We went to see The King’s Speech last weekend (excellent, and with a fun audience that laughed at the jokes), and in the interminable round of advertisements before the movie began, pride of place (just before the movie itself) was given to the Singapore My Home music video. This is a full-on production with all the local artistes [sic] they could locate, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, fireworks and lots of shots of the city at night. Plus a URL that would link you to the full 6-minute version should you desire to watch it on your IPhone. Ugh – yucky combo of orchestral swooping, the most drearily melismatic R&B vocals, plus hip hop. Why?
Because nobody wants to live here!
Singaporeans all go overseas for training, education, or vacations, and often stay there. Foreign experts leave after a few years. Why do they want to leave a country that has weathered the world recession really well, has smooth streets, terrific public sports facilities and water parks, great cheap public transit, and cheap and delicious food? Why is it necessary for the PR arm of the government to protest so much that Singapore is our home, no matter where we may roam? Why are there locally produced programs about how much Singaporeans abroad miss their home?
I think it’s a combination of two things: common perception that the government really benefits a small group of families vastly more than the public at large, and a lack of anything local people can really attach to. Singaporeans I know all regard public policies and politicians with an extremely jaded eye, despite this being the cleanest, most honest government in Asia – perhaps a hangover from decades of persistent government spying on its citizens, perhaps from the discrepancy between the Prime Minister’s salary ($3 million Sing dollars) and that of a taxi driver ($36 thousand Sing dollars), perhaps because they’re so close to the thinly veiled kleptocracies in the region that the jaded views of government has bled from Indonesia, Myanmar and Malaysia into Singapore society. But also I think from the lack of anything natural in Singapore that one can cling to as a national symbol.
Australia has the Great Barrier Reef and Uluru; the U.S. has a great heritage of national parks and extraordinary natural beauty that Americans can think of as their own; Parisians have the Seine and various Europeans share the Alps. Singapore is reclaimed from the swamps, and meticulously managed to avoid reverting to them. Can you build a national self-image around water management and dengue fever abatement? No – or at least they’re not trying to. Instead, the tedious mishmash of Singapore My Home refers to the one feature you can identify as historically important to Singapore, the river downtown. It shows up in the song’s refrain as “the river that gives us life.” Well, the Nile or Mississippi it ain’t, folks. The Singapore River has been channeled into a concrete conduit that runs through the main tourist part of town, and while it’s been cleanup up considerably, it doesn’t look exactly life-giving. Brown and sluggish with plastic bags floating in it, it’s not inviting for swimmers; nor are its banks in any way conducive to peaceful picnicking. Nobody but the very wealthy can afford the apartments near it. It’s not the home of fish, birds, plants, or of the people the government is trying to woo.
In a way it’s heartening that the propaganda arm of the government is so ham-fisted; their ineptness shows a much less cynical approach to manipulating the national mood than Goebbels, which we must all agree is a good thing.

February 24th, 2011 | Category: Entertainment, public policy, Uncategorized | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL