The Distinctive City

I had a friend called Kevin in secondary school. He was a clever boy. He was smiley and polite. But Kevin came from a poor family. His father was usually unemployed and his mother worked on the factory floor of some garment manufacturer. This made Kevin pretty insecure, especially when he hung around us middle class boys.

And because of this Kevin was always trying to be someone else. He tried to talk like us, tried to act like us, tried to become us. Pretty soon, Kevin stopped being Kevin. And because he could never become us, he became nothing, neither here nor there. And because he was neither here nor there, we found him less and less interesting.

Singapore is like Kevin.

According to Goh Chok Tong Singapore needs a new identity to ‘stay ahead’. We must project a new identity – “one that captivates the eyes, moves the heart, stirs the soul and inspires the mind”. In other words, lie. We do many things. We knock down old buildings for fun, we sue people for saying things we don’t like, we censor films, we have androids for MPs, we have a “nation-building” press, we have leaders we have to worship, we deny people the right to love others of the same sex, but we certainly don’t do ‘captivation’, ‘soul’ or ‘inspire’. Anyone who says otherwise either works in the Singapore Tourism Board or wants to get his letter published in the Forum Page of the Straits Times.

We do safe. We do clean. We do efficient. We do corruption-free, green, family-friendly, and very good propaganda. We already have an identity – a hardworking obedient people with a keen ear for the jangling of coins. Inspiration is one of those high falutin ideas for the birds.

Goh tells us that we must be a “Distinctive City”. But O Great One, we already are! ERP, CWO, COE, no chewing gum, no spitting, no littering, no opposition, no opinion, no intellectuals, no newspaper, no satire, no TV, no one man assembly, hell, we couldn’t be more distinctive if we wore neon pink thongs and a feather boa to the Church of Our Saviour holding hands and singing “It’s Raining Men”! Let’s decide once and for all what kind of Distinctive City we are ok? “Boston of the East”, “Global City for the Arts”, “Renaissance City”, “City of Possibilities” – I’ve not been this confused since Father Mathews asked me to sit on his lap!

This neurotic desire to keep re-inventing ourselves, to be what we’re not, tells us more about our insecurities than anything else. Londoners don’t say they need a new identity. A new transportation system yes, but not a new identity. Nor do New Yorkers, Parisians or any other global city dweller. They know that what they are is exactly that which distinguishes them from the competition.

But like Kevin, Singapore is never at ease with itself. It’s a little ashamed, a little awkward and completely unaware of how to accentuate its qualities. And like Kevin, we’re in danger of becoming neither here nor there.

Getting to know you…

Do you know your ancestors?

No, I’m not into séances.

No, no, are you in touch with your relatives?

My uncle stroked my bum once many years ago but he told me not to tell anyone.

Not that kind of “touch” stoopid.

He gave me a lolly-pop.

Gross. Let’s start again. Do you maintain your ancestral links?

Oh, no why?

SM Goh says Singaporeans must keep in touch with where their forefathers came from.

Isn’t what chap gor meh is all about?

Stop with all that spirits stuff. I’m talking cultural history here.

Why? Since when?

Since SM Goh went to China. There he visited his father’s village called Wu Ling in Yong Chun. He was so taken up by seeing the room where his father was born that he called all Singaporeans to get in touch with their ancestors.

But I don’t speak Hakka.

Minor impediment. I don’t speak Cantonese either.

So we have to get to know our ancestors and distant relatives without speaking the language?

That’s the problem with you government critics. The damn glass is always half empty. Next you’ll be saying you have nothing in common with a ruddy-face peasant farmer who earns $1 a day scooping pig shit.

Was that what your ancestors did?

Think so. Didn’t you know, “humble” is the new cool! SM Goh said “It is in a way humbling to know that my origin was that humble”.

My great grandfather was a magistrate.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

Sorry.

Anyway, SM Goh says it’s important to keep in touch with your ancestors.

Like I said, I don’t speak the dialect anymore…*sob* The government’s systematic efforts to kill off our dialects over the years has torn me from my motherland *sob*.

There, there… don’t take it too hard. Just think of it as propaganda and reality passing each other like two ships in the night.

A bit like chopping off a man’s legs and then asking him to keep fit by jogging?

Ouch. Yes. But SM Goh also said all Singaporeans should be loyal to Singapore. Even the new ones.

