Unseen Scenes in Singapore

by Pia Muzaffar and Olly Laughland 

pictures by Alex Jimenez

This article was first published in Poda Poda in December 2007




‘Trespassers will be prosecuted’.

We wrench loose an MDF board covering the once grand entrance, before slipping inside, avoiding the rusty nails. Our feet crunch over broken glass as we peer into the gloom. The ticket booths, smashed to shit, still welcome Mastercard and Visa and still dispense mouldy, discoloured maps. Plastic statues slump, their plastic heads scattered on the floor. ‘I love sex’. ‘Get out’. ‘Bobby and Pris wuz here 99’. The ceiling is falling in, the lights exploded. The tropical undergrowth is slowly reclaiming this misguided business venture. The mosquitos have returned to these stagnant lakes. Giant pink paper horses and blue paper elephants, frozen mid-motion, aflame and collapsing in on themselves.

Perhaps this freakish fairytale was doomed to fail from the start. A tourist attraction designed for Chinese tourism and themed around ancient Chinese imperial history, elaborately carved from plaster of paris and plywood, built in 1980s Singapore, now stands closed a decade later and erased from the national memory.


Like so many Singaporean transgressions, ‘Tang Dynasty City’ remains very much present, but obscured from public view. On the surface, this highly successful city-state embodies the image its government seeks to project: it is clean and clean-living, obedient, polite, orderly and well-planned. Gays, prostitutes, transvestites, the homeless, political dissidents, governmental corruption and national failures – all these get swept under the carpet of state-sanctioned discourse.

The same may be said of the higher education system. When we first started studying here, we were shocked and bemused by the attitudes of the Singaporean students. The learning culture is totally at odds with what we’ve come to expect from our experiences at a British university. In Singapore, we said to each other with a mixture of bemusement and reproach, the students just don’t question anything. They don’t question their lecturers and they don’t question the way the university is run. They don’t question the texts they read, and they shy away from questioning each other. They are excessively respectful of authority, they study way too hard and hardly ever go out, and they ‘strive for excellence’ rather than seeking to critically interrogate established modes of thinking. Dr Chee Soon Juan, a former neuropsychology lecturer at NUS, recalls his frustration with his students. On one occasion he came to class and told them that he was just going to stare at them. So he sat there, and stared. After fifteen minutes of uncomfortable silence, in which not one student challenged him or asked him to begin teaching, he simply got up and left.

Of course, having been in Singapore for over three months now, this characterisation of ‘the Singaporean Student’ – as compliant, submissive and unquestioning – has revealed itself to be somewhat simplistic. In the terminology of James Scott, there are definitely both ‘public transcripts’ and ‘hidden transcripts’ at work here, as there are in Singaporean society more broadly. In public, we think it’s fair to say that the majority of Singaporeans are passive and conformist. Decades of authoritarian rule combined with generally decent standards of living and state-controlled media will tend to do that to a society. But in private spaces, Singaporeans still think; they still feel discontent and have that nagging sensation that all is not quite as it appears. However, these hidden transcripts of dissent tend not to manifest themselves in immediately visible ways. Thus our new self-appointed task has been to delve under the carpet and search out this undercurrent of opposition.


Our clandestine visit to ‘Tang Dynasty City’ was just one stop on an alternative 24-hour tour of Singapore, run by a PhD student here who delights in showing both foreigners and young Singaporeans alike the ‘seedier’ sides of the city. Most of our activities were illegal. We spent a couple of hours in a gay club, snuck around a disused, haunted hospital, wandered through a Chinese burial ground, discovered the red-light district, and broke into an indestructible house with a mysterious curse hanging over it – all in the dead of night. Aside from being fun (and pretty scary at times), it opened our eyes to the kinds of alternative narratives hidden under Singapore’s carpet of orthodoxy. The gay bar was far more open and ‘mainstream’ than we had expected – considering homosexuality is illegal in Singapore – and the haunted houses we visited were clearly also frequented by local ghost-hunting enthusiasts and grafitti-spraying youth. We realised there is unorthodox activity going on here but it has its designated place, out of the sight of foreign visitors, and indeed, of many Singaporeans.


What we saw on the tour seemed an apt metaphor for Singaporean ‘resistance’. As we were shocked to discover upon our arrival here, public protest, spontaneous gatherings and political dissent are among those things illegal under Singaporean law. Furthermore, the government invests significant time and resources in manufacturing and maintaining a climate of fear, ensuring that all but a few dissenters are either too scared or too apathetic to voice their dissent. People are unhappy with how their government runs the country, but virtually no one is willing to speak up. We have been incredibly fortunate to meet with one of the few Singaporeans who does speak out, at great personal cost, whenever he can.

Dr Chee Soon Juan used to teach here at NUS. As soon as he became involved in opposition politics, however, he was fired on tenuous grounds. But this, after all, is the National University – the University where ex-Prime Minister (and now ‘Minister Mentor’, a position of authority without precedent in any other professed democracy) Lee Kuan Yew has an entire school named in his honour; where his son (and current Prime Minister) Lee Hsien Loong studied; and where his son in turn and countless other state officials studied. Criticism of the government has been erased from the curriculum. Since his dismissal, Dr Chee has not relented in his mission to make Singapore the functioning democracy its leaders claim it to be. His party, the Singapore Democratic Party, is marginalised from mainstream politics despite having considerable (though often covert) support; he has personally suffered the abrupt ending of his academic career, repeated imprisonment, bankruptcy and continued fines for his political activity, and total demonisation and ridicule by the state-controlled media. Through making such an example of one man (and similar persecution has been acted out on a number of other dissenters in other contexts), the Singaporean government is able to maintain its society in a state of fear.

Even more frightening than this, however, is that the generation who have grown up in Singapore during the last quarter of the twentieth century have no living memory of what society was like before. They don’t remember the 60s and 70s, when student rallies could number in their thousands and to question the government was natural rather than prohibited. One twenty-something Singaporean friend of ours recalls that her uncle was once involved in some kind of activism many years ago, before being getting arrested. She doesn’t know what happened to him whilst he was in custody, and he doesn’t really speak about it, but says he was “changed” after it happened. An atmosphere of fear, secrecy and restraint pervades many popular recollections of this period. Or, even more alarmingly, activism is seen as a joke. The leftist nationalist movements that undeniably played a part in Singapore’s formal independence are reduced to comedic asides in lectures.

By now, the focus of civil society has shifted – and education is a prime example. As Dr Chee noted, the point of education is to question. And yet students in Singapore are programmed from an early age to compete with each other in the quest for ‘excellence’, rather than question authority. This can lead to some paradoxical scenarios: in one of our lectures (a Political Science class no less), the lecturer at one point broke away from the topic to state: “I’m sorry to break it to you, but Singapore is another example of an authoritarian government.” Whilst this might not appear a particularly controversial claim, it is extremely unusual in Singapore to hear such a sentiment expressed by a person in a position of authority – especially at NUS. We were surprised, then, to find that the class spontaneously burst into applause. Clearly such political sentiments are widely-held, but can’t be expressed without first being sanctioned by a figure of authority.

