KJ
Fulfilling the ideals of the Pledge that we hold so dearly is also a brazen act of high treason. No wonder then, we dare not pledge ourselves too seriously.
There was a time not too long ago, when we clenched our fists upon our hearts, and pledged ourselves as one united people. Regardless of race, place, and united by Time, 8:22 was a rousing moment towards the sublime. Across the country, a fusillade of imagined community. An image so rare, of Singaporean unity. Imagine, a nation. An imagination. An image, a magic, coming true at 8:22.
But Singapore won’t make it, a wise man said. And he duly rose up from his living grave, to bring his highfalutin flock back down to earth. And how swiftly that vertiginous paradise disappeared. The tenets of our Pledge, the wise man said, are grandiose ideals that, if undemolished, would demolish Singapore.
And from the highest office of the land came this lowest living lie. That a democratic nation would destroy Singapore. It was a wonderment how a nation’s founding father would fight so forcefully against the founding of a nation.
***
There was a time when people said that Singapore won’t make it. But we did.
***
When we think of nations, Benedict Anderson’s classic formulation often comes to mind, where a nation is a ‘deep, horizontal comradeship’ that only exists in a people’s collective imagination.[1] Nations as imagined communities. Might MM Lee be right that our nation is really a fantasy.
But Anderson’s treatise is not the final word. Nations are European inventions, one of many forms of political organizations, of creating communities. But what about us?, the political theorist Partha Chatterjee wondered – the once-colonized, the bastard children of Empire who have no choice of nations other than from those bequeathed by Europe – what do we have left to imagine? Europe has already written for us our colonial and postcolonial scripts of victory and failure, resistance and destiny. ‘Even our imaginations must remain forever colonized.’[2]
A nation, conjured by one’s imagination. More important for a nation, the freedom of imagination. And freedom, in PAP parlance, an abomination. Unsurprisingly, we remain colonized subjects. It’s Empire once more.
***
It is this connection between nations and the freedom of imagination that allows us to understand MM Lee’s outburst. It has little to do with the Constitutional sanctity of the Malays’ indigenous rights.
Examine closely MM Lee’s well-documented eugenicist views on the ‘superiority’ of the Chinese ‘race’, his political intervention in the Association of Muslim Professionals’ (AMP) in 2000, as well as the various frank academic writings about the Malay community, and we’ll notice how his supposed Constitutional considerations evaporate. In any case, parliamentary dominance ensures that the Constitution can be arbitrarily amended, as it has been. And we wonder if Singapore really has a ‘Constitution’. We might well pay MM Lee a backhanded compliment when we say that he is above parliamentary and Constitutional powers, but that’s merely typical of tyrants and their regimes. Can there be harmony in the race between freedom and tyranny?
Rather, the true Pledge of our nation, as desired by NMP Viswa Sadasivan, strike right into the heart of the PAP’s strategy of divide and rule. The sociologist Chua Beng-Huat offers a perceptive reading: instituting multi-racialism enables, no – compels, the Singapore state to ‘set itself structurally above race’, giving the state enormous political leverage. A multi-racial Singapore would then necessitate the enactment and enforcement of racial harmony. This is a masterstroke that corrals Singaporeans into the paradoxical logic of deterrence: ‘it is because of deterrence that misdeeds are kept low, if not entirely erased – thus, deterrence must continue; however, since deterrence is never lifted, the validity of the assumption that, if lifted, misdeeds will indeed break out is never tested – thus deterrence continues.’[3]
‘Racial harmony’, like most other PAP political strategies, serves two simultaneous functions. First, a regime of power surveilling a compartmentalized citizenry. Its elaborate walls surreptitiously woven into discriminatory legislation, housing quotas, NS deployment, education trajectories and traps – the major institutions that govern the state, control the populace, and shape our assorted fates. Second, every strategy, invariably self-serving, cumulatively strengthens and entrenches its political dominance. That we don’t even notice how the necessity of ‘racial harmony’ conveniently requires a GRC system, is testament to MM Lee’s brilliance. ‘Racial harmony’ is not just that. It institutionalizes gerrymandering, legitimates control, and perpetuates a Chinese-dominated political party/-country/-nation.[4] Thus, to pledge a Singaporean identity regardless of race is already to position oneself politically against the state.
