Analects 4:5

Confucius said: Men aspire to wealth and status; when these cannot be attained along the path of righteousness, the gentleman forsakes them. Men shun poverty and lowliness; when these cannot be evaded along the path of righteousness, the gentleman welcomes and suffers them.

Should a gentleman depart from righteousness, can he still shine a light on his name? A gentleman never swerves from the path of righteousness even in the sitting of a meal; it leads him in pressing moments and in times of tribulation.

- Analects 4:5, my translation

Did PM Lawrence Wong poke the dragon?

On 19 November 2025 at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum gala dinner in Singapore, Lawrence Wong was asked to analyse, from the view of Asia, the contentious and intense China-US rivalry and its spillovers in the region, with "this spat going on between Japan and China". Singapore's prime minister called for stability and de-escalation. Mr Wong even called for a normalisation of ties between Japan and China. His subtext: China's policy of nurturing historical grievances to fuel jingoist nationalism must seem bewildering and abnormal to the peoples living in Southeast Asian nations, which experienced a long Cold War in succession to WW2. (Or indeed, anyone living in the European Union.)

Right on cue, outraged online mobs in China were whipped into a frenzy by one Peking loyalist and online influencer Yu Pun-hoi in Hongkong and his ultra-nationalist collaborators in Shanghai. And then, panic and concern from various segments of Singaporeans who now feel Wong should not have poked the dragon and sparked off a bonfire.

Was Lawrence Wong unnecessarily provocative? How much of this controversy is his fault? Or was the online mob just the latest chapter in a long-running but increasingly ineffective Chinese influence campaign to decouple Singapore from the American security apparatus in the Asia Pacific? Or is this a sign that Singapore has a vocal homegrown faction that stands for realignment and Sincization?

Mob with pitchforks and torches, from Young Frankenstein.
"A riot is an ugly thing. And I think it's just about time that we had one!"

Should Singapore still mourn the loss of The Projector?

It has been exactly a month since the sudden closure of indie and second-run cinema operator The Projector. The closure may have provoked widespread despair and outrage online, however performative or overwrought, but for the sake of public education this discussion must now move beyond narratives marked by self-regarding romanticism, naive sentimentality, and uninformed anti-capitalism.

What different things can we learn if, for example, we took a production of culture perspective? What if we treat watching an indie or foreign film in a shabby chic cinema as an end result of the interplay between organisational structure, industry culture, market forces, audience preferences, and contractual agreements and unwritten norms within the wider movie industry? That is: What does it really take to screen a movie in a cinema? And if a cinema operator like The Projector fails, whose fault is it really?

Woud've been appropriate and poetic, but
The Projector didn't end its run with a screening of Goodbye, Dragon Inn

What was the political compact between UMNO, PAP, and the people?

A democratic and liberal housecleaning is possible in Malaya

Having won an unprecedented election, Tun Dr Mahathir's new administration continues to signal its intention to prosecute Najib and his cronies over 1MDB, and investigate the state agencies that protected Najib and his cronies. From his pronouncements so far, it appears Malaysia's transition to from Barisan Nasional to Pakatan Harapan will be achieved, in defiance of popular expectations, without:

i. ruthlessly and undemocratically oppressing the former ruling coalition;
ii. cannibalising the partisan grassroots and patronage networks of the former ruling coalition;
iii. taking over the politically co-opted civil service.

These popular expectations are similar, if not identical to the narrative in Singapore, that in the event of a "freak election result", the new ruling party or coalition is expected to do all 3 (especially take over the openly partisan government-policy-friendly People's Association) and turn itself into a new People's Action Party. The subtext of this narrative: Better vote the PAP that you know, rather than an opposition who will betray its own democratic values and morph into the PAP rather messily.

Singapore and Malaysia: Even less dissimilar than Vulcans and Romulans!

For Dr Mahathir to achieve a transition without turning Pakatan into a new BN would be an achievement not only for Malaysia but Singapore as well, given how both countries continue to share a similar if not common culture.

Dr Mahathir's victory was only possible because the electorate decided that former prime minister Najib Razak's particular brand of corruption had broken BN's longstanding political compact on two counts: behaving badly (say, being spectacularly and narrowly corrupt and abusing the agencies of the state) while publicly failing to deliver key items (people really felt the pain from the inflation and public debt).

