Reinventing Singapore

Why is it natural to lecture and berate citizens like me? It was my mistake plain and simple, and it rankled because it was no good telling me after the fact. It was the natural lack of respect. A certain lack of regard that rankled. There must be numerous others who suffer in silence at the hands of such public servants in numerous other situations.

But this is not the crux of what I want to say. It is only the catalyst. It's the whole mood of the situation that is strikingly like everything in Singapore. And it is not really about the rhetoric of liberal democracy, rule of law, East versus West, Asian democracy and all that.

It is more direct. It is simply about a culture that erodes self-esteem in a society run on rules, obligations and duties. In such a situation, governments get more exasperated at the need to scold, cajole and punish an increasingly restive populace who try all means to circumvent and sneak.

So much so that scholars training for the administrative service are taught to outflank and out wit the people they are to rule. It has become an institutionalised cat and mouse game. It is cynical. When creative energy is spent this way society can be cajoled to be extremely obedient and productive. But it under-performs in areas where initiative and imagination is needed. Can Singapore enter into the 21st Century like this?

Singapore is a great success story till now but everything in Singapore, the region and the world point to the fact that we need to re-energize ourselves to remain viable and relevant in the new globalised situation.

Old ways have to make way for new and better ones. Only making better human beings can do this. There is realisation of this by the government. Thus the theme of today's political utterances. Recent speeches by key Ministers attest to this. But can the government do it all?

Two key people-management methods need to be re-examined. One, don't scold people, it assumes that people are stupid. Scolding undermines self-esteem. Makes people resentful. Two, don't assume that people are out to cheat all the time.

This breeds distrust, builds cynicism. When you enter Singapore, there are two customs channels. There is a channel to declare and a green channel. There are usually no officers to be seen at the "declare" channel but there is always a cluster of officers at the "green channel" This tells you the attitude. That it seems natural, is the extent to which we, as a people have come to accept this state of things. It is not healthy.

Another thing. The administration reduces everything to commonality in an effort to be fair to all. This is part of the socialist heritage of our political past. This is leveling down. The rationing of resources is based on this so are votes.

Thus, every allocation is mass-based, be it housing, school policy, or transportation. Every other thing has to be allocated by price-tender. Meritocracy cannot be extended to award on intrinsic merit.

Administrators keep an eye out for popular clamour. And this is where it connects. People with low self-esteem cannot stand others having an advantage even if it is merited. Egos are fragile. Merit loses. Thus equality subverts excellence. How then to reach for excellence and intrinsic quality if we don't change?

For example, there are moves to turn Sungei Buloh migratory bird sanctuary into a mass-participating place contrary to its nature. And there is danger that arguments for its retention as a sanctuary will be regarded as the clamour by a nature-elite pitted against the public good when in fact it is an exercise in responsible stewardship of all people's bond with the land. Thus the intrinsic is in danger of being traded for the politics of mass appeasement.

There is a kind of Darwinism, which underpins the open-economy premise. We speak of survival of the fittest as the market principle. This is unwittingly being eroded in the interest of mass appeal. The mass-line philosophy of governance, so effectively executed in Singapore, threatens to turn Singapore into a monoculture.

There are only cosmetic differences. And monocultures die in its their own excrement. The lesson of nature is that survival relies on the fundamental ecological principle of diversity and interdependency.

Then natural selection acts to strengthen the dominant species and evolves other interdependent species to exploit and use the waste and to occupy the niches left vacant. A symbiosis comes about. Societies are similar. If we defeat the natural order we will not survive. We are becoming a society of monotypes. It is called inbreeding. We get weak.

If we take the nature analogy further, human diversity is essential in any society. If all are the same, we will level down. We thus will need more foreign talent-infusion to fill the void of our own making. This is not success. It is failure.

Talent is derived from self. If we make society above self, self is weakened. Talent cannot grow on poor human spiritual soil. Of course, self should never be above society. There must be a healthy tension between the two to have vitality. Then values become personal commitments. Values are useless if they are merely rules to be followed and avoided if the risk of getting caught is low. Thus when policing is lax or in some situations impossible, there will be chaos.

