of the dynamic process of experimentation in theatre towards a Singapore identity. Gender issues were noticeable by the early 1990s in works like Lest the Demons (1992), Private Parts (1992), Mergers and Accusations (1995). All in, whatever the shortcomings in professionalism there were in early theatre, they were invigorating years.

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With regard to the visual arts scene, the return of Tang Da Wu from London in 1988 (after the best part of twenty years in England) led to his founding of a community called the Artists’ Village in 1989, in an abandoned village in then rural Sembawang. This ruralism was also a critique of the petit bourgeois urban society that Singapore was becoming.6 The contemporary and anti-commercial art that was ushered in with Tang was an eclectic “contemporary” that arrived helter-skelter. There were dynamic experiments in conceptual art, performance, installation sculpture that also used Duchampian “found objects”, figurative painting that had German expressionist antecedents (but executed with personal rather than historical references7), pop art and “happenings”. There had been earlier intimations of such artistic possibilities, but they were just that — intimations. Unsurprisingly, these experiments transpired without definitive reference to their origins. If, by the mid-1970s, a conceptual art in the West was either popular or stale, to be followed by a plural visual culture that had an unpredictable diversity, their corporate “arrival” in Singapore was even more confusing, but energizing. The various ethnicities of the predominantly younger artists Tang mentored also made for a challenging experimentation with themes that implicitly or otherwise critiqued the state’s nation-building project and the malaise of urban modernity. The environment, sexuality, violence, identity, and feminism became valid areas for artistic enquiry. The world of abstract modern art of the 1970s was largely transformed. Notably, many artists were from the less privileged and often non-English-speaking social strata, which distinguished them from the more bourgeois background of English-language theatre practitioners, providing a distinctive edge to the visual arts. The overall creative release brought critical judgment into the aesthetic realm. Ironically, from the 1980s to the early 1990s, the flourishing of the arts to some extent, was possible because of the favoured pragmatic-philistine modernity. Because of Singapore society’s mercantile-industrial indifference to the artycrafty, there were significantly lower expectations from the public or intelligentsia when it came to artistic standards, thus allowing the nascent arts scene to make mistakes, experiment, and mature. 1987, though, was a hard year for theatre. A predominantly English language group called the Third Stage that had addressed social problems — the plight of Filipina maids in the city-state, among them — was affected by the so-called “Marxist conspiracy”, involving not only the theatre practitioners but also Roman-Catholic social workers.8 The space opened up again for theatre thereafter, until another high-profile controversy at the end of 1993 — this time, extraordinarily, centred on the arts alone. The immediate

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causes for this were a number of performance arts events and experiments in contemporary theatre forms. A visual artist undertook urine drinking as part of his performance. Soon after, a twenty-one-year-old performance artist and Augusto Boal-style Forum Theatre practised by TNS were accused, respectively, of obscenity and having a “Marxist” orientation. The latter charge, with the collapse of the Berlin Wall, could at best only sound absurd.9 Performance art remained officially in a position of limbo, and could not receive NAC funding until the ban was effectively lifted in 2003. Despite these obstacles, the state’s desire for a commodified arts scene has since escalated. In 1992, the cultural policy was announced to make the city-state not only a global city, but, indeed, a “Global City for the Arts”. As is often case the case in Singapore, an it-needs-to-transpire-tomorrow, social-engineering paradigm was adopted for the new cultural policy. Quickly following this announcement was the implementation of the necessary infrastructure of proper arts education in the schools, major art spaces or museums (the Singapore Art Museum, for example, was opened in 1996), and major theatre venues (the large part of the 1990s saw only “black box” venues being opened; the other options remained the inappropriately large Kallang Theatre — now closed — and the colonialera Victoria Theatre). Arts funding increased, and theatre, as the most visible art form, was a major beneficiary. The somewhat pretentiously entitled Renaissance City Report: Culture and the Arts in Renaissance Singapore (2000)10 advocated more public funding be made available (some S$50 million over five years), and these funds have since made an impact on the cultural scene. In infrastructural terms, the crowning development was the October 2002 opening of the over S$600-million Esplanade — Theatres on the Bay arts complex. Here is a purposebuilt facility within which “world-class” foreign acts can be experienced. It still remains to be seen how this will affect theatre development, given that the Esplanade has no medium-sized theatre space: its major theatre auditorium seats some 1,800 persons — a number that both the older and newer theatre companies would find daunting to fill. While how the arts will develop in the new millennium depends primarily on the artists themselves, the environment set up by the state in support of their endeavours is also important. Within the ambit of what is called “globalization”, cultural policy worldwide increasingly recognizes the economic importance of the creative arts such as film, video, new media, broadcasting and so on. The PAP state well understands these trends. While it is possible to see aesthetic values being replaced by the commercial values of the market place, we can also see the new media as offering an expansion of creative

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possibilities. For these possibilities to be realized, it is imperative that a fundamental point be recognized: that the arts lie at the core of the cultural sector, and creativity as a process is at the core of the arts. There needs to be more of a marked shift in thinking from the older, entrenched form of a disciplinary, economics-oriented instrumental-rationality if deep and significant artistic movement is to be achieved. The solution simply may be more autonomy. Kuo wrote forcefully on arts developments, arguing that the 1990s had been good for the arts — new artists and creative groups; more commercial galleries; more festivals; and, importantly, more young people “plunged into the arts profession”. However, he noted: Directly and indirectly, the state and its numerous agencies control the bulk of the public funding for the arts, all the major performing and exhibition venues and their year round schedule … as well as the underpinning power to censor all public shows. As the country enters a new millennium with a resolution to become an international arts centre, not to mention its ambition to be part of the Asian Renaissance, this arts regime … appears totally out of date. … The apologists of this regime claim that this mighty machinery is primarily conducive to the arts development. While it is true that such infrastructures can and do provide opportunities, state management has been generally suffocating in spirit and political in orientation because their allegiance requires them to be subservient to government politics. Instead, the arts, as a dimension functionally distinct from politics and economics, deserves its own autonomous space above institutional politics because original and creative expressions always shoot up from the ground and are inclined to evoke longer philosophic vision, larger intellectual perspectives and more radical aesthetics venturing beyond the status quo.11

Kuo also made reference to the 1993 controversy over performance art and Forum Theatre, and their effective banning, given that state agencies will not fund such art forms. The fundamental problem, he observes, may be that the government is mainly concerned to nurture an arts market or industry rather than the arts per se. If this is true, he adds, then, Singapore is short changing itself. Controlled innovation programmes and managed innovative arts industries are useful additions to its economy … But Singaporeans deserve the full flowering of the arts, as they deserve the full spectrum of creative thinking. Not to do so is to under-rate the people’s intellectual and intuitive potentials, to deny them the opportunity

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to make primary contributions. Primary and Original — these are key concepts in the world of Art and Creativity.12

In fact, one might add, “controlled innovation” may even stanch the creativity necessary for the knowledge-based industries and cultural industries that we want for our post industrial economic future. In many ways, what Kuo enunciated chimes with the findings of the Singapore 21 Committee, as published by the government in Singapore 21: Together, We Make the Difference. The report noted that a survey done in 1998 “found only 15 per cent of Singaporeans willing to contribute to their community”.13 Three recurring themes helped explain this lack of willingness. Firstly, there did not seem to be a sense of ownership over the issues the citizenry face; secondly, there did not seem to be a sense of respect accorded to the citizenry; and thirdly, there did not seem to be trust for the citizenry. The artistic section of Singapore’s national community is, thus part of a representative sociological sample of opinion. In terms of an emerging and active civil society, it can be said that artists are willing to make their citizenship count through their participation in making (in Kuo’s phrase) “primary contributions” to their society. The general solution Singapore 21 advances is “active citizenship”, an idea “as old as the idea of democracy itself”: “We will benefit from greater responsiveness, more consultation and a wider range of views and ideas. The crux is how to do so without losing the efficiency, decisiveness and collective action that has enabled Singaporeans to thrive.”14 This is perhaps the rub. It returns us to Kuo’s claim that while the arts represent a realm “functionally distinct from politics and economics”, it nevertheless will evoke “perspectives … venturing beyond the status quo”. In the long term, it is best not to see more “active citizenship” as the loss of efficiency and decisive state action, but as the means by which the nation will be able both to survive and thrive within an era of globalization. THE ARTS AND THE INSTRUMENTALISATION OF CULTURE As mentioned earlier, the formulation of cultural policy around the world increasingly takes into account the economic potential of cultural industries. The danger, however, of substituting aesthetic and cultural values with commercial values subject to the marketplace, is real, especially in Singapore, where these values are arguably still little understood. It is thus crucial to find a middle ground where the creative imperatives of cultural policies can coexist with

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economic growth and a rationalist thinking before more trenchant forms of cultural policy on cultural regeneration can result.15 The Economic Development Board (EDB), the agency that has contributed so much to the city-state’s capitalist success, and MITA’s document, Singapore — Global City for the Arts (1992), is a representative instance of the government’s marriage of economic and cultural agenda. The document announced the impending arrival of a number of distinct national cultural institutions — mainly to potential overseas investors — such as the Singapore Art Museum and the Singapore History Museum. They are to function in a heritage district: “[The Museum Precinct’s] importance is underscored by its site in the heart of the Civic District, an area rich in history. Five museums will be housed in this precinct, linked by commercial complexes and surface and underground passages”; furthermore, “[i]t is our hope that Singapore will be a centre of culture in East Asia”.16 When one looks carefully at the Overview in the document, a number of issues can be raised: “Singapore, who draws her energies from the dynamics of her multi-cultural population, is plugged into the network of cultural capitals. She aims to be a global city for the arts by 1999.”17 Apart from the fact that 1999 has passed, the text assumes that high culture can be produced in the same way as a printed circuit board, and according to a timetable. What sort of qualitative performance indicators would one use, in any case, to measure the arrival of Singapore as the “London of Southeast Asia”, save pure figures on how many art auctions were held here, given that Singapore has become a regional centre for art auctions, fairs, and exhibitions? The “Overview” then announces the economic assumptions behind the document: “Where the Republic once forged a reputation in trade, manufacturing, financial and service industries, she is now setting the stage for an arts industry to thrive.”18 Singapore’s history of statist social engineering and central planning as the basis for nation-building has, no doubt, informed the government’s thinking when it comes to the production of culture whereby the prevailing sentiment is: we have the technology, we have the means, we have the will. Then EDB Chairman Philip Yeo is quoted as saying: “There is now in Singapore a major opportunity to develop the arts, not only for cultural enrichment, but also in the interest of economic growth.”19 No one can take issue with that; but the leap from “cultural enrichment” to “economic growth” must be tempered with flexibility of timetable and allowance for artistic maturing. Nevertheless, the section on “Arts Training” does announce the “software”20 — more arts training, grants and scholarships — that the relevant state agencies

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will put in place to support this new enterprise. The present existence of such supporting institution and means represents an improvement from the past. It has already been noted that it would be untenable to contend that the arts occupy a space free from the processes of commodification. As one Japanese specialist notes, “Since the arts and media make up a major part of the [Japanese] media programme, media policy will feature prominently in cultural policy development. The notion of cultural development for the sake of culture is increasingly difficult to maintain.”21 Nevertheless, it would be equally a misconception to think that the arts can flourish if commercial utility is to be the main driving force. While such an argument in Singapore — or anywhere else — is hardly new, it is made in relation to the city-state’s current goal to be a cultural hub, and it is vital to resist the temptation to exploit the arts solely for commercial purposes lest the city-state becomes an empty hub for other peoples’ high or popular culture to pass through. This will not serve former Prime Minister Goh’s goal of making Singapore a “world-class home” in which “Singaporeans want to stay”, rather than to emigrate from.22 Singapore need not retreat into making only protective cultural policies; and given the reality of new technologies of communication, this is, in any case, impossible. But with globalization advancements within an asymmetrical interdependence of the world system, it is also necessary, in the words of one noted anthropologist, that “the peripheral [or semi-peripheral] countries need to try cultural policies that allow them to exploit their capacities and at the same time place themselves in a less disadvantageous position in relation to the central countries”.23 However, even before fully considering how such a policy position applies to a small city-state, one needs to ask to what level Singapore’s “capacities” have been developed. The perennial and common complaint of Singapore, one that is thought to be simultaneously the reason for our economic success and the obstacle to cultural progress, is its history of pragmatic developmentalism. Singapore’s postindependence experience of cultural development has been at variance with the experience not only of Western European, but also of many postcolonial Latin American, African, and Asian countries. States took on the responsibility for maintaining material and immaterial historical heritage, and in the process, they differentiated themselves from other nations. In many of the plural societies the colonial powers constructed, a “national” heritage was built up through the culture of their elite, which sometimes was of European origin. Modern institutions, such as museums and university departments of study engaging with the new nation’s culture, were developed and historical sites maintained

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in order to strengthen national identity. Supporting ethnic arts and crafts was also part of these strategies as was support for the modern arts (literature, music, the plastic arts) and the mass media. Debates arose over how the urban centre and the provincial periphery, the modern and the traditional, were to be reconciled in such multi level support of a national identity. But whatever differences were expressed, the idea of the “national culture” dominated, and the state played a leading role. Nation-building in Singapore, and the PAP government’s management of the ethnic fissures in society, took a different route from the more established means of creating the “national” that incorporated cultural policy.24 “Culture” — particularly in the meanings of “ethnicity” and “race” — was played down. The changes in the present cultural policy do not in themselves signify a massive shift in the underpinning instrumental-rationalist mentality of nation-building — nor can one realistically expect economically pragmatic thinking to disappear overnight. What is pressing, though, is coming to terms with this politicocultural legacy and its consequences. THE ARTS AND THE ECONOMY IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM The contemporary arts scene since perhaps the mid-1990s has seen essentially a normalization of what were once arts practices with counter-cultural dimensions. This normalization in itself is not surprising — it is the pattern in the metropolitan West; what is surprising is the speed of the process, having taken place in about a decade after newer arts practices emerged. One could say that the PAP state, in a stripped-down manner, has discovered the “postmodern” as that stage in capitalism when, as literary-cultural critic Fredric Jameson has famously pronounced, culture has to a greater or lesser degree become co-extensive with the economy.25 The actuality, though, is a more superficial grasp of the situation, as the state still remains true, as already suggested, to its older modernist and simple Marxist comprehension of the economy as the base of all reality. Thus, the strongest challenge to arts development in the new millennium is that it is increasingly becoming part of what might be called “lifestyle capitalism”, in which “alternative” socio-cultural stances become co-opted into the diverse cultural mosaic of contemporary cosmopolitanism. Artistic creativity also becomes a part of a desired less-conformist subjectivity that could drive key sectors of local capitalism. The state has acknowledged that the old Fordist-Taylorized machinery of disciplinary modernization was starting to creak. The re-shaping of the paradigm

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began before the 1997 Asian financial crisis, though that hastened change to prepare for the “New Economy”. In November 1998, then Prime Minister Goh discussed the Committee on Singapore’s Competitiveness’ recommendations. The fundamental policy recommendation was that the island-state must become an advanced knowledge economy in the next decade, with manufacturing and services being the twin engines of growth, while a skilful workforce would be requisite. Traditional labour and capital become less important than what can be described as “immaterial” labour and “intellectual” capital.26 Business now has less tangible dimensions as to what makes for a remunerative dynamism. The Straits Times paraphrased the report thus: “Add some fizz into local entertainment by setting up an Arts Marketplace for interactive arts activities, similar to Melbourne’s Sunday Market and Montmartre in Paris. To boost tourism, build more theme parks and study the feasibility of building a new cruise centre.”27 As with the best global — meaning Euro-American — versions of metropolitanism, we need to enhance the city-state’s stature as a transnational “hub” for the flows of capital.28 The “hardware”, as it is called in Singapore, needs a “software upgrade” — and not only in terms of what can be pragmatically understood such as health care, or even the environment. Singapore at the start of the new millennium has been transformed from a colonial city into a modern premier “world city” with a puritan work ethic, and an economic centre for business in the Asia-Pacific. The question is whether it can become a multifaceted cultural metropolis, given increased regional and international competition from other aspiring world cities. The need for more autonomy — a need already raised earlier — also applies to artistic and related cultural developments. The city-state has been working out how this freedom and autonomy can be wrought by the PAP state. By 2006, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts (MICA) — effectively, if not literally, and even if unintended — was proclaiming that the sacred nation-state concept, the patria, was dead or transcended. “Singapore”, he writes, “is seen as a country with a positive brand”, and “[i]n tandem with the continual re-invention of the economic and social landscape …, the Singapore ‘brand’ has shifted from a focus on ‘hard’ aspects such as costs, efficiency and technology to ‘softer’ aspects such as lifestyle, experience and innovation.”29 He adds: “Sacred cows of the past are being slaughtered with the development of two integrated resorts which will transform our entertainment industry.” By “integrated resorts”, the writer euphemistically refers to two entertainment complexes with casinos in them, but also with additional upmarket shopping and a possible art museum. The

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arts and entertainment come in as support mechanisms for the post-Brave New World being wrought in the image of global chic. Part of this global chic is the hosting of major “anchor cultural event[s]” such as the Singapore Biennale 2006.30 The Biennale not only highlights “Singapore’s prominence as an international contemporary arts centre”, but also suggests that economic imperatives have led to some cultural progress from the art controversies of 1993–94. And because international visual arts biennales have become part of the global circulation of high culture, such art events and also art exhibitions in a similar “globalized” mould have come to operate “within the dimensions of attraction and entertainment, on the one hand, and critical reflection and subversion, on the other”.31 Many voices argue that “the ever-extending rhizome of international biennale exhibitions”32 have become part of postmodern cultural tourism and lifestyle culture. CONCLUSION The PAP state’s present development strategy is not surprising, given a now established pattern of fostering a competitive global city that will lure and retain foreign capital flows. It is the bluntness of and lack of nuance in its articulation that catches the reader off-guard, given the near assertion (whether intended or otherwise) that the citizens are now really minor equity holders in an enterprise rather than a nation-state. National culture and the arts may become commodities in the process of creating the suitable brand. Singapore’s capitalist development from the 1980s to 1990s was part of what anthropologist Arjun Appadurai has influentially described as a “modernity decisively at large, irregularly selfconscious, and unevenly experienced”,33 and the city-state continues to bring into sharp focus certain culturalist aspects of the present globalized version of the modern.

NOTES I am grateful for discussions with Lee Weng Choy, Ong Keng Sen, Charlene Rajendran, T.K. Sabapathy, Tang Da Wu, the late Krishen Jit, Ray Langenbach, Koh Nguang How, Tay Tong, Nora Samosir, Benson Puah, Kwok Kian Woon, Quah Sy Ren, Stephen Hazell, Alvin Tan, and Chua Beng Huat. Thanks also go to Terence Chong for his careful work with the chapter. This chapter was completed during a Visiting Fellowship at the Society for the Humanities, Cornell University, USA.

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1. Michael Curtin, Playing to the World’s Biggest Audience: The Globalization of Chinese Film and TV (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), p. 282. 2. Terry McCarthy with Eric Ellis, “Singapore Lightens Up”, TIME, 19 July 1999, p. 17. 3. Ibid., p. 19. 4. See Koh Tai Ann, “Culture and the Arts”, in Management of Success: The Moulding of Modern Singapore, edited by Kernial Sandhu and Paul Wheatley (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1989). 5. Ong Teng Cheong et al., Report of the Advisory Council on Culture and the Arts (Singapore: Singapore National Printers, 1989). 6. In 1989, Tang is quoted as saying that: “The main reason for being here [in Sembawang] is the isolation.” The magazine writer’s response to this was: “The psychological context of the village is earthy, rudimentary, and free of the numerous and trivial distractions normally found in the city.” Chia Ming Chien, “The Artists’ Village”, Man, April–May 1989, p. 33. 7. See C.J. W.-L. Wee, “Christianity, the Work of Wong Shih Yaw and Contemporary Art”, in The Inoyama Donation: A Tale of Two Artists, exhibition booklet, edited by Low Sze Wee (Singapore: Singapore Art Museum, 2006). 8. In Singapore, the term “Marxist” is taken by the state to be co-terminous with the term “communist”. The 1987 crackdown was code-named “Operation Spectrum”. Straits Times’ correspondent Chua Lee Hoong, a former Internal Security Department officer, offered an extraordinary comparison between the activities that led to the 1987 security sweep and the 1989 Tiananmen incident: “Every country has its own iconic movement in dealing with potentially destabilising dissent. Tiananmen was one of China’s, and I dare say it brought relative political stability for at least 20 years.” See “Me? I’d Rather save Money on the Candles …”, Straits Times, 2 April 2003. “Operation Spectrum” was one such “iconic movement” to her, along with the infamous February 1963 Operation Cold Store, when the security forces detained over 100 leading opposition political figures. Singapore was then trying to join the Federation of Malaysia, and internal security on the island was shared between Malaya (now West Malaysia), Britain, and Singapore. It is too easy to say that Chua represents the state’s position on such matters; it seems most unlikely the PAP state would wish any of its activities to be compared with the violent Chinese clampdown. 9. For more information and documentation of the events, see Sanjay Krishnan, Sharaad Kuttan, Lee Weng Choy, Leon Perera and Jimmy Yap, eds., Looking at Culture (Singapore: Artres Design and Communications, 1996). This edited work was initially to be an issue of the National University of Singapore Society’s journal, Commentary. The Society appeared to panic in the wake of the 1993 arts controversy, and, in any case, stopped the publication; the editors resigned and had the issue privately

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10.

11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

16.

17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

23.

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published. For extensive documentation and analysis of the events that transpired taken as a whole, see William Ray Langenbach, “Performing the Singapore State, 1988–1995” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Centre for Cultural Research, University of Western Sydney, 2003). The entire text of the dissertation can be found at (accessed 4 February 2008). Langenbach was a performance artist and university lecturer then living in the city-state, and was professionally involved with a number of the artists in question. Ministry of Information and the Arts, Renaissance City Report: Culture and the Arts in Renaissance Singapore (Singapore: Ministry of Information and the Arts, 2000). Kuo Pao Kun, “Re-Positioning the Arts”, The Arts Magazine, November/December 1999, pp. 19–20. Ibid., p. 22. Government of Singapore, Singapore 21: Together, We Make the Difference (Singapore: Singapore 21 Committee, 1999), p. 49. Ibid., pp. 50, 51. In the National Day celebrations on 3 June 1961, marking the self-rule gained in 1959, then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew told the country that capitalist modernity could be our new identity: “We are hoping to build a modern society in which everybody will have a better life because we will have factories to make more and more of the things which make life easier … Recitation of poetry and writing of essays are important things in a civilized society. But important also is the turning of screws and lathes. They make our modern world hum.” Cited in Alex Josey, Lee Kuan Yew (Singapore: Donald Moore Press, 1968), pp. 172, 173. Singapore — Global City for the Arts (Singapore: EDB and MITA, 1992), pp. 3, 11. The last intention needs to be phrased carefully given regional sensitivities, if they are not to be misunderstood — as such statements often are — as an intention towards cultural imperialism. Ibid., p. 3. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., p. 21. Michihiro Watanabe, “Cultural Policies in Japan”, in Culture, Creativity and Markets: World Culture Report 1998 (Paris: UNESCO, 1998), p. 174. Zuraidah Ibrahim, “Singapore’s New Goal: Be a World-Class Home: Besides Building First-Class Economy, Excellence in Education, Arts, Sports and Culture is Also Important”, Straits Times Interactive, 23 August 1999, (accessed 24 August 1999). Néstor Garcia Canclini, “Cultural Policy Options in the Context of Globalization”,

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24. 25. 26.

27.

28.

29. 30. 31.

32.

33.

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in Culture, Creativity and Markets: World Culture Report 1998 (Paris: UNESCO, 1998), pp. 169–70. See Terence Chong’s “Fluid Nation: The Perpetual ‘Renovation’ of Nation and National Identities in Singapore” in this volume for a discussion on nation-building. Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991). Cited in Zuraidah Ibrahim, “S’pore Focus on Key Areas for Growth”, Straits Times Interactive, 13 October 1998, (accessed 14 October 1998). “Staying Ahead: Business”, Straits Times Interactive, 13 November 1998, (accessed 14 November 1998). See Pow Choon-Piew’s “Recovering from the ‘Promethean Hangover’? Critical Reflections on the Remaking of Singapore as a Global City” in this volume for a discussion on remaking Singapore in the image of the West. Tan Chin Nam, “Let Us Co-Create Our Nation’s Brand”, Fusion@MICA 10, April–June 2006. Belief: Singapore Biennale 2006, visitor’s guide, 4 September–12 November 2006. Mark W. Rectanus, Culture Incorporated: Museums, Artists, and Corporate Sponsorships (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002), p. 7. While arts censorship is still exercised in Singapore, the state seems willing to allow a little more latitude for “critical reflection”, if not quite subversion, as part of a more “relaxed” image. Zara Stanhope, “Home Truths”, in Zones of Contact — 2006 Biennale of Sydney: A Critical Reader, edited by Natasha Bullock and Reuben Keehan (Sydney: Artspace Visual Arts Centre, 2006), p. 66. Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), p. 3.

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FLUID NATION The Perpetual “Renovation” of Nation and National Identities in Singapore TERENCE CHONG

SINGAPORE THE FLUID NATION

F

or national communities, the nation is a site of stability and resilience. It is often premised on kinship or the myths of ethnic communities for a sense of collective belonging.1 More recently, other scholars have argued that the nation requires the “regime of authenticity”, that is, a purposeful attempt to install timeless values within the idea of the nation such that it is seen as eternal and thus “authentic”, in contrast to the volatility of modernity.2 The regime of authenticity is the political project to inscribe the nation with timeless values thus rendering it eternal in order to anchor it in the ferocious stream of capitalism and modernity.3 It is this contrast against a volatile and random external environment that makes the nation, and the national identities within it, so treasured for its consistency and predictability. Singapore has had to forfeit much of the traditional ingredients that go into the formulation of nation and national culture. For a variety of reasons well discussed elsewhere, its immigrant population, multi-ethnic complexion, and sudden separation from Malaysia all conspired to arrest the development of an ethnic-based national culture or the idea of a stable and timeless nation. Quite the opposite; with economic growth so central to the idea of national 504

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survival, the Singapore nation has been defined as necessarily dynamic, open to change, and adaptable to the demands of the world economy. Hence, instead of the division between nation (stable) and modernity (dynamic) where the former can be looked upon for security and orientation, the Singapore nation and modernity are collapsed into a political project designed to keep citizens entrenched in economic realism, the result of which is a fluid nation and identity that respond to the global economy. And it is because nation and identity in Singapore are premised on the shifting sands of capitalism and globalization, the state-sponsored search for identity and nationhood is destined to be a futile one. This chapter looks at Singapore as a fluid nation, that is, the variety of ways the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) articulates the nation, nationalism, and national identities as a strategy to respond to the dynamic challenges of the political and economic environment. As a fluid nation Singapore will be argued to be the result of the evolving political interests of the ruling elite as it attempts to define the Singapore nation and interpellate citizens through collective identities in order to maintain ideological hegemony in relation to the ever-changing political and economic landscape. As the external environment changes, so too must the ideological instruments of control, division, and mobilization. The concepts of nation, nationalism, and identities — all part of the state’s repertoire of ideological instruments — are thus fluid in articulation and meaning. Economic survival, for the PAP government, is the basic premise for everything, without which there would be no need to discuss national identity. As rightly pointed out by Willmott in the 1989 volume of Management of Success, “industrialization was the product of nationalism [in Singapore], not its cause”.4 By turning Gellner’s explanation on its head, Willmott went on to assert that because Singapore was forced into independence without nationalism or nation identity, “in Singapore the state preceded the development of nationalism rather than emerging as its political consequences, and the state itself became the first major symbol of national identity”.5 Furthermore, the Singapore state not only emerged as the symbol but also, under the PAP government, the author of nationalism and national identities in Singapore. This chapter seeks to achieve two objectives. Firstly, to show how earlier imaginations of the Singapore nation were expressed by the governing elite and; secondly, to show how, upon successful industrialization, the demands and functions of globalization and the global city have forced the government to invent a “bigger” Singapore nation that could be linked to greater civilizations.

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A NATION IN PERPETUAL “RENOVATION” Right from independence, the concepts of nation and nationalism were not seen by the PAP government as sacred or stable, but as strategies for specific interests. Speaking at a seminar organized by the International Press Institute in Bangkok on 14 October 1968, then Minister for Foreign Affairs and Labour, S. Rajaratnam opined that “It is through a series of new models of nationalism, each of which would incorporate some significant innovations, that I see Asian nationalism moving towards regionalism and internationalism.”6 In order to chart a postcolonial future, he went on to state that “I hope that the renovation of Asian nationalism will be undertaken by bold minds and that the seventies will be given over to this undertaking.”7 The ideological purpose of renovating nationalism was clear: “It will be necessary for the new nationalism to tell the people that social, political and economic development can be undertaken successfully only if the people are prepared for sustained work, self-denial and for considerable sacrifice.”8 But perhaps the most prescient insight offered by Rajaratnam was the way in which the forces of globalization, a term not yet invented, would force nationalism to reinvent itself. The new nationalism must also stress the fact that the nation-state can never be completely self-contained and sovereign. The nation-state of today has been so permeated by a parallel international system that all nations can survive and prosper only by modifying their concepts of sovereignty and national exclusiveness.9

Although Rajaratnam was pondering rhetorically over the region as a whole, his remarks made clear that ideas of nation and nationalism could not be premised on primordial or ethnic identities, but on the unfolding challenges in the external environment. After all, it was upon Rajaratnam’s insistence that Singapore’s official history should only begin from 1819 so as to “forget” the multitude of histories and memories of migrants, which he called “ancestral ghosts”, believing that only a state-sponsored construction of nation and national identity, purged of inconvenient narratives, stood the best chance of producing a harmonious multicultural society.10 Indeed, much of Rajaratnam’s sentiments anticipate the economic liberal voice in globalization literature some forty years later. His belief that “the nation-state can never be completely self-contained and sovereign” squares perfectly with contemporary globalization scholars who note that “National claims to ‘sovereignty’ have been more myth than fact: states have never been all-powerful or omni-competent.”11 As Rajaratnam goes on to observe:

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What we need is a new nationalism to be created by the relatively simple process of renovation of its content. This I believe is practical politics and through this strategy we can harness the force of nationalism for meaningful and hopeful ends …12

One of the earliest ways in which the Singapore nation was imagined by the governing elites was one that was in a state of struggle or what others have called “ideology of survival”.13 It was a realist perspective of competition, power, and national interests intimately informed by rationalism and pessimism that situated the tiny, defenseless, and resource scarce island-state in a sea of hostility. The “ideology of survival” discourse came with a sequence of ideas that led to a pragmatic sense of collective consciousness. First was the belief that Singapore and Singaporeans must be tabula rasa, free from the ideologies and values of Malaysia such as ethnic privileges. Second, Singaporeans must be willing to “adopt a new set of attitudes, a new set of values, a new set of perspectives” that were perceived to be necessary for survival.14 Thirdly, these new attitudes, values, and perspectives were embodied by the “rugged society” discourse which began to make its round in the local media by 1966, only a year after independence.15 The “rugged society” discourse was meant to foster “a rugged, resolute, highly trained, highly disciplined society. Create such a community and you will survive and prosper here for a thousand years”.16 The “rugged society” campaign, on a policy level, was also introduced to persuade the Chinese majority population of the need for national service.17 This discourse, which included the active promotion of sports, the building of sports complexes in the satellite towns of Queenstown and Toa Payoh, and the introduction of national cadet corps in secondary schools, was designed to attune the population to mass participation in physical activities for the purposes of citizenry shaping. Like arts and culture, sports was not deemed valuable for sports’ sake but for its supposed character-building qualities. On an ideological level, the “rugged society” is perhaps best understood as a specific construction of national identity by the ruling class that attempted to call out the qualities and values needed for the perceived challenges of economic and, by extension, national, survival. This national identity came with the PAP government’s perceptions of the world and a Southeast Asian “rough-and-tumble neighbourhood” to which it had to be strong and tough against. The identity that the ruling elite perpetuated was one that espoused “a classical realist perception of an anarchic society of nation-states challenging, if not threatening each other in furtherance of their national interests”.18

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From the robust and outward looking “rugged society” national identity, the PAP government also adopted a “garrison mentality”. According to Brown, in order to foster loyalty and political attachment to “ethnically neutral and meritocratic state”, the PAP government promotes the “garrison mentality” “to publicize the various dangers and threats facing Singapore which make the defensive unity of the whole community imperative to the country’s very existence”.19 The garrison mentality strives to promote a perpetual sense of vulnerability and insecurity amongst the populace by constantly warning of possible trauma such as racial violence by reviving the spectre of the Hock Lee bus riots, the 1964 racial riots or political unrest caused by so-called “Marxist conspirators”. Such warnings are akin to the “staging of crises” whereby even non-security issues such as the “Speak Mandarin” campaign conjures up a crisis of identity for the Chinese Singaporean in order to drive home the criticality and immediacy of such policies.20 This type of state-defined anxiety over the future, resulting in siege politics where the clear line between “us” and “them”, serves to keep national identity in perpetual renovation. By the late 1970s a Confucian-based national identity had grown in popularity. Fuelled on the one hand by external economic forces, the Confucian ethics discourse gained currency as a culturalist explanation of the “Asian Miracle” that included Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea. At a domestic level, the growing worry among some PAP leaders that the local populace was becoming increasingly “Westernized” and thus “de-cultured” led to the injection of public funds into the promotion of the Confucian ethics discourse as a national value system.21 High rates of mass consumption, the explosion of American-centred popular culture, materialism and individualism, all accoutrements of modernity and economic development, were feared to be eroding the cultural roots of the Chinese majority, though interestingly the Malay or Indian minorities were not deemed to be affected. Nevertheless, the instrumentalism of the Confucian ethics discourse went beyond a culturalist explanation of economic development, but also reflected the PAP government’s search for an ideological compass. This search began in the mid-1970s when the Socialist International accused the PAP of losing its democratic and socialist ideals, prompting the party to resign from the international body. The PAP defended its mode of governance by appealing to its economic track record, and claimed to have found a “Singapore way” that subjugated socialism, democracy, and human rights to the needs of national interests.22 Nonetheless, this resignation left an ideological vacuum,

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thus making it necessary for the party to look for a set of values; one which the academic symposium on “Asian values and Modernisation” seemed specifically designed to fill.23 The project eventually developed into a particular reading of Chinese values and Confucian ethics by the PAP government. The Confucian ethics discourse not only became a national value system but also served as an ideological identity for the PAP party itself. It believed that it was made up of junzhi (honourable men)24 and that Lee Kuan Yew was the “modern Confucius”.25 As a strategy of practical politics, the Confucian ethics discourse was extremely useful to the PAP government as a justification for authoritarianism by rejecting Western concepts of “civilization”. This particular use of “Culture” to thwart democratic values is not new. It echoes the way in which German imperial advocates of Zivilisationskritik (critique of civilization) fended off democratic modernity by appealing to Kultur (Culture). The implication was that “One could be modern and retain one’s ‘Asianness’ just as industrialised Germany of the nineteenth century maintained its distinctive, non-Western ‘Kultur’.”26 The desire for ethnic or traditional culture to inform value systems while, at the same time, tapping into modernity and capitalism is not unusual. As Chatterjee has observed, postcolonial nations struggle with the aporia of having to be of the past and also not of it, creating a perennial tension in having to be both Western (the embodiment of modernity and capitalism) and Eastern (the embodiment of culture and civilization).27 A BIGGER SINGAPORE: RE-IMAGINING THE BOUNDARIES OF THE FLUID NATION What the above examples have in common are the clear ideas on territoriality, boundaries and the national unit. These ideas, which informed the postcolonial state’s imagination of nationhood, were, to a large extent, supported by the colonial state’s institutions of power which Anderson has identified as “census, maps and museums”.28 These three institutions of ontological and epistemological management have been crucial in the type of identity that has emerged in the imagined national community. One example of a colonial institution that has shaped the way we think of a Singapore nation is the Old Ford Factory just off Upper Bukit Timah Road. The Ford Motor Factory most notably was the site for the formal surrender of Malaya by the British LieutenantGeneral Arthur Percival to the Japanese Commander of the 25th Army, General Yamashita Tomoyuki. The surrender is now a metonym for the decline of

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the British Empire in Asia, and marks the darkest period in Singapore’s modern history. Today, through the tactics of play and playfulness, the Old Ford Factory pitches the trauma to new generations. The Factory invites students to “See 44 months of the Japanese Occupation unfold before you as you take in the colourful visuals captured in 44 boxes. Or, play the game and step into the shoes of the residents of Syonan-to as you navigate your way through perils and uncertainties. Overcome all odds and be the first to get to the end of the Occupation unscathed and win the race!”.29 Just as the colonial state deployed these institutions to justify its dominion, they have also enabled the PAP government to imagine the island-nation as a discrete territorial entity perpetually under threat and to be defended against external ills of both the political and cultural variety. However, with the acceleration of globalization and the demands of global city status, new strategies are continually devised in the authenticity-making process. There has been a growing concern among the PAP elite to situate the multi-ethnic citizens within the civilizational narratives of China and India in order to achieve a longer and more durable cultural memory for its ethnic communities as the tide of global culture creeps up local shores. As such, in the last decade or so, we have seen a growing discourse from the PAP government that draws cultural and historical connections between these greater civilizations and their immigrant communities here. There is now a willingness to complement the colonial “census, map, museum” strategy with what Anderson calls “memory and forgetting”.30 This, for Anderson, is the instructive preservation of the imagined community through the glorification of specific historical episodes, and the deliberate “forgetting” of incriminating or contradictory remnants of the past. The purposeful collective forgetting of such incriminating or contradictory remnants allows the nation to remember-via-forgetting, paving the way for the PAP government to unproblematically hook the national narrative on to those of China and India, thus imagining the Singapore nation as an extended family of these two civilizations. One such example is the move to position Singapore within the “orbit of China’s politics”. The emergence of the Confucian ethics discourse above had signalled a shift in the cultural politics of ethnicity and cultural capital in Singapore. Before the late 1970s, the cultural division between the socalled English-educated and Chinese-educated ran along the fault lines of communism and communalism. This division, together with the privileging of English as the language of business and administration, resulted in a marginalized Chinese-educated community. With the rise of Asian capitalism

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and a dynamic modern China, there is now a compelling case to “forget” these local divisions and to highlight the island’s significance to the Chinese 1911 revolution. The Sun Yet Sen Villa, gazetted as a national monument in 1994 and located off Ah Hood Road, now serves as a memorial hall that commemorates Dr Sun’s eight visits to the island in his effort to raise funds from overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia for his revolutionary activities. The PAP government’s interest in claiming the historical and political importance of the Sun Yet Sen Villa, according to historians Hong and Huang, “is aimed at giving its ethnic Chinese citizens a dynamic, romantic and progressive history which is bound up with the myth of the 1911 Revolution, postulated as having a deep and pervasive cultural influence on Singapore”.31 This strategic positioning of Singapore vis-à-vis the Villa in Chinese revolutionary history is a stark turnaround from popular notions of the English-educated as agents of modernity and the Chinese-educated as “chauvinists” or parochial in their world view. The simple caricature of the past and its identities, coupled with selective amnesia, is vital in the nation-building process. Indeed, the regime of authenticity, as Duara notes, requires that “The subject of history is identified with that which is authentic and pure and associated with notions of honour, morality, and spirituality. It is the order of the sacred within the secular, the essence of the past in the present.”32 As Hong and Huang go on to observe, the PAP government leaders’ “identification of Sun Yet Sen as the fount of ideas on such profound modern cultural transformations and the broad brushstrokes on Chinese republican history conveniently skip over the attacks on Confucianism, adventures into total Westernisation, rise of Marxism-Leninism, struggles of the Chinese Communist Part and Sun’s collaboration with them, ascendancy of Mao Zedong and the climactic 1949 Revolution. The deliberate lack of historical analysis and weak effort at contextualization allowed the PAP to make an unproblematic construction of its connection to modern Chinese history.”33 To take Anderson’s vocabulary further, this is akin to rewriting census, redrawing mental maps, and expanding museums (or in the Sun Yet Sen Villa’s case, gazetting them). We are told by the Sun Yet Sen Memorial Hall website that the Villa should be preserved as a “cultural shrine” and that Singapore was the headquarters of the revolutionary movement in Southeast Asia. It played a pivotal role in the 1911 Revolution that led to the massive alteration of China’s destiny and the political scene of Asia. The success of this historical event was partly due to our involvement and contribution.

