Singapore: The Next Frontier

Big thanks to all my hosts in Singapore, who took great care of me :)

In both presentations down south, I spent a lot of time talking about Singapore, even though everything I had learnt about Singaporean politics I learnt in about two days off Wikipedia :P

All I read though, I found thoroughly intriguing, and what I saw and heard during my visit was no less so.

At IPS, I had the good fortune – perhaps for my first time in any country -  of addressing MP’s and high ranking civil servants (I was glad to note that Opposition politicians were also invited :). While there, one analogy I used that people seemed to respond a little bit too is comparing the Singaporean government to a parent corporation, wherein each area of governance is a subsidiary company.

The ‘subsidiary’ of clean governance, economic management and such are clearly perceived to be doing well and earning mighty profits, as with most other subsidiaries, but there seems to be one subsidiary that is just spoiling it for the rest of the company: civil liberties and responsible free speech. This company is undoubtedly bleeding the whole corporation dry, in the eyes of the world.

There really aren’t many countries for which this can be said, but in terms of right to assemble, balanced media, right to trial, and so on, Singapore is a tougher place to live than Malaysia. If they turn this company around, I really think there’s nothing stopping Singapore from being considered one of the best run countries in the world, bar none.

The following night, I spoke at a small museum to people more from the civil society and opposition parties side, which was cool. Here I spent a bit more time on the need for well-crafted, non-self-indulgent campaign messages, as well as a cohesive and united movement for at least more checks and balances in the government. They seemed to appreciate my appreciation (based on the Malaysian experience) that such consensus building is one helluva headache to achieve :)

I could happily write so much more about Singapore and all the fun people I met down there, but my posts have been really too long as it is :P Suffice to say that I’d certainly be interested to explore ways of contributing further.

Special thanks to Pratamad (who I finally learnt should be read as Prata-Mad, and not as some Sanskrit reference, haha :)  and his family, who really went through a lot of trouble to accommodate me during my trip – was really fun catching up! :)

One of the other true highlights of Singapore? Coming home to polytikus, hehe :)