I’ve been researching Singapore’s old population control policies for an upcoming story. Lo and behold, the ever-efficient city-state has archived many of its crazy PSAs online.
I think the message here is that if you keep having children with empty, improbably round eye sockets, you should probably consider tubal ligation. On a more uplifting note, we really need more billboards reminding us that we’re just a few days removed from total annihilation:
And finally:
I remember watching those Mandarin PSAs as a kid while clicking through the Mandarin soap operas, looking for something to watch after school. Why they had Mandarin PSAs in English is a bit of a mystery.
Congratulations on the insta-lanche!
You mean ‘lo’ and behold.
And yes. Only a few days from annihilation given the uncertain ethnic and geopolitical dynamics of the time.
In the complacent West, genocides, ethnic strife, and balkanizations are a world away. So you get to be smug in your relative comfort; anything else is a humorous overreaction, or else paranoia, even “crazy”.
Spare us your condescension.
Thanks anon! I assure you I’m no kinder when discussing the propaganda of the “complacent West.” Certainly our government-funded anti-drug campaigns are no less ridiculous or hyperbolic.
No Kerry, you actually don’t get it. Singapore is surrounded by neighbours who don’t like it, have radical islamist movements, and have threatened to destroy the country. Read some history. The fact is that Singapore is a tiny island in a very hostile world with no strong allies, no raw materials and nothing except willpower to be successful. There is nothing “ridiculous” or “hyperbolic” about understanding these facts.
That should be “speak more Mandarin and FEWER dialects”..
(and if I were ever in charge of an island nation with the neighbors Singapore has, I’d be on DEFCON 2 at all times..)
I just wish we could get some of this:
http://au.news.yahoo.com/080213/19/15tko.html
Deity,
Note that the “stop at two” campaign was, in the space of a decade, replaced with the “three or more, if you can afford it” campaign. The former was obviously misconceived. The second is notable simply for the bizarre juxtaposition of jolly Singaporean businessmen and near-apocalyptic text. The last I just threw in for the lesser/few confusion on a poster about language use.
Singapore’s ethnic composition and geography have led to its somewhat paranoid stance towards its neighbors (watching all the firepower displayed during the National Day Parade makes that obvious very quickly).
While the PAP and MM Lee seem to have fostered this paranoia, I would just say that it is not unjustified.
A couple of decades ago, given the opportunity Malaysia or Indonesia probably would have tried to seize Singapore. Whoever controls Singapore has control over the Straits of Malacca which is the most important shipping lane in the world.
The Malaysians could take Singapore in a couple of weeks anytime they want by just turning off the water supply.
A few years ago on a visit to Singapore, I was at an intersection where a light was malfunctioning (shocking, I know). After a few minutes, people began to jaywalk. I shot a picture which I fantasized as captioning, “Citizens of Singapore, rebelling against 40 years of PAP rule, cross street against light.”
But hey, the place works and people can mostly go about their lives with the state only nagging then, not stomping them.
Why would Malaya want Singapore back?
Seriously, Malaya and SIngapore merged to become MalaySIa, but racial tensions got the Malayan king (or emperor or potentate or whatever) to break Singapore back off. It almost killed Lee Kwan (Harry) Yew’s political career.
But it didn’t.
(thank goodness for Discovery HD
And the big racial tension? Singapore’s primarily ethnic Chinese (Buddhist/Confucian?) population reducing the overall percentage of Malaya’s ethnic Malay (Muslim) population.
But then, IANAPoliticalScientist..
And to three-peat myself: folks often wonder what a ‘free’ but not democratic China would look like?
Think Singapore, but with 1.x billion. Not necessarily scary (presuming the transition from corrupt CINOism to a somewhat professionally-run and relatively less-corrupt quasifascist republic) but definitely not something you’d feel all that great about.
This assumes, of course, that the rising RMB doesn’t push outsourcing of jobs to the poorer nations of SEAsia and Bangladesh/Pakistan, which then put rootless Chinese out of work and in the mind to start smashing things…
Augustus,
Singapore is turning Marina Bay into a reservoir – Google “Marina Barrage”. Water security would seem to be on their minds as much as military security.