The paradoxical character of dissent here demonstrates that when conventional protest is proscribed, most people seek other ways of expressing their politics. What might seem like a taxi driver merely bemoaning his lot, takes on new significance given the fact that thousands of taxi drivers have had to attend a government training course instructing them to have neat hair, no BO, and to not talk to customers about “sensitive issues” such as race or state policy. A sarcastic aside by an NUS lecturer carries great weight in an academic environment that stifles the free exchange of opinion. What might seem a slight matter, of whether or not to turn up to a peaceful vigil held outside the Burmese embassy in solidarity with the monks and civilians making a stand against a military regime, becomes a decision of great consequence, between silence and massive social transgression. Our experience in Singapore has made meaningful certain academic debates emphasising the myriad, everyday forms ‘resistance’ may take. Small acts may have enormous consequences, and the fact that much discontent is hidden does not mean it isn’t there. It only means you have to spend a bit of time unearthing and exposing it.

Review: Ranjau Sepanjang Jalan (No Harvest But A Thorn)

This book review was written in December 2007 for the course Rice, Spice and Trees: Peasants in Southeast Asia at the National University of Singapore.


Ahmad’s classic post-independence era novel is an exposition of peasant struggle, a gruesome celebration of the rural Malay livelihood and its associated pitfalls. The story follows the family of Lahuma, a padi farmer in a northern Malaysian village, throughout one disastrous padi cycle. After encountering a snake in their field (an indisputable bad omen), Lahuma later pierces his foot on a nibong thorn and is unable to continue working after it becomes infected. His body gradually swells up with pus, and he dies an ignominious death. It is left to his wife, Jeha, and their seven daughters to work the padi field. But the physical and mental strain causes Jeha to slowly go mad, and she must eventually be imprisoned in a makeshift cage in their tiny home, lest she endangers her youngest children or the padi harvest itself. The novel ends with the eldest daughter contemplating her future working the fields, and Jeha, caged, “screaming through the night” (Ahmad 1991 [1966]:177). This simple plot is thickened through the detailed description of everyday life in this rural community: its social stratifications and behavioural norms; the place of women; the peasant as “existentially involved in cultivation” (Wolf 1969:xiv) and essentially connected to the soil; the constant toil and hardship of the farmer; his cosmology, his fears. Ahmad frequently narrates from the perspective of his central characters as well as taking on a more omniscient third-person style of prose, giving a very full, almost ethnographic depiction of peasant life.

Vulnerability and anxiety are entrenched in this portrayal. Lahuma worries constantly about the day-to-day work at the rice field, and about his family’s future subsistence as their small plot of land decreases in size. When he dies, this anxiety passes to Jeha; after she goes mad, it is their daughters who then shoulder the burden. The village as a whole is subject to the whims of nature: to its floods, its attacking birds, its infestations of crabs, its thorns, its snakes. The peasantry is also constrained by the limited agricultural land upon which ever greater demographic pressure is exerted, exemplified by Lahuma’s concern about the insufficiency of his plot of fourteen relongs. There are hints at the social stratifications leaving the family dependent on the help of the Tok Penghulu (the head of the village), as well as at the presence of Chinese to whom Lahuma is loth to relinquish any more land. The village seems to fit Wolf’s characterisation of the peasantry’s “basic dilemma” as a constant, conscious effort to maintain its “precarious balance” against forces threatening to undermine it (1966:16). It is this vulnerability that leaves the most enduring impression.

Prayer and perseverance: the peasant hero
The novel’s constant and deepening anxiety about the future and the struggle for subsistence is (paradoxically) combined with a total and unshakeable trust in divine providence. It starts by anchoring Lahuma’s existence firmly within the land in “both a liturgical and genealogical charter” (Aveling 2000:112). Lahuma (whose very name is significant: huma, as Ahmad has acknowledged (1991:473), means ‘field’) remembers his own grandfather in the earth and silently repeats the mantra: “Life and death, dearth and plenty, are in the hands of God. In the hands of Allah the almighty” (Ahmad 1991 [1966]:1). Evident here is the rhythmic, repetitious quality characteristic of the book as a whole, which serves to create the sense of timelessness and inevitablity exemplified in the following passage:

Lahuma’s struggle for the children’s survival – sheer survival – would not end. It was going to be carried on by Jeha. Carried on by Sanah. Carried on by Milah. Carried on by Jenab. Carried on by Semek. Carried on by Liah. Carried on by Lebar. Carried on by Kiah. They would survive with the rice. Or die with the rice.
(Ahmad 1991 [1966]:95)

Ahmad also uses repetition to convey the determination of his characters in the face of desperate circumstances, constructing them as archtypal hardworking “peasant heroes” (Tahir 1982):

I will go down to the rice field… I will not come up again until all the plots are completed. I will pull up the seedlings at the belukar when the time comes. I will carry the bundles of seedlings down to the rice-field. I will plant the seedlings row by row. I will replace and rice-stems that may break. I will pull up the weeds that vie with the rice-plants. I will chase away the tiaks when the rice turns gold. I will harvest the rice in gemals. I will cary the gemals into the rice-barn. I will thrash the rice until the stalks come off. I will sun the rice until it is dry. I will pound the rice until the husks come off. I will cook the rice into hot steaming food…
(Ahmad 1991 [1966]:49)

Whilst the novel is incredibly effective at communicating the hardship and labour involved in rice production, as the very notion of the ‘peasant hero’ might suggest, such characterisations of the Malay peasantry are not ideologically or morally neutral. It is a commonplace within studies of rural Malay societies that a simplistic, conservative Islam prevails, which is associated with “a simple series of truths… A good man was one who worked hard and was wary of strangers” (Banks 1983:28). Moral status is highly dependent on hard work and acceptance of one’s rezeki (what one has been alloted by God). Some commentators have interpreted Lahuma’s total subservience to the will of God as passive, even fatalistic (see for example Banks 1987:118), indeed reflecting many anthropological readings. Swift, for example, has observed that in the Malay peasant cosmology, “[i]f someone dies an untimely death, “their span was up”… [there is] a predisposition to explain everything in terms of luck, and to neglect trying to improve one’s position, for after all one has very little control over it” (2001:91). However, the seemingly paradoxical combination of trust in fate and commitment to hard work is reconciled both in Islamic theology (see for example Basri and Zarkashi 1992:399, 401), and in Ahmad’s characters, who do not once question God’s wisdom and purpose, yet at the same time do not cease in their toil. It seems as if Ahmad is seeking to present a model ‘peasant’ response to circumstances of great hardship and suffering; indeed, he is not shy of generalisations:

The yield of rice was very poor. And the people of Banggul Derdap were plunged in gloom. But their gloom was not confined to themselves. They did not connect it with Allah the Almighty. They did not curse God. It was their habit to accept with resignation the disasters which so often befell them. Such was their life. Never to know full satisfaction. And they accepted the disasters of crabs and tiaks with fresh determination and spirit; to plant rice again next year if Allah the Almighty willed that they should survive till then.
(Ahmad 1991 [1966]:171)

It is difficult to read this passage without noting the implicit moral approval.