But what does the government supply in the Malayan political compact?

It is easy to see from self-gratifying behaviour when leaders have broken the compact. But what about the deliverables of the compact itself?

If presented with the disturbingly adjacent and anomalous positions of Singapore and Malaysian on the Ingelhart-Werzel cultural map, a student of historical sociology might propose that instead of seeing the two as far outliers from the "Confucian" and "Islamic" groupings, we should place India, Pakistan, Singapore, Malaysia, and Burma in a separate "former British East India" category, all incidentally occupying the narrow -1.0, -1.0 space. Said historical sociologist may argue that the similar if not common experience of than 2 centuries of British administration and decolonialisation have created a cultural and political similarity.

For Singapore and Malaysia, the birth of the modern political compact comes from their experience of post-war reconstruction. The end of the WW2 saw an immediate realisation that independence or divestment of Empire had to be given despite less than ideal conditions. Malaya had the best run and competent civil service in colonial Southeast Asia, but as United Nations observers pointed out, the people were too politically immature to govern themselves safely in 1945.

And for independence to be successful (at least to the British and their preferred post-colonial successors), the 5 and 10-year post-war reconstruction plans under the British Military Administration and its civilian successors had to deliver Malayanisation. That meant not just the expulsion of the transitory population in Malaya (a point recognised by the earlier UN report), but the continuation of British and Commonwealth grand interests and economic policy under a local administration and workforce. That could only be done by providing sensible social welfare (mostly in the form of affordable, standardised mass housing and healthcare), sufficient education, and create a modern industrialising economy. Failing which, the decolonialisation project would end in Mugabean chaos or a communist regime taking control of the industrial prize of Malaya. It helped that these were also the same things that citizens in Malaya told the BMA and the Social Welfare Department they wanted in several immediate postwar surveys.

Consequently, the political compact in both Singapore and Malaysia are the same: affordable mass housing (that would remain affordable for later generations), creating a native middle class and professional class through education (that would be gainfully employed in a native-controlled economy), and sharing with the people the fruits of a well-managed resource-rich and geographically strategic economy.

Likewise, the political leadership in Singapore and Malaysia are extremely sensitive to the same things: popular fears about the escalating costs of public housing, an education system that is failing future generations of workers, and an economy that is failing to deliver jobs and security to the people. In Singapore, these fears have put policy reversals for a largely immigrant-centric population plan, a moratorium on mass housing construction prior to GE2011, and sparked several rounds of economic restructuring talks and feedback sessions.

One more thing, perhaps the most important

While the Philippines had the highest GDP, it was Malaya had the best run civil service and the potentially richest economy in Southeast Asia (the British planned decolonialism and independence on the back of an expected postwar tin and rubber boom). This provides the final piece of the political compact between the political leaders of Singapore, Malaysia, and their people, beyond the deliverables that are expected, beyond the particular bad behaviour that cannot be tolerated.

In Singapore: The PAP has its mandate so long as Singapore is the least worst country in Southeast Asia.

In Malaysia: BN has its mandate so long as Malaysia is the least worst country in Southeast Asia, aside from Singapore.

So even if the People's Action Party should pull its socks together in the next two years, so long as Tun Dr Mahathir creates a post-BN Malaysia that inspires hope, that threatens to have a brighter future than Singapore, the PAP could be in for a lot of trouble in the next polls.

Are Fake News laws inevitable in Singapore?

Civil society activists in Singapore will no doubt claim that legislation against fake news is inevitable and imminent, that it is part of the authoritarian government's general clampdown on the online media.

In terms of Westminster procedure, Singapore's inevitable march towards fake news laws is in its infancy. Cabinet signals interest and concern on an issue in a Green Paper, a Select Committee is convened. That's where we are at now. Public hearings need to be convened, a committee report drafted and presented in parliament, the cabinet's response to its recommendations and findings presented in another parliament session, a White Paper drafted by the cabinet, potentially more public hearings convened for feedback, the White Paper debated in parliament, a Bill drafted and read twice before passing into law. That is how much more needs to be done.

Yet given how Singapore puts its own spin on Westminster procedure, our hysterical activists might well be right.

