KJ >> TOC Columnists
Remember when you were a child, you earnestly believed in the tales that adults told? The monsters under your bed that would awaken if you didn’t sleep by nine. The ghastly diseases that would beset you if you didn’t eat your greens. The policemen who were always ready to catch you if you didn’t behave yourself.
There was always something that adults wanted you to do, for your own good. Usually something that you disliked. Or else. . .
So there was a sense of déjà vu when the law minister K. Shanmugam exclaimed to a group of American lawyers last week that Singapore was ‘a city, not a country’.
***
Singapore, our poor nation, has suffered from much ignominy lately. Initially it was simply tarring the Opposition – any opposition – with an unpatriotic brush. It was childish behaviour indeed. Then, the brush strokes got bolder, and some Opposition members went bankrupt. They said it was needed to Protect Reputations. Then they went for the Pledge, tarnishing and tearing it up like a painter trampling on his own canvas.
And now, for all our efforts and sacrifices put into creating a precious piece of country, we are told that we are not a country after all. It sounded vulgar; sounded like a shirking of responsibility, like a dereliction of duty.
Singapore, if you are not my country, who is?
And it is a heartening affirmation of a nation’s strength and spirit, that despite all the terrible things said and done to it by the people in power, Singapore rises like a nation when the occasion calls.
Perhaps nationalism is a red-herring after all – there is no need to create it, and impossible to destroy it. Our nationhood will always be there whether we want it or not.
But Shanmugam’s occasion was not a call for or against nation-building. Neither was it an occasion to quibble over the definitions of sovereignty. We know that Singapore is a nation and a country. It can, and it will.
Shanmugam’s motive was less lofty: he was arguing that Singapore’s political system shouldn’t be measured against the yardsticks of ‘a normal country’, where Singapore would invariably appear undemocratic. Instead, he argued, Singapore should be compared to ‘cities’ like Chicago, San Fransisco, and New York City – cities that have enduring one-party rule. Cities that are democratic.
Surely, then, Singapore is democratic too?
***
Sometimes when we reach into the crux of the matter, we find that it is the old chestnut again. The old self-serving chestnut of authoritarian rulers pretending to be a democracy, twisting logic to suit one’s power.
Surely, Shanmugam is aware that differences abound between the Singapore government and the mayor-council of Chicago? The differences in duty, accountability and constitution, and indeed the differences in political systems and electoral processes? One serves a city, the other a country; one is free and the other not free?
Chicago’s mayor is a representative of the inhabitants of Chicago, not the state of Illinois, nor the United States of America. The Singapore government governs the city, state and country, and governs without the systemic transparency and constitutional checks found in its American city and federal counterparts. The Singapore government exacts taxes, guards the treasury, maintains peace and declares war. It presides over a country of us and no one else.
Thus, Shanmugam’s argument is essentially a spurious one, and he probably knows it too.
Because his was a nimble manoeuvre to camouflage, indeed explain away, the PAP’s illiberal governance and unsavoury tactics. For it would be hard to imagine American cities adopting these illiberal strategies, entrenching these controls, and legitimizing these gerrymandering inventions of the PAP. These American mayors wouldn’t be elected to office in the first place, much less remain in power.
His was a nimble manoeuvre made possible by size and founded on difference: Singapore is not a country; it is a city. It is small. It is different.
And this is the wonderful thing about being small. Like a city. We can be vulnerable. We must be vulnerable. And we must do the things that big countries do not do. Because we are different; we’re small; we’re vulnerable.
And so we are.
It is a wonderfully circular and unfalsifiable reasoning that can be used to justify pretty much anything the regime desires, really. Twisting logic to suit one’s power. Or else, or perdition looms. The nation is always in peril.
And this is how the PAP has exploited Singapore’s city-size and turned it into its greatest asset.
***
Perhaps, Shanmugam’s (and Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong’s) articulations are meant to smoothen the road for the APEC meetings next week, where the international spotlight would once again fall upon Singapore. Fall upon its brilliantly-authoritarian and nominally-democratic government. The usual smiles, scoffs, and scuffles.
