By Fang Zhi Yuan
For far too long, the autocratic regime and its sycophantic
mouthpiece have dominated political discourse in Singapore. They
have been the ones to set the agenda for the populace to believe in
with no questions asked.
In the face of the worst economic recession Singapore has ever
experienced, let us revisit the myths which has been propagated and
perpetuated about the necessity and merits of the “PAP system” of
governance in order for them to maintain their political
hegemony.
The 5 myths below have been often repeated ad nauseaum till they
are deeply etched in the collective consciousness of
Singaporeans:
1. Singaporeans owe a debt to Lee Kuan Yew and the PAP from
transforming Singapore from a third to first world country.
2. Singapore needs to open its doors to the global economy in
order to enjoy years of uninterrupted economic growth.
3. Singapore cannot afford to spend more to help needy
Singaporeans to prevent going down the slippery slope of
welfare.
4. Singapore needs a strong one-party state to ensure social
stability and economic progress.
5. Only the PAP knows how to govern the nation. The opposition
is irresponsible and will fritter away our precious reserves by the
billions if they were to come to power one day.
Now let us dissect and dismantle the myths one by one.
1. With due respect to Mr Lee Kuan Yew, he has put together a
capable and formidable team in the early years of Singapore’s
independence to kickstart our economy, but he can hardly take the
credit all by himself.
The true architect of Singapore’s success story is Albert
Winsemius, a Dutch economist who was a long-term
Chief economic adviser to Singapore from 1961 to 1984, playing
a major role in the formulation of Singapore’s national economic
development strategy.
With his help, Singapore attracted big oil companies like Shell
and Esso to establish refineries here. In the 1970s, Singapore was
upgrading its industrial capacity to use higher technological
methods, including electronics. He personally went to persuade
large Dutch electronics companies like Philips to set up production
plants in Singapore.
He also proposed that Singapore could be developed as a
financial centre, as well as an international centre for air
traffic and sea transport. Over the next twenty years, these
predictions proved to be accurate.
Singapore also owed its success to the PAP Old Guards like Mr
Goh Keng Swee, Mr Toh Chin Chye, Mr E W Barker, Mr Ong Pang Boon
and Mr Hon Sui Sen who were Lee’s “lieutanents” in office and a
docile, sensible, hardworking and thrifty citizenry willing to
work hard and save up for the sake of the next generation.
Under British colonial rule, Singapore is already a major
trading entrepot in the region by virtue of its unbeatable
strategic position at the tip of the Malay Peninsula thereby giving
it leverage to control shipping traffic passing through the Straits
of Malacca, one of the busiest sea lanes in the world.
To attribute Singapore’s success over the years solely to Mr Lee
Kuan Kew is not only a travesty of truth and justice, but an insult
to our pioneers and ordinary Singaporeans on the streets who have
given their sweats, blood and tears to build our nation to where it
is today.
2. As a small island with no natural resources, we are heavily
dependent on external trade for our survival and prosperity. It is
true especially in the early years when political stability, social
cohesion and economic openness are key factors propelling us ahead
of our competitors.
However, our vulnerabilities become clearly exposed now in the
current global economic turmoil when Singapore becomes the first
country in Asia to slip into recession and is poised to be one of
the worst performing economies in the near future.
Singapore will be more resilient if we have a higher domestic
consumption, a more diversified economy and vibrant home-grown
enterprises to cushion the fallout from the loss in exports and
trade.
The deficiencies of our economic model are caused by the narrow
mindset and myopic view adopted by the PAP to pursue growth at all
costs in the shortest possible time.
Our domestic consumption is low compared to other developed
Asian economies because of high cost of public housing and ordinary
living, a mandatory pension scheme requiring citizens to contribute
20% of their monthly salary to it and relatively low wages kept
depressed by the influx of cheaper foreign workers.
Our economy is heavily focused on a few “winners” like the
manufacturing and electronics sectors in the past, the
pharmaceutical and life sciences industry now and the gaming
industry in the future.
Gigantic state-linked companies such as DBS, Capitaland and NTUC
are squeezing the life out of local startups and
enterprises with their virtual monopoly over the economy
rendering them both unimaginative and uncompetitive.
We have already moved past the initial stages of developing our
then labor-intensive fledging economy and we need to rethink our
current economic blueprint now in order to compete on a different
level with other developed countries where creativity,
passion, entrepreneurship and a willingness to take calculated
risks are essential and pivotal qualities for success in a new
world order.
3. Under the combined propaganda machinery of the PAP and SPH,
“welfare” has become a dirty word in official parlance. We have
been told repeatedly to be self-reliant and not to depend on the
government for cash handouts, but isn’t it the responsibility of
the incumbent government of the day to care for the people who
voted for them into power in the first place ?
The welfare system of Western countries have often been used by
the regime to obsfuscate the issue. It is both irrational and
unreasonable to equate “welfare” for Singaporeans to the promotion
of a welfare state. Singaporeans do not expect the government to
support them for the rest of their lives after retirement.
All we ask for is for the government to make the present living
conditions more bearable for us by reducing the cost of living and
to be more generous with the distribution of aid to needy and
vulnerable Singaporeans.