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This honour will serve to boost the confidence of all Singaporeans. Though our nation’s history is relatively young, we can still perform well on the international arena; even with limited space and natural resources, we can become an affluent cosmopolitan [sic], populated by distinguished individuals.34

This purposeful situation of the national narrative within the broader political developments of the Chinese history, sometimes at the risk of internal contradictions, signals a move from imagining the nation as a well defined territorial unit with clear boundaries towards a “bigger Singapore”. This “bigger Singapore” has longer histories, more porous boundaries and exists as a transnational nation that latches on these greater civilizations and selectively co-opts the symbolism of historical events, to achieve an authenticity that its own immigrant past lacks. In doing so, “Chinese” as a racial category is not only given civilizational underpinnings, but is also endowed with a cosmopolitan spirit and attitude. For the Sun Yet Sen story is also an integral part of the historical migration of Chinese to the South Seas which has been interpreted elsewhere as a cosmopolitan process because of their integration and assimilation into other communities, the exportation of national politics, and the spread and circulation of a cosmopolitan Chinese education in Southeast Asia.35 This rehabilitation of the Chinese-educated community as cosmopolitan offers a useful ideological counter for the PAP government against Western-defined notions of cosmopolitanism where notions of individualism, human rights and liberal democracy take centre stage. The message is clear: you can be cosmopolitan without becoming Westernized.

THE NATIONAL GLOBAL CITY: A SCHIZOPHRENIC IDENTITY From imagining the nation as a territorial unit in a distinct external (and dangerous) environment, to a bigger Singapore where the nation is situated in the orbit of modern Chinese history, there is a clear shift towards expressing a type of cosmopolitan spirit that is grounded in notions of the local or Asian-ness. Nevertheless, the PAP government’s success in engaging the forces of globalization and neo-capitalism has resulted in fissures in the imagined community. These fissures, caused by the hardening of class hierarchy and uneven wealth distribution, both exacerbated by globalization, have spawned increasingly different life-worlds

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and social realities in society. These different life-worlds and social realities have made it impossible to speak of a singular Singaporean habitus or a homogenous imagination of national community. According to the Household Expenditure Survey, released by the Department of Statistics in June 2005, the bottom 20 per cent of households suffered a 3.2 per cent income drop between 1998 and 2003. This was in contrast to the fact that the average income of all households rose by 1.1 per cent a year.36 The Gini coefficient has also risen steadily through the years, from 0.442 in 2000, 0.472 in 2006, to 0.485 in 2007. Meanwhile, the number of millionaires has increased over the years, from nearly 50,000 in 2005,37 66,600 in 2007,38 to 77,000 in 2008.39 And though the PAP government has a variety of assistance schemes such as the Workfare Bonus Scheme, Progress Package and the Public Assistance Scheme, this pattern of uneven wealth distribution is replicated in almost every capitalist society plugged into the global economy. The widening wage gap and class reproduction, together with the politics of envy, have made it very difficult for many Singaporeans to imagine themselves to be part of any other community other than the one that is structured by their own material circumstances. This obstacle cannot be overcome by the politics of “memory and forgetting” because the economic disparities are too apparent in everyday life. Unlike momentous but one-off events such as civil wars, revolutions, or massacres which can be (re)interpreted by historiography to allow citizens to “remember-through-forgetting”, the widening wage gap and economic disparities are real conditions which steadily influence the habituses of Singaporeans through lived “practice”, informing their relationship to structure and disposition to other Singaporeans. National spectacles such as the annual National Day Parade or international sporting events may enable Singaporeans to share a collective consciousness for a brief fleeting moment by forgetting the material divisions among them but this euphoria quickly expires when one returns to the humdrum of life. It is the humdrum of everyday life that generates the accumulated personal knowledge, cultural capital, and private experiences, producing reflexive, nonrational, high heterogeneous responses to the idea of nation, which ultimately, undermines the concept of a singular imagined community. Well informed of these growing socio-economic divisions, the PAP government has attempted to pre-empt any exclusion from the Singapore imagined community by romanticizing this heterogeneity. In his now much cited 1999 National Day Rally Speech, then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong divided Singaporeans into “heartlanders” (Singaporeans who were supposed to be rooted to the locale)

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and “cosmopolitans” (Singaporeans who were supposed to be globally mobile). This distinction was based on popular ideas of local neighbourhood life and cosmopolitanism, together with the values and traits commonly associated with such popular perceptions. Hence, the “heartlander”, who presumably took up occupations such as taxi-drivers, factory workers, contractors, and so on, was portrayed by Goh as hardworking and sincere, and who played a “major role in maintaining our core values and our social stability”.40 This uncritical attempt to embody heartlanders with so-called core values was nothing more than the romanticizing of the working class as an authentic down-toearth people. Such romanticizing presents the heartlander, or Singaporean working class, as an unproblematic political subject, ignoring the local history of the intimate connection between language, ideology and politics, and commodifies him into a stereotype such that his individuality is transformed into a generic phenomenon that complements state interests. It serves to homogenize and sanitize the working-class habitus. Meanwhile, the romanticization of the “cosmopolitan”, in contrast to the heartlander, is one who is globally oriented (but presumably lacking the core values of the heartlander), endowed with highly sought after market skills and talent, a conduit for globalization and a prime agent who embodies the best of Singapore’s education and meritocratic policies. With these two types of Singaporeans conveniently demarcated, Goh went on to exhort a national identity that is the composite of the best qualities of the two. According to Goh, it was important to “get the heartlanders to understand what the cosmopolitans contribute to Singapore’s and their own well-being, and to get the cosmopolitans to feel an obligation and sense of duty to the heartlanders”.41 The PAP government’s constant oscillation between the local and global creates a tension within the national identity because cultural assumptions of localness and cosmopolitanism come with different sets of political expectations that are often in conflict with each other. Liberal expectations regarding the role of the press, public culture, and pluralist democracy that cosmopolitan ideals evoke are not articulated by the PAP government. Instead, cosmopolitanism in government discourse is purged of political liberalism and deployed as modus vivendi for cultural and ethnic pluralism so as to prepare citizens for the presence of much needed foreign talent in the pursuit of economic growth. This brand of cosmopolitanism is identical to the government’s own understanding of “multiculturalism”, that is, cultural-ethnic differences should be played down in favour of social harmony and whereby no community should overstep its boundaries. To be sure, the advancement

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of the “cosmopolitics” of human rights or post-national society is certainly not part of Singapore’s cosmopolitan agenda.42 But perhaps the greatest problem that the PAP government faces when defining the Singaporean identity as local or global is the resistance from ordinary Singaporeans. According to Appadurai, just as the state or government strives to use the ideologies of “national belonging” or “national culture” to further its interests, subnational or local groups will similarly adopt cosmopolitan or transnational messages to challenge or resist these ideologies.43 This is precisely what happened during the Myanmar junta crackdown on Buddhist monks in September 2007. An application by a Singaporean student to hold an outdoor protest against the violence in Myanmar was turned down by the local police for fear of more violence. Online criticisms of the rejected application were telling, many deploying the PAP government’s favoured “global’ slogans to highlight its authoritarianism. According to “Benjamin Cheah”: In short, we cannot seize an opportunity to express our compassion in a city of possibilities and big-heartedness; demonstrate solidarity with fellow global citizens, in a global hub; and take risks in a country that relies on risk-takers; because of a legalistic police force in a country of innovation. Oh, and by the way, the State wants us to be more proactive in politics.44

“City of Possibilities” was, of course, the theme for the 2007 National Day Rally Speech while the “hub” trope is commonplace in government discourse, not to mention the government’s exhortation for citizens to be less risk adverse in the attempt to nurture a more vibrant economy. Conversely, any state attempt to deploy cosmopolitan tropes for economic pursuit is often confronted by groups championing specific interpretations of the local. And this is nowhere more evident than in the national debate over Singlish.45 The debate over the local vernacular is poised between its critics who argue that Singlish is poor English which prevents foreigners from understanding locals and is an obstacle to the global city ambition, and its proponents who argue that it is distinctively Singaporean, but most importantly, a “natural” non-state engineered piece of indigenous Singaporean culture.46 Support for Singlish comes primarily from cultural producers and, ironically, English-speaking Singaporeans who cite Singlish as a marker of local identity. Popular local sitcoms such as Phua Chu Kang and local theatre, a decade before, have entrenched Singlish and vernacular identities such as “Ah Beng” and “Ah Lian” firmly in popular culture.47 The fondness and attachment that Singaporeans

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have for such vernacular identities comes from the human need to reaffirm local identity in the face of increased globalization and the influx of the foreigners. The harder the PAP government pushes the cosmopolitan-oriented national identity for its economic interests, the more attractive Singlish and vernacular identities become as sites for resistance. CONCLUSION The authorship of nation and national identities has been the sole privilege of the PAP government. This authorship was probably necessary at the point of separation from Malaysia and inevitable during the country’s formative years. The imagining of the Singapore community was, as with most national communities, left to its political elite. For a postcolonial society such as Singapore, imaginations of its ethnic identities, territory, and the artefacts of its history have been profoundly shaped by the colonial state. The colonial hand over historiography and epistemology continues to be visible in contemporary expressions of nationhood where the politics of “memory and forgetting” have played an instrumental role delineating the Singapore nation — Rajaratnam’s insistence that Singapore’s history should only begin from 1819 being a key example of this. Nation and national identities were instrumentally deployed, or in Rajaratnam’s phrase “renovated” as a strategy of “practical politics”, for specific ends. This constant reshaping of nationalism and identity has endowed the Singapore nation with a fluid quality, in contrast to conventional notions of nation which are defined as timeless against the dynamic forces of capitalism and modernity. Indeed, dynamism and the ability to transform in accordance to capitalist demands is at the very heart of the Singapore nation. The twining of national survival and economic growth has carried on into the twenty-first century. This is at the core of the government’s global city ambitions as well as its economic strategy to serve as a hub for a variety of industries. Unlike previous economic strategies that relied on a disciplined, compliant, and hardworking domestic workforce, Singapore’s global city ambitions demand a greater presence of highly skilled foreign workers. This has resulted in one of the greatest dilemmas facing Singaporeans and the Singapore nation today — on one hand, the nation cannot survive without Singaporeans developing a sense of rootedness to the county, and yet on the other, this rootedness will count for little without the transient presence of foreign talent. This dilemma has been the source of Singaporean tension over the worth of citizenship and perceptions of privileged treatment of foreign talent over locals.

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And yet, this dilemma may also be the source from which a grassroots attempt to articulate a Singaporean narrative and voice could emerge. As we have seen, sections in society ranging from cultural producers, active citizens and civil society are beginning to counter government expressions of nationhood and identity, especially when such expressions exclude their interests or lifestyles. Such grassroots formations of identity, whether it is the use of Singlish or popular caricatures of the Ah Beng, are generally more visceral and entrenched in the everyday, thus endowing them with a sense of authenticity. It is this sense of authenticity that state-sponsored constructions of nation and identity cannot replicate primarily because they are premised on the dynamic and rapacious logic of capitalism. If the fluid nation is the result of the government’s exclusive authorship of nation and national identity, then it is up to Singaporeans to manufacture authenticity for themselves.

NOTES I am grateful to Daniel P.S. Goh for his insightful suggestions and comments on an earlier draft of this chapter. 1. For conventional explanations of nationalism, see Anthony Smith, Nationalism: Theory, Ideology, History (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2001); Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism, revised ed. (London: Verso, 2002); Ernst Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983). 2. Prasenjit Duara, Sovereignty and Authenticity: Manchukuo and the East Asian Modern (New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2003). 3. Prasenjit Duara, “The Regime of Authenticity: Timelessness, Gender, and National History in Modern China”, in Constructing Nationhood in Modern East Asia, edited by Chow Kai-wing, Kevin M. Doak, and Fu Poshek (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001). 4. W.E. Willmott, “The Emergence of Nationalism”, in Management of Success: The Moulding of Modern Singapore, edited by Kernial Singh Sandhu and Paul Wheatley (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1989), p. 581; original italics. 5. Willmott, “The Emergence of Nationalism”, p. 591. 6. “Nationalism Re-examined”, The Mirror, 21 October 1968, p. 3. 7. The Mirror, 21 October 1968, p. 6. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid. 10. Lysa Hong and Huang Jianli, The Scripting of a National History: Singapore and its Pasts (Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2008).

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11. Paul Hirst, From Statism to Pluralism (London: UCL Press, 1997), quoted in Globalization: The Reader, edited by John Beynon and David Dunkerley (London: The Athlone Press, 2000), p. 243. 12. Chan Heng Chee and Obaid Ul Haq, eds., S. Rajaratnam: The Prophetic and the Political, 2nd ed. (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies and Graham Brash Pte. Ltd., 2007), p. 130. 13. Chan Heng Chee, The Politics of Survival 1965–1967 (Singapore and Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1971). 14. Ibid., p. 49. 15. The Mirror, vol. 2, no. 33 (15 August 1966); vol. 2, no. 34 (22 August 1966); vol. 3, no. 4 (23 January 1967), see Chan Heng Chee, The Politics of Survival 1965–1967 (Singapore and Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 51. 16. Lee Kuan Yew, quoted in Alex Josey, Lee Kuan Yew (Singapore: Donald Moore Press Ltd., 1968), p. 490. 17. Perhaps the most explicit link between the “rugged society” discourse and the introduction of national service came with a 1967 issue of TIME magazine. “Into government buildings bedecked with red and white bunting last week filed 10,000 Singaporeans with two things in common. All were 19 years old, and all were being drafted. It was a new experience for Asia’s newest state, which has never even had an army before, but it did not mean that Singapore was preparing for war. The creation of a National Service was simply the latest and most dramatic step in Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew’s campaign to meld Singapore’s polyglot population (1.5 million Chinese, 300,000 Malays, 175,000 Indians) into what he calls a ‘rugged society’ ”. Says Lee, “Societies like ours have no fat to spare. They are either lean and healthy or they die.” See “The Rugged Society”, TIME, 21 August 1967. 18. Kwa Chong Guan, “Relating to the World: Images, Metaphors, and Analogies”, in Singapore in the New Millennium: Challenges Facing the City-state, edited by Derek da Cunha (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2002), p. 115. 19. David Brown, The State and Ethnic Politics in Southeast Asia (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), p. 84. 20. David Birch, “Staging Crises: Media and Citizenship”, in Singapore Changes Guard: Social, Political and Economic Directions in the 1990s, edited by Garry Rodan (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993). 21. The Confucian ethics discourse has been examined thoroughly elsewhere. See Chua Beng Huat, Communitarian Ideology and Democracy in Singapore (London and New York: Routledge, 1995); Terence Chong, “Asian Values and Confucian Ethics: Malay Singaporeans’ Dilemma”, Journal of Contemporary Asia 32, no. 3 (2002): 394–406.

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22. Devan Nair, ed., Socialism that Works … the Singapore Way (Singapore: Federal Press, 1976). 23. Seah Chee Meow, ed., Asian Values and Modernisation (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1977). 24. White Paper on Shared Values, 1991. 25. Eddie Kuo, “Confucianism as Political Discourse in Singapore: The Case of an Incomplete Revitalisation Movement”, in Confucian Traditions in East Asian Modernity: Moral Education and Economic Culture in Japan and the Four MiniDragons, edited by Tu Weiming (Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1996). 26. Mark R. Thompson, “The Survival of ‘Asian Values’ as ‘Zivilisationskritik’ ”, Theory and Society 29, no. 5 (2000): 664. 27. Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986). 28. Anderson, Imagined Communities. 29. Memories at Old Ford Factory, “The Exhibition”, (accessed 1 May 2008). 30. Anderson, Imagined Communities, p. 187. 31. Hong and Huang, The Scripting of a National History, pp. 191–92. 32. Duara, “The Regime of Authenticity”, p. 295. 33. Hong and Huang, The Scripting of a National History, p. 193. 34. Sun Yet Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall, “About Us — Our Story”, (accessed 1 May 2008). 35. Yao Souchou, “Moving Story: Transnational Mobility and Chinese Education in Malaysia”, in Globalization and its Counter-forces in Southeast Asia, edited by Terence Chong (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2008). 36. Leslie Koh, “Bigger Wage Gap Can’t Be Avoided: Boon Heng”, Straits Times, 20 June 2005. 37. “Singapore’s Millionaire Ranks Swell to Almost 50,000”, Business Times, 11–12 June 2005. 38. “S’pore Leads World in New Millionaires”, Business Times, 2 July 2007. 39. “S’pore Now Has 77,000 Millionaires”, Straits Times, 26 June 2008. 40. Goh Chok Tong, National Day Rally Speech, 22 August 1999, (accessed 20 November 2001). 41. Ibid. 42. “Cosmopolitics” has been described as an intellectual and political project to define common political norms and mutual translatability of socio-political values; see Peng Cheah and Bruce Robbins, eds., Cosmopolitics: Thinking and Feeling Beyond the Nation (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998). See also Thio Liann’s “ ‘More Matter, with Less Art’: Human Rights and Human Development

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43. 44.

45.

46.

47.

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in Singapore” in this volume for a discussion on how the PAP government defines and operationalizes human rights discourse. Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalisation (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996). The Online Citizen, “Police Reject Permit for Outdoor Protest by S’pore Student”, (accessed 10 March 2008). See Koh Tai Ann’s “ ‘It’s Like Rice on the Table, It’s Our Common Dish’: The English Language and Identity in Singapore” in this volume for a discussion on Singlish and the government’s crusade against it. “Is Language Crucial? Remember My Fair Lady”, Straits Times Forum, 22 January 2005; Tan Hwee Hwee, “A War of Words Over ‘Singlish’ ”, TIME Asia, 29 July 2002; “Authorities Challenge ‘Unintelligible’ English”, TIME Asia, 5 May 2001. “Ah Beng” and “Ah Lian” are local slang terms used to denote boorish, workingclass young men and women, respectively. Lately, however, these terms have become fashionable amongst middle-class youth who use them as labels of authenticity.

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SUFFER THE REBELLIOUS CHILDREN The Politics of Remaking Singapore and the Remaking of Singapore Politics RUSSELL HENG HIANG KHNG

POLITICS OF REMAKING SINGAPORE

W

hen analyzing the Singapore socialpolitical-cultural landscape of their times, contributors to the 1989 volume of Management of Success intimated at “clearly audible murmurs of discontent”1 and how “de-politicization of the recent past has been replaced by a re-politicization of the citizenry”.2 Acknowledging the People’s Action Party (PAP) government’s awareness of these challenges, the book told its readers to expect a policy mix of containment and compromise to deal with a more contentious citizenry. Through much of the 1990s, concerned that growing individualism could spawn a Western-inspired rights-based polity (something the PAP leadership wanted to avoid), official programmes promoted moral education asuch as self-discipline, diligence, deference to authority, a readiness to sacrifice self-interest for the greater good of the community, and these were supposed to provide “cultural ballast” against “insidious elements of decadent Western culture”.3 To be sure, the PAP response also involved a new vision of a liberalized Singapore but the extent of any liberalization policy would be marked by a definition of political stability that must include itself at the helm. Nobody doubted that in the foreseeable future, the authoritarian grip of the PAP would be intact 521

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and the editors of the 1989 volume concluded with a cautionary remark that the public demand had not been made for the PAP to relinquish power which will be the true test of democracy.4 Reflecting the cautiousness, the index in that 1989 book did not have terms such as “civil disobedience”, “dissent”, or their approximation. No analyst then saw a possibility of that kind of restiveness on the horizon. Twenty years down the line, in this successor volume, that lacuna has to be plugged, not least because the starting point of this article is the return of civil disobedience after decades of its near total absence. Examples of such behaviour have picked up momentum in the last three years that the phenomenon cannot pass unnoticed. If the contributors to the 1989 Management of Success volume did not envisage the kind of restiveness that twenty years would bring with a younger generation of citizens, it is partly because they did not foresee the details of a significant PAP project to remake Singapore. Central to this project was the need to reinvent the Singapore economy so that it could thrive in a globalized market, particularly when two huge global players, China and India, have entered the competitive fray. In a nutshell Singapore has to be a “knowledge economy” serviced by a critical mass of its population being talented, creative, welleducated and highly trained individuals. Upgrading skills and technology has always been part of the country’s economic strategy, but this time round, there was an acknowledgement that it requires more than just that. Specifically, a free and open political climate of the sort that promotes creativity and encourages critical thinking was needed. This economic dynamic has contributed to a liberalization programme under the two post-Lee Kuan Yew Prime Ministers through the 1990s up till the present. A major feature of that liberalization was to see the PAP leadership reverse decades of an old regime that overregulated public participation and hobbled citizen initiative. In its place, the PAP started to promote the growth of civil society. Analysts writing for the 1989 Management of Success did not anticipate this “civil society” project of the state and that term too was conspicuous by its absence from the index of the book. But once the state embraced civil society, a discourse arose questioning the sincerity of the PAP’s civil society agenda. Analysts have pointed out to official statements betraying the official preference for a depoliticized form of civil society where a public-spirited volunteerism contributes to public life, but desists from agitating against the authoritarian politics of the state. Much of the critical literature on Singapore politics have portrayed

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a situation where the state demarcates a realm of acceptable activism, and civil society actors are careful to stay within these permissible boundaries.5 Playing by these rules would be rewarded with a mix of state indulgence, engagement, or recognition. But this begs the question would any citizen initiative get anywhere if the state does not endorse it. A paragraph in Cherian George’s Singapore The Air-Conditioned Nation summarizes the issue rather cogently.6 If you ask this question of Singaporeans, you will find them divided. Most view civil society as just talk. They see government-erected walls everywhere and conclude that there is no way around them. But there are also civil society practitioners who spot the gaps — small though they may be — and run, walk or crawl through. The former group believes any civic action will be thwarted by the government. The latter just do it. While their fellow Singaporeans complain about the lack of freedom to do anything, they go ahead and try their luck.

The protagonists in the four examples of civil disobedience below would be those who “go ahead and try their luck”. PROTEST MANIFEST These incidences of “civil disobedience” below were not dramatic by the standards of most states that allow public demonstrations as part and parcel of their democratic culture. But for Singapore, this emerging trend was noteworthy when placed in the context of an overarching policy, that up till 1 September 2008, had made it near impossible to organize outdoor gatherings for causes that lie beyond the official threshold of comfort or familiarity.7 The prohibition applied not just to protest marches in the streets, but was also meted out to rather more humdrum events such as concerts, flea markets, or sporting meets.8 At an even broader level, official attempts to curb activism included the mandatory registration of societies and proscribing politically bias content in film-making and cyberspace. For years such broad discretionary power worked because of an acquiescent public. However, the old dynamics of compliance and selfcensorship have begun to shift as a more rebellious generation of activists appear no longer willing to stop just because the law says so. The following case studies (by no means comprehensive) illustrate this newlyarrived factor of defiance on the activism scene.

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A) LEGACY OF SINGAPORE REBEL Beginning in May 2005, for making and screening Singapore Rebel — a documentary about Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) leader Chee Soon Juan’s political struggle — Martyn See was subjected to sixteen months of police investigation for a possible breach of the 1998 Films Act, in particular, its provision against the making of a “party political film”. This was not the first time police action was initiated against a film made of an opposition leader.9 However, unlike the 2001 case where the film-makers were intimidated into silence, See countered what he perceived to be unwarranted police action by doing two things. He showed the film outside Singapore which then attracted international publicity that the Singapore authority would have preferred to avoid. That act made the police more hostile, but See kept his composure. He continued to feed any public interest in the controversy by documenting the entire investigation process on his blog.10 For See to do this needed strong nerves because if charged in court and found guilty, he could be fined a maximum of S$100,000 and given a prison term of up to two years.11 The ensuing media publicity got Singapore’s Minister Mentor (MM) Lee Kuan Yew into the fray and he took the position that the police action was not worth the bother.12 This and the threat of more embarrassing publicity probably led the police to drop the case. See went on to make more documentaries on sensitive political subjects such as Zahari’s 17 Years, which was also banned.13 In December 2007, he posted on his blog an even more incisive film, Speakers Cornered, about police action against Chee’s attempt to march to Parliament during the September 2006 International Monetary Fund-World Bank (IMF-WB) meetings in Singapore. See’s treatment by the police angered another film-maker Ho Choon Hiong and propelled him to search for a more radical mode of activism that would be a departure from what most Singapore civil society groups were offering. Ho had already been involved in various public causes and made some socially engaged films. Ho is cited here as emblematic of how defiance is brewing among a younger generation of activists. In 2007, he turned down an invitation to join one of three fledgling human rights movements because its brand of activism did not meet his expectation.14 He finally opted for another group known as SG Human Rights (Singaporeans for Human Rights), which seems to be earning its spurs by going where other activist groups would not.15 In its short existence, it has organized an anti-Myanmar junta protest (Ho was one of the four marchers) down Singapore’s busy Orchard Road, followed by an entourage of journalists and despite police disapproval. It also turned up at the Singapore Law Society

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with a petition (and a small media group in tow) to press the society to be more proactive in protecting human rights in the country.16 In proactive bids to test censorship boundaries, both See and Ho had submitted their political films for censorship clearance. See’s Speakers Cornered was passed uncut in April 2008. A month following the Prime Minister’s indication in August 2008 that prohibitions on party political films would be relaxed, both See and Ho had films approved for public screening. In March 2009, several proposed amendments to the Act were made in Parliament. At the Parliamentary debate, then Senior Minister of State for Information, Communications and the Arts Lui Tuck Yew announced that “party political films” which contained live recordings of election rallies, public speeches or processions, as well as anniversary celebration videos by political parties would be allowed. Other types of “party political films” that would be permitted would be documentaries “made without any animation and composed wholly of an accurate account depicting actual events, persons and situations” or films made by political parties or election candidates of their manifesto and policies.17 B) THE “INDIGNATION” OF GAY ACTIVISTS In August 2005, a gay and lesbian advocacy group People Like Us (PLU) launched “IndigNation”, a series of talks and art events that was meant to be Singapore’s first Gay Pride season. Knowing that gay-themed events were unlikely to get the required licences from the authorities, the organizers decided not to bother with this procedure. That calculated risk was predicated on a remark by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong the year before that any public talk by Singapore citizens did not need a police permit. The police response has never been to demand the termination of IndigNation and the annual festival has continued to grow. But for the first three years, IndigNation had its share of police attention and censorship contention with various state bodies. For the purpose of this chapter, two events — a picnic and a run in the Singapore Botanic Gardens planned for 9 and 11 August respectively — during the 2007 IndigNation season are used to highlight the mounting sense of defiance in the face of official obstruction. Participants were invited to wear pink on both occasions. Two days before the pink picnic, its organizer was informed by the National Parks Board (NParks) that the gardens should not be used for the “IndigNation” event.18 Initial interest to attend the picnic was rather low with no more than twenty participants expected. But when the ban was made known, many others told the organizers they wanted to

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come because of the prohibition. Ultimately more than a hundred turned up.19 Nparks could do nothing about it. A few individuals present — in all likelihood the police in plain clothes — captured the picnickers on a video camera but nobody was bothered by that.20 The pink run changed its venue to the banks of the Singapore River.21 Here, the police became more intrusive. On the night before the event, they tried to serve a notice on the organizer that the run was in violation of the Miscellaneous Offences Act. Failing to locate their man, they turned up at the venue to prevent the run. Not easily deterred, event organizer Ethan Lim asked the officerin-charge which section of the Act would the run violate. Having no ready answer for that, the police then changed tack to say the run was an illegal assembly. Lim then said he would formally cancel the run but asked would the police object to people running as individuals. The police had no objections and the thirty-nine participants proceeded to complete their run in small batches. Such acts of civil disobedience by gay activists are but two recent examples of a trajectory of defiance that dated back to 1993 when PLU took form. The official attitude towards homosexuality then was rather harsher and organizers understood the risk involved in launching such an organization, especially if it was not properly registered. But they also knew that the chances of registration were slim.22 Indeed two attempts at registration were rejected. Technically speaking, the Societies Act requires a group to disband and cease what it was doing once registration is denied but PLU has continued to function as a group — its public profile grown as its members are frequently quoted in the media or invited to address public forums. When the Ministry of Health wanted to dialogue with the gay community on the issue of HIV prevention, PLU members had a place at the table. Organizing the “IndigNation” pride season has sharpened even further its image of persevering despite official disapproval and obstruction. The group’s pioneering struggle has spawned the growth of many gay and lesbian groups so much so that it has become difficult to keep track of the numbers. Almost all of them have not bothered with registration and the police have not, thus far, forced them to do so. C) BLOGGERS AND THE 2006 GENERAL ELECTION In the months leading up to the May 2006 General Election, a critical question asked was would blogging about the hustings be allowed? The background to this is the August 2001 amendment made to the Parliamentary Elections Act that would prohibit “election advertising” on the internet once an election

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was called. Those guilty of an offence can be fined up to S$1,000 or imprisoned for twelve months or both. This and the broad amorphous definition of what constituted “election advertising” were bound to have a chilling effect on people who wanted to discuss the election on the net. Clarifications from the government did not help matters, leaving bloggers very much on their own to decide how brave they wanted to be to test the boundaries of free speech that were deliberately kept ambiguous. Basically the government wanted to keep its options open to prosecute whatever they deemed objectionable, and in so doing deter political blogging. It did not help that the mainstream media chose to present a scare scenario with headlines such as “Political podcasts, videocasts not allowed during election”23 and “Net postings fall under the Elections Act”.24 Once more it was public defiance that breached the censorship regime. Enough bloggers chose to ignore the warning of prosecution to generate some fifty websites that carried “political or semi-political” content about the election.25 Between 20 April to Polling Day on 6 May, blog postings on the election reportedly increased from 18 a day to a peak of 200 a day. The impact of the internet on voting behaviour cannot be ascertained, but the online reporting managed to make the mainstream media more circumspect in skewing election coverage in favour of the PAP.26 D) EMPOWER SINGAPORE RALLY When the International Monetary Fund-World Bank (IMF-WB) held its annual round of meetings in Singapore — a programme that ran from 14–20 September 2006 — the Singapore Government issued strict warnings against any form of public demonstration including a threat to imprison and cane lawbreakers. It went on to ban at least twenty foreign delegates from entering the country although they were accredited by the IMF-WB organizers. The draconian action got the international media present at the meetings even more interested in focusing coverage on what was perceived as Singapore’s autocratic political culture. Against this background, SDP leader Chee, the subject of the controversial documentary Singapore Rebel, planned a march from Hong Lim Park to Parliament House and then Suntec Convention Centre where the IMF-WB meetings were held. Chee had adopted civil disobedience as a party strategy to highlight how constricted political space had become under the PAP. Considering that the SDP was not getting anywhere in the electoral competition, this was an alternative that would put pressure on the PAP and raise the SDP’s international and domestic profiles. The IMF-WB protest march was not the first time the

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SDP had forced the issue of the right to organize public protests in Singapore. Nor was it going to be the last. In recent years, there has been a continuous stream of such attempts by Chee and fellow SDP members/supporters.27 Chee launched his protest march at Hong Lim Park on 16 September, calling it the Empower Singapore Rally. Designated as “Speakers’ Corner”, the park is where Singaporeans could gather to make public speeches freely, thus giving Chee a platform to address his audience of media, supporters, and interested onlookers. What followed was somewhat dramatic as the police encircled Chee and his sister each time they tried to leave the park. They also resisted detaining the Chees despite being frequently invited to do so by the brother and sister. With the world’s media gathered at the location, the standoff in the park was to last seventy-two hours till 19 September.28 For Chee, oppositional politics has been a lonely mission. Many civil society groups and some opposition parties shun him while the local media coverage of Chee has been largely unfriendly, which probably contributes to his marginal status in Singapore politics.29 However his willingness to stand against the mighty array of state power has given him a David-versus-Goliath patina and may be calculated to elicit public sympathy from some quarters.30 Parallel to this, some people may disagree with what even PAP MPs consider to be the “overkill” tactic of the government to prevent any form of outdoor protest.31 Together with Martyn See and Ho Choon Hiong, these individuals are examples of a younger generation who are openly questioning through words and action the PAP’s rationale for political control. REMAKING OF SINGAPORE POLITICS In these four case studies of defiance, the outcomes were not uniformly benign. Gay activists and political film-makers/bloggers not only got away with pushing the envelope but also saw some official rewriting of the rules to accommodate their previously proscribed activities.32 On the other hand, almost two years after the event, the Chee siblings and a few of their supporters at the Empower Singapore Rally were charged in court on 21 August 2008 for illegal assembly.33 Their gathering outside Parliament House to protest the rising cost of living on 15 March 2008 also led to charges in court.34 This mix and match of retribution and relaxation, targeting of some and sufferance of others brings back the hoary old issue of whether the PAP’s liberalization project is real or cosmetic. On the one hand, civil disobedience seemed to have pushed the state into relaxing more of its control on political expressions, for example, allowing demonstrations

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in Hong Lim Park and the making of party political films. On the other, some would argue that what is being witnessed is but an established pattern of PAP behaviour; if it is unable or unwilling to silence protest through restrictive means, it will craft other means to contain or co-opt. In that vein, allowing demonstrations in Hong Lim Park effectively quarantines protest and denies it the high visibility it needs. The PAP may have broadened the scope for activism but it continues to demarcate the realm of acceptable activism. Rather than get bogged down by this old “the glass is half full or half empty” debate, it may be more fruitful to look deeper into the dynamics behind the developments. The cat-and-mouse game between the police and activists, and the cycles of censure and sufferance represent systemic dilemmas and disjunctions that need to be sorted out politically. First the old methodology of restricting many forms of political expression is out of step with the demands of a maturing society and often seen as an embarrassing overreaction on the part of the authorities.35 Whether it is public gatherings as innocuous as a concert in a small garden and a run in the park, or the making of films about politicians or blogging about elections, the injunctions would firstly, be regarded as ridiculous, and secondly, unfair; unfair in the sense that people are aware of similar gatherings being held with state blessings.36 Such restrictions, no matter how legal they are, invite ridicule, circumvention, or defiance. Faced with resistance, law enforcers are uncertain how to proceed. It would seem the political dilemma at the top that wants to enable but also restrict activism has put civil servants in an unenviable position of policing harsh laws with a soft touch. Other factors propel the show of defiance. In the case of Ho who joined SG Human Rights, it was weariness with an old brand of activism that he felt played it too safe and was not getting anywhere. It was also generational change as witnessed by the growing numbers and mounting pugnacity of a younger cohort of gay activists. There was also comfort in numbers as people shared accounts of their confrontation with the police with friends and readers in blogosphere.37 It was also a blurring of boundaries between politics and popular culture. Indeed, fun and fashion have caught up with the sensitive issue of political protest in Singapore. The “flash mob”, a trend that made its appearance in Singapore in 2003, is a case in point. A flash mob is a crowd that gathers in a public place after notification by email and then disappears ten minutes later. The technology — fast communication en masse through email or texting — that is so much a part of the life of the young in the last ten years promoted the fad. That this piece of frivolity can help circumvent the strict official injunction

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on public assembly was not lost on Singapore activists. On 9 July 2006, the flash mob technique was used to protest the suspension of a weekly newspaper column by the editors of TODAY because the columnist bearing the moniker “mr brown” was strongly criticized by government officials for one of his columns.38 Some thirty people turned up at the City Hall MRT station wearing brown T-shirts. The tactic of using colour or message coordinated T-shirts has been used prior to and after the mr brown flash mob.39 The threshold of acquiescence for the government’s methodology of control is shifting and will continue to shift. Expect more people from more sectors to join in the fray already populated by homosexuals, bloggers (and whatever else lurking in cyberspace) and film-makers. As the community and camaraderie grow, the rebelliousness is likely to grow with them. Permitting demonstrations by containing them in an approved venue is unlikely to stop the Chee siblings and their supporters from taking their civil disobedience into the streets when they deem it strategic. While some have been appreciative, others have not been receptive to the government’s relaxation of regulations concerning demonstrations in Hong Lim Park. Furthermore the PAP government must accept the fact that it is no longer the only agent that may set the terms of debate as public discourse finds avenues on the internet which does not lend itself to the sort of control easily imposed on the traditional media. CONCLUSION How would these little defiances remake Singapore politics? If political makeover is measured by the ultimate outcome of winning and losing an election, it is still too early to say how much the stepped-up activism would influence voting behaviour.40 Bear in mind too that many civil society actors are not aiming to take power. They seek only an independent space for their activism. The politics that a more rebellious citizenry will deliver is better appreciated as changes in how people live their everyday life. The formula to tote up the sum of these changes does not necessarily have seminal events or momentous policy decisions as its components. The dynamic is gradual and cumulative; its results not always evident or felt at each little turn of event, but when viewed over a period of time, the transformation is noticeable. In the culture of daily life, Singaporeans are likely to experience a steady expansion of liberal ethos as the PAP state backs off from its hitherto overregulation of public and private activities. Just as the 2008/2009 landscape described in this chapter exceeds the cautious expectation of analysts twenty years ago, in a similar stretch

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of time ahead, the liberties that sustain the lived social-political-cultural condition may move beyond what is deemed likely today. A prescient PAP leadership understands that political contestation must increasingly reach into the realm of popular culture.41 The PAP will want to craft a working methodology of dominance for this kind of politics and that may be its most difficult challenge since coming to power. It will be the most difficult because the forces at work are amorphous and unfamiliar. Ultimately it requires being “hip” and “cool” about acts of rebellion, characteristics that sit oddly with the authoritarian substance and style of conventional PAP politics.

