Communitarian ideology and

democracy in Singapore
POLITICS IN ASIA SERIES
Edited by Michael Leifer
London School of Economics

ASEAN and the security of South-East Asia

Michael Leifer
China’s policy towards territorial disputes
The Case of the South China Sea Islands
Chi-kin Lo
India and Southeast Asia
Indian Perceptions and Policies
Mohammed Ayoob
Gorbachev and Southeast Asia
Leszek Buszynski
The politics of nation building and citizenship in Singapore
Michael Hill and Lian Kwen Fee
The transition to democracy in Nepal
Louise Brown
Religious identity in foreign policy
Shanti Nair
Communitarian ideology
and democracy in
Singapore

Beng-Huat Chua

London and New York

This book was produced with the
assistance of the Asia Research Centre,
Murdoch University, Western Australia
First published 1995
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002.
Routledge is an International Thomson Publishing company
© 1995 Beng-Huat Chua
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
ISBN 0-415-12054-3 (Print Edition)
ISBN 0-203-03372-8 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-20264-3 (Glassbook Format)
For Evelyn, Emily and Timothy
Contents

Preface ix
Acknowledgements xi
Introduction 1
1 Ideological trajectory: from authoritarianism to 9
communitarianism
2 Reopening ideological discussion 40
3 Pragmatism of the PAP government: a critical 57
assessment
4 The business of living: transformation of everyday life 79
5 The making of a new nation: cultural construction and 101
national identity
6 Not depoliticised but ideologically successful: the 124
public housing programme
7 Confucianisation abandoned 147
8 Building the political middle ground 169
9 Towards a non-liberal communitarian democracy 184
Conclusion 203

References 214
Index 224
Preface

The ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) in Singapore has prided itself
on its purely pragmatic approach to the recurrent problems
confronted by the island-state. That pragmatism has been extolled, in
particular, over the way in which the trauma and tribulations of
separation from Malaysia were overcome to national advantage. Dr
Chua Beng Haut has put that proprietary pragmatism under his
intellectual microscope to expose its ideological dimension and
purpose as well as to demonstrate its mutability. In this set of separate
but closely interconnected essays, he argues that in fact ideology has
been consciously formulated and then reformulated beyond
pragmatism by the PAP to serve its version of an appropriate political
order. Such reformulation has been necessary in Singapore because
the successful utilisation of an initial ideology based on
individualistic premises has given rise to problems of political
control. For that reason, as he explains, the political and ideological
work of government is never done. A founding social contract
between government and electorate in which legitimacy had been
accorded on the basis of an economic nexus has had to be revised
with changing economic and social circumstances as well as
changing generations.
In his challenging and robust analysis, Dr Chua tracks and
interprets the process of ideological reformulation within Singapore
from the onset of PAP rule. At issue in this volume are the underlying
causes in the refashioning of state ideogy driven by the relationship
between phenomenal economic achievement and striking social
change. Singapore’s experience of so-called developmental
authoritarianism has not been unique in East Asia. Dr Chua is at pains
to point out, however, that the object of ideological reformulation in
Singapore’s case has been to obstruct and to deny any logical linear
x Preface

move to liberal democracy exemplified by the experiences of Taiwan

and South Korea. The PAP’s conception of good goverment has
caused it to impose its own version of communitarian democracy
appropriate to an island-state whose economic achievement cannot
overcome an intrinsic vulnerability. Although specific to Singapore,
these essays make a stimulating contribution to the important
intellectual debate about the relationship between economic
development, social change and political order in newly
industrialising East Asia.
Michael Leifer
Acknowledgements

Many friends and colleagues have given their time generously to

read, and even more importantly, to discuss some of the ideas as each
essay in this collection took shape. The late Professor Kernial Singh
Sandhu of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies was unfailing in
his support, with more than a dash of humour, for what is often
considered a ‘sensitive’ project. Sharon Siddique, who was assistant
director of ISEAS, and Kwok Kian Woon and Nirmala Purushotam,
both colleagues at the National University of Singapore, were always
ready for me to try early versions of my arguments on them. Garry
Rodan, who is singularly responsible for introducing me to the
Australian academic scene, was most encouraging when I first
mentioned this collection to him while I was a visiting fellow at the
Asian Research Centre, Murdoch University, Western Australia;
without his support the project could have remained one of those that
should have been completed but was not. The very careful reading of
Professor Michael Leifer, a man who watches closely the
development of Singapore, was important in clarifying many places
in the text. Among those who worry about the ‘controversial’ nature
of some of the pieces within the Singapore context were various
members of my family, some close friends and sociology students;
their concerns often kept the essays more balanced.
Some of the chapters have appeared in several places, permissions to
reprint them here in modified form are gratefully acknowledged:
Chapters 2 and 3 appeared in Southeast Asian Journal of Social Science,
Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore; Chapter 4
in Kernial Singh Sandhu and Paul Wheatley (eds) Management of
Success: The Moulding of Modern Singapore, Institute of Southeast
Asian Studies; Chapter 6 in the International Journal of Urban and
Regional Research and Chapter 7 appeared in German in Social Welt.
Introduction

Singapore’s successful capitalist economic development over more

than three decades is by now legend. Lesser known are the cultural
underpinnings of that growth. A set of prerequisite cultural values
and appropriate attitudes had to be inculcated in the population of
Singapore in order for the economy to take off and for subsequent
sustained growth. A massive cultural transformation was necessary to
bring the population in line with the cultural requirements of
capitalist industrialisation, given the prevailing pre-industrial
entrepôt trade economy of Singapore since its colonisation in 1819
until the late 1950s. The People’s Action Party (PAP) that has
governed Singapore from 1959 has achieved this transformation
through the judicious use of both state and non-state ideological
institutions since it assumed state power.
In spite of its own insistence that it is unencumbered by
ideology, the PAP’s ideological success may be interpreted,
albeit in retrospect, within a neo-Marxist conception of the
processes of ideological formation in the development of a new
social order. One may be tempted to suggest that this should
not be surprising; after all, during its political ascendancy, the
PAP was in coalition with communists and party leaders have
admitted to having learned some lessons about mass organising
from their partners. To give in to this temptation, however, may
actually attribute to the PAP too much forward ideological
planning. Indeed, the Party takes pride in its self-proclaimed
‘pragmatism’ in responding to situations at hand rather than in
ideological commitment, let alone ideological planning over a
sustained period of time. From some of the contradictions that
its policies have put in place in the social body, an absence of
ideological commitment seems apparent. Nevertheless, this
2 Introduction

introduction will show how closely the processes of ideological

formation of Singapore fit conceptually into a neo-Marxist
framework.

PROCESSES OF IDEOLOGICAL FORMATION

Marx has suggested that the very first item on the political agenda,
after a revolutionary group has captured state power, is to
‘universalise’ the historically determined ideas and interests which
led the group to power. This universalisation is essential to his
suggestion that the dominant ideas of an epoch are the dominant
ideas of the ruling class (Marx 1970). Successful universalisation is
itself dependent on the ability of the revolutionary group to ‘not
sacrifice the actual interests of the subordinate classes but rather to
some extent realise those of the subordinated classes by sacrificing
some of its own material interests’ (Hyug, 1991:128). Members of
the revolutionary group would have to distance themselves from the
corporate interests of their own class and join forces with other
subordinated groups if they were to articulate the ideas and interests
of the emerging coalition, and in so doing provide moral leadership
during the transition to a new normative moral order.
If subsequent societal material transformation were successful,
the universalised ideas and interests would have been transformed
into the normative value system, that is the ideological system, of
the new social order. The new ideological/normative order is
sustained through the voluntaristic production and reproduction of
‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate’ routine social practices of the
population. The ideological concepts are revitalised anew each time
they are used to rationalise the practices. Through such a closed
logical sequence the ideological/normative system is transformed
into the cognitive framework which delineates the boundaries and
defines the substance of what phenomenologists call the ‘taken-for-
granted-common-sense-reality’ of everyday life world, one which
has lost its ‘consciousness of historicity’ (Hall, Lumley and
McLennan, 1978:50).
This new normative order would then also provide the conceptual
and moral boundary, for state interventions into the social body to
be rationalised, criticised and defended. Social control imposed by
the ruling group is likely to be voluntarily accepted by the governed
as necessary and ‘enabling’ interventions to achieve certain
desirable ends. That such social control and state intervention may
 Introduction 3

be voluntarily accepted by those subjected to them suggests that the

‘legitimacy’ of a regime is not to be evaluated in terms of some pre-
selected political philosophy, such as liberal democracy. Rather, the
issue of legitimacy should be raised in situ within the ideological/
normative system which the regime is relentlessly attempting to
institutionalise. The possible meeting of the government and the
governed at the ideological level should result in a high degree of
legitimacy for the former and a high degree of social stability, where
specific but effective coercion is used only against those who do not
share the same normative values.
However, as suggested, such a new normative order will come
about only if societal material transformation is successful. This
points to Gramsci’s insistence that hegemony/consensus cannot be
maintained at the level of ideas alone but ‘must also be economic’
(quoted in Hyug, 1991:127). It must necessarily be supported by the
ruling group’s ability to improve the material life of the governed if
the extant ideas and values are to retain ideological currency. Moral
leadership of the governing is therefore to a significant extent
underwritten by the leaders’ ability to improve the economic well-
being of the people. Indeed, the desire for economic growth may
itself be inserted into the ideological system, thereby justifying the
need to rearrange existing social structures and organisations to
ensure the growth. Subsequent economic success ‘validates’ and
thus legitimatises the ideological concepts themselves. A materially
transformed society governed by a new set of normative values may
then be denoted as one in which the political leaders govern through
moral leadership backed by necessary coercion, by ‘ideological
hegemony’ in the best of Gramscian terms.
The term ‘hegemony’ carries with it a sense of external
imposition by the state on its citizens. However, for all who abide
by the new moral order, the resultant social stability signifies a
condition of high ‘value consensus’ between the leaders and the led.
The proper denotation of such a condition should therefore be
ideological hegemony/value consensus or to simplify, hegemony/
consensus.
Unfortunately for the ruling group, hegemony/consensus
invariably tends to weaken once the historical conditions that
enabled its emergence and consolidation begin to change as a result
of both the government’s own policies and external social forces.
Taking a long view, establishment of an ideological hegemony/
consensus is but an essential stage for the development of a new
4 Introduction

social order. Progressive decline of its penetration and

embeddedness in the social consciousness of the population is to be
anticipated. As this decline sets in, the ideological condition
becomes increasingly characterised by a loosely held mass loyalty
to the nation. The political strategy of the ruling group must adjust
accordingly by absorbing, through co-optation, into its fold
potential emergent antagonists that may threaten its continuing
political dominance. The political and ideological work of the
governing is, therefore, never done.

IDEOLOGICAL FORMATION OF THE PAP GOVERNMENT

The above conceptualisation of ideological formation of new states
can be fruitfully used to reinterpret, theoretically, the ideological
trajectory of Singapore under the PAP regime. For Singapore to
develop economically, a massive cultural transformation of its
population was necessary. The historically determined condition at
the time of political independence was distilled and conceptualised
by the PAP into an issue of the ‘survival of the nation’ that could be
resolved by successful capitalist industrial development. From then
on, this ‘ideology of survival’ has served as the basic concept for the
rationalisation of state policies that extend beyond economics to
other spheres of social life. If a measure of social control can be
shown to contribute to economic growth, it is considered as
necessary to survival per se and hence, ‘pragmatic’.
The depth of ideological hegemony/consensus of the PAP
government was clearly evident in the common sense of the
population; thus, its electoral popularity. This had enabled it to
introduce certain ‘unpleasant’ social policies without apparent
damage to its political dominance and legitimacy to rule. However,
the weakening of the hegemony/consensus became noticeable from
the early 1980s. In 1981, it lost a single seat in a by-election, the
first since 1968. Subsequently its electoral support declined in each
successive election in 1984, 1988 and 1991, from a commanding 75
per cent of all popular votes to around 60 per cent, which remains,
of course, a sizeable majority by any standards. Nevertheless, the
erosion is watched with concern by the Party.
The erosion coincided with the retirement of the first generation
of political leaders that had governed since independence in 1965,
and with demographic changes in the electorate; an increasing
proportion of the population has had no experience of the
 Introduction 5

historical conditions that surrounded the founding of the new

nation. The changed circumstance led the second generation PAP
leaders to try and seek a ‘new’ consensus with the electorate by
reformulating and/or replacing some of the ideological concepts
for the nation. By the end of 1980s, the process of ideological
hegemony/consensus had run its anticipated trajectory; beginning
with the inscription, followed by the entrenchment of a new set of
historically determined ideas in the body social and body politic,
there now emerges an increasingly differentiated set of opinions
and views among the economically and ethnically stratified
population, held together by loosely observed mass loyalty to the
nation.
The chapters in this collection, written over the decade from the
early 1980s to the early 1990s, track the ideological development
process in Singapore. Each chapter analyses a specific set of
ideological terms and their effects in particular policies and/or
cultural contexts in this trajectory. To provide a sense of overall
coherence of the ideological concepts discussed, the first chapter
charts the historical evolution of the ideological sphere in
Singapore. This history began with Lee Kuan Yew’s very first
attempt to develop a sense of the ‘nation’ and of ‘national interests’,
so as to enable the multi-ethnic population to ‘imagine’ that they
share a ‘common faith’ and destiny. This common faith was
constantly invoked as the reason for the ensuing ideological and
institutional entrenchment of the concepts of ‘survival’ and
‘pragmatism’ in public policies and popular consciousness. Finally,
the weakening hold of pragmatism gave rise to the current search
for a set of new concepts, such as ‘Shared Values’ and
communitarianism, to lend a new consensus and a new definition of
politics for the coming decade.
Chapters 2 and 3 discuss sequentially the presence an ideological
hegemony/consensus within the body politic of Singapore in terms
of an ‘ideology of pragmatism’. Against the prevalent conventional
understanding of lay individuals and political scientists in
Singapore that the concept of ‘pragmatism’ is non-ideological, its
thoroughly ideological character is disclosed analytically. The
penetration of the concept in the social consciousness is initially
demonstrated through an analysis of the mundane and pervasive
activity of political rumour-mongering in Singapore. This is
followed by the working out of the operational logic of
6 Introduction

‘pragmatism’ as an ideological system, exposing simultaneously its

internal operational weaknesses.
The efficacy of societal management strategies that are
rationalised within the ideology of pragmatism, with its economic
instrumental rationality, is then analysed through the substantive
cultural transformation of the Singaporean population into a
disciplined industrial labour force. Chapter 4 is a
phenomenologically descriptive essay which places side by side two
snapshots of everyday life in Singapore before and after the rapid
economic growth. The dramatic contrast of life under two different
modes of economic production lends substance to abstract
discussions of ‘economic performance’ in the literature on
Singapore and, perhaps, by extension other Asian newly
industrialising nations. This transformation of everyday life is
subsequently subjected to conceptual analysis in Chapter 5. This
chapter documents the ideological process in (1) the development of
an autonomous state that authoritatively defines the ‘national’
interests, (2) the institutionalisation of a new economic order, and
(3) the restructuring of the family, the education system and system
of community organisation; in short, the institutionalisation of a
new social order geared to act unilaterally in the direction of
economic growth.
Concurrent with its effect in terms of the cultural transformation
of the Singapore population, the hegemony/consensus of the
ideology of pragmatism exercises its effect in the political sphere by
pushing politics below the surface, that is, by its ‘depoliticisation
effect’, first hinted in Chapter 2. The full impact of this, which acts
to further reinforce the hegemony/consensus itself, is analysed
through the very successful national public housing programme
which accommodates more than 80 per cent of the population, more
than adequately.
After more than two decades, the values requisite for capitalist
growth, such as individualism and consumerism, begin to have their
effects on the social stability built on concepts of ‘survival’ and
‘pragmatism’. The latter has not disappeared entirely but has been
sidelined, while the ruling PAP government has added another layer
in its ideological work to retain its link with the population.
Individualism is reframed from a necessary value for capitalism to
one which is ‘detrimental’ to social order. The battle line is drawn
between the Confucian and ‘collectivist’ tradition that apparently
underpins the rapid post-Second World War economic growth in
 Introduction 7

East Asia and the individualistic tendency of Western capitalism.

Chapter 7 analyses the failed attempt by the PAP government to
‘Confucianise’ at least the Chinese majority, if not all Singaporeans.
With ideological hegemony/consensus weakening, Singapore
entered by the mid-1980s, a stage of political development, in
which the structural contradictions of capitalism have been felt
increasingly. These include the emergence of class differences,
which are rationalised but not entirely successfully in terms of
‘meritocracy’, and of welfarism as an economic and political state
management tool to cope with these differences. Concurrently, the
constantly improving education of the population and the
emergence of a middle class have brought with them an
increasingly sophisticated electorate that knows how to use its vote
to pressure the government for greater participation in national
decision-making. Chapter 8 analyses the strategies that the PAP
government has instituted to meet the demands generated by these
developments. The second generation PAP government began to
shed some of the authoritarian strictures of their predecessors and
intensify the rhetoric of participation. The overall effect of the
institutional changes is to cultivate a political ‘middle ground’
which potentially augurs well for further political democratisation.
This potential democratisation is, however, prevented from
taking the course of liberal democracy. Instead, the formal
democratic processes are to be framed within a ‘communitarian’
ideology; itself an evolution from earlier concepts of Confucianism
and the so-called ‘collectivism’ of Asian traditions. Chapter 9
analyses the ideological ground on which the presumed differences
between Asian and Western political values are drawn. Taking the
claims of a communitarian democracy seriously, it seeks to locate
the necessary conditions for such a system. In the end, it found the
constraints placed by the PAP government on the mass media and
on voluntary associations of the civil society to be serious obstacles
to the forging of a communitarian democracy. The concluding
chapter sums up the development and accounts for the apparent
steady state of politics towards greater democratisation at the mid-
1990s, awaiting fresh initiatives.
With the exception of the first and the last chapters, all the others
were written as independent pieces to document different points in
the ideological trajectory and for different occasions. Although
much of the repetition of substantive material has been edited, some
recurring substantive material has been retained in order to maintain
8 Introduction

the logical and substantive coherence of each chapter and thereby to

place the conceptual arguments in context. An advantage to this, at
times slightly irritating, repetition is that each chapter continues to
stand on its own in argument and therefore can be read
independently of the others, if desired. Finally, the order of their
appearance is aimed at ensuring the coherence of the collection as a
single text, hence, the chapters are organised in terms of conceptual
continuity rather than historical chronology.
Chapter 1

Ideological trajectory
From authoritarianism to communitarianism

Singapore as an independent polity was inconceivable before the

event. Granted self-government in domestic affairs by the British
colonial office in 1959, it was, however, difficult for its leaders to push
on to the obvious next political step because an independent Singapore
was thought to be ‘a foolish and absurd proposition’ (Lee Kuan Yew
quoted in Drysdale, 1984:249) for largely economic reasons. Then,
when import substitution was the development strategy favoured by
decolonised states, island Singapore needed for its new
industrialisation programme the larger market of peninsular Malaya.
The political leadership in Malaya was, however, not warm to the
prospect of a merger. In the words of the then Prime Minister of
Malaya, Tunku Abdul Rahman, ‘Naturally we didn’t want
Singapore’ (Drysdale, 1984:258). Nevertheless, in May 1961 he
announced, in Singapore, that ‘the possibility of a merger with the
Federation of the Borneo territories and Singapore could not be
excluded’ (Drysdale, 1984:260). This was because, according to
Tunku, the British, fearing that an independent Singapore would fall
into communist hands, had made the inclusion of Singapore as a
condition for the merging of peninsular Malaya and the three British
territories in Borneo (Drysdale, 1984:259). Lee Kuan Yew moved
quickly to seize this opening and, in 1963, the Malaysia Federation
was constituted, with North Borneo renamed Sabah. Membership
proved politically difficult for Singapore, leading to its separation
from Malaysia after two brief years. In August 1965 political
independence was thrust upon its population (Yong, 1992:32–35).
The unimaginable had become reality.
Throughout Singapore’s journey to a reluctant independence, the
PAP kept gaining political strength. Founded in 1954, it captured
10 Ideological trajectory

state power in 1959. It then moved immediately to consolidate its

power by suppressing opposition forces through repressive
legislation. However, as the development strategies began to
succeed and the material life of the population improved
incrementally, an economic instrumental rationality, encapsulated
ideologically in the PAP’s concept of ‘pragmatism’, became
increasingly accepted by the electorate. The latter, by and large,
voluntarily lent its support to the PAP and the need for overt
repression subsided. The PAP has since governed without a break
for more than three decades, establishing a strong ideological
hegemony throughout the 1960s and 1970s. It is likely to govern for
a considerable period yet in the future.
It is easy empirically to stress the continuities of the long-
established PAP regime. Both its early politically repressive
strategies and the longevity of its first generation leadership have
been read often as an ‘unchanging’ authoritarianism. It is then but a
short step to attribute Singapore’s economic success to this
authoritarianism; contributing to the problematic general theoretical
proposition that authoritarianism is a necessary pre-condition to
economic development for Third World nations (Wong, 1991). As
the majority of post-colonial authoritarian governments have failed
to achieve rapid economic growth, it is obvious that the
authoritarianism of the PAP leadership and its allied governmental
strategies cannot singularly account for Singapore’s economic
success, even less the PAP’s political popularity and its apparently
invincible hold on power.
On the contrary, PAP’s popularity lies significantly in its ability
to develop an ideological system which was able to crystallise and
reflect, relatively accurately, the underdeveloped material condition
of the island population at the time of independence. This enabled it
to provide the leadership which united the population behind its
developmental policies, which in turn delivered material returns to
the governed. The success of PAP’s authoritarianism is thus itself to
be explained by its acceptability to or at least toleration by the
population through the presence of an ideological hegemony or
consensus.
As the realities of underdevelopment were replaced by those of
economic growth, the initial ideological frame began to lose its hold
on the population. With hindsight, the ideological currency of
economic instrumentalism may be said to have been waning since
the beginning of the 1980s, when one of its constituent values,
 Ideological trajectory 11

individualism, became a target of PAP’s ideological concerns.

Nevertheless, this development became apparent by the unexpected
sharp decline of electoral support in the 1984 election. After that the
need to establish a new ideological consensus with the electorate
became an explicit item on the political agenda.
Changes in the ideological sphere in Singapore may be
characterised thus: a long period of continuity, ruptured by
discontinuity at a certain juncture, and followed subsequently by
evolutionary changes once the discontinuity is absorbed and
political adjustment made by the regime itself. So conceived, the
critical break may be located at the beginning of the 1980s, a period
in which individualism was inverted from being a much promoted
value to one that had to be surgically removed from the body
politic. The surgery was to be performed with the enthronement of
new ideological concepts to replace individualism as a motivating
force among the population. The search for appropriate and
efficacious concepts began with moral education through religious
knowledge and Confucianism, in the early 1980s, which
subsequently evolved into the currently exhorted Shared Values and
communitarianism.
This ideological trajectory, from the rise of the PAP to its
hegemonic position to the current state of ideological uncertainty is
tied to the specific concepts that were developed as responses to
various historical turning-points. Therefore, an understanding of the
internal logic and evolution of this trajectory is central to the
understanding of the continuity of the single party dominance of the
PAP in the Singapore polity.

ASCENDANCY OF THE PAP: IDEOLOGICAL LEADERSHIP

IN DECOLONISATION
At its founding in 1954, the PAP was constituted by a coalition of
left-wing unionists and a group of British-educated professionals
under the common banner of anti-colonialism. If the unionists’ anti-
colonialist motivation was transparent, that of the professionals was
analytically enigmatic.
In classic Gramscian fashion, like all groups that successfully
transformed their respective polities, this professional group was a
breakaway fragment from its own class and corporate interests.
Instead of continuing to enjoy the advantages granted to them by
the colonial regime, the fragment saw its long-term interest in
12 Ideological trajectory

identification with other subaltern classes. It was able to articulate

and represent the anti-colonial sentiments of all the subaltern
classes as the general or universal interest of the society and in so
doing set itself up to lead the decolonisation process. This English-
speaking class-fragment was already in a position of ideological
leadership even before it captured state power.1
However, without access to popular support, the fragment had to
form a coalition with unionists and other left-wing organisations,
whose constituencies were the disenfranchised and discriminated-
against mass of workers and Chinese-educated youth. On the other
hand, faced with the colonial regime’s readiness to outlaw pro-
communist activities, the left welcomed the veneer of ‘respectability’
that the English-speaking class-fragment provided. The result was a
political party with two distinct factions, each with its own agenda but
united by a sense of mutual need and anti-colonialism.
Realising that it would be difficult to govern through a partially
elected Parliament in which power remained in the hands of ex-
officio colonial administrators, the PAP nominally contested the first
general election six months after its founding just ‘to secure a forum
in the Legislative Assembly to propagate the Party’s objectives’
(Fong, 1979:26). The Labour Front, a pro-labour socialist party,
which had failed to forge a coalition with the PAP (Chan, 1984:75),
won the most seats and formed the first elected government. The
PAP won three out of four constituencies contested. The Progressive
Party, a bastion of English-educated, Straits-born Chinese, was
decimated. The results showed that anti-colonial parties with social
democratic tendencies were in the ideological ascendancy.
After the Labour Front government assumed state power in 1955,
Chinese-educated students who had been mobilised politically by
their resistance to the colonial regime’s intention to impose military
conscription on them joined cause with the workers. Picket lines of
striking workers, unionised under the leadership and legal counsel
of prominent PAP leaders, were supported by well-organised
student contingents. Events came to a head when skirmishes
between workers/students and police turned violent during strikes at
a private bus company on May 12, leaving four people dead. The
strike was settled two days later in favour of the workers.
Then, the first Chief Minister, David Marshall resigned after a
brief fourteen months in office. This was in keeping with his promise
that he would do so if he failed to obtain independence for Singapore.
He was replaced by Lim Yew Hock who moved to crush the popular
 Ideological trajectory 13

mobilisation by deregistering radical student associations and unions

and detaining their leaders. Riots broke out in late October 1956 but
subsided within a week because the police were well prepared
(Clutterbuck, 1984:121–133). With their repression went any
credibility on the part of the Labour Front as an anti-colonial socialist
party and Lim was himself reduced, in popular parlance, to
representation as a ‘running dog’ of colonialism, leaving the PAP as
the sole leader of the anti-colonial movement. Nevertheless, crushing
the popular mobilisation did induce the British to soften their stand on
‘independence’ for Singapore. Full self-government except for
defence and foreign policies was agreed to in 1957, to be granted
after general elections in 1959. Buoyant because of its obvious
political popularity, the PAP vigorously contested these elections and
won forty-three out of the fifty-one seats. Lee Kuan Yew accepted the
office of Prime Minister, after securing the release of PAP left-wing
unionists from political detention. All right-wing political parties
were reduced to insignificance.
The election victory moved the PAP from the periphery to the
centre of power. To its ideological leadership was thus added the
monopoly of state power. The PAP was in possession of ‘the means
to push forward [its] hegemony to the fullest possible extension’
(Sassoon, 1980:129). But first, the internal division in the Party had
to be reckoned with.
The first instance of overt intra-party struggle came with a by-
election in Anson constituency, in 1961, for the seat vacated by the
untimely death of the PAP incumbent (Drysdale, 1984:242 and 264).
The left threatened to switch electoral support to ex-Chief Minister
Marshall, if the Lee faction refused to redress its grievances against a
whole battery of repressive measures. These included absence of civil
liberties and the continuing detention of political detainees under the
Preservation of Public Security Ordinance and the Internal Security
Council; deprivation of citizenship to left-wing individuals; attempts
to control the radical trade union movement instead of helping it to
consolidate its political base; and finally, absence of intra-party
democracy within the PAP (Rodan, 1989:67) because the cadre
system of electing executives, introduced during the detention of the
left-wing leaders, had deprived the latter access to power in the Party
(Bloodworth, 1986:185).
When the Lee faction stood firm, the left delivered its threat and
caused the PAP to lose the seat. This gave Lee the chance to force
the intra-party division into the open by calling a confidence vote on
14 Ideological trajectory

his own government. In the ensuing vote, eight of the left-wing

faction crossed the floor and five abstained; the government
survived with the majority of one. The thirteen members of the PAP
were immediately expelled and they, along with the left unionists,
formed the Barisan Sosialis. Massive ground defection from the
PAP followed (Bloodworth, 1986:243), leaving the Lee faction with
little organised support base but in control of the state.

HEGEMONY BEGINS: ELABORATION OF A ‘NATIONAL

INTEREST’
Against the left, the Cabinet ‘reconstituted’ itself as the ‘moderate’
faction and moved to regain its political leadership by appealing
directly to the electorate. Devoid of a party base but with constitutional
power in hand, the Cabinet identified itself as the ‘government’ which
must define and act in terms of the ‘national’ interests, instead of the
‘sectarian’ interests of the left. At that time, Singapore as a ‘nation’ was
yet unformed. The construction of this ‘nation’, as a necessary ‘myth’
for the population (Yong, 1992), was addressed ideologically in a
series of one-sided radio broadcasts, which Lee called the ‘battle for
merger’, delivered during the long run-up to the referendum on merger,
that is, Malaysia, on September 1, 1962.
In these broadcasts, he began by characterising/exposing the
communists as, ironically, pro-colonialism. He argued that they
would rather Singapore remained a colony so that their struggles
could be seen as anti-colonial and thus occupy the political moral
high ground; whereas struggles against a popularly elected
government and popular nationalist leaders would expose their anti-
nationalist sentiments (Lee, 1962:45). The distinction between the
‘popularly elected PAP government’ and the ‘communists’ enabled
Lee to claim political legitimacy for himself and the PAP
government, in spite of the fact that both had come to power
through the massive electoral mobilisation by the left faction, which
he was now casting as an anti-nationalist fringe. It was as
nationalists that the PAP spoke to the ‘nation’ and the ‘people’.
This ‘nation’ and ‘people’ needed to be textually constructed in
the broadcast too.2 However, constitutive components were at hand:
‘The Malay-speaking, Tamil-speaking and the English-speaking
groups are quite certain that Lim Chin Siong and his Communist
friends are up to no good, and consider that they should be put away
and not allowed to do mischief’ (Lee, 1962:56). The obstacle to
 Ideological trajectory 15

such construction was the care needed to shape a crucial Chinese

component to fill out the abstract ideological concept of ‘nation’:
distinctions had to be made between the alleged communists and
those who were not, otherwise the government would fall ‘into the
Communist trap of allowing themselves to be presented as anti-
Chinese culture and Chinese education’ (Lee, 1962:58). The sense
of a ‘national constituency’ that emerged was therefore defined by
its supposedly essentially multiracial, non-communist and/or anti-
communist orientation.
The ‘nation’ of racially diverse ‘non-communist’ population had
concrete material interests which again could be aggregated in the
same textual strategy into the ‘national’ interests:

The English-educated want to be assured that merger does not

mean that four to one ratio between Malays and non-Malays will
apply in the Singapore section of the civil service.
Businessmen, contractors and bus companies want to be assured
that priority of tenders and licences will be as before, with no
priorities or special rights for anybody.
Chinese parents who want their children to go to Chinese schools
want to be assured that the present policy of equal treatment of all
streams of education will go on.
Workers want to be assured that our pro-labour policy will
continue.
Merchants want to be assured that our free port status and our free
trade with all countries will continue, and that our trading links
with the whole world will remain as they have been, free and easy.
Every legitimate interest will be protected.
(Lee, 1962:78–79)

The aggregate effect of this particular juxtaposition of the self-

evident anti-communist multiracial constituent groups, and their
equally self-evident economic interests in their daily life was to
produce an authoritative image of the ‘nation’ and ‘national
interests’, respectively, and in turn of Singapore as a political entity.
The presence of these groups and interests was never actually
substantiated. It is in this precise sense of being authoritative without
factual evidence that the political consequences achieved by such
textual strategies may be said to be unavoidably ideological.
Two ideological/political effects were achieved. First, the
conceptually/ideologically reconstituted ‘non-communist’ national
16 Ideological trajectory

constituency provided a focus for a large segment of population

who were carried along by the anti-colonial mobilisation but were
not necessarily communist-inclined. It enabled this constituency to
get a sense of cohesiveness and act accordingly as an ‘imagined
community’.3 Second, it redirected the attention of this mobilised
constituency from political struggles to economic development. In
this redirection, Lee sought to conflate politics and economics:
‘Political problems ultimately mean the problem of how we make
our living, how we can give everyone a fair and equal chance to
study and work and have a full life’ (Lee, 1962:83); this ideological
reduction is still central to the PAP government today.
Alongside the ideological construction of a ‘non-communist
nation’, the PAP government began to speed up its industrialisation
programme and increase its social expenditure, especially in
housing and education. By the time of the referendum on merger in
September 1962, these programmes had begun to show impressive
results. These improvements were ‘real reforms of benefit to the
working class’ which, as such, were essential to the direct appeal
and political penetration of the PAP into the social base, in spite of
an absence of political organisation (Rodan, 1989:66). These
improvements lent evidence to the PAP’s ideological construction
of a nation with common material interests.4 The result was that 71
per cent of enfranchised individuals voted for the PAP proposal in
the referendum. It should be noted that all the three alternative
proposals presented to the electorate in the referendum assumed
merger to be a given. They differed only in details regarding the
relationship between Singapore and the federal government of
Malaysia (Drysdale, 1984:304).

ELIMINATING THE OTHER

After the referendum, the PAP government intensified its use of
monopoly state power to repress oppositional forces. In February
1963, a raid codenamed Operation Cold Store detained more than a
100 radicals (Clutterbuck, 1984:158). This raid was authorised by the
Internal Security Council in which Malaya held the determining vote in
a council of seven members, three from the elected Singapore
government and three British officials (Clutterbuck, 1984:144–145).
Thus, althought present at the meeting in which the detention decision
was taken, Lee Kuan Yew was able to minimise his role in it
(Clutterbuck, 1984:159). Having so deprived the Barisan Socialis of its
 Ideological trajectory 17

leaders, the PAP announced a snap general election. As a testimony of

its strength, Barisan captured 33.3 per cent of the popular votes,
winning thirteen seats, relative to the PAP’s 46.9 per cent and thirty-
seven seats. Unfortunately, it failed to consolidate its base as the only
viable opposition party to the PAP. When the new legislative assembly
was sworn in, three of the thirteen had been arrested and two had fled
the country (Bloodworth, 1986:287). Barisan Socialist secretary-
general imposed a boycott on its MPs sitting in Parliament. Subsequent
resignations in 1965 of the remaining eight MPs gave the PAP the
opportunity to pick up more seats through by-elections. The gross
tactical mistake of boycotting Parliament spelt the end of a viable
opposition voice in Singapore for decades to come.5
On the other hand, the PAP’s victory was also impressive. Its
direct appeal to the electorate, including almost a year of arduous
personal campaigning by Lee Kuan Yew himself in all the
constituencies, particularly those which had voted against the PAP
during the referendum on merger (Bloodworth 1986:279–280), had
obviously paid off and in the process galvanised the population into
a sense of ‘nation’ and ‘a people’.
As Singapore was obliged to leave Malaysia in 1965, the victory
for merger was short-lived. The resulting ideological gains of
having configured the ‘nation’ and its ‘people’ were, however, far
more lasting to both the PAP government and to newly independent
Singapore. The political process had enabled the government to
articulate a new vision for Singapore and Singaporeans which
emphasised economic development and to represent this orientation
as the only rational choice for the population. This constituted the
basis of its intellectual leadership for Singaporeans. The subsequent
successful transformation of the economy stands as both the
realisation of the concrete interests of the subordinated masses and
the ‘moral’ component of political leadership (cf. Gramsci,
1971:161 and 182), which in turn contributed to the PAP’s
sustained hold on state power and the monopolisation of coercion.

ON SURVIVAL AND PRAGMATISM

Expulsion from Malaysia meant the loss of the potential common
market, calling into question the very survival of Singapore as a city-
state. Economic difficulties were intensified by disruptions of the
commodity trade with Indonesia, which began with the Indonesian
policy of confrontation against the formation of Malaysia
18 Ideological trajectory

(Clutterbuck, 1984:158–160). Furthermore, severe loss in

employment and national revenue was in prospect as a result of
Britain bringing forward its military withdrawal from Singapore to
the early 1970s. Although suppressed politically, the radical left
continued to have serious influence. Also, although the period of
membership in Malaysia was brief, it had nevertheless given
Singapore’s minority Malay population a sense of its own interests
and political significance as a community in the larger regional
picture. This gave rise to potentially disruptive demands on
communal grounds with racial riots of 1964 (Chan, 1971).6 It was
within this historical context that the ideological leadership of the
PAP found its full expression, beyond anti-colonialism.
The PAP government was quick in translating the historical
conditions conceptually. It thematised them into an ‘ideology of
survival’, around which several important generalised policy
orientations were to be rationalised. Most significantly, if Singapore
were to survive, the population must be transformed into a tightly
organised and highly disciplined citizenry all pulling in the same
direction with a sense of public spiritedness and self-sacrifice in the
national interest (Chan, 1971); first and foremost that of economic
development on the national level and ‘making a living’ at the
individual level. As part of the disciplining process, possible bases
for organised sectional interests had to be controlled, the most
significant of which was the subordination of the trade unions to the
PAP government in an unequal ‘symbiotic relationship’ (Lee Kuan
Yew, Straits Times 27 Dec., 1980).
In August 1966, exactly a year after a reluctant independence, the
Trade Union (Amendment) Bill made it illegal for strikes and other
industrial actions to be taken by any union without the consent of
the majority of its members, to be obtained through secret ballot.
Two years later, new legislation altered the extant working
conditions for the worse; the working week was lengthened while
the number of public holidays, annual leave and sick leave was
reduced, and management prerogatives expanded (Rodan, 1989:91–
92). The sectional interest of labour was to be subjugated to the
larger interest of national survival. The primary task of unions was
redefined by the then Minister of Labour, to one of ‘finding
practical solutions’ to problems posed by ‘the new and harsh
economic realities’ which confronted the government, the worker
and the boss alike; solutions which required ‘discipline and
sacrifice’ from all (Rajaratnam, 1987:269–271).
 Ideological trajectory 19

The Minister’s comments brought forth another ideological term

which organised the daily operations of the PAP government. Since
the necessity of economic growth had been ideologically raised to
the ‘only reality’, any process that contributed to economic growth
was therefore ‘practical’, indeed ‘necessary’ for the survival of the
nation. ‘Pragmatism’ became the term used to gloss over economic
instrumental rationality.
As Chapters 2 and 3 will show, a certain conceptual coherence
has evolved around the two inextricably tied terms of ‘survival’ and
‘pragmatism’ during the years between 1968 and 1984. ‘Survival’ is
repeatedly thematised discursively by the political leaders and often
by the led too. Its connotative, ideological effect7 provides the
rationale for, and consequently generates, a ‘crisis mentality’ in
government. This mentality in turn produces an overanxious
tendency in the administrative machinery to take pre-emptory
‘pragmatic’ measures to avoid certain presumed problems, which
may themselves be the unintended consequences of earlier policies.
Indeed, precisely because of its utility in rationalising intervention,
the idea of a ‘crisis of survival’ is periodically constructed in order
to revive the legitimacy for repressive interventions (Devan and
Heng, 1992).
The state has over the years thoroughly penetrated and controlled
society in the name of ensuring economic growth. Schools, once
financed and run by ethnic and local communities, have been
nationalised and transformed into a system of stratified occupational
training. The public housing programme benefited the populace but
also simultaneously transformed them into dependants of the state.
Community organising efforts in the high-rise, high-density housing
estates are carried out in turn by government-sponsored agencies,
controlled through the Prime Minister’s Office. Historically, the
negligence and inactivity of the colonial regime had produced a rich
network of voluntary organisations, constitutive of a strong civil
society, which carried out many such social welfare activities. In
contrast, the penetration of PAP government/state progressively
reduced not only the power but also the initiatives of these voluntary
associations in community affairs (Chua, 1993).
Ironically, the independent state is also an interventionist state
that reduces the power of the civil society, reducing the government/
people relationship to a bargain: extensive political and social
administration for improved material life. The result, detailed in
Chapters 4, 5 and 6, is the cultural and material transformation of
20 Ideological trajectory

Singapore’s population into a disciplined labour force whose

everyday life is subjected to the logic of industrial economy; all
other means and markers of social organisation, such as ethnicity,
are politically reduced to structural inefficacy. Yet, once the
economic condition became stable and the livelihood of an
increasingly educated population was perceivably secure there
appeared, at the phenomenological horizon of this everything-is-
unfolding-as-it-should society, the return of desires that were
repressed in the exchange of political freedoms for improved
material life. The unbottled desires, such as demands for greater
individual autonomy and more room for debating public issues and
decisions, have given rise to challenges to, or at least raised
scepticism regarding the prevailing rationality of the hegemony of
economics over all other spheres of life.

WEAKENING HEGEMONY OF PRAGMATISM

In the management of societies, successful formulae of an earlier
historical period may prove unsuitable to a present which has been
transformed precisely by past successes. The PAP government was to
discover this in 1984. Meanwhile, the citizenry’s appreciation of the
rapid economic growth which had greatly improved their material
life, gave the PAP four successive clean sweeps in the general
elections between 1968 and 1980. During this period of unmitigated
exercise of unilateral power in determining the shape of the daily life
of the nation, the PAP as a political party became increasingly
conflated with the Singapore government and Singapore state in an
apparently seamless web. The PAP began to take the electorate’s
support for granted, with apparent disregard of the latter’s sentiments
or sensitivities. Assured of its own ‘correctness’ and of the
‘necessity’ and ‘rationality’ for continuing economic growth, the
government’s execution of its public policies was relentless. ‘We
made tough but unpopular policies’ became a refrain of the Party/
government.
The seemingly unquestioning support of these policies was more
the result of rational agreements of the electorate, rather than any
presumed ‘disagreement’ that required much toughness on the part
of the government. Many of the so-called tough policies had
calculable, tangible material outcomes that were obvious and
agreeable to the population. However, as state interventions moved
into less tangible features of social and personal life, where a
 Ideological trajectory 21

multiplicity of sentiments rule and agreements between people and

government are characteristically weak, it became difficult for the
latter to take action without political costs. This became clear, in
1984, when the PAP government imposed the very unpopular
‘graduate mother policy’.
The 1980 census had showed that university graduate women
were putting off marriage in favour of careers, and if married had
fewer children than less well-educated, lower income women.
Believing that a person’s ability is essentially inherited, Lee Kuan
Yew saw these trends, common in developed nations, as a ‘thinning’
of the ‘talent’ gene pool while the ‘non-talented’ genes continue
their relative expansion unabated, spelling disaster in the long run
for the island nation whose only resource is human intelligence. In
typical crisis-orientated, pre-emptive fashion, policies were hastily
formulated in 1983 to encourage marriage and increase childbirth
among graduate women, with generous tax incentives. Conversely,
the less educated women were encouraged to ‘stop at two’,
preferrably one, with a cash grant of S$10,000 to their social
security savings fund. Such blatantly unequal policies were off-
handedly rationalised by the argument that ‘nature is undemocratic’
(Straits Times, 18 Aug., 1984).8
Convinced that the policy was ‘rational’, the PAP decided to tough
it out in the face of public protest. This lost it an additional 12 per
cent of its usual popular support with opposition securing 37 per cent
in the 1984 general election. A post-election survey showed that the
result was a venting of deep dissatisfaction not only with specific
policies but more significantly with the style of the PAP (Straits
Times, 10 April, 1985), such as ‘arrogance of power, an inflexible
bureaucracy, growing elitism, and the denial of consultation and
citizen participation in decision-making’ (Chan, 1989:82).
The size of the protest vote broke the spiral of silence which was
sustained by an exaggerated sense, among the population, of fear of
persecution that supposedly would visit anyone noted as a critic.
Even its uncritical academic supporters were to interpret the
election result as a decisive ‘no’ from the electorate ‘to the PAP
government’s trespassing beyond the invisible but real line between
the citizen’s own prerogatives and his definition of national
interests’ (Quah and Quah, 1989:117) and began raising questions
about the limits of government.
The result threw the PAP off track temporarily; self-criticism
among its MPs and Ministers followed. Obviously, the authoritarian
22 Ideological trajectory

approach based on ‘pragmatism’ to ensure ‘survival’, had lost much

of its ideological currency. The ideological purchase of economic
success had also lost some of its intensity. As a Minister said, ‘We
just can’t always be telling them to compare their situation to that of
the 50s and ask them to be grateful’ (Straits Times, 19 Sept., 1984).
When the new Parliament had its first seating, it modified the
‘graduate mother policy’. The retreat showed that the PAP, like any
government which depends on electoral legitimacy, is subject to
public sanctions in spite of its absolute parliamentary dominance
and professed ‘toughness’ against public sentiments.
During this brief period of confusion, a very significant
characteristic of the PAP was disclosed or rather confirmed; namely,
its deep scepticism towards common peoples’ ability to make
rational choices. This was made explicit in the emergence of the
concept of ‘freak elections’. Lee Kuan Yew read the election result
as indicative of the electorate using the vote to push the PAP
government without the risk of toppling it (Lew, 1989). He then
raised the ‘fear’ that such a strategy could produce a ‘freak election’
resulting in less than able individuals being inadvertently elected to
govern, thereby threatening national welfare. The term frames and
interprets votes for opposition as irrational: as the opposition is not
worthy, relative to the PAP candidates, voting for it in earnest is
irrational and consequently all votes for it are to be read as ‘protest’
votes based on emotions rather than reason. Within this frame, an
election in which opposition parties come to form the government is
presumed to be unintended by the electorate, it is therefore a
‘freak’, rather than a considered and rational choice. Since then, the
term has become part of the vocabulary of Singapore politics and
fear of its possible realisation has become embedded in the
consciousness of segments of the population.
To prevent freak elections, Lee Kuan Yew suggested that perhaps
the ‘one man one vote’ system should be examined, implying either
that not every ordinary citizen should be trusted with the vote or,
alternatively, befitting PAP elitism, citizens with above average
qualifications could be given greater voting weight, as in the case of
the former British practice of extra votes for university graduates
(Lee, Straits Times, 21 Nov., 1992). 9 The scepticism towards
electoral rationality has been shared by the new Prime Minister,
Goh Chok Tong, who asks ‘why when it comes to national
leadership, selection is left to the ‘spectators’ when you never do it
this way for a football team or other important job?’, and when such
 Ideological trajectory 23

a process often led to the election of incompetent administrators of

state affairs or worse, ‘crooks and thieves’ (Sunday Times, 13 Dec.,
1992). However, since undemocratic procedures are no longer
acceptable, other means of preventing the realisation of ‘freak’
elections must be found; one of these means is the nominated MP
scheme, discussed later in this chapter.

OPENING UP THROUGH CONSULTATION

The 1984 electorial setback coincided with the transfer of leadership
from the founding generation of the PAP to the next generation
(except for Lee Kuan Yew, who remained the Prime Minister until
Goh Chok Tong assumed the post in November, 1990).
Correspondingly, the electorate is annually being replenished by
younger and better-educated voters with no experience of past
economic and political struggles but a ‘keener awareness of the
negative effect of an over-regulated society’ (Quah, 1983:287).
Furthermore, instead of the relative homogeneity of shared poverty
of the 1960s, cultural and economic differences between individuals
and groups have become more pronounced, not least of which are
ethnic and class divisions. The new leadership felt that a new
consensus was necessary in order to draw the electorate together, in
spite of their differences, under the same set of ideological concepts.
For a start, the authoritarian ‘tacit assumption that experts at the
centre of government alone are in a position fully to comprehend the
problems facing the polity and are the most competent to resolve
them’ (Sandhu and Wheatley, 1989:1083) had to be modified. The
PAP feedback network of Party members and government-sponsored
community organisations (Seah, 1985:173– 194) had obviously failed
to communicate ground sentiments; this had to be rectified.
Consequently, the new leaders professed the need and desire for
greater public consultation in their decision-making. This was
formalised by the establishment of a Feedback Unit in the Ministry of
Community Development, which was to hold regular closed-door
discussions with invited members of the public.
Consultation was to have significant effect on some important
public policies, lending substance and credibility to the
government’s new strategy. An immediate effect was to be found in
the reformulation of economic policy following the mini-recession
in 1985, the first in nearly two decades of continued double-digit
economic growth (Lim, 1989; Rigg, 1988). A high-profile
24 Ideological trajectory

Economic Committee was convened under the chairmanship of the

Minister of Trade and Industry, Lee Hsien Loong, to examine the
cause and propose solutions to the recession. The Committee was
supported by eight sub-committees, each conducting its own
consultations with relevant individuals. In all, more than 1,000
individuals participated in the deliberations. Many of the
Committee’s recommendations, which advocated serious changes in
the direction of future economic development, were adopted in
principle by the government, including the promotion of the private
sector as the engine of growth, divestment of government
enterprises and support and promotion of the much-neglected
indigenous small- and medium-sized enterprises (Report of the
Economic Committee, 1986). The attention given to the local
enterprises has also helped the small-and medium-sized
entrepreneurs to establish a voice in the economic and political
arena (Chalmers, 1992).
Another illustrative instance was the deliberations of the
Parliamentary Committee, constituted in 1989, to rethink the land
transportation system in view of the unabating expansion of car
ownership in spite of prohibitively high taxes. Submissions to the
Committee came from transportation associations, academic
planners and economists, and lay individuals. These were
supplemented by letters to the press and press interviews with
Committee members. Its recommendations were debated in
Parliament and in public forums, including a marathon session in
which the Minister of Transportation promised not to terminate the
meeting until all present had their questions discussed. The final set
of regulations adopted in 1990 reflected modifications suggested by
these processes. To complete the consultative cycle, then Prime
Minister designate, Goh Chok Tong, held a dialogue session with
800 grassroots leaders to explain the measures adopted. The
openness of the entire process was undoubtedly meant to exemplify
the new consultative style of government (Chua, 1991a:255–256).
These instances notwithstanding, having been subjected to three
decades of little or no say in public policies, Singaporeans have
remained understandably sceptical of ‘whether the government is
engaging genuine consultation or merely mounting a public
education exercise in the interest of consensus building’ (Sandhu
and Wheatley, 1989:1085). However, it should be noted that such a
consultation process is unavoidably double-edged. While it gives
the government an opportunity to control the range and propagation
 Ideological trajectory 25

of different views and to explain and convince the public of its

policies, it also gives the public a voice which the government can
only neglect by risking further public alienation and disaffection.
Furthermore, once institutionalised, any attempt by the government
to withdraw from the consultation process without sound reasons
will undoubtedly incur political costs.

TRYING OUT NEW IDEOLOGICAL STRATEGIES AND

CONCEPTS
The intensity of the car ownership debate indexed the presence of an
increasingly affluent population afraid of being excluded from one of
the trappings of middle-class life. In contrast, two weighty
constitutional changes made in the same year drew little interest.10 The
first was the introduction of ‘nominated MPs’, that is, individuals
nominated instead of elected into Parliament, subject to the acceptance
of a parliamentary select committee. The number of nominated MPs to
be admitted is to be decided by each Parliament, depending on the
number of opposition members elected. The Nominated MP Bill came
under much criticism from the PAP back-benchers because it implied
that they were found wanting in representing their constituencies’
interests in Parliament (Rodan, 1992:8–9). However, it was a strategic
concession by the PAP in recognition of an increasing popular desire
and demand for different views to be aired, hoping that by admitting
acceptable nominated individuals, the clamour for opposition in
Parliament would be diminished.
The second was the change from the existing appointed
ceremonial President to an ‘elected Presidency’ with limited
executive powers, including a veto over an extant government on
drawing down the national reserve for purposes of national deficit
budgeting. 11 The motivation for the change was ostensibly to
safeguard the national reserve from elected governments, which
could be tempted to purchase electoral support through careless
welfare and other spending (Low and Toh, 1989). The lack of trust
of subsequent generations of politicians to act rationally and
responsibly with regard to national wealth is too obvious to require
further explication. Suffice it to note that this is but an extension of
the distrust of the rationality of ordinary members of the electorate
discussed earlier.
However, there may be some other cumulated intended
consequences in all the changes to the Constitution. If the elected
26 Ideological trajectory

Presidency prevents fiscal irresponsibility in future Parliaments,

nominated MPs provide moderation in public debate, the Group
Representative Constituencies (GRC) arrangement ensures
parliamentary representation of ethnic minorities, and the 1990
Maintenance of Religious Harmony Bill controls religious extremism,
then the aggregate effect of these changes may bring about a
consolidation of the politics of the middle ground. Potentially
extreme positions of the left and the right will be excluded, and
negotiations among disputing parties will be confined to the moderate
options contained within the political middle. This has been the
expressed desired intention of the present PAP, which is ‘to enlarge
the middle ground through a more accommodative and participatory
style of government that seeks to include rather than exclude the
greatest number of Singaporeans in the political process’ (Goh Chok
Tong, Straits Times, 24 Jan., 1990). As argued in Chapter 8, where the
list of legislation is discussed in greater detail, this stable middle
ground is a necessary condition for political stability in preparation
for more democratisation in the future.
In any event, both the Elected Presidency Bill and the Nominated
MP Bill were passed without much public attention. This inattention
to constitutional changes against the intensity of public response to
the car ownership issue is the type of evidence that the PAP
government draws on as symptomatic of disconcerting emergent
Singaporean attitudes.

