The mysteries behind Singapore's successes
Ahmed Al-Shuqairi is a Saudi Arabian activist and media figure has been well-known of his series of Khawatir programs, it means "reflections" in English. He performed in this media project between 2005-2015. The kickstart of this project was to tackle the dilemmas that young in the Islamic Arab World suffer from through showing the successful experiences of other communities overseas. It was a vibrant cultural exchange tool which prompted those youth to interpret their images in the mirror of other. It, therefore, highlighted political, social, economic issues, including intellectualism that was notably brought out.
In this episode "The mysteries behind Singapore's success," in Arabic, Ahmed visited this country to show us its stunning progression in different fields that it has accomplished since its independence in the 1960s. I found it interesting to translate into English.
Singapore's map
Ahmad starts narrating from 2:00 on, saying,
"One of the standards of the country's success in providing a dignified life for its people is the economy.
It's expressed by individuals' income. How much the gross of this income? There are lists cover the individuals' income in every country to compare them. The final goal that we'll display in this episode is to get some ideas across to the Arab World in order to reach a high degree of a dignified life and provide the highest degrees in the world to become the Arab-Muslim individuals' income the highest. It means that justice is applied and corruption is eliminated, then.
It's expressed by individuals' income. How much the gross of this income? There are lists cover the individuals' income in every country to compare them. The final goal that we'll display in this episode is to get some ideas across to the Arab World in order to reach a high degree of a dignified life and provide the highest degrees in the world to become the Arab-Muslim individuals' income the highest. It means that justice is applied and corruption is eliminated, then.
When we see Singapore today in 2013 -which is at the top of prosperity and sophistication- we the current generation expect that those people have been as such since they were born and genetically developed to be as such. Look at the left side where the public gardens and streets are clean. However, it's not true, we are in an area right now, look how was it in 1960. Look at its streets were totally dirt where garbages to the degree that children were taking shower in the street. Poverty is high and the highest level of civilizational and moral backwardness featured it.
Lee Kuan Yew the Singaporean Prime Minister was complaining when he took over the office about people's morality and behavior saying, "I'm mystified of how the Singaporean taxi drivers open their cars' windows to spit through on the street."
So, morality was violated, no money, poverty, and ignorance. This how Singapore was.
This is another area, take a look at this building, here it is in 1960. Singapore was a well-known of its unorganized slums because of poverty, stacked stores, and unorganized dwellings. It's a problem -as I know- existent in many cities in the Arab World today. It was in Singapore in 1960, but they tackled it. Look at the area around me now, skyscrapers, look how became well-organized and clean.
When Singapore got its independence from Malaysia -Malaysia is a huge country has resources, economy, but Singapore is a small country. Consequently, Singapore's separation from Malaysia was a big shock and a slap on the face of Singaporeans to the degree that Prime Minister Lee Kuan himself showed up on TV crying in front of people, imagine a PM has nothing to say.
Lee Kuan's statement, -a speech gave after the independence- "I believe in the integration of Malaysia and the unity of both lands altogether. Those people are linked with economics and geographic location and kinship among them." He nodded saying, "would you mind stopping for a while." Then he continues weeping.
Ahmad continues, "Look at Lee Kuan in 1965 crying, and the British newspapers wrote, "Singapore is out." So, it is out of the game and has no hope. The separation occurred between Malaysia and Singapore. Why was Lee Kuan crying? Because there was a big difference between Singapore's qualifications and capabilities and Malaysia's.
In short, Malaysia in front of you now, it has 480 double the distance of Singapore. Singapore is considered a drop in a huge distance, which is Malaysia.
