What are myths? The defining quality of myths, as expounded by Richard Barthes’ classic work Mythologies, is the “naturalness” of an idea that leads people to take for granted something to be “reality” or “common sense” without further examination or introspection. A myth does not even need to be necessarily false. In fact, most myths have an element of truth to them, which is why they are even able to be grounded to everyday life. Basically, myths are narratives that we take as an article of faith, rather than a conclusion we come to after looking at the facts and analysis. Every society is built upon myths in one way or another. Human civilisation would probably not have made it so far without myths, as Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari outlined in Sapiens.
Singapore is of course also a mythic nation. There exist are number of narratives that we live with every day, and take them totally for granted, but one thing for sure is that they did not come out of a vacuum. These are man-made narratives. Arguably, the myths that we live with in Singapore are more entrenched than the myths that other countries live with, due to the power of the dominant one-party state that had tremendous power to craft them, as well as to circumscribe unbridled debate and discussion about them. But that does not make talking about these myths any less important. Myths not only narrate our history and circumstances, but also provide signposts for the future. Myths also have social shortcomings and ramifications, which can be highly problematic, hence it begs our understanding. This is what Living With Myths In Singapore seeks to do. It is a collection of essays written largely by academics which explains, analyses and dispels the panoply of myths we too often hold dearly. In this review, I would explore a few of these, before making a final assessment on the book.
One of the most common narratives we have been hearing since we were young is the use of the term “Third World To First” as a phrase that encapsulates the economic progress and development of Singapore since independence. It is important to acknowledge that this narrative isn’t wrong in itself. Indeed, Singapore was one of the four “Asian tiger” economies that grew at exponential rates, and today has one of the highest GDP per capita in the world, and ranks highly on many other economic indicators. However, it is a very one-sided and biased narrative that is easy to tell ourselves now due to our current perceptions of the economic performances of different countries. Back in 1965, in terms of GDP per capita, Singapore was ahead of Rwanda or South Korea, lagging behind America and Japan, and somewhere in the region of Portugal, Mexico and Jordan. Now we think of certain countries as “rich” or “poor” but the situation was very different decades ago. When we talk about a topic of comparative economic nature, it is also crucial to take into account the changes in performance in other countries. Most jarringly of all, is the way this narrative attributes way too much credit to the PAP government for this progress. While the direction of growth was dictated by the PAP, the foundation of it was already laid by the British colonialism. Singapore before independence was already one of the wealthiest places in Asia, and in the heyday of imperialism, was one of the Empire’s most important cities. No wonder Winston Churchill regarded the fall of Singapore in 1942 to be such a great disaster on an imperial level. If we were just a kampong, would he have cared? Granted, there were parts of the island which were still very much a rustic kampong then, but them turning into HDB estates was part of the wider global pattern of urbanisation rather than the metamorphosis of Singapore from a backwater to a metropolis.
And then there is the ideological connotations of this term, which 21st century inhabitants like myself can be forgiven to forget or ignore. But back when we were a “Third World” country, all these terms meant different things. In the context of the Cold War, the “First World” consisted of the United States and its allies, the “Second World” was the Soviet Union and its allies, and the “Third World” was the unaligned world, primarily made up of newly independent states in the wake of decolonisation. What we today have almost completely forgotten is Lee Kuan Yew’s association with the “Third World”. In the 1950s and 60s, the PAP was very much a part of the Afro-Asian “Third World” movement of nonalignment, and socialist economics. But Lee’s views changed with time, as he began to see the “Third World” as a site of failure. For Lee, Singapore wasn’t only leaving the kampong, it also left the morass of misguided ideals. In the 1980s and 90s, just as the rest of the developed world began to reconcile social democracy and neoliberal economics, Singapore moved right economically, in pursuit of economic growth without full consideration of the social cost. This is particularly problematic today, because in contemporary Singapore, having already attained such a high level of wealth, issues of inequality, wealth distribution and social well-being are far more pressing than the KPI of absolute growth.
