What makes a country a home? Is it emotional ties or pure economic self-interest?
Linda Lim posed this question in a Straits Times article published June 19 and it has lingered in my mind ever since, particularly at the Kent Ridge Ministerial Forum held Aug. 31 at the NUS Theatrette.
Singapore’s manpower minister, Ng Eng Hen was the minister in attendance as he suggested how the Singapore graduate can “stand tall in a shrinking world”. He talked about the perceived strengths and weaknesses of the Singapore graduate and suggested we have to improve if we were to take advantage of future opportunities in an increasingly globalised world.
It all sounded so familiar. Ng cached his argument in an unmistakable economic paradigm that has come to characterize the PAP government. But should the only logic that prevails on most occasions be economic in a home? While it is important to embrace this global human flow, is Singapore embracing this at the risk of alienating Singaporeans?
In her article, Lim, who is professor of strategy at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business and director of the Centre for South-east Asian Studies at the University of Michigan, contended that Singapore’s economic development “never depended on its being a nation.”
The Singaporean economics-trained academic pointed to how the government “did not actively nurture or encourage a local capitalist class” that might result in a “national champion outfit like Toyota, Samsung or Acer” being developed. “Instead, Singapore has always been a ‘global city’ – a place where parts and people are imported to produce goods and services that are exported to foreign consumers,” said Lim.
“It is not market actors but the state that targets particular niches in global value chains, filling them overwhelmingly with subsidiaries of foreign enterprises.”
She raised other examples of the government’s “place over nation” economic policies, but more importantly, she contended while embracing the global flow of talent vis-à-vis the foreign talent policy makes sense economically, it may be a problem politically and socially.
“The nation, after all, is a political entity, and its ability to survive as such is already undermined in an era when globalisation allows economic survival and prosperity to occur with the bypassing of the national authorities in an increasingly ‘borderless’ world,” she said. “Today, in Singapore, place and nation increasingly do not coincide: Many of those in the place are not of the nation, and many of the nation are not to be found in the place.”
One such thing of the place is arguably the decision to adopt English as the working language in Singapore. “We made the critical decision to make English our working language because for Singapore to grow, we decided to increase the mobility of Singaporeans,” said Ng.
But Lim points out this increased mobility, when coupled with shared values “pared to emphasize only social stability and material prosperity,” has inculcated a “highest bidder mentality” which can only backfire on Singapore in an increasingly globalized arena.
Ng acknowledged that there is a “tradeoff” and a “difficult problem that requires soft solutions,” adding “we must find other anchors” as he addressed the problem of “not having enough Singaporeans to stay and improve the system.”
It would be interesting to see how the PAP government locates these anchors in the near future. After all, there has to be a limit to the amount of financial and material benefits they can dangle. Because, just as Lim pointed out, if a person chooses to become a member of a nation just because it gives him a good job and lifestyle, then it would make sense if he leaves it for another place which can offer him superior conditions and opportunities.
This applies not just for Singaporeans, but also for the foreign talent that the PAP government is so eager to attract.
Because at the end of the day, it does not take a Cambridge-trained economist to tell you that a home, as we know it, is characterized by unconditional parental love for their children, care and concern shown among family members, among a whole host of other non-tangible elements.
The greater problem that Singapore faces is not the threat posed by emergent nations like India and China. It is actually rootless Singaporeans, naturalized or otherwise, who do not see the point of staying in Singapore at all.
I wrote this for The Campus Observer almost three years ago, in our very first semester of operation. It was subsequently picked up by the GCE Singapore-Cambridge Examination Board and appeared as source material in the ‘O’ Level Social Studies exam of Nov./Dec. 2008. As I work on a fresh response to how members of the PAP establishment, including a raw appearance by Lee Kuan Yew, were so quick to bury Viswa Sadasivan’s first speech in the Singapore Parliament last week, I thought this would make for a rather timely re-read of this essay.