Everything you know about Fake News is wrong

Aside from Singapore, other far more democratic countries are considering or have already passed laws against fake news. When the inevitable accusations of authoritarianism and censorship are made by the usual quarters, all Singapore's minister for communications and information (or his permanent secretary needs to do is to point at France and Germany, which have just recently enacted them, and Canada, which has had them for decades. Even the UK has begun the process of studying whether it needs a fake news law.

If the minister and his permanent secretary are competent, they will point out that these laws have been passed in the "liberal West" even in the face of criticisms about the chilling effects on free speech, and promise to be responsible and circumspect with their new powers.

But that will still not detract from the elephant in the room: Fake news is fake.

The realities of Singapore's online landscape

Bertha Henson and Daniel Yap have announced the impending closure of The Middle Ground (TMG), revealing that the news website had failed to meet the challenges of sustainability. Earlier last month, the trio of Dr Thum Pin Tjin, Kirsten Han, and Sonny Liew announced the setting up of "New Naratif" and rolled out their vision, accountability, and subscription model.

Bertha Henson has done a great job with TMG and will be back with Bertha Harian

These developments may fit the establishment's Wild West model of Singapore's online news media, where newcomers can rise out of nowhere to carve an empire of their own, then fall just as fast or settle into also-ran status. On a less simplistic level, the online media landscape is dominated and controlled by Singapore's regulatory framework to such an extent that no full-fledged news site can be economically viable. Where the Newspaper and Printing Presses Act empowers the government to shutter presses as it pleases and more insidiously and demand presses award shares to entities it chooses, recent Media Development Authority regulations empower the government to demand any news site it chooses to cough up hefty monetary guarantees, and to demand forfeiture of that guarantee at its discretion.

Singapore's regulatory framework is a deterrence against the setting up of online news sites, and indirectly incentivises bloggers to stay small and stay within the government's OB markers.

No kiss and make-up: Sonny Liew and Singapore's National Arts Council

After Sonny Liew won several Eisner awards for the graphic novel which the National Arts Council (NAC) of Singapore has previously denounced as "potentially undermines the authority and legitimacy of the Government and its public institutions", the government agency (despite its reluctance to spell out its direct affiliation to the ministry of culture on its own website) and self-declared champion of the arts in Singapore released a congratulatory statement whose mixture of embarrassment and halfhearted conciliation did not escape notice.

It appears that this would not be the end of the matter, and it was wrong to expect a kiss and make-up between award-winning artist and the nation's arts administrators.

So we decided to interview Sonny Liew ourselves.

Sonny Liew's Eisner win and the future of arts censorship in Singapore

When we wrote a mini-review of Sonny Liew's presentation of The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye almost 2 years ago, we remarked that the graphic novel telling an alternate history of Singapore appeared to be "a pastiche of various periods and styles of comic art that were popular during the 1940s to 1970s".

In the intervening year, we bought a copy of the graphic novel and were amazed at how vastly Liew had undersold himself. Sure, Liew didn't research actually existing comics made by artists in pre-independence Singapore. The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye isn't just a pastiche of various periods and styles of comic art; it is a love letter to giants such as Osamu Tezuka, Steve Ditko, Walt Kelly, and Jack Kirby, who have influenced Liew as an artist.

But his book isn't at all an alternate or secret history of Singapore; it is a self-critiquing narrative informed by a historian's understanding that official history is enhanced when it is tempered and even interrogated by the inclusion of multiple viewpoints and the appreciation of paths not taken. It is a masterful love letter to Singapore, warts and all, and a tribute to Singapore's big men and smallfolk alike, and all their dreams.

A post shared by Red Dot Diva (@reddotdiva) on Aug 4, 2017 at 11:34pm PDT

Photograph of Sonny Liew, reproduced with kind permission from Red Dot Diva

But let's talk about how the clown show at the National Arts Council has to deal with Liew's multiple Eisner wins.

Racism in Singapore comedy? Goodness gracious me!

Youtube influencer Shrey Bhargava attended an audition for the next installment in Hack Neo's "Ah Boys to Men" NSploitation comedy series. It went badly because the casting director requested Shrey to put on a funny Indian accent, and Shrey refused because it was insulting and racist.