Among the plethora of contradictions in Singapore politics, the cruelest must be this: The regime’s control is so complete that even displays of patriotism, like fulfilling the ideals of our Pledge that we hold so dearly, is also a brazen act of high treason.
No wonder then, we dare not pledge ourselves too seriously. For the freedom of imagination is to imagine a nation free from the PAP.
***
The late S. Rajaratnam is now well-known for having penned our Pledge. What is less-remembered, is his disappointment, publicly expressed in 1990, with how Singapore had turned out: our materialism, philistinism; and how we have become a soulless, unthinking flock. A people reduced to waged labour.
But his greatest disappointment was with the PAP’s insidious strategy to racialize Singaporeans. He believed the CMIO policy would end our quest for a united nation, a Singaporean Singapore: ‘At this rate there will be a long ethnic queue of Singapore citizens proclaiming Sikh identity … Ceylon Tamil identity … Indian Tamil identity … Cantonese identity … Hokkien identity – and goodbye Singapore identity.’[5]
For us, Rajaratnam’s hard-hitting speech illuminates how the PAP that had led us in the first decades is no longer the PAP that is leading us now. Passion, conviction, and that roaring fire have been replaced by a cold-hearted elitism and the rampant profiteering of Singapore Inc.
***
Our National Day celebrations are resplendent affairs. Clothed in fascist irrationalism, luminous in their silken totalitarian complexion, they’re our annual thanksgiving to Fatherland’s only son, dear supreme leader. Tightly-scripted and controlled, these celebrations’ surging militarism overwhelm our senses, appealing to our basic instincts for survival, for war, their pomp and pageantry paced to perfection.
But underneath these grand gestures, there are some realities that we overlook. For most of us, the words of our national anthem remain a foreign mystery – a mystery we’re in no hurry to resolve. We recite our Pledge; it is fluent, but empty. The significance of our flag – the five stars and the crescent – is gazed past with ignorance, with diffidence. Sometimes it is hung backside-front, upside-down (although that is not necessarily a bad thing). If we were honest with ourselves we would admit that our nationalism rings hollow, our patriotism shallow.
I am no nationalist, but I share Rajaratnam’s 1990 sentiments: ‘…after nearly 20 years of growing prosperity, peace and better education, a Singapore identity must be even more deeply-rooted and indelible than in 1971. If not, there must be something seriously wrong with our nation-building process.’[6]
Yet another twenty years have passed, and little has changed. Our nation remains imagination-free.
***
National Day Rallies: images and stories of yore, again and again, Time past and Time future. Reminders of how we came, from Third World to First, and who had brought us here. But this arrival is a mirage. If our existence is dependent on PAP rule, without whom…, then arrival will always be a mirage. And our government and its nation-building press would have failed our people. A Singapore that cannot survive without the PAP is a failed Singapore. And Time would have passed us by.
That Rally night, a glossy, contrived theatre, puppets and marionettes coming with strings attached, everybody performing perfectly to canned laughter. That Rally night, a treat to fabulous fantasies, foreign islands in a faraway time. But ask, here and now in our Singapore for a democratic society…, and see how the lights go out, the curtains come down, and how hearty laughter takes a bow. See how fear, timeless fear, is invoked. The fear of racial riots. The fear of our perdition. The fear of a Singapore without the PAP. Those faded, black-and-white photographs of old Singapore coming alive in their rowdiest kaleidoscopes. Unrealistic, unpragmatic, ungracious, irrational fear, ruthlessly untouched by Time.
So we haven’t arrived. Time exploded, and we remain in 1965. The chimera of skyscrapers and the reality of slums.
