http://business.theage.com.au/business/uniqueness-of-perfection-that-sits-to-our-north-20080716-3gdz.html?page=2
Uniqueness of perfection that sits to our
north:
Business Day, Michael Backman, July 17, 2008
The International Bar Association has found that, when it comes
to criticism, Singapore is in no need.
A REPORT released last week, Prosperity
versus Individual Rights? Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of
Law in Singapore, published by the International Bar
Association, provides a fair and balanced account of how
Singapore's Government really operates.
It lists 18 recommendations for Singapore to strengthen its rule
of law and to better promote a civil society. They are all
reasonable, as is the analysis on which they are based.
But of course the Singapore
Government doesn't think so. Even though the IBA provided the
Singapore Government with a draft of the report, allowed it to
comment and then inserted the Government's views in the final
report, the Government still managed to diss the report by the end
of last week, just as it disses everything remotely
critical. Singapore's
Government is unique among governments around the world: it doesn't
need advice.
The report chronicles how human rights are constrained by the
Singapore Government and how freedom of speech is in the hands of
the police.
It lists the media restrictions that ensure the media does not
monitor the Government but is more its mouthpiece.
It describes the restrictions on
the right to assemble. One bizarre practice highlighted is the
constitutional requirement for members of parliament to resign if
expelled from their elective party, thereby ensuring that elected
members do only what their party rather than their constituents or
even their conscience tells them. Another aspect mentioned is the
cowing of the Singapore Law Society so that even this channel for
independent comment on laws and proposed laws has been neutered.
Many questions about the independence of the judiciary are raised
too.
Singapore's Ministry of
Law described the report's observation that Singapore's judges
seemed professional in commercial cases but
exhibited bias in cases involving Government ministers as "absurd"
and "unsubstantiated". In actual fact, the 77-page report
makes a very good case for bias. It is the ministry's rebuttal that
lacks substantiation.
The report chronicles how
defamation actions brought against opposition figures by Government
ministers have bankrupted them, thus rendering them ineligible to
sit in Parliament. That undischarged bankrupts should not
sit in Parliament is not the issue. The Australian constitution has a similar
provision. What is problematic is how defamation actions seem to be
used specifically to target opposition figures to bankrupt them to
ensure they then cannot sit in Parliament.
Of course, opposition figures in Singapore must be guarded in
their public utterances as they well know the consequences of a
slip-up. But the trouble is, when opposition figures give the
ruling PAP (party) an inch in this regard, the PAP leaders
gleefully grab a mile. Ministers lack the generosity of spirit
that government politicians exhibit in other modern countries in
this regard. In local parlance, they have shown themselves to be
"kiasu" (literally, afraid to lose).
Examples abound. Former attorney-general Francis Seow cites in
his book Beyond Suspicion? The Singapore Judiciary (2006)
Devan Nair, a former president of Singapore. Nair describes how Lee
Kuan Yew fumed after opposition figure J.B. Jeyaratnam had been
returned to Parliament in the 1981 elections. "I will make him
crawl on his bended knees and beg for mercy," Lee is purported to
have said.
Race-based riots — 58 and 44 years ago — are used to justify
many of the Government's controls, when in fact Singaporeans today
have been gutted of passion. They have been supplanted by
consumerism and materialism — safe refuges in the face of a
Government intolerant of dissent. Today, the only thing likely to
lead to anything approaching a riot is a half-price sale for Chanel
handbags.
The report says Singapore's economic development is impressive
but not unique. Australia has six Singapores dotted around its
coasts. Each of these cities has been built without the media and
political restrictions that Singapore's Government feels are needed
even though each Australian city has a population far more
ethnically diverse than Singapore's.
Singapore's leaders like
to describe their country as a small island with no resources. It
magnifies their achievement. But Singapore's
economic hinterland are Malaysia and Indonesia — it sits bang in
the middle of a sea of resources.
It draws on these resources just as Melbourne draws on the
resources of the rest of Victoria.
Perhaps the most important aspect of Singapore's development has
been the virtual elimination of corruption. There are those who
claim that corruption is integral to Asian culture and therefore
unavoidable. Singapore shows such commentators and, more
importantly, the rest of Asia, that being Asian is no excuse for
corruption.
Time and time again,
Singapore's leaders argue that those who want to comment on
politics and even policy should form their own political party and
stand for election. All others are required to shut
up. Singapore's leaders cocoon themselves
against challenge and seem affronted by scrutiny.
It's as if they haven't done a good job in building Singapore. But
they have, and that is the frustration. Why must they act as if
they haven't?
As you read through the measured paragraphs of the IBA report,
you can almost feel the pleading; the advice to a friend: "you're
wealthy, you're educated, you're like us now. Take that final step
— join us — the community of civil, prosperous societies. Do it,
before you embarrass yourself more." But this friend is too proud
to listen.
www.michaelbackman.com