Blogger influencer Xiaxue hit back hard, twice, at Shrey. So did his potential cast mates. All hell has broken loose.

Take it from us: This entire thing is a clown show. One that demands your attention.

And why should you listen to us? We actually have writing credits for The Noose. Made our own short films that were screened at The Substation when it was a cultural hub, as well as at the National Museum. And we've even written stand-up routines for local comedians. So let's begin, shall we?

The Syonan Gallery Clown Show

The Omnishambles so far...

On 10 February 2017, Singapore's National Library Board (NLB) unveiled the new name for the Old Ford Factory WW2 history museum. It would be called the Syonan Gallery, in memory of the name Singapore was administered as during the Japanese Occupation.

Tempers flared. According to the rising ire of detractors, the name Syonan (昭南 or "Light of the South") was an affront to survivors of the occupation. It glorified the imperialist project of the Japanese. The minister in charge of culture disagreed. Syonan is the most appropriate name to remind ourselves never again.

Of course there isn't a doubt that Syonan Gallery was a mistake. It's a mistake that hasn't been seen before in the field of cultural and historical production. To my knowledge, there isn't a Sudentenland Museum in the Czech Republic, or a Lebensraum Museum or a Heims in Reich Museum in Poland - because competent historians and curators elsewhere know better than to name a war museum using the frame of reference of the historical villains.

Balled Over by the Empire

In our "Rise of the anti-intellectual, illiberal left" category, the question is:

Which of the following did not happen this week?

A. Social Justice Warriors waging war on pie. Empire Pie. I miss fafblog and its pie jokes.

B. Social Justice Warriors waging war on a museum. It put on a fundraising dinner called the Empire Ball to kick of its curated exhibition of the Tate's edgy, critical, anti-colonial take on Empire and Artists (co-branding yay or nay?). They object to the word empire, of course.

C. Social Justice Warriors waging war on Fox's Empire. The word empire is imperialist (duh) and triggering.

Rethinking the haze and Indonesia

Tiny and rich Singapore flails comically when it comes to Indonesia and the haze. For all its claims to being a diplomatic giant on the world stage, Singapore fumed helplessly for the last 2 months as forests and peatland burned in Borneo and Sumatra.

It's a smog that gives Peking, Shanghai, and Hong Kong a run for their money. A smog that's more lo-fi, yet more poisonous. And according to both locals and expats, a smog that has more immediate effects on health. More importantly, Singapore's credibility as a vibrant cosmopolitan city and productive financial centre withers each day the haze lingers over its skyline.

Living with Myths X: Singaporean words and images

Being a review of the final in a long, year-long series of seminars

Singapore's Literary Myths

Is a national literature a reflection of national ideology?
Is the development of a national literature a reflection of competing national ideologies?
Who gets a say?
Which question did Gwee Li Sui ask, and answer?

Living with Myths IX: Cultural medallions, poverty, histories

Being a review of the 9th in a year-long series of seminars

Poor people don't like oats either

Teo You Yenn is a sociologist who studies Singapore's social welfare ecosystem. What happens after the cabinet fixes a policy stand on social welfare? How does policy get enacted by ministries, semi-government bodies, and social organisation? What does social welfare look like when it is delivered to the poor?

Living with myths: Singapore pastoral

Taiwan Review has published a few excerpts from Loh Kah Seng's new book, Squatters into Citizens. Followers of the Living with Myths reviews on this blog may remember the good doctor had based his presentation in Living with Myths VI on his new book.

Back then, we noted that sociologist Chua Beng Huat (an outspoken critic of the establishment for the past 30 years) took Loh to task for mythologising life in Singapore's rural kampungs and squatter settlements as ideal, free, and noble—and levelled the charge of academic irresponsibility at Loh.

Because Loh had presented a new myth: the Singapore pastoral.

Life by the River by Liu Kang

The Apothesosis of Lee Kuan Yew VI

From Republic of Singapore to Republic of Nanyang

In the midst of the political purges of Singapore’s early post-independence years, the PAP government ditched its race-blind Singaporean Singapore ideals, subverted its own image of multiculturalism, appropriated key social and cultural policies of the Chinese cultural elites and absorbed them into the civil service as a form of political accommodation. This resulted in the sinification (whether intended or not) of Singapore by 1980. The mandarins and the political leaders of Singapore would then embark on even more ambitious schemes that would put the nation on the map as a Third China.