***
After four decades of nation-nothing and wasted years, perhaps we do have to start over. Rebuild our own nation, on our own terms, on our own earth. The story of Singapore cannot be told by just one man. It cannot be just one story, where we live on one man’s island, one man’s vision, while our imaginations remain colonized, forever trapped in his time, living our lives as voiceless people in a lifeless story. A nation is possible, and it is already in our thoughts. Remember our Pledge, and remember 8:22.
There was a time when people said that Singapore won’t make it. But we did.
And we’ll imagine better. We have to imagine truer, in fragments, in freedom. To MM Lee our deepest gratitude, who has given Singapore the best as well as the worst, and so whose rightful name shall always come to be our messiah and curse. But the lovely night can only last so long.
An age has passed, and time belongs to a new day now. For us to render a Singapore that is not the fraudulent Pax Singaporeana built on money, exploitation, appearances, and fear. But a nation that is forged from our own hands, hearts, and dreams. Just like how it was, once upon a time in Singapore.
[1] Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, London, Verso, 1983.
[2] Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories, Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1998.
[3] Chua Beng Huat, “Multicultiralism in Singapore: An Instrument of Social Control”, Race & Class, 44:3, 2003, pp. 58-77.
[4] For more on the structural disadvantages that the non-Chinese minorities face as a result of PAP policies, see Michael D. Barr and Zlatko Skrbis, Constructing Singapore: Elitism, Ethnicity, and the Nation-Building Project, Copenhagen, NIAS Press, 2008; Lily Zubaidah Rahim, The Singapore Dilemma: The Political and Educational Marginality of the Malay Community, Kuala Lumpur, Oxford University Press, 1998; Christopher Tremewan, The Political Economy of Social Control in Singapore, New York, St. Martin’s Press, 1994. It is unsurprising that most of the trenchant analyses of Singapore politics are conducted by foreign academics and not local ones.
[5] The Straits Times, “Raja Wants Revival of ‘Singaporean Singapore’”, 11 March 1990.
[6] ibid.
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Brilliant! TOC’s best!
Dear MM
please move on – or move off.
You are hindering the progress of the nation.
this country is one big wayang propelled by greed and money. nationalism is as good as the smell of rotten flower. national pledge is nothing but silencing tool to weed out people who are against government policies
Nicely written piece…thanks.
Anyone here wants to bring it back to Earth???
KJ has potential to reach out to the Youths who are not as biased and closed minded as the earlier generation as proven by the increasing number of cross race marriages and obliviousness to the past.
But really, with due respect, I have not seen any opposition party Able to reach out to the tiny population of a country that is a city called singapore.
Sad.
This is the bottleneck and there is no reason why this critical mass cannot be reached.
Well done so far but more effort in this direction, pls. I beg you.
that it is TIME that change the world.
Singapore is setback by 44 years in one speech by MM Lee in the Parliament last week.
As a 50-yrs young Singaporean who is born & breed here, my experience is telling me that the late S. Rajaratnam is spot on in his assessment.
Great stuff: you argue that the divisiveness of race and religion are pre-suppositions for racial and religious harmony, and you’re also saying that the continued discourse of race and religion reiterates state dominance.
This leaves me to wonder to what extent is the state machinery, with all their good intentions are reflective enough, for if they’re unable to re-examine or even change their epistemic lens through which it continues to gaze at issues like the AWARE saga and the void-deck conflict example highlighted in PM Lee’s NDP rally-speech, then there can be no genuine resolution when many people are left with bitter after-taste in their mouths.
Tang Liang Hong was accused as a Chinese chauvinist. When he called the PAP liars for saying he was a Chauvinist, he was sued. (See Tang Liang Hong Wiki.)
Here we have our esteemed MM Lee throwing a Brahmin / non Brahmin label at Mr Viswa. I think it is high time PM Lee sends MM Lee to ISA / ISD for mischeviously trying to play a divisive racial / caste card into our pledge.
Is MM Lee really so great that he is above all morals?
He reminds me of Nixon in the Nixon/ Frost movie / interview.
