TR EMERITUS

By Mark Jacobson from National Geographic If you want to get a Singaporean to look up from a beloved dish of fish-head curry—or make a harried cabdriver slam on his brakes—say you are going to interview the country's "minister mentor," Lee Kuan Yew, and would like an opinion about what to ask him. "The MM?Wah lau! You're going to see the MM? Real?" You might as well have told a resident of the Emerald City that you're late for an appointment with the Wizard of Oz. After all, LKY, as he is known in acronym-mad Singapore, is more than the "father of the country." He is its inventor, as surely as if he had scientifically formulated the place with precise portions of Plato's Republic, Anglophile elitism, unwavering economic pragmatism, and old-fashioned strong-arm repression. People like to call Singapore the Switzerland of Southeast Asia, and who can argue? Out of a malarial swamp, the tiny island at the southernmost tip of the Malay Peninsula gained independence from Britain in 1963 and, in one generation, transformed itself into a legendarily efficient place, where the per capita income for its 3.7 million citizens exceeds that of many European countries, the education and health systems rival anything in the West, government officials are largely corruption free, 90 percent of households own their own homes, taxes are relatively low and sidewalks are clean, and there are no visible homeless people or slums. If all that, plus a typical unemployment rate of about 3 percent and a nice stash of money in the bank thanks to the government's enforced savings plan, doesn't sound sweet to you, just travel 600 miles south and try getting by in a Jakarta shantytown. Achieving all this has required a delicate balancing act, an often paradoxical interplay between what some Singaporeans refer to as "the big stick and the big carrot." What strikes you first is the carrot: giddy financial growth fueling never ending construction and consumerism. Against this is the stick, most often symbolized by the infamous ban on chewing gum and the caning of people for spray-painting cars. Disruptive things like racial and religious disharmony? They're simply not allowed, and no one steals anyone else's wallet. Singapore, maybe more than anywhere else, crystallizes an elemental question: What price prosperity and security? Are they worth living in a place that many contend is a socially engineered, nose-to-the-grindstone, workaholic rat race, where the self-perpetuating ruling party enforces draconian laws (your airport entry card informs you, in red letters, that the penalty for drug trafficking is "DEATH"), squashes press freedom, and offers a debatable level of financial transparency? Some people joke that the government micromanages the details of life right down to how well Singapore Airlines flight attendants fill out their batik-patterned dresses. They say Lee Kuan Yew has mellowed over the years, but when he walks into the interview wearing a zippered blue jacket, looking like a flint-eyed Asian Clint Eastwood circa Gran Torino, you know you'd better get on with it. While it is not exactly clear what a minister mentor does, good luck finding many Singaporeans who don't believe that the Old Man is still top dog, the ultimate string puller behind the curtain. Told most of my questions have come from Singaporeans, the MM, now 86 but as sharp and unsentimental as a barbed tack, offers a bring-it-on smile: "At my age I've had many eggs thrown at me." Few living leaders—Fidel Castro in Cuba, Nelson Mandela in South Africa, and Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe come to mind—have dominated their homeland's national narrative the way Lee Kuan Yew has. Born into a well-to-do Chinese family in 1923, deeply influenced by both British colonial society and the brutal Japanese occupation that killed as many as 50,000 people on the island in the mid-1940s, the erstwhile "Harry Lee," Cambridge law degree in hand, first came to prominence as a leader of a left-leaning anticolonial movement in the 1950s. Firming up his personal power within the ascendant People's Action Party, Lee became Singapore's first prime minister, filling the post for 26 years. He was senior minister for another 15; his current minister mentor title was established when his son, Lee Hsien Loong, became prime minister in 2004. Lee masterminded the celebrated "Singapore Model," converting a country one-eighth the size of Delaware, with no natural resources and a fractured mix of ethnicities, into "Singapore, Inc." He attracted foreign investment by building communications and transportation infrastructure, made English the official language, created a superefficient government by paying top administrators salaries equal to those in private companies, and cracked down on corruption until it disappeared. The model—a unique mix of economic empowerment and tightly controlled personal liberties—has inspired imitators in