The construction of the peasant
Seen in the historical context of a newly independent Malaysia and contemporaneous discourses around ‘modernisation’ and ‘underdevelopment’, the anxiety that characterises the novel’s tone takes on a broader significance. For Ahmad, the peasant lifestyle and subsistence is cyclical in nature – in addition to the constant use of repetition, the novel’s time frame is one rice cycle from beginning to end, and the final chapter is entitled “The Cycle Continues” – denoting a certain stability, an enduring quality. This stability is reinforced by constant reference to elements of ‘tradition’. For example, the position of women is deemed unchanged by the possiblity of secular education: as Jeha says, “Girls needn’t know how to read. Doesn’t change the market value. I never even went to school” (Ahmad 1991 [1966]:18). Given that the area of peninsular Malaysia in which the novel is set has in the twentieth century “been transformed from an isolated and largely self-sufficient region into an administrative unit of a modern nation-state, and its residents are tied into the cash economy of rubber production” (Bailey 1983:8), we can ascribe a clear intent to Ahmad’s insistence on tradition; on the unchanging aspects of the peasant cosmology. He has made clear elsewhere his belief that wage labour, rubber tapping for the cash economy and collecting jungle products are not real farming, and that most Malays in the village of Banggul Derdap were “not real farmers” (cited in Aveling 2000:53); Ranjau Sepanjang Jalan, then, articulates the traditional ‘real farmer’.

Yet this representation obscures a great deal. Firstly, the very notion of a ‘real farmer’ or ‘authentic peasant’ tradition must be interrogated. Ahmad’s unsubtle rendering of Lahuma and family as existentially connected with the soil cannot be separated from its ideological buttressing of Malaysian society’s explicitly racialised division of labour. Twentieth century anthropologists such as Swift have also uncritically employed this form of social categorisation: “To know a person’s race is to know that he will probably perform one of a few economic functions. The Malay is primarily a peasant” (2001:88). This essentialises historically contingent social permutations, obfuscating the constructedness of the ‘Malay peasant’ (1) and how the peasantry initially came to work the land in such a way, as migrants, pioneers and settlers (2). Ahmad’s undeniably grim portrayal also obscures the wry humour that has been noticeably present in every kampung I’ve ever visited, unwittingly denying one of the ways in which the subordinated peasant may express his interpretation of contemporary events – his “hidden transcript” or “partial transcript” that may well constitute a form of resistance (Scott 1985:284-6). For example, though the Islamic worldview of the Malay peasant is presented as both profound and profoundly uncritical, there is no mention of the cynicism with which local religious leaders are often received (3).

Modernist ambivalence: the “babble and roar”
However, beyond the role of the author or anthropologist in disciplining the rural population, Ahmad’s reification of the Malay peasantry is also indicative of a broader anxiety – a “babble and roar about what Malay life style should be” (Nash 1974:65) – that characterised the Malay population during the postwar period and its associated social upheavals. ‘Modernity’ and later ‘development’ was seen as something external, foreign; both desired and feared (Johnson 2007:13). Nash also cites the rural expression, that if we don’t change we’ll be driven to hanging from the trees, which “sums up the poignancy of a peasantry who are the lagging members of a modernizing nation” (1974:67). This conception of the peasant is not mere paranoia; key anthropologists have also encouraged such a view (4). Other commentators have also noted the rapid de-kampung-isation of the Malays (see for example Sardar 2004). Viewed in social-historical context both the anxiety which is so intrinsic to the novel, and the simple, steadfast souls who inhabit its cyclical peasant universe, can be seen as symbolic of the endemic ambivalence of the period. Ahmad, at one point the national laureate of Malaysia, attempts to discursively ‘fix’ the peasant in his traditional lifestyle, asserting a permanence to Malay peasant culture in the face of existential threat. As Foucault (1970:290) argues, “if language expresses, it does so not in so far as it is an imitation and duplication of things, but in so far as it manifests… the fundamental will of those who speak it”.

Though Ranjau Sepanjang Jalan certainly provides a meticulous and moving depiction of peasant life, preserving it somewhat in the context of large-scale social change; ultimately its value must be seen in its exemplary construction (and simultaneous obfuscation) of ‘the Malay peasant’, and the reification of tradition in response to the perceived threat of ‘development’.

(1) The Malayan colonial economy was structured according to (and dependent on) this racialised division of labour; when Malays began to sell their land to Chinese, Indian and European buyers, threatening the organisation of the rural Malay population in their kampungs (villages), colonial administrators adopted a paternalistic discourse of protection. To prevent the “extinction” of Malay “tradition” – seen as “a race of yeoman-peasantry… deluded by visions of present but transitory wealth” (cited in Ong 1987:19-20) – they actively prevented such sales from taking place, whilst also restricting Malays who wanted to cultivate cash crops instead of food (1987:21). Clearly the essentialisation of peasant identity can be seen as a strategy of “containment” (Kearney 1996:60). During the period in which the novel was written there are further ideological implications of constructing the Malay as ‘native’ to and hence bound to the land itself, considering the political motives behind state and legal discourses according certain rights to bumiputera (lit. ‘sons of the soil’).
(2) (see also Walker 2001 and Tan 2000 for examples from Thai and Vietnamese contexts respectively).
(3) For example, Nash (1974:60) recounts one common anecdote in the village in which his research was based: “A man catches a strange fish. He brings it to a Tok Guru asking if it is halal (lawful) to eat. The Tok Guru hesitates in replying. The fisherman says it would be a shame to throw it away since he wanted to give the Tok Guru half of it. The Tok Guru immediately says that the fish is of course halal.”
(4) Wolf, for example, places the peasantry “midway between the primitive tribe and industrial society… They are important historically, because industrial society is built upon the ruins of peasant society. They are important contemporaneously, because they inhabit that “underdeveloped” part of the world whose continued presence constitutes both a threat and a responsibility for those countries which have thrown off the shackles of backwardness” (1966:vii). He clearly understands the peasant existence as both threatened and threatening in equal measures – and additionally, as a social permutation whose ultimate decline and replacement by modern industrial society is inevitable (and even desirable).


