Written by Thomas Frank
[What happens when a country sacrifices criticism and intellectual
life on the altar of the market? Thomas Frank is the editor of The
Baffler magazine. He is the author of "The Conquest of Cool" and "One
Market, Under God".]
Markets may have made their peace with activism, rebellion,
radicalism, revolution, change-agenting, hierarchy-questioning,
sacred-cow-killing, power-seizing, apple-cart-overturning and
everything else on the exciting menu of New Economy upheaval, but
markets still have trouble reconciling themselves to democracy
proper. Markets romp joyfully when word arrives that the vote-
counting has been halted. Markets punish the bond prices of countries
where left parties still attract a substantial vote. Markets reward
countries where left parties have been induced to wind up their
operations. To you Bill Clinton's rightward triangulations may have
seemed like rank hypocrisy or worse, since they deprived Americans of
meaningful political choice, but in the view of markets the man who
managed to kill off the New Deal is a statesman for the ages.
Above all markets love the country of Singapore. There was a time a
few years ago when one heard this repeated so frequently that it
became one of the great media clichés of the age. Singapore was an
economic miracle, a land arisen from Third World to First in a
handful of decades. Singapore was showing the world the way forward.
Singapore had resolved it all: ethnic hatred, crime, social decay,
good government. Singapore was the country with the most economic
freedom in the world. Singapore was the best place to do business in
all the earth. Singapore was more comprehensively wired than anywhere
else. "Asian values," as described by Lee Kuan Yew, the man who has
effectively ruled Singapore ever since 1959, would inevitably
prevail. And as proof you needed look no farther than a postcard of
Singapore's glittering downtown, at all the spanking new skyscrapers
erupting from the earth in stern testimony to the market's approval.
And what the market loved best about Singapore was what was absent:
Politics. The country has quite literally traded politics for wealth,
with its most prominent political thinkers endlessly reminding the
world that "Asian values" prioritize economic achievement over civil
liberties. But the trade-off between a lively political life and the
blessings of the market is hardly a uniquely Asian phenomenon.
Americans know the logic quite well. For ten years now we have
labored mightily to convince ourselves that once we had hobbled
unions and rolled back regulation and dropped antitrust enforcement
and "reformed" welfare and stopped worrying generally, we would break
free into a world beyond ideology and dread partisanship, a place of
civility and simple pleasures, a utopia where watching the NASDAQ
shower us with its blessings far outranked electioneering as an
statement of our democratic ways. So acute was the desire in some
circles to nail a final lid on politics that Thomas Friedman, the
highly respected New York Times foreign affairs columnist, actually
came up with a term for the glorious trade-off in his ecstatic 1999
book, The Lexus and the Olive Tree: "the golden straitjacket." Since
all alternatives to laissez-faire are now historically discredited,
Friedman maintained, all countries must now adopt the same rigidly
pro-business stance. When they do, "your economy grows and your
politics shrinks." The pseudo-democracy of markets replaces the real
democracy of democracy, the great multinational corporations nod
their approval, and (some) people get fantastically rich.
I have no idea whether Friedman had Singapore specifically in mind
when he came up with this formulation, but there can be little doubt
that Singapore has come close indeed to realizing the "post-partisan"
dream of New Economy ideologues everywhere. Many facts can be cited
to illustrate Singapore's exchange of democracy for wealth, but few
are more poignant than the bankruptcy into which the country's
opposition MPs (at present there are three in a parliament of 84),
are perennially thrown by ruling party lawsuits. Dissenting publicly
can quite literally mean losing it all. As a result opposition
politicians have learned, as X'ho, the ultra-arch Singapore punk
rocker puts it, "Speak not, bankrupt not."
Unfortunately, aggressive "depoliticization," as Singaporean
journalists refer to it, has pitfalls of its own. As the allure of
public life recedes, the country may get rich, but who is to manage
the public sector? So effectively has the ruling party punished the
opposition and discredited politics generally that it now faces,
ironically, a crisis unique among advanced nations: It has trouble
recruiting gung ho young candidates to stand for parliament.
Nor do countries simply evolve into "golden straitjacket"
postpartisanship by some natural process of popular enlightenment.
