Singapore. Some think this island is a part of China (it’s not). Some see it as a clean city, with no litter to be found anywhere. What a perfect society…
Its GDP per capita according to Purchasing Power Parity (or PPP, which inflates the “exchange-rate” value of a currency based on the cheapness of stuff in a country) ranks one of the highest in the world, third only to Qatar and Luxembourg according to the IMF (5th according to the World Bank, and 7th according to the CIA).
GDP per capita, however, is not the best way to measure how well citizens are faring; according to reports that ACTUALLY asked its citizens how happy they were (as opposed to one which based its findings entirely on statistics and a large weighting given to the aforementioned GDP per capita), Singapore was ranked one of the least emotional and least positive in the world, less so than war-torn countries like Iraq.
Why is this so, you might ask, in this land of plenty?
Well, this sentiment is driven by a combination of factors…
Wealth is in the eye of the beholder. As long as the beholder is wealthy, that is
Al Jazeera wrote a telling article, which highlighted the plight of Singapore’s visible “invisible” poor; you see begging is illegal there, which is probably why you don’t see any beggars. Instead, the poorest and oldest resort to selling tissue paper and busking; Singapore has no poverty line, and hence nobody living in “poverty”. The article cites a report commissioned by the Singapore Management University.
Al Jazeera:
The report cites two measures of inequality in Singapore. First, the period from 1998 to 2010 saw the real median income of employed residents in the bottom 20 percent fall by approximately 8 percent, while the income of those in the highest-earning quintile increased by 27 percent. Second, Singapore’s Gini coefficient – which measures the degree of inequality within the country – increased between 2002 and 2012 at a rate that far outpaces the rest of the developed world.
“Rising inequality does not necessarily denote the existence of poverty. However, rising inequality combined with evidence of poverty indicates that the poor are being left further behind, and this appears to be what is happening in Singapore,” reads the report.
One might be quite unhappy were he or she to be left outside of this economic miracle.
The mass media there is near completely controlled by the ruling government, and the alternative media is being crushed
It has an arm of government devoted entirely to the media, and according to a report by Reporters Without Borders Singapore is ranked 149 out of 179 countries in terms of media freedom. This control extends to the internet, where alternative media is being crushed by new laws designed to counter views that the government disagrees with. One fairly recent policy requires media sites devoted to Singapore news, and which receive substantial traffic, to apply for a licence and foot a 50,000 dollar “performance bond”.
Not only are alternative media sites required by law to pay a sum that most individuals would not be able to afford, they are also required to submit to the government’s wishes and take down content deemed inappropriate, rendering their purpose as an alternative moot. A controlled opposition is worse than no opposition at all, for the People are at least aware of the deceit with the latter case.
This results in skewed narratives, which conflict with how the People feel. This conflict can make one most dissatisfied, even if there are low rates of crime, police brutality or corruption in the country (which are good things that certain other countries can improve upon).
A Surveillance State of Epic Proportions
As stated by Tech In Asia:
Singapore’s Computer Misuse and Cybersecurity Act has been amended to let the government compel organizations to do pre-emptive surveillance. The Criminal Procedure Code is phrased in such a way to enable investigators to forcibly obtain any information they need.
The newly enacted Personal Data Protection Act, meanwhile, is aimed more at restricting companies’ use of private data. Government agencies are exempted from most parts of the Act.
The state’s obtaining of user data without permission is historical fact. In 1999, SingTel was found to have scanned its customers’ computers surreptitiously under the orders of the Ministry of Home Affairs. In 2008, ISPs were forced to disclose personal details of its subscribers in a lawsuit involving copyright infringement.
Then between 2008 and 2009, a police officer was arrested for using his office database to obtain the addresses and criminal records of several individuals, including past girlfriends, while an immigration officer was charged with helping his foreign mistress enter the country with a fake identity.
This year, a group of youths were rounded up for questioning for holding illegal public protests held under the banner of the Anonymous movement. These individuals coordinated their plan on Facebook.
Immigration
With all the talk about a refugee crisis in Europe and Trump’s assertions that migrants are banging down the doors in the US, it’s perhaps wise to take a step back and ponder whether other countries have it worse… Singapore has a document called the Population White Paper a policy allegedly designed to combat the nation’s crumbling birth rate (an ironic point, considering the government’s original policy of discouraging women from having more than two children in the 1960s. Proof that politicians who believe that they know better than the People are only fooling themselves). Although the White Paper seems intent on boosting population growth via both immigration and improving birth rates, practically-speaking the former method is far more visible and seems to be the real focus. With an immigrant population which consists of 43% of the total populace, it dwarfs the UK’s figure of 12.4% and the US’s figure of 14.3%. So much for those “Unwashed Masses” huh?
