(2012)

– 1 –

In a strange way, I sometimes feel that the PAP, our former liberators, have turned into our oppressors- much like the pigs in Animal Farm, or pretty much every other regime that overstays its welcome. “You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” This time, though, it’s a lot more subtle- and to give them credit, they’re trying to make amends. That’s great, and is a step towards a better Singapore. But perhaps it might not be enough.

Superdominance is fleeting, impermanent. It’s always amusing and a little sad to hear Americans ask global thinkers how American superdominance might be preserved. How can they continue to reign supreme on the global front? They can’t. It’s practically a law of nature, or statistics. Every great empire in the history of humanity eventually declined. The Roman Empire lasted about 500 years. The USA has been around for less than half of that. Our great grandchildren may learn about the USA from their history books- if they still use books in schools then.

Microsoft, Apple, Facebook- all of these seem fairly permanent now, but their dominance has an unknowable expiry date. So does the PAP. If the US is to continue to survive and remain relevant, it’s going to have to change, adapt and evolve. The new US may be unrecognizable from the one that we know now. So in a way, it will have to ‘kill’ its current form and be reborn in a new one. And the same holds true for the PAP.

Even so, both the PAP and the USA are going to have to learn to live and work with others- to co-operate and learn from its peers, instead of trying to lord over them- because doing the later in today’s complex and subtle world is the fastest way to lose your legitimacy and turn people off.

I’m so excited for our future.

– 2 –

The British transformed Singapore from a sleepy fishing town to a bustling trading port- but we eventually had to transcend them to move forward. What about the PAP?

It’s always interesting how you have ideas like “literacy is the path out of poverty”, and “we need an educated workforce for economic growth”- because what typically happens in these scenarios is that you create something that ultimately undermines your own authority.

Think about it. The Nationalists in Southeast Asia all learned their rhetoric as students in Western Universities. Lee Kuan Yew would never have developed his arguments had he never been taught by ang mohs in Raffles Institution, and more ang mohs over in Cambridge. So in a way, Western thinking was what undermined colonialism and gave rise to independence in Southeast Asia- and everywhere else, probably.

The Singapore government is now going through pretty much the same thing- as Singaporeans become more educated, they become more sensitive to any bullshit coming down from on high.

Here’s the question- did Western thinking undermine Western influence, or did it enforce it? In a way, the West has won. The Western narrative has become the global narrative- ideas of justice and freedom and such have been adapted to local contexts. We might not believe in individualistic freedom as much as our Western counterparts, but we ourselves are fiercely individualistic in defending our right to think differently from them. Think about that one. (In a way, the Westerners are being kinda “Asian” by suggesting that everybody listen to Uncle Sam… deference to authority, isn’t it?)

We overthrew the shackles of colonialism using the colonists own arguments- does that make us superior, or inferior? You begin to realize that such terminology becomes altogether redundant. We have to adapt to survive.

The more you empower your children, the less likely it will be that you can deceive them. This is a good thing, especially if you care about their survival. The truth is more important than your overbearing dominance. You exist to empower your children, not smother them. And part of that empowering involves teaching them to rise above you.

You could see this as the undermining of your authority, and see it in your interests to keep them stupid and uneducated. But I find that to be an incredibly narrow, selfish perspective. If you really cared about what’s best for yourself, then you must realize that you should nurture the successors who will eventually take over. (If you don’t do this peacefully, you just might find yourself being beheaded in a revolution! Happens pretty often.) We should stop clinging to forms, and focus instead on constant renewal and rebirth.

The PAP should acknowledge that it will one day be obsolete- and the PAP leadership should be proud of that fact! It’s just like how parents should feel proud to watch their children discard their earlier frameworks and forge their own path. That was what Lee Kuan Yew did in the face of colonialism, and that is what we must do in the face of the PAP.

It’s a remarkably natural process. Singapore attained great heights as a British colony, but its strength eventually became its weakness. Similarly, we attained great heights under the PAP leadership, but this strength will eventually become our weakness. (You could argue that it already is.) Singapore had to rise above being a British colony, and one day it will have to rise above the PAP.

This is a continous, endless process, and it will be something that our future leaders have to keep in mind, too. The best sort of public service you can do is to teach people to think for themselves, to take care of themselves, to make yourself redundant. The British did eventually make themselves redundant. The PAP should, too. This is the role of all parents, authors, creators.

I’m not saying the PAP should disappear altogether. I imagine that they will continue to play an important role, and always will- the same way our parents still matter after we leave home and start families of our own. When I say “PAP”, I’m technically referring to a very specific form of the PAP. If the PAP is to continue to survive, it will have to adapt, and change, and eventually become something completely different from what it is now, from what it was before.

