The subject
I have chosen for my address is somewhat different
from the one you have prescribed.
the university
graduate can make
What I want to talk about is
university
graduate to the nation.
difference between merely making
discharging the responsibilities
The word responsibility
concern for society
necessary.
A contribution,
to the nation.
the "responsibilities"
of the
I think there is a significant
contributions
to the nation and
a citizen has towards his nation
suggests obligation,
which should override
on the other
as and when one feels like it.
So may I suggest that this
commitment and a
self-interest
hand, is concern for
One can "contribute"
seminar directs
itself
when
the nation
or one need not.
to defining
the nature and extent of a citizen
responsibilities
towards
Now I know that this is not a subject of universal
appeal.
Singapore.
We would rather talk about human rights;
about political
rights.
The
question of rights lends itself
easily to great flights
of rhetoric.
It
can win the advocate loud applause and sustained cheers.
That is why a great many politicians
and writers have tended
to concentrate more on the rights of a citizen than on his resThe former is a pleasant subject because it relates
ponsibilities.
The latter
less so because
to what you can get cut of society.
it has to do with paying your debt to society - and repaying debts
I think most people arc fairly
is not exactly a source of delight.
familiar
with . ..2/-
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2-
familiar
with the nature and extent of their political
They got very upset and rebellious
when these rights
rights.
are
transgressed or withdrawn.
And it is right and proper that peop1e should jealously
guard their rights and strive to broaden them.
But what they should remember and accept is that every right
they enjoy demands a corresponding responsibility
and obligation.
Theyare the two sides of as single
coin.
You
They go together.
cannot demand a-right
without
at the same time being prepared
to
discharge the responsibilities
that go with it.
The so-called
crisis of the modern state stems to a large
extent from the tendency in many countries to separate rights
from responsibilities
- to concentrate on one or the other. When
a government concentrates only on the responsibilities
of a
citizen then you get an authoritarian
state. Where, as in many
democratic countrice,
the preoccupation is only with the rights and
liberties
of citizens you got anarchy and weak, unstable governmcnts.
Only in a nation where every right is nourished by the meticulous
discharge of the obligations
that go with it mill democracy flourish
and the rights endure,
The responsibilities
of a citizen in a modern state are many
as you will discover when you bring your mind to bear on this
little
explored area of government. The more complex and more sophisticated
the state the more those obligations
become, the more demanding
they become.
For example, there was a time when the practice of income tax
was unknown. Today it is an unavoidable and necessary instrument
Taxes are necessary to finance the many and expanding
of government.
services expected of a modern government.
These constitute
the
rights people demand and enjoy.
But if you talk to the inland revenue people they will toll
you of the thousand and one ingenious and even illegal
ways in which
of paying
otherwise decent citizens seek to avoid the responsibility
their taxes.
There are accountants and lawyers who make a comfortable
living by advising citizens on how they can avoid paying taxes legally,
Of course, if it is a reputable firm.
As university... .3/-
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3
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As university
graduates most of you will come under the income
tax paying class and I have no doubt you would at least experiment
with the tax avoidance game - legally or otherwise, successfully
or otherwise.
So long as you do this
legally
good luck to YOU.
I selected
income tax as an example merely to show how difficult
and unpleasant
it is for many of us to cheerfully
discharge our responsibilities.
There are of course many other examples of reluctance to
discharge responsibilities
- observing traffic
rules, not littering
a public place when there is no policeman around, not overcharging
a customer or a client who desparately needs your services or, for
that matter, making out a case for not doing national service.
the many
I hope this seminar will spend some time identifying
obligations
that go with the many rights you properly cherish and
demand.
I will highlight one
responsibility
relevant to the theme of
responsibility
of graduates. Ture
this seminar - the political
this is not a responsibility
only of university
graduates.
This is
a responsibility
which all and every citizen shares - the responsibility
of ensuring that honest, dedicated and responsible men govern Singapore.
W C in Singapore arc committed to the periodic election of government
There are those who question the
on the basis of one man, one vote.
wisdom end practicality
of this form of government.
