Au revoir, Auf wiedersehen, Goodbye Huang Jing

Singapore's Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) recently accused Prof. Huang Jing, an American IR academic and lobbyist at its Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, of conniving with foreign intelligence, on behalf of foreign powers, to subvert the state and interfere with domestic politics, with the help of prominent and influential Singaporeans he enlisted.

To be fair, the MHA gave the good doctor a chance to appeal, and that appeal was eventually rejected.

Huang Jing must leave on a jet plane and never return... after an undefined grace period

But that doesn't mean that the expulsion of the professor, the accusations against him, and the prosecution of his case are credible. We've previously explained why the accusations against him are pure nonsense; we now explain how the MHA's prosecution of Huang's case completely undermines its own security narrative.

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.

Is Track II Diplomacy Dead in Singapore?

According to industry analysts, Singapore is the worst place to be a property developer, the worst place to be a tech start-up, and the worst place to be a software programmer. Add to that growing list, the worst place to be a Track II diplomat or lobbyist.

Singapore has proscribed Dr Huang Jing, a US citizen and top professor at its Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKYSPP). He will be summarily expelled, his permanent resident status torn up, and his directorships in several state-linked companies dissolved if he doesn't resign from them voluntarily. The communique from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) adopts a security narrative: the professor was "an agent of influence of a foreign country", engaged in subversion and interference in Singapore's domestic politics.

Now let us tell you why this narrative is a giant fail and colossal joke, and what could be actually happening.

The Apothesosis of Lee Kuan Yew VI

Can we remember Lee Kuan Yew without creating a cult?

A statue of Turkmenbashi, not a statue of Lee Kuan Yew

Singapore's Speak Mandarin Campaign clown show moment

A funny thing happened on the launch of the 2017 edition of the Speak Mandarin Campaign. The poster, unveiled at the official launch by a minister on 12 July, promotes the 2017 slogan for the campaign, which should translate as "Listen, speak, read, write". Except that the third character 渎 isn't the one for "read" 读. The character 渎 actually means "diss" or "disrespect".

This is what COVFEFE looks like in Chinese. This is what sheer incompetence looks like in Singapore.

Why the National Archives was no Friend of the Court

Earlier last year, we commented on the case of Lee Wei Ling and Lee Hsien Yang vs Attorney-General that due to their specialist knowledge and unique mandates, the National Archives of Singapore, its fellow SARBICA member associations, or even the International Council of Archives should have submitted an amicae curiae brief to the court if they were not approached by either side to testify.

We argued that a community of archival experts could have provided their perspective on how archival institutions are mandated, given authority and institutional independence, and governed via a clear set of legal frameworks and strict operational and ethical guidelines to handle "secrets", "copyright", and "ownership".

At that time, we were confident that had the NAS or its fellow international archival bodies raised their voices on archival procedure and copyright, the case could've been settled differently, and we were perplexed on their no-show. That is, until today.

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?

Date with High Court, Cha-cha with Cheng Bock

It was clear from Dr Tan Cheng Bock's press conference on 31 March 2017 that the good doctor would mount a challenge to the reserved presidential election to be held in Singapore before September 2017. It has been a week since Dr Tan broke the news that he had applied for "a clarification" from the High Court - an application which was accepted.

It is time for us to examine the principles that may guide the court when it makes that clarification for both Dr Tan and the Attorney-General's Chambers. We make no attempt to weigh the "correctness" of these principles or the likelihood that they will be accepted by the Court in its judgement.

Beware the FAS scandal offside trap!

FIFA's 2015 reform package to improve transparency and accountability in the sport includes a call to remove government appointees from leadership of its regional and national administrative bodies. The reformation has seen a fallout in various countries, with political appointees exiting most unwillingly the national administration of their sport. In squeaky clean, corruption-free Singapore, the Football Association of Singapore (FAS) has to comply with FIFA and hold an unprecedented and contentious election for its leadership.

Following accusations of a "compulsory donation" to the FAS that was funnelled to the ASEAN Football Association (AFF), the FAS and three football clubs have been raided by Singapore's Commercial Affairs Department (CAD), the clubs' chief, the former political appointee president and his right-hand man have been called in for interviews.

