*Many local people in Singapore seemed to feel the need
to half-apologize to me about the Singapore government.
And every last one of these lamenters was, in some sense or
another, affiliated with the Singapore government.
Now that I'm out of Singapore, I reckon it's safe to
allege that Singapore has tidy, authoritarian,
city-state machine politics. Presumably,
I won't get sued for libel for saying this.
I mean, it's the truth.
Singapore is a very foreign place.
Being a Texan, I try not to judge people's
political behavior by any abstract standards. For me,
it's all about the neighbors – and Singapore's
neighbors are Kuala Lumpur and Djakarta.
I don't see a lot of oppressed Singaporean
dissidents rushing off to the relative freedom
of Kuala Lumpur and Djakarta. On the contrary,
people in Malaysia and Indonesia are amazed
by any polity that doesn't run on bribes.
For me, the unsettling aspect of Singapore isn't
their repression, which is subtle and always nicely-dressed
in legalisms. No, the weird part is the public
exhortations, the regime's Taoist PR campaign.
They've got some kind of genuine Techno-Confucian
Mandate of Heaven thing going on. It's being
carried out by really bright, eager, workaholic city
apparatchiks who are keenly rehearsed.
Once you've got the population ship-shape through
relentless moral pressure and the efficient delivery of social goods,
they really don't require a lot of caning and
drug executions; on the contrary, even though they're
not all spontaneous and touchy-feely, they're
proud of themselves. They're not real thrilled
at waving party flags and national banners – they'd obviously
rather go shopping – but, well, they put up with the
official triumphalism. They seem to take some
comfort in knowing that some exquisitely educated
Lion City mandarin is firmly in charge of coining slogans.
You know what? If Singapore had just been hit
by a giant typhoon, the regime wouldn't be snivelling
and making excuses about the hunger and looting.
Eco-catastrophe and martial law would surely put the Singapore
power-elite really on top of their game. They wouldn't
spin their "clean-up effort". They would assign resources,
put trained people on the job and actually clean up.
Because they are not just a spin machine. They possess
competence.
Competence doesn't seem like a big deal until
you are forced to realize that your own government
has none.
