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.
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I am only wondering how is it that LKY was so, so, highly honoured just a week before in the same USA – for building up Singapore and now we have the announcement from his own party that singapore is merely a city. Quite obviously the boldness of Shanmugam to mention this sacrilegious declaration that Singapore is not a country, must have been fuelled by LKY’s recent decaration that our pledge is not a pledge but just an “aspiration”. For whatever political reasons such as proposed in the above article, the statement of Shanmugam is an insult to those who were born here and sweat ed blood and tears building up and supporting this place… not to mention the hundreds of thousands of able bodied men who were falsely led into a fantasy of spending two years of their time risking their life defending something which is not even a country.
zero
Ok.. we are a city. ok… perhaps there are some mergers and acquisition behind our back? Perhaps we could be the best city in another country? it is easier that way so we can claim to have the largest population in the world?
Just nothing but smoke, ladies and gentlemen, from the PAP. Just vote in the much more capable and coherent opposition and let them deal with the current monkeys in parliament and at the same time reduce the number of sheeps. Then we’ll have less smoke and more real nation building stuff going on.
have you ever thought LKY or PAP one day may merge Singapore with China one day?
why not?
1) LKY did merge singapore with malaysia in 1963
2) LKY did pull out singapore out of malaysia in 1965
3) LKY did embark on a population control program since 1959 to increase 60% chinese population to 80% population
4) LKY did embark on a population control program to let in foreigners to the extent 1 in three/four (we dont even know) residents in Singapore is a foreigner
5) LKY occassionally talks (or threatens) to merge back with Malaysia
6) LKY did sell Christmas Island to Australia
now if one day PAP or LKY does merge with China, do Singaporeans have the power to stop it? obviously not…
that is why he threatens to send in the army to crush Singaporeans if they vote in the opposition in large numbers.
Alfian Sa’at said it first, lah.
Junior Bush said: LKY is a greatest con-man in the world.
I would like to point out that the Constitution (Article 6) states unambiguously
6. —(1) There shall be —
(a) no surrender or transfer, either wholly or in part, of the sovereignty of the Republic of Singapore as an INDEPENDENT NATION (emphasis added), whether by way of merger or incorporation with any other sovereign state or with any Federation, Confederation, country or territory or in any other manner whatsoever; and
(b) no relinquishment of control over the Singapore Police Force or the Singapore Armed Forces, unless such surrender, transfer or relinquishment has been supported, at a national referendum, by not less than two-thirds of the total number of votes cast by the electors registered under the Parliamentary Elections Act (Cap. 218).
Singapore is a country, a nation. Period. Lee Kuan Yew (“Singapore is not yet a nation”) and Shanmugam (“Singapore is a city, not a country”) are not only wrong; they hold basic premise which is unconstitutional. They should not have trifled with the status of Singapore as a nation in the first place (cf. the examples of Palestine and Taiwan).
As cabinet ministers, they have both failed in their sworn duty to “protect and defend the Constitution” in this instance.
Maybe our govt should beg China to make S’pore a province of China???
Then, all male citizens would not have to serve NS !!! Wipee
I felt that any one who says Singapore is not a Country should be arrested or put to pasture. This kind of statement incites animosity, ill-filling, discord, unhappiness, within the already battered and broken denizens of this hapless place we thought we were willing to die for.
Surely we should not let anyone get away with such kind of statement particularly so if it is broadcast to the media, worse still to foreign media. In my opinion, the crime for saying this is as bad as the “crime” of the guy who distributed religiuous pamphlets which were already approved for sale in bookshops. The charge? Violation of the Constitution as pointed out by earlier post. IT is no different from urinating on the State Flag of Singapore, to put matters in a rather crude way, it is a serious crime, in my opinion, to say that Singapore is not a Country. : (
Zero
Singapore is not a country, but a city, a city of China, aka Little China, run by Little Emperor.
I rather be the 51st state of the USA.
I think this case of declaring to the whole world, at an international legal platform of legal professional, “that Singapore is not a country but a city” is not only an intentional trampling upon the Singapore’s Constitution but is also tantamount to high treason, or at the least sedition.
The person who knowingly and intentionally made such a statement in an international stage of professional lawyers, judges, etc. should be immediately arrested and charged with high treason, sedition or equivalent charges.
