May 1998

Building civil society behind closed doors

    

  

 
I'm kicking myself for not acting earlier to get myself in as a participant in the conference on civil society, organised by the Institute of Policy Studies earlier this month. At first, when I was told about it, the dates were inconvenient; I was to be in China for that week, so I gave the thing a pass. By the time my China trip had been postponed and the dates freed, the conference was full, and they would accept no more registrations.

Civil society is the latest project by the Singapore government. This is very typical of Singapore. We normally think of civil society as something apart from government, but here, it is the government that is trying to promote it. Or so it seems. Read on.

Civil society is the stratum of groupings and organisations, engendered by ordinary people, to achieve various objectives, such as helping the needy, forming a choir, championing the environment or safeguarding free speech. The government here feels that this stratum of society is underdeveloped, leading to a culture of dependency on the government for just about everything. Hence the project.

My commentary, since I didn't attend the conference, is restricted to what I read about it in the press. Very simply, I was not impressed, neither by the substance of what was reported, nor the quality of reportage by the Straits Times.

First of all, I thought it was remarkable that except for the keynote address by the Minister for Information and the Arts, the conference was closed to the press! How does one build civil society behind closed doors? Did anybody see the absurdity of this?

Perhaps it was to allow a more frank exchange of views, so that participants could feel free to critique the process, or the government's role in it. But if so, it signals that any critical commentary on the project or the government's part must be kept to confidential communication, and not released to the public, implying that the government cannot be seen to be criticised. Where is that openness, trust and receptivity that, one would have thought, are essential preconditions to a healthy civil society?

Trust was one of the themes in the Minister, BG George Yeo's speech. He said, "In the coming years, it is good state-society relations which will enable Singapore to compete and survive in the web world. In a messier world, with multiple and overlapping jurisdictions, trust will become a very important quality.

"When larger systems break down, it is internal networks of trust which will enable trade to carry on and economic life to continue. In the web world, trust networks enjoy a high premium ..."

"Our strength as a financial centre rests completely upon this intangible quality of trust, trust in the impartiality of our courts, trust in the fairness of our regulations and trust in the professionalism of our officers."

Right. So why was the conference closed to public scrutiny?

In contrast to trust, the Minister mentioned the 'banyan tree' metaphor only in passing. "If we did not relax censorship and introduce film classification, the Film Festival would not have taken off. By judicious pruning of the banyan tree, we have enabled a new plant to grow."

I won't take issue with the Film Festival claim yet; I will leave it to another article, maybe. This banyan tree thing however was to spread and spread over the next few days, but to start with, let me clarify that the banyan tree is one with a wide and thick canopy, blocking out so much sunlight that little can grow under it. The omnipresence of the government in Singapore life has been compared to that of the banyan tree, choking off civil society.

After the conference, another speaker, Professor Tommy Koh, expanded on the tree metaphor, talking about tembusu trees, which have a narrower canopy, allowing more plants to thrive around its base, or the royal palm, with next to no shade. The Straits Times then played these metaphors to death through the following few days, including a full page spread on Sunday, May 10th with full colour pictures of trees. Lost among all this was any intelligent analysis of the substance behind the metaphors.

In what way will government be pruned back, and when? What core matters will remain for the government and why? What first principles apply when refereeing the ways in which the government is to interact with civil society? Not a squeak. So much for journalism in Singapore.

Having said that, on Saturday, May 9th, there was some coverage of the reactions of participants to the conference. Not surprisingly, the tone was generally sceptical. An unnamed participant -- now why did he ask to remain unidentified? -- was quoted as saying that government promises of more room for civic groups are "90 percent rhetoric, 10 percent sincere."

Then this entire Saturday report, with a veneer of objectivity, was undermined by a little box item with a flippant tone. It mentioned Dr Gillian Koh, of the Institute of Policy Studies, the organisers of the event, and quoted her making the distinction between 'Civic Groups' being communitarian in nature and working for the larger good of society, and incorporating civic values which include self-help, social responsibility and public courtesy, and 'Civil Groups', which represent special interests, while upholding civic values as well as CIVIL values such as the rights of the individual and freedom of speech. The box item ended with an uncalled for remark by the newspaper, "Are you any wiser now?"

In fact, I think this is a very critical distinction, and if you read the Minister's speech carefully, you can see something rather chilling. He said, "Civic organisations based on ethnic affiliation and particular social causes have become more active.... In the past, such organisations tended to be politically motivated, sometimes causing them to clash with the state." It seems to suggest that 'political' motivation must be excluded from civil society, and this begs some serious questions about how political is political. At the same time the statement seems to confuse the government with the state.

So, what exactly is the project about? To promote politically neutered "do-good" civic groups or a thriving, confident, thinking, civil society?

Participants at the conference probably assumed it was the latter. They came up with an Action Plan (ST, Saturday 9 May 98) which included:

  • Give the people greater access to information, so they can be equipped to participate.
  • Tolerate more criticism and diverse views.
  • Escape the mindsets of the 1950's and 1960's when the government's fear of communist infiltration led it to impose strict controls and surveillance over civic groups.
  • Seek feedback at an early stage, rather than after everything has been decided.

While they are important and necessary, I think they are not enough, at least not in this woolly form. As they stand, these action points merely describe desired processes. They need to be augmented with more specific action items which can be monitored. Specific actions are useful for measuring progress; more importantly, they mark breaks with the past, and are good symbols of sincerity and earnestness by the government.

Alternative measures are proposed below. They are a personal list, and not being a lawyer I doubt if they are worded as clearly as they ought to be. But they are what one citizen (and probably quite a few others too) wants to see. They are, to me, concrete confidence building milestones for the necessary conditions of free speech, free association, freedom from administrative arbitrariness, and strengthened judicial review, for smaller government -- a pruning back, if you will -- and a thriving civil society.

1. Scrap the newspaper licensing laws. Any legal person in Singapore, whether an individual citizen, or body, can publish, subject only to libel and related laws.
2. Scrap the laws that allow for books and related publications to be banned or seized. In its place introduce a Restricted category which allow licensed booksellers to sell restricted books to customers who can prove they are 21 years or older.
3. Reduce film censorship to cover only gratuitous violence. All other films to be uncensored, and based on its uncensored state, classified accordingly. Expand the 21-and-above "Restricted" category of film classification to R(Sex), R(Violence) and R(Possibly offensive ideas), with the last covering films that touch on race, religion, etc.
4. Scrap the internet licensing laws that circumscribe content. Rely only on existing libel and national security laws.
5. Remove all administrative discretion from the registration of societies. Any group of Singapore citizens and permanent residents should be able to register a society, through simple filing, without having to get approval from the government. The Societies Act should be amended to focus only on providing a regulatory framework to help ensure transparency and accountability (to its members, not to the government) in the running of societies.
6. Scrap the Internal Security Act, which allows for preventive detention of anyone, without being charged in court.
7. Enact a Civil Rights Act to enshrine free speech, free association, greater access to information from the government (with national security exceptions), a wider scope of equality and non-discrimination, and protection from invasion of privacy by the government.
8. Enact a new law that allows greater judicial review of administrative decisions, including ministerial decisions, and specifically provide for strict scrutiny of such decisions against the Civil Rights Act mentioned above.

These are what are needed to bridge the present credibility gap, the one with people saying, it's 90% rhetoric.

© Yawning Bread 

 

Footnotes

None

Addenda

None