Some things in Singapore never change. One constant is the ruling party, and another has got to be the siege mentality it has inspired since day one. Singapore, as we are told, is unique. Our circumstances are unique (as if the same cannot be said of any other country) and it has been grilled into our heads since young that we are uniquely vulnerable. Vulnerability is another myth of Singapore, and it hinges upon the idea of small state survival. As we are told, we have no natural resources, we have no hinterland, we are surrounded by larger and culturally distinct neighbours, and a certain President Habibie of Indonesia called us the Little Red Dot. In light of historical memory, events like the Japanese occupation, communist subversion of the left, and the British departure east of Suez are emphasised. Again, not entirely false and actually predicated upon the fact that we are a small country which is unable to achieve self-sufficiency and will inevitably be affected by winds that blow in other parts of the world. But it is no doubt problematic. Because what the PAP has done is to have played up global and regional uncertainties and the narrow margin for error in policy formulation, impressing upon citizens that the status quo and its attendant peculiarities is a function of necessity rather than choice. This led to a tendency to elevate everything to the existential level, where Singapore’s survival is perpetually at stake.
Nothing illustrates this more starkly than our disproportionately heavy investment towards the military. We not only have one of the highest defence spending of any country (when taking into account size, population and GDP), we also have a policy of “National Service” which conscripts every male citizen and PR for 2 years. What troubles me is not that Singapore puts in so much into the military – we already know the government operates under a siege mentality – but that public discourse on whether it is justified or necessary is nigh-absent. But we should care because as in everything in life, military expenditure has an opportunity cost where the money can be put into other sectors like education, healthcare or infrastructure. The two years toiled by every Singaporean son can also be put into much more productive use. Can this financial and social cost be justified? What even is this threat we are talking about? This sets Singapore apart from other heavily armed small states like Greece, Israel, Taiwan and South Korea respectively. For them, the threats are obvious: Turkey, Iran, China and North Korea respectively. What about Singapore? We are so armed that Malaysia and Indonesia perceive the SAF less of a deterrent and more as a threat.
This siege mentality brings problems closer to home too. The acute sense of vulnerability is often employed to justify our government’s opposition to political liberalisation. We are told that the status quo needs to be maintained lest Singapore is rendered vulnerable to deadlock, susceptible to unrest, and prone to predation. Our establishment would point at political chaos in Hong Kong or Washington to remind us the perils of liberal democracy. But such is a fallacious line of reasoning, for a perusal of Taiwan and South Korea would prove otherwise. These two countries were “Asian tigers” like Singapore, we share a common East Asian cultural tradition, and they are still in a de jure state of war with China and North Korea respectively, tensions that could spell Armageddon. If Singapore could not liberalise, the more they couldn’t. But they have somehow, in spite of geopolitical threats, managed to transform from military dictatorships into multi-party democracies, and continued the course of stability and prosperity, all going contrary to the Singaporean narrative. Why? Because they did not live in a delusional siege mentality, and were able to move along with the winds of change in the 1980s as the Berlin Wall fell. In fact, abandoning autocracy and embracing democracy has allowed Seoul and Taipei to consolidate international soft power lacking during the Cold War. Compare that to Singapore, where our international reputation hinges upon material aspects such as our economic performance or our urban infrastructure, but we are still regarded as a nanny state with petty laws.