This should not be taken lightly by any loyal citizen of Singapore, especially those in authority to take action against the culprit.
Why are our SAF officers not taking any action? They declare on every Armed Forces’ Day to protect our Constitution. Why are they not taking any action to protect our Constitution?
Why are all the 84 Members of Parliament not responding to such a potently adulterous, damaging or treacherous statement?
Do they only know how to pay themselves millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money?
I think i still see the words singapore+country & / nation being used in the papers.
saw the article on that convention thingie?
Why huh?
Not yet a nation or country seems to make me Think of the Good Ole Days where citizens unite to support the country develop and stand behind a leader.
But then this is just me.
“run by Little Emperor.”
don’t say so loud leh. orelse, they will give 10,000 reasons to rebut you ok.
we also have little eunuchs who need not be accountable to citizens (zarky said one lah).
* disclaimer : Any resemblance to actual persons or companies, living or dead, is purely coincidental
Can you imagine the incumbent deceiving the people in NDP singing the song ? How many gullible Singaporeans been deceived in NDP singing the song blindly when they sing “This is my country” when in fact it should be “This is my city” ? Do they even know the difference between a city and a country ?
We need to delist Singapore as a country since we no longer a country but a city.
The propaganda song ?
“We Are Singapore”
There was a time when people said
That Singapore won’t make it, but we did
There was a time when troubles seemed too much
For us to take, but we did
We built a nation, strong and free, reaching out together
For peace and harmony
Chorus 1:
This is my country, this is my flag
This is my future, this is my life
This is my family, these are my friends
We are Singapore, Singaporeans
Singapore our homeland, it’s here that we belong
All of us united, one people marching on
We’ve come so far together, our common destiny
Singapore forever, a nation strong and free
Repeat Chorus 1
(Singapore Pledge Recited, Then Sung)
We the citizens of Singapore
Pledge ourselves as one united people
Regardless of race, language or religion
To build a democratic society
Based on justice and equality
So as to achieve happiness
Prosperity and progress for our nation
Chorus 2:
We are Singapore, we are Singapore
We will stand together, hear the lion roar
We are Singapore, we are Singapore
We’re a nation strong and free forever more
Repeat Chorus 2
This is my country, this is my flag (We are Singapore, we are Singapore)
This is my future, this is my life (We will stand together, hear the lion roar)
This is my family, these are my friends (We are Singapore, we are Singapore)
We are Singapore, Singaporeans
We are Singapore, Singaporeans
I just curious to know will the lyricist be reprimanded for writing something that is said to be not true as in singapore is ‘a city, not a country’ ?
Will we still get to hear the song in future? Will DJs be allowed to play that song one more time? Will the singers change the lyrics?
But then it would sound strange IF changed to :
“Chorus 1:
This is NOT my country, this is my flag ” ????
what i mean is , i am confused.
Could the authorities pls explain clearer how we should sing the song to be sang if not sung?
I no no what to tell my kid from now on.
They will surely be wondering why they do not live in any country or a citizen of any country. Maybe i should change their mindset that we are a citizen of a city.
If singapore is not a country but a city, what is the Country of Singapore , the city which to the layman is part of a Country?
What country name should singapore the city belong to?
with the infux of FTs from all over the world, perhaps now a city of multiple countries…..
4) temasek patriot on November 2nd, 2009 9.07 am ,
china, i am not sure. but malaysia…one day…yes!
8) Steve Wu on November 2nd, 2009 11.27 am,
yes, they did, so what? as far as lky is concerned, he can change it if he wants…so…
Shammugam only spoke to the Americans.
When he returns to Singapore, he will tell us another story, lah.
Shan, sham, shame.
‘a city, not a country’.
what ? not again, another classic freudian slip !!!. Now, a city of which bigger country ?
He’s getting nuttier as the days goes on. Can someone please sack him already?
19) Aunt Sally Gozaimas on November 2nd, 2009 1.24 pm
tell your children that they have no obligation to serve NS/reservist since according to our self-serving fat cats Singapore does not exist.
aiyoyo
take the pledge for so many years
now see this situation
sigh………
aiyoyo
3/11/09
Hi KJ,
I don’t agree with you. As an Ordinary Singaporean who also suffered injustice in Singapore and having the privelege knowing your dad the late JBJ and had tea with him during my Singapore banking days, we are a City State and this is what we are and I represent the silent majority of Orindary Singaporeans who don’t be bothered to write on this site or Discuss-Singapore like I have been doing since 2001.