Instead of reading sensationalist reportage and hack pieces attacking Bill Ng and questioning how his profitable clubs have so many jackpot machines, we invite you to try our serious analysis on the real issues surrounding this case. Clue: It has nothing to do with legalised, highly regulated, ubiquitous jackpot machines in Singapore's football clubs.

Tough Questions with Tan Cheng Bock

On the morning of 31 March 2017, Dr Tan Cheng Bock held a press conference on the upcoming presidential election. During this conference, the good doctor read out the text of his media release (which is also helpfully reproduced on facebook and streamed by The Online Citizen).

As usual, we at Illusio will hold your hand and help you read between the lines.

Playing politics with diasporic communities: Southeast Asia's lessons for the EU

Recep Tayyip Erdogan will make Turkey great again!

Mr Recep Erdogan has been organising, in France, the Netherlands, Germany, and Austria, an unprecedented series of campaign rallies for the upcoming Turkish national referendum to confer unprecedented powers in the presidency.

And even though the European Union has a thing for suicide pacts (yes to unlimited immigration, yes to no checks on refugees, yes to imposing debt bondage on the PIGS, yes to an illogical currency union!), European leaders are mostly not amused. Erdogan's rallies have been completely banned in Austria, cancelled in Germany, and created a victory for the right in the recent Dutch elections (which the media has spun as a loss for the far-right because Geert Wilders didn't win big).

Erdogan is not amused either. So much for EU-Turkey relations (Germany's secret deals notwithstanding), and so much for Turkey's EU membership ambitions? Not quite.

Hard Talk with the Prime Minister: Singapore loses the plot

HARDTalk interviews are hardly a fireside chat

Did prime minister Lee Hsien Loong "do us proud" yesterday, or did he stutter, freeze, and turn all defensive? It is unlikely that PM Lee thought his BBC HARDTalk interview with Stephen Sackur would be a walk in the park, much less a fireside chat. His father had appeared on the same show several years ago and turned in a feisty performance.

It is far likely that Lee's media team is aware of the performative aspects of an international interview, given the pre-approved trailer showing Lee throw out a combative line: "I would not presume to tell you how your press council should operate, why would you presume to tell me my country should run?"

But if we are to judge if that's a winning line or a defensive cover, we cannot take that line out of context.

We need to reconsider how Singapore remembers WW2

Yes, the Syonan Gallery has been renamed to the less offensive and traumatising "Surviving the Japanese Occupation: War and its Legacies". But have the professionals behind the formulating, marketing, chronicalising, and critiquing of Singapore history learnt from this episode? Should they seriously reconsider an approach and narrative that is not just stale, not just failed, but poisoning the Singapore identity?

Historical facts are always already mediated.
No historical narrative corresponds to the sum total of historical facts.

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.

Copyfight! What happens when copyright meets official secrets?

In his judgement, the honorable Tay Yong Kwan appears to have made a Solomonic decision: the Attorney-General gets his Official Secrets Act to apply to the interview and transcripts, and the Estate of the late Mr Lee gets its full copyright to the same interview and transcripts. That is to say, the Estate has "full copyright and literary rights", only to the extent of checking that the Government complies with the Interview Agreement.

Rafael's Judgment of Solomon

Memories, Official Secrets, and the National Archives: A matter of governmental judgment or archival discretion?

In the case of Lee Wei Ling and Lee Hsien Yang vs Attorney-General, the honorable Tay Yong Kwan has ruled that the transcripts of the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew's interviews with the National Archives are:

1. covered by the Official Secrets Act;

2. copyrighted by Mr Lee's estate, but only to the extent of "ensuring the Government's compliance with the Interview Agreement"; and

3. in custody of the Cabinet Secretary [our note: till 2020, when the Government may exercise the discretion to hand them over to the National Archives then, at a later date, or never, or indefinitely delay that decision].

Both the Estate and the Attorney-General appear to have disregarded the consideration and interests of the Archives itself when they argued their cases. Neither the National Archives of Singapore, any of its fellow SARBICA member associations, or even the International Council of Archives were called by either side to submit an affidavit for the case. It thus falls on us at Illusio to illustrate how an archival institution or a community of archival experts may possibly view the case. Or at least, weigh in on whether and when archival interviews should be official secrets, and who typically has copyright, and explain why.

