A tale of two Islands

It should be noted that two major world events occurred in 1959. One was the Marxist revolution and military coup d’etat on a tropical Island and the exodus of the elite. The other was the independence of another tropical island from its Colonial administrator of nearly 150 years.

The first, Cuba, went on to become an egalitarian, if shabby and paint-peeling Marxist society, which, 50 years later, remains (relatively) true to its revolutionary roots. Despite widespread poverty and occasional food shortages and failing infrastructure, Cuba has near universal literacy, fine health care, racial and cultural diversity and a ‘high’ level of overall happiness (index, citation).

The second tropical Island, Singapore, went on to develop into one of the wealthiest, and unequal, societies in the world. It is, fifty years after its independence from Britain, a tightly-managed, highly modern and developed financial and logistics hub with fine research universities. It has, like Cuba, high levels of adequate housing, healthcare, education, and overall happiness and contentment. The difference, however, is that the rich got richer – much richer – and Singapore today has the highest wealth gap in the world, according to some indices (citation). Unlike Cuba, Singapore must import huge percentages of foreign labor –both manual and elite –to sustain itself as it currently exists. The elite imported labor lives in expensive private housing with prices and amenities not unlike London or Manhattan (or Hong Kong).

The poor imported labor lives either in the worst and most ill-located State Housing (HDB) or in dormitories set up by their employer – temporary accommodation often with poor or no air conditioning and questionable cleanliness.

Two tropical islands, shaping their own destinies from 1959 to 2012. Yet evolved so differently.