I agree fully with this decision.

He said the two chief reasons for going ahead -- with 2 "integrated resorts" that include casinos besides other attractions -- were the need to reverse the decline of tourism, and the need to reinvent Singapore. In his speech he said,

First, we are losing ground in tourism. Tourism in Asia is growing phenomenally, especially from China and India.

But we're doing quite badly.

Our market share is declining (form 8 per cent in the Asia Pacific region in 1998 to 6 per cent in 2002). Tourists are spending less time in Singapore. They used to stay an average of about 4 days in 1991, but now they stay only for 3 days.

In contrast, on average, they are staying for about 4 days in Hong Kong, 5 days in London and almost a week in New York City. We are losing attractiveness as a tourist destination.

More generally, Singapore needs to keep pace of cities reinventing themselves all around the world. Lee said,

The question we have to consider is: Will Singapore be part of this new world, or will we be bypassed and left behind? We seek to be a global city, attracting talent from around the world, lively, vibrant, and fun to live and work in. We want Singapore to have the X-factor – that buzz that you get in London, Paris or New York.

Further on,

We cannot stand still. The whole region is on the move. If we do not change, where will we be in 20 years' time? Losing our appeal to tourists is the lesser problem. But if we become a backwater, just one of many ordinary cities in Asia, instead of being a cosmopolitan hub of the region, then many good jobs will be lost, and all Singaporeans will suffer. We cannot afford that.

 
Speaking about jobs, Lim Boon Heng, the minister in charge of the trade unions, got emotional in Parliament,

This is not an easy decision.... but with 35,000 jobs created, I can't say 'no'.

He admitted that we are facing a problem of structural unemployment. Singapore has lost our competitiveness due to rising costs, and several thousand manufacturing jobs have been lost. The old manufacturing jobs will not return with the opening of China and other low-cost countries. Yet, the laid-off have no skills for higher-end manufacturing jobs, so we desperately need service industries. Lim said,

If not for the unemployment problem, I would have maintained 'no' to the casino.

Lim Boon Heng is a staunch Roman Catholic. We can assume he is a social conservative, and as he himself said, is deeply against gambling.

(From the way he brushes off anything to do with homosexuality, we can also assume he is anti-gay). 

Even Lee Kuan Yew eventually supported the decision. His position became apparent on the Friday before the announcement, when after giving a speech at another event, he said he regretted not allowing Formula One racing after seeing the big bucks that such events draw.

Singapore had an annual Grand Prix in the 1960s and 1970s, but because Lee thought it only encouraged speeding on roads, it was banned.

I think we made a mistake in not building a Formula One course.... I think I was dim-witted then. But I learnt a lesson and I'm telling my younger chaps, look, pay attention to all this, this is what will make Singapore buzz.

Likewise, he conceded that he was too blinkered in trying only to promote the fine arts.

I didn't see that the money was in pop culture.

In the end, the cabinet remained divided and the decision was not unanimous. From hints dropped here and there, it appeared that when the idea was first mooted for serious consideration early 2004 (when the ill-health of our tourism industry was finally uncovered) the majority of the cabinet was against the idea.

They were against gambling as a social evil, and I daresay, some of them brought their religion with them and objected on such grounds, though, as often, carefully concealed behind the 'social evil' argument.

This is the bit I found worrying about Singapore -- that it was so difficult for the cabinet to take this decision. The government seems to be stuffed with kneejerk conservatives.

You see, the social costs argument is actually an argument FOR building the casinos, not against.

How is this so?

One has to begin with an appreciation of reality, that whether we like it or not, mega-casinos are coming to this part of the world. Macau has run away with the deal. Thailand is already studying the idea. And don't rule out Malaysia, Philippines or Indonesia. With budget airlines zipping here and there -- and Singapore also wants to be an aviation hub -- flying off every weekend for a gaming holiday will be easy.

If you believe there are social costs to gambling (and I do), then you have to face the fact that, like it or not, those social costs are coming.