Bibliography
Ahmad, S. 1991 [1966]. No Harvest But A Thorn [Ranjau Sepanjang Jalan], trans. A. Amin (Petaling Jaya: Fajar Bakti)

Ahmad, S. 1991. Sastera Sebagai Seismograf Kelidupan (Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka)

Aveling, H. 2000. Shahnon Ahmad: Islam, Power and Gender (Bangi: Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia)

Bailey, C. 1983. The Sociology of Production in Rural Malay Society (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press)

Banks, D. J. 1983. Malay Kinship (Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues)

Banks, D. J. 1987. From Class to Culture: Social Conscience in Malay Novels Since Independence (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies)

Basri, G. and Zarkashi, M. P. 1992. ‘Islam and Rural Development in Malaysia with Special Reference to Malaysian Fisherman’ in King, V. T. and N. M. Jali (eds.) Issues in Rural Development in Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka)

Foucault, M. 1970. The Order Of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (New York: Random House)

Johnson, D. 2007. ‘Malay Representations of Modernity, the Present and the Future’, Paper presented at the ICAS5 Conference: Shaping a Future in Asia. Kuala Lumpur, 2-5 August

Kearney, M. 1996. Reconceptualizing the peasantry : anthropology in global perspective (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press)

Nash, M. 1974. Peasant Citizens: Politics, Religion and, and Modernization in Kelantan, Malaysia (Ohio: Center for International Studies)

Ong, A. 1987. Spirits of Resistance and Capitalist Discipline: Factory Women in Malaysia (Albany: State University of New York Press)

Sardar, Z. 2004. The Consumption of Kuala Lumpur (London: Reaktion Books)

Scott, J. C. 1985. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (Yale University Press)

Swift, M. G. 2001. ‘Malay Peasants’ in Baharuddin, S. A. (ed.) Social Anthropology of the Malays: Collected Essays of M. G. Swift (Bangi: Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia)

Tahir, U. M. M. 1982. ‘Ranjau Sepanjang Jalan: The Story of a Peasant Hero’, in Review of Indonesian and Malaysian Affairs, 16 (1): 26-47.

Tan, S. B-H. 2000. ‘Coffee frontiers in the Central Highlands of Vietnam: networks of connectivity’ in Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 41 (1): 51-67

Walker, A. 2001. ‘The ‘Karen Consensus’, Ethnic Politics and Resource-Use Legitimacy in Northern Thailand’ in Asian Ethnicity, 2 (2): 145-162

Wolf, E. R. 1966. Peasants (Englewood Cliffs, NJ.: Prentice-Hall)

Wolf, E. R. 1969. Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century (New York: Harper and Row)

Protest Singapore Style

by Pia Muzaffar and Olly Laughland

‘Protest Singapore style,’ so the headline went.

‘9 protestors, 29 journalists, 2,500 police.’

We couldn’t have put it better ourselves.

Weeks of planning, secretive meetings, liaisons with the international media, personal struggle and strained friendships, family warnings and relationship crises – all to walk up a busy shopping street in red t-shirts and holding candles. Our quiet vigil in protest against the Burmese junta’s uncontested presence at the annual ASEAN Summit in Singapore caused something of a stir, to put it mildly.

Of course, we weren’t the only people greatly concerned about the situation. Since the violent crackdowns of Burmese civil society reported in October of last year, hundreds of thousands of people worldwide have been involved in campaigning, calling for an end to the oppressive regime. But the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), currently chaired by what was our host country of Singapore, is crucial to either undermining or legitimising the Burmese junta. However, Singapore had so far failed to condemn the junta’s actions, its high-level business links with the regime proving far too important to jeopardise, to the great displeasure of Singapore’s 30,000-strong Burmese community.

When we found out that the Burmese generals themselves were to be welcomed with open arms into Singapore’s luxurious Shangri-La Hotel, we decided to take action. There were other events planned, including two forums organised by Overseas Burmese Patriots and SG Human Rights, but these were to be held indoors in diluted form after applications to protest outside were rejected. Singapore’s stringent protest laws and total ban on public assembly once again proved to be an effective way of containing and constraining civil society.

Raised on Millian notions of freedom of speech, a vocal student body at Sussex and general discontentment at elite political power, we decided to risk our student visas and bend the rules. Our plan was simple: to walk towards the ASEAN Summit in groups of three (theoretically remaining within the ban on public assemblies of more than four), wearing red t-shirts to mark our solidarity with the Burmese people, and holding candles (since any sort of banner or placard would require a permit).

An innocent statement, we thought, though loaded nonetheless with our disgust at the junta’s regime. But the authorities thought differently, and made this patently obvious in the days preceding our event.

First of all, an email told us, “You are requested to attend a chat with the Provost and the Dean of Students tomorrow morning.” We went along, and spent a good half hour politely deflecting their polite attempts to neuter our efforts. “We don’t want this descending into violence,” said the Provost, drawing on the standard Singaporean truism: speaking out equals violence and chaos; chaos equals a threat to the economy. He courteously passed us a copy of the Straits Times (the state-controlled newspaper), folded neatly to the front page which read, “Singapore will stick to its tough laws governing public protests”. The internet said the same – so did the television, so did the radio.

Chuckling to himself, he opened a large dossier containing page after page of our personal information gleaned from Facebook. Covered in annotations, it told a story of “potentially unlawful behaviour”. Little did we know a group of fellow students had seen our ‘Stand Up For Burma’ event on Facebook and reported us straight to the University authorities, probably in order to attain more all-important points for their own personal records. Nervous laughter followed. “You know we won’t be able to help you if you’re arrested. Student visas are an issue out of our control,” said the Provost (who is also, incidentally, the ex-Deputy Superintendent of the Singapore Police).

Though we hadn’t been explicitly threatened, we left the ‘chat’ somewhat perturbed. Had our plans taken on a life of their own? Were we interfering in areas that were not ours to meddle with?

It got weirder. The next day we were on our way to the forum organised by the Burmese expatriate community in Singapore, when we got a phone call from a friend who was also involved in organising the vigil. “Erm… guys, I’ll be a bit late for the forum,” he said in guarded tones. “There are couple of policemen in my bedroom. They want to have a word with me.” We felt a sudden jolt of anxiety. The police? The magnitude of what we were doing began to dawn on us. “Do you want us to come by your room?” we asked our friend. “Erm… yeah, that’d be good actually,” he replied, straining to conceal the panic in his voice.”

We rushed to his room, our hearts thudding. There we were greeted by two plainclothes police officers with clipboards. Like the university authorities, they warned us that our planned actions risked breaking Singaporean law. Getting arrested in Singapore is a major, major social transgression. Determined not to be dissuaded, we tried to thank them politely for their advice, but without capitulating. They left eventually, having realised that their words were falling on deaf ears. Yet their visit left us shaken, unsure of what measures the authorities would take to prevent our protest from going ahead.

After this failed attempt, the police force resorted to more insidious means. An undercover policeman was installed at our planning meetings. We each received anonymous text messages clearly concocted by a novice police officer trying to sound young and hip. “Yo heard fm law fac guy police gonna take realie tuff action 2day on asean protest… dude has gd frend in police who knows some higher ups.. better tell those goin 4 protest 2 b real careful… looks like the cops here ain’t jokin… laterz.” We got emails warning of “rising anti-foreigner sentiment” in Singapore, and links to internet forums full of posts condemning our plans. On the wall of our Facebook event, there was even a cleverly constructed anonymous attendee (creatively named ‘Nigel Chomsky’) who attempted to delegitimise our advocacy of non-violent protest by saying things like, “For once Singaporeans, DISSENT!!!!! Hell, we can f*ck the policing bastards.” His profile, again hastily invented by some novice policeman with no conception of what ‘anarchism’ actually means, had pictures of a burning car and a hooded demonstrator hurling a Molotov at riot police. His ‘About Me’ section said, “The system’s fucked up. So I set it right. I dissent.” Although in retrospect these efforts at surveillance and infiltration seem laughable, at the time they were enough to make us feel like our every move was being watched, as if we were in some kind of Orwellian dystopia.