Sad man.
MM Lee is not fighting so forcefully against the building of a nation. That is a bonus if achieved. I think he is fighting for the survival of his party. Looks like he has identified this new NMP as a credible threat and his stand must be demolished.
Please do not speak ill of our MM. There are always his die-hard fans out there who believes in him. He is the one who lead Singapore to where we are today. Thus, this achievement alone can overrule everything. If he says the sun will not rise from the east, do not prove other wise.
Once upon a time in Singapore, LKY assembled a group of talented, dedicated, selfless men who served the country and its people.
Fast forward and we still have LKY, but in place, he assembled a new group of selfserving men comprising of one spineless PM and 80 stooges.
This is LKY’s legacy.
LKY is PAP and PAP is LKY. The day he kicks the bucket, it will be Perish And Panic party in the process of downward spiral politically and morally.
The State Crest was changed sometime in theearly 1990s with the plaque with the five stars (representing our national values) pushed down. Just take a closer look at your coins to see the changes. No national referendum, no announcement.
What’s with the fist over heart thing anyway? Used to me we just stood still with arms at our sides when singing the anthem and reciting the pledge. Do we have to copy the Yanks on everything?
we the peasants of singapoor, pledge ourselves as 1 united peasants
based on equality justic and democracy, as long as you are leekuanyou inc
who believed NUN are equal to him and belinda angkookueh grant him full justice and without a doubt, democracy as long as his daughterinlaw have a free hand to invest our cpf bloodesweatandtears savins without askin who or what
the rest of the pledge?
chwee chang liew..meanin.. water flow long long ago now only have recycled jumbuan water where we are bein charged @ mineral bottled rates…
It saddens me deeply to see our govt degrade so far and deep. Will the melancholic memories of the good old guards ever return in the form of new ministers who are not motivated by money but by selfless pride of serving the greater good of the nation?
Elitism, judging one’s ability by his IQ rather than his EQ; and luring government servants who are motivated by money and not holding them accountable for their words, deeds and interest for the public instead of self serving interest is exactly why the PAP party will continue to fail.. hopefully fade away one day.
Once upon a time he was loved by everyone in Singapore.
In one generation, he did a big miracle, he turned all those who loved him into hating him. How sad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyddKc4JdaA
‘nation’, ‘country’ etc are all artificial in their own ways.
its not a rule of the world.
Yes, he is both a blessing and a curse but he will be remembered more as a curse than a blessing.
The last blessing he can made is to return to his maker ASAP. Only when he gone can Singapore experience a new era and have his pappies brush up their debating skill and nonsense. No need to live under his shadow and his past anymore.
yes, to me also, these terms never need to exist as i do not it as a requirement for life.
By artificial, these concepts or terms were invented by 1 man sometime in the years long past.
The modern world is actually a disciple of this concept and artificial creation, imho.
feel free to debunk me. i beg you all.
last time got this warlord concept.
he took and fight for and defend his territories .
To secure his territories, among others, he need Security and Protection to realise one of the the Maslow Hierarchy levels while on the way to attain the level of self-actualization. With power to command people and wealth to get things done, a territory is established.
The rest as we know it is history.
regards
Ah hum
18) Daniel on August 23rd, 2009 8.30 pm
Yes, he is both a blessing and a curse but he will be remembered more as a curse than a blessing.
More hidden shits will be out when this ole man kicks the bucket, just have to wait a little longer. Shits could even comes out from within his own party.
“More hidden shits will be out when this ole man kicks the bucket,”
Even before seeing his maker, certain shits are been digged out (some even by feudian slips !), the old man may better off viewing it as a blessing to just go “back to earth” than face further embarassment and humiliation.
At least, if he’s gone now, there still a chance for mausoleum like Emperor Qin, and body embalmed like Mao Zedong, and oh, even have a PayPerView that still earn money when he’s gone !
“There was a time when people said that Singapore won’t make it. But we did.”
Yes, so true like
- the world’s most expensive gahmen that hold all top 30 ranking.