In a number Of
l
third world countries the experiment with one-man-one-vote has in
fact been abandoned in favour of right-wing,
loft-wing
or army
dictatorships.
Even in established democracies in the West the system
of one-man-one-vote
is being questioned
on the grounds that
is is
leading to ungovernable societies.
May be the system of one-man-one-vote is not working well but
then, in m y view, left-wing,
right-wing
and army dictatorships are
performing even more poorly.
The best test of which system is the best of bad government
Movement
is the flight
path of refugees and illegal
immigrants,
is a growing
of people, legal and otherwise, across state frontiers
phenomena of our times. Never before in human history has there
boon such massive movements of people.
If you ...4/-
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4
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If you study the path of refugee and migration
movements you
will discover a little
known but startling
fact.
The movement is
overwhelming from countries with dictatorial
forms of governments
towards countries loss dictatorial
and preferably towards these
where the system of one-man-one-vote obtains.
There are in Singapore people who will toll you of this or
that country where utopia has been established through revolutionary
struggles and contrast this utopia with Singapore where oppression,
misery and desperation is apparently the lot of the masses. They
may well
be sincere in their belief that these utopias exist but
I a m cautious about abandoning our possibly imperfect system of
government because these enthusiasts when we come down to brass
tacks steadfastly
refuse to emigrate to Utopia.
If and when these
enthusiasts do emigrate it is often to reactionary strongholds like
Britain,
United States, Australia or Canada - the migrant flight
path I referred to earlier
The system of one-men-one-vote is basically sound. It is
morally the only system we can believe in and without this belief all
political
activity
becomes meaningless.
If you do not believe in one-man-one-vote government then the
alternative
must be naked despotism where a handful of rulers arc
nourished and maintained by the oppression and brutalisation
of
the many. President Amin, Emperor Bokasa or a Hitler or a Stalin
must be the logical outcome of abandoning the one-man-one-vote system.
W h y then, you may ask, has the one-man-one-vote system failed
in many Third World countries and why has it resulted in nearimpotent governments in well-established
democracies.
One important reason has been the tendency in many democracies
for people and leaders to separate rights from responsibilities;
to
concentrate on the rights people should enjoy without at the sane
time insisting
that they should discharge the responsibilities
that
go with those rights.
This separation of rights and responsibilities
has manifested
itself
in many ways. In the economic field,
for example, workers
demand more wages. This is their right and if is a legitimate demand.
But there . ...5/-
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But there is also a responsibility
5
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attached to it.
More wages
should mean better work; more productivity.
But when this
responsibility
is ignored and even denied then you enter, as
we have done, into a world of uncontrollable
inflation
and now
of growing unemployment. The right to higher wages divorced
from the responsibilities
that go with it has resulted in the
disastrous economic goal of more pay for less work.
In the case of profits,
too, the divorce of rights from
responsibilities
has resulted in legitimate
business being
transformed into a machinery for profiteering
and looting the
consumer.
Every businessman has the right to make a profit but he
has also
efficiently
there is
existence
And
the responsibility
of providing goods and services as
If he cannot do this then
and cheaply as possible.
no social or moral justification
for the continued
of a businessman and entrepreneur.
moving from economics to politics
free speech, organisation
of political
parties to constitutionally
supplant the government
in power are fundamental and necessary rights. Rut even here certain
responsibilities
go with these rights.
Let us take the case of free speech. For example, in Singapore
a number of election candidates were brought to court for uttering
libels during the campaign. They admitted these libels and were
found guilty.
A number of people think that bringing candidates to court
for libel is a curtailment of free speech. In other words, a man
aspiring to a seat in the highest organ of government according
to this argument should be allowed to utter falsehoods and influence
public opinion on the basis of such falsehoods.
These some critics
will agree that outside of an election
campaign a citizen who libels another citizen should be brought to
court and punished. But when it is a question of electing who
then
the uttering
of libels and falsehoods
should govern a country
according to these critics,
is a sound
of choosing leaders.
lb take yet another example does free speech, in the context
of a multi-racial
Singapore , include the right to say things which
In a number of countries in
can excite communal fears and hatreds.
