Quite the neutral title. We now understand your disdain for Singapore. The punishment is definitely harsh.
It is well-known that Singapore has quite the dictatorial side to it, but it is a fantastic country when you look at where it was only 40 years ago. A country with the total area of a city with absolutely no natural resources, no official language, and a large variety of ethnicities i.e. not homogenous like say SK. It took a lot of sacrifice to get it where it is today.
The port was considerably more valuable than any natural resources they could have had, and was tapped as the 'seed capital' used to build the country.
Without it, they probably would still be as poor as they were in 1950.
The 'we built this with nothing but our bare hands' canard is useful, though, for domestic propaganda.
>It took a lot of sacrifice to get it where it is today.
It mainly just took sensible economic planning and a willingness to share the wealth on the part of the leadership from the 1960s onward.
The economic planning part - currency suppression via the purchase of US treasuries, investment in education and subsidies of key industries has been played out by other Asian tigers - Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and China.
The interesting part is where the willingness to share the wealth came from in the 60s.
In the 50s and 60s there was a sense of threat verging on outright panic among the country's elite about certain domestic political opponents. A threat which, not coincidentally, the elite of the United States also felt very strongly in the 1950s-60s from similar domestic opponents.
'we built this with nothing but our bare hands' is more than just propaganda. sure, they had a sea port, but looking at what they have done is amazing. many countries have some advantage, but most do not use them properly. Malaysia is a bridge crossing away with just as much sea access and ample amounts of oil and other natural resources, yet I do not believe they have accomplished what singapore has done.
taiwan, south korea, china, and japan are bad examples to compare to singapore, though Japan in the meiji restoration was at least somewhat comparable except that all of the countries you mentioned relied on heavy industry to get to where they were, where as singapore had no land for such heavy investment in industry - let alone the materials.
singapore had to make a long series of specific-successful long term investments which played out very well, and that had little to do with wealth sharing. one of the things that made everything play out so well is the singaporean's culture of kiasu - afraid to lose. singaporeans are very determined and trying to get ahead rather than sharing wealth.
it was always easy for singapore to guide the ship with everyone in the same direction because people obeyed so much to economic incentives. the only thing it really failed at was getting singaporeans to have kids recently.
>'we built this with nothing but our bare hands' is more than just propaganda.
It really isn't. The port gave the city a much greater head-start than PAP have ever given it credit for.
This intentional misdirection is used to give credence to the idea that it was Lee Kuan Yew's genius and the sweat and tears of ordinary Singaporeans that grew the country out of nothing.
Which isn't to say that the country wasn't reasonably well run. It's just saying that it just wasn't sheer genius or some kind of cultural superiority that pulled them out of poverty. The truth is much more mundane than that.
Yes, I was aware of the port, but I didn't think it had such a great impact. I also read in a great book about the rise of the shipping container that Singapore was one of the first countries in the world to fully adapt to it. Perhaps this contributed as well to the port. In any case, it still is an accomplishment given that this was basically their only resource to get the country to where it is today. We cannot deny that the excellent leadership and understanding citizens are what made this possible.
Thanks for your other points. It's always great to learn new things about Singapore. I'm hoping to somehow use their experience to help bring my country (Tunisia) to the forefront of the region.
"Sacrifice" is sort of ambiguous, isn't it? LHL working late a few evenings would be one thing, but his government locking this kid up for years, for a cartoon, is another. He's 16 though, so I wonder whether that would meet his obligation for compulsory service? It would be a real bummer to come out of two years of reeducation camp, and then have to do two more years of essentially the same thing.
I've known people who just emigrated. Amos might consider that, because there's no way the military will be the career launchpad for him that it is for the Singaporean elite.
Yes, a moderator reverted it to the article title.
The submitted title ("'Modern' Singapore to 're-educate' blogger") was badly in violation of HN's rules. Accounts that do that kind of thing eventually lose story submission privileges.
It isn't clear to me how not making fun of Christians, or the ruling prime minister would benefit a the country - it seems more like petty people using their positions for personal gain, which is exactly what you would expect from a dictator.
For background on the Amos Yee case and to put things in perspective:
- The laws against insulting religions are part of a wider system to allow for smooth integration in a region that has known genocide and riots as the traditional means of resolving racial and religious differences. They have been relatively successful in my experience, especially compared to some neighbours who have overtly racist government policies; amongst other things, Singapore has not known a race riot since the 1960s.
- The laws against obscenity are a holdover from the British period which (like 377A, which is almost never enforced today - edit, seems Section 377 was repealed in 2007 according to Singapore Law Watch, as per link below! I never heard of this before) will probably gradually disappear as the country becomes a little less socially conservative and people stop putting pressure on their representative not to strike them off (as happened in the USA, where it took until 2015 for gay marriage to become legal).
