Impressions of Singapore

Some days, Big Brother doesn’t seem so bad. And no, I’m not talking about the television series; I’m talking about Orwellian state surveillance. I was in Singapore over the summer, and experienced firsthand what it’s like to be watched all day, everyday.

Before I arrived in Singapore, I talked with someone who had recently returned from a business trip there. When he got his telephone bill from his hotel, he noticed a call on it that he was fairly sure he hadn’t placed. So, he called the front desk and they connected him with the phone company. The phone company informed him that he had, in fact, placed the phone call and then played their recording of the call to prove it to him.

So, after resolving not even to joke about chewing gum or littering over the phone, lest I be picked up by the secret police and caned on the spot, I went to Singapore to find out what it is like.

It’s definitely a place concerned about appearances, and as a small city, it doesn’t seem to think it has a large margin of error. Soon after Singapore became independent, the government decided that one of the best ways to attract business would be to establish a top-class airline and airport—and today, Singapore Airlines and Changi Airport consistently rate among the best in the world.

The Singaporean cabinet includes a minister of horticulture, whose job is to ensure that there are as many flowering plants as possible throughout the city; as a result, there are beautiful flowers throughout Singapore all year, and the main highway running from Changi airport to the business district has approximately 12 miles of flowers running down the center. And each year you own a car in Singapore, the tax levied on it increases, so that shiny new cars displace ratty old ones on the road.

So when corporate executives visit Singapore and see its gleaming appearance—especially in comparison to its neighbors—they naturally decide to locate their regional headquarters there, meaning that Singapore does far more business with the First World than with other Southeast Asian nations.

But when you’re driving down the highway in your new car, Big Brother swings back into action. There are signs along the highway informing you of highway conditions further along the road and the best ways to avoid traffic snags. If you feel the need to get where you’re going a little faster than is allowed, the police will not pull you over—I didn’t see any police presence the entire time I was in Singapore—instead, they’ll just mail you a ticket. The apparatus of state control extends even to the smallest residents of Singapore, the bugs. Or perhaps I should say the former residents, because I didn’t see a bug the entire time that I was in Singapore—quite a feat for a country that sits on the equator in the middle of a rainforest.

Of course, there are real benefits to the Singaporean system of surveillance. For one thing, crime is practically non-existent. One may walk alone in any part of Singapore at any time of day or night and feel quite safe, which is certainly not something one can say about any American city.

Singapore also provides many services to its citizens that the U.S. does not. For instance, approximately 80 percent of Singaporeans live in government housing, which are not at all like housing projects in the U.S. Singaporeans own their own apartments; each Singaporean citizen has the chance to buy an apartment from the government at cost and to take out a no-interest loan to pay for it. As a result, every Singaporean is a homeowner and has a stake in the society. The housing complexes contain take-out restaurants designed to cater to two-earner households, grocery stores, day-care centers, old-folks homes and other facilities designed to make the housing complexes into communities. An individual living in the complex can even resell the apartment on the private market to pay for a home somewhere else. We in the U.S. could do a lot worse than to model our public housing on Singapore’s.

Additionally, Singapore has a form of universal health care that takes advantage of market forces to make the coverage efficient. Everyone must make a small co-payment for services, and if one chooses, one can make a larger co-payment and get more comfortable service—a bigger bed but not better medicine. That way the people who can afford to spend on health care receive more amenities, and their fees (as well as taxes) subsidize those who cannot. And, since everyone has to pay a co-payment, the system keeps wasteful spending down.

Although Singapore has created a lot of good with its peculiar system, I can’t deny that Big Brother is unnerving. There is a real chilling effect on public debate in Singapore because of the security apparatus. Newspapers and other media are subject to outright censorship and are vulnerable to political libel suits. The Internal Security Act gives the government authority to jail without trial anyone accused of trying to subvert the state. This looming menace gives any political discussion in Singapore a frightening tone, and there are some Singaporeans who choose to avoid the subject altogether. Despite a few opposition figures, the People’s Action Party (PAP), which has been in power since Singapore’s independence in 1965, faces no credible threat to its power.

The PAP and its leader, Lee Kwan Yew, have managed to create a prosperous state, but at the cost of personal and civil liberty. Of course, there are many countries in Southeast Asia (such as Indonesia) that offer their citizens neither liberty nor prosperity. So few countries have managed the difficult transition from Third World poverty to modern prosperity that Singapore’s achievement—at whatever cost—seems remarkable, and perhaps even admirable.

Thomas McKean Dougherty ’03, a Crimson editor, is a social studies concentrator in Currier House.