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By Guest Contributor
(Lzydata) on 07 Aug 2006 9:36 AM Haloscan Comments Closed |
Editor's Preface
The Kway Teow Man's post, "Emigration in Perspective" kicked up a minor storm in the comments section within a few hours of its appearance. (The last I check, the discussion continues.) And it is not because the article as a whole makes a highly controversial point. In fact, almost all of the unhappiness expressed with KTM in the comments thread can be traced back to disagreements with one small segment:
Dealing with Spoilt Brats. The Singaporeans who claim that they want to emigrate [only] because the Garmen doesn't listen to them are stupid and immature. Please lah, that's a completely IRRATIONAL reason. If people want to leave because they see find better opportunities abroad, please just say so lah. Dun come up with such lame excuses. At home, if you tell your mother every day you like to eat chicken and she dun listen to you and cook for you beef everyday, you pack up and leave home izzit? This one still your country and like it or not, 66% of the people (who got to vote) voted for the Garmen leh. Grow up can?Several commentors take issue with KTM's stance that "the government does not listen to me" is a lame, even "irrational" reason to emigrate. But a large part of that discussion has been (in my opinion) singularly unfruitful. While it is surely legitimate to take issue with KTM's characterization of those who are wont to emigrate because "the gahmen does not listen to them" as "spoilt brats"--whether that is fair--the discussion cannot move forward unless better sense can be given to the complaint beyond the blank statement: "the gahmen does not listen to me".
What exactly does it mean that--what would it be like if--the government does listen to me, or does not do so? Just what exactly is it--in concrete terms--the lack of which becomes the reason for some Singaporeans to contemplate emigration? Until we have a firmer grasp of how these questions can be answered, the further issue of whether the reason is a good one cannot really be answered.
It is at this point that, Lzydata, who wrote for Singapore Ink, came forward to post a long comment. He has given us permission to repost that comment as a guest contribution to Singapore Angle in the interest of furthering the discussion of an issue that is likely to be close to the heart of many Singaporeans.
Heh, I'm wondering whether I should jump into this discussion. I can't provide a treatise on the problem of "the gahmen does not listen to me", but maybe the casino debate can serve as an example for illumination.
In the debate in the media and with feedback sessions, press releases by religious organisations and even the opposition parties' statements (who I might add are usually moribund on public issues during "peacetime"), the anti-casino voices were loud, and many of their concerns sincere and well-taken. Throughout this, if memory serves me correctly, most of the PAP honchos maintained radio silence or made suitable noises about encouraging a healthy debate. Balakrishnan and perhaps others tossed out a point or two, Balakrishnan himself the libertarian one about trusting people to make up their minds about whether to gamble or not. The impression the government gave was that of a neutral or still-uncommitted arbiter between the two stands, so many got a rude shock when the PM made his announcement that he had decided to build not one but two, and in the coming days and weeks, as if by the snap of his fingers, all his ministers, junior ministers and backbenchers trotted out all the positive arguments they had heard in private from the developers, or which they had thought of themselves but had declined to say up till then.
It might well be that there exists a silent pro-casino or don't-care-either-way majority, and so the best decision was made after accounting for those views. There are people out there who would be disgruntled no matter what, but I think most can accept the idea that they speak up about something but the outcome doesn't go their way. Maybe the other side has better arguments, maybe they are the majority - fine. But the way the whole thing was conducted - the pro-casino side in private, and the government in a stealthy intellectual position - led to anti-casino voices dominating the public debate only to be handed the fait accompli - the opposite verdict together with "new" supporting evidence and arguments, and the whole package now christened "IRs." It was also belatedly clarified that this was in fact a decision for the Cabinet to make, not Parliament, and certainly not the people, although we are assured that Chiam and Low were invited to the developers' briefings. The biggest insult to injury was to be told that now everyone must be constructive and suggest ways to minimise the social costs of gambling, or even better, start training Singaporeans for jobs in the IRs. Everything fell into line, everything snapped into place.
This raised a very bad stink. (For recent times, only the NKF scandal could beat it.) Many people believe LHL and Co. intended to mislead the people with a faux public debate when they already made the decision themselves. (I don't, but that's because I see LHL more as a clumsy politician used to his elitist ways, rather than a Machiavellian figure.) From this point of view, all those months of debate and feedback was all a wayang, with elements like that "IR" rebranding particularly Orwellian. It surely wasn't the first time in Singapore history cynics have pooh-poohed the idea of feedback to the government, but the resentment ran pretty high: even people like me who were pro-casino (pro-IR) or neutral felt it. Nobody likes being made to look stupid; that's what the LHL government did in this, its first major policy push. "Why are you only talking about casinos? We were talking about IRs all along! Get with the programme, man!"
To bring us back to the subject of KTM's blog post, it's possible that by justifying emigration with "the gahmen does not listen to me", one in fact lacks the temperament for democratic compromise, or for real activism for one's cause in the first place. I say that maybe this frustration and despair is not tied to any particular policy, but from "meta-lessons" from incidents like the casino debate. People are aggrieved that the government will act to serve "the nation's interest" regardless of what they personally think about the matter, and that our system of plebiscitarian dictatorship - a revelatory term I recently learnt from Hayek - means you can do pitifully little about it unless you are yourself headhunted to join the PAP elite someday.