What new ones?

Those that aren’t maids, construction workers, or masseuses on social visit passes.

But those make the best Singaporeans!

Meaning?

The maids are abused, the construction workers are worked to the bone and the masseuses are constantly screwed.

Abused, worked to the bone and screwed?

The perfect Singaporean.

None of your wise cracks now. Be serious. There was a time when people said that Singapore won’t make it, but we did. There was a time when trouble seemed too much for us to take, but….

Barf!

And this year’s Comical Ali Award goes to…

One of the most surreal images of the 2003 invasion of Iraq was Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf, then its Minister of Information, barking into ‘live’ TV that the American infidels would never find their way into Bagdad as, behind him on screen, American tanks were seen rolling down the streets of the capital. The sight of Al-Sahaf (aka Comical Ali), now a TV pundit, professing that all was well as everything crumbled around his ankles epitomized the farcical and thoroughly disingenuous nature of the Iraq invasion, propelling him to iconic status. [www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com] 

Al-Sahaf is, of course, not the only figure in history to have turned his face from the inconveniences of reality. Nero and his fiddle are strong favourites for the prestigious Comical Ali Award, so too Dr Pangloss from Volitare’s Candide.

Singapore’s very own candidate is none other than PAP MP Zaqy Mohamad. When asked to comment on news that the Press Freedom Index, compiled by Reporters Without Borders (RWB), saw Singapore move up from 144^th to 133^rd position, he noted that the “improved ranking “underlines that our press remains credible especially in the face of challenges like the new media””.

According to Zaqy, who is also chairman of the Government Parliamentary Committee for Information, Communications and the Arts, the improved rankings is down to the media diversity here which creates competition which, in turn, provides better-quality work.

[todayonline.com/Singapore/EDC091021-0000103/Press-freedom-index--Spore-133rd#]

Mr Zaqy has blown the competition away. Bullshit may come in all shapes and sizes but we all know pedigree manure when we smell it. Only in a parallel universe is a 133 ranking in the Press Freedom Index indicative of “press credibility”. Only in Singapore do a government-controlled TV station and a government-controlled newspaper constitute “media diversity” and “competition”.

It’s hard to decide which is more frightening – that Zaqy actually believes what he’s saying, or that this is just another ideological reflex action from a PAP MP. If we credit the man with even an ounce of intelligence, and as polite respectful bloggers we sadly must, then it boils down to cynicism.

There are a hundred and one ways to deal with these types of embarrassing data. First, question the selection criteria of the index. Zaqy could have noted that the criteria chosen by RWB may be arbritary and thus favour some types of press and not others. Second, he could have said that the majority of Singaporeans do not seem to want more than what is already offered by The Straits Times. Third, he could have reiterated the PAP’s “nation-building press” spiel. All of this would not have raised a brow. Instead, he chose to go for broke.

When a man can say, with a straight face, that our press is credible after coming in 133 out of 175 countries then he must believe that the rest of us are morons. When a man can announce that we have media diversity and press freedom despite our country’s long trail of political censorship, he must believe that we are an uneducated bunch. They say we get the government we deserve, and given the political apathy of Singaporeans, we deserve Zaqy. After all, we elected him…. or did we?

NDP pole-dancing S’pore style

Ordinary people only resist in the ways they know how. If you’re an office clerk who hates his boss, you don’t tell him he’s an asshole to his face or you’ll be fired faster than you can say ‘one month’s notice’. Instead you badmouth him behind his back and steal office stationery. If you’re a waiter who hates his job you may be tempted to spit into the roast beef or pleasure yourself with the raw carrots before serving them up to customers. The point is people register their unhappiness in the limited ways that are open to them. Or if you want to get all academic about it, modes of resistance are determined by class and cultural capital.

All of which recalls the pole-dancing segment in the National Day Parade, naturally. Public reaction to the vertical gyration of scantily clad thunder thigh women so far has fallen into two categories. The first is the ‘how could they do such a thing on National Day?’ category. It had a tinge of moralizing to it, with the sanctity of NDP taking on religious proportions for many nationalist conservatives. For them, the introduction of pole-dancing to NDP is like having a bunch of strippers conduct Holy Communion on Sunday to the soundtrack of Right Said Fred’s I’m Too Sexy.