China, Russia, and eastern Europe. To lead a society, the MM says in his precise Victorian English, "one must understand human nature. I have always thought that humanity was animal-like. The Confucian theory was man could be improved, but I'm not sure he can be. He can be trained, he can be disciplined." In Singapore that has meant lots of rules—prohibiting littering, spitting on sidewalks, failing to flush public toilets—with fines and occasional outing in the newspaper for those who break them. It also meant educating his people—industrious by nature—and converting them from shopkeepers to high-tech workers in a few decades. Over time, the MM says, Singaporeans have become "less hard-driving and hard-striving." This is why it is a good thing, the MM says, that the nation has welcomed so many Chinese immigrants (25 percent of the population is now foreign-born). He is aware that many Singaporeans are unhappy with the influx of immigrants, especially those educated newcomers prepared to fight for higher paying jobs. But taking a typically Darwinian stance, the MM describes the country's new subjects as "hungry," with parents who "pushed the children very hard." If native Singaporeans are falling behind because "the spurs are not stuck into the hide," that is their problem. If there is a single word that sums up the Singaporean existential condition, it is kiasu, a term that means "afraid to lose." In a society that begins tracking its students into test-based groups at age ten ("special" and "express" are the top tiers; "normal" is the path for those headed for factory and service-sector work), kiasu seeps in early, eventually germinating in brilliant engineering students and phallic high-rises with a Bulgari store on the ground floor. Singaporeans are big on being number one in everything, but in a kiasu world, winning is never completely sweet, carrying with it the dread of ceasing to win. When the Singapore port, the busiest container hub in the world, slipped behind Shanghai in 2005 in total cargo tonnage handled, it was a national calamity. One day, as part of a rehearsal for the National Day celebration, I was treated to a veritable lollapalooza of kiasu. Singapore armed forces playacted at subduing a cabal of "terrorists" who had shot a half dozen flower-bearing children in red leotards, leaving them "dead" on the stage. "We're not North Korea, but we try," said one observer, commenting on the rolling tanks, zooming Apache helicopters, and earsplitting 21-gun salutes. You hear it all the time: The only way for Singapore to survive being surrounded by massive neighbors is to remain constantly vigilant. The 2009 military budget is $11.4 billion, or 5 percent of GDP, among the world's highest rates. You never know where the threat might come from, or what form it will take. Last summer everyone was in a panic about swine flu. Mask-wearing health monitors were positioned around the city. On Saturday night, no matter how stylo milo your threads, there was no way of getting into a club on trendy Clarke Quay without a bouncer pressing a handheld thermometer to your forehead. It was part of the unending Singaporean state of siege. Many of the newer public housing apartments come with a bomb shelter, complete with a steel door. After a while, the perceived danger and excessive compliance with rules get internalized; one thing you don't see in Singapore is very many police. "The cop is inside our heads," one resident says. Self-censorship is rampant in Singapore, where dealing with the powers that be is "a dance," says Alvin Tan, the artistic director of the Necessary Stage, which has put on dozens of plays dealing with touchy issues such as the death penalty and sexuality. Tan spends a lot of time with the government censors. "You have to use the proper approach," he says. "If they say 'south,' you don't say 'north.' You say 'northeast.' Go from there. It's a negotiation." Those who do not learn their steps in the dance soon get the message. Consider the case of Siew Kum Hong, a 35-year-old Singaporean who thought he'd be furthering the cause of openness by serving as an unelected NMP, or nominated member of parliament. With only four opposition MPs elected in the history of the country, the ruling party thought NMPs might provide the appearance of "a more consensual style of government where alternative views are heard and constructive dissent accommodated." This was how Siew Kum Hong told me he viewed his position, but he was passed over for another term. "I thought I was doing a good job," a surprised Kum Hong says. What it came down to, he surmises, were "those 'no' votes." When he first voted no, on a resolution he felt discriminated against gays, his colleagues "went absolutely silent. It was the first time since I'd been in parliament that anyone had ever voted no." When he voted no again, this time on a law lowering the number of people who could assemble to protest, the reaction was similarly cool. "So much for alternative views," Kum Hong says. Read rest of article on National Geographic  Read More →

