the next 5 years
The unsettled question of public housing has to be answered in this term, and will PM Wong's Forward Singapore successfully redefine what it means to be Singaporean?
The 15th Parliament of Singapore has been sworn in, and a new season of politics in Singapore has begun. The People’s Action Party (PAP) may have won the election, but the real work is only just beginning. Prime Minister Lawrence Wong finds himself inheriting a country with problems which he can no longer afford to kick down the road as the previous governments have done, some of these problems must be solved in his maiden term as Prime Minister.
Coming home to roost
The first of these is finalising the details of the Voluntary Early Redevelopment Scheme (VERS). First announced in August 2018, VERS was introduced as a “long-term plan” to redevelop ageing HDB flats. Depending on how you looked at it, the scheme was either an evolution or a replacement of the more generous Selective En bloc Redevelopment Scheme (SERS) scheme, which has been phased out by the government. If you were a more cynical person, you might think that VERS was quickly announced to appease Singaporeans after the news that their HDB flats would be returned to the government after the 99 year leases expired, effectively rendering them worthless at the 99 year mark. After years of selling HDBs as an ever increasing asset, there would be no escaping the fact that eventually a 99 year lease would expire, and thus VERS was born.
After 7 years of kicking the can down the road, and 7 years without revealing any details of VERS despite frequent questions about it during question time in Parliament, the government will finally have to announce the details by this term, as the first HDB flats are slowly approaching 70 years old, the age which VERS would be applicable. Perhaps it is only fitting that PM Wong would be the one to end up revealing the details of VERS, after all he was the Minister of National Development in 2018 when it was announced, and it would be his ministry that began work on the scheme, and now we have come a full circle.
The scheme would be a nightmarish tightrope to navigate. Offer too much for the buy back and it would risk overheating an already heated property market. Offer too little and it could result in an overnight crash of the housing market. And even if the PAP somehow got the amount exactly right, it still would not resolve the underlying contradiction that public housing is simultaneously supposed to be an ever appreciating asset and that at the end of its 99 year lifespan it has to be returned to the government for no compensation.
All this makes for an incredibly unsatisfying situation: the PAP’s big-brained solution that has been cooking for 7 years is merely a small band-aid over a problem which is likely to rip open at the seams in the future. But perhaps that is the hope, that every small patch is just enough to maintain the status quo and tide it over to the next government. It is a dangerous game of pass the hot potato, and Lawrence Wong has better hope it does not end up with him.
The Singaporean identity
The second problem this government will have to solve is even greater than what could be the complete collapse of our public housing system, and pose even more dire consequences for Singapore. It concerns the fate and the future of a nation. It is the identity of the people.
The struggle to find and define the Singaporean identity is not a new one. If you ask 4 Singaporeans what it means to be Singaporean you might get 6 answers back. Nobody quite knows what it means to be Singaporean, and yet we do feel it quite keenly that there is something that differentiates us from the rest of the world. In a recent dialogue at the National University of Singapore (NUS), Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong tackled the issue of identity. You can tell that SM Lee is a seasoned politician because he has mastered the art of speaking a lot and saying very little. To be fair to him, the Singaporean national identity is a difficult one to pin down.
Of the more controversial things that SM Lee said in the dialogue was that the Singaporean identity was not the most important part of many Singaporeans’ identities:
I think if we are honest about it, we would say the national identity as a Singaporean − it is important. But it is not the only one we have. And for many Singaporeans, it is not the most important part of his identity. If you poll them, you will find that for many Singaporeans, religion is a very important part of their identity − particularly for Muslims, particularly for Christians, and amongst the Christians, particularly amongst the non-Catholics. And there are other elements as well. Race is very important. Language is important, especially for the older generations.
And on the surface it would appear he is right. The Singaporean people have been conditioned (and in no small part helped along by the policies of the PAP) to view themselves by race. It is all pervasive, from the moment you are born you have to be assigned a race, when you enter school you must pick a mother tongue, and when you apply for public housing your race determines where you can stay. Race plays a huge factor in what traditions one might uphold and practice. But if you dig a little deeper, it becomes clear that these identities are not layered on and separate from the Singaporean identity, it is informed by it. These identities exist in service to the Singaporean identity, and are not separate from the Singaporean experience, but are an integral and part of it. The Chinese or Indian or Malay in Singapore do not exist independent of their Singaporean identity, they are Chinese Singaporeans, Indian Singaporeans, or Malay Singaporeans. The Chinese Singaporean has more in common with their Malay or Indian neighbour than they do with a Chinese person from China.
Why else is there so much friction with the growing number of Chinese and Indians from China and India and the local populace? If our identities as Singaporean are so malleable and secondary to our greater identities as Chinese or Indians these newcomers should fit right in. It is not racist or xenophobic to demand that these foreigners assimilate to our culture and our identity. The Singaporean people may not be a monolith, but there is something that sets us apart from the rest of the world. Afterall, if you believe there is value to being Singaporean, and value to having Singapore, wouldn’t you want to preserve it?
Which is why it frustrates so many Singaporeans when the PAP brushes away these concerns. The PAP has spent more effort in the continuing integration of the races in Singapore by continuing their racial policies than they have in integrating foreigners in Singapore. So much so that the PAP would refuse to even consider something as simple as an English test as part of the requirement for Permanent Resident or citizenship. English is the business language in Singapore, and more importantly it is the lingua franca here, and that we might speak many other languages in Singapore is only important insofar as it adds to the rich patois of our common invention Singlish. It is essential to maintaining a multiracial and multicultural society. The weak reasoning eschewed by Minister Edwin Tong in evoking his non-English speaking grandmother failing a hypothetical English test is him being obtuse on purpose. Of course he understands that times have changed and Singaporean society has evolved with it, but he cannot help but invoke his grandmother in an attempt to garner sympathy for his position by reminding Singaporeans that some of our closest friends or relatives may not speak English. One has to wonder why the PAP maintains such stubborn opposition to such a popular idea, and a cynical person might speculate that introducing such a policy would curtail the PAP’s efforts to buoy the economy with immigration at any cost.