The second category of reactions is generally more sanguine but no less enlightened. Well, it’s not done in a cheap sleazy way (unlike the giant creepy Sang Nila Utama puppet) and it’s now an accepted form of exercise, just like 55 year old aunties are now belly-dancing their way to broken hips in community centres all over the island. It’s all about sanitizing sex, making it wholesome, and then pretending we’re cutting edge because we’re now doing it. It’s so Singaporean. Whether it’s pole-dancing, Speakers Corner, or increasing the number of NMPs and NCMPs to up the level of “opposition” in Parliament, we’re all too obsessed with the form, and less with the substance.

But both reactions miss the larger point of including the pole-dance segment. For me, it was an ironic jab at how the economic imperatives of the PAP government have always been more sacred than its moral conservatism. In the early 1960s, right after the PAP took power in 1959, it embarked on its “anti-yellow culture” campaign to rid the island of pornography, jukeboxes, peepshows, decadent music and movies. It was a moral campaign to out-moral the communists then who were known for their austere and clean living. Later in 1979 the Report on Moral Education recommended the teaching of moral values in schools because Singaporeans were becoming too “Westernised”. It was in this spirit of moral conservatism that proposals to set up casinos in the 1980s and F1 races in the 1990s were roundly rejected by the PAP government.

Fast forward to the 21^st century and we’re doing our damndest to look glam to the rest of the world. Crazy Horse, bar-top dancing, pole-dancing, everything and anything that would raise a brow we will gladly do. The great lengths people will go to look cool… even looking fashionably sleazy. Whatever we tried to purge in our yesteryear – topless dancing, jukeboxes, casinos – we try to promote today. Yesterday’s “anti-yellow culture” is today’s global city advertisement. The superficiality of our moral conservatism would normally be a boon to liberals here but the way the government attaches it to political imperatives must always be a matter of concern to citizens. Every moral or culturalist campaign embarked upon by the government has come with a political agenda attached. The “anti-yellow culture” campaign was to outflank the communists, 1979 Report was aimed at stemming the perceived tide of “Westernisation” sweeping across an emerging middle class, the Confucian ethics and Asian values discourse in the 1980s and 1990s was to consolidate and justify authoritarian rule.

But in Singapore, even politics is subservient to economics. And today economics demand that that we be seen as freer, more fun, more funky, more…well, fashionably sleazy. What we saw at NDP was not pole-dancing. It was not even a mimicry of sleaze or sex. It was simple straightforward reminder that Papa doesn’t always know best. And in Singapore, with parades as with politics, dissent is best express with irony. The NDP creative director, Ivan Heng, may or may not have planned the pole-dancing segment to be read in this manner but as a polity that only has at its disposal kitsch, civil petitions, and polite letters to the Straits Times forum page as avenues of political expression, the pole-dancing segment is as loud a protest as it is dared… for the moment.  

Tweaking the NCMP scheme

I have a recurring dream. Lying in a beautiful green meadow, the fluffy clouds suddenly turn into rich mocha ice-cream. The sky begins to drizzle crushed nuts and M&Ms on the ice-cream as great big dollops of it fall into my open mouth. The flowers on the ground open up their petals to reveal cheap Cadbury chocolate as the petals turn into Kettle potato crisps. I eat and eat without ever getting sick. I’ve never known such bliss. And then I wake up. The echoing void in me is resounding. The disappointment is crushing.

And so I felt a sense of déjà vu on Wednesday when PM Lee Hsien Loong announced proposed changes to the country’s electoral system. This was to encourage a wider range of views in Parliament, including opposition and non-government views.

The changes were in three forms. Firstly, to increase the number of Opposition MPs in Parliament to at nine for every term; secondly, to make the Nominated MP scheme a permanent one; and thirdly, to increase the number of Single-Member Constituencies (SMCs), reduce the number of six-member Group Representative Constituencies (GRCs), and increasing the number of five-member GRCs. 

The public reaction has generally been positive. Academics, observers and commentators have noted that these are small steps towards a more open political sphere.

But why announce the changes now?

According to PM Lee, these changes are announced now in order that they may be debated and discussed before the next General Elections scheduled by 2011.

But could there be some strategic agenda behind it?