By Hazlan Zakaria from Malaysiakini PKR politician Zaid Ibrahim has applauded constitutional law expert Abdul Aziz Bari for speaking out "about the rotten state of the rule of law and democracy" in Malaysia. In a reply by text-message, he described Abdul Aziz as "a well respected academic and a courageous one". Zaid, a former Umno strongman who crossed to PKR, expressed hope that many will come forward and be unafraid to speak out for the sake of the country. "Nothing will change unless those who know rise up to expose the vermin (that are) eating and destroying our national institutions and democratic values," said Zaid (right), once the de facto law minister. Last Sunday, Malaysiakini reported Abdul Aziz's comments that likened the current state of 'lawlessness' in Malaysia to that in Zimbabwe. When contacted, political analyst Khoo Kay Peng echoed many of the concerns expressed by Abdul Aziz. In particular, he said Umno should not regard governance of the country as its birth-right, but realise that it is the people who have given it the mandate to lead. "The government is like the board of directors (of a company). The public are the shareholders who can kick out the directors or sack them at will," said Khoo. Cautioning BN not to use public funds "as if this belongs to them", he urged the ruling coalition to hold dialogues with the people before initiating gigantic projects such as Port Klang Free Zone. Commenting on the way funds are disbursed to states held by the opposition Pakatan Rakyat, Khoo said it is "not healthy for the federal government to act on its own whims and fancies". For instance, it is "totally crazy and against the law" for BN to withhold oil royalty from Kelantan. The money has been converted to a 'compassionate fund' disbursed through the Federal Development Department, which channels the money to federal agencies in the states affected. Read rest of the article on Malaysiakini  Read More →

Written by Our Correspondent A Facebook page dedicated to voting Singapore's ruling party PAP out of office has garnered over 140 friends in less than three days. Set up by young vocal PAP critic Alex Tan, who embarrassed two PAP MPs with his point-blank criticisms of the government during a YPAP forum held a week ago, it aims to be a discussion forum for "propaganda news from the 141th Singapore media". Under its "descriptions" is a list of sensitive issues seldom discussed in the mainstream media such as the influx of foreigners, disadvantages of National Service, sky-rocketing property prices, low dispensable income and shortage of subsidized university places for qualified Singapore students. Among its first few friends are Mr Desmond Lim from the Singapore Democratic Alliance, Mr Goh Meng Seng from the National Solidarity Party and Mr Jarrod Luo from the Singapore Democratic Party. Mr Alex Tan said he will be focusing his "anti-propaganda" effort on his facebook page to urge Singaporeans to vote out the PAP. He had been posting on the YPAP Facebook for the last few months before being banned ostensibly for "indulging in name-calling and vulgarities." Mr Alex Tan had earlier challenged YPAP members for a public debate on national issues at Speaker's Corner, but has yet to receive a reply from them. The YPAP has been trying hard to reach out to young Singaporeans who will form an increasingly influential voting bloc in future elections. Unlike the older generation of Singaporeans, they do not owe any allegiance to the ruling party and are more politically aware and educated. The inability to woo young Singaporeans to its side is a constant worry for the PAP, after seeing how incumbents in Japan and Malaysia (state governments) were unseated by rookies in their national elections. Law Minister Shanmugam proposed "educating" Singaporeans on "politics" to warn them of the perils of "liberal democracy" which was greeted with derision by the online community. The state media is most careful not to report on any online or public display of displeasure against the ruling party by ordinary Singaporeans not belonging to any opposition parties. Even the SDP, which was much vilified and demonized by the media for the "civil disobedience" of its members, has received little or no publicity of its protracted court cases of late probably not to evoke public sympathy for it. Faced with dwindling support from the local populace, the ruling party is turning to new citizens to keep them in power. Singaporeans now make up only 64 per cent of the population out of which a significant proportion are new immigrants. At the rate the ruling party is "mass-importing" foreigners and offering them PRs and citizenships, it will only be a matter of time before Singaporeans lose their numerical superiority to vote the PAP out. Join the "Vote PAP Out" Facebook here  Read More →