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.

New Elected Presidency for Singapore: Mission accomplished?

The workmanlike quality of the constitutional commission's report is to to be commended, for its efforts to ensure Minilee's quest to amend the constitution proceed on time.

"Prosecution or persecution?" The continuing Judge Dredd tendencies of the Elections Department

As we argued last month, the principles of the exercise and distribution of power by the state and its agencies, in the event of an investigation, have been contravened in the investigation of alleged breaches of the cooling off amendments of the Parliamentary Elections Act. The police have usurped the role of the public prosecutor and attorney general in their questioning of Roy Ngerng, and more importantly, both the ELD and police have usurped the role of the courts in their joint press statement.

One month later, the separation of investigative, prosecutorial, and judicial roles of state agencies continue to be blurred. This is cause for major concern.

"Prosecution or persecution?" Public law issues in the investigation of Teo Soh Lung and Roy Ngerng for Cooling Off Day violations

In the distant future of the 2000 AD comic books, Mega-City One is patrolled by a police corps empowered to arrest, convict, sentence, and execute criminals. Judge Dredd pushes the popularity of authoritarian anti-crime rhetoric in society in the 1980s to its most logical conclusion: a world where due process and separation of powers mean nothing. The gimmick is fashioning a hero for a world where these authoritarian fantasies have come true, while the twist is showing that what passes for justice in this world is hardly something we'd recognise or desire.

Quo vadis? Workers Party leadership renewal crisis

Singapore's Workers Party had an election last weekend. That got them into the news because apparently in Singapore, even for an opposition party, the party leadership is a position for life and any open challenge for the post is unheard of, because this is how the cadre system works and is universally adopted by all credible parties in Singapore.

So why did Low Thia Khiang remind voters of its "leadership renewal process" in the GE2015 rallies when he presented WP's new dream team for winning the East Coast?

Bukit Batok by the numbers

In our previous post, we applied the Dominant Party System model to the Bukit Batok by-elections and made some predictions of the vote, as well as initial critiques of the early campaigning by the People's Action Party and the Singapore Democratic Party. It's time we looked at the numbers, and measure the model against the competing narratives from the mainstream media's pundits as well as popular folk wisdom.

Modelling the Bukit Batok 2016 by-election

How much of a swing in the electorate does Dr Chee Soon Juan and the SDP need

to win the Bukit Batok by-election?

New Elected Presidency for Singapore: Is an update or rethink really needed?

Faster than a speeding bullet, or Minilee's premature constitutional contractions!

As public hearings for the constitutional commission on the changes to Singapore's Elected Presidency continue, so do our analysis to shed light and push back on what may be described as yet another hasty, ill-conceived exercise at constitutional amendment by the long-ruling People's Action Party.

Our previous post establishes the fact that despite the effort of the mainstream press, the proposed changes to the Elected Presidency are not mere updates but radical rethinks of the presidency. For the prime minister to moot the changes in parliament, convene the constitutional commission, call for feedback, let it hold public hearings, compile a report, study it, then craft the bill and allow his cabinet colleagues to sell it in parliament, have three readings of the bill all within the year, Minilee and the national press need to sell the changes as minor, perfunctory, and incremental. Otherwise, the prime minister's constitutional exercise will lose its credibility and it will be difficult to wash off the stench of unholy haste in the proceedings.

New Elected Presidency for Singapore: Update, Rethink, or Clown Show?

In the matter of the changes to the elected presidency, it has taken less than 4 months from Lee Hsien Loong's proposals in his speech at the opening of the 13th parliament of Singapore for us to arrive at the constitutional commission's public hearings at the Supreme Court. And if Minilee has his way, the commission will present its findings by 2016Q3, following which the Prime Minister's Office will likely draft the changes it accepts from the commission, the bill read twice in parliament and passed "within the year", and the presidential election take place with the new rules in 2017, less than 18 months away from now.

Blind men and the elephant: Chua Mui Hoong describes crony capitalism in Singapore

You've probably heard about the blind men and the elephant. In the dominant narrative, the moral of the story one should learn is the limitations to knowledge, how imperfect and incomplete information on the Truth may lead equally wise people to disagree on things. For my readers, I offer a counter narrative. The blind men and the elephant is an allegory for how things look to people who refuse to see what they're looking at.

