Monday, 19th November
Singapore
It has
been a while since I have written personal thoughts, having begun my interviews
and become lost in a flurry of academia.
The
monsoon enters its third week. Today was the first day without rain since, it
feels like, I got back from Australia. The rain is both refreshing and
oppressive; I have always liked rain, growing up I loved the afternoon
thunderstorms of North Carolina. I loved disappearing into coffee shops and
book places in England during the rain and drizzle, a chance I (and everyone)
has often.
This
equatorial, tropical rain is more persistent than any I have encountered. There
is no escape from it; it even seems to wet the insides of a room, somehow. The
drops are fat enough to measure with a spoon.
The air
is tolerable because of the daily rain, and that helps. The sun is not one’s
friend here. But still, outdoor activity becomes difficult with the daily
deluge. So, in either rain or sun, Singapore is a difficult place to be, if not
on a veranda with a breeze or fan, or in an air conditioned room.
**
The rain
adds to the creeping… heaviness of life here. I am now nearly three months into
my time here, and have dug past a few of the surface layers. I am starting to
feel like I live in Singapore, and only by feeling that way, am I starting to
feel that I am living in Singapore’s authoritarian system, its heavy,
oppressive, strong handed system. It does not creep into one’s head after a few
days, but only after several weeks or months. The policeman in my head warns me
against strange or offensive behaviour, not that I was planning any.
Singapore
gets into you, you begin to internalize it.
Perhaps
the initial interviews and my walk through Bukit Brown, which combined, have
had a very chilling effect. The impact of seeing the 4000 graves being exhumed
and then not one but two very candid, critical interviews, not entirely
optimistic on their views of the city-state or the future, have left me
noticing things with (yet another) fresh pair of eyes.
The
Straits Times, for example, which at first seems like your everyday mainstream,
centrist national paper (like USA Today, the Times of London, etc), now looks
more and more like political propaganda. There is a formula, people say, and
now I notice things I didn’t before. All well in Singapore; all fucked in the
rest of the world. And on page 3, a man won a prize for his garden. On page 4,
a girl lost her scholarship for drugs.
**
I won’t
go into my interviews, since they will have been transcribed and explored in my
PhD text. What I came away with, so far, were two people with differing levels
of criticism on the Singapore State. One was a Singaporean, battle-scarred but
still fighting for equality and human rights, perhaps a believer in slow
liberalisation and having lived through the 1960s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and 2000s,
with the hindsight, foresight, and patience of a veteran. The other interviewee
was British, having arrived within the past decade. He seems to have made a
life for himself here with his family and hopes to get permanent residency, and
yet had nothing but scathing, troubling views on the City-State. My question,
which I didn’t ask but should have, is why he stays, why he subjects his wife
and young child to this society, if it is so bad? He also claims to have
‘fallen in love’ with aspects of Singapore – the ability not to have to worry
about things, to not have to be guarded as one would be in London or Dallas.
Perhaps just knowing that you are being looked after, and that there is a
policeman in your head, is comforting somehow.
I read
the paper today. There is a serious debate going on, seemingly involving
several notable academics, about ‘the maid problem’. Not so much how they are
mistreated (they are) and underpaid, denied a day off and other basic human amenities;
but rather about how Singapore will face a shortage of maids in coming years.
(Since maids from ‘dependable’ Philippines and Indonesia will go to other
places, where they are treated better and have higher wages).
What
made me balk was not so much that there was a serious discussion in the
newspaper about the prospect of a maid shortage, but that the solution to this
problem seemed (according to consensus), to be to simply take small steps to
fill the shortage, such as allowing some maids to live outside their employers
homes, encourage more Singaporeans to be maids, and encouraging maids to come
from other countries (such as Thailand or Cambodia).
What is
truly shocking, though perhaps shouldn’t be, was that this was even being
discussed at all, but more importantly, that maids don’t seem to be thought of
as people who deserve a minimum wage, a weekend, and the whole host of other
protections and rights they are guaranteed in other countries (including many
in Asia, such as Hong Kong). Not that being
a maid is ever a glamorous job, picking up 13 year olds shit-stained clothes
and mopping a bathroom floor. Moreover, is there the capability for a
discussion here about whether so many maids are necessary? Can people clean
their own rooms? Would Singapore be a healthier, more dynamic society, if more
children were not raised by maids, more fathers cleaned the house?
**
Another
perpetual ‘problem’ for discussion here is the ‘drug problem’, which, if you
believed the paper, is tearing apart Singaporean society. I have yet to see a
junkie walking around or someone that I encounter that seems to be high on
anything, except maybe cold and flu medicine or coffee.