Both were, nevertheless, the law, and he broke both repeatedly, including breaking bail. This is kind of like being a Colorado resident (where weed is legal afaik) and bringing a large bag of legally bought weed over to any number of particularly harsh penalty countries (Singapore included), then complaining when you're put in jail or even on death row due to local law, arguing that weed is a victimless crime and the punishment is disproportionate. Also worth noting that it was his own mother who first brought him to the Institute of Mental Health, not the authorities, but this is of course not mentioned by the Economist which is happy to resume the long standing feud it has with Singaporean authorities by diluting the quality of its usually high journalistic standards.
The charge against insulting LKY has been deferred to a later trial once the other two charges have been resolved. I suspect it was put on because the nation was grieving and the insult was particularly badly timed. Remember about a quarter of the population turned up for the funeral (and I lonely expat here for three years also did), because most have seen the country literally go "from third world to first" in the space of a couple generations. It is impossible for foreigners - particularly those whose country's independence and economic success is centuries old, or whose founders did not have quite the same results - to understand the esteem (and frankly, love) in which LKY is held locally. I would reserve judgement until the court decision.
I'm not taking sides, frankly I couldn't care less about the case. But wanted to add some perspective before the sharks circle. By the way, congratulations on the first HN Singapore thread that does not mention chewing gum!
>The laws against insulting religions are part of a wider system to allow for smooth integration in a region that has known genocide and riots as the traditional means of resolving racial and religious differences.
It has more to do with controlling public discourse than ensuring racial harmony. Despite Singapore's best efforts to forcibly integrate immigrants (i.e. racial quotas on public housing blocks) Sg has a race problem. They had their first race riot since the 60s last year. It was incited by a Chinese truck driver injuring an Indian laborer in the relatively impoverished Indian district of the city. The coverage from the Strait Times might be interesting to you: http://www.straitstimes.com/little-india-riot
>Both were, nevertheless, the law, and he broke both repeatedly, including breaking bail.
No one is disputing whether Amos broke the law. It's more of a question of whether the laws are intended to keep people safe or control public opinion. Everyone knows about the libel prosecution of political threats, but the PAP's crusade of information control goes far beyond that. Protests are essentially illegal. Dissent is illegal. When I studied at NUS for a semester, I was forced to sign a waiver going through customs that stated, along with many other conditions, that I wouldn't criticize the government in any way, online or off. Singapore is an extremely thoroughly policed country, and riots are just not an acceptable excuse for draconian policy.
>By the way, congratulations on the first HN Singapore thread that does not mention chewing gum!
inb4 someone excuses the human rights violations by fawning over how excellent their metro system is. weev went into my Twitter mentions to do this once.
This is not at all how I understood the riots. Roughly: a bus driver arrived in an area where people were partying in the street, and refused to let in a very intoxicated fellow. This fellow somehow ended up in front of the bus (I think he decided to lie there) and got run over by the driver (I doubt intentionally). As is customary in the country of origin of said partying folks, the crowd got angry and "defended" its own. Within two hours, the police had restored peace.
After examining the situation, the government decided to make street drinking illegal in the area during the hours where further flash mobs were likely, and restricted alcohol sales island-wide during night hours (10.30pm - 7.30am).
Now, the suspects happened to be one race and the driver another, but people weren't protesting for racial reasons, it was a drunk crowd flashing up after it got sparked that happened to be mostly from a couple countries.
This is in stark contrast to, say, the 1964 race riots and similar riots around the region at that time against the Straits Chinese in Indonesia and Malaysia, or more recently, Ferguson in the US, which were explicitly about race. I suspect that the context of the Singapore riots was then lost on journalists who couldn't resist fitting them into their more common narrative of race or class based protest.
>As is customary in the country of origin of said partying folks, the crowd got angry and "defended" its own.
So the reaction to the accident was motivated at least to some degree by race. I agree that it wasn't an example of race on race violence, and I don't think it was widely interpreted as such. Though I'll admit I'm not informed on the specifics of how it started, it certainly was nothing comparable to the riots that happened before Singapore was undeveloped.
The riot isn't important in the context of the Amos Yee story except as an example of an event where Singapore was portrayed in a negative light in int'l press. The first instance of public violence in the nation for over 40 years made a great headline.
I wasn't posting that article for the coverage of that event so much as to show how journalism in Sg. The Strait Times will literally never publish anything remotely critical of the dominant political coalition.
No, it was not motivated by race. Around 9% of Singaporean citizen are Singaporean Indian and 58% of those are Tamil (I attended two weddings in the last 3 years where one of the couple was Tamil) - the same as the non-Singaporeans involved in the riot. There have already been two Singaporean Indian presidents (Devan Nair and S. R. Nathan, the latter the longest-serving in Singaporean history).
It's hard to find a parallel with any Western country, because no Western country has as free an immigration policy for low income workers as Singapore does (the US has a large illegal immigrant population to meet demand, but the dynamics of that are very different) - around 12% of residents are on Work Permits (i.e. construction workers or domestic help) [1].