Depoliticization is an achievement that requires effort. And building
a depoliticized state in Southeast Asia was an accomplishment that
took decades. The arduous story is told in precise, clinical detail
by Francis Seow, one of the country's best known dissidents, in his
1998 book The Media Enthralled. Running down the long, long list of
Lee Kuan Yew's battles with a once-feisty press, Seow tells us
exactly what arguments and legal strategems Lee used from the 60s to
the 90s to get his way in every single case, to force the more
tractable publications to see things as he did and the recalcitrant
sheets simply to disappear. Only rarely did the country have to
resort to outright censorship. Warring with the Economist, Far
Eastern Economic Review, the International Herald Tribune, and the
Asian Wall Street Journal, Lee used a combination of lawsuits, anti-
Western bluster, intimidation, and circulation restriction to ensure
that these publications would practice "self-censorship" when
describing events in his country. Turning to the local media, Lee
came up with a plan whereby market forces did the work for him. Using
the language of marketplace democracy that we all know so well from
brokerage commercials and "New Democrat" reform efforts, Lee's
government simply required that all newspaper publishing operations
be publicly traded rather than owned by families or private investors-
-and that crucial voting shares be held by politically reliable
individuals. "Lee Kuan Yew has understood perfectly that the media
business is, first and foremost, a business," the canny Singaporean
journalist Cherian George has written: "that a press allowed to make
money out of a system will support that system; and that publishers
value their bottom-line more highly than they do their editorial
freedom."
Described that way Lee Kuan Yew sounds like the kind of guy a
traditional American press lord, thundering on behalf of the
interests of the owning class, could do business with. But Lee
tolerates very little thunder. He and his successors seem to regard
the press as fundamentally illegitimate, an unelected interloper in
the nation's politics. In 1994 a writer named Catherine Lim made the
mistake of violating an unwritten prohibition against criticism of
government officials; in the official declaration that slapped her
down it was announced that neither journalists nor anyone else could
be allowed "to set the political agenda from outside the political
arena. . . . People who seek to change the nature of Singapore
politics and society cannot be allowed to do so from political
sanctuaries." No one could be permitted to comment on political
issues except duly declared politicians--and everyone knows how the
government deals with them. The results may be draconian, but the
terms of the debate must seem very familiar to American readers,
living as they have through thirty years of assaults on the "elite"
media, always said to be foisting their "arrogant" concerns and their
big city ways on the rest of us. And Lee Kuan Yew has achieved in
Singapore what the American Right can only dream about: Freedom from
the press--and along with it freedom from criticism and freedom from
critical thought generally.
* * *
So what replaces politics? What fills the blank space left when a
country has sacrificed criticism and intellectual life on the altar
of the market? I went to Singapore to find out. Since the Asian
economic collapse in 1998 we've heard very little about Singapore or
the wonders of "Asian values" or the necessity of following Singapore
down the paths of inevitability. No longer do intrepid New Economy
ideologues bring us back bold stories from this land of the future.
But there is still much to be learned from the land of Lee Kuan Yew.
I have before me a copy of the Straits Times, the country's official
newspaper, dated December 10, 2000. I have kept the paper in my files
because it was my first clue that there was something amiss about
this country. I remember reading it for the first time on a sunny
equatorial morning in a twelfth story hotel room overlooking the
city's marina, a blimp advertising a local Internet service provider
orbiting annoyingly outside my window. From its front page the
Straits Times looked like a standard state-of-the-industry product,
remininding one of USA Today maybe a little more than the New York
Times. There were colorful photos and human interest stories, serious
journalism about important topics like water reservoirs, all of it
written in familiar newspaper English. It certainly looked
inoffensive. Where things started to go wrong was in an account of
protests at a college commencement in Hong Kong in which Lee Kuan Yew
had been awarded an honorary degree. Although it was a news story, I
had trouble discerning exactly why the students were protesting (this
would have to wait until I was in Hong Kong a week later and came
across the South China Morning Post's coverage of the incident); the
point of the piece seemed rather to be the foolishness and feebleness
of protesters, and the contrasting nobility of Lee. Lee is said to
speak in a "business-like" tone; to stand stoically while great waves
of official flattery wash over him, "perhaps because he has received
so many [accolades] over the years that they roll off him." Of the
protesters, it is noted that they are few in number, that there are
many "outsiders" among their ranks; that they are "led by a man
dubbed 'Long Hair' Leung Kwok Hung"; and that, given the opportunity,
they will complain about nearly anything: "Another day, another
protest."
