What Exactly is the Singapore Core?

 One of the main discussion points in the last month or so has been the topic of jobs or more accurately the good paying jobs that are going to people other than the local graduates. It goes without saying that this topic has raised passions and the government has been caught between a rock and a hard place. So, as anyone tracking Singapore’s media will notice, there have been a lot of noise in the mainstream media about how we can’t afford to shut ourselves to the outside world but at the same time the government will always preserve the “Singapore Core.”

While it’s good to see the government talking about preserving jobs for the local population, I believe that there is a bigger issue at stake, namely the fact that Singapore’s business model is stuck in the 1960s and while the talk about a “Singapore Core” may make an attractive soundbite, it’s never been actually defined.

On the superficial level, the talk of a Singapore Core simply means that local Singaporeans will get priority in looking for jobs. While the intention of the powers-that-be is to placate the population, one should ask why this discussion is even necessary in the first place.

In most places, its assumed that all things being equal, it’s the natives who have the upper hand in looking for employment. There’s no magic explanation for this. It’s simply easier to higher the guy who doesn’t require you to spend hours on end in an immigration office to fill out paper work to ensure he’s allowed to stay and work in the country.

Yet, the experiences of the local population don’t seem to reflect what should be obvious. The sentiment on the ground is such that expats who once felt like a treasured part of the community are now being made to feel like they are less than valued and one has to look what is the underlying issue.

In the age of unthinking populism, the answer has been that there are too many foreigners in Singapore “stealing” jobs from the local population and to placate the voting segment of the population, the government has started making hiring people from elsewhere a little less easy.

Unfortunately, I believe that the issue at stake is not one of immigration. Rather, it is one of economic structure. In many ways, Singapore is the Playboy centerfold for Western Economist. Unlike the rest of the post-colonial world, we embraced our colonial past and welcomed Western and Japanese multinationals.

In fairness, this strategy worked brilliantly. Singapore developed rapidly, and our people got used to working at “world-class” standards. A growing portion of young and bright people were recruited to work in world-class companies and were well paid for it.

However, there was never really was a “Singapore Core.” Our bright young things understood that the boss would ultimately be a Western or Japanese expatriate who had the vital task of supporting our economy by paying overpriced rents, drinking overpriced alcohol and patronizing overpriced prostitutes.  We were not encouraged to venture out of Singapore (stay with family, don’t be a quitter and so on) and we were told by our Founding Father himself that Singapore simply didn’t have the economies of scale to produce anything world class.

In any other country, a “Core” essentially means the engine of wealth creation, which in most cases involved Small and Medium Enterprises. In the USA, there are several American cores, of which Silicon Valley is the most prominent. The “American Hero” is a kid who has a bright idea and succeeds in getting it off the ground. In Germany the “German Core” is the Mittelstand, or the small and medium enterprises that specializes in supplying small but crucial components to industries (in F&B, we think of the Rationale Combi-Ovens).

As far as Singapore’s government is concerned, this “Singapore Core” never really existed, which is unfortunate in as much as SME enterprises still employ the majority of people. As far as the Singapore Government is concerned, the sector that should be the “Singapore Core” is nothing more than an inconvenience that soaks up the best and brightest who don’t get hired by the multinationals or government linked companies. Let’s not forget that the closest that Singapore has ever gotten to a “Singapore Hero” was Sim Wong Hoo of Creative Technologies couldn’t raise funds in Singapore.

There is recognition that something has to be changed. There are noises being made about how we need to support home grown SME enterprises, particularly in the technology sector. However, as Covid-19 showed us, too many sectors still rely on good old-fashioned stuff. Any suggestion that foreign workers be housed in something other than a rat’s nest is met with resistance from the construction industry as cost increasing. Suggest that you can work from a caffe without going into the office and the real-estate industry gets on the defensive paying for editorials to remind us of the fun we have in the office.

