September 6, 2007--Singapore Swing

If you’re anything like me, your image of Singapore is likely to be that of an authoritarian place where if you are caught chewing gum on the street you are certain to be arrested and will receive as a punishment 15 lashes with a whip. In public. Chances are you don’t know if Singapore’s a city or a country much less where to locate it on the map. Like me, if challenged to do so, you might get left sputtering much like that poor Miss Teen America contestant who said the reason most Americans can’t locate the U.S. on the map is because they don’t have maps. (Actually, she was at least half right—how many Americans do in fact have maps?) Well, I looked Singapore up on Wikipedia and it is both a city and a state (like in ancient Athens?) and is located on a series of islands off the southern tip of Malaysia, just north of Indonesia. It’s a multi-ethnic, multi-religious place with about 70 percent of the population of Chinese descent. Most practice Buddhism or Taoism, but about 15 percent are Christians and another 16 percent Moslem. It’s a crowded place with nearly 5.0 million squeezed into just 270 square miles. In fact, it’s the second-most populated country in the world—right behind New Jersey. Just kidding, right after Monaco. So for there to be both order and prosperity in that tumultuous region there needs to be a firm hand at the governmental tiller. And that for certain they have. But in recent years, to maintain their favored position in the global economy, Singapore as had to loosen up. There are signs that it is even beginning to swing. Before getting to that, let me take note of just a few things that the Singaporeans are doing very well—perhaps some from which we might learn a lesson or two. As an island nation they are taking the prospect of global warming seriously. If the level of the oceans rises a foot or two much of the land mass of Singapore will disappear so they are making a huge investment to protect themselves from that; and while they are at it, they are working to bring all of their infrastructure systems up to 21st century state of the art standards. The New Orleans rebuilders would have done us a favor if they had sent a team there to study what they have been up to. They recognized a couple of decades ago that the key to their and the world’s economic future was not just having a good education system, but to excel would require an excellent one. It took considerable hard work, but now they have a public education (and health) system that is the envy of the world, with special strengths in math and science. Educators from the U.S., also challenged to work with diverse populations, would do well to get on the next plane and spend some time on the ground there to see what they have achieved. They even have good advice for us as we continue to stumble with our foreign policy. The founder of modern Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, says that we are depleting too much of our energy, attention, and resources in the Middle East and have thus lost focus on where the global future is taking rapid shape—Asia, as the result of China’s expanding economic and diplomatic power. (See linked NY Times article.) Singapore’s secret, he says (and by implication our problem), is that it is “ideology free.” They are shamelessly pragmatic: to us, he claims, “The question is: ‘Does it work? Let’s try it, and if it does work, fine, let’s continue it. If it doesn’t work, toss it out, try another one.’” In that spirit, though still a too over-controlled society for our taste, to attract more tourists they have begun to permit gambling. Two huge casinos are being built; and although they do not like them, they accept the fact that “the world has changed,” and they have to adapt to that. In the past, punishment was severe for any act of homosexuality—it was considered to be even worse than chewing gum. But to import “lifestyle,” as they charmingly put it, and to compete with China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan which already have gayness, Singapore is loosening up since they want that money too. How will we ever beat these guys?