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.

Singapore's popcorn democracy

Every election, Singapore becomes popcorn democracy. Just look at its expert panellists.

Modelling the 2015 general election: numbers, outcomes... and theory?

Singaporeans voted on 11 September 2015 and returned the People's Action Party to power with a supermajority and a 9.9% swing in its favour. This was despite 5 years of poor performance by the PAP, where policy and governance failures erupted in the public eye. We at Illusio conduct a postmortem to uncover, from the numbers, if what went wrong for the opposition can be best explained from the voting model we have championed.

Modelling the 2015 Singapore general election: theory and outcomes

Singaporeans voted on 11 September 2015 and returned the People's Action Party to government with a supermajority and a 9.9% national swing in its favour. This was despite 5 years of poor performance by the PAP, where policy and governance failures erupted in the public eye. We at Illusio conduct a postmortem to uncover, from first principles, what broadly went wrong for the opposition.

Modelling the 2015 Singapore general elections V: Rational voter choices

We at Illusio, having duly considered the facts and circumstances laid before us in the past 5 years and during the rally season, do hereby endorse for the 2015 Singapore general elections...

Modelling the 2015 Singapore General Elections IV: The main opposition

I introduced last week a voting model based on the idea of a dominant party system. Here at the end of the rally season, I've decided to compare the election strategies and positioning of really existing major opposition parties in Singapore against the theoretical model. I also explain why SDP is the comeback kid, why WP can't seem to get out of the kenna hantam mode, and why SingFirst might just surprise everyone in 2 days.

Let's now turn to how the rest of Singapore's opposition parties have waged their campaigns and compare their actual strategies to the predictions in our theoretical model, which I reproduce again here for your convenience.

Singapore Democratic Party, Chee Soon Juan, the Comeback Kid

We previously wrote that the SDP "demonstrates clearly the divergent strategy. It is as liberal as the PAP is centrist or conservative. On the policy front, it challenges most of the PAP's policies". We were right, and the SG2015 Electionaire proves it.

Modelling the 2015 Singapore general elections III: The PAP campaign

As expected, the People's Action Party's campaign consisted of silly references to SG50, the Legacy of the party, and playing the LKY card as though every reverent mention of his name could resurrect the man.

And then, there was Minilee's lunchtime rally speech, quoting Papalee's House of Cards speech word for word.

It just doesn't work.

Modelling the 2015 Singapore general elections II

Despite expectations, the PAP hasn't run its LKY nostalgia campaign yet.

But did you know the PAP has no viable campaign to run in 2015?

Nomination day observations

PAP supporters arriving at a nomination centre via chartered bus

Picture courtesy of The Online Citizen

Portions of this post were published in an article on The Online Citizen.

Up close and personal, the proceedings of Nomination Day are no less theatrical and farcical than the edited version you watch on television: all sound and fury, with candidates and their supporters behaving as though they were at a pro-wrestling event.

Modelling the 2015 Singapore general election I

How much of a swing in the electorate would the opposition need

to dethrone the PAP in 2015?

In a very accessible article, Jeraldine Phneah writes about the advantages the People's Action Party has over the opposition in Singapore. Note that several of the advantages are institutional and arise from the PAP's position as the dominant party in Singapore politics.

In PolSci speak, Singapore belongs to a subset of democracies that are called dominant party states: these are countries whose political landscape are overwhelmingly dominated by a single ruling party, often for decades. As it turns out, a phenomenon like the PAP is not that unique to history or politics. And as it turns out, phenomena like the PAP do come and go.

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?

PAP upgrades its own Upgrading Carrot

 
Uniquely Singapore inception

Minilee is expected to dissolve parliament some time after the NDRS. Nevertheless, campaign season has already begun: the opposition has resolved its coalition talks to great success, and all parties have begun unveiling their candidates.

Trust the PAP to trot out more upgrading carrots. They've already begun in Sembawang, Tanjong Pagar, Jalan Besar, and Bishan-Toa Payoh. Presumably, some MPs did not got the party memo, which upgrades the HDB upgrading carrot into the GRC master plan carrot (see media reports on Tanjong Pagar and Jalan Besar).

