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)
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