NOTES 1. Hans Christoph Rieger, “The Quality of Life in Singapore: A Foreigner’s Reflections”, in Management of Success: The Moulding of Modern Singapore, edited by Kernial Singh Sandu and Paul Wheatley (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1989), p. 1044. 2. Chan Heng Chee, “The PAP and the Structuring of the Political System”, in Management of Success: The Moulding of Modern Singapore, edited by Kernial Singh Sandu and Paul Wheatley (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1989), p. 87. 3. Kernial Singh Sandhu and Paul Wheatley, “Challenges of Success”, in Management of Success: The Moulding of Modern Singapore, edited by Kernial Singh Sandu and Paul Wheatley (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1989), p. 1099. 4. Ibid., p. 1087. 5. I shall cite just three of the many titles: Michael Hill and Lian Kwen Fee, “Civil Society: The Current Project”, in The Politics of Nation Building and Citizenship in Singapore (Singapore: Routledge, 1995), pp. 220–41; Chua Beng Huat, “The Changing Shape of Civil Society in Singapore”, in Commentary: Civil Society, vol. 11, no. 1 (1993): 9–14; and Sojourn Special Focus on Democracy and Civil Society: NGO Politics in Singapore 20, no. 2 (October 2005): 119–301. 6. Cherian George, Singapore the Air-Conditioned Nation: Essays on the Politics of Comfort and Control 1990–2000 (Singapore: Landmark Books, 2000), p. 128. 7. At the time of writing this article, the Singapore Government relaxed its restrictive policy. The new rule allows demonstrations quite liberally, but only if they are held in a downtown park known as Hong Lim Park. 8. Examples of such prohibition include the Substation attempts to organize an outdoor fair for NGOs in September 2006 and 2007, and an outdoor concert in support of the Myanmar people in October 2007, and the Workers Party’s bicycle ride in the park in August 2007.

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9. In April 2001, police also threatened legal action against staff and students of Ngee Ann Polytechnic for their film, A Vision of Persistence, on Workers’ Party leader J.B. Jeyaretnam. 10. (accessed 10 October 2009). 11. In a phone interview on 20 November 2007, See confessed to being surprised by the severity of the police response to Singapore Rebel; and was fearful during the investigation. Still he believed that there were causes to go to gaol for and that risks have to be taken by artists and activists. He was never much bothered by financial liabilities saying that he had a simple lifestyle which he could sustain by being a hawker, if bad came to the worse. He was, however, more ambivalent about confronting a prison term. 12. Lee was speaking to TIME magazine. The interview was published as “The Man Who Saw It All” in the 12 December 2005 issue of the Asia edition. An online version is available at (accessed 20 December 2008). 13. He said in his phone interview that he had emerged from the struggle more confident and this probably explained why more trenchant films were being made. 14. In a phone interview on 12 November 2007, Ho spoke at length about the significance of See’s courageous stand in fomenting public concerns about the 1998 Films Act. He made it clear that he was weary of some prominent personalities who made a virtue out of moderating their activism to remain on good terms with the officials. Like See, Ho was also not without his fear of official reprisal and family members have warned him not to pursue his activism too earnestly. Like See, he was also gaining confidence with experience. He has overcome the fear of police taking down his particulars or videoing his presence at protest events. The “party political film” threat against Singapore Rebel had not deterred him from making a film on the SDP attempt to contest the Sembawang ward in the 2006 General Election. Called How My Favourite Opposition Party Fought The PAP (and lost their pants again), the film premiered in Singapore on 29 March 2008 at an event called “Dare to Document” which screened several other politically sensitive documentaries. Ho is thinking of making a film about Chee’s family members to explore how they are coping with the pressures of life. For an introspective first-hand account of Ho’s journey to a more assertive form of activism, read the 24 November 2007 article, “Human Rights in Singapore … wtf?” on his blog, (accessed 1 October 2009). 15. See (accessed 1 October 2009). 16. The nine-member SG Human Rights chose to disband on 12 June 2008, stating that it was not their intention to be a society. For some of them, refusal to seek formal registration is a protest against the Societies Act. They also learned from their short experience that a small ad hoc group enjoyed more scope and flexibility

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17. 18.

19. 20.

21.

22.

23. 24. 25.

26.

27.

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than larger hierarchical groups would when it came to organizing activities. The nine of them have chosen to move on to continue activism in their own individual ways. For their full statement, please see . Clarissa Oon, “Changes Proposed to Films Act”, Straits Times, 24 March 2009. This writer was present when the pink picnic organizer Siew Meng Ee received and read the notification from NParks. What struck me was his immediate and determined decision that the picnic should go on because of and not despite the threat from the authorities. He wanted people to turn up in full force in their individual capacity as an act of defiance. The absence of hesitancy and doubt about deploying this tactic was very different from my experience of the early years of PLU activism in the 1990s. Then the modus operandi was to try and be as unobtrusive as possible and hope the police would leave the group alone. Defiance in the face of any official injunction then was unthinkable. For an account of this event, see “Picking on a picnic” in the August 2007 archived articles at (accessed 10 October 2009). Increasingly activists are overcoming their fear of having a police camera pointed at them. Some have gone even further to counter the police action with some surveillance of their own. Using camera phones, they snapped photos of the police and post them on the web. An example can be seen on the blog, under the 12 September 2008 entry, “Let a hundred films unbanned” (accessed 10 October 2009). This account of the pink run was told to me by Siew Meng Ee who was one of its organizers and present at the run. Gay activist Alex Au has posted a detailed account on his website . The report “Police Declare Joggers an ‘Illegal Assembly’ ” is in the August 2007 section of the archive. For an account of the teething problems of PLU, see Russell Heng Hiang Khng, “Tiptoe Out of the Closet: The Before and After of the Increasingly Visible Gay Community in Singapore”, Journal of Homosexuality 40, nos. 3–4 (2001): 81–97. Straits Times, 4 April 2006. TODAY, 20 April 2006. Tan Tarn How and Arun Mahiznan, “Citizen Journalism: First Steps of a New Baby”, paper presented at Institute of Policy Studies Post-Election Forum, 2 June 2006. For an account of online coverage of the election and its impact, see Dana Lam, Days of Being Wild: GE2006 Walking the Line with the Opposition (Singapore: Ethos, 2006), pp. 23–41. Examples would include a seven-day vigil outside the Myanmar Embassy beginning on 30 September 2007 to protest the crushing of demonstrating monks by the

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28.

29.

30.

31.

32. 33. 34. 35.

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country’s ruling junta and a protest outside the Singapore Parliament against the rising cost of living on 15 March 2008. To witness some of the drama of the protest, see the documentary Speakers Cornered posted on . Reports and pictures of the event are available on many blocs, such as , , (accessed 10 October 2009). See Alex Au Waipang’s “The Ardour of Tokens: Opposition Parties’ Struggle to Make a Difference” in this volume for a brief discussion of Chee’s relationship with civil society. This author knows two people — Kelvin and Dinesh — who were visiting one of the protesters at the rally. Two policemen wanted to see their identity cards. Both resisted and even lectured the two officers about the ignominy of helping an authoritarian PAP government to frighten citizens. Both policemen were at a loss over how to respond and left without being shown the identity cards. Kelvin posted an account of this on his blog and recorded Dinesh’s and his feelings like this: “Dinesh told me that after this incident, he is now more fired up and motivated to do something about it (i.e the situation here). Yes, it’s only times like this that we realise how bad our system has become. What (the laws) was used to keep peace during the troubled times in the past, is now used to squash dissent and to protect the people in power.” See “The Little Incident at Hong Lim”, (accessed 18 September 2006). Even PAP backbenchers have expressed doubt over the government’s move to give the police more powers. PAP MP Sin Boon Ann described the amendment of the Public Order Bill which would make even a one-man protest illegal as “overkill”. See Zakir Hussain, “Shanmugam: Don’t Focus on the Numbers”, Straits Times, 14 April 2009. See endnote 9. “Chee Soon Juan, 6 Others Charged with Unlawful Assembly”, Channel NewsAsia, 22 August 2008. “Singapore charges 19 for protest on rising prices”, Reuters, 12 July 2008. A classic example of police reaction occurred on 25 August 2007 when a handful of anime fans gathered in a corner of a downtown park to protest the behaviour of Odex, a local anime distributor that was threatening them with lawsuits for downloading subbed anime from the internet. The actual protesters carrying placards were little toy figures belonging to the anime fans. For this the police sent four riot control vans to the park. Read an account posted by one of the anime fan : The Making Of” on “ on 29 August 2007 (accessed 1 October 2009). See a list of such official double standards documented in “One Country Two Systems — Part 2”, 16 October 2007, at (accessed 1 October 2009).

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37. An entry by activist Ho Choon Hiong (see note 15) on his blog, captures this spirit: “It also helps when you know that you are not alone … for a few years back, many people will think Dr Chee’s actions are mad and out of touch but it acts like an exponential curve because recently especially last year and this year, we suddenly witnessed a number of Singaporeans and people having the courage and the ‘madness’ to do what Dr Chee has done …” (accessed 1 October 2009). 38. “Mr brown” is also well known for his website that frequently parodies official policies. This added to a public perception that the column suspension was the state wanting to silence a critic. 39. In January 2006, “white elephant” T-shirts were worn by schoolgirls to poke fun at the police investigation of a civic move to open a mothballed MRT station. In August 2007, gay activists and supporters wore pink for their picnic and their run. For the series of protests against the Myanmar junta from September to November 2007, supporters wore red. Again on 16 May 2009, gay activists and their supporters mobilized more than 1,000 people to turn up in pink for a mass rally in Hong Lim Park. 40. The opposition parties — Workers Party and Singapore People’s Party — with seats in Parliament have not chosen to ride on this wave of protest because either they do not know how, or they do not see any electoral advantage in doing so. SDP members are vanguards of protest, but it remains uncertain whether this will improve the party’s appeal to voters in the future. 41. Two events underlined the PAP efforts in this direction. First a group of its young MPs (defined as those born after Singapore became independent in 1965) started a group blog in October 2006. Then twelve of these young MPs presented a hip hop dance for a Chingay Parade in February 2007.

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“IT’S LIKE RICE ON THE TABLE, IT’S OUR COMMON DISH” The English Language and Identity in Singapore KOH TAI ANN

THE DOMINANCE OF ENGLISH NATIONALLY AND PREDOMINANCE AT HOME: IMPLICATIONS

I

n the 1989 volume of Management of Success, Nirmala Purushotam concluded her chapter on “language and linguistic policies” at the threshold of 1987. That was the year when English, already the working language of Singapore and one of the four official languages, formally became the sole medium of instruction as well in the newly created single “national stream” or “national system of education”.1 She welcomed English with anticipation as “the language of promise”, her chapter having dwelt on two important contemporary issues. One was the long-standing sociologists’ concern with regard to the state’s “model of multilingualism” which in making each school child learn its assigned “mother tongue”, encouraged (as Benjamin had first observed a decade ago with regard to the multiracialism policy) “ethnic segregation” rather than integration through the fostering of a national identity which transcends ethnicity.2 The other was whether the state’s management of the rivalry between English and Mandarin Chinese for dominance would be a long-term success.3 More than twenty years on, the government’s education and bilingualism policies have been so successful that English is undoubtedly the dominant language 536

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and common tongue nationally. It is sometimes even regarded as the de facto National Language of Singaporeans.4 Currently, the large majority of the resident population under fifty years old could be said to be what linguists call “Englishknowing bilinguals”5 which in Singapore means knowing English (often as their “first language”) and a “second language” or “mother tongue”. (Those who were Chinese-educated will have learned English, too, albeit as their “second language” in school.)6 English is now increasingly “the predominant home language among all ethnic groups”, according to the latest General Household Survey of 2005 and that moreover, “the population of resident students speaking English at home also increased significantly among all ethnic groups”.7 Undeniably, the People’s Action Party (PAP) government’s multilingualism and bilingualism policies — predicated on English as the working and common language — and the planning that went with them are remarkable achievements and were necessary in light of the political situation of the time. So is the corresponding creation of a national system of education where English as a medium of instruction was gradually phased in with “patient pragmatism” over a period of some twenty years (1966–86).8 English is such a social necessity and so definitive of Singapore that the growing numbers of immigrants it requires as a “global city” plugged into the knowledge-based economy, have been advised by Lee Kuan Yew that “[w]ithout English, you cannot communicate effectively with other races in Singapore or do business internationally” in an inescapably “cosmopolitan city”.9 Indeed, the old Singaporean ethnic CMIO (Chinese, Malay, Indian and Others) categories on which Singapore’s language policies are based are being blurred by the predominance of English, by a declining birthrate compensated by increasing inflows of mainly Indian and Chinese immigrants settling here as “permanent residents”, and naturalized citizens (yet disinclined to integrate with the correspondent existing ethnic communities),10 more interracial marriages, and the “Others” category being swelled by Asians of other ethnic origins and non-Asians. Lee consequently observed, “if we have more immigrants than genuine Singaporeans, you become a different people.”11 As Singapore becomes more of a cosmopolitan city where about 1,000 Singaporeans give up their citizenship annually in a globalized world of easy mobility,12 the issue of what will integrate Singaporeans and the new residents as well, such that all feel they are “genuine Singaporeans” becomes urgent. It is time therefore to reconsider the current narrowly utilitarian attitude towards English and enable Singapore English to develop as a vehicle for expression of the Singaporean culture in all its aspects, of a shared Singaporean identity, and sense of home.

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ENGLISH-KNOWING BILINGUALISM, HAVING IT BOTH WAYS: ENGLISH FOR “UTILITY”, MOTHER TONGUE FOR “CULTURE AND VALUES” While the above developments have led to the implementation of language policies being incessantly tweaked (such as supporting the study of other Indian languages such as Hindi in schools with the influx of non-Tamil Indian immigrants, introducing conversational Mandarin and Malay classes for students from other ethnic groups,13 and even allowing early Mandarin lessons to be taught in English as the latter is the home language of many Chinese children),14 the rationale behind the bilingualism policy remains resolutely mired in the past. The policy had been made “a cornerstone of the Singapore education system”15 more than forty years ago by the PAP government to compensate for the phasing out of the “vernacular”, race-based schools (those where Mandarin Chinese, Malay, and Tamil were respectively, the medium of instruction) and reassure each ethnic community that its representative language and culture would be preserved. In 1986, two decades after its implementation — Tony Tan, then Minister for Education, in a much-quoted Parliamentary statement,16 “affirmed” bilingualism as “a fundamental feature of our education system: that [c]hildren must learn English so that they will have a window to the knowledge, technology and expertise of the modern world. They must know their mother tongues to enable them to know what makes us what we are.” Educationists glossed the latter to mean that “the imparting of moral values and cultural traditions is best done in the student’s own mother tongue.”17 Till today, this is still the formulaic raison d’être which sees English and the “mother tongues” in dichotomous terms — “English for Utility, Mother Tongue for Culture and Values” — tirelessly reiterated. It is the disparate mother tongues of each of the three main Asian communities studied as examinable school subjects, supported by related extra-curricular activities such as annual “Language and Culture” festivals, not the shared common language, English, which have been given the role of inculcating and fostering values, attitudes, outlooks — in short cultural identity — defining and expressing “what we are” as Chinese, as Malays and as Indians, not as Singaporeans. David Crystal, a world authority on English, explains: The need for intelligibility and the need for identity often pull people — and countries — in opposing directions. The former motivates the learning of an international language with English the first choice in most cases; the latter motivates the promotion of ethnic language and culture. Conflict is the common consequence when either position is promoted insensitively. There are ways of avoiding such conflict, of course, notably in the promotion

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of bilingual and multilingual policies, which enable people both ‘to have their cake and eat it.’18

Unavoidably, it is English, the language shared in common, which, as evolved today and “domesticated” (the Latin root of which, dormus, means “home”) in Singapore, has a greater potential than ever before as a means to integrate Singaporeans with a shared Singaporean culture and values, counteracting the segregating tendencies inherent in existing policies where the race-languageculture nexus alone supposedly defines and maintains individual and group identity. Speaking in linguistic terms, by English it is meant Singapore English which covers the broad range from Singapore Standard English (SSE) to its local variety or dialect, Singapore Colloquial English (SCE) — a term used by academics such as Gupta (who had coined it) and other linguists to mark SCE as a variety of English more commonly called “Singlish”.19 I make this point despite — or perhaps because of — the fact that in 2000, the Speak Good English Movement (SGEM) was launched by the government to eliminate Singlish and I happened to have been the accidental chairperson of SGEM from 2005 to 2007. While Singapore’s high-profile ongoing nation-wide Speak Mandarin Campaign (SMC)20 has for almost thirty years annually urged the majority Chinese population (although the new Chinese immigrants among them, significantly, do not need the message) to “speak Mandarin daily as a matter of habit”, to use the language to access its “rich cultural heritage” in order to maintain its collective “cultural identity” and since the 1980s, pushed the economic benefits of knowing Mandarin to exploit opportunities in the booming China market, the aim of SGEM21 is strictly utilitarian and business-oriented. Regarding Singlish as “bad” or “broken” English, its message is starkly, “Speak Good English, Be Understood”, with “good English” being Standard English. Its by now familiar rationale is that Singaporeans in general and workers in particular, need “to speak and write Standard English” for effective education, training, and upgrading for Singapore to be competitive globally and to enable them to be understood when conducting business internationally, by visitors attending conventions here, tourists, and other non-Singaporeans. Acutely concerned with the foreigners’ gaze, then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong declared at the launch of SGEM in 2000, “Poor English reflects badly on us and makes us seem less intelligent or competent.”22 He had also told the nation the year before in his National Day Rally Speech that foreigners find Singlish “quaint but incomprehensible” (prompting local wits to counter nationalistically, “Be Understood: Speak Singlish”). Even if the thinking was sound (which is arguable), the implication that Singlish would consequently prevent Singapore from being a “World Class Home”,23 is unpersuasive, seeing that educated Singaporeans do use Singapore Standard English

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when they need to, and service personnel can be trained to be intelligible to customers. Rather the issue should be what makes Singapore feel like “home”, what enables Singaporeans to feel connected with one another “regardless of race, language or religion” (as the Singapore Pledge repeated daily by thousands of school children puts it significantly, in resonant English)? The PAP government has always prided itself on its global outlook and being “future-oriented”.24 Since independence it has seen the economic utility of English as the language of modernity vindicated by the now common place fact “that along with computers and mass migration, the language is the turbine engine of globalization”.25 But regarded as a Western language, the logic of the “language-culture” link deems that English has no role in identity formation in an Asian society because of the politically self-serving, biased view that Western culture is inherently “deculturalizing” and inimical to Asian values, which ignores much that is valuable in Western culture.26 Also ignored is the fact that after the retreat of Empire and with globalization, English has ceased to be only the language of “native speakers” in the West, or an expression of “Western” culture, however ubiquitous American culture may be globally. English has long been appropriated by postcolonial societies as a vehicle for expression of their own cultures (as is evident by the large and still growing body of “new literatures in English”, plays, films and media content from Asia, the Indian subcontinent, Africa and elsewhere) often in active engagement with Western culture and been quite capable of representing and defining “who they are”. “Native speakers” are now outnumbered globally by other speakers of English even as “world Englishes” have proliferated,27 while English being the global language28 is often adopted as the common language for international conferences and organizations. Even an Asian grouping such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) uses English as its official language, reflecting the fact that increasing numbers of Asians speak English. Asian varieties have developed to such an extent that an Australian lexicographer, Susan Butler, could confidently declare that “English is an ‘Asian language’ ” and organize conferences on this theme in Manila, Bangkok, and Kuala Lumpur.29 INTEGRATION THROUGH “COMMON VALUES, COMMON ATTITUDES, A COMMON OUTLOOK, CERTAINLY A COMMON LANGUAGE, AND EVENTUALLY A COMMON CULTURE” In pre-independence days, as historian Yeo Kim Wah has noted, “[t]he English schools were … widely regarded as the only institution capable of inculcating

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a Malayan outlook’ being multiracial, unlike the ‘vernacular’ race-based schools”.30 Indeed, Lee Kuan Yew was also reported to have said at the time that “the product of the [English medium] University of Malaya is likely to approximate to the ultimate norm of the true Malayan” because the ranks of the English-educated cut across ethnic and communal lines through a common language, English.31 Subsequently, in his first National Day Rally Speech, with the circumstances of Singapore’s separation from Malaysia still fresh in the nation’s mind, Lee Kuan Yew in one of his most eloquent and visionary speeches declared that more than just making material progress, we seek permanent salvation, security to time immemorial, to eternity. We believed — and we still believe — that salvation lies in an integrated society … not to make us one grey [‘assimilated’] mass against our will … but to integrate us with common values, common attitudes, a common outlook, certainly a common language, and eventually a common culture.32

Lee did not mention what “common language” he had in mind; but when Singapore was part of Malaysia, that common language was Malay which Singaporeans were urged then to learn because — as the slogan had it — Bahasa Jiwa Bangsa (“language is the soul — or spirit — of the nation”). Malay has remained constitutionally and symbolically the National Language, but is not Singapore’s common language. That language is now English. Yet when today it is almost universally the case that “the ranks of the English-educated cut across ethnic and communal lines through a common language, English”, why has it not been believed in and is not now articulated as in the past by Singapore leaders? Similarly, why is a “Singaporean outlook” not seen to be achievable through “a common language”, English? Or, that English (specifically Singapore English as it has evolved today) is capable of expressing “the soul” or “spirit” of the nation, thereby helping to bring about an “integrated society” through the expression of “common values, common attitudes, a common outlook, certainly a common language, and eventually a common culture”? In practice, the PAP leadership since its earliest days will not allow the role of English to be more than utilitarian, more than merely about “just learning the language” — because it is the mother tongue that is “not just learning the language. … It is the learning of the whole value system, a whole philosophy of life that can maintain the fabric of our society intact.”33 At this stage of Singapore’s history and development as a cosmopolitan global city with English-knowing bilingual citizens and residents, it is time that

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government policy and public rhetoric correspond more clearly to current linguistic and cultural realities and imbue “communication”, “culture” and “identity” with broader, deeper and less ethnocentric meanings — paradoxically, “to maintain the fabric of our society intact”. It could start by being less dogmatic about the link between race, language, and cultural identity and more alert to the reality that economic and cultural value while linked — in the case of Mandarin Chinese in light of China’s rise as an economic and regional if not also world power — are not necessarily mutually exclusive in the case of English. Singaporeans today being bilingual should not “have lost their cultural identity, that quiet confidence about ourselves and our place in the world”.34 Yet the cultural identity of English-knowing bilingual Singaporeans is not definable only by their “mothertongue” and by a monolithic “cultural heritage” that is often more symbolic than actual. The reality is more complex, hybrid, and multicultural, and Singaporean culture in every sense of the word is probably best expressed, communicated, and shared in Singapore English. Besides, the assumed dichotomy between English and the mother tongues which has determined their respective role and function harks anachronistically back to the then modernizing discourse of Confucian conservatives in old China which appealed to the Chinese-educated intelligentsia in Singapore who wanted “to have their cake and eat it” as summed up by the Qing reformist Zhang Zhidong’s famous dictum, zhong ti xi yong (Chinese learning/knowledge for substance; Western learning/knowledge for use). The sociologist Eddie C.Y. Kuo has observed that the dictum had been adapted to the Singapore context to signify more narrowly, “Chinese (language) for substance — culture and values; and English (language) for utilization — science and technology”.35 Kuo, a highly respected expert on language in Singapore had long ago “debunked the popular myth” of “the single-language-for-singlepurpose theory” and questioned a language policy that regarded “the mothertongue for the preservation of culture and English for functional purposes”. At a Ministry of Education seminar for Chinese teachers held in 1984 to emphasize the teaching of not “just the language” but also “the culture behind it”, Kuo pointedly argued against the current orthodox belief, noting that “the Chinese can acquire their own culture and values such as Confucianism through English. In fact, if you are proficient in either of the languages, you can acquire the culture of the East and West through that language.”36 This potential of English for a broader cultural enrichment was obviously ignored and Tony Tan’s affirmation of “bilingualism as a cornerstone of education” in 1986 seems suspiciously intended to counter such views. As Wee Wan-ling has observed, the policy prevents the reworking of “education’s cultural dimensions” and

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the capacity of the “first language”, English, to “help build up a national culture that multilingual Singaporeans … can hold fast to in a world where national identity is weakened by economic integration processes.”37 THE ECONOMICS OF ENGLISH, DISCOURAGEMENT OF DIVERSITY, AND THE DEMONIZATION OF SINGLISH The potential of Singapore English to foster a national culture is not only limited by the state’s utilitarian view of English and culturalized conception of the mother tongues, but also by its reduction of diversity or “deviation” through the promotion of formal, high status “standard” varieties of the four official languages, bearers of their respective “high cultures”. This entails discouragement of “low” varieties such as Singlish among the population, much as its uncompromising language policies in the name of uniformity and “standards” have virtually rid Singapore of its nine Chinese dialects among the young, and indirectly, Baba Malay (when Peranakan Chinese children had to learn Mandarin as their “mother tongue”) while the formal literary Tamil taught in school for its “cultural” benefits is quite at variance with “the home variety which is the actual ‘mother tongue’ of the Tamil community”.38 Thus SGEM’s aim to eliminate Singlish (or “bad” English), assuming that it is an impediment to the speaking of “good English”, denies to Singaporeans (as with the other dialects) something of themselves that is recognizably their own. Whether the state likes it or not, Singlish is part of the Singaporean identity — although it does not of and by itself define that identity. As the chairman of SGEM I soon discovered that the government’s aim of eliminating Singlish was so strong that even the seemingly sensible advice to “code-switch” on appropriate occasions was seen as encouraging “broken” English, and that linguists view Singlish differently, regarding it as an “autonomous” dialect of English, SCE, that is neither “sub-standard”, “broken” English nor an imperfectly learned English, but coexists with what is called Singapore Standard English. The latter, like British, American, or Australian English contains lexical items and other linguistic features unique to local usage, but is still a recognizably standard variety.39 In multilingual Singapore, English (and Mandarin) will inevitably interact with the other contact languages and diversity will insist on returning as new exuberantly inventive, hybrid varieties such as the aptly named “chap chye Mandarin” (chap chye is a Chinese dish of mixed vegetables in the Hokkien dialect) and “rojak English” (rojak being a spicy local Singaporean salad of

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fruit and vegetables in Malay)40 against which the government’s SMC and SGEM, respectively promoting standard Mandarin and standard English, seem to be fighting a losing battle. Prime Minister Goh’s 1999 National Day Rally Speech was invoked at the 2001 SMC launch — that he had expressed concern at the ‘chap chye’ Mandarin spoken by many Chinese Singaporeans. He said that while more were speaking the language, they were not speaking it better. Instead they were mangling it with a mix of Mandarin, dialect, English and Malay. He spoke of an urgent need to raise the standard of Mandarin.41

This could serve as a disapproving description of Singlish which too, has resulted from the contact of English with various local tongues. But it is the natural way that new varieties of a language develop in the real world as is evident from precedents such as Baba Malay, a dialect of Malay akin to Singlish in its borrowings from Hokkien, English and other languages.42 Lay persons ignorant of the history of the English language also fail to appreciate that Standard English in Britain too, had evolved out of what was initially considered lowly, rough native brick, compared with the polished imported marble of admired Greek and Latin, and a rather Latinate English was preferred.43 Like all living languages English continues to evolve, with numerous loan words from other languages, and is still borrowing — even from Singlish. Thus kiasu, the Singlish expression of Hokkien origin, already included in Australia’s Macquarie Dictionary in 1997, has been accepted by the Oxford Dictionary of English in 2007.44 The authorities’ and the public’s concern with maintaining standards in English is, however, neither a recent phenomenon, nor unique to Singapore.45 But over the past decade, fuelled by the readership and circulation concerns of the English media, the publicity blitz, and activities surrounding the annual launches of SGEM, it has become a national obsession with political leaders, scholars, journalists and the public alike jumping into the fray, with the perception that Singlish is both evidence and cause of a decline in standards that is affecting Singapore’s economic competitiveness.46 It has increasingly seemed to me that by ignoring the fact that educated Singaporeans for the most part speak Singapore Standard English when the occasion demands it and that there is no reliable, solid evidence (apart from anecdotal evidence and subjective perception) that proficiency in English has declined nationally and is still declining,47 SGEM may simply be a red herring. If government leaders and opinion-makers had understood the difference between Singlish and poorly taught or inadequately

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learned Standard English (which is the cause of “broken” English, another question altogether), Singlish would have been a national non-issue. The undoubtedly important task of teaching and maintaining Standard English could then be best left to schools, tertiary institutions, and English tuition centres, while “English for Special Purposes” or “English at Work and for Business” could be left to the Singapore Workforce Development Agency or the Singapore Retailers’ Association, to organize as part of companies’ in-house training programmes. Ironically, the still ongoing nine-year campaign is sending out an erroneous message internationally that Singaporeans in general speak a “quaint but incomprehensible”, “broken” English requiring an annual campaign to keep them proficient. Besides, “proficiency” in a language, whether with monolingual or bilingual individuals, is not monolithic, as linguists or our own experience will confirm. The kind of English used by the individual could vary with linguistic and social context, depending on whether it is speech, reading, writing, formal or informal interaction, with some individuals being more “proficient” in some domains than others.48 Rather, attention could have been paid to essential questions regarding culture and identity, the possibility — indeed recognition — of an existing and developing Singaporean culture expressed in English, and that instead of running ourselves down, national pride and the facts that research by informed linguists have published,49 not “cultural cringe”, should inform our perspective. It is instructive that what eventually led to the launch of SGEM were heated exchanges over the merits of Singlish and “proper English” as used respectively in two popular television series in English, and that the issue was economic — whether dialogue in a local cultural product would be intelligible internationally and hence marketable — not cultural. The exchanges were sparked off in May 1999, by a seemingly innocuous article about a television comedy series, Phua Chu Kang, which attributed its popularity and success to the use of Singlish spoken by the eponymous workingclass character, a Chinese building contractor whom the mass audience consequently could relate to,50 and commented on the contrasting “unreal” accent of two well educated middle class characters in a previously popular rival series, Under One Roof. This provoked one of the Chinese actors in the latter, Nicholas Lee, to defend his use of “proper English” which he felt had been unjustly blamed for his series’ declining ratings. His parting shot was that his series in using “proper English ‘travelled’ ” well outside Singapore, being intelligible in the main English-speaking markets abroad, and that Phua Chu Kang would not be.51 (This view was to be approvingly quoted by Prime

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Minister Goh in his 1999 National Day Rally Speech as it focused for him the importance of “proper English” to Singapore’s ambition to be a “global player”.) The public debate that ensued culminated some months later in a Sunday Times Roundtable discussion, titled “English as it is Broken”,52 confirming the assumption that Singlish was simply “broken” English and was the main problem. Subsequently, two major obviously synchronized speeches by Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew and the Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong celebrating National Day that year53 started the movement against Singlish. SINGAPORE ENGLISH, CULTURAL AND NATIONAL IDENTITY Rather than focusing on and demonizing Singlish as a threat to Singapore’s “competitive edge” in the global economy, what could have been usefully debated are issues such as “local” versus “foreign” reception, authenticity, the role of English as a medium for the representation and expression of Singaporean experience, themes, values, or attitudes, and Singlish for the depiction of Singaporean characters not only in television productions, but in other cultural forms such as fiction, drama, and film.54 Lost in the heat was the fact that the earlier success of Under One Roof was due to its Singaporean characters and storylines which reflected the multi-ethnic and class composition of the population who inhabit Housing Development Board (HDB) flats. That the characters mostly spoke Singapore Standard English, each of the characters representing as much as Phua Chu Kang’s all-Chinese cast did, Singaporean “types” and values in Singaporean situations, was also ignored. The main objective of SGEM, the elimination of Singlish dictated by the imperatives of economic utility and efficiency in an age of globalization,55 has generated support, but also regret, criticism, and protests among the general public, linguists, writers, and other members of the creative community who argue that Singlish has a communicative, perfectly intelligible social and “bonding” function of its own, possesses its own grammar, and expresses a Singaporean identity — all of which and much besides, give it a cultural and national legitimacy.56 But Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong consistently and as influentially as his two predecessors repudiates Singlish as a defining part of Singaporean identity (contradicting his own instincts as he is not above using Singlish expressions on occasion to relate to his audience).57 When asked by a foreign Chinese student how he saw Singlish “helping to bond Singaporeans”, he replied, “We have to have a sense of who we are, but it cannot be based on speaking Singlish. It has to be based on your pride in being a Singaporean.”58 Tending to see

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Standard English (or the Singapore Standard English used here) and Singlish in mutually exclusive, as well as in limiting utilitarian economic terms, Singapore leaders cannot see both being used expressively and creatively to convey a uniquely Singaporean culture that can be more a source of pride internationally than shame and a sense of inferiority. For instance, the Singaporean writer Hwee Hwee Tan has observed that a fifteen-second advertisement promoting Colin Goh’s Talking Cock: the Movie on national television was banned for “excessive Singlish” and the film itself was given a rating which prevented children under seventeen from seeing it — as if Singlish was pornography or violence.59 However, a case is not being made here that “a sense of who we are” is one simply “based on speaking Singlish” as such, but that this local variety of English sometimes expressed as dialogue in plays and films, or as dialogue but with the narrative in Standard English in short stories and novels, sometimes in chap chye and rojak fashion, multilingually with Tamil, Malay, and Mandarin, can be indispensable to the expression and representation of Singapore’s unique cultural environment and diversity, its very way of life. And contrary to Goh Chok Tong’s conclusion, the use of Singlish has not prevented Singaporean literature, drama, and films in English from “travelling well” and achieving critical and/or commercial and international success (in the sense of being marketed, screened, staged or read and reviewed abroad and winning awards). An instance is the award-winning writer Hwee Hwee Tan’s own first novel Foreign Bodies which exemplifies her view (and is indeed partly a reason for her novel’s success) that Singlish is “inventive, witty and colourful” and “is a key ingredient in the unique melting pot that is Singapore”. Other instances are Colin Goh and Woo Yen Yen’s film, Singapore Dreaming, Jack Neo’s films such as Money No Enough, and Royston Tan’s 881, which contain dialogue that is an expressive mix of Singlish, Singapore Standard English, Chinese dialects, and Mandarin. It is also “uniquely Singapore” (to use the tag line of the Singapore Tourism Board’s current campaign) that the Chinese English-educated Eric Khoo and playwright Wong Kim Hoh’s film My Magic which was selected to be in competition at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival should feature a Tamil father and son with dialogue in Tamil, Hokkien, and English. In being faithful to multicultural Singaporean life and experience, they follow in the footsteps of Kuo Pao Kun’s 1988 play, Mama Looking for Her Cat, a path-breaking, seminal, multilingual local classic which is neither a Chinese nor English, but essentially a Singaporean play which explores especially Singaporean themes — language loss, communication and identity in a multilingual, multiracial society in an interventionist state. Significantly, an indirect indictment of the campaign against Chinese dialects (and hence suppression of diversity with resultant psychic loss),

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Kuo’s play features the use of three Chinese dialects and a Hokkien-speaking mother who is unable to communicate with her bilingual English and Mandarin Chinese speaking children, yet manages to relate to a Tamil Indian through their common search for their beloved missing cats. Ignoring Kuo Pao Kun’s artistic vision which embraces the multicultural and multilingual, the SMC in characteristic ethno-centric manner uses his “local drama” in Chinese to illustrate how it was “helping Chinese Singaporeans find their cultural identity”. Lee Yock Suan, then Minister for Information, Communication and the Arts in the 2001 SMC launch, was urging the Chinese to speak Mandarin well in order to be able to appreciate Chinese culture: Much effort has been made to promote the appreciation of Chinese arts and culture through local drama and other art forms. There has been some success. For example, the acclaimed plays such as Kuo Pao Kun’s ‘Double bill’ and ‘Shang Yang’ were performed to packed houses at the Arts Festival in 2000 and 2001 respectively. … Dramatists and playwrights thus play a key role in helping Chinese Singaporeans find their cultural identity.60

Could not the same be said of Kuo Pao Kun writing in English and using Singlish dialogue similarly helping Singaporeans in general “find their cultural identity”? The effectively bilingual Kuo Pao Kun is a model of the Singaporean English-knowing bilingual who could thoughtfully and creatively take what he needed from both Chinese and Western intellectual and cultural traditions, whose plays staged both in Mandarin and English — such as Descendants of the Eunuch Admiral, even when centred on a Chinese historical subject — explode an unacknowledged myth at the heart of the bilingualism policy that Singaporeans must and can only “find their cultural identity” and know “who we are” through their respective “mother tongues”. It stands to reason that Singapore Standard English having long taken root in administration, commerce, law, industry, education (crucially in Singaporeans’ most formative years), and Singlish having developed alongside it and taken root in social life, are both an intrinsic part of national life. Both varieties therefore cannot help but be naturally used for artistic expression also. Indeed, since the 1950s writers in English have been exploiting a whole range of English from the Standard to the colloquial variety for use in literary expression to “imagine the nation” so to speak, through representation of Singaporean experiences refracted through their collective consciousness as in anthologies from The Second Tongue (1976) to No Other City (2000)61 or to depict local individuals in fiction, film and drama. Stella Kon’s monodrama, Emily of Emerald

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Hill, for instance, exemplifies a typical local ability to adjust the variety of English depending on the occasion and who is being spoken to. Lee Tzu Pheng’s well-known poem My Country and My People subverts facile notions of patriotism and nationalism by concluding that her people and her country are “you” — all of humankind whom she is addressing in the global language English — succinctly conveying in personal terms both the representative complexity of her Singaporean cultural situation and the extent to which English is both part of her personal Singaporean identity and intercultural: I grew up in China’s mighty shadow, with my gentle, brown-skinned neighbours; but I keep diaries in English.

