You really need to get over this weird thing about demonstrations holding up the traffic.
It’s a total non-issue built up by the propaganda machines in autocratic countries in order to make freedom seem scary.
Berliners love to protest. They do it all the time. But it has a negligible effect on daily life here to the point of insignificance. As a price to pay for the freedom of expression, it’s nothing.
As for crime, that’s a more complex issue, but the kind of street crime that you fear is mostly driven by poverty. It doesn’t happen nearly as much in affluent areas, and it isn’t committed by wealthy people. The problem is not democracy, the problem is inequality.
Again, this issue is exaggerated by dictatorships in order to justify their repression. I feel completely safe in the city I live in and so do my female friends. I appreciate that this is not the case everywhere and for everyone, but it’s not anything like the way it’s painted.
Anecdotally, I taught some Chinese exchange students a couple of years ago who were planning to visit some countries in Europe. I was giving them some tips on where to go, but all they wanted to know was whether each place was dangerous. They even thought that Oslo was a hotbed of crime. They had been filled with scare stories and it was really hard to calm them down. It was sad and ridiculous.
That is what I meant by difference in our beliefs. And with all due respect, you guys can do what your society allows you to do, I be happy with with mine. I just aspire for a different kind of freedom, freedom of protest, whenever, whatever, is not one of them.
EDIT: btw we are allowed to protest, just not in the way that the West is used to and would seem like idiocy to them. But I prefer the way that the late Lee Kuan Yew adopted when the pilots of Singapore Airlines threatened to go on strike. Continue with your work and get your representatives to sit at the table and talk. It is not perfect but it works pretty well. So I think we need to get over the idea that only protesting in the way that the West vision it to be works. It might work in your society, it does not necessarily work everywhere else.
I agree with this btw. One of the basic rights in a democracy is that the citizens have the right to protest.
Other People might agree or disagree with the protests but thats what democracy is.
Does it mean democracy is perfect , nope. Its only as good as the people who choose the leaders. If they elect someone like Trump , Modi , Biden , Erdogan …
…so be it.
It is not and honestly I don’t think we really care about such labels. Singapore is just a very practical country. We are very pro rule based. It has the benefit of just being a young 57 year old country. We have no culture of our own in the sense, we are a hotpot of different cultures and for good or bad, that has worked in our advantage because we are focused on doing what benefits us, labels of democracy or socialist or whatever, will not work for us. We are not stupid, we know what the world criticised us for, the death penalty, the seemingly trivial bans on things like gums etc…, but honestly, we don’t really care, because we know what we want and what we bring to the rest of the region and the world. In a way, we are strange, because we are like China and not really like China, we are like the West and not really like the West, and that is why I am so happy to be here. I used to think I would like to move elsewhere one day but the more I travelled for work or leisure, the more I love Singapore.
Congratulations on swallowing the Singaporean government’s propaganda hook, line, and sinker. There is no form of protest in Singapore that can achieve any meaningful change. That whole bullshit about the pilots ignores the fact that it surrenders all the power to businesses. What did the pilots get in the end? Nothing.
It doesn’t work “pretty well”. The main reason for Singapore’s success all these years is not Lee Kuan Yew and his bullshit. It’s the fact that Singapore is a politically stable tax haven that companies can use to base themselves to access the wider Asia-Pacific region. That’s all. The whole idol worship of an autocratic leader whose main claim to success was recognising that the main way to stay in power successfully is to ensure that people get their basic needs taken care of. If Singapore ever suffered wider supply chain issues threatening this, they would be toast.
Sure. And what does not agree is propaganda. It’s almost like there is only one way or the highway. As I said, I respect the way you all see life. I see Singapore’s way of governance the best balance for me because I neither want the West nor China’s ways.
If your local government decide to build a highway through your house, or they close down your place of work, or they ban certain religions, wouldn’t you want the freedom to protest?
Your idea of a bipolar (!) world, with democracy in one half and autocracy in the other would be unworkable, because autocracies can’t coexist with freedom as it is a threat to their power. This is exactly what has happened in the Ukraine. Russia can’t allow Ukraine to be free because its own citizens might start wanting freedom too.
I would want to but as I mentioned, now necessarily in the way that you would envision a protest to be. But before that, I would firstly acknowledge that governments behave differently and for me, in Singapore, while the government here has much to do to ensure they catch up with new trends, new concerns and needs and ways to engage with the people, it has done pretty much to ensure that we as a country remain competitive. Its not perfect, life is not perfectly rosy, I am still unemployed ever since I was retrenched in Nov 2020. But on the whole I still think the government has done well and my disagreement for protests the way you all see it is not that I don’t think you all should not do it, its that I don’t think it is suitable for us in Singapore. While a crippling of one street in the West is all but just one street in one city, crippling a main road in a city state like Singapore is crippling the whole economy and that is why I personally believe that sitting down at a table to talk is better for us. Singapore is a very practical country, people come and people leave, the government is not going to yield to threats of strikes but more and more, they have shown a willingness to listen and make changes because they know, unlike the 80s, the generation of today is no longer just going to lie down and listen, so yes its the government’s onus to ensure that our current way of life and behaviour remain. And it is in their interest to ensure that we never see protests on the streets because of those situations you mentioned.
And I can understand why you say that and that is why I think Singapore is a strange one. You cannot say that we are living under a dictator. We have freedom, alot of it, just not as much as what the West has. But some parts of us are like China, we have only one ruling party since our independence, and we have some very strict rules. I really like to attribute this strange and unique hybrid of governance to a practical need to progress for the sake of better lives for the people and that because we are all of different cultures and beliefs, our country has no baggage of one domineering culture historically but really everyone working together for a very practical future.
I think you underestimate the damage done by such protests outside of Singapore. But that is entirely the point, about citizens having the power to have a say in their government.