Old reflections on post-GE 2011

The political terrains in Singapore have recently changed, especially with the newfound political empowerment within the electorate. This shift is most understood to have peaked during the proceedings of General Elections (GE) 2011. Since the end of that significant political episode, debates have yet to cease in predicting the future of governance for our island. The prevailing preference for a multiparty system, the hostile confrontation with unpopular People’s Action Party (PAP) policies, and the basic question mark connoted with Singapore’s democratic system are just a few of the many disputed topics amongst our active citizens. Our empowered populace has also grown generous in volunteering in the political sector, mirroring their strong verbal support for their preferred parties.

Coupled with the increasingly uneven playing field of the electoral system, it has become orthodox to judge PAP critically in nearly all their steps. This complements the rising strength of the opposition parties, who appeal to the displaced confidence of the electorate. Recent public discourse is also carving out an increasingly defined boundary, delineating the pro-Opposition supporters from the loyal followers of our current ruling party.

Cherian George’s article Towards A Democratic Society of Airconditioned Nation, dated on 15 May 2011, was eloquent and balanced in reviewing the outcomes of the elections. He was prudent in underlining several concerns for Singapore’s governing system and political climate which were observed while the opposition parties contested hard with our dominant ruling party. Firstly, he perceived these few years to be a period of ‘significant makeover’ in Singapore’s politics, given the retirement of Singapore’s father figures Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong. This move implied their acknowledgement of the imminent need for the current Cabinet to instate a reform from within. PAP is breaking ties with their ‘high priest’, the figure who carried Singapore through from being a colony to an independent nation state. George then proceeds to address the obvious shift in Singapore’s political culture, which recently seems to cultivate fervent skepticism towards PAP and their unfair practices, as well as the preference for the opposition over PAP. Internet was noted to be a significant catalyst in this process, infinitely opening up the political avenue for contentious discussion. This wide array of online commentaries and forums has been instrumental in harnessing people power from all walks of life to form an engaged citizenry.

Despite this sensational shift, George keep readers rooted with grounded discussion on the important concerns drawn out from the episode. He maintains that the ‘good old fashioned economic factors’ are the underlying causes of the recent inconsistent policy changes, which have become central to the election issues surrounding PAP’s competency. To put it simply, Singapore’s economy grew extremely volatile in light of the recent recessions[1], and such inconsistent growth patterns made it difficult for PAP to plan policies pragmatically. In addition, George   draws concern to cyberspace in its productivity in facilitating constructive and mature political debate, and the need to nurture a healthier, more conducive avenue. He applauded citizens in accurately and courageously opposing PAP politicians who were incompetent in addressing the general population’s views and opinions, exhibiting intolerance. However, he acknowledged the rabid and negative atmosphere radiating from the online public space, which has grown to be “colonized… with a vengeance to ensure that its spectrum of views are limited in range – from the rabidly anti-government to the moderately anti-government”. On a final note, he conclusively emphasized the role of experienced civil society activists and public intellectuals in cultivating the right political attitude with equal amounts of skepticism and hopefulness, to bring about a positive change.

In surveying Singapore’s newly competitive authoritarian political scene two years on, there is a notably growing polarization in political preferences. Public debate fundamentally revolves around the head-on competition between PAP and the opposition groups. On one end of the spectrum, the fervent skepticism towards PAP is unavoidable, given that PAP’s unpopular policies are breeding social problems that we witness on a daily basis. The lack of political diversity also underlines the superficiality of the democratic system [1], evidenced by the dominance of a singular ruling party for the past half century. Their dominance has been strategically sustained by many controversial moves and manipulation of systems in their favour – gerry meandering practices, restrictions imposed upon periods of opposition campaign, and their popular employment of “carrot-dangling strategies”. Their dependence on such resorts to win votes fuel the dissent towards PAP within the population, who demand a level playing field. The nature of such approaches in handling political competition also characterize the party as complacent, and also further seen in the manner they perceive their incompetent efforts to be quickly resolved by a mere public apology.