Much of the narrative parts of Singapore literature in English (as shown in Lee’s poem and most fiction) is in Standard English, but Singlish is appropriately used in dialogue and in drama for authenticity to convey the nuances of social situation, individual identity, and explore local themes. Goh Poh Seng and Robert Yeo in their plays were early experimenters in the use of the local variety of English, leading the way to the common use today of Singlish in Singaporean plays. Or, Singlish could be used satirically to portray recognizable “local types”. Instances of the latter are the oft-cited 2 mothers in a hdb playground, a poem by Arthur Yap; and Catherine Lim’s Taxi Driver, a short story in the form of a monologue. Yap’s poem, for instance, effectively uses dialogue in Singlish to represent and satirize the competitive instincts of two typical mothers in a HDB playground whom we might recognize as “heartlander types” (incidentally “heartlander” is a uniquely Singapore English invention by no less than Goh Chok Tong himself). A recent instance is Leong Liew Geok’s feminist poem, “Singlish Forever”, satirizing in local terms, male stereotypes of female drivers.62 In short, Singlish, in easy creative coexistence with Standard English in literary works, films and drama, and used according to artistic need to reflect Singaporean life, shows that Singapore English is quite capable of effective communication and representation of the Singaporean experience and collectively, “The Singapore Story”. THE DOMESTICATION OF ENGLISH In 1999, Anne Pakir asked, “As its global and local importance increases, can English serve as a language of national identity for Singaporeans” and “carry the cultural and social content of the main ethnic groups in the country?”

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Evidently it can, and has done so for a long time. With reference to Kachru’s concept of “functional nativeness”, she suggested that to do so, English “has to ‘nativize’ to carry the identity of its speakers”.63 That this is neither a new issue nor concept simply shows how questions of national identity in relation to English are consistently ignored in official discourses on language and culture and thus need to be constantly raised and addressed. They have existed ever since users of the language naturally wanted to “own” English for their personal and for national purposes. I had pointed out in a 1981 article, “Singapore Writing in English: the Literary Tradition and Cultural Identity”, that the then Malayan pioneer writers during the struggle for independence from British colonial rule, in response to the political imperative of the time to express and forge a “national identity”, had sought a “local idiom”. Their attempted solution in fact was to “nativize” — “domesticate” was their word for it — the inherited metropolitan colonial language so that they could feel at home in it by developing a local variety more suited to the expression of a “Malayan” cultural identity in their writings in English. Thus in 1950 they created a “local” variety of English called “EngMalChin”, by incorporating words from Malay and Chinese into English. This was a canny, but artificial version of the local variety of English which has since more naturally evolved out of Singapore’s unique linguistic and socio-cultural circumstances — Singlish.64 After Singapore left Malaysia, writers in English in the 1960s and 1970s resumed, as Lee Tzu Pheng and Ban Kah Choon have put it, the “quest” “to discover personal and national identity” and place this in meaningful relationship with “the inherited or acquired culture”65 — that is, with both the inherited Asian heritage and the Western culture acquired through English. Doubtless, these could be dismissed as the concerns of writers and their audience belonging to a privileged English educated university elite with high proficiency in English, unrepresentative of the general population at the time. But now that that elite has substantially increased in size, and with growing numbers of English-knowing bilinguals with a high proficiency in the language becoming the norm,66 the time is more than ripe to ask whether English in Singapore should still be kept in its place, so to speak, and not officially recognized — together with the local dialect, Singlish — for its capacity to express and shape, in the words of Thumboo made in the early years of nationhood, “a Singapore Consciousness” and cultural identity.67 That Singaporeans, regardless of ethnicity, assume ownership of English is amply shown by an accumulating output of cultural productions such as films, plays, lyrics, and a discernible emergent tradition of literature in English, not to mention national print and broadcast media, which being in English,

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reach a broader and larger audience in the aggregate, even representing Singapore beyond Singaporean shores.68 Above all, English is the language of education, academic and intellectual activity, such that the nation’s most highly educated think in it, if not also dream in it. As the General Household Survey of 2005 indicates, university graduates currently remain the only group where the percentage of those who use English predominantly is higher than those who use their mother tongue (Mandarin, for instance) as the predominant home language. CONCLUSION It is indeed ironic, therefore, that even as the Singapore Government makes strenuous efforts — be it the National Day Parade, a “National Ideology” incorporating a set of “national values”, the institution of “National Education” and a “National Harmony Day” — to create a sense of national identity and cohesion, it seeks to discourage Singlish as a contributor to such cohesion. Singlish and Singapore Standard English could separately and together (as Singapore English) help Singaporeans of all ethnicities and origins integrate through a shared Singaporean outlook and identity expressed in the only common language they now have. Thus it is the local drama productions in English at Singapore’s major annual Festival of the Arts (some of which have been commissioned for the gala opening) and at various other drama festivals that are most capable of reaching a multiracial audience. Besides, much of the National Day Parade is conducted in English (with more than a smattering of Singlish), and National Education is taught in English in schools and tertiary institutions. Although some selected Singaporean literature texts are recommended for schools — notably, teachers hesitate to select a recommended play such as Off Centre because the dialogue is in Singlish. Another cultural contradiction is that Singapore has a National Language, a common language, English, but yet no recognized “national literature” of its own — English Literature as a subject in schools largely means the study of Western (British or American) literary texts and culture.69 Singaporean politicians and the public might do well to appreciate what linguists and sociolinguists have long understood. Lubna Alsagoff, for instance, has recently observed that in Singapore “the variation of English used” exists not only in bipolar terms of the “global” role of English as the language of science, technology, finance, and commerce, and its “local” role as Singapore’s inter-ethnic common language, but also in the case of Singlish, in terms of local cultural experience

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and expression. While Standard English is necessarily used in the global role, yet whatever one might say about English being a “neutral” language, “linguistic common sense tells us … there cannot be language sans culture”, that Singlish has therefore developed in response to the Singaporean experience in all its cultural diversity, shaping and being shaped by its users and the contact languages around it. Not surprisingly, Singaporeans — creative writers and artists among them as well as members of the public in frequent letters to the press — call for “an acknowledgement that Singlish represents the identity of Singapore”.69 To illustrate with some lines excerpted from a pointedly titled Singlish Poem posted online which I chanced upon, the relationship between language and culture is not as pat as the language planners and language police believe and would have us believe: But actually we all got one “culture” in Singlish. It’s like rice on the table; it is our common dish. I know this funny “culture” is not the best around so we must tahan a bit until a better one is found. … Singlish is just like the garden weeds. You pull like mad still it would not quit. Sure got some people like and some do not like. Singlish and English, they’ll still live side by side.71

NOTES 1. By 1985, 97 per cent of students were enrolled in English-medium schools, 3 per cent (or 14,026) in Chinese, 76 students in Malay and only 5 in Tamilmedium schools. Ministry of Education statistics, 1985, reproduced in Nirmala Purushotam, “Language and Linguistic Policies”, in Management of Success: The Moulding of Modern Singapore, edited by Kernial Singh Sandhu and Paul Wheatley (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1989), p. 510. The last of the Chinese-medium students graduated in 1986. 2. Geoffrey Benjamin, “The Cultural Logic of Singapore’s ‘Multi-Racialism’ ”, in Singapore: Society in Transition, edited by Riaz Hassan (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1976), pp. 115–33. 3. Purushotam, “Language and Linguistic Policies”, in Management of Success, pp. 510–11. In fact by 1980, Eddie C.Y. Kuo was able to predict that trends since 1970 indicated that “English will soon … overtake Chinese to become the language

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known by the majority.” See Eddie Kuo, “The Sociolinguistic Situation in Singapore: Unity in Diversity”, in Language and Society in Singapore, edited by Evangelos A. Afrendas and Eddie C.Y. Kuo (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1980), p. 56. Llamzon was the first to suggest this in 1977, although Afrendas disagreed with his use of the term technically (seeing that Malay is constitutionally the National Language) preferring Kuo’s less nationalist expression, “dominant working language”. Teodoro A. Llamzon, “Emerging Patterns in the English Language Situation in Singapore Today”, in The English Language in Singapore, edited by W.J. Crewe (Singapore: Eastern Universities Press, 1977), pp. 34–45; and Evangelos A. Afrendas, “Language in Singapore Society: Towards a Systemic Account”, in Language and Society in Singapore, p. 18. The term was coined by Kachru in 1983, but not applied to Singapore till 1992, by Anne Pakir. See B.B. Kachru, “Models for Non-native Englishes”, in The Other Tongue: English Across Cultures, edited by B.B. Kachru (Oxford: Pergamon, 1983), pp. 31–57; Anne Pakir, “The Range and Depth of English-knowing Bilinguals in Singapore”, World Englishes 10, no. 2 (1992): 167–79. English is known as the “first language” by virtue of it being the sole medium of instruction in the new “national stream”. Conversely, under the bilingualism policy, the “mother tongue” assigned to each student according to ethnic affiliation (Chinese, Malay, or Indian) is the “second language”. While linguists regard the “mother tongue” or “first language” as the language first acquired by the speaker as a child, in Singapore the three official languages of Malay, (Mandarin) Chinese and Tamil are accepted as the representative “mother tongues” of the Malay, Chinese and Indian communities respectively — although only Malay students study their actual mother tongue in school and (Mandarin) Chinese and Tamil may not be the mother tongue of a considerable number among the other two communities. For an account and clarification of such “confusion” in terminology resulting from Singapore’s “linguistic maze”, see Eddie C.Y. Kuo, “The Sociolinguistic Situation in Singapore: Unity in Diversity”, in Language and Society in Singapore, pp. 42–47. Department of Statistics, General Household Survey 2005, Statistical Release 1: Socio-demographic and Economic Characteristics (Singapore: Department of Statistics, 2005), Chart 3, p. 17 and Table 7, p. 19. “[T]he progressive evolution of the national system of education over several decades with English becoming the main medium of instruction for all schools since 1987 could well be a candidate for a unique case study in patient pragmatism.” John Yip Soon Kwong and Sim Wong Kooi, “The First 25 Years: Evolving Excellence”, in Evolution of Educational Excellence: 25 Years of Education in the Republic of Singapore, edited by John Yip Soon Kwong and Sim Wong Kooi (Singapore: Longman Singapore Publishers, 1990), p. 184.

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9. Clarissa Oon, “Mr Lee to New Chinese Immigrants: Make It a Point to Master English”, Straits Times, 23 March 2008. 10. Shashi Tharoor, “Doing Away with Them and Us”, Straits Times, 28 March 2008; Dudley Au, “Another view of the expat-local Indian gap”, Straits Times, 4 April 2009. 11. “Taking a Leaf from Sweden’s Book to Boost Birth Rate”, Straits Times, 10 July 2008. 12. Tan Hui Leng, “Brain Drain: Victims of Success”, TODAY, 14 July 2008. 13. Since 2006, some primary and secondary schools have introduced the non-examination subject CCM (conversational Chinese and Malay) with the aim of “bridging cultures”. It is planned that by 2012 all schools will offer CCM. “Where Students Take a Teaching Role”, TODAY, 22 July 2008. 14. Goh Yeng Seng, “English Language Use in Chinese Language Teaching as a Second Language: Making the Most of the Learner’s Linguistic Resource”, in Language, Capital, Culture: Critical Studies of Language and Education in Singapore, edited by Viniti Vaish, S. Gopinathan, and Liu Yongbing (Rotterdam: Sense Publishers, 2007), pp. 119–30. 15. Yip and Sim, “The First 25 Years: Evolving Excellence”, in Evolution of Educational Excellence, p. 10. 16. Its centrality is such that as recently as 2007, educationists reiterated this “cornerstone”, citing eight other sources which had also done so, including the Chinese Language Curriculum and Pedagogy Review Committee (2004). See Liu Yongbing, Zhao Shouhui, and Goh Hock Guan, “Chinese Language Education Research in Singapore”, in Language, Capital, Culture, p. 133. 17. Quoted in Yip and Sim, “The First 25 Years: Evolving Excellence”, in Evolution of Educational Excellence, p. 10. 18. David Crystal, English as a Global Language, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 127. 19. Anthea Fraser Gupta, The Step-tongue: Children’s English in Singapore (Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters, 1994). Linguists now recognize that spoken English in Singapore covers a broad range. See Anne Pakir, “The Range and Depth of English-knowing Bilinguals in Singapore”, World Englishes 10, no. 2 (1991): 167– 79; David Deterding, Singapore English (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007). 20. . 21. . 22. Investors will hesitate to come over if their managers or supervisors can only guess what our workers are saying. We will find it difficult to be an education and financial centre. Our TV programmes and films will find it hard to succeed in overseas markets because viewers overseas do not understand Singlish. All this

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24.

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will affect our aim to be a first-world economy, 29 April 2000, (accessed 20 March 2008). Goh Chok Tong, National Day Rally Speech, “First-World Economy, WorldClass Home”, 22 August 1999, (accessed 20 March 2008). In a 1979 seminar “Singapore towards the Year 2000”, then Minister for Foreign Affairs, the late S. Rajaratnam, declared, “One of the distinctive facts of contemporary history is that it is world history, and that the forces shaping it cannot be understood unless we are prepared to adopt worldwide perspectives. … We are living in a world of accelerating change, of changes which are global in scope and which permeate almost all aspects of human activity. … Since change is about the future, then only a future-oriented society can cope with the problems of the twentyfirst century.” Saw Swee Hock and R.S. Bhathal, eds., Singapore Towards the Year 2000 (Singapore: Singapore University Press for the Singapore Association for the Advancement of Science, 1981), p. 2. Carla Power, “Not the Queen’s English: Non-native English-speakers now outnumber native ones 3 to 1: And It’s Changing the Way We Communicate”, Newsweek, 7 March 2005, p. 41. As Benjamin who was the first to critique these beliefs has noted, “since Multiracialism is currently a desired good, ‘Western’ comes to serve in Singapore jargon as a code word for evil … This taboo-like attitude towards things ‘Western’ must of course be seen against the backdrop of real life in Singapore which is in fact the most truly westernized country in South-east Asia.” Geoffrey Benjamin, “The Cultural Logic of Singapore’s ‘Multi-Racialism’ ”, in Singapore: Society in Transition, pp. 115–33. Lee Kuan Yew influentially believes that “The nub of the problem was that in our multiracial and multilingual society, English was the only acceptable neutral language, besides being the language that will make us relevant to the world. But it did seem to deculturalise our students and make them apathetic.” Lee Kuan Yew, From Third World to First: The Singapore Story 1965–2000 (Singapore: Times Editions, 2000), p. 173. See David Graddol, “The Decline of the Native Speaker”, in English in a Changing World, AILA Review 13, edited by David Graddol and Ulrike H. Meinhof (Oxford: Catchline/AILA, 1999), p. 61; and Braj B. Kachru, Yamuna Kachru, and Cecil L. Nelson, eds., The Handbook of World Englishes (London: Blackwell Publishers, 2006). See David Crystal, English as a Global Language, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). Susan Butler, “English is an Asian Language: Progress Towards a Dictionary”, Asian Englishes, vol. 1, no. 2 (1998): 108–10. Singapore’s official attitudes may be gauged from the fact that Butler’s conference, originally scheduled to be held

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32. 33. 34.

35.

36. 37. 38. 39.

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in 1994 at a Singapore university was aborted, and another was advised against. It was subsequently held in Manila and Bangkok in 1996, and in Kuala Lumpur in 1997. Yeo Kim Wah, Political Development in Singapore, 1945–1955 (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1973), p. 156. New Cauldron, August 1960, as quoted by Koh Tai Ann, “Singapore Writing in English: The Literary Tradition and Cultural Identity”, in Essays on Literature and Society in Southeast Asia: Political and Sociological Perspectives, edited by Tham Seong Chee (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1981), p. 163. Lee Kuan Yew, National Day Rally Speech, 8 August 1966, (accessed 30 May 2008). See PAP Fourth Anniversary Celebration Souvenir, 1958, pp. 21–24. “Becoming monolingual in English … we would have lost our cultural identity, that quiet confidence about ourselves and our place in the world.” Quoted from Lee, From Third World to First, p. 181. I am grateful to Goh Yeng Seng for the popular short form of the dictum and this translation. For the information about the Singapore adaptation of the original, I am grateful to Eddie C.Y. Kuo for the personal communication. “Call to Absorb the Culture Behind the Language”, Straits Times, 18 August 1984. C.J.W.-L.Wee, “Afterword: Language, Capitalist Development, Cultural Change”, in Language, Capital, Culture, pp. 254–55. Harold Schiffman, “Tamil Language Policy in Singapore”, in Language, Capital, Culture, p. 212. Linguists observe that Singapore English is diglossic, it being “well accepted in Singapore that Standard English is the appropriate language of education and formal use”; but depending on the occasion, even highly educated Singaporeans who can speak and write “standard English” switch easily between that and Singlish when required. It should not therefore be regarded as being merely a “low” variety, spoken only by uneducated Singaporeans or that those who use it are not proficient in speaking “English”. See Anthea Fraser Gupta, “Singapore Colloquial English? Or Deviant Standard English?” in SICOL, Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Oceanic Linguistics, Vol. 1: Language Contact, edited by Jan Tent and France Mugler (Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, 1998), pp. 43–57; Anne Pakir, “The Range and Depth of English-knowing Bilinguals in Singapore”, World Englishes 10, no. 2 (1992): 167–79; Lubna Alsagoff, “Singlish: Negotiating Culture, Capital and Identity”, in Language, Capital, Culture, pp. 25–45; David Deterding, Singapore English (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007). The recent wave of non-English speaking new immigrants is adding to this mix, as has been complained about by, among others, a news columnist, Liang Dingzi, whose piece “English, Chinese or Rojak?” comes to a typical conclusion even

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42.

43.

44. 45.

46. 47.

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as it expresses pride “that Singapore has become truly bilingual. But the downside is that we may end up mastering neither language, conveniently borrowing expressions from one or the other.” TODAY, 5 May 2008, p. 6. As quoted by Lee Yock Suan, Minister for Information and the Arts, in his speech at the launch of the Speak Mandarin Campaign, 8 September 2001, (accessed 20 March 2008). Anthea Fraser Gupta who has made a speciality of studying Singlish and Singapore English notes the sheer linguistic complexity that exists in Singapore, that “[a]s a result of its history, English functions in Singapore in a complex linguistic ecology, with varieties of English interacting with each other and with other languages.” Anthea Fraser Gupta, “Standard Englishes, Contact Varieties and Singapore Englishes”, in Teaching and Learning English as a Global Language: Native and Non-native Perspectives, edited by Claus Gnutzmann (Tübingen: Stauffenburg Verlag, 1999), pp. 59–72. Pre-print version, (accessed 26 April 2008). Thus the seventeenth-century English poet John Dryden was once praised for transforming English poetry from lowly brick to marble. But the twentieth-century poet, Robert Graves, proud of his home-grown native tradition, commented that “[Dryden] earned the doubtful glory of having found English poetry brick and left it marble — native brick, imported marble.” The Crowning Privilege: The Clark Lectures, 1954–1955 [London: Cassell, 1955] (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1959), p. 39. (accessed 28 June 2008). In his pioneering description and study of the English of Singapore and Malaysia, Tongue had predicted that “Singapore’s concern with improving or at least maintaining present standards of English is likely to grow.” R.K. Tongue, The English of Singapore and Malaysia (Singapore: Eastern Universities Press, 1974), p. 9. Nor is such anxiety unique to Singapore, see David Crystal, The Fight for English: How Language Pundits Ate, Shot, and Left (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006). See Janadas Devan, “The Never-ending English Debate”, Sunday Times, 21 October 2007, p. 29. The evidence suggests the contrary, to judge from steadily improving and high grades achieved in the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE), Cambridge ‘O’ Level, and ‘A’ Level English Language papers. The Cambridge ‘A’ Level Angus Ross Prize for Literature, since its inception, has always been won (except once when a Singapore student came in second) by a Singaporean student. Singapore primary pupils have consistently topped international tests taken in English such as Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMMS). They also ranked second in the latest Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS

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50. 51. 52. 53.

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2006) outranking even UK and U.S. students. This result is nonetheless a gratifying improvement from its 15th place worldwide in PIRLS 2001; but even so to be in the top fifteen worldwide is not a bad result. (accessed 20 May 2008). As for intelligibility, the research is not wholly conclusive but does suggest that Singaporean speakers are intelligible to foreign native speakers, but perhaps less so to non-native speakers. See English in Singapore: Phonetic Research on a Corpus (with CD-ROM), edited by David Deterding, Adam Brown, and Low Ee Ling (Singapore: McGraw-Hill Education, 2005). See David Crystal, How Language Works (London: Penguin Books, 2006), pp. 412–13. For a study of Singapore English and an annotated bibliography of the extensive research in this field, see David Deterding, Singapore English (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007). Teo Pau Lin, “Singapore’s Funniest Family”, Sunday Times, 30 May 1999. Nicholas Lee, “Singlish Not Needed for My Role in Under One Roof”, Straits Times, 1 June 1999. “English as it is Broken”, Sunday Times, 25 July 1999. Then Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew’s speech was to his Tanjong Pagar constituency on 14 August, 1999; and then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong’s was his National Day Rally Speech to the nation on 22 August 1999. Although Chua Beng Huat went some way in this direction. But assuming Singlish is basically “broken” English and also a class-marker and sharing the view that speaking “proper English” is evidence of being “Westernised”, he narrowly interpreted both television series in ideological or class terms: that the winners are “the working class who constantly murder the English language” as against the “emerging middle class with their ‘Western’ pretensions”. “Shouldn’t it be the other way around?” Straits Times, 12 June 1999. Rani Rubdy, “Creative Destruction: Singapore’s Speak Good English Movement”, World Englishes 20, no. 3 (2001): 341–55. Rubdy argues that such “creative destruction” according to the business model subsumes “valid issues of social identity and cohesiveness” under “pragmatic economic rationalizations”. See Chng Huang Hoon, “You See Me No Up”: Is Singlish a Problem?” Language Problems and Language Planning 27, no. 1 (2003): 45–62; Wendy D. BokhorstHeng, “Debating Singlish”, Multilingua 24, no. 3 (2005): 185–209; Anthea Fraser Gupta, “Standard Englishes, Contact Varieties and Singapore Englishes”, in Teaching and Learning English as a Global Language, pp. 59–72. At the 2005 SGEM launch, he departed from his prepared speech and said to his audience, “Speak good English, can or not?” to appreciative laughter which immediately established a rapport with his largely Singaporean audience. For instances

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60. 61.

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of his own Singaporean-style chap chye code-mixing, see Janadas Devan, “Mix tongues? Bagus, Bao Ying”, Sunday Times, 14 October 2007. Jeremy Au Yong, “Singlish? Don’t Make it Part of Singapore Identity: PM”, Straits Times, 22 September 2007. Hwee Hwee Tan, “A War of Words over Singlish”, TIME, 22 July 2002. Colin Goh has long been among the strongest supporters of Singlish, having in August 2000 started the satirical website TalkingCock.Com and published The Coxford Dictionary of Singlish (Singapore: Angsana Books, 2002), (accessed 30 March 2008). There is however, a more serious Dictionary of Singlish and Singapore English created by Jack Lee launched in 2004, (accessed 30 March 2008). (accessed 20 March 2008). Edwin Thumboo, ed., The Second-tongue: An Anthology of Poetry from Malaysia and Singapore (Singapore: Heinemann Educational Books, 1976); Alvin Pang and Aaron Lee, eds., No Other City: The Ethos Anthology of Urban Poetry (Singapore: Ethos Books, 2000). Catherine Lim, “Taxi Driver”, in Little Ironies: Stories of Singapore (Singapore: Heinemann, 1978); Arthur Yap, “2 mothers in a hdb playground”, in Down the Line (Singapore: Heinemann, 1980); Leong Liew Geok, “Forever Singlish”, in Women Without Men (Singapore: Times Book International, 2000). Anne Pakir, “Bilingual education with English as an official language: Sociocultural implications”, content made available by Georgetown University Press, Digital Georgetown, and the Department of Languages and Linguistics, 1999, (accessed 28 April 2008). Koh Tai Ann, “Singapore Writing in English: The Literary Tradition and Cultural Identity”, in Essays on Literature and Society in Southeast Asia: Political and Sociological Perspectives, edited by Tham Seong Chee (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1981), p. 161. Lee Tzu Pheng and Ban Kah Choon, “ ‘Only Connect’: Quest and Response in Singapore-Malayan Poetry”, in The English Language in Singapore, edited by W.J. Crewe (Singapore: Eastern Universities Press, 1977), p. 194. As the Ministry of Education notes, the success of Singaporean students in PIRLS 2006 “affirm[s] that Singapore’s education system provides a sound foundation for the development of reading literacy in English for both functional use and literary experience”. Ministry of Education Press Release, “Singapore’s Performance in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2006”, 29 November 2007, (accessed 20 May 2008). Edwin Thumboo, “Singapore Writing in English: A Need for Commitment”, Westerly, no. 2 (June 1978): 84.

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68. For example, the Singapore Government owned MediaCorp’s “Channel NewsAsia (International) launched in September 2000. [Its] satellite footprint stretch[ing] from the Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Northeast Asia to Australia … is now viewed in more than 20 territories across Asia.” (accessed 28 July 2008). If CNA can claim that its broadcasts in English present an “Asian perspective”, English, too, could represent a “Singaporean perspective”. 69. For the “cultural contradictions” of such a situation, see Koh Tai Ann, “Literature, the Beloved of Language”, in The Language-Culture Connection, edited by Joyce E. James (Singapore: SEAMEO Regional Language Centre, 1996), pp. 17–33. 70. Lubna Alsagoff, “Singlish: Negotiating Culture, Capital and Identity”, in Language, Capital, Culture, pp. 36, 37. 71. Excerpt from Singlish Poem, “by The Sweet Popcorn, Cornelius ‘CORN’ Pang on 19 August 1999”, posted on 17 September 2000 at (accessed 28 April 2008).

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30

MULTICULTURALISM AND THE PROBLEM OF SOLIDARITY DANIEL P.S. GOH

We have evolved, not by design, but by choice, a certain ease by which we adopt and modify cultural traits and values from each other. At the same time through the years of nation-building and shared experiences we begin to adopt orientations, aspirations and values that are shared by all Singaporeans. Hence all Singaporeans, irrespective of race or creed, would demand efficient government services and would cringe at inefficiencies that we come across elsewhere. We have become both a melting pot and a mosaic.

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he occasion for the speech of then Minister for Community Development and Sports Yaacob Ibrahim was at the Wee Kim Wee Seminar on Cross-Cultural Understanding held at the Singapore Management University, on 2 August 2003. It is a landmark speech for many reasons. First and foremost, the speech signifies a shift in the government’s keystone multiracialism policy. The Minister describes the development of multiracialism as proceeding from the melting pot approach of the early years to the mosaic approach in the second phase, and called the next phase “multiculturalism”, an approach that combines both the melting pot and mosaic approaches. A new Singaporean identity forged out of local ethnic identities is imagined in the speech: neither the amalgamated nor the hyphenated Singaporean of the two earlier phases, but a cosmopolitan Singaporean able to move comfortably between diverse ethnic cultures. Significantly, the speech was made in the midst of a flurry of institutional innovations that saw the 561

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setting up of facilitating organizations with the mandate to build networks between existing grassroots organizations. It is well known that the long-running, successive People’s Action Party (PAP) governments have a strong continuity of pragmatism in their policy approach that has, for all purposes, entrenched itself as a vaunted tradition in public life. The three phases of multiracialism have evolved, as Yaacob Ibrahim puts it, “not by design, but by choice”. The primary concern in all three phases is the problem of solidarity, which underlies the constant reiterations of the need for racial harmony and for the programme of nation-building. Policy variation through the three phases is a result of the PAP leadership’s interpretation of the way the changing social context affects, disrupts, or obstructs the solidarity of Singaporeans, especially with regard to the national project of development. For over forty years, the solidarity of the nation, fortified by multiracialism, has been apparent. But the apparent success of multiracialism means that this solidarity may be both visibly real and covering real problems with a public veneer of harmony. Thus, we find that while Singapore is lauded in the international media as a successful multiracial society, its multiracialism has received very critical airings from scholars.1 At the same time, the political leaders themselves remain uneasy about the strength of national cohesion and, in spite of four decades of harmonious ethnic relations, continue to remind Singaporeans of the fragility of the nation and the spectre of racial riots. In this chapter, I do not seek to retrace the well-trodden scholarly paths, but to make sense of the ambivalent success of Singapore’s multiracialism, in which public racial harmony exists with a foreboding sense of imminent collapse into ethnic conflict. I achieve this through three methods. Firstly, I assume that, with regard to multiracialism, the consequences of policy success for ethnic identities are more important than overt policy failures and gaps in institutional outcomes. I show that each policy phase was an adaptation to the changing social context and to the consequences of policy success in the previous phase. In brief, the melting pot policy met the exigencies of Separation and industrialization, and came in the wake of the success of decolonization, while the mosaic policy engaged a democratizing society and the problems resulting from the success of amalgamation, particularly among the emerging middle classes. Today, the new multiculturalism seeks to tackle the success of the mosaic policy in cultivating hyphenated Singaporeans ill-prepared to deal with the ambivalent winds of cultural differences accentuated by globalization. In this respect, this chapter updates Sharon Siddique’s analysis of multiracialism in the predecessor volume. Siddique focuses largely on the ideological and identity

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implications of the mosaic policy approach and argues that it was the “only alternative” for sustained stability “given the complexity of Singaporean society”.2 But if we consider the complexity of Singapore society at any given point in time as not naturally given or inherited, but produced in the interaction between state policy, domestic social dynamics and changing global processes, then the terms of our analysis must change. In a landscape of changing complexity, the question of whether a policy is the best or the only alternative cannot be answered in a synchronic cross-sectional analysis of Singapore society at a given point in time, but by looking at cumulative consequences of a policy for sustained stability. The “policy phase” is a heuristic device that helps achieve this without implying a linear and logical development. Thirdly, I evaluate the outcomes of each policy phase in terms of their cumulative contribution to the solidarity of Singapore society. Following the works of Emile Durkheim, who tackled very similar social cleavages in the industrialized French society of the late nineteenth century, I distinguish between mechanical and organic solidarities.3 Mechanical solidarity refers to the collective sentiment and affection that arise from shared rituals and common practices. In contrast, organic solidarity refers to the unity founded on the recognition of interdependence for collective and individual survival by social groups conducting their lives in different economic spheres and with different practices and values. A complex and modern society such as Singapore requires organic solidarity to continue being a viable nation, while mechanical solidarity is only a short-term and weak solution to the problem of solidarity. Worryingly, multicultural policy in Singapore has over-relied on the cultivation of mechanical solidarities, the success of which has undermined organic solidarity. THE CONSEQUENCES OF SUCCESSFUL DECOLONIZATION Successful decolonization, instead of a socialist revolution radically transforming the old colonial order, meant that British colonial ideas and institutions with regard to multiracialism were inherited by Malaya and Singapore in the late 1950s. The British saw their Malayan colonies as populated by three highlycontrasted Malay, Chinese and Indian races, each possessing positive and negative character traits that were innately linked to their biological make-up. Following the prevailing Social Darwinist ideas of the era, the British directed a division of labour based on these perceived traits. In general terms, the Chinese were seen as hardworking and shrewd sinews of the colony, but were kept, as much as possible, to the economic sphere and mercantilist sector because their perfidious

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nature was thought to bring about political corruption. Malays were thought of as an honourable and cultured people, whose customs should be preserved to form the basis of British political co-rule, but whose indolent nature and arbitrary character meant that they should be kept out of the modern colonial economy. The British held complex views of the highly diverse Indian immigrant population, but these were dominated by their view of the majority Tamils, who were believed to be a docile but uncivilized people needing civilization by way of hard work with European oversight and welfare available in the cash-crop plantations.4 Many of the British ideas, including the broad racial categories and the stereotypes, remain firmly embedded in popular perceptions. But more importantly, the British left a legacy of pluralism, in which the different ethnic groups lived adjacent to one another and mingled in the marketplace but they did not socially cohere as a singular people.5 This was not a natural situation resulting from the congregation of immigrant ethnic groups in a common market, but a social consequence of colonial institutionalization. But, ironically, the same colonial state that produced this pluralism also presented itself as the only guarantor of social cohesion through its multiracialism of formal and symbolic equality between races united under the imperial flag, which was complemented by strong coercion against nascent political movements split by pluralism along ethnic lines. This state-managed multiracialism reached its peak on the eve of World War II (WWII), marked by crackdowns on Chinese nationalists and communists, Indian unionists and Malay nationalists, and grand multiracial parades and carnivals celebrating the coronation of King George VI in 1937. The dual structure of colonial rule in British Malaya added another crucial dimension to the pluralism. Protectorate rule in the peninsular Malay states privileged Malay political and cultural primacy, which sat uneasily with the imperial multiracialism that found its strongest expression in the directly ruled and Chinese-dominated Straits Settlements. Without a revolutionary transformation of colonial pluralism, the politicization of previously peaceful Malay-Chinese relations was inevitable when decolonization proceeded along the dual structure of colonial rule.6 The Malaysian Federation was an experiment in resolving the two multiracialisms, with Singapore adopting constitutional protection for Malays who were given “indigenous” status. But the experiment collapsed in the Sino-Malay riots in Singapore on 21 July 1964, months after bitter elections saw the multiracialism of formal equality championed by the PAP, expressed by the “Malaysian Malaysia” slogan, make inroads into peninsular politics.