The Straits Time did not publish the event as a race-motivated riot because it wasn't - it was more about a bunch of drunk angry people burning a few cars - and that it wasn't was immediately obvious to the readers of the Straits Time (which include many non-Singaporeans; not to mention the ST has had its own feuds with the Singaporean government).
>No, it was not motivated by race.
You mentioned in your previous comment that it was a "customary" reaction to the accident. I'm no expert on the culture, but I'd assume that public drinking is a great deal more socially acceptable in South India.
Singapore is lucky enough to be close to a tremendous supply of inexpensive human capital - even more so than the US/Mexico. Their immigration policy allows low-paying marine/construction jobs to be filled quickly, but workers' rights are essentially nonexistent.
Those 12% of foreign workers are almost all guaranteed to be earning enough to support themselves and their families back home - and that's without the benefit of a minimum wage or membership in an effective union. This sort of public policy may attract foreign investment, but it's unfair to the workers that have made Sg rich and it's unlike anything seen in the rest of the developed world.
>not to mention the ST has had its own feuds with the Singaporean government
Are you referring to the long-standing tradition of the PAP suing print journalists for libel?
I was browsing the front page of their site after I looked up coverage of the riots. The biggest story currently is about a marine trade union leader and MP resigning in disgrace after embezzling funds. Nowhere in the story does it mention his involvement in the PAP. There's a reason they have the worst press freedom rating of developed countries.
You may want to read the link you cited. Also, Little India is not impoverished. It just looks so to a casual tourist. The fact is rent in Singapore is substantially driven by their accessibility to Little India.
I said it was "relatively impoverished". Singapore has a high GINI coefficient for a country so developed. Despite that, living in the bottom 5% of income in Sg is still much better than most countries because of subsidized public housing.
Little India is only "impoverished" relative to Sentosa Cove. The MRT station has an exit facing the back of the Istana (the Presidential Palace), there are plenty of condos popular with Western expats (City Square especially), high end malls, hipster cocktail and coffee bars and expensive design shops in shophouses.
It is one stop away from Dhoby Ghaut, the MRT station with the most connections to anywhere in the island, and three from Orchard, the one with arguably the highest commercial rents.
It's not fair to equate its location with income levels or quality life in a place like Sg. It's not organized the way big cities in the US or western Europe are.
My point about it being relatively impoverished was that the majority of the Indian immigrant laborers live there. Relative to the average Sg citizen, they are living in poverty.
No, they do not. They live in areas like the West industrial zones where rent is much cheaper, and commute to the sites by bus. HDBs, the government-built social housing towers you might see in photos, are by law racially mixed to population proportions and not available to non-citizen (some are available to permanent residents, which WP holders are not).
The lowest class by salary of any society lives, by definition, in poverty compared to the others.
> But wanted to add some perspective before the sharks circle. By the way, congratulations on the first HN Singapore thread that does not mention chewing gum!
Please don't be gratuitously provocative in comments here. Nothing good can come of it, and it goes against the values of this site, civility and substantiveness.
Apologies. In this case though, both lines were said in a slightly humorous, rather than provocative tone. It is a trope that any article on Singapore must automatically include both the chewing gum ban and some discussion about the death penalty for importing drugs, usually in the first paragraph, despite them usually not being relevant to the conversation...
> both lines were said in a slightly humorous, rather than provocative tone
I don't doubt you, but readers can't know that, and there have been flamewars in the past about this. Typically the "slightly humorous" gets lost and the provocation (e.g. "sharks") remains.
> It is a trope that any article on Singapore must automatically include
I assume most everyone knows this. But it doesn't seem fair to criticize others for "tropes" when you were the one bringing them up.
It will get worse for people given they are a top surveillance state that's deployed NSA-inspired tech widely. The people I know over there work hard to maintain a semblance of privacy to share their views. It's still not as bad as a lot of places, though. One of the things strengthening the government's power in these cases is that they tell me Singaporean culture embraces government as a caretaker of sorts. Comes with good and bad.
Most are more likely to be hurt by employers that exploit the heck out of them. I commonly hear about people working long shifts for next to no pay with overtime expected. Labor violations go overlooked by authorities too often. Kind of like the American situation pre-regulations and lawsuits. Hope their situation gets a bit better overtime as it did in some countries.
The data comes from a blog on Discover[1], which is itself an analysis of the data from the General Social Survey[2].
The 16-75 is because the blog author groups the answers based on the score in the Wordsum test by the responder. People with higher scores are less keen on censoring others.
It is well-known that Singapore has quite the dictatorial side to it, but it is a fantastic country when you look at where it was only 40 years ago. A country with the total area of a city with absolutely no natural resources, no official language, and a large variety of ethnicities i.e. not homogenous like say SK. It took a lot of sacrifice to get it where it is today.