ON INDIVIDUALISM AND WESTERNISATION

By the 1980s, economic growth had intensified the consumerist
orientation in the society, which is symptomatic of greater emphasis on
individual selves. To the PAP government, individualism, with its
emphasis on difference, tends to produce a sense of hypersubjectivity
at the expense of commonality with others, implying an unwillingness
to make self-sacrifice for the social good. Politically, it may lead to the
demand for enshrinement of individual rights, which in turn will
provide the political and ideological space for individuals to translate
their own social disadvantages into welfare claims on the state. Finally,
welfarism itself is seen as leading to a decline in work ethics and
economic competitiveness at both individual and societal levels.
Ironically, there is a certain intentional amnesia on the part of the
PAP government in its criticism of individualism. First, Lee Kuan
Yew had lauded Singaporeans as essentially individualistic
 Ideological trajectory 27

achievers (Straits Times, 1 May, 1981) because as immigrants, they

might have developed a keen self-centredness which motivated
them to work hard in their struggle to survive. The same spirit was
central to the dynamism of the economy as a whole (Pang and Lim,
1981). Second, ‘rugged individualism’ as an ethos for Singaporeans
had been encouraged. The first Minister of Finance, Dr Goh Keng
Swee (1972: 63), had argued that the extended family system could
be an obstacle to economic growth because it discouraged one who
has to share the fruit of his or her labour with others in the family to
strive harder. Third, individualism is one of the logical outcomes of
the government’s emphasis on ‘meritocracy’ as a ‘pragmatic’ means
to extract the best from each citizen in pursuit of economic growth.
Meritocracy concurrently encourages individuals in the pursuit of
excellence and serves, at both the societal and individual levels, to
legitimise social inequalities as the natural outcome of individual
differences in effort and/or intelligence, thereby, justifying and
reinforcing individualism.
Thus individualism, promoted in the early years of
industrialisation, only became a negative value in the ideological
configuration of the PAP government after 1980. If its potential
untoward consequences were to be contained without jeopardising
continuing economic growth, individualism, an essential attitude of
capitalism, had to be wrenched from the latter and dealt with at the
level of culture as ideology (cf. Geertz, 1964).

MORAL EDUCATION THROUGH RELIGION

The ideological response to individualism had its first tentative
formulation in the 1977 revamp of the education system into the
current practice of streaming, at different stages, students of different
levels of academic performance into different programmes. This
streaming, rationalised as one which recognises ‘natural’ differences
among students, yolks the education system to meeting the different
skills required in the labour force (Goh, 1979).
A minor recommendation in the revamp was that ‘moral
education’ be made a school subject ‘to provide the cultural ballast
to withstand the stresses of living in a fast changing society exposed
to influences, good and bad’ (Straits Times, 15 Mar., 1979). This
was proposed because of a perceived ‘deculturisation brought about
by the large-scale movement to education in English’ which led to
the loss of ‘the traditional values of one’s people and the acquisition
28 Ideological trajectory

of the more spurious fashions of the West’. Lee Kuan Yew’s

response was that in educating Singaporeans, ‘Confucianist ethics,
Malay traditions, and the Hindu ethos must be combined with
sceptical Western methods of scientific inquiry, the open discursive
methods in the search for truth’; specifically, students ‘must be
made to place group interests above individual interests’. (Straits
Times, 15 Mar., 1979).
By 1982, moral education was to be taught in secondary schools
through courses in ‘Religious Knowledge’ in Christianity,
Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam. For Chinese who professed none
of the ‘book’ religions, Confucian ethics was offered as a residual
option although Lee Kuan Yew had presumed that most Chinese
parents would prefer their children to study it (Kuo, 1992:23). As it
turned out, Confucianism became ideologically the most significant
intervention.

CONFUCIANISM
As the majority of Singaporeans are Chinese, ‘culturalist’ arguments
which regard the political behaviour of Singaporeans as essentially
Confucian can be made readily. For example, instead of analysing the
effects of various legal-repressive mechanisms, absence of
democracy is interpreted as a consequence of the Confucian
conception of politics: the government’s ‘mandate from heaven’ can
only be legitimately overthrown when it transgresses utterly beyond
the limits of tolerance and forfeits the mandate to govern (Clammer,
1985:161). Similarly, the elitist-statist and paternalistic-authoritarian
Confucian conception of hierarchical social order in which the
‘benevolence’ of the sovereign in promoting the general social
welfare is exchanged for compliance and obedience of the governed
is invoked to explain the popular support and high level of political
legitimacy (Chan, 1976:230–233), instead of successful economic
performance, the criteria by which authoritarian regimes justify
themselves (Liddle, 1990). The culturalist readings are problematic
in several ways.
First, as an immigrant population hewn from displaced peasantry
of southern China, most Singaporean Chinese’s understanding of
Confucianism was at best a distilled folk version of familialism.
Second, the educated amongst them at the time were likely to be
influenced by the ‘modernist’ movements in post-1900 China, in
which Confucianism was ridiculed and rejected rather than
 Ideological trajectory 29

followed. Third, the most radical and active political elements in

pre-independent Singapore were the Chinese population, across all
classes, educated and uneducated alike. Finally, in the interests of
generating a national culture, the PAP government had standardised
all school texts to local contents, eliminating references to any
traditions. Given this counter-factual evidence, the issue is not
whether Singapore’s Chinese continue to practise some weak
versions of Confucian ethics but rather that of the PAP
government’s intentional thematisation of Confucianism as a device
to establish a ideological/morality system to shore up the existing
state.
As Chapter 7 on Confucianisation shows, the PAP government’s
critique of individualism for undermining any meaningful sense of
community and unity of collective purposes coincided with those
levelled at individualism by neo-conservative American intellectuals
(Steinfels, 1979). In the search for lessons that might help America
to recover from its apparent economic and cultural malaise, some
American intellectuals ‘discovered’ Confucianism as the essential
cultural underpinning that supposedly explained East Asian
capitalist successes, akin to the supposed role of the Protestant ethic
in the rise of capitalism in the West. Not surprisingly, the PAP
government was attracted to this line of argument.
What unfolded was an exemplification of the general process of
mutual benefit between institutionalised production of knowledge
and the exercise of power, exposed by Michel Foucault. Academic
‘knowledge’ helped the government to inscribe ‘Confucianism’ as
an essential ‘nature/truth’ of the Singaporean Chinese population.
As this truth was to be revitalised through formal education
processes, resources were provided by the government to further the
investigation and accumulation of knowledge of Confucianism.
Indicative of the absence of Confucian tradition in Singapore,
overseas scholars were engaged to develop the teaching materials
and to give public lectures so as to extend Confucian teaching to the
entire Singaporean Chinese population. Finally, a very well-
endowed Institute of East Asian Philosophy was established to bring
the best in the tradition to conferences and research.
By 1982, along with other religious knowledge, Confucian
Ethics was introduced as a course in moral education. It was poorly
subscribed. By 1989, its 17.8 per cent enrolment of all eligible
Chinese students compared unfavourably with 44.4 per cent in
Buddhist Studies and 21.4 per cent in Bible Knowledge. Non-
30 Ideological trajectory

Chinese students were completely absent. The attempt to entrench

Confucianism in the Singaporean ideological landscape has failed.
This was either because the so-called ‘moral crisis’, which
supposedly resulted from economic success and Westernisation
(Kuo, 1992:3–5; Mutalib, 1992:82–84)), was more perceived than
real or, assuming that the population concurred with the prognosis
of the presence of a ‘moral crisis’, established religions appeared to
have greater ideological appeal than Confucianism, indicating again
the absence of Confucian ideas as foundations for the organisation
of the daily life of Chinese Singaporeans. Ironically, the demise of
Confucianism in its own name was to be found in the success of the
Religious Knowledge curriculum as a whole in the secondary
schools.
In 1988/1989, the findings of a government-commissioned,
social scientific study on religion in Singapore implicated Religious
Knowledge courses in intensifying religious fervour and religious
differences among students, and possibly in the long term,
contributing to inter-religious conflicts (Kuo, Quah and Tong,
1988). Apparently heeding the ‘warning’, compulsory Religious
Knowledge courses were phased out by 1990 and with it Confucian
Ethics. To the extent that the study reiterated a constant theme in
Singaporean political discourse, that is, religious differences
constitute a sensitive issue held in delicate balance by mutual
tolerance among Singaporeans, it facilitated the government’s
translation of the authors’ observations into grounds for abolition of
the Religious Knowledge programme. Yet, for a political leadership
that often has only disparaging terms for describing intellectuals
and accords them no legitimate place in politics (Chan, 1977), it
would be simplistic, without detracting from the authors’
intellectual labour, to deduce that it so readily heeded the
academics’ warnings. Additional reasons for the readiness of the
PAP government to act may be identified.
Historically, the study on religion was commissioned soon after
the detention without trial of seventeen young individuals in 1987
on charges of a Marxist conspiracy. The detainees were either paid
or voluntary workers of various Catholic welfare programmes.
Consequently, the arrest caused serious open disagreements
between the Catholic community and the government. The report
was therefore released into a politically charged environment in
which the government was predisposed to be wary about religion
(Rodan, 1992:13–15).
 Ideological trajectory 31

Religion is, of course, capable of producing alternative meanings of

social reality and social justice to that of prevailing government
ideology, as the arrest of the Catholics exemplified. In this contest
between government and deity, the latter often holds sway
ideologically; the truths of gods are conceptually more permanent than
those of mortal politicians. To promote religion is potentially to
legitimise it as a source of counter-ideology, a position contrary to PAP
ideological and administrative practices. The study of religion was thus
a timely device to correct an ideological mistake. That the termination
of Religious Knowledge was partly aimed at eliminating potential
counter-ideologies was indirectly affirmed by the institutionalisation of
the Maintenance of Religious Harmony Bill in 1990, which threatened
sanctions against religious leaders who commented on social and
political issues in their capacity as preachers.
The attempt to stitch religion into Singapore’s ideological terrain
was, therefore, short-lived not only because of potential competition
between religions but, more importantly, of possible contest
between religious beliefs and the PAP’s ideological hold on the
population. Confucian Ethics had to go to because keeping it would
appear to privilege the Chinese majority over other religious and
ethnic groups (Kuo, 1992:19). However, its essence was to be
recovered and differently embedded in the concept of
communitarianism which organises, from within, the explicit
national ideology being subsequently promoted by the government.

COMMUNITARIANISM/SHARED VALUES
The textbooks for Religious Knowledge and Confucian Ethics have
been discarded but the government’s perception of the presence of a
‘moral crisis’ persists, leading Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong to call
for an explicit national ideology which will forestall an insidious
individualism. Reaffirming that the failed Confucianisation process
had its origin in the ‘Confucian thesis’ on East Asian capitalism, he
kicked off the debate on the national ideology, by summarising the
thesis of the book Ideology and National Competitiveness: A Study of
Nine Countries (Lodge and Vogel, 1987). The book argues that a
nation’s economic competitiveness is affected by whether its people
are relatively more ‘communitarian’ or ‘individualistic’. In East
Asian capitalist nations communitarianism dominates and this has
enabled them to catch up economically with the industrial West in the
last two decades (Goh, 1988:14). Prime Minister Goh noted, ‘Like
32 Ideological trajectory

Japan and Korea, Singapore is a high-performance country because

we share the same cultural base as the other successful East Asians,
that is, Confucian ethics’ (1988:15), reduced to a single dimension of
communitarianism.
His cultural prognosis was that among Singaporeans ‘there has
been a clear shift’ from communitarianism to individualism and by
extension to Western values, which would imply a risk of declining
economic competitiveness. Room is thus made for the concepts of
‘vulnerability’ and ‘survival’ prevalent in Singapore’s initial
political idiom to be transferred to the cultural discourse. The
representation is that of Singapore as a predominantly English-
speaking open society which is vulnerable to Westernisation, a
process that undermines its Asian heritage and affects the survival
of its cultures and identities. The dichotomous characterisation of
‘Western’ versus ‘Asian’ values becomes increasingly marked, in
spite of occasional credit given to some Western values (Lee Hsien
Loong, 1989:32; Yeo, 1992). In 1988, a government committee was
appointed to develop a ‘national ideology’; notwithstanding that the
PAP had hitherto taken pride in being ‘pragmatic’ rather than
ideologically encumbered.
A White Paper on Shared Values was tabled in Parliament in
January, 1991. It states that to institutionalise a national ideology is
‘to evolve and anchor a Singaporean identity, incorporating the
relevant parts of our varied cultural heritages, and the attitudes and
values which have helped us to survive and succeed as a nation’
(White Paper, 1991:1). Certain cultural elements, suppressed by the
ideology of pragmatism—which has itself become an Asian
quality—are belatedly given recognition as essential to success and
survival. These are to be elevated as ‘core values’ to constitute a
‘national ethic’, replacing and eliminating the Marxist/communist
conceptual baggage of the term ideology.
The values initially identified were ‘placing society above the
self, upholding the family as the basic building block of society,
resolving major issues through consensus instead of contentions,
and stressing racial and religious tolerance and harmony’ (White
Paper, 1991:1). The first was later reworded as ‘nation before
community and society above self’ to reflect the multiracial
composition of Singapore; ‘community’ specifically refers to the
different ethnic communities. Then, as a concession to public
concern that Confucianism has historically bred authoritarianism,
an additional value, ‘regard and community support for the
 Ideological trajectory 33

individual’ was added. To avoid any semblance of privileging

individualism, the maxim is meant to refer only to the ‘social
welfarist’ concerns for individuals who have fallen behind in the
meritocratic economy (White Paper, 1991:6–7). Ironically, the last
is a typical moral justification for welfarism in Western developed
nations, which is much chastised by the PAP (Friedman, 1981:3).
Of course, many questions can be raised regarding the Shared
Values, from definitions of each term to empirical evidence of the
extent to which they are shared (Clammer, 1993). One of the
interesting analytic issues concerns the difficulty of inscribing this
ideology in the body politic of Singapore. The White Paper appears
to sit uncomfortably as a discursive artefact in search of an
institutional site in the body politic.
First, in spite of claimed affiliation to Asian traditions, its origin
is too diffuse to enjoy a mythical origin that may be said to be
connected organically to the people, as in the case of Indonesia’s
national ideology, the Pancasila. Second, in explicitly denouncing
individualism, which undergirds the very nature of meritocracy and
open competition for achievement, it is severed from existing
materialist grounding and ‘floats’ as a moralising statement rather
than as descriptive and/or prescriptive statement of the extant
conditions. As a moralising statement, its ability to convince is
much reduced. Third, in the desire not to elevate it into a legal
institution, unlike the Bill of Rights or again the Pancasila, which
serves as the preamble to the respective Constitutions of the United
States and Indonesia, the Shared Values ideology does not possess
any Constitutional or legal power. Thus, after a year of drafting, the
White Paper on Shared Values was tabled on 2 January, 1992, as if
to mark symbolically a new beginning, debated and accepted by
Parliament. Yet just what has been accepted is not clear for the
White Paper still lacks a legal status to bind anyone.
Lacking legal status does not automatically preclude Shared
Values from having institutional and ideological significance. As a
publicly promoted and politically sanctioned document, it is now
available to the government and its supporters as rational grounds
for action, while constraining those who oppose it to debate issues
within the parameters specified by the Shared Values themselves. A
concrete instance of how this political dynamic may unfold may be
seen from the following incident.
In 1981, in recognition of the disadvantaged position of Malays
in the economic structure (Zoohri, 1990), the government sponsored
34 Ideological trajectory

the establishment of Mendaki, an acronym of a Malay organisation,

under the leadership of Malay MPs, aimed at enhancing the
academic performance of Malay students, so as to improve the
long-term prospects of the community as a whole. In 1989, a similar
organisation, Sinda (Singapore Indian Development Agency), was
set up by the Indian community to help its own ‘lower achievers’.
Given the logic of multiracialism, the establishment of a Chinese
agency for the Chinese, the CDAC (Chinese Development
Assistance Council), became inevitable.
The social basis of these agencies may be rationalised in terms of
the particular Shared Value, ‘regard and community support for the
individual’ with each gainfully employed worker contributing
respectively to his or her ethnic group, to improve the educational
performance of children of needy families, hence the term
‘community self-help organisations’. Administratively, a sliding
scale of contributions, except for the majority Chinese population,
is deducted monthly from an employee’s compulsory savings in the
government-managed social security scheme, the Central Provident
Fund. In principle contribution is voluntary. However, in contrast to
the conventional practice of charitable contribution, donation is
presumed unless one intentionally opts out. Given the obviously
good cause and the paltry monthly contribution, few opt out. Those
who do tend to do so out of either or both of two principles. Some
are against the ‘opt-out’ practice, preferring to have the right to
decide whether and how much to contribute. Others argue that
taking care of the less able should be done along non-racial lines in
order to avoid racial divisiveness that is detrimental to generating a
Singaporean identity and national unity.
During the initiation of the CDAC, a casual remark by Prime
Minister Goh Chok Tong that those who made enquiries regarding
opting-out procedures tended to do so in English was headlined by
the local press as English-educated Chinese being more inclined to
opt out (Straits Times 21 Sept., 1992). Given the ideological
context, this intentional interpretation was meant to signify that
English-educated Chinese are indeed more individualistic than
communitarian and more ‘Westernised’, preferring to argue about
principle of rights to the pragmatic solution of presumed charity and
the administrative ease of deduction at source. Ironically, as
suggested earlier, some who opted out did so for precisely the
reason of desiring more ‘national’ rather than ethnic
communitarianism. The way the Prime Minister was misquoted
 Ideological trajectory 35

caused him some embarrassment. He subsequently proclaimed that

he had no intention to offend and that he respected each individual’s
decision. Nevertheless, the intentional reading of the press did force
those who opted out on to the defensive, demonstrating the
ideological effect of Shared Values.

REINSCRIPTION OF CONFUCIANISM IN THE POLITICAL

SPHERE
Significantly, throughout the Confucianisation experiment the
expert consultants put great stress on distinguishing Confucianism
as a set of moral precepts from Confucianism as a political
ideology. Emphatic statements that as a political ideology it was
unacceptable to a modern society like Singapore were made by no
less than the then Minister of Education (Kuo, 1992:15–16).
Ironically, after its conceptual reduction and transformation into
communitarianism, Confucianism reappears to be reinscribed in
the very centre of political discourse through the self-definition of
the PAP government.
Reflecting the politics of multiracialism, the White Paper went to
some length to dispel charges that Shared Values were but a
subterfuge for Confucian values. However, the latter are nonetheless
explicitly identified as desired values in politics. ‘There must be a
rigorous insistence on high standards of personal and public
conduct among political leaders and public servants’, who as
trustees of the people, ‘must do the correct thing because they know
it is their duty to do so, not because they fear to be found out doing
wrong’ (White Paper, 1991:9). These desired qualities are, it is
argued, encapsulated in the Confucian conception of good
government by ‘honourable men’ (junzi). The White Paper (1991:8)
asserts that for Singapore, such junzi ‘who have a duty to do right
for the people, and who have the trust and respect of the population,
fits us better than the Western idea that a government should be
given as limited powers as possible, and should always be treated
with suspicion unless proven otherwise’.
The contrasting representations of government in Western ideas
and Confucianism reflect not only the PAP’s conception of itself as
a political party but also of its political practice. The liberal idea of
a minimal state held in check by a strong civil society which is
protected by an extensive set of individual and group rights is seen
as unsuitable for Singapore. Therefore, liberalism is explicitly
36 Ideological trajectory

rejected. In contrast, the government/people relation is to be defined

in terms of reciprocity of duties: a leader has the duty to ensure the
general welfare of the governed, who in turn have the duty to
respect and trust in the leader. Communitarianism is valued in this
reciprocal relationship in that the leadership’s moral uprightness
and desire to uplift societal welfare is met by the governed’s placing
of societal welfare above self interests, thus constituting a moral/
political order that is harmonious and beneficial for all. However, it
should be noted that it is a reciprocity that is embedded in a
hierarchical structure of unequals, and is thus unavoidably elitist.12
For ideological analysis, this succinct distinction is of great
importance. Among the many functions of an ideology is its utility
in maintaining cohesiveness within the dominant group that itself
initiates the ideology. That is, the group is itself convinced by its
own ideology and embodies it as a component of self-definition.
This self-appropriation may even exceed an ideology’s ability to
convince the subaltern groups in a social formation (Abercrombie,
Hill and Turner, 1980). It appears that while the PAP government
has failed to Confucianise the population, it has indeed
Confucianised itself. The epitome of this is in Prime Minister Goh
Chok Tong’s proclaiming that ‘Lee Kuan Yew is a modern
Confucius’ (Straits Times, 24 Apr., 1990).
The PAP leadership’s self-perception as a group of honourable
men governing with the best interests of Singaporeans in mind is,
significantly, an image accepted by the majority of Singaporeans
themselves. Indeed, the incorruptibility of the government, the very
observable financial self-sacrifice made by some of its members,
and the national economic success that is attributed to these
qualities are constitutive elements of the Singaporean identity and
pride as a nation. This leadership quality is itself an important
element in maintaining the legitimacy, ideological hegemony and
longevity in power of the PAP party/government.
The succinct distinction is also a manifesto and a road map for
the future political development of Singapore under the PAP. In
brief, it will be a polity that is ideologically anti-liberal and
emphasises communitarianism; it will continue to be
developmentalist in orientation for this is the most concrete way of
demonstrating the leadership’s commitment to the general well-
being of the people; it will continue to maintain the formal features
of democracy, particularly the electoral mechanism, because it is the
best way through which the trust and respect of the population and
 Ideological trajectory 37

the right to govern, conceptualised as ‘endorsement by the people’,

can be publicly obtained; it will open more channels of
communication between the government and the population
because of the need to maintain overtly the process of consensus
building, as a manifestation of communitarianism in practice.
The PAP’s dismissal of Western liberalism also resonates among
a population whose political cultural inheritance is not necessarily
one of liberal democracy in the first place. Apart from the vocal
segment of the tertiary-educated minority who explicitly professes a
desire for liberal democracy, sympathies for the government’s
communitarian ideology cannot be dismissed out of hand and its
promotion cannot be simply rejected as merely a veil for the
perpetuation of authoritarianism. Any attempt to understand the
unfolding of the Singapore polity in the medium term through
liberal democratic concepts will only be frustrated. Conversely,
teasing out the conceptual and practical tensions which will
inevitably emerge from the juxtaposition of a communitarian
ideology with the formalised practices of democracy will be likely
more fruitful in understanding and prefiguring the unfolding of the
Singapore polity under the continuing rule of the PAP. The very
possibility and potential pitfalls of a non-liberal democracy which
emphasises collective interests is thus examined in the last
substantive chapter.

CONCLUSION
It should be obvious that the refrain of authoritarianism as the
explanation of Singapore’s political development in the past three
decades is inadequate. Undoubtedly, some of the repressive mechanisms
wielded by the PAP to suppress opposition in the early days of power
consolidation remain. However, the PAP’s continuing political
legitimacy among the population is achieved largely through its
ideological efficacy. The major concepts underpinning its ideological
hegemony for the first twenty years since independence were
‘survivalism’ and ‘pragmatism’. The first creates a state of uncertainty,
providing operational room for the second concept, which given the
context, meant ‘doing whatever is necessary to survive’, including the
acceptance of overt state intervention, even authoritarianism.
With three decades of economic growth, improved material
conditions and increased literacy, the ideological hold of
‘pragmatism’ has weakened, along with the apparent acceptance of
38 Ideological trajectory

authoritarian strictures of the state. The support level for the PAP
has been declining in each successive general election since 1984,
symptomatic of Singaporean’s desire to have a greater say in
government and a desire for different voices in Parliament to check
the unyielding hands of a government which has apparently become
too sure of the ‘correctness’ of its policies. There is therefore
pressure for opening up the political sphere.
Since 1980s, the PAP’s legitimacy to govern is taken less for
granted and has been in need of shoring up and defending. The
Party’s prime concern has been to prevent further erosion rather
than regain lost electoral ground. New political institutions and new
channels of consultation have been established to enable greater
political representation. Yet, greater constraints have been imposed
in some parts of the political terrain, notably on religious
institutions, the foreign press and the role of voluntary associations
and professional societies. The seemingly contradictory strategies
have one apparent consistent intent, to channel discussion into the
political ‘middle ground’ from which, hopefully, consensus can be
achieved. These strategies, if successful, would undoubtedly favour
the continuing rule of the PAP. Again if successful, these strategies
would have also contributed significantly to the greater political
democratisation in Singapore.

NOTES
1 This entire process fits Gramsci’s theoretical explication of the processes of
development of moral leadership through ideological hegemony (Gramsci,
1971:181–182 and 57–59; Sassoon, 1980:117– 119).
2 The argument here is that the ideas of the ‘nation’ and ‘people’ were social
constructions that needed to be concretised through a set of textual practices,
see Chua (1979) and Kwok (1983).
3 The idea of the ‘imagined community’ draws on Anderson (1983).
4 For a quick summary of these achievements see Rodan (1989:73).
5 For a review of the strategic and tactical mistakes made by the Barisan
Socialis, see Bloodworth (1986:256).
6 According to Clutterbuck (1984:319–321) the riot arose in part because of
Malay resentment against not being granted similar ‘special’ rights and status
as their counterparts in Malaysia. There was also evidence that the riot was the
act of Indonesian agents provocateur.
7 On the connotative as ideological see Barthes (1972:109–159).
8 A detailed and critical analysis of the entire episode can be found in Devan and
Heng (1992).
9 His latest suggestion is that individuals between the ages of forty and sixty be
given two votes because this group is more likely to vote for political and
 Ideological trajectory 39

social stability so as to safeguard their children’s future (Straits Times, 11

Mar., 1994).
10 According to the senior editor of the Straits Times, only five letters to the
editor were received by the press on the issue (Fong, 1991:4).
11 For a review of these constitutional changes see Chua (1991a).
12 For an excellent discussion on the Confucian concepts of duty, rights and
power see Wang (1980).
Chapter 2

Reopening ideological discussion

Writings on ideological developments in Singapore remain few and

largely descriptive. Where analyses are theoretically informed, issues
tend to be posed within the theoretical grid of liberal pluralism.
Accordingly, ideology is conceived as explicit, conscious and
systematic articulations of values held by collectives, such as
political parties and other interest groups, in the political market-
place. Politics is, by definition, the process through which ‘groups of
people unite behind some leadership to compete, bargain and
negotiate in shaping and sharing of political power to influence or
control policy direction’ (Chan, 1975:51); politics is constituted and
realised when such processes of bargaining and negotiation are
observable and result in a sharing of power in the shaping of public
policies. An account of the weaknesses of this rendition is in order
before elaborating the alternative approach adopted in this book.
By the above definition, substantively only the decade of 1955 to
1965—the period of transition from colonial rule, through a brief
and difficult period of membership in the Malaysian Federation, and
finally to independence—can properly be labelled political. This
was a decade of intense political struggles among organised groups
based on their economic and/or ethnic identifications and interests,
either singularly or in coalition, supporting both covertly and
overtly legitimate political parties. By the end of 1966, with the
resignation of all Barisan Sosialis MPs from Parliament, one year
after being duly elected the PAP was already well placed to
establish the one-party dominant government that has ruled
Singapore since the 1968 general election.
Since then, there has been readily discernible lack of public
 Reopening ideological discussion 41

debate on the goals of the nation, with all government policies and
programmes orientated towards economic development. Economic
goals are defined in universalistic terms by the political leadership
rather than crystallised through public debates. Furthermore, civil
servants are appointed to chairmanship of public enterprises, and
senior officers of public enterprises resign to run for political office,
thus blurring the division between politics and administration. The
result is that the competition for power has shifted from the
conventionally defined public arena into the administrative
bureaucracies. What public discussions there are centre on how the
economic goals may be best achieved rather than on the desirability
of the goals or their alternatives. Within a definition of politics
which specifies that politics is present only when there is open
competition and negotiation, the administrative developments since
1968 have been characterised as a state of depoliticised citizenry
(Chan, 1975); the absence of organised competition being
synonymous with absence of politics. This ‘depoliticisation thesis’
has been widely accepted by political scientists in and outside
Singapore (Bedlington, 1978:241–243).
There is at least one conceptual weakness to the thesis. Even
within its own definition of politics, there has been, strictly
speaking, no lack of formal politics in Singapore. There are
competing political parties with different platforms which, at
election time at least, criticise government policies; and elections
are conducted without underhanded tampering. That opposition
parties win few seats in Parliament is not the fault of the ruling
party/government. No political party, however liberal, is in the
business of ensuring that the opposition party is elected! Thus the
absence of opposition members in a duly elected Parliament does
not automatically imply the absence of politics as defined.
One possible anchor point for the depoliticisation thesis is in the
history of repression wrought by the PAP government itself. Such
repression might have effectively produced a citizenry more intent on
avoiding its wrath than on publicly airing their political views and
challenging the ruling government; resulting in a depoliticised state.
So conceived, the success of the PAP’s hold on the seats of power
may be evaluated only in negative terms, as in military juntas. This,
however, fails to account for the undeniable popularity of the PAP
government among the populace. This failure in turn shows that the
liberal pluralist problematic is conceptually deficient at two points.
First, it is unable to conceptualise political domination through
42 Reopening ideological discussion

legalised social control mechanisms; yet there is no state, no matter

how democratic, that does not have in its governing arsenal the use
of legislation. Strictly speaking, the utility of liberal pluralism as a
framework for analysing Singapore’s political development ceased
to be valid in 1963. After key radical opposition politicians, student
leaders and trade unionists were arrested in ‘Operation Cold Store’,
opposition was reduced to the point of no effective resurrection.
This condition was brought about using legal mechanisms for social
repression which every government has at its disposal. Such a state
of affairs is not ‘thinkable’ within liberal pluralism. In one stroke,
all the bargaining and negotiation so central to this theory were
reduced to naught.
Second, the liberal pluralist framework is unable to theorise political
consensus that is not generated through processes of apparently open
negotiation. It is this failure that led to the formulation of the
depoliticisation thesis. One of the consequences of accepting the thesis
is the acceptance of the PAP’s governing strategies as non-ideologically
informed ‘pragmatism’. For example, in a discussion on the
government’s attempt to develop a national identity based on
multiculturalism and multilingualism, Chan and Evers were quite
ambivalent about how to label these strategies; such strategies may be
attempts ‘to create a non-ideological identity, or if this seems to be a
contradiction in terms, an identity through an “ideology of
pragmatism”’. In the final analysis, this ambivalence fell on the side of
the ‘non-ideological’ rendition as they suggested that ‘In selecting the
values that would express the Singapore identity, the choice has fallen
on what would appear to be non-ideological, pragmatic values’ (Chan
and Evers, 1978:122). This is precisely the reading the PAP
government is proposing for all its societal management strategies. The
government’s claim is that the strategies are ‘but the logic of the needs
of a developing Singapore’ (Thompson, 1978:71) and are thus
eminently practical rather than based on any ideological canons.
Undoubtedly, the PAP government has been successful in
reducing ‘discussions of basic questions of political philosophy and
ideology, even political discussion in general…until it flowed at a
low ebb out of public purview’ (Chan and Evers, 1978:119).
Nevertheless, it must be emphasised that it simultaneously actively
propagates a set of values which includes a particular conception of
the concept ‘practical’. That it has been successful in convincing
even academics and intellectuals to accept this particular conception
is indicative of its ideological success and not of the end of ideology
 Reopening ideological discussion 43

nor the end of politics. The political question to be posed is how

does it achieve this ideological agreement, or consensus. The steps
taken to inculcate a historically specific set of values are thoroughly
political ways of establishing an ideological hegemony.

POLITICAL DOMINANCE AND IDEOLOGICAL HEGEMONY

For newly independent countries, politics in the immediate post-
colonial years is an uncharted terrain. This is generally a period in
which political parties sprout, each with its respective following; the
political party becomes the vehicle for expressing the collective will
of groups of people. Seldom is a party in a position to exert its
dominance in such emergent states. Under such conditions, the
parties have no choice but to enter into negotiation, bargaining and
coalition to form a government. If dominance did not emerge
subsequently, these conditions and the attendant political processes
might persist. However, contrary to the liberal pluralist view, this
condition of coalitions, splits, negotiations and compromises need
not remain the only political reality.1
From the early 1950s until the mid-1960s, Singapore was a
newly created state which lacked established common ideological
boundaries for binding the newly enfranchised citizens.
Negotiations and coalitions were necessary manoeuvres on the part
of political parties which were unable to rise to dominance on their
own accord; the most successful coalition was that which
constituted the PAP. However, it did not mean that the parties were
committed to preserving these forms of exchanges as the logical and
the only ‘democratic’ form of politics. Rather, these necessary
manoeuvres indicated a constant struggle for dominance, a constant
struggle to gain control of state power. The attainment of state
power was the necessary first step towards the possible
establishment of a common ideology, with its terms defined and
determined for the citizens by the political party that emerged
dominant. If a common ideology became entrenched, the citizens
would in turn work to reproduce and perpetuate that party in
dominance in the political arena. Indeed, the history of the PAP is
one such struggle for political dominance and subsequent
establishment of a common ideology; one which is synonymous
with the political and ideological development of Singapore.
An alternative model to liberal pluralism is therefore necessary in
order to understand the processes through which the PAP
44 Reopening ideological discussion

successfully created an ideological consensus among Singaporeans.

As suggested in the introduction, reproduction of society requires
that members be taught not only occupational skills that are
necessary for material production but also the cultural competence
to engage in socially acceptable behaviour. The necessary cultural
competence is itself specified and elaborated within the confines of
the ideas of the dominant political party. However, this direct
connection between the party and its ideas is masked by an
ideological transformation which involves transforming the ideas
into so-called ‘natural’ laws or ‘natural’ ways of social practice.
This ‘naturalisation’ (see Barthes, 1972) gives the ideas their sense
of public authority and objectivity. They constitute ‘the only
rational, universal valid’ ideas for members of the society; hence, as
a large part of the latter’s ‘natural reality of everyday life’, as
‘common sense’. If the dominant party is able to achieve the
‘naturalisation’ of its ideas, it may be said to have achieved
ideological hegemony/consensus, which will contribute greatly to
the party’s legitimacy to govern.
For example, the exercise of power necessarily entails policing
those who do not agree or abide by the ruling ideas.
Under the condition of ideological hegemony, in the eyes of the
governed, the policing function is rendered as a reasonable and
necessary step for one’s own welfare and that of the society as a
whole. Indeed, policing is itself greatly reduced because under a
hegemonic condition, the governed and the governing constitute a
political unity in pursuit of a social order according to social
organisational concepts provided by the latter. Members of the
ruling party thus appear not as rulers but leaders of the people.
Conversely, without ideological hegemony, coercion or violence
will be necessary to suppress dissenting groups, thus exposing
political power as domination, leading potentially to a legitimation
crisis. The preferred strategy of any ruling group is, therefore, to
govern by leadership rather than naked force; consequently, it will
commit substantial resources to establishing an ideologically
hegemonic/consensual condition.

IDEOLOGY AS COMMON-SENSE REALITY

Under hegemonic/consensual conditions, the ideological system not
only specifies the ways whereby society is structured, but also how it
is taken up and adopted by individual members as the rational
 Reopening ideological discussion 45

conceptual system with which to organise the mundane world into a

coherent and meaningful entity. This conceptual system continuously
mediates social life in such a way that the ‘categories, and conceptual
procedures which name, analyse and assemble what actually happens
become (as it were) inserted in the actuality as our interpretive
schema which organizes that for us as it is or was’; furthermore,
‘using that interpretive schema to organize the actuality does not
appear as imposing an organization upon it but rather as a discovery
of how it is’ (Smith 1974:258). It also follows that ‘our knowledge of
society and of the conceptual procedures apt for accomplishing the
sense of what comes to us in the form of knowledge appears to be
grounded in a “ruling class” relation to the object of that knowledge’
(Smith, 1974:258). The world that is so organised is what the
phenomenologists call the taken-for-granted world of the natural
attitude.
As the line between explicitly articulated historically specific
interests and common sense becomes blurred, as the ideological
system enters the realm of the mundane life-world, several changes
take place. First, at the conceptual level, the most fundamental and
necessary change is the obliteration of the specific group reference
of the ideological system. Politically, this obliteration is effected
through the concept of ‘nation’. Through it, the ruling group
attempts to enlist the co-operation and allegiance of the other
shapeless classes and groups (Barthes, 1972:138). In Singapore, this
ideological change was initiated during the ‘Battle for Merger’ and
consolidated after the 1968 general election, when the PAP for the
first time won all the seats in Parliament. Although rooted in the
working class, according to Mr S.Rajaratnam, the PAP had come to
realise that the workers are a class with a vested interest, and that as
a political party, the PAP must work for the interest of the whole
country and not for one class. In his own words, it is a ‘politics of
convergence’ because it seeks to represent all the interests with the
state (Pang, 1971:21).
A second level of change takes place in the way the ideological
concepts which have become common sense are used. To
understand this, one needs to appeal to the phenomenological
explications of the production of socially constructed realities in the
everyday life world, especially the work of Alfred Schutz. Under
hegemonic/consensual conditions, ideology as common sense is not
a cognitive distortion that emanates from one’s location in the social
political terrain, as conventional sociology of knowledge à la
46 Reopening ideological discussion

Mannheim would have it, but a condition of social knowledge.

Members make use of the shared stock of concepts to recognise,
interpret, present and otherwise account for the rationality of their
focused activities, for both oneself and each other. Members
reflexively make decisions on what, when, and how certain
elements of this shared corpus of concepts are applicable and
appropriate to the situation at hand, and in so doing reproduce and
revitalise the currency of the ideological concepts as rational and
valid for every competent member.
The use of this shared corpus of common-sense knowledge
always operates in an ad hoc fashion, that is, it is always used only
to cover the situation at hand. Consequently, the organisation of this
knowledge is alway
1 incoherent;
2 only partially clear;
3 not at all free from contradictions.

It is always incoherent because the situations at hand and their

relevances are not themselves integrated into a coherent system. It is
only partially clear because as long as it serves the purpose for the
situation at hand, one does not raise further questions regarding its
‘truth’ or ‘certainty’. For example, in social interaction, one ‘takes it
for granted that this fellow-man will answer accordingly, without
wondering how this miraculous performance may be explained’
(Schutz, 1970:76). Finally, it is not consistent because being
concerned only with the situation at hand, one is ‘not aware of the
modifications [one] would have to make in passing’ from one
situation to another. For example, ‘As a father, a citizen, an
employee, and a member of his church [a man] may have the most
different and the least congruent opinions on moral, political, or
economic matters’ (Schutz, 1970:76).
Generally speaking, then, within the natural attitude’s concern
for the situation at hand, common-sense knowledge ‘consists of
recipes of all kinds of conduct and activity’, and ‘it serves its
purposes adequately as long as its recipes yield satisfactory results
in acting, and its tenets satisfactory explanations’ (Schutz,
1970:319). Furthermore, these recipes are used repeatedly to cover
different occasions as long as they yield satisfactory results.
(Ideological concepts operate through repetition; so must their
analysis.) The rationality of applying or using any concepts and
 Reopening ideological discussion 47

rules from the common-sense corpus is therefore always a

rationality achieved in situ; that is, it is always a practical
accomplishment of the situated members, rather than one which
appeals to a set of criteria of objectivity.

IDEOLOGICAL CONCEPTS AS COMMON-SENSE

KNOWLEDGE
That an ideological concept as common-sense knowledge operates in
an ad hoc fashion contains both its strength and its weakness. The
strength lies in its utility for making sense of the situation at hand, a
sense which delivers support for and reinforcement of the ideology.
Its weakness, however, lies in the way the same concept, or a
different but related concept, from the same ideological system may
be invoked to provide an equally reasonable meaning which
undermines the rationality of the first reading of the same situation.
Take the concept of ‘general will’ for example. Within
democracy, the concept can be invoked to exclude any individual or
group by constituting their respective interest as particularistic and
against the general community interests. However, the excluded can
in principle challenge the very formulation of the ‘general will’ for
that particular occasion, and call for its re-constitution on grounds
that it is not ‘general’ enough to include the excluded. Alternatively,
the excluded may invoke the ideological concept of rights of
individuals and choose to contest the ‘general will’ on the ground
that it denies one’s fundamental ‘natural’ rights. Furthermore, it
could be argued and contextually construed that individual rights
imply a right to be outside the ‘general will’ with some liberty.
Indeed, it is when confronted with the possibility of every citizen
taking one’s rights to the letter, that neo-conservative intellectuals
solemnly declare, ‘A true democracy is not governable!’
From the above example, it is clear that an ideological concept
necessarily includes and excludes simultaneously. While it can
withhold legitimacy from the excluded, it cannot deny the
excluded’s existence. By borrowing concepts from the ideology
itself, the excluded can therefore offer resistance and introduce
cracks into the ideological hegemony. Although such borrowing will
not ultimately undermine the system itself (Barthes, 1972:139),
such resistance must be either displaced or repressed when it gains
seriousness. But in repression, the ruling group will be forced to
disclose its domination and coercive function. Consequently, no
48 Reopening ideological discussion

matter how successful is the ideological penetration of a population

by a ruling group, the need to exercise domination follows right
behind its leadership role.
To take leave of the discussion of ideological hegemony at this
point would risk the impression that the role of domination is
predominant in the operations of ideology. This, however, is not so.
We would do well, therefore, to recall the leadership function of
ideology. No one has put this leadership role in perspective more
succinctly than Gramsci. As Gramsci argues, the political party which
embodies the ideology ‘must and cannot but be the preacher and
organiser of intellectual and moral reform, which means creating the
basis for a later development of the national popular collective will
towards the realisation of a higher and total form of modern
civilisation’ (Gramsci, 1970:139). Take for example, the embodiment
of the ideological leadership function in law. Gramsci argues, the law
‘is progressive when it aim to keep the reactionary forces inside the
orbit of legality and to raise the backward masses to the level of the
new legality’ (1970:152–153). We can now turn to the ideological
hegemony/consensus fashioned by the PAP in Singapore.

PAP IDEOLOGY: PRACTICAL SURVIVAL

The ideological system of the PAP government unfolds from one
central concern, namely, ‘national survival’. Survival has been the
structuring centre of reasoning and rationalisation of the policies by
which Singapore has been governed since independence. 2 The
problems of survival can be broadly organised into external and
internal threats.
External threats are posed by the political developments in the
region and beyond. The prospect of possibly hostile neighbours was
illustrated by the Indonesian Confrontation campaign launched
against the Malaysian Federation from the early 1960s while
Singapore was a member. The uniquely Chinese majority state in a
predominantly Malay region is itself a feature that may give rise to a
situation in which Singapore is seen suspiciously by its neighbours
as ‘The Third China’. The development of the Association of South-
east Asian Nations (ASEAN) as a forum for regional dialogue has
diffused the intensity of external threats.
On the domestic front, religious and ethnic tensions and
communism were considered major threats. The PAP would, and
continues to, spare no measures to suppress alleged or real
 Reopening ideological discussion 49

communist activities. The most recent detention without trial of

alleged Marxists was carried out in 1987. This had resulted in the
withdrawal of the PAP from the Socialist International in 1975,
when faced with potential negative sanctions from the latter
concerning its hard-line anti-communist policy.3
By the mid-1970s, an alleged new development which combined
both the internal and external threat to survival came to be known
officially as ‘non-communist subversion’. According to the then
Foreign Minister, Rajaratnam (1975:118), this form of subversion
came from the hitherto unco-ordinated group of dissatisfied
individuals who were unduly influenced by New Left developments
in the West. This group was seen to share three convictions:
1 Singapore’s one-party government is propelling Singapore to
wards dictatorship; freedom is suppressed, political opponents
are arbitrarily arrested, and fear stalks the land;
2 an independent Singapore is not viable economically, politically
or militarily and remerger with Malaysia is the only way out; and
3 the minorities, in particular the Malays, are being oppressed and
that the minority problem can best be solved not by persisting in
a multiracial party such as the PAP but through the creation of
an alliance of communal parties.

He was quick to point out that not all those who hold any or all of
the above opinions are subversive, but that it is necessary to hold the
opinions to be subversive. The greatest problem with the ‘rag bag of
individuals and groups’ that are so inclined is that they may be used
by external forces, including Communism, and create havoc for the
efficiency of the government.
Against both external and internal threats, the government has
one solution: economic development. According to Lee Kuan Yew,
‘Higher wages as productivity increases, and workers educated by
their own leaders in the realities of our economic position will, by
the 1980’s, produce a solid and secure situation which the
communists cannot easily exploit’ (quoted in Josey, 1971:430).
While economic development is necessary for political stability,
political stability is in turn necessary for economic development.
These paired necessities form the second feature of the PAP
ideology. Exerted simultaneously, they have been the justification
for a tightly organised and tightly administered society. For
example, the heavy negative sanction of Western cultural influences
50 Reopening ideological discussion

is justified on the ground that ultimately these influences will lead

to moral degeneration among the young and to a decline of the
necessary ‘protestant ethic’ for economic development (Chiang,
1976); this was before the discovery of Confucianism as the cultural
underpinning of capitalist success in East Asia.
The desirability of economic development and political stability to
ensure the survival of the nation is rarefied into the pervasive
ideological concept, ‘pragmatism’, or in everyday language, ‘being
practical’. The ideological character of this concept and its
administrative efficacy will be analysed fully in the next chapter; the
purpose at hand is merely to demonstrate the pervasive presence of
the PAP’s ideological system in the everyday life of Singaporeans as
an index of its ideological hegemony/consensus. As the guiding
ideological concept, pragmatism tends to reduce all human problems
to the level of technical difficulties and solutions. This tendency has
led to some costly problems; nevertheless, the result of this
pragmatism has been spectacular not only in the economy but also in
regulating aspects of social life, and it is around it that the ideological
hegemony/consensus of the PAP government is developed.

POLITICAL RUMOURS AND IDEOLOGICAL

REPRODUCTION
The ideological success of the PAP may be ascertained by observing
how some of the major ideological features figure centrally in the
everyday reasoning activities of the population, as in political rumours.
Rumour is a social product generated under conditions in which
information is absent, inadequate or untrustworthy. It is the result of
socially conditioned interpretative processes that attempt to make
puzzling social situations meaningful and comprehensible. As an
aside in her discussion of Singapore’s depoliticisation, Chan notes
that the ubiquity of political rumours is symptomatic of a politically
suppressed society, and political rumourmongering is possibly
indicative of a population, under such conditions, searching for ‘a
safe avenue of political participation’ (Chan, 1975:58). So, it is in
some of these rumours that an analyst may seek an indication of the
government’s ideological success.
If these rumours embody controversial political opinions, then
one may argue that Singaporeans are politically orientated, even if
only in an ‘underground’ fashion, rather than depoliticised. It is
common for political rumours to produce alternative constructions
 Reopening ideological discussion 51

to that of the official account of a situation or event and in this way

they question the government. On the other hand, rumours may
contain no such challenges; they may rationalise puzzling events in
a completely acceptable fashion, such that no government
suppression of their propagation is necessary. If the latter were the
case, then ‘depoliticisation’ would be the surface effect, whereas the
processes themselves are political through and through.

Case 1: ‘The resignation of the Prime Minister’

One instance which the government took seriously as an intentionally

subversive rumour occurred in 1974. It was rumoured that Prime
Minister Lee would resign on National Day in favour of Dr Goh Keng
Swee, then Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister. It was
suggested that Singapore, ‘[b]uffeted by multiple economic woes, a
section of the Cabinet, led by Goh, was said to believe that Singapore’s
economic and political survival depended on accommodation with
Malaysia. And the price of a re-merger with the northern neighbour
was the removal of Lee’; for it was argued that Lee was the main
obstacle to political reunification with Malaysia. The Prime Minister
openly denied any such differences of opinion in the Cabinet and
charged that the rumour was propagated by ‘external agencies whose
sole intent was the disruption of Singapore’s stability’.4
It should be apparent that this rumour and its propagators could
be placed centrally within the conceptual confines of the ideology
of survival, indicating that the propagators had defined the situation
in terms similar to those of the political leaders. Its location within
the PAP ideological framework also blunted its ability to subvert.
For the government could, and did, readily turn it around and point
out that such rumours and their mongers, not the alleged differences
in the Cabinet, were precisely the type of propagandists material
that undermined the stability and viability of Singapore. The
rumourmongers were therefore subversive and might even be agents
of external groups whose desire was the destruction of Singapore.
Conversely, it may be reasoned that nationally concerned and proud
citizens would not desire the collapse of the nation that they were
actively trying to build against great odds. The odds and the
intensity of pride of Singapore’s achievements belong together
ideologically: the greater the odds the more difficult it is to achieve,
the more intense the pride of success.
Finally, the allegedly potentially subversive consequence of this
52 Reopening ideological discussion

type of rumour provides the ground for government intervention on

behalf of the welfare of the people. Its intervention in this instance
disclosed how the ideological system can be a double-edged tool,
with the government using both sides to its own advantage. The
need for survival provides the government with the ground for
calling for sacrifices from the citizens, on the one hand; on the
other, it was used to discredit those who might actually be thinking
differently about the survival of Singapore such as through remerger
with Malaysia.
Apart from the official reading, this particular rumour may also
be read as some Singaporeans’ response to the difficult economic
conditions of the early 1970s when, like the rest of the capitalist
world, it was suffering a period of recession. From the theoretical
standpoint of this essay, the significant issue is how, as a possible
response to the recession, the rumour drew readily upon the
ideological resource provided by the government, that is, the
ideology of survival, as its centre to organise the alleged events of
ministerial disagreements, splits and resignations. In either case,
being located within the dominant ideology, its political subversive
potential, if one was ever intended, was itself subverted leaving it
without any way of generating further political issues.

Case 2: ‘Changes in Members of Parliament’

If the first case was one of the types of potentially politically loaded
rumours that failed, this second case is one of the types of politically
pacifying rumours that diffuses political issues and requires no
government intervention. Theoretically, this type of rumour brings
the analyst closer to observing how the ideological success of the
government binds the population within its dominant ideology.
Since 1970, one major concern of the PAP government has been
the search for a second generation of political leaders who will
continue to build on the groundwork laid by the first generation
(Shee, 1979). The PAP has recruited individuals, primarily
professionals, to increase the management skills of an already
efficient government. The recruited have been introduced laterally
through elections and by-elections. Each time one or several sitting
PAP MPs would resign to make room for the selected recruits.
Often no reason is given for a resignation. Consequently, ever since
the adoption of this ‘renewal’ process, one recurring phenomenon is
rumours regarding the ups and downs of individual politicians.
 Reopening ideological discussion 53

In a liberal democratic society, a common reason for political

resignation would be differences of political opinion among party
ranks. If so, the differences would give rise to public discussions in
the media. If this had happened in Singapore, then it would no
longer be a depoliticised state even in appearance. However, it is not
so. The January 1979 by-election and the Cabinet reshuffle, for
example, provided an occasion to analyse and exemplify what did
take place in public opinions. I will narrow the focus on the
resignation of Dr Tan Eng Liang.
Tan was Singapore’s first Rhodes Scholar. He took his doctorate
in Chemistry at Oxford University, lectured for a brief period at the
University of Singapore and later joined a multinational company as
chief chemist. He was a new recruit in the 1972 election and rose
quickly in political position. In the Cabinet reshuffle of 1975 he was
appointed Senior Minister of State to the Ministry of National
Development, and in June 1978 he was transferred as Senior
Minister of State to the Finance Ministry. In early February 1979,
he resigned and almost immediately joined a major private
corporation. The statement from the Prime Minister’s Office
announced that Tan had asked to be relieved of his appointment.
The Prime Minister acceded to his request and thanked him for the
work he had done in his previous political appointments (Straits
Times, 13 Feb., 1979). Tan’s resignation came as a surprise to the
electorate as the headlines in the newspaper signified.
As suggested, it would have been perfectly reasonable to expect
speculation about Tan’s resignation to include the possibility that he
had non-resolvable differences with upper-echelon party leaders. If
such rumours existed, I heard none, and none were reported in the
media. 5 The general belief that the PAP elite only recruits
individuals who share their own political views might have
forestalled such speculation. However, rumours were not absent;
those that I was able to gather readily were variations on the theme
of ‘personality’ problems. One version had it that the ‘personality
differences’ between Tan and a prominent Cabinet minister were the
cause of his resignation. Another version had it that Tan was
personally dissatisfied with continuing as Senior Minister of State.
The truth or falsity of all these rumours, including others, is not the
issue here. What is at issue is that these rumours as interpretations of
Tan’s resignation were not accidental; the concern here is to show that
the rationale of these ‘personality’ rumours was conditioned by and
provided for by government ideology. To explain this, Tan’s
54 Reopening ideological discussion

resignation must be analysed in comparison with two other possible

examples of resignation and decline in political position.
Given the dominant ideological framework of pragmatism and its
concomitant administrative efficiency, all necessary for the national
survival, the system cannot harbour incompetence. This line of
reasoning was with amazing consistency and consensus used to
interpret the demise of some who resigned after having served very
short stints as MPs with no official reason given. It is casually
assumed by Singaporeans that such individuals were incompetent.
That Tan was a Rhodes Scholar and that he possessed a Ph.D.
made it difficult for ‘incompetence’ to seal the speculations about
his resignation. But the Ph.D. gave rise to a second line of argument
for possible administrative incompetence: it is commonly ‘known’
that most academics are impractical, that a wide distance exists
between the rarefied atmosphere of academic theorising and the
active, practical world of work and politics. This line of reasoning
has been used to account for the fall of academics recruited into
party ranks. In the case of Tan, this line of reasoning was also
blocked for he had first demonstrated his ability in the practical
world of a multinational company and immediately following his
resignation he joined the practical world of business again as a
senior manager. Eliminating political differences and administrative
incompetencies as the potential template to account for Tan’s
resignation, personality issues remain serviceable to satisfy an
account of his resignation.
When cases of political demise, decline and resignation are taken
together, the order of interpretation as encoded in the rumours is,
respectively, incompetence; its variant, impracticality; and personality
difficulties.6 These rumours are clearly organised against the
background of the dominant ideology of pragmatism. They use the
central category, ‘practicality’, to organise a situational and
temporally adequate account; these rumour-ordering processes
reproduce the ideology, leaving it intact and with the population well
contained in its conceptual horizon. This is exactly as the government
prescribes: ‘move away from politics to economics’, be practical.

TOWARDS AN ANALYSIS OF IDEOLOGICAL PROCESSES

IN SINGAPORE
An analysis of the PAP’s ideological success in Singapore can now
be located within the theoretical framework proposed in this chapter.
 Reopening ideological discussion 55

Such an analysis should begin with the political history of the PAP as
its point of departure, followed by an examination of (1) the central
tenets of the ideological system and its changes over time to meet
both internal and external historical contingencies; and (2) the
mechanisms, or ideological apparatus, through which these concepts
are propagated and inscribed.
Analysis of the ideological apparatus should, of course, include
those which the government operates directly, such as schools and
electronic media, and those that are privately run but subjected to the
legislative controls, such as the print media. Next, the measurement of
successful ideological hegemony/consensus must be sought in the
ways in which the central tenets of the ideological system are used by
Singaporeans as rational concepts to organise creative ways to
reproduce the ideology itself. Finally, since the leadership role and
the domination role of ideology are constant companions, analysis
must try to locate where the cracks in the common ideology may be
appearing in specific historical conjunctures, rather than projecting
their appearance in some unspecified future (Chua, 1982).