Conversation with the Prime Minister: Just a conversation?

How Minilee thought he'd appear on TV last night:
as an FDR conducting a folksy fireside chat

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.

The Apotheosis of Lee Kuan Yew

The Apotheosis of Washington, 1865

"Even from my sick bed, even if you are going to lower me into the grave and I feel something is going wrong, I will get up."
-- Lee Kuan Yew, 1988 NDRS

As the authority and competence of the People's Action Party wanes, historians are starting to point out that Singapore has no proper history, only a hagiography.

While the authoritarian leader eschewed a personality cult, it did not stop generations of Singaporeans speaking of him in hushed, deferential, even reverential tones. Neither did it stop him from making a nation in his image, from adopting the rhetoric of the enlightened despot. Leaders like him do not pass on; they apotheosize.

Lee Kuan Yew is dead. We commemorate his passing not by declaring his divinity and author of all that is good in Singapore, nor by painting him as a folk-devil responsible for all the woes of Singapore. We are guided here by a firm sense of proportion, empiricism, and grounded theory that puts the man in his proper place.

The Apotheosis of Lee Kuan Yew III

Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's populist leader

What can a politician do to win the votes of a demographic whose popular leaders were jailed, exiled, and taken out of the political process? We argue that as the purges against Singapore’s Chinese political elites continued, the PAP had to make an increasing number of cultural and social concessions to Singapore’s Chinese—in effect, to valourise “Chineseness”—in order to maintain their electoral competitiveness.

National Language Class, by Chua Mia Tee

In their push towards the merger in the post-war decades, Singapore’s Chinese elites on both the left and right had advocated a pan-Malayan identity for the future state of Malaysia. As the price for Singapore’s admission into an independent Malaya, they would go so far as to adopt Malay as a lingua franca.[1] Regardless of political affiliation, the political narrative of the Chinese population up to 1963 had been that Singapore and Malaya were “flesh and bone” which were destined for a reunion, that the Chinese people of Malaya would lead the way to forge a national identity that was not Chinese, not Malay, not communitarian but “Malayan”.[2]

Despite its growing unpopularity and near collapse in the initial years of self-government, the PAP outmanoeuvred its main political rival, the more popular Barisan Sosialis, by championing the merger—a pet issue of the Chinese community and its leaders. While the merger project would prove to be a failure, it was easy for the PAP to continue down this path in order to remain electable as the bearer of Chinese culture and politics in an independent and democratic Singapore, especially when its ‘anti-communist’ purges against the Chinese elites (who had been building an alternative power base in Singapore’s schools, newspapers, and trade unions) intensified.

This was achieved through the PAP government’s selective appropriation of the cultural and social agendas of the defeated Chinese political elite to fashion a “Chinese” identity that was acceptable to the PAP’s nation-building project, and the absorption of the Chinese cultural elite into the civil service and the surrender of ‘soft policy’ areas to this group.[3]

Relatively early, the PAP government discarded its idealist socialist rhetoric and fashioned Singapore’s national narrative in terms that would appeal to its Chinese elites. Singapore’s war on “yellow culture” took its cues from Mao’s appropriation of national self-strengthening initiatives to combat the moral decrepitude and corrupting influences of “Western” culture, and intensified in the 1970s to become a crusade against long hair, hippies, rock music, and drug culture. By the 1980s, a barely disguised neo-Confucian “Asian Values” was touted as the root of Singapore’s exceptionalism. And by the mid 1990s, Singapore made its play on the world stage as a “Third China”, laying claim as the heir of authentic Chinese culture and identity by recreating the Tang Dynasty as a theme park in Singapore for the benefit of Singaporeans and an outside world yet to access the real China.

A rare, if not only non-Sinocentric staging of Kuo Pao Kun's Descendants of the Eunuch Admiral

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Education became the employers of last resort for graduates from Singapore’s only Chinese-language university[4]. The brazen purges and undisguised proscription of the Chinese political elites (largely Nanyang graduates as well) had deterred the private sector from employing Nanyang’s best and brightest, while the English-educated civil service saw them as no less suspicious than the alleged pro-communist Chinese political elites whom they were purging.

