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I lived in Singapore for four years in the 1990s. Some of my impressions may have since been overtaken by more recent developments of which I am unaware, but here’s my take on that country’s positives and negatives.
On the positive side, when Singapore was kicked out of Malaysia to become an independent nation, it easily could have gone the way of a failing nation state like Zimbabwe if Lee Kuan Yew had governed like Robert Mugabe. Singapore was, as others have noted, a country with no natural resources other than its people. Through intelligent development policies and clean government, Lee had the foresight to use that sole resource to transform Singapore in less than 25 years into a first world country that became a regional business, service, and transportation hub for Southeast Asia.
Singapore is indeed a world-class city, with state of the art infrastructure (airport, subway system, telecommunications). It is clean, green, and safe. Living standards are high, with superb medical and educational systems. To maintain social and economic stability, Singaporeans buy into the system so as become stakeholders in it. For example, while the government builds the affordable high-rise apartments in which the majority of middle and lower class Singaporeans live, the residents are required to buy their apartment and thus become owners, not renters. And while not totally perfect, relations between the three main ethnic groups (Chinese, Malays, and Indians) are pretty harmonious.
On the negative side, while Singapore is a democracy with a parliamentary system, there are definite autocratic tendencies. The ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) has been in power uninterrupted for more than 50 years and uses all sorts of maneuvers to maintain that grip. One such maneuver: when an opposition candidate was clearly going to win, the government decided to combine his district with three others controlled by the PAP into one mega-district, knowing full well that the opposition could not even field a candidate in those other three districts. Despite such tricks, opposition parties often won a third or more of the popular vote, yet at most had only a tiny handful of seats in Parliament. Opposition leaders have also been subjected to baseless libel suits brought by, and always won by, the governing party with the aim of bankrupting such opponents.
More than that, though, I think most Americans and other Westerners would cringe at the degree of social engineering and government control over everyday life. While residential neighborhoods are ethnically integrated so as to prevent ethnic enclaves, that’s the government’s hand at work. If a residential area is becoming disproportionately Chinese, for example, the government will prevent its Chinese residents from selling their apartments to other Chinese – it has to be sold to Malays or Indians to maintain the right ethnic proportion/balance. The media in Singapore know there are certain lines not to be stepped over. And some things are downright Orwellian. At least when I was in Singapore, the ominously named “Social Development Unit” (SDU) of the government required single employees to attend government-sponsored social events in the hope they would find someone to marry. Local wags joked that SDU stood for “Single, Desperate and Ugly.” My wife and I even got a call one from a government agency, who didn’t realize we were expats, wanting to know why we didn’t have any children. We told them, “We don’t know how!” ;-)
Maybe such social control is necessary to keep functional a society of several million people crammed into a tiny nation, but I think most of us in the United States would have a very hard time living this way. I mean where else, and I swear this is true, would government officials say with a straight face such things as “We have to organize some spontaneous events” and “In Singapore, fun is a serious business.”
I lived in Singapore for four years in the 1990s. Some of my impressions may have since been overtaken by more recent developments of which I am unaware, but here’s my take on that country’s positives and negatives.
On the positive side, when Singapore was kicked out of Malaysia to become an independent nation, it easily could have gone the way of a failing nation state like Zimbabwe if Lee Kuan Yew had governed like Robert Mugabe. Singapore was, as others have noted, a country with no natural resources other than its people. Through intelligent development policies and clean government, Lee had the foresight to use that sole resource to transform Singapore in less than 25 years into a first world country that became a regional business, service, and transportation hub for Southeast Asia.
Singapore is indeed a world-class city, with state of the art infrastructure (airport, subway system, telecommunications). It is clean, green, and safe. Living standards are high, with superb medical and educational systems. To maintain social and economic stability, Singaporeans buy into the system so as become stakeholders in it. For example, while the government builds the affordable high-rise apartments in which the majority of middle and lower class Singaporeans live, the residents are required to buy their apartment and thus become owners, not renters. And while not totally perfect, relations between the three main ethnic groups (Chinese, Malays, and Indians) are pretty harmonious.
On the negative side, while Singapore is a democracy with a parliamentary system, there are definite autocratic tendencies. The ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) has been in power uninterrupted for more than 50 years and uses all sorts of maneuvers to maintain that grip. One such maneuver: when an opposition candidate was clearly going to win, the government decided to combine his district with three others controlled by the PAP into one mega-district, knowing full well that the opposition could not even field a candidate in those other three districts. Despite such tricks, opposition parties often won a third or more of the popular vote, yet at most had only a tiny handful of seats in Parliament. Opposition leaders have also been subjected to baseless libel suits brought by, and always won by, the governing party with the aim of bankrupting such opponents.
