A Letter From Singapore

...Businessmen are known for talking big, and they surely welcomed the restrictions put on labor...

...Goh Keng Swee, the Defense Minister, created somewhat of a furor when he stated recently at the University of Singapore that intellectual sterility was the greatest danger facing Singapore...

...The New Nation also ran a review of the film Woodstock, which was banned in Singapore but not in neighboring Malaysia, and could be seen by simply crossing the bridge into Malaysia...

...It maintains complete coverage of world news, including developments in Communist China...

...By and large, the urban renewal program has avoided the pitfalls of urban renewal in the West...

...In defeating them, Lee's methods displayed the same mixture of fair play and dirty pool, democracy and authoritarianism, which have characterized his regime since...

...The press is managed, but it would often be hard to tell...

...In a somewhat more serious vein, the Herald did have a somewhat more lively letters column than other papers, and it did print one story, against specific government orders, about a young New Left sociologist, living in Singapore but traveling on an American passport, who was refused reentry after leaving the country for a few weeks...

...In 1970, Lee decided on the necessity for some "younger blood" in the party, and had four deputies resign, which led to by-elections...

...but it is not...

...THE MEDIA...

...Possession of records with these lyrics is not an offense, but the law does require you to surrender them to the police...

...A second is that Chinese traditionally distrust all governments and that it takes time for the trust to be built up...

...Political parties...

...At that time a majority of its parliamentary representatives stayed with PAP, but a clear majority of the members left the party...

...Then he accused an English-language daily of accepting money from Communist agents in Hong Kong, upon which the paper folded...

...Lee's constant hocuspocus of slogans—"Make Singapore A Garden City," "Keep Singapore Clean and PollutionFree," "Make Singapore Clean and MosquitoFree," is echoed in an island-wide orchestration...

...By 1980 about half the people, it is planned, will live in public housing...

...It seems almost certain that Lee did not have majority support among the members of the PAP for breaking with the Communists, and it is highly questionable whether he could have defeated the Communists at all without help from the British...

...There are some signs of a crackdown, but more point to a gradual democratization of policy...

...The party chairman, Dr...

...Furthermore, the New Nation, a somewhat more highbrow afternoon paper, has been bold, by Singapore standards, in presenting lively discussion...

...Yet lest anyone think that this was a clear indication that Lee had majority support, it should be noted that some Barisan leaders were in jail during both electoral tests and that the party had some trouble printing its election literature...

...One is Singapore's precarious position as a small, predominantly Chinese state with no natural resources and surrounded by poorer Malays...

...In the 1962 referendum on merger with Malaya, where the Barisan counseled blank votes, the pro-merger position got 70 percent of the total vote, including blanks...

...The Barisan puts out a biweekly in English (The Plebian) and a weekly in Chinese...

...Overseas Chinese have rarely won acceptance in the communities where they have settled, and their loyalty to China gives them a sense of security they would otherwise lack...

...Here the situation has gotten worse in the last months, with the closing first of the Eastern Sun and then the Singapore Herald, and the jailing of journalists from the Nanyang Sit Poh...

...Heads of departmentswill instruct their counter officers to serve male members of the public with long hair last, causing them the most inconvenience...

...Lee only learned Chinese as an adult— when he became a politician...

...In 1960, 70 percent of the parents sent their children to the Chinese...

...Where it once wanted labor-intensive firms like electronics companies, it now wants technology-intensive companies that will train young Singaporeans...

...It took photos of preparations for the Republic Day parade in 1970 when the government had asked the press not to publish any—even though the preparations were taking place right downtown, in full public view...

...The story starts with Lee Kuan Yew, a Cambridgeeducated labor lawyer who founded the COMMENTS AND OPINIONS PAP with a group of socialist student friends who hung around the Malayan Forum in London...

...There is also an Orwellian system by which the prisoners can be released immediately upon their denunciation of Communism, which is broadcast, then rebroadcast over TV...

...In the 1963 general elections, PAP got 46 percent of the vote to the Barisan's 31 percent...

