Filed under: SDP
By the Singapore Democrats
06 Jan 2011
In his bluster in the Foreign Affairs magazine in 1994, Mr Lee Kuan Yew said: “The expansion of the right of the individual to behave or misbehave as he pleases has come at the expense of orderly society. In the East the main object is to have a well-ordered society…”
If Mr Lee’s main object is to achieve a well-ordered society, he has missed it by a mile. For starters, streaking – a fad normally reserved for decadent societies in the West that Mr Lee excoriates – seems to be catching on in Singapore. A couple flashes buck naked at patrons of a kopitiam at Holland Village, a guy walks into a MacDonald’s joint in his favourite skin, and a lady disrobes at a bus-stop and boards a bus in her full glory.
Another lady, a 19-year-old, had a little bit more class. She chose Fullerton Hotel for her act. She climbed on to a lamp. In her buff. On the second floor balcony. After scrambling past five rooms.
These weren’t one-off shows. In 2010, there were 105 reports of indecent exposure in Singapore in the first half of the year – that’s one strip act every two days. Public nudity cases went up by 22 percent between 2009 and 2007.
And what is a well-ordered society without an altercation or two? Spats between ordinary folks on our buses are a common occurence.
If this is a well-ordered society, we shudder to think of what a crazy one looks like.
All this is not just harmless expressions of frustration. In Part 1, we pointed out the explosion of crime and vice in Singapore.
One really can’t type fast enough to keep up with reports of violence. Before we could post this piece another murder took place last night, this time at Bukit Batok. A 29-year-old man was found dead – in a church compound – with bruises on his face and a shirt soaked in blood.
The pastor of the church said: “We seem to be hearing of quite a number of incidents of violence in our society.”
The worst part is that it is rubbing off on our children – yes, children. Gang fights involving eight-year-olds (that’s a boy in primary two for easier reference) and violent robberies by kids in their early teens seem to be the norm. (See here)
And girls? In the first half of 2009, there was a 70 percent increase in prosecutions of statutory rape (sex with underaged girls). And these are just the cases that get reported to the authorities. One 12-year-old girl was found to have had sex with 15 men.
Confucius confounded
What happened to our Confucianist culture that Mr Lee was such a fan of, the one that prides itself on communitarian values and high moral standards? Yes, the very same one that decries and rejects democratic values.
“We focus on the basics in Singapore,” Mr Lee wagged his finger. “We used the family to push economic growth…”
Apparently not anymore. Casinos, it appears, is the way forward nowadays. Family, shmamily. Easy Street, fast money is the new mantra.
But what about vice and crime that come with casinos? Mr Lee’s son, the prime minister, concedes that casinos bring “undesirable activities” but then comes to his senses: “We had no choice.”
No choice? You mean we have no choice but to see our sons kill each other in gang fights, our underaged daughters have sex with older men, our youths parade themselves naked in public, our uncles and aunties engage in fisticuffs, our rich turn to drugs, and our poor to suicide?
We pay him $3.8 million to tell us we have no choice but to tear our society apart?
Anything but democracy
We hope that it is clear by now that social ills don’t come about because we have political freedom. We still live under a very authoritarian regime, and yet our social problems are only increasing.
The truth is that democracy and political freedom do not cause crime and vice. Rather it is the blind pursuit of wealth by the elite at the expense of the rest of society that is fueling a breakdown in order. Social breakdown comes about when a ruling party is left unchecked. Its excesses perpetuate income disparity and places an unbearable strain on society. The result is a degeneration in social order.
In fact it is in democratic societies (and they are not confined to the West) that the people can balance misguided government policies through open debate and elections, and exert an ethical influence over public policy.
The irony is that the PAP has copied all the undesirable traits of crass consumerism and corporate greed from the West while eliminating the moderating influence of an open and democratic system. Singaporeans must understand the democracy is not a Western value. It is a practice that allows the governed to prevent the government from bringing a country to ruin.
The PAP will tolerate and allow anything – even social ills. But it will not allow democracy because social ills do not affect members of the ruling elite. Democracy does.
No comments:
Post a Comment