There has been a clear and irrefutable trend in neighbouring countries in recent times towards greater democratization. Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia have all undergone greater political liberalization in the past few years, and have seen greater Oppositional representatives in respective parliaments. More importantly, such events have been closely watched by young Singaporeans. On platforms like 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 People’s Action Party (PAP) is aware of such aspirations from the young.

This must be worrying for the PAP. Fearing that amongst the young and restless there may be a change-for-change’s sake attitude, PM Lee has made a pre-emptive strike.

These changes may 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 one-party state and more politically pluralistic neighbours become too loud, thus acting like a political valve that releases pent up pressure from idealistic young Singaporeans clamouring for more Opposition in Parliament. Such a move ensures that Singapore’s political system, while not completely liberal, does not lag too far behind the zeitgeist.

The introduction of more Opposition into Parliament must surely be to sharpen the response, debating skills and reasoning of PAP backbenchers. Some of the reasoning of PAP MPs in the last few days has been truly shocking not only for their intellectual poverty but also for their lack of original thought. PM Lee must surely be uncomfortably aware of this. However, will more Opposition lead to better debates?

I doubt it. It is more likely that the current bunch of PAP MPs will develop a siege mentality and become even more defensive. The lines between us-and-them will be more clearly drawn.

Lastly, the announcement of such changes also comes before the APEC Summit in November. This would invariable win the city-state some good press coverage given the inevitable reportage on the restrictions to protest groups which will be descending on to Singapore.

Of the three changes, the increase in NCMP seats has garnered the most attention. This is because, together with the compulsory nine NMP seats, there will be a guaranteed 18 non-PAP MPs in Parliament. This is unprecedented since 1965.

The number of NCMPs will now be increased from a maximum of six to nine. There are three real consequences.

Firstly, the message sent to voters will be this: there is no need to cast your ballot for the opposition because some will get in as NCMPs anyway. In actual terms this would spell a dip in the popular vote for the Opposition. It is a psychological gain for the PAP.

Secondly, with more NCMP seats up for grabs, different Opposition parties will find it harder to agree amongst themselves which constituencies to contests and which to avoid. There would be more 3-corner or even 4-corner fights. This would of course split the Opposition vote and benefit the PAP. Take for example Aljunied GRC in the last election. The PAP team won 56 per cent of the votes, while the Worker’s Party won 44 per cent. With the promise of two NCMP seats up for grabs in GRCs, other Opposition parties will be tempted to contest in Aljunied too as it is popularly perceived as the weakest GRC. This would surely cut the Worker’s Party’s 44 per cent share.

Thirdly, meanwhile there are also strategic gains too. NCMPs have limited voting rights. The more Opposition MPs that come under the NCMP scheme means that there will be more opposition MPs in Parliament who cannot vote on constitutional matters, public funds, no confidence motion or to remove the President. Ultimately it means more Opposition MPs with fewer voting rights.

 Sigh. Dreams are a bitch. 

Making the Opposition’s Case; or Shoot. Foot. Yours.

The level of debate in Parliament has never been particularly high. With PAP MPs the overwhelming majority, robust debate in the house is as common as entertainment is on Mediacorp.

And the government knows this too. When birds of the same feather flock together, all dressed in white plumage, there is bound to be group-think and very shoddy reasoning. Which is why the NMP scheme was introduced in 1990 to inject quality into parliamentary exchange. Nevertheless we’re still susceptible to the occasional clanger. 

Low Thia Khiang’s suggestion two days ago that an effective opposition can provide checks and balances on the ruling PAP party created a storm in the proverbial teacup.

The Worker’s Party leader was speaking in response to Goh Chok Tong’s recent teaser that the government would refine the political system to keep pace with society. Any changes however, according to Goh, needed to abide by three things – fairness to all political parties (at this point I had to duck because the flying pig zoomed dangerously overhead); ensuring a strong government; and protecting harmony, unity and economic growth.

For Low, a strong opposition served as viable recourse for Singaporeans if the PAP were to a) abuse its power; b) trample on people’s rights; and c) become corrupt.

As sure as the sun rises and The Straits Times winning SPH’s newspaper of the year, PAP backbenchers rose to rebut Low. Indranee Rajah and Josephine Teo being the most prominent of the lot. Rajah argued that Low’s premise was flawed. According to her,

 He’s really saying just in case PAP becomes corrupt in the future, then people had better vote for the opposition now. But if you apply the same logic, then the argument can also be made that if you vote in the opposition, then they may become corrupt in the future, so in order to avoid that, you might as well vote for PAP now.