As if these warnings from various authorities were not enough, we were also being chased up by story-hunting journalists who had got wind of our plans. Protest, sadly, is big news in Singapore. And the Singaporean web forums were buzzing with lively discussions about what we were proposing to do. “I think we should deport these ang-mos [local slang for ‘white people’],” one angry user said. Another countered, “NUS, good try, you have my support! NUS you are not wasting your time as you are brave to step out to do so. This is just the beginning, I hope to see more of such movement. Bravo, NUS! Keep it up!” Singaporean friends and strangers contacted us with messages of support. At the same time, a few members of our group were even contacted by lawyers and university authorities their our home countries, warning that participating in the protest would mean automatic expulsion from their degree programmes back home.

What had started as a simple idea, with which we’d become involved through a series of chance encounters, had now snowballed into an event of massive significance, in which an unprecedented number of different people seemed to have a stake. And this was not without effects on our personal wellbeing. We were double-locking our doors at night, unable to sleep. We were constantly looking over our shoulders, and trying to brush aside the threats and doubts that seemed to assail us from all angles. Within our group itself, the pressure was taking its toll. We became embroiled in heated arguments about the right thing to do – and even whether to go ahead with the protest at all – severely testing our friendships with each other. We were tense, scared and doubtful of our own capabilities. The claustrophobia proved too much for many.

The day came, our group whittled down to just nine. We approached the venue with trepidation, not knowing what awaited us at the top of the escalators as we emerged from the underground station onto the street. We were met by scores of journalists, photographers and film crews, far outnumbering our diminutive assembly. Upon sighting us they swarmed, cameras flashing, questions shouted, dictaphones thrust to our faces. “What would you say to the Burmese junta if you could be at the ASEAN summit today?” “Are you not scared of breaking Singapore’s strict anti-protest laws?” “Do your parents know you’re here?”

They followed us as we walked towards the venue of the summit. They were present when we encountered the police, and when we dispersed without incident. And so it was that the message of our simple, minimalist protest achieved a degree of publicity unthinkable in the UK, making the front page of Singapore’s national newspaper as well as countless other media channels throughout Asia. And the next day, emboldened by the fact that we were not arrested, a group of fifty Burmese residents in Singapore staged another anti-junta protest outside the Summit – an event of far greater political significance.

Our protest was controversial. It may have offended some. But in the following weeks, it became clear to us that our protest had not taken place for no reason. What may have begun as a basic attempt to publicly criticise the Burmese military regime, in an environment where it enjoyed an unacceptable level of impunity, quickly escalated into a question of how Singaporean society understands itself: how it is disciplined, how it relates to ‘external’ interference, and what its fundamental values are. It served to crystallise national debates around public dissent, legitimate authority, the treatment of minorities, and regional diplomacy. And from our point of view, the lengths to which the authorities went in order to try and stifle our political action really demonstrated to us how much we cherish those civil liberties we’ve always taken for granted in the UK, and which have been rapidly eroded under the Blair government. On a personal level, we ended up with sturdy friendships and a new awareness of what we were prepared to do for a cause we believed in.


this article was first published in The Pulse (Spring 2008, issue 1)

Confessions of a Cultural Relativist: ‘Asian Values’ and Activism in Singapore

Development is imperialistic. It is inseparable from the totalising capitalist project, locking poor peripheral nations into an exploitative relationship with the multinationals and rich governments that make up the core. The notion of a singular development trajectory in which the Rest lags behind the West still doggedly persists in many institutional contexts, often resulting in misguided policy recommendations from Western agencies with disastrous results for developing countries. Well-intentioned grassroots organisations are often just as guilty, imposing inescapably Western norms on recalcitrant or merely unsuspecting populations. All these things we want to export to the rest of the world – women’s rights, free speech, secular education – they so often fail to take cultural difference into account.

Which is why, on my study abroad programme at the National University of Singapore, I had absolutely no intention of getting involved in any sort of activism.

It’s just not the Singaporean way, as we were repeatedly informed. Since Singapore’s independence in 1965, the government of this small city-state has progressively dismantled all the main channels through which real political dissent could be expressed, while fostering a civic culture of conservative conformism. The ban on chewing gum is well known; less often mentioned are the effective ban on public protest, the state-controlled national media, and the decimation of meaningful political opposition. All of which is justified, we are told, by the notion of ‘Asian Values’.

Popularised by the Singapore’s first Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, who continues to exercise a dominating influence in the Singaporean government through his self-created position as ‘Minister Mentor’ and the fact that his son is current PM, ‘Asian Values’ are held in contrast to Western liberal individualism and the sorts of rights and freedoms they imply. Asians, it is argued, are culturally and historically predisposed to a greater emphasis on family, discipline, and social stability.

Thus Singapore’s highly authoritarian government justifies its policies by positing adherence to Asian Values as the key ingredient to its stable social order and, more importantly, to its successful economic development. Amongst the Singaporeans I met, in various capacities, there was a clear consensus between many that whilst an overbearing government might not be to everyone’s taste, there could be no denying the fantastic wealth Singaporeans enjoy in comparison to the countries that surround it. Also frequently noted was the absence of violent and destructive civil unrest, to which all neighbouring states have been subject in varying degrees at some point over the last 50 years. The older generation of Singaporeans did take to the streets and protest, but at the moment the country is a peaceful and prosperous place to live.

There were things about Singapore I gradually became aware of and didn’t particularly like – the servile national media, the ‘free’ but unfair elections, the treatment of immigrants and labourers, the nepotistic government, the warm friendship with the Burmese military regime – but who was I to try and challenge them? If two and a half years of Development Studies have taught me anything, it’s that my personal beliefs in relation to direct political participation are at best culturally specific, and at worst totally unwelcome. It’s sheer arrogance to assume that I have the right to try and spread these ideologies elsewhere.

* * *

The problem, of course, is that Singapore can by no means be described in the simplistic terms outlined above. Economic growth, racial harmony and social stability constitute the idealised picture Singaporean elites are keen to project, and have certainly been internalised by the population to a significant degree. But the longer I stayed in Singapore, the more the cracks began to show.