How can we preserve our identities as Singaporeans? How can we continue this country? The answer according to SM Lee, you have to contribute to feel like you belong:
There are any number of volunteering opportunities and service opportunities including participating in all kinds of campus activities. Basically roll up your sleeves and do something. Giving feedback is useful. Sharing views and discussions is good. Attending dialogues I’m very happy you came. But I hope that beyond listening and tracking what is happening, you will decide there are some things you want to do, some ways you want to make Singapore better. Let’s get together with your friends and do something about it. It can be cleaning the beach. It can be greening the environment. It can be doing social work, taking care of down and outs. It can be promoting entrepreneurism, entrepreneurialism, any number of issues. But be committed, do something, make Singapore better. In doing it, you will find that you will feel yourself belonging to this place. Otherwise, if you just sit there, you’ll be asking yourself, why do I feel I belong to this place? I could be sitting anywhere. But if I’m doing something here, that’s where home is… So how to feel belonging? I think own this place and make a difference to it.
In and of itself this is a great answer. SM Lee is right, the grass isn’t greener on the other side, it is greener where you water it. This answer would also have been better if the PAP had not politicised every aspect of community in Singapore. From the Resident Committees to the People’s Association (PA), the PAP has preempted any ground up community initiative and replaced it with a structured top down body. Whether rightly or wrongly, most Singaporeans perceive the PA and their Grassroots Organisations to be political. If the PAP were truly sincere about building community, these institutions should be free from even the perception of politicisation.
There is also a chicken and egg problem to this: most people will only contribute if they feel a sense of community, but to foster this sense of community they’re encouraged to contribute to it. All Singaporean men face this when called to serve. Part of our social compact that PM Wong loves to drone on about in his promotion of Forward SG is that as citizens we have rights and obligations. In serving our obligation to the state, there is an increasing feeling that the reciprocal rights are not as forthcoming. There is a growing disillusionment amongst Singaporean men about their service to this nation; after all, when almost half the people on this island are non-Singaporean, it begs the question what are you actually defending?
Ultimately the people have to be responsible for fostering their own national identity and community, but the government should at least do everything in its power not to undermine and damage it.
There is perhaps no other time which national identity is more important than now. Why does it matter so much? Because it concerns the fate of the nation. The Total Fertility Rate is at an all time low. Cost of living (of which the public housing crisis mentioned above plays a huge role) is only one part of the equation of why Singaporeans are not having children. National identity rests on the other end of that equation. People need to feel that there is a culture worth preserving, that their children are inheriting a country worth fighting for. That we are all merely links in a long chain of people to serve this nation, and that we are mere custodians of this little red dot we call home. That Singapore’s worth is not what we feel entitled to receive, but what we can provide for future generations of Singaporeans to come. All this comes from the recognition that our nation, and our identity, is worth preserving, and worth passing on.
We could in theory continue importing more foreigners to replace the lack of Singaporeans. Like the Ship of Theseus, we could replace this country bit by bit, until nothing remains of the original ship, or of the original country. But would this be a country that we would want to live in? The tragedy is that in trying to keep the ship together by replacing the parts, the quicker the ship deteriorates, and the more of the ship requires replacing.
The next 5 years could very well determine the future of this nation.
On the next issue of The Week we discuss the first sitting of Parliament and the various speeches.
At what point is it ok to assume the worst?
This article lays out quite a stark reality.
"What happens when policy failure goes unchecked?"
https://simulatedreal.substack.com/p/singapore-immigration-the-exact-playbook
Really well put - and as someone who loves my country, I continue to wait with bated breath for the government to grab their balls and tackle these questions. I think these are existential questions that hold the country back, and insofar as they are not properly and satisfactorily answered, the country does not even have the luxury to stay static, but will clearly face decline. I would contend that there is an answer to both points you've made (regarding affordable housing and the Singaporean identity) and perhaps you've been generous to hold back on your opinions as to what they are, as I'm sure most who observe the space would surely have their answers too, but that both questions remain unanswered not because the government does not have an answer, and instead that the answers are ugly and as you've mentioned, they would hope that much like the Ship of Theseus, that they could perhaps have their cake and eat it.
I can't help but feel compelled nevertheless to add to both points and say that it's great irony that on the one hand the government places us in a sense of false dichotomy where we are made to feel that hard choices have to be made because the country has insufficient land - whilst at the same time there sits 2,700-2,800 Good Class Bungalows. The government has claimed private land back before under the Land Acquisition Act, and so it seems disingenuous to make it seem like that option either does not exist or should not be exercised.
As for national identity, and this is purely my opinion of course, but I think that it is not that there isn't a national identity or even that it is hard to pin down - it is that we cannot bear to look ourselves in the mirror because of what we now look like. A generalisation of course, but I think if you polled most Singaporeans on what they think the traits are of other Singaporeans, I suspect it will only reveal undesirable traits (that of course is a sort of NIMBY-ism where everyone has to be this way because everyone else is this way as well) - entitled, selfish, main character syndrome, calculative, stingy, risk averse, timid, demanding, just some I often hear. I've asked around and most folks have struggled to give me one positive trait they can think of that they'd personally associate with a Singaporean person - perhaps humorously there is often the saying that one can hear a fellow Singaporean a mile away when overseas and that it would kill them inside just that much to meet another Singaporean on the road.
Thank you for your writing! I really enjoy reading it! Cheers!