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Singapore was hardly a sleepy colonial outpost often portrayed in official and popular histories. As the administrative and business centre of British Malaya, Singapore was a major political and economic threat to the United Malay National Organisation’s (UMNO) domination in Malaysia. The multiracialism of formal equality completed the threat by offering a coherent ideology to complement Singapore’s political and economic challenge. Separation became a necessity for UMNO and nation-building became an imperative for the PAP government after undesired independence. The PAP leaders were left holding the multiracialism of formal equality they had championed, now resloganeered “Singaporean Singapore”. But the scarring political experiences led to a divergence of views among the leaders, with one group seeing colonial pluralism as a natural inheritance that the government’s multiracialism policy needed to manage, and another viewing it as a social legacy to be actively realigned by policy. This basic ambivalence informed the three postcolonial phases of policy. MELTING POT: MECHANICAL SOLIDARITY OF A NEW NATION In the first policy phase, which stretches from the late 1950s to the 1970s, the multiracialism of formal equality inherited from colonial times was substantially reshaped from its pluralist ground towards the goal of nation-building. Firstly, the discrete distinction between the three main races was broken down. Secondly, the racial anthropological view of ethnicity as biologically and primordially innate was rejected in favour of the modern anthropological idiom of ethnicity as cultural practices. Thirdly, rather than the political prevention of the breakdown of pluralism into ethnic conflict and mob anarchy, positive social engineering towards a singular Singaporean identity was seen as the solution to the problem of solidarity. S. Rajaratnam, then the aptly named Minister for Culture, made the famous analogy in 1960 that continues to be used today: [L]et us visualise Malay, Chinese and Indian cultures as self-contained circles. But these circles are not separate. They overlap. The areas where they overlap can be described as areas of Malayan culture because they consist of cultural beliefs and practices which are held in common. In my view this overlapping areas is far larger than we think and is steadily being enlarged.7

Despite the bitter experiences of 1964 and the Separation, these ideas and vision continued to define multiracialism policy after independence. In part, this was because they were conducive to producing a disciplined and homogeneous

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working population for rapid industrialization. Community centres located strategically across the country complemented the national schools and public housing estates built to modernize resettled urban slum and rural kampung communities. The principle followed in these three institutional arenas was the cultivation of common practices that would foster national unity as well as promote the growth of a physically and psychologically healthy workforce. Ethnic cultures were not irrelevant in this effort. As evident in Rajaratnam’s overlapping circles analogy, they formed the field in which a Singaporean culture would emerge from the melding of practices. The deliberate cultural engineering to enlarge the overlapping areas was just short of total, with one exception. Slum and kampung communities were resettled en masse in adjacent housing estates without attempts to force a degree of ethnic mixing. As a result, many suburbs still retain a strong ethnic flavour today, for example, Malay Eunos and Teochew Hougang. Incidentally, this policy enhanced the cultural engineering by preserving existing social networks and practices embedded in local communities. In any case, since several neighbouring kampungs of different ethnic communities, often with ties to one another, were resettled in a larger housing estate, ethnic mixing was accomplished without displacing existing social ties. The bulk of the cultural engineering was left to the People’s Association, formed in 1960, the same year as the Housing Development Board, with the mandate of fostering racial harmony and social cohesion in the new housing estates. This was accomplished through Community Centres, which formed the cultural heart in each estate, sending its heartbeat of cultural programmes through the Citizens’ Consultative Committees and Residents’ Committees capillaries that extended into the heartland. The outfits offered handicraft, culinary, artistic, singing and language courses, sports and other leisure facilities, celebration spaces for festivals and special occasions, and with the advent of televisual broadcasting, communal showing of national television programmes. The content of the cultural programmes often encouraged inter-ethnic learning and crosscultural experiences. The heartbeat was timed to a calendar of major ethnic festivals, with the National Day Parade in August as the lynchpin event that brought together representative floats or show items from Community Centres across the island. Adding depth and flavour to the national imagination, the moribund Chingay Parade, a Peranakan Chinese carnival of local creole origins, was revived in 1973 as an annual event that complemented the National Day Parade, the two being exactly six months apart from each other. Cultural engineering was reinforced in the schools, explicitly through civic education, the celebration of ethnic festivals, and special occasions such as Youth,

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Children and Friendship Days, when multiracial ties were emphasized through the cross-cultural learning of songs and dance, and the daily performance of rituals such as flag raising, national anthem singing, and national pledge recitation, sometimes in several languages. Latently, the uniform national education system and the use of English as the medium of instruction encouraged the enlargement of the overlapping multiracial area by establishing a common meritocratic field of achievement without privileging any ethnic group. Also, reinforcing the local approach of proximity resettlement and common space cultivation, children were encouraged to study in schools in their immediate neighbourhood. The sum of all the cultural engineering was the emergence of an unevenly amalgamated Singaporean identity, still centred on an inherited primary ethnic identity, but increasingly incorporating cultural elements from other ethnic identities and modern popular culture from the UK and U.S. transmitted through the mass media. What made this uneven identity Singaporean was the mechanical solidarity cultivated by the common multiracial practices in school. On the level of the individual citizen, this mechanical solidarity was reflected in a sentimental reflex to imagine and identify with the nation. Ordinarily, this was embedded in local practices shared in the communal settings of school and neighbourhood. Extraordinarily, the reflex was accentuated, sometimes turning into an emotional effervescence, during national celebrations such as the National Day Parade. This melting pot policy was not without serious problems, but these were problems resulting from success rather than problems of failure. The governmentled community building initiatives caused the decline of established grassroots networks such as Chinese clan associations and other associations centred on religious institutions, most of which sprung up along pluralist lines during the colonial period to fill in the social welfare gap. On the other hand, the new government-led institutions could not replace the organic function played by the old civic associations for two reasons. In spite of its moniker, the People’s Association is not a civic association and did not spring from the people’s response to real problems they faced in their communities. As a government bureaucracy, the Association’s success led to greater technocratic management and elaboration of grassroots organizations antithetical to the democratic life of grassroots associations. As the ruling party’s political instrument that historically competed with leftist communal organizations and successfully displaced them, the Association allowed the ruling party to monopolize the grassroots sectors against competition from opposition political parties. In addition, mechanical solidarity was achieved in this period by alienating specific groups of people whose loyalty to the new nation-state was questioned

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in relation to their ethnic identity. The first group was the Chinese-speaking intelligentsia who fought trenchant cultural battles with the English-speaking elites of the ruling party from their base in Nanyang University, which they lost through sheer legal force. Within the overlapping circles framework, there was no reason the modern Chinese high culture advocated by the intelligentsia could not contribute its share to the multiracial amalgamation. The second group was the nascent Malay middle class, who lost secure military jobs when the British decamped their bases in the late 1960s and the new national military excluded Malays because of security fears. For several years, the exclusion meant that cohorts of young Malay males could not find regular employment while they waited to be conscripted.8 The economic effect of this exclusion on Singaporean Malays has not been properly documented. These two exceptions show that the amalgamated multiracial Singaporean identity, though unevenly cultivated across the population, ultimately privileged the English-speaking Chinese middle class. With successful multiracial nation-building and PAP-directed state-building and industrialization, the English-speaking Chinese middle class rose to cultural, political, and economic pre-eminence. MOSAIC: SEGREGATED MECHANICAL SOLIDARITIES As I have noted, there was a split among the PAP elites with regard to the multiracialism policy to be adopted. The faction that saw colonial pluralism as a social legacy sought actively to reshape it with the melting pot policy. The success of this policy led to the emergence of the culturally amalgamated, English-speaking, middle-class Singaporean consumed with the modern trappings of life. To the conservative faction that saw colonial pluralism as a natural inheritance to be managed and ethnic culture as inextricably linked to primordial racial identity, the melting pot policy had swung the pendulum of the social cohesion problem from ethnic mob conflict to the collapse of ethnic moral orders. The faction believed that individuals unfettered by traditional ethnic regulation and free to choose their cultural practices in the amalgamation would only end up caring for their own self-interests and eventually cause Singapore society to disintegrate under external political and economic pressure. Compulsory bilingualism, in which schoolchildren are required to learn the language of their ascribed official race, was a cultural engineering instrument of choice of the conservative faction. Then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, a vocal proponent of the conservative view, explained in his speech at the Singapore Teacher Union’s 26th Anniversary Dinner, “it is not just learning the language

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(mother tongue). With language goes the fables and proverbs. It is the learning of a whole value system, a whole philosophy of life, that can maintain the fabric of our society intact, in spite of exposure to all the current madness around the world.” Established in 1966, this compulsory bilingualism changed the course of the increasing learning and usage of the Malay language, the National Language, in the decade before independence. Before 1965, the PAP government had promoted Malay language, the colloquial market variety already a lingua franca, as bearer of an amalgamated, postcolonial Malayan identity. The replacement of Malay language with the English language shifted the bearings of multiracialism but did not change its general course. Compulsory bilingualism, on the other hand, moderated the course of multiracialism, reducing the speed of the amalgamation by pulling Singaporeans back into their prescribed racial identity. A decade later, not satisfied with compulsory bilingualism, the conservative elites began to make moves to stem what they perceived as imminent social disintegration. In 1975, a conference was held with academics to explore the identification and preservation of “Asian values”, in which Rajaratnam rejected the idea as ludicrous.9 This did not stop Lee from launching the Speak Mandarin Campaign to replace the widespread use of Chinese vernaculars that mixed Malay and English phrases in 1979. In the same year, a study team led by then Deputy Prime Minister Goh Keng Swee published a landmark report on the education system, which advocated the teaching of religious knowledge to reinforce the “cultural ballast” of Singaporeans.10 The institutional innovations that followed reversed the multiracialism policy from the melting pot approach to a mosaic approach whereby policy sought to protect and enhance the cultural integrity of each ascribed racial group separately from one another. Religious knowledge education was implemented in a few years, with students choosing to study one of the major religions or Confucianism. The latter was the ruling party’s pet project. Foreign academic experts on oriental culture were invited to study Singapore society and write the curriculum. They also ran seminars to educate the new generation of young PAP leaders and helped Goh establish the Institute of East Asian Philosophies (succeeded by the East Asian Institute) to study Confucianism.11 Special Assistance Plan schools were established to educate the top students in higher Mandarin and Chinese high culture. Modest efforts were also made to collaborate with neglected Chinese clan and ethnic associations to promote the use of Mandarin and Confucian

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values. To some extent, these institutional changes also opened up the cultural space for the rehabilitation of the alienated Chinese intelligentsia. The obvious Chinese emphasis was barely balanced by the establishment of Yayasan Mendaki in 1981 to foster the educational development of Singaporean Malays. Even then, the asymmetry was evident, as both dealt with different problems. The Mandarin language and Confucianism policies engaged the perceived problem of success with the melting pot policy and enhanced the socio-economic opportunities of the middle-class Chinese population with a new type of privileged cultural capital. Mendaki educational programmes dealt defensively with the exception of melting pot multiracialism, with regard to the nascent middle-class Malays. By late 1970s, as the dust of successful primary industrialization settled, it was clear that Singaporean Malays lagged behind other ethnic groups in terms of socio-economic progress. Deepening institutionalization of the mosaic policy took place in the early 1990s followed by the National Ideology movement championed by the new generation of younger PAP leaders who succeeded the pioneer cohort. This was a response to the political events of the mid-1980s, such as the “Marxist conspiracy” detentions and PAP-led defamation lawsuits against the opposition. Facing criticisms from both Chinese and non-Chinese groups for the ruling party’s overt Confucianist emphasis, and both the Singaporean and international public for its overt authoritarianism, the new leaders spearheaded the National Ideology movement to transform the government’s cumulative cultural engineering programmes into a more multiracial “Asian values” platform that expressed a “communitarian democracy”, distinct from Western liberalism.13 The conservative thrust remained constant, as then Minister for Trade and Industry Lee Hsien Loong, scion of Lee Kuan Yew, put it in a speech arguing for the proposed Ideology, “no group of people can jettison their past, embrace another culture, and survive intact. … Our roots are important. We should not be root-bound, but neither should we abandon our roots. They anchor us, and will help us to grow.”14 The five “shared values” of the Ideology therefore comprised a mix of tenets from the melting pot policy phase and the modernized Confucianist tenets promoted in the early 1980s. “Racial and religious harmony” stemmed from the earlier policy phase. “Family as the basic unit of society” and “Consensus, not conflict” were key components of the Confucianist tenets. “Nation before community and society above self” was a conservative response to the amalgamated Singaporean identity, which the conservatives perceived as exemplifying moral deregulation and individualism. “Community support and respect for the individual” was a late compromise added to the original four values proposed

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by the PAP government after vocal public criticisms from the middle classes. In sum, these values harmonized the mosaic policy with the multiracialism of formal equality, while Confucianism continued to be the privileged ideological glue of the mosaic pieces. New institutions to ensure multiracial representation proportional to the Chinese-Malay-Indian-Others (CMIO) grid were established in the same period. Group Representation Constituencies ensure minority representation through the election of teams of Members of Parliament that must include a member certified to be of a stipulated minority race. The Ethnic Integration Policy for public housing forces ostensibly multicultural interaction in residential spaces by setting maximum racial proportions for each block and neighbourhood.15 Running parallel to Mendaki, Chinese and Indian ethnic “self-help” groups, the Chinese Development Assistance Council and the Singapore Indian Development Association, established with voluntary contributions from citizens of the respective ascribed racial categories and matched government funding, provide welfare services to their “own” racial members. The superimposition of the CMIO grid on to the amalgamated Singaporean identity has the consequence of creating hyphenated Singaporeans, whose racial identification, inherited from colonial pluralism, is indelibly fixed to the national identity. As a result, the mechanical solidarity that continued to be cultivated in schools and the community centres is carved up according to racial identities. Especially among the younger generation of Singaporeans, racial identity precedes the Singaporean identity. Thus, national solidarity is no longer a singular, emotionally effervescent mechanical solidarity, but the coalescence of separate emotional affiliations to putatively primal racial identities, of segregated mechanical solidarities that require constant work to hold together. Diverse ethnic cultures are reduced to representative Chinese, Malay, and Indian high cultures taught to younger Singaporeans through the schools and media, resulting in a visible generational gap between them and the older generation still embedded in vernacular ethnic cultures. Because the mosaic multiracialism policy is grafted on to public housing and school, there were heavy costs involved for exiting the cultural engineering of hyphenated Singaporeans.16 Ironically the most viable option to be Singaporean, instead of Chinese-, Indian- or Malay-Singapore was emigration, which only the upper middle-class English-speaking Singaporean privileged by the melting pot policy can afford. Interestingly, such Singaporean émigrés tend to combine strong emotional ties to a non-racial Singapore and strong criticisms of the PAP government’s multiracial policies. The asymmetry of costs is also evident on the general level of the CMIO grid, as formal equality

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gave way to proportional equality in the new multiracial institutions, which ensure that the Chinese’s demographic majority translates into political, residential, and economic welfare majority. MULTICULTURALISM: RACE REGARDS REGARDLESS OF RACE At the beginning of the twenty-first century, as Singapore moved, full-speed, into the age of globalization, the segregated mechanical solidarities began to present problems for the solidarity of the nation. Singaporeans have developed a strong sense of racial identity that is tied to religion, a result of the mosaic policy of emphasizing the strong connection between racial identity, ethnic heritage and moral values that are invariably rooted in religious world views. A Ministry of Community Development and Sports survey on social attitudes in 2001 revealed that 95 per cent of Malay Muslims, 97 per cent of Indian Hindus and 90, 89, and 92 per cent of Chinese Buddhists, Taoists and Christians respectively felt a strong sense of racial identity compared with 84 per cent of Indian Muslims and 83 per cent of the Chinese with no religion. The survey also revealed that 97 per cent of all Singaporeans felt proud to be Singaporean and 98 per cent thought of Singapore as their home, which indicate that the affective mechanical solidarity cultivated by the melting pot policy was just as successful.17 While there is no contradiction between having both strong racial and national identities, the problem emerges when the balance between the feelings associated with racial-religious cleavages and the sentiments of mechanical solidarity are disrupted by global events, especially those concerning the rise of global religious fundamentalism. This is the problem associated with the success of two very different multiracialism approaches that have shaped Singaporean identities, which became apparent after September 11 and the local Jemaah Islamiyah terror plot arrests in December 2001. The same Ministry of Community Development survey revealed that 92 per cent of Singaporeans born before 1971, who grew up mainly with the melting pot policy, were satisfied with current race relations, while 83 per cent of Singaporeans born after 1971, who grew up with the mosaic policy, were satisfied. This is a significant doubling of those who are not satisfied with race relations.18 The survey, conducted before September 11, also reveals that while the Malays are generally more satisfied with current race relations than the Indians and Chinese (94 per cent versus 90 and 89 per cent respectively), 85 per cent of Malays are optimistic about race relations in the next decade compared with 94 per cent of Chinese and Indians.19 This difference in optimism

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probably stems from two consequences associated with the melting pot and mosaic policies. Firstly, the Malay exception to the melting pot policy reduced the community’s economic and cultural capital, which has led to poor educational performance relative to the Chinese and Indians. In the competitive economic meritocracy, this has, in turn, led to the community’s marginal socio-economic standing.20 The mosaic policies of privileging Chinese-language schools and the use of Mandarin exacerbated the situation. Governmental support of Mendaki’s efforts to provide Malay educational uplift is swimming against the currents contributed, in part, by the multiracialism policies. With the restructuring of the educational system and the economy to engage informational globalization the goalposts have shifted further for Malays. Optimism for good race relations in the future must, in part, be based on how a community sees its socio-economic chances relative to the other groups. The government’s recognition of this has led to periodic review and report on progress made by the Malay community that the Prime Minister himself would pay close attention to. The last report was released and cited by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong during Mendaki’s 25th anniversary celebrations in 2007, when he praised the community for making great strides in educational and socio-economic attainments but noted the challenges of intensified competition as Singapore globalized.21 Secondly, the mosaic policies that privileged a strong Chinese identity through the focus on Chinese cultural programmes may have either increased or reinforced the insularity among the Chinese. In a recent survey by social scientists from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, only 82 per cent of Chinese are open to celebrating special occasions with Malay or Indian friends, 31 per cent are open to having Malay or Indian spouses and 79 per cent are open to being in a place full of Malays, compared with 90 per cent of Malays open to celebrating special occasions with Chinese friends, 52 per cent having Chinese spouses, and 94 per cent being in a place full of Chinese.22 If these attitudes have been translated into actions, the sum of these actions may have created negative interracial experiences for Malays vis-à-vis Chinese neighbours and colleagues, which would eat into the hope that they have for future race relations. It is thus in the context of these problems of success that the new policy of multiculturalism with which I introduced this chapter is articulated. It has involved calibrations of existing institutions, such as the encouragement of the learning of Mandarin, Malay and Tamil as third languages, and the creation of new network institutions facilitating interracial interaction between existing institutions. The latter can be traced back to the formation of the Joint Social

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Service Centre by ethnic self-help groups and the Central Community Development Council in 1997 to facilitate and coordinate multiracial activities, which the self-help groups took turns to organize. The Centre was rechristened OnePeople.sg in 2007 and tasked to coordinate the promotion of racial and religious harmony nationwide. Drawing from existing government-led grassroots organizations, Inter-Racial Confidence Circles have been established since 2002, one in each electoral constituency, to coordinate local multiracial efforts and link up Harmony Circles established in schools, workplaces and neighbourhoods. At the national level, the Inter-Religious Harmony Circle was formed with leaders of the major faiths and chaired by a senior PAP Member of Parliament. In 2006, the Community Engagement Programme (CEP) was launched as the umbrella body to enhance the networking of all civic, grassroots and facilitating organizations and schools, media and unions. But would these infrastructural developments of the new multiculturalism policy bring about solidarity for Singapore in the age of globalization? In the same speech I quoted in the beginning of this chapter, Yaacob Ibrahim envisioned multiculturalism not simply as respect for differences, but also “as a description of the types of individuals” of a society, in which “no one can claim to belong to a separate and distinct group or race”, where one “can appreciate and understand much of one’s own heritage” but “within every individual there also exist elements and traits reflecting the larger society”. There are two habits of government accreted from past multiracialism policies that are obstacles to the achievement of solidarity. The first is the reflex towards fostering sentiment-based mechanical solidarity, which tends to be oriented towards popular consumption and therefore insubstantial for the more divided areas of life, such as work, worship and provision of life. Thus, Yaacob Ibrahim gives this example of his vision, When a Malay colleague of mine invited me to his home to have a steamboat dinner, my understanding of what it means to be Malay in Singapore had to be updated. When I visit Komala Vilas with my family and tuck into the vegetarian food, the crowd there is truly varied and Singaporean. While this food example may appear trivial it reflects what multiculturalism means in Singapore.

Interracial interaction activities organized on the local and national levels revolve around this popular consumption principle, sometimes dressed in carnivalesque exuberance. The second is the bureaucratic and security-oriented control of the networks, which tend to emphasize social and interracial harmony over genuine interracial

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and inter-religious dialogue on conflict points, social problems, and prejudices. Placing the CEP under the coordination of the Ministry of Home Affairs has inevitably conditioned the character of the networks and their activities. The result is the instrumental nature of the CEP, which reduces its efficacy in engaging the moral substance of inter-ethnic interactions. At its website, , the CEP is described as bringing “together people from different communities in Singapore to work with each other to develop understanding and to prevent and minimise racial and religious tensions in our society after a crisis, such as a terrorist incident”, where “the community will be involved in response plans that will be activated when a terrorist incident does occur”, so as “to help Singaporeans cope with the shock and to stay calm and resilient”.23 CONCLUSION In a modern society with a complex division of labour, organic solidarity, not mechanical solidarity or security networks, is the solution to the problem of national unity. Mere sentimental affections for other cultures or communal intercultural policing cannot engage the profound moral and cultural issues thrown up by the new pluralism of globalization. Multiculturalism fits with organic solidarity because it emphasizes the cultural dimension of interdependence, but intercultural understanding is best achieved when groups work together to solve social problems, even problems that may appear to afflict only one group, but in reality affect all groups because of our interdependence for national survival. This principle is already latent in many of the speeches made by government leaders when they extol racial harmony by harking back to the old kampung spirit of gotong royong. Old policy habits die hard, but old spirits die harder. It is only after working together to solve problems besetting the community that the community gathers to celebrate with a feast and posts guards to watch over resting members. Communal strength and solidarity stem from all three activities in this order, not merely the latter two activities. NOTES 1. Chua Beng Huat, “Multiculturalism in Singapore: An Instrument of Social Control”, Race and Class 44, no. 3 (2003): 58–77; Michael Barr and Jevon Low, “Assimilation as Multiracialism: The Case of Singapore’s Malays”, Asian Ethnicity 6, no. 3 (2005): 161–82; Eugene K.B. Tan, “ ‘We, the Citizens of Singapore …’: Multiethnicity,

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2.

3. 4.

5. 6.

7.

8. 9.

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its Evolution and its Aberrations”, in Beyond Rituals and Riots: Ethnic Pluralism and Social Cohesion in Singapore, edited by Lai Ah Eng (Singapore: Eastern Universities Press, 2004). Sharon Siddique, “Singaporean Identity”, in Management of Success: The Moulding of Modern Singapore, edited by Kernial Singh Sandhu and Paul Wheatley (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1989), p. 575. Emile Durkheim, Division of Labor in Society, translated by George Simpson (New York: Free Press, 1964). Charles Hirschman, “The Making of Race in Colonial Malaya: Political Economy and Racial ideology”, Sociological Forum 1 (1986): 330–61; Charles Hirschman, “The Meaning and Measurement of Ethnicity in Malaysia: An Analysis of Census Classifications”, Journal of Asian Studies 46 (1987): 555–82. J.S. Furnivall, Colonial Policy and Practice: A Comparative Study of Burma and Netherlands India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948). The British colonialists inculcated belief in the natural racial or ethnic enmity between indigenous Malays and immigrant Chinese as a justification for their policy of separating Malays and Chinese economically and politically after the quarrels between Chinese secret societies allied with respective Malay nobles over the tin mines in Larut, Perak, led to escalating unrests in the 1860s and 1870s and, eventual British colonial expansion into the Malayan Peninsula. Most, if not all, incidents of cross-ethnic riots recorded by the British colonial governments in the Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States involved intra-Chinese conflicts between different regional ethnic groups or anti-Western risings by both Chinese and nonChinese groups. In fact, there were many instances of transethnic solidarity between Chinese and non-Chinese groups built on political and economic interests in the history of Malaya, and one could interpret the alliances between Chinese secret societies and Malay rajas as an instance of transethnic solidarity and the Larut Wars as a transethnic conflict that was resolved by British pluralist separation of Chinese and Malay. The historical erasure of transethnic solidarities continued into the postcolonial period. See Sumit K. Mandal, “Transethnic Solidarities in a Racialised Context”, Journal of Contemporary Asia 33, no. 1 (2003): 50–68. S. Rajaratnam, “Our Cultural Heritage” [1960], in S. Rajaratnam on Singapore: From Ideas to Reality, edited by Kwa Chong Guan (Singapore: World Scientific Publishing, 2006). Tania Li, Malays in Singapore: Culture, Economy, and Ideology (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 108–11. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Singapore, “Asian Values and Modernisation: A Seminar”, 15 November 1975 (Singapore: The Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, 1975); S. Rajaratnam, “Asian Values and Modernisation”, in Asian Values and Modernisation, edited by Seah Chee-Meow (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1977).

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10. Goh Keng Swee and the Education Study Team, Report on the Ministry of Education 1978 (Singapore: Singapore National Printers, 1979). 11. Tu Wei-Ming, Confucian Ethics Today: The Singapore Challenge (Singapore: Curriculum Development Institute of Singapore, 1984). 12. Chua Beng Huat, Communitarian Ideology and Democracy in Singapore (London: Routledge, 1995). 13. Lee Hsien Loong, Speech by Brig-Gen (Res) Lee Hsien Loong, Minister for Trade and Industry and Second Minister for Defence (Services) at the Third Alumni International Singapore on “The National Ideology — A Direction and Identity for Singapore”, Meridien Hotel, 11 January 1989 (Singapore: Ministry of Communication and Information, 1989). 14. The Ethnic Integration Policy was launched in March 1989 in response to figures that showed ethnic preferences for localities historically associated with ethnicbased kampungs continued well into the 1980s, when the open resale market boomed after the initial proximity resettlement of kampungs. While the policy has “integrated” public housing estates in terms of formal percentages, an open resale market dominated by the Chinese majority has seen non-Chinese sellers placed in a disadvantageous position. Also, because of the stratified property market and other social factors, the ethnic quotas may be deepening the marginalization of the Malay and Indian underclasses rather than advancing their desegregation. See Chih Hoong Sin, “Segregation and Marginalisation within Public Housing: The Disadvantaged in Bedok New Town, Singapore”, Housing Studies 17, no. 2 (2002): 267–88; Chih Hoong Sin, “The Quest for a Balanced Ethnic Mix: Singapore’s Ethnic Quota Policy Examined”, Urban Studies 39, no. 8 (2002): 1347–74. 15. Chua Beng Huat, “The Cost of Membership in Ascribed Community”, in Multiculturalism in Asia, edited by Will Kymlicka and Baogang He (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). 16. David Chan, Attitudes on Race and Religion: Survey on Social Attitudes of Singaporeans 2001 (Singapore: Ministry of Community Development and Sports, 2002), pp. 12, 15. 17. Ibid., p. 17. 18. Ibid., pp. 17, 18. 19. Lily Zubaidah Rahim, The Singapore Dilemma: The Political and Educational Marginality of the Malay Community (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). 20. From 1990 to 2000, census figures show that the average monthly household income of Chinese and Indians increased by 62.4 and 59.4 per cent respectively, but only by 40.2 per cent for Malays. In 2005, the median monthly household income was S$4,570 for Chinese, S$4,120 for Indians, and only S$3,050 for Malays. From 1980 to 2005, Malay median monthly household income tripled, but Chinese and Indian income quadrupled. Department of Statistics, Census of Population 1990: Households and Housing: Statistical Release 2 (Singapore: The Department of Statistics,

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1992); Department of Statistics, Census of Population 2000: Households and Housing: Statistical Release 5 (Singapore: The Department of Statistics, 2001). Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports, Progress of the Malay Community in Singapore (Singapore: Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports, 2007), p. 11. 21. Lee Hsien Loong, “Progress and Prosperity for Malays, the Singapore Way”, extract of speech at Mendaki’s 25th Anniversary Dinner, Straits Times, 3 September 2007. 22. Yolanda Chin and Norman Vasu, The Ties that Bind and Blind: A Report on Inter-Racial and Inter-Religious Relations in Singapore (Singapore: Centre of Excellence for National Security, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, 2007), pp. 9, 11. 23. Community Engagement Programme, “What is CEP?” in Singapore United: The Portal for the Community Engagement Programme, (accessed 13 December 2007).

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SEXUAL GOVERNANCE AND THE POLITICS OF SEX IN SINGAPORE LAURENCE LEONG WAI TENG

THE POLITICS OF SEXUALITY IN SINGAPORE

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n October 2007, Singapore International Airlines proudly inaugurated the double-decker super-jumbo Airbus A380. It made international news because it was the world’s biggest commercial plane with a seating capacity of 471 passengers and 12 first class private suites containing double beds. But the size factor was not the only source of newsworthiness; a “no sex” rule for the first class cabin became the topic of media attention. A seventy-six-year-old Australian who flew with his wife aboard the suite complained that the mis-en-scène for sex was set up (the double bed, the champagne and the romantic ambience) but without the possibility of “doing what comes naturally”. The acronym for Singapore International Airlines — SIA — could have stood for “Sex In the Air”, but sex on the airborne bed was ruled out. In asking airline passengers to refrain from sexual activities on board, the company official said it did not want to offend other travellers or crew. There was also an acknowledgement that the cabins were not completely private in spite of advertising sales pitch that invited passengers to “experience unprecedented levels of privacy”. The walls, in fact, did not reach up to the ceiling, and the suites were not soundproof. This SIA episode is illustrative of several broader issues about sexuality in Singapore. Firstly, the “no sex” rule appears to be in line with the international reputation of Singapore as a highly regimented society where the authorities zealously create rules to regulate the lives of people. No aspect of human activity, including sex, escapes the clutches of the state. 579

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Secondly, the existence of rules signals prohibition rather than allowance, restriction rather than acceptance. The People’s Action Party (PAP) government has often relied on the cultural argument of “Asian conservativism” to forestall any reforms in sexual laws that were originally instituted by the British. In reality, the “ban culture” that Singapore is infamous for is rooted not in Asian civilizational history, but in state intervention in the everyday lives of citizens. Thirdly, just as the first class cabin on the A380 is not as private as the glossy ads would have readers believe, sex is not a completely private affair in Singapore. Even as state officials may claim they would not police people’s bedrooms and personal spaces, they nevertheless administer legal institutions, allocate resources, and propagate ideas that have implications for people’s sexual experiences. Far from being a private matter, sex has always been a public issue and also an aspect of public policies. The relationship between sex and the state in Singapore is founded less on moral grounds than on managerial issues: how to shape the size and composition of the population, and how to deal with a particular segment of the population that has been marginalized by criminalization and social opprobrium. Sex, in other words, is salient in demographic policy and in the policy towards minorities. The first part of this chapter looks at how demographic policy underscores state sponsorship of heterosexual privilege since a host of material incentives is offered to people who marry and procreate. The second part examines how the state through law and employment treats a minority that, by and large, does not procreate, namely gays. Lesbians have seldom been the topic of public debates, chiefly because they have never been part of any legislation that condemns or prohibits their activities. The third part provides an overall assessment of the state’s management of sexuality in Singapore. THE PRODUCTIONIST ETHIC OF SEX IN SINGAPORE Sex in the bare minimum is about intimate relations between two consenting adults. But there are different conceptualizations about what these two people are doing and injunctions about what they should be doing. In a moral (perhaps religious) discourse, markers would be set on who (male-female of consenting age) can do what (vaginal intercourse), how (with no assistance of pornography or objects such as condoms), when (after marriage), where (not in public), how often, and with what consequences. In a medical discourse, diagnostic ideas of dysfunction or pathology would be imputed on particular sexual acts or persons, and causes for such irregularities

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are tracked in order to control their development. By contrast, a human rights discourse would recognize sexual variations, sexual identities, sexual partnerships as legitimate entitlements, and protection against discrimination on the basis of sexuality is sought after as central to egalitarian citizenship. These different discourses on sex imply that sex is a contested issue as different social groups coming from different positions jostle to assert and impose one discourse over another. These group discourses also overlap with broader discourses that have emerged over time. For example, historians have pointed out that in the West, the Christian church upheld the notion that sex was exclusively for the purpose of reproduction within the context of marriage.1 The rise of industrial capitalism reorganized family lives, created urban centres and gave birth to new forms of individualism that were focused on consumption and the pursuit of pleasure. New technologies of birth control signified the acceptance of sex for its own sake, or for purposes other than procreation.2 Changing socio-economic conditions shifted the meanings of sex from a productionist ethic, where sex is for the instrumental purpose of procreation (supplying labour in the farm, or compensating high infant mortality), to a consumption ethic where sex is for expressive purposes (for love), and for the sake of pleasure. These two meanings of sex may not be exclusive: thus, religious authorities who seek to keep up with the times may combine the two positions that sex is the union of people in love and with the consequence of procreation. What is the position of state officials in Singapore towards the meaning and purpose of sex? In other countries, there are tales of former American President Bill Clinton’s affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, of former French President Francois Mitterand having a mistress, of Nicolas Sarkozy divorcing his wife just five months after becoming president, and marrying a supermodel four months later. In Taiwan, Indonesia, and Malaysia, politicians have been embroiled in “sex, lies and videotapes” scandals. And Malaysia’s former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim was tried for alleged sodomy. By contrast, there is little to gossip about the sex lives of Singapore politicians. The PAP members are known for their straight and strait-laced image consonant with their non-corrupt reputation. With the rare exception of an unmarried or a divorcee, the majority of the PAP members belong to what Gayle Rubin called the “charmed circle” of “good, normal, natural and blessed sexuality: heterosexual, married, monogamous, procreative”.3 This type of sexual membership of politicians would have a bearing on the crafting of sexual policies in Singapore. For many years, the PAP uniform has been white, presumably to signify purity or clean government — although Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong now

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wears bolder colours in order to reach out to the younger electorate. Whatever the colours or motifs of their garments, PAP members exude an austere sense of appearance: none of them wears Hugo Boss jackets or fancy designer items, and there is no ostentatious display of their wealth. They downplay lifestyle and consumption in favour of what they believe as substance in the quality of governance. If the PAP sets strict and high standards of sexual propriety on their members and has no record of sex scandals among its members, if the Members of Parliament (MP) are so spartan in their public lifestyles, then their approach towards sexuality is likely to follow the productionist ethic rather than the consumption ethic. This point can be fleshed out in the analysis of demographic policies of the state. THE DEMOGRAPHIC INJUNCTION: GO FORTH AND MULTIPLY In the 1970s, public announcements and posters exhorted Singaporean families to “stop at two” children. Then in 1987, Singaporeans were asked to have “three, or more if you can afford it”. The new slogan carried a socially stratified message that some Singaporeans were encouraged to have more children, while the other less economically fortunate ones needed neither encouragement nor incentives to produce babies. In this sense, the demographic policy is also an eugenics policy concerned with not just the quantity but also the quality of the population. In 1983, Lee Kuan Yew observed a “lopsided” pattern of procreation and marriage, where the poorly educated were having large families, while the highly educated women were either not married or not producing enough babies to replace the next generation of their own kind.4 He felt that this would have negative implications on the economy and future of Singapore because the “talent pool” was said to be shrinking. The policy to encourage selective breeding was popularly known as “graduate mother scheme”. Graduate singles were offered matchmaking services run by the state, euphemistically called the Social Development Unit (now known as the Social Development Network). Married women with university or professional degrees having more children were offered tax incentives, reduced hospital charges, and priority in school registration for their children. Conversely, low-income and low educated mothers were offered a S$10,000 cash grant if they got sterilized before the age of thirty after one or two children — the grant to be kept in the provident fund or used for the purchase of public housing.

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Over the years, the package of incentives to have more children were extended both in size and to a wider target group. Women with non-university degree, but basic secondary school passes, are now eligible to take advantage of monetary and material benefits if they take up the call to procreate. On offer now are more tax reliefs, lowered delivery charges, reduced maid levy, more childcare subsidies, more paid and unpaid maternity leave, public housing allocation, “baby bonuses” (S$500 per year for six years for the second birth, and S$1,000 per year for six years for the third birth), and so on. In addition, the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports regularly produces billboard posters, television advertisements, and public service announcements to celebrate the virtues of marriage and procreation. Programmes to make workplaces family-friendly seek to make life easier for women to have both a career and a family. The state also stepped in to play Cupid by launching a “Romancing Singapore” campaign. Started in 2002, and timed around the whole month of Valentine’s Day, this is an annual drive to encourage people to date. A one-million dollar “Partner Connection Fund” is doled out to private dating agencies to facilitate the “social interaction opportunities” for singles.5 Given that it has spent millions of dollars on matchmaking singles, on the myriad of programmes to encourage marriage and family formation, and on the ever-increasing package of incentives for people to procreate, the state is clearly a sponsor of heterosexual privilege. But this heterosexual privilege does not extend to single parents: unwed mothers or divorced parents are not recognized as “families” and are therefore not entitled to the range of incentives given to married women who procreate.6 WHERE IS THE SEX IN DEMOGRAPHY? Singapore’s population policies underscore the productionist ethic of sex. Sex — particularly heteronormativity — is articulated not in the context of pleasure or expressivity (for consumption), but in the context of instrumentality: sex for the purpose of making babies. The obsession with babies (measured by the amount of resources to entice mothers to breed) is underpinned by economic concerns: Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has warned Singaporeans that they will either have to produce more babies or welcome more migrants if the country is going to sustain economic growth and living standards … ‘If we want our economy to grow, if we want to be strong internationally, then we need a growing population’ argued Lee.7

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When officials see low fertility rates in Singapore, they anticipate negative effects such a shrinking and ageing population would have on the economy.8 To keep the economy buoyant and growing, more people are said to be needed either by way of relaxing immigration rules to let foreigners come in, or by exhorting the local population to procreate. In the latter option, procreative sex is therefore necessary to sustain economic growth. However, procreation policies are framed in heteronormative terms of marriage and the family as if this were the only right way to have children, ruling out single parenthood and gay/lesbian adoption of children. The state takes the initiative at all stages to facilitate heteronormativity, from acting as matchmaking agency to providing scenarios favourable towards marriage and family formation. But the state’s instrumentalist approach to sex as procreation is at odds with social realities and the consumerist ethic that most Singaporeans are caught up in. Firstly, social change in every part of the world has ruptured the holy trinity of marriage, sex, and reproduction. In a previous historical period, the norm was to get married to have sex to have children. But technology, shifting work demands, urban living and other social forces have hastened the separation and independence of marriage, sex, and reproduction. In-vitro fertilization enables reproduction without marriage and sex; contraceptives enable sex without marriage and reproduction; single parenting does away with marriage; and companionate relationships can be forged without sex and children. Singaporean singles who take up state-sponsored dating schemes may find their mates, but the delinking of marriage, sex, and reproduction does not guarantee any desired outcome of reproduction. Secondly, global trends reinforce consumerist meanings of sex. The commodification of sex, whether in the form of the sex industry, sex tourism, sex in advertising, sex in movies, or cyber sex, presumes the logic of sex for fun and pleasure, and never for the purpose of procreation. Some attempts to inject fun into the lives of Singaporeans — through nude revues like the now discontinued Crazy Horse, bar-top dancing, movie ratings based on age — recognize the consumerist demands for sex. Nevertheless, the state’s injunctions for the population to procreate takes the fun out of sex. One is not inspired to have sex simply to procreate, and one is even less inspired to procreate simply to increase the population for economic growth. Here, the personal motivations and the private decisions to engage in sex do not gel with the official call to procreate for the sake of the economy. To that extent, pro-natalist policies do not work in spite of progressively increased incentives for married women to breed. To increase

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the size of the economy, Singapore has to rely on the other option — population outsourcing. Today, out of the 4.8 million people in Singapore, about a million are non-resident foreigners: they have been “outsourced” from overseas to work or study and to live in Singapore.9 PUNISH THE NON-PROCREATIVE The pro-natalist policies that tip the scale in favour of heteronormativity are bound to alienate segments of the population that either do not procreate or do not define their identities on the basis of childbirth. Singaporean singles have fewer privileges of access to public housing, the hiring of domestic help, tax breaks, and even vacation time. Thus, in the workplace, they may have to sacrifice their holidays which are preempted by married colleagues who get priority to go under the benefit of quality “family” time. Singles are not defined as “family” units even if many of the unmarried have to take care of their aged parents or disabled siblings. As same-gender relationships have no official status in Singapore, many gays and lesbians come under the rubric of being “single”. But sexual orientation compounds the dilemma of being single, particularly for gays who have been subjected to criminalization, police harassment, and various types of discrimination. In spite of all the trappings of a global commercial centre with first class infrastructural facilities, Singapore still has sexual laws that date back more than 150 years ago. The British colonial administration instituted the Penal Code outlawing “unnatural sex” (Section 377) and “gross indecency” (Section 377A), with stipulated penalties ranging from life imprisonment to fines and caning.10 In the 1980s and 1990s, before the proliferation of gay bars and before the arrival of online dating, men who sought to meet other men for intimacy would find niches in parks, beaches, swimming pools, and restrooms. The police conducted sting operations in these settings, using agent provocateurs to entice these men. Those arrested were sentenced to caning, fines and/or imprisonment. In addition, public exposure through newspaper stories added another form of punishment and stigmatization. But after 1994, police decoys were seldom used to arrest men seeking other men, and by 1995, criminal prosecution of homosexual behaviour waned. In 2003, there was a public call to review the “unnatural sex” law under Section 377 of the Penal Code. It was spurred by a heterosexual case where a police coastguard was sentenced to two years jail for receiving oral sex from a consenting female. Outraged that even consenting oral sex in private was

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criminalized, many ordinary adults wondered whether they were sexual criminals simply because they partook in sex that the law books defined as “unnatural”. Letters flooded the forum pages of the newspapers calling for a repeal of this antiquated law. Four years later, the debate over amendments to the Penal Code reached a crescendo when online petitions were made to repeal or to retain Section 377A and fiery speeches were made by two Nominated Members of Parliament (NMP) on opposite sides of the camp. In October 2007, Prime Minister Lee arrived at a decision that bifurcated sexual identity and sexual behaviour: oral and anal sex when conducted by heterosexuals would be decriminalized, but the same acts when conducted by gays would remain as criminal offences. A provisio was added that the law, however, would not be proactively enforced against gays.11 THE CULTURAL ALIBI: WE ASIANS ARE CONSERVATIVE The most prevalent discourse to justify sexual policies or justify the refusal to change sexual policies is the rhetoric of “Asian values”.12 Asian virtue is pitted against Western decadence, Asian conservatism against Western liberalism. Such constructions rely on an “occidentalist” reading of the West as enemy or as foil for the (mis)representation of Asia.13 When the police coastguard who was convicted for receiving oral sex from a consenting female appealed against the sentence of two years jail, then Chief Justice Young Pung How argued in defense of the oral sex law, “This is Asia … there are certain offences against Asian culture.”14 At the World Human Rights Conference in Vienna in 1993, then Foreign Minister Wong Kan Seng claimed: “Homosexual rights are a Western issue, and are not relevant at this conference.”15 Echoing this view, former foreign service official Kishore Mahbubani said, “… some of the demands of these (Western) human rights activists would be unacceptable under any conditions. Most Asian societies would be shocked by the sight of gay rights activists on their streets.”16 In a 11 December 1998 CNN live interview, a viewer phoned in to ask Lee Kuan Yew the prospects of accepting gays in the future. Lee replied, “Well, it’s not a matter which I can decide or any government can decide. It’s a question of what a society considers acceptable. And as you know, Singaporeans are by and large a very conservative, orthodox society, a very, I would say, completely different from, say, the United States and I don’t think an aggressive gay rights movement would help.”17