Regarding resources, Malaysia is full of rubber, wood, and others. While Singapore has no resources and it has a shortage in water. All of these were frustrating factors for a country has no resources. But, with persistence and insistence look at what did they make; one of the basics is "unifying the country towards one goal," it's a very important. We see that in Singapore they were different ethnic groups, they are Chineses, Malawines, Indians, and Euro-Asians, four ethnicities living in this country. Each ethnicity has its religion, tradition, and language. They were fighting in the 1960s, there were protests, vandalizing cars among different groups. It was difficult though. Thus, one of Lee Kuan's priorities as a PM was to make all people understand that Singapore is number one. "We all work for Singapore, the Malawi, the Chinese ... etc. All of you site aside your ethnicity to put the country and its interest first," said Lee. He put this issue into schools.
You can observe that the formal language in Singapore is English because they aimed to unify people without discriminating among ethnicities.
When he came to power despite being from the Chinese ethnicity which is the majority in Singapore, he stripped himself of his ethnicity in order for country's interest. He, therefore, said, "We won't impose a language on other languages, we have the Chinese, Malawi, ...etc and despite the fact that I belong to the biggest ethnicity, I won't favor it over other groups' languages. So, choose a language isn't ethnically-based, choose Chinese, for instance."
The second thing is, it's a country of laws. Lee Kuan realized that we have people haven't ethics to be promoted in Singapore and have no sophisticated background and the culture that he wants to there to make the country at the top. This won't happen without reinforcing strict laws to be applied to all people equally in order to upgrade the city and people in Singapore to the high morality and become a role model for other countries.
Singapore is the country of fines, there are fines imposed on everything. Imagine somebody gets into the store to buy a shirt where fines are labeled on and souvenirs show people about these fines.
For example, on this shirt, the slogan refers to "pushing and flushing." If you didn't press on to keep the restroom clean for whoever comes in after you, the fine is 300$. Don't spite, if you spit on the street, the fine is 300$. Vandalism, vandalizing public properties, the fine is jail and lashes.
It's very important the laws are applied to all, the PM, the ministers, the people, and even foreigners from great countries. While, in some countries, foreigners cannot be jailed like the Americans have that powerful position. However, in Singapore, you're like others. In the 1990s, for instance, something happened in this regard when an American guy 18-year-old sprayed graffiti on some cars and vandalized other things which are punishable by Singaporean law by jailing and lashing, because public properties are owned by people must be maintained. He, aftermath, was sentenced 4 months, 2300 $ fine, and lashing for six times.
At the time, President Clinton intervened because he is an American citizen, but Singaporeans refused his intercedence and said, "he is like others." Laws in Singapore are applied to all people whoever you are American or not. These laws are labeled on almost everything even on the mug when you want to drink a coffee, or pinned on the wall.
This comes to keep reminding the citizen about the importance of these laws. More about laws, imagine in Singapore the gum is forbidden. Ahmad asking around about this matter, "When was the last time you ate a chewing gum in Singapore?"
The person says, "It was 7 years ago when I was 10 years old and got it from Malasia."
Another citizen, "two years ago, and I got it from Malaysia."
A third one, "On Sunday."
Ahmad, "In Singapore?"
She, "Yeah."
Ahmad, "where did you get it from?"
She, "Overseas."
Ahmad, "why?"
They, "because it's a contraband here."
Ahmad gets into a grocery asking "hello, do you have a chewing gum?"
The seller, "no, no, no"
Ahmad, "she felt scared. So, there is no gum and they feel scared when somebody asks them for gum. She thought that I'm asking for drugs."
Why gum is prohibited?
There are two reasons. First, after it's eaten the consumer throws it away on the street which costs the country very much to clean it off, and this money comes from people. Eventually, the states' money is people's. Don't say that the state will spend on, this is your money. Thus, Singaporean government stated that, "why should we spend millions of dollars on cleaning gum in the streets. We have an example, in London where anybody can recognize the spots on the side walk, millions of them there. It's very difficult to clean them off, this requires unusual cleaning. In London they have special devices to clean gum off, to do this, the cleaners must put up a plastic fence around the area of cleaning where 3.5 billions of gum are thrown on London's streets. The cost of cleaning gum in Britain is 10 million pounds annually. The Singaporean government stated that "We deserve this money instead of spending it on cleaning off the gum." As a result, gum was prohibited for 14 years. Then Bush -the U.S. president- came to negotiate the matter of exporting gum to Singapore because the U.S. gum companies sell it out making millions of revenues.