- the world’s most expensive (and useless) president
- the world’s most expensive and one and only senile MM
- as one of the world’s most expensive HDB housings
- as one of the worst ShittyTimes
- as the world’s most powerful woman who lost $50 billions of state asset and still live a no regret happily and blissfully
- the world’s most disappearance act for PM
And there probably much more. But the point is WE MAKE IT, FOR GOOD AND FOR BAD !
Dear Daniel,
i know you know already. You left out the CAR and COE.
down with the traitors of our nation, PAP and MM Lee!
“Dear Daniel,
i know you know already. You left out the CAR and COE.”
Ah yes ! That is very senile of me, LOL.
We know we make it when “$600,000 is just a peanut”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Kidney_Foundation_Singapore
50 years ago, in china people travel by locomotive.
50 years later, they successfully done the bullet train.
technology is purchasable.
moral of the story : even if you dun want a color tv, the tv salesman will still offer you color tv – its more common.
Pledge is a form, a kind of exhibit to be seen by the World and neighbours. A type of tactic since we are only a smallish state.
But the real problem now is whether we can be unified in both our Pledge and action. Like the Chinese saying Word and Action as one.
I see how many Singaporeans complain about expensive housings, living standard etc… In short Singaporeans have to be made to feel they are a part of the country. (by the govt of course) and like they say : You don’t own what you cannot defend….. You don’t defend what you don’t own.(like Singaporeans feeling now)
Time for MM Lee to step down!
Time for Opposition to arise!
The time for change has come!
The 66% will remain.
I recalled the last election – there was a call to turn the tide.
It did not happen. All bloggers were disappointed. The 66% prevailed.
With the Tang Liang hong threat over the opposition (see Tang Liang Hong Wiki) and tyhe new Brahmin Viswa weapons held by MM Lee and his eiltes, what chance does Singapore opposition have?
And now Shanmugaratnam has thrown the APEC meeting terrorist threat over Singapore – you dare to move?
And I think bolggers must continue to highlight the current and past unothordox PAP methods – so that voters can see the other side and not be waylaid by unnecessary PAP sideshow.
I still cannot believe it – MM Lee attacking the hi falutin ideas of a man, without specifying if there was any credibilty in any parts of Viswa speech – really uncalled for.
But part of the 66% will side with MM Lee….. believe it or.
Geeze – even Vivien Bala finds it fitting to defend MM Lee to the students.
Stooges.
MM Lee is msian right? Or malaccan? So the temasek ceo must be singaporean, but not the MM or even PM?
Obviously LKY is suffering from some form of psychosis for he is not in touch with reality. He cannot differentiate between an aspiration and a pledge. He is indeed the stumbling block of dead wood towards Singapore true nationhood.
How I wish I was born in the 20s or 30s. Like that I going to die already so no need to worry about what is going on in this stupid country now.
Well said, Man against the tank (4).
KJ, nice prose… or is it poetry?
Dear Mr Jackson, Liqour Kill You. He was a Indonesian by Origin. This mother remarried, In Malacca -Later part they shift to Sinkapoor. U want more information, go get a book “No man is an Island”
Thank you.
I will write a Book call “Some Man Wants to Be a Devil”
Amazingly, all we read in the press after the incident is that
Viswa backed off and the motion was amended to that of MM.
Everybody involved extinguished their high falutin ideals in favor
of the more practical ones proposed by MM.
Isn’t that the ideal that the MSM gave. And would that not be the
idea that all readers of ST gets?
Understand that Sinda has Brahmins, the Treasurer is someone called Iyer, who must be a Brahmin, unless the declares otherwise, given that there might be a noose over his neck.
Hi SoSad #38,
That’s not true. According to Parliamentary procedure, after a motion has been tabled and debated, the Parliamentarians will then go into voting whether to accept or reject the original motion or accept the amended motion. In this case, the parliamentarians are not only proponents, but also spectators and judges. After Viswa made his conclusion remark, he has to abide parliamentary procedure to go into voting procedure.
