Singaporean Identity Under Oppression?

I had an interesting exchange with Prof because something struck me during his lecture on identity. He shared on resistance identity and how it is described to be the excluded excluding the excluder. I believe that it does not necessarily just have to be the excluded but like his previous point, being under oppression. And before I asked the question above, I asked if he would consider Singapore’s opposition parties in this category. After discussing for some time, his conclusion was that the identity of the opposition is not being forged strong enough.

Firstly, we have to see that the society that we have become is one that is absolutely pragmatic and this I personally believe is the work of the government. Majority of the citizens choose the government based on what benefits or rewards they have to gain from their choice. Much of these are seen in what the government has already brought them. For example, the current government can boast about winning the bid for the Youth Olympics, bringing the F1 to Singapore, etc. However, because the opposition parties have not been in power, they have no grounds as such to win over the citizens.

This brings me to the next point about the entry of opposition parties. In my opinion, the current government has very intelligently adopted the ‘blue ocean strategy’ (to find out more about this, you can visit http://www.blueoceanstrategy.com although I don’t really know whether they had purposely took it from here) whereby competition is made irrelevant. There is no point of entry whereby opposition parties can come in. As one student puts it, opposition parties are either assimilated or systematically removed. Coming back to the pragmatism of the society, most citizens would rather choose a system that is tried and tested rather than giving it one who has little or no experience because it would directly affect their lives. It is not even giving them a chance not to mention allowing them to fail and learn.

The last point, and the most crucial if I may add, is the influence of the government in many important areas affecting the lives of its citizens. One of the most prominent would be the media – from newspapers to television to advertisements at the bus stops, etc. The recent article on JBJ’s death received bitter comments from readers on the editorialisation and it really opened my eyes to view the papers in a different light. In fact, the newspaper has also mostly talked about the negative things in other countries so that the positive things of our country are outstanding. The not-so-good things of our country are not brought to light and even if they are, the words used are carefully chosen so that the situation would not seem as bad as it is or the truth may be compromised. To me, half-truths are as good as lies. Another area would be the education system in Singapore. It would be unfair to say that I have not benefitted from the system in Singapore. However, I have come to realise that the subjects which are made compulsory to study (e.g. social studies) could actually be ways in which the government seek to bring up its name and make people feel that they just owe their votes to them.

Finally, why would I say that the Singaporean identity is under oppression? First and foremost, we need to ask ourselves, who should be the one to forge this identity? If it is the people, is it the case now? With the government so much influencing key areas, are we who we are because of who we really are or is it because of what the government want us to be so that they can remain where they are? I hope this barrage of questions will at least spark off something inside us to start questioning our situation in Singapore.