 Going by Mr Low’s argument, the logical outcome is that in every other country in the world with an opposition it should be squeaky clean, and in Singapore, in which a large majority of the Parliament comes from a single party, then Singapore should be the most corrupt country in the world. That as we know is not the case.

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/431930/1/.html

Firstly, this is probably the most selective form of arguing one can hope to witness. Instead of addressing Low’s overall argument – that a strong opposition would be a viable alternative should the PAP falter – she chose to harp on just one point, corruption, in the hope that this would be enough to discredit his broader argument. It’s an old lawyer’s trick; find a loose thread in your opponent’s argument and then put the spotlight on it, however small the thread, in order to cast doubt over the rest of the argument.

It may work fine in the courtroom but such forms of intellectual disingenuousness really have no place in Parliament. They lack earnestness and sincerity, and rely on facetious point-scoring. Cheap lawyer tricks are like two-bit magicians, they bedazzle the kids but thinking adults ought to know better.

Secondly, while she correctly argues that a two-party system does not guarantee that there will be no corruption, she goes on to shoot her own foot with her reasoning. Just because a two-party system is no guarantee, does not mean that a one-party system necessarily is! Just because our one-party system has been relatively corruption free does not mean it will remain this way forever. It’s your garden variety red herring argument. A bit like saying, oh, white bread is no good so that means brown bread is very good. It makes as much sense as Zoe, Fann and the three brain cells they share.

Josephine Teo’s contribution was not much better. She wondered, 

Is it better for Singapore to support an opposition – even if it is not up to mark – in the hope that it could govern well when it overthrows a corrupt PAP? Or is it better to make sure that the PAP does not fail Singaporeans, that it has the strongest team to serve Singaporeans?  

This is a typical false dilemma fallacy. Why can’t we nurture a strong opposition that is able to takeover if the PAP fails? Why do we have to choose between a weak opposition and a dominant PAP? But to push the envelope further, what would Teo propose we do if for some reason the PAP fails even after all our best efforts to ensure it doesn’t? What then? No contingency plan? Doesn’t sound very PAP-like does it?

In the end, while the MPs debated back and forth over the last two days, the best argument for a strong opposition came, ironically, from the shoddy reasoning of the PAP MPs themselves. Low didn’t really need to push too hard. All he had to do was to dangle the bait and let the PAP MPs, so lacking in debating experience, make the case for him. To be fair, he probably did this unwittingly given his awkwardness as a public speaker. But the point he made, intentionally or not, remains – the case for a strong viable opposition is made most forcefully by PAP MPs who do not believe that the PAP will ever fail.

 

Wong’s Last Word

By now everyone would have read DPM Wong Kan Seng’s interview on religion, politics and civil society. If we’re truthful, it was less of an interview and more of the PAP government trying to have the last word on the AWARE saga.

Knowing the precise moment to have the last word is, of course, an art. You speak too early and your words will be drowned by the on-going row - the impact is lost. Speak  too late and everyone would have moved on - you become irrelevant. Just as timing is vital for comedians, so too for politicians. 

It’s an art that the PAP government has long mastered. With the aid of a compliant press, Wong’s rhetoric is uncritically accepted as the government’s “genuinely centrist positions on such matters” (The Straits Times, editorial, 16 May 09). The problem is not whether the government is centrist or not. I think it is, but saying the PAP is centrist is like saying vanilla is ’ok’ – true but hardly earthshaking. The question of whether this “centrist” rhetoric is riddled with internal contradictions begs to be asked, and without a critical press we are left mired in analytical poverty.

Wong made three key points in his “interview”. Firstly, religion and politics don’t mix. Secondly, the government does not respond to lobbying. Thirdly, the local media’s coverage of the event was too “extensive and breathless”.

The first point was blunt to the point of being meaningless. We already have laws that prevent religion from mixing with politics – the 1991 Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act and the ban on religious-based political parties. With these laws, pulpit politics and religious politicking are outlawed so the point is a non-starter.

The AWARE saga was not about religion mixing with politics but with civil society. It was about a religious agenda hijacking a secular-liberal NGO. And this is where things get murky for there is surely nothing wrong with religion playing a part in civil society since, as Wong himself admitted, religious groups may be a force for social good for the community.

