I’m less than an hour from landing in San Francisco and the two weeks I spent in Singapore are still very much with me, as is my anticipation for returning home. As the two memories mix like the ocean currents beneath me I find myself wondering about this brave new society being created at the tip of the Malay Peninsula, just north of Indonesia.
Singapore has been a regional center and principle port for a long time. When British rule ended in the 1940s it was part of Malaysia for a while, then was “kicked out” as locals say, in 1965 over Lee Kwuan Yew and others unwillingness to accept laws favoring Malays over other nationalities. Since then it has focused on becoming a leader of the ASEAN region, competing hugely with Hong Kong, and no doubt with all global megacities.
If my first impression of Singapore was of the huge Integrated Resort construction and a rather gray, torn-up place, I now have many more images of the gleaming, tidy modern metropolis they are creating. This image from the Urban Redevelopment Authority model of what the Integrated Resort should look like finished captures some of the feel (It’s the foreground).
This kind of enthusiasm for modern planning reminds me of what I have read about the International Exposition in the late 1940’s with the pylon and the hemisphere – probably the zenith of America’s belief in the Modernist dream of a rational, technologically mediated society. Public faith in technological solutions remains, but in a long decline since that time in America.
Today I return to a country led by a white, African American mixed race intellectual who has stepped into the vortex of hope that seems to flow like an aquifer under the American experience. And, as President Obama said in his inauguration speech, there are dark clouds gathering, and a storm rising.
This is true for Singapore as well, for this recession is global. “We’ve never had a contraction since 1961,” Cecilia Ang of the Idea Factory said when I visited after my workshop ended at the National Security Coordination Centre. “We had a hard time during the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s, but it didn’t involve all sectors or all parts of the globe like this downturn.” Indeed the problem is serious. The Strait Times carried a half-dozen articles every day about it – and I learned that overall growth last year was only 1.7%, down from over 20% the year before, and is projected for -3 to -5% next year. Unprecidented. Serious.
The Idea Factory in Singapore bought out John Kao when his US company took a dive after the .com crash. They grew based on training contracts with the Ministry of Education in Singapore to learn about innovation, the Idea Factory’s focus, and then expanded into helping companies do projects for out-of-the-box thinking. I was on the advisory board in San Francisco, and always curious about Singapore. The Grove does similar work, but under the flag of planning and facilitation, and less flamboyantly. But I felt the Idea Factory would be an indicator of the reception our work might face.
“Company’s are not spending budget on risk,” Cecilia said. “They have to spend on cost savings. Once they get that right they might return to risk.”
Freedom and Constraint. Freedom and Constraint. I live with that understanding as part of my own operation system now. It was the partnership that Arthur M. Young, my teacher of many years, explored with his theory of process. His contention is that the two are inextricable sides of one united universe. He liked to distinguish between the freedom that comes from no structure, the kind of freedom of a rave or a crowd, and freedom that comes through discipline and mastery —the freedom of a skill jazz musician or a competent professional facilitator.
In Singapore’s efforts to constrain itself from social unrest and fragmentation, it has imposed many regulations on its people, in the pursuit of the freedom that comes from being safe, sustainable, and healthy. It's a balancing act.
One symbolic instance is the focused effort to combat automobile congestion. In order to even buy a car in Singapore, one must have a C.O.E. or
“Certificate of Entitlement.” Cecilia and Tat laughed mockingly when they told me this. “Entitlement—what a euphemism.” The COE has in the past cost as much as $20k SD, just to buy a car. That’s about $15K US. It's down to $200 now in the recession. Then the car itself will cost from 60-$90K Sing. “Most of us as a result ride the Metropolitan Transit Authority,” Cecilia said. In addition, there is an ERP tax on auto traffic into the core. It registers on a E-Zpass kind of system, electronically. While congestion is rampant in Bangkok, Hong Kong, and new cities in China, it is tolerable in Singapore. Freedom from constraint?
I asked many people about the extent of surveillance. Video cameras are everywhere, and there are even signs in the malls.
The young analysts in my workshop said that these systems are used retroactively to nab law breakers, but it’s conceivable they can be used in real time to control social movements. The Rolling Stone reported a few months ago about illegal export of sophisticated video analysis software from the US to China, to allow automated detection of crowd massing, and eventually face recognition. No-one thought this was happening in Singapore yet, but the funny way people talked about the extent of regulation led me to believe the citizens are rather continuously on guard.
The government tries to keep peoples' freedoms focused commercially, and Singapore is a riot of new building, stores and tourist attractions as a result. The last decade brought a wave of new developments. The shops and fancy hotels on Orchard Avenue have expanded so much since I was there with Microsoft about six years ago I couldn’t recognize the context, even though the Hyatt looked the same.
But freedom expresses itself in the people themselves, who have a gentle kind of good humor at being in such a well cared-for place. One evening I was dining alone and journaling on Clark Quay, a fancy area of outdoor restaurants and up-market shops. Across the river I saw what looked like little UFOs darting around like swallows. They were sporting multicolored lights, that stood out in the dark evening light. I had to go investigate.
There, in a public park, a whole several dozen young and old people had staked out some strobes, and were flying little remotely guided planes that did indeed have bright, neon-bright lights on the wings. It was 9:00 Saturday evening and it was a party! Someone had a boom box. The music and the lights seemed to point at the spirit of this place—managed and alive!
It was matched later by the buzzing energy of Chinatown, getting ready for the Lunar New Year. The papers may be declaring a tough year for the merchants, but the people were out in force, celebrating with food and talk and expectations.
I can’t pretend to understand a different culture from a couple of week visit, but I came away feeling that Singapore is a harbinger of the future. As our challenges rise, the call for more control and order will also rise. We see it in the new mood to regulate business, in response to the excesses of the financial industry. At the same time the life force seeks expression, and people move toward the freedoms. The young in Singapore want more freedom of expression and the government is having to respond. The push and pull feels like a river of life, moving to reconcile Freedom and Constraint. I see the pattern in the way modern architecture is bending material to the flow of light and line. This picture of a walkway at Clark Quay seems to sum it up for me.
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