Not only
are drug-peddlers sentenced to death or (at minimum) life in prison (if they name
names); drug users are also treated as criminals and punished severely. What is
viewed as ‘rehabilitation’ here, for example, for a teenage-female heroin
addict, is 12 months in basically solitary confinement. Young girl, saved from
drugs, recounts her time with 2 bars of soap per month and just a squat for a
toilet, which she had to clean by hand. The newspaper warns, it boasts, it
chides. Never is there a discussion that maybe drug addicts are deserving of at
least some modicum of human treatment, access to help rather than punishment.
Here
too, Singapore differs from the leading ‘creative’ cities in the world, which
are increasingly taking progressive stances toward drug users; Vancouver has
realized that rather than try to social engineer heroin use out of the
population (of which the Indigenous Canadian population is particularly
hard-hit), drug users will at least have access to clean and sanitary
facilities and methodone will be given to attempt to mediate and ameliorate the
problem. Drug use has never been ‘erased’ from cities; cities can make things
better, at best. Colorado voted this month to legalize marijuana.
And
finally, the academy itself. Thus far and even more than a month in, I assumed
that the National University, with its accolades, partnerships, and rankings,
was somewhat insulated from the larger system – more connected to the ivory
towers of the Ivy League and the Russell Group than to the People’s Action Party.
I assumed,
in particular, that the Geography Department, which possibly produces as a
cohort the most critical papers on topics such as spatial justice and human
rights – would be an even more insulated group within the academy.
While
this is somewhat true, I am realizing that nowhere here is insulated from the
government or the ideology, and I learned this from a personal discussion with
one of the senior faculty members in my field who is also a university
administrator. Highly regarded, well-travelled, and Cambridge educated.
She sounded
like an automaton, hardly any different than the type of surface politeness cum
wariness one might get from a civil servant or a waitress here. She seemed
especially off-put with the topic of a gay-rights group I am interviewing
(People Like Us). She seemed puzzled as to why they were part of my research,
and managed to say, “Aren’t they -, um, a different kind – of – advocacy group?”
The subtle ways that Singaporeans code-switch, channel you away from certain
topics. A sensitive issue indeed, given the imminent opening of Yale / NUS
college and the hesitation of Yale Faculty to associate with a university which
will not openly promote alternative lifestyles in any way. Despite what is
said, and despite what is agreed, I am at this juncture doubting that Yale /
NUS will give rise to any sort of liberalization, any sort of ‘chipping away at
the stone’ that is Singapore’s rigid value set. Not unless Yale and NUS faculty
implicitly support and encourage it, which, from my observations and
discussions thus far, does not look likely.
19
year-olds aren’t the bravest in the world, not these days anyway. Especially
when there is a policeman inside their heads, warning them not to cause
trouble.
Perhaps my
forthcoming interviews will shed a different, more optimistic light, and what I
feel in my heart will be proven wrong. I am open to this. I know that there are
ways in which Singapore works and also ways in which it is easy to like, easy to
even fall in love. There is a reason there are tens of thousands of
highly-educated expatriates here. Neil Humphreys, the author, called Singapore
his ‘girlfriend’ that he can’t get out of his heart. Hugh, (the British expat) I interviewed, though he
called Singapore “Nazism without the anti-Semitism” (and there may be a fair
amount of anti-Semitism), has chosen to remain here with his family, even
saying that he would encourage his son to do National Service, the true sign of
commitment to the state. He can say in the same sentence, however that 11 year
olds kill themselves every year because their test results are poor.
I don’t think he quite has figured out how to
reckon with this place, or his decision to come here.He seemed almost agitated and stressed after talking to me. Perhaps the tropical calm of his garden, swimming pool, and comfortable lifestyle assuage the anxiety, ease the doubts, act as an opiate. Perhaps there was something worse for him in London, worse than a heavy-handed government in a tropical city. Perhaps there is some joy in knowing that he is different, other, can always return to England. Perhaps there is something exotic, naughty, slightly dangerous about being here. Or, perhaps, Singapore is no more rigid, controlling than anywhere else. At least it is open about it. Guantanamo Bay is still open, and London films you hundreds of times per day, can tap your phone or internet account at will.
Nazi
Germany was also seductive, and had a certain allure, attracting authors and
great minds. I am not ready to compare Singapore to a fascist state, at least
not that kind of fascism. Nor am I ready to make a blanket, black and white
verdict – I don’t think that’s possible, and cities are too puzzling to
describe without nuance and circumspection.
But
every day, I feel the heaviness creeping in. And wake up with the policeman in
my head. Is it fear? Anxiety?
From
Singapore,
JDL
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