CONCLUSION
Dominated by a vision of Singapore as a ‘depoliticised state’, the
ideological processes put successfully into motion by the PAP
government to generate an ideological hegemony/consensus among
ernment to generate an ideological hegemony/consensus among the
citizens remain a rich but uninvestigated terrain for social scientists.
The ideological apparatus and processes may be analysed from
different substantive interests and methodological perspectives.
However, to the extent that the ideological success of a political
leadership means carrying along its constituencies towards a
common symbolic and practical universe of everyday life, all such
investigations should share a common aim. The aim is to trace the
path from the officially constituted ideological concepts to the
utilisation and currency of these concepts in the daily life of the
citizens, thereby disclosing the embedding of these concepts in the
social construction of Singapore. It is in those everyday activities that
use the ideological concepts as reasonable grounds for their
justification and execution that ideological success obtains its
sustenance, and is in each instance of usage revitalised.
To the extent that ideological systems are not systematically
articulated, but only achieve relative coherence in each instance of
56 Reopening ideological discussion

use in situ, analysts must pay attention to instances of actual or

potential conflicts or contradictions that result from either
competing interpretations of the same ideological concepts or
different but equally acceptable concepts, derived from the same
system, which are brought to bear on a given situation. Not to be
concerned about these implied sub-themes would risk presenting a
vision of the ideological success as a solid wall without cracks, a
condition perhaps politically most desirable from the leadership
position but, given the very nature of ideological concepts
themselves, never achievable.

NOTES
1 Sri Lanka may be an example of this cycle of coalition through failed
attempts at dominance and back to coalition government after the 1994
general elections (Bastin, 1994).
2 For details on the ideology of survival, see Chan (1971).
3 For the PAP’s concerted response to this negative sanction, see Nair (1976).
4 The events were reported in the Far Eastern Economic Review, 23 August,
1974.
5 This does not necessarily mean that such rumours did not exist. However, it
points up one of the important methodological difficulties of research in
rumours, that is, one can never claim exhaustiveness, claim to have gathered
all the rumours that surround a particular issue; for by its very nature, rumour
may be forever forthcoming. This problem is compounded in this instance by
the fact that retrenchment of MPs is a recurring phenomenon in Singapore.
6 For a list of individuals who had resigned from PAP MP positions at
different times see Shee (1983).
Chapter 3

Pragmatism of the PAP

government
A critical assessment

Set all nearly down into Economy.

There is little choice—
We must make a people.
Edwin Thumboo

Individuals who enter politics not for self-serving pecuniary benefits

but out of benevolent intent to serve honestly their fellow citizens are
essentially motivated by the desire to realise their own political visions
in the realm they govern. PAP members certainly hold themselves up
as gleaming examples of moral political rectitude. In the long years in
government, they have indeed realised much of their political vision.
The total set of conceptual terms of a governing ideology may be
broadly sub-divided into the ‘operational’ and the overarching
‘utopian’ elements. The distinction turns on the difference between
the conceptual elements which politicians actively use to rationalise
the day-to-day operations of the state and those they use to define the
‘utopian’ features of their rule.1 In the PAP government, the umbrella,
utopian element is a vision of a democratic society in the ‘final’
analysis; a democratic society with all that are conventionally taken
as its desirable attributes, beyond the formality of ‘one person, one
vote’ to the embodiment of a political culture in which individuals are
respected as such and granted certain freedoms, and in which the
collective good is balanced with individual preferences. All these are
admissible within the utopian promise as matters of principle, even if
the ‘final’ analysis is never arrived at.2 On the other hand, as
elucidated in the previous chapter, the operant element is
‘pragmatism’ which enables the government to rationalise, from
conception to implementation, state activities on a routine basis.
The PAP argues that there are internal logical connections
58 Pragmatism of the PAP government

between the two sets of elements, with the operant set acting as
necessary steps and bridges to the realisation of the utopian vision.
In practice, policies that are rationalised on pragmatic grounds often
turn out to be undemocratic in serious ways. The only ideological
justification is a promise that in the ‘final analysis’ all these policies
will contribute to the establishment of a stable, democratic society.
There is plenty of room for scepticism regarding how the
‘pragmatic’ policies are to be integrated into a democratic whole. It is
almost impossible conceptually to construct a systematic articulation
because the contradictions that inhabit the meeting points of the
utopian elements and the operant elements are results of two different
and often competing modes of rationality that govern the two sets of
concepts respectively. Briefly stated, pragmatism is governed by ad
hoc contextual rationality that seeks to achieve specific gains at
particular points in time and pays scant attention to systematicity and
coherence as necessary rational criteria for action; whereas utopian
rationality emphasises the whole and at times sacrifices the contextual
gains to preserve it, if necessary.
This chapter traces the ‘operant’ set of concepts of the PAP
ideology. It will delineate the conceptual boundaries and the logic
of ‘pragmatism’, and the constraints it has imposed on political
discourse in Singapore. In so doing, it will inevitably bring into
relief points of contradiction that appear to stand in the way of
democracy as a utopian vision, and thus serves as an immanent
critique of the PAP ideology itself.

ROOTS OF PRAGMATISM
The origins of PAP pragmatism are at once historical, material and
conceptual, in part imposed on the Party when it formed the first
independent government of Singapore in 1965, and in part a
conscious formulation of its leaders as an explicit ideology. The
historical and material constraints were determined by the domestic
economic situation at independence. Singapore was until then a non-
industrial entrepôt and commercial centre of the British Empire with
very high rates of unemployment and underemployment coupled
with a rapidly growing population. Under such conditions, the
material question of ‘making a living’3 was at the fore of the list of
problems that had to be solved. Immediate economic development
through rapid industrialisation was absolutely necessary; the only
question was which model to adopt. The socialist or communist
 Pragmatism of the PAP government 59

models were foreclosed. As an island nation with an overwhelming

Chinese majority surrounded by Malaysia and Indonesia, it was
important that Singapore not be perceived as ‘the third China’ by her
immediate neighbours. An explicit socialist or communist orientation
in a Singaporean national identity would surely have given rise to
such a perception (Chan and Evers, 1978:199). The capitalist road
was the only one open, despite the PAP’s early socialist rhetoric.
The result was, and continues to be, an ideology that embodies a
vigorous economic development orientation that emphasises
science and technology and centralised rational public
administration as the fundamental basis for industrialisation within
a capitalist system, financed largely by multinational capital.
Culturally, in recognition of the geopolitical situation,
multiculturalism, representing so-called Chinese, Malay and Indian
‘cultures’, was emphasised. The PAP government may be said to
have had little choice but to do what is necessary, that is, to adopt
these elements. Thus from the very beginning, these elements that
form a conceptual framework for the day-to-day operations of the
PAP government had always been identified as the ‘natural’, the
‘necessary’ and the ‘realistic’ solution to the problems of nation-
building. It is in their ‘naturalness’, ‘necessity’ and ‘realism’ that
the PAP strategy for nation-building is pragmatic.
The economic is privileged over the cultural because economic
growth is seen as the best guarantee of social and political stability
necessary for the survival of the nation; some of the effects of this
conviction will be analysed in the next three chapters. It continues
to be argued that continuous economic growth is the wellspring of
all else in a Singaporean’s life, including a democratic society in the
end. Thus all aspects of social life are to be instrumentally
harnessed to this relentless pursuit. This ‘instrumental rationality’,
to the exclusion of all other reasonable arguments, is the conceptual
kernel of the PAP’s political pragmatism and its logical unfolding is
the analytic focus of this chapter.

SUBSTANCE OF PRAGMATISM
From 1959, when the PAP formed the first self-government, it has
always seen its task as solving the material needs of the citizens by
providing jobs, adequate housing and related amenities. It believed
that if these problems were solved equitably among the different
races, many causes of political and social instability will either take
60 Pragmatism of the PAP government

care of themselves or be solved subsequently, for ‘instability and

unemployment feed off each other’ (Goh, 1976:81). The immediate
aim then was clear cut: (1) ‘to achieve a society where all citizens
could have a decent living’; (2) ‘to provide jobs for everybody who
was willing and able to work’; and (3) beyond just providing jobs, ‘to
give workers rising incomes and improved standard of living over the
years’, through continuous and rapid economic growth (Goh,
1976:81).
The aims were clear and the answer was to ‘industrialise’ but
conditions were not exactly encouraging. As Dr Goh Keng Swee,
the man given the responsibility of industrialising the nation
viewed it:

Apart from the political climate, which hardly inspires investors’

confidence, there were other constraints on industrial growth.
Besides sand and granite, Singapore had no natural resources. The
domestic market was too small to support import substitution
manufactures. Further, if the industrial effort failed, there was no
fallback position. The land area, then 225 square miles at low tide,
was too small to provide an agricultural refuge for the
unemployed. Moreover, the main source of Singapore’s economic
activity, which centred round her port, was made more difficult by
action taken in neighbouring countries, whose newly independent
governments saw no reason to continue their countries’
dependence on Singapore as a transit for their exports.
(Goh, 1976:78)

A two-pronged strategy was developed and has been consistently

applied since. First, the domestic economic conditions must be
made favourable for investment by foreign and domestic capital,
that is, expanding and upgrading the necessary infrastructure
services and facilities; developing banking and other financial
institutions; offering tax concessions to attract investors and public
relations work to bring Singapore to the attention of investors.
Multinational corporations have been particularly important
because along with jobs they will also engage the world market;
both are essential ingredients for the continuous expansion of the
economy (Tan, 1976). Second, social conditions must also be
disciplined, starting with curbing of militant labour.
 Pragmatism of the PAP government 61

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS
By 1964, the unions were brought into the fold of the PAP-backed
National Trade Union Congress. From then on, they were
progressively directed away from a ‘confrontational’ relationship
with employers to one of ‘mutual trust and co-operation’.4 (Wong,
1983:267) The 1968 Industrial Relations (Amendments) Act
prohibited unions from bargaining beyond the minimum standards
set by the Act during the first five years of operation of pioneer
industries, thus stabilising the labour costs in these new ventures. It
also prohibited strikes and lock-outs, while compulsory conciliation
and arbitration were instituted. The collective wage bargaining role
of unions was further reduced with the establishment of the tripartite,
namely, government, employer and labour, National Wage Council in
1972. The Council recommends annual wage increase guidelines
which are largely respected by employers and unions.
The 1982 Trade Unions (Amendments) Bill further emphasised
co-operative industrial relations by specifically defining union
activities as promoting ‘good’ industrial relations, improving work
conditions and helping to increase productivity. The NTUC also
initiated the breaking down of large industrial unions into ‘house
unions’, thereby reducing the collective strength of labour as a
whole. Most recently, the 1984 Employment Act gives the employer
greater discretion in scheduling of work in order to maximise the
productivity of the employees. The leading national newspaper has
summed up the situation succinctly, ‘the amendments are a
systematic attempt to remove any legal obstacles in the way of the
nation’s objectives’ (Straits Times, 30 Sept., 1981).
Lee Kuan Yew, then Prime Minister, suggested that the economic
progress of Singapore was possible because of the intimate co-
operation between the PAP and the NTUC. Lest this co-operation
weaken when unions become financially and organisationally
stronger in a developed Singapore, he warned: ‘Political leaders
must triumph (over unions), if necessary, by changing the ground
rules to thwart the challenge (by unions), using legislative and
administrative powers, and, when necessary, backed by the mandate
of the electorate’ (quoted in Wong, 1983:265).
When the government was criticised in Parliament for eroding
workers’ rights and benefits through legislation, the then NTUC
Secretary General’s response was to concede that workers may
indeed be working under less than desirable legislation and
62 Pragmatism of the PAP government

controlled unions but ‘had they not however benefited from

economic growth?’ He in turn rebuked critics as being overly
concerned with ‘form’ instead of ‘substance’ (Wong, 1983:266). In
otherwords, the critic was merely raising a question of principle
rather than acknowledging the actual material goods that are
delivered as a result of the legislation.

EDUCATION AS HUMAN CAPITAL

With both eyes fixed on economic growth, the PAP government has
always seen education as an investment in human capital. The only
exploitable resource, ‘human resource’, must be continuously
developed and upgraded. From 1960, the educational system has
undergone numerous modifications and radical changes but it has
never faltered in its aim: ‘to evolve an education system which will
support and develop the Republic as a modern industrial nation with
a cohesive multiracial society’ (Wilson, 1978:235).
The system has by now been finely tuned to identify the different
levels of ‘abilities’ of each cohort of students, and to stream them
into different levels of basic and technical/vocational education, in
line with estimated demands for the different levels of technical
needs of an industrial economy. This is done by a series of
rigorously competitive examinations beginning at primary three
when the students are between nine and ten years of age. A little
more than 10 per cent in each cohort survive these examinations and
enter university; quotas are often imposed on levels of intake in
professional faculties. At the university, there is a pecking order of
preference, in part voluntary and in part imposed by the university
administration, of degree programmes, with medicine and
engineering at the top and liberal arts at the bottom.
The changes in the education system are executed not without
protest from students and their guardians. However, the late Senior
Minister of State for Education, Tay Eng Soon, saw these as
‘merely’ protests, again, in principle rather than reasoned responses
to government policies; critics ‘oppose streaming on philosophical
grounds saying it goes against ideas of equality’ (Dr Tay Eng Soon,
Straits Times, 19 Aug., 1984). Philosophising on grounds of
principle was antithetical to instrumental pragmatism. He, in turn,
justified it simply: ‘It works’. ‘Working’ is measured by the fact that
a portion of these streamed-out students are progressing well in
their vocational skills training. The streaming process is further
 Pragmatism of the PAP government 63

reinforced by the argument that the selection process itself is based

on meritocracy.

MERITOCRACY
While merit in the work-place may be based exclusively on
standardised levels of commodity production rate, merit in the
education system is emphatically more than just working hard. It is,
at least, as much a social-class-stratified phenomenon as to do with
one’s natural intelligence endowment. However, to recognise the
social-economic dimensions of academic achievement would involve
the government in a more complex conceptualisation of merit than
standardised examinations would permit. Consideration would have
to be given to historical and social structural inequalities that have
disadvantaged certain sectors of the society. Subsequently, suitable
compensatory mechanisms would have to be devised and
institutionalised to raise the disadvantaged to an equal plane with
those who are relatively privileged. In short, a whole network of
social agencies would have to be built around the education system to
ensure equal competition by all children. This is not to be.
With pragmatism, equality of opportunity is simply an equal
chance of gaining entrance to a free place in a primary school. After
that the examination results will segregate the students according to
their ‘natural’ intelligence, into different categories, which in turn
fixes their positions in the complex division of labour of the
industrial work-place.
Since natural intelligence is supposedly genetically determined,
early streaming poses no moral problems in principle. Nature is, by
definition, beyond human intervention, so the earlier one is able to
detect its course the more one can save the resources that may be
committed to trying to change it.5 Thus, instead of channelling
resources to help those who are historically or structurally
disadvantaged, resources are used to enrich those who are already in
relatively privileged positions. Instead of attempting to achieve
some distributive social justice, ‘meritocratic’ inequality is
unapologetically accepted as a consequence of nature. Early
streaming is seen as a process of ferreting out the ‘no more than 5
per cent’ that will lead the nation:

It is on this group that we must expend our limited and slender

resources in order that they will provide that yeast, the ferment,
64 Pragmatism of the PAP government

that catalyst in our society which alone will ensure that Singapore
shall maintain its pre-eminent place in the societies that exist in
South East Asia—and the social organization which enables us,
with almost no natural resources, to provide the second highest
standard of living in Asia.
(Lee Kuan Yew, quoted in Chee and Chan, 1984:8)

The belief that talent is genetically determined reached its logical

conclusion, in PAP pragmatism, in the 1984 ‘graduate mother’
population policies, which were to have serious consequences for the
PAP’s electoral fortunes.

POPULATION POLICY
To summarise the policy briefly: based on the observation that
university graduates were putting off marriage in favour of careers,
and if married tended to have fewer children than the less well-
educated, lower income women, and the belief that 80 per cent of a
person’s ability is genetically inherited, Lee Kuan Yew was alarmed
that this ‘thinning’ of the ‘talented’ gene pool may spell ‘disaster’ to
the island nation whose only resource is human intelligence (Lee
Kuan Yew, Straits Times, 15 Aug., 1983). Government policies were
hastily formulated in 1983 to encourage unmarried graduate women
to marry, and those who married to have more than two children with
generous tax breaks and priorities in enrolling their children in choice
schools. On the other hand, the lowest educated women were
encouraged to stop at one or two children with a cash grant of
S$10,000 in their social security fund, which could be drawn upon to
purchase public housing.
In formulating these policies, the PAP government intentionally
ignored the scientific literature which argued against genetic
determinism. 6 It also ignored the established demographic
observation that it is rational and practical for poorer families to have
larger families simply because the income generated by an additional
pair of hands is greater than the expenditure consumed by an
additional mouth. Finally, politically most significantly, it refused to
entertain charges of being undemocratic.7 Apart from dismissing such
criticisms as ‘nature is undemocratic’ (S.Rajaratnam, Straits Times,
18 Aug., 1984), it argued that giving special privileges to a particular
group does not constitute an ‘undemocratic’ act because no one is
deprived of any basic rights; some are simply given more. As will be
 Pragmatism of the PAP government 65

discussed later, significantly, even an electorate which is very

appreciative of a government which has done much to improve
material life was unable to accept such a blatant violation of social
justice. They registered their reaction by significantly withdrawing
their electoral support from the PAP in the 1984 general election, held
shortly after the policy was imposed, leading to a serious
modification of that policy.

LANGUAGE AND MULTIRACIALISM

As suggested earlier, cultural elements have been made to serve as
handmaidens to the economic development effort. This has been
most apparent in the language policies which, among other
regulations, require students to be bilingual in order to qualify for
local tertiary education. Bilingualism was never intended to mean
any two of the four official languages, rather it was from the very
beginning English, plus one of the mother tongues. The primacy of
English was rationalised entirely on the basis of its utility for science,
technology and commerce, i.e., it is essential to economic
development. Lee Kuan Yew has put this succinctly,

The deliberate stifling of language (English) which gives access to

superior technology can be damaging beyond repair. Sometimes
this is done not to elevate the status of the indigenous language as
much as to take away the supposed advantage a minority in society
is deemed to have because that minority has already formed a
greater competence in the foreign language. This is most
damaging. It is tantamount to blinding the next generation to the
knowledge of the advanced countries.

Further,

Without the English Language, we might not have succeeded in

teaching so quickly a whole generation the knowledge and skills
which made them able to work the machines brought in from the
industrialized countries of the West.
(Quoted in Pendley, 1983:49–50)

Nevertheless, cultural elements are constantly invoked as the

socalled Asian values that are needed to combat the penetration of
‘undesirable’ Western values that may come as the ideological
66 Pragmatism of the PAP government

baggage of the borrowed technologies and administrative strategies.

Thus, such values as thrift, industry and filial piety are constantly
raised as the necessary cultural ballast against the complacency,
individualism and the decline of family in the West.
Whether the selected recommended values are exclusively Asian is
highly dubious. S.Rajaratnam, the Second Deputy Prime Minister has
had occasions to doubt publicly whether such things as Asian Values do
exist (1977). As recently as 1984, Dr Goh Keng Swee, the brain behind
the management of the national economy referred to ‘thrift and
industry’ not as Asian values but rather as ‘great Victorian virtues’
(Straits Times, 25 Aug., 1984). What is beyond doubt, however, is that
the selected values are also deemed essential to continuing economic
growth. Even filial piety is no exception, for, apart from its cultural
aspect, it also serves as an ideological justification for the government
not to be directly involved in social policies regarding the care of the
aged, thus conserving resources for economic growth.

GENERALISED SOCIAL DISCIPLINE

So far the substantive thrust of PAP pragmatism has been delineated
in terms of some of its main interlocking features. It must be noted,
however, that the underlying instrumental rationality extends beyond
these areas of social life, into a significant part of what is
conventionally assumed to be private spheres of life in a democratic
society. For example, the need for a disciplined labour force logically
extends beyond the specific arena of industrial relations into a need
for a disciplined citizenry. With such conceptual extension, the door
is opened for the instrumental rationality of pragmatism to operate
extensively and intrusively into spheres of social and political life.
An obvious and immediate region of intervention is in the control
of crime. In 1984, looking through crime statistics, the government
deduced that the rise of certain common crimes was a result of the
lenient punishment meted out to their perpetrators under the extant
penal code; that numerous possible social causes that might explain
the frequency of these crimes were not considered. Having so
defined the situation, a bill which imposes stiff mandatory minimum
punishments, including caning by rattan, on a number of frequently
occurring common criminal activities was passed, with the usual
ease in a single-party Parliament. Evidence and arguments that
questioned the effectiveness of this strategy as a deterrent to the
commission of crimes were completely ignored.8 Also ignored were
 Pragmatism of the PAP government 67

principles of jurisprudence regarding the equation between the level

of punishment and the seriousness of crime and the authority of
judges to make independent judgments regarding the level of
punishment the convicted deserved in each case.9 The bill was, of
course, aimed at intensifying societal discipline.
But all the disciplinary measures may not be enough to ensure
economic prosperity, since voluntary compliance cannot be assured.
Further legislative safeguards and constraints must therefore be
installed. In this light, changes in the Constitution of Singapore are
being made. Details of these changes and their impact on the
democratisation of Singapore will be discussed in Chapter 8. To
briefly illustrate the point here, take the Elected Presidency Bill
which was mooted in 1984 (Lee Kuan Yew, Straits Times, 2 Sept.,
1984) and enacted in 1990. Under the Bill, the appointed
ceremonial President is to be replaced by an elected one from 1994.
The elected President would be authorised, among other specific
powers, to veto any proposal by an elected government to draw on
the national reserves for deficit financing of the national budget.
This provision is supposed to prevent any subsequent generation of
Singaporeans from ‘squandering’ the national wealth accumulated
during the years under the leadership of the founders of the PAP. As
we shall see in Chapter 8, with the several legislated measures, the
way the society is governed has undergone significant changes. The
PAP government’s perception of its own role in these legislative
changes is that of the custodian of the nation’s future, which is, of
course, entirely congruous with its disciplinary function: the
custodian is always the one who maintains discipline and metes out
punishment when necessary.
Significantly, both the disciplinarian and the custodian roles are
features subsumed under the concept of ‘paternalism’ which
Singaporeans and outside observers often characterise as the style
of the PAP government. Paternalism has its own logic: it is
benevolent when the children abide by the father’s wishes; where
there is disobedience, the father’s authority discloses itself nakedly
in imposing punishments. Furthermore, a lack of faith that the
children would continue to abide by the ‘wise’ counsel of the father,
when the latter passes from the scene, is an intrinsic feature of
paternalistic reasoning. Obedience, however, can be assured to
some extent by the institution of a will. The Elected Presidency Bill
is an example of making of a will by the first generation leaders to
prevent their ‘children’ from squandering the fruits of their labours.
68 Pragmatism of the PAP government

From the diverse examples of interventions derived from the

perceived need to maintain discipline, including its
manifestation at the symbolic level, one is tempted by both
logic and empirical evidence to argue that the instrumental
rationality which is essential to pragmatism will find increasing
areas of social life to govern. Such instrumental reasoning
appears to be unable to stop its rationalisation process, and
would seem unable to know where or when it should leave
everyday life to the desires and preferences of the individuals
in the society.

LOGIC OF PRAGMATISM
In the first two decades of the PAP regime, this pragmatism has been
systematically elaborated and articulated to become a fleshed-out
conceptual system that governs the regime’s administrative policies
and strategies. As demonstrated in the previous chapter, it has also
penetrated the consciousness of the population and has come to serve
as the conceptual boundaries within which Singaporeans think
through significant portions of their daily life. Even social scientists
in Singapore have come to see this pragmatism as the only rational
choice and therefore non-ideological. The set of concepts that can be
collected under the auspices of pragmatism can, therefore, be said to
have a popular legitimacy and to be constitutive of the ideological
consensus between the PAP and the population. Since this
pragmatism has achieved some level of systematic coherence, it is
possible to extract its logical structure and identify the limits of its
rationality.
The overriding goal of PAP pragmatism is to ensure continuous
economic growth. This singular goal is simultaneously the
singular criterion for initiating and assessing all government
activities, in terms of how an act will aid or retard this growth. In
principle no sector of social life, no matter how ‘private’, cannot
be so administered as to harness it to serve the goal itself. For
example, the population policies by extension also regulates
sexuality. Marriage is thus subjected to state regulation. If a male
Singaporean chooses to marry a non-Singapore citizen and if the
potential spouse is educated and professionally trained, thus
presumed able to add to the economic growth effort, no state
permission is required for the marriage and any children of the
couple are entitled to the privileges of citizenship.10 The same is
 Pragmatism of the PAP government 69

not so for lower-income potential spouses; long waiting periods

are imposed on the couples before permission to marry is granted.
Since all regions of social life are open to state administrative
intervention, selective interventions in a particular region are
determined entirely in terms of the economic growth picture at a
specific point in time. The justification for intervention is always
contextual and never based on principles of political philosophy.
The different phases of changes in the population policies, from
limiting each family to two children, through the modified ‘graduate
mother’ policy, to the current pro-natal policy which encourages
increasing the birth rate for all except the poor, reflect this
contextual rationality. The context being determined entirely by
‘projected’ manpower needs to keep the economy growing.
Contextual interventions have other entailing features. First, each
intervention in a specific region of social life aims to be effective in
that region exclusively. For example, under the general concern for
economic growth, manpower policies and population policies are
treated as separate interventions aimed at two separate regions and
quite independent of each other and interventions elsewhere.
Second, as contextual and instrumental instead of ‘in principle’
interventions, they are discrete and discontinuous acts, in the
sense that a particular intervention in a particular region of social
life may radically alter the trajectory that an early intervention
may have put in place. Contextual and discontinuous interventions
are characteristics of what a PAP back-bencher calls the ‘crisis’
mentality of his own government (Ow, 1984:377). This mentality
has as one of its consequences the desire to make pre-emptory
interventions that often contain unforeseen consequences whose
subsequent unfolding in turn force the government to change
course, sometimes radically. Wage policies of the past are good
examples. Immediately after the first petroleum price hike in
1972, fearing that industrial investors might move out of
Singapore if wages were to rise, the government through the
National Wage Council imposed artificially low wage increases
for the next four or five years. This led to the hoarding of labour
by the industries. Meanwhile, industries in Hong Kong, Taiwan
and South Korea responded to the same oil price hike by
increasing productivity through mechanisation. Wage increases
were then radically adjusted upwards in 1978, doubling over a
period of three years, to force the industries to mechanise and to
release labour into a tight labour market. This rapid wage increase
70 Pragmatism of the PAP government

contributed to the mini-recession in 1985, causing the government

to cut wages by 15 per cent and freeze wage increases for the next
two years.
Finally, in its single-minded economic aim, pragmatism admits
only ‘concrete’ evidence of a statistical type and no qualitative or
‘soft’ evidence or ‘in principle’ arguments. All policy justifications
are made in quantitative terms, similarly assessments of its success
or failure. For example, in defence against the World Bank’s
critique of the geneticist population policy that differentiated
university graduates from non-graduate mothers for differential
treatment, the then Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of
Education responded by reiterating a long list of figures which
showed that children of graduate mothers consistently do better in
academic examinations than those of non-graduate mothers; as if
these figures settled the nature/nurture debate categorically (Goh
Kim Leong, Straits Times, 4 Sept., 1984). There is thus a readiness
to simply translate quantitative measures into qualitative
judgements, without any sense of philosophical and methodological
discomfort.
In summary, PAP pragmatism operates with a single goal which
simultaneously serves as the singular ground for justifying and
assessing government policies, however interventionist in personal
terms. Policies are always justified and executed contextually and
discontinuously, depending on current or projected configuration of
the state of continuous economic development; consequently, they
tend to be ad hoc and lack long-term coherence within specific
regions of social life. As a conceptual framework it not only
includes the above features but also excludes others. It admits no ‘in
principle’ arguments and tends to trivialise principled arguments in
various ways, for example, as mere forms.

PRAGMATISM: A CRITICAL ASSESSMENT

Having extracted its essential logical features, it is now possible to
assess PAP pragmatism. The assessment will be limited to two
related issues. First, to address its social and political impact in terms
other than economic growth and second, to question whether it will
deliver a ‘democratic’ society which the government purportedly
seeks to realise eventually.
 Pragmatism of the PAP government 71

A ‘systematic’ government

As pragmatic administrative interventions are region-specific, issues

arise when interventions are placed side-by-side because regions of
daily life are loosely connected rather than rigidly compartmentalised.
An illustration can be gleaned by placing the policy on the female
labour force beside the unequal population policy.
The initial unequal population policy encouraged university
graduate mothers to have more than two children, with generous tax
incentives and priority to register her third child in the school of her
choice. This ‘priority registration scheme’ was subsequently
withdrawn in 1985, under politically unfavourable conditions which
will be discussed later. For now, the priviledged situation of
graduate mothers during the two years in which the policy was in
place will be used for analytic and illustrative purposes.
Generally, in developed capitalist nations, the number of working
women reaches a peak before marriage, drops when they take time
off to raise a family, then picks up significantly after the children
enter school. In Singapore, the rate of participation simply dips after
childbirth and never picks up again. Given the small population
base, the expanding economy can ill afford this loss of labour
power. Labour policy is, therefore, unequivocally one of
encouraging women, especially graduate mothers, to remain in the
labour force, again with tax incentives.
The dilemma facing a graduate mother before the ‘priority
registration scheme’ was withdrawn was: if she wished to ensure the
admission of each of her three children in the school of her choice,
it was necessary that by the time her first child reached the school
age of five, either all three children would already have been born,
or she should be expecting the third. A promise to have more than
two would not secure the priority for the first child. This meant
having three children within five years. If one presumes that a
graduate mother is a middle-class individual, who, after giving
birth, is likely to stay at home with her children for a number of
years before returning to work, this will extend the childbearing
period to about eight to ten years. Given the competing incentives
for nurturing children and remaining in the labour force, the
graduate mother logically and existentially would find herself
caught in contradictory demands. Contradiction also appears at the
national level. If all female graduate mothers in fact abided by the
population policy and did their best in producing ‘talented’
72 Pragmatism of the PAP government

offspring, what would become of the national labour policy?

Conversely, if they remained in the labour force, given the
government’s geneticist view, what would become of the future
‘talent’ pool deemed necessary for sustained and expanding
economic growth?
As it is impossible to satisfy the antithetical pull of the
contradictory demands, individuals can only act by subjective
preferences. This has two consequences. First, at the individual
level, the government’s policies may become irrelevant in one’s
decision-making process. This will render the policies superfluous.
Second, at the government level, it is impossible to assess the
effectiveness of any piece of the contradictory interventions because
every decision of a citizen that appears to abide by the prescriptions
of one policy simultaneously defies another.
Thus, what appears to be a rational intervention in a specific
region of social life turns out to be quite irrational when the totality
of social life is taken into consideration. Finally, the apparent
systematicity of these interventions, provided for by the presumed
unifying auspices of an economic policy, turns out to be otherwise,
precisely at the national level. Thus, bringing into question the very
hallmark claim of the PAP government to be thoroughly planned,
efficient and well-administered government.

Towards democracy

In every one of the administrative terrains discussed in the section on

the substance of pragmatism, the government’s disdain for any ‘in
principle’ criticisms of its policies has been deliberately noted. This
is to highlight the antagonistic relation that inheres in the
confrontation between pragmatism and claims to democratic norms
of equality and rights of individuals. In its single-mindedness to
sustain economic growth, the PAP government has deemed it fit to
violate various taken-for-granted stock democratic values, in spite of
appearances to the contrary.
Take the ‘graduate mother’ policy: the number of children desired
remains the personal preference and ‘right’ of parents. As in all direct
regulations on personal life, no legal coercion can be applied without
political costs; instead, only incentives and disincentives, formulated
as administrative regulations of public agencies, are used to solicit
compliance. These administrative regulations are not subjected to any
constitutional challenges because they are deemed terms of contract
 Pragmatism of the PAP government 73

between the public agencies and the citizens who avail themselves to
the services provided, such as housing, health and education. Should
a citizen choose not to abide by the stipulated regulations, one is free
to find similar services elsewhere, which all but the very wealthy can
ill afford.
Formally, a citizen’s rights and preferences are therefore
preserved but in substance one’s private sphere is a shrinking realm
thoroughly encroached by administrative interventions. This
maintenance of the ‘form’ of rights enables the PAP government to
counter suggestions of being anti-democratic in principle while
simultaneously exercising inegalitarian administrative options.
Under such conditions, the only definition of democracy that is
admissible is, not surprisingly, a very technical one: ‘one person,
one vote’; indeed, even this basic rule of equality is not sacrosanct
in the hands of the PAP government.
The vote, in turn, is narrowly interpreted as the mandate given by
the electorate to the elected to govern in accordance to the latter’s
definition of ‘national’ interests, as long as it improves the material
life of the citizenry. This interpretation is reflected in the PAP’s
wont and proud proclamation that the government must make
‘tough but unpopular’ decisions, implying that the populace cannot
be trusted with the rational formulation of policies. Conversely,
opinions contrary to these decisions need not be paid much heed
and may be trivialised, in such phrases as ‘principles do not satisfy
an empty stomach!’ Consequently, the PAP government appears
quite unmoved by any criticism that it is merely a ghost of what has
come to be normatively accepted as democracy. If criticisms were
made by non-Singaporeans, they can be negated either in terms of
the ethnocentricism of the foreigner or their failure to understand
the exigencies of Singapore. If criticisms came from Singaporeans,
the critics can be discounted as being afflicted by Western
liberalism and thus dismissed.

Pragmatism under duress

As shown above, pragmatism as a systematic conceptual framework

developed out of the historical and material conditions at the time the
PAP assumed the governance of the country. Precisely because of
this historical materialist basis, pragmatism as an ideological system
has enabled the PAP to lead the population. Policies rationalised
under pragmatism come to be seen as necessary, realistic and natural;
74 Pragmatism of the PAP government

exemplifying Marx’s conceptualisation of the process of ideological

transformation as the naturalisation of the historical.11 The legitimacy
of both pragmatism and PAP leadership have been further
strengthened by the success of government’s policies in ‘delivering
the goods’, improving the material life of the people. This success
has contributed to Singaporeans’ hitherto acceptance, or at least
tolerance, of undemocratic administrative interventions.12
Ironically, the ‘imposition’ of pragmatism as an ideology
becomes exposed when it is pressed into justifying ongoing
activities under historical conditions transformed precisely by its
success. Up till the early 1980s, every government administrative
intervention, from trade unionism to population policy, had been
rationalised in terms of necessity for national survival. The political
image was of a country without resources struggling against hunger,
privation and internal and external threats, in the face of which,
Singaporeans were exhorted to be disciplined, vigilant and self-
sufficient. The sacrifices and hard work have paid off and
Singaporeans have reached a stage of respectable affluence.
This affluence poses problems for pragmatism as an ideology
because the compelling element in its rationality is that of necessity.
Contrary to necessity, which may serve as the ground for collective
action, affluence opens up the avenues of individual preferences.
For example, instead of fear of unemployment, the tight labour
conditions make it possible for workers to exercise greater degrees
of choice not only in jobs but also in subjectively defined suitable
working conditions. With increasing affluence and full employment,
talk about the necessity to ensure the basics, and not to make
personal demands, seem to find few sympathetic ears. As
Dhanabalan, then Minister for Foreign Affairs has noted, ‘We just
can’t always be telling them to compare their situation to that of the
50s and ask them to be grateful. We can’t always be telling them
that’ (Straits Times, 19 Sept., 1984).
Demographically, the character and the experience of the
electorate have also changed significantly. By the 1984 election,
only 40 per cent of the electorate would have been twenty years or
older at the time of independence in 1965. Sixty per cent would not
have had any experience or memory of the turbulence and
difficulties of the fifties and the sixties—difficulties on which PAP
pragmatism was built. By the 1989 election, the margin of the new
electorate had expanded to 70 per cent (Petir, Aug., 1984). This
younger generation is much better educated and possesses higher
 Pragmatism of the PAP government 75

political and social awareness, especially ‘of the negative effect of

an over-regulated society’ (Quah, 1983:287). Consequently,
criticisms of both specific issues and the general political milieu
intensify precisely after all the tangible problems, such as
employment, housing and health issues, have been successfully
taken care of, and government interventions begin to move into the
less tangible features of social and personal life. For example,
university graduate women had criticised the ‘graduate mother’
policy as an unnecessary direct state intrusion in their private lives,
even though they stood to gain by the policy.
In addition to lay complaints, professional groups are also
voicing their reservations about the way and speed with which the
single-party PAP government passes legislation that significantly
affect their professional practices and jurisdictions; an example was
the move, by a group of younger lawyers, to have the Law Society
formally appeal for the repeal of the earlier mentioned mandatory
minimum sentence criminal laws (Straits Times, 1 Sept., 1984). By
mid-1984, the cummulative effect of emergent criticisms of
government’s pragmatism was quite observable. One Minister
complained that the population seemed inclined to criticise rather
than praise the government (Ong Teng Cheong, Straits Times, 18
July, 1984), only to be met by a letter to the editor of that national
newspaper suggesting that dissent was indeed there and that it was
all to the good (Straits Times, 25 July, 1984).

1984 ELECTION AND AFTER

The pressure for opposition voices in Parliament to check the overly
interventionist government was undoubtedly building under the new
social, political and economic conditions. It was with an eye to
heading off this pressure that the PAP government passed, in August
1984, a bill in Parliament that guaranteed the presence of three
opposition MPs in the House. The three, designated as ‘non-
constituency MPs’, were to be appointed only when none or less than
three opposition MPs were elected in a general election. They were to
come from those candidates who had won at least 15 per cent of the
votes in the constituencies in which they stood. In Parliament, they
were not entitled to vote on certain issues, including votes of no
confidence (Petir, Aug., 1984). There was a mixed reception among
both opposition parties and the public to this measure which
indicated the PAP’s recognition of the significant pressure towards
76 Pragmatism of the PAP government

greater democratisation. But if the scheme was aimed at appeasing

growing dissatisfactions with the PAP government, the December
1984 general election result clearly showed that it had little if any
impact.
The PAP lost significant support in all the constituencies which
opposition parties contested. Its share of the popular vote in these
constituencies dropped from 75.5 per cent in the 1980 general
election to 63 per cent, a loss of more than 12 per cent. Many of
the Ministers were returned with substantially reduced majorities.
In one case, the opposition candidate who stood against the
Minister of Home Affairs, won 5,000 votes, in spite of having
withdrawn from the campaign for reasons of psychological
exhaustion! Two of the candidates publicly endorsed by the Prime
Minister as more than ordinary MP material lost to the leaders of
two opposition parties. However, no one was under any illusion
that the shift in voting behaviour represented an endorsement of
the opposition. A post-election survey confirmed that frustration
with certain policies, and a desire to keep a check on the PAP
government, were the overwhelming reasons for casting protest
votes (Straits Times, 10 Apr., 1985).
The depth of the dissatisfaction was not lost on the PAP
government. In the very first post-election Parliament sitting,
many of its back-benchers reiterated the citizens’ grievances.
The instrumentalist interventions of the government were
directly criticised by a former Cabinet Minister and ex-High
Commissioner to Britain. He said, ‘The government was seen as
being too caring [sic], too paternalistic and overbearing in areas
which people felt were their own personal and private domain’
(Jek Yuen Thong, Straits Times, 6 Mar., 1985). Education,
population and manpower policies were criticised by PAP back-
benchers for their elitist implications. One pointed out the
priority school registration scheme for graduate mothers, early
streaming in education and special schools for gifted children
were all policies that ‘had been defended as not significantly
depriving the majority of their rights’, but ‘the fact that they
benefited so few alienates the majority’ (Tan Cheng Bok, Straits
Times, 2 Mar., 1985). Finally, financial and statistical approaches
to social issues, two main elements in PAP pragmatism, were
also criticised. One MP stated, ‘our hard-headed and statistical
approach to problems have given the impression that we are
beginning to care less for the people and more for those who can
 Pragmatism of the PAP government 77

achieve’ (Tan Cheng Bok, Straits Times, 2 Mar., 1985). Another

felt that ‘the government often relied too much of fiscal
measures to achieve its objectives’ without exhaustively
searching for other available options before embarking on
certain tough policies (Chandra Das, Straits Times, 6 Mar.,
1985).
The most significant event in this first sitting was the
announced intended withdrawal, by the then new Minister of
Education, of the priority registration scheme on grounds that it
was not going to achieve its aim of encouraging graduate
mothers to have more children; instead it was hurting the pride
of the non-graduate mothers. Furthermore, parents were to be
given the right to decide in which stream they would like to
place their children at the Primary Three level; the Ministry of
Education would only act in an advisory capacity to this
decision. The Minister argued that at such an early age, the
future of the schoolchildren was the responsibility of the parents
and not the government, even if the former should err in their
decision and corrective actions might have to be taken later. The
general implication that citizens be given the rights and freedom
to choose certain options, to find out for themselves the limits of
what was possible, even at the risk of making mistaken choices,
came to be seen as preferable over rigidly imposing the limits to
options in order to forestall any mistakes. The latter strategy
would always lead to personal unhappiness and political charges
of paternalism, authoritarianism or simply of being anti-
democratic (Lee Hsien Loong, Straits Times, 9 Apr., 1985).

CONCLUSION
After 1984, the general orientation of the new PAP Cabinet,
constituted by the younger generation Ministers, became one that
stressed the need to forge a new consensus with the electorate,
through its greater participation in the decision-making processes
in the national forum and its greater freedom in personal affairs.
This is a significant departure from the first generation’s
interpretation of the mandate to govern. The explicit orientation of
greater consultation and participation appeared to be steps towards
the development of a democratic culture beyond the mechanics of
election. This shift to a less mechanically defined democracy would
require the undoing of some of the intrinsic features of pragmatism,
78 Pragmatism of the PAP government

and a new ideological system be thought out in order to regain the

eroded faith that the PAP suffered among the citizens. How these
necessary steps and changes unfolded will be the focus of the final
three chapters.
For now, it is time to examine the substantive successes of the
ideology of pragmatism to which the abstract analysis of this and
the previous chapter have constantly referred and which constitute
the impressive record of the PAP government during the past three
decades.

NOTES
1 Utopia is used here to signify an orientation to a future. To the extent that
actions can be conceived as attempts to realise this future, they are by this
orientation necessarily radical.
2 The ‘final’ analysis of ‘final’ instance will never arrive because it is a
permanently receding horizon towards which the political realm moves.
3 Dr Goh Keng Swee sees this as ‘the Asian problem’, quoted in Koh
(1980:301).
4 The following discussion draws heavily from Wong (1983).
5 This was argued by Goh Kim Leong, Permanent Secretary of Education,
Straits Times, 30 Aug., 1984.
6 For the counter-evidence and arguments, see Chee and Chan (1984).
7 This is the charge levelled by university students. See the National University
of Singapore, Student Union Newsletter, July 1984.
8 For a local attempt to present these counter arguments, see English (1984).
9 During March through April 1994, compulsory caning for vandalism became a
focus of contention between American and Singapore public and press as a
result of the incrimination of an American teenager in Singapore. The debate
was covered almost daily in the Straits Times during the two months.
10 Citizenship laws discriminate against women in that similar citizenship
privileges are not automatically granted to the children of a Singaporean
female citizen and a foreigner.
11 A clear theoretical formulation of this, supported by substantive analysis, can
be found in Barthes (1972).
12 In ideological analysis a methodological asymmetry exists. Any action by an
individual that is in accord with an ideological prescription is not necessarily
an action that abides by it. The motivation to behave thus may be completely
different from the prescription itself. On the other hand, any action counter to
the prescription is an instance of ideological disruption in consequence.
Chapter 4

The business of living

Transformation of everyday life

To assess the achievements of the long regime of the PAP and its
ideology of pragmatism, this chapter will attempt to provide a sense of
the massive changes that have taken place within the everyday lives of
Singaporeans from self-government in 1959 until the present.1
The late Alvin Gouldner, in tracing the role that the concept of
everyday life has played in Western thought, suggested that it was
often used as a counter-concept, and hence as a critique, of political
life (Gouldner, 1975). If the political arena be conceived as one of
struggle, competition and conflicts, crowded with heroic acts of
leaders and political parties, the concept of everyday life emphasises
the stable, recurrent, seemingly unchanging, mundane features of
social life that maintain the continuity of society. A certain rigidity in
such a conceptualisation led Gouldner to argue that the concept of
change contained within the concept of everyday life views social
change in terms of a ‘massive movement in the collective minutiae of
existence’ and not ‘primarily through the initiatives of elites’. Such
distinctions too stringently sever the two spheres of everyday and
political life. I would argue for an interactive conceptualisation of the
two spheres. The massive changes that take place in everyday life are
often the amplified results of initiatives taken by political leaders.
Once these changes take root and everyday life is transformed, that
transformed social life in turn may act as a source of constraint on
subsequent decisions by political leaders. This reversal becomes
obvious when the realm of everyday life begins to throw up
resistance, passively as scepticisms and indifference and actively as
protests to the initiatives of the leaders.
A second conceptual elaboration proposed by Gouldner is to
contrast history with everyday life. If the everyday life of a group
80 The business of living

‘constitutes its standard of the normal’, history is constituted by the

‘more-than-normal, or extraordinary’. A historic act is thus an
intervention by a particular event that has serious reverberations in
everyday life. Although Gouldner might have had in mind only
extraordinary acts of individuals, I would suggest that in modern
bureaucratically administered states such extraordinary events
should include governmental decisions. The cumulative effects of a
series of administrative decisions could transform existing everyday
life into a new configuration, a new everyday life. Methodologically
and substantively, the two configurations become mutually
illuminating when placed side by side.
It is clearly impossible to trace the trajectories of the elements of
Singaporean everyday life over the span of twenty to thirty years. In
accordance with the above conceptual elements, I shall freeze two
points in time separated by these years, namely the end of the 1950s
and the mid-1980s, and describe the two respective configurations
of everyday life serially. The contrast, which serves as an
impressionistic measure of the massive changes that have taken
place, will be immediately observable.
What hold these two discontinuous and contrasting
configurations together are the elements which provide for their
continuity. This continuity can be conceptualised at two levels.
First, at the individual level, the memories of individual
Singaporeans, who participated in and bear witness to the
continuing changes, serve to frame the changes as a sequence of
continuous adjustments to the opportunities and pitfalls thrown up
by the societal environment. Second, in line with the postulated
conceptual relations between history and everyday life and between
political activities and the mundane sphere, at the societal level the
two configurations may be rendered continuous by the public
policies that were aimed directly at transforming the first everyday
life into the second. The two elements of continuity will be woven
into this essay at different points.
The description of the first stage is made possible by my own
recollections of daily life in an urban village and that of the second
is served by ongoing observations of contemporary Singapore,
particularly daily life in the public housing estates. Finally, an
assessment of the general societal tendencies that the administrative
policies have put in place will be made at the close of the chapter.
 The business of living 81

THE 1950S—LIFE IN THE URBAN VILLAGE

Bukit Ho Swee village sat on one of the edges of the functional urban
area of colonial Singapore. This was evinced by its being adjacent to
the then modern housing estate of Tiong Bahru built by the colonial
government, and by its being within walking distance of the
Singapore General Hospital and of the oldest English primary and
secondary schools in Singapore, namely, Pearl’s Hill and Outram
respectively. The two schools in turn flanked the Outram jail and the
extensive police barracks on Pearl’s Hill itself. Despite proximity to
the above, Bukit Ho Swee had no modern amenities and stood in
stark contrast to Tiong Bahru in all aspects of physical and social
environment.
Only the two main ‘roads’ of the village were paved; that these
were hardly roads was indicated by their names. One was called
simply Bukit Ho Swee, signifying the hillock on which the village
was erected and from which it derived its name. The other was
called Beo Lane. Timber houses with thatch, corrugated zinc plates
or asbestos sheeting as roofs formed a continuous facade along the
well-defined edges of the roads, punctuated only by the openings of
the unpaved tracks that branched off the roads themselves. Shops
serving the minimum daily necessities for the villagers, such as
provisions shops, Chinese herbal and medicine shops, barbers and
coffee shops, were interspersed between the homes. Owners lived
either adjacent to their shops or behind the shopfronts.
The wealthier villagers were to be counted amongst these shop
owners who, in addition to their own dwellings and shops owned
other houses for rent. In three or four cases, the shop was run by the
wife and children while the husband had his own business away
from the village. It was among these shop owners that the proverbial
Chinese extended families were quite visible. One of the biggest
home owners in Beo Lane had two wives. The first wife had five
sons and an adopted daughter who was intended as a bride for the
youngest son, while the second had two sons and two daughters. All
the married children lived in different sections of the sprawling atap
house. In part of this house lived the patriarch’s younger brother
and his family who owned the largest provisions shop in the village.
The two brothers and their families were exceptional as most
extended families involved only children from single-stem
monogamous marriages. Polygamy and bigamy were commonly
82 The business of living

known, and even aspired to by the men, but were seldom practised
in the village.
The physical environment along the two main roads was quite
good. The relative width of the roads provided the houses with good
frontage. The substantial size of the houses and the heights of the
roofs, sometimes reaching 20 feet at the pitch, kept them well
ventilated. Simple glass panels wedged between atap fronds and thin
wooden slats brought ample daylight into the houses. The relative
wealth of their owners kept them in good repair. The ‘T’ junction of
the two main roads was the hub of social and simple commercial
activities pertaining to daily needs, giving the roads a constant social
liveliness. In sum, the segment along the two paved roads, especially
at their junction, provided the fundamental and necessary ingredients
for an essentially ‘romantic’ view of village life.
Beyond this short segment of the relatively wealthier minority
was quite a different environment and form of life. A network of
unpaved tracks spread out from the two roads; each track was again
generally lined with houses. Each track in turn had its own even
narrower branches, which were often merely gaps between adjacent
houses. One such gap might run the length of several houses or
lead, surprisingly and quickly, into an unkempt open clearing, often
surrounded by houses facing into the opening.
The state of maintenance of the houses within this network of
tracks depended entirely on whether they were owner-occupied or
rented premises. The former were generally well maintained and
substantial both in size and number of rooms, and were adequately
ventilated. Some of them might equal in appearance those along the
main roads. The rented houses were just the opposite. Consisting
generally of only one sitting room and one bedroom, two at the most,
and a small kitchen either at the front or the back section of the house,
these premises had low ceilings, often without windows in the
bedrooms, in which case the only source of light and ventilation was
the main door. Hence it was not uncommon to find an oil lamp lit
throughout the entire day inside the house. Interspersed with
dwellings were outhouses, as there was no modern plumbing, and the
occasional pigsty. Both sources of stench were substantially reduced
only by the cooking activities in the late afternoon.
Unemployment and underemployment were common among the
villagers who were renting their homes. Irregular odd jobs and
physical labour were the norm among men and not uncommon
among women who were widowed or whose husbands were either
 The business of living 83

unable or unwilling to assume any responsibilities. Thus, the wife of

a rickshaw rider was a Harbour Board odd-job worker, and a
woman and two of her three daughters worked at construction jobs
while her husband and two eldest sons did nothing.
The housewives of the poor, who had to manage and stretch the
meagre incomes of their husbands to keep the family afloat,
resorted to obtaining credit or even short-term loans at substantial
interest from the shopkeepers. One way in which economic
difficulties might be alleviated for a few days was by striking lucky
in numbers games. Indeed, numbers games provided, on the one
hand the hope of a respite from financial difficulties for the poor
and, on the other, a constant source of substantial income for the
runners, collectors, and organisers. Personnel at every level of the
organised games were found in the village, with the organisers
being among the wealthiest villagers. Everybody knew who they
were, including the plainclothes policemen who came to the village
regularly to get their pay-offs. Thus, if the main road area is what
the vision of Gemeinschaft is in part made of, then the conditions of
the families in the rental houses was where the inhumanity of
poverty of the majority of villagers was to be found.
If poverty separated the poor from the relatively wealthy, disease
made no such distinctions, for the general public health conditions
were equally poor for all villagers. Tuberculosis, known even among
the illiterate by its acronym TB, was the most common. It affected the
wealthier and the poor, adults in their prime, and ageing individuals.
Those affected withered away slowly, becoming a taut layer of skin
stretched over a skeleton. In physical appearance it was difficult to
differentiate them from opium addicts on the decline. When the
disease began to attack the soft tissues of the major arteries in the
lungs, eventually bursting the arteries themselves, blood flowed into
the bronchial tree and had to be coughed up— colloquially known
fearfully as ‘vomiting’ blood. The end for the TB-infected came
tragically and dramatically. Anyone who had witnessed the following
scene would not have been able ever to erase if from his or her
memory: the deaf-mute son of the proprietor of the largest provision
shop, who slept outside the shop for fear of contagion, was found
dead early one morning on his camp bed in a pool of his own blood.
Fortunately, by the early 1960s TB patients in the village were
availing themselves of the facilities and treatments of the Singapore
Anti-Tuberculosis Association (SATA).
The population was largely illiterate; consequently the few
84 The business of living

marginally literate adults emerged as resource people for the

villagers. One particular man who had a primary English education
wielded substantial influence at both the individual and village
levels through helping the villagers with correspondence with the
government. This social standing was achieved without any moral
ambiguity or aspersion arising from the fact that he was not
gainfully employed and derived his income exclusively from being
a collector in the numbers game.
Despite their own illiteracy, parents were not without hope that
their children could be educated. By the late 1950s, the economic
importance of an English education was already recognised, and
many boys born during the post-war baby boom were sent to nearby
English schools; girls were sent to Chinese schools because of the
presumed negative cultural influence of the West. Unfortunately, only
a handful entered secondary schools; the rest stopped anywhere
within the six years of primary education. Chinese education, on the
other hand, was more of a collective responsibility of the village. A
substantial coeducational primary school was established within the
village by the villagers themselves. Its operational costs were derived
from school fees and annual contributions by the board of governors,
comprising the wealthier legitimate or illicit businessmen in the
village. Again, the success rate of the students making it to Chinese
secondary schools was marginal, although numerically greater than
those entering English secondary schools.
Generally then, boys were already out of school and in the streets
by their early teens and, depending on the effectiveness of parental
restraint and personal character, they entered into irregular odd-job
employment, petty criminal activities or even full-fledged
gangsterism. For those who successfully finished secondary school
and were able to secure better-paying jobs or proceed to university,
both paths enabled them to break with the village and enter the life
of the middle class—if they were able, that is, to capitalise on the
economic opportunities of the next two-and-a-half decades.
The collective effort in building the Chinese school was
indicative of the co-operation among the villagers when it came to
provision of collective needs, an area which was neglected by the
colonial government. In addition to the school, villagers contributed
to the paving of the main roads, the maintenance of the village
temple and its annual religious festivals. Common hazards were
also dealt with collectively. The village policed itself against
property and personal crimes. Thus, clichéd as it might be, the
 The business of living 85

villagers took the public security of the village for granted.