Protest may not earn a Straits Times journalist's respect, but
turning to the paper's "Review" section, I discovered what did.
There, in the place most American newspapers reserve for book reviews
and think-pieces, I found a profile of the management guru who co-
wrote the One to One series of marketing books; a column about the
urgent need to adapt to waves of workplace "change" (you know,
like "outsourcing"); an enthusiastic story about the new president of
PepsiCo, a native of India who likes rock 'n roll and reportedly
studies videotapes of Michael Jordan's greatest basketball moments in
order to "catch insights about the value of teamwork"; a profile of
the management guru who co-wrote The Individualized Corporation
("Power to the people is [his] motto"); a discussion of one of the
paper's more popular feature writers in which the concept of "the
journalist as a brand" is used as a point of departure; and a review
of one of those sweeping, pseudo-historical books so beloved of
business readers that start out with the Neanderthals and end up
affirming various contemporary management homilies about creativity
and entrepreneurship. In the entire section, only a brief editorial
and a lone column (deploring the persecution of the Chinese minority
in Indonesia) addresses matters other than management theory.
Venturing out from my hotel I found that nearly wherever I went
management talk--even the liberationist variety we hear so much of
these days from the evangelists of the everyone-will-be-free Internet
economy--blended easily with the depoliticized, prosperity-centric
culture of Singapore. In the bookstores I could find no copies of the
Baffler but collections of management theory so vast that they dwarf
any I have ever seen in America. In the upscale Ngee Ann City mall I
bought a copy of George Gilder's long-anticipated Telecosm and
thumbed through the alarming new installment in the Fifth Discipline
series, Schools That Learn. From the windows of the offices of the
Informatics Group bold advertisements instructed me to "Increase Your
Market Value," advised me to "Surf Ahead in Your Career," and
exhorted me to "Make it to the Top." I was passed on the street by a
rebellious youth whose sassy T-shirt derided those "at the bottom of
the ladder." In Suntec City, a combination mall and office complex
that is billed as "Asia's vertical Silicon Valley," I walked through
a corridor in which the spaces that are usually taken up by ads for
commercial products were instead given over to testimonials from
various jargon-spouting CIOs and SVPs from Oracle, Xerox, and Union
Bank of Switzerland: "Networking for Success at Suntec City"; "Suntec
City is positively future-proof"; "You've got to get connected."
Venturing further into the crowded complex I discovered that it was
Microsoft Day at the "Fountain of Wealth," the gigantic bronze ring
around which the mall is arranged. I watched as fathers and sons,
under the benevolent gaze of Bill Gates's emissaries to Southeast
Asia, slowly circumnavigated the fountain in the direction believed
to maximize the acquisition of luck. For many, the presence of
corporate PR officials and the banalities of American management
rhetoric clearly made for a pleasant shopping experience. In fact,
the line outside Suntec City's Kenny Rogers restaurant was so long
that I had to get my ribs from Tony Roma's instead. (I could also
have chosen a rib place called "Fat Daddy.")
I do not mean to mock Singapore, like so many writers do, as some
weird and brutal Asian regime. In fact, proceeding from these two
crucial starting points--Singapore is very rich; Singapore tolerates
no political criticism--it has become a country whose culture,
superficially at least, looks a lot like our own. I did not find
Singapore strange; I found it familiar. My objections to what I saw
there almost all arose from the official media's energetic
recapitulation of bland American originals: management theory, fast
food, pop music, Hollywood movies. Depoliticized but intensely
successorized, Singapore is what America will be like if the "New
Economy" crowd get their way for much longer. Christmas, for example,
is celebrated with far more enthusiasm than it is at home--and
entirely as a secular holiday. The displays of lights and dioramas on
Orchard Road--including a two-story outdoor tableau of skiers
complete with gusts of fake snow--are so elaborate they put one more
in mind of downtown Vegas than Marshall Field's windows. Their
celebration of the holiday puts our own in the shade. Ads for the
Takashimaya department store promised "A Christmas in Gold." Those
for another whispered unsarcastically of "The Glitz and the Glamour."
