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Singapore The Limits of Government Control
The highly ordered quality of life in Singapore itself
became
a political issue. Many citizens felt that they were overregulated , governed by too many laws that were too easy to
break.
Singapore's leaders attributed the cause of the assumed
decline of
Western societies to the excessive individualism fostered
by
Western culture and warned that Singapore would suffer a
similar
fate unless saved by a national ideology
(see Singaporean Identity
, ch. 2).
The perceived need for an ideology was a phenomenon of
the
1980s. Previously, Singapore's leaders had been concerned
with
physical survival more than cultural survival and had
dismissed
official ideologies as contrary to Singapore's status as
an open
port unfettered by conventional wisdom or fashionable
orthodoxies.
In the 1980s, as peace prevailed in the region, the
government
shifted its focus to the cultural sphere. Cultural
preservation
replaced physical survival as the major concern of leaders
who
feared being overrun by foreign cultures.
Looking ahead, senior leaders identified two major
dangers to
the nation: the failure of the nation to reproduce itself
and the
loss of national identity. The first threat was manifested
in
steadily falling birth rates, particularly among the
nation's best
educated citizens, many of whom failed even to marry
(see Population, Vital Statistics, and Migration
, ch. 2). The
second
threat, loss of identity, it was feared, would lead to
loss of
cohesion and hence to the destruction of the nation.
Singapore's leaders addressed these problems by
proposing a
series of policies intended to encourage citizens to marry
and
reproduce and to create a distinct Singaporean identity.
The
programs addressing the population problem included
extensive
publicity and exhortation, along with material incentives
for
giving birth to third and fourth children. Women
university
graduates were singled out for special attention because
of their
failure, in general, to marry and pass on their supposedly
superior
genes. The efforts to foster a Singaporean identity
involved
defending positive traditional Asian values against the
perceived
threat from Western culture. Both the schools and the
society at
large emphasized mastering Asian languages, such as
Mandarin
Chinese, and promoting Confucianism. Such programs, which
attempted
to modify the personal and intimate behavior of citizens
but did
not clearly reflect the demands of economic development,
aroused a
good deal of opposition, especially from younger and
better
educated citizens. The leadership's paternalistic style
and its
intolerance of criticism became political issues and were
blamed by
some observers for the increased vote for opposition
candidates in
the 1984 and 1988 elections.
Opponents of programs relating to Singapore identity
claimed
that the leaders' purpose was to shift support for a
national
ideology into support for the government and the ruling
PAP.
Promoting Confucianism, for example, was a convenient
means of
convincing individuals to subordinate their interests to
those of
society. Others held that the government's real fear was
not that
Singapore would lose its culture or values but that
continued
Westernization of the society would mean more pressure for
real
democracy, more opposition candidates, and the possibility
of a
change in government.
The electoral vote for the PAP dropped considerably,
going from
75.6 percent in 1980 to 62.9 percent in 1984 and by a
lesser amount
to 61.8 percent in 1988. In 1988 the PAP campaign slogan
was "More
Good Years" and the opposition had no solid issues with
which to
attract support. The election resulted in another
landslide victory
for the PAP and the winning of eighty out of eighty-one
parliamentary seats.
The PAP's style of leadership emphasized control by a
strong
bureaucratic leadership intolerant of political
opposition. The PAP
mind-set has been traced to its battle for political
preeminence
with its communist rivals in the 1950s and 1960s. In the
late
1980s, Singapore had one of Asia's highest standards of
living and
was not regarded as fertile ground for a communist
insurrection.
The PAP maintained that Singapore was too small for a
two-party
system to work effectively and did not anticipate sharing
power. It
stymied the development of a legitimate opposition by a
range of
political tactics, such as using the provision of public
services
to induce citizens to vote for PAP candidates. Critics
also charged
that the party controlled the press, preventing the free
flow of
ideas. Although there was no direct censorship of the
press,
newspapers were closely monitored and radio and television
stations
were owned by the government
(see The Media
, this ch.).
Data as of December 1989
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