Singapore’s central business district, from the river. / Kirsten Han

Jumbled dissertation-related thoughts

Beyond the word counts, the charts and newspaper articles I struggle for clarity on Singapore.

On my desk, on my bed, in the university computer labs… it’s all the same. The words – Georgia font, size 12, 1.5 line spacing – stare back at me as I alternate between writing, deleting and head-desking.

It’s late July and the heatwave in the UK has finally broken. Cardiff is back to its rainy ways as I grapple with my 20,000-word dissertation on nationalism and identity in Singapore’s mainstream and alternative media.

I’m 11,222 words in. I’ve lost count of the readings I’ve done and the number of days I’ve spent obsessing over the subject. I’ve talked my boyfriend’s ear off about Singapore, its culture, its politics, its people. But it wasn’t until I was editing the first half of my draft yesterday that it hit me.

“…the Singapore state not only emerged as the symbol but also, under the PAP government, the author of nationalism and national identities in Singapore.” — Terence Chong on identity

Sheeple. It was a word I came across when looking through photos from a protest against the Population White Paper. A protester had it written in bold, black letters on his brightly-green placard, a lamb plush toy taped ruthlessly on to it.

I’d thought it a funny word then. But yesterday it struck me hard: that is what we have been. Maybe that is what we still are.

Since our independence almost everything about Singapore can be traced back to the PAP government. They have created and re-created our national identity to suit their policies, they have controlled our mainstream media, they have decided on the narrative to be taught in our schools. They have decided where we live, dividing public housing estates according to ethnic quotas that remain till today. They have even decided what languages we’ll all speak; so many in my generation have lost out on dialects spoken by our grandparents because of various language policies.

They have been everywhere. They are everywhere.

It would be an unfair exaggeration to say that all of it has been bad. There have been good decisions and we have reaped the benefits. I am glad, for instance, of the decision to use English in Singapore as an official language — it has given me an advantage in so many situations.

But as I read and think and question and write my dissertation it is difficult to ignore the feeling that we as a people have been little more than real-life Sims characters in a game where the government is calling the shots. That we have been, at the end of the day, sheeple.

As I’ve said, not all of it has been bad. But the thought still makes me angry. It makes me feel used, a digit pushed and shoved around to fit policy goals and KPIs. It doesn’t make me feel like I live in a country; it makes me feel like I live in a factory.

Ministerial speeches usually appear on the front page… Discussions generally focus on the implementation of policies rather than provide a critical evaluation of them. And dissenting voices expressed in public opinion polls or in the ‘Forum page’ are systematically followed by a response from the appropriate government office. In this way, even dissension is used to reinforce the government’s voice and the legitimacy of that voice. — Wendy Bokhorst-Heng on the media

It’s incredibly depressing to think about; to realise that your life has been so much more micro-managed and socially-engineered than you’d thought, that it had begun even before you were born. To wonder if your home had really been a cage.

Who wants to go back to somewhere like that?

I do.

Because it’s not really a cage. Or if it is, it’s a rusted one, crumbling in the corners, the bars being chipped away by those who don’t want to be herded anymore.

I see it every day, even from so far away. The people — many of whom I’m proud to call my friends — who want more for our society than following top-down orders. The people who care, really care, for those who are often forgotten. The people who see injustice, and would stick their necks out to make things better. The people who know that there will be no reward — perhaps there will even be punishment — but still want to try.

Sheeple. That is what we have been. Maybe that is what we still are. But that is not to say that it is what we will be, and it is that possibility, that potential, that is the most exciting.