“A Deficient People”
Since sometime in the 1990s, “Asian values” has been a popular mantra echoed by our government. They have for a while now, especially in response towards calls for change and reform, invoked itself as the representative and defender of timeless “Asian values”. What does that even mean? Asia is certainly not a monolithic entity. Even if we reduce to purely looking at East Asian societies influenced by the Confucian tradition, it is difficult to properly demarcate what constitutes these values and what nature they should take (i.e. conservatism). Most crucially of all, these “Asian values” are certainly not the timeless legacy, or even by-product, of centuries and millennia of tradition, but carry modern political connotations. In short, they were made up in the post-Cold War era when the world was moving towards the trend of liberalisation, democratisation and free civil societies. As mentioned earlier, while countries like Taiwan and South Korea followed the wider pattern also observed in Eastern Europe and Latin America, Singapore was stubbornly resistant. But people were becoming more educated and exposed to the wider world? How to countenance this? In essence, we were told that our identity was with “Asian values”, not the decadence of liberal democracy and all its “culture wars”. When Lee Hsien Loong invokes our society’s conservatism and says we aren’t ready to repeal Section 377A, what he really means is that the government is not ready to do something which would contravene the notion of “Asian values”, and it sees it less as a problem of a person’s right, and more in sense of fighting against a certain illusion of “culture wars” imported from the West.
The final two essays are devoted to myths surrounding the issues of inequality and migrant workers. The first myth of poverty and inequality is that of the self-reliant Singaporean, an idea which guides the policies of the CPF, HDB, MOH and other government agencies. But this ideal does not hold true in reality, since we are very much interdependent on other people around us and other economic agents. So the truth is that being self-reliant is a rarity but this myth has led the application of aid to be seen as one’s individual failure, which is mentally unhealthy for Singaporeans. The other myth is that there is no real poverty here, and inequality is an inevitable by-product of development. While the state claims credit for wealth generation, inequality is regarded as a negative externality without an accountable agent. Because we don’t see it as a problem for society as a whole, we separate the problems of different social classes rather than drawing the links. The poor in Singapore do receive help, but it is more on the side of ad hoc individual compassion rather than comprehensively pursuing social well-being. In layman terms, when you help the poor, you are more likely seeing it as solving “their” problems, rather than “our” problems.
On the point of migrant workers, while they are not citizens, they comprise close to a third of our population, and they should not be neglected in the discussion of national issues. The first myth is the odd idea that after working in Singapore, they would return to their native countries rich. This isn’t true due to high recruitment fees, and the long amount of time under a single employer required to save up to actually earn a substantial amount of money. The second myth is that their plight is purely the responsibility of errant employers. This ignores the government’s role in their exploitation, such as the levy policy or an absent minimum wage. The last myth is the idea they are a threat to society, where migrant workers are associated with crimes such as the Little India riot, and threaten the peaceful industrial relations in Singapore. Such a portrayal of them as security threats allows the state to ignore underlying causes of strikes and riots.
Conclusion
The myths and topics I outlined in the aforementioned paragraphs are merely a few and the prominent myths that have been highlighted in the 24 essays that make up the book. Other topics of great relevance and interest are also being scrutinised, such as citizenship education, the Smart Nation initiative, the issue of race and the CMIO model, immigration and cosmopolitanism, and the history of civil society in Singapore. Such discussion is crucial and is especially refreshing to take a step back and re-examine the narratives that we have assumed to be “common sense” for very long. Reading this book can definitely allow one to understand a breadth of issues that should be a subject of greater discussion in our country. While the book outlines, examines and dispels myths, it does not attempt to provide an alternative narrative. Such forms of critical thought should be encouraged, rather than a singular narrative that we are used to when narrating the “Singapore Story”. Singular narratives are problematic because they are not true to the nature of history, students learn better if something is meaningful to them, and the grave challenges and threats of the 21st century that our government likes to remind us of are best approached with critical thinking skills acquired by looking at multiple perspectives.
All things considered, this book is definitely worth a read, for any Singaporean keen to understand our country’s dynamics beyond what we see or assume prima facie. Every nation, every culture and every society has its myths. Examples of other myths in national history include the United States’ myths of itself as a beacon of freedom and democracy, which becomes troublesome in light of events like the Iraq War and the current rivalry with China. In international history, there is the myth surrounding the causes of the First World War, where Austria and Germany hold disproportionate blame. These myths are all not necessarily false, but they are all common in that people take them as an article of faith without introspection. They can be helpful or unhelpful, but in either case cannot be denied and the narrative they espouse certainly warrant examination.
9/10
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