The Singaporean gov allowed gum to be only sold at pharmacies. We couldn't record because it's a sensitive matter. Of course, not any kind of gum in the pharmacy, this kind is a medical gum, it helps you giving up on smoking or cleaning your teeth. So, it's the only gum they have, and no gum in the supermarket either. They live without it, nothing happened to them, though.
They changed from people spitting on the street, taking shower in it to one of the cleanest peoples in the world. Who expected so, this transformation happened over a few years. The answer is the laws.
Here we compare between individual's income in Malaysia and Singapore, we start from 1965, this income is almost close to 300 $ annually, Malaysia is the red color and Singapore is the blue color about 350 $ annually.
The race starts after separation to see how each government managed its country, look at from the 1960s, 1970s how Singapore trended up and Malaysia but its improvement isn't comparable to Singapore. In the 1990s, Singapore continued trending up, it attracted foreign investments by showing the spirit of coexistence among different groups. While, Malaysia suffered a little bit, though it kept developing. We end in 2010, to see the big difference is moving on to reach 31.000 $ per capita in Singapore and Malaysia only 12.000 $.
This happened by willpower, persistence, well-planning, eliminating corruption, and planning the economy well led to improving Singapore by 80 fold (x80) compared to how it was at the time of separation. Malaysia performed well, but not as much as Singapore, just it reached half of the percentage of Singaporean improvement.
Also, one of the mysteries behind Singaporean development is clearing up corruption, it was the first priority. It was a corrupt country in terms of briberies, nepotism. But, they stood up and said, "We are a country must get rid of corruption, so that laws will be applied to all people to encounter it."
The first thing Lee Kuan did when took over the office, as he said, "This ministry is the white." All should dress up white clothes to express the purity of hand -it's a symbolic matter to show impeccability when the country at all levels shows attention, it won't allow corruption.
Up till now, there are corruption issues which are shown on media. Look at the civil defense minister in front of people being driven to the court to be sued for bribery issue had happened in France, though not in Singapore. Politicians, thus, aren't protected in case of corruption there, as well as, head of the church was tried after had been convicted of corruption. The religious denomination isn't impeccable, though.
If we want to eliminate corruption, all social denominations shall be under legal accountability, not protected for any reason. How Singapore has reached to development, civilization, and coexistence because of Lee Kuan who studied at this school between 1930-1934 after graduated he set out on a long journey of presiding Singapore. He was elected for 8 times because of his accomplishments. And, moreover, his people were very happy under his rule.
In the 1990s, he stepped down voluntarily as a PM of Singapore. This step is to leave this position to the new generation despite all successes he achieved. In this, there is a lesson, wisdom, and thinking.
A further reason for economic development in Singapore is commercial facilitation for citizens, it has a basic and direct role in economic development. Singapore is one of the easiest countries in terms of setting up a business. Here I'm hosted by Mr. Kinny in his house, we did an experiment to establish a company. I said to Kenny what a company should we establish? Let's establish a media production company.
Then, he began surfing the internet, he inserted his data, we named the company "Sahel Production," it was very easy. Through the internet, he made sure whether the name is already used by other company or not, in a few seconds, the result popped up. Whilst, in some other countries, to make sure whether this name is used or not, you must go to the ministry of commerce and submit an application, then you'll be given papers to look up in by yourself, and next step you may receive the response next day. It's a long story just to know if the name is already used. We knew this in only one second here. After completing the data, he submitted the application.
Kenny said, "congratulation for a successful registration in a new business." He received a mail informing him that he'll receive a confirmation after 72 hours. Next day he called us telling that everything has been successfully done, the "Sahel Company" is available right now.
We went back to him, he received mail that his company is formally open. This was done over 28 hours.
