The fallacy of Singaporean exceptionalism

What are the real lessons that Singapore should be learning from BN and GE14?

A few weeks ago, former Singapore Tourism Board director Ho Kwon Ping spoke at a forum and confidently declared:

"It is not the absence of full democratic institutions, it is not the absence of full human rights or the putting down of dissent, nor the presence of paternalistic governance which brings down a government, or has brought down the (previous) Malaysian government.

"It is the unbridled, egregiously blatant and massively enormous corruption of the (former prime minister) Najib Abdul Razak's government which brought him down."

Ho’s confidence was mildly amusing. I don’t imagine he has spent much time working in politics here in Malaysia and yet, he seems very sure of this fact.

I’m not going to be the one person in the world who claims to accurately know exactly how all the factors ranked in creating the results we saw in GE14.

However, I think I’ve worked in and on Malaysian politics long enough to suggest that Ho’s analysis may be informed more by a desire to maintain the same old, tired status quo in Singapore than it is by an accurate understanding of Malaysian politics.

I will not make the same mistake of assuming I know everything there is to know about Singaporean politics.

That said, not being a complete stranger to the island state and its political development over the years, perhaps I will humbly posit my own alternatives to Ho’s hypothesis regarding what lessons Singapore can best learn from Malaysia and GE14.

A business with no competition

For some reason, over the years, I’ve always remembered Liew Chin Tong, now deputy defence minister, remarking to a few of us once: The first rule of politics is not to fall for your own propaganda.

We all know the accomplishments of Singapore. As a tiny nation with no natural resources, and surrounded by much bigger countries - all with a reputation for widespread corruption at all levels of government - Singapore is really an anomaly in Southeast Asia.

Columnist William Pesek suggests that these decades of success have bred a degree of complacency in the nation state’s undefeated ruling party.

Ho himself warns of hubris; but the irony may be that believing that it is only massive corruption alone that brought down BN, thus rendering PAP safe for the next 20 or 30 years, is the perfect example of hubris.

I remember former Batu MP Tian Chua (photo) pointing out once that political change tends to happen suddenly, not gradually. The likes of Ho would unlikely have predicted the tsunami of GE12, or of GE14 for that matter. His view is perhaps closer to Umno’s motto of “dulu, kini dan selamanya” (then, now and forever).

Ultimately, the lesson should be that one should never rest on one’s laurels.

Yes, Singapore does a magnificent job remaining relatively corruption-free; yes, you can continue imagining the rest of the world swooning at how punctual the trains are in Singapore.

Yet, the Singapore government exhibits all the symptoms of a business that is no longer too concerned about customer satisfaction, simply because they believe they’re the only shop in town.

You can take the “old man” route of ranting and raving about kids these days and how they should appreciate the achievements and sacrifices of the older generation and how this should translate to an unending stream of vote after vote for PAP.

If you think young people listen to those rants and think to themselves, “Gee, they’re right, I better show my undying gratitude and vote PAP, no matter what,” then perhaps it has been a little too long since you have been a young person. It didn’t work for BN, that’s for sure.

A wise government knows that no matter how good a job you do, the people tend to want more - especially if you’ve been the government for way too long.

Paternalism no longer acceptable

Singapore faces all sorts of problems regarding immigration, growing inequality and so on. Perhaps these are symptomatic of a more meta problem.

Singapore’s reputation in the arena of civil and political rights - key to nurturing healthy political competitiveness - is as low as its reputation in the arena of economic performance is high.

We have heard the yarn of Asian exceptionalism for so long. We are told by those like Ho that Asian culture is different - that human rights are some sort of Western imperialist invention, whereas meek submission to authority and our elders like good Confucian children is true Asian culture.

Alongside is the tired old bogeyman - if you vote for anyone else, the country will be plunged into chaos and disrepair - a line surely familiar to any Malaysian as well.

I think one of the biggest lessons you can learn from BN leading up to GE14 is - don’t assume people are stupid.

People are smart. They now know to question: who exactly is trying to peddle these lines and who benefits from them? The answers to both are the same - our “elders” who are in authority.

Anyone with half-a-brain knows to be suspicious of people trying to sell you advice that only benefits them and I know Singapore didn’t raise any half-brains.

