Mr. Ravi Menon,
the Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) just concluded
a four-part lecture series that was organized by the Institute of Public
Studies (IPS). This four-part lecture series proved to be quite radical in as
much as Mr. Menon touched on hot button issues like a minimum wage (he argued Singapore
should have one – which goes against the grain of traditional Singapore
government DNA) and he went as far as to suggests that a “wealth tax” might be
helpful (venom to the minds of Singapore’s powers that be). Most interestingly,
Mr. Menon concluded his series by suggesting that Singaporeans needed to rely less
on the government and more on themselves. The full report of Mr. Menon’s
lectures can be found at:
If you read Mr.
Menon on the surface of the words, there’s very little to disagree with.
Singapore’s government has by any account made itself omnipotent, omniscient and
omnipresent in Singapore. I think of the “fail-proof” strategy that a former
business partner used to propose for any Public Relations (PR) issue that all
our clients had – get a government minister to grace the event and positive
press coverage is assured.
If one looks
carefully at things, this strategy that was applied to my early PR campaigns
didn’t just apply to PR – it’s the basic problem-solving strategy to any given issue
in Singapore. Solving problems in Singapore isn’t so much about solving problems
but getting the government to realise that your problem could be its problem. It’s
part of our national DNA, regardless of what the government or people tell you.
The people expect the government to solve their issues and the government
expects to be the exclusive solution to all issues.
I think of the
time my favourite young politician (we’re talking about a die-hard devotee of
the ruling party) tried to tell me that Gilbert Goh, one of our better-known
social activists, was a trouble maker. His explanation was simple – “He goes
round helping homeless people – this is causing trouble because there’s no need
to do that because there is the government to take care of that.”
The second
instance that comes to mind was from a time when I was trying to squeeze
freelance work from the labour movement. I thought my story of surviving long
term unemployment would be a good selling point as to why they should work with
me. It wasn’t. They were utterly flabbergasted that in a decade of not having a
full-time job, it never occurred to me to approach government to solve what I
saw as a personal problem.
However, as Mr.
Menon has argued in his lectures, this happy situation cannot go on. This is no
longer the 1960s when it was just a problem of giving rice to a group of hungry
people. Our problems are more complex and let’s face it, the government’s ability
to solve “ALL ISSUES,” in a decisive manner isn’t what it was back then. One
only needs to look at the number of lock downs and opening ups that we’ve been
through in the last six months to understand how our government, which acts
like it competes with God for the usual “omnis,” is simply unable to solve
modern day problems in a decisive manner.
Mr. Menon rightfully
pointed out that you need competing sources of ideas. In any other place, you
get the rise of foundations, think-tanks, NGOs, religious organisations and so
on, that will come up with a multitude of solutions to existing issues and all
these solutions will be put into practice together. Government behaves more
like a referee in a game rather than the only player in the game. You could say
that it is at this point where a wise government should look to build a “strong
society,” rather than a “strong government.”
Whilst Mr.
Menon is right in what he says, there’s one slight snag. Our current system isn’t
designed to allow anyone to solve any issues beyond their tying their shoe
laces. In a funny way, the Singapore government of the current era is more tolerant
of expression than its predecessors. I am definitely not alone is grousing about
this and that on the net. I am merely different in as much as I do so under my
actual name.
However, it’s a
different story doing anything more than being a keyboard warrior. Let’s go
back to the young politician’s comments about Gilbert Goh. As far as the government
is concerned, Mr. Goh and his transitioning.org team are a group of trouble
makers, whom they tolerate because crushing him would be bad PR. In any other
society, Mr. Goh would be a candidate for sainthood.
Then, there’s
Mr. Jolovan Wham, who has been in and out of the court system for the past
decade. If you judged by the number of times Mr. Wham was on the wrong side of the
legal system, you’d come to the conclusion that he was either trying out for “ISIS
Idol,” or had a severe case of “kleptomania.”
This is not the
case; Mr. Wham simply has the “unfortunate” habit of speaking out about the
less than satisfactory living conditions of the likes of itinerant workers and
his protest methods are as socially damaging as holding up smiley faces in
public places. Even when Mr. Wham was proved right about the conditions in the worker’s
dormitories after the massive break of Covid-19 cases, the authorities still
continued treating him like the cause of Covid.
I don’t disagree
with Mr. Menon’s point about Singaporeans needing to be less dependent on government.
However, this is never going to change as long as government remains unable or
unwilling to view self-reliant problem solvers like Mr. Goh and Mr. Wham as
anything other than criminals. A contradictory message is being sent out here.
Mr. Menon says we should be less dependent on government. However, when we try
to do anything without government approval, we end up coming under fire for
criminal activities like trying to help the helpless. Does anyone with half a
brain cell expect change unless the powers that be allow it?
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