Collective vigilance was always maintained against the greatest
apprehension of the villagers, namely fire. At the slightest
indication of fire breaking out, the village men would be there
attempting to put it out rather than rushing home to help their own
families prepare for evacuation.
In both crime policing and fire prevention the unemployed young
men in the village were indispensable. There was no contradiction
at all between their life of petty crime and gangsterism on the one
hand and crime prevention on the other because the two activities
were spatially separated. The crimes were conducted away from the
village because the goodwill of the home-based villagers had to be
preserved in case the young men needed shelter from pursuit by the
official authorities.
If the physical conditions were wanting, the men underemployed
and the youth uneducated, the social life of the village was, perhaps
contrary to expectations, lively and amicable rather than despondent.2
It was this social dimension that was one of the most endearing
elements of village life. Underemployment and unemployment had
two effects. First, they imposed a low standard of living and acted as
a restraint on an individual’s demands from his or her environment.
Expectations, material and otherwise, were drawn tightly around the
level of meeting the necessities of everyday life. That was all that the
intermittent employment and irregular wages would permit. Second,
it left the villagers with plenty of time and imposed upon them a
relative sense of ease in their daily life. With time on their hands, no
money to engage in commercial recreational activities and little
education for the pleasure of abstract pursuits, ‘collective idling’ was
the major leisure pursuit in the village.
The village institution par excellence was undoubtedly the
village coffee shop. The largest coffee shop in Bukit Ho Swee was
to be found at the ‘T’ junction of the two roads. A wide, open
shopfront with tables and chairs spilling beyond its sheltered
premises on to the side of the road, all well shaded by a huge tree,
this coffee shop was never without several men and teenagers in it,
huddled in groups or scattering themselves at different tables. The
activities were always the same. A huddled group was as likely as
not to be engaged in one of several forms of gambling, some of
which were quite ingenious. The most peculiar might be the
challenge to slice through a ripe banana with a very sharp blade
such that the sliced off section hung precariously on a thin sliver of
86 The business of living

the skin. The skill involved was substantial for the general tendency
was to slice the banana right through. The one who literally
produced the cliffhanger won the bet. Other more conventional
modes of gambling involved cards, matchsticks and fighting fish.
If it was not gambling, then it would be plain idling and
intermittent repartee. The substance of the conversation was never
rarefied discussion of weighty issues but trading of jokes, mild
putdowns, boastful self-defence and aggrandising embellishments
of one’s exploits. During these routine idling sessions, one man
stood out as a resource person. He was an opium addict who fed his
habit as a numbers game collector. He was literate in Chinese and
would read the Chinese newspaper aloud to the audience present.
The latter would contribute their opinions at will. All was conducted
in Hokkien, of course. Agreements were always based on
immediate judgements of rights and wrongs, wins and losses; and if
China were involved in the news item, then the audience’s
sentiment was entirely predictable. It would be unembarrassingly
pro-China, such was their taken-for-granted Chineseness.
While the coffee shop might be the prime gathering spot, such
spots were multiplied and distributed throughout the village. Every
shopfront and every clearing would have benches for anyone to
perch on. The ever-present knots of people at these gathering spots
unintentionally but simultaneously served to keep a watchful eye on
the comings and goings of villagers and strangers. The camaraderie
generated by collective idling imparted to the villagers a strong
sense of belonging and community.
An external source of ‘affordable’ entertainment was the
Rediffusion, a privately owned cable radio service. The programme
most listened to had to be the half-hour segments of serialised gong-fu
stories narrated in Hokkien, which were broadcast at 9:00 p.m., five
nights a week. The coffee shop radio would be tuned to full volume,
males of all ages gathered around the table stirring and sipping coffee
and catching the unfoldings of the struggles between good and evil—
the moral of the stories were that simple. The end of the segment at
9:30 p.m. also signalled the end of a routine village day. So, after
allowing for a few minutes of discussion regarding the segment of the
story just broadcast and for downing the coffee that was still in the cup,
the coffee shop closed after about fourteen hours of business.
The signal for the end of this mode of living, in which life was
lived largely in the open, could not have had more apt symbolic
significance than the razing of Bukit Ho Swee by fire in the very
 The business of living 87

first year of the 1960s, and two years after self-government had
been obtained by the People’s Action Party government from the
British Crown. On the ground where atap houses had stood was to
be built the very first substantial housing estate by the then newly
constituted Housing and Development Board (HDB). The
conjunction of these events imparted to Bukit Ho Swee a symbolic
place in the history of Singapore, as the quintessential urban slum
and squalor in official terms,3 while the HDB was to go on from
there to achieve its own status as the symbol of the successful
transformation of Singapore, from rags to riches.4

THE MID-1980S
If the everyday life in the late 1950s could be described with some
generality and relative coherence, it was because the prevalent
condition of underemployment at the individual level and
underdevelopment at the national level imposed a relatively uniform
material and psychological horizon on the majority of the population,
one characterised by the paramount concern of satisfying basic
needs. The same level of uniformity and generality cannot be
obtained when one attempts to describe the everyday life of the mid-
1980s and beyond. This is because the opportunities provided by the
rapid industrialisation and economic growth have resulted in a
greater differentiation of society through a wider spectrum of income
divisions. Each income stratum now sustains its own way of life.
In addition to this differentiation by income, there is a further
fragmentation of group activities by age. Even the simple collective
gatherings that used to accommodate individuals of all ages have
become age conscious. The old stay close to their residential base in
the public housing estates while the young are attracted to the
corridors of the shopping complexes and fast food outlets. A
McDonald’s hamburger outlet is a greater magnet for attracting the
young than the entire town centre of a large public housing estate
with its multiplicity of facilities. The gainfully employed no longer
have the leisure to idle.
Although these differentiations are undeniable and must be
dealt with analytically, there are nevertheless some uniformities
as a result of all being ruled by the same governmental decisions
and policies. These uniformities should be dealt with first to
serve as a framework within which the differentiated features
may be examined.
88 The business of living

The most immediate broad-based transformation of the everyday

life of all Singaporeans is the absence of unemployment and the
resulting enhanced standard of living. Large-scale unemployment
was wiped out by the early 1970s, and real growth in income has
also increased steadily since that period. An interesting indicator of
these developments is the change in women’s participation in the
labour force. In 1957, the age-participation profile of women had
two low peaks: one for young women employed mostly in service
and sales occupations, and another for women over forty engaged
mainly in domestic services. In 1980, women’s labour-force
participation increased sharply, peaking at around the age of
twenty-two before falling rapidly in subsequent ages. Significantly,
the second peak at over forty has disappeared (Pang, 1982:19).
Attention is commonly focused on the increase in the overall
proportion of women’s participation. However, of equal importance
is the absence of women over forty in the labour force. This absence
is an indicator of the relative affluence of the families so that
middle-aged and older women no longer need to earn
supplementary incomes—as they would need to do in instances of
economic insecurity and poverty. Domestic services are now
managed by foreign workers drawn from neighbouring nations on a
temporary-work-permit basis. The sources of such servants are the
Philippines, Indonesia and South Asian countries. The incomes of
Singapore women themselves more than compensate for the cost of
engaging such a service, even with the hefty employment levy
imposed on the employer by the government.
Absence of unemployment has also channelled a floating,
irregular labour force into the disciplined routines of Singapore
industries. This has probably been adopted by the workers with
mixed feelings of acceptance and reluctance: acceptance because
the regular employment provides economic security, reluctance
because the regularity and discipline of industrial work does not
admit the easy pace of life of irregular work. This loss of ease and
its contrast to a disciplined daily life may be contributing elements
to a common nostalgia for the ‘good’ village life (Chua, 1994).
The transformation of a loosely structured labour force within a
trading economy to a regularised one employed in a diversified
industrial economy is greatly assisted by the massive development
of public housing. The motivation to mount a national public
housing programme was largely the deterioriating physical living
conditions, with their attendant social, psychological and health
 The business of living 89

problems. However, one of its consequences was to keep the

workers in regular employment. Simply put, regular employment
is necessary to meet either the monthly rent or the mortgage
payment for the ninety-nine-year lease-ownership of the flat
purchased from the HDB.
Indeed, rent or mortgage payment has become the uppermost
concern for families who are unable to take their financial condition
for granted. It is the first standing-cost item to be lopped from the
monthly household income, followed by the payment for public
utilities, and then finally the remaining dollars go for food. Food is
the most flexible item in the household budget because it is
controlled directly by the family itself. Nevertheless, this
willingness to place rent or mortgage before food is a measure of
the seriousness with which Singaporeans take their social
responsibilities. One can readily imagine that households in
financial difficulties might choose to neglect rent payment,
especially since technically the landlord is the government, whose
function, among other things, is to provide welfare for the citizens.
However, these people are in the small minority of the more than 85
per cent of the national population who live in HDB flats.
For the majority, the need to meet monthly payments is not even
part of their conscious budgeting. That it will be paid is taken for
granted because it is deducted at an anonymous bureaucratic
distance from their Central Provident Fund (CPF) accounts, a
compulsory saving mechanism devised by the government. With
mortgages excluded from the phenomenological horizon of their
expenditure awareness, they are quite free to spend their income at
hand on improving their already substantial material life. Indeed,
the CPF device for financing home ownership may have succeeded
a little too well, judging by the relative unconcern with which
Singaporeans spend money on decorating their HDB flats and
private condominiums.
As to the material life of Singaporeans, a sea change has taken
place. Inside the house, the possession of consumer durables is at the
level of the developed nations. Refrigerators and television sets (TV
was introduced into Singapore in 1963) are found in practically all
homes. A substantial proportion of public rental households possess
telephones, disclosing that while they may not have title to their flats
they are, nevertheless, not deprived of modern amenities. Indeed, for
some to continue renting instead of buying is perhaps for reasons
other than the affordability of the flats themselves. It should be noted,
90 The business of living

too, that the high standard of living is often maintained through

multiple incomes of several members of the family.
On the street, the raised standard of living can be seen adorned
on the very bodies of the citizens. The traditional ethnic dress codes
for women and simple functional clothes for men according to their
respective occupations—T-shirts for the labourers and starched
white shirts for the office workers—have been replaced by a
plethora of the latest designs and colours. Traditional ethnic clothes
are now worn as intentional ethnic identity markers, that is, they are
now an ideological statement maintained against the tide of
internationalisation of the dress codes. They are also used on
explicitly ethnic-based, social occasions, especially by Malays and
Indians. For example, young Malay women dress traditionally as an
overt proclamation of their religiosity as Muslims. As for the
Chinese, traditional clothes have been all but abandoned by those
less than forty years old.
Apart from the minority groups and formal occasions, the
fashion on the street follows trends imported from all over the
world. The brand-name shops found in the more expensive
shopping complexes on Orchard Road not only serve the tourists
but bring with them a significant cultural influence. Increased
fashion and brandname consciousness cuts across class lines. The
latest Japanese fashions are available at affordable prices to
teenagers, while further up market the latest Paris and Milan
designer clothes are available not only to women but also to men.
As for expensive accessories such as watches and leather goods,
there are plenty of imported imitations that bring the ‘names’, if not
the quality, within the consumption horizon of those who cannot
afford the real thing.
With the exception of a minority who may claim it as an
occupational necessity, the most extravagant consumer item in this
little island nation is the car. This has not escaped the government’s
notice. Consequently, the car is taxed with a duty of 150 per cent
over and above the actual import price. So too is the price of petrol
subjected to heavy customs duty. In fact, duty on petrol is the
foremost revenue earner of the Customs and Excise Department.
The government’s reason for imposing such heavy taxes is to
discourage car ownership and reduce congestion on the roads. Yet
an entire network of interlinking expressways that criss-cross the
island has been built to accommodate the ever-expanding car
population. Car ownership has increased every year, except during
 The business of living 91

the brief recession in 1985, when a decline in new car sales led to a
substantial reduction of revenue for the government. That the car is
a status commodity is disclosed by the admission of some car
owners that they often have to budget between personal expenditure
and the need to fill up at the petrol pump. Offering a ride to a friend
does not come easily, despite the best of intentions, with the price of
petrol in Singapore.
Full employment, modern buildings that house shopping
facilities and people, fashionable clothes and cars—all these are
highly visible signs and symbols of the relative affluence of
Singaporeans in general. These icons of modernity and
consumerism float above a sub-stratum of the mundane, uneventful
reproduction of daily life which, for the overwhelming majority of
the population, is enacted within the confines of the public housing
estates. Thus, a description of the rhythm of this reproduction in the
high-rise, high-density housing estates is essential to fill out the
sense of everyday life in the mid-1980s.
The people to be seen in an estate earliest in the morning are
those who serve the residents. Food vendors arrive at their market
stalls before 6:00 a.m. to set up for the brisk three hours of business
from about 7:00 a.m. The newspaper vendor arrives and leaves
bundles of papers at the void deck and delivers from there to all the
subscribers in different blocks. Then come the daily-rated cleaning
crew who collect the refuse from the day before and sweep the open
areas of the estate. Maintenance of all the public areas is directly
assumed by the HDB or a town council rather than left to the
residents; the latter pay a conservancy charge for the service. This
accounts for the high level of maintenance as compared with public
housing authorities elsewhere which leave it to the residents and
hence to chance.
The residents leaving the housing blocks earliest are usually the
schoolchildren, the youngest ones often accompanied by mothers or
grandmothers, heading for public buses or waiting for privately run
buses that ferry them to and from school. They sport uniforms of
indescribable colours. There was a time when one could tell the
names of the schools by the styles and colours. Not anymore. Schools
have mushroomed, and so have the colours. They are laden with more
than just heavy school bags. As in all developing countries, they are
burdened with the consciousness that education is the only road to
upward mobility, and are only too keenly aware of the competition.
This consciousness is further reinforced by the anxieties of the
92 The business of living

parents and the constant public discussion of education as an issue

that has refused to settle down since the late 1970s.
By 7:00 a.m. the tempo of life is picking up. There are many
more schoolchildren, in a hurry now, for school begins in half an
hour. Workers, individually and in groups, start to leave for work.
The lower-income workers are clearly identifiable by their clothes:
jeans and T-shirts for the men and, in addition to jeans, skirts and T-
shirts for women production workers. The T-shirts often advertise
consumer products or the names of companies, indicating that they
are gifts from advertisers. For these working people, the modes of
transport are either motor cycles, Japanese vans and pick-up trucks
or the public transportation system. The white-collar workers are
differently attired. However, it is not possible to guess which level
each is at in the modern bureaucracy. Some possess their own cars,
others wait to be picked up.
There used to be a symbiotic arrangement between car owners and
those who need rides. The car owners, happily or otherwise, needed
three passengers if they were to save themselves the five-dollar entry
fee into the central business district between 7:30 and 10:15 a.m. The
passengers thus got a comfortable and free ride to work instead of a
hot and humid squeeze in crowded buses. However, the law has been
changed. Now every car entering the central business district has to
pay a surcharge of two or three dollars, depending on the time of the
day, regardless of number of passengers. As a result, such symbiotic
arrangements have all but ceased.
Attending these human movements is the din of traffic that rises
to its maximum pitch at around 8:00 a.m. After this morning rush,
the traffic noise throughout the estate drops very noticeably, almost
instantaneously, into peace and quiet. By then, having seen their
charges off either to work or to school, the housewives begin to go
to market. Some early birds are already returning with their
purchases. The differences in generations among the housewives are
again signalled by their clothing. The middle-aged and elderly sport
short-sleeved blouses with flat Chinese collars, buttoned down the
front, teamed with baggy straight-legged trousers of the same
material; the younger women wear simple shirts, shorts, or rayon
batik nightshirts. They go to market without the shopping baskets
which were de rigueur during the 1950s. Purchases come in thin
pink or white plastic bags these days. The time at which the
housewives go to market is significant. Those without family budget
constraints tend to shop early to get the freshest foods, those with
 The business of living 93

tight budgets shop at the tail end of the market morning because by
then vendors readily sell perishable fresh produce, meat, and fish at
much reduced prices.
These marketing trips are more than merely functional. They are
occasions through which social ties among the women are renewed
and revitalised in a routine, uneventful process. From the point of
view of community sentiments, these short repetitive occasions are
of greater significance than any one of the formal or ritual occasions
in which large groups of residents, often unknown to each other, are
brought together. For the women, the marketing activities and the
people they meet constitute the taken-for granted sense of being
among friends and acquaintances as they move among the mass of
people in the large housing estates.
By the late morning, there is a lull in activity in the residential
blocks. The middle-aged and the elderly women will return to the
void decks5 of the residential blocks at around 3:00 p.m. and spend
time together. They sometimes engage in Chinese card games but
usually just sit around the concrete tables provided by the HDB and
exchange ‘hearsays’. Strong neighbourly ties develop among them;
they come to know each other’s daily schedules and expect each
other at particular times of the afternoon. Absence therefore
constitutes an event worth noting and for which an explanation will
be sought and given. Those without domestic responsibilities will
stay till dinner time, the others will go upstairs to prepare dinner at
around 4:30 p.m.
From 5:00 p.m., workers begin to return home. Now the much-
neglected playgrounds, abandoned to the fierce tropical sun all day,
come into their own. Mothers and grandparents accompany their
charges at play. The older children and teenagers use the hard courts
for different games such as soccer, rounders or basketball.
Badminton is played everywhere. After 6.00, students from the
afternoon sessions of schools will also start to stream home, playing
along the way and taking as much time to get home as permissible.
They know that once they arrive home play stops and homework
takes over after dinner.
After dinner, the elderly women return to their gathering points.
This time, working-class men of all ages can also be seen in their
own clusters either at a different section of the void deck from the
women or in different void decks of different blocks. Gender
segregation is still maintained among this generation. The same is
not true of the teenagers, who mix freely as they also spend the
94 The business of living

evenings at the void decks. For the senior members among the
residents, the night gathering is only for a couple of hours as they
are drawn more to television. The Chinese serials come on at 9:30
and to these they will turn, in the comfort of their own sitting-
rooms, as the final activity of the day.
Full employment has removed the able-bodied from the
residential community in HDB estates. They are to be seen only at
weekends. The demands of formal education have removed children
and teenagers from the streets; in the latter case, conscription of
males into two-and-a-half years of military service adds to their
absence. For the larger part of each weekday, the housing estate
remains the territory of the retired and the housewives. Among these
residence-bound individuals, the social isolation of the flats
themselves has spawned a significant cultural transformation.
Rather than being hidden in the households according to cultural
dictates, women have broken down the confines of the flat and
freely use public spaces at the ground level, treating such public
exposure of themselves as unproblematic. The cultural horizons of
the women have certainly expanded, and for the better.
If the above description of everyday life in public housing estates
appears closely tied to clock time, this itself is a consequence of the
changes that have taken place. Industrial time-consciousness does
not and cannot confine itself only to the work-place but must
necessarily pervade the entire social body in order that the
schedules of industry be maintained.

THE TRANSFORMATION ASSESSED

As suggested in the conceptual opening of this chapter, in modern
bureaucratically administered states, the cummulative effects of a
series of administrative decisions may affect the transformation of
the existing everyday life into a new configuration. Therefore, in any
effective government—people relation, the realm of everyday life is
necessarily the realm of political and administrative practices. The
people’s expectation of an effective government is the changing of
their everyday life incrementally for the better. Correspondingly, this
expectation must also be a core interest of the political leaders
because the moral basis of their tenure in the seats of power depends
significantly on its fulfilment. The PAP government’s ideology of
pragmatism aims precisely at realising a society where all citizens
can have a decent living with rising incomes and improved standard
 The business of living 95

of living. The transformation described above attests amply to the

success of the government in fulfilling the people’s expectations.
One significant factor contributing to the success is, of course,
domestic political stability. The long duration of the PAP leadership
enables it both strategically and tactically to dominate the political
arena through the use of the law. This has changed the public sphere
to one that is largely in need of administration rather than one
fraught with political contestations. The everyday life of the people
becomes conducive to rational planning and administration by large
public service agencies and statutory boards. These agencies are
operationally relatively unrestrained in the absence of strong
opposition parties. The only check on them is one of instrumental
effectiveness in achieving the targets of their respective plans.
For a large part of the population, the goals of full employment,
improved standards of housing, health and education all made
immediate sense. They have therefore co-operated with the
government, for their own material benefits if nothing else, by
returning the PAP to power in every election since 1968. Up till the
mid-1980s, it must be said that the people had accepted the PAP
government’s definition of the situation that faced Singapore. The end
result has been to transform the everyday life of Singaporeans from
one that was constituted by struggles for necessities to one constituted
by the presence of choices and the ability to exercise them. It is from
this new situation that one must look towards the future.
Concomitant with the rapid increase in employment opportunities
is the emergence of income strata within the population; instead of
being unified by common relative poverty, it is now stratified by
significant income differences. It may be divided thus: (1) the
technocratic-bureaucratic elite, who run the public services and the
statutory boards and manage the Singapore branches of multinational
corporations; (2) the middle management of the above, together with
independent operators in the private service sector; (3) the production
and labouring workers; and (4) those who continue to live in poverty
despite the overall improvements in the nation. As the demands
generated by each stratum will be significantly different,
government’s responses to their demands will have to be much more
specific than in the past when one rule or one standardised service for
all would generally suffice.
For the labouring and the poor groups, the priority will still be the
upgrading of material life. Here, employment opportunities still have to
be stressed. Yet even in these strata, personal choices are beginning to
96 The business of living

play a part. For example, an unemployed person is no longer willing

simply to take any job but awaits one that suits personal disposition.
The problem may not become serious if the economic restructuring to
middle technological levels proves successful and if the production
work-force can be trained to fill the jobs made available.
The demands of the middle class are much more complex.
Secure in their material comfort, their future demands will be
largely for what may be called a better quality of life. The most
obvious of which is a desire for ‘high culture’ refinements. This is
given official recognition in so far as the government endorses
‘gracious living’ for the future. Another source of demand will be
political in nature: more control over one’s own private life and
more say in the management of the public sphere. From the
government’s position, the best strategy would be to incorporate
these desires into its organised feedback network and provide some
individuals with opportunities to be active in the multiple levels of
the political domain. However, while this may suit those who are
ideologically in accord with the government, it is not likely to
satisfy those who have either generalised or particularistic
discontents. For the latter groups, dissatisfactions may not coalesce
into explicit opposition in the realm of party politics but instead
crystallise into scepticism and resistance by disregarding
government initiatives in general or in specific issues and sectors of
the social life. Scepticism and resistance may be gleaned from the
PAP’s failure to regain the popular support to the pre-1984 level of
around 75 per cent in the two subsequent general elections in 1988
and 1991; instead support has slipped to around 60 per cent.
In the context of such possible resistance, the government has not
abdicated its responsibility to manage the welfare of the nation but
has nevertheless changed some of its operational procedures. It is
now more willing to convene select committees of parliamentarians
to hear public submissions on specific issues and to establish
specialised committees with members drawn from non-government
sectors to examine specific problems and recommendations, such as
the 1985 Economic Committee. It is also using White Papers more
frequently to solicit public discussion on important legislative
proposals; the most recent and most important of which has been
the White Paper on the proposed ‘Goods and Services Tax’, which
was issued a whole year ahead of its implementation in 1994. In
general, the government is now more inclined to float an idea
 The business of living 97

publicly and draw as much discussion as possible before

implementing certain policies.
Broadly speaking, clearly formulated, singular goals backed by
firm resolve and simple rules that facilitate speedy administrative
execution have cautiously begun to accommodate complexities in the
definition of the goals and to make room for individual differences. In
addition, the government has also recognised the need to make
greater efforts to convince and persuade the citizens of the rationality
of its policies. The public relations functions of government agencies
are being strengthened and their officers instructed to provide the
fullest information possible without breaching confidentiality.
Beyond the income-differentiated demands, the general attitude
of society has also shifted significantly towards increasing
individualism. Given their immigrant background, Singaporeans
may have developed a keen self-centredness in their struggle to
survive the migration and to support the families they left behind
(Lee Kuan Yew, Straits Times, 1 May, 1981). This plausible cultural
heritage is further reinforced by two related factors. First, the logic
of the marketplace in which an individual’s value is calculated
exclusively in terms of utilitarian exchanges and not social moral
worth. Such economic individualism is given impetus and
reinforcement by national economic success. Related to this is the
government’s promotion of meritocracy since the early 1980s in its
desire to extract ‘excellence’ from every individual Singaporean.
This emphasis is double-edged. While it may encourage the pursuit
of excellence in individuals, it also encourages them to demand
their just economic and other returns as individuals, without much
concern for the social supports that have underpinned that pursuit.
Furthermore, at both the societal and individual levels, meritocracy
serves to legitimise income stratification as the natural outcome of
individual effort or the lack thereof. One’s willingness to aid the
poor and needy is at best one of humanitarian largesse rather than
an intrinsic social moral obligation. All these cultural and
ideological concepts contribute significantly towards intensifying
individualism.
Whatever merits individualism may have, the government’s
attitude towards it is categorically negative at two levels. First, in its
assessment of the productive superiority of Japanese industries over
those of Western developed nations, teamwork appears to be the
crucial explanation. Hence, teamwork and consensus are stressed in
the work-place without, it is hoped, undermining meritocracy itself
98 The business of living

(Chua, 1982). Second, at the political level, the rising demands for
alleged rights by various groups in the West—a phenomenon not
unconnected with entrenched individualism—are read as negative
and therefore to be avoided.
Rather than allowing emerging individualism to run its own
course, it is being directly confronted in all possible institutions
within the ideological terrain. Foremost among these efforts was
the attempt, abandoned in 1990, to institutionalise moral
education in schools through the Religious Knowledge
curriculum and by teaching Confucian ethics; the ideological
history of this attempt will be analysed in Chapter 7. In addition,
wherever possible administrative regulations are designed to
shore up the family as the basic social institution, pre-eminently
as in housing and health policies. In this, the government is
greatly aided by the continuing strength of the family as a moral
institution for Singaporeans, even without its explicit
encouragement. Finally, the government is helped by the popular
acceptance of the ‘logic of smallness’ of the nation which argues
that the fragmentation of a national consensus by individual
demands may mean the demise of all.
The end result of the ideological contest appears to be a
cautiously circumscribed language of rights contained within a
well-developed language of social responsibility. This appears to be
holding among the majority of the population. However, given the
increasing educational attainment and what is described above as
the middle-income groups’ likely demands, the pressure appears to
be for greater freedom in all sectors of everyday life, especially in
the cultural sphere.
The resistance and expectations that have arisen or may arise
from the transformed everyday life emerge out of a significant
feature of the everyday life itself. In practice, the level of well-being
in a nation may slide downwards as a result of either man-made or
natural causes and the population by necessity will adjust to these
downturns. However, people’s expectations are asymmetrically
orientated towards the enhancement of well-being, incrementally
but continuously. This process is generically conceptualised, often
with negative overtones, as the ‘problem of rising expectations’.
People expect the government to provide opportunities to match
their aspirations and motivations. There is thus sustained pressure
on the government to outperform itself on every front.
In political and administrative practices, ‘rising expectations’ has
 The business of living 99

to be accepted as a point of departure. The PAP government’s

manifesto for the twenty-first century, identified with the new
generation of leaders and encapsulated in the statement called The
Next Lap (1991), appears to recognise the increase in demands. It
explicitly articulates some measure of what the government, with
the co-operation of the people, expects to be able to achieve by the
end of the century. This manifesto serves both as a promise—hence
a yardstick against which the present generation of leaders may be
measured—and as a goal which it is hoped will unite the population
and channel their collective energies. However, it must be noted that
this vision contains largely items related to increasing the already
quite high standard of material well-being and an explicit
commitment to expand artistic and cultural activities. What has been
left undefined is the future of the political system, the contours of
which the PAP government is attempting to define with a set of
ideological concepts under the master discourse of
communitarianism.

NOTES
1 ‘Everyday life’ as an analytic focus is a relatively recent development within
sociology—decades after it was given its due in literature by James Joyce’s
Ulysses, first published privately in Paris in 1922. Consequently, as an object
of enquiry it is still largely unformed and the conceptual boundaries have yet
to be firmly demarcated.
2 Statistical representativeness for this descriptive account can be drawn from
the social survey conducted by and reported in Goh Kent Swee, Urban
Incomes and Housing (1955). Instead of footnoting item by item, a summary
of the relevant statistics is provided here: atap houses were the most important
welling units outside the inner city, and the largest concentration was to be
found within Ward VI of the city’s administrative divisions, which included
Bukit Ho Swee Village, covered by the survey. Seventy two per cent of the
heads of households were employed; this included casual contract labourers
who moved from one employer to another as opportunities offered themselves.
Fifteen per cent engaged in ‘one man’ business, including hawking.
Individuals of eighteen years and under were generally not employed; 4 and 2
per cent of boys and girls respectively were employed. Seventy eight per
cent of the heads of households had no education or had only elementary
vernacular education; of the householders, presumably including children,
only 10 per cent had an English education and 45 per cent a vernacular
education. The average income of employees was $138 per month, while
the poverty line for households was $125 per month. Households were often
held together financially through a multiplicity of supplementary incomes.
Poverty declined with increases in income, of course, and became negligible
when it reached $300 per month.
100 The business of living

3 See The Emergence of Bukit Ho Swee Estate: From Desolution to Progress

(Singapore: Singapore News and Publications, 1983).
4 The success story of the Housing and Development Board is told in two
commemorative books issued by the Board itself in 1985, its twenty-fifth
anniversary: Wong and Yeh (eds), Housing a Nation: 25 years of Public
Housing in Singapore (1985) and Chua, Designed for Living.
5 The ground level of most public housing blocks is left vacant as a social space
for the residents, hence this level is known as the ‘void deck’.
Chapter 5

The making of a new nation

Cultural construction and national identity
With Eddie C.Y.Kuo

The massive transformation of everyday life in Singapore is the result

of fundamental structural changes in practically every social and
cultural sphere. These structural changes are all the more radical and
their effects more impressive when one considers that Singapore as
an independent nation-state was first and foremost a political reality
foisted on a population under conditions beyond their control. Once
this was a fait accompli, a ‘nation’ had to be constructed. In this
sense, the birth of a Singaporean national identity can be located
precisely at the point of its founding in 1965. However, the state was
not without encumbrances.
Having been a British colonial trading post since 1819, the island
of Singapore was not without a past with its attendant culture,
economy and polity. The population was drawn from a variety of
geographical origins. These origins were embedded in the
population’s cultural orientations to different ‘homelands’ that did not
include the island itself. Immigrants, who had no initial intention of
settling permanently formed the majority of the population in the
1960s. They, especially the Chinese, were characteristically highly
adaptable and displayed shifting loyalty towards different authorities
at different times (Wang, 1989). However, even the local-born
inhabitants had anchored their cultural orientation to imaginary
homelands, transmitted at homes and in schools financed by the
respective vernacular groups. Singaporean culture as such was an
‘absence’, something inconceivable.
The colonial economy imposed its own cultural effects on the
population. The entrepôt trade imposed an ethnically determined
division of labour. At the top of the ethnic stratification structure was
the white population. Then came the English-educated Indians who
102 The making of a new nation

manned a significant proportion of junior colonial administralive

jobs. The lowest colonial jobs, such as postmen and rank and file
policemen, went to some Malays. The Chinese majority, excluded
from the colonial service, spread through the entire spectrum of the
economy, with high visibility in both trading activities and low-paid
physical labour, signified by the ‘coolie’. This was the classic ‘plural
society’, where different ethnic groups could maintain relative racial
peace living side by side because crossing over racial lines was near
impossible. Unity of the population as a ‘people’ did not exist nor
was it thought of as desirable.
Politically, there was the legacy of approximately 150 years of
British colonialism, from 1819 to 1959. Within this regime,
Singaporean as an political category did not exist; an inhabitant was
either an alien or a British subject. In addition to their being subjected
to humiliation at the hands of the colonialists, the political legacy also
imparted to the population, especially the English-educated
constituent, a semblance of understanding of Western democracy and
other Western cultural elements, such as political freedom and
scientific and technological rationality. This colonial legacy might be
said to be the one shared experience of the Asian population. Finally,
there was the inescapable fact of geography. The cultural elements
interacted with geography to produce on the tiny island an enclave of
numerically dominant Chinese population, in a region where Malay
speakers were the regional, indigenous majority.
The above configuration conspired to discourage the idea of
Singapore as an independent nation. Only when it had become a fait
accompli, was it necessary to produce a ‘nation’ and a ‘people’.

SINGAPOREAN CULTURE AND IDENTITY AS DISCURSIVE

OBJECTS
Collectively, the cultural, economic, political and geographical
elements constituted a field of criss-crossing concepts and
conceptual relations that overdetermined the formation of
‘Singapore’ as a nation and of ‘Singaporeans’ as its citizens. These
terms, Singapore and Singaporean, refer not to the ontological
geographical feature of the island nor to the biological being-as-such.
They are unavoidably the results of discursive practices that
formulate them as objects with specific but temporally changing
characters, which are ‘called into existence’ by statements that
circulate in different discourses, in different spheres of social
 The making of a new nation 103

practices. Each of the given ontological elements, singularly or

interactively, can be discursively thematised to produce specific
social, cultural and political effects in the discursive formation of the
new nation and its people.
Take, for example, a person’s racial origin. This ontological
element can be transformed into a discursive object and inscribed
on an individual as his/her ‘true’ attribute in the discourse on race,
the better to invoke such elements for various institutional
disciplinary practices. Thus, race can become not only the sub-
stratum for explaining one’s behaviour, it can also become the
reason and focus of political decisions and social control. Each
time, statements are produced to bring forth different aspects of race
in order to constitute it as the relevant element in the rationalisation
of institutional practices.
The given elements will be strategically deployed for specific
moves in the discursive formation of ‘Singapore’ and ‘Singaporeans’.
In each deployment, some elements of the past will be discursively
suppressed or erased, others accented and given added semiological
significance. The context of each deployment is constituted by
responses to changes in social environment and changes in the
purpose at hand of the individuals who are responsible for the
constitution of the discursive objects of Singapore and Singaporeans
themselves. The history of Singaporean culture and identity is thus
characterised by a state of fluidity. Indeed, one may even say it is
characterised by a series of discontinuities that reflect the changing
conditions rather than one of constant and consistent unfolding from
some naturally given characteristics. Hence, instead of taking the past
as a given that is to be positivistically honoured, all retrospective
reference to ‘historical’ reality before 1965 must be analytically
treated as part of the discursive processes of ‘nation’ formation in the
current conjuncture.1
The ontological elements have been, and will continue to be,
invoked in the design and implementation of government policies
which are ostensibly designed for specific objectives in the realms
of economy, housing, population, education and language within
immediate and ongoing concerns of management of political
stability. However, in addition to these specific purposes, at an
abstract symbolic level, the policies collectively partake in a
concerted and continuous effort in the construction of a new
national identity. This chapter examines how the policies and their
accompanying events and discursive statements have led to the
104 The making of a new nation

making of a new state, a new economy, and indeed a new social

order; in other words, how they have led to the formation of
emergent ‘Singapore’ and ‘Singaporean-ness’.
The history of the Singaporean identity as a discursive object is
of very recent origin and the depth of the accumulated statements
that circulate within the state’s ongoing attempt to construct a
‘nation’ and a ‘people’ is relatively shallow and thus extremely fluid
and formative. The actual shapes of these discursive objects remain
relatively unclear compared to other nations with thick cultural
memories. Yet analysis of the Singapore case will be of particular
significance precisely because we are able to map the processes of
the shaping and evolution of these discursive objects from their
‘inconceivable’ past within a short span of three decades. Under the
circumstances, we are able to see most clearly the role of the state
and the process of ‘construction’, relatively free from layers of
historical and cultural memories.

THE GENEALOGY OF SINGAPOREAN CULTURE

As mentioned earlier, in the late 1950s, the population in Singapore
believed that Singapore as an independent political entity would be
economically non-viable for want of natural resources and a viable
domestic market for its industrial goods. They saw their destiny as
being tied to Peninsular Malaya, which would serve as the natural
hinterland, as both its market and supplier of necessary resources.
Consequently, when Singapore obtained self-government in
domestic affairs in 1959, under the leadership of Lee Kuan Yew,
Malay was made the sole national language, in preparation for
eventual merger. Loyalty of the people of Singapore was, therefore,
to be directed towards Malaya. Merger eventually took place in 1963
but the partnership lasted for less than three years before Singapore
was asked to leave the Federation of Malaysia to become an
independent city-state.2 A new national identity and new loyalty had
to be forged, this time to the new state of Singapore.
Once independent, Singapore immediately embarked on an
ambitious industrialisation programme with an aggressive export
orientation; a path blazed by South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and, of
course, Japan (Rodan, 1989). Subsequent economic success has
injected itself as an element of self-definition and pride in the people of
Singapore, boosting their sense of national identification (Willmott,
1989). Indeed, the term success has become symbolically synonymous
 The making of a new nation 105

with the history of the past three decades since independence, as

reflected in the titles of two major works on contemporary Singapore
(Drysdale, 1984; Sandhu and Wheatley, 1989).
Although successful industrialisation undoubtedly contributes to
development of national culture and identity, it is itself dependent
on the development of certain cultural traits. Industrialisation is not
just a technological and economic phenomenon but requires as one
of its necessary conditions the active transformation of a population
into a disciplined work-force (Offe, 1987:94), that is, the emergence
of a new social order characterised by instrumental rationality and a
population with strong achievement motivation. Cultural
development, in other words, had to abide by the dictates of the
logic of the economy.
Some cultural developments concomitant to economic
development are (1) discipline at the work-place and, by extension,
generalised social discipline (Quah, 1983); and (2) a general
orientation to a deep sense of competition with others for relative
advantages in consumption, a competition that manifests itself,
among other ways, in a constant personal upgrading of education
qualifications. These cultural features are the predominant qualities
and anxieties that characterise the everyday life-world of
Singaporeans today. For example, education of children has become
one of the highest anxiety-causing phenomena of parents.
Structurally, these economy-dictated values are the predominant
defining characters of the high-growth city-state, over and above
other cultural sentiments.
Significantly, these economy-based values were not extant on the
island at the time of political independence. As described in the
previous chapter, high unemployment had given rise to a lifestyle
that left an individual with a very significant degree of freedom vis-
à-vis work-related activities, albeit a freedom accompanied by very
substantial material deprivation. 3 In Singapore, the cultural
requirements of the industrial regime had, therefore, to be actively
established with the interventionist hand of the government. The
promotion of a disciplined work-force became ideologically linked
to the people’s daily struggles with ‘making a living’; job creation
became a priority in the agenda of the new nation in view of the
very high population growth rate of more than 4.3 per cent (Lim and
Associates, 1988:6). The two in turn became ideologically linked to
the survival of the new nation and its people. The promotion of a
disciplined work-force was, therefore, given precedence over the
106 The making of a new nation

promotion of other cultural practices from the very outset of

independence, and remains so today.
This generalised picture of cultural development since political
independence describes the processes that are explicitly put in place
by the government. It does not, however, imply that such politically
intentional cultural production is automatically or necessarily
successful in the sense that the citizens unreflectively abide by the
government’s decisions. Resistance leading to policy reversals has
occurred at different historical junctures, signalling that sections of
the population are often guided by their own cultural drummers, as
the analysis of specific policies will demonstrate.

THE MAKING OF A NEW STATE

On political independence, a ‘new nation’ had to be formulated and
produced. This was discursively achieved through the concept of
‘national interest’ which lends substance to the abstract entity of a
nation. The first strategic move for the newly formed government was
to distance itself from particularistic groups including those, such as
unions and Chinese-educated students, who were crucial to the
electoral success of the PAP government itself, in order to better
constitute itself as belonging to all (but none in particular). So, upon
independence, Foreign Minister Rajaratnam immediately proclaimed
that the PAP ‘has come to realize that the workers are a class with a
vested interest, and that as a political party, the PAP must work for the
interest of the whole country and not for not one class’ but to ‘seeks to
represent all the interests within the state’ (Quoted in Pang, 1971:21).
This distancing from specific groups enabled the government to
redefine the political space for race through the concept of
‘multiracialism’. ‘Race’ is held in abeyance politically by an
explicit recognition that Singapore is a ‘multiracial’ society and that
racial tolerance is to be safeguarded in the law. In so doing, the
government places itself in a neutral space that arguably compels it
to act in ways that do not privilege any particular group; racial
cultural practices are then relegated to the realm of private and
voluntaristic, individual or collective, practices.
The neutral stance preserves for the state a very high level of
autonomy and insulates it from pressures that may be generated by
race. First, race cannot be constituted as a legitimate basis of special
claims on the state without violating the norm of multiracialism.
Second, by not being identified with any race, the political
 The making of a new nation 107

leadership is free to consult any racial majority or minorities

without, however, having to act in the particular interests of any
group. Thus, in spite of the overwhelming Chinese majority, the
Singapore state has never been a Chinese state to its own political
detriment (Chua, 1994). Multiracialism thus has a two-pronged
effect: a high visibility of race is promoted voluntarily in the social
body and, concurrently, the strategic effect is one of pushing race
out of the front line of politics.
The logic of such a political strategy is best seen in contrast to
the Malaysian model of political development. Instead of adopting
‘multiculturalism’ to bury ‘racialism’, political parties in Malaysia
are organised along racial lines; consequently, representation and
protection of racial interests continue to be central to national
politics. The overall result is the unavoidable identification of the
interest of the ruling Malay Party with those of the Malay majority
(Ho, 1993). Whereas in Singapore, with only one exception, all
political parties are multiracial in composition; even the exclusive
Malay Party attempted a multiracial stance in the 1988 election.4 In
Parliament, additional demands are inevitably imposed on MPs
from minority groups to represent not only their electoral
constituencies but also their highly visible racial communities.
However, they are obliged to speak of so-called racial community
concerns within the terms of multiracialism and national interests.5
Multiracialism and national interests together provide the
grounds for interpreting political questions that are based on
specific interests of a racial group as ‘racial chauvinism’, which
supposedly can potentially destabilise the precarious balance of the
new state and wreck the nation from within. Alleged chauvinistic
agitation is, therefore, subjected to severe legal sanctions, including
incarceration under the Internal Security Act, which gives the
government the power to detain anyone without trial for up to a
two-year renewable term. It should be apparent that while racial
tolerance was given constitutional recognition, promotion of racial
differences is carefully restricted to largely privatised celebration of
festivals, dances and ornamental adornments.6
In sum, the discursive formulation of a ‘new nation’ with
‘national interests’ provides the legitimate space for the political
containment of race, class and other possible sectional differences.
The concept of national interest simultaneously denies these
differences as a rational basis for legitimate political organisation
and prevents them from being politically thematised in the public
108 The making of a new nation

domain by casting them as potentially against the national interests

themselves.
Taking the ‘national’ stance opened up several possibilities for
the state: distancing itself from potential interest groups enables the
government to delineate its relative autonomy which is absolutely
central to its smooth functioning (Poulantzas, 1978; Lewis, 1981).
Compared with other capitalist states, the autonomy of the new
Singapore state was secured with relative ease because (1) the PAP
government had already formed a partnership with labour prior to
coming to power; and (2) in a declining entrepôt economy under a
dying colonial regime, strong industrial, intellectual or landed
bourgeoisie that could resist the social penetration of the new
political power were all absent (Rodan, 1989).
Finally, having secured relative autonomy, the state acquires for
itself space to define the ‘national interests’ within the discourse of
‘national survival’. The discourse on survival was in turn fed by the
forementioned conjunctural elements, namely, perceived economic
non-viability; a Chinese enclave in the Malay Sea; mounting
domestic difficulties of unemployment, high demographic growth
rate and poor public health and housing conditions; and finally,
absence of political identification with the new nation by a
population of different individuals, each orientated to their own
respective homelands (Chan, 1971). Concerns with the survival of
the nation under such inauspicious circumstances can then be
ascribed to and implanted in every Singaporean without exception;
an implantation that facilitates the disciplining of the population
through the promotion of work-related values necessitated by
industrialisation. It should now be apparent that the discourse of the
‘new nation with national interests’ floated, and continue to float
above any preceding cultural practices of pre-independence days.

THE MAKING OF A NEW ECONOMIC ORDER

Nationally, economic survival meant the transformation of the
entrepôt economy to an industrial-based economy employing foreign
capital (Tan, 1976). In this drive for foreign industrial capital, the
experiences of the domestic trading community were completely
neglected in spite of representations made to the state by small and
medium indigenous enterprises. It was not until the severe but brief
recession in 1985 that the voices of indigenous capitalists were taken
into account with regard to economic policy considerations along
 The making of a new nation 109

with increased attention to developing the service sector economy

(Chalmers, 1992).
At the individual level, industrialisation required the development
in the new Singaporeans of an interest in ‘rising incomes and
improved standard of living’, to be achieved through willingness and
ability to work hard (Goh, 1976:81). It meant developing
concurrently the mutually supporting consumerist and productionist
orientations. At the work-place, the overarching cultural ethos
promoted is one of mutual trust and co-operation between labour,
employer and the state in order to maximise production from the
workers, profits for the enterprises and achievement of the national
objective of economic growth and survival. The dovetailing of
national and individual concerns, therefore, generated their own
concepts regarding the type of interests and social behaviour which
had to be inscribed on the new ‘Singaporeans’.
The desired productionist orientation of the worker was, however,
not left to cultural promotion alone; it was secured institutionally by
legislation aimed at creating and maintaining stable industrial
relations. First, the control of labour unions had to be wrenched from
the pro-communist leadership by deregistering their organisations and
detaining their radical leadership; in its place the pro-government
National Trade Union Congress was installed.7 Next, the role of trade
unions in collective bargaining for better wages and working
conditions was restrained by successive legislation in 1968, 1982 and
1984. Bargaining was further limited by a National Wage Council
which annually recommends the level of wage increase for the work-
force as a whole. The working population was in turn rewarded by
real improvements in the standard of living (Deyo, 1981). The
government’s retort to criticisms that the work-force has been
labouring under less than desirable legal conditions is, ‘but have they
not benefited from economic growth?’8
The implantation of a production orientation requires further
material support. An important source of support comes, significantly
but perhaps unexpectedly, from the government’s concerted effort to
improve the housing conditions of the population. Detailed analysis
of the public housing programme will be undertaken in the next
chapter, however, and only a brief statement needs to be made here.
Active encouragement of public housing ownership has as one of its
consequences the incorporation of the population into the industrial
work-force because an individual can best meet the regular schedule
of mortgage payments through income derived from regular
110 The making of a new nation

employment. This means of incorporating the population into the

economy is not lost on the government, which has declared its
intentions to create a ‘home-owning democracy’, so that the citizens
would have a material stake in the nation. The promotion of home
ownership has its own social and cultural implications which will be
discussed in the next section.
The fashioning of a new productive work-force requires also
other cultural pre-requisites. One of these is workers’ facility with
the English language, especially given the economic dependence on
foreign capital. From the outset, English, the colonial language, was
retained as the language of the new government, law and
commerce. However, multiracialism requires the languages of the
different racial groups to be formally given equivalent status. Here,
intra-group differences of dialects and languages among the
Chinese, Malays and Indians were radically reduced by the
installation of a single language each for the ‘Chinese’, the
‘Malays’ and the ‘Indians’ (Clammer, 1985). The three other
official languages were thus Mandarin, 9 Malay and Tamil,
respectively. These three offical langauges in turn signify the
presence of the three racial groups that are to be administered
through multiracialism. From then on, the population of the island
was constituted into a convenient set of ready-made categories,
abbreviated into ‘CMIO’, (Chinese, Malays, Indians and ‘O’ for
others) (Siddique, 1989).10
In the meantime, vernacular schools continued to operate (Kuo,
1980 and 1985b). However, given the overwhelming comparative
economic advantage of English in an expanding civil service and an
industrialising economy, vernacular schools were soon to lose their
student enrolment absolutely. The language issue will be further
discussed, but for now it should be noted that the predominance of
English, reflecting the dominance of economic rationality, was
further entrenched when the government made it the sole language
of instruction for academically weaker students who fail in regular
school examinations, just so that they, it was hoped, could be
gainfully employed. Thus, ironically, the language of the residual
‘other’ is the politically dominant.
Finally, within the productionist orientation of a capitalist
economy, and with the suspension of race as a basis for resource
distribution, formal meritocracy that allegedly denies particularistic
claims is ideologically promoted. This is most consequential in the
area of public goods. For example, housing is allocated according to
 The making of a new nation 111

a household’s ability to pay instead of other deserving grounds such

as poverty with a large family. Social inequalities are individualised
as the result of one’s own lack of ‘natural’ intelligence or diligence
or both. The insistence on individual effort is presumed necessary to
maintain productivity and to avoid the expansion of social
welfarism.

THE MAKING OF A NEW SOCIAL ORDER

Obviously, political and economic strategies have their effects on the
organisation of society itself; concommitant to the making of a new
state and a new economic order is thus the emergence of a new
pattern of social organisation. Three areas of the population’s
everyday life have been severely affected by policies designed for
economic development and the promotion of national identity,
namely, public housing provision, education and language policies
and family planning policies. The roles of the first two in the
formation of national interests had already been mentioned; we will
now flesh out their effects, along with the effects of family planning
in the social organisation of the new state.

Restructuring education

In addition to discipline, industrialisation requires that the workforce

be made efficient and productive through education. Opportunities
were greatly expanded from the early 1960s. However, education is
not restricted to imparting of technical knowledge, it also partakes in
inculcating social values that support nation-building objectives. The
second function was pursued as much as the first; education became a
major instrument of ‘social engineering’ (Wilson, 1978).
Under the colonial regime, with the exception of limited
opportunities for education in English-medium schools, the
education needs of the bulk of the population were largely financed
and staffed by the racial and dialect groups themselves. The
vernacular schools, divided along political, cultural and linguistic
orientations, had their divisive effects on the population. Both
teachers and textbooks had to be imported from the respective
‘homelands’ abroad, and the content of the books was of little
relevance, if not detrimental, to the emergence of the new nation.
However, to keep potential political tensions at bay, education
policies of the early 1960s retained nominal equality among
112 The making of a new nation

vernacular streams. In the meantime, a new national system was

being devised and instituted. Common curriculum and syllabus
were introduced; textbooks were locally prepared, teachers locally
trained, and a common examination standard imposed (Wilson,
1978:235). The possibility of forging a common political, economic
and social orientation among the population through education was
in place for the first time.
Politically, nationalistic rituals were introduced. There is a weekly
flag-raising and -lowering assembly, during which the national
anthem is played and sung. A national pledge is also recited, initially
in four languages but by now only in English. All these acts are, of
course, aimed at instilling a sense of national identity and loyalty.
However, like routinised ritualistic performances, they are done with
less than the requisite enthusiasm. In the case of the national anthem,
it is sung without much comprehension on the part of the majority of
the students as it is written in Malay, which although retained as the
nominal national language is not a compulsory language requirement
for all students. Yet its repetition may have cumulative effect among
the successive generations of students that now constitute a
substantial part of the citizenry.
At the individual level, educational qualifications have long been
a deciding factor in social and economic mobility. Being originally
from largely uneducated immigrant communities without
established intellectual traditions, the population generally
maintains an instrumental orientation towards education, with the
contemporary emphasis on making a living. The stress is to pass
successive examinations so as to obtain the necessary paper
qualifications (certificates of formal education) for a better job and
better material life. This process of the ‘certification of the self’
ends in self-worth being measured through the number of
educational certificates in one’s possession.
The government sees its role as one of providing equal
opportunities to all at entry point, then to let meritocracy account
for the inequality of results. The shrinking number of spaces at
successively higher education levels results in very keen and
stressful competition, for both students and their parents. Such
competition intensifies the instrumental orientation itself to the
exclusion of other values. This is reflected in the unbridled
dominance of English as the medium of instruction and the lingua
franca of the society. This led to an exodus of students from and the
eventual demise of vernacular institutions, which in turn facilitated
 The making of a new nation 113

the unification of all schools into a ‘national stream’ in 1987. Thus

completing the restructuring of the education system.11
However, by the late 1970s, the success of the materialistic
orientation was read as a cause for concern. The education system
was reviewed. In the process, several cultural consequences of the
dominance of English were revealed. First, while English
proficiency gives Singaporeans greater access to global economic
opportunities, it also renders them more susceptible to cultural
influences from Western sources, whose effects are discursively
labelled ‘Westernisation’. This ‘Westernisation’ was, and continues
to be seen in individual Singaporeans’ inclinations to such acts as
drug abuse, sexual permissiveness, consumerism and political
liberalism. Second, it is argued in essentialist fashion that the
domination of English is emotively problematic because it remains
a ‘superimposed’ Western language, thereby lacking cultural
authenticity and legitimacy. The then Prime Minister stated:
‘English will not be emotionally acceptable as our mother tongue’
(Straits Times, 22 Sept., 1984).
The government’s perceived deficiency in moral education and
the cultural entailments of ‘Westernisation’ were to be corrected by
the promotion of bilingualism and moral education at both primary
and secondary levels. The mother tongue of a child was to be
acquired in school as the second language along with English as the
first. It was believed that learning a mother tongue would facilitate
acquisition of ‘traditional Asian values’, which would in turn act to
resist the creeping negative influences of Westernisation. A moral
discourse is thus constituted by drawing a line between the
discursively constituted ‘Asian’ culture and ‘Western’ culture;
privileging the former over the latter. In addition, retention of the
different mother tongues by the respective racial communities
supposedly satisfied the emotive attachment each group has to its
identity (Kuo, 1985b). Finally, a short-lived new moral education
curriculum was instituted in the early 1980s which included the
teaching of religious knowledge at secondary school level, as will
be discussed later.