Beyond this, it’s highly unrealistic to expect a firewall between religion and politics. Reality is more complex than that. After all, our political views are influenced by a variety of elements like our class, ethnicity, as well as religion, if any. The real question is how religious folks can translate their religious-political views into secular terms such that people of different faiths as well as free thinkers can engage with them. So, instead of saying that homosexuality is wrong because the Bible says so, they should say the majority of Singaporeans are conservative and many are not ready to see these alternative lifestyles paraded in front of them. Only then can there be dialogue and reason-based argument.

Wong’s second point on lobbying is puzzling. Of course, like any severe father, the PAP government doesn’t like to have its authority challenged. Fathers don’t like whining children, patriarchal states don’t like lobbying. But wait a minute, isn’t the Nominated Member of Parliament (NMP) scheme an institutionalized process of procedural lobbying? The NMP scheme began in 1992 but when the response was disappointing, Wong himself, then leader of the house, suggested that different constituencies could nominate expert individuals to speak for them in Parliament. These constituencies are divided into business, arts and culture, academia and so on. This is lobbying in all but name.

Furthermore, Thio Su Mien and her lot have shown that lobbying has worked. Initially dismissive of her accusations that the Comprehensive Sex Education (CSE) programme promoted lesbianism, the MOE has now suspended AWARE as an external vendor of CSE. Wong may be strong in his anti-lobbying rhetoric but the reality shows that not only does it take place but, more encouragingly, it also produces results!    

Lastly, Wong believes that the press was excessive in the AWARE coverage. Personally, I think the wide coverage was justified given that the whole episode contained several crucial themes that served as signposts for where the country was heading but I can understand how someone totally uninterested in the saga may see it as excessive. However the fault lies in the fact that we have no press diversity.

If we had press diversity, we would have had alternatives to turn to if we had found the AWARE saga overblown or tedious. Moreover, press diversity would also have served as a check against the biases of newspapers.

But instead we have a homogeneous ‘nation-building’ press. And as we have seen, such a press, without any viable competitor, runs the risk of excessive coverage and unchecked ideological bias because it has no idea of what people want beyond what it can offer. The government encourages competition in every sector but the press and it’s just delightfully ironic that the government is complaining about something it has nurtured.

The problem with wanting the last word is that people tend to have the time and space to dwell on it. And if you don’t say something smart or pertinent, it really shows.

Singapore’s ‘Culture Wars’: Fragmenting Politics

Every Singaporean longs for the day when ‘race’ and ‘religion’ cease to be markers of difference in society. And to a large extent they have. For most post-1965 Singaporeans, the politics of ‘race’ and ‘religion’ are but ancient and anecdotal lessons hermeneutically sealed in history textbooks unlike the stark realities of a bygone era their parents grew up in. Through a combination of stern warnings from the People’s Action Party (PAP) government and institutions like the Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act of 1991, race and religion have never played a significant role in civil society or electoral politics since independence. That’s the good news.

 

The not-so-bad news is that new issues have emerged over the last decade or so to replace the traditional faultlines of ‘race’ and ‘religion’. A growing list of hot button issues like homosexuality, abortion, euthanasia, the casinos, censorship and so on, has become integral to the politics of identity in contemporary Singapore. These hot-button issues have a tendency to divide Singaporeans, irrespective of age, gender or ethnicity, based on their ideological worldview of these lifestyle choices.

Such politics of division are, of course, not new. The American ‘culture wars’ first caught the popular imagination when presidential hopeful Pat Buchanan delivered his famous campaign speech to the Republican National Convention in 1992. Referring to liberal ideologies over controversial issues as abortion, affirmative action, and arts funding, Buchanan urged Republicans to declare “a war for the nation’s soul.” In his book Culture Wars: The Struggle for America, sociologist James Davison Hunter examined the phenomenon as the struggle between the ‘orthodox’ (conservative or traditional) and ‘progressive’ (liberal or modern) camps in spheres of interests like law, education, arts, the family, and politics. For Hunter, the ‘culture wars’ were unlike conventional religious and cultural conflicts that historically divided the nation between the religious and the secular but along ‘orthodox’ and ‘progressive’ ideological worldviews that cut across established moral and religious communities.

