Singapore Lightens Up
Nanny state? Hardly. Once notorious for tight government control, the city-state is getting competitive, creative, even funky
By TERRY McCARTHY with ERIC ELLIS Singapore
Sex, disease, controversy. It all came together--in Singapore!--during The Necessary Stage's stunning theater production in May of Completely With/Out Character. In an arresting one-man performance, former airline steward Paddy Chew spoke about his real-life trauma of living with aids in a society that frowns on "alternative" life-styles like his. At one point in the play, which included a free-form question-and-answer session with the audience, Chew removed his clothes, revealing a disturbingly emaciated body. And as theatergoers grappled with Chew's disquieting story, a live Internet chat-room discussion was projected on the stage backdrop. Online participants openly debated Singaporean issues: politics, race, religion. "The audience was shocked and delighted," says Alvin Tan, the theater's artistic director. Most shocking of all: George Yeo, Singapore's Minister of Information and the Arts, says the government never considered banning or even censoring the performance. "It didn't even cross my desk," he says.
Can this really be Singapore? The "nanny state" that has banned the sale of chewing gum and racy women's magazines? The country that liked to regulate how often you flushed the toilet? Without a lot of fanfare, Asia's small corner of conservatism is loosening up, transforming society in ways that until recently seemed impossible. True, the official press remains straightjacketed, and open challenges to the ruling party aren't tolerated. But in many areas the doors have been flung open, and new voices are being heard. In the economic sphere, Singapore responded to the two-year-old Asian financial crisis by improving corporate transparency and tolerating greater foreign control of local companies and banks. Culturally, Singapore is permitting artists to stage a range of socially and politically controversial performances. The club scene is wild and getting wilder. And Singapore is allowing the Internet to function with relatively few controls, prompting an explosion of online debate on formerly taboo topics. Progress has been uneven, but there is no mistaking today's trend toward greater freedom. "How can you be hard-line in the era of the Internet?" asks Raymond Lim, ABN-AMRO's chief economist in Singapore and co-founder of The Roundtable, a groundbreaking political discussion group. "You have a completely different intellectual environment. The bureaucrats have to get used to the idea that soft power is better than harsh control." |