Kerry, you write:
The second is notable simply for the bizarre juxtaposition of jolly Singaporean businessmen and near-apocalyptic text.
Singapore’s enemies are real, it’s strategic depth non-existent and the trauma of conquest and occupation has not entirely healed.
What you see as bizarre, I see as poignant and sobering.
I think the “more Mandarin and less dialects” is pretty amusing given that Singapore was founded by Hakka fleeing the Mandarin-speaking mainlanders. Dialects indeed.
But many Hakka I know (and am related to) would easily grab a buck/yuan/renmimbi for whatever it took. (Deng Xiopeng excepted, of course).
“The Malaysians could take Singapore in a couple of weeks anytime they want by just turning off the water supply.”
That was and remains a casus belli – this has been made clear to the Malaysians in no uncertain terms.
It also highlights how vulnerable we were then (water security has improved somewhat in the intervening years). Again, “annihilation in a few days” is anything but hyperbole.
As to how quickly ethnic tensions can turn into a conflagration, although ethnic fautlines are not always so readily apparent on the surface, one need only look at the 1997 pogroms against the ethnic Chinese in Indonesia. Let’s just say it refocused minds very keenly on the fragility of peace.
Anonymouse, that is no more ironic than the Irish fleeing the English-speaking English for the New World… most of whom speak English today, with Irish a distant and increasingly unfamiliar mother-tongue.
And of course, a lingua franca was needed for uniting a fractious Chinese community divided into its various dialect groups. It pays diplomatic and economic dividends in the long term too: a common language and shared linguistic heritage with the commies can be helpful.
Kerry, such campaigns, while tacky, a no more than a means of lobbying the public. And an unsophisticated public at that (many poorly educated immigrants who would today be considered ’simple folk’). In the context, keeping it simple for the simpletons was the golden rule.
I understand it is difficult grasp such subtleties coming from a sophisticated doctrinaire libertarian perspective… but you might want to be just a little sympathetic towards the policy wonks in this country. You mock the misconceived notion of population control, but in a country as crowded as this, it is an easy mistake to make. What is more important is that the state bit the bullet and reversed course when the demographic data began to trend in an unfavourable direction.
>>That should be “speak more Mandarin and FEWER dialects”..
Actually, I think a better translation would be “Speak Mandarin more, speak in dialects less”
Arriving here from the happy environs of Instapundit, we are displeased at the impertinence of the author of this very modest place. The person misconstrues our kind condescension in choosing to tarry here as an invitation to familiarity. What could possibly be more cringeffective than such “incursions insinuantes?
If we were dealing with a person who was sensitive to the appropriate tone and the social realities, we might deign a glance of appraisal – might advise on the less than perfectly harmonious interplay of colors, the faulty juxtapositions of narrative mood. After all, one of the obligations placed upon our selves is the cultural improvement of our lessers. But one is disinclined to cast pearls before upstarts. No, indeed, we withdraw.
There are places where the elevated patronage of vaulted habitues of Instapundit is sufficiently recognized and observed. At such a place you may attend me.
When I was back in the US over Christmas, I was able to enjoy some feel good (macho) US Army recruitment propaganda at the local cinema. What was the difference between that and what I’ve seen living in Singapore? The US Army’s has great production values and a good tune; Singapore, on the other hand, has stabilized it’s population, moved from a 3rd to a 1st world economy, has mandatory national service, and the younger generation of Singaporean Chinese all speak Mandarin and English (allowing them to take advantage of China’s incredible growth).
Maybe it is time for the US to go ahead outsource its PSAs and government services since we’ve outsourced just about everything else. Introducing our third party presidential candidate, Rajiv from Bangalore.
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Harbans Lal Gera – I know this is off topic but need help with Vista
Thanks,
Harbans Lal Gera
The fact is that Singapore is a tiny island in a very hostile world with no strong allies, no raw materials and nothing except willpower to be successful. There is nothing “ridiculous” or “hyperbolic” about understanding these facts.
Hello,
)
i’m pretty confused, but is this a good place to say “Hi”?
(I’m new here
cheers,
______________
Amikaks
where to soma
http://board.muse.mu/member.php?u=127215