Singapore Sidestep
The president passes on a chance to push his "freedom
agenda."
by Ellen Bork
12/06/2006 12:00:00 AM
WHILE PRESIDENT Bush was in Singapore last month, Chee Soon Juan, a
leading democracy campaigner, addressed an open letter to him. The
letter asked Bush to press Singapore's prime minister, Lee Hsien
Loong, on democracy, arguing that "a democratic and free Singapore
will not only benefit the people of this city-state but also
contribute to a more stable and prosperous Asia."
In fact, Chee had reason to hope President Bush would assist the
cause in Singapore. The president's national security adviser said
that the speech would "talk about the he freedom agenda and what
freedom and democracy since the end of the Second World War have
done to help transform Asia." Precisely one year before, at Kyoto,
Japan, the president had made a memorable speech extolling his
"freedom agenda" and highlighting the importance of democracy to
relations between the United States and Japan.
In Singapore, by contrast, it took quite some time for the
president to get around to talking about democracy. And, since
Singapore isn't one, the president couldn't speak about how
democratic values are the bulwark of the partnership between the
two countries. Nevertheless, the president could have made remarks
in support of freedom of speech and democracy in Singapore
itself--he could have praised people like Chee. But he
didn't.
One week after the president's speech, Chee reported for a prison
term. Libel suits against him for insulting Singapore's
authoritarian leaders have ruined him financially, barred him from
electoral politics, and made jail terms inevitable. His party
reports that
he has become ill in prison. Chee is not the only victim of such
tactics, just one of the most vulnerable. The American media
company Dow Jones is now enmeshed in litigation as a result of an
interview published in its magazine, the Far Eastern Economic
Review, in which Chee said such dreadful things as: "If we had
parliamentary debates where the opposition could pry and ask
questions, I think he [Lee Kuan Yew, the prime minister's father
and the most powerful man in Singapore] is actually afraid of
something like that." The Review is now banned in Singapore.
Singapore's soft authoritarianism shields it from the kind of
attention that Burma and other such regimes attract. But on two
counts, Singapore is a test case for the world's democracies. It is
a place where proponents of the argument that trade and development
lead to democracy have to put up or shut up. And Singapore, with
its mixed population including a significant Muslim Malay minority,
and its proximity to Malaysia and Indonesia, also has a role to
play in the cause of a moderate, pro-democratic Islam. In
Singapore, as President Bush said, "young people who have a say in
their future are less likely to search for meaning in extremism."
Very true. And so there is a connection between the treatment of
Singapore's most prominent democracy activist and the president's
"freedom agenda."
Ellen Bork is deputy executive director of the Project for the New
American Century.
--
Well, seems like the PNAC did not push Bush hard enough. Quite
unlike their normal selves.
