Singapore: Of Palm Trees and Oil Rigs

Imagine, if you will, booking a hotel on Singapore's sunny Sentosa resort island. Complete with sandy beaches, palm trees, lush jungles, and quaint colonial buildings, the travel brochure paints a lovely picture of your destination, a a quiet getaway from the hustle and bustle of commercial, developed Singapore.

But there's a catch. Forget civil liberties, freedom of the press, free and fair elections. If there's one thing Singapore specializes in, it's economic freedom.

Hence the oil rigs and massive tankers that mar the skyline like a grain of sand in the eye. Just when former Prime Minister and current Minister Mentor Lee Kwan Yew was ready to tout the new "fun" and creative Singapore, you realize that fun will never be the first word you use to describe the tiny city-state. It's all about development, seemingly at any cost.

That's not to say all is wrong with Singapore. Lee does deserve a good amount of credit for taking the island--reeling from its 1965 split with Malaysia--and turning it into a model for rapid development, reaching first-world status at record pace.

But at what price? Singapore's $29,900 GDP per capita (22nd worldwide) and and human development index of .907 (25th wordwide) are particularly remarkable for an island with 4.3 million people residing on 270 square miles of land, with no discernable natural resources and surrounded by potentially hostile Muslim neighbors.

It's those neighbors, and the potent ethnic mix of Chinese, Malays, Indians that led Lee and his ruling People's Action Party (PAP) to crack down on opposition and restrict freedoms in the name of preserving order, stability, and development. Despite its lauded showings on economic indexes, Singapore received a mere "partly free" designation from Freedom House and a lowly 140 out of 160 nations on the Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index. While Singapore's economic development has lowered unemployment and attracted vast sums of foreign capital, it has done so without the liberal democratic institutions that traditionally accompany it.

Ask the average Singaporean, and they're just fine with the tradeoff. "I'm comfortable," they say. "The system works, here, so we don't mess with it."

In my ten days here so far, I've come to the conclusion that Singaporeans are at best pragmatic, at worst, risk adverse. Many seem to like the idea of democracy as a concept, but struggle to imagine a democratic Singapore, afriad to lose the economic rewards that 40-plus years of PAP rule has reaped.

The problem is, while the system may be working, there's a good chance that more freedoms could make