Unfortunately high rates of immigration has led to an overcrowding of public transport systems, and gives the term “can of sardines” a whole new meaning.
It has led to greater competition, and caused the unhappy nation’s people to work harder to keep their jobs.
Why should you care about this island?
Three letters: TPP… the top-secret (for the People that is, other than a few leaks) Trans-Pacific Partnership that we’ve been railing against all along, because it will destroy the generic drugs industry and strengthen Big Pharma’s grip on its “Intellectual Property” as well as strengthen corporations in general via the creation of arbitration courts that act outside of any government, existed well before the US was interested in it. In fact, Singapore was one of its founding members and had even sent its Minister of Foreign Affairs to urge Obama to fast-track the deal. The nerve of a tiny island telling the world’s only superpower to get on with it… And all the while, not one protest was held in this country over the TPP (because protests are illegal, and the people are docile).
Singapore acts much like an… example… a test case for the rest of the world’s politicians:
They have good reason to envy the status of the ruling government’s Prime Minister (as well as its other ministers) who manages to obtain the highest paid salary for a politician in the world… thrice as high as the next highest, and four times higher than President Barack Obama. Not too shabby for an island of 5.47 million people (half immigrant).
Also, the people’s great trust in their government and willingness to accede to its wishes are also something that any politician would LOVE to have.
The open control of state media and restricting of alternative views allows the government the potential ability to feed the people whatever narrative they wish... and its cooperation with the US by helping to spy on its own neighbors, as exposed by Snowden, when taken with the large network of CCTVs means that people are constantly monitored online and offline, making them fearful of expressing dissent. Another perfect system for politicians.
September 11th: A Good Day For Elections
Elections in Singapore have come and passed on September 11th 2015 (wonder what else happened on September 11th… a play on people’s subconscious fears of cataclysmic change, one that has played out to the incumbent’s advantage). Singapore, though democratic, has never voted an opposition party into power before. The Singapore people seemed keen on voting for change, as seen in the videos of the speeches given by the respective political parties below.
Below is a video of the crowd at the typical incumbent’s rally:
…and here’s a view of the typical main opposition’s crowd at a rally:
Notice the disparity? Well, appearances are deceiving it would seem, because when it came down to crunch time the People voted overwhelmingly for the incumbent- irrespective of the problems unaddressed or partially addressed.
This had occurred at the last election as well:
Pundits had put forward a number of claimed explanations for this phenomena: some state that the growth of new citizens from overseas, all of whom would be hard-pressed to vote for an opposition that might make life difficult for future new immigrants like themselves, accounts for the stunning victory.
Others state that Singaporeans are a hypocritical bunch, fearful of real change despite having real complaints.
Others believe that the strength of the surveillance apparatus and control over opposing views, when viewed in the context of real cases of people being arrested for dissenting, makes them afraid of their own government… though the large showing at opposition speeches should put that one to rest to some extent.
Others see this as a willful sacrifice of freedoms for economic prosperity (despite the fact that the distribution of these gains are most unequal), and that voting in an unproven opposition that is apparently not of the same quality as the incumbent would cause very real crisis; Singapore really does seem to be faring better than its neighbor Malaysia, which is now faced with a plunging currency thanks to a potential corruption allegation regarding its own prime minister, and protests against him and for him, with some protests even being racially-tinged…
Others view the incumbent as having changed its policies to take their views into account, though such change was relatively small.
All these are very rational reasons. And for that reason, every politician will salivate for the Singapore model… An Orwellian system that has the potential to truly subjugate all People so that even if they have legitimate complaints, they will be fearful to express them… and fearful of losing that tiny bit of fortune that the government awards them for “good behavior”, lest they become poorer still. A system driven by fear, both real ones and created ones.
“It is best to be both feared and loved, however, if one cannot be both it is better to be feared than loved.”
-The Prince by Machiavelli
“Between being loved and being feared, I have always believed Machiavelli was right. If nobody is afraid of me, I’m meaningless.”
–Former Prime Minister, who has recently passed away
This Article (Elections Have Passed In A Tiny Island. Here’s Why You Should Care) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author(CoNN) and AnonHQ.com.