The original motion was:
That this House reaffirms its commitment to the nation building tenets as enshrined in the National Pledgevwhen debating national policies, especially economic policies.
The amended motion was:
That this House acknowledges the progress that Singapore has made in the 50 years since it attained self-government in 1959, in nation building and achieving the tenets as enshrined in the National Pledge, and reaffirms its commitment towards achieving the goals and ideals of our Pledge when debating national policies.
Needless to say, the amended motion won and you can tell from its language that LKY’s interest lies in ensuring that nobody should PAP’s record. MICA and MDA also censor any film that questions PAP’s record as a government. Just look at Martyn See’s “Zahari’s 17 Years” – an alternative account that contradicts the official history of Operation Coldstore.
Well said KJ…
r u in NZ…
The divide and conquer strategy of the PAP is clear for all to see now…
Poor Rajaratnam….and pity Singaporeans who find it hard to see….amidst this race towards economic wealth….
Powerful piece but a little dense for most, I might add….
I wonder if we polled 1,000 citizens and asked them if the Pledge is seen as an aspiration or do they actually try to live it, what would the result be?
I for one believe we all try to live it as growing up, I had learnt how important it was (still is) to be friends with citizens of all relgions, race or language and to fight for justice and equality for every different ethnic group. Some of my best friends are Indians and Malays and we have no qualms of accepting each other as ‘brudders’.
I think the MIW have just put the Pledge in between the country and its people.
For me the pledge was shattered when on 8/12/1988 I was ordered to be released by the Singapore Court of Appeal. Just a second outside the Whitley Road Centre, I was rearrested by ISD officers. That night, I cried and wondered what the pledge was all about – “to build a democratic society based on justice and equality”.
Ms Teo is one of the many living proof of PAP tyranny & deceit. This, plus the issues of bad immigration policy & high cost of living, I wonder what is on the mindset of the 66%? To me, out of the 66% who voted (this excludes walkovers), there must be a sizeable percent who voted out of fear & threats. So if we deduce it this way, there is only a handful who are the PAPa’s men & women.
To fight for the majority of Sporeans, opposition must throw out the GRC system. and their campaign must centre on what opposition can do to make a difference for the next generation of Singaporeans. Make a big list starting with government revenue and expenditure, and how it can be used for the good of Singapore (not for those in power).
Call me paranoid but Viswa says “I am currently serving as Vice President of the Executive Committee of SINDA and have been an active contributor for more than a decade” however if one were to note MM’s rebuttal it says “NMP Viswa used to work in Sinda. I’m told for 10 years”. That’s in the past tense. What does that mean?
Why is it singaporeans accept the walkovers?
If there is no walkovers, the election results would have been more meaningful and more accurate reflection.
The more people vote , the clearer it is how the people feels. The more accurate the result.
There is no GRC system anywhere else in the world, afaik.
The walkover system resulted in people not able to vote because reasons.
Does UK , USA , Australia have walkovers? 1st worlds? can someone clarify?
What is the HUM that the entire Electorate go and cast that vote? What is the HUM?
Recently the news reported more than 3000 new citizens granted citizenship.
How frequent is this event? How many new citizens created in a year and thus far?
What is the effect?
Guess who they more likely to vote???
I wonder.
Let’s call for First-5 or ‘F-5′ changes to Singapore!!
1) To abolish ISA
2) Do away with GRC in elections
3) Establish pivotal roles of elected president
4) Long term social benefits for Singaporeans
5) Two-party parliamentary system
Then Singapore will be a better place to live.
There’s nothing more to add to your excellent article, KJ. You’ve said all there is to be said. The only thing left for us is the realisation that we have to start all over again – to go through the pains and hardships of our forefathers. We are back to square one.
Our challenge is to fight the decay that is disguised as prosperity and harmony. This is harder than if the decay is plain and clear for all to see. Perhaps we should take our chances with Dr Chee Soon Juan – the future PM of Singapore – and let him kick some butts?