We are here to stay and and our Modern Singapore belongs to all of us especially the majority Ordinary Singaporeans who have their homes in Singapore-I do have a 5room Flat and our Modern Singapore is the only place we called Our Home (in one of your article, you said Our House not Our Home).
We alreay have too many Elites in the PAP since the former PM Goh Chok Tong took over and we have seen that none of the Elites have actually lived up to Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew expectations including PM Goh himself, he prefered Tony Tan. Time for Ordinary Singaporeans to come into Singapore politics be it PAP or Opposition, and I firmly believe together as Ordinary Singaporeans, we can make our Modern Singapore a better place ie colorful, vibrant and lively unlike now. I have been writing without fear or favour since 2001 and I firmly believe there are rooms for more Opposition MPs in our Parliament and these must come from the Orindary Singaporeans and not the Elites whom we have seen in the PAP, getting out of touch with the grounds and the people (they don’t go to the rakyat and the rakyat comes to them). We are no longer in the Dark Ages where information are black out and we are now in the Internet Age where Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew described as A Deep Space of Knowlege and Information, and we just press the button, we get all the information.
Coming back to our Modern Singapore as a City State,we must always put her national interests above all things, and you have read my other postings, if I have to hang my forme and only brother who is a member of international drugs syndicate and based in Penang (also has tens of millions invested in Singapore), I will have to hang him. Further ,we must value what we have built since our Modern Singapore independence and not just destroy them especially public institutions and laws which have flaws and weakness (expected ) and we must fine tune them ie National Service, Health, CPF, ISA-Internal Security Act, Citizenship-capping of foreigners especially those from Mainland China, HDB-only for Singaporeans and Social Securities (help must be given to those Singaporeans who really need them and not a Blank Cheque or a Welfare State).Yes, I know it is very difficult for Senior Citizens to get a NTUC from their MPs and this should not be the case especially now all of us are having hardtimes.One thing I would like to see is the bring back of dialects of Singaporean Chinese ie Hokkien, Cantonese, Khek, Teochew, Hakka, and more focus on English and less on Mandarins for Singaporean Chinese (just how many of Singaporean Chinese can really go to China and my answer is less than 5% perhaps 2% ie to work, open business, study).
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.
Regards
Andrew Chuah
Ordinary Singapporean
Citizens living in foreign occupied (FWs) land. The Men-in-White turning S’pore into a city of darkness. The selfishness to accommodate oppositions and sueing candidates after the election is a first for First world S’pore. and only PAP government will do it. It sets a precedence to the world of political lawsuits.
The grandeur days of LKY is ebbing due to his inability to let go. His son LHL
is a sad transition of an intelligent man stymied by the farther’s thirst for control.
LHL is rendered into insignificance. He is seen and not heard.
We, the citizens of no country taken over by the FWs. We live to regret the day most of us voted the PAP into power and with underhand means hung to it for 50 years. Everything is ‘legalised’. From the draconian Ministers pay increase, to the forced holding back of our CPF, to the unpredictable increase of water, electricity, petrol, transport and the perennial charges on GST.
A city not a country where only the rich elites find life comfortable and the poor are marginalised to a wretched living from hand to mouth.
The senior citizens are treated like ‘had beens’ and so-called medical subsidies
beyond their reach.
We are living in PAP world of their manipulation.
22) mike on November 2nd, 2009 1.53 pm,
It is with regrets that the People (not just you and I) may not be able to do very much about the situation right now. So we should try our best to document all these crimes (constitutional violations, illegal policies, irregularities – make no mistake – they are crimes), raise general awareness and put things into the public domain.
And we wait…. history is our best guide; justice shall be served some time in the future. :-)
Hi Andrew Chuah #28,
You wrote:
The author KJ is not Kenneth Jeyaretnam. Please take note of this.
Cheers
Donald
Deputy Editor
The Online Citizen
3/11/09
Hi Donaldson
Noted, thanks.
Regards
Andrew Chuah
All the while the PAP leaders has always mention S’pore is a Garden City, not garden country. Please take note!
“Adults who never got to grow up.”
I wonder how small and shallow would someone go …to what extend.
