Straits Times readers has commented on the future of our city-state; whither Singapore’s future? Should Singapore be the New York or Switzerland of tomorrow?
History teaches us there are many contingencies in life; something that even the best economists, political scientists, sociologists, leaders and diplomats can’t predict with certainty. New York and Switzerland were not only products of ideas of enlightenment, liberalism, pluralism and puritanism, but also shaped by leaders who dare to make differences (From DeWitt Clinton to Rudolph W. Giuliani as mayors of New York).
In addition, environment, gender, labor, economic factors all played a part in shaping their historical contours. More important, ordinary people made significant differences in the societies they live in, even though many of their voices may never reach the history books of today and tomorrow.
I guess in contemporary times, New York has kept this sort of historical continuities, despite seemingly momentous changes in political persuasions of mayors across time?
In some sense, Singapore wasn’t that different from Switzerland and New York. To paraphrase Carl Trocki, a first rate historian on Singapore, it is “ironic that a country founded on notions of enlightenment and that a government does best when it does it least [free port] has become a country where state power and a culture of control has become so prevalent.”
In a sense, the lower strata of society has struggled to find its voice in historical narrative. In fact, while the social and cultural historical trajectories is very well developed in American and European history, such cannot be said on Singapore’s social and culture history. We know much about New York and Switzerland pasts more from the exploration of social and cultural issues of the pasts rather than that of its political leaders’ biographies.
Is our history about its people or about leaders such as Lee Kuan Yew, Toh Chin Chye and Goh Keng Swee?
If you think that history of the ordinary Singaporeans matter, why not check out these books from Select bookstores, especially those that deal with bottom-up histories? Remember it is not just political leaders that make history, but we can all make differences in the societies we live in, despite the fact that we might not be able to leave a legacy for someone to read about in the future. Why am I so confident that we can make differences? Because reading works of social and cultural historians and historical sociologists have convinced me. Ordinary peasants have changed Chinese societies temporally in far more reaching ways that the Mao Zedong and Qing Shihuang has ever had in China. Similarity, the coolies, opium farmers, secret societies, civil society activists, the kampung folks, the factory workers of yesterday have probably shaped Singapore’s society and culture more than political leaders of Singapore ever wished they could.
In a way, the blogsphere of today is a reflection of not only the autonomous intellectuals of today, but also provide a small window of how ordinary Singaporeans live in 2004-2007. However, can this window be pried more open in our blogsphere?
The problem is that the newspapers in Singapore and the world over often reflects only the elites’ voices who are sufficiently literate enough to be published in a newspaper forum. That’s why historians often investigates memoirs, poems, letters, diaries, government gazette and oral history projects to truly understand and piece together the histories of the countries they are looking at.
What will the historians of Singapore in 2050 interpret Singapore’s societies as they read the letters, diaries, blog entries, government gazettes of today? Hopefully I will read this post again in 2050 and see how much of my views and opinions of 2007’s Singapore societies are actually short-sighted? =)
The Straits Times (Singapore)
March 17, 2007 Saturday
Aspire to be ‘New York of South-east Asia’
IN HIS letter, ‘Look to productivity, not immigration, to boost growth’ (ST, March 10), Mr Richard Lim Siong Kheng questioned the relevance of my mentioning the 35 Asian cities that would be more populous than Singapore by 2015 in my letter, ‘6.5-million population - not if but when’ (ST, March 7).
Many of them would transform into modern cities once they have improved their infrastructure and started attracting major investments, and would compete with us not just for investments but also for businesses.
Mr Lim had correctly pointed out that we should look into improving productivity. He cited Switzerland, a country of 7.5 million people that has one of the top gross national income per capita due to its high productivity.
However, there is a limit to which we can depend on productivity increases to boost growth. Also, one fifth of Switzerland’s labour force consists of foreigners - one of the highest in Europe. Resident foreigners and foreign workers also account for 21 per cent of its population. So Switzerland, like Singapore, depends on foreigners to boost its economy and population.
We could learn many good things from Switzerland, such as its superb education, health care, and labour skills and productivity. But one thing we do not have is its much larger land - 59 times Singapore’s.
I think it is easier for us to become the ‘New York of South-east Asia’ than the ‘Switzerland of South-east Asia’.
New York, too, relies heavily on immigrants to boost growth; about 37 per cent of its residents are foreign-born.
New York Metropolitan’s gross domestic product (GDP) is 2.6 times that of Switzerland and its GDP per capita is 3 per cent higher than the Swiss’. Per capita GDP of New York City is even higher - 10 per cent above the Swiss’.
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