So the government’s PR-machinery anticipates the impending attacks and fires the first salvo, hoping to prevent a repeat of its disastrous handling of international opinion during the IMF-World Bank meetings here in 2006: when foreign civil society activists were threatened with arrests and banished to Batam. When the then World Bank chief Paul Wolfowitz chided Singapore for being ‘authoritarian’. When PM Lee Hsien Loong’s four million smiles turned into Seelan Palay’s four hundred frowns. When Singapore became a laughing stock of the world.
So in the end, the answers that Shanmugam provided to his American guests last week, about our press, our judiciary, our political system, were non-answers really. Pertinent questions explained away in a camouflage of rational non-responses.
Like why there is a National Presses & Printing Act and press monopoly, and why SPH’s management shares provide the Singapore government with so much proxy power, amongst other interesting connections. It was a bit rich to dismiss Reporters without Borders’ indictment of Singapore’s mainstream media while lauding the findings from Transparency International. If one wanted to quibble over methodologies, aren’t both as guilty? Or is there a double-standard that no one wants to point out?
Like why there’re such high numbers of part-time High and Supreme Court judges on contracts, amongst other dirty linens hung out by the International Bar Association, by the numerous esteemed English, Canadian and Australian counsels. Like why Kangaroo T-shirts are charged and sued but not the English silks.
Like why Singapore simply cannot let go of itself and be fair, transparent, and truly democratic. Like proper country. Perhaps Shanmugam knew he didn’t have a case.
Or perhaps, Shanmugam had no need to provide answers. After all, Singapore’s illiberal regime did create the Great Singapore Model. Despite the odds, contradictions and false dichotomies. The Great Singapore Model that brought the WTO, IMF-World Bank, and APEC to Singapore. The Great Singapore Model that brought Singapore from Third World to First.
After all, Singapore is unique. It is a city, not a country. It is small, it is vulnerable.
And you wonder when Singapore would grow up.
***
As you enter adulthood, you reflect on those horrible tales of monsters and diseases and policemen that those adults told, and you laugh them off now because, really, how silly you had been. There was no danger out there.
But you weren’t silly. You were a child.
We like to think of children as inept and ignorant things that we can bend to our wishes so long as we instill fear in them. But children possess immense wisdom. They enter first into this earth, and are more experienced in the ways of the world than the adults who come later. They may be more easily frightened, but they also know that the truth will soon be out.
This is why when adults play on children’s fears, adults often look like children themselves. Fearful, vulnerable, and small. And oftentimes the child looks on, unperturbed, nonchalant. As Wordsworth once cried, the Child is father of the Man.
And it is testament to a child’s purity of heart and generosity of spirit, that he and she is ever willing to forgive these frightful, ignoble adults, despite all that they have said and done in the false name of their goodness. Adults who stymied and almost scarred a child for life. Adults who never got to grow up.
Dear Donaldson,
Previous response comments from some readers to KJ’s older postings assumed that KJ was Kenneth and there was no refutation of this by KJ or the TOC editors. Could you kindly explain why this was not clarified earlier.
Thanks.
@ shan, sham, shame:
he’ll prolly tell us next in damage control mode “we are a city state”
or something to that effect
I din click thumbs down on Andrew Chuah’s comments because i don wan him to get too much attention.
I assume the white team is not monolithic.
So, where are their member’s comments on this topic?
What are their views on the MM and the other guy’s speech?
Has the MSM , any media, reported this?
IF not why?
indexer,
let me answer your point.
Yes, academic reference. Anyone can just give highfalutin academic reference and quote to augment his point, now am I not right ? But the American lawyers are not interested in Academic debate, they are interested in what really reflect the reality, and that is why they are asking the question. They don’t need model and academic answer, they need practical and truth. That is why the lawyers at laughing at the government for giving them model answer. These American lawyers are elite and intellect and not one to accept nonsense. If our clowns could quote something they do not practice, they only create a trap of their own doing.
“I think the first question was, the PAP had been in power so long, actually since I was born, so doesn’t that by itself show … does that indicate a dictatorship?
First of all, why did PAP appear defensive and jump to conclusion ? Did the American lawyers says just because a party rule for so long, it indicates dictatorship ? OUr SHAM is shooting the bullets everywhere first to quiet the dissent, am I wrong to say that ? There is no correlation between ruling period and dictatorship, and American Lawyers never imply anything like that. The American Lawyers simply want to find out if the party resort to kangaroo law suit and law against the citizens and opp party, and that is it, and that is why they are question the rule of law, aka Rule of Lee.