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Before relinquishing his post as Prime Minister, Goh Chok Tong made his final National Day Rally Speech on 17 August 2003. There, he said, “let me stress that I do not encourage or endorse a gay lifestyle. Singapore is still a traditional and conservative Asian society.”18 When Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong spoke in October 2007 against the repealing of gay sex law, he also harped on the theme that “Singapore is still a conservative society that values the conventional family unit.”19 Although Singapore officials invoke Asian culture, constructed as sexually conservative, to justify the selective retention of sex laws, the fact remains that these legal codes had Western origins in Victorian England. There were no conceptualizations of “unnatural sex” or “sodomy”, and no outlawing of same-gender intimacies in ancient China, Japan, and India.20 Similarly, NMP Thio Li-ann’s arguments against the decriminalization of gay sex were not based on any readings of Asian traditions, but were recycled from the language of American evangelicals and conservative politicians.21 Are Singaporeans really sexually conservative? No survey of sexual attitudes can elicit reliable and valid data because, particularly with regard to questions about sex, respondents are bound to give socially acceptable answers even if they may in practice do just the opposite. The gaps between attitudes and behaviour and between one’s own behaviour and one’s attitude towards other’s behaviour are notoriously wide in the field of sexuality. Perhaps it is not the majority of Singaporeans, but a loud (religious conservative) minority that is conservative? A multicultural society is neither uniform nor consensual. And increasing heterogeneity brought about by the influx of foreigners calls forth greater acceptance of diversity and differences. Perhaps the construction of Singaporeans as “sexually conservative” tells us more about the constructors than about Singaporeans? The PAP elite are rulemakers, and those rules prohibit rather than enable, restrict rather than empower. In their own prolific production of rules, they may (mis)construe the population as rule-bound and therefore conservative. And yet their austerity in consumption, their productionist attitude towards sex, and their scandal-free record all signify that Singapore politicians are themselves far more sexually conservative than they have made their constituencies to be. IT’S BACK TO THE ECONOMY AGAIN While the discourse on Asian/Singaporean conservativism is used to rationalize a particular policy position towards sexual minorities, there is another discourse that expresses the relationship between gays and the state. In July 2003, then

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Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong announced in TIME magazine that gays were allowed to work in “certain positions in government”.22 Pitched to an international audience, he was explicitly courting foreign talent to work and live in Singapore. Goh’s apparently new stance towards gays was part of a wider economic policy of positioning Singapore as a global city that embraces talent regardless of borders and sexual orientation.23 Richard Florida’s ideas were buzzwords at that time when he popularized the argument that gays have critical roles to play in the global economy. Using “bohemian”, “diversity”, and “gay” indices, Florida demonstrated that all cities caught up in the global circuit of competitive business thrive on a “creative class” of gays, geeks, and bohemians.24 In the drive to attract foreign professionals and to retain talented citizens, Singapore needed to relax its stance towards gays. Goh’s welcoming of gays in employment appeared to be a positive step towards official acknowledgement of sexual minorities. But it was a rhetorical pronouncement not translated into concrete changes in policy. There were no anti-discrimination statutes, no partnership benefits, no list of gay-friendly companies written anywhere either in laws or official charters. In fact, Goh’s “acceptance” was conditional: gay sex would still remain in criminal statutes (even if not enforced), and there would be no flaunting of sexuality. Hence gay parades were tabooed. Goh’s discourse of economic acceptance of gays does not radically diverge from the productionist ethic of heterosexual sex as procreation. The instrumentalist approach towards heteronormativity ties sex with the economy: sex is necessary to produce and reproduce population numbers both as labour force and consumer demand. Similarly, the state relates to gays in instrumental ways, based not on how much the state loves gays, but how much gays can contribute to the economy. It is not gays as a generic group that is embraced (hence, no civil rights are instituted); only those specific gays who are talented, entrepreneurial, and economically successful would have a place in Singapore. Nevertheless, as with all controversial issues, there are different levels of societal acceptance. While talented gays are welcomed in the economic sphere, the moral conservatism amongst many Singaporeans results in a less open stance when it comes to schools and students. For example, in May 2007, an awardwinning gay poet, Alfian Sa’at, who was temporarily teaching in a neighbourhood school was dismissed not by the school principal, but by the Ministry of Education. No explicit reasons were given. In September 2007, Otto Fong, a teacher from an elite school wrote about his gay story on his webblog. Education officials pressed him to delete his coming out story. These two cases illustrate that,

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at least in the teaching profession, the talented and accomplished must content with the greater presence of moral conservatism. Likewise for the mainstream media. For instance, the popular Taiwanese film, Formula 17 about happy gay teens, was banned; a TV station was fined for airing a talk show on Ellen Degeneres’ relationship with Anne Heche; a gay Manazine had its circulation reduced for featuring raunchy male models; and a gay website portal was ordered to tone down its contents. SEXUAL CITIZENSHIP: BEING GAY AND SINGAPOREAN Understandably, the state’s policy towards gays has generated resistance and counter-discourses. Just as the Stonewall movement in America was born out of police harassment of sexual minorities, gay and lesbian communities in Singapore are forged out of police scrutiny. In the 1970s–1980s, gay and lesbian networks were loosely focused around the sociability of bars, discos, and informal gatherings.25 The arrest of men cruising for sex in public places in the 1980s angered many gay men who then banded together to form People Like Us (PLU). Tasked with the goals of decriminalizing gay sex and petitioning for equality, this movement began in 1993 and grew to a point where its members soon sought legal status. However, its application was rejected twice by the Registrar of Societies. PLU then went online (Signel discussion group, and Yawning Bread blog), and its membership increased and widened. Meanwhile, cyberspace provides alternative spaces to sexual minorities which otherwise would face great obstacles operating in a state-controlled environment. A wide spectrum of home-grown lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgendered (LGBT) are now found on the web.26 A small city-state such as Singapore has a disproportionately large, diverse, and ever-expanding number of LGBT networks. It may seem paradoxical to have such a large LGBT network in a country that has not repealed Section 377A. However, it does underline the ongoing search for the right balance that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong wanted to strike when he declared that the gay sex law would not be repealed, but would not be strictly enforced either. Nevertheless, the existence of Section 377A continues to be a source of contention for the gay community because no civil law can advance ahead of something that is defined as illegal. As long as homosexual acts are punishable under the Penal Code, issues such as gay employment, provisions for civil unions, or adoption rights for gay couples, remain off-limits. Inequality connects with the larger question of citizenship. Citizenship is not just a matter of legal

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membership of a nation-state with duties such as military conscription and entitlements such as voting and welfare benefits. Citizenship is also about belonging and inclusion. Inequality and discrimination would create hierarchies of citizenship favouring some and alienating others. Currently, there is a discourse of “sexual citizenship” which recognizes that citizens have sexualities that matter in public life, and which entails a set of sexual rights and duties covering sexual practices, identities, relationships and lifestyle consumption.27 Gay groups in Singapore have used National Day to examine meanings of sexual citizenship: Does National Day incorporate all citizens, including gay, lesbian and transgendered Singaporeans, or does it marginalize these people? Can one be proud of being a Singaporean, and also be “out, loud, proud” of one’s sexual identity? Or does being a Singaporean mean the desexualization of the self in favour of a national (neutered) identity? These questions were asked in 2001 by Fridae.com, a commercial enterprise that ran a “Nation” party for LGBT on National Day. This “circuit party” was so successful that it attracted about 8,000 participants from all over the world in 2004. LGBT in Singapore were then happy that they were able to party as LGBT at the same time as they were celebrating the nation’s birthday. Nation spawned a second party called “Snowball” that was held around Christmas time. But Nation and Snowball became victims of their own success. The in-yourface flamboyance of men kissing each other, of men flaunting their gym-toned bodies, of men unapologetically proud of their sexuality all began to test the limits of government tolerance of gays. In December 2004, the police denied a licence for the “Snowball” party. The Senior Minister of State for Health attributed a rise in AIDS cases to these circuit parties. The ban on such parties merely compelled Fridae to relocate the parties in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Phuket. In response PLU organized “IndigNation” in 2005. Timed again on National Day and alluding to notions of nationality (inclusion versus exclusion, equality versus inequality), “IndigNation” consisted of a series of art displays, literary readings, film screenings, talks, and events running over a fortnight. Expressing resistance through cultural forms created some unease among the authorities. In 2007, four “IndigNation” events were banned: a photo exhibition of samegender couples kissing, a gay story reading, a pink picnic at the Singapore Botanic Gardens, and a lecture by Douglas Sanders on gays and international law. Nevertheless, both the “Nation party” and “IndigNation” events have openly debated the meaning of sexual citizenship in Singapore. As the country is swept by the fervour of nationalism on National Day, LGBT feel compelled to be included in this shared imagination of nation and community bonding.

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CONCLUSION The local newspapers constantly bombard Singaporeans with headlines boasting of the top airline in the world, the best airport, the most competitive city to do business, the least corrupt country, the most globalized nation, and so on. The “management of success” narratives also offer laudatory portraits of the Singapore story.28 But if economic and material success alone does not make a person complete, so too a nation and its leaders should not be measured solely by the ability to deliver economic goods. While the term “sexual welfare” is not found in the vocabulary of state policies in Singapore, sexuality represents the human project of life, regeneration, intimacy, and social connectivity. People do not just live in flats, save money, and grow old; they have sexual lives, needs, and wants. The scorecard of sexual governance would then assess a country according to how it regards sexuality, how the intimate lives of individuals are nurtured, and how minorities are treated. In Singapore, the relationship between the state and sexuality is mediated by the economy. The instrumentalist approach towards heterosexuality treats sex as procreation principally to supply talent, labour, and demand for the economy. And the instrumentalist approach towards gays offers selective and limited tolerance to those who can contribute to the economy. In matters of sexuality, Singapore leaders acknowledge that they do not lead, they follow — and they follow what they perceive as the social norms of conservative society. In situations of inequality and injustice, laws are usually relied upon to right the wrongs. If a “conservative” society discriminates and oppresses, then the laws would be amended to encourage acceptance and equality. But the decision not to repeal the gay sex law leaves the status quo intact. In this sense, laws have little role to play in social change. If politics and lawmaking do not keep in step with ever-changing social trends, they may lag behind other social institutions. This may result in well meaning policies that are not effective because they ignore such trends. For example, in contemporary Singapore, marriage, sex, and reproduction are not always coterminous and so policies encouraging people to marry do not necessarily result in the desired outcome — reproduction. Meanwhile, whether local politics or laws acknowledge it or not, LGBT will continue to form communities and develop in cosmopolitan formats linked to the global digitalized world. The challenge for the government would not only be to placate the morally conservative, but also to be inclusive of sexual minorities in accordance with notions of fairness, equality, and social justice.

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NOTES 1. George Robb, “Marriage and Reproduction”, in Palgrave Advances in the Modern History of Sexuality, edited by H.G. Cocks and Matt Houlbrook (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). 2. Jonathan Katz, The Invention of Heterosexuality (New York: Dutton, 1995). 3. Gayle Rubin, “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality”, in American Feminist Thought At Century’s End, edited by Linda Kauffman (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1993). 4. Chee Heng Leng and Chan Chee Khoon, eds., Designer Genes: I.Q., Ideology and Biology (Petaling Jaya: INSAN, 1984). 5. Bernice Han, “Singapore government plays Cupid for Valentine’s Day”, Yahoo News, 13 February 2008, (accessed 14 February 2008). 6. “Why Single Mums Don’t Get Govt-paid Leave”, Straits Times Forum, 6 February 2007. 7. Kalinga Seneviratne, “Singapore: Make Love, Not Work”, Asia Times, 26 August 2006, (accessed 14 February 2008). 8. See Yap Mui Teng’s “The Ageing Population” in this volume for a discussion on the social and political consequences of an ageing population. 9. See Noorashikin Abdul Rahman’s “Managing Labour Flows: Foreign Talent, Foreign Workers and Domestic Help” in this volume for a discussion on foreign labour in Singapore. 10. See Michael Hor’s “The Penal Code Amendments of 2007: Lessons in Love” in this volume for a discussion on Section 377A and criminal law in Singapore. 11. “Gay Sex Law Will Not be Strictly Enforced”, Business Times, 24 October 2007. 12. Michael Barr, Cultural Politics and Asian Values: The Tepid War (London: Routledge, 2002). 13. Ian Buruma, Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies (New York: Penguin, 2004). 14. “CJ Halves Oral-sex Sentence”, Straits Times, 18 February 2004. 15. Wong Kan Seng, “Statement by Wong Kan Seng, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Singapore, Vienna, 16 June 1993”, in Human Rights and International Relations in the Asia Pacific, edited by James T.H. Tang (New York: Pinter, 1995). 16. Kishore Mahbubani, “An Asian Perspective on Human Rights and Freedom of the Press”, in Debating Human Rights: Critical Essays From the United States and Asia, edited by Peter Van Ness (London: Routledge, 1999), p. 95. 17. “CNN Interview with Lee Kuan Yew”, Sunday Times, 13 December 1998. 18. Goh Chok Tong, “National Day Rally Speech 2003”, (accessed 14 February 2008).

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19. “PM Lee: Why Singapore Must Leave Section 377A Alone”, Straits Times, 24 October 2007; see also “Traditional Values Rule But With Space for Gays”, Straits Times, 24 October 2007. 20. Adrian Carton, “Desire and Same-Sex Intimacies in Asia”, in Gay Life and Culture: A World History, edited by Robert Aldrich (London: Thames & Hudson, 2006). 21. Janadas Devan, “377A Debate and the Rewriting of Pluralism”, Straits Times, 27 October 2007. 22. Simon Elegant, “The Lion in Winter”, TIME, 7 July 2003, (accessed 4 February 2005). 23. Meredith Weiss, “Who Sets Social Policy in Metropolis? Economic Positioning and Social Reform in Singapore”, New Political Science 27, no. 3 (2005): 267–91. 24. Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class (New York: Basic Books, 2002). 25. Russell Heng Hiang Khng, “Tiptoe Out of the Closet: The Before and After of the Increasingly Visible Gay Community in Singapore”, in Gay and Lesbian Asia, edited by Gerard Sullivan and Peter Jackson (New York: Harrington Press, 2001). 26. Red Queen and Sayoni comprise lesbian and bisexual women; SgButterfly is a community of transgendered people; PLUME covers young LGBT below twentyfour years old; PLU.EDU.SG is a forum for teachers; SAFE provides resources to parents/friends of LGBT; ADLUS caters to the sports-oriented; Buddhists can turn to Heartland.Sg while Christians have the option of Safehaven or Living Water; and those seeking counselling can find support from Oogachaga; and Pelangi is an archival and resource bank. Commercial sites such as Fridae, Trevi and New Urban Male add to the pink economy of LGBTs. 27. See Kenneth Plummer, Intimate Citizenship: Private Decisions and Public Dialogues (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001); Diane Richardson, Rethinking Sexuality (London: Sage, 2000); Jeffrey Weeks, “The Sexual Citizen”, in Theory, Culture and Society 15, nos. 3–4 (1999): 35–53. 28. Kernial Sandhu and Paul Wheatley, Management of Success: The Moulding of Modern Singapore (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1989).

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CONCLUSION TERENCE CHONG

I

n the penultimate chapter in the 1989 volume of Management of Success, the editors made several observations which bear revisiting. Their observations quite adequately described the Zeitgeist of the late 1980s; a time when Singapore was emerging from a recession, exploring new growth industries, and in anticipation of political transition. Revisiting these observations, and adding a few of our own will, it is hoped, present an intellectual and policy-making trajectory between 1989 and the present, while also reserving analytical space for scholars of tomorrow to address the questions that cannot be answered today. One key impression from the 1989 volume is the centrality of the People’s Action Party (PAP) government to Singaporean life. According to Sandhu and Wheatley, “Little is denied to those who command the relevant knowledge, dispose of the necessary power, and possess the requisite will; and the Singapore Government has manifested all three qualities in good measure.”1 After twenty years, this is still generally the case although there are some crucial differences. The PAP government continues to possess the “relevant knowledge” today in a variety of fields from the economy, niche industries, research and development, security and so on, by earnestly engaging the appropriate experts, and studying the experiences and models offered by others. As Sandhu and Wheatley note: “The point is that the government has habitually sought, discussed, and evaluated the best advice obtainable at a particular time.”2 This was true then, and it remains so today. Nevertheless, the world today is vastly different from what it was in 1989 given the intensity of the internal globalization of the national economy resulting in the unravelling socio-political consequences of foreign labour, the widening wage gap, the dependence on foreign capital, and external globalization in the form of systematic state investments overseas. The ramifications of globalization are still unfolding. Given Singapore’s ever-deepening ties to 594

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the global economy the sheer number of possible outcomes makes the notion of “relevant knowledge” rather, well, irrelevant. This uncomfortable fact of life has been acknowledged by the civil service elites. Head of civil service Peter Ho, borrowing American philosopher Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s phrase, warns that “As more black swans appear, they will transform the world we live in, in unrecognisable ways that we cannot fully predict.”3 Ho goes on to suggest that “Rather than plan exhaustively for every contingency before we move, we should adopt a ‘search and discover’ approach: act before the window closes, and act boldly in areas where we sense opportunities. We must be prepared to experiment, even if we cannot be entirely certain of the outcome.”4 All this marks a paradigm shift from how the PAP government defines knowledge relevance and, perhaps, signals its willingness to acknowledge that it does not have all the answers or strategies. Whether or not the state, or civil service — whose primary strength is the very predictability and stability that come with bureaucracy — can become fleet-footed and experimental in its approach to public policies that touch the lives of millions, remains to be seen. This is perhaps something that the next volume can shed light on. With regard to the PAP government’s possession of “necessary power”, the chapters in this volume have shown clear links between the government and other conventional apparatuses such as the civil service, the media, trade unions and so on. These apparatuses have, over the years, been nurtured to share the nation-building visions held by the PAP elite, and they continue to be unapologetically pro-PAP in their everyday functions. This has, in effect, resulted in the ongoing expansion of state powers. Take for example, the Penal Code amendments of 2007 which saw the expansion and modification of the scope of nineteen existing offences and the introduction of nineteen new offences.5 One such example is the amendment to Section 141 regarding unlawful assembly. Previously any outdoor gathering of more than four people required a police permit, but with the amendment, a gathering of five or more people, whose “common object is to commit any offence, and not just those relating to public tranquility”, is now deemed to be an “unlawful assembly”.6 However, with the newly amended Public Order Bill in April 2009, even a one-man protest will now be interpreted by the PAP state as an “illegal assembly”. With PAP backbenchers criticizing such authoritarian regulations as “overkill”, it is clear that the government will constantly seek what it perceives to be the “necessary power” to govern the way it sees fit.7 All this is, of course, subjected to a spectrum of criticisms, ranging from the stifling of political opposition, the retarding of Singaporean society’s political growth, and overreliance on

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the PAP government for all matters, both at a national and municipal level, resulting in demanding yet apathetic polity. In response, PAP leaders would claim that without the enforced alignment of these apparatuses in a diverse yet minuscule country, there would be little evidence of the material affluence we see today. The question as to whether or not this claim can be counterfactually verified remains open. Nevertheless it is safe to say that the majority of Singaporeans are comfortable with the state’s ongoing consolidation of power. And for those who are not, their disapproval is either not great enough to produce a sustained protest, or is grudgingly traded off for the efficiency in everyday Singapore life that has been produced by the symbiotic relationship between the government and these apparatuses. However, the chapters in this volume have also shown that in certain areas such as the internet, civil defiance, sexual politics, identity formations, and so on, the PAP government’s influence is less obvious. These chapters have concluded that a conventional show of the state’s power to regulate or inhibit Singaporeans and their activities in various areas will be to the long-term detriment of the PAP government’s relations with younger Singaporeans. In providing greater leeway for Singaporeans to express themselves, the PAP government has adopted a gradual and measured approach to political liberalization. The reasons for this liberalization include the need to project a more pluralist image of the city-state as it portrays itself as a global city to the international community; an increasingly educated and politically sophisticated citizenry; and the need to provide Singaporeans with a greater stake in the country. As such, while the PAP government still possesses the necessary power to censor critics and criticisms, the changing socio-political conditions and demography have raised the political stakes for any overt demonstration of this power. Several concessions have also been made in the political realm. Schemes such as the Nominated Member of Parliament (NMP) and the Non-constituency Member of Parliament (NCMP) were introduced in response to the greater demand for critical voices in Parliament. Other forms of liberalization include the exemption of indoor lectures and events from the need to apply for public entertainment licence in 2004.8 From August 2008 to March 2009, a further slew of government announcements and reports reinforced the impression that serious changes to liberalize the political space were on the agenda. It began with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s National Day Rally Speech on 17 August 2008 where he announced that the government would review the ban on “party political films”. While noting that politics was still “a serious matter”, he observed that it was no longer feasible to continue with such bans given the increasing presence

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of new media communications such as podcasting and blogs in everyday life. This announcement, alongside the revelation that protests and demonstrations would now be allowed at Speaker’s Corner, increased the impression of liberalization. In March 2009, several amendments were made to the Films Act. At the parliamentary debate, then Senior Minister of State for Information, Communications and the Arts Lui Tuck Yew announced that “party political films” which contained live recordings of election rallies, public speeches or processions, as well as anniversary celebration videos by political parties, would be allowed. Other types of “party political films” that would be permitted would be documentaries “made without any animation and composed wholly of an accurate account depicting actual events, persons and situations”, or films made by political parties or election candidates of their manifesto and policies.9 The political sphere tool has not been left out. On 27 May 2009, PM Lee proposed three major changes to the country’s electoral system. Firstly, to increase the number of NCMPs in Parliament to at least nine; secondly, to make the NMP scheme a permanent one; and thirdly, to increase the number of Single Member Constituencies (SMCs), reduce the number of six-member Group Representation Constituencies (GRCs), and increase the number of five-member GRCs. The reason for these changes, according to the government, was to encourage a wider range of views in Parliament, including opposition and nongovernment views. However, could there be another political and strategic agenda? There has been a clear and irrefutable trend in Southeast Asian societies in recent times towards greater democratization. Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia have all undergone greater political liberalization in the past few years, with greater evidence of pluralist democracy at work. More importantly, such events have been closely watched by young Singaporeans. On platforms such as internet forums and public seminars, many Singaporeans have openly wondered why Singapore has not yet achieved such political liberalization and when would it do so? There can be no doubt that the PAP government is aware of such aspirations from the young. PM Lee’s announcements may thus be a matter of keeping up with the Jones’, politically speaking. It makes better sense to have these pre-emptive changes before the comparisons between the oneparty state and more politically pluralistic neighbours become too loud. These changes may be seen as a political valve that releases pent-up pressure from idealistic young Singaporeans clamouring for more opposition in Parliament, ensuring that Singapore’s political system, while not liberal, does not lag too far behind sentiments from the ground.

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Of the three changes, the increase in NCMP seats has garnered the most attention. This is because, together with the nine compulsory NMP seats, there will be eighteen guaranteed non-PAP MPs in Parliament. This is unprecedented since 1965. There are, nevertheless, several concerns. Firstly, could the mandatory presence of NCMPs in Parliament persuade voters to cast their votes elsewhere, safe in the knowledge that oppositional voices are guaranteed? Would this move spell a dip in the popular vote for the opposition? Secondly, with more NCMP seats up for grabs, would opposition parties find it harder to agree amongst themselves which constituencies to contest, thus splitting the opposition vote? Thirdly, does this mean greater oppositional presence with fewer voting rights? NCMPs, after all, have limited voting rights and cannot vote on constitutional matters, public funds, no confidence motion or to remove the President. Whether or not such proposed changes will quell public cynicism over political openness remains to be seen. However it is increasingly clear that the PAP government has had to address the disparity between the country’s economic and political maturity. The more liberal and pluralist demands from Singaporeans have, in the past, been suspended in favour of the government’s developmentalist agenda. These demands now have to be addressed after over four decades of economic growth and material affluence. There is also little doubt that the PAP government possesses the “requisite will” to push through unpopular public policies. And there certainly has been no shortage of them. In 1994 we saw the White Paper on “Competitive Salaries for Competent and Honest Government” which pegged the salaries of ministers and administrative officers to the top earners from a pool of six industries namely banking, law, engineering, accounting, multinational corporations, and local manufacturing.10 1994 also saw the introduction of another highly unpopular policy — the Goods and Services Tax (GST). The GST was three per cent when first introduced, then raised to four per cent in 2003, to five per cent in 2004, and to the current seven per cent in 2007. The increase in GST was and remains a convenient rallying cry for opposition parties against the rising cost of living in Singapore. Another unpopular policy is the open door migration policy in the effort to grow the economy. In 1997, approximately 36 per cent of the labour force in Singapore was made up of foreigners and Permanent Residents. In 2006 this figure increased to 40 per cent.11 The increased presence of foreigners has provoked two types of responses from Singaporeans. On one hand, lower-skilled and working-class Singaporeans have expressed insecurity and fear over intensive competition for lower skilled jobs; on the other, middleclass Singaporeans have suggested resentfully that “foreign talent” is usually

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preferred over local expertise for higher-wage jobs. The move to offer Singapore citizenship to sportsmen and sportswomen who may enhance the country’s medal tally in international competition has also draw considerable public flak. The silver medal that the Singapore’s table tennis team won in the women’s event at the 2008 Beijing Olympics — the country’s first since Tan Liang Howe’s silver in the Rome Olympics in 1960 — has only served to fuel the debate, given that all three women in the team were China-born. Last, but certainly not least, is the government’s decision to allow the setting up of not one, but two casinos in the integrated resorts located in Marina Bay and Sentosa in 2006. Conservatives and religious moralists were against the casinos, arguing that widespread gambling addiction and other associated vices would be ushered in, resulting in the breakdown of family unit and values. Pragmatists, in turn, argued that Singaporeans were gambling overseas anyway and that the casinos would boost the employment figures. These unpopular public policies demonstrate not just the PAP government’s resolute will in implementing what it thinks is right or its readiness to face public backlash, but more importantly, the vast amount of political capital and trust it has accrued after generations of consistently delivering the material goods and its history of being right many more times than it has been wrong when it comes to policy decision-making. Detractors may point to the times when the PAP government has, invariably, got it wrong — like the graduate mother policy or the “stop at two” child policy — but not to balance the score with the numerous sound policies in place would be a lapse in objectivity. In this sense, the PAP government’s ability to push through unpopular policies and the goodwill it enjoys from most Singaporeans forms a virtuous cycle where the fruits of unpopular policies make the future implementation of non-populist policies easier. This virtuous cycle has been one of the unique features of governance and state-society relations in Singapore, explaining the phenomenon of the longstanding one-party state. Nevertheless, as the chapters in this volume suggest, this virtuous cycle cannot be taken for granted for a number of reasons. First, a younger, increasingly educated, and cosmopolitan citizenry will demand more than blind faith or a stellar track record to win them over. Unlike their parents’ generation who saw the physical transition from Third to First World before their very eyes, many post-1965 Singaporeans have come to know Singapore only as a developed country and a global city. Because of this, the bond between them and the current PAP government is somewhat different from that between their parents and the first generation leaders. It is less likely that younger citizens will respond

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well to the authoritarian or overtly patriarchal government of yesteryear, thus making it harder to legitimize unpopular policies by merely appealing to track record or traditional authority. Secondly, surveying the vast array of online forums, blogs, and occasional feedback from the general public, shows there is chronic discontent over the widening wage gap, the influx of immigrants and the perceived preference for foreign talent. When this discontent cannot be translated into any meaningful action or satisfaction, it often simmers and mutates into unrealistically high expectations and demands of government leaders, thus providing grounds for criticizing these leaders for not earning their keep. Given this cynical ground, the store of goodwill built from years of material delivery may count for little because of the steady perception among some that government leaders are already well compensated for their services to the nation. Lastly, what if a series of bad policy decisions crop up to impact citizens adversely? Wrong policy decisions may not necessarily reflect incompetence or lack of preparation by the executive or state, but rather the capriciousness of global market forces which no nation-state has control over. With the country so deeply integrated into the global economy, shocks and reverberations elsewhere may affect the local economy in unforeseen ways. Should there be a run of such miscalculated policy decisions over a significant period of time, resulting in a flight of capital, jobs, high cost of living or reduced income affecting a sizeable number of citizens, the virtuous circle of trust and delivery may be broken. This virtuous cycle may also be broken if the government’s interests diverge more dramatically from those of ordinary Singaporeans. This divergence of interests, or lack of empathy for ordinary Singaporeans, is not a new concern. Sandhu and Wheatley wrote that while it is important for the PAP government not to distance itself from the rest of the populace, “This may not be all that easy for many in government to achieve for collectively they are already manifesting certain class-like interests.” As one keen observer of the Singapore scene has noted, members of this group seek their rewards predominantly not in the form of profits and only partly from salaries. “Rather it comes from the power of control over vast assets of the state itself … and from the reflected glory of the very success the state has created in the economy.”12 The chapters in this volume have highlighted several phenomena that continue to mark the government collectively as a class unto itself, such as the commitment to elitism, high ministerial salaries, the underlying rationale of meritocracy, the diminished opportunities for social mobility due to slow economic growth, and the reproduction of class. These phenomena, which ironically are also the outcomes

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of the Singapore success story, will continue, on a broader level, to differentiate the haves from the have-nots. To be sure, life in the Singapore success story has been increasingly less materially successful for many. According to the Department of Statistics, the lowest 20 per cent of households saw their monthly income fall from S$933 in 1998 to S$795 in 2003, while the highest 20 per cent saw theirs grow from S$11,450 to S$12,792 in the same period.13 The Gini coefficient, which measures income distribution disparity, rose from 0.490 in 2000 to 0.522 in 2005.14 It was also reported that Singaporean workers over forty years of age were struggling to find employment. Despite a healthy economy and low unemployment rates, only one in four of the 36,000 over-forty workers managed to secure a job.15 To make matters worse, Singapore’s emigration rate per capita is one of the highest in the world. It was revealed that about 1,000 Singaporeans leave each year, most of whom were highly talented and educated. This is a severe brain-drain for a small nation of 3.7 million citizens and permanent residents, and it is especially worrying because the flight of the educated class is usually associated with developing countries where living conditions are poor. The flight of the educated from Singapore must be seen against the fact that almost 200,000 jobs were created in 2007, far in excess of the 38,000 births recorded. All this begs the question: why are Singaporeans opting out of the success story? The answers range from the high cost of living; Singapore being too regulated and stifling; better career and prospects overseas; preference for a more relaxed lifestyle; and the country’s uncertain future.16 As to how the Singapore story can continue to be told as a success story when more and more highly educated Singaporeans seek a better life and career opportunities overseas is something the PAP government must address. This brings us to another observation made by Sandhu and Wheatley. According to them, “Nevertheless, there are those who look forward to a future in which economic considerations will serve as the engine of the vehicle of development rather than its driver; or, in more formal terms, that the nexus of adaptive (economic) interactions will indeed function as a subsystem of society rather than as a total action system.”17 But has this happened? Has Singapore evolved to a stage where economic criterion is just one of many criteria used to assess the success of society, or is it still the single most important factor for what we do? The general impression one gets from the chapters in this volume is that economic considerations continue to play the role of driver in determining the country’s direction. There are several post-1989 examples that attest to this. The “Global City for the Arts” project, launched in 1991, was a comprehensive attempt to build a world-class arts and culture industry. This national project

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Management of Success

accompanied the setting up of the National Arts Council (NAC) in 1991 and culminated in a national performing arts centre, The Esplanade, in 2002. Rather tellingly, the “Global City for the Arts” project was conceived and initiated by the Economic Development Board (EDB). The primary purpose of the project was to leverage the arts and culture as a growth industry, and to inject entertainment vibrancy into the city-state in order to make it more attractive to foreign talent to come and work and live. That Singaporeans enjoyed the spillover cultural benefits of the government’s efforts to woo foreign talent seems incidental. Another example where economic considerations reigned supreme is, again, the casinos. Staunchly opposed to by previous administrations for moral and ideological reasons, they are now destined to become part of the Singapore landscape because of the trickle-down effects they promise to have on the tourism, hospitality, retail, service, and entertainment industries. The fact that the government was willing to risk the wrath of the sizeable and extremely vocal conservative and religious community for economic benefits speaks volumes. Nevertheless, economic considerations, together with globalization, always usher in cultural and ideological values that do not appeal to everyone. The debates over these cultural, moral, and ideological values will only increase in the public sphere because it is inevitable that as the city-state purposefully reinvents itself to attract global capital and skilled labour, it cannot help but need to be seen to be more open to cosmopolitan values, practices, and tastes, thus allowing for liberal or progressive attitudes to flourish in certain areas. This cultural paradigm shift was noted by Sandhu and Wheatley who wrote that “it is certain that the youthful and expanding middle class which is emerging concurrently with the creation of an information society will manifest attitudes, value orientations, and behavioural patterns very different from these of the electorate which returned the first all-PAP parliament in 1968”.18 One may venture to trace the catalyst of the shifting moral-cultural paradigm in Singapore to the Economic Review Committee Report in 1985 when the recession prompted the PAP government to explore new growth industries such as the service and the arts and culture industries. This report led to the Report on the Advisory Council on the Arts and Culture in 1989, which articulated, for the first time in our national history, a coherent arts policy. The subsequent Censorship Review Committee Report was a watershed because it signalled the higher threshold of state censors; the refinement of the classification system to allow in a greater variety of films and theatre; the setting up of the Drama Review Committee of experts to vet playscripts instead of the previous practice

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Conclusion

603

of having untrained police officers approve them; the exemption of established theatre companies from submitting their scripts for approval; and the resumption of state funding for performance art and forum theatre.19 Gay-themed celebrations such as the “Nation party” and “Snowball” in 2001, and later “IndigNation” from 2005 were well publicized, suggesting that a tentative space was being reserved for the celebration and discussion of alternative lifestyles. In 2005 the French cabaret Crazy Horse, featuring topless dancing women, was brought in to add some spice into the local nightlife. If we look at these examples over the last two decades, it is undeniable that the race for global city status, linked intimately with economic growth, has increased the plurality of cultural and ideological values in Singapore. However, there has been a backlash to this plurality. Cultural and religious conservatives have registered their displeasure over the ongoing liberalization in the arts and entertainment scene. The decision to introduce R(A) adultthemed movies to mainstream cinemas in 1992 met with a torrent of letters from the public to the press and various state agencies decrying the corruption of “Asian values” by “Westernisation”. This reaction was replayed, though less virulently, when Crazy Horse came to town. A number of gay-themed art exhibitions down the years have also met with the same response. But perhaps the two most high-profile issues that epitomized the cultural and ideological divide between Singaporeans were the casinos and the move to repeal Section 377A of the penal code. The opposition to both the casinos and the repealing of Section 377A came primarily from religious conservatives with evangelical Christians leading the charge. As the city-state continues to liberalize in different fields it is not difficult to imagine how certain issues may serve as an umbrella under which different religious groups may rally and forge working-relations in order to resist their more liberal and progressive counterparts. With evangelical Christianity being a predominantly middle-class religion, and the discourse of “religious sensitivity” such a restive and convenient banner in multicultural Singapore, it may not be long before we witness different religions putting aside their theological differences long enough to organize themselves into a coherent voice against cultural and ideological liberalization or the increased presence of alternative lifestyles. This would be akin to Hunter’s account of the American “culture wars”, where religious groups ban together to struggle against progressives and liberals to control different fields of American life.20 And we have already seen hints of these “culture wars” over the family, law, and art, although for now at least societal divisions in Singapore continue to be along the more traditional lines of class, ethnicity, and language. However,

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Management of Success

as Singapore becomes more cosmopolitan and receptive to global influences we have to expect and prepare for a sharper, and perhaps irreconcilable, fragmentation of society. One clear example of this was the Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE) saga in early 2009. It began on 28 March when a new and unfamiliar executive committee (exco) was voted in by a surge of new members, most of whom had only joined the women’s rights group barely three months previously. Many of the new exco members were subsequently found to have strong Christian links and trenchant anti-gay and anti-abortion views. The new exco claimed that AWARE had “lost its focus” in recent years by holding gay and lesbian events. It was later learned that many of these new exco members were members of the same church and were mobilized by a senior Christian lawyer Dr Thio Su Mein who expressed alarm that AWARE had become “pro-lesbian and pro-homosexual”.21 As the saga unfolded, the debate was cast as that between those who desired a more exclusive and conservatively defined NGO, and those who championed an inclusive and liberal stance on civil society. An extraordinary general meeting (EOGM) was called on 2 May to settle the issue. In the run-up to the EOGM both sides exhorted like-minded people to sign up, resulting in a record spike in AWARE’s membership. In the end, a no-confidence motion was passed at the EOGM with 1,414 to 761 votes against the new exco, prompting it to resign. Homosexuality is part of a growing list of “hot button” issues that includes censorship, the casinos, euthanasia, abortion and so on which has divided Singaporeans, irrespective of age, gender and ethnicity. It may not be long before the traditional faultlines of “race” and “religion” recede in Singapore, to be replaced by these “hot button” issues. Nevertheless, the AWARE saga is symptomatic of societal change in Singapore. It exhibited trends such as citizenry mobilization, mass participation, a noisy democratic process and, subsequently, a legitimate conclusion. These trends are forcing the reconsideration of several dominant myths such as the cultural conservatism of Singaporeans, their aversion to liberalism and, most of all, their political apathy. Such trends have grown as undercurrents amongst an increasingly educated, globalized and cosmopolitan populace, and may have thus far been either dismissed by the one-party state as a vocal but nonetheless small segment of larger society, or as the folly of “Westernised” youth. Both miss the larger picture. The signs are that liberalism, both in the cultural and political form, is a rising tide that will not only challenge conservative and authoritarian orthodoxy in its various guises, but also present an individual-centred reality of contemporary

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Conclusion

605

Singaporean society more animated by identity politics than the state-sponsored vision of one that has so-called “Shared Values”. Whether conservative elements respond, or if such trends gain momentum, the outcome is clear — the increasing socio-political and cultural fragmentation of Singapore society. This fragmentation may not necessarily be a bad thing. Some of the drawbacks of a state-sponsored national identity include the naturalization of ruling interests, the marginalization of alternative narratives and identities, and ambivalence over contradicting values within society. And while it would be unrealistic to expect the state to withdraw from the task of defining national identity, it would be equally unrealistic to expect a more vocal and politically aware citizenry not to articulate its own self-interests, sometimes to the angst of others. This fragmenting of society where different groups jostle, mediate, compete, and challenge for the resources to achieve their objectives will offer a more accurate mosaic of a global city. It will make policy-making more complex, resulting in public policies that are narrower in scope and specific in target. It will make politics more nuanced because politicians will have to speak to a variety of interests and decide which to court. The realities of Singapore life including its occasional social injustices and political impasses, will be more readily exposed and addressed by a polity whose diverse values will serve as an internal check. Such a politically mature society that is able to manage its debates in the public sphere without resorting to the tired spectre of riots, bloodshed, and chaos will be genuine evidence of the management of success.