Barred from contesting the economic future or any substantial policy direction of Singapore from within the system, it is hence in the “soft” ministries of culture and education that Nanyang’s graduates were allowed to refashion themselves as Singapore’s Chinese cultural elite, protecting Chinese culture and values, subject to what the PAP government felt was necessary to its nation-building project.

In the crucial years of 1969 to 1989, the mandarins at the Ministry of Education had instituted or enacted policies that would shape an essentialist Chinese identity in Singapore: the wholesale adoption of the PRC’s Chinese orthography reforms, the bilingual policy, the intensification of the Speak Mandarin Campaign, and the promotion of tough standards for Mandarin education. Far from being seen as radical, most of these moves would have been comfortingly familiar to Singapore’s Chinese elites—who had looked to China as a harbinger of the modern and kept abreast with innovations in politics, culture, and education—and signalled the commitment of the PAP government to progressive and modernising ideas that were in vogue in China[5] and hence in vogue with Singapore’s Chinese elites.

From this, it can be argued that through the process of democratic politics and political accommodation, Singapore’s Chinese elites have won the battle for Singapore despite their political defeat, just like how the South had in fact won America despite losing the Civil War. As with the American case, the dominance by Singapore’s Chinese cultural elite goes unrecognised by that same elite, and cannot be spoken of or acknowledged. It is a victory shrouded in the myth of defeat, fought in a neverending war, by oppressive victors who forever see themselves as oppressed.

The literary output of one Wong Meng Voon, former civil servant, Cultural Medallion winner, and literary grandee, illustrates this point. An anthology of Wong’s short stories[6] invariably paint a caricature of English educated Chinese Singaporeans as race traitors who have lost their essential Chineseness and in so doing become less than human, and suffer, shamed, or are otherwise punished for it. The tentative advances of a Singaporean Chinese student in the States is rebuffed because the object of his affections, a Shiksa Goddess, is turned off by his poor command for Mandarin.[7] An English-educated civil servant feels shame when he miswrites his own name in Mandarin in a calligraphic piece for visiting Chinese officials.[8] A graduating class holds a vote to select a suitable country for a cultural tour; the sole student to vote for China is the sole non-Chinese student of the class.[9] Two Singaporeans who spurn China for New Zealand for a tour discover that their souvenirs are all made in China.[10] The haughty king of the monkeys demands his entire race undergo blood transfusion to develop superior, snowy furs; the entire race dies of leukaemia.[11]

Such essentialist notions and visions of a perpetually threatened Chineseness and Chinese identity would be alien and unrecognisable in the literature of Malaysian Chinese authors, whose literary output on Chineseness is centred on hybridity, self-refashioning, and ultimately nativist. These short stories from Wong and his literary colleagues cannot exist and would not be elevated as a dominant discourse if not for the cultural and ideological groundwork laid out by his fellow cultural elites at the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Culture.

1Chua Mia Tee’s 1959 painting, “National Language Class”, is typical of the willingness of Singapore’s Chinese elites to create a popular discourse for and about an imaginary, future Malayan/Malaysian identity on the island, which was not shared by the Chinese in the Federated Malay States.

2PJ Thum, “Flesh and Bone Reunited as One Body” in Chinese Southern Diaspora Studies, Volume 5, 2011-12.

3Hong Lysa and Huang Jianli, 2008. The Scripting of a National History: Singapore and its pasts. I am indebted to the authors’ account of how under specific policies and initiatives, Singapore acquired its very specific “Chinese” identity in the post-independence years. While the authors narrate the roll-out of Singapore’s “Sinification” cultural policies as a product of an ideological process of negotiating with historical identities, this essay argues for a materialist critique that exposes the social, political, and most importantly, institutional roots of this negotiation process.

4Ibid. The founder of Nanyang University, the philanthropist and entrepreneur Tan Lark Sye who had lobbied for Singapore’s Chinese population to be granted citizenship, was accused by the People’s Action Party government of “supporting communist activists” and had his citizenship revoked in 1963.

5Preliminary studies for orthography reform had in fact been kickstarted under the KMT government in the 1930s as a means to increase literacy. It was only the KMT’s loss of mainland China and the CCP’s championing of the simplified script that put all orthography reforms in Taiwan on permanent hold.

