Thursday, July 22, 2004
This isn't really a post, its just a reply to some ranting in a friend's blog about the politics in singpapore or rather, the biting lack of. Nothing happening to my life except
1) giving blood tmr, and
2) really really inspired to go UK and study now. I think i even know what to do.
So here goes
Democracy and Opposition – Singapore apparently needs – I quote – “some kind of opposition leader with substantial support behind him” to qualify as a proper democracy. It’s not like there are no opposition parties here; there are, maybe they have relatively small (minute? microscopic?) slices of the political pie, but they do exist nonetheless. As for the substantial support bit, well, it
is up to the voters to determine how much support these parties get, I mean, the support won’t come magically out of nowhere...if these people want support they have to give people a reason to support them
There’s a sort of “don’t fix what isn’t broken” mentality thing going on here. If the current government’s doing fine, why risk going after some obscure little party that hasn’t done the least to prove itself? Not being revolutionaries doesn’t make most Singaporeans politically apathetic; it just makes them rational and welfare maximizing. And furthermore, there are opposition leaders who just give the opposition a lousy name. Think Chee Soon Juan. And Jayaratnam.
One more teeny thing about why there are hardly any worthy people standing for the opposite side…the government’s very good at preying upon
potential good opposition from an early age. What else do you think happens to all the psc scholars of the world? And it’s these people who are most likely to be concerned about the political future of the economy. So basically, they start hunting these people down
early, and give them wonderful jobs in the govt sector, and that way, they get the benefit of creative, non-govt viewpoints from interesting angles
without the messiness of fighting with opposition parties. (This also explains why the opposition people here are mostly such shitheads. Let me stress, MOSTLY.
Note: all this is very general. DO NOT quote me
Having said that, it’s also true that there’s not much chance for even the better opposition parties to rise up over here. You know the whole vicious cycle thing. and there’s a lot of suspicion about how the
current government draws up voting districts.
Politiking for Politiking’s sake – What exactly do you mean by politicking in the first place? I would assume you mean getting actively involved in what goes on in the government, being hyper aware of the political climate, etc etc.
Firstly, no one care’s about politicking for politicking’s sake. People at large are only concerned about politics inasmuch as it directly affects their lives. Two points here:
1. You’re right, i think most people have utmost faith in the government’s ability. So just let them do all the thinking and we’ll do whatever they want. And this is reinforced by how comfortably middle class most of the population is. There isn’t much reason for people to want to change anything, simply because they don’t think they have anything significant to be dissatisfied about. (And let’s face it, not many Singaporeans are all that bothered about the more problematic, potentially dissatisfaction-inducing issues like freedom of speech – the lack thereof- )
2. I hate saying this but there really isn’t a lot of point getting involved. Singapore isn’t Switzerland, where every little national decision depends on the response of the people. The general public doesn’t decide anything here…the only things we get to decide on are the people who get to make decisions for us. And what’s more, the government’s ultra super efficient here…policy gets decided, gets announced in the news, and it’s up and running with effect from the next day. Find space in there for the input of the public’s views. And so, effectively, what’s the point of having a voice if no one’s going to listen?
This bit is interesting, thought you all should read it and maybe think about it too. Extracted from the post to which this post is a reply to. read
here
Huxley: This is where it gets creepy. I think Singapore's the closest thing on Earth to Huxley's Brave New World. In Brave New World, the government resorts to social engineering and cloning, and its leader (I only remember him as 'his Fordship') will not let anyone disrupt the culture and class order. The Singaporean government is extremely practical and willing to resort to anything for the economy as long as it doesn't disrupt society. Not to mention IVF and stem-cell cloning is not banned in Singapore. In Brave New World, people blindly accept their lives as is. In Singapore I dare say that's the case for a lot of the people here. Did I mention that they're also terribly obedient to the government? In Brave New World, people are so homogenised that they lose their identity. In Singapore, there is this sentiment against standing out (frequently expressed by the terms "Don't be AA" -- Attract Attention). In Brave New World, the only thing people do are miniature golf, tennis, and watch the "feelies". There's isn't much else to do in Singapore. What else can I conclude?
This is very strange…to my knowledge, just about
any government would want the best for their economy inasmuch as it doesn’t adversely affect social norms. In fact, to my knowledge (and yours, obviously) the government here is extra extra picky about making sure things that happen don’t affect the social balance. Social engineering takes place to some extent, everywhere, and cloning isn’t yet an issue. And IVF and stem-cell cloning…don’t make me start an essay on it, there’s no way you can dismiss these as being totally morally wrong, which you appear to be doing. In fact, a lot of your criticisms could just as well be directed to any other society in most places.
I sort of agree with your attract attention point though. In fact, I think it’s a bit weirder than that. People can be accepted for standing out, provided their standing out is within some pre-defined region. So its sort of like, standing out, but within the norm (i’m not sure if you get this but i think you might). Would like to give an example but there are none forthcoming at the moment. Apologies.
One last point: no one plays miniature golf here! And ok, there are things to do here if you’re the sort who goes out looking. Don’t argue. This you know is true.
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