Asia and . . . ...6/-
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6
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were allowed, on the
Asia and Africa newspapers an d politicians
grounds of free speech, to play up news and express views which
roused racial antagonism and resulted in the death, mutiliation
and persecution of thousands of people and more often than not
resulted
in the break up
of the one-man-one-vote
system.
The one-man-one-vote system failed for yet another reason the failure of those who had the vote of exercise their right
This system has collapsed or has been sorely
responsibly.
weakened in those countries where citizens voted for the demagogue
and having voted him and his henchmen in were too frightened
and
too cowardly to have them removed.
And who and what is a demagogue?
It is not all
that
difficult
to identify
him if
only the
average citizen would regard the right to vote
as a grave
responsibility.
The demagogue is generally a
man who, when out of power, tolls
you only about your rights but once in power concentrates only on
He will promise you more wages,
the discharge of your obligations.
unrestrained
profits,
free houses, free bus rides, free this and
that including free speech. All the citizen has to do is sit under
the banyan tree and the government will provide the banquet and
dancing girls.
But once he has been elected the secret police rather
than dancing girls are likely to turn up.
So beware of the messiah who comes to you tolling
you of your
rights
without tolling you about the demands he will m&o on you.
The one-man-one-vote system will work so long as the average
citizen reminds himself at every election that goodies offered by
a candidate imply some measure of pain and effort on his part and
therefore demands from the candidate a disclosure of how bitter
the pill is under the sugar coating.
You as university
graduates being better
the required intellectual
the less educated citizen
educated and having
disciplines
have a responsibility
to help
to distinguish
between the demagogue and
those fit and equipped to govern Singapore well.
Your responsibility
does not end there.
You cannot be just
advisers
to the citizens
of Singapore on
how
to choose the right
people to govern Singapore.
As university
. . ...7/-
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AS university
-
graduates you arc among that
of the population who have acquired
disciplined
in the art of acquiring
lucky minority
more knowledge and have been
more knowledge.
The more
such people enter the ranks of those who govern the country, the
better the prospects of good government, rational
government and
an effectively
functioning
democracy.
Let me however say that not all university
graduates can enter
the ranks of rulers nor should government consist only of graduates.
At any one moment in Singapore, as of now, there can only be 69
But it is important for a11 of us - for
members in Parliament.
the rest of the two million or so Singaporeans - that the 69 should
be about the most intellectually
gifted,
morally impeccable and
It is most vital that this should
totally
dedicated of our citizens.
be so, for these 69 can make or break Singapore.
If the 69 are
for the most port ignorant,
weak and dishonest men then however
able, gifted and honest the rest of you may be, life must become
intolerable
and impossible for you in every way. Particularly;
so in the case of Singapore which lacking natural resources
and prospers wholly on human resources
And if the quality
69 who govern you are
second rate and
third
rate then,
lives
of the
who
knows, one day some
of youwill join the ranks of that tragic class
They sai1
of people the newspapers have dubbed the "Boat People".
on and on hoping to gut somewhere and increasingly
nowhere.
If we arc to get the best 69 then every university
graduate
should sit for the entrance
the University
of Politics.
examination
to what can be described
as
Only a few of you will pass this
examination but larger the field of competitors the higher the chances
of ensuring that the top 69 consist of men and women of outstanding
intellect
and character.
In short you aS university
graduates have
a responsibility
to yourself,
to your family and to your notion to compete for
political
leadership,
regardless of whether you fail or pass..
If the one-man-one-vote system fails it will be because you
failed to discharge this particular
responsibility.
This does . ...8/-
your political
responsibilities
arc ended. There arc other areas
whore your political
responsibilities
can end should be exercised.
But you should aim to reach the ranks of the 69 and only when you
fail to make it should you q seek other areas where your responsibilities
as a citizen can be discharged.
But you as university
graduates would be shirking your responsibilities
and jeopardising your future if having
graduated
the first thing you say to yourself is: "Now lot me sail forth
into. the world and make my first million before I take a shot
at the second million".
Then one day you will have an Emperor Bokasa to shatter
dreams and lead you into a nightmare.
JANUARY14, 1978.
your