On the other end of the spectrum, there is a widespread conviction that the opposition party should seize the opportunity to govern. In a commentary by Sir Nelspruit on The Real Singapore titled ‘Can the PAP be ousted next elections?’, he poses a widely discussed question in anticipation of the GE2016, discussing the strengths and weaknesses of each party in serious considerations of overthrowing PAP. The writer articulated with a pressing urge, that oppositional parties are put to the race against time, making the situation out to be dire.

However, this polarization of public political opinion is detrimental, and may undermine the possibility of a positive and constructive change. The simplification of our political options takes the understandings of our political options at face value, and overlooks significant grey areas. Our political situation is not merely a matter of people-powered opposition groups standing a chance in ousting an elitist dominant ruling party – a scenario that many has naïvely likened the situation to, as it has been frequently propagating through the global political landscape in light of the revolutions of many oppressed regimes. Though it is without a doubt that the opposition is admirably accumulating strength with the support base of politically roused citizens, the popular public stance deems the opposition favourably as the alternative ruling party. This needs to be rationalized by compelling the populace to consider the PAP as well, through intensified efforts in advocating internal reform (Ortmann, 2011). In essence, the premises of the argument within public discourse are inaccurate – our citizens tackle this debate in a top-down approach, shepherding their arguments with preexisting notions on respective parties. With a flawed evaluation, the electorate is at risk of yielding an unsound answer that will not help Singapore find the best outcome at GE2016.

In that vein, the above-mentioned polarized discussions have been proliferating with the aid of cyberspace. While the Internet is undoubtedly an asset to the opposition[2], as pointed out by George, extreme oppositional views being widely accessible on online platform with an extensive reach may be a threat to political stability. Restrictions have been loosened in advocating freedom of speech (Ortmann, 2011), allowing intellectual think-tanks to objectively evaluate the political scene and offer their valuable perspectives to the public. However, its potential of being a conducive environment may be limited by the prevalent unbalanced arguments, found on various forums and blogs. In this regard, cyberspace might resemble the offline state-controlled media, but as an online counterpart and aggressively geared towards the opposition. Currently, sites like The Online Citizen, or The Real Singapore have been stipulated to be alternative news sources, pooling articles and commentaries from Singaporeans. While there certainly exists deliberative and reasoned commentaries and articles on said sites, I have also come across extremist articles that have left me feeling uneasy at the prospect of uninformed Singaporean citizens who seek to understand domestic politics through such avenues. Their ‘debates’ are packed with skepticism, demonization of PAP, and quick retaliation to any fleeting pro-PAP sentiment. This detriment is almost on par with that of Straits Times or The New Paper, in that they are also embedded with propagandist agendas[3]. Altogether, citizens may also left befuddled in making their judgment due to the opposing agendas entrenched in both state media and alternate media.

With an abundant of platforms opened online for political purpose, citizens pervasively try to tackle social issues through communicating to the rest of the society, and hopefully to both ruling and oppositional parties, resulting in the verbal battles aimed at opposing ideologies. These, however, herald a plethora of complications, as our social issues are a product of paradigm shifts in politics . Perhaps active political participation in the actual realm in the form of social movements may enable them to carve out a consensus between conflicting groups of people (Martin Jones, 2004), for example, between the locals and the foreigners in light of The White Paper. In this manner, such social movements are more informal, decentralized, and more associated with the social issues at hand, which are troubling the citizens. Furthermore, such movements will have very little association with the electoral process. Making judgment on the right party to govern would not be clouded by the abundant issues that plague citizens’ minds, namely on transport, housing and employment.

2011 marks the significant beginning of an active political participation shown by our once passive citizenry, but it does not stop there. With the strengthening will within the general populace to engage with domestic politics, intellectual elites and civil society activists may be needed to establish the direction of such political activist efforts, so that they are being channeled and productively, and not to destabilize our governmental system, as our citizens personalize such social issues. Political change has to be gradual, and with rationality and equal amounts of hope and skepticism, Singapore will be able to attain that.

Bibliography

1. George, C. (2011, May 15). GE2011 Aftermath – Towards A Democratic Nation. Retrieved from Airconditioned Nation: http://www.airconditionednation.com/2011/05/15/ge2011-aftermath/

2. Martin Jones, R. J. (2004). Democracy, Participation and Citizenship. An Introduction to Political Geography: Space, Place and Politics , 136-157.