Restructuring community

The vast improvement in the population’s physical living conditions

brought about by the public housing programme is not to be disputed.
Nor should the programme’s role in sustaining the diffused mass
114 The making of a new nation

loyalty of the population to the PAP government be doubted. The social

costs incurred in the process of housing a nation should be assessed
against the background of such generalised benefits. One of the most
obvious and immediate costs was imposed on residents of established
settlements which had to be demolished in order to make land available
for new housing estates. After initial protests by residents who were
among the very first to have their land acquired by the government for
redevelopment purposes, organised resistance to the resettlement had
dissipated by the early 1970s (Aldrich, 1985). Arguably, it is the
generalised distribution of the benefits that has rendered the social
costs bearable to those who were so negatively affected (Chua, 1991b).
As the communities of urban squatters or semi-rural villages
tended to be racially homogeneous, and in the case of the Chinese
also dialect exclusive, demolition of these settlements was
tantamount to the destruction of ‘racial’ residential areas and their
attendant cultural practices. Subsequent dispersion was intensified
by the first-come-first-served rule in the allocation of public
housing flats; a rule which literally prevents individuals from
electing to live in close proximity.
The consequences, although suffered by all affected, have been,
nevertheless, unevenly distributed. They have been more severe for
members of the minority populations because the dispersion deprives
them of certain social supports that can be provided only by their
respective members. For example, in the case of Malay Muslims,
strict religious observations in terms of food and gender relations
make it difficult for working parents to entrust childcare
responsibilities to non-Malays. In addition, lower income also renders
it difficult for them to avail themselves of paid childcare centres.
These negative consequences have been justified in terms of the
national interest to promote inter-racial understanding and avoid
potential group violence, through the physical integration of all
racial groups within the new housing estates. Indeed, inter-racial
mixing is now enforced not only at the estate level but down to that
of the block itself. Quotas for each of the three races in each block
are monitored and maintained by obliging a vendor to sell his or her
flat only to a household which is from a race that is not already
overrepresented in the block.
Promotion of home ownership has also accelerated the
nuclearisation of families. Easy access to a home through the public
housing programme, combined with economic independence that
comes from wage labour, has made it relatively easy for newly weds
 The making of a new nation 115

to move out on their own and manage their own affairs, rather than
being involved constantly with the complexities of an extended
household. Indeed, it was argued, by then Minister of Finance in the
early 1960s (Goh, 1972:63), that because of its ethos of pulling
resources, the extended family acts as a damper to individual
initiative and productivity. Hence, the nuclear family with its
implied selfishness was better for the promotion of industrialisation.
In the late 1970s, the government was to come to reassess this rate
of nuclearisation and introduce, again through housing policies such
as priority of allocation and extension of the income ceiling of
eligibility, steps to attempt to slow it down by encouraging multi-
family housing arrangements (Chong et al., 1985:252–257), with
uncertain results.

Restructuring the family

The material problems of unemployment, housing shortages and

declining trading economy faced by Singapore, as a new state in
1965, could be further alleviated through reduction of the then high
population growth rate. A stringent population control programme
was therefore instituted. The ‘two is enough’ policy consisted of
granting a set of material incentives and disincentives in housing
allocation, education opportunities for children, tax and health care
benefits, accompanied by constant, aggressive publicity campaigns.
After two decades of the programme, helped by higher educational
levels and economic development, the fertility rate declined from 3.6
per cent in 1960 to 1.6 per cent in 1984. This apparent success was in
part dependent upon the demise of certain traditional values; a demise
that was once encouraged by the government. Important among the
‘discredited’ traditional values included the preference for large and
extended families, preference for sons over daughters, and
dependence on children for care in old age. The success also resulted
in more pragmatic attitudes towards marriage, family life and kinship
patterns (Wong, 1979). For example, as the appeals and incentives
were mostly financial and materialistic in nature, decisions on
courtship, marriage and raising of children tended to be based on
rational, even calculative, considerations.
Finally, the drastic reduction of the birth rate appeared to produce
its own problems, namely, the decline in population growth rate
similar to that of advanced developed countries. This raised the issue
of potential shortages of able-bodied citizens for both economic and
116 The making of a new nation

defence activities. The government projected a future drastic increase

in dependency ratio among an expanding retired population on its
shrinking economically active counterpart. This led it to abandon the
‘two is enough’ policy and to promote the current ‘three or more if
you can afford it’. However, the monetary incentive for the lower-
income mother to have two or less children remains in place, while
generous tax incentives were given to working mothers of high
income. The result of the new pro-natal policy has been unimpressive.
There have been only marginal annual increases in birth rates since
the new policy was introduced in 1987.

THE EXCESSES OF SUCCESS

From the above analysis, it should be apparent that evidence of
successful implantation of new cultural attitudes in the new
Singaporeans was abundantly clear by the late 1970s. The economy
grew in double digits annually while demographic growth subsided
radically; there was a shortage of labour as opposed to high
unemployment; the population became one of the best housed in the
world, so much so that some economists argued that there is an
overconsumption in housing (Lim et al., 1986); education attainment
of the population advanced with the expansion of educational
opportunities. In short, the material standard of living had improved
massively by the end of two decades of political independence. By
the late 1970s, the material orientation was well entrenched as part of
the ‘truths’ of being Singaporean. In the eyes of the government,
amongst others, this was manifested behaviourally in the various
forms of ‘excessive material consumption’ and attitudinally in
‘excessive individualism’.
The consumer service sector had expanded rapidly, up-market
hotel food and beverage facilities intended to cater to well-heeled
tourists are patronised equally by locals. Branded goods imported
from fashion centres of the world are largely purchased by local
customers (Chua, 1992b). However, one should not be hasty to label
this process as ‘excessive’ or ‘conspicuous’ consumption. Within the
historical context, the rapid expansion of consumption was, first, to a
significant degree one of ‘catching up’ or compensating for the
hitherto material deprivations of an underdeveloped nation. Second,
limits to consumption are quite identifiable. The extremely high costs
of housing and car ownership, in addition to the high rate of forced
savings through the compulsory social security savings scheme,
 The making of a new nation 117

known as the Central Provident Fund, collectively extract a very

significant proportion of a wage earner’s income and substantially
reduce the disposable income for consumption. Nevertheless,
consumption of items of self-adornment, such as clothes and
accessories, will likely be less affected, and indulgence will continue.
As for individualism, the first signs read by the government were
found in the work-place. In the constant search for more money,
workers appeared to be ‘job-hopping’, i.e. to be too willing to
change jobs. To the government this was symptomatic of an absence
of loyalty to the employer. Such an interpretation was conceptually
problematic because under circumstances where market forces are
the only constraints, a worker who actively seeks better
opportunities would rightfully be considered as enterprising.
Indeed, the tight labour market was largely responsible for the
willingness of companies to poach each other’s staff, knowing well
that the employees who join readily could leave just as readily. In
any event, this so-called ‘job-hopping’ was affecting productivity
and was thus duly considered a moral problem.
Elsewhere, ‘creeping individualism’ took a different form. It was
observed that single young professionals were applying for
government constructed middle-income flats in increasing numbers,
apparently in a hurry to leave their parental home. It was presumed
that this would lead to premature break-up of the family unit, and
therefore that it must be stopped. The government promptly returned
the deposits to the applicants, shut the register and with it the
opportunity for singles to own public housing flats (Chua, 1982). This
effectively reduced the degree of personal freedom of the single
individual who cannot afford the steep cost of private housing.
It should be noted that individualism is but a relative phenomenon
and it is common enough to hear criticisms of Singaporeans, by
themselves and others, as being overly passive and conformist,
particularly politically. Socially, there is yet another check on
individualism that arises in the very social organisation of Singapore,
without direct government intervention. Being a small island nation
with a relatively stable population, the density of social encounters is
relatively high; the frequency of chance meetings between
acquaintance, friends and relatives, near or distant, is very high. These
possible meetings act as informal checks on an individual, reducing
one’s inclination to public misdemeanour or individualist behaviour.
Qualifications on individualism and consumerism aside, the
perceived ‘excesses’ began to acquire a concreteness in public
118 The making of a new nation

discourse and led to several interesting formulations. Among the

positive images is: ‘Given the achievement that has been attained
and the far-flung benefits that have accrued, the Singaporean has
gained self-esteem, is confident—at times overly so among some—
ambitious, on the make. He travels widely, carrying his lap-top
computer and his confidence with him’ (Thumboo, 1989:766).
Other formulations are disparaging, of which the most inarticulate
and unoriginal is ‘the ugly Singaporean’; a more intellectual label
for the perceived nascent attitude of the new Singaporean is ‘the
cult of materialism’ (Ho, 1989).
Conjuncturally, similarly criticism against individualism was
being raised by American intellectuals as a self-critique of the post-
1960s social developments in advanced capitalist nations of the
West. It was one of those few occasions in recent intellectual history
in which the intellectual right and left arrived at the same critical
conclusions. For both parties, notionally the neo-Marxists and the
neo-conservatives, the malaise of the West in the 1970s was
unchecked individualism in terms of the ever-expanding claims of
subjective interests and expressions, without regard for
responsibility of the social sphere. The landmark intellectual works
of this American self-critique were The Culture of Narcissism
(Lasch, 1979) on the left and The Cultural Contradiction of
Capitalism (Bell, 1976) on the right. In the latter case, the critique
was accompanied by a call to return to traditional family and
religious values. While there is no evidence that the Singapore
government was influenced by such arguments, Lasch’s book did
receive public endorsement, by the then Minister of Education, as
foretelling the future of things to come in Singapore if nothing were
done to check the nascent individualism.
The meeting of sentiments between the PAP government and neo-
conservatives will be subjected to greater analysis in Chapter 7, for
now it should be noted that it was in part in this intellectual context
that the incipient Westernisation of Singaporeans was formulated as a
potential threat to the continuing prosperity of the new nation.
‘Westernisation’ became a convenient holder of all the ills of
capitalist developments in Singapore, against which a very loose
formulation of ‘Asian values’ (Ho, 1989:688, Rajaratnam, 1977) was
elevated supposedly to arrest the rot that threatened. The government
then proposed several society-wide campaigns for the ‘revitalisation’
of Asian values. These included introduction of policies that would
reinforce the family institution, such as giving priority allocation to
 The making of a new nation 119

three-generation families; reversing the earlier nuclearisation of

family public housing policy; intensifying the teaching of mother
tongues as second languages, as in the special aided schools for
Chinese children with higher than average academic performance;
and renewed effort to teach moral education in schools. The latter
culminated in the introduction, in 1984 in secondary schools, of
courses in Religious Knowledge, including Confucian ethics for
Chinese who do not profess any book religions, a policy which, as
mentioned in Chapter 1, was abandoned in 1990.
In contrast to the earlier policies that were aimed at producing an
efficient and disciplined work-force necessary to the economic
development of a new nation and the material well-being of the new
citizenry, the policies and programmes of the mid- and late 1980s
have as their motivation the inscription of selectively reinvented
‘traditional’ attitudes and values as the ‘truths of Asians’ in general,
encompassing all ‘three’ racial groups which constitute
Singaporeans. Such ‘truths’ are invoked to resist the other ‘truths’
of the Singaporeans as individuals. In this context, the revival of
such ‘Asian values’ has the additional advantage of inciting
individuals to voluntarily assume responsibility to the social sphere
without disturbing the hierarchical social order itself. The
inscription of Asian values on the individuals, therefore, dovetails
with the prevailing ideological discourse that has a very developed
vocabulary of responsibility and a correspondingly weak set of
terms for individual rights.

CONCLUSION
In the first two decades of the emergence of Singapore as a new nation, a
very conscious discursive distinction was maintained between ‘national
interests’ and ‘racial culture and racial identity’. The need to survive as
an island nation without natural resources and with a declining trading
economy had dictated that the rhetoric and the substantive task of nation-
building be exclusively concerned with improving the material
conditions of the population. These concerns were incessantly promoted
through various ideological institutions and inscribed on to the
population. The ideological efforts were backed by legislative measures
to police their propagation and entrenchment when necessary.
Meanwhile, racial cultures and identities, administratively
reduced to three discursively constructed units of Chinese, Malays
and Indians, were given very high visibility through the concept of
120 The making of a new nation

multiracialism but relegated to the private sphere of individuals or

of voluntary groups. The government played a supportive role in the
religious holidays and major cultural festivals of each group, as it
polices the limits of such cultural expression through the elastic idea
of ‘racial chauvinism’. Furthermore, it actively sought to diffuse the
political potential of the constructed racial constituencies through
the demolition of exclusive racial enclaves, the unintended demise
of vernacular schools and the weakening and replacement of some
traditional values by those necessary to capitalist economic
development such as competitiveness and meritocracy. The total
effect of the policy of multiracialism is thus, simultaneously, the
very visible display of the racial constituencies which have minimal
political effects and efficacy.
Ironically, at the point at which the economic and materialist
orientations were fully established, an apparent reversal of cultural
priorities took place. By the beginning of the third decade of the
new nation, the ‘possible’ demise of racial cultures was raised in
relation to the apparent fear of the wholesale ‘Westernisation’ of the
essentially Asian population. The inculcation of so-called ‘Asian
values’ came to be seen as the necessary defence against the
insidious encroachment of ‘morally dubious’ social values of the
West. In such a discursive move, individualism, a cultural
entailment of capitalism, was detached from the economic sphere
and dressed up in the moral language of anti-Westernisation.
Comprehensive reviews of education and language policies were
conducted in the late 1970s, cumulating in the announcement of the
new educational policy and the Moral Education Report in 1979.
The same year saw the launching of the Speak Mandarin Campaign
to promote Mandarin among Chinese; this has become an annual
event. Then, in 1984, Moral Education and Religious Knowledge
were introduced as part of the compulsory secondary school
curriculum. Furthermore, with the ascendancy of the view that
Confucianism was a basic, if not the primary, explanatory element
for the success of post-war Asian capitalism, the promotion of
Confucianism as a way of life for the Chinese was mooted.12
In all the instances of apparent reversals, selective cultural
elements, discursively recategorised as ‘Asian’ culture, were called
forth and re-inscribed on the citizens to check the domination of the
economic orientation in the Singaporean character. The moral
contest of the two sets of implanted characteristics has been
 The making of a new nation 121

discursively rendered as that between the good/Asian and the bad/

Western.
However, despite their supposed link to traditions, the
programmes for inscribing ‘Asian-ness’ were ultimately aimed at
shoring up production and economic growth and, perhaps more
importantly, the existing political order. Where such supportive role
becomes tenuous or uncertain, an about turn in policy is readily
taken. Thus, in 1989, the teaching of Religious Knowledge, and
along with it Confucianism, in secondary schools was abolished and
legislation introduced to control religious activities which merge
with social and political issues. In the final instance, it is the
demands of the existing economic order, and the political order that
ensures its continuing growth, that are privileged.
Indeed, it may be argued that in the discursive formation of
nations, reversals between communal/individual, traditional/
modern, indigenous/foreign (Asian/Western), ethnic/national
orientations at different historical conjunctures are to be expected.
What complicates the Singapore case is that traditions are
embedded in different racial cultures. Revoking or reinventing
traditional values, therefore, means revoking and reinventing the
various racial cultures. The dilemma appears to be one of whether
such moves may prove detrimental to the social integration of
Singapore as a nation and hinder the evolution of a national culture
and a national identity that rise above and beyond race. Yet, the
formation of the nation so far has showed that such issues in
themselves can be used as discursive building components of a
national interest; the potential presence of the issues arising from
multiracialism provides the discursive ground for the
conceptualisation of a national interest aimed at avoiding the
realisation of the issues themselves.
Nevertheless, politically the state appears to be unable to live
with the potential disruptions that may be caused by the differences
which are embodied in multiracialism. Consequently, in 1989, the
government initiated the process of formulating an explicit ‘national
ideology’. In 1990, a set of ‘values’, henceforth to be known as
‘Shared Values’ in Singaporean political and cultural discourses,
were accepted by Parliament. However, it should be noted that the
Shared Values remain, until now, a floating signifier without any
institutional site because they are constitutionally of unclear status,
being neither enshrined as a preamble to the national Constitution
nor as an actionable piece of legislation.
122 The making of a new nation

NOTES
1 For the conceptual stance taken in this essay I am indebted to the
writings of the late Michel Foucault although no explicit citation to his
corpus is given.
2 As recently as in 1990, when Singapore celebrated its twenty-fifth
anniversary of independence, then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew
lamented that the greatest disappointment in his life was ‘the failure to
make Singapore succeed as part of Malaysia’ (Straits Times, 13 Mar.,
1990).
3 Indeed it has been suggested that the absence of a work-force
accustomed ot the industrial regime was the prime reason why American
semiconductor industries chose Hong Kong over Singapore as the first
offshore base for the internationalisation of semiconductor production in
the early 1960s. The flight of industrial capital from mainland China
because of political instabilities since the 1930s has led to the
industrialisation of Hong Kong for more than two decades by then; it
thereby possessed the prerequisite proletarianised labour force
(Henderson, 1989:77–80).
4 Electoral legislation in that same year has further entrenched the multiracial
composition of Parliament by instituting the Group Representative
Constituency (GRC) legislation, in which political parties contesting in a GRC
must field their candidates as a slate, of whom one must be from a minority
population. The slate that polls the largest number of combined voles win all
the seats in the GRC.
5 In this instance, the few women MPs similarly have to carry the additional
demands of the national women’s constituency.
6 An exception to the general distancing from race should be noted. The
Constitution recognises Malays as the ‘indigenous’ population of the
island although the nature of this special status is rather ambiguous.
The only concrete policy that signified this status was the granting of
free tuition to all Malay students in tertiary education. In 1989,
allegedly due to complaints from segments of the Chinese population
against the fact that while poor Chinese households had to pay fees
middle-income Malays were exempted, fee exemption for the Malays
was subsequently tied to a means test in each case and granted only to
financiall y deserving cases. Howeve r, the money so saved is
transferred to a general fund, managed by the Council for the
Education of Muslim Children (Mendaki), for education purpose. The
government therefore does not stand to gain financially from the policy
change. This is a significant instance in the post-1984 political
development of Singapore where class features are beginning to make
themselves felt in the body politic.
7 For details of the suppression of radical unionists and individuals of the left
generally see Bloodworth (1986).
8 This statement was made in Parliament by the then Secretary-General of
the National Trade Union Congress and Minister without Portfolio in the
Prime Minister’s Office, Mr Lim Chee Onn (Straits Times, 24 Mar.,
1982).
 The making of a new nation 123

9 Reflecting the multiracialism policy, Mandarin in Singapore is known as the

‘language of the Chinese’ (huayu) as opposed to the ‘national language’
(guoyu) in Taiwan and ‘the common language’ (putonghua) in People’s
Republic of China (Chun, 1994:50).
10 The government’s active promotion of the Speak Mandarin campaign among
the Chinese, aimed at eliminating their dialect differences, has caused some to
suggest that there is a generalised attempt to ‘sinicise’ the entire Singaporean
population implying a desire to produce a ‘Chinese’ nation. However, as one
of the PAP’s critics points out, this would contradict the logic of
multiculturalism (Clammer, 1985:112– 113) which is itself useful in giving
the state a high level of political autonomy, as argued earlier in this essay.
11 The so-called ‘national stream’ is a glossing over of persistent differences
among schools. Differences in school ‘spirit’ and ‘ethos’ are noticeable and
very much determined by the histories of the schools, which are in turn
coloured by their original language medium of instruction; the results of
streaming students with different capabilities into different schools of very
different standards of education also has an effect on the social stratification of
schools themselves.
12 The attempt to ‘Confucianise’ the Chinese population has gone through a
difficult trajectory in a very short period of less than a decade, for greater
details see Chua (1992a) and Kuo (1992).
Chapter 6

Not depoliticised but ideologically

successful
The public housing programme

Mention has been made regarding the linkage between a successful

national housing policy and the ideological hegemony of the PAP
government. This linkage can be examined as a particular instance of
the general discussion regarding the effects of welfare provision on
electoral behaviour in capitalist societies. Interestingly, within social
science theorising of this linkage there is a version of the
‘depolicitisation’ thesis that is conceptually similar to the one
developed to account for the apparent absence of ‘politics’ in
Singapore, as discussed in Chapter 2. Drawing on the public housing
programme as a major social welfare provision of the PAP
government, the argument for conceptual preference of ‘ideological
hegemony/consensus’ over ‘depoliticisation’ as an explanation of
political behaviour under conditions of administrative efficacy, will
be made. Placing this discussion within the debate on welfarism also
provides an occasion to examine its general applicability beyond the
boundaries of Singapore politics.

THE DEPOLITICISATION THESIS ON WELFARISM

With the taxes collected, the capitalist state provides the collective
consumption goods and services which are necessary for the
reproduction of labour and which the private sector finds non-
profitable because of the slow and low levels of returns relative to very
high capital investment (Castells, 1977; Saunders, 1986). However,
their necessity is not always ideologically recognised (Peterson
1981:43). Significantly, despite overt protestations, capitalists may in
 The public housing programme 125

fact be better able to accept state provision of such goods because, in

addition to being necessary to the reproduction of labour power, the
expenditure stimulates economic growth and thus opportunities for
profits, and the provisions appease the working class with obvious
economic concessions (Saunders, 1986:197; Castells, 1978).
Employees, on the other hand, can only translate the provisions as
tax increases and reduction of disposable income. Indeed, in most
capitalist countries, tax levels have risen partially to defray the rising
costs of collective consumption because the redistribution has been
largely one of transfers within the wage-earning class, rather than
vertically from the capitalist to employees (Offe, 1987:154). One
would therefore expect wage earners to resist increases in collective
consumption provision. Consequently, those who pay tax are pitched
against others who benefit from public provisions; the gains of the
latter are seen as the loss of the former, resulting in a political
alignment that cuts across production class lines (Saunders, 1984).
This political cleavage results not from the intrinsic nature of the
collective consumption goods themselves but in the way they are
provided. Take housing, for example: because housing may be
provided either by the private market or the state, housing
consumption can be divided into two distinct modes—
‘individualised-commodity-private’ mode and ‘collective-service-
public’ mode. The two modes become the basis of a vertical
political cleavage that cuts across production class positions, with
the former group voting right and the latter left (Dunleavy, 1979),
thus fragmenting the working class.
Following the above observation, it has been argued that without
split provision the issue of politics of consumption at the macro level
may not arise at all. Complete absence of state provision would, of
course, remove altogether political considerations, as in the case of
entirely privatised consumption of consumer durables. Conversely,
Dunleavy argues that ‘near-universal provision’ by the state also
effectively ‘depoliticises’ collective provision of any goods and
services (1979:419). The idea that state provision of a particular good
or service could be depoliticised bears closer examination.
Similar to its variant used in the Singapore context, the
‘depoliticisation’ thesis is predicated on a conception of politics as
various groups or classes of people united behind some explicit and
articulated interests, entering into open bargaining, as expected by
liberal pluralist analysis, or into class struggle, as anticipated by
Marxist analysis. Offe calls this ‘the most superficial and most visible
126 The public housing programme

level of politics’ (1987:159). In electoral politics, such bargaining or

struggles are presumed to be reflected in the voting behaviour of the
electorate. Where overt confrontation is not immediately observable,
‘depoliticisation’ is deemed to have occurred.
Such a concept of depoliticisation is ideological in three ways.
First, being descriptive rather than explanatory, it glosses over
rather than exposes and explains the political dimension by equating
voting behaviour with politics as such. In contemporary politics, the
body politic is characterised far more by the deep penetration of
administrative and governing strategies than by the periodical
formality of elections. It is in these strategies that a larger and more
adequate conceptualisation of politics is to be found. From an
electoral perspective, politics may have been submerged, but it has
far from disappeared as strategies of government. Those who stand
to benefit from the reduction of universal provision, including the
state itself, are merely kept in the wings of the political stage,
waiting to make their re-entry at the first opportunity and with their
appearance to ‘repoliticise’ the issue of public provision at the first
opportunity. This is abundantly clear in the state’s own effort to
privatise any provision whenever the political cost for doing so is
manageable without losing the electoral majority.
Second, the descriptive concept reproduces precisely what the
state would have its citizens believe and how it would have them
behave. The state would prefer the electorate not to make political
issues out of the provisions. Instead, it would rather encourage the
electorate to treat such provisions as a purely administrative matter,
and to confine their comments and criticisms to that of improving
the bureaucratic effectiveness of the agencies entrusted with the
delivery of the goods. This strategic division between technical
administration and politics is part of the management procedure of
the modern state (Habermas, 1975:68–75).
Third, while the state desires to administer the provision without
public hindrance, it nevertheless will not entirely depoliticise it. For
the success of the provision, measured in terms of the electorate’s
appreciation of the government’s effort, is the very basis of
maintaining the popular support that legitimatises the government
itself. Hence, the ruling government will always attempt to make
political capital out of such successes; conversely, it will distance
itself from failures, blaming them on state functionaries.
The xabove critique is also an affirmation that every state
intervention is necessarily a political act, even in instances in which
 The public housing programme 127

the political dimension is submerged. To keep the political

dimension of collective consumption provision in view, we should
conceptualise this submersion as an effect, the ‘depoliticisation
effect’, achieved through precisely those strategies of state
intervention. Instead of accepting it at face value, the ways in which
this ‘effect’ is achieved and sustained should be analysed.
The contention here is that the depoliticisation effect results from
the state’s ability to maintain ideological hegemony or, in the
government’s own language, to achieve ideological consensus on
issues that surround a particular provision as a social need; in other
words, the state is able to provide the terms of discourse that
circulate as ideological currency in public discussion on the
provision and, in being accepted as currency, the terms concurrently
delimit the horizon of such public discussions. Furthermore, since
the ideological hegemony/consensus is not achieved once and for
all, the state must be constantly engaged in ideological work to
prevent the provision from being politicised; i.e., from dividing the
electorate into different alignments that may rupture the hegemony/
consensus. This is especially the case when inevitably different sets
of administrative rules and strategies have to be deployed within the
general terrain of a particular good or service. Such differences
must be normatively justified if the ‘diffused mass loyalty’
necessary to the legitimacy of the state is to be sustained.
Consequently, the ideological work required to maintain the
depoliticisation effect is never done.
Hitherto, near-universal provision of public housing has not been
achieved in any Western capitalist nation because developers’ lobbies
have been effective in limiting direct government housing production
to welfare housing alone (Wright, 1982). Contrary to this situation,
virtually universal provision has been achieved in Singapore. This
near-universal provision ‘appears’ to have made public housing a
political non-issue. A small minority of dissatisfied real estate
developers and related professionals, unable to put their
dissatisfactions on the political agenda, have had to restrict their profit
making to the small market of very expensive private housing
development. This depoliticisation effect is the ideological
achievement of the PAP. It is therefore an exemplary case to
substantiate the above theoretical argument regarding depoliticisation
of welfare provisions. Before analysing this instance, a brief
recapitulation of the main points in the conceptualisation of
ideological hegemony/consensus, explicated in Chapter 2, is in order.
128 The public housing programme

DEFINING IDEOLOGICAL HEGEMONY/CONSENSUS IN

SINGAPORE
First, an ideological system is a loosely organised complex
conceptual system that develops over time with an ever expanding
network of concepts, guided by a few core concepts, as the governing
group copes with solutions to problems in the body politic. Analysis
of how ideological concepts work must therefore focus on their
contextual rationality rather than their systematicity. The distance
between the demands for systematicity and demands of contextual
rationality may, nevertheless, be analytically exploited as the grounds
for ideological critique.
Second, ideological hegemony/consensus designates a condition
in which the system of ideas of the ruling group is loosely accepted
and reproduced by the governed as part and parcel of the latter’s
‘natural reality of everyday life’.1 Under such conditions, policing
of the society—an indication that hegemony is never complete—is
treated as a reasonable step to maintain the welfare of the society as
a whole, because the governed and the governing constitute
themselves as a political whole in pursuit of a social order
according to the shared ideological concepts.
Third, due to systemic inconsistencies between concepts and
the latter’s dependence on contextual rationality, related concepts
can be invoked to provide competing interpretations to the one
preferred by the governing. This is yet another avenue of
ideological critique. Under hegemonic/consensual conditions,
however, such critique may not shake the legitimacy of the ruling
interpretation which is supported by a diffused mass loyalty (Offe,
1987:53; Habermas, 1975).
Finally, because ideological hegemony/consensus is a
generalised and diffused condition throughout the body politic, it
cannot be achieved restrictively in the specific terrain of social
life. Our analysis of the housing sector must, therefore, be placed
in the larger ideological discourse of Singapore, which must now
be out-lined.
Substantively, the PAP’s ideological system unfolds from the
central concern of the survival of an independent island nation
through continuous economic growth. This concern is encoded
and encapsulated in the ideology of pragmatism, in which every
activity that contributes to economic development is considered
‘pragmatic’ or ‘practical’. Legislation is enacted either to
 The public housing programme 129

promote or repress activities that may be presumed to enhance or

endanger national survival. Pragmatism as an ideology has much
success in Singapore; the generalised improvement in the
material life of the entire nation makes it difficult to argue
against this success. So much so that the stringent social
discipline, rationalised under its auspices, has been hailed by
some as a model of social development (Quah, 1983). This
success gives the PAP government a very high degree of political
legitimacy and it is wont to remind the electorate of its success
in providing the collective consumption goods and services, one
of which is the vast improvement in housing for all
Singaporeans.

UNIVERSAL HOUSING PROVISION IN SINGAPORE

The Housing and Development Board (HDB), established in 1960, is
entrusted with extensive powers in land acquisition, resettlement,
town planning, architectural design, engineering work and building
material production—that is, all development work except the actual
construction of the buildings, which is undertaken by private
contractors. It is also responsible for the allocation of flats both for
sale and rental, and until recently the management of all aspects of
the housing estates. In short, it is responsible for the total
management of the public housing sector except for the setting of
sale and rental prices, which are decided by the Minsitry of National
Devel-opment.2
With centralisation of such power and resources, the HDB is able
to provide housing at substantially lower cost than comparable
accommodation in the private sector.3 Beginning modestly with
provision of basic rental units for the poor who lived in squats and
congested shop-houses in the central area of the city, a home
ownership scheme was introduced in 1964. Large supplies of new
housing units have been sustained throughout the nearly thirty years
of its history. More than half a million flats for rental and sale and a
substantial volume of related facilities, such as commercial spaces,
recreational facilities and light industrial estates, were completed,
all within comprehensively planned and self-sufficient high-rise,
high-density new towns. Currently more than 85 per cent of the 2.7
million population live in public sector flats, of whom more than 70
per cent are owner-occupiers. This achievement was made possible
by three decades of double-digit growth of the Singapore economy
130 The public housing programme

since the mid-1960s, and a set of policy decisions. Apart from the
obvious government financial commitment to house every cititzen’s
family, two of those policies bear detailed examination.

COMPULSORY LAND ACQUISITION

The first of these to be considered is land policy. In order to
develop housing for all, the Land Acquisition Act of the British
colonial government was amended in 1966. The amendments
empowered the government to acquire any land deemed necessary
to the interest of national development, including acquisition on
behalf of private developers. Such a law is not exceptional; every
state has one. What is significant is that the rate of compensation
is to be determined by the state itself. For example, an amendment
of 1973 permits the state to compensate the owners of acquired
land at 1973 market value or at the date of notification of
acquisition, whichever is lower. Furthermore, in determining the
market value, the existing use or the zoned use is considered,
whichever is lower; no account is taken of any potential value for
other intensive uses. This rate was not adjusted upwards until
1986, when the state estimated that it already had sufficient
landholding for all public needs, including housing, and further
acquisition would be marginal.
The Act clearly violates the common laws that govern property
rights (Koh, 1967), but in the official language of the HDB: ‘The
majority of the acquired private lands comprised dilapidated
properties or neglected land where squatters had mushroomed. The
government saw no reason why these owners should enjoy the
greatly enhanced land values over the years without any effort put
in by them’ (Wong and Yeh, 1985:41). In a land-scarce island
nation, such draconian land policy not only reduces the cost of
acquisition but effectively cuts down speculation, for every
landholding is constantly threatened by acquisition.
However, the effect of the law is unevenly distributed. As the law
covers acquisition for major private developments, it implicitly
favours large development capital at the expense of small landlords,
as it can be invoked to acquire and amalgamate small lots and make
the latter available for large private developments. Also, land
acquisition has been unevenly applied. Property owners who
represent both domestic and multinational corporate sectors of the
economy in the high-value city centre were given ample opportunity
 The public housing programme 131

to redevelop their holdings into commercial buildings under the urban

redevelopment process initiated in the early 1970s. Acquisition in the
city area was executed as a last resort against small property owners
who were either unable to redevelop their limited holdings or to sell
or amalgamate with adjacent property owners for economically viable
commercial developments (Chua, 1989).

RATIONALISING DIFFERENT STRATEGIES OF LAND

ACQUISITION
The difference in acquisition treatment between commercial and
public housing development is politically significant. On the one
hand, preserving commercial development in the private corporate
sector was both economically and ideologically necessary.
Economically, the post-colonial government was financially unable
to redevelop the city on its own. Ideologically, as a nascent state
which had identified foreign investment as the engine of economic
growth, it had to demonstrate not only to existing corporate capital
but also to future investors its commitment to private property and
profit. Indeed, an undertaking was given in 1970 by the then Minister
of National Development that the government would not nationalise
any of the commercial properties developed by corporate capital.
This assurance was necessary to attract foreign capital into a city-
state whose political and economic viability was then very much
doubted by all concerned, not the least by the government itself.
Conversely, acquisition for the purpose of public housing
development did not need to confront similar economic issues, for
obvious reasons. Ideologically, public housing provision was
politically embraced by the same nascent state as testimony to its
commitment to the betterment of the material conditions of the newly
enfranchised citizens of Singapore. This was all the more
ideologically effective when set against the neglect of the British
colonial government which had resulted in overcrowding in the city
area (Kaye, 1960) and the proliferation of squatters in the urban
fringe. Within this context, compulsory acquisition of land for public
housing could be carried out without any apologies to the landlords;
on the contrary, it allowed the government rhetorically to occupy the
moral high ground in terms of its commitment to the people.
Affected landlords were left either to accept their losses with
altruistic generosity and recoup some level of self-esteem or to face
the losses with bitterness and alienation from the new government.
132 The public housing programme

The popularity of the government’s action among the overwhelming

propertyless majority of the electorate enabled it to bear the
rejection of this very small minority. There is evidence that the
attitude of those affected by resettlement has changed from
resentment and resistance in the early years of the public housing
programme (Gamer, 1972; Aldrich, 1985) to one of resignation,
even acceptance, on the basis that everyone in squatter areas
throughout Singapore is affected ‘equally’ and that the land is
necessary for the housing of the nation (Chua et al., 1985).
The different strategies substantiate the argument that concretely
different strategies, requiring different explanations, are used by the
state in its economic and political interventions (Saunders,
1986:306). They are conceptually significant, demonstrating that in
an advanced capitalist society it is possible (1) to eliminate private
small landlords without jeopardising the economy or the legitimacy
of the state and, (2) to provide public housing without jeopardising
the dominant position of capital, or more generally, to provide for a
fairly high standard of collective consumption goods without
undermining capitalism. This is in accord with the Swedish case
(Duncan, 1981) where advanced capitalism and its demand for high
concentration of capital and high growth rate exists quite
comfortably with a high level of social welfarism.
Within the specific political and economic context of Singapore
as it was then, the PAP government offered no additional normative
justifications because the different acquisition procedures were
‘obviously the practical thing to do’. Conceptually, the government
was not in any legitimation deficit so as to require additional
normative justification.

THE MORTGAGE FINANCE SYSTEM

The second contributing policy was the creation of a mortgage
finance system through a compulsory savings fund. Instead of a
conventional general pension plan which operates on the principle of
pooling contributions, a Central Provident Fund (CPF), where ‘an
individual’s total benefits are equal to his total contribution plus
interest credited into his account’ (Lim et al., 1986:1), was instituted
by the colonial government in 1955 for all workers. In this case, the
employer is required to contribute the same rate as the employee to
the latter’s savings. Reflecting the rapid economic expansion since
self-government in 1959, membership in the Fund rose from 180,000
 The public housing programme 133

to reach 1,847,000 in 1984. The rate of contribution for each

employee and his/her employer steadily increased, from 5 per cent in
1955 to 25 per cent in 1984. The ceiling of contribution was raised
from S$300 a month in 1971 to S$2,500 in 1984. Finally, the
contribution received by the Fund increased from S$9 million in
1955 to S$5,386 million in 1984.4 During the 1985–1987 recession,
the employer’s contribution was reduced to 10 per cent but was
increased progressively as the economy turned around, reaching 20
per cent by 1994; correspondingly, employees’ savings rate is
reduced to the same level. It is envisaged that the contribution rates
will be maintained permanently at this new level.
The CPF also acts as an anti-inflationary instrument by
withholding a substantial amount of the employees’ disposable
income for discretionary consumption. The rapid capital
accumulation in the Fund had enabled the government to build up a
hefty foreign reserve, which stood at S$30 billion in 1989.5 It is also
invested in government securities that are partially used to finance
development projects, including public housing, without relying on
foreign loans. The very high CPF savings rate has had a tremendous
effect on the public housing home ownership programme.
When the programme was introduced in 1964, only about 1,500
households out of 11,000 public housing tenants opted to buy. Then,
in 1968 residents were allowed to utilise their CPF for down-
payments and monthly mortgage redemptions, making it possible to
own a flat for a period of ninety-nine years without any reduction in
monthly disposable income. With such facility, and the fact that an
individual’s savings can be withdrawn only at retirement if it were
not immediately spent on housing, public housing ownership
soared.6 In 1968 alone, 44 per cent of all housing applicants elected
to buy their flats. By 1970, 63 per cent applied to buy, and in 1986
this figure reached 90 per cent.

THE PUBLIC HOUSING SECTOR

The government’s commitment to home ownership is evident from
the periodical raising of the monthly income ceiling for eligibility to
purchase public housing, in step with the general economic growth,
so as to include as many households as possible. The current ceiling
of S$6,000 per household covers more than 90 per cent of all
households. This inclusive reach and the comparatively very high
134 The public housing programme

price of private housing result in making the HDB a virtual monopoly

as producer and supplier of housing for the entire nation.
From the start, prices are fixed by the government with reference
to its own fiscal position, the general economy and the level of
affordability to the different target groups. With this price fixing,
public housing is to a significant extent decommodified,7 and in the
first decade of the home ownership scheme it led to artificially low
prices. For example, whereas the GNP kept growing annually, the
sale prices set in 1964 were not adjusted until 1974, and rentals not
until 1979. The cumulative effect of the decade resulted in the need
to hike prices up by an average of about 50 per cent in 1974. This
triggered a rush of applicants who were afraid of further sharp
increases. Indeed, another increase of more than 30 per cent was
imposed in 1982. In both instances, clearly the later purchasers
were paying for the subsidies of the earlier ones. They also reflected
the contextual rationality of the policy-making process. However,
since then price increases have been rationalised and adjusted
marginally each year.
In shifting from rental to ownership at a very early stage of the
national housing programme, the government has avoided the
political difficulties generated by such instances as the conversion
of council housing to owner-occupation in, for example, Britain
(Forrest and Murie, 1983). Furthermore, the home ownership
scheme has proved to be one of the strengths of the public housing
programme itself; income derived from the sale, along with rents
from residential, commercial and industrial premises, and revenues
from ancillary services like car parks, combine to ensure a
significant return from the housing and attendant infrastructure
investments. The return can be ploughed back into the next cycle of
new housing production. The result is that only a margin of subsidy
from the government is required—about 2 per cent of the annual
budget estimates since 1975 (Wong and Yeh, 1985:501). This
situation is vastly different from ex-socialist nations, where attempts
at universal public housing provision have led to a constant drain on
the national economy (Szelenyi, 1983).
The market, however, operates in the public housing sector in
two ways. First, the type of flat purchased is dependent entirely on
the household’s ability to pay and no other measures of need.
Second, a household is permitted to sell its flat after five years’
occupancy to another who is within the eligibility rules of the HDB,
at a price that is agreed between themselves. The seller keeps the
 The public housing programme 135

capital gains and in turn applies for a new public housing flat. The
seller is entitled to do this twice, after which he or she must go into
the expensive private sector.
This resale mechanism has given the masses in Singapore an
investment opportunity which is restricted to a smaller portion in
other capitalist nations. To the benefits of the HBD, it has also led
many families to upgrade their houses, thus reducing overall
construction subsidy because the larger-room types are subsidised
at a progressively reduced rate. The upgrading in turn achieves the
filtering-down effect of the market mechanism in the housing sector,
enabling the poorer families to purchase the smaller and older flats,
making ownership even more extensive.
So successful is the programme that the government reaffirmed
its commitment to universal housing provision by making 100 per
cent home ownership by 1997 a social and political goal. To this
end, the HDB has introduced more stringent criteria for eligibility to
rent. The income ceiling for rental units has been drastically
lowered; the eligible age has been raised from twenty-one to
twenty-nine, forcing younger couples to live with either spouse’s
family for a much longer period, until they have accumulated
enough CPF for the down-payment on a purchased flat; and finally,
the type of rental flats available are now restricted to the least
desirable of the public housing range of one- or two-room flats, the
latter consisting of one bedroom and one sitting room. The
availability of these bottom-of-the-line flats is further constrained
by their demolition without replacement. The result is similar to
attempts at privatising public housing in other countries; the worst
of the existing housing stock is designated for the poorest of the
population (Williams, 1986; Forrest and Murie, 1983).
Significantly, even with its goal of 100 per cent home ownership,
the government had not, until recently, abolished the income ceiling
for eligibility, although logically this would be the popular thing to
do. This is not due to internal constraints in the public housing sector.
For example, if the ceiling were lifted, it would only add a very small
fraction to the existing demand, which could be readily met by the
HDB. Furthermore, those who are excluded are at the upper income
end and would correspondingly apply for the largest flats, which have
the smallest subsidy, and would therefore add little financial burden to
the system. The only possible apparent reasons for not lifting the
income ceiling are (1) to protect the private housing market where
Singaporeans and foreigners have invested very substantial amounts,
136 The public housing programme

and (2) to keep private housing as a socially differentiated housing

class so that it may act as the ‘prize’ for those who have broken
through the housing norms of the nation—in other words, private
housing as status consumption. However, in August 1989 the income
ceiling was removed for the purchase of resale flats, while the
S$6,000 income ceiling has remained for the purchase of new flats.
No reasons were given for this policy change.

BUILDING HEGEMONY/CONSENSUS AROUND PUBLIC

HOUSING

Incorporating the population

From the above description we can tease out the elements that serve
to maintain ideological hegemony/consensus around the public
housing provision in Singapore. To begin with, extensive promotion
of home ownership is itself an efficient process of incorporating the
population, ideologically and materially, into a commitment to a
society transformed by rapid industrialisation. First, regular
payments can be met only by regular employment in the formal
sector of the economy, often by pooling the incomes of several,
including the female, members of the family (Saleff, 1987).
Encouraging home ownership was therefore an important step in the
active proletarianisation of the population, while simultaneously
improving their material living conditions, as the government had
promised. Indicative of the underlying active transformation of the
work-force is the steady decline in the unemployment rate from 6 per
cent in 1970, two years after the introduction of the CPF home
ownership scheme, to 2.7 per cent in 1984 (Krause et al., 1987:190).
Second, ideologically, one of the effects of property ownership is
‘the expansion of commitment to the prevalent social order by the
development of personal stakes in its survival’ (Agnew, 1981:457),
not least of which is the desire to protect or gain from such property
investment. In the Singapore case, the resale policy gives every
household an opportunity to make potential gains in real estate. Due
to the artificially low prices of the early years, very real gains were
made by the early owners, such that they could sell off their old flats
and upgrade to larger, new flats with a tolerable level of additional
investment. Among these were the lower-income groups that were
the first to qualify for public housing.8 This further intensified their
 The public housing programme 137

ideological and material commitment to the system as a whole, and

reinforced the popular support base of the ruling government.

AVOIDING CLAIMS OF RIGHTS

To incorporate the population is very much the ideological
motivation behind the PAP government’s promotion of 100 per cent
home ownership, creating what it calls a ‘home-owning democracy’.9
However, within this overarching ideological motivation, care is
taken to preclude the possibility of housing becoming a legal
entitlement of citizenship. This is to avoid the institutionalisation of
housing provision as a welfarism that may eliminate the consumption
differences between those who are unemployed and those employed
at the lowest rung of the occupational structure and thus contribute to
the decline of commitment to labour.
Although under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of National
Development, the HDB, as a statutory board, operates financially
and administratively as an independent corporation that ‘freely’
enters into contractual relations with any party. The political
advantage is that, unlike a Ministry, a statutory board is in effect
formally removed from the political arena, even if Singaporeans
routinely treat the HDB as synonymous with government and public
housing flats as ‘government housing’. Indeed, the PAP government
is not beyond claiming this identity when it is to its political
advantage, while simultaneously being able to distance itself from
public criticism and dissatisfactions with the HDB.
As an independent agency, the HDB is at liberty to impose
conditions of sale or rental on interested parties. The legal position
of a Singaporean seeking to purchase or rent a public housing flat is
that of a client in the strict business sense and is viewed as freely
agreeing with the conditions stipulated by the vendor or the
landlord respectively. Housing thus remains at the level of property
rights of individuals, the government’s commitment to adequate
housing for the nation notwithstanding.10 This arrangement prevents
housing provision from becoming part of a citizen’s rights and legal
entitlement, hence a political and ideological issue.

ELIMINATING CLASS-BASED POLITICS

Rather than espousing any ideological position on equality of
housing for all as a matter of intrinsic rights, the PAP government is
138 The public housing programme

committed to equality of opportunity of all individuals to purchase up

to their capability as consumers through the home ownership
programme. The class-specific beneficiaries of the early years of the
rental public housing programme was replaced by an abstract
definition in terms of ‘maximum income levels’. Much like the
Belgian public housing programme in the 1920s, ideologically, this
substitution of the concrete by the abstract category ‘allowed the aid
given to the poorest to justify the aid given towards improving and
promoting the middle classes’ living standards’ (Mougenot,
1988:533). The substitution removes class as a criterion for
qualifying for public housing; it eliminates the potential dissension
of those who would have been excluded from the class-specific
definition of eligibility; and it removes from the allocation process a
source of moral and legal appeals by the lower-income groups
regarding the adequacy of their housing conditions.
The persistence of housing inequality is displaced onto each
household’s own consumption ability rather than on to the state.
State subsidy is treated by the government as benevolence rather
than welfare responsibility; in other words, the housing subsidy is
still very much conceived as ‘helping people to help themselves’
rather than as their legal entitlement. In fact, as in all instances of
generalised provision, the advantages of government subsidies are
not evenly distributed within the housing programme itself. Instead,
it is somewhat regressive in that those who purchase a larger flat
and carry a larger mortgage enjoy greater benefits than those who
by force of financial circumstance must purchase a smaller flat (Lin,
1986). However, the inequalities are individualised as personal
failures against an ideological background in which the government
is vehement in maintaining ‘meritocracy’.
It should be apparent that the PAP government is actively
preventing public housing from becoming a social welfare
institution in the conventional sense of the responsibility of the state
to the well-being of the citizens, while at the same time subsidising
housing provision to practically the entire nation. In this sense,
Castells (1988) has suggested that Singapore is a social welfare
state sui generis.

RATIONALISING EXCLUSIONS
However, an eligibility ceiling inevitably excludes those whose
incomes are above it. Here, the preservation of a small private sector
 The public housing programme 139

of very expensive housing is of ideological significance. By

excluding only the very high-income households it also preserves the
social status of this group, symbolically displayed through their
private housing. The prestige of private housing, including high-rise
condominiums, also acts as a social status attainment target that
potentially keeps up the work ethics of those at the top end of public
housing eligibility; relative consumption advantage being an
essential normative element of capitalism itself. Thus, not only does
the exclusion not raise political issues, but instead it reinforces the
normative structure of the developmentalist ideology.
Nevertheless, there remain occasional complaints in the press
from the excluded group. The latest policy change to allow every
household, regardless of income, to buy resale flats, effectively
removes some of the grounds for dissatisfaction with the
government’s housing policy. There is, however, one constraint
attached to this opening up of the opportunity for all to own public
housing flats; the owner must live in the dwelling unit and not hold
it as investment rental property. This restriction is likely to
discourage those high-income households who view housing as
much as status consumption as necessary shelter.

SYMBOLS OF SUCCESS
Finally, the materially tangible blocks of building are powerful
symbolic monuments to a government’s efficacy. This explains the
tendency of policy-makers and politicians everywhere to try to solve
housing problems through numbers of units built alone (McLeay,
1984:97). In Singapore, the overwhelming presence of more than
half a million completed dwelling units is a constant reminder to the
population of the PAP government’s achievement. The extensive
public housing programme is symbolically, hence ideologically, a
powerful sign of the existing regime’s ability to fulfil its promise to
improve the living conditions of the entire nation. The housing
programme therefore gives the government a very substantial
measure of legitimacy among the people and abroad. This legitimacy
allows the PAP government to determine and propagate the terms of
discourse regarding housing.
All the above elements collectively justify the near-universal
public housing provision while simultaneously rendering it difficult
for critics to mount any alternative ideological discourse around the
issues of housing. This difficulty is itself an effect of ideological
140 The public housing programme

hegemony/consensus, in which the conceptual terms provided by

the state act to exclude alternatives from being circulated in the
social and political spheres. This is not to suggest that alternatives
cannot be thought of, just that the alternatives generally fail to
become incorporated by ordinary individuals into the everyday
rationalisation of their life-world.

ADDITIONAL IDEOLOGICAL GAINS

The high degree of political and ideological legitimacy derived from
near-universal housing provision has ideological pay-offs in other
regions of social life. Being the sole provider of public housing
enables the HDB to further serve as an agent for the propagation of
certain values that the PAP government deems ‘necessary’ for the
ongoing operation of society. The housing authority can thus extend
its jurisdiction, de facto, to non-housing realms. The efficacy of this
extension lies in part in the condition imposed on the masses by the
absences of alternative housing, and in part by the ideological
legitimacy of the interventions themselves.

ELIMINATING ETHNIC AND CLASS POLITICS

As suggested in the preceeding chapter, the housing programme has
been used to break up racial communities and to remixing them in
public housing estates through (1) the first-come-first-served rule
that governs the allocation of flats, and (2) maintaining a quota on
minority population in every housing estate so as to prevent the
development of racial enclaves. The race-mixing rules took on
greater emphasis in 1989 when the government noticed that
substantial Malay households were regrouping in certain housing
estates through the purchase of new and resale flats. Thus, from then
on, in addition to maintaining the approximate proportional
distribution of the three racial groups in every new town, the racial
composition of every block of flats is to be monitored. Where there is
overrepresentation of a particular group, anyone in the block who
wishes to sell a flat must sell it to a member of the racial group that is
underrepresented, as specified by the HDB itself.
The breaking up of established communities is ideologically
justified as a necessary step to pre-empt any possibility of race riots,
last seen in Singapore in 1964, reflecting the government’s
tendency to make pre-emptory moves in societal management.
 The public housing programme 141

More positive is the suggestion that dispersing and remixing all

racial groups will lead to national integration. There is some
evidence that the level of inter-racial neighbourliness has increased
over the years, but this is not so in other residentially based
community activities. For example, there is a notable shortage of
Malay members in various community organisations, such as the
government-sponsored Residents’ Committees and the Citizens’
Consultative Committees (Straits Times, 23 May, 1989). In any
event, the desirability of promoting inter-racial harmony
ideologically undercuts the defence of racial enclaves and criticisms
of the repressiveness of the quota rules.
The same logic of national integration is applied to the mixing of
classes. Class enclaves are dispersed by the planning process in
which the rental flats for the lowest income groups are spread
among the various classes of purchased flats. Thus, each housing
estate is a mixture of different-sized flats catering to different
income groups. Income group mixing can be built into a block of
flats itself because flats of different sizes can be designed into the
same block. In practical terms, this dispersion reduces ghetto effect.
Some even argue that this mixing is beneficial to the lower-income
groups because they may be served by the better educated who
volunteer as community leaders (Straits Times, 18 May, 1989).
Spatial concentration which is necessary for either class- or race-
based political organisation, is thus denied by a combination of
planning and allocation procedures. The absence of spatial
concentration effectively renders both class and race inefficacious
as political elements in an electoral Parliamentary system. While
both procedures are politically difficult to defend in themselves, and
even morally culpable, their ideological reinterpretation as
necessary to both the national and individual resident’s interests has
made them normatively defensible.

REINFORCING THE NORMAL FAMILY

The monopoly of housing is also used to shore up the family
institution. Public housing is only available to households. Only
single persons who are presumed never going to marry—males of
more than fifty years old and single females of over forty years old—
are eligible to rent; and then only if they share with another person.
Young single individuals are as a rule excluded in line with the
government’s pro-family policies.
142 The public housing programme

Housing is used directly to support the family through a number

of schemes: families of siblings or a married child and the family of
his/her origin may apply to be neighbours in order to maintain
mutual support; these joint applicants are given priority of
allocation, and the waiting time for their flats is reduced by as much
as two years. Furthermore, in addition to priority of allocation, the
income ceiling for eligibility is raised substantially for a young
family which chooses to live with one of their parents. In a country
where the government explicitly eschews any social welfare support
and relegates this largely to voluntary associations, these pro-family
rules reduce the government’s share of social welfare
responsibilities. However, they are being justified ideologically as
supporting the family as the basic social institution of the society
and, in even more explicit ideological language, as maintaining the
‘Asian traditions’.
Tying the promotion of certain normative values to the allocation
of public housing is obviously politically motivated. In this sense, the
housing issue is politicised. Indeed, single professionals or newly-
weds, who are excluded because their monthly income is marginally
above the eligibility ceiling and who are without savings for a down-
payment for expensive private housing, do complain about being
discriminated against. They are, however, unable to generate either
much popular political support or sympathy among MPs. With the
new rule that permits all households to buy resale flats, the newly-
weds’ grounds for complaint have all but disappeared.
The absence of public interest in such instances of complaint, or
even in the underlying inequity of the housing allocation rules
themselves, is symptomatic of the legitimacy of the PAP
government. As Offe argues, ‘the autonomy and capacity of the
political-administrative system to act is dependent on ‘mass loyalty”
(1987:53). State intervention without precipitating political troubles
is possible only if there is a sufficient legitimacy; in this case a
legitimacy derived from having ‘delivered the material goods’.