There is no survival strategy that allows for absolute deference to centralized authority. Nobody is that smart, not even the PAP leaders. As Chan Chun Sing once said- diversity is the only survival strategy.

The PAP’s greatest achievement, then, will be that it has sown the seeds of its own ‘destruction’. It has built a country that has begun to learn to think for itself. What would Singapore be like if we never sought independence from the British? It’s a pretty frightening thought! And what will Singapore be like, if we never seek independence from the PAP? This is what motivates me to be an opposition supporter, at least for now. I’m not happy with the quality of opposition that we’re getting right now, but I find it even worse to cling on to our old ways.

We need the leadership of people who are driven and passionate. Hey, Stamford Raffles was probably a driven, passionate guy. And so the colony flourished. Eventually it stagnated. Then came along more driven and passionate people- Lee Kuan Yew, Goh Keng Swee, S Rajaratnam, Toh Chin Chye and gang. Eventually it stagnated.

I’ve always thought that the PAP way was defined by ruthless pragmatism. Perhaps it was Lee Kuan Yew’s way. But I believe it’s shaped our policies, our thoughts, and our behaviour. Singaporeans have become a very pragmatic people.

What’s the pragmatic thing to do now, moving forward? I think it’s clear what needs to happen.

“If we fix on the old, we get stuck. When we hang onto any form, we are in danger of putrefaction.

“Hell is life drying up.

“The Hoarder, the the one in us that wants to keep, to hold on, must be killed. If we are hanging onto the form now, we’re not going to have the form next.”

– Joseph Campbell

TL;DR:

Diversity is the only survival strategy. The PAP taught us to be pragmatic. The pragmatic thing to do is to embrace diversity. If the PAP did its job well, it has sown the seeds of its own ‘destruction’- at least of its current super-dominant form.

– 3 –

Super-dominant forces are inherently dangerous. Why did the sub-prime mortgage crisis happen? Why did the US get involved in Iraq? What happened to institutions that were/are “Too Big To Fail”? Why is it always recommended that you diversify your portfolios when investing? Why do we recommend Arts students to take a Science subject, and vice versa? Why do we have a bilingual policy? Why do we trade with many countries rather than a few? Why is it better to have friends from multiple social circles rather than just one?

Can you think of anything in nature that is super-dominant? Only Man- and we can all see how dangerous that is. We are quickly realising that we have to have symbiotic relationships with the rest of nature, rather than a dominant one.

Why are we researching solar energy, when it is currently impractical, overpriced, and costly? Do you think we should stop researching it and focus on our existing sources of energy, or keep at it and look for serendipitous, unexpected breakthroughs? The only thing we can be certain of is that our present energy solutions are sub-optimal. Do we then say that we SHOULDN’T give alternative solutions a shot, because a multi-energy solution will waste resources, divide infrastructure, worsen productivity?

If the opposition wins all over Singapore in a freak election- which I personally think is very, VERY unlikely- then we will have 5 interesting, confusing years. What’s the WORST that can happen? Is that really a bad thing? Even in such an “undesirable” outcome (I withhold judgement for now, because we cannot know), I bet that we will learn more than we have ever learnt before, and we will have a much more vocal and engaged citizenry- something that we sorely need if we are to continue to grow and develop in this crazy, changing world.

On the flip side, what’s the worst that can happen if we have PAP dominance for the next 5, 10, 20 years? History is littered with the bloated corpses of super-dominant forces. We need to be New York rather than Detroit, Athens rather than Sparta, natural rather than man-made.

NOBODY can tell what the opposition can or cannot do, what value it will or will not have. And we have to find out. We have to try new things. Maybe we will get burnt. But then we will know better.

How can we say honestly that the devil we know is better than the devil we don’t? All we can say is that we don’t know. The question then is whether we want to find out, or we want to sit tight and hope for the best.

Any situation where any organism or entity is dominant on a single super-dominant force is dangerous in the long run. Feel free to use your own favourite football/economics/medical/military analogy.

I have met PAP supporters who say that they’re worried about the next 5 years, well- I’m worried about the next 50.

Essentially- if tomorrow the entire PAP leadership dies in a plane crash, what would we do? If the thought scares you, then we have to start thinking about how we’re going to cope. We have to prepare for the worst. Can you promise that the PAP will never implode? Nothing lasts forever.

In a nutshell- I put it to you that the the worst case scenario of having a super-dominant, lethargic and complacent PAP is worse than the worst case scenario of having an opposition-dominated parliament for 5 years. Because if the latter collapses, we will know what to do, but if the former does… I’m not sure I even want to find out.