Publication: 938LIVE
Date: 23 July 2007
Headline: Singapore's Core Values
French clothing designer Roland Mouret was quoted as saying last month "You don't have to be
French to be fabulous, you just have to be yourself'.
For most, staying true to oneself involves sticking to one's morals or core values.
Singapore as a country is no exception
In a recent interview with the BBC, Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong said in globalising, Singapore
won't give up its "core values", but for the "things which are less core", we might be bit more
liberal.
What's core and less core, can they be neatly separated and how much do Singaporeans
embrace and embody these values?
Geraldine Soh finds out.
Christians have their Ten Commandments, soldiers, their art of war and street thugs, well their
values may not always be positive, but are values nonetheless.
Singapore? Probably the closest thing it has is the five shared values presented to Parliament in
a White Paper in January 1991.
Among them: family as the basic unit of society and racial and religious harmony.
The idea was to create an identity all Singaporeans, regardless of race or religion, could identify
with as the nation progressed.
But these shared values aside, one could also take what the five stars on the state flag represent
to refer to Singapore's core values - that of democracy, peace, progress, justice and equality.
Just last month, Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong, who had mooted the idea of a national ideology
in 1988, talked again about core and less core values - something he clearly delineated but didn't
go so far as to define.
As English Literature lecturer Kirpal Singh noted, anyone observing the leadership patterns of
Singapore would probably be able to identify these core values as spelt out by MP Lim Biow
Chuan.
Things like meritocracy and tolerance You can have a temple next to a church or a
mosque and these are things which are core to us. Then there'll be other core values like
integrity, the clean system that we have that would stand Singapore in a good stead.
The problem was with the less core values, which in SM Goh's view, referred to 'the arts and the
various kinds of entertainment'.
These he said, Singapore can afford to go easier on.
But is it all as simple as it sounds?
For a start, if Singapore's to succeed as a nation, its people should at least agree on the core
values.
Already that's a stumbling block.
Publication: 938LIVE
Date: 23 July 2007
Headline: Singapore's Core Values
Two of the four interviewed see the sense of collectivism or family unit as being more of a core
value than say meritocracy or multi racialism.
Meanwhile, pragmatism, while duly acknowledged by Mr Lim, was promptly brushed aside when
suggested as a core value.
I won't say pragmatism is a core value. Core values are things fundamental that we won't
shift from it come what may.
Finding it less of a dirty word is former theatre practitioner turned lecturer at SMU Practice
Assistant Professor Margaret Chan.
She says while she may be against appearing nude, she's not against acts like Crazy Horse if it
helps boost Singapore's revenue and status.
Pragmatism may be a sell-out to some, but she thinks it's possible for someone to believe in two
things at once while upholding only one core value system.
There's this idea of the private and public self. For example, I myself might not believe in
gambling but I don't think to have the IRs and casinos is a sell-out I can separate the two.
But not everything in the public 1 private debate are so distinct and easily reconciled.
Alvin Tan, founder and artistic director of The Necessary Stage shares how a value can at once
be core and less core to different people.
Where the state would place emphasis on family as the blood family and heterosexually
constructed, I think the nation or Singaporeans may have a broader definition of what
family values may translate to. In the realm of the people's sector including the arts, I think
family may refer to all sorts of support networks we develop for ourselves be it the single
mothers' network, the elderly network, a network of widows or middle aged singles, the
gay network I think they're all embraced under family values.
An upcoming play of his called Good People will question the kind of values state and society
each hold dear to themselves and yet are intertwined.
Featuring a woman with bone cancer living in a hospice, she one day discovers her daughter has
put marijuana into her brownie to alleviate her pain.
The question then posed is if she should face the death penalty.
So that's what I mean - in this kind of situation, one is the state, the other is what happens
to people who exist like that which is the exception to the rule. It's quite ineivtable that
some of us are single and 40. So are we less Singaporean?
Since art mimics life and the authorities have agreed to a lighter touch approach for the arts,
perhaps the arts is then best-placed to re-define what's core and less core values.
Assoc Prof Kirpal Singh feels this has been happening of late, citing single mums as an example.
10 years ago single mums were talked about in little circles then it got taken up by
women's magazines. Then in the last 3,4 years, ST itself your station, the TV began to look
at this issue more frequently.
Publication: 938LIVE
Date: 23 July 2007
Headline: Singapore's Core Values
In defining Singapore's core values, does it also matter that these values aren't necessarily Asian
and if so how different does that make us then from say Switzerland or the US?
Assoc Prof Kirpal Singh is convinced there's this Asianness to the local core values although it
may not be articulated in the old way.
Our sense of loving our parents has very different connotation from say American's sense.
In our sense it's telling our parents everything and seeking their advice on alot of
landmarks of our lives but for them you get together but the person whom you want to
marry, unless you're really special it's not your dad's business.
How close then are Singaporeans to embracing and embodying the state's core values and vice
versa?
I think most people will generally agree that these core values have done well for us. In
times of distress and pragmatism fails, it's the sense of community bonding, home, family
that unites the people. and I believe this is the core of what SM's trying to say.
As society evolves, new core values will emerge as MP Lim Biow Chuan has already observed
with this growing sense of openness.
Currently, I suppose what the government is promoting now is this idea of openess to new
ideas and foreign talent so this is becoming a value.
What's core and what's lesser core values, these may be inevitably subjective.
It's also not always easy to differentiate between the two, especially for those whose values don't
conform with society's.
But this is the dilemma facing not just Singaporeans but global citizens the world over.
If London-based Frenchman Roland Mouret has his way, he'll tell you you don't have to be
French to be fabulous, you just have to be yourself.
Question is how do you define yourself?