Our only choice is to either suffer the cost and curse our neighbours or recoup some of it through situating the gaming industry right here. At least we get jobs. We get tax revenues, which hopefully enable us to put in place some social programs to mitigate the downsides.

Since the social costs argument was the only significant secular argument used against the casino, when in fact it is an argument for a casino, then there are really no more good arguments against it. The decision should have been a breeze.

But it was not. That was because the social costs argument was, in many instances, really a mask for a moral or religious argument. If they had genuinely treated social costs as a secular issue, they would have seen what I saw -- that it was coming anyway. But if one were the type that tended to see the world in permanent and absolute terms rather than as flux and relativity, then one would miss the significance of the looming horizon. And why would one see the world in permanent and absolute terms unless one's view was, at least subconsciously, underpinned by religious injunctions?

Six months back, I wrote in Gambling on the Singapore model that the government made it doubly hard for themselves because too often in the past, and on other matters in the present (e.g. gays and lesbians) it relies on the values argument to outlaw the unconventional, or to retard change.

Hence when faced with a barrage of criticism relying on moral or religious values, it was unable to respond effectively. Now we know that many ministers in fact shared the same "No!" attitude.

This suggests to me that every inch of liberalisation in Singapore will have to be fought against instinctive rejectionism. It's going to be a real struggle to remake Singapore.

Fortunately, one (usually annoying) feature of Singapore life may help. Lee Kuan Yew spoke in favour of change, in favour of the urgent need to re-position ourselves in an ever-changing world. We're not a fun place, he said, and the ascetic and conformist virtues which he himself imposed while he was Prime Minister, are not enough to meet the future. Now that he's spoken, the media will promptly feel free to argue for "fun" and the need to be "with-it".

The pavlovian instincts of our media is hardly ideal, but I'll drink the dog's saliva if it drips my way.

Something else in Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's speech to Parliament seemed interesting to me. In the section headlined 'Religious objections', he said this

Finally, many Singaporeans, though not all, who oppose the [integrated resorts] do so on religious grounds. The main religious groups have all made their views known. The churches, the Buddhist and Hindu groups, as well as Muis and Muslim groups have all stated their stands.

I have also received letters from many Singaporeans, especially Christians, expressing their objections on religious grounds.

Further on,

Each person is free to follow his conscience, and follow the teachings of his faith. But in a multiracial, multireligious society, the government must maintain a secular and pragmatic approach. It cannot enforce the choices of one group on others, or make these choices the basis of national policy.

I wonder: Is it significant that he added the words "especially Christians" in his remarks? They don't seem necessary, for the sentence reads quite well without those two words.

If they were deliberately inserted, it's a very subtle way of saying, shut up. Demands to enforce Christian values in law and policy are unwelcome.

So it's back to the argument I made in November in Gambling on the Singapore model,  and again in February 2005 in Towards an open and inclusive society, which is that the government needs to find a good, inspiring rejoinder to the old values-based defence of the status quo, otherwise, having got through to 2 casinos, it is still no readier to fight the next battle to remake Singapore.

I had suggested a new values-based argument: freedom, choice, individual autonomy, respect of others' autonomy and choice. In other words, liberalism in its noblest sense. Liberalism is as moral a stance as any. The conservatives have no monopoly on the moral.

Not that it still won't be hard. While liberalism can inspire the younger generation eager for change (and having a constituency on your side can't be a bad thing in politics), to the fundamentalists, especially those linked to the Religious Rightwing of America, liberalism is a dirty word. In fact, all this talk about trying to be a cosmopolitan, with-it place scares them rather than inspires them. They don't share those goals, so however mellifluous junior and senior Lees' words are, they still leave them cold. The conservatives WANT a quiet, safe society, stuffed with the old values. They are conservatives, for heaven's sakes, and conservatives by definition do not want the world to change. They believe things can remain the same, that Singapore can still be (fairly) rich and comfortable even as the world whizzes on. Or else, they would rather be a backwater, where they can be quietly pious, than live in what they imagine to be Sodom and Gomorrah.

The struggle is only just beginning. 

© Yawning Bread