Ahmad said, "You're the owner of the Sahel Production Co?"
Kenny, "Yes, I'm the boss."
He then, printed the certificate out, it's a simple paper not like that highly-considered one, undersigned, sealed includes the owners' name and registration number. It's like a bill.
He said, "Basically, it's not that important and no need for it."
Ahmad, "We don't need to keep this paper."
Kenny, "No, we can hang it on the office's wall."
Ahmad, tearing the paper up, "This paper just to show it when you go to a company. So, you don't need it formally, his company is on the list, all he needs is this registration number."
This is Mr. Kinny, the executive director "CEO"
Kenny, "Yes."
Finally, this message of Singapore's story in this episode showing Singapore's story gives a hope that whatever difficult things are and whatever the backwardness in the streets. There is always a hope for reformation and become like this and even better, if there is a wise leadership, people want to be developed, and a country working for all of this -government and people."
The end
The text above is an audiovisual episode available in Arabic here.
Translator Nasser Al-Qadi
Lee Kuan Yew the Singaporean Prime Minister was complaining when he took over the office about people's morality and behavior saying, "I'm mystified of how the Singaporean taxi drivers open their cars' windows to spit through on the street."
So, morality was violated, no money, poverty, and ignorance. This how Singapore was.
This is another area, take a look at this building, here it is in 1960. Singapore was a well-known of its unorganized slums because of poverty, stacked stores, and unorganized dwellings. It's a problem -as I know- existent in many cities in the Arab World today. It was in Singapore in 1960, but they tackled it. Look at the area around me now, skyscrapers, look how became well-organized and clean.
When Singapore got its independence from Malaysia -Malaysia is a huge country has resources, economy, but Singapore is a small country. Consequently, Singapore's separation from Malaysia was a big shock and a slap on the face of Singaporeans to the degree that Prime Minister Lee Kuan himself showed up on TV crying in front of people, imagine a PM has nothing to say.
Lee Kuan's statement, -a speech gave after the independence- "I believe in the integration of Malaysia and the unity of both lands altogether. Those people are linked with economics and geographic location and kinship among them." He nodded saying, "would you mind stopping for a while." Then he continues weeping.
Ahmad continues, "Look at Lee Kuan in 1965 crying, and the British newspapers wrote, "Singapore is out." So, it is out of the game and has no hope. The separation occurred between Malaysia and Singapore. Why was Lee Kuan crying? Because there was a big difference between Singapore's qualifications and capabilities and Malaysia's.
In short, Malaysia in front of you now, it has 480 double the distance of Singapore. Singapore is considered a drop in a huge distance, which is Malaysia.
Regarding resources, Malaysia is full of rubber, wood, and others. While Singapore has no resources and it has a shortage in water. All of these were frustrating factors for a country has no resources. But, with persistence and insistence look at what did they make; one of the basics is "unifying the country towards one goal," it's a very important. We see that in Singapore they were different ethnic groups, they are Chineses, Malawines, Indians, and Euro-Asians, four ethnicities living in this country. Each ethnicity has its religion, tradition, and language. They were fighting in the 1960s, there were protests, vandalizing cars among different groups. It was difficult though. Thus, one of Lee Kuan's priorities as a PM was to make all people understand that Singapore is number one. "We all work for Singapore, the Malawi, the Chinese ... etc. All of you site aside your ethnicity to put the country and its interest first," said Lee. He put this issue into schools.
You can observe that the formal language in Singapore is English because they aimed to unify people without discriminating among ethnicities.
When he came to power despite being from the Chinese ethnicity which is the majority in Singapore, he stripped himself of his ethnicity in order for country's interest. He, therefore, said, "We won't impose a language on other languages, we have the Chinese, Malawi, ...etc and despite the fact that I belong to the biggest ethnicity, I won't favor it over other groups' languages. So, choose a language isn't ethnically-based, choose Chinese, for instance."