"Singapore is a Chinese country what", say just about every Chinese immigrant here

The Apotheosis of Lee Kuan Yew V

To boldly go...

It is possible to typify the leadership of early Singapore and the PAP as a triumvirate consisting of Lee Kuan Yew, Goh Keng Swee, and S Rajaratnam. The first was a political man of action who wielded charisma, power, and authority to get people to comply with the national plan. The second was the technocrat who made sure every aspect of the plan was sound. The third was the ideologue, the voice of wisdom put a human touch to the plan.

Star Trek's holy trinity

In this way, the PAP early leadership serves the same archetypical functions that J Michael Straczynski sees Kirk, Spock, and Bones fulfilling in the Star Trek narrative: the Warrior, the Priest, the Doctor.

Living with Myths VIII: Danger and Development

Being a review of the 8th in a year-long series of seminars

Openness and reform under the shadow of danger

An authoritarian regime often resorts to a national narrative that begins with an existential threat to the State and ends with a taboo on certain discourses. Don't tempt fate by talking about race and religion in Singapore; these topics are so sensitive, any discussion will bring down our truly great but simultaneously fragile state.

Ian Chong turns his gaze away from Singapore, where this rhetoric hasn't yet been laughed out of society, to 1987 where authoritarian regimes in Taiwan and Korea ended several long-held taboos to free up political discourse and democratic participation. It is worth noting these measures did not lead to riots in the streets or the fall of South Korea or Taiwan, or even the ruling parties governing them. Roh Tae-woo succeeded Chun, while Chiang Ching-kuo's anointed successor, Lee Teng-hui, became president.

Chong argues what had changed was a recognition at the top that society had outpaced the state's ability to regulate its politics. Society had become so complex with multitudinous identities and loyalties, that anyone at any one time could be in a minority—and that the best path forward was to let people negotiate, compromise, and negotiate their rights, recognition, roles and responsibility in a more democratic mechanism.

Chong did not provide economic and social indicators comparing the trajectories of Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan post-1987. The trade-off might actually have paid off handsomely.

Lucius Sulla seized dictatorial powers, reformed the Roman constitution
then stepped down voluntarily.

Rethinking racial categories

Laavanya Kathiravelu recycles the keynote presentation she gave at the Singapore Heritage Society's Anatomy of a Riot seminar in September 2014. Which is resembles nothing like the writeup for Living With Myths VIII. But we'll deal with the presentation she gave, not the presentation she promised.

From her anthropological research on migrant labourers in Singapore, Kathiravelu magically takes aim at the nation-state's "CMIO model", even though their identities as migrant labourers here are shaped by both ethnicity and class. She shows powerpoint slides of recent controversies in ethnic relations (the Little India riot, STOMP complaints, etc) and presumes they are self-explanatory, and embody all that is wrong with the CMIO model, which somehow is the root of everyday racism in Singapore.

Yet listening to her speak, it is unclear if she even knows whether it is the act of classification, the inadequate description of finer, more sophisticated ethnic identities, or the very fact that master identities in Singapore are ethnically based that is her bugbear aside from her conviction that racism is bad; and it's all CMIO's fault.

Even the academic audience had fun with her unpresentation at the Q&A, where several postgraduate researchers suggested other readings of recent controversies, including the class divide, the growing disconnect between global migration and local identity, or even neocolonialism. Kathiravelu was unable to respond in a meaningful way, ironically privileging race discourse instead of rethinking it. Those interested in actually knowing about what the CMIO model really means and why it's a Bad Thing and inadequate for a modern Singapore may consult Nirmala PuruShotam's Negotiating Language, Constructing Race.

Innovation: smart nation, technology, and governance in Singapore

Arthur Chia's presentation is commendable; it is a close reading of state rhetoric from the past 3 decades on technology and innovation. He proves that it's never been about technology or innovation per se, but about attempts to define and demarcate Singapore's place in a globalising economy using the preferred frames of reference of its managerial elites on one hand, and on the other, to buttress the ruling party's technocratic, meritocratic virtues and hence right to rule.