...PAP men were opposed by four candidates of a quickly established new party, whose candidates re COMMENTS AND OPINIONS ceived between 30 percent and 40 percent of the vote...

...That they are not out needlessly to feather foreign capitalists' nests comes out clearly from the changes in the government's policies toward incentives to foreign investors over the years...

...Again, the situation is ambiguous...

...And socialists, who are stern about the lapses from democracy in countries governed by political opponents, have an obligation to be at Ieast as stern in relation to their friends...

...Lui is a labor lawyer who has defended some opposition unionists in a shipyard workers' union which recently threw out its leadership by a democratic vote...

...Still, there are times when the atmosphere of mobilization in Singapore almost resembles that in a totalitarian state...

...The Singapore Herald incident probably reveals pettiness as much as anything else...

...Some of the backbenchers have been surprisingly bold in asking questions about urban renewal, the cost of living, and the labor situation, but it is questionable how much a backbencher can question his own party before he gets further back than the bench...

...The Chinese press has been rather forthright in taking up the complaints of people hurt by some of the government's actions...

...When Lee chose to make an open break with the Communists in 1961, he did so over an issue— merger with Malaya into a Federation of Malaysia— where his position was relatively more popular than that of the Communists...

...And finally, he announced the expulsion from Singapore of New York Times stringer Anthony Polsky...

...It has "detained" a series of rock songs for encouraging drug use...

...These laws made strikes rather difficult, although not illegal...

...Per capita income is now up (according to government figures, which are alleged to be somewhat exaggerated) to $900, a figure higher than Japan's only five or six years ago...

...I do not doubt that the PAP leaders put these restrictions on labor only because they felt it was necessary to deal with an unemployment crisis that would face the country if investment didn't come in...

...Furthermore, Singapore is, as far as I know, the only city in Asia with a police-tolerated street where homosexuals congregate...

...And the same goes for any judgment of the state of democracy in Singapore today...

...in 1970, 70 percent sent kids to the English stream...

...The government tries to impose its own vision of life, though often only half-heartedly...

...A three-part series by Jackie Sam, a New Nation journalist and PAP member, raised some delicate questions over the government's censorship of movies and songs...

...It has a headquarters and its number is listed in the phone directory...

...In the long run, one feels, responsive government policies are the best assurance of stability, growth, and survival...

...Singapore's real GNP has now been growing by about 10 percent a year for the last few years—one of the highest growth rates in Asia...

...Within 10 years the birth rate has been reduced from 4.2 percent a year, one of the very highest in the world, to 1.5 percent...

...WHITHER SINGAPORE after Lee's tussle with the press...

...And, of course, people like Marshall are not silenced...

...It prints little or no government propaganda...

...So THE CASE is hard to judge...

...This spectacular achievement was brought about partly through economic prosperity and partly through a no-nonsense disincentive program under which costs of delivering a baby begin to skyrocket with the third one, and maternal social benefits are reduced...

...The Barisan is now increasingly isolated, and much less of a threat...

...The center of Communist strength in the early PAP was mainly among students who had all the anti-Western fervor of their counterparts in other Asian countries...

...During the Commonwealth Ministers conference, which took place in Singapore at the beginning of the year, it referred to the ceremonial garb worn by the Prime Minister of Tonga as a "maxi-skirt...

...The tax incentives are going down, often disappearing...

...Two major surveys by regionally based journalists—Time Out of Hand, by Robert Shaplen of the New Yorker, and In the Teeth of the Dragon, by Dennis Bloodworth of the London Observer— highlight Singapore as the area's model gov ernment...

...This is partly because of a shift in educational preference of parents...

...They have been barred from coming in because the lyrics are objectionable...

...Lee has told his own party backbenchers that, since there is no opposition in Parliament, they should act as one...

...Housing on the site is usually built for those displaced by the clearance...

...This news broke a long spate of reports from the island republic indicating successes at every turn...

...Officially Lee is on record as regretting the lack of a strong non-Communist opposition party...

...One wonders whether PAP might have done as well in encouraging investment, without having to let wages lag behind—if it had to listen to workers as well as to businessmen...

