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Singapore truly needs another human rights ‘naratif’
While Singapore’s ruling party has become more empathetic, it still has a long way to go in human rights until the city-state can become a “model democracy”.
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Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong waves as he leaves the Supreme Court of Singapore on July 1, 2015, after attending a defamation hearing against blogger Roy Ngerng. The Prime Minister sued Ngerng for damages in May 2014 after the blogger accused him of misusing public funds, a sensitive issue for officials in the city-state known for having the least corrupt government in Asia. (AFP/Mohd Fyrol)
R
eading the recent speech delivered by Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong for the 2021 National Day Rally, when major policy announcements are made, could be one of the best ways to understand the approach of the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) toward the greatest challenges faced by the city-state.
Lee spoke of a number of important proposals, from a new focus on assuring enhanced harmony among different ethnic groups to new ways to deal with discrimination and bias in the job market, as well as a further, progressive step-by-step tightening of work permits for expatriates earning high incomes.
The latter is a contentious subject that has created a certain degree of resentment among the general public that feels they are losing out to skilled foreigners.
Yet, Singapore will remain open to the world and continue to attract global talents, a recipe that, while generating frustration among locals, has also proved successful in positioning the city-state as a global trade and economic hub.
The overall impression is that the government there is becoming not more progressive per se, but certainly more emphatic and caring of society in such a way that, to some extent, the projections of Donald Low and Sudhir Thomas Vadaketh in their bold book, Hard Choices, Challenging the Singapore Consensus (2014), are coming true.
No doubt that some reckoning over its narrower election win last year has forced the PAP’s hands in becoming more human.
Then the pandemic certainly accelerated Singapore’s vision of becoming a semi-welfare nation. While it still has a long way to go to reach the Scandinavian model, there is no doubt that it has made progress.