Chia's presentation was so circumscribed to proving this point, we almost suspect the paper he's currently researching and writing on this topic has far more to say, such as correlating each attempt at reinventing technocratic discourse to earlier failed attempts at climbing the tech/innovation/productivity ladder. We wish him best of luck, and hopefully a return to the Living with Myths seminar before the end of the series.

The Apotheosis of Lee Kuan Yew IV

Lee Kuan Yew, the political realist and chameleon

The pre-merger consensus in Singapore in the post-war decades was for a pan-Malayan identity. Post-merger, Lee Kuan Yew the populist democrat honoured the desires of Singapore's populace and fought the battle for a Malaysian Malaysia and lost.

Therein lies a historical problem that is tangential to our study of (if you haven't guessed by part 3) Singapore's evolving language/bilingualism/multiculturalism policy: Why did the sage and political genius of Singapore fail to recognise the MCA-UMNO political contract—the foundation of the Federation of Malaya and hence the Federation of Malaysia—was not for a Malayan Malaya, that a Malaysian Malaysia was not what the populace in the peninsula wanted, and why did he fail to politically outwit and outmanoeuvre the ruling coalition?

As it so happened, Singapore was independent—booted out or amicably divorced, depending on Lee's initial, long-term narrative or his new retelling on Goh Keng Swee's funeral. Whereupon Lee insisted on a Singaporean Singapore but somewhere along the years, became a Sinicised Singapore.

Multiculturalism in Singapore before sinification

If the Chinese elites had ultimately won the war for the soul of Singapore despite losing the battle for its political compass, it was a victory that was borne out of a significant defeat and thus could not be acknowledged as a victory. We will prove that the brand of Sinification pushed by the elites has been reactionary, essentialist, and ultimately radical, then argue further that with the passage of time, changing demographics and shifting geopolitical realities have overwritten the initial appeal of Sinification to Singapore’s Chinese population, alienating this elite and its cultural programme from not just Chinese Singaporeans but Singaporeans at large.

Take for example the idea that a Chinese Singaporean who does not speak and write fluent Mandarin is somehow un-Chinese and not worthy of respect. In the years 1959—1965, this axiomatic statement and the assumptions it makes linking language, culture, and ethnicity (in effect, the assumptions underpinning modern ‘bilingualism’ in Singapore) would not have made sense.

Pre-merger bilingualism as promoted by the PAP consisted of Malay (the national language then and still today) plus either Tamil, Mandarin, or English, depending solely on one’s medium of education. The ‘second language’ one spoke did not have any bearing on one’s ethnic identity, and was not expected to.

Parangolés, Helio Oiticica
In the late 1960s, Brasil embarked on an experiment of cultural fusion and creation
called Tropicalismo

Post-independence, Singapore multiculturalism was, under ministers Lee Koon Choy and S Rajaratnam, a matter of creating a fusion culture to create a distinctive Singaporean identity. The present-day understanding that bilingualism ‘preserves cultures’ and ties one’s identity to a ‘mother tongue’ would have been alien, if not an affront to the vision of multiculturalism and bilingualism agreed upon in the early days of Singapore. In the view of S Rajaratnam, a multicultural Singapore could not exist as a Singapore populated by hyphenated Singaporeans. A Singaporean identity could only arise out of the deliberate distancing of Singaporeans from their ‘ancestral’, ‘ethnic’ loyalties and identifications.

As a Singaporean I have no difficulty, in a single lifetime, forgetting in turn that I was a Ceylon Tamil and Sri Lankan though I was born there. I had no difficulty forgetting that I was a British subject, or the formative years as a Malayan and where most of my kith and kin are... Being a Singaporean is not a matter of ancestry. It is conviction and choice... Being Singaporean means forgetting all that stands in the way of one’s Singaporean commitment, but without in any way diminishing one’s curiosity about the triumphs and failures of one’s distant ancestors.

Witness how this radically opposite this hews from the PAP's latter-day concept of multiculturalism. It has been revisioned as an initiative of the elite, to build mini-sages and "bi-cultural elites" to trade, to enter a regressive, if profitable transaction with the now ever-present, pressingly relevant land of ancestry. It is a multiculturalism where the state prescribes and polices race and cultural identity, a multiculturalism completely at odds with Rajaratnam's race-blind Singaporean Singapore.