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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 37, Number 5. 3rd April 1974

1984

1984

In referring to Singapore's highly creditable growth in GNP during the last few years, George cites Ian Buchanan's first ever Marxist analysis of Singapore's economy situation in his book 'Singapore in South East Asia'. The thesis quite simply showed that the kind of prosperity Singapore had achieved was strictly within colonial terms of reference, leaving the exploitative character and the serious imbalances in the economic system basically untouched. Buchanan referred to Sinagpore as 'a colonial metropolis' and as a corollary 'the Singapore leadership has to impose a certain political form on the island state.... the establishment of a garrison state in which it is considered essential to regiment society and for the PAP to assume an authoritarian stance in domestic politics.'

The spectacular achievements of the PAP in providing cheap housing flats for a large number of the population were also, as George points out, a means of providing the government the means of destroying the slums which had been breeding grounds of political dissatisfaction. In this regard George cites an Economist report on a British businessman who was quoted as saying that the Toa Payoh (one of Singapore's biggest housing estates) was '1984 in concrete steel'.

Perhaps the most revealing chapter of the politics of Singapore is the one titled 'Strategy for Repression'. The author asserts that 'the rapidity of Singapore's apparent progress was matched equally by parallel developments in the political organisation of society' and Singapore was soon to become one of the most shining examples of 'capitalist totalitarianism' as opposed to communist totalitarianism. There was a time when Lee was the champion of the students in London, a nationalist, a champion of the workers rights, an advocate of popular causes etc. Things changed drastically however when Lee came into power. Some extracts from his speeches may prove particularly illuminating:

Speaking in London in 1 962, 'At a time when you want harder work with less return and more capital investment, one man one vote produces just the opposite.'

'Government to be effective must at least give the impression of enduring, and a government which is open to the vagaries of the ballot box when the people who put their crosses in the ballot boxes are not illiterate but semi-literate, which is worse, is a government which is already weakened before it starts to govern.... If I were in authority in Singapore indefinitely without having to ask those who are being governed whether they like what is being done, then I have not the slightest doubt that I could govern much more effectively in their own interests. This is a fact which the educated understand but we are all caught up in this system which the British export ail over the place hoping that somewhere it will take root.'

And perhaps, even more startling, 'We have over a hundred political detainees, men against whom we are unable to place even an iota of evidence,' but as George cites, Lee claimed their detention was necessary to maintain normal standards of society.