by Dinesh Senan: Published: The Straits Times, Singapore: 30 October 2006
MINISTER Mentor Lee Kuan Yew’s recent observation that Singapore is unlikely to develop its own culture within the next several hundred years raises the old question: What does it mean to be Singaporean? An adolescent nation, we grapple still to define our national identity.
Just where might it be found? Is it in the ‘stories’ that accumulate within the collective consciousness of a nation’s citizenry, layered generation upon generation?
The United States is grappling with a related issue, one that cuts to the core of what an American is. Its mooted ‘terror Bill” sanctions the use of torture when dealing with prisoners of war. This Bill has caused much angst, with Senator Hillary Clinton, in opposing it before the Senate, telling the story of how George Washington chose to deal with prisoners of war during the American Revolution.
She said: ‘It was at this time, among these soldiers at this moment of defeat and despair, that Thomas Paine would write, ‘These are the times that try men’s souls’. Soon afterward, Washington led his soldiers across the Delaware River and on to victory in the Battle of Trenton. There he captured nearly 1,000 foreign mercenaries and he faced a crucial choice. How would Washington treat these men? The British had already committed atrocities against Americans, including torture. As David Hackett Fischer describes…thousands of American prisoners of war were ‘treated with extreme cruelty by British captors’.
‘Washington announced a decision unique in human history, sending the following order for handling prisoners: Treat them with humanity, and let them have no reason to complain of our copying the brutal example of the British army…(Thus) Washington…laid down the indelible marker of our nation’s values even as we were struggling as a nation – and his courageous act reminds us that America was born out of faith in certain basic principles. It is these principles that made and still make our country exceptional and allow us to serve as an example. We are not bound together as a nation by bloodlines. We are not bound by ancient history; our nation is a new nation. Above all, we are bound by our values.’
Such is the kind of ‘story’ that plays a key role in a society’s search for its own soul.
In another instance, when Egyptian Naguib Mahfouz, the only Arab-language writer to win the Nobel literature prize, died recently, Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak referred to him as ‘a cultural light’ who expressed ‘the values of enlightenment and tolerance that reject extremism’. That is the kind of statement which, when heard by Mr Mubarak’s fellow Egyptians, would have helped add powerfully to their sense of their own national identity.
Singapore, as a young nation, has been struggling with the issue of its national identity. Over the past four decades of heady, dizzying nation- building, we have searched in every direction outside of ourselves. We have looked at our multiracial, multicultural society, and enacted policies to protect this inherently precarious state of harmony. We have looked at the food that ‘brands’ us – nasi lemak, chicken rice, etc – and we have identified with that. We have looked at our spoken language, in all our Singlishness, and we’ve grappled with embracing it proudly as our own (can, lah!), while struggling with not wanting to compromise our command of the Queen’s English, so important for success in business.
We have identified with our older physical structures and landmarks, and have promulgated policies to try to protect those. We have identified with our systems of governance, and reputation for hard work, efficiency and integrity, and jealously pledged to guard those against decay.
Yet, we are still struggling with trying to find this deep sense of national identity.
The Straits Times columnist Ong Soh Chin on Sept 1 quoted her 30-something friend, who said: ‘I know that meritocracy, transparency, efficiency, material wealth and clean government are good values, and yet, I also know that few will die for them. I certainly won’t. Not for these utilitarian things…Higher values are what Singapore lacks…I want the country that I will die for to have Big Virtues. I want my country to stand for greatness and generosity of spirit.’
Have we, perhaps, been looking in all the wrong places? It is not quite to be fully captured within our systems of administration, in our physical structures, the food we prepare, our manner of speaking. It is a less tangible quality, and is perhaps ultimately to be found in the subtler expressions of our states of being.
As a species, ours is an evolving human story – one peppered with little and great acts of expression of our souls. These stories fuel our feelings of human unity and identity. When the story happens to come from one of our fellow citizens, then it also speaks to us of our identity as Singaporeans.
And they don’t all have to be grand stories. I know of an MP from the ruling party who reached into his own wallet for some $6,000 to settle an account for a constituent who was being threatened with a lawsuit by a hospital for unpaid bills accumulated by his wife before she died of cancer. The husband was a truck driver who had depleted his life savings to pay for his late wife’s treatment. This act of kindness was done quietly, without fanfare. But the few of us who knew of it were touched and the incident helped create a portion of this sense of identity.
Also, each time our leaders offer aid to our neighbouring countries, for example, during the 2004 tsunami, we gain a finer qualitative sense of who we are as Singaporeans.
Equally so, each time we wave a thank you, or fail to do so, to a passing driver who has given way to us. Every act of graceful expression, or otherwise, either builds or tears at the fabric of our identity of who we are as a people.
Not all stories are flattering, and some may instead cause dissonance, and even a distancing. Yet, the negative ones need to be heard as well, as they serve equally powerfully within the evolutionary process of our developing national identity, to tell us what we do not wish to be.
In any country, the tie between the rulers and the ruled will also have a strong impact on the collective sense of national identity. For instance, when our playwrights start to delve into sensitive questions that touch on our loyalties when we leave Singapore, or which deal with how our government might view or deal with the opposition, these too are instances of graceful expression by our compatriots.
Singaporeans often lament the relative ferocity with which our ruling political party deals with political adversaries. Some feel this to be unnecessarily fearsome and intimidating, when presenting the facts of their case firmly and fairly should suffice. Such perceived vigour in dealing with political opponents is, not surprisingly, often a cause for a certain distancing between the rulers and the people, not necessarily of the mind, but of the heart. Stories such as these affect our sense of national identity, and it is perhaps why the new leadership is actively seeking to reach out to younger citizens, and to encourage their engagement in open discussion with the party.
We are constantly absorbing stories from around us, large and small, and testing their resonance or dissonance within our deepest selves. Positive resonance felt at the emotional or soul level draws us in towards identifying with; dissonance makes us reject that story as not being in line with who we feel we are. And so we build our collective sense of a national identity, one such story at a time.
The Pragmatic Idealist 