We do not expect the regime to be as generous as the Hong
Kong government to give its elderly citizens a monthly allowance
amounting to 80% of their last drawn pay. Much more can be
done to alleviate the hardship and suffering of our senior citizens
who have contributed to the nation-building process during
their productive years.
The Singapore government is filthy rich by first world
standards. It is not as if it is a pauper, why is it so stingy in
rendering financial assistance to the poor ? Would it
rather spend billion of dollars to bail out distressed banks
which went eventually to lining the pockets of its rich
executives or help its own citizens ?
4. In the early years of Singapore’s nationhood, a strong
government is crucial to bring about political stability and social
harmony so that we can focus on developing the economy to uplift
the lives of our people.
The regime has conveniently corrupted the definition of a
“strong” government with that of a one-party state. A strong
government can exist in the presence of a sizable opposition in
Parliament to check on the ruling party while a one-party state
though appearing “strong” on the surface, has inherent deficiencies
caused by the over-concentrating of power in the hands of a
few.
The only reason why the regime appears strong on the outside is
that the key decision makers belong no more to an inner clique of a
particular family of which even ordinary MPs without any portfolios
are excluded. Only one center of power exists to give the orders,
the rest simply follow behind like blind sheeps thereby giving the
facade of a clear sense of direction and purpose in the formulation
and implementation of policies.
The Finance Minister Mr Tharman gave Singaporeans a glimpse of
how the PAP system worked when he remarked in Parliament in
response to an opposition MP’s question that they work on a system
based on “trust”. What was not mentioned is how much trust he has
in the system itself. Is it a 100% trust ? Ask yourself whether you
ever trust anybody in your life including yourself completely
without any doubts.
A self-serving totalitarian state which do not hesitate
to make use of the police and media to suppress
dissenting voices from its own people is not a strong government.
On the contrary, it is a weak government precisely because it is
unable to stand up to external challenges and defeat them based on
its own strengths and merits alone without resorting to foul
play.
A strong government is one which can face up to the challenge of
any opposition without resorting to ‘fixing’ them. A strong
government is one which is fully accountable to the people and is
not afraid of being scrutinized. A strong government does not hide
things from the people and is completely honest, transparent and
above board. A strong government does not make use of state
instruments like the police and media to suppress political dissent
because it knows it owes its power to the people who voted for it.
And lastly, a strong government does not sue its critics to silence
them because it has faith in its own ability to win them over by
their reasoning and argument. By these 5 counts, the PAP does not
qualify to be a strong government. It is no more than a weak,
pathetic and cowardly bully which makes use of its position as the
incumbent to quash its political opponents.
History have shown us that such “strong” states like the U.S.S.R
and Nazi Germany did not last long while others like South Korea
and Taiwan only manage to avert a similiar implosion like the
former by making a peaceful transition to democracy.
If a one party state has worked for Singapore in the past,
that’s because it has only benefitted a small of group of people
with links to the regime. It is not going to work now and in the
future where a rapid changing geo-political landscape will require
a diversity of ideas and views to cope and tackle the problems
which may surface . A one party state stifles creativity,
innovation and passion in the population and will ruin us
politically, socially and economically in the long run.
Can we expect the regime to check on itself ? Time and time
again, we have been proven otherwise. There is a serious lack of
accountability and transparency from the Singapore government in
spite of its frequent lame attempts to ingratiate itself with these
attributes as defining yardsticks for its rule.
5. As the present financial turmoil has shown us, we do not need
a profligate opposition to fritter away our precious reserves. A
substantial proportion of it is already missing. I guess most
Singaporeans would prefer the sum of $58 billion lost by Temasek to
be spent on helping the poor and needy rather than go to make a few
hundred millionaires out of Merrill Lynch’s employees.
What we really need is not the empty promises made by the PAP to
safeguard our reserves, but a proper calibrated system of checks
and balances to guide the modus operandi of the government and a
real opposition in Parliament to ensure accountability and
transparency from the government.
The regime’s glaring deficiencies is exposed for all to see with
its inept handling of the Temasek fiasco. We are talking about the
loss of $58 billion dollars and more of our reserves and not a
single question is asked in Parliament. The perpetuator of this
disaster did not have to face the music and the state media even
have the gall to suggest she ran for political office in the future
!
In other developed countries, an independent Commission of
Inquiry will be called immediately to probe into the loss. The
regime will never risk eroding further whatever little public trust
and confidence they have left by revealing the full extent of
losses incurred by Temasek and GIC because it has been using the
reserves all along to frighten Singaporeans from voting the
opposition into power.
The myths of the PAP system are fast being dismantled on a daily
basis with alternative news sources from the internet. Even
the mainstream media is finding hard to spin fairy tales on behalf
of the regime without appearing ludicrous itself. The regime can
continue to believe in its own propaganda, but less and less
Singaporeans, especially the young are taken in by them.
Eventually, Singaporeans will become so averse to the one-sided
reports carried by the mainstream media that they will be
completely switched off, preferring to read only what they want to
read on the internet even though its factual accuracy cannot be
independently verified and that will finally send the myths of the
PAP system into their death throes.
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