And the reach of the holiday cheer is astoundingly comprehensive: I
heard the same soundtrack of maudlin Christmas favorites
(including "The Little Drummer Boy" in a tearful minor key) in a
supermarket, a gym, and in the underground bunker where British
generals planned their ineffectual defense of the island in 1942.
I will admit that I found the music irritating. In my hotel dining
room a top-of-the-line grand piano was used to produce unctuous
renditions of "Yesterday," Broadway favorites, songs by the
Carpenters. Later I observed the same set-up and the same repertoire
in effect in the famous Raffles hotel. And a third time in a mall
whose name I have now forgotten. On the radio I heard an excited
announcer hail the unbearably awful boy-band Westlife as "kick-ass."
At Changi airport I saw the private jet of the Backstreet Boys
waiting to ferry its toxic cargo off to some other unfortunate burg.
But the weakness of public intellectual life was what struck one most
sharply. History museums that deal in transparent party-line
propaganda. TV dramas that interrupted themselves so the characters
could advise viewers didactically on personal safety or civic
responsibilities. And positive reviews as far as the eye could see. I
understand how Lee Kuan Yew's "hypersensitivity to criticism" (to use
Seow's phrase) has had a chilling effect on the country's political
discourse. What is less clear is the process by which this suspicion
of criticism has been extended into the cultural realm. But this it
has undeniably done. X'ho, the acidic Singaporean cultural observer,
declares sarcastically that "unlike other countries, we are 100%
good, and though we dare not outrightly say we are perfect, the non-
existence of put-downs in public media and the constant self praising
we do imply that, yes, we are absolutely fair and perfect." From
every magazine, newspaper, alternative weekly, or slick lifestyle
supplement I came across arose a suffocating fog of affirmation.
Helpful appreciations of that great new movie, Charlie's Angels. Some
fun facts about the career of that enchanting singer, Christina
Aguilera. A great expensive new restaurant to consider for your
Christmas feast. Where was that legendary Singaporean rudeness in the
world of ideas? Could anyone here muster a simple, honest "no"?
I am pleased to report that at least one person can. Before leaving
the country I managed to procure both a book and a spoken-word CD by
the above-mentioned X'Ho, a former punk rocker who has of late moved
into the broader field of cultural criticism. What first drew me to
his book, Skew Me, You Rebel, Meh?, I admit, was its cover: The
dayglo pink and orange background with ransom-note lettering that we
all remember so fondly from the Sex Pistols days. Making it more
attractive still was the plastic wrapper in which it had been
germlessly encased, ensuring that casual shoppers wouldn't be
bothered by its contents. And for good reason. X'Ho turns out to be a
scathing critic of the money culture of his native land.
In "Singapore You're Not My Country," a poem by Alfian Sa'at that
X'ho reads on his CD, we hear
Singapore why do you wail that way, demanding my IC?
Singapore stop yelling and calling me names.
How dare you call me a chauvinist, an opposition party, a liar
a traitor, a mendicant professor, a Marxist homosexual communist
pornography banned literature chewing gum liberty smuggler?
How can you say I do not believe in
The Free Press autopsies flogging mudslinging bankruptcy
which are the five pillars of Justice?
And how can you call yourself a country, you terrible hallucination
of highways and cranes and condominiums ten minutes' drive from the
MRT
In his own work X'ho seems to prefer, for reasons that should be very
clear by now, to work through sarcasm, ridicule, irony, and double-
speak (and also mainly through small rock magazines like Big O). The
collection of poems and essays that he reads on his CD, Me All Good
No Bad, are advertised as "Pro-Singaporean content." He mocks such
characteristically Singaporean initiatives as an ill-begotten drive
to ban smoking simply by repeating them verbatim in his almost
aristocratically correct English. He proposes as a national
motto, "Say 'Yes.' It's the Way to the Top. . . . Heaven is just a
compliance away." (On the other hand, there's his exceedingly direct
and irony-free chant, "Asian values suck.") In America we are quite
familiar by now with irony as an statement of privilege, with irony
as salesmanship, with irony as Tory scorn. I had to go all the way to
Singapore to have my faith in the arch restored.