PainRack wrote:And? The fact remains that in the midst of economic/political uncertainty, they developed a set of pirorities and delivered on that. Arguing about nurturing a thinking society is misleading. At that point in time, and again, in tandem with other nations, the focus in the education systems was on industrial education. America itself followed a similar trend, although it took its current trend into the "liberal arts degree" following.
How misleading is it? As it is, the quality of education wasn't stellar back in those days, and not enough was done to keep students in school, especially the poor ones. A lot of the current social problems stem from the fact that many up to the 80s did not have education beyond secondary school level and only a few made it far into the university. As for America, it strived from the start to catch up with the European universities as far back as the 1800s with many universities popping up here and there. It took a century to finally catch up, but despite that, many of the revolutions in engineering such as electricity and aerospace all have American roots. By World War II, America was equal, if not better, to just about any European power.
You're wrong. The PAP engaged on the most comprehensive social engineering programme in history, ever. The only comparable programme would be the Cultural Revolution and Ten Flowers social engineering found in China.
You're living in the land of a thousand campaign, with reverbations from even most basic policies such as how anti-racism policies leads on to housing allocation in public housing. Anti spitting laws amidst a background of public hygiene? Ditto. Hell, let's not forget the most basic of all movements. A change from rural Singapore towards industrialised, URBAN singapore. Its only 4 decades ago that most of Singapore was still raw jungle. By 1980s, this had changed to the extent that in 1988, over 95% of Singapore was urbanised. Adopting British housing estates policies led the charge towards massive social change when people lived in flats instead of kampungs. Social activities and the fabric of society........ not to mention, extending education to girls...............
If you mean developing a culture of fear and a rather progressive society, I will concede that. But developing a culture of innovation did not feature on that list. Rather, they decided to just raise a country of factory workers, and kept following that path till the shit hit the fan in 1997 and 2001 when the manufacturing sector imploded. Any attempt at innovation or research was a joke, not least NUS and NTU's nonsensical and stupid attempt to publish papers on banana paper and making research a joke in Singapore. The leap into biotech is almost too little too late and it will take decades and tonnes of money to catch up, assuming the bureaucrats have that much patience.
You mistook the cause. Certainly, benefits along those fronts fostered political benefits that allowed the PAP to continue its lock on power, however, the lack of political and vocal opposition was in fact due to the drastic social engineering programmes launched by the PAP, ranging from anti-segration and anti-racism laws crushing the local Chinese and Malay communities, the integration of local unions into NTUC so that the PAP can enjoy its traditional support from the unions, the attacks on gangsterism with locks on martial artist societies, local clubs and organisations...... Even the traditional Straits Businessmen saw its power morph and erode as new communities and acceptance of MNCs, globalisation stepped in. You're simply way too young to remember the furore over NanTah and its morphing into NTU. Or to remember how the local chinese political organisations, chinese schools were similarly dismembered after the Hock Lee bus riots.
And how does this relate to the lack of a vocal society? Destroying power structures relate to a vocal society how?
You obviously never studied history. The CMP has already moved its roots back into urban infiltration and rioting by the late 50s, before the Malayan Emergency died out. Were they such a great threat? This ignores the anti-communist context of international politics of that era, as well as the infamous fifth column fear of both Soviet Russia and Communist China. Singapore in its early days was viewed by its British and Commonwealth partners as being most likely to fall under Communist influence, with a British leader mentioning that a new China would be founded in Singapore.
As some of the other board members, such as Stas Bush and Stuart will tell you, the jostling between Communist Russia and the West is simply another tangle between the Great Powers than anything else. What simply happened was the PAP chose for us to stick with the British rather than choose the other Power to side with. Under that context, it is simply put "You are with me or against me." A threat? Between the Indonesians, which actually infiltrated commandos and bombed buildings, the Barisan Socialist party is a toothless tiger. Heck, they are practically only as bad as UMNO who infiltrated Singapore and stirred up race riots. I would like to see the PAP dare to lock up any UMNO sympathizers. If Barisan Socialist party were instead in power, the PAP would have viewed as an attempt by the British to seize power in Singapore and the positions would have been reversed. Why, by your argument, we should have had LKY locked up for colluding with the enemy. Have you considered that the history was written by the victors? You are mistaking righteousness for ambition.
So, while their power had greatly declined after the Emergency, the real threat lay in international politics and how it could affect Singapore. In our need to bind to allies, we had to embrace anti-communism. The fact that it only enhanced the power of the local government was a welcome bonus.
And yet, for all the so-called enhancement of power, the PAP still saw fit to lock up some of them for 30 years, refused entry to any of the exiles, or even allow books by them to be published. Even going so far as locking up and exiling 20 or so social activists under the ISA in the 1980s accusing them of communism. You are a supporter of George W Bush are you?
Right... Which part of the internet have you been lurking in BTW? You badly mistake the power of the Young. Or well, middle aged Young:D
As it is, I'm still very happy over the success of AWARE for finally extending the powers of rape laws to spouses. True, repeal 277a failed last year, but the practical victory of the above earlier is still wonderful. Similarly, environmental movements has also enjoyed success, although conservation efforts are still mostly half-formed.(Changi Prison anyone?)
For what fuck does this even fucking even matter anything on the scale of things? While grasping lose crumbs, till this damn day, accountability and transparency of the Government are nonexistent. If apparently, aiming low is a trait of most Singaporeans, it is no wonder the Government is seeking the influx of PRCs and Indians and liberally giving them PRs.