The second thing is, it's a country of laws. Lee Kuan realized that we have people haven't ethics to be promoted in Singapore and have no sophisticated background and the culture that he wants to there to make the country at the top. This won't happen without reinforcing strict laws to be applied to all people equally in order to upgrade the city and people in Singapore to the high morality and become a role model for other countries.
Singapore is the country of fines, there are fines imposed on everything. Imagine somebody gets into the store to buy a shirt where fines are labeled on and souvenirs show people about these fines.
For example, on this shirt, the slogan refers to "pushing and flushing." If you didn't press on to keep the restroom clean for whoever comes in after you, the fine is 300$. Don't spite, if you spit on the street, the fine is 300$. Vandalism, vandalizing public properties, the fine is jail and lashes.
It's very important the laws are applied to all, the PM, the ministers, the people, and even foreigners from great countries. While, in some countries, foreigners cannot be jailed like the Americans have that powerful position. However, in Singapore, you're like others. In the 1990s, for instance, something happened in this regard when an American guy 18-year-old sprayed graffiti on some cars and vandalized other things which are punishable by Singaporean law by jailing and lashing, because public properties are owned by people must be maintained. He, aftermath, was sentenced 4 months, 2300 $ fine, and lashing for six times.
At the time, President Clinton intervened because he is an American citizen, but Singaporeans refused his intercedence and said, "he is like others." Laws in Singapore are applied to all people whoever you are American or not. These laws are labeled on almost everything even on the mug when you want to drink a coffee, or pinned on the wall.
This comes to keep reminding the citizen about the importance of these laws. More about laws, imagine in Singapore the gum is forbidden. Ahmad asking around about this matter, "When was the last time you ate a chewing gum in Singapore?"
The person says, "It was 7 years ago when I was 10 years old and got it from Malasia."
Another citizen, "two years ago, and I got it from Malaysia."
A third one, "On Sunday."
Ahmad, "In Singapore?"
She, "Yeah."
Ahmad, "where did you get it from?"
She, "Overseas."
Ahmad, "why?"
They, "because it's a contraband here."
Ahmad gets into a grocery asking "hello, do you have a chewing gum?"
The seller, "no, no, no"
Ahmad, "she felt scared. So, there is no gum and they feel scared when somebody asks them for gum. She thought that I'm asking for drugs."
Why gum is prohibited?
There are two reasons. First, after it's eaten the consumer throws it away on the street which costs the country very much to clean it off, and this money comes from people. Eventually, the states' money is people's. Don't say that the state will spend on, this is your money. Thus, Singaporean government stated that, "why should we spend millions of dollars on cleaning gum in the streets. We have an example, in London where anybody can recognize the spots on the side walk, millions of them there. It's very difficult to clean them off, this requires unusual cleaning. In London they have special devices to clean gum off, to do this, the cleaners must put up a plastic fence around the area of cleaning where 3.5 billions of gum are thrown on London's streets. The cost of cleaning gum in Britain is 10 million pounds annually. The Singaporean government stated that "We deserve this money instead of spending it on cleaning off the gum." As a result, gum was prohibited for 14 years. Then Bush -the U.S. president- came to negotiate the matter of exporting gum to Singapore because the U.S. gum companies sell it out making millions of revenues.
The Singaporean gov allowed gum to be only sold at pharmacies. We couldn't record because it's a sensitive matter. Of course, not any kind of gum in the pharmacy, this kind is a medical gum, it helps you giving up on smoking or cleaning your teeth. So, it's the only gum they have, and no gum in the supermarket either. They live without it, nothing happened to them, though.
They changed from people spitting on the street, taking shower in it to one of the cleanest peoples in the world. Who expected so, this transformation happened over a few years. The answer is the laws.
Here we compare between individual's income in Malaysia and Singapore, we start from 1965, this income is almost close to 300 $ annually, Malaysia is the red color and Singapore is the blue color about 350 $ annually.