Thanks to a chance encounter between a friend of mine and a Singaporean pro-democracy campaigner, I found myself in a planning meeting comprising a hotchpotch of different people: Singaporean human rights activists, Burmese residents in Singapore, a Swedish politician, an artist, other exchange students, and members of the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP), the politically marginalised opposition to the ruling People’s Action Party. There were two central points for discussion. The first point was how to respond to the forthcoming Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit in Singapore, given that the leaders of the Burmese military regime were to be in attendance and the news images of their bloody crackdown on monks and other protesters were still fresh in our minds. The second point was how to encourage and embolden ordinary Singaporeans to take an active interest in the political machinations of their government.

What became clear during this meeting is that ‘Western’ notions of liberal freedoms, democratic participation and human rights cannot, in fact, be easily dismissed on crude applications of cultural relativism. The ‘Asian Values’ espoused by certain elites are neither common to all of Asia, nor representative of a homogeneity of opinion in individual Asian countries. There are hundreds, even thousands of people in Singapore who desire a greater engagement with political processes, and a small number of those have sacrificed any semblance of a ‘normal’ life in order to pursue these rights for Singaporean civil society.

Such individuals do not have it easy. I met Chee Soon Juan, now the charismatic icon of the SDP. Once a lecturer at the same National University where I was undertaking my exchange programme, he was promptly fired on spurious grounds as soon as he became involved in opposition politics – a dismissal that other academics there still defend, even if privately acknowledging that there was no legitimate reason for it. Refusing to be deterred, Dr Chee has since become infamous for continuing to assert and act out the right to engage in non-violent protest against the government. As a result, he has been sued and bankrupted by PAP leaders, arrested and imprisoned numerous times, prevented from leaving the country, and consistently ridiculed in national media. The message is clear: Singaporeans attempting to make a stand face severe consequences. The result is a pervasive culture of fear throughout Singaporean society.

Like Dr Chee, I believe firmly in the right to protest and in the usefulness of direct action as a means to social change. Which is why, a few weeks later, I ended up walking with two other exchange students down Singapore’s premier shopping street holding candles and wearing red t-shirts saying, “We pursue peace, justice and democracy for Burma”, surrounded by over twenty international and local journalists and cameramen, and filmed by plainclothes police.

It was the day that the ASEAN Summit began in the exclusive Shangri-La Hotel, and we marched towards the venue to stage our protest against the actions of the Burmese junta and its friendly relationship with Singaporean leaders. In any other country, no one would have batted an eyelid. We had no placards (these being illegal without a permit), we shouted no slogans (to avoid anything giving the vaguest impression of that oft-repeated fear of civil action degenerating into chaos), and we were split up into groups of three (since a public assembly of more than four people is also illegal). When we finally were approached by three of the 2,500 armed police safeguarding the area, we peacefully dispersed. It was the most innocuous protest imaginable. And yet one student journalist later reported that we “did the unthinkable”. This is the extent of the depoliticisation of Singaporean society.

Admittedly, it had not been an easy decision to protest that day. We had been summoned and ‘advised against’ it by the university administration, warned against it by police knocking on our bedroom doors, sent mysterious emails and text messages warning of severe repercussions, and threatened with the possibility of expulsion from some of our home universities. The few Singaporean students who had wanted to participate were totally daunted, and with good reason. The Burmese students, faced with the possibility of deportation, were not about to take the risk either. In the end only nine of us, all foreign students, were able to conduct our vigil.

And, as we had hoped, it turned out pretty well. No arrests, no violence. The somewhat disproportionate media presence meant that our message achieved a degree of exposure quite unimaginable in other contexts, being reported on the front page of Singapore’s national paper and making the evening television news, as well as numerous other media channels throughout Asia. Most importantly of all, the fact that no harm befell us encouraged more people to attend a public rally organised the very next day by members of the Burmese expatriate community in Singapore. Forty to fifty Burmese residents stood close to the ASEAN Summit venue holding placards and posters that read: “ASEAN Act With Honour! Action on Burma Now!” and “Listen To Burma’s Desires. Don’t Follow Junta’s Order.” A protest of this size was unprecedented, and yet police simply stood back for fifteen minutes, after which they called on the protesters to peacefully disperse.

* * *

Academic discussions questioning the universality of human rights and democracy are crucial, but how can we do anything but vigorously assert them when members of other societies are risking their lives and livelihoods in campaigning for their realisation? Amartya Sen, author of Development As Freedom, has argued:

“The people whose political and other rights are involved in this debate are not citizens of the West, but of Asian countries. The fact that individual liberty may have been championed in Western writings, and even by some Western political leaders, can scarcely compromise the claim to liberty that people in Asia may otherwise possess.”

Whilst interrogating Western universalism, we can’t assume that a monolithic, homogenous alternative – ‘Asian Values’ – exists; nor should we imagine that various Asian leaders speak for their diverse populations. As recently as forty years ago, Singapore had a vibrant activist and trade unionist culture where rallies could number in the thousands. Right now, a small but growing group of Singaporeans are working on ways to revive something of that spirit. There’s nothing inherently un-Asian about expressing dissent.

And what’s more, we have to admit that those characteristically ‘Western’ liberal freedoms aren’t exclusively Western. A polarising discourse, which justifies oppression by pitting a falsely homogenous set of ‘Asian’ values against its Western antithesis, is just as dangerous as imposing one set of cultural norms onto the rest of the world.

I certainly don’t want to force my culturally contingent belief in things like free speech and civil disobedience onto a recalcitrant recipient. Yet equally, I have been forced to challenge vacuous and ahistorical formulations of cultural relativism, and ask what purpose they may be serving. Singapore has made me a reluctant sort of universalist.


written for U8 Magazine (forthcoming)
see http://www.u8development.com/default/index.php

Exclusive interview with student protestor

By Michael Wan
Jan. 9 2008

from http://campus-observer.org/index.php/news/exclusive-interview-with-student-protestor.html

NUS exchange student Pia Muzaffar Dawson did the unthinkable last November.

Along with two exchange students, the 22-year-old took her chances with Singapore’s tough laws against public protests by marching down Orchard Road into an area guarded by about 1,000 armed police and soldiers.

Together with Daniel Babiak and Mark (who did not want to reveal his last name), Dawson entered the city area where the Association of South East Asian Nations leaders’ summit was being held.

The trio, dressed in red T-shirts and holding lighted candles, were protesting against Asean’s inaction toward Burma’s junta after the country’s bloody military crackdown on demonstrations led by Buddhist monks.

In an e-mail interview with The Observer on Jan. 08, Dawson spoke about her experience with the university administrators that called to warn her against protesting and about what she thinks of NUS students. 

She has since completed her semester as an exchange student at NUS and returned to England, where she is studying international relations and development studies at the University of Sussex.

Campus Observer: Have you ever protested in England before?

Dawson: Yes, but not very much. I don't have much history of activism. It's only recently that I've been inspired to participate in protests, specifically regarding education in the UK, anti-war, the occupation of Palestine, and the gradual erosion of our civil liberties in England.
 


Campus Observer: What inspired you to protest that day?

Dawson: First and foremost, the continuing political repression in Burma, the strong links between Singaporean elites and Burmese military rulers and drug barons, and the relative silence in Singaporean media on both these issues. 