These hot button issues are complex because they contain a wide variety of polarities. Take the AWARE saga for example. The conflict currently playing out is not just a straightforward struggle between the pro-gay and anti-gay camps, but also between orthodox and progressive Christians, not to mention between civic secularists and cultural conservatives. The 2007 debate over Section 377A of the Penal Code was similarly complex. The casino debate in 2004 was also more than a conflict between religious and non-religious people but also between moral conservatives and cultural libertarians, and between conservative economists and economic pragmatists. On the immediate horizon is the workshop on so-called ‘end-of-life’ issues by the euthanasia expert Philip Nitschke to be held next month. Dr Nitschke, head of Exit International, a centre that promotes euthanasia, will speak on concerns such as advanced medical directives and will be sure to provoke a backlash.

Simply put, as Singapore confirms its status as a global city, as it engages with the growing influx of ideas and institutions, it will be increasingly become more fragmented along ‘orthodox’ and ‘progressive’ worldviews which, in turn, have a multitude of agenda and interests behind them.

This is why Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports Vivian Balakrishnan’s recent observation in the wake of the AWARE saga misses the point. He was quoted in the local media as saying: 

If you allow these single issues [the gay issue] to dominate and hijack your agenda, I think you are not going succeed and it’s going to be counter productive.

But such ‘single issues’ are both deep and wide in terms of the agenda behind them. 377A and the casino debate were also ‘single issues’ that carried deeply held beliefs by a wide variety of camps. These hot button issues are not ‘single issues’ or one-off debates but symptoms of an on-going conflict between orthodoxy and progressives.

This conflict may not necessarily be a bad thing. These hot button issues will make policy-decisions more complicated. It will make Singapore politics more sophisticated because the PAP will have to speak to a variety of constituents and decide which to court. There would be more bargaining and negotiating as the ruling party will have no choice but to bear in mind the deeply held values of a wide array of people. This fragmentation of identities will lead to a fragmentation of politics.

 

SOP

For a country so obsessed with law and order, Singapore has a strange aversion to standard operating procedures (SOPs). The most recent example of this was the Law Society’s call for the government to show greater transparency in the pre-trial process and for detailed rules to regulate how police interrogate suspects (Straits Times, 3 March 2009). The Law Society’s complaints are not new but it does show what a long running battle it is just to get the government to listen.

 

Another recent example of aversion to SOPs was the Elected President’s unlocking of the reserves. The President made clear in his press conference that the process of opening up the reserves was a mere series of ad hoc and informal meetings between a selected few. In a matter of 11 days (or less if need be), billions of our reserves were available. Now, there is great virtue in speedy action, especially during an economic crisis of this proportion. However, the sheer lack of formal SOPs that the late Ong Teng Cheong tried to develop must be disconcerting for any Singaporean.

Their book Standard Operating Procedure: A War Story, Philip Gourevitch and Errol Morris discuss the atrocities of the infamous Abu Ghraib prison. They argue that the lack of SOPs as to how to treat the prisoners led some of the American soldiers to abuse them. More broadly and pertinently, they suggest that the lack of SOPs in an institution leaves people in that institution vulnerable to forces such as the prevailing political culture, strong personalities or personal disenchantment. Such forces, when exerted on individuals, often lead to mistakes made in the name of the institution.

Such lessons are important to Singapore too. Other than their lack of clear institutional procedures, our two examples also have another thing in common. Their situation is tilted in such a way that it gives the authorities – the police and the President, in these cases – great leeway in getting on with their duties unfettered by SOPs.

 

No doubt the police would argue that the lack of transparency during the pre-trail process and absence of detailed rules on police interrogation allows them to extract information and conduct investigation more efficiently. However, the price to pay for this efficiency is an opaque system which may be susceptible to abuse. Moreover, efficiency and transparency are not mutually exclusive. There is no reason why a defense lawyer who can advise a suspect of his rights will impede investigations.

 

As for the Elected Presidency, when asked in Parliament about how the President came to his decision (before his press conference), Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam’s reply was “This is a system that relies on trust in the individuals who are in charge, including those appointed to the CPA and the Elected President. Do you trust them? Have they made decisions wisely?” For want of a better word, it seems that the relationship between the Executive and the Elected Presidency is one based on social capital. The Executive trusts the President because it knows him personally, while the President is willing to give the Executive the benefit of the doubt because he is familiar with its track record. But how does this ensure the longevity of the Elected Presidency as an institution?