To a person like myself…, this statement…would hurt….would call into play, to reflect the very existence of myself.
“I felt that any one who says Singapore is not a Country should be arrested or put to pasture. This kind of statement incites animosity, ill-filling, discord, unhappiness, within the already battered and broken denizens of this hapless place we thought we were willing to die for.”
YOU MEAN TREASON! YES. LKY AND Shamugan have committed treason to the state of singapore. let’s us report to the police to have them arrested.
unfortunately, nothing like that will happen. cheers to the 66% of the contested wards who voted for the pap regime.
3/11/09
Our Modern Singapore was part of Malaysia before we were kicked out because we have more Chinese and if combined with other Chinese, the Chinese together with other non-Malays, would outnumbered the Malays, and we obtained our Independence or Merdeka from Malaysia, there were instruments of Independence besides proclaimation of Independece, further our Modern Singapore became a member of United Nation, a member of British Commonwealth, a member of Non Aligned Movement-Nam and a member of ASEAN……so as far as I am concerned besides being an Ordinary Singapore, our Modern Singapore is a City State (or perhaps City Nation).
Regards
Andrew Chuah
Can u guys imagine if the statement by Shanmugam were said by the Oppostion???? I rest my case….
I’m sure there is a consitution for Singapore to be Independent.After it break away from Malaysia. It stated: One days if this land cannot stand on this own Independent,
This land must return back to the British Empire!
So there is no way Singapore going to merge with China.
Some thoughts on comments by temasek patriot (4):
LKY did not pull out Singapore from Malaysia. She was evicted against his wishes. His high decible oratory as the supossed champion of the non-Malays countering the extremist speeches of the UMNO ultras, threatened to tear Malaysia apart with racial clash blood-letting. The Tengku evicted Singapore to save Malaysia. LKY didn’t want separation. His shedding tears over the TV after the proclamation of separation said it all.
Re-merger is possible should unprecedented economic woes confront S’pore but this will be on terms largely set by Malaysia. The Malay leadership in Malaysia has to be moderate and accommodate and give equal opportunities to the non-Malays. The extremists and ultra nationalists taking over the leadership – a real threat – can spell disaster for Malaysia. You can’t run rough shot over the non-Malays and the people in Sabah and Sarawak with impunity. If you push them to the extreme the country can be dismembered with the Malays left with Malaya (comprising the old Federated Malay States) with the rest including Sabah and Sarawak forming a new Malaysia possibly with S’pore back in the fold.
LKY is a visionary. He does almost everything for the long term interests of S’pore. He secured broad and long-lasting economic and strategic relationships with key nations like the US, China, EU, Japan, Russia and India to ensure Spore’s long term survival and prosperity. My guess is that he will not initiate or endorse any plan to make S’pore an outpost of China, even if he were to live for another 50 years. He is too much of a peranakan and Singaporean to succumb to such thoughts. But I am not too sure about the leaders who will run this country long after him.
LKY did not sell Christmas Islands to Australia. It was the former Chief Minister, Lim Yew Hock, if not the Colonial Government then, who did.
Who is KJ – The Polemic. TOC’s mystery writer.
Would it be totally impossible that one day singapore become part of malaysia IN FUTURE, where future is an unknown period of time somewhere on the time axis which terminates at Infinity?
Technically no one knows and technically, anything has a possibility.
Change is a Constant where nothing else is.
Give me a break about joining other countries.
I am for developing Singapore as a nation. I am not about to join anybody now or in the future!
I am willing to fight and work for this nation not any other entity.
Shanmugam was actually quoting another author. You can read the transcript at http://www.straitstimes.com/STI/STIMEDIA/pdf/20091031/Transcript.pdf
lets do a simple poll:
Up the rating — if u think singapore is a nation and LKY and Shanmugam both have memory problems remember this fact.
Down the rating — if we have been living in SingCity afterall.
“Shanmugam was actually quoting another author. ”
If you carefully read the context , Shanmugam is in fact agreeing with the author, after all how else can you quote something highfalutin without agreeing on the author to lecture others. If someone quote say that “All human race are equal” by certain author to deliver a lecture but yet he prejudice against certain race blatantly, wouldn’t he be making a fool of himself ? The fact that Shanmugam becomes so defensive and desperate in explaining show what a fool he has become. One can’t deny the truth because it is all there for all to see. Our clowns have been living in denial all along and they think they can act otherwise ?