One does not distract by nonsense of the example by SHAM. As I say, the Amercian lawyers are not interested by highfalutin nonsense, they are interested in reality, and that is why they give SHAM and those clowns the right of reply based on respect.
I don’t think SHAM is been quoted out of context.Just because he is using another writer as scapegoat doesn’t absolve him the fact that he agree on what the writer says. Let me ask you, will you quote something highfalutin from another writer to augment your point, and yet you disagree with it. If so , I rest my case.
ZERO: Singaporeans will never stage a protest & whatnot. We do not have the guts to do it. We’ll be probably end up in jail & disrupt our family’s life…
So we an just rant here & nothing’s gonna happen. They will continue get their unbelievable salary.
Wonder why instead of accounting to us Singaporeans his constituents, he are so assiduously keen on explaining themselves to a small group of lawyers from New York?.
Unless, he running as Mayor of New York, N.Y.
“our very own leaders shame its own citizenry in front of the whole world and nothing happens.”
This higher-than-thou attitude has already become second nature to those higher mortar as the people here have somehow forgotten (or do not know) that the real bosses are the people themselves and not those higher mortar. Even the animals in the Animal Farm knew this faster than a lot of people here and took action.
Those higher mortal (or mortar) somehow believe that they are really the high priests deserving of that higher-than-thou treatment and have seized for themselves (who won’t ?) the opportunity offered to them in a platter by the people to behave as such and hence will happily behave as such.
Hi Siapa Ini Khairy #52,
Firstly, I do respond to comments that I actually read. I don’t read every comment posted on TOC because there is a lot of editorial work to do. Moreover, Andrew Loh actually responded time to time when readers post comments asking whether the author KJ is indeed Kenneth Jeyaretnam.
Secondly, General Election is around the corner. I don’t want readers to confuse the author of this article with Reform Party’s Kenneth Jeyaretnam. It is not fair to both parties and TOC.
Cheers
Donald
Deputy Editor
The Online Citizen
indexer on November 3rd, 2009 7.22 am
“and that there have been cities where elections have been dominated by one party. Going back to the original question, does that indicate an abrogation of individual lights in these cities?”
Well, it depends. The whole process of election is more important than the ultimate result of having one-party dominance per se. Do not confuse the two.
You may have one-party dominance after an election with individual rights left very much intact given the true will of people. Likewise, you may have one-party dominance with abrogation of individual rights with the whole election process not dissimilar to what we may call a total farce. Do you really not know this.
“Well, no one has ever questioned whether democracy exists in these cities.”
No one ? Some kaypoh (or those with genuine concern) may question it. If it is not your own city and maybe for people like you, why should you care whether it is run by lions or tigers if it is not going to affect you.
uh if Singapore is not a country, please return Pulau Batu Puteh to Malaysia which is a country. A city cannot claim anything in international law, correct me if I am wrong
.
Iskandar
Dear Donaldson,
Thanks for the reply. Appreciate your position on the need to avoid confusion. Regards to all at TOC.
Ask K Shan if CHicago or San Francisco has an army? How come we as a city have an army ?
We (the citizens) are bears in a cage (of Singapore) and are kept alive by our masters (the powers that be) so that they can milk our bile to be sold as medicines to customers (trading partners). We are given just enough to be kept alive and given the illusion of a good life (HDB, Orchard Road, Sentosa, MRT, etc) to continue to produce bile. Our bile is continually sucked out to provide generous income for our masters.
We used to pledge our lives to our masters so that we can have a good future but now we are told that its not a pledge but only an aspiration. So, our good future may not be, afterall. Our cage used to be our country but now its only a cage.
I hate PAP
PAP policies- bring more citizens in , to dilute our “real” singaporeans’ votes.
The new citizens would vote for PAP. The “real” singaporeans born and bred here will become a minority.
Bring more new PR in, grab all the jobs available. The “real” singaporeans will be out of jobs, poor and no where to go.
The PRs will earn their monies and retire in their own countries.While “real” singaporeans will have to work until 65 . Then they are able to draw money via CPF life.
Which jobs are available for people from 55 years to 65 years old? No one will employ you.That is a fact.
65) SS Stirrer on November 5th, 2009 4.22 am Ask K Shan if CHicago or San Francisco has an army? How come we as a city have an army ?
What army do we have, they are all just bodyguards by forced just to protect those MIW to stay in power, something similar to the Junta these days.
Referring temasek patriot #04
“3) LKY did embark on a population control program since 1959 to increase 60% chinese population to 80% population”
Kindly do allow me to quote you wrong to your above.
Baby boom after the end of WW2 including the 50s & early 60s. LKY was alarmed by the increase of population to coup with our fragile young nation at that time after being kicked out from Malaysia. To control the growths he implemented population control program to stop at 2 per family provided one can effort more children. One of their police went wrong probably following China concept stopping at 1.
Those days, Chinese families not only stop at 2 but mostly 1, but the other races kept on producing. I think these policies chanced asking for more babies now!
Cheers
Ordinary Overseas Singaporean
Refer to K Das [# 39]
Am appreciate you have touch of our nation history. I like to share my little thoughts too.
LKY & party joined Malaysia mainly due to possible uncontrollable communist movements upon given self rules from the British, a safer place with Malaysia allowing Tengku to deal with the communist as Malaysia armies were fighting against them in the Northern Jungles.
Similarly Tengku do have his motives, wanted to rules Singapore due to her location. However 13 cornered stars were a lousy one. After merger, if I’m not wrong there’s election in 1963 where UMNO set up it branches in Singapore trying to outdo PAP. Or even try to take control of governing Singapore but failed.
Visionary LKY did the same after UMNO came, his teams entered into Malaysia setting up PAP branches. If not wrong, campaigns against MCA who was licking UMNO bosses.
The next reactions were racial clashes in Singapore which many believed to this day was part of UMNO political plans. Not publicized, at the first clashes many Chinese died, after days it was the other way round. You just can’t beat the gangsters those days once they teamed up.
Cheers
Ordinary Overseas Singaporean
Refer to K Das [# 39]
“Re-merger is possible should unprecedented economic woes confront S’pore but this will be on terms largely set by Malaysia.”
Hi K Das, Reading through your [#39] Really nice thought of yours, keep it up my fellow ageing Singaporean.
My personal opinion, it impossible for any merger, we should be too proud of our S$ dollars. Secondly ask any Singaporeans how secure one feels after passing the causeway? Then what about overall corruptions? Malaysian RM still not trade able over most foreign banks counters.
Dear Mr. Minister Shanmugam. Let us be Singaporean, the little red dot, Republic of Singapore, a Nation not a city. A city is part of a country, part of a nation, is anyone trying to say Singapore is part of another country?
Cheers to our Singaporean’s Nation!
Ordinary Overseas Singaporean
Refer to Andrew Chuah [# 28]
Wholeheartedly agree what you had said.
Whatever topics, there’s different in opinions. Between the lines your stated City State… & your final lines “Lastly, our Modern Singapore is a City State and our only place we called Our Home, not Our House as you put it in one of your article”
For the sake of discussions how do we refine “City” & “State”?
Luckily we are all fated being Singaporeans, otherwise we are Malaysians if we are not kicked out in 9 Aug 65. Then Singapore became the City and a State of Malaysia. Thumbs up to all the old guards who had delivered what were promised in the mid & late 60s. Earlier HDB housing consist mostly one room rented flats & 3 rooms flat for sale, in fact it was leased.
Your are absolutely correct to say “Our Home not Our house” as there are not freehold, yet many are still paying monthly installments till one’s last breaths. Similarly it will tore down like those rented flats by the next generation. Are we ordinary Singaporeans working for our next generations like our late parents did for us? Or are the current government did for their next generations after the lease expire? Let’s guess.
Cheers
Ordinary Overseas Singaporeans
Before you can finish uttering “Singapura”, the powers-that-are may say that we are not even a city, but a garden!
Majullah Singapura, may a hundred “bunga-bunga” bloom, eh?
The Pariah, http://www.singaporeenbloc.blogspot.com
Wow I don’t understand why people are making such a big deal out of this, all nations and cities rise and fall in time, Singapore like all nation/cities will fall eventually..
Get over it, there are bigger issues at hand, such as the collapse of the American Dollar.
Where Do We Belong?
Fearless freedom,
within the beautiful blue sky,
as the beautiful birds soar
and freely fly.
Could there be crooked crocodiles
or ruthless birds of prey
beneath and on the surface
of the calm waters and space?
Don’t forget,
this is uniquely Singapore!
Men-in-White and Wolves-in-White
are similarly everywhere,
every time.
Are our calm and peace,
progress and prosperity real?
Everyone loves calm, peace,
justice, freedom and happiness.
But with MIWs in power grip
greedier and tighter,
more callous, more heinous,
more ruthless by the day,
Will commoners’ contentment
be real, a dream or nightmare?
If after so many years past,
and our national pledge is nothing
but just an aspiration,
a bombshell hurl’d by the Father
like suicide terrorists,
upon the mesmerized masses,
unaware of the lurking danger,
wherefore is our inspiration?
If after 50 years of nation-building,
the Little Red Dot is anything
but still not a nation,
another bombshell cast
again by none other than the Father
upon subservient souls,
oblivious of their lives and limbs,
what for we sing the national anthem
and do national service?
If after existing 50 years,
for all intents and purposes,
as an independent country
and the whole wide world knows,
Singapore is but only a mere city,
not a country, albeit
a city of possibilities,
a garden city or coming sin city,
a third bombshell cast
also with all intents and purposes,
by another respected man of law,
a long-time incumbent,
a later legacy of the British Empire,
where then is our country?
What are we living for?
What are we fighting for?
What are we defending?
What will we by dying for?
What then is our nationality?
Where then is our country?
Where then is our home?
Where do we belong?
By ‘Green Peas’
8 November, 2009.
Singapore.
Why is the author’s name reduced to KJ?
Sorry, everyone. Singapore is actually not a city or country. it is a company, just like East India company. Nothing counts except money. Not just the government or the party, but many citizens as well. See how they give up their land, savings(CPF) and how they back off every issues whenever threaten by the cost that will incur. We sold ourselves, now we have to buy our way in, and it is going to be expensive, in terms of sacrifices. We talk here but how many is willing to pay the price?
I did not see any prominent young generation honouring our old man in US. He cold war speech only found audience among his generation. Most young people recognised that the issue that most likely to threaten the world is Climate change and not China. In fact, having been in China recently, the Chinese are taking a much, much stronger lead in climate change issues than ours. Motorcycles are banned in Hangzhou, hybrid busses in Hangzhou, public recycling bins replaces all garbage bins nation wide, plastic bags is chargeable nation wide, solar water heater is the norm to name just a few. Why we did not even hear these in our media???????
“Motorcycles are banned in Hangzhou, hybrid busses in Hangzhou, public recycling bins replaces all garbage bins nation wide, plastic bags is chargeable nation wide, solar water heater is the norm to name just a few. Why we did not even hear these in our media???????”
You forget we are Uniquely Singapore. Therefore, our SPH more interested in negative foreigner news like natural disaster, death, violent riot & protest in other countries. In other word, foreign News that make Singaporean feel good and fortunate how lucky they are to be Singaporean at the expense of other countries. Otherwise how can MIW and PAP can continue to be arrogant, hoodwinking the nation and command astronomical salary ?
Hi Anon,
If you are concerned with the collapse of the USD, then buy gold, silver, rhodium or platinum. As simple as that.
Ah, but Singapore really ISN’T a country. *sarcasm*
Its flag is derivative from its neighbors: the white and red from Indonesia, the Crescent-and-Star from Malaysia. Singapore’s flag also has no name (Sang Merah Putih, and Jelur Gemilah for Indonesia and Malaysia respectively). *sarcasm again*
I think we are appealed to unite as a “nation” when it suits the Powers for us to be, i.e. when we are in active revolt against rule, and to be as passive a “city” when the term is convenient, i.e. when we appeal to the rights of Citizenship and demand civil / political rights that we are supposed to have under rule.
All those who have gone through NS, remember the oath you were forced to swear and sign on pain of imprisonment? The one that includes the clause “I swear to be loyal to the PRESIDENT? (my emphasis)” Bingo. I do not serve the interest of my COUNTRY ( / city ). I serve its chief executive. And if I disobey an order from the Power, my commanding officer is fully licensed to have me shot.