NOTES 1. Singh Kernial Sandhu and Paul Wheatley, “Challenges of Success”, in Management of Success: The Moulding of Modern Singapore, edited by Kernial Singh Sandhu and Paul Wheatley (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1989), p. 1106. 2. Ibid. 3. Peter Ho, “Governance at the Leading Edge: Black Swans, Wild Cards and Wicked Problems”, Ethos, Issue 4, 2008, (accessed 2 June 2008). 4. Ibid. 5. Ministry of Home Affairs, “Consultation Paper on the Proposed Penal Code Amendments”, 8 November 2006, (accessed 10 February 2008). 6. Ibid., p. 2, emphasis by Ministry of Home Affairs. 7. “Shanmugam: Don’t Focus on The Numbers”, Straits Times, 14 April 2009.

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606

Management of Success

8. Conditions for the exemption of indoor events from public entertainment licence include — Only Singaporeans can speak; the event must steer clear of issues related to race or religion; the event must be in the four official languages or related dialects; it must be in an enclosed space that is not within the hearing or view of any person who is not attending or participating. 9. “Changes Proposed to Films Act”, Straits Times, 24 March 2009. 10. The rationale behind this move — to prevent corruption and attract able individuals into government — stirred huge controversy, and gave rise to debates over public service and personal sacrifice on the one hand, and realism and market logic on the other. This benchmarking underwent further refinement in 2000, which inevitably triggered another round of public disgruntlement. This policy to benchmark ministerial salary to top earners continues to be a point of contention for many Singaporeans. 11. Ministry of Manpower, “Employment of Singapore Citizens, Permanent Residents and Foreigners, 1997 to 2006”, paper no. 1/2008 (Singapore: Manpower Research and Statistics Department, 2008). 12. Sandhu and Wheatley, Management of Success, p. 1085. 13. Department of Statistics, “Trends in Household Income and Expenditure, 1993– 2003”, Singapore Statistics Newsletter, September 2005, (accessed 1 March 2008). 14. Department of Statistics, (accessed 1 March 2008). 15. “It’s Still a Struggle for Jobless over-40s”, Straits Times, 4 March 2008. 16. Seah Chiang Nee, “Goodbye and Thank You”, Star Online, 23 February 2008, (accessed 1 March 2008). 17. Sandhu and Wheatley, Management of Success, p. 1106. 18. Sandhu and Wheatley, Management of Success, p. 1087. 19. See Report of Censorship Review Committee 1992 (Singapore: Ministry of Information, Culture and the Arts, 1992); Report of Censorship Review Committee 2003 (Singapore: Ministry of Information, Culture and the Arts, 2003). 20. James Davidson Hunter, Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America (New York: Basic Books, 1991). 21. “Coup Leader Comes Open”, Straits Times, 24 April 2009.

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Index

607

INDEX

A ABC Waters Programme, 423 Abdul Basheer Abdul Kader, 454–55 Abdullah Badawi, 429 Abdul Rahman, Tungku, 417 Abdurrahman Wahid, 33 Abu Dhabi, 179n13 Acer, 150 Acuatico, 432 Administration of Muslim Law Act, 371, 382n119 Advisory Council on the Aged, 190 Advisory Council on the Impact of New Media on Society (AIMS), 266, 268 Agency for Science Technology and Research (A*STAR), 166, 168, 171 Al-Fatiha, 352n8 Alfian Sa’at, 65n19, 588 Aljunied GRC, 102, 106, 111 Allen & Gledhill, 78n19 Al Qaeda, 23 Alsagoff, Lubna, 551 Alston, Philip, 363 Althusser, Louis, 74 Amin, Ash, 412 AmInvestment Bank, 432 Amnesty International, 58, 357 Amritsar, 316

33 Mgt of Success Index

607

Anderson, Benedict, 509, 510, 511 Anson constituency, 102 Anwar Ibrahim, 581 Appadurai, Arjun, 500, 515 AquaGen, 426 architecture, 14, 403, 404, 405–7, 416n46 Artists’ Village, 492 arts, the, 489–503 censorship, 503n31, 602 controversies, 493 global city strategy, 601–2 literature, 547, 548–49 national identity and, 489 Arunajeet Kaur, 316 Asatizah Recognition Scheme, 451 ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), 38–48 Charter, 43, 46, 357 founding, 38–39 free trade agreements, 42–43 India’s relations with, 26 nature conservation and, 390, 398 official language, 540 protection of migrant workers, 368 regional diplomacy, 9, 26–27, 44 security concerns, 22, 446 Singapore and, 125 ASEAN-China Free Trade Area, 42 ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), 42, 45

5/14/10, 11:01 AM

608

Management of Success

ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), 29, 41 ASEAN Plus Three (APT), 27, 41, 44 ASEAN Political-Security Community (APSC), 43 ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), 27, 44 ASEAN Secretariat, 42 ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC), 43 ASEAN Summit, 26, 31 Asian Banker, The, 262 Asian financial crisis ASEAN and, 27, 41 “Asian values” and, 5 defence spending during, 470–71 effect on economy, 126, 132–33, 143, 144 national security and, 462, 477 policy responses to, 86, 162, 499 in relations with Indonesia, 33 Singaporeans and, 281, 283 in Singapore “story”, 1–2 Asian Games, 51 “Asian Tigers”, 4, 143, 147 “Asian values” economic miracle and, 490 human rights and, 4, 355–56 national ideology and, 5, 8–9, 508– 9, 569, 570 religious freedom and, 364 sexuality and, 580, 586–87, 603 vs. Western individualism, 448, 540, 570 Asian Wall Street Journal, 247, 250, 262 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), 27 Asiaweek, 247, 250 Assistive Technology Fund, 359 Association of Muslim Professionals (AMP), 325

33 Mgt of Success Index

608

Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE), 607 AT Kearney Globalization Index, 179n16 Attorney-General, 78n19, 340, 342, 361 Australia, 42, 44, 48n1, 162, 167, 201, 391 Au Waipang, Alex, 10, 100–22, 257–58, 260, 533n21 Azhar Ibrahim, 313 B Baba Malay, 543, 544 Baey Yam Keng, 353n14 BaháÌ Faith, 316 Bahrain, 433 Balakrishnan, Vivian, 53 Bali bombings, 27 Ball, Stephen, 302 Bangkok, 160, 403, 506, 540 Bangkok Declaration, 39, 42, 45 Bangladesh, 48n1, 145, 201 Ban Kah Choon, 550 Barisan Sosialis, 6, 72, 470 Barker, Edmund William (Eddie), 3 Batam, 30, 32, 143, 435n5 Bedok Reservoir, 418, 423 Bedok Water Reclamation Plant, 425, 426 Beijing, 401 Benedek, Andrew, 432 Benjamin, Geoffrey, 536, 555n26 Bennett, Tony, 405, 415n23 biodiversity, 389, 391, 395 biomedical sector. See life sciences sector Bio*One Capital Pte. Ltd., 168 Biopolis, 127, 168 Boat Quay, 423 Botanic Gardens, 389, 525, 590 Boyanese, 2

5/14/10, 11:01 AM

Index

Brahma Kumari Raja Yoga Centre, 314 BreadTalk, 177 British Broadcasting Corporation, 250 British colonial administration English-educated elites and, 7 grant of self-government, 140 Malayan Union proposal, 8 military decampment, 568 racial stereotyping under, 563–64, 576n6 sexual laws, 585 Singapore Constitution and, 69 state secularism, 311 World War II and, 510 Brown, David, 508 Brunei Darussalam, 38, 48n1 Buddhism, 5, 311, 314–15, 319, 321, 322, 325, 593 Bugis, 2 Bukit Timah Nature Reserve (BTNR), 390, 391 Bullockcartwater (blog), 265 Bush Administration, 23, 29 Business Environment Risk Intelligence (BERI), 79n25, 179n16 Business Times, The, 246, 262 Butler, Susan, 540, 555n29 C Caltex, 172 Cambodia, 25, 38, 44, 48n1 Cambridge University, 53, 298 Canada, 48n1, 222 Cantonese, 2 Capital Land, 142, 151 capital punishment, 337, 357, 363, 374n15 Cartier, Carolyn, 405 casinos expansion of services sector, 136, 145, 153, 175

33 Mgt of Success Index

609

609

Lee Hsien Loong’s support for, 55, 57 Marina Bay development and, 405 objections to, 151, 175, 312, 599, 602, 603 as part of global city plan, 499–500 Catholicism, 312, 313, 321, 322–23, 325–26, 492 censorship laws, 73, 602 Central Catchment Area, 390, 391, 393 Central Community Development Council, 574 Central Limit Order Book-traded (CLOB) shares, 31 Central Provident Fund (CPF) Lee Hsien Loong’s initiatives on, 55 Malaysian workers’ savings, 31, 438n42 personnel overlaps, 78n19 as policy tool, 86, 124, 134, 142, 143, 148, 281 public reputation of, 365 savings rate and, 140 social engineering and, 582 social safety net, 73, 84, 194, 274 withdrawal age, 190 Ceylonese, 6 Chang, T.C., 407–8 Changi International Airport, 402 Chan Heng Chee, 67, 101, 276 Chatterjee, Partha, 509 Chee Soon Juan, 103, 106, 107–8, 110, 114, 524, 527–28 Chek Jawa, 394, 395 Cheng San GRC, 106 Cheng Soo May, 199 Chen Kang, 252 Cheong Koon Hean, 403 Chew, Phyllis, 319 Chia, Wynne, 231

5/14/10, 11:01 AM

610

Management of Success

Chiam See Tong, 103, 108, 360–61 Chiang Mai Initiative, 41 Chicago, 412 Chief Justice, 353n12, 472, 586 Chiew Seen Kong, 221, 224, 444 Chin, Yolanda, 15, 443–61 China ancestral origins in, 4, 510 ASEAN and, 41–42, 44, 48n1 Asian financial crisis and, 41 communist government, 139 as competitor of Singapore, 29, 144, 153, 172, 175, 522 economic rise, 135, 137, 144, 147 global cities in, 401, 408 joint economic ventures, 126 modern history, 511–12 opposition parties’ view of, 112 power in region, 22, 23–25, 27 recent immigrants from, 201, 299, 537 relations with Singapore, 9, 23–25 relations with Taiwan, 24–25 sexuality in, 587 Singaporean investments in, 143, 432 source of labour, 145, 201 territorial claims, 24, 40 Chinatown, 423 Chinese community British colonial views of, 563–64, 576n6 chauvinism, 3, 511 clan associations, 567, 569 composition, 2 cultural rehabilitation, 510–12, 569– 70 educational performance, 231, 294, 298 English-educated members, 6, 568 feared “deculturation” of, 508, 555n26, 568

33 Mgt of Success Index

610

housing market and, 577n14 loss of dialects, 543, 547–48, 569 as part of Singapore society, 274, 443, 447 religion in, 311, 315, 572 self-help groups, 571 views on race relations, 572–73 Chinese Development Assistance Council, 571 Chinese-educated class, 7, 510–11, 537, 568, 569–70 Chinese High School, 290 Chinese language. See Mandarin Chinese and individual dialects Chong, Terence, 1–20, 504–20, 594–606 Choy Keen Meng, 10, 123–38 Christianity education system and, 317–19 evangelical, 587, 603 gay rights and, 321, 336, 339–40, 352n8, 593n26 history in Singapore, 313 other religions and, 316, 319, 324, 325–26 proselytization, 5, 311 social services and, 321, 322–23 view of sex, 581 Christian mission schools, 317–19 Chua Beng Huat, 558n54 Chua Lee Hoong, 501n8 Chua Mui Hoong, 98n23 Citigroup, 152, 171 Citizen Historian (blog), 265 Citizens’ Consultative Committees, 566 citizenship in the Constitution, 69 merger proposals and, 7, 8 perceived worth, 516, 589–90, 599 relaxed requirements for, 145, 148, 188–89, 205

5/14/10, 11:01 AM

Index

vs. PR and other statuses, 210–11, 300 women’s rights and, 372 civil disobedience, xvi, 104, 110, 116, 521–35. See also political dissent Civil Service College, 285 civil society the arts and, 495 AWARE episode, 607 growing role, 11, 16, 73, 81, 94 interactions with opposition, 113– 14, 528 mostly non-confrontational stance, 524, 528 PAP promotion of, 522–23 restrictions on, 58, 242 on treatment of foreign labour, 211–13 underdevelopment of, 71 Clarke Air Base, 23 Clinton, Bill, 581 Clinton Administration, 24 Cold War, 9, 21–22, 23, 462 Colin Chan v. Public Prosecutor, 472 Committee on Ageing Issues (CAI), 190, 191–92 Committee on Singapore’s Competitiveness (CSC), 126, 127 Committee on the Employability of Older Workers, 192 Committee on the Problems of the Aged, 189, 190–91 Community Development Councils (CDCs), 68, 211 Community Engagement Programme (CEP), 451, 476, 478, 574, 575 Community Foundation of Singapore, 86

33 Mgt of Success Index

611

611

Complaints Choir Project, 58–59 Compulsory Education Bill, 371 Confrontation, 26, 468 Confucian ethics, 5, 18n10, 272, 508–9, 510, 541, 569–71 Constitution amendments to, 72, 77n7, 106, 342, 367, 471 equal protection clause, 340, 341, 343, 348–49 on fundamental liberties, 68–69, 81–82, 311, 335, 358–59, 369 recognition of minorities, 362 social welfare and, 369 state powers granted by, 245 construction sector, 129–30, 145 Contact Singapore, 202, 214n16 Container Security Initiative (CSI), 23 Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), 356, 359, 360, 365–72 Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), 370 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), 356, 360, 365– 67, 369–71, 377n43 Corak, Miles, 222 Cornell University, 170t Court of Appeal, 360 Creative Technology, 177 Crystal, David, 538–39 Curtin, Michael, 489 D Daniel, Patrick, 249 Das, Chandra, 471 death penalty, 337, 357, 363, 374n15

5/14/10, 11:01 AM

612

Management of Success

Declaration of Religious Harmony, 82, 96n6 defence policy in Malacca Straits, 26 national budget and, 470–71, 473, 483n25 secrecy, 471–72, 477, 480–81 against terrorism, 23, 27 Degeneres, Ellen, 589 Deloitte Singapore, 432 Democratic Kampuchea, 44 demographics ageing population, 11, 57, 89, 183– 97, 236, 237 declining birth rate, 237, 537 impact of immigration, 145, 430 population size, 57, 135, 138n14, 145, 237, 275, 430 Dent, Christopher, 28 desalination, 14, 418, 420t, 421, 426– 27, 431, 437n29, 439n63 Descendants of the Eunuch Admiral, 548 Destitute Persons Act, 369 Development Bank of Singapore (DBS), 142 Dhanabalan, S., 64n8 Direct School Admission (DSA), 293, 294, 299 Doha, 51 Drama Review Committee, 602 Duara, Prasenjit, 511 Dubai, 151, 179n12, 401, 403 Duke University, 170t Durkheim, Emile, 563 Durodie, Bill, 460n46 E Earth Summit 1992, 391, 393 East Asian Institute, 569 East Asia Summit, 26, 27, 44

33 Mgt of Success Index

612

Eastern Sun, 245 Economic Development Board (EDB) Clean Energy Programme, 172 education partnerships, 167, 168 Global City for the Arts plan, 496, 602 incentives for foreign investors, 166, 176 infrastructure development, 162 partnerships with other agencies, 162, 428 economic history 1974–75 recession, 142 1985 recession, 1, 86, 123, 143, 280 1998 Asian financial crisis, 1–2, 86, 280 2001 recession, 144, 148 2008 financial crisis, 39, 123, 128, 132, 145, 152, 281 from founding to independence, 139–40 growth, 2, 217, 218, 251 economic policies for attracting investments, 28–29, 40 exchange rate, 124, 136 factors undermining, 124, 132, 134 focus on international indices, 75, 179n16 industrial restructuring, 123–38, 143–45, 147–48, 152–55, 159–79 overseas investments, 125, 143, 155 post-independence, 140 role of diplomacy, 175–76 state intervention, 28, 86–87, 129, 145, 147–48, 153, 159 tripartism, 73, 82, 83, 141, 368 Economic Restructuring Shares (ERS), 96n8

5/14/10, 11:01 AM

Index

Economic Review Committee (ERC), 127–28 Economist, The, 247, 262 EDB. See Economic Development Board (EDB) EDB Biomedical Sciences Group (BMSG), 168 Edge, The, 262 education, 288–308 competition among schools, 291–94 culture of performativity, 302–4 curricula, 5, 289, 290, 295, 296, 300, 301 digital media and, 173–74 economic productivity and, 4, 12– 13 economic restructuring and, 125, 127, 128, 136, 148 ethnic disparities, 231, 239, 294, 298 fees for non-citizens, 211 government policies, 73, 82, 220, 236, 237, 238 independent and autonomous schools, 289–90 languages of instruction, 538, 551, 552n1, 553n6, 567 marketization, 288, 293, 299 privatization, 237, 303, 307n49 religion and, 317–19 repoliticization of citizenry, 67 rights of women and children to, 371, 372 Singapore as regional hub, 55, 144, 153, 155, 167–70, 237 social cohesion and, 288, 294–300, 303, 566–67, 571 social mobility and, 221–39 Education Endowment Scheme, 304n1 881 (film), 547

33 Mgt of Success Index

613

613

Elected President Scheme, 68, 69 Elections Boundaries Review Committee, 106 Elections Department, 106 electoral system, 100, 101, 104, 106, 275, 597 electronics sector competitors, 172 development, 140, 165, 202 market volatility, 131, 132, 133, 144 role in economy, 127, 131, 135–36, 166, 167t Emerson, Rupert, 443 Emily of Emerald Hill, 548 Empower Singapore Rally, 528 English-educated class cultural position, 510–11, 550, 568 identity formation and, 6–7, 295, 541 religion and, 314 role in politics, 6–9 Singlish as identity marker, 515 English language, 536–60 formal uses, 510, 551, 552n1, 553n6, n8 government attitude to, 16, 538–41, 546–47, 551, 554n22, 555n29 national competence, 539, 557n47, 559n66 national identity and, 7, 546–552 recent immigrants and, 537, 556n40 religion and, 319 Singapore varieties, 539, 550, 556n39 theatre, 492, 548–49 EngMalChin project, 7, 550 Eng Ng Hen, 53 environment, 387–99 civil society and, 389, 396 land reclamation, 392

5/14/10, 11:01 AM

614

Management of Success

loss of biodiversity, 389–91 marine, 395, 396 public attitudes, 388–89, 393–94 sense of ownership, 421, 434, 437n37 urbanization, 389–90, 392, 404–7, 415n23 Environmental Protection Agency (U.S.), 425 Environmental Public Health Act, 109 environmental services sector, 166, 172, 202, 431, 433 Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI), 397 Environment Ministry, 109 Ermisch, J.F., 157n19 Esplanade, 14, 407–8, 493, 602 ESSEC, 170t Ethnic Integration Policy, 571, 577n14 EU (European Union), 27, 43, 44, 48n1 Eunos GRC, 106 Eurasian community, 6, 274, 447 European Court of Human Rights, 365, 376n26 European Free Trade Association, 162 ExxonMobil, 172 F Far Eastern Economic Review, 247 Federated Malay States, 576n6 Feedback Unit, 55, 456, 460n48 Festival of the Arts, 551 Films Act, 111, 524, 597 financial services sector deregulation, 126, 133 information communications technology and, 173 Singapore as regional hub, 127, 130, 144, 153, 160, 175, 402

33 Mgt of Success Index

614

wealth management, 126, 136, 151, 171 Financial Times, 262 Fisher-Clark hypothesis, 130, 137 Florida, Richard, 588 Flyvbjerg, Bent, 410 Fong, Leslie, 246 Fong, Otto, 588 Foo Check Woo, 316 Foreign Bodies, 547 foreign direct investment in ASEAN countries, 42–43 competition for, 135 global city aspirations and, 496 national security and, 452–53 policies for attracting, 28, 140–41, 162, 166, 173 from recipient to provider, 152 role in Singapore economy, 29, 40, 140–42, 159 foreign exchange reserves, 143 foreign labour countries of origin, 145, 201, 204 dependence on, 123–24, 135, 145, 157n24, 199 domestic workers, 204, 492 effect on wages, 142, 146, 148, 203–4 protections for, 357, 367, 369 regulations on, 125, 145, 202–3 Singaporeans’ perceptions of, 208–9 Foreign Maid Scheme, 204 foreign policy international context, 21–23 press freedom and, 244 relations with ASEAN, 26–29, 38– 48 relations with China, 23–25, 35n5, n6 relations with India, 26

5/14/10, 11:01 AM

Index

relations with Indonesia, 32–35 relations with Japan, 25–26 relations with Malaysia, 29–32, 417 Singapore “story” and, 21 Foreign Policy, 82 foreign press, 244–45, 247, 250, 489– 90, 527, 528 foreign talent cosmopolitanism and, 514–15 demographic reasons for attracting, 187–89, 275, 584 dependence on, 145, 165, 199 in managerial positions, 149, 150, 152 policies attracting, 57, 135, 145, 149, 153, 202, 205 race-based policies on, 201, 202 regulations and permits, 201, 205– 8, 213 societal impacts, 62, 149–50, 153, 189, 208–11, 450, 516, 598 Forester, John, 410 Formula 17, 589 Formula One Grand Prix, 55, 404 France, 201 Fraser Institute, 179n16 freedom Asian values vs., 4, 355–56 in the Constitution, 69, 82, 335, 359 economic vs. personal, 4, 355–56 of information, 201, 246, 265–66, 268, 471–72, 477 international indices, 98n29 of religion, 311, 339, 363–64, 373, 379n70, 472 of speech, 364–65, 527 free trade agreements (FTAs), 29, 133, 160, 161–63 Friedman, Lawrence M., 375n19

33 Mgt of Success Index

615

615

From Third World to First: The Singapore Story, 1 Fu, Grace, 53, 60 Fusionpolis@one-north, 174 G Gan Kim Yong, 53 gay community “Asian values” and, 586 divisive issue, 312, 603, 604 events, 525–26, 528, 533n18, 533n21, 535n39, 590, 603 human rights issue, 361–62, 378n58 media coverage, 319 organizations, 267, 589, 590, 593n26 Penal Code Section 377A, 336–43, 362 police entrapment, 343, 585 pro-family policies and, 584 Geh Min, 14, 151, 387–99 Gellner, Ernest, 505 General Election 1976, 470 General Election 2001, 103, 104 General Election 2006 Alex Au and, 10, 254, 257–58 cosmopolitan vs. heartlander views, 149 the internet and, 111, 254, 526–27 opposition parties in, 103, 104, 105, 110, 115 role of the media, 107 women and minority candidates, 60 General Electric (GE), 432 Genocide Convention, 356, 367 George, Cherian, 12, 257–71, 523 Georgia Institute of Technology, 169t Germany, 201, 222 Geylang, 423

5/14/10, 11:01 AM

616

Management of Success

GIC. See Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) Gifted Education Programme, 299 Gini coefficient, 84–85, 284, 513 GLC. See government-linked corporations (GLCs) global city aspirations the arts and, 15, 489–503, 601–2 economic restructuring and, 128 environmental considerations, 14, 387–99 income inequalities and, 284 pluralism and, 16, 512–16, 537, 588, 596, 603, 605 political control and, 79n23, 515, 596 urban planning and, 14, 400–16 global financial crisis, 39, 123, 128, 132, 145, 152, 175, 281 globalization, 139–55 the arts and, 493, 495 cities and, 401–2, 403–4, 406–7, 411–12 emigration and, 61–62 inflationary effects, 56–57 knowledge-based economies and, 11, 126, 159–79, 522, 537 national identity and, 505, 506–7, 509–17 national security and, 449, 462, 481n1 PAP response to, 16, 28, 84, 123– 38, 139–58 political expectations and, 514–15, 519n42, 596 post-independence strategies for, 140 Singapore English and, 546 Singapore’s role, 10, 136–37, 145– 46, 149 social impacts, 11, 82, 85, 94, 187, 283, 298, 575

33 Mgt of Success Index

616

global warming, 397 Goh, Colin, 547, 559n59 Goh, Daniel P.S., 16, 561–78 Goh, Robbie, 318 Goh Administration, 30, 32 Goh Chok Tong attacks on opposition, 106, 108 on the brain drain, 497 on China’s rise, 25 on education system, 289, 294–96, 300 encouragement of philanthropy, 85–86 on English in Singapore, 539, 546, 547, 549 on foreign workers, 210 on gay community, 587, 588 governing style, 9, 54–56 on GRC system, 116 “Growth Triangle” policy, 30 on Japan’s international role, 25–26 on the knowledge economy, 499 on liberal democratic practices, 278 on national identity, 513–14 on national ideology, 445, 448–49, 457n2 press freedom and, 244, 247, 249 prime ministership, 21, 63, 82, 108 on relations with Indonesia, 34 relations with Malaysia, 31–32, 421, 429 role in monetary authority, 78n19 Senior Minister, 53 on social issues, 192, 297, 300, 305, 450–51 on U.S. relations with the UN, 29 Goh Keng Swee Confucian ethics project, 569 defence policies, 470 on education, 220, 300, 301, 569

5/14/10, 11:01 AM

Index

founder of modern Singapore, 3 “Goh’s folly”, 5, 18n12 Goh Meng Seng, 111 Goh Poh Seng, 549 Gomez, James, 106 Goods and Services Tax (GST), 84, 85, 96n8, 279, 473, 598 government-linked corporations (GLCs) in exercise of state power, 71, 73, 145 foreign talent in, 149 privatization of, 161, 165, 172 real estate developments, 151 state entrepreneurship through, 11, 74, 126, 142, 143, 159, 176 Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC), 11, 68, 143, 152, 159, 252, 285 Graham, Stephen, 412 Great Depression, 139 gross domestic product (GDP) construction sector contribution, 130 defence spending as portion, 471 foreign exchange reserves to, 143 foreign share of, 142, 156n8 gross national income (GNI) and, 133–34 growth in, 2, 63, 141, 217 investment ratio, 135 media industry contribution, 174 R&D spending as portion of, 125 volatility in, 153–54 as yardstick of success, 94, 171, 418 gross national income (GNI), 133–34 gross national product (GNP), 156 Group Representation Constituencies (GRCs)

33 Mgt of Success Index

617

617

2009 changes, 100, 597 ethnic diversity rationale, 60, 275, 571 Malay community and, 60 means of power consolidation, 68, 101, 104 opposition party contestation, 102, 103, 105–6, 115 Growth Dividends, 85 Growth Triangle, 30, 126 Gulf War, 124 Gunung Pulai Scheme, 424 Gupta, Anthea Fraser, 539, 557n42 H Habibie, B.J., 33, 37n33, 468 Hakkas, 2 Hall, Stephen, 362 Hammer, 109 Han, Glenda, 247 Han Fook Kwang, 249 Hanoi, 31 Harmony Centre, 451 Harvard University, 53, 298 Harvey, David, 410 haze pollution, 32, 40, 409 health care ageing population and, 57, 236 CPF withdrawals for, 84, 274 foreign workers providing, 201 government subsidies for, 55, 57, 82 growth sector, 127, 136, 144, 153, 165, 171, 173, 202 national expenditure, 189 rising costs of, 257 women’s rights and, 371–72 Heche, Anne, 589 Heng Hiang Khng, Russell, 16, 536–60 Heng Swee Keat, 78n19

5/14/10, 11:01 AM

618

Management of Success

Heritage Foundation, 79n25, 179n16 Herzog, Chaim, 30 Hewlett Packard, 173 High Court, 358 Hindi, 538 Hinduism, 311, 314, 323 Ho, Peter, 78n10, 595 Hobbes, Thomas, 464 Ho Chi Minh City, 401 Ho Choon Hiong, 116, 524, 528, 529, 532n14, 535n37 Hock Lee bus riots, 508 Ho Hua Chew, 397 Ho Khai Leong, 9, 67–79 Hokkien, 543, 544, 548 Hokkiens, 2 Ho Kong Chong, 231 Ho Kong Weng, 11–12, 217–41, 222– 23 Home Team, 476 Honeywell, 173 Hong, Lysa, 511 Hong Kong “Asian values” and, 508 birth rate, 185 as competitor for Singapore, 126, 168 fashion industry, 175 gay rights, 590 as global city, 403 “Greater China” network, 143–44 immigrants from, 201, 202 income inequalities, 147 manufacturing in, 129, 140, 178n6 newspapers in, 251 Hong Lim Park, 108, 527, 528, 529, 530, 535n39 Ho Peng Kee, 109 Hor, Michael, 13, 335–54 Hougang constituency, 97n22, 102, 108, 257

33 Mgt of Success Index

618

Hougang Constituency Youth Action Committee, 102 housing as electoral issue, 108 “en bloc” sales, 151 for foreign labour, 208–11 government subsidies for, 73, 82, 140–41 Malay community and, 61, 577n14 Marina Bay and, 409 social cohesion and, 324, 566, 571, 577n14 social engineering policies and, 582–83, 585 success in provision of, 356, 359 Housing and Development Board (HDB), 108, 141, 177, 194, 205, 343, 404, 546 Howe Yoon Chong, 11, 189 How My Favourite Opposition Party Fought the PAP (and lost their pants again), 532n14 Hu, Richard, 28 Huang Jianli, 511 Huff, W.G., 28, 157n19 human rights, 355–83 “Asian values” and, 4, 355–56 civil society activism, 114 in the Constitution, 68–69 economic development and, 355– 56, 360–61, 376n32 government attitude to, 13–14, 69, 141, 355–57, 358–61, 508 international indices, 98n29 international treaties, 356–57, 360, 365–66, 370–71, 375n26 political rhetoric and, 361–62, 372– 73 Human Rights Watch (HRW), 212, 357 Hunter, James Davidson, 603

5/14/10, 11:01 AM

Index

Hussin Mutalib, 9, 51–66 Hyflux, 427, 432 Hyundai, 150 I IAI (Initiative for ASEAN Integration), 42 Iceland, 162 IDA. See Info-Communications Development Authority (IDA) iGlobe Advisors, 4 IMF (International Monetary Fund), 33 immigration. See also foreign labour; foreign talent ageing population and, 188, 193, 584–55 economic restructuring and, 153 environmental impact, 397 human rights treaties and, 372 opposition stance on, 112 as response to brain drain, 62 secrecy on, 252 Singaporeans’ unhappiness with, 598, 600 social mobility and, 237 vs. increased productivity, 135 income inequalities as contentious issue, 199–200, 273, 305n19, 473, 600 globalization’s effects, 56–57, 82, 143, 146–50, 283 media coverage of, 247 national identity and, 512–13 nature and magnitude, 84, 157n23, 229, 513, 601 policies for evening out, 82–83, 84–85 social compact and, 89, 92, 175 India ancestral origins in, 4, 510 ASEAN and, 9, 27, 42, 44, 48n1

33 Mgt of Success Index

619

619

as competitor of Singapore, 153, 175, 522 economic rise, 135, 137, 144, 147 joint economic ventures, 126 languages, 538 law on marital rape, 347 press freedom in, 243 recent immigrants from, 299, 537 relations with Singapore, 26 religions derived from, 314, 316 sexuality in, 587 source of labour, 145, 201, 204 Indian community British colonial views of, 564 composition, 2 educational performance, 298 English-educated members, 6 housing market and, 577n14 PAP and, 60, 61, 508 as part of Singapore society, 274, 362, 443, 447 religion, 314, 572 self-help groups, 571 views on race relations, 572–73 Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, 170t IndigNation, 525–26, 590 Indonesia ASEAN and, 38, 48n1 backlash against Singapore, 155, 212 defence cooperation, 26, 34 democratization, 597 forest fires in, 409 Islam in, 313 labour and immigration from, 145, 201, 204 relations with China, 24, 35n5 relations with Malaysia, 26 relations with Singapore, 29, 32–34, 35n5, 468

5/14/10, 11:01 AM

620

Management of Success

sex scandals, 581 Singaporean investments in, 143, 432 water imports from, 33, 418, 435n5 Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency, 34 Industry 21, 126 Infectious Diseases Act, 353n13 inflation, 56–57, 284, 528 Info-Communications Development Authority (IDA), 167, 173, 174, 268 information technology (IT), 126, 131, 165, 258, 291, 300, 394 Information Technology Masterplan, 291, 300 INSEAD, 168, 169t Institute of East Asian Philosophies, 569 Institute of ECOSOC, 212 Institute of Policy Studies, 55 Integrated Resorts. See casinos intellectual property, 173 Intelligence Coordinating Committee (ICC), 475, 485n64 Internal Security Act (ISA), 69, 73, 113, 245, 353n11, 366, 471, 472 Internal Security Department (ISD), 468, 469, 501n8 International Court of Justice, 30 International Desalination Association, 433 International Enterprise (IE), 166, 176 International Herald Tribune, 262 International Institute for Management Development (IMD), 79n25, 179n16 International Labour Organisation (ILO), 360, 367, 370, 377n43

33 Mgt of Success Index

620

International Monetary Fund (IMF), 109, 524, 527 International Press Institute, 506 International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), 390 internet, 257–71 access in Singapore, 282, 298 alternative to mainstream press, 254 knowledge-based economy and, 160, 174 nation-building potential, 264–65 regulation, 258–61, 266–70, 320 religion and, 319–20 sex and, 584, 589 Singaporean blogs, 257, 260, 265, 273, 588 Singapore politics and, 12, 75, 110, 370, 523, 597 Inter-Racial Confidence Circles (IRCCs), 451, 478, 574 Inter-Religious Harmony Circle, 574 Inter-Religious Organization (IRO), 324–25 Iraq War, 23, 29, 133 Islam, 313, 322, 340, 371, 382n119, 451, 455. See also Muslim community Islamic Council of Singapore (MUIS), 318, 325, 451 Israel, Simon, 79n26 J Jacob, Paul, 246 Jakarta Post, 212 Jalan Besar, 423 Jameson, Fredric, 498 Japan ASEAN and, 42, 43, 44, 48n1 Asian financial crisis and, 41

5/14/10, 11:01 AM

Index

demographics, 185, 186 foreign investment from, 140, 432– 33 foreign talent from, 201 relations with Singapore, 25–26 remilitarization, 22, 25–26 sexuality in, 587 during World War II, 6, 139, 417, 468, 509–10 Javanese, 2 Jayakumar, S., 27, 28, 53, 54, 77n7 Jehovah’s Witnesses, 472 Jemaah Islamiyah escape of Mas Selamat, 58, 456 investment climate and, 452, 456 motivations of members, 454–55 plan to attack, 23, 469, 477 religious leaders’ response to, 313 social cohesion and, 325–26, 450, 452, 572 Jeyaretnam, Joshua Benjamin, 102, 365, 368 Jeyaretnam, Kenneth, 105 Jobs Credit Scheme, 128 Johns Hopkins University, 168, 169t Johor, 14, 30, 31, 126, 418, 423–24, 428 Johor River, 30, 424, 436n15 Joint Counter Terrorism Centre (JCTC), 475, 476 Joint Social Service Centre, 573–74 Judaism, 340 judiciary, 68, 69, 348, 363, 364, 365– 66, 374n14 Jufrie Mahmood, 106 Julius Baer, 171 Jurong GRC, 106 Jurong Industrial Estate, 18n12, 126 Jurong Island, 172 Jurong Town Corporation (JTC), 205

33 Mgt of Success Index

621

621

K Kachru, B.B., 550 Kallang Theatre, 493 Kant, Immanuel, 358 Keppel Corporation Limited, 78n19, 142 Keppel-Seghers, 432 Khaw Boon Wan, 53, 78n17 Khong Cho-Oon, 81 Khoo, Eric, 547 Kim, Y.H., 407 King Edward VII College of Medicine, 6 Kluver, Randolph, 320 Kog Yue Choong, 418 Koh, Aaron, 413n8 Koh Tai Ann, 16, 490, 536–60 Koh Yong Guan, 78n19 Kon, Stella, 548 Kong, Lily, 401, 408 Konzen Group, 432 Koolhaas, Rem, 396, 400 Kopitiam, 177 Korea, Republic of (RoK) ASEAN and, 42, 44, 48n1 Asian financial crisis and, 41 “Asian values” and, 508 democratization, 143 demographics, 185, 186 economic model, 140, 143, 150, 153 life sciences sector, 136 source of labour, 201 Korean Peninsula, 22 Ko Yiu Chung, 221 Kranji, 426 Kuah-Pearce, Khun Eng, 315 Kuala Lumpur, 160, 401, 403, 408, 540 Kuo, Eddie C.Y., 542 Kuo Pao Kun, 17n9, 491, 494–95, 547–48

5/14/10, 11:01 AM

622

Management of Success

Kurokawa, Kisho, 408 Kyoto Protocol, 398 L Labour Front, 6 Labour Party, 3, 6, 72 labour unions. See trade unions Lai Ah Eng, 13, 309–34, 324–25 Land Acquisitions Act, 360–61 land reclamation, 392, 395, 438n42 Langenback, William Ray, 502n9 Lao PDR, 38, 48n1 Lavin, Frank, 58 Law Society, 350, 361, 524–25 Lee, Jack, 559n59 Lee, Nicholas, 545 Lee Boon Yang, 248 Lee Hsien Loong, 51–66 on “Asian values”, 570 attitude to Singlish, 546, 558n57 biography, 53 challenges facing, 51–52, 56–64 championing of casinos, 57 on demographic issues, 183, 210, 583 on income inequalities, 283 on multilateral trade, 29 on National Education, 296 on permits for public speaking, 525, 596 on press freedom, 244, 249 public image, 53, 581–82 on Section 377A, 336–37, 340–41, 343, 362, 586, 587, 589 on Singapore as global city, 400, 404 on social compact, 83, 86, 99n36 style of governance, 9, 51, 54–56, 64n8 visit to Taiwan, 25