We are not going to have a “Singapore Core” if we cling onto old fashioned economic models because too many of the “right” people have a stake in the status quo. If anything, we shouldn’t worry about not having a “Singapore Core” if we persist in holding onto these notions -there may not be a Singapore worth speaking about….

You’re not even a Nigger – You’re Lower than That – You’re an African!

The TV has decided to play “Hotel Rwanda” as its late night/ early morning show. The movie tells the story of Paul Rusesabagina, the Rwandan hotelier who managed to hide 1,268 Tutsi and moderate Hutus during the 1994 genocide.

I remember the genocide. I saw it on TV. It happened at the same time as the Bosnian War and while Europe and the USA made lots of noise about placing an arms embargo on the Milosevic regime in Serbia, the Rwandans decided to do things the old-fashioned way – they butchered each other with machetes and the world watched as it happened.
To put it in its crudest terms, Bosnia was an unequal war while Rwanda was a “Snuff Movie-Made Real.” Everyday you would turn on the TV and you’d get to graphic images of people who had been hacked to death. One day, one group of people decided that they would take a sharp chopper to their neighbours and that was that.

The Western Powers lead by the USA, who had so efficiently kicked Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait two-years earlier, sat by and watched. Saddam had to be kicked out of Kuwait because he was a murderous thug was an amateur compared to the chaps in Rwanda. What went wrong?

Well, the simple answer is this – Kuwait was and is a reliable oil supplier for the West while there is utterly no strategic interest in Rwanda. The contrasting attitudes were best summed up by one of the most poetic lines in the movie – “You’re not even in a Nigger – You’re Lower than That – You’re an African.” It is important to save Kuwait from a murderous thug called Saddam because Kuwait has oil – nobody scores points for saving African lives.

I never appreciated it at the time but the difference in the way the world reacted towards Rwanda and Kuwait were lessons that history had already demonstrated. Great powers inevitably act towards the world – they inevitably act in their self-interest. This was true of the British in the 19th century and it is the same of the Americans in the current one. China has shown that if it grows into the next power, it will do the same.

Both the British in the 19th century and the Chinese in the next century have been clear on how they’d run things. The Americans are a different case. They’ve worked on the policy of “Doing Good.” Whenever they’ve invaded a country in the last century, they’ve always done it on the official premise they were “liberators.” To be fair, both Saddam in Iraq and Noriega in Panama were dictators. However, if you look at the way they’ve tried to manage Iraq, you have to question their real motives.
Which leads to the point on what can the rest of the world do? Well, for the most part, it is best to work with the superpower in terms of trade. Chances are the superpower is a superpower for a reason. In the 19th century it was the British and today it is the Americans who have the skills and the technology that the rest of us simply don’t have. As such, it’s always a good idea to send your best and brightest to learn from the superpower. This is a good exchange. For the British, educated natives helped to run the colonies. The Americans use them to help run multinationals.

Superpowers, especially America can be benevolent. Americans forces have helped keep the peace in various parts of the world. Both PAX BRITANICA and PAX AMERICANA have kept the world from exploding into a larger conflict.
However, smaller nations and people from smaller nations have to remember that superpowers don’t act out of the love of their smaller brethren but out of their own strategic interest.

Simply put, anyone who believes that the super power will rush to their defence out of the goodness of their heart will be in for a massive disappointment. So what can smaller countries stuffed with black, brown and yellow people do.

Well, the answer is to learn to be independent and self-reliant. One should learn the skills of the superpower and what makes the system tick but not be dependent on the superpower for ones security and prosperity. While I don’t always agree with the official stance of the Singapore government, I do give credence to the idea of National Service – simply put, - it is good to have someone defend you but also important to doubly ensure that you know how to defend yourself.

It’s good to have alternatives. As long as you remember that as far as the superpower is concerned, you are “Lower than a nigger,” you’ll always have the instincts to look out for yourself and not rely on the superpower to do it for you.