SOME PROBLEMS IN THE SYSTEM

An almost absolute monopoly on housing, no matter how politically
and materially effective, generates its own problems internally. Space
limitation restricts us to illustrate this by only one significant
problem, namely, rent and mortgage arrears. Here, ironically, the
state-owned monopolistic housing provider denies itself the power to
 The public housing programme 143

evict those who are in arrears. Given that public housing is the only
form of housing for the masses, the arrears cases cannot be evicted
from their flats without the eviction itself becoming a public issue; an
evicted family would immediately become homeless, and hence a
visible social problem requiring social welfare measures publicly—
an act which the PAP government is vehemently unwilling to
entertain.
A distinction between mortgage and rent arrears needs to be
made; in the former case, the household can be forced to sell its flat
and downgrade its housing consumption by moving into a rental
flat, but no option exists for those who are already in rental flats,
since there is no room for downgrading. This problem becomes
increasingly insoluble as squatter housing grows scarce as a result
of resettlement. Consequently, although rent arrears exist within the
system, there is little effort to publicise the arrears, beyond an
occasional mention. Arrears thus become a management problem
that has little or no solution, practically or ideologically, within a
monopolistic public housing system with universal provision which
also eschews welfarism.
However, even in this irresolvable contradiction there is one
instance which returns to the PAP government a high degree of
legitimacy. During the recession of 1985–1987, the then Minister of
National Development declared that the HDB would not penalise
any household that went into arrears as a result of unemployment,
and that the arrears would be collected over a period of time in
reasonable instalments after re-employment. Of course, the
generosity of the HDB as a landlord with compassion paid political
dividends to the ruling government, accordingly it was turned into
legitimacy capital. The issue of mortgage and rent arrears, however,
brings out a deeper problem in Singapore’s public housing
programme.

LATENT PROBLEMS
It is obvious that the home ownership programme is a pay-as-you-go
programme and that its success is due largely to the absence of
unemployment in Singapore for close on two decades, which is itself a
result of the fact that Singapore’s capitalist industrialisation is still in its
early stages. In these early stages, and under conditions of widespread
real material deprivation, the task of the state is, ironically,
comparatively easy. Conjuncturally, capital accumulation is of
144 The public housing programme

uppermost importance for development and the political and

ideological dimensions are positively subordinated to the economy
(Offe, 1987:39). The job of achieving ‘a situation in which every
citizen can take care of all of his or her needs through participation in
market process’ may be relatively easy because the work ethic remains
high in the face of material deprivation itself; furthermore, during these
early stages, ‘the inherent test of rationality of policy-making is the
extent to which it approximates this situation’ (Offe, 1987:138).
Ahead, the task of sustaining the drive of the population —when the
basic necessities are already satisfied and when incremental material
improvement is no longer the sole criterion for assessing public
policies—is increasingly an uphill battle. The difficulties are publicly
recognised and proclaimed by the second generation of ministers who
have taken over the management of the state.
The latent problems in Singapore are: (1) when ‘delivering the
goods’ is no longer sufficient ground for ideological consensus, the
legitimacy of the state may become increasingly an issue, especially
in connection with the more repressive measures in housing
provision and in wider government policies; and (2) should
unemployment become an endemic element in the economy, as it
does in all mature capitalist economies, the anti-welfare stance of
the state will become increasingly untenable. However, while these
are conceptually logical future possibilities, they are not inevitable.

CONCLUSION
In conclusion, let us return to the theoretical linkage between the
universal provision of collective consumption goods as welfare
goods and the political behaviour of an electorate. As the
concurrent existence of the ‘individualised-commodity-private’
mode and the ‘collective-service-public’ mode of consumption of
services tends to give rise to cross-class political cleavages, in
terms of one’s dependence/independence on public provision, it is
suggested that universal provision of collective consumption goods
could eliminate such cleavages. In other words, universality
‘depoliticises’ public provision itself. The very successful near-
universal public housing programme in Singapore shows that such
a concept of depoliticisation glosses over the massive and constant
ideological work that the state has to perform in order to prevent
public provision from becoming politicised, even when it elects to
provide universally for the citizens.
 The public housing programme 145

The ideological work of the state is necessary because the rules

that govern eligibility to state provision are, unavoidably, at the
same time social control mechanisms with repressive tendencies,
which must be ideologically justified if they are not to alienate the
electorate. Public housing in Singapore shows that efficacious
justifications may be obtained by invoking some ‘higher’ values of
the collective interests. This may act to undermine, or at least to
reduce, the apparent legitimacy of any complaints against the
system of provision itself.
Where the state is able to determine the terms of public
discussion regarding collective consumption goods provision, it
may be said to have achieved ideological hegemony/consensus
among the governed. This condition is empirically observable when
public complaints are overwhelmingly of the type that attempt to
make the agencies more efficient in serving the population, rather
than involving issues of principle. The complainants aim to help the
agencies as a way of helping themselves. Space limitation does not
permit us to document this observation regarding Singapore’s
housing programme, but any perusal of the letters to the editor of
the national paper will bear this out.
Finally, while near-universal housing provision in Singapore
serves well in demonstrating the ever-present demand for
ideological work to pre-empt the politicisation of public
provision of collective consumption, conceptual generalisation
from the analysis must proceed with caution. For while the
need for ideological work is unavoidable, the actual timing,
strategy and substance of every ideological manoeuvre is
specific to the social and political conditions of the particular
state in question, and furthermore, the ideological history of
the country which provides the substance for analysis also
stands in the way of generalisation.

NOTES
1 I adopt here Marx’s conception of ideological transformation as the
naturalisation of historically specific class interests.
2 The most comprehensive account of the entire range of a activities carried out
by the HDB is to be found in a volume published to commemorate its twenty-
fifth anniversary, edited by Wong and Yeh (1985).
3 For example, equivalent size flats in private high-rise condominiums are in
excess of twice the price of an HDB flat.
4 The statistical data reported here is drawn from Lim et al. (1986).
146 The public housing programme

5 For a discussion of the politicisation of the reserve, see Low and Toh (1989).
6 The use of CPF was extended to cover mortgage of private housing in 1981;
we are however not concerned with this limited sector; for a detailed
discussion of the financing system, see Tyabji and Lin (1989).
7 For discussion of the relationship between state provision of social services
and the process of decommodification, see Offe (1984).
8 For comparative information on real gains by working-class home owners in
Britain, see Saunders (1978).
9 Although there is no documentary evidence, this ideological effect might have
motivated the PAP government to promote home ownership as one of the
strategies to combat a communism in the early 1960s, as in the case of
Australia a decade earlier (Kemeny, 1977).
10 For a discussion of the intrinsic ideological contradictions between property
rights and formal legal entitlement in the modern state, see Offe (1984:197).
Chapter 7

Confucianisation abandoned

Edward Said, has not only proclaimed the death of ‘Orientalism’ as a

discourse (1979:1) but more importantly points out that ‘the modern
Orient participates in its own orientalizing’ (1979:325); that is, the
discourse of Orientalism on the part of Western intellectuals in which
orientals are defined as the ‘other’ is embraced by Asian intellectuals and
policy-makers as a ‘self-defining’ discourse, thus participating in their
orientalisation. This self-definition strategy produces several effects that
may act concertedly in the perpetuation of politically authoritarian
regimes, the ossification of cultural developments, and impose
constraints on individual self-expression in public life. Indeed, it is
precisely because of these intrinsically conservative tendencies that a
current strain of the discourse of Orientalism, namely Confucianism,
first raised by the West, has been embraced by the political leadership of
Asia’s newly industrialising economies (NIEs), including Singapore.
It is within the specific contemporary context in which
pragmatism has been weakening as the basis of the ideological
hegemony/consensus, that this chapter analyses the Singaporean
government’s attempt to redirect cultural and political development
towards ‘traditional’ values. This redirection has been conducted in
the name of ‘discovering one’s roots’ and more aggressively in the
name of resisting the ‘corrupting influences of an incipient
Westernisation’. It will provide an analysis of how the PAP
government has attempted to ‘Confucianise’ the society, at least its
overwhelming Chinese majority population, and draw out the
possible consequences for the political development of Singapore
towards greater democratisation.
As Said points out, Orientalism is a discourse fashioned by the
West to rationalise its domination over the East. Hence, one must
148 Confucianisation abandoned

first turn to the Western conceptual grid which initiates the process
of self-orientalisation. However, as ‘Orientalism responded more to
the culture that produced it than to its putative object’ (Said,
1979:22), we must first turn to the circumstances that conditioned
the Western intellectuals themselves.

THE PERCEIVED DECLINE OF THE WEST

That Orientalism is a Western discourse which presupposes the
unchanging positional superiority of the West is manifest in the very
preface of a book that proclaims the superiority of the East. In Japan
as Number One: Lessons for America, Ezra Vogel, Harvard
sociologist, writes that he had never ‘questioned the general
superiority of American society and American institutions’ but by
1975, ‘I found myself, like my Japanese friends, wondering what had
happened to America’ (1979:iiiv). One should, therefore, look at just
‘what had happened to America’.
The passing of the 1960s—a decade of intense social activism and
collective actions—coincided with global economic recession, rising
inflation and increased unemployment, which in turn pressured the
state to expand its welfare provision. Furthermore, the difficult
economic condition, combined with other factors, such as fatigue and
alienation from the social struggles, gave rise to the privatisation of
interests and social withdrawal, bringing with it what the mass media
called the ‘me generation’ of the next two decades. The two social
developments were conceptualised as problems of ‘expanding
welfare demands’ and ‘excessive individualism’.
The two phenomena were conceptually linked: the call for
increasing state provision of collective consumption goods was not
matched by individuals’ willingness to contribute to the
programmes as a matter of social responsibility. The result was
increasing fiscal deficits of the state, met only by borrowing from
future generations, thus making ideological room for the emergence
of Reaganite and Thatcherite conservatism of the 1980s. However,
even before that set in, the West’s declining dominance in the world
economy combined with its own cultural perception of the presence
of a runaway hedonistic individualism, itself seen as a core cause of
the economic decline, gave rise to self-doubt and self-critique in
America; hence, Vogel’s concern.
One possible response to America’s declining position is to
condemn the apparently already excessive, and yet interminable
 Confucianisation abandoned 149

march of individualism, crushing any sense of collective

responsibility: the adversary culture of claims to individual rights in
liberal democracy and ‘the self-seeking hedonism of the consuming
masses …leaves modern society without a set of meanings to
ground the spirit of civic sacrifice needed to sustain a liberal polity
burdened with increasing responsibilities’ (Steinfels, 1979:162). In
this instance both the intellectual left and right shared the same
diagnosis of the cultural malaise of capitalism, although they might
have prescribed different solutions.1
The grounds for the left’s response are somewhat negatively
constituted. The critique of runaway individualism is taken further
to expose the individualising tendencies of modern advanced
capitalism itself, thereby turning it into a political-economic critique
of capitalist ideology. It accepts the validity of the criticism but
affirms both the possibility and the necessity for a concept of a
social responsibility, within a liberal political realm. The
resurrection of both a sense of the collective and of responsible
individualism is to be realised not in the fine-tuning of the system
but in a revamping of the economic and political realms to reflect
the essentially socially constituted character of human society. This
particular response, with Habermas as its eminent advocate, is
assembled in terms of carrying on with the promises of modernity,
first formulated in the Enlightenment period. It retains the grounds
for a reconceptualised modernity and modernism to be resurrected.
On the right, the malaise is seen as the Frankenstein of modernity
itself. It is argued that the modernist cultural injunction to be avant
garde in all spheres of social life has resulted in the lack of a rooted
moral belief system. As Daniel Bell (1976), who is arguably least
committed to extreme solutions than other neo-conservatives,
suggests that the solution lies in the shrinking of the state’s welfare
provision to some level of ‘social minimum’, returning to
Protestantism with its injunctions for hard work and ascetism, and
to a sense of responsibility to the public household, leading
generally, to disciplined limits to all expectations from social life
(Steinfels, 1979:173). Primacy is placed on cultural reformation as
the key to the above solutions. It is argued that only with the proper
revival of some traditional values will discipline be achieved
voluntarily as public responsibility.
Although not part of the neo-conservative’s agenda, one possible
source of lessons for the much-needed value reform are the
ascendant capitalist nations in East Asia, for here the traditional
150 Confucianisation abandoned

values appears to remain operative. Such was Vogel’s proposal. Just

like the influential nineteenth-century European Romantic idea that
‘Europe will be regenerated by Asia’ (Said, 1979:113), Vogel
counsels his compatriots to seriously study Japan, so as to revitalise
America. What matters, then as now, ‘was not Asia so much as
Asia’s use’ (Said, 1979:115) to the modern West, to its revitalisation
and continuing of superiority.

THE ASCENDANCY OF ASIAN CAPITALISM

The contemporary turn to the East stems from the search for an
‘Asian’ formula for economic success in the NIEs, which may be
considered for adoption. Many answers have been proposed. These
include: the massive infusion of capital by the US into some of the
NIEs, during the long post-war period of sustained growth and the
expansion of capitalism in order to keep out communism; the
institutional network of the NIEs’ state bureaucracies in planning and
controlling the economy, and finally, the cultural heritage of the
people of these NIEs.
The summary judgment in neo-conservative academic circles is
that the cultural factor is an essential ingredient, although not the
only nor the principal element, for success. Indeed, Berger argues,
‘it is inherently implausible to believe that Singapore would be what
it is today if it were populated, not by a majority of ethnic Chinese,
but by Brazilians or Bengalis—or, for that matter, by a majority of
Malays. Specific elements of Chinese culture have contributed to
the economic success of the city-state; they have given it a
comparative advantage—no less, but also no more’ (Berger,
1987:166). A factual observation of the population composition of
Singapore is turned into a social scientific ‘explanation’, with all its
hints of racism intact, largely as a result of the institutional position
of the speaker qua sociologist.
This preference for a cultural explanation may be understood within
the neo-conservative perception of the decline in public morality in the
West, specifically, within their critique of excessive individualism. The
perceivable collectivist sentiments of Asian cultures serves all too
readily as a quick answer to the success of the Asian NIEs.
Collectivism, under different terminology, as commumtarianism, for
example, became elevated to the level of a sine qua non of modern
capitalist development in Asia. As a Sinologist states: ‘if Western
individualism was appropriate for the pioneering period of
 Confucianisation abandoned 151

industrialization, perhaps post-Confucian “collectivism” is better suited

to the age of mass industrialization’ (MacFarquhar, 1980:71).2 And
Confucianism is the essential philosophy of this collectivism; i.e., of
placing the collective before the self.

CONFUCIANISATION OF ASIA
Confucianism is said to be the cultural root of the people of Japan,
Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore, the loci of ascendency of
Asian capitalism. The Confucian package is said to contain the
following unchanging elements: hard work, emphasis on education,
pragmatism, self-discipline, familial orientation and collectivism. All
but one of these virtues can be translated into Western virtue, either
present or lost but recoverable. Thrift and self-help were, after all,
good Victorian values, and pragmatism can be translated into
‘activism’ and ‘rational innovativeness’ (Berger, 1987:166). Indeed,
due to the translatability of the values, this thesis is asserted: ‘The
East Asian experience supports the hypothesis that certain
components of Western bourgeois culture—notably activism,
rational innovativeness, and self-discipline—are necessary for
successful capitalist development’ (Berger, 1987:166). The East is
absorbed once again and is merely reproducing, two centuries later,
the Western bourgeois culture and, by extension, universalising the
Western bourgeois values again!
The only exception that is difficult to translate conveniently into
Western values is ‘collectivism’, which supposedly inhabits the core
of the Confucian political philosophy. To paraphrase MacFarquar
(1980), Confucianism is a philosophical justification of government
by benevolent bureaucracy under a virtuous ruler; a leader’s
benevolent rule is reciprocated by the loyalty and obedience of his
subjects; in short, benevolence ensures harmony and obedience
within stratified and unequal social relations. Similar harmonious
inequality holds in the relations between father and son, husband
and wife, elder and younger; family members are harmoniously
fixed in their appropriate hierarchical relationships. These familial
sentiments and their attendant behaviours are interchangeable with
national sentiments and, more importantly in the modern capitalist
economy, may be transferred to the level of the factory; ‘filial piety
fostered habits of disciplined subordination and acceptance of
authority which could be applied the factory and the nation’
(MacFarquar, 1980:70).3
152 Confucianisation abandoned

Such harmony in turn engenders social discipline, social

solidarity and community responsibility. As opposed to Western
individualism, in the East ‘the individual is less important than the
collective of the company’ (MacFarquar, 1980:71). Furthermore,
even the profit-orientated corporations are collectivistic.
MacFarquar (1980) cites an advertisement as example of
‘responsibility towards the wider community’: a picture of a skier
with the caption ‘Mitsui & Co handles sporting goods, thus
contributing to healthier living’. According to him, even the mass
consumption of the Japanese is an act of national interest overriding
personal desires: ‘Japanese consumers know they are the essential
launching pad for their nation’s export drive and they buy electronic
gadgetry in profusion. Never mind the ubiquitous transistors and
colour TV’s; 20 % of all Japanese households possess an electronic
organ’. This, after having pointed out that Japanese consumers are
motivated by conformism rather than competition and that
‘thrusters, attempting to keep up with and overtake the Joneses and
to display their success by conspicuous consumption, are the
exception’ (MacFarquar, 1980:71). The logic of these two assertions
is quite interesting, since Japanese are not given to conspicuous
consumption, then an entire nation of excessive consumers of
electronic gadgets can only be explained in terms of their doing
their bit for the national economy!
The above characterisations of Confucianism are inscribed as the
‘truths’ of East Asians. Differences between the people of the
different nations are reduced, if not eliminated completely, as
contingent differences; Confucianism remains the bedrock of
explanation. Reasoned arguments come perilously close to popular
cliché with, however, serious social and political consequences.
It is, of course, entirely possible to list an endless string of
instances to ‘prove’ that Asians are neither as Confucian nor as
collectivist as the ‘Confucian thesis’ of East Asian capitalism would
have us believe. This would, however, be rather tedious and
ultimately futile because such listings on both sides of the argument
could go on endlessly and inconclusively. Thus, I shall leave matters
with a categorical summary: the way the issue of ascendancy of
Asian capitalism is posed by neo-conservatives tells us more about
their diagnosis of the ‘dis-ease’ of the contemporary American and
some European societies and their desire to revitalise their
superiority than about the nature of the Asian societies as such.
 Confucianisation abandoned 153

Focus must now be turned to the effects of ‘Confucianisation’ on

the social political developments in Singapore.

EFFECTS OF DISCOURSE ON CONFUCIANISATION: THE

SINGAPORE CASE

Effects on academic discourse

As a result of the ‘Confucian thesis’ of Asian NIEs’ capitalist

success, the cultural inscription of the people of these nations began
to take shape in both academic and political discourses. Academics
quote politicians who take a ‘collectivist’ line, neglecting the often
transparent political motives of the quoted statements. For example,
MacFarquar quoted liberally from North Korean President Kim II
Sung, a communist, President General Park Chung Hee, a military
dictator and Dr Goh Keng Swee, the former Minister of Finance of
Singapore, an economic pragmatist whose political orientation was
Fabian socialism; citing them as illustrative believers in good
Confucian values. That Dr Goh had in his economic writings
expressed reservations about the negative effects of extended
families on economic development (1972:63) was neglected, but that
he was explicitly praising Victorian virtues in the passages quoted
was acknowledged by MacFarquar.4
Against the background of liberal democracy where social
differences are enshrined in a multiparty political system, where
individual rights are a matter of serious litigation and where the
political culture is, according to Bell (1976) adversarial, the
Confucian injunctions of ‘avoidance of overt conflict in social
relations, loyalty to hierarchy and authority, stress on order and
harmony’ (Hsiao, 1988:19) would appear not only ‘traditional’ but
very desirable indeed. The conventional East/West cultural
dichotomy may thus be recirculated, both analytically and
politically within the ‘Confucian thesis’.
The desire for social harmony and acceptance of authority is
inscribed as an ‘essential’ characteristic of East Asians and, with
‘such a political culture, East Asian states are certainly able to
mobilize resources more autonomously, without being confronted
with too much opposition from various sectors of the society’
(Hsiao, 1988:18). In short, an authoritarian state is advantageous for
national economic development. The acceptance of inequalities and
154 Confucianisation abandoned

authoritarianism is inscribed as yet another truth of the citizens of

the Asian NIEs.
Such inscriptions are philosophically intentionally naive. To
begin with, within Confucianism itself, due to its ideological
emphasis on harmony based on reciprocity of responsibilities
between unequals, Confucianism does not think through the
necessary processes of conflict resolution. There is, therefore, an
absence of any channel of recourse for the governed, with the
exception of violent rebellion against an unjust ruler. Promotion of
rebellion is no ordinary affair, especially under conditions of
increasing economic and material affluence, as is the case with all
the Asian NIEs. In the absence of rebellion, acceptance of
authoritarianism is thus assumed as self-evident within the
‘Confucian thesis’.
Such inscriptions also neglect important details of the extant
political situations of the nations themselves. Specifically, in the
Singapore case, (1) the fact of colonisation, which imparted to the
citizenry a generalised, if vague, understanding of democracy and
its desirability; (2) it is this understanding and desire which in turn
accounted for the successful removal of colonisation and the
subsequent emplacement of the current single-party dominant
government, and (3) the collective memory of political coercion in
the earlier years of independence, which left behind, until the mid-
1980s, a persistent rumour and fear that the ballot was not secret
and that the state could trace and punish the anti-government
voters—this fear substantially reduced voices of disagreement.
These extant and historical elements have all been erased in the
generalised assertion.
Of course, the presence of high degrees of visible, overt political
control must be duly noted to satisfy the injunctions for balanced views
in academic discourse. Thus referring to Singapore, Vogel writes:

Singapore has procedures closest to Western democracies, but a

strong, determined leadership is unwilling to put its fate entirely in
the hands of democratic elective procedures. Opposition in the
mid-1960s was considered potentially so subversive that some
were arrested for political reasons. Districts have been gerry-
mandered. Courts have relied on professional judges to make
decisions rather than on the masses to constitute juries. Prime
Minister Lee has in fact questioned the merits of the one-man-one-
vote system [and goes] so far to suggest that it may be necessary
 Confucianisation abandoned 155

“to try and put some safeguards into the way in which people use
their votes to bargain, to coerce, to push, to jostle and get what
they want…”
(Vogel, 1989:1051)

One may rightly ask why does the populace accept such political and
social constraints, if indeed accept it did.
The answer lies not too far afield for Vogel, ‘The willingness of
the populace…to allow more leeway to leaders than is common in
Western democracies is rooted in Confucian patterns of
relationships between subjects unaccustomed to exercising political
power and their rulers’ (Vogel, 1989:1051). This is not all,
according to Vogel, even though Singaporeans have

grown better informed and more insistent on having its views

heard, the people still fear that reliance on entirely democratic
procedures could dissipate the ability of a strong government
leadership to represent the overall interests of the people. They
are, therefore, more willing to accept strong able leaders who have
not been fully legitimized by democratic procedures.
(Vogel, 1989:1051)

In short, Singaporeans, as Confucianists, not only do not understand

democracy, nor do they have the know-how to exercise their rights in
the face of political constraints; they are in fact afraid of democracy
for themselves. The subtext is, of course, a contrast with Western
citizenry’s political sophistication in exercising their democratic
rights, even to excess.
The irony is that the statement by Lee Kuan Yew quoted by Vogel
was made in 1984, in the first hours after the electorate had
registered the highest level of protest votes against the ruling PAP
since 1968. Even the government admitted that the swing was not
one in favour of opposition candidates, rather it was a voice of
protest against itself. As a result of this swing, the 1984 election has
become, for Singaporeans, a political watershed signifying possible
significant moves towards more political openness in which the
populace is more willing to publicly voice its differences vis-à-vis
the government (Chan, 1989).
The second irony is that in the quotation itself, Lee Kuan Yew
appeared much less sanguine about Singaporeans being ‘subjects
unaccustomed to exercise political power’. It was precisely because
156 Confucianisation abandoned

they were using their votes to protest against government policies that
Lee felt there was a cause for concern about the one-man-one-vote
system. Singaporeans realise that the PAP is overall an efficient and
clean government able to secure increasingly better material
conditions for the people; there is therefore massive popular support
for the government, giving it a ‘surplus’ of legitimisation and hence,
greater room for maneouvre in policy-making. Within this context of
surplus legitimacy, the use of protest vote to register dissatisfaction
without losing an essentially efficient government would surely be
considered as an instance of electoral, political sophistication, were
not the Confucian explanation already given legitimacy.
Such, then, is the invidiousness of the insistence to Confucianise
Singaporeans. This attitude will not accept the political
development of Singaporeans towards democracy at face value
because the Confucian explanation requires for its own rationality
the ever-unchanging character of a quiescent subject, rationalising
his/her subjugation as loyalty and a desire to suppress any impulse
to protest in the interests of social harmony. Furthermore, as
democracy has its roots in the West, the logical demands of the
West/East dichotomous discourse require that such signs of political
development be read instead as political failures.

EFFECTS ON POLITICAL DISCOURSE

Concurrent with the academic citation of political discourse,
Singaporean politicians began to take the ‘Confucian thesis’
seriously in their political thoughts and practices. They began to
mobilise the ideological institutions at the government’s disposal to
attempt to inculcate so-called ‘Confucian values’ in the citizens.
As discussed in previous chapters, in the endeavour to establish
the basic conditions for industrialisation, which include political
stability, the PAP government had intervened massively in all
spheres of social life. The repression of the 1960s and the early
1970s are etched in the memories of the Singaporean electorate.5
Throughout these years, the PAP government saw itself as
‘pragmatic’ to the core, without being burdened and restrained by
ideology other than good common sense, although, the leadership’s
political ideology then was nominally social democratic.
Much like all post-Second World War social democracies in
Western Europe, the bargain between the people and the state was
one of social and material stability in return for political allegiance.
 Confucianisation abandoned 157

Rapid economic growth enabled the state to consolidate its political

and ideological positions, resulting in concentrating decision-
making power in the network of political leaders and the greatly
expanded civil service and statutory boards which provide any of
the services necessary to daily life and the business community.
Economic growth continued into the first half of the 1980s. As
pointed out in Chapter 5, by then, the government began to
perceive, in its own terms, several socially negative symptoms of
economic success. The ‘signs’ included: ‘excessive job-hopping’
among workers, which disrupts smooth operations of commercial
and industrial enterprises; an overwhelming number of singles
among applicants for government-sponsored middle-income
housing, signifying the potential emergence of a hedonistic singles’
lifestyle; intense competition at school and at work; conspicuous
consumption among those who have ‘made it’; and finally, the
threat of all these, and more, everyday practices coalescing into a
general social attitude of ‘excessive individualism’.
It may be argued that if there was excessive individualism, it was
in part stimulated by government policies themselves. Indeed, its
unwavering promotion of the ideology of meritocracy unavoidably
encouraged keen competition, which undoubtedly contributed to
individualism. However, the government’s position is that the
emphasis on meritocracy has been correct but misunderstood;
meritocracy should include the ability to lead a team or work as a
member of the team. ‘It is this misunderstanding of the meaning of
meritocracy that has caused some of our scholars and high-flyers in
the civil service and the private sector to develop crass, selfish and
egoistic attitudes’ (Goh, 1981:34–35).
Whatever its responsibility, the ‘government began to be
concerned with the adverse effects of heightened individualism,
leading —as it believed—to the erosion of moral and ethical values
on the one hand and on the other to the loss of cultural identity’
(Tham, 1989:482).6 The issues of individualism and cultural identity
became ideologically linked. The state’s immediate impulse was to
turn to Japan for the necessary lessons because Japan appears to
have been able to preserve its culture, encourage team spirit,
diminish individualism and yet be highly innovative and productive.
Consequently, in 1981, conceited efforts were made by government
Ministers, using all the ideological apparatus at their disposal, to
promote teamwork at every public appearance (Chua, 1982). In the
eyes of two economists, the ambition was no less than ‘to
158 Confucianisation abandoned

collectivize the Singaporean consciousness and behaviour, both in

the work-place and social life’ (Sunday Times, 26 July, 1981). By
the mid-1980s, the proposed solution to the problem of so-called
‘excessive individualism’ would take a different turn.

POLITICAL CONFUCIANISATION OF SINGAPORE

Conjuncturally, the ideological critique of creeping individualism in
Singapore coincided with neo-conservative criticism of excessive
individualism in the cultural core of the post-1960s West and the
‘discovery’ of Confucianism as the cultural explanation for the
success of Asian NIEs. The arrival of the ‘Confucian thesis’ enabled
the Singapore government to switch from looking for solutions from
Japan, which is after all a country with an unique and homogeneous
culture, thus raising serious issues of whether its practices could be
easily adopted by multiracial Singapore, to examining Singapore’s
very own cultural roots, namely, the Confucian heritage of Chinese
Singaporeans.
This concern with the ‘cultural roots’ of Singaporeans has been
an abiding one since the very founding of independent Singapore
because while it is recognised that English is the essential language
for commerce, it is also feared that the exclusive learning of English
will lead to the ‘deculturation’ or more conventionally, the
‘Westernisation’ of Singaporeans. Furthermore, while specific terms
may change, discourses of culture and morality were always cast in
terms of the ‘immoral West’ against the ‘moral East’.7 The battle
was always one of the latter fighting hard to slow down the
penetration of the moral decay of the West, often with great despair
because of the global reach of the Western economy and mass
media, especially its entertainment industries. Within the embattled
terrain of the morality of the people, neo-conservative self-critiques
of the West became handy evidence for Singaporeans who want to
revive ‘traditional values’. The language of Prime Minister Goh
Chok Tong clearly reflects his invocation of the dichotomous
discourse of Orientalism, in reverse. According to him, ‘bad
Western values’ are: ‘Me first, society second; the trend towards
promiscuity, fun-loving, free-loving kind of society’ (quoted in
Koh, 1989:744), and, of course, the ‘good Eastern values’ are all the
opposite terms, above all ‘society first, me second’.
In 1980, it was announced that moral education would be
taught, at the upper secondary level, with knowledge of the
 Confucianisation abandoned 159

various religions practised by Singaporeans as the vehicle. To this

was added Confucianism, though it is not a religion. All the
committees appointed to draw up the curriculum and develop the
appropriate texts for Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Bible
Knowledge were staffed by Singaporeans. For Confucian Ethics,
the Ministry of Education admitted that ‘As Confucian Ethics was
a field which we were not familiar with and since we wanted to
ensure that the right approach was used to teach the subject, eight
Confucian scholars were invited from abroad in 1982 to help us
draw up a conceptual framework for the syllabus’ (Wang in Tu,
1983:x); indicating the absence of Confucianism in Singapore’s
everyday life.8
During their visit, in July-September 1982, the eight scholars
gave public lectures, conducted seminars with public and select
audiences and appeared on television talk shows. They publicised
the suitability of Confucianism, an essentially Sinic cultural
heritage, in a multiracial and multireligious environment by
emphasising its ‘universalistic’ and ‘humanistic’ features. What
were initially merely discussions regarding the curriculum for one
secondary school course became a mass campaign for ‘a moral
system of the Chinese population in Singapore’ (Kuo, 1989:24),
involving all the mass media, public opinion leaders and Chinese
voluntary organisations which shared the government’s concern that
Singaporean youths were becoming Westernised and lacking in
knowledge of Asian traditions and values. In the words of one of the
visiting scholars, ‘If Confucian education were to succeed, one
needs to build within the society a pressure [or force] of public
opinion, in order to enable Confucian thought to have a foothold’
(quoted in Kuo, 1988:16, Kuo’s translation).
In 1983, an Institute of East Asian Philosophy, with a particular
focus on Confucian studies, was established with generous funding
and the highest level of patronage; the Chairman was the former
Minister of Education and First Deputy Prime Minister who had
introduced moral education into the schools, and the Deputy
Chairman was the then Second Deputy Prime Minister. To add
international recognition to the Confucian education initiative, an
international conference on ‘Confucian Ethics and the
Modernisation of Industrial Asia’, attended by some of the Western
promoters of the ‘Confucian thesis’, was organised in January 1987
(Tu, 1991). This was followed later in the same year and with co-
sponsorship with the Confucian Foundation of China, by an
160 Confucianisation abandoned

international conference on ‘Confucian Learning—Its Development

and Influence’, at the birthplace of Confucius himself.
All these events constitute one of the few occasions in Singapore
in which the academician’s interest coincided publicly with those of
the politician, disclosing the inextricably weaved relations of
knowledge/power. The language of the academics reflected their
institutional powerlessness when all one could do is ‘to venture a
dream’:

Singapore a city-state, might well become the seed of a future

global culture looked to by other parts of the world. Such a great
global culture would represent the blending of many great
traditions…. Four great traditions [Buddhism, Christianity, Islam
and Hinduism] are here in happy, peaceful co-existence. Because
Confucianism is not regarded as a religion, it can interact with the
other four great traditions and make this a wonderful place to plant
the seed of a future global culture emerging out of the great
traditions of the past.
(Tu, 1984:139)

Among the politicians, no less than Lee Kuan Yew himself, with
power at hand to move social events, was more candid: ‘Our task is to
implant these traditional values into our children when their minds
are young and receptive, so that…these attitudes harden and are
forged for a lifetime’ (quoted in Koh, 1989:1099).
The entire exercise in the Confucianisation of Singapore is
encapsulated in the term ‘implant’; the traditional values of
Confucianism are to be inscribed as the ‘truths’ of all Singaporean
Chinese, not only of the young and receptive minds but also the
older population. The adoption of the Confucian discourse made
possible retrospective interpretations of Singaporean Chinese as
intrinsically Confucian, albeit adulterated by Western education.
Every Chinese may now be treated as being essentially
Confucianist, in spite of possible overt protestations to the contrary.
So inscribed, Confucian ethics becomes institutionalised as the
conceptual framework within which one’s demeanour is to be
assessed; one is either acting like a Confucian or an anti-Confucian
and is socially disciplined accordingly.
Within the terrain of political discourse, the most important
elements in the pantheon of Confucian virtues are loyalty and
obedience to authority and, of course, the reciprocity of responsibility
 Confucianisation abandoned 161

of the authority to the subject. So defined, the leadership can take two
possible forms: authoritarian or paternalistic. In either case, decisions
are made for the subject by the leaders. Given the presumed
reciprocity, it is assumed that such decisions, whatever their
consequences, have the best interests of the subjects in mind. Hence,
subjects are to be grateful for the due consideration of the leaders and
support the decisions in their own best interests. Given the presumed
concern for the subjects, paternalism belies its own Janus-like face;
when the subjects disagree and disobey the leadership, ingratitude
may be levelled at the subjects, making ideological space for
authoritarianism to be rationalised and justified. The uncomfortable
co-existence of authoritarianism and paternalism is commonly
rationalised in political discourse, academic or otherwise, as
‘benevolent dictatorship’.
Until 1984, in Singapore, this particular concept of paternalism/
authoritarianism has always been recognised as the modus operandi
of the hegemonic PAP government. This is condensed in the
categorical statement by Lee Kuan Yew, in his 1986 National Day
Rally address: ‘I am accused often of interference in the private
lives of citizens. Yet, if I did not, had I not done that, we wouldn’t
be here today’ (Straits Times, 18 Aug., 1986).
The decision-making and policy-setting process is undoubtedly
elitist and top-down. It chooses to consult others, outside the political
leadership—civil service nexus, at its own discretion and co-optation
is the rule for having influence (Chan, 1989). There is no role for the
outside critic. As a leading political scientist concluded in 1977, and
this remains accurate today, ‘the views of an independent intellectual
receive no favor and if his views are critical of governmental power
his function is not recognized as legitimate’ because ‘his claim to the
right of criticism is an alien tradition born of Western liberal thought’
(Chan, quoted in Quah and Quah, 1989:110).
With such hierarchically structured political sphere and practice,
it is readily understandable that the ‘Confucian thesis’ is much
welcomed by the political leadership of Singapore. The language of
Confucian philosophy becomes a conceptual foil to reinterpret the
now established practices of the state. What was simply practical
and good government becomes retrospectively Confucianist in
character. Meritocracy becomes the traditional Confucian way of
selecting state functionary through stringent academic
examinations; absence of corruption at the highest level is read as
the presence of Confucian gentlemen at the helm; the introduction
162 Confucianisation abandoned

of unpopular public policies is rationalised as the Confucian

statemanship of a sage-leader. Pragmatism, the catch-word of good
government for the past three decades, survives as a term in the this-
worldly orientation of Confucian philosophy. The epitome of this
Confucianisation of Singapore political discourse is the
consecration of the nation’s founding Prime Minister, Mr Lee Kuan
Yew, by his successor as ‘a modern Confucius’ (Straits Times, 24
Apr., 1990). The effects of this Confucianisation must be assessed
in view of the recent political developments in Singapore.

EFFECTS OF CONFUCIAN DISCOURSE ON SINGAPORE’S

POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT
To the extent that Singapore was an underdeveloped economy with
very high levels of unemployment and material deprivation among its
citizenry, government policies which were aimed at securing ‘the
basics’ for the people were generally acceptable and accepted by the
people, even if the policies translated into a significant degree of
legal and administrative constraint. The success of these policies has
given the PAP government a surplus of political legitimacy. However,
with three decades of economic growth, the aspirations of the people
have correspondingly expanded to include desires for greater
participation in the formulation of the public policies that structure
their life opportunities and define their social responsibilities.
Evidence of this comes from protests against policies which have less
obvious, or more tenuous, relations to the economy.
One means of protest is through the ballot box. This was
precisely what happened during the 1984 general election.
Submerged dissatisfaction with the ‘arrogance of power, an
inflexible bureaucracy, growing elitism, and the denial of
consultation and citizen participation in decision-making’ (Chan,
1989:82) led to a substantial swing in votes against the PAP. Protest
votes increased in the 1988 general election to around 40 per cent,
with a few serious contenders from the opposition parties.
In September 1991, when economic conditions which were most
favourable to the ruling government because, after a brief recession
and wage freeze between 1985–1987 the economy had experienced
more than three years of substantial growth and the work-force had
sustained annual wage increases, the PAP under the new Prime
Ministership of Goh Chok Tong called a snap general election,
ostensibly on the grounds that his leadership and the ‘consultative’
 Confucianisation abandoned 163

style of his government required a fresh mandate from the people.

Although the PAP branches and the people he met during his
‘walkabouts’ in public housing estates assured him that the ‘ground
was sweet’ and the time was right for an election, he was to be
disappointed by the result. His hopes for a recovery of the ground in
the two previous elections were dashed. The opposition garnered only
marginally more of the popular votes cast but managed to increase
their representation in Parliament from one to four MPs, three from
the Singapore Democratic Party and one from the Worker’s Party.
This and the 1988 election result affirmed that 1984 election result
was a turning point in the political development of Singapore and not
just a flash of unco-ordinated expression of dissatisfaction.
Since 1984, the new Cabinet, consisting of only one first
generation leader, Lee Kuan Yew himself, stressed the need to build
a new consensus with the citizens, on the basis of more openness
and more consultation with the public on major governmental
policies. The general implication was that citizens would be given
greater freedom to choose certain options, to find out for themselves
the limits of what is possible. The power of the bureaucracy, both in
the citizens’ everyday life and in the economy was to be
progressively reduced over time. Generally, some dismantling and
restructuring of the highly centralised political leaders-civil servants
nexus was undertaken, with promises of more to come.
The general orientation of what is now known as the ‘second
generation’ leadership is a significant departure from the first
generation’s interpretation of the mandate to govern. They appear
to be taking tentative steps towards the development of a
‘democratic’ culture that extends beyond the mechanics of
elections, even though they too hold serious reservations about
democracy as such and have on occasions raised the spectre of
certain weaknesses of democracy in terms of political and
economic stability (Sandhu and Wheatley, 1989:1087). Political
developments since the early 1980s indicate significant moves
towards a more democratic political relationship between the
leadership and the citizenry. Such developments require the
corresponding introduction of a political discourse with an
appropriate vocabulary that will help it to move towards a greater
democratisation. The Confucianisation of Singapore, with its
emphasis on centralised leadership and unquestioning loyalty and
obedience of the subjects, attempted to pre-empt, and even
threatened, this process towards greater democratisation.
164 Confucianisation abandoned

LIMITS TO CONFUCIANISATION
Conceptually, the much-quoted refusal by Vogel to recognise recent
events as failures in political development because of an insistence
on regarding Singaporeans as essentially Confucianists may not help
the cause of democratisation in Singapore. However, to the extent
that such a position lives off the ‘Confucian thesis’, its influence on
the political analysis of Singapore is limited because the thesis has
not met with much support among local academics who are close to
the details of Singapore’s situation. Local commentators have raised
serious doubts about the extent to which, if at all, ‘Confucian notions’
have informed the economic thinking of Singapore entrepreneurs.
Even more significantly,

it has become increasingly difficult to sustain that argument in

recent years when more than two-thirds of investment in
manufacturing has been provided by foreign firms, with more than
a thousand foreign-owned enterprises locating themselves on the
island.
(Sandhu and Wheatley, 1989:1096)

Thus, in spite of the presence of such opinions as Vogel’s, the

political dynamics will exert their own momentum towards further
democratisation.
Substantively, Confucianisation of political discourse risks the
recentralisation of decision-making processes and the reinforcement
of the paternalism/authoritarianism relations between the governing
body and its subjects. Against the speed of a centralised decision-
making process, ongoing experiments at consultation and dialogue
between the political leadership and the citizens appear to be very
time consuming and sometimes lacking in direction. The
temptation, for a bureaucracy accustomed to the former mode of
operation, to recentralise is, therefore, quite understandable.
Fortunately, this desire for recentralisation is quite out of synch with
political developments which disclose ‘new interest in political
opposition and government accountability’ (Chan, 1989:86).
Some degree of resistance to recentralisation results from the fact
that the ‘pre-emptive’ interventions of the centralised decision-
making process has lost some of its lustre and credibility. Several
instances have already been discussed in previous chapters; two
instances will be repeated briefly as illustrations. First, the stringent
 Confucianisation abandoned 165

‘two is enough’ population policy of 1960s–1970s led to such a rapid

decline in population growth that it had to be reversed. Attempts are
now being made, through financial incentives and moral exhortations,
to encourage families to have more children as long as they are able
to afford them. The earlier restraint on family size had uprooted deep-
seated cultural sentiments. Consequently, this policy reversal not only
showed up the ‘error’ of the pre-emptive policy and its presumed
rationality, but also gave vent to repressed resentment against the
restraints themselves and thus, the government.
The second example is found in wage policies, a crucial piece of
the PAP government’s industrialisation strategy. Until 1979, low
wages were maintained as a competitive edge to attract foreign
investment. However, this led to a hoarding of labour by employers,
resulting in a very tight labour market and a very slow rate of
mechanisation, and hence very low value added production. Wages
were then increased by decree at an annual hyper-rate of around 20
per cent for three consecutive years, so as to force employers to
invest in machinery and move Singapore’s economy up the
technological ladder. This led to the brief recession in 1985–1987,
when wages were adjusted downwards in order to restore the
growth dynamics. Of course, the rationality of each step in this
series of decisions can be justified contextually; however, the claim
to long-term systematicity in economic policy formulation is now
met with scepticism. Furthermore, the recession, the first in twenty-
five years of economic growth, provided an opportunity for the
business sector to give vent to its complaints against competition
from government enterprises, leading them to press for privatisation
of state businesses (Chalmers, 1992).
Changes in the last thirty years have increased cumulatively the
resistance to the centralisation of power and the decision-making
process. These changes, imperceptible until post-1984, can be
summarised thus: the 1985 recession prompted the first sustained
criticism of government economic policies; advocates of
educational and cultural improvements have become more vocal;
discontent with the prevailing low level of citizen participation in
decision-making is publicly voiced.
These points of resistance to recentralisation are in their
emergent state. Consequently, the political discourse and the new
vocabulary, to which these nascent developments give but glimpses,
have yet to be fashioned. Unfortunately, the inception of the
Confucian discourse in the ideological sphere poses anew the
166 Confucianisation abandoned

possibility of centralisation and rigid stratification of powers in spite

of increased democratic aspirations in the people, however
elliptically expressed.

CONCLUSION
Some elements of Confucian culture, however adulterated by
historical experiences, no doubt inhere among the Chinese in
Singapore. This inheritance has been shown to work its way
through various social organisations among the Chinese, notably in
the changing structures of the family (Kuo, 1987) and in family
firms (Tong, 1989); these should, of course, be studied in their own
right within the appropriate spheres of activities. The temptation to
stretch the influence of this cultural inheritance to cover the
political sphere should, however, not be entertained. Indeed, the
most involved of the expert advisers on Confucian ethics to the
Singapore government has himself warned against promoting
‘politicised Confucianism’. This is because Confucianism
promoted as a political ideology, ‘forces people into obedience for
no reason other than to protect the interests of a small minority’
(Tu, 1984:23) and is, therefore, ‘diametrically opposed to the
democratic idea’ (Tu, 1984:29).
The political sphere in Singapore had never been subjected to
any Confucian strictures because it was a British colony and upon
independence, declared itself a democratic state. That the
subsequent single party dominant government had deemed it
necessary to curtail democratic due processes in order to achieve
political stability and economic growth does not alter this political
heritage. Local observers would readily concur with the conclusion
that the 1984, 1988 and 1991 general elections ‘were symptoms for
the populace and signs to the government’ of ‘an intensified
political awareness’ (Sandhu and Wheatley, 1989:1087) and, one
might add, for more democracy. Hence, the language of democracy
must remain the terms for political analysis and the nascent
developments towards democracy must not be stifled by the
installation of a Confucian political discourse.
Finally, the ‘Confucian thesis’ for economic success may after
all be inadequate in satisfactorily explaining the economic success
of East Asian capitalism. As Thailand and Malaysia start to join
the ranks of the NIEs, the ring of truth of the thesis may turn
quickly into a moment of aberration; as usual, the necessary
 Confucianisation abandoned 167

explanation turns out to be more complex than any singular cause.

That being the case, it may be argued, alternatively, that if
Singapore has been economically successful, it is because it
played by the logic of global capitalism, albeit without the
encumbrance of the liberal-ideological belief that the government
be non-interventionist in the economy. To the extent that it has
abided by this logic, under a new international division of labour,
the singularly most significant cultural contribution of the
government is in its concerted effort at actively transforming a
population into a disciplined industrial work-force. This has been
achieved through legislative measures and securing the co-
operation of labour; the role of Confucian values, in whatever
guise, was never pressed into service.

NOTES
1 The other response is to celebrate this individualism and eschew any
conception of systematic rationality. Every claim to systematicity is to be
deconstructed, so as to expose the irrationalities that hide in its core and the
legitimacy of systematic rational knowledge exposed as nothing but naked
exercise of power, veiled by the knowledge claims themselves. Free-flowing
subjectivity, not being subjected to external constraints of rationality and
systematicity, remains the only possible and the only permissible discourse. At
a more skilful level, knowledge is aestheticised. This response now passes
under the term ‘postmodernism’.
2 According to MacFarquar’s definition, ‘the term “post-Confusianism” is used
to connote societies which bear the obvious hallmarks of industrialism/
Confucianism, but which have been significantly altered by the accretion of
new elements’ (1980:68).
3 A cautionary, and ironical, note needs to be sounded here. Quite independent
of the Confucian moral injunction, it has been commonly noted that in practice
Chinese familialism has often meant an exclusive concern with the welfare of
the family and a total absence of concern with the larger social environment.
This has been raised by eminent Chinese philosophers like Dr Sun Yat-sen (see
de Bary, 1987:33) and none other than the Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee
Kuan Yew, although he was compounding familialism with the immigrant
status of Singapopean Chinese (see Chua, 1982:328).
4 In his conjecture about the incompatibility between extended family and
economic growth, Dr Goh is in good company with many Western thinkers,
such as Max Weber, Clark Kerr and Chinese reformists (see Wong 1988:134–
135).
5 For example, in early 1989, in a television programme which invited tertiary-
educated individuals to think aloud about how ‘to fashion the next twenty-five
years’ of Singapore, the participants had great difficulty in getting to the next
twenty-five years; instead much of the time was spent in analysing the
government-people relation of the last twenty-five, repeatedly complaining
168 Confucianisation abandoned

about the political interventions of the past and calling for more political
openness in the future.
6 There was no lack of resonance among intellectuals to the government’s
criticism of the supposedly excessive individualism and consumption of the
increasingly relatively affluent Singaporeans (Ho, 1989).
7 In the late 1950s until the early 1960s when Chinese-educated were influential
in the political arena, the term used to signify the ‘decadence’ of Western
culture was ‘yellow culture’.
8 Religious Knowledge and Confucianism, introduced as compulsory subjects
for upper secondary school students in 1984 were withdrawn in 1989, after it
was found that such education was reinforcing the religious boundaries which
could potentially divide the multireligious society.
Chapter 8

Building the political middle ground

The previous chapter closed with some optimism regarding the

momentum towards greater democratisation in Singapore. This
chapter examines the concrete institutional changes, put in place by
the leadership transition, which may contribute to the
democratisation process.
First, a theoretical caveat must be submitted. The extent of
democratic practices unavoidably, even necessarily, varies across
nations and within a particular nation across time and circumstances;
this is a truism. However, variations should not be excuses for anti-
democratic practices. Precisely because of possible conjunctural
fluctations, democracy requires a ‘maximalist’ stance; however
democratic is a government of the day, there is theoretically always
room for more democracy. The realisation of democracy thus
assumes the status of an Althusserian ‘final instance’ which has a
permanently receding horizon. Only such a stance provides the
grounds for continuous critical assessments of extant political
practices and forestalls lapsing readily into accepting the pragmatic
rationalisations of political practices. Every instance of curtailment of
democratic practice warrants an explanation from the government
that claims to be democratic; otherwise, its legitimacy is held in
doubt. It is from this theoretical stance on democracy that the
question of democratisation in Singapore is posed.
This question is thus posed with clear recognition that: (1) clean
electoral politics are well in place; (2) the massive economic
development is largely to the credit of the PAP dominant
government of the past three decades; (3) the electoral process and
the economic development are the necessary basic components for
the construction of a stable democratic polity; and finally, (4) in
170 Building the political middle ground

continuity with the tentative conclusions of the previous chapter, it

will be argued that the prospect for such a democratic polity is far
better now than at the point of Singapore’s unexpected political
independence in 1965. It will, therefore, be useful to briefly recap
the political conditions prior to independence.

MULTI-PARTY POLITICS OF THE 1950S

Immediately after the Second World War, the British colonial
administration began to prepare Singapore for representative self-
government. Election to a few seats in the Legislative Council was
filled through a limited franchise in 1948. Without competition from
the communist-led Malayan Democratic Union which boy-cotted the
election (Drysdale, 1984:27), the hastily organised Progressive Party,
constituted by Straits-born English-educated Chinese, secured three
out of the six seats; the remaining seats went to independent
candidates. The Progressive Party, in spite of its rhetorical pledges,
was reluctant to accelerate demand for political independence
because its constituency included the bulk of the colonial civil
service which stood to gain from close relations with the colonial
government (Drysdale, 1984:38). It was to win only one more non-
representative election before meeting its instant demise in the 1955
election, which had a greatly expanded electorate and a relative
proliferation of political parties. Expecting to win the election, it
contested all twenty seats. The Progressive Party won only four seats,
however. The PAP won three out of four seats contested and the
Labour Front, a coalition of union leaders and other progressive
individuals, won a majority and formed a government with David
Marshall as the first Chief Minister.
The Labour Front government was faced with a by then highly
politicised population. The economic and political grievances of
both a highly underemployed working class and a disadvantaged
Chinese-educated student population predisposed them to radical
political demands. Consequently, when the colonial government
attempted to impose military national service on the youths, student
protests turned violent on 13 May, 1954 and ‘a militant anti-colonial
student movement under the influence of communists crystallised
under the umbrella organisation, the Singapore Chinese Middle
School Students Union’ (Chan, 1984:97) was born. This
organisation in turn provided support for the strike actions of left-
wing labour unions, which erupted again in violence, exactly one
 Building the political middle ground 171

year after the earlier incident, adding symbolic intensity to the

political struggles.
Chief Minister David Marshall refused to take a hard line on the
radicals and resigned from office after failing to obtain
independence for Singapore in 1957. His successor, Lim Yew Hock,
moved quickly to dissolve the student union, shut down Chinese
schools and invoked emergency measures to detain, without trial,
radical union leaders. These were measures much appreciated by
the colonial regime which by 1958 was prepared to grant self-
government to Singapore. The heavy-handed repression, however,
cost the Labour Front dearly; while the PAP, being in the position to
provide both organisational leadership and legal services to the
radical unions and students, gained political strength. The demise
and ascendance, respectively, of the two became apparent in the
general election for a self-governing Singapore in 1959: the PAP
won forty-three out of the fifty-one seats contested.
With its political dominance established, internal divisions in the
PAP itself could no longer be contained. Activities of the left faction
had always sat uncomfortably with the English-educated social
democrats during the period of political ascendancy. The split came
with the issue of merger with Malaya with the left faction breaking
off to form the Barisan Sosialis. Apprehensive that the stringent
anti-communist repression in Malaya under emergency rule would
be applied to themselves in Malaysia, the Barisan called for a
boycott of the referendum in 1962. This went unheeded by the
electorate and merger with Malaysia was enacted in 1963. It also
signalled the first step towards the demise of Barisan. This was
effected when it committed political suicide by boycotting the 1968
general election, leaving the PAP as the sole occupant of Parliament
from 1968 till 1981, winning all seats in three successive general
elections.
The presence and use of legalised repression which sapped the
vitality of opposition notwithstanding—monopolisation of legalised
force being essential to all modern states—what was remarkable in
the PAP’s road to absolute dominance was the continued
maintenance, from the close of the 1950s, of a clean electoral
process without the usual corruptions common in many Third World
nations. The substantive and symbolic significance of this will
become apparent as the argument develops.
172 Building the political middle ground

THE HEGEMONY OF THE ECONOMIC

The success of the PAP in finding the ‘practical’ means to ‘survive’
as a nation, after 1965, by now requires no further elaboration. It is
the hardships that have been carried by individuals in the name of
collective well being that require further consideration.
Like all socially institutionalised practices, government policies
and interventions have been enabling, productive and constraining
simultaneously. This double-edged tendency frames the specificity
of the political development of Singapore as a democratic nation;
apparently, the single party PAP government was able to impose a
high degree of social control yet maintain a high degree of
political legitimacy among the citizenry, indexed by the unfailing
support of up to 75 per cent of the electorate in three successive
general elections, until 1984.
Ideologically, the idea of necessity for survival continues to
have a sense of ‘realism’ in contemporary Singapore. It constitutes
a ‘normative environment’ which provides a range of plausible
rationalisations, justifications and criticisms, for state
interventions, which often include legalised repressions that
violate the common understanding of democratic principles.
Between 1965 and 1980, the violations were underwritten by the
strong ideological consensus/hegemony in the polity;
consequently, social constraints tended to be accepted with a high
degree of voluntarism by the citizens, resulting in sustained
political stability. It should be noted that theoretically, the
legitimacy of a regime is preserved when its interventions are
‘discursively redeemable’ (Habermas, 1975) within the
established normative environment; legitimacy is, therefore, not
synonymous with the building of democratic institutions.
Critics can and will point to the presence of repression as the
cause of the electorate’s tolerance of the PAP regime and its abuses
of democracy. In this reading, the electorate is reduced to self-
serving individuals cowed by fear of detention and denied the
ability to judge for themselves regarding things that are important to
their daily life. Such critics, therefore, unwittingly share the PAP
leaders similar distrust of common-sense rationality. Ironically, it is
this very trust that is needed if democracy is to be established. In
any event, the 40 per cent anti-PAP votes in elections since 1984
should put paid to the unflattering views. This is why issues of
greater democratisation in Singapore have gained some measure of
 Building the political middle ground 173

urgency and come to be posed in terms of the post-1984 elections

and their political effects.