6Wong Meng Voon, 2012. Under the Bed, Confusion Singapore: Epigram Books

7Ibid. “The Foreign Girl”.

8Ibid. “Michael Yang”

9Ibid. “Leisure Tour”

10Ibid. “Fine Print”

11Ibid. “Transfusion”

The Apotheosis of Lee Kuan Yew II

Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's unsung democrat

Singapore's first prime minister has been called a dictator, not least by William Safire and other young, educated Singaporeans over the decades. Lee was not ashamed of the term; the statesman revelled in the patrimonial image of a strongman who did what was necessary for the nation.

Recently, the declassification of the British colonial archives has resurrected, or given credibility to an old charge against Lee: a politico whose undemocratic, underhanded, and cynical plottings leading to the Merger have poisoned the foundation of Singapore.

The undeclared civil war of Singapore between the alleged communists and the PAP (or as Dr Thum Pin Tjin might say, between the Chinese socialist left and the PAP's non-communist socialists) has left enduring scars on Singapore's political landscape, so much so that PM Lee Hsien Loong recently argued that Singapore could not afford to be divided along the red state, blue state lines of the US.

Political polarisation or political accommodation?

The younger Lee’s conceptualisation of America’s Red State, Blue State problem is not unorthodox; the discovery and subsequent branding of this phenomenon occurred in 2000 to describe what looked to be a state-level ‘sticky’ voting preference in the US presidential elections. Even though the stickiness dissolves and a “Purple America” emerges once the polling data is refined on county and district level, the longevity and appeal of the Red State/Blue State discourse can be explained as a conceptual extension of earlier political realities, namely the “Solid South” of the Democratic Party and “Southern Strategy” of the Republican Party.

These political phenomena should be understood as the legacy of the American Civil War. Following the complete military and political defeat of the Confederate States (which had half the population of the Union), Reconstruction was initially proposed to disenfranchise the South[1] while reunifying the nation. If successive Republican presidents had stuck to the grand plan, the ironically-named Reconstruction project would have turned the United States of America into a nation where a quarter of the population would live and work in federally-administered or even military dictatorships.

Despite these plans, the victors of the civil war eventually accommodated the defeated South to preserve the legitimacy of their victory in a free, open, and democratic America—with all the elections that this entails. It is the necessary cultural concessions, the valourisation of the South and its agrarian values and religiosity[2] that when accreted over close to two centuries, looks like a Red State, Blue State “divide”.

In Singapore, the leftist purges conducted by the People’s Action Party from 1959 to the late 1970s were no less devastating and widespread. Pre-dawn arrests by the secret police, decades of detention without trial, televised confessions and recantations ensured the wholesale removal of several generations of political elites from the Chinese community.

Far from being the arrogant, bullying, conceited, dictatorial, egotistical folk-devil of popular imagination, Lee did not suspend democracy, impose martial law, and transform Singapore into a dictatorship. Unlike Latin America, Singaporeans were not kidnapped by paramilitaries and disappeared forever. Unlike Taiwan's White Terror, Singaporeans were not executed for treason. Lee's methods, however infamous, were not internationally infamous, and kept Singapore's place within the British Commonwealth.

Elections went on as normal, and that meant the PAP had to pay a heavy price to ensure its continued successes at the electoral box. Like Lincoln’s successors, the PAP had no choice upon winning its war against the Chinese political elites on the left but to politically accommodate Chinese voters in Singapore, then numbering over 70% of its population. As the purges against Singapore’s Chinese political elites continued, the PAP had to make an increasing number of cultural and social concessions to Singapore’s Chinese—in effect, to valourise “Chineseness”—in order to maintain their electoral competitiveness.
 

1The Radical Republicans had demanded a loyalty oath that would have disbarred the majority of state electorates and their representatives, while the moderate Lincoln would have accepted a 10% electorate plan that would render the ‘new’ Southern states undemocratic minority-run pro-Republican regimes. Under Johnson, the South was broken into 5 military districts.

2In popular narratives, every winning presidential campaign needs a Southern candidate, the metonym for America is not New York or DC but small town America (which is why Superman, defender of the American Way, is a farmboy), The Hunger Games is an allegory for the tyranny of Reconstruction, Gone with the Wind is the highest grossing film adjusted for inflation, etc.