...It iseasy to slide down the slippery slope—longhair, hippie clothes and medallions, pop musicglorifying drugs and sex...

...The construction of public housing was Singapore's first great social accomplishment, and since 1960 over 100,000 units have been built, now holding over one-third the population...

...Despite some puritanism (Playboy is banned, for example), the number of young couples holding hands or embracing in the parks is far larger than anywhere else in the region...

...Oneand two-room flats are subsidized, while threeroom apartments pay their way and four-room dwellings are rented out at a profit...

...No one but a dogmatist would question the decision to encourage manufacturing investment to bring jobs as well as technology to Singapore...

...He would much rather be a commissar, so he could effectively silence opponents like me...

...The government's campaign against long hair has been on similar lines...

...But the bark has simply been much worse than the bite...

...What then is going on...

...The major opposition is the Barisan Socialis, which is legal but has decided since 1967, when its members resigned from Parliament, not to contest elections...

...When pressed about Singapore's deviations from democracy, honest government officials habitually cite two factors in their defense...

...Lee Kuan Yew and his socialist friends let Communists into the PAP from the beginning, because he believed that Communist support was needed for the independence struggle...

...But, as the New Nation explains, "Legally, none of the drug-rock records are banned...

...But no objection has been taken to the music, so you can keep those records without the lyrics...

...A number of its members are in jail, indefinitely and without trial, charged with terrorism...

...For Lee's truncated PAP did succeed in winning two trials of popular strength with the Barisan Socialis (Socialist Front) which the pro-Communists formed...

...SOCIALISTS HAVE LONG BEEN OPPOSED to those who scant the importance of pluralistic institutions in the Third World...

...Given the sexual puritanism that reigns throughout Asia, all this is a sign of freedom...

...WITHIN ONE MONTH last spring, several events took place that may have shattered Singapore's image as a democratic outpost in Asia...

...There was a tempest in a teapot when the press reported that a Singapore professor had recommended that boys commit COMMENTS AND OPINIONS "self-abuse" eight times before going out on a date...

...A Jesuit priest denounced the professor, who then responded tongue-in-cheek that he had been maligned: he had never said "commit self-abuse," but "masturbate," and seven times would be quite sufficient...

...Somewhat more questionable are some of the trade union restrictions the PAP government adopted in 1967 and 1968 in order to make the "investment climate" hospitable...

...Government achievements in housing and urban planning are again to be marveled at...

...Recently the government has begun a "Brush Your Teeth" campaign, and admonitions appear every few minutes on television...

...As a result, wages have been rising in Singapore at a rate considerably smaller than the growth rate of the economy...

...Lee first attracted attention outside Singapore for his success in defeating the Communists within the united front...

...Lee proclaims his belief in democracy only because it's the popular thing to do," says David Marshall, a Jewish lawyer of Syrian descent who was Singapore's Chief Minister for a year in the mid-fifties and is a longtime opponent of Lee's...

...Shortly afterwards, he harassed a somewhat critical Englishlanguage paper out of existence...

...Nor are slums replaced simply by office buildings...

...PAP sources intimate that they feel one will come up soon, although they say they have no intention of creating one...

...The polls were generally thought fair...

...The unions also plan, on the Scandinavian model, to go into consumer cooperatives in the near future...

...As many foreign firms came in, the government became much tougher in negotiations...

...The question is whether they would not have to come to Singapore anyway...

...First, Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew had four journalists on a Chinese-language newspaper jailed for printing a picture of Chairman Mao playing ping-pong...

...While it's hard to say how strong Lui's party might become, it should serve as a catalyst of labor discontent...

...Not quite...

...Singapore standards of hospital care compare with those in Europe or America, and there is socialized medicine...

...Lee Siew Chow, has never been arrested...

...We can't afford to make mistakes, because our survival is at stake...

...With the Barisan refusing to contest the 1968 elections, the PAP won all 58 seats in Parliament...

...Union leaders like Devan Nair have made threatening noises that wages will soon have to start rising faster, or else...