It would have been awful if the Burmese junta could be seen to just turn up in Singapore and not be held accountable for their actions -- especially given the recent violent crackdown on monks and others. 

Secondly, the repressive environment in Singapore, which restricts free speech, free assembly and free press. With the government silent and civil society groups facing massive restrictions, we thought that we could use our status as international students to highlight this issue. 

Thirdly - and I am speaking for myself here -- it is becoming increasingly clear to me that protest and political participation are vital to maintaining any semblance of democracy and political accountability. This is something that one generation of Singaporeans
knew well, but has been stifled in contemporary Singapore. Knowing full well that a public assembly of more than four people does not necessarily degenerate into violence and chaos, we wanted to demonstrate this in Singapore.
 


Campus Observer: It was reported that administrators from NUS called to warn you of Singapore's laws. What exactly did they tell you? 

Dawson: The provost and dean of students spoke to some of us. They had managed to print out our Facebook event details and explained that the wording of our appeal made it clear that there was intent to hold an assembly of more than four people, even if the protest was conducted in smaller groups. 

They didn't want us to unwittingly break the law and were concerned that as foreign students we were not aware of local law. They even offered us the Central Forum as an alternative venue to stage a vigil. 



Campus Observer: Why did you still decide to go ahead with the protests? 

Dawson: Because our reasons for protesting remained the same, and we were concerned that this kind of muting of our plans would have much less of an impact and carry our message much less far. 

We were also lucky because we knew that any sort of legal action or arrest would not affect us in the same way that it would affect a Singaporean student and their future career prospects (unless we want to work in Singapore, that is).
 


Campus Observer: Were you afraid when security officials and the police stopped your group of protesters?

Dawson: I wasn't afraid, because we had expected to encounter police in that area, and we knew that we hadn't broken any law. We also knew that the police would not mistreat us in the presence of so many international journalists. The main reason I wasn't afraid, however, was that a successful protest usually relies on good planning, and our group had collectively decided that we would not confront the police or try to defy their warnings. So when the moment came, we were all prepared to disperse peacefully.
 


Campus Observer: I see that you were using your handphone in one of the photos. Who were you calling?

Dawson: Journalists from all over the world had been calling me non-stop that day!
 


Campus Observer: Were there any friends, well-meaning or otherwise, who tried to dissuade you from joining the protests? Could you recount one such experience?

Dawson: Yes, one law-student friend tried to dissuade us and managed to dissuade some others. One other friend was not comfortable with the fact that we would have no control over how our protest would be represented in the media, and he was very worried that we would be cast as troublemakers, or that reporters would focus on us and not on the issues that we were trying to publicise. He didn't come, in the end. Luckily, his fears didn't come true. 

However, I had no problem with the fact that some people didn't want to participate, because it's not right to do those things without being comfortable with your actions. Also, other people's criticisms were totally legitimate and meant we had many excellent discussions in the days before the protest, which ultimately prepared us much better for the day.
 


Campus Observer: Daniel was quoted by Bloomberg: "A lot of people wanted to come, but they were afraid of the repercussions.” What were these people’s reactions after the protests? 

Dawson: They were relieved, I think, that no harm came to us. But I think their fears were totally valid, especially given the way the university, police and local media attempted to scare us out of participating. Hopefully, people will be more encouraged the next time such an opportunity arises.
 


Campus Observer: What do you think has been the effect of the protests on Singapore's political scene?

Dawson: I don't know. I think it's important to highlight that the next day, 40-50 Burmese residents of Singapore were able to stage a rally, even holding banners and placards. I hope this will encourage even more Singaporeans to become active in civil society. I know that there are many Singaporeans who feel disillusioned with politics, seeing it as a sphere outside and above their control. For me, politics is something everyday and ubiquitous, and I believe we can empower ourselves without the permission of those who are supposedly in authority.
 


Campus Observer: Describe your opinion of NUS students in three words.

Dawson: Overworked, competitive, and de-politicised!

Green means GO!

Is harking back to the ‘golden age’ of Singaporean student activism just a futile nostalgia trip, or a call to arms to a passive student body in a culture of control?


Singapore confuses me. I have just about worked out how to get from one part of the labyrinthine Prince George’s Park Residences to another. I have somehow managed to successfully navigate the unfathomable complexity of module registration. Finding out where my lectures are taking place is another matter entirely, but I suppose after a couple more weeks I will have mastered this too.

It seems that NUS students have to concentrate so hard on working out where we are going and how to get there, that we don’t stop to think about the motivations behind the creation of such a bizarrely convoluted landscape. What purpose could such bafflement serve?

I cannot help but compare NUS with Sussex, my home university in Britain. There our students’ union, library, main lecture theatres, arts institution, IT centre, religious building, careers centre, union shop, bar and nightclub, all surround one central square. This square is thus the focal point for student campaigns and campus events.

At Sussex we occupied the library overnight to demand better resources and longer opening hours; held protests pressurising the university management to reverse their decision to close down our excellent chemistry department; marched against ‘top-up fees’ and the increasing marketisation of our education. We campaigned to twin with a university in Occupied Palestine, and banned Coca-Cola on campus.

But I wonder: if our university was designed like NUS, would such vibrant and successful student campaigns have been possible?

My NUS experience so far almost typifies the widely-held stereotype of Singapore as a highly obedient society. No jaywalking, no littering, no loitering, no chewing gum, no drugs, no public protest, no being gay. Heavy fines and severe penalties for transgression maintain a draconian social order.

And yet the stereotype doesn’t quite hold. There is dissent; but it appears too frequently to engender disillusionment and resignation rather than political action. In a 2001 poll of NUS students, 77% said they were not interested in political participation and 88% believed there were constraints preventing them from getting involved. This context is miles away from the 1960s and 70s when student rallies here could number in their thousands, and Singaporean students were prepared to launch boycotts, hunger strikes, sit-ins and marches in protest against government attempts to curtail their freedoms. By contrast, there now appears to be the general impression that politics is the realm of the elite, and that the results of any attempt at activism would be a foregone conclusion.

Whilst such attitudes are totally understandable given Singapore’s governmental style, they are also based on a misunderstanding of ‘politics’. Politics, after all, is about power. And power is not something possessed merely by the upper echelons of society; it is present in every social relationship. Consequently, so is resistance.

So whilst it may be too much to hope that NUS students might defy the stringent laws, and rally en masse making loud and long-overdue demands to the Singaporean government, we should remember we can still act in seemingly small ways to engage in resistance against the dominant social order.


this article was first published for NUS students in The Ridge, October 2007

HDB housing in Singapore

taken October 2007

When Blair comes out to play the naughty kids are sent away

by Olly Laughland and Pia Muzaffar Dawson

As far as we’re concerned, Blair’s Britain still exists. Forgive our ignorance, but we left the UK way back in early June when our right honourable leader committed to a so-called ‘gracious’ farewell tour of the country. Imagine our surprise, then, when an overenthusiastic friend of ours called last week, saying: ‘Guys you won’t believe this! Blair is coming to Singapore! He’s giving a special lecture here at NUS!’ 