More than that, though, I think most Americans and other Westerners would cringe at the degree of social engineering and government control over everyday life. While residential neighborhoods are ethnically integrated so as to prevent ethnic enclaves, that’s the government’s hand at work. If a residential area is becoming disproportionately Chinese, for example, the government will prevent its Chinese residents from selling their apartments to other Chinese – it has to be sold to Malays or Indians to maintain the right ethnic proportion/balance. The media in Singapore know there are certain lines not to be stepped over. And some things are downright Orwellian. At least when I was in Singapore, the ominously named “Social Development Unit” (SDU) of the government required single employees to attend government-sponsored social events in the hope they would find someone to marry. Local wags joked that SDU stood for “Single, Desperate and Ugly.” My wife and I even got a call one from a government agency, who didn’t realize we were expats, wanting to know why we didn’t have any children. We told them, “We don’t know how!” ;-)
Maybe such social control is necessary to keep functional a society of several million people crammed into a tiny nation, but I think most of us in the United States would have a very hard time living this way. I mean where else, and I swear this is true, would government officials say with a straight face such things as “We have to organize some spontaneous events” and “In Singapore, fun is a serious business.”
Thank you for a sober and objective post.
Perhaps the OP- who predictably slithered away- will learn something. However, I will give him or her credit. Better than the much-hackneyed, "Can we be like Denmark" type of post.
I bet you really believe that there could be Singapore-like quality of life here in American if only there wasn't those darn white people standing in the way.
You'd bet wrong. I'm simply responding to the person who believes that a society can only be successful only if there's a dominant race.
I don't have a problem with intercultural marriages. You're missing the point entirely and that is as long as there is a dominant and identifying culture and the demographics reflect that having minority cultures living among them it can work. It's when you have two or more competing cultures is where it doesn't work in a society.
For the fifty years of its existence, Singapore has witnessed very few instances of inter-racial tensions and certainly no major terrorist threat. According to the government census, there are currently 74.3% Chinese, 13.3% Malays, 9.1% Indians, and 3.3% “Others”. Furthermore, according to a recent survey, more than 90% of Singaporeans are comfortable with having people of other races and religions as neighbors or colleagues.
So, at least 97% of Singaporeans are Asians who have a similar culture to one another.
I disagree. A cohesive society will live in much more harmony with each other when there is a very dominant culture and demographic makeup. In the past, yes there was racism against blacks which was wrong but that's not the point.
Not surprising that a country with a very dominant culture would say they would be fine living close by with other cultures if they never experienced its downfalls. I see nothing great about living in a society that speaks a bunch of different languages and has many different cultures without there being a mostly dominant and identifying one. Unfortunately, I see our country rapidly heading in that direction and illegal immigration is a contributing factor.
Have you been to Singapore?!
I've spent a lot of time there and I defy you to go there and point out how and where the Chinese have exerted dominion with their culture.
If anything, they've all assimilated together. Even food and language. While still maintaining and respecting differences. It ain't perfect, but it's been working for decades.
And you have a right to BELIEVE whatever you want, but here is direct proof in real life that it can be done if people actually work together instead of turning everything into a cultural dominance ****ing contest.
And it's a really advanced, clean, nice place.
There are tons of places where the demographics are 99.9% one "culture" (your code word for race) that are poverty-stricken, violent, crappy hellholes.
You know, it is possible to learn from other people and actually make your life better by being open to new ideas.
That’s because they have draconian laws. It is a police state.
Do you suppose that they are happy with their lives? Our freedom has immense costs in human misery it seems. Maybe we ought to be looking at something else.
I've spent a lot of time there and I defy you to go there and point out how and where the Chinese have exerted dominion with their culture.
If anything, they've all assimilated together. Even food and language. While still maintaining and respecting differences. It ain't perfect, but it's been working for decades.
And you have a right to BELIEVE whatever you want, but here is direct proof in real life that it can be done if people actually work together instead of turning everything into a cultural dominance ****ing contest.
And it's a really advanced, clean, nice place.
There are tons of places where the demographics are 99.9% one "culture" (your code word for race) that are poverty-stricken, violent, crappy hellholes.
You know, it is possible to learn from other people and actually make your life better by being open to new ideas.
I don't get why that is so threatening.
Some of your points are well taken.
Obviously Singapore "works" but the Chinese are the dominant group. But yes, credit them with mandating respect for the two smaller groups there.
This is in marked contrast to Malaysia, where the situation is reversed and the Chinese are the minority. As such, they are periodically targeted by the majority.
Singapore obviously wished to avoid that. And avoid becoming a mini-Yugoslavia or Iraq.
Singapore is also a city-state. Kind of an anomaly really. Comparing it to places like the USA, Brazil, etc is a bit absurd.
Do you suppose that they are happy with their lives? Our freedom has immense costs in human misery it seems. Maybe we ought to be looking at something else.
Wow, I can't believe people are actually advocating having our rights curtailed and becoming more a dictatorship...
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