by Koh Tai Ann
The traditional concept of a civil society was to provide a democratic checks and balances against the potential issue of the state. In this sense, the intellectual plays an important part. He or she is needed to participate in 'a particular conception of the world, has a conscious line of moral conduct, and therefore contributes to sustain a conception of the world or to modify it, that is to bring into being new modes of thought".
The intellectual can encompass any educated person, not necessarily a university graduate.
The roles of the intellectuals can be broadly categorized into four main groups.
1. Intellectual-politicians through political contest if they are prepared to ally themselves with the ruling leaders and prove their capabilities.
2. They could become like the mandarins of the established order in the civil service.
3. Legitimizers of the established order by providing the symbols and justification of policies.
4. Independent intellectuals who value autonomy, free enquiry and openness to alternative ideas. Being so would allow public awareness of important issues to be raised, to be critics of power, act as a conscience of society, represent those without a voice in the system and provide alternative ideas, preventing intellectual in-breeding at the top.
Nevertheless, many of Singapore's intellectuals have allied themselves with the state. It is because these intellectuals belong to an educated class that shared similar backgrounds and could identify with government leaders AND partly because of a lack of a viable civil society. This would result in the absence of effective autonomous intellectuals that could give these intellectuals full play and satisfaction in serving the nation.
More...after I return from marketing.
Just reached home...
Ok, now, where was I?
Having a civil society would provide a dilemma for the state. Namely, the state has to contend with promoting the 'liveliness' of a group of people who will criticise it and on the other hand, draw and protect the boundaries that those criticism might result in its instability and its inability to carry out its policies.
An example quoted would be the Michael Fay incident where caning was meted out for his act of vandalism. No
public debate was carried out as to whether caning could reform individual behavior and deter negative repeat behavior on that occasion.
Debate on crime and punishment had been carried out before. Prof Tommy Koh argued that the rehabilitation of criminals might be more fruitful and thus should be given priority over severe punishment such as caning.
Caning was introduced for illegal immigrants. Apart from questioning the brutality of such punishment for essentially non-violent crimes and the issues also involves the perception of Singapore's ASEAN neighbours where most of the illegal immigrants come from, the legislation was passed simply because a leading member of the party said "what's a few strokes of the cane?"
There are gaps between the official rhetoric about encouraging 'local initiatives' giving people 'free play' and the realities and the risks involved. The first concern was that people were not empowered and given agency. The second involve taking risk with the people and not just asking the people to take risks.
Its mentioned that while there has been a change in the team that makes up the government, there does not seem to be any basic change in the PAP government's attitude towards intellectuals who speak up and disagree with the state's policies.
However, the differentiating line between those who participates in civil activities and political criticism was unclear. These boundary markers will not be made clearer as since "in the nature of things, such boundary markers cannot be defined in advance of the unknown number of varied issues that can be raised by the citizenry, whether
intentionally in criticism of the the government or not.
My take:
In the west, a civilised society is one where an intellectual discussed the advantages and the disadvantages of doing things in a certain way. This may be in criticism of the government or otherwise. However, in Asian society, such confrontational attitudes may not be as welcome. Nevertheless, the PAP government has encourage more 'free play' by intellectuals in Singapore. However, this encouragement comes with Terms and Conditions and this Terms and Conditions, although spelled correctly does not identify as to when one infringes upon it. As such, an individual, although encourage to speak up, would most probably be prosecuted if he or she criticise the government policies, even though that is his role in society.
Slim
