Internalised Self Governance

Yesterday had long talk with Br, a fellow classmate who is 40 but dun look anything older than 35. Our long conversation after the group study is intense, touching on various stuff about the Singapore society. The conversation end on something we observed recently.

I always believed the HDB public housing program is a highly political move, while providing the citizen the much needed housing, it also gives the citizen the purpose to work really hard. So hard that you are a slave to your flat, depriving you of any time and energy to think beyond the basic need of having a roof over your head. With that in place, the government is saved from the troubles of a restless society. At the same time, you are almost constantly rooted to the country because your assets are locked physically.

The policy obviously paid off and with the years of strict parenting from the government, the fixed and much simplified (wash down) understanding of the world is drilled into majority of Singaporeans. A perfect formula to ensure constant progress for this small and almost forgetable island state.

Slowly, this style of governance has been internalised by most Singaporeans and much of it define morality. Anything is immoral because the government said so or the law stated so. It transform into a form of self check and censorship, if you talk to most Singaporeans, they will tell you something cannot be done because it will cause trouble, when probed further, they will tell you that noone except themselve said so. when nothing in black and white said so well. Trust me, this form of self censorship prevails in the gay community as well.

This long established 'rule' obviously runs into problem lately when MM Lee started the whole talk about removing 377A. It contrast too much from what was embedded in most Singaporeans' mind. Honestly, the sudden change was all about the vibrancy and economy of the nation, according to one professor I spoke to lately. In short pink dollars again. The media is now caught in between and the whole talking from the government started to sound incoherent.

Well, it looks like the generation of Singaporeans that the new PM is dealing with, will be a socially divided one. One that believed practically everything they have been brainwashed with and the other one that PAP is trying to educate with the new ideas and values but are already better informed. Imagine, two sets of kids with two different set of values, the parenting is going very wrong.