My God, it was true. The website spoke of a ‘once in a lifetime opportunity!’ – an event ‘open to all NUS students!’ The Tony Blair lecture- the Crisis in Global Governance: Challenges and Solutions.

Naturally, we were excited. This was to be an opportunity we were unlikely to ever have in England. At last, a chance to demand answers from our warmongering, Thatcherite, imperialist ex-Prime Minister. A chance to say to him in person all that he could never hear from behind the safety of the TV screen. ‘Mr Blair, what would you deem a ‘crime against humanity’ and how do you defend yours?’ ‘Mr Blair, as a Christian, how do you reconcile your universalist faith with the xenophobic hatred that your policies have stirred up?’ ‘Mr Blair! We are ashamed to be British and a large part of that is your fault.’

We called the number on the screen, as instructed. Waited patiently. Placed on hold.
“Hello, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.”
“Hello! We’re calling about the Blair lecture. We’d like some tickets please.”
“Sorry. Deadline passed.”
And like a stinging slap to the face, there it was.
“But… we’re British… and we’re studying politics. We only found out he was coming ten minutes ago. Surely there’s something you can do?”
“You weren’t selected. You can’t apply.”
“But that can’t be right – it says on the website it’s open to all –”
“Thank you, goodbye.”
Click.
Right. In our excitement, we had momentarily forgotten where we were. The National University of Singapore is not known for its efforts to encourage the free exchange of opinion, and is totally uncritical of the government’s ban on protest. The last lecturer to venture into opposition politics was sacked. What were we expecting?

Upon further investigation, it turned out that ‘open to all NUS students’ in fact meant ‘open to a select few students who had to be specially nominated for invitation by their department heads’. And we were not included.

The day came. Blair arrived, accompanied by a fleet of police cars, an army of secret police, strategically-positioned snipers, warm handshakes and sycophantic smiles. Those select students in shirts and ties took their seats ahead of time, waited, and welcomed him onto the stage with enthusiastic applause. The whole event smacked of a well-oiled publicity stunt. The questions asked were vacuous; his responses slippery and vague. “You may be a reluctant globaliser,’ he said, ‘but you are a globaliser nonetheless.” “If we want to make it happen,” he said, “we need a global agenda and the global agenda only works if there is a unifying set of global values.” And everyone smiled and clapped.

And what was Blair charging to trot out this bullshit? Six thousand, six hundred and sixty-seven US dollars. Per minute. The entire hour-and-fifteen-minute Audience With Tony, otherwise known as The Giant Mutual Ego Massage, cost our host university half a million US dollars. Whoever said that being Prime Minister doesn’t pay well?

“Education, education, education,” he told us back in 1997. Pretty rich, coming from a man now accepting such an obscene amount from an institution of higher education. Surely the money would be better spent on library books, widening inclusion of students from poorer backgrounds, and paying its manual labourers a decent wage.

The irony, of course, is that if we wanted any sort of insight into current affairs, sitting in a lecture theatre listening to a jet-setting ex-Prime Minister so totally detached from reality is the last thing we would do. The everyday politics of Singapore’s taxi drivers and cleaners provide shrewder analyses. And indeed, these insights come without the frankly offensive fee.


this article was first published in The Badger 26/11/07 (issue 9 autumn term)

On being brown and British in Anglophile Asia

by Olly Laughland and Pia Muzaffar

An Indian fellow with a great bushy moustache and a cloth wrapped around his head bows gently and swings the door open before us. We step into the cool interior of the exquisitely refined atrium – at last! – a reprieve from the oppressive humidity of the Orient. Outside, the Chinamen busy themselves whisking passengers up and down the bustling thoroughfare, whilst scores of immigrant workers from some godforsaken place sweat under the tropical sun. As we turn away from the chaos and disorder of the Asiatic metropolis and step inside, Sir Stamford’s statue fixes us with his steadfast gaze. The majesty of Raffles Hotel envelops us, two homesick British emissaries in a foreign land, and tells us we are home.

If this seems like a scene from a colonial-era novel, think again. This was our experience just a couple of months ago. Singapore, our new home and place of study for the remainder of this year, is a highly racialised and remarkably Anglophile society – as we have gradually discovered. It is a nation so unquestioningly proud of its colonial heritage that the legacy of Stamford Raffles is revered rather then resisted (as evidenced by the supremely prestigious status of Raffles Hotel). The British visitor is subject to both a disarming curiosity and an implicit respect. Despite the fact that most British citizens would be hard-pressed to point to Singapore on a world map, numerous Singaporeans themselves have exhibited the kind of internalised subordination to ‘our’ society that can only be explained with reference to the imported racial hierarchies of Western paternalism in the region.

For example, the university swimming pool has strict rules about suitable swimming attire. Crotch-cupping Speedos are prescribed; ordinary trunks will get you turned away at the entrance. Unless, of course, you are white. In this case, the colonial legacy kicks in and the subordinate ‘native’ simply moves aside and allows you to pass – no matter how flamboyant your swimwear. Such incidents, and other similar ones, have been related to us by our other European and American friends here. Unfortunately, the two of us happen to be brown. The same rules do not apply.

The difference between us and our fairer companions was highlighted on other occasions. We’ve been turned away from clubs, stopped and searched whilst attempting to board public transport, and seen the shock on people’s faces when we open our mouths and speak with fine BBC accents. We’ve also noticed our ethnicity being more of an issue amongst the other expat students. We’ve been referred to as ‘guests’ by a bunch of English people we’d just thought we were ‘hanging out with’. And we get asked where we’re from a lot. When we reply, “England,” they invariably hesitate before asking, “but where are you… you know… originally from?” It’s inexplicable, but there’s definitely the sense that this is more than mere curiosity; it’s a question designed to work out what our place is in the established racial hierarchies of Singaporean society.

Such experiences have given us the overriding impression of a racialised, rather than outright racist, society. However, there are times when this undercurrent does erupt into blatant racism. Just yesterday we witnessed a smug, velvet-suited white Australian man hurling abuse at and physically attacking a Chinese taxi driver, simply because he had refused to take him to a particular place. “You need my money to buy your fucking chicken rice!” he shouted, whilst kicking the taxi as the driver pulled the car away. When we confronted him, he tried to justify his behaviour by citing it as an example of stereotypical ‘Singaporean laziness’.

Of course, such scenes are rare. Singapore, on the surface at least, appears to epitomise the fully-functioning multiracial society that it has expended so much energy trying to project. Yet its collective aspiration is evident on the billboards showing handsome, white faces smiling down on the shoppers below; in the reverence paid to a celebrated colonial past; and in the enthusiastic welcome and inbuilt permissiveness that greets the Western exchange student. The white ones, anyway.


this article was first published in The Badger 29/10/07 (vol. 17 issue 5)