33 Mgt of Success Index

622

Lee Kuan Yew on ageing population, 189, 192, 582 attacks on opposition, 108, 272 on brain drain, 453 on community vs. individual, 360 on the Constitution, 69 defence policies, 470, 518n17 on education system, 289 on English in Singapore, 537, 541, 546, 555n26 founder of modern Singapore, 3, 17n1 on garden city concept, 387, 391 on gay rights, 586 governing style, 9, 54, 56 Indian community and, 61 on Indonesian politics, 33 on Japan’s peacekeeping role, 25 on leadership succession, 61 on Martyn See case, 524 meritocratic attitudes, 272, 278, 282 Minister Mentor, 53, 54 as “modern Confucius”, 509 on the PAP, 72 perceptions of, 59 on the press, 244, 245, 248 prime ministership, 63, 72 relations with China, 24–25 relations with Malaysia, 30 relations with United States, 22 thoughts on Singapore, 63, 154, 158n38, 278, 283, 297–98, 502n15 on water self-sufficiency, 417 on the younger generation, 98n24, 295 Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, 4 Lee Poh Onn, 14–15, 417–39

5/14/10, 11:01 AM

Index

Lee Soo Ann, 10, 139–58, 154 Lee Tzu Pheng, 549, 550 Lee Wei Ling, 59 Lee Yock Suan, 548 Legal Service Commission (LSC), 77n7 Leifer, Michael, 21, 35n6 Leong Liew Geok, 549 Leong Wai Teng, Laurence, 16, 579–94 Lest the Demons, 491 Lewinsky, Monica, 581 Liang Dingzi, 556n40 Liechtenstein, 162 Liew Kim Siong, 284 life sciences sector foreign talent and, 150, 153 new growth sector, 127, 144, 148, 168–71, 202 proportion of workforce in, 137 risks involved, 136, 155 Lim, Catherine, 59, 92, 280, 283, 549 Lim, Ethan, 526 Lim, Linda Y.C., 10, 139–58, 201 Lim, Raymond, 53 Lim, Sylvia, 102, 106, 107, 110 Lim, William, 403, 406 Lim Boon Heng, 53, 190 Lim Chee Onn, 78n19 Lim Hng Kiang, 53, 78n19, 456 Lim Hwee Hua, 53–54, 60 Lim Swee Say, 53 Linggiu Dam, 30, 428 Liow Chin Yong, Joseph, 9, 21–37 London, 403, 408, 410, 411, 412 Loo, Bernard, 15, 462–85 Low, Linda, 11, 159–79 Lower Peirce Reservoir, 393 Lower Seletar Reservoir, 435n12 Low Thia Khiang administration of constituency, 108, 111

33 Mgt of Success Index

623

623

biography, 102 on media bias, 107 political caution, 111, 113, 114 on political situation, 110, 115, 116, 118 on recruiting members, 106, 113 Lui Tuck Yew, 53, 525, 597 M Macau, 151, 201 MacDougall, John, 443 Macquarie Dictionary, 544 MacRitchie Reservoir, 418, 421, 423 madrasah, 317–19 Mahathir Mohamad, 31–32, 33, 246, 428–29, 436n22 Mah Bow Tan, 403 Mahbubani, Kishore, 275–76, 586 Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act, 312 Majlis Ugama Islam Singapura (MUIS), 318, 325, 451 Malacca Strait, 26 Malayalees, 2 Malayan Democratic Union, 6 Malayan Nature Society (MNS), 390 Malayan Railway, 31, 438n42 Malayan Union, 7–8 Malay community. See also Muslim community British colonial views of, 564, 576n6 composition, 2 education system and, 298, 306n26 Islam and, 313, 352n7, 572 middle class, 568 nationalism, 3, 7–8 PAP and, 60, 508, 573 as part of Singapore society, 274, 362, 443, 447 post-September 11, 450

5/14/10, 11:01 AM

624

Management of Success

Singapore Armed Forces and, 33, 61, 65n27, 568 socio-economic marginalization, 570, 573, 577n14, n20 views on race relations, 572–73 Malay language instruction, 299, 573 national identity and, 7, 569 official status, 7, 541, 553n6 Peranakan dialect, 543, 544 in Singaporean literature, 547 vernacular schools, 538 Malaysia ASEAN and, 38, 48n1 Asian values rhetoric in, 5 competition with Singapore, 168, 172 defence cooperation, 26 democratization, 597 facilities in Tanjong Pagar, 31 human rights in, 360, 366 ideologies and values, 507, 564 internet news sites, 254 law on marital rape, 347 political dominance of UMNO, 565 relations with Indonesia, 26 relations with Singapore, 29–32, 438n42 religion in, 313, 316 separation from, 22, 88, 140, 467, 504, 562, 565 sex scandals, 581 Singaporean investments in, 143 source of labour, 145, 201, 210 water imports from, 14–15, 30–32, 418, 423–24, 433, 436n15, 436n22, 439n63 Malaysiakini, 254 Malaysian Central Depository, 31 Malta, 426

33 Mgt of Success Index

624

Mama Looking for Her Cat, 491, 547 Management of Success (1989 volume) on cultural policies, 406, 490, 536 on economic policies, 81, 123, 199 on education, 288 on environmental management, 387 on foreign policy, 34 on identity formation, 505, 562–63 narrative arc, 1 on national security, 444, 463 on PAP leadership, 52, 67, 101–2, 272, 594 on political discontent, 199–200, 521 on press freedom, 242 Manazine, 589 Mandarin Chinese “Asian values” and, 569, 570 in film and literature, 547, 548 government policies, 536, 544, 569 hybrid varieties, 543 instruction, 538, 573 official status, 553n6 religion and, 319 Special Assistance Plan schools, 573 Manila, 540 manufacturing sector components, 127, 131, 166, 172 restructuring of, 124, 126, 131, 136, 142, 151, 153, 165 share of GDP, 129, 165 state enterprise, 74 vs. services sector, 129t, 130, 137 workforce, 129t, 130, 142, 145, 200–1, 202 Mao Zedong, 511 Marina Barrage, 405, 422, 433–34 Marina Basin, 422 Marina Bay, 14, 389, 400–2, 403, 404– 7, 409–11, 599

5/14/10, 11:01 AM

Index

Marina Channel, 422–23 Marina Reservoir, 422–23 Marmon Water, 432 Marriage and Parenthood Package, 194 Marshall, David, 72, 102 Marshall, Richard, 410–11 “Marxist conspiracy”, 114, 312, 477, 492, 501, 508, 570 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 169t Mas Selamat Kastari, 58, 456, 485n71 Mass Rapid Transit (MRT), 402 Mathews, Mathew, 323, 324 media, 242–56 coverage of civil disobedience, 524–25, 528 coverage of religious issues, 312 foreign, 244–45, 247, 250, 489–90, 527, 528 government control, 3–4, 5, 74–75, 107, 262–64, 266–70 homosexuality debate and, 320–21 mainstream vs. alternative, 257–58, 263, 264, 268–70, 283 market segmentation, 261–62 non-coverage of opposition parties, 107–8, 114, 257 pressure from online dissent, 117 professionalism, 263, 268, 269–70 support for green movement, 394 Mediacorp, 248, 282, 489 Media Development Authority (MDA), 167, 174 Mediaworks, 251 Medical Registration Act, 372 Medifund, 84 Medisave, 84 MediShield, 84 Mendaki programme, 570, 571, 573

33 Mgt of Success Index

625

625

Mergers and Accusations, 491 meritocracy, 3, 12, 52, 61, 63, 72, 272– 87, 372 Merrill Lynch, 152 Middle East, 171, 172, 173, 432 Minangkabaus, 2 Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports, 11, 191, 193, 366, 370, 456, 572, 583 Ministry of Defence, 468, 474, 475 Ministry of Education (MOE), 288–89, 292, 295, 299, 300, 301, 303, 542 Ministry of Finance, 78n19 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 34 Ministry of Health, 186, 526 Ministry of Home Affairs, 468, 472, 475, 575 Ministry of Information, Communication and the Arts (MICA), 490, 496, 499 Ministry of Manpower, 192, 200, 201, 205, 212, 368 Ministry of National Development, 210, 395 Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources (MEWR), 392, 394, 421, 425 Ministry of Trade and Industry, 210 Miscellaneous Offences Act, 526 Mitterand, Francois, 581 Monaco, 151 Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), 78n19, 167 Money No Enough, 547 Mongolia, 48n1 “mr brown”, 59, 530, 535n38 Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim, 352n7 MUIS (Majlis Ugama Islam Singapura), 318, 325, 451

5/14/10, 11:01 AM

626

Management of Success

multiculturalism, 561–78 the arts and, 496 colonial model, 563–65 English-educated class and, 6 ideology of, 2–3, 274, 311, 446–47 language policy and, 536, 555n26 melting pot vs. mosaic, 561–63, 565–72 national security and, 450–53 Singaporean models of, 16, 514 vs. multiracialism, 561 multiracialism. See multiculturalism Mumford, Lewis, 400, 412 Muslim community. See also Malay community attacks on, 320 gay rights and, 321, 336 local controversies, 299, 313 madrasah education, 318 Malay majority, 311, 572 post-September 11, 450–52 Myanmar ASEAN and, 38, 46, 48n1 protests against, 109, 515, 524, 532n8, 533n27, 535n39 source of labour, 145, 201, 204 My Country and My People, 549 My Magic, 547 N NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), 27 Najib Razak, 430 NanoFrontier, 179n15 Nanyang Environment and Water Research Institute, 432, 433 Nanyang Siang Pau, 245–46 Nanyang Technological University (NTU), 168, 178n9, 179n15, 432

33 Mgt of Success Index

626

Nanyang University, 568 Nathan, S.R., 34 National Arts Council (NAC), 490, 493, 602 National Arts Gallery, 404 National Computerization Plan (1981– 85), 258 National Council of Churches, 352 National Education, 2, 291, 294–300, 305n18, 317, 551 National Heritage Board, 265 national identity, 504–20 artistic explorations, 489, 492, 547– 49 developmental imperative, 8, 443– 61, 497–98 education system and, 294–300 effects of globalization, 149–52, 154 English-educated class and, 6–7, 541, 550 “garrison mentality”, 508 language policy and, 536–60 multiculturalism and, 565, 567, 568, 571 nature and, 388, 391–92, 396 PAP and, 15–16, 605 “rugged society”, 507–8, 518n17 Singlish and, 542, 543, 546, 549–551 supposed fragility of, 478 National Institute of Education (NIE), 168 National Internet Advisory Committee, 260 National Kidney Foundation (NKF), 279, 283 National Parks Act, 390 National Parks Board (NParks Board), 389, 390, 525–26, 533n18 National Physical Fitness Assessment Test (NAPFT), 291, 292

5/14/10, 11:01 AM

Index

National Research Foundation, 172–73 National Science and Technology Plan, 125 National Security Coordinating Committee (NSCComm), 475 National Security Coordination Centre (NSCC), 469, 475 National Security Coordination Secretariat (NSCS), 475 National Service (NS), 363, 470, 474, 507, 518 National Solidarity Party (NSP), 103, 107, 109, 112 National Standards for the Protection of Children, 368 National Technology Plan, 125 National Trades Union Congress (NTUC), 73, 74, 367, 368 National University of Singapore, 65n19, 103, 168, 178n9, 432 National University of Singapore High School of Mathematics and Science, 290 National University of Singapore Society, 501n9 National Wages Council (NWC), 73, 141, 142, 148 National Youth Council, 229, 369 National Youth Survey, 224 nation-building artistic critiques of, 492 economic imperative and, 443–61, 504–5 role of religion, 311, 312, 317 Singapore’s anomalous path to, 497–98, 565 urban spectacle and, 406 Nature Society (Singapore) (NSS), 390, 393, 394, 395, 397 Necessary Stage, The (TNS), 491, 493

33 Mgt of Success Index

627

627

Neo, Jack, 547 NEWater, 14, 418, 420t, 421, 423, 425– 26, 431–34, 439n63 Newly Industrialized Economies (NIEs), 4, 143 New Paper, 294 New Singapore Shares (NSS), 83, 96n8 Newspaper and Printing Presses Act (NPPA), 245, 247, 251 New York, 403, 408, 410, 411, 412 New Zealand, 42, 44, 48n1, 162, 201, 391 Ng, Irene, 222 Ng, Regina, 222–23 Ngiam Tong Dow, 59 Ng Teck Siong, 105 Nguyen Tuong Van v. Public Prosecutor, 363 Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism, 315 Nitto Denko, 432–33 Nominated Member of Parliament (NMP) Scheme, 68, 596, 598 Non-constituency MPs (NCMPs), 101, 102, 110, 115–16, 117, 596, 598 Noorashikin Abdul Rahman, 11, 199– 216 No Other City, 548 North, Douglass, 91 North Korea, 48n1, 139 Northlight School, 290, 294 Norway, 162 NSP News, 109 O Obama, Barack, 104 Off Centre, 551 Official Secrets Act, 246 Old Ford Factory, 509–10 Ondeo, 427 One-North, 168, 178n10

5/14/10, 11:01 AM

628

Management of Success

OnePeople.sg, 574 1826 Days: A Diary of Resolve, 475, 476 Ong Jin Hui, 222, 223, 444 Ong Keng Yong, 9, 38–48 Open Net Initiative, 259 Operation Cold Store, 501n8 Operation Spectrum, 501 opposition parties, 75, 78n9, 100–20, 242, 257, 259, 277, 567. See also individual parties Orang Selat, 2 Orchard Road, 404, 524 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 162 Our First Ten Years, 3 overseas Singaporeans causing brain drain, 62, 444, 446 “cosmopolitans”, 85, 149 immigration policies and, 62 national security and, 15, 62 rate of emigration, 62, 537, 601 reasons for emigrating, 453–54, 571 Overseas Singaporeans Unit, 149 Oxford English Dictionary, 544 Oxford University, 298 P Pakir, Anne, 549 Pakistan, 6, 48n1, 201 Pang Eng Fong, 199, 201 PAP government. See also defence policy; economic policies; foreign policy; tax policies arts and culture policies, 489–503 consultative processes, 54–55, 101, 350–51, 391, 394, 395, 410 control of public discourse, 3–4, 107–8, 141, 242–56

33 Mgt of Success Index

628

cultural values and, 244, 259, 445– 57, 507–12, 538–40, 569–70 first generation leaders, 22, 54, 599 foreign press and, 247, 250 garden city project, 387–89 internet regulation, 12, 258–61, 266–70, 320 language policies, 536–60, 568–69 ministerial salaries, 59, 98n32, 150, 154, 279, 283, 598 multicultural policies, 561–78 national development policies, 140– 41, 142, 406 political liberalization, 521, 522, 528–29, 596–97 power consolidation, 67–79, 100– 20, 260–61, 267–68, 462–85, 595–96 pro-family policies, 55, 145, 582– 83, 584 response to ageing population, 183–97 rhetorical positioning, 8–9 scholarships, 276–77, 278, 282, 298 second generation leaders, 21, 52, 54, 569, 570 third generation leaders, 51–66, 282 use of social compact, 80–99, 108, 280–81 Papua New Guinea, 48n1 Paris, 408, 412 Parks and Recreation Department (PRD), 389 Parliament House, 527, 528 Pedra Branca, 30, 429 Peh Shing Huei, 107 Peirce Reservoir, 421 Penal Code Amendments of 2007, 13, 112, 335–54, 362, 595 People Like Us, 267, 525–26, 533n18, 589, 590

5/14/10, 11:01 AM

Index

People’s Action Party (PAP). See also PAP government Central Executive Committee, 60, 72 departure from Socialist International, 508 efforts at diversity, 60, 105–6, 571 English-educated founders, 6, 8 identification with state, 9–10, 68, 70, 71–72, 76, 91 ideologies, 141, 262, 272–73, 283, 507–8 mythologizing of history, 3, 468 national identity and, 15–16, 504– 20 performance in elections, 258, 277, 280 political dominance, 67–79, 100, 266, 277, 470 recruitment process, 59–60, 76, 116, 276 sexual propriety and, 580, 581–82, 587 structure and organization, 72 white uniform, 581 Youth Wing, 445 People’s Association (PA), 68, 72, 211, 458n23, 566, 567 Peranakan Chinese community, 543, 566 Percival, Arthur (Lieutenant-General), 509 Pertubuhan Kebangsaan Melayu Singapura (PKMS), 103 Philippines ASEAN and, 38, 48n1 law on marital rape, 347 press freedom in, 243 source of labour, 145, 201, 204 territorial claims, 24 U.S. military facilities in, 23

33 Mgt of Success Index

629

629

Phua Chu Kang, 515, 545, 558n54 Phuket, 590 Pillars, 491 piracy, 32 political dissent, 521–35 call for constructive, 54 individual vs. collective, 267 the internet and, 254, 257–58, 260– 61 management of, 68, 70, 101, 253, 363 rules on assembly and, 526, 528, 529–30, 595, 596, 606n8 younger Singaporeans and, 116–17 Political Donations Act, 109 Pontian Reservoir, 424 Pontifical Council for Interreligious and Ecumenical Dialogue, 326 Porter, Michael, 178n7 Potong Pasir constituency, 97n22, 103, 108 Potong Pasir Town Council, 103 Pow Choon-Piew, 14, 400–16 Preferential Trading Agreement (PTA), 41 Presidential Council for Minority Rights, 312 press, the. See media Prime Minister’s Office, 106, 149, 190, 475 Private Parts, 491 Progressive Party, 3, 6 Progress Package, 55, 84, 97n10, 513 Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), 23 property market, 129, 151, 171, 397, 577n14. See also housing property rights, 360–61, 447 Protestantism, 314, 321, 323 Public Assistance Scheme, 274, 513

5/14/10, 11:01 AM

630

Management of Success

public housing. See housing Public Order Act, 101, 595 public-private partnerships (PPPs), 165 Public Prosecutor, Colin Chan v., 472 Public Prosecutor, Nguyen Tuong Van v., 363 Public Utilities Board (PUB), 421–23, 425, 426–27, 428, 430–34, 435 Punggol Reservoir, 422, 433 Punjab, 316 Purushotam, Nirmala, 536 Q Quanta, 150 Queenstown, 507 R Radha Soami Satsang, 314 Raffles, Sir Stamford, 123, 139 Raffles College, 6 Raffles Place, 406 Rajaratnam, S., 3, 506–7, 516, 555n24, 565, 569 Ramakrishna Mission, 314 Reach, 460n48 Reform Party, 105, 110 Registrar of Societies, 267, 343, 523, 589 religion, 309–31, 454–55, 472, 572. See also individual religions Religious Rehabilitation Group (RRG), 451–52, 455 Remaking Singapore vision statement, 264 Renaissance City Report: Culture and the Arts in Renaissance Singapore, 493 renewable energy, 397 research and development (R&D), 125, 127–28, 136, 148, 165, 168–71, 172

33 Mgt of Success Index

630

Reservoir Integration Scheme, 422 reservoirs, 14, 417, 418, 421–23, 433– 34 Residents’ Committees, 566 Resilience Package, 128 Riau Islands, 126, 435n5 Rio de Janeiro, 391, 393 Roberts, Alasdair, 480 Robinson, Jennifer, 401, 412 Rochor Canal, 423 Rosnah, 491 Rostow, Walter, 178n7 Rubin, Gayle, 581 Russia, 48n1 S Sa’eda Buang, 318 Safdie, Moshe, 405 Said Zahari, 245 Sammyboy (blog), 260 Samsung, 150 Sanders, Douglas, 590 Sandhu, Kernial Singh, 594, 600, 601, 602 Sarkozy, Nicolas, 581 SARS pandemic, 2, 127, 133, 148, 162, 462–63, 474, 477 Sassen, Saskia, 203 Satya Sai Baba Movement, 314, 323 Saudi Arabia, 426 Saw Swee Hock, 192 Scheme for Housing of Foreign Talent (SHiFT), 205 School Boards (Incorporation) Act, 290 School Excellence Model (SEM), 292, 293, 297, 302 Schumpeter, Joseph, 92–93 Science and Technology 2005 Plan, 125 Scott, Allen, 411 Scudai River Water Agreement, 424

5/14/10, 11:01 AM

Index

SDP. See Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) Seah Chee Meow, 463 Seah Chiang Nee, 274, 280, 283 Second Tongue, The, 548 Security Policy Review Committee (SPRC), 475 Sedition Act, 320 See, Martyn, 116, 524–25, 528, 532n11, n14 Seet Ai Mee, 54 Seletar, 426 Seletar Reservoir, 421, 422, 435n12 Sembawang, 492, 532n14 Sembawang Corporation (SembCorp), 142, 432, 433 Sembawang New Town, 393 Senoko, 393 Sentosa, 14, 599 Separation Agreement, 31, 424, 429 September 11 terrorist attacks 2001 General Election and, 104 ASEAN response, 27 economic impacts, 133, 162 national security and, 462–63, 472, 477 relations with U.S. and, 23 in “Singapore story”, 2 social cohesion and, 309, 317, 322, 325, 456, 572 Serangoon Reservoir, 422, 433 services sector employment, 153, 171, 201, 203 role in economy, 10, 126–30, 136, 137, 144, 160 state enterprise in, 74, 151 sexuality, 579–93 artistic explorations, 492 “Asian values” and, 580, 586–87, 603

33 Mgt of Success Index

631

631

citizenship and, 589–90, 591 and the law, 13, 335–54, 585–86, 591 productionist ethic, 580–82 public policies and, 16–17, 582–83 SG Human Rights, 524, 529, 532n16 Shanghai, 401, 403 Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 170t Shantakumar, G., 188 Shared Values, 82, 96n5, 356, 364, 445–48, 453, 605 Shell, 172 Shenism, 311, 315 Shenton Way, 406 Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, 4 shipbuilding, 142, 145 Shiromani Gurdwara Parbhandak Committee (SGPC), 316 Short, J.R., 407 Siddique, Sharon, 562 Siemens R&D Centre, 432 Siew Kum Hong, 352n8 Siew Meng Ee, 533n18, n21 Signel discussion group, 589 Sikhism, 2, 316 Sim Soek-Fang, 281 Sin Boon Ann, 534n31 Sindhis, 2 Singabloodypore (blog), 116 Singapore 21 (S21) initiative, 71, 264, 445, 448–50, 453–54, 459n30, 472, 495 Singapore 21: Together, We Make the Difference, 495 Singapore Airlines, 142, 579 Singaporeans. See also gay community; overseas Singaporeans; women; youth and individual ethnic communities attitudes to foreigners, 209–12, 299–300, 450, 598–99

5/14/10, 11:01 AM

632

Management of Success

as construct, 2–3 consumerism, 93, 203, 268, 397, 508, 584 cosmopolitans vs. heartlanders, 62, 85, 149, 273–74, 336, 409, 513–14 faith in government, 472–74, 479 home ownership, 90, 274, 359 identity formation, 4–9, 391–92, 443–44, 540 middle class, 71, 117, 151, 204, 283, 571, 598 older generation, 130, 175, 183–97, 273, 359, 449–50, 571 political apathy, 58, 70, 101, 116, 268, 277, 604 racial prejudices, 61, 298–99, 573 relationship to cityscape, 388–89 repoliticization, 67, 76, 97n22, 115, 257, 282, 285, 521–35 social mobility, 217–41, 284 social stratification, 283, 294, 297, 512–13 stress, 57, 273–74, 449 Singapore Armed Forces (SAF). See also defence policy defence budgets, 471, 473 development of, 468–69, 470 Lee Hsien Loong and, 53 Malay community and, 33, 61, 65n27, 568 Malaysian airspace and, 31, 438n42 mobilization exercises, 261 role in defence, 471, 473–74, 476 ties to PAP, 54, 70 Singapore Art Museum, 493, 496 Singapore Biennale 2006, 500 Singapore Civil Service, 470 Singapore Constitution. See Constitution

33 Mgt of Success Index

632

Singapore Cooperation Enterprise, 4 Singapore-Delft Water Alliance, 432 Singapore Democratic Alliance (SDA), 103, 104–5 Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) application for licences, 109 films about, 524, 532n14 history, 103 PAP attacks on, 106 platform, 115 strategy of civil disobedience, 70, 110, 114, 527–28 threat of dissolution, 114, 119n30 website, 110–11 Singapore Dreaming, 547 Singapore Employers Federation, 367 Singapore English, 536–60 Singapore Environment Council (SEC), 389, 393, 398n4 Singapore Exchange, 172 Singapore Flyer, 408–9 Singapore — Global City for the Arts, 496 Singapore Green Plan (SGP), 390, 393, 394 Singapore Herald, 245–46 Singapore History Museum, 496 Singapore Inc, 11, 159–79 Singapore Indian Development Association, 571 Singapore-India Special Economic Zone, 4 Singapore Institute of Management (SIM), 168, 178n9 Singapore International Foundation, 62 Singapore Justice Party (SJP), 103 Singapore Management University (SMU), 168, 561 Singapore News and Publications Ltd. (SNPL), 248

5/14/10, 11:01 AM

Index

Singapore People’s Party (SPP), 103, 535n40 Singapore Power, 426 Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), 248, 249, 250, 251 Singapore Productivity Innovation Board (SPRING), 168 Singapore Rebel, 14, 524, 527, 532n11 Singapore: Re-engineering Success, 1, 81 Singapore Retailers’ Association, 545 Singapore River, 423, 526 Singapore’s Success: Engineering Economic Growth, 1 Singapore “story”, 1–18 defence policies and, 467–68, 469, 476 foreign policy effects, 21 grassroots telling, 517 incompleteness of, 591 official starting point, 506 political legitimacy and, 141–42 small size, 379n79, 392, 397, 473, 507 social compact and, 80 Singapore Technologies, 142, 426 Singapore Telecommunications (Singtel), 142, 172 Singapore: The Air-Conditioned Nation, 523 Singapore: The Next Lap, 54 Singapore: The Struggle for Success, 1 Singapore Tourism Board (STB), 167, 408, 547 Singapore Water Alliance, 433 Singapore Workforce Development Agency, 545 Single Member Constituencies (SMCs), 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 597 Singlish, 16, 515, 517, 536–60 “Singlish Forever”, 549 Singlish Poem, 552

33 Mgt of Success Index

633

633

SingSpring, 427 Sinha, Vineeta, 314 Skudai River, 424, 436n15 Smart Investor, 262 social cohesion challenges to, 61–63, 80–81, 310 education system and, 288, 294– 300, 303, 317, 566–67, 571 foreign talent and, 57, 154 government rationale for, 443–61 housing policies, 324, 359 material concerns and, 88–90 media control and, 244–45, 253 race relations and, 370–71, 561–78 state institutions and, 566 Social Development Network, 582 Social Development Unit, 582 Socialist International, 508 social mobility, 217–41 Societies Act, 73, 357, 523, 526, 533n16 Soeharto, 32, 33 Soka Gakkai Buddhism, 315 Soros, George, 58 South China Sea, 24, 40 sovereign wealth funds (SWFs), 76, 152, 155, 173 Soviet Union, 22, 35 “Speakers’ Corner”, 528, 597 Speakers Cornered, 524, 525 Speak Good English Movement (SGEM), 539, 543, 544, 546 Speak Mandarin Campaign, 508, 544, 548, 569 Special Assistance Plan schools, 298– 99, 569, 573 Sports Hub, 404, 410 Spratly Islands, 40 S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, 573 Sri Aurobindo Society, 314

5/14/10, 11:01 AM

634

Management of Success

Sri Lanka, 48n1, 145, 201, 204 Standard Chartered Bank, 171 Stanford University, 170t, 298 statutory boards, 73, 76, 142, 167, 172, 470 Steiner, Achim, 398 Still Building, 491 Strait of Malacca, 26 Straits Settlements, 6, 564, 576n6 Straits Times, The on ageing population, 192 competition from other news sources, 254, 262, 282 on foreign workforce, 200 on global city plans, 403, 410, 499 on opposition parties, 107, 113, 247 political commentary in, 280 political satire, 246 professionalism, 249 Straits Times Press, 248 Strategic Economic Plan (SEP), 124–25, 126, 133 Subic Bay naval base, 23 Substation, 531n8 Sumitomo Chemical, 172 Sunday Times, 209, 284, 546 Sungei Buloh, 390, 395 Sungei Seletar/Bedok Reservoir Scheme, 422, 435n12 Sungei Sembawang, 393 Sunn, Ken, 107, 112 Suntec Convention Centre, 527 Sun Yat Sen Villa, 511 Suzhou Industrial Park, 4, 143 Switzerland, 162, 201 Sydney, 410 T Tafuri, Manfredo, 406 Taipei, 401

33 Mgt of Success Index

634

Taiwan “Asian values” and, 508 earthquake, 172 economy, 140, 143, 144, 150, 153 gay rights, 590 income inequalities, 147 Lee Hsien Loong’s visit, 25 sex scandals, 581 source of labour, 201 Taiwan Straits, 24 Taleb, Nassim Nicholas, 595 Talking Cock: the Movie, 547 Tamil language, 543, 547, 553n8, 573 Tamils, 2 Tan, Alan, 390 Tan, Charlene, 317 Tan, Eugene K.B., 10, 80–99, 312 Tan, Hwee Hwee, 547 Tan, Jason, 12 Tan, Kenneth Paul, 12, 272–87, 321 Tan, Royston, 547 Tan, Tony, 289, 538, 542 Tan Chwee Huat, 199 Tan Ern Ser, 222 Tan Gee Pow, 392 Tan Khee Giap, 252 Tan Liang Howe, 599 Tan Tarn How, 12, 242–56 Tan Wee Kiat, 390 Tang Da Wu, 491, 492, 501n6 Tang Liang Hong, 106 Tanjong Pagar, 31 Taoism, 5, 311, 316, 319 Taxi Driver, 549 tax policies. See also Goods and Services Tax (GST) on foreign investment, 28, 127, 141, 153 on overseas investments, 125 personal income, 128

5/14/10, 11:01 AM

Index

pro-family, 145, 582–83 wealth management sector, 171 Tay Kheng Soon, 406, 416n46 Tebrau River, 424, 436n15 Technische Corporation, 432 Technische Universitat München (TUM), 169t Technische Universiteit Eindhoven (TUE), 169t Temasek Holdings Limited appearance before U.S. Congress, 75–76 foreign talent and, 152 ownership of Mediacorp, 248, 252 in state-business relationship, 11, 74, 79n26, 143, 159 Temasek Polytechnic, 102, 109 Temasek Review (blog), 116 Ten Chin Liew, 324 Teo, Sebastian, 109, 112 Teo Chee Hean, 53, 468, 471 Teochews, 2 Teo Ming Kian, 78n19 terrorism global war on, 23, 27, 35, 281, 337 national security and, 463, 471 past incidents, 469 societal origins, 460n46 threat of home-grown, 444 Thailand ASEAN and, 38, 48n1 backlash against Singapore, 155 democratization, 597 law on marital rape, 347 source of labour, 145, 201 Thaipusam, 316 Tham Seong Chee, 310 Tharman Shanmugaratnam, 53, 78n19 theatre, 489, 491–93, 547–48, 602 Theatre Practice, The (TTP), 491

33 Mgt of Success Index

635

635

TheatreWorks, 491 Thinking Schools, Learning Nation (TSLN) initiative, 288, 300–2, 303 Thio Li-ann, 13, 352n5, 355–83, 587 Thio Su Mien, 604 Third Stage, 492 Thomas, Lynette, 316 Thompson, Eric, 208 Thumboo, Edwin, 550 Tiananmen Square incident, 202, 501n8 Tianjin Ecocity, 4 Tilman, Robert O., 52 TIME magazine, 247, 250, 489–90, 588 Timor-Leste, 48n1 Toa Payoh, 507 TODAY, 59, 248, 282, 530 Toh Chin Chye, 3 Tokyo, 401, 412 Tong, Perry, 106 Tong Chee Kiong, 454 Total Defence, 463, 474–76 tourism, 127, 167, 397, 403, 408, 500, 602 town councils, 68, 108 trade policies, 24, 28, 29, 41, 45, 160 trade unions depoliticization, 74, 242, 246, 356, 368 dismantling of, 5 role in social compact, 81, 148 ties to the PAP, 70 in tripartism policy, 73, 83, 368 Transparency International Corruption Perception Index, 179n16 Tuas Biomedical Park, 168 Tutu, Desmond, 352n8 2 mothers in a hdb playground, 549 2008 Beijing Olympics, 599 Tyler, Tom R., 87

5/14/10, 11:01 AM

636

Management of Success

U Ulu Pandan, 426 Under One Roof, 545, 546, 558n54 UN Human Rights Commission, 363, 364 Union Bank of Switzerland, 152 United Arab Emirates (UAE), 179n13, 426, 433 United Kingdom, 167, 201, 278, 289, 567 United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), 7, 565 United Nations (UN), 27, 29, 188, 356, 363, 424, 429 United Nations Development Program (UNDP), 179n16 United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), 398 United States ASEAN and, 48n1 Congress, 75–76 criticisms of Singapore, 363, 374n14 education system, 167, 289 free trade agreement with, 162, 456 gay rights movement, 586, 587, 589 income inequalities, 147 influence of popular culture, 567 military presence in region, 22–23, 446 presidential salary, 279 press freedom in, 243 relations with China, 24 relations with Singapore, 9, 22–23, 29 social mobility, 222, 223 source of foreign investment, 140, 432 war on terror, 23, 27 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), 355, 358, 364

33 Mgt of Success Index

636

University Cultural Centre, 400 University of Chicago, 168, 169t University of Malaya, 6 University of Pennsylvania, 169t urban planning, 400–17 Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), 394, 401, 403, 409 U.S.-Japan Alliance, 25, 26 Utusan Melayu, 245 V Vasu, Norman, 15, 462–85 Victoria Theatre, 493 Vietnam ASEAN and, 35n2, 38, 48n1 communist government, 139 joint economic ventures, 126 occupation of Cambodia, 22, 35, 44 Singaporean investments in, 143 territorial claims, 24 urban development, 401 Vietnam War, 22, 141 Vogel, Ezra, 272 W Wang Gungwu, 7 Warsaw Pact, 22 Waseda University, 170t water, 417–39 agreements with Malaysia, 30–32, 423–24, 428–30, 436n15, 436n22, 439n63 conservation measures, 421, 427–28, 437n37 drive for self-sufficiency, 14–15, 397, 430–33, 439n62 as growth sector, 172, 431–33, 434 imports from Indonesia, 33, 418, 435n5 sources of, 418–27

5/14/10, 11:01 AM

Index

WaterHub, 433 Wee, C.J. W.-L., 15, 489–503 Wee Kim Wee, 446 Wee Shu Min affair, 273–74, 283 Wee Wan-ling, 542 Wharton School, 169t Wheatley, Paul, 594, 600, 601, 602 Williams, Rowan, 352n8 Willmott, W.E., 505 women AWARE episode, 604 divorce rates, 238 life expectancies, 185 marital rape and, 344–49 Penal Code Section 377A and, 338, 341 in politics, 53–54, 60, 370 pro-family policies, 55, 145, 582– 83, 584 religion and, 316, 371, 382n119 reproduction rates, 184–85, 192, 237, 430, 582 rights, 356, 358, 359, 365–66, 369, 371–72, 380n81 role in economy, 204 Wong Kan Seng on “Asian values”, 355–56, 361, 363, 364, 586 on national security, 472 “second generation” leader, 53, 54 on social cohesion, 452, 458n23 Wong Kim Hoh, 547 Wong Yuen Kuai, Lucien, 78n19 Woon Cheong Ming, Walter, 78n19, 340, 342, 361 Woo Yen Yen, 547 Work Assistance Programme, 369 Workers Party (WP) attitude to new media, 111 founding and revival, 72, 102

33 Mgt of Success Index

637

637

newsletter, 109 the PAP and, 106 platform, 104, 115 political strategies, 104–5, 110, 111– 13, 115, 117, 535n40 rallies and events, 257, 532n8 Youth Wing, 102–3, 109, 116, 247 Workfare Income Supplement Scheme (WIS), 55, 84, 87, 128, 285, 513 workforce. See also foreign labour; foreign talent ageing, 93, 185–89, 449–50, 601 employment by sector, 129t, 130, 137, 200 gay community and, 588, 589 immigration and, 193, 200–1, 205– 8, 210, 516 income inequalities in, 147 knowledge economy and, 499 multiculturalism and, 566 unemployment rate, 63, 130 unskilled, 93, 202–5, 218, 237 World Bank, 98n29, 109, 524, 527 World Economic Forum, 179n16, 397 World Health Organization, 425 World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO), 173 World War II, 139, 358, 417, 468, 509–10, 564 World Wildlife Fund (WWF), 397 WTO (World Trade Organisation), 29 X Xin Min Daily News, 409 Y Yaacob Ibrahim, 561, 562, 574 Yamashita Tomoyuki (General), 509

5/14/10, 11:01 AM

638

Management of Success

Yap, Arthur, 549 Yap Kim Hao, 352n8 Yap Mui Teng, 11, 183–98, 188 Yawning Bread (blog), 257–58, 589 Yayasan Mendaki, 570, 571, 573 Yeh, Stephen, 387 Yeo, George, 53, 71, 97n15, 210, 283, 446–48, 490 Yeo, Philip, 496 Yeo, Robert, 549 Yeoh, Brenda, 407 Yeoh Lam Keong, 148, 285 Yeo Kim Wah, 540–41 Yesterday.sg (blog), 265 Yip, Jeffrey, 231 Yip, John, 288 Yokohama, 401 Yong Pung How, 353n12, 586 youth ageing population and, 189, 194 the arts and, 494

33 Mgt of Success Index

638

cosmopolitan values, 599, 601 environmental awareness, 394 gaps in knowledge, 47, 294 global city and, 407 individualism, 295, 445, 448, 521 materialism, 93, 98n24, 295 PAP attempts to appeal to, 53, 531, 535n41, 582, 596 political awareness, 76, 113, 116– 17, 529–30, 533n18, 597 racial vs. national identity, 571 religion among, 311, 315, 325 use of Singlish, 520n47 Youth Olympic Games, 55, 404 Z Zahari’s 17 Years, 524 Zaqy Mohamad, 454 Zhangbao Industries, 432 Zhang Juan, 208 Zhang Zhidong, 542

5/14/10, 11:01 AM