The race starts after separation to see how each government managed its country, look at from the 1960s, 1970s how Singapore trended up and Malaysia but its improvement isn't comparable to Singapore. In the 1990s, Singapore continued trending up, it attracted foreign investments by showing the spirit of coexistence among different groups. While, Malaysia suffered a little bit, though it kept developing. We end in 2010, to see the big difference is moving on to reach 31.000 $ per capita in Singapore and Malaysia only 12.000 $.
This happened by willpower, persistence, well-planning, eliminating corruption, and planning the economy well led to improving Singapore by 80 fold (x80) compared to how it was at the time of separation. Malaysia performed well, but not as much as Singapore, just it reached half of the percentage of Singaporean improvement.
Also, one of the mysteries behind Singaporean development is clearing up corruption, it was the first priority. It was a corrupt country in terms of briberies, nepotism. But, they stood up and said, "We are a country must get rid of corruption, so that laws will be applied to all people to encounter it."
The first thing Lee Kuan did when took over the office, as he said, "This ministry is the white." All should dress up white clothes to express the purity of hand -it's a symbolic matter to show impeccability when the country at all levels shows attention, it won't allow corruption.
Up till now, there are corruption issues which are shown on media. Look at the civil defense minister in front of people being driven to the court to be sued for bribery issue had happened in France, though not in Singapore. Politicians, thus, aren't protected in case of corruption there, as well as, head of the church was tried after had been convicted of corruption. The religious denomination isn't impeccable, though.
If we want to eliminate corruption, all social denominations shall be under legal accountability, not protected for any reason. How Singapore has reached to development, civilization, and coexistence because of Lee Kuan who studied at this school between 1930-1934 after graduated he set out on a long journey of presiding Singapore. He was elected for 8 times because of his accomplishments. And, moreover, his people were very happy under his rule.
In the 1990s, he stepped down voluntarily as a PM of Singapore. This step is to leave this position to the new generation despite all successes he achieved. In this, there is a lesson, wisdom, and thinking.
A further reason for economic development in Singapore is commercial facilitation for citizens, it has a basic and direct role in economic development. Singapore is one of the easiest countries in terms of setting up a business. Here I'm hosted by Mr. Kinny in his house, we did an experiment to establish a company. I said to Kenny what a company should we establish? Let's establish a media production company.
Then, he began surfing the internet, he inserted his data, we named the company "Sahel Production," it was very easy. Through the internet, he made sure whether the name is already used by other company or not, in a few seconds, the result popped up. Whilst, in some other countries, to make sure whether this name is used or not, you must go to the ministry of commerce and submit an application, then you'll be given papers to look up in by yourself, and next step you may receive the response next day. It's a long story just to know if the name is already used. We knew this in only one second here. After completing the data, he submitted the application.
Kenny said, "congratulation for a successful registration in a new business." He received a mail informing him that he'll receive a confirmation after 72 hours. Next day he called us telling that everything has been successfully done, the "Sahel Company" is available right now.
We went back to him, he received mail that his company is formally open. This was done over 28 hours.
Ahmad said, "You're the owner of the Sahel Production Co?"
Kenny, "Yes, I'm the boss."
He then, printed the certificate out, it's a simple paper not like that highly-considered one, undersigned, sealed includes the owners' name and registration number. It's like a bill.
He said, "Basically, it's not that important and no need for it."
Ahmad, "We don't need to keep this paper."
Kenny, "No, we can hang it on the office's wall."
Ahmad, tearing the paper up, "This paper just to show it when you go to a company. So, you don't need it formally, his company is on the list, all he needs is this registration number."
This is Mr. Kinny, the executive director "CEO"
Kenny, "Yes."
Finally, this message of Singapore's story in this episode showing Singapore's story gives a hope that whatever difficult things are and whatever the backwardness in the streets. There is always a hope for reformation and become like this and even better, if there is a wise leadership, people want to be developed, and a country working for all of this -government and people."
The end
The text above is an audiovisual episode available in Arabic here.
Translator Nasser Al-Qadi
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