I’ve just stumbled upon a wonderful dialogue in “The Crown,”
which tells the story of the British Royal Family. The scene involves a
conversation between a young Prince Charles and his mother, right after the
investiture as Prince of Wales. In this moment, the young and anguished Prince
tells his mother, “I have a voice,” to which his mother replies, “Nobody cares,”
and then goes onto explain, “shutting up and doing nothing is the hardest job
in the world.”
This dialogue has stuck in my mind and as Singapore’s General
Election draws to an end (it’s cooling off day – i.e. the day before polling
day, a day when you’re not supposed to utter anything remotely political so a
to ensure people can focus on the issues without anyone trying to influence
then unduly – or in simple terms without anyone trying to stop the voters from doing
the right thing), this dialogue has started to beat around the brain furiously.
As I’ve watched this moment on Netflix, it’s dawned on me
that Singapore has adopted the Westminster System of government from the
British in more ways than one. Our Prime Minister functions pretty much like
the inhabitant of 10 Downing Street and our President behaves in a similar
fashion to a combination of the House of Lords and the Sovereign (She does as
told by the elected Prime Minister but doesn’t have to wear the wigs, gowns or
live in a palace). What most people realise is that we’ve also inherited a
similar relationship between the governing and governed.
The only adaption between our system and the one we took, is
there is an inversion of the relationship. In Britain, the Sovereign, who
technically rules her subjects is bound by convention to shut up and do absolutely
nothing.
If you’ve followed “The Crown” on Netflix as often as I
have, it is a point that the Queen repeats time and time again. The Queen, as
those who have dealt with her have mentioned in the gossip pages, is always
fully aware of what is going on. The government of the day sends her daily
briefings and even in her 90s, the Queen makes it a point to be up to speed.
The sharp, politically astute woman as shown in the series is not an exaggeration.
Yet, despite what she may feel about a Prime Minister or whether she knows the
Prime Minister is creating a disaster, she keeps her mouth shut. As she says on
Netflix about dealing with an incompetent Prime Minister’s, “That’s not our job,
its up to the voters.”
The Queen takes her role very seriously and famously does
not comment about any of her Prime Ministers, not just in the United Kingdom
but all over the Commonwealth – a point which was made in Tom Platt's book about
Lee Kuan Yew.
This has worked brilliantly for the British Monarchy. By
keeping mum and doing as she’s told, the Queen has been a dignified symbol of
the British Nation. She avoids getting into the grubby world of politics and
while things are done in her name, the people know that she’s not the real
decision maker and she doesn’t get blamed when things screw up.
The Singapore version of this relationship has an
interesting twist. In this relationship, it is the governed, who are expected
to shut up and do absolutely nothing. It is the people that we elect to run the
show that are expected to make the noise and we, the governed are expected to shut
up and do absolutely nothing.
In a way, this system has worked as well for the people of
Singapore as it has for the British Monarchy. We, the people elected a
government that did everything for us and as many foreigners, including those
from the developed nations of Europe and the US have said, “What are you
complaining about, whenever I’ve mentioned something that suggested that
Singapore’s politicians were less than perfect.”
I think of PN Balji, the former editor of the Today
Newspaper, who argued that if you look at things objectively, “the successive
PAP governments have got about 75 to 80 percent of things right.” Most of us
have plenty to eat and have a roof over our heads. While not all of us live the
lives of “Crazy Rich Asians,” we don’t have homeless lying on the streets of
Boat Quay the way they used to line up outside my front door in Soho. As a very
senior member of the Indian Business Community said to be once, “Why worry?”
In a way feeling sorry for Singaporeans for their apparent
lack of rights is like feeling sorry for Prince Charles complaining that he has
a voice and he’s being allowed to be himself. Does Prince Charles ever had to
worry about things like food and shelter? The answer is no and nobody cares if
a man who has no worries about food or shelter having no voice of his own. Many
foreigners tend to look at us the same way. Even with Covid-19, the world is looking
as if we’re deliberately trying to make a mountain out of a molehill. Sure, our
cases surged to unprecedented levels overnight, but hey only 26 people have
died and unlike the American or Brazilian scenario, our leaders are at least
pretending to take things seriously.
Yet, like the lives of Britain’s Royal Family, the life for
people in Singapore is not perfect and there are tensions beneath the surface. Just
as the Queen’s family have behaved as badly as the average man if not worse (think
of Prince Andrew’s friendship with Mr. Epstein), Singapore’s governed have
taken some pretty hard knocks that people elsewhere experience. Think, for example
of the wage disparity between the billionaires whom buy holiday homes here and
the average construction worker whom we begrudgingly give a thousand dollars a
month to after working a 12-hour day for 28 plus days a month and that’s before
we deduct things like agent fees.
Furthermore, times have changed and tried and tested
solutions that worked in the 60s may not necessarily work now. It would be nice
to believe, as a recent PAP slogan, which was sent to me implies, the PAP did
everything and will continue to do everything in a wise and good manner but it
won’t be that way.
Like Prince Charles, we have a voice and voices need to be
heard. Prince Charles, who is duty bound to shut up and do nothing, had raised
issues like the quality of farmed produce, architecture and the environment.
Seemed quite nutty at the time but then when issues like climate change started
to bite – well he didn’t sound so nutty after all. The same can be said for our “nutty” voices.
We had people like Alex Au of Yawning Bread or Jolovn Wham, who made a song and
dance about the conditions that migrant workers lived in. They were nutty
leftist and then Covid-19 struck.
We have a strange system where one party has the voice and
the others are expected to shut up and do nothing. I think, Singapore is the
only democracy where the opposition campaigns to be – opposition. We seem to
like it that way because, well the PAP has done OK by us and we like to think
this will continue forever.
Unfortunately, the single voice won’t be the only right one
forever and there comes a time where we need to listen to many voices to solve
the more complex issues of the day. We need to except that the more ideas out
in the market place, the better and we need to accept that the best ideas don’t
always come from one source and we will need to test conflicting ideas – even if
it means that one day the opposition will have to campaign to be the government
rather than being content to b opposition.
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