Other modern, successful democracies protect the right to free speech, encourage mature civil and political discourse in the public sphere and do so knowing that it’s not going to lead to the disastrous breakdown of anything.

When a paranoid PAP seeks to move in the completely opposite direction of history, thinking Singaporeans know to question: is this really done for the benefit of all Singaporeans or is this done for the benefit of the Singaporeans on the top of the food chain?

The powers that be love to claim that citizens don’t care about paternalism, as long as the trains keep running on time.

The thing is, nobody ever performs at their peak consistently without any sort of competition. So when you shut down the competition, you compromise your own performance.

Believing that you will continue to provide the best service at the lowest price when there are no competitors whatsoever is not just hubris, it is delusion and ignorance.

Eventually, and quite literally in a few instances recently in Singapore, the trains will stop running on time.

No such thing as selective critical thinking

People like Ho like to believe it’s all about money and the economy. That’s a (typically Singaporean?) issue in and of itself but for now, we can even take that at face value and still come face-to-face with a number of problems.

Pesek speaks at length about Singapore’s attempt to leap into a knowledge economy, encouraging invention, innovation and entrepreneurship as a means of surviving cut-throat global competitiveness.

In seeking to build this economy, Singapore has looked to breed the kind of minds and characters that would excel at these tasks and have in their wisdom decided that what they need is to create a generation of creative, critical thinkers.

Of course, ‘critical’ here does not apply to PAP - only to everything else.

Any educated person knows that that’s not how it works. You can’t nurture a mind to be truly sharp and critical about everything except one “sacred” topic. It’s just silly.

This is the paradox and contradiction that perhaps best explains Singapore’s current economic plateau and crisis of identity.

Sometimes, it feels like Singapore is a poorer version of Westworld or Battlestar Galactica, where they keep trying to create humans but end up with robots - all the while completely stumped about why they can’t succeed even as they stubbornly insist on leaving out the most basic ingredients of humanity and true intelligence.

You can’t train citizens to be good at problem-solving while being blind to the problems of their government; you can’t train them to effectively question fundamental economic problems while teaching them that there are some things they should never question; and you can’t train them to compete at a global level while subjecting them to a rigged, one-sided political system that oppresses any form of genuine competition at home.

A victim of success

Some might say the PAP is a victim of its own success. Making the kind of strides it did in the early decades of Singapore’s existence may have trapped PAP into believing that it has only to continue doing things one way.

In fact, a fear of any type of change or genuine openness has become one of PAP’s most defining qualities and it is this massive paranoia more than anything that has kept Singapore from fulfilling its full potential.

One of the popular criticisms of Islamophobes is that Muslims are too sensitive about their religion. Many people who would make that claim would often hold up Singapore as a shining city state, to be emulated at every turn.

Yet, there are few governments around the world as sensitive as Singapore to criticism.

As we can all glean from our personal experiences, the most insecure among us are the ones who are the most intolerant of criticism. Those who are truly self-confident know the difference between sticks, bones and words.

Reform and evolution within the PAP (should it be willing to accept this) is not about introducing a few trendy new faces or making a cosmetic change.

It is about letting go of fear.

It is about freeing themselves from the insidiously fallacious belief that the minute they allow real freedom of speech and actual political competition, everything will come crashing down.

Make no mistake, some things will come crashing down; but this will only affect the ones so deeply entrenched in power that they are not only responsible for the rot, but are themselves the rot.

How to avoid BN’s fate

There is no way Singapore could have achieved the economic success it did without understanding the necessity and benefits of genuine competition.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and individuals like Ho, who somehow believe that only the Singaporean government can stay clean and good without competition or real checks and balances while others can’t are delusional at best, and racist at worst.

BN had the opportunity to reform and evolve for decades. When push came to shove, it looked inside itself and said: “Nah, I’m good.” Thus always to tyrants, as they say.

So PAP can unshackle the media, free the judiciary and throw open the doors to a functioning opposition. Or it can cower like the proverbial frog under a coconut shell and meet the same fate BN did - likely sooner, rather than later.

---

NATHANIEL TAN is willing to work for the PAP if it just can pass a simple Captcha-like test and admit that this video is kinda funny. He can be reached at nat@renyi.net - Mkini