Our toilets and streets are filthy if not for fines and foreign workers to keep them clean. Decades of campaigns to be courteous and clean have failed because values are not internalised. If we can't keep clean by ourselves, self-esteem is lowered. In such a state, we need more policing, more rules to keep it going.

It is a vicious circle. Initiative is curbed by the deluge of necessary rules and regulations. When the mind cancels out the heart, external life obliterates internal life. There is thus no natural enthusiasm born out of the love of anything. Duty and calculation has become the pragmatic rationality of everyday life.

When motor racing was banned because it is not rational, out went all the many little innovative workshops which serviced the passion for speed and the aesthetics of mechanical perfection. Who can say that some Singaporean could not have invented a new super vehicle by now?

The Polytechnic students built an experimental aircraft out of their romance of flight. They were not allowed to fly it in Singapore. A different kind of administration would have bent over backwards to ensure that they did get to fly. And so today we might already have a vigorous aerospace industry rather than a sub-contracting one.

Our structural engineers now design defensively. They follow the rules. Structures get bigger and heavier. The challenge to do more with less does not pay dividends. Thus there is no engineering innovation.

Architects don't innovate either. They play the decorative game. It is false creativity. Real creativity does not pay. Creativity must necessarily buck the rules. They rather service foreign talents to get big jobs from culturally cringing clients who are more prepared to buy brand names than risk untried talent.

If there were several independent TV stations, today there could be in existence by now, a healthy film industry.

If the funding environment was more risk-taking-smart-money, we would not lose our best IT innovators to Silicon Valley. Setting up linkages to vigorous innovation centres abroad will only accelerate our talent outflow.

Is this why we call for more foreign talent to take their place? But will these be first raters? How do we attract first raters? All these issues are connected to the way we have become.

We have an administrative system that favours the average or the established acclaimed overseas talent because it is safe. Otherwise, our procurement procedures would be different.

It is not an issue of foreign versus locals. It is about talent development. What is the strategy? Now, selection is based on tenders and these are based on price. No matter what is said, no officer can recommend against price and risk suspicion.

Furthermore, merit based on multi-criteria is simply too complex to administer. Simple, accountable administrablity is the way for well paid public servants to protect their careers. Does all this advance the interests of the community in the long run?

Of course, Singapore has achieved great advances in material terms in the catch-up phase of the economy. Success in housing, schools, building of transport infrastructure testify to the efficacy of the governing philosophy till now. There is no corruption.

If however, Singapore needs to go beyond this to a qualitative phase, improve its people, experiment, innovate, can the system deliver? If not, we will be in trouble. The way out is to recognise our most talented in every field and to trust in their judgement and integrity as selectors of talent bypassing the administration.

To trust our own talented, we must therefore risk the cosy monopoly of ideas of our administrators. The government and administration realises this.

Thus numerous committees have been set up to study new qualitative issues but these are governed by a group-dynamics dominated by the thrall of powerful administrators in each and every committee.

The results are to be expected. Alternative voices are drowned out. Only new ideas, which groove in are adopted. A new approach is necessary if we want to break new grounds.

There is another deeply held attitude that works negatively. It is not to probe old sores in order to heal them. This is called denial. The problem of denial is that new realisation is impossible. Since old hurts are covered over, they fester.

We thus risk repeating out-moded formulas. We save face, we are Asians, we say. We laugh at the West's penchant for what we derisively call "self flagellation'. America is best at this. \

But it is well to remember that America continues to be the most innovative of all societies in human history. America continues to vigorously re-invent itself, despite predictions of moral decline and other ills heaped upon her.

Thus, that trivial incident at the Woodlands Checkpoint caused me to reflect. I refused to bury it under a bushel. The officers nodded in agreement. Their expressions told me that they agree that Singapore tends to unintentionally abuse its own citizens. They are human and they have suffered too.

I acknowledged that they were only doing their job. For me, it would have been easier to forget the incident and nurse resentment of the system of which I am a part.

I chose not to and to assert that Singapore needs to re-invent itself if it wants to become a caring society, a knowledge economy, a renaissance city, have thinking schools, indeed become a New ASIA City, i.e., a city of Advanced Science and Innovative Arts.

We need to get away from the old Asian cultural syndrome of denial. This is a job for all Singaporeans. We need to be honest to ourselves first. It is no shame.