 

Surely SOPs like a committee of independent economists and experts to assess the government’s request to unlock the reserves, a committee of external policy experts to judge the way in which the government plans to use the money, the publication of conditions and targets that these reserve-fueled policies must meet, or opening of the process to public scrutiny should be considered?

 

This brings us all back to the age-old debate between men and systems. Clearly, the PAP government believes that it’s better to have good men in a bad system than to have a good system with a bunch of bad men in it. This is why the local press loves to go on about the virtues of our ministers like ‘trust’, ‘competence’, ‘capability’ – they are about public legitimacy. However, it’s a false dilemma to assume that one must make a choice between good men and a good system. Why can’t we have both? What happens when, god forbid, a bunch of rogues enter the system? Our sheer lack of institution-building and SOPs would pave the way for their profit.

 

And the irony of it all is that the PAP has a clear set of SOPs when picking and choosing ‘good’ and ‘capable’ men. It consults grassroots leaders or colleagues of the person, it invites the person to tea parties to assess him face-to-face, he undergoes psychological tests, his tax and financial records are thoroughly checked, he is interviewed by a panel of ministers, followed by another interview by senior members of the executive. If so many SOPs are in place to pick men to join the ruling party, surely its time to place greater emphasis on SOPs in our major institutions.

 

Unlocking reserves

Well whoop-di-do! President Nathan has come out to explain why he agreed to use his key to the reserves. According to Nathan, he was convinced of the severity of the economic situation, both global and local, after meetings with the Finance Minister, Trade and Industry Minister and the Prime Minister.

 

“I recognize the importance of giving confidence to go ahead with the measures proposed in the Budget for the particular reference to past reserves bearing in mind (that) if the situation worsens, negative consequences would have kicked in, making any measures too late to be of any effect” he said [Straits Times, 18 Feb 2009].

 

However, to my mind, the decision to unlock our past reserves must be made on two arguments: The first is, is the President satisfied that there a need to do so? And quite clearly, with record job losses and financial woes on the cards, there is that need. Second, is the President satisfied and confident that the government of the day has the right solutions to the worsening economic situation?

 

So far, only the first part is clear: the government coming to the President with a case to unlock the reserves. The government obviously painted a gloomy scenario, gloomy enough to perk Nathan into turning the key. To be fair, the gloomy economic scenario is everywhere in every international paper so it’s hard to blame him for fearing the worse.

 

But what about the second part: how does the President know that the government will put the money to good use? This is where things get a little ambiguous. How confident was the President in the Job Credit scheme and the Special Risk Sharing Initiative? According to TODAY, “The President reiterated that he was not here to judge whether these schemes would ultimately work, though he would certainly say no to “scatter-brained” proposals” [TODAY, 18 Feb 2009].

 

Not here to judge? Shouldn’t the man responsible for giving the government our money make it a point to judge if the money will be well spent?

 

Another worrisome reply came when asked what would happen if there was a need to draw even further on reserves should the Job Credit scheme be extended after a year. “It all depends on what happens. So that was not a consideration in our minds”. [Straits Times, 18 Feb 2008]. In other words, we may dig deeper into the reserves… who knows, we didn’t dwell on it.

 

So what did this exercise tell us? Several things.

 

Firstly, there are no institutional procedures when it comes to unlocking the reserves. Just a series of informal meetings and the ability to convince one man. This is why someone close to government is needed.

 

Secondly, the press conference came across as a tad defensive. Instead of celebrating how the Elected Presidency had been operationalised succesfully as an institution, Nathan seemed to be more concerned with emphasising how urgent the situation was and how the government needed the money. Could this defensiveness been a result of criticisms from the internet forums and blogs? 

 

Thirdly, why did the President hold a press conference even though he was not obliged to so (as he made clear to the reporters)? To explain himself? He could have done this through Parliament in a written reply, together with his written consent to unlock the reserves. He chose to hold a press conference because the Elected Presidency, as an institution, could do with more moral legitimacy. There have been no presidential elections since the late Ong Teng Cheong and without elections, an Elected President cannot claim to have a mandate or moral authority. A press conference offers a means to address the public in a more intimate and direct way, unlike the impersonal mechanism of Parliament. He was seeking public approval.