...The government has managed to get unemployment down from 10 percent to 4 percent during those four years by an aggressive industrial policy that has mixed a foreign investment boom with a significant growth in government and government-private domestic companies...

...It is instructive to observe the Singapore case to see what effect— beyond the obvious one of reducing individual expression—the limits on democracy have had on its economic and social climate...

...They required the negotiation of lengthy three-year contracts and limited the amount of annual bonus for which a union could bargain to one month's pay...

...Generally, however, the mood is relaxed...

...There has been some terrorism, and the government claims it cannot have trials for fear of revealing its informers (other democratic governments have managed to overcome this difficulty...

...Subsidies for housing benefit most the lowest-income groups...

...A few strikes, sanctioned behind the scenes by the government, will help things along...

...The largest newspaper, The Straits Times, which also has a Malay-language edition, is probably strong enough to take on the government were it inclined to do so...

...The economic and social accomplishments of the PAP regime are extremely impressive...

...As early as 1957 the proCommunists won half the seats on the 12-man party executive—and Lee's people won back control only after five of these six were arrested by the British authorities...

...There are more than 10 other registered legal parties, none of much significance...

...Also, I think that an examination of the tax incentives offered (tax holidays and temporary tax reductions) would indicate that they were probably justified...

...According to such supporters of Lee as Alex Josey, a longtime Singapore resident who serves as his speech-writer, Lee called the by-elections because he wanted to put some life into Singapore's lagging democratic system...

...With time, the quality of the housing has improved dramatically, and the new satellite towns coming up—Toa Payoh and Queenstown —are comparable in imaginativeness to the best of West European town planning...

...Some of Lee's non-Communist critics feel that he is intolerant, autocractic, and thinskinned...

...Was it then simply a case of Lee stealing control of PAP from the Communists...

...Although, like three-quarters of Singapore, of Chinese origin, Lee comes from a wealthy family where English was spoken at home...

...Others disagree...

...There have been no complaints of excessively high prices paid to landowners of property to be developed—indeed, the complaints have been the other way...

...Despite the government's talk against the "hippie danger," one sees more long hair in Singapore than anywhere else in Asia, except perhaps Japan...

...In such areas the government's policies are largely unfaultable...

...Even the Soviet Union welcomed foreign investment during the twenties...

...The final thing one should note about Singapore's semi-free press is that by and large it has few of the features we associate with a controlled press...

...Communist strength among the overseas Chinese in Singapore rests on a mixture of ideology and Chinese nationalism...

...One can safely drink the water from Singapore taps—something that Soviet authorities advise the tourist is undesirable in their country...

...Fully half of the new industrial investment came from foreign sources, and the government attracted it with a series of tax incentives and other benefits...

...Meanwhile, a moderate left-wing opposition party, the People's Front, has recently formed under the leadership of Lui Boon Poh...

...Since 1964 the government has encouraged a scheme by which people can purchase their flats, and about one third are now owned by the people who live in them...

...Lee Kuan Yew and his People's Action party (PAP), whose admirers had once been restricted largely to a coterie of social democrats, in recent years have burst out as mini-superstars to Asia-watchers...

...The Herald irked the government from the very beginning, mostly for minor reasons...

...Singapore parents can choose to send their children to English, Chinese, Malay, or Tamil streams of instruction in school...

...While legal, the Barisan is harassed...

...Even Singapore's survival is an accomplishment: when the British announced the phaseout of their base in 1967, there was already serious unemployment—and the base was providing about 20 percent of the jobs in Singa pore...

...Public health standards are unbelievably high in Singapore, a difficult task considering the multitude of small-scale street stalls selling food and drink...

...It is severely restricted from holding demonstrations...

...At the beginning of the year it sent a memorandum to businessmen stating that "Long, dirty, scruffy hair is coming back...

...PAP knows what kind of investment it wants, COMMENTS AND OPINIONS and now that it can pick and choose, it is doing just that...

...Chairman Mao's Little Red Book cannot be sold in Singapore bookstores, but it can be legally reprinted in Barisan publications...

...Decisive action istherefore being taken to curb development ofthis unhealthy trend...