POST-1984 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT: DECLINE OF

PRAGMATISM
Two electoral results of the early 1980s were to expose
dissatisfactions with the PAP government hitherto submerged under
a taken-for-granted strong hegemony/consensus. The first was a by-
election in 1981 in Anson constituency. The seat became vacant
when the incumbent PAP member, Devan Nair, was appointed to the
ceremonial office of the President. Reflecting the Party’s confidence,
the PAP fielded a totally unknown young man, who by his own
admission had no aspirations to high office and indeed no high office
was promised. All PAP campaign speeches were made by the man
entrusted with election strategy, namely, the present Prime Minister,
Goh Chok Tong. The candidate himself was relegated to low-profile
door-to-door campaigning. His opponent was the veteran opposition
politician, J.B.Jeyaratnam, who had the unified support of all the
other opposition parties. The result: PAP secured its first defeat since
1968 by a narrow margin.
At the time, some Singaporeans interpreted the PAP defeat as a
constructive jolt to the Party, which had become progressively
arrogant and self-righteous about its ability to define ‘what is good
for the people’. Others saw it as a demonstration that from then on
not only was opposition possible but that it would not inevitably
break the nation’s will and ability to survive; a threat commonly
touted by the PAP. Ironically, this latter interpretation was
particularly apt in this by-election. The constituency that had earlier
elected a PAP candidate who was elevated to the ceremonial office
of the Presidency, symbol of the nation, had in turn elected the first
opposition MP in almost twenty years. Taken together, the two
electoral acts symbolically demonstrated that to be loyal to
Singapore was not synonymous with being loyal to the PAP (Chua,
1982:320). From the vantage point of the present, one consequence
is now obvious: the opposition’s win broke the psychological hold
the PAP had on the electorate. This was confirmed by the three
subsequent general elections.
In 1984, dissatisfactions with government policies and the
general political culture engendered by the PAP in its more than
twenty years of dominance left the PAP with 12 per cent less than
174 Building the political middle ground

the usual number of votes it had won in the three general elections
since 1968. Opposition to the presumptuousness of the single party
dominant government was confirmed by a post-election survey
(Chan, 1989:82). The election result also showed the sophistication
of the electorate in using their votes to send the PAP a message
without unseating what was essentially an acceptable government.
As argued later in this chapter, such political acumen was later to
have significant effects.
The 1984 election result was both a reflection and a consequence
of the transformed conditions in the mid-1980s. There was an
increasing proportion of the electorate who had no experience or
memory of the turbulence and economic difficulties of the 1950s
and 1960s; this proportion surpassed 70 per cent in 1989 (Petir,
Aug., 1984). With social and economic stability and a declining
threat of communism, the tight social discipline of a paternalistic/
authoritarian regime which the first generation of PAP leadership
had been able to impose became increasingly unacceptable to the
citizenry. With increased education, the claim of the political
leadership to be solely able to define ‘what is good for the people’
became increasingly untenable. Generally, the levels of aspiration in
every aspect of social life had expanded, so too had the range of
public opinions, reflecting an increasingly economically stratified
society, itself a result of the economic success of the nation.
Affluence opens up choices and preferences. Individual preferences
begin to assume ‘sacred’ dimensions rendering state interventions
less tolerable. Consequently, exhortations to stay at the level of
securing the basics and not to make personal demands find few
sympathetic ears. A new management strategy has to be developed
to accommodate the new historical circumstances.
As suggested previously, the primary mechanism in this
management strategy appears to be the opening of government
sponsored ‘feedback’ channels to encourage greater public
participation in the national decision-making process, including the
establishment of a formal Feedback Unit in the Ministry of
Community Development. Yet in spite of these efforts, erosion of
PAP electoral support continued. Thus, in the 1988 and 1991
elections, the PAP again captured only approximately 60 per cent of
the total votes cast. Furthermore, in the latter election, an increase
of opposition in Parliament from one to four MPs was registered.
These successive election results may be indicative of a settling in
 Building the political middle ground 175

of a critical attitude towards government policies, a phenomenon

that demands new political management strategies.

BUILDING POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS: CULTIVATING

THE MIDDLE GROUND
Until the mid-1980s, the PAP had paid little attention to political
institution-building. The leadership believed in its own integrity and
ability to govern rather than in strong political institutions, lest the
latter hampered the need for quick management decisions. The only
notable exception had been the establishment of the Political Study
Centre. Its aim was to re-educate civil servants used to colonial ways
into the national development orientation as defined by the PAP
(Drysdale, 1984:233). After political stability was achieved the Centre
was renamed the Civil Service Institute, and its political role was de-
emphasised. Since the 1984 elections, however, there was a decided
reversal of the earlier position.1 Apart from opening feedback channels,
new political institutions have also been established.
Immediately after the 1984 election result was announced, Lee
Kuan Yew, while appreciative of the electorate’s political cleverness
in pressuring the PAP government without defeating it, raised a
sinister scenario of a ‘freak’ election: asking the electorate what
would happen if instead of just being given a message, the PAP
government were defeated and a group of individuals of less than
‘desirable’ qualities were voted into office by ‘accident’, with
potentially ruinous consequences. The spectre of this possibility led
him to question the wisdom of the ‘one person, one vote’ system,
hinting that it might have to be modified. However, instead of
modifying the voting system, constitutional changes were
introduced to establish political institutions as safeguards against
the possible realisation of the imagined scenario. Such institution-
building, in spite of its less than noble motivation, has positive
consequences for the establishment of a stable democracy.
Three significant constitutional changes in parliamentary politics
deserve attention. First is the introduction of two non-conventional
categories of MPs; namely, the Non-constituency MPs and the
Nominated MPs. The former are candidates of opposition political
parties who did not win their seats but had polled the highest
number of opposition votes in a general election. A maximum of
three seats are automatically offered to such candidates who have
the right to decline; if declined, no alternative offers need be made.
176 Building the political middle ground

The Nominated MPs are non-politicians nominated by the public at

large but selected by a committee of elected MPs. The injection of
these MPs introduces contrary opinions into Parliament and,
hopefully, reduces the circulation of dissenting voices outside the
official political sphere and agenda. Having been given official
recognition, dissenting voices are likely to be more moderate and to
respond to the centre of the political spectrum. This process maybe
labelled as co-optation, which has become necessary because of
declining ideological consensus/hegemony under pragmatism.
Second is the introduction of the concept of the Group
Representative Constituency (GRC). Three or more electoral
constituencies may be grouped into one GRC. In a general election,
each political party must field candidates as a slate, of which one
must be a member of a racial minority. The slate that polls the
highest combined votes carries all the seats in the GRC. This has
two political effects. On the positive side, the insistence that a
member of the GRC must be of a minority group will have the
salutary effect of ensuring that the Malay and Indian populations
will be represented in Parliament; this may alleviate the likelihood
of extreme racism in politics. Indeed, such was the government’s
declared reason for promoting the change in the Constitution.
Implicit in such a mechanism for minority representation is the
recognition that the enforced physical integration of minority racial
groups among the Chinese majority in all housing estates has
created the possibility that only Chinese candidates will be elected
to Parliament in future elections. On the negative side, in the current
situation in which opposition parties are already having great
difficulty in finding ‘credible’ candidates to pitch against the
recognisably high calibre of the PAP candidates, this new electoral
device has the immediate, and perhaps medium-term effect of
reducing the chances of opposition parties at the ballot box.
Third has been the introduction of an elected Presidency. The
most significant power, among others, of the elected President is to
veto the annual operating budget of the elected government, should
it decide to draw on the national financial reserve (Low and Toh,
1989). This initiative was motivated by the perceived need to
prevent subsequent governments from adopting irresponsible fiscal
policies, such as excessive welfarism, just to capture state power.
Candidates for the presidential election are to be scrutinised by a
government committee. Those who automatically qualify are ex-
Permanent Secretaries in the civil service, ex-Chief Executive
 Building the political middle ground 177

Officers of government statutory boards or of companies with paid-

up capital of a hundred million dollars and ex-Cabinet Ministers,
although they would have to sever all party affiliations in order to
contest an election.2 Such a criterion is clearly undemocratic and
has the built-in bias in favour of PAP leaders and against opposition
candidates (Cotton, 1993).
In spite of the previously noted suggestion that these
constitutional changes have immediate negative effects on the
chances of the opposition in the electoral process, it should be
realised that all these changes are double-edged in their
consequences. On the one hand, in addition to reducing the electoral
chances of opposition parties, they can lead to greater social control
through an extended network of state agencies; on the other, they
also open up opportunities for participation and introduce new
constraints on the government itself.
Thus, while the new categories of MPs are a means of co-
optation they can, nevertheless, use their presence in Parliament to
criticise the government and to gain appropriate public attention.
Should the government continuously ignore good suggestions, it
would expose itself to criticism of ‘bad faith’ or hypocrisy in its
expressed desire to be receptive to constructive criticism in the
interest of the nation. While it is true that the GRC scheme is
practically loaded against opposition parties it is, nevertheless, a
structurally available avenue for them to gain control of an
expanded constituency and, when so captured, to gain experience
and demonstrate their abilities to manage local affairs. These latter
qualities are central to the credibility of the opposition to an
increasingly sophisticated electorate.
As suggested earlier, these changes reflect a fundamental change
in the perception of the PAP government. Instead of trusting the
integrity of political leadership, it now sees the hitherto respectable
leadership as a felicitous happenstance. Instead of trusting such
good fortune to hold, it now emphasises the need for strong political
institutions to hold the leadership in check, so as to better ensure
continuity of economic well-being and social stability. The
collective political effect of these changes is potentially to channel
politics into the middle or ‘moderate’ ground; the different MP
schemes incorporate and moderate the range of political differences
into the parliamentary process; the GRC scheme ensures racial
minority representation and avoid racial chauvinism of the majority
Chinese; and the elected Presidency checks against fiscal
178 Building the political middle ground

irresponsibilities of future governments. This moderating/

centralising of politics can pay high dividends, of course, to the
ruling government, especially one which effectively delivers
material well-being to the majority of the population, like the PAP.
Developing the ‘middle ground’ in politics may be precisely what
the new Prime Minister, Goh Chok Tong, desires for the future of
Singapore:

I fervently believe that Singapore should be led by a dominant

political party occupying the middle ground. That political party
must try to enlarge the middle ground through a more
accommodative and participatory style of government that seeks
to include rather than exclude the greatest possible number of
Singaporeans in the political process.
(Straits Times, 24 Jan., 1990)

The Prime Minister’s belief aside, analytically the politics of the

middle ground is in itself a desirable, if not a definitive, characteristic
of mature and stable democracies in developed nations. Its expansion
is therefore a positive move in the direction of establishing a stable
democracy in Singapore.

IMPROVED CONDITIONS FOR DEMOCRACY

After three decades of continuous economic growth, the political
ground in Singapore has been transformed. Events since the mid-
1980s have shown that the highly interventionist stance of the earlier
period of the PAP regime is now likely to cause alienation in the
electorate and other unhappy circumstances. Such is the irony for
government. To apply past formulas, which had been instrumental in
bringing about the successful present, to the present may lead to
subsequent failure.
Singapore’s economy is now well integrated into global
capitalism. Any domestic economic failure is likely to be a
reflection of difficulties in global capitalism itself. Consequently,
responsibility for downturns can be diffused and displaced into the
global system and not directly attributed to the existing government;
management of the economy is thereby relatively distanced from
the Cabinet. Education opportunities and attainment levels will
continue to expand; thus increasing the cultural sophistication of the
population. Demand for individual differences and preferences to be
 Building the political middle ground 179

politically recognised is inevitable. The citizenry has displayed its

electoral sophistication, having had the experience of exercising its
franchise in the past three decades. The combined effect of these
developments has enabled the citizenry to pressure the PAP
government to open up the political sphere (Chan, 1989).
The desire for greater participation of the population will be
better accommodated if the newly installed political institutions
eventually prove successful in producing political stability through
encouraging the development of the middle ground. In the
immediate term, popular demand for participation appears to have
coincided with the new Prime Minister’s personal political
philosophy and temperament, again a happy coincidence for
Singaporeans. It is therefore apparent that the conditions for
democracy are better now than at the founding of the city-state.
However, one should not be too sanguine about the inevitability of
democracy even if the necessary conditions for achieving it are at
hand. Certain obstacles remain in place and need to be examined.

FURTHER DEMOCRATISATION OF THE POLITICAL

SPHERE
A defining character of democracy is freedom of belief and freedom
to speak freely about that belief. This remains difficult in Singapore
at three levels; the level of conceptual practice, the level of building
of non-government-sponsored social organisations in civil society,
and finally, the generalised effect of legal constraints.
At the level of social concept formation, the continuing emphasis
on a strong ideological consensus tends to constrain an individual’s
ability to formulate different opinions; that is, under conditions of
strong ideological consensus/hegemony, the issue is not whether
one can speak freely but that the vocabulary for opinion formation
is already greatly delimited. Furthermore, in practice, the desire for
strong consensus has generated its own management strategies; in
instances where a critic’s opinion is contrary to that of the
government, the latter either promises to consider it within its set
policy directions, or provides the critic with more information so as
to disarm the criticism itself. It is, therefore, extremely difficult to
constitute the ground for political differences.
Second, emphasis on strong consensus, together with official
initiation and control over the opinion feedback mechanisms,
contributes to a sense that participation must be conducted within
180 Building the political middle ground

the agenda and concepts generated and approved by the government

itself. This is often criticised as repression against raising issues on
an individual’s own terms and against development of independent
voluntary social organisations. Conversely, all officially sponsored
social organisations become tainted as ‘co-optation’ agencies, an
image which discourages involvement of certain segments of the
society.
At a time when individual differences and preferences are
making themselves felt, constraints at the level of concept formation
and political practice will be increasingly deemed repressive for
several reasons, not the least of which is an individual’s basic
resistance from being totally socialised in thought and behaviour.
At the level of generalised effect of legal constraints, the central
obstacle is the continuing presence of the ISA (Internal Security Act)
which allows the government to detain without trial any individual for
up to a renewable period of two years. That this is a piece of
undemocratic legislation has not been denied. The government’s
rationale for retaining it, having inherited it from the British colonial
administration, is that it is necessary to deal with subversive elements
whose clandestine organisations and activities are such that open
investigations and prosecutions will not yield effective judicial
results. Indeed, the Act has been invoked only against specific targets.
Each time it was invoked, the government has been candid about its
application publicly. Each case of detention, either of single
individuals or groups, is publicly announced and the allegations
clearly stated. In its actual application, the Act is thus not a device of
general political repression.
Nevertheless, its political effect is highly generalised. It casts a
long repressive shadow; no Singaporean can consider oneself truly
out of its reach. Thus, it is very common to hear of individuals, who
have no social or political status which might attract the attention of
any policing agency, insisting that the ‘system’ is repressive and one
cannot speak one’s mind. For example, in a public forum, a first-
year undergraduate stood up and espoused such a sentiment;
whereupon he was reminded that there are not enough ‘secret
police’ to go around tailing everyone, yet in his mind ‘they’ are
everywhere. It is also common for Singaporeans to be asked, at
home and abroad, whether they can speak freely. This is a question
that even the highly educated find difficult to answer in a
straightforward manner. With the awareness of the presence of the
Act, the best answer will have to be either a qualified yes or a
 Building the political middle ground 181

qualified no. These are pervasive instances that reflect the

generalised repressive effects of the Act, over which the government
has no control regardless of its effort to assure the people and dispel
any fear of generalised repression.
The government’s position that the ISA is necessary to police
extremism in the political spectrum reflects a fundamental
reservation regarding the collective intellectual maturity of
Singaporeans and their ability to discern the possible dire
consequences of any form of extremism and to reject them
accordingly. Historically, the electorate of the late 1950s might be
said to have been susceptible to the promises of communism and
racial communalism. However, within the present condition where
the population has serious material and social stakes in the status
quo, there are good reasons to believe that it will not succumb to
political false promises. Indeed, if this were not so, the attempt to
develop and expand the political middle ground would likely fail.
The government’s reservations now appear rather too stringent.
Instead, it should increasingly trust the collective rationality of the
citizenry; such trust is a foundation stone of a stable democracy.
The issue of trust should also be posed from the side of the
citizenry—whether it trusts itself to make rational political choices.
If, as a collective, it does not, then, it may in fact favour the
retention of the ISA itself. In addition to being a reflection of
citizens’ indifference or feelings of inefficacy or fear of the ISA
being visited on them, absence of public outcry in the instances
when the Act was invoked may, indeed, reflect a certain agreement
with the government; that is, in the eyes of some sections of the
electorate the ISA is not without legitimacy. In the final analysis, the
Act must be repealed, this is the sine qua non of establishing a
democracy in Singapore. When should this be done is best
answered by Singaporeans themselves.

CONCLUSION
Given the power effect of democratic discourse, post-colonial nations
generally begin by attempting to install ‘democracy’ in their body
politic immediately upon independence. Such attempts have often
been short-lived and after a period of political instability resulting
from unrestrained political contests between entrenched interests,
authoritarian and repressive regimes have been installed. One reason
for the failure to sustain a democratic polity is that the necessary
182 Building the political middle ground

cultural and institutional conditions for democracy simply did not

exist in the post-colonial societies. Politically, colonialism did not
have among its objectives development of democracy among subject
populations. Economically, colonialism had not assumed the
responsibilities of bringing the subject populations into the industrial
world. To have done either would be contrary to the imperialist
interests of the metropolitan nations. Given such a legacy, the
establishment of democratic institutions in post-colonial nations
often means the imposition of a set of structures onto non-democratic
cultures, and the process of economic modernisation can simply
mean the imposition of a market economy onto non-market forms of
social relations. Consequently, the so-called ‘failures’ of the post-
colonial societies are not exceptional.
Singapore, as a post-colonial society, inherited the same legacy.
It too went through a period of multiparty politics. However, it was
hardly what one would call ‘democracy in action’. The struggles
among the political parties were not underwritten by a set of shared
political values. There were no rules of negotiation nor was there a
common desire to arrive at a negotiated political order as the logical
outcome of democratic politics. Instead, the struggles were for
political dominance and ideological hegemony. The PAP emerged
as the absolute victor through a combination of judicious use of
legalised repression and free election.
Having achieved political dominance, the PAP reversed the
societal agenda, instead of then giving priority to building political
institutions it set about building the economy, tampering with
various conventional democratic values along the way, except for
the electoral process that is. This did not simply undermine its
political legitimacy in the eyes of the newly enfranchised
Singaporeans. Instead, as the economic programmes proved
successful, its interventions began to pay legitimacy surplus, as
reflected in the PAP’s continuing electoral victories and absolute
dominance in the political sphere. Economic success, along with an
increasingly educated citizenry with good understanding and
experience of exercising their franchise, have created the necessary
conditions for the establishment of a stable democratic polity.
Consequently, structures towards greater democratisation of the
political sphere may be said to have been put in place by the PAP
government itself in response to pressures from the electorate. Of
course, obstacles remain in the polity, the most notable of which is
the continuing presence of the Internal Security Act and its
 Building the political middle ground 183

generalised repressive effects. The remaining obstacles should

caution one from being overly optimistic about the future or the
inevitability of democracy in Singapore. One should, nevertheless,
conclude that the conditions for democracy are undoubtedly better
than at the time of its unexpected, even unwanted, political
independence in 1965.

NOTES
1 The shift to institution-building is also noted by Cotton (1993); he has a
different take on the issue and focuses largely on the place of Lee Kuan Yew.
2 The first election for Presidency was held in 1992. The winner was the current
incumbent, Ong Teng Cheong, who was Deputy Prime Minister until before
the election.
Chapter 9

Towards a non-liberal
communitarian democracy

Several notable changes have contributed to the declining popular

support for the PAP at general elections throughout the decade of the
1980s; 75.5 per cent in 1980, 62.9 per cent in 1984, 61.8 per cent in 1988
and 61 per cent in 1991. These changes include greater social class
differences; the emergence of new lifestyles reflecting increasing
affluence and individualising tendencies; greater freedom and creative
cultural expressions and unbottled desire for more control in the personal
sphere and more say in the decision-making processes in the collective
arena through multiple modes and nodes of representation. The electoral
effects of these changes may be conceptually aggregated as expressing
the desire for greater political democratisation and freedom from state
intervention. This desire expressed through the ballot has caused the PAP
government to rethink some of the ideological concepts and
administrative practices that have underpinned its long regime.
Significantly, these developments in Singapore are taking place
conjuncturally with a global historical context where ‘democratisation’
movements are challenging hitherto authoritarian regimes in Latin
America, Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe. There is a tendency to read
these movements as indexing a desire for liberal democracy and the
enshrinement of individual rights in the political sphere (Huntington,
1991). Where a middle class is emerging, it is often attributed a leading
role in the march towards democratisation (Lev, 1990). Such a reading
is premised on generalising the Western historical experience in which
the bourgeoisie was instrumental in raising liberalism to the level of a
globally dominant political philosophy, subjecting other polities to its
moral and practical injunctions (Wallerstein, 1992).
Yet it is clear that the PAP government is both thoroughly
 Towards a non-liberal communitarian democracy 185

sceptical regarding the rationality of the ordinary citizen and

unapologetically anti-liberal. However, the formal features of
democratic electoral politics remain in place and intact. It would be
easy but analytically inadequate to dismiss the latter as a facile
feature that cloaks an authoritarian regime (Wong, 1991). There is a
very significant distinction between a government that either
dispenses with elections or rigs them to ensure a favourable
outcome and one which conducts free and clean elections at regular
intervals. Even if the two governments should evince apparently
similar authoritarian management strategies, their political relations
with their respective citizens are dissimilar. In the former case, the
authoritarian regime will have little legitimacy with the people, the
surface calm that repressive measures are able to maintain is merely
waiting to explode. In the latter instance, state administrative
interventions may be tolerated with a very substantial degree of
voluntarism on the part of the electorate because of the covenant of
having elected the leadership to govern. Indeed, it is this covenant
that has enabled the PAP government, especially since 1968, to
claim to be a democratic government with a high degree of political
legitimacy, while maintaining its pervasive presence and
interventions in all aspects of social life of Singaporeans.
The PAP government’s vision for the Singaporean polity is that
of an anti-liberal democracy where collective well-being is
safeguarded by good government by honourable leaders. This
chapter will attempt to delineate the contours of this conception of
government and politics which the PAP is engendering. To do so, it
is first necessary to separate and clarify three concepts which are
dismissed by the PAP government, so as to create ideological room
for its own conception of a communitarian-based democracy;
namely, liberalism, legitimacy and democracy.

ABSENCE OF WESTERN LIBERALISM IN ASIA

As a consequence of its ideological dominance in global political
discourse, liberalism is a word with much unintended conceptual
baggage. It is, therefore, necessary to recover its intellectual roots. In
its Lockean formulation, the individual stands at the centre of
liberalism, alone, as the best rational judge of one’s self-interests and
must be permitted to act freely to achieve them. Like-minded
individuals can freely associate themselves as interest groups to
pursue shared corporate interests. The only moral injunction against
186 Towards a non-liberal communitarian democracy

the pursuit of self-interests is that it should not be at the expense of

others. The social is thus conceived in the negative. At both
individual and group levels, the state is tolerated as a neutral and
minimal convenience to maintain the rules of social transactions.
The state is neutral as an objective arena in which orderly
transactions between individuals and interest groups are executed. It
has no interest of its own qua state but merely acts as umpire to the
transactions. Its interventions in the private sphere of the citizen is
permissible only when public interest is demonstrably threatened as
a result of disputes between private parties. For example, in the
event of a labour strike that threatens the general economy, the state
may coerce, by legislation, the workers to return to work. It is the
‘guardian’ of public interests only in this restricted sense. Where
threats to public interest are absent, intervention constitutes an
infringement or ‘abuse’ of the rights of individuals. This particular
conception of the restricted role of the state discloses an implicit
assumption of antagonism and contestation between individuals and
the state, with the privileged former guarding the rights they have
gained over time against the encroachment of the latter (Chua,
1992a).
Within the conceptual space of a liberalism where the social is
conceived negatively, it is difficult to develop concepts of
‘collective interest’ and ‘collective responsibility’ in the social and
political spheres. In practice, the moral injunction against
jeopardising the interests of others, while in pursuit of self-interest,
often goes unheeded. The privileging of individualism has been
blamed by neo-conservatives for spawning many of the social and
cultural problems in Western advanced capitalist nations. The
charges are: (1) it has given rise to a hyper-subjectivity constantly in
search of self-realisation through unrestrained consumption and
gratification; (2) the emphasis on individual rights has produced a
society in which private disadvantages can be translated into claims
on the government, resulting in rapid expansion of welfarism,
leading to fiscal crisis for the state (Bell, 1976); and (3) with the
entrenchment of rights, the so-called ‘civil society’ is no longer
constituted on a moral basis, instead it has been reduced in effect to
one which is defined and determined by competition between rights
of individuals, settled only by litigation. This neo-conservative
sentiment has been appropriated by the PAP for its own contention
that absence of social responsibility accounts for the current state of
 Towards a non-liberal communitarian democracy 187

declining civility and economic health in public and private spheres

of Western liberal democracies.1
The conceptual and substantive criticisms constitute the
ideological grounds for the PAP to simultaneously reject liberalism
and create room to insert a different set of values that is to be
‘recovered’ from so-called Asian traditions. Ideological barricades
have been erected against the globalised Western culture. The
ideological confrontation is drawn between supposedly corrupting/
individualistic/Western influence and wholesome/communitarian/
Eastern traditions. Against the centrality of the individual and
individualism is placed the centrality of the ‘collective’ well-being
and ‘communitarianism’. In privileging the collective, the tables are
turned, so to speak, on individuals to defend their own actions,
demanding of them to demonstrate the absence of malice against
the collective and/or conversely, the presence of self-sacrifice for
the same collective.
The immediate empirical issue is who represents the collective and
who defines its interests. On the grounds of technical difficulties in
arriving at a discursive consensus in which all interested individuals
have the opportunity to partake in its formulation, the elected
individuals invariably constitute themselves as representing the
collective and its interests. There is a conflation of state/society
through the concept of collective or national interest; the role of the
state is ‘to define community needs and to insure that they are
implemented’, furthermore, ‘it needs to be efficient and authoritative,
capable of making the difficult and subtle trade-offs’ (Lodge and
Vogel, 1987:20). Instead of a minimal and neutral state of liberalism,
the conflation of state/society justifies state interventions in all
spheres of social life, rationalised as pre-emptive interventions which
‘ensure’ the collective well-being, as measures of good government
rather than abuses of individuals’ rights.

ON POLITICAL LEGITIMACY
In an anti-liberal, communitarian state economic issues tend to have
practical priority over others, such as political institution-building,
because material improvements are the most tangible index of
‘taking care of collective good’; this accounts for the shallowness of
political institutions (Scalapino, 1992:165). The push to enhance
material life often leads to suspension and abuse of what may be
constituted as individual rights in a liberal democracy. Successful
188 Towards a non-liberal communitarian democracy

economic strategies not onlyjustify but contribute to the electorate’s

voluntaristic tolerance of the violations as acceptable forms of social
control and repressive coercion (Marcuse 1966).
Parenthetically, as the degree of civil liberty necessarily varies
across time and contextual exigencies, the acceptability or
otherwise of a particular constraint is intelligible only within a
particular ideological context. Its acceptability depends on whether
it can be ideologically, i.e. normatively, rationalised ans hence
justified. The rationalisation in turn is dependent upon the ‘cunning
of reason’ of the ruling government’s ideologues and the conceptual
elasticity of the ideological value system in place. Consequently,
substantial energy of the ruling government is continuously
expended on institutionalising a normative value system that is
supportive of its actions; one in which its interventions can be
publicly rationalised and debated, without threatening its legitimate
claims to the right to govern (Habermas 1975).
As suggested earlier, emphasis on improvement of the material life
generates its own criteria for justification. State interventions,
rationalised in terms of their necessity for economic growth, are
justified by their very success; the legitimacy of the ruling
government is gained and reinforced. If growth did not materialise,
then there is warrant for the government to be criticised. This logic
constitutes the ‘performance’ criterion by which the ruling
government’s legitimacy is judged. Satisfying the criterion by
‘delivering the goods’ constitutes for some political leaders and their
sympathetic analysts the defining character of ‘good government’.
There is a theoretical tendency to assume that so-defined ‘good
government’ is essential to economic growth (Lee, 1992; Chan,
1992). However, it should be noted that economic growth does not in
itself require good government as a necessary condition but
commonly issues from governments rent with corruption.

ON DEMOCRACY
Procedurally, a democracy is constituted by the following conditions:
as a government by the people there should be participation by the
people in managing the nation. However, as the population size of a
modern state exceeds the possibility of direct participation,
participation can be achieved only through representation.
Consequently, a basic necessary condition of democracy is the free
and open competition for leadership, conventionally through
 Towards a non-liberal communitarian democracy 189

elections that are free of tampering by interested parties. The right to

govern is granted to the ruling party as a ‘contingent consent’
(Schmitter and Karl, 1991:82), thus committing the elected to be
responsible and responsive to the electorate, alleviating the chances
of the abuse of power. Such procedural conditions of democracy are
not antithetical to an anti-liberal polity. Indeed they could, and
should, be met by such a polity in order to provide legitimacy for the
ruling party to govern and to distinguish its interventions from
illegitimate naked coercion.
However, there may be significant differences in the interpretations
of the meaning of elections. In a liberal state, the elected may see
themselves as the voice of the represented and diligently seek their
opinions on different issues. The result is often a slow process of
opinion-gathering and consultation before taking a decision, which
will hopefully satisfy most of the represented. On the other hand, a
non-liberal leader may interpret his or her election as being bestowed
with the electorate’s trust and therefore the mandate to decide on the
latter’s best interest. The expectations of the electorates may also
correspondingly differ. In a liberal state, the electorate may accept
tardiness in decision-making, even lament the inaction of the elected;
in the non-liberal state, it will likely expect the elected to act on issues
judiciously but with speed, according to the performance criterion.

THE NON-LIBERAL PAP GOVERNMENT

Many of the features of a non-liberal state explicated above
correspond with the PAP government’s self-understanding of its
ideology and practices. At the very outset of its rule, it had managed
to capture the difficult historical circumstances of political
independence and ideologically turned it into an issue of ‘national
survival’. This constitutes a resource from which a discourse of
‘national interests’ may be perpetually generated within emergent
circumstances. Since then, the national interest has been defined as
the need for economic development and the improvement of
material life of the population. To ensure their realisation, the
surrounding social, cultural and political terrain is secured through
an extensive network of disciplining processes and strategies. The
extensive control is not only justified but constitutes the basis of
‘good government’ as growth ensues. Within this logic, the PAP
considers itself to have disposed of its duty to Singaporeans more
than adequately.
190 Towards a non-liberal communitarian democracy

This self-assessment is shared by the governed, who have

consistently supported the PAP in elections since 1959, even if
electoral competitions have not always been conducted on an entirely
level playing field between the PAP and opposition parties. This has
rendered to the PAP government a high degree of political legitimacy
as a ‘democratic’ government with an impressive majority, thus
reinforcing its perception of having done the right thing by the
people, regardless of how harsh its policies may have been.
However, declining electoral support in the 1980s has been
symptomatic of the electorate’s increasing discomfort with
extensive state interventions in their daily life and a desire to push
back the limits of government so as to establish greater space in the
personal, cultural and political spheres simultaneously. They also
indicated the weakening ideological purchases of ‘survivalist’ and
‘developmentalist’ rationalisations of public policies, as
Singaporeans become less anxious about an economy which is
globally integrated and appears healthy for the foreseeable future.
Consequently, the idea of the ‘national interest’ is now often blurred
by competing conceptions of different voluntary associations and
class segments (Rodan, 1993a). Furthermore, the unilateral top-
down decision-making process is no longer unquestioningly
accepted, edging the new generation of PAP leadership towards
seeking new ideological connections with the electorate.
Changes undertaken by the political leadership include
increasing public consultation in policy-making, greater preparation
of public receptiveness of policy through floating of White Papers
for public debate ahead of legislation and implementation,
introduction of different voices in Parliament through different MP
schemes, and building of new political institutions as safeguards for
political stability by channelling politics into the middle ground.
Ideologically, ‘pragmatism’ and ‘developmentalism’ continue to be
operational strategies but are no longer thematised, in part because
they not only do not discourage individualism but often encourage
it. Instead there is an explicit promotion of a ‘communitarian’
ideology, as enshrined in the so-called Shared Values.
The future shape of the PAP government will, therefore, likely
contain the following features: collective interests will remain broadly
indexed by the most tangible features of society, namely, the mutually
reinforcing political stability and economic development; the
government will delegate to itself the role of the promoter and
vigilant guardian of these collective interests, although with greater
 Towards a non-liberal communitarian democracy 191

public input through increasing channels of consultation with

interested parties; it will continue to be an interventionist state in the
name of the need to maintain political and social stability to ensure
economic growth, but with greater accountability and sensitivity to
public reactions; finally, in spite of nagging discomfort, it will
continue to uphold the democratic electoral process.
As the PAP continues to be elected to govern, its conception of
the shape of the polity must have positive resonance in the popular
political consciousness; there remains a significant level of
ideological consensus between the two. However, declining popular
electoral support suggests that this consensus is more contingent
than it used to be and further changes in the political sphere are
expected by the electorate. It is, therefore, necessary to clarify the
limits of possible changes within the given conception of
government and politics.

CONSEQUENCES OF ADOPTING COMMUMTARIANISM

Central to communitarianism is the idea that collective interests are
placed above individual ones. Logically, what constitute the
collective interests should be based on ‘consensus’. However, as
suggested earlier, the technical difficulties of soliciting opinions from
every interested and affected party tends to be resolved, in practice,
by a conflation of state/society, in which the elected political
leadership assumes the position of defining both the consensus and
the national interests by fiat. This of course has serious political
implications.
Communitarianism in itself does not prejudge the form of
government that embodies it as the dominant ideology; the form
depends on the political history and culture of the nation in
question. However, the conflation of state/society not only, as
argued, legitimises an interventionist state but also enables the
guardians of the state to slip easily into authoritarianism, either
because of a genuine belief that they are acting for the collective
welfare or simply by this using it as a self-serving excuse. This is
why, while not logically favouring one particular form of
government, communitarianism often spawns authoritarianism in
practice. For the same reason, authoritarian regimes are more
inclined than liberalism to promote communitarianism because it
enables the rationalisation and preservation of an entrenched
centralised power, as in the case of Indonesia (Robison, 1990).
192 Towards a non-liberal communitarian democracy

At present, in spite of its overwhelming elected majority in

Parliament, the PAP government appears to be responding to the
pressure from the ground and moving towards greater consultation
and participation in the formation of national consensus and
national interests. However, given its history, the possible
imposition of authoritarianism in the future cannot be dismissed
entirely. The question that faces Singapore’s political development
under a single party dominant government with a communitarian
ideology is, therefore, one of how to keep authoritarianism at bay.
What, if any, political institutions can be put in place to hold off the
imposition of authoritarianism? Some institutionalised mechanisms
are already in place but we shall begin with mechanisms that are not
likely to contribute to greater democratisation.

LOGIC OF PRAGMATISM
As argued in earlier chapters, the concept of ‘pragmatism’ as the
embodiment of economic instrumentality operates entirely by
contextual rationality. Government intervention in all spheres of
social life is rationalised in terms of the contingencies of a particular
situation rather than on the basis of any relatively inviolate principle.
Since it admits no inviolate principles, pragmatism as the basis for
government will not contribute to democratisation. Instead it may
stand in its way because, for democracy to be established, certain
principles must be maintained regardless of contingent societal
conditions; exceptions are kept to a minimum and extensive evidence
of their necessity is demanded.
Although unlikely to be discarded completely, pragmatism as an
ideology is, nevertheless, losing its ideological hold on the
population. It may not cause negative reactions when applied to
policies with tangible material consequences, as in economic
policies. However, when applied to other areas of social life, the
policies may either simply be neglected or face overt objections
from the population. In its relative ideological retreat, there is more
room, in principle, for arguments in the political sphere which may
act to prevent hasty state interventions.

RULE OF LAW
Conventionally, it is argued that the rule of law is a necessary condition
for democracy as a safeguard against arbitrary exercise of power by the
 Towards a non-liberal communitarian democracy 193

state (Lev, 1990). This only holds if laws are understood to be the
embodiment of a concept of transcendental natural law or a contract
between individuals with mutual, enforceable obligations; the rule of
law is then an instrument of protection of the individuals and civil
society against the state. None of these precepts of law are within the
idea of pragmatism or the legal concepts of Confucianism, in which the
idea of the law is the regulation of rewards and punishments,
maintained by the ruler’s power (Wang, 1980:10; Jones, 1993).
Under the PAP government, the legal system is infused with the
ethos of pragmatism, as such it is an instrument of social control
and of rectification of social behaviour, tailored to the needs of the
issues at hand by the legislative Parliament, the sole authority in
law-making. Instances abound in which laws are changed and
invoked retroactively to punish violators; statutes are changed to
better suit enforcement immediately after they were successfully
contested by litigants, such as the removal of the Internal Security
Act from judicial review after one of the government’s indictments
was reversed in the Supreme Court; and finally, constitutional
changes are undertaken with speed because of the absolute majority
of the PAP. The last has led a legal scholar to claim that in practice
there is no Constitution, in spite of its material presence. Given the
way laws are made and implemented as an instrument of
maintaining social order, the government governs through the law
rather than by the law, as understood in Western traditions of
government. The rule of law makes little contribution to possible
democratisation in Singapore.
Let us turn now to the features that may render the government
more responsive to the public sentiments, including but also beyond
the strictly formal procedure of elections. Among these, the first is
the Confucianist self-image of the PAP leadership.

CONFUCIAN LEADERSHIP
As suggested earlier, the PAP leadership has not succeeded in
inscribing Confucianism into the ideological system of Singapore.
However, it may be said to have ‘Confucianised’ itself by
prescribing for itself a code of ethics, that of the jin tze or
honourable individual. They have set themselves up as the model of
a moral leadership which governs in the interest of the people rather
than through self-interest. There have been instances, including
instances of financial corruption, of Ministers and other political
194 Towards a non-liberal communitarian democracy

office-bearers who have been found morally wanting and have been
dealt with severely. On the whole, however, its track record may be
said to be exemplary. This ‘self-Confucianisation’ does not mean
that the PAP leadership will not behave like other politicians in
their desire to win votes and stay in power. This desire is, however,
rationalised in terms of the public interest which provides the
warrant for their actions. Indeed, having claimed the moral high
ground and regarding themselves as having fulfilled their mission
creditably, they are often puzzled by the level of anti-PAP votes in
general elections of the 1980s.

ELECTIONS
The most obvious and perhaps the most significant of potential
contributions to democratisation is, of course, the institutionalisation
of elections as the means of selecting political leadership within a
multi-party political system; without it any mention of democracy
will be fatuous. Because of the history of uneven contests, ironically,
it has taken the emergence of declining electoral support and the
PAP’s attempts to stop this erosion to convince sceptics that elections
in Singapore are more than a veil for authoritarianism (Rodan, 1992).
Foreign observers have marvelled at how seriously the PAP takes
every percentage point lost in electoral support, especially when the
losses did not translate into proportional representation of opposition
members in Parliament. The 60 per cent majority vote and seventy-
seven out of a Parliament of eighty-one MPs garnered in the last
election in 1991 would be considered a ‘landslide’ victory in mature
Western democracies. Yet, the PAP responded as if it had been beaten
badly (Singh, 1992). This reaction to every small shift of electoral
sentiments is in part a result of the leadership’s communitarian
ideology.
As oppositional votes constitute protests against the PAP, their
increasing volume stands as a concrete indictment of the ‘absence’
of consensus, thus weakening the PAP’s claim to be the
embodiment of the ‘collective interests’. Furthermore, the PAP’s
attribution of communitarianism as the ‘Asian’ ethos of
Singaporeans is placed in doubt. Electoral support is not, therefore,
about how well the opposition parties do but rather how united is
the nation behind the PAP leadership and the party’s self-
conception as a ‘people’s movement’. The problem faced by the
PAP appears to be generic to all potential communitarian states.
 Towards a non-liberal communitarian democracy 195

Indeed, it has been suggested that because of the fear of exposing

this absence of consensus, the Indonesian military authoritarian
regime which espouses a communitarian ideology, Pancasila, is
adverse to voting altogether in an already government-packed
‘Parliament’ (Djiwandono, 1989). Consequently, as evidence that
the PAP is successful in inculcating communitarianism as an
ideology in Singapore, it must win overwhelmingly in the general
elections, not just by a simple majority. However, to acheive this it
will have to be more responsive to popular sentiments and more
persuasive, that is, more democratic rather than repressive in its
governance.

RIGHTS TO CONSULTATION
As suggested, within the communitarian ideology, there is little space
for the conceptualisation of individual rights. Any analysis of a
random selection of political speeches will discover a very developed
vocabulary on responsibility and an underdeveloped one of rights
within the Singaporean political discourse; everyone is responsible to
the collective but there is little room to question what are the rights of
membership. In this Singapore is no exception among nations which
emphasise the collective interest, especially under conditions where
the ‘survival’ of the nation is in doubt (Wang, 1980); hence the
desirability to preserve the survivalist myth in Singapore (Devan and
Heng, 1992). However, there appears to be the beginning of the
institutionalisation of the ‘right’ to be consulted, especially for
interest groups.
In spite of the anti-liberal atmosphere, several notable interest
groups around clearly identifiable issues or constituencies have
emerged; the most prominent ones are women’s groups, such as the
Association of Women in Action and Research (AWARE) and the
Singapore Association of Women Lawyers, the Singapore Nature
Society, an environmental group and, the Association of Muslim
Professionals (AMP). These organisations have had some successes
in achieving their goals. For example, one of the past presidents of
AWARE was a Nominated MP for 1992–1994. The environmental
impact study of the Nature Society has brought to public attention
the environmental costs—cutting down 40,000 mature trees which
house a significant bio-diversity of insects and birds—of the
planned development of a golf course by the Public Works
Department. The golf course is now unlikely to be constructed.
196 Towards a non-liberal communitarian democracy

The most politically minded of the organisations was the AMP. It

was founded by Malay professionals who were unhappy with the
domination of Malay PAP MPs in Malay community affairs because
the latter have to abide first by the interests of the Party/government
before considering those of the community. Its founders sought to
detach community organisations from the PAP, especially
MENDAKI, a government-sponsored organisation charged with
improving the academic achievements of Malays (Mutalib,
1992:84– 87). The attempt was foiled by the government, which
turned around and offered the AMP a similar level of public funding
arrangements to run its own community programmes (Chua,
1991a:261–262). The result is that it has become the second
community group to serve the Muslims and is in ‘friendly’
competition with the larger Mendaki.
As Rodan points out, none of these organisations ‘appear in any
way to facilitate the growth of oppositional politics—either in the
sense of adopting a confrontational posture or in the sense of
providing avenues for members of opposition political parties to
advance their cause. On the contrary, to some extent these
organisations provide feedback for the government which its own
party structure is unable to deliver’ (Rodan, 1992:17). There are two
reasons for this state of affairs. First, institutionally the PAP has
amended the society registration legislation to proscribe any
organisation which is not a political party from making statements
on issues outside the specific purview of its declared functions and
constituencies. This amendment followed the instance in which the
Law Society publicly criticised the government’s amendment of the
Newspaper and Printing Presses Act, in 1986, which empowered the
Minister of Communication and Information to impose sanctions on
any foreign publications deemed to be engaging in the domestic
politics of Singapore (Rodan, 1992:15). The amendment to the
society registration legislation effectively prevents interest groups
from forming coalitions on public issues, thus radically reducing
their political space.
Second, ideologically all voluntary associations are constrained
by the communitarian ideology. They need to abide by a ‘national
interest’ which denies any assertion of self-interest as a group in its
own right. As an ideological concept, the ‘national interest’ is an
empty category, the better to accommodate contingent substance.
This substantive openness is a resource that can be exploited by
both the government and the contesting organisations. For example,
 Towards a non-liberal communitarian democracy 197

the government’s position that Singaporeans are entitled to golf

courses for recreation is countered by the Nature Society’s assertion
that Singaporeans are entitled to nature for the same purpose; the
environment does not have its own rights to be preserved, nor do the
trees, birds or the insects.
Curiously, conceptually a political party is in a strict sense just
another interest group whose interest is politics. This is indeed the
way the PAP new leadership has viewed opposition parties, as
representatives of sectarian interests to be tolerated within the
PAP’s single party dominance, which in contrast they perceive as
the ‘mainstream’. Without the ability to unseat the PAP as the
government, opposition parties have in fact to campaign primarily
on issues with identifiable constituencies, such as the poor, rather
than with the generalised interests of seizing state power; thus
lending some validity to the PAP’s position. In sum, the voluntary
associations are forced by the existing legal and political constraints
to play only a reformist role.
However, as communitarianism requires broadly defined
‘consensus’, legitimate interest groups have the right to be heard
and to contribute to consensus formation.2 This right differs in
significant ways from the liberal conceptualisation of rights of
individual. The latter are constituted as transcendent natural rights
to be protected against infringement by the society and the state.
With communitarianism, constrained within the ideological/
conceptual space of national interests, no individual or group can
assert its own right as a basic condition of existence lest the
assertion be read as unacceptable self-interest, potentially
detrimental to the whole. The right to be consulted must therefore
be constituted without reference to ‘nature’ but sociologically, on
grounds that a broadly defined consensus can only emerge when all
interested parties are consulted and their differences accommodated
or rationalised. Although derived from different premises, in
practice communitarianism like liberal democracy requires that the
rights to interest group formation and representation in consensus
formation be institutionalised.

As the explicit thematisation of communitarianism and consensus

in Singapore is a late 1980s event, the right to be consulted is yet to
be firmly institutionalised. However, it is probably a step from which
the government is unable to retreat without substantial political costs.
Failure to consult obvious group of people on actions that are
198 Towards a non-liberal communitarian democracy

prejudicial to them will likely lead to a further erosion of popular

electoral support, if the actions are not satisfactorily normatively
justified. On the part of the population, more interest groups with
clear constituencies should be encouraged, including those which are
promoted by the government itself, in order to reflect the complexity
of interests in contemporary Singapore.

A ‘FREE’ PRESS
The conventional understanding that democracy is safeguarded by
the presence of a ‘free’ press, disseminating the greatest possible
information so as to enable citizens to make informed judgements for
themselves, is categorically rejected by the PAP government. Like
other instances of rejection of liberal democratic concepts, the
independent press of the West is subjected to substantive criticisms
for being not ‘truly’ free but subject to hidden influences and
pressures from different interest groups. It is also criticised for its
ideological effect of causing confusion in the minds of the public,
undermining the authority of the elected leaders and leading to a
destruction of the unity of national purpose.
Consistent with its conceptualisation that the elected government
occupies the position and voice of the national interests, Lee Kuan
Yew states categorically, ‘Freedom of the press…must be
subordinated to the overriding needs of the integrity of Singapore,
and to the primacy of purpose of an elected government’ (Straits
Times, 22 May, 1987). Not surprisingly, the history of the PAP
government and the press is paved with instances of emasculation,
culminating in the present situation of first, a government-
encouraged monopolisation of the national print media by a
conglomerate which publishes the national newspapers in English,
Chinese and Malay, second, a national journalist body which is
unapologetically pro-government especially in the senior editors’
ranks (George, 1989); and finally, a Press Act that empowers the
Minister of Communication to control ownership of domestic press
and imposes restricted circulation of foreign publications on
grounds of interference in domestic affairs. Yet, within the terms of
a communitarian ideology, the issue is whether a highly restrained
pro-government press serves well the process of the formation of
consensus and collective interests of the nation.
Let us begin with the unapologetic pro-government stance of the
journalists. Whatever may be their misgivings in private, editors of
 Towards a non-liberal communitarian democracy 199

the national press publicly proclaim that they are pro-government in

editorials and coverage of news items. This self-disclosure apparently
justifies the political bias in their professional duties: readers are
forewarned and must decide for themselves at their own peril. This
may be sufficient defence if there were contesting national papers
which took different political slants to provide some balance. Alas,
such is not the case in Singapore and the editors’ self-defence is
disingenuous. Given the absence of influential alternatives, the pro-
government stance of the only national press is potentially counter to
the national interests for the following reasons.
First, substantively being pro-government is not synonymous
with being pro-consensus and pro the national interests. That the
leadership may be more interested in self-preservation in the seat of
power than in furthering the national interest is an ever-present
likelihood. This is why the constitutional changes aimed at
safeguarding the national reserve and ensuring minority
representation in Parliament are put in place by the PAP itself,
previous clean leadership notwithstanding.
Second, failure of the only national newspaper to provide room
for a wide spectrum of public opinions is ultimately counter-
productive to its support of the ruling government. Concerned
readers are likely to read it as a government ‘bulletin’ and, beyond
the substantive portion of a news item to discount the rest, which is
often crucial to public opinion formation. Instead, they seek
verification in the foreign press, often giving the latter an
undeserved privileged place in commentary and editorials on
domestic affairs. Arguably, it is precisely because such a process
had set in that the PAP government decided, in 1986, to legislate
against alleged interventions in domestic affairs by foreign press.
Third, contrary opinions do not disappear by their absence in print
in the national press. Instead, they bide their time for the opportunity
to exercise their effects, such as during elections. In this way, the
ruling government’s lack of published information about contrary
opinions renders it unable to respond to opposition, even to the extent
of diffusing such opinions, until their effects are manifest and felt. For
example, in 1991, the failure of the national press compounded the
failure of the other feedback mechanisms to give the PAP an accurate
assessment of sentiments among the electorate. This led to a mistaken
call for a snap election that resulted in a further slide in the popular
support base of the PAP government (Singh, 1992).
The realised and potential negative consequences listed above
200 Towards a non-liberal communitarian democracy

demonstrate that an unquestioningly pro-government press, without

any competition, constitutes with the government itself a
monologue about national interests, rather than a conversation in
which opinions are exchanged and debated in order to arrive at a
broad consensus on national interests. Thus, again,
communitarianism like liberalism needs the independent forum of
the press for contending opinions to be debated, so that consensus
can emerge and national purpose be pursued with unity.
The practical requirement of establishing a communitarian-
value-based government is apparently not dissimilar to those
required by liberal democracy, namely, the extensive establishment
of networks of voluntary associations and the presence of an
unencumbered press, both of which are constitutive elements of a
strong civil society. These requirements must be factored into the
future development of politics in contemporary Singapore.

A COMMUNITARIAN DEMOCRACY FOR SINGAPORE

Singapore’s economic achievement owes much to the ideological
consensus between the PAP government and the people; together
they have suppressed individual differences for a unity of purpose to
develop the economy and improve the material well-being of the
nation as a whole. These collective interests have kept the nation
united. However, capitalist growth has brought with it unavoidable
differentiation among the population along different cross-cutting
dimensions, with attendant pluralism in world views, lifestyles and
preferences. The PAP government and some segments of the
population view this proliferation of differences apprehensively as
symptomatic of the insidious creeping in of individualism and
‘Western’ liberalism which threaten the unity of purpose.
Consequently, instead of waiting for this unwitting ideological
invasion to ‘ravage’ the social body, the PAP government is fighting
it with explicit articulation, promotion and institutionalisation of a
version of communitarian ideology, which it believes to inhere in the
Singaporean population as part of their ‘Asian’ heritage. It is seeking
to develop what it could call a communitarian democracy.
However, the promoters of such a possibility, inside Singapore
and abroad, have yet to work out just what a communitarian
democracy looks like. They appear to assume that the necessary
conditions for democracy would be essentially different between
liberalism and communitarianism; where and how and with what
 Towards a non-liberal communitarian democracy 201

consequences remain unknown. Indeed, privileging of individual

rights or the rights of the collective does produce significant
differences in government decisions on the national level. For
example, in a communitarian ideology, the need to provide housing
for the nation overrides the conventional rights of property
ownership, leading to low compensation for land acquired and
construction of low-cost housing; conversely, the protection of
property rights under individualism will require market value
compensation resulting in high cost of land which is prohibitive to
public housing construction.
As the arguments in this chapter show, the requisite conditions
for a communitarian democracy are surprisingly similar to those of
a liberal democratic state. First, to be a democracy at all, the free
and clean, ‘one person, one vote’ electoral process must be
institutionalised or, as the saying goes, one is not even in the ball
park. Second, to arrive at a broad national consensus, a defining
characteristic of communitarianism, the rights to interest group
formation and the presence of a relatively independent press must
also be institutionalised. Without these two institutions, any
proclamation of the presence of a ‘consensus’ regarding ‘national
interests’ is necessarily logically and substantively wanting;
similarly for the ‘national interest’. The three institutions listed
above are also sacrosanct to liberal democracy; however, the
philosophical grounds for their justification are different for liberal
democracy and the PAP version of communitarian democracy.
In contemporary Singapore, existing constraints on interest
groups restrict them to narrowly defined constituencies without
room for sympathetic support of each other on general issues that
face society as a whole. Existing constraints on the press have led to
the declining credibility of the national press among its discerning
readers (Kuo et al., 1993). This has led not only to active seeking
out of foreign press reports on local news, but politically more
importantly, to an alienation from active interests in the nation’s
business. On both counts—of the presence of strong voluntary
associations and an independent press—the PAP government in
Singapore is still far short of meeting the necessary conditions for a
communitarian democracy to which it allegedly aspires. To that
extent, Singapore politics must be said to be in transition to a
communitarian democracy (Scalapino, 1992:165). It is most
certainly not one that has already arrived, as it is increasing
assumed to be in some less critical quarters.
202 Towards a non-liberal communitarian democracy

NOTES
1 There are, of course, other ways of reading the linkages between individuals
and community within a liberal framework, for example see Kymlicka (1989).
To the extent that this is so, the PAP’s reading of liberal democracy is
unavoidably an ideologically interested one; one which is produced to
maximise its differences with PAP’s own vision of an anti-liberal polity.
2 By ‘broadly defined consensus’, it is recognised that ‘total consensus’ among
all interest groups and individuals is not possible. Rather, with an eye on
collective interests, differences will be negotiated and rationalised. Stringent
believers in individual rights are likely to believe that such accommodation of
differences is unlikely.
Conclusion

In terms of the current discursive wisdom regarding the linkage

between economic development and political democratisation in
developing countries, Singapore is a frustrating case. Three decades
of rapid economic growth have transformed Singapore into the
second highest income country in Asia, a distant second to Japan. By
the logic of prevailing wisdom, Singapore should be leading the rest
of Southeast Asian developing nations towards greater democracy.
Yet, its single party dominant government of the PAP is not
democratising at a rate to satisfy its critics, at home or abroad.
Conceptual and substantive difficulties in placing Singapore in the
debate on democratisation arise from its political stability which is
characterised by the presence of a popularly elected PAP government,
hence the unquestionable presence of formal democracy, and the
tendency of the government to impose, through due Parliamentary
process, substantively highly anti-democratic laws and administrative
regulations in the social and political sphere. The difficulties are
compounded by the apparently ambivalent responses of an electorate
which is increasingly willing to voice its dissatisfaction with
unacceptable state interventions without any apparent desire for a
change of government or even to overt support the development of
strong opposition parties. This steady state has resulted in analysts,
especially those outside Singapore, continuing to characterise the
PAP as an authoritarian regime and to label the Singaporean
electorate with various negative terms.

CONTRADICTIONS OF THE PAP GOVERNMENT

The fundamental basis of the PAP’s claim to being a democratic
government is that it has always captured state power through an
204 Conclusion

untampered with popular electoral process, never otherwise;

although like some democratic governments, election regulations are
sometimes manipulated to its own advantage. That it is popularly
elected, that it is financially non-corrupt, that it manages the
economy well for the betterment of the people, that it governs
transparently through due Parliamentary process, all with a dash of
self-sacrifice on the part of some of its leaders and members, add up
to a very powerful set of legitimising elements for the PAP regime
and are commonly accepted by Singaporeans. The same elements
constitute, for the PAP, the character of ‘good’ government and
provide justifications of its right to continue its governance. This is
reflected in the recent self-characterisation of its leaders as
Confucian ‘jintzu’, loosely translated as ‘moral individuals’. The
PAP has thus appropriated for itself the moral high ground and
established the ideological hegemonic terms of political discourse in
Singapore, beyond direct intervention and legislation.
In spite of its commendable features, the PAP government
nevertheless continues to be considered an ‘authoritarian’ regime. A
most obvious contributing factor to this characterisation is the
political history of Singapore, which is synonymous with the rise of
the PAP. In its drive for absolute dominance, many less than
democratic tactics had been used to suppress dissent. These abuses
are well documented (Bloodworth, 1986) and are not denied by the
PAP. It considers the subsequent economic success as ample
justification for the anti-democratic interventions. A second factor is
the ‘style’ of government which was, and largely still is, top-down
and based almost exclusively on hyper-technical rationality, with
little participation from the population who have to live with its
decisions and policies. The pervasive strategy of rendering all
government decisions as ‘technical’ problems, to be solved only by
experts, reduces the space for political practice because the
electorate as lay individuals do not possess the requisite knowledge
to be trusted with making informed decisions. This style of
government is therefore often one of imposing a decision on the
people by a ‘father knows best’ leadership, hence it is authoritarian
in nature. The ability to adopt such a style is obviously greatly
facilitated by the absolute majority of the PAP in Parliament.
Beyond history and style, there is seriously anti-democratic
legislation in place that greatly constrains the political sphere. In
addition to the Internal Security Act, there is the Societies Act that
delimits ‘political’ activities narrowly to the purview of political
 Conclusion 205

parties. Civic voluntary associations, quintessential institutions of

civil society, are barred by the Act from making political statements
beyond the interests of their respectively defined constituencies,
under threat of being deregistered. The Act effectively suppresses
the commonplace activity of a civil society in which voluntary
associations establish their solidarity by publicly sympathising with
each other’s causes. The anti-democratic legislations, of which the
above are but two examples, compound each other to cast long
repressive shadows on Singaporean civil society and suppress
public criticisms of the government. As long as they are in place,
and to the extent their presence reinforces the entrenchment of the
PAP in the seat of power, the PAP’s claim to be a democratic
government will always be problematic, the commendable features
of the regime notwithstanding.
The question of further democratisation is, therefore, to be posed
in the interstices of the two sets of extant features of the Singapore
polity. In the presence of the positive qualities of the PAP regime,
further democratisation will take place along different lines from
that of other Asian nations which have recently gained the rights to
clean elections after explosive struggles, such as South Korea and
Taiwan. In contrast to explosive spectacles of democratisation,
political changes should take unspectacular forms without
disrupting social stability.

MATURING POLITY/EMERGING CIVIL SOCIETY

Singaporeans are well aware of the interventionist character of the
PAP government, while appreciative of its technical and bureaucratic
efficacy in improving their material life. The trade-off for the
majority is: improved material life for some losses in civil and
political liberties. The interventions are therefore borne within this
compromise, but they are never forgotten. With the 1984 watershed
election, the vestiges of fear of voting against the PAP evaporated, a
decline in popular vote continued in subsequent elections, eroding
the support for the PAP to slightly above 60 per cent in the most
recent elections in 1991. Party leaders now concede that a greater
opposition presence in the Parliament may be in the national interest.
Equally significant are the different constituencies that have cast
anti-PAP votes. In the 1984 election, it was attributed to the younger
and middle-class voters; in 1988 to the Malay voters who in
previous years had faced ‘regular and open badgering by the
206 Conclusion

government’ regarding their ‘loyalty’ to the nation and their

economic underachievement (Mutalib, 1992:87); in 1991 to lower-
income Chinese in the public housing estates who have faced
mounting difficulties keeping up with increased standards and costs
of living, and to better-educated Chinese who finally broke their
reticence to register their alienation and dissatisfaction with a
growing economy that privileges the English-educated and leaves
them much to their own devices.1
The shifts in protesting constituencies indicate two developments
under apparent political inactivity. First, they show that social
differentiation in the population along income, education and ethnic
lines has reached such a point of complexity that one administrative
policy for the entire population, hitherto the apparent successful
formulae of the PAP government, is no longer viable. Government
will have to recognise the presence of the differences and, if it be
impossible to satisfy them simultaneously, then some political costs
will have to be accepted for every one of its policies. Second, after
years of practice, Singaporeans are quite sophisticated in using the
ballot box to pressure the government, to the point of
‘brinksmanship’, according to Lee Kuan Yew. In spite of continuing
majority support, the PAP has had to be more responsive to popular
demands.
Substantively, for example, in spite of its vehemently anti-
welfare ideological stance, the government has come to recognise
the presence of an estimated 10 per cent of the population living in
poverty and some direct fund transfers to this group have been
instituted; after the 1991 election the government absorbed the
monthly conservancy charges of all HDB rental households for the
month of December. Politically, new institutions aimed at
moderating the effects of race, welfarism and contrary opinions
have been instituted, such as the Group Representative
Constituency, the elected Presidency and the nominated MP and
non-constituency MP schemes, respectively. More use has also been
made of Parliamentary select committees to solicit opinions. The
overall strategy is for more public consultation without abdicating
the responsibility to govern. Since ‘feedback’ is as much about
explaining policies as soliciting critical inputs, the device is double-
edged. If participants became convinced that the process is but a
charade of openness and their presence but a means to lend the
government legitimacy, they would be soon alienated from both,
which would in turn reaffirm their negative impressions of the
 Conclusion 207

government. The package of government responses are read in this

book as steps towards greater democratisation. Beyond these,
further democratisation is likely to be an uphill struggle at both the
individual and group levels.
In the meantime, other regions of social life are also undergoing
changes. In spite of legal restrictions, perhaps encouraged by
changes in the electoral politics, several voluntary associations have
emerged to voice the concerns of their respective constituencies.
Among these are the Association of Women for Research and
Action (AWARE), the Association for Muslim Professionals (AMP)
and the Nature Society. Each has a very definite constituency and
each has had some success in engaging relevant government
agencies in public debate. There are thus observable movements in
civil society activities and, as discussed in the next section, the
government has responded to these activities in ways that it hopes
will reinforce its continuing legitimacy.

THE CITIZENS’ DILEMMA

For the individual, being politically oppositional can be a perilous
activity, to be taken on only after serious considerations of the
existential conditions of living in a very small island city-state, where
the state is pervasive in every sphere of social life. First, one’s
livelihood is directly or indirectly tied to some part of the functions of
state agencies. Directly, one may be in the employ of either the civil
service or one of the many large government-linked enterprises.
Indirectly, as the private sector economy is highly regulated by
licensing and other administrative processes, it is believed that one’s
professional practices may be jeopardised by difficulties in running
the gauntlet of bureaucratic processes. The tendency is to avoid
offending the political regime.
Second, the PAP in its determination to stay in power is
unrelenting in keeping a close watch on the activities and words of
oppositional individuals. Recent political history contains several
instances of members of opposition parties being either prosecuted
for violating civil laws or sued by PAP leaders for defamation/libel
and in most cases losing the ensuing legal battles to the latter. Such
instances are psychologically traumatic not only for the individuals
involved but also for others within the close-knit extended family on
the small island. In the strict sense, these instances are neither
undemocratic nor illegal; it can be argued that members of political
208 Conclusion

parties, whether of or against the ruling party, are not privileged

beyond the bounds of the law and should, therefore, face the same
consequences as every citizen when they fall foul of the law.
Nevertheless, these instances are often read as excessive
‘persecution’ of individuals who hold opinions contrary to the
regime by political observers.
Third, the potential personal costs must also be weighed against
the relatively good material life that Singaporeans have been and
are enjoying under the PAP regime’s efficacious management of the
economy. Appreciative of its development efforts, Singaporeans
have high regard for the government; thus reducing their
willingness to confront it openly. This is especially so for the
middle class, whose very existence is in part the result of the
successful economic policies. Thus, in spite of the existing
theoretical assumption that as the economy develops the middle
class will embody the progressive tendency towards democracy, the
Singaporean middle class is in the end likely to be more co-
operative with the regime than against it (Rodan, 1993).
Alternatively, sensing that the government tends to disregard
one’s view, combined with the desire not to jeopardise one’s own
economic interests, middle-class individuals are inclined to cultivate
their own private interests, leaving the government to institute rules
and policies which either do not affect them personally or can be
borne without financial difficulties. This ‘privatisation’ process is
reflected in the PAP’s lament that ‘highly qualified’ individuals are
unwilling to join its ranks (Ong, 1992). Its youth wing is also facing
decreasing membership of the well educated; efforts to recruit
potential members include promises for greater consultation and the
right to hold opinions different from the main party!
Parallel strategic difficulties face the voluntary associations. As
mentioned earlier, they are prohibited from engaging in ‘political’
activities. Ironically, such associations cannot avoid ‘political’
issues when speaking for their respective constituencies. For
example, the demand of women’s associations that female civil
servants be granted fringe benefit plans similar to those of their
male counterparts is a direct demand on the state and is thus
unavoidably political. Such demands, however, do not challenge the
fundamental premise of the regime although they do bring out
anomalies in existing state practices. As such they are reformist in
character and if the government accedes to the suggested changes, it
stands to gain legitimacy.
 Conclusion 209

In the interest of gaining incremental concrete benefits for its

constituency, an association is constrained to promote such
reformist causes that are circumscribed by the discourse and
practices of the existing ideological framework. Consequently,
once certain levels of acceptability to the government and
effectiveness are established, an association becomes reluctant to
risk deregistration and lose the possibility of making incremental
gains, instead they will operate within the agenda set by the
government. This is precisely what is envisaged by the PAP; more
room for civic associations will be created but only under the
umbrella of a strong state that charts the unified direction for the
society as a whole (Yeo, 1991).
The parallel dilemma of the individual and voluntary associations
appear to become conjoined and embodied in the institution of the
Nominated MPs (NMPs). The initial motivation for the government
to promote this scheme was to introduce individuals with
recognised abilities into Parliament to act as independent voices in a
house packed with PAP legislators, so as to alleviate the popular
demand for opposition voices. This mechanism appears to have
been captured by interest groups in the selection for the 1991
Parliament. Of the six NMPs, four are identified with specific
constituencies with very identifiable voluntary associations, namely,
a woman surgeon who at the point of appointment was the president
of AWARE, a leader in the telecommunications worker’ union, the
chairman of the Singapore Manufacturer’s Association and finally,
an entrepreneur who successfully sold his garment business to a
public listed multinational firm.
Significantly, while the four NMPs have very clearly identifiable
constituencies, they speak in Parliament strictly as individuals and
not as representatives of the constituencies in whose interests they
are obviously expected to act. As if to reaffirm publicly the absence
of any linkages, these NMPs do in fact speak on issues which go
beyond the interests of their constituencies. Such symbolic veils,
however transparent, are necessary in order to keep the initial
motivation of the NMP scheme intact and also not to violate overtly
the Societies Act. Specific interest groups gain their voices in
Parliament through indirect representation, while the regime
remains unchanged, but is helped by the NMPs to access
information and better management of dissatisfactions.
210 Conclusion

A NEW IDEOLOGICAL FRAME: COMMUNITARIANISM

Hoping to prevent the demands of a higher-educated population with
corresponding economic means to engage in individualised choices
of ideas and lifestyles from becoming full-blown ‘individualism’
with its attendant ‘liberalism’, the PAP government has moved to
denounce these developments as ‘corrupting’ influences of the West.
In addition, it seeks to develop an alternative ideology as the basis for
macro organisation of the Singapore society. This counter ideology,
supposedly ‘distilled’ from ‘Asian’ traditions, is communitarianism.
Politically, this communitarianism makes it ideologically possible to
rationalise the conflation of state/government/society, which in turn
justifies state interventions in social life as pre-emptive measures for
‘ensuring’ the collective well-being; thus, as measures of ‘good
government’ rather than abuses of individual rights. The closed
ideological logic of communitarianism makes it difficult to think
beyond it; consequently, even members of the opposition parties have
difficulty constructing alternative scenarios to the PAP’s ideological
constructions of the ‘national interests’ of the whole society. The
interventionist PAP government has thus arrived at a new ideological
threshold, beyond survivalism and pragmatism.
Contemporary politics in Singapore appears to have arrived at a
steady state: on the one hand, an ideologically self-conscious
interventionist but popularly elected government which maintains a
tight reign over freedom in civil society, while simultaneously
continuing to produce a better material life for the population as a
whole. On the other, an electorate which is appreciative of the
government’s efficacy in economic matters but is, nevertheless,
uncomfortable with all its interventions and seeks to have a greater
say in the formulation of national interests and to have more
opposition voices in Parliament to check the easy slippage into
arrogance of power and of authoritarianism of an absolutely
dominant PAP government, but without removing it. Movement out
of this steady state will take fresh initiatives for which there are
several windows of opportunity.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR FURTHER DEMOCRATISATION

First, the PAP itself appears to be concerned about middle-class
disinterest in politics which is affecting its own ability to recruit
desirable members. Consequently, it has been suggested that it is now
 Conclusion 211

interested in ‘re-politicising’ the citizenry (Chan, 1989). If so, it can

neither afford to further alienate the interested few nor continue to
persecute individuals who hold contrary views thereby driving
concerned individuals further into their private sphere. Some
additional room for difference/dissent may be made available
through political necessity. However, good intentions generated by
political necessity notwithstanding, given its wont of acting
unilaterally, the PAP is likely to move slowly in opening up the
political sphere, in a process of stops and starts.
Second, the drive towards a ‘communitarian democracy’ may
itself generate a need for greater democratisation in spite of its
ideological tendency to restrain dissent. Within the
contemporary context, the formulation of collective values and
interests, upon which a communitarian democracy is premised,
is achieved through a combination of broad agreements or loose
consensus as well as through the leadership of the political elite.
This means that new mechanisms for consensus-formation must
be developed. Two essential mechanisms are increased formation
of voluntary associations with identifiable constituencies and an
independent press.
In communitarianism, legitimate interest groups have the right to
be consulted and to contribute to consensus-formation. Lest this
right be misinterpreted, it is not conceived as a ‘natural’ right. It is
based on the substantive ground that a broad consensus can only
emerge when all interested parties are consulted and their
differences considered. There is, theoretically, greater scope for
interest group development, which is central to the emergent
constitution of a civil society that protects itself from the state.
Concerning an independent press, it should be noted that a pro-
government press is potentially counter to the national interest for
several reasons. The most obvious is that pro-government is not
synonymous with pro-nation. The failure of the national mass media
to provide room for a broad spectrum of public opinions is
ultimately counter-productive to its support of the regime; it drives
readers/audiences to seek other, particularly foreign, sources for
information. Censorship of these alternative sources is also counter-
productive because it merely confirms to those who avail
themselves of it that the foreign press must be saying something
right. Finally, if denied airing on the public media, contrary
opinions will seek alternative opportunities to register themselves
and exercise their effects, such as in the ballot box, leading to
212 Conclusion

potentially more serious consequences. For these and other reasons,

it is clear that an independent forum is needed for contending
opinions to be debated so that consensus, the sine qua non of
communitarianism, can emerge and national purpose can be
pursued with unity.
Third, the inequalities of capitalism are already having an effect
on the polity. This will only intensify, making it difficult for the
single party dominant government to contain all the differences
within all its activities. The inequalities will force the regime to
focus its attentions towards greater social equity and social justice,
that is, towards greater substantive democracy beyond formal
procedures.
Finally, the electorate for their part know that they have a
government which will continue to manage the economy to their
benefit; consequently, while desiring more Parliamentary
opposition, they will not vote for the opposition just for this reason.
Given the widespread ideological acceptance of the PAP’s
definition of what constitute the necessary qualifications for
politicians in terms of academic qualifications, professional
achievements and moral character, the electorate is likely to demand
the same from opposition candidates. Here is the dilemma: if the
PAP is having difficulties in attracting the ‘right’ candidates, why
would a potential qualified candidate join the opposition parties and
take on the previously mentioned hardships? So, while the last three
elections showed that Singaporeans are willing to vote against the
PAP, further democratisation will depend significantly on
opposition’s ability to field ‘credible’ candidates to provide positive
identifications for what remain as protest votes.
The apparent ‘steady state’ of the contemporary Singapore
polity, therefore, holds several opportunities for further
democratisation, some of which are made available by taking
seriously the PAP government’s own desire to develop a
‘communitarian democracy’, in spite of the current absence of
strong opposition parties. However, there is no inevitability to
the realisation of these opportunities. Furthermore, if changes
towards their realisation do take place, these are likely to
develop quietly without social ruptures because Singaporeans
are not in a hurry to change a government with a most
impressive economic track record that has translated into
improved standards of living. It is still too early to ask ‘whither
the PAP dominance’ or to enjoin ‘wither the PAP dominance’!
 Conclusion 213

NOTES
1` For details of the 1988and the 1991 elections see, Lew (1990) andSingh
(1992), respectively. For the PAP’s analysis of the 1984 and 1991 election
results see the speeches of the Deputy Prime Minister, Ong Teng Cheong
(1992).
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Index

Abercrombie, Nicholas 36 autonomy of state 106

academic discourse on AWARE see Association of Women
Confucianism 153–6 in Action and Research
Acts see law and legislation
affluence 74, 88, 95 Barisan Socialis 14, 16–17, 40, 171
Africa 184 Barthes, Roland 38, 44, 45, 47, 78
ageing population 116 Bastin, Rohan 56
Agnew, J.A. 136 ‘Battle for Merger’ 45
Aldrich, B.C. 114, 132 Bedlington, Stanley 41
Althusser 169 Belgium 138
AMP see Association of Muslim Bell, Daniel 118, 149, 153, 186
Professionals Berger, Peter L. 150, 151
Anderson, Benedict 38 bigamy 81
Anson by-election 13, 173 Bloodworth, Denis 13, 14, 17, 38,
ASEAN (Association of South-east 122, 204
Asian Nations) 48 Borneo 9
Asian capitalism, ascendancy of Britain and colonialism 87, 101,
150–1 154; anti-colonialism 11–12, 13,
Asian values 65–6; and new 14; and education 111; and
nation, making of 113, 118–19, everyday life 81; and housing
120; see also Shared Values
131, 146; and ideology 9, 13,
assessment: of everyday life
16–17, 22; military withdrawal
transformed 94–9; of
18; and new nation, making of
pragmatism 70–5
101–2; and political middle
Association of Muslim
Professionals 195–6, 207 ground 166, 170, 182; and
Association of South-east Asian pragmatism 58, 76; and public
Nations 48 housing 132; and radicals
Association of Women in 170–1; see also English language
Action and Research 195, 207, 209 and education
Australia 146 Buddhism 28, 29, 159
authoritarianism and bureaucratic Bukit Ho Swee village 81–7, 99
control 41, 54, 203–4; accepted bureaucracy see authoritarianism
151, 153–4, 160–2, 164; protest
votes against see election results; Cabinet 14, 76, 163, 177; see also
see also PAP Prime Ministers
 Index 225

capitalism see economic growth Christianity 159; and ideology 28,

car ownership 24–5, 90, 92, 116 29, 30, 31
Castells, Manuel 124, 125, 138 Chua Beng-Huat 38, 39, 167; and
Catholics 30, 31 community programmemes
CDAC (Chinese Development 196; and consultation 24; and
Assistance Council) 34 elections 173; and everyday life
Central Provident Fund see CPF transformed 88, 98, 100; and
Chalmers, Ian 24, 108, 165 housing 131, 132; and
Chan Chee Khoon 64, 78 ideological processes 55;
Chan Heng Chee 164; and and new nation, making of 107, 114,
Confucianism 28, 30; and 116, 117, 123; and state
decision-making 161–2; and neutrality 186; and teamwork
definition of politics 40, 41; and 157; and voluntary associations
elections 155, 162, 174, 179; 19
and ‘good government’ 188; Chun, Allen 123
and Labour Front 12; and new Citizens’ Consultative Committees
nation, making of 108; and 141
pragmatism 18, 21, 42, 59; and civil service 15
recentralisation 164; and Civil Service Institute 175
‘repoliticisation’ 211; and civil society, emerging 205–7
Clammer, John 28, 33, 110, 123
rumours 50; and student
class: mixed in housing blocks
movement 170; and survival 56
141; politics, eliminating 137–8,
Chandra Das 77
140–1; see also leadership;
‘chauvinism’, racial 107
middle class; poor
Chee Heng Leng 64, 78
clothing 90, 91–2
Chiang Hai Ding 50
Clutterbuck, Richard 13, 16, 17,
children: numbers controlled see
38
graduate mother; see also
‘CMIO’ category (Chinese,
education; family
Malays, Indians and Others)
China see People’s Republic 110
Chinese language and education collective consumption
168; and everyday life 84; and goods/welfare: contributions
ideology 12, 15; and new 34, 148; lack of 206; see also
nation, making of 106, 110, public housing
119, 120, 123; and political collectivism 150–2, 157; lack of see
middle ground 170–1; see also individualism; see also
Chinese people co-operation; Shared Values
Chinese people in Singapore 48, colonialism see Britain
206; everyday life 81–7, 90, common-sense: knowledge,
93–4; and ideology 12, 14–15, ideological concepts as 47–8;
29; and new nation, making of reality, ideology as 44–7
101–2, 106–7, 108, 110, 114, Communications and
119–20, 121–3; and political Information, Ministry of 196,
middle ground 170, 176, 177; 198
and pragmatism 59; see also Communism 12, 14, 15, 32, 49,
Chinese language and 150, 170
education; Confucianism communitarianism see non-liberal
Chong Kim Chang 115 communitarian democracy;
226 Index

Shared Values 89, 116–17; and housing 131–3,

Community Development, 136, 146; and public housing
Ministry of 23, 174 131–3, 146
competition: and consumerism crime 66–7, 75, 78, 85
105, 152; and education 105, ‘crisis’ mentality 69
112, 157; and meritocracy 157 critical assessment see assessment
concentration of racial groups cultural construction see new nation
denied 141 culture, Singaporean: as discursive
Confucian Foundation of China object 101–4, 119; genealogy of
159–60
104–6
Confucianism and
Customs and Excise Department 90
Confucianisation 6–7, 28–31,
98, 147–68, 204; ascendancy of
Das, Chandra 77
Asian capitalism 150–1; decline
de Bary, William T. 167
of West 148–50; and ideology
11, 32, 39; limits to 164–6; death see mortality
major elements 151, 160; and decolonisation, PAP ideology in
new nation, making of 119, 11–14, 40
120–1, 123; and non-liberal democracy 169, 188–9; and
communitarian democracy Confucianism 155, 163, 166;
193–4; reinscripted in political future opportunities 210–12;
sphere 35–7; values 151–3; see general will concept 47;
also discourse improved and increased
consensus 32, 179–80; and 178–81; towards 71–3, 203–5; see
hegemony 128–9, 136–7, 140; also consultation; election
see also Shared Values results; elections; liberalism;
conservatives see right, political non-liberal communitarian
Constitution 25, 67, 107, 122, 199; democracy
changes 173–7; of other demography see population
countries 33 depoliticisation 40–1, 55; thesis on
consultation 206; introduced welfarism 124–7, 144
23–5; on law and legislation detention without trial 180
96–7; rights 195–8 Devan, Janadas 19, 38, 195
consumerism and materialism: development see economic growth
competitive 105, 152; Deyo, Frederic C. 109
conspicuous 157; and everyday Dhanabalan (Minister) 74
life 89; in national interest 152;
discipline see social discipline
and new nation, making of 113,
discourse on Confucianism
116–18; status see private
153–62; academic 153–6;
housing; see also collective
political 156–62; political
consumption
co-operation 109; in everyday life development 161–3
84–5, 96–8; see also collectivism discursive objects, Singaporean
Cotton, James 177, 183 culture and identity as 101–4,
Council for Education of 119
Muslim Children see Mendaki disease and health care 83
counter-concept of political life see Djiwandono, J.Soedjati 195
everyday life domestic service see servants
CPF (Central Provident Fund) 34, dominance see PAP
 Index 227

dress see clothing and political middle ground

drug abuse 113 172, 173–4, 175; and
Drysdale, John 9, 13, 16, 105, 170, 175 pragmatism 74, 75–7; see also
Duncan, S. 132 elections and voting
Dunleavy, Patrick 125 elections and voting 169, 206;
from 1959 to 1984 13, 16–17,
Eastern Europe 184 20, 155, 171; since 1984 see
Economic Committee 23–4, 96 election results; Anson
economic growth: and everyday by-election 13, 173; and
life 87–9, 95; hegemony Confucianism 154, 155–6, 161–3,
of 171–3; and ideology 9, 10–11, 166; ‘freak’ 22, 23; and
16, 20, 23–4, 37–8, 49–50; and GRC 26, 176, 177, 206; and
new nation, making of 104–5, ideology 11, 13, 16–17, 20–3,
108–11; and pragmatism 58–60, 38–9; legislation 122; merger
68–9; and public housing 129 referendum (1962) 16, 17, 171;
economic instrumental rationality and non-liberal communitarian
see pragmatism democracy 184, 185, 189–90,
education: competition in 105, 191, 194–5, 199; ‘one person,
112, 157; and Confucianism one vote’ 22, 154–5, 156, 175,
151, 157; and everyday life 84, 201; and political middle
91–2, 98; as human capital ground 173, 174, 175, 179; and
61–3; and ideology 16, 19, 27, pragmatism 73, 74; see also
28–9; illiteracy and lack of 83–4; Presidency elite see leadership
level of mothers see graduate employment see labour
mother; Malay 14, 33–4, 102, Employment Act (1964) 61
110, 112, 122, 196; Ministry 35, English language and education:
62, 70, 77, 118, 159; of mother as dominant language 110, 111,
see graduate mother; Muslim 111–13, 158; and ideology 11,
33–4, 122; and new nation, 12, 14, 15, 27, 34; and new
making of 105, 110, 111–13, nation, making of 101, 102,
120, 123; priority registration 110, 111–13; and political
71, 77; and public housing middle ground 170, 171; and
110–11; streaming 27, 61–3, pragmatism 65–6, 81, 84, 99
123; and women 84; see also English, Peter 78
Chinese language and Enlightenment 149
education; English language environmentalism 195, 197
and education; higher equality of opportunity 15;
education; meritocracy; moral educational 112; lack of 21; see
education also public housing
egalitarianism see equality ethnic groups in Singapore 65–6,
Elected Presidency Bill (1990) 26, 103; concentration denied 141;
67 majority see Chinese people;
election results since 1984 205–6, minorities see Indians; Malays
211–13; and Confucianism 155, Europe 132, 138, 150, 184; see also
161–3, 166; and everyday life Britain
96; and ideology 11, 21, 23; Evers, Hans-Dieter 42, 59
and non-liberal communitarian everyday life transformed 6,
democracy 184, 190, 191, 199; 79–100; in 1950s 81–7, 99; in
228 Index

1980s 87–94; assessment of 94–9 Minister 51; and family 27; and
excesses of success 116–19 meritocracy 157; and
exclusion, ideological 47 new nation, making of 99, 109, 115;
expectations, rising 98–9 and pragmatism 60, 66, 78
export orientation see economic growth Goh Kim Leong 70, 78
external threats 48, 49 Goods and Services Tax proposed
94
Fabians 153 Gouldner, Alvin W. 79–80
family and familialism 28, 32; and government see authoritarianism;
Confucianism 151, 166, 167; PAP
and new nation, making of graduate mother policy 21–2, 64,
114–16, 119; nuclearisation 68–72 passim, 75, 77
114–15, 119; and public Gramsci, Antonio 3, 11, 17, 38, 48
housing 114–15, 119, 141–2; see Group Representative
also children; Shared Values Constituency (GRC) 26, 176,
Feedback Unit 23, 174 177, 206
festivals 107, 112, 120
finance: Ministry 27, 53, 114–15; Habermas, Jurgen 126, 128, 149, 172, 188
see also CPF; investment Hall, Stuart 2
Fong, Leslie 39 HDB (Housing and Development
Fong Sip Chee 12 Board) 206; created (1960) 87,
Foreign Affairs, Ministry of 49, 74 129; and pragmatism 87, 89, 91,
Forrest, R. 134, 135 94, 100; and public housing
Foucault, Michel 29, 122 129–30, 134–5, 137, 140, 143,
‘freak elections’ 22, 23 145
‘free’ press see press health see disease and health care
freedom of belief 179 hegemony and PAP 11, 38, 41,
Friedman, Kathi V. 33 43–4; beginning 14–16; and
consensus 128–9, 136–7, 140;
gambling 83, 85–6 economic 171–3; and public
Gamer, Robert E. 132 housing 124, 127, 128–9, 136–7,
Geertz, Clifford 27 140; weakened 20–3 (see also
gender differences see women election results); see also
genealogy of Singaporean culture ideology; PAP
104–6 Henderson, Jeffrey 122
general will concept 47 Heng, Geraldine 19, 38, 195
genetic determinism see graduate higher education 62, 112, 122; see
mother also education; graduate
George, Cherian 198 mother
Goh Chok Tong: becomes Prime Hill, Stephen 36
Minister (1990) 23; and Hinduism 28, 159, 160
elections 162, 173; and middle history contrasted with everyday
ground 26, 178; and Shared life 79–80
Values and Confucianism Ho Khai Leong 107
31–2, 34–5, 36, 158; and transport 24 Ho Wing Meng 118, 168
Goh Keng Swee 167; and Hokkien 86
Confucianism 153; as Defence Home Affairs, Ministry of 76
Minister and Deputy Prime home ownership see
 Index 229

owner-occupation individualism 186; and

Hong Kong 69, 104, 151 Confucianism 148–9, 157–8, 167; and
‘honourable men’ 35–6 everyday life 97–8; and
housing see public housing ideology 26–7, 29, 31–3, 34;
Housing and Development Board lack of see collectivism; and new
see HDB nation, making of 116, 117–18;
Hsiao, Michael Hsin-Huang 153 see also liberalism
human capital concept 61–3; see Indonesia 17, 33, 38, 59, 88, 191;
also education Confrontation Campaign 48;
Huntington, Samuel 184 Pancasila 33
Hyug Baeg Inn 2, 3 industrial relations and unions
109; controlled 18, 60–2;
identity, national see new nation Industrial Relations
ideology and PAP 4–8, 9–56, 172; (Amendment) Act (1968) 61;
in decolonisation 11–14, 40; and PAP 11–12; and political
opposition repressed 10, 16–17 middle ground 170–1
(see also pragmatism); industrialization see economic
consultation introduced 23–5; growth
new strategies and concepts inflation, CPF controlling 133
25–6; individualism and infrastructure 60, 134; see also
westernisation 26–7; moral transportation
education through religion Institute of East Asian Philosophy
27–8 (see also Confucianism); 29, 159
political dominance 43–4; institutions, building political
common-sense and 44–8; 175–8; see also political middle
practical survival 48–50; ground
depoliticisation thesis on instrumental rationality see
welfarism 124–7, 144; see also pragmatism
democracy; hegemony; interest groups and voluntary
rumours; Shared Values associations 19, 195–6, 201, 202,
illiteracy 83–4 207, 208, 209–10, 211
immigrants 88, 101; see also ethnic Internal Security Act 107, 180–1,
groups 182, 204
inclusion, ideological 47 Internal Security Council 13, 16
income/wages 69–70, 165; internal threats 48–9
differentiation by 87, 97; interventionist government see
growth and affluence 74, 88, 95; PAP
low see poor; and public investment: foreign 60, 150; see
housing 133–4, 135–6, 138–9, also infrastructure
141–2 ISA see Internal Security Act
incorruptibility 36 Islam/Muslims 28, 33–4, 90, 114,
independence from Malaysia 159, 160; see also Malays
9–10, 13, 17, 104
Indians in Singapore 34, 59, 90; Japan 31, 104, 203; and
language see Tamil; and new Confucianism 151, 158;
nation, making of 101, 110, consumption in 152; culture
120; and political middle 151, 152, 157–8; economic
ground 159, 176; religion see growth 148, 150; imports from
Hinduism 92, 97
230 Index

Jek Yuen Thong 76 acquisition 130; leadership

Jeyaratnam, J.B. 173 function of ideology 48; legal
Jones, David Martin 193 status of communitarianism
Josey, Alex 49 lacking 33; ‘natural’ 44;
Joyce, James 99 nominated MPs 25, 26;
pragmatism 128–9; press 196,
Karl, Terry Lynn 189 198; punishment 66; racialism
Kaye, Barrington 131 107; religious activity 121;
Kemeny, J. 146 religious harmony 26, 31;
Kerr, Clark 167 repressive 10, 42; rule of 191–3;
Kim II Sung 153 security 13, 107, 180–1, 182,
kinship see family; 204; societies 204–5, 209;
marriage unions 18, 61; working week 18
Koh Tai Ann 78, 158, 160 Law Society 75, 196
Koh, Tommy T.B. 130 leadership 35–6, 82, 95, 193–4,
Korea 31, 69, 104, 151 204; function of ideology 48; see
Krause, L.A.T. 136 also authoritarianism; PAP;
Kuo, Eddie C.Y.: and Prime Ministers
Confucianism 30, 31, 159, 166; Lee Hsien Loong 24, 32, 77
and education 28, 30, 31, 35,
Lee Kuan Yew 5, 104, 183; and
159, 166; and making of new
early tears of PAP 9, 13–17; and
nation 101–23; and press 201
Confucianism 36, 162; and
Kwok Kian Woon 38
consensus 163; and
Kymlicka, Will 202
consultation 23; and education
28, 113; and elections 17, 154,
Labour Front 12, 13, 170, 171
155–6, 175, 206; and family 167;
labour/employment 60;
and ‘good government’ 188; and
‘job-hopping’ 157; Ministry 18;
individualism 26–7, 97; and
and public housing 136; regular
88–9; unemployment 58, 82, interference 161; and language
85–6, 99, 143; wages 69–70; see 113; and Malaysia 1; and
also economic growth; population control 21, 64; and
industrial relations pragmatism 61, 64, 65, 67; and
land acquisition: compulsory press 198; and religion 160;
130–1; Land Acquisition resignation rumour 51–2; and
(Amendment) Act (1966) 130; social discipline 18, 67; and
strategies rationalised 131–2; see unions 18; and wages 49; see also
also public housing PAP
language 86, 120; mother tongue left-wing politics 11–12, 49, 170–1;
at school 113, 119; and see also Communism; PAP
multiracialism 65–6; see also legislation see law and legislation
Chinese language; English Legislative Assembly 12
language; Mandarin; Tamil and Legislative Council 170
under Malays legitimacy, political 187–8
Lasch, Christopher 118 leisure see social life and leisure
Latin America 184 Lev, Daniel 184, 193
law and legislation: consultation Lew Eng Fee 213
on 96–7; elected presidency 26, Lewis, Alan 108
67; electoral 122; labour and liberalism and liberal pluralism:
unions 18, 61, 109; land absent in Asia 185–7; dismissed
 Index 231

37; invalid 42, 45–4; lack of see media 14, 89;

non-liberal communitarian see also press
democracy; see also democracy; medicine 83
individualism Members of Parliament see MPs
Liddle, William 28 memory 80
Lim Chee Onn 1 Mendaki (Council for Education
Lim Chin Siong 14 of Muslim Children) 33–4, 196
Lim Chong Yah 23, 105, 116, 132, merger referendum (1962) 16, 17,
145 171
Lim, Linda 27 meritocracy 27, 63–4, 157; and
Lim Yew Hock 12, 13, 171 competition 157; and new
Lin Kuo Ching 138, 146 nation 110, 112
literacy 84, 86; see also education middle class 96, 184, 206, 210
Lodge, George 31, 187 middle ground see political middle
Low, Linda 25, 146, 176 ground
Lumley, Bob 2 military withdrawal 18
Ministries: Communications and
MacFarquar, Roderick 151–2, 153, Information 196, 198;
167 Community Development 23,
McLeay, E.M. 139 174; Education 35, 62, 70, 77,
McLennan, George 2 118, 159; Finance 27, 53,
Maintenance of Religious 114–15; Foreign Affairs 49, 74;
Harmony Bill (1990) 26, 31 Home Affairs 76; Labour 18;
majority ethnic group see Chinese people Trade and Industry 24;
Malay Party (Malaysia) 107 Transportation 24; see also
Malay Party (Singapore) 107 National Development
Malaya 9, 16, 104 minorities 49; see also Malays
Malayan Democratic Union 170 mobility 112
Malays 176, 206; and ideology 14, monopoly: of state power see PAP;
15, 28, 33–4, 38; language and virtual see public housing
education 14, 33–4, 102, 110, moral crisis 30, 31; see also
112, 122, 196; and new nation, individualism
making of 102, 107, 110, 114, moral education through religion
119–20; and pragmatism 59, 90; (1984–89) 27–8, 29–30; and
religion see Islam Confucianism 158–9, 168;
Malaysia 51, 59, 122, 166; created Moral Education Report (1979)
and Singapore’s membership of 120; and new nation, making of
(1963) 9, 40, 48, 171; political 113, 119, 121; phased out 30–1,
parties 107; Singapore leaves 98
(1965) 9, 17, 104 mortality 83
Mandarin language 110, 120, 123 mortgage: arrears 141–3; finance
Marcuse, Herbert 188 131–3, 146
marriage 21, 68, 81, 115 motherhood see graduate mother
Marshall, David 12, 13, 170, 171 Mougenot, C. 138
Marx, Karl/Marxism 73–4, 125, MPs (Members of Parliament):
145; and ideology 1, 2, 30, 32, nominated 25–6, 175–6, 177,
48 209; rumours about changes
materialism see consumerism and 51–4; women 122; see also
materialism Cabinet; Ministries; Prime
232 Index

Ministers and Confucianism 147, 149–50,

multinational corporations 60, 151, 153–4, 158, 166; see also in
122 particular Japan; Singapore
multiracialism: and language nominated MPs (NMPs) 25–6,
65–6; and new nation, making 175–6, 177, 209
of 106–7, 110, 114, 119–20, 121, non-communist population
123; and public housing 114, concept 15–16, 49
140–1; see also ethnic groups; Non-constituency MPs 175, 177
race/racial non-liberal communitarian
Murje, A. 134, 135 democracy, towards 7, 184–202;
Muslims see Islam/Muslims and Confucianism 193–4;
Mutalib, Hussin 30, 196, 206 consequences of adopting
191–2; and consultation 195–8;
Nair, C.V. 56, 173 and elections 194–5; ‘free’ press
nation: concept 45; construction 198–200; and PAP 189–91;
of see new nation political legitimacy 187–8;
national anthem 112 pragmatism and 192; rule of law
National Development, Ministry of 191–3; Western liberalism
53, 129, 131, 137, 143; see also absent in Asia 185–7
HDB NTUC (National Trade Union
national identity constructed see
Congress) 61–2, 109
new nation
obedience 67
national ideology see ideology
Offe, Claus 105, 125, 128, 142, 144,
national interest concept 106,
146
107–8, 119, 189, 196
oil see petroleum
national survival ideology 17–20,
‘one person, one vote’ 22, 154–5,
37, 48–50, 108, 189
156, 175, 201
National Trade Union Congress
Ong Teng Cheong 75, 183, 208,
61–2, 109
213
National University of Singapore
78 Operation Cold Store 16, 42
National Wage Council 61, 69, 109 operational elements 57–8; see also
‘naturalisation’ 44 pragmatism
Nature Society 195, 196, 207 opposition 12, 107, 207–12;
neutrality of state 106, 186 and Confucianism 154, 163; and
New Left in West 49 political middle ground 170–1,
new nation, making of 6, 101–23; 175–6; see also under ideology;
culture, Singaporean 101–6, election results; interest groups
119; economic growth 104–5, oppression see repression
108–11; excesses of success opting out of social security
116–19; social order 111–16 contributions 34
newly industrialized economies see Orchard Road 90
NIEs Orientalism 147–8, 158; see also
Newspaper and Printing Presses Asian values; Confucianism
Act (1986) 196, 198 Ow Chin Hock 69
newspapers see press owner-occupation 129, 133, 134–5,
Next Lap (1991) 99 136, 138, 146
NIEs (newly industrialized ownership of home see
economies) 31, 69, 104, 123; owner-occupation
 Index 233

Pancasila (Indonesia) 33 also leadership; liberalism; MPs;

Pang Cheng Lian 45, 106 PAP; political middle ground
Pang Eng Fong 27, 88 polygamy 81
PAP (People’s Action Party) 1; 2 poor and underprivileged 102,
founded (1954) and beginning 170, 206; and everyday life
of power (1959) 9–10, 58; 81–3, 85, 95–6, 99
contradictions of 203–5; population: ageing 116; changes
everyday life transformed 79, 74–5; and government see
87, 94–100; housing see HDB; population control; high
public housing; new nation, growth 105, 115, 116
making of 106, 108, 113, 118; in population control 64–5, 115–16,
power see ideology; see also 164–5; graduate mother policy
authoritarianism; 21–2, 64, 68–72
Confucianism; hegemony; Lee passim, 75, 77
Kuan Yew; non-liberal Poulantzas, Nicos 108
communitarian democracy; poverty see poor
pragmatism; Shared Values power see hegemony; PAP
Park Chung Hee 153 power, monopoly of state see PAP
Parliamentary Committee 24 pragmatism 57–78, 129; and
Confucianism 147, 151, 156,
party politics see liberalism
162; critical assessment of 70–5;
paternalism 67, 161, 204; see also
decline after 1984 173–5; under
authoritarianism
duress 73–5; education as
Pearl’s Hill 81
human capital 61–3; election
Pendley, Charles 65
(1984) and after 75–7; and
People’s Action Party see PAP
ideology 5, 10, 27, 32, 37, 42,
People’s Republic of China 28,
54; industrial relations 61–2;
123, 159–60
language and multiracialism
Peterson, Peter E. 124
65–6; logic of 68–70, 192;
petroleum prices 69, 90–1 meritocracy 63–4; and
Philippines 88 non-liberal communitarian
‘plural society’, Singapore as democracy 190, 192; population
classic 102; see also ethnic policy 64–5; roots of 58–9;
groups social discipline 66–8; substance
pluralism see liberalism of 59–60; and survival 17–20
political middle ground, building Preservation of Public Security
7, 26, 169–83; building Ordinance 13
institutions 175–8; democracy Presidency, elected 25, 176–7,
178–81; hegemony of economic 183; see also Ong Teng Cheong
171–3; multi-party politics of press and government 196,
1950s 170–1; pragmatism, 198–200, 201, 211–12
decline of 173–5; see also politics prices 69, 90–1, 134
politics/political 40; class, Prime Ministers Office 19, 53; see
eliminating 137–8, 140–1; also Goh Chok Tong; Lee Kuan
discourse on Confucianism Yew
156–62; lack of see priority registration in schools 71,
depoliticisation; legitimacy 77
187–8; life, counter-concept of prison: detention without trial 180
see everyday life; Political Study privacy, loss of 73
Centre 175; stability see PAP; see private housing 127, 135–6, 139,
234 Index

142 non-communist subversion 49;

productionist orientation 109, 110 and pragmatism 64, 66; and
Progressive Party 12, 170 unions 18; and working class
property: rights violated see land 106
acquisition; see also rationality, economic instrumental
consumerism; see pragmatism
owner-occupation; public recentralisation 165–6
housing recession: global 148; mini-
Protestant ethic 29, 149 (1985–87) 23, 70, 91, 108, 143,
public housing 16, 19, 124–46; 162, 165
additional ideological gains reciprocity of responsibility 160–1
140; avoiding claims of rights recreation see social life and
137; depoliticisation thesis on leisure
welfarism 124–7, 144; and Rediffusion 86
education level 110–11; referendum on merger (1962) 16,
eliminating ethnic and class 17, 171
politics 137–8, 140–1; and refrigerators 89
everyday life 88–9, 99–100; religion 26, 29, 159; Religious
exclusions 138–9; and family Knowledge in schools see moral
114–15, 119, 141–2; and education; see also Buddhism;
hegemony 124, 127, 128–9, Christianity; Confucianism;
136–7, 140; mortages 131–3, Hinduism
141–3, 146; and new nation, repression 49, 156, 171, 172, 204;
making of 109–10, 113–15, 116, see also under ideology
117, 119; problems 141–4; rent Residents’ Committees 141
and mortgage arrears 141–3; as resources, lack of 60
symbols of success 139–40; see Rigg, Jonathan 23
also land acquisition right, political 149–50, 152, 158
Public Works department 195 rights 98; consultation 195–8;
public-spiritedness 18; see also housing not seen as 138; of
Shared Values individuals see individualism;
punishment 66–7, 78 suspended 187–8
rituals and festivals 107, 112, 120
Quah, Jon S.T. 21, 23, 30, 161 roads see car ownership
Quah, Stella 21, 74–5, 105, 129, Robinson, Richard 191
161 Rodan, Garry: and ideology 13, 16,
quotas in housing blocks 114, 140–1 18, 25, 30, 38; and new nation,
making of 104, 108; and
race/racial: minorities 177; non-liberal communitarian
mixing in housing blocks 114, democracy 190, 194, 196, 208
140–1; origin see ethnic groups; Romanticism 150
multiracialism; riots pre-empted ruling classes see leadership
140–1; tolerance 102, 107 rumours, political 50–4, 56; MPs
Radicals raided (Operation Cold and changes 51–4; resignation
Store) 16, 42 of Lee 51–2
raid on Radicals (Operation Cold
Store) 16, 42 Sabah 9
Rajaratnam, S.: and ‘Asian Values’ Said, Edward 147–8, 150
118; and class 45; and Saleff, Janet 136
 Index 235

Sandhu, Kernial S. 23, 24, 105, social discipline 18, 66–8, 105,
163, 164, 166 152; see also law
Sassoon, Anne Showstack 13, 38 social life and leisure 117;
SATA (Singapore everyday life in 1950s and 1980s
Anti-Tuberculosis Association) compared 83, 85–6, 87, 90,
83 93–4, 100; gambling 83, 85–6;
Saunders, Peter 124, 125, 132, 146 and interest groups 195, 197
savings, compulsory see CPF ‘social minimum’ 149
Scalapino, Robert 187, 201 social order, making of new 111–16
Schmitter, Phillippe C. 189 social security see collective
schools see education consumption
Schutz, Alfred 45, 46 Socialist International 49
Seah Chee Meow 23 Societies Act 204–5, 209
security legislation 13, 107, 180–1, South Asia 56, 88; see also Indians
182, 204 South Korea 31, 69, 104
self-discipline 151; see also social spatial concentration of racial
discipline groups denied 141
self-sacrifice 18, 36; see also Shared Speak Mandarin Campaign 120,
Values 123
servants 88, 91 sport 93; see also social life and
service sector 108, 116–17
leisure
sexual permissiveness 113
Sri Lanka 56
Shared Values and
stability, political see PAP
communitarianism 11, 31–5,
standard of living 60; high and
121, 150, 190, 210–11
improved 88, 89–90, 109; low see
Shee Poon Kim 52, 56
poor; see also consumerism
shopping 91–3
state see PAP
Siddique, Sharon 110
Steinfels Peter 29, 149
Sinda (Singapore Indian
student protests 170–1
Development Agency) 34
Singapore see Confucianism; subversion 49
everyday life; ideology; new success: excesses of 116–19;
nation; non-liberal housing as symbols of 139–40;
communitarian democracy; and new nation, making of
political middle ground; 104–5
pragmatism; public housing Sun Yat-sen 167
Singapore Anti-Tuberculosis survival see national survival
Association 83 Sweden 132
Singapore Association of Women symbols of success, housing as
Lawyers 195 139–40
Singapore Chinese Middle School ‘systematic’ government 71–2
Students Union 170 Szelenyi, Ivan 134
Singapore Democratic Party 163
Singapore Indian Development Taiwan 69, 104, 123, 151
Agency see Sinda Tamil language 14, 110
Singh, Bilveer 194, 199, 213 Tan, Augustine H.H. 60, 108
single people and housing 117, Tan Cheng Bok 76
141, 157 Tan Eng Liang 53–4
Smith, Dorothy 45 taxes 125; and car ownership 24,
236 Index

90, 92; incentives and urban village see Bukit Ho Swee

population control 21 utopianism 57–8, 78
Tay Eng Soon 62
teamwork see collectivism values see Shared Values
Thailand 166 vocational training 62
Tham Seong Chee 157 Vogel, Ezra F. 31, 148, 150, 154–5,
‘Third China’, Singapore seen as 164, 187
48 voluntary associations see interest
Thompson, G.G. 42 groups
Thumboo, Edwin 57, 118 voting see election results;
Tiong Bahru 81 elections and voting
Toh Mun Heng 25, 146, 176
tolerance 32; race/racial 102, 107; wages see income
see also Shared Values Wallerstein, Immanuel 184
Tong Chee Kiong 30, 166 Wang Gungwu 39, 101, 159, 193,
trade: exports see economic 195
growth; Singapore as entrepôt Weber, Max 167
see Britain and colonialism welfare: welfarism, depoliticisation
Trade and Industry, Ministry of 24 thesis on 124–7, 144; see also
trade unions see industrial collective consumption
relations West/Westernisation 26–7, 113,
‘traditional values’ see Asian 118, 120; combating see Asian
values; Confucianism; Shared values; Shared Values;
Values perceived decline of 148–50; see
training see education also Britain; consumerism;
transnational 60, 122 democracy; Europe;
transportation 24–5; Ministry 24; individualism; liberalism;
see also car ownership United States
trust, mutual see collectivism; Wheatley, Paul 23, 24, 105, 163,
co-operation 164, 166
Tu Wei-Ming 159, 160, 166 White Papers 190; on proposed
tuberculosis 83 Goods and Services Tax 94; on
Tunku Abdul Raham 9 Shared Values (1991) 31–3, 35
Turner, Bryan S. 36 Williams, N.J. 135
Tyabji, Amina 146 Willmott, William 104
Wilson, H.E. 62, 111–12
underprivileged see poor women: and education 84; and
unemployment 58, 82, 85–6, 99, everyday life 81–3, 88, 92, 93–4;
143 interest groups 195, 207, 208,
unions see industrial relations 209; MPs 122; see also graduate
United States 29, 78, 118; mother
Constitution 33; decline 148–9, Wong, Aline K. 100, 115, 130, 134,
150; and economic growth 122; 145
and individualism 118 Wong, Evelyn S. 61–2, 78
universal (near-universal) Wong Loong 10, 185
provision of housing 125, 127, Wong Siu-lun 167
129–30, 139, 144; see also public work see labour
housing Workers’ Party 163
universities see higher education working class see poor
 Index 237

working week lengthened 18 Yeo, George 32, 209

World Bank 70 Yong Mun Cheong 9, 14
Wright, Gwendolyn 127
Zoohri Wan Hussin 33
Yeh, Stephen H.K. 100, 130, 134, 145