3. Nelspruit, S. (2013, October 28). Can The PAP Be Ousted In The Next Elections? Retrieved from The Real Singapore: http://therealsingapore.com/content/can-pap-be-ousted-next-elections

4. Ortmann, S. (2011). Singapore: Authoritarian But Newly Competitive. Journal of Democracy , 22 (4), 153-164.

 

[1] three externally triggered recessions in the past decade, with heady growth spurts in between

[2] During GE2011, the oppositional parties utilized the online platform to refute false allegations propagated by state-controlled media, which mitigated the detriment upon the chances of winning the GRCs.

[3] Doomsday warnings, trumping up PAP’s virtues in consolidation of power

The “riot” in Little India

The amount of ignorance being exposed just by incident is disappointing and baffling. The kind of dialogue it’s mostly creating reeks of childish, immature understandings of how a society functions or a culture develops. In this “riot” (apostrophes because the use of this heavily-connoted term is questionable to me) that involves our dear foreigners, it’s fair to say that it strikes in the heart of Singapore’s social issues with its deep-seated xenophobia. This event has (or had, but i’ll be optimistic here) the potential to spark constructive and thoughtful discourse on, maybe, the need for peaceful co-existence with and amongst our foreign counterparts, or in dissecting this incident’s complex causes which uncovers underlying social problems amongst the immigrants: basically issues we have been overlooking.

YET, a certain prevalent form of response to this tragedy of which its emergence that I really couldn’t understand, is the need for people to insert comedic responses. Really? I’m sorry, but really? It was even contemplated that we’re too serious a society to take light-hearted jokes. You have impeccably bad comedic timing. So that joke might be just a thought and I, too, certainly have no control over what you think about – but there needs to be stronger consideration on these commentaries and dialogue, especially when they’re published somewhere for an audience to see, and when verbalised. Firstly, when you do, these are no longer just minor harmless thoughts – they contribute to public discourse, and public discourse has the power to influence daily conversations. Words thrown about recklessly like “banglas”, “drunkards”, or even “prata” are key in orchestrating subconscious representations, which underlies ethnic typecasting or mindless stereotypes. Words that people claim that they don’t mean are conditioning or embedding in you the very stereotypical impulses which pretty much cultivates racial abuse or aggression. Stereotypes don’t spring out of nowhere wholly packaged and explicit – they are born out of an accumulation of mindless comments, and every word counts.

Secondly, to do this in the immediate period after the incident, not only are people showing a great deal of disrespect not just to the families of the deceased, belittling the whole situation, and invalidating the violence and danger of the incident – they are disproportionately inflating the very stereotypes that we have been NEEDING to get rid of since The White Paper, in this vulnerable atmosphere. Simultaneously they propagate the notions of privilege, elitism and superiority that us as locals seem to be entitled to. How do we fulfill peaceful co-existence in a country we claim to be “harmonious and multi-cultural”, when we cannot see them as equals, evident in these ignorant terms which keep resurfacing? It doesn’t help that their living conditions are undoubtedly inferior: a tangible reason for them to already feel subjugated by the locals. These unnecessary and dense comments, instead of constructive discourse to maybe dissect this incident and understand how it is able to provoke this crowd of foreigners, clearly illustrates the state of mind that we are in. The quality of the public discourse towards our social problems is the yardstick in our progress towards a first-class society – no matter how sophisticated our economy and education system is.

I am actually attempting to shed light on the need for cultural maturity amongst our own members, and culture is bred from dialogue amongst ourselves. Moreover, we, as Singaporeans, often take the top-down approach in understanding situations and issues, and in doing so we’re vulnerable to generalizations and vilifying statements, which do very little to help. I’m not even going into the actions that will be taken by our ruling parties, and the widespread irrational and misplaced anger this incident has provoked towards the government (way to connect the dots, people) – that’s a whole different story. This is our social fabric at stake and we have control over this unitary character of our society. We need to be better than this – we’re informed enough.

Related articles

• Little India Riot Aftermath (mrnewbird.wordpress.com)
• Riot rocks Singapore’s Little India (newsinfo.inquirer.net)
• Little India Riots: Chaos Again After 40 Years of Calm (singaporeldw.wordpress.com)