The very reason why this clown quote the author is because the he want to use another writer to debunk the Amercian Lawyers. How smart of him but the Amercian lawyers are not stupid and probably thinking “Are these clowns even practising what they preach and quote ? Who are these clowns to lecture us ? We are the guest to find out the truth , no to be trampled and bought by your highfalutin nonsense and lecture. Get real !”
Have read the PDF, and I can easily debunk another of kangaroo’s nonsense.
[i]LKY did not sell Christmas Islands to Australia. It was the former Chief Minister, Lim Yew Hock, if not the Colonial Government then, who did. [/i]
to make the short story long… xmas isles was only administered by the singapore government because we were the nearest country under the straits settlement acts…
unortunately lim yew hock was an a s shole..he sign the handover too quickly (most probadly he was paid a undertable fees) leekuanyew would never sell any island even the malaysian lighthouse he die die also wants control…
~period~
The context is that Shanmugam was answering a question, by citing an academic. Earlier, he said that the question as follows: “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? And doesn’t that indicate an abrogation of individual rights? Can there really be free choice when one party stays in power for so long?”
In the cited article, the academic suggested that Singapore may appear unique when its political economy is considered as a country. However, when Singapore is viewed as a city, having one party win several elections in a row is not unique to Singapore, 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, no one has ever questioned whether democracy exists in these cities. The Americans in Shanmugam’s audience understand that such one-sidedness can and does happen, and the fact that it happens does not necessarily imply that there is a lack of free choice.
The article is cited to Shanmugam to argues against a hypothesis. The hypothesis is that domination by one party necessarily implies a “thinly-veiled dictatorship”. Logically, it does not. Empirically, the U.S. cities are used as counterexamples.
Note that this is a simple, unambitious point. On the other hand, Shanmugam has been quoted out of context, and this single sentence used as a strawman for all kinds of normative statements on what Singapore should or should not be, and is or is not.
Re Indexer’s comments
1. Dominance of one party for a period of time is one thing. In Australia, for example, the Liberal Party was in power for 12 years. Using public resources to ruthlessly ensure there is no effective opposition is quite another thing altogether.
2. The fact that the PAP/Government has steered away from its socialist ideals and is now principally preoccupied with staying in power and looking after the top 10% to 15% of the population is the crux of the problem for “ordinary” Singaporeans. The situation can only get worse. Singapore has entered a black hole and the Government does not appear to give a toss.
Actually, the big fat flaw in K Shanmugam’s reply is that it was focussed entirely on electoral *outcomes* only (ie. the domination of one party in a law making capacity).
What he has very deftly steered away from are that electoral *PROCESSES* and *SYSTEMS* are far more important. Just as important is what happens in between elections (ie. is there any democracy in between elections?)
In Singapore, the electoral system (eg. GRC, etc.), processes (length of campaign periods, balanced media coverage during elections, grossly unfair judicial rulings on loitering around polling stations, etc) and whether there is any democracy in between elections so that the electorate may remain continuously informed about the ongoing political processess year round and every year (a free and fair media, whether opposition parties have any platform in the five intervening years, etc.) are all well coordinated attempts to ensure the OUTCOME of a PAP dominated Parliament.
Is the same true of the US even in their municipalities like SF, NYC and Chicago?
Even in malaysia,or communist china, if some politician make some bad mistake, there will be a lot of public outburst. Try saying Malaysia is not a country, you will get into trouble.
Only in Singapore this kind of absurd things happen, our very own leaders shame its own citizenry in front of the whole world and nothing happens.- no street protest, and no oppostion party making any comments – just only sporadic, soon-to-be-forgotten blog posts here.
Someone pointed out correctly, if Chee Soon Juan said “Singapore is not a country” – he will be in big trouble. Sentenced to 30 years in prison for sedition, preaching ideas against the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore, and barred for politics for life because of gross misconduct.
Having said that, from the psychology point of view, it is in some sense true that we are not a country. Any real country would have at least some of its countrymen burst into the streets ready to put things right, when a senior statesman had effectively spit on his own national flag. Here we can’t make any visible protests on two counts, the controllers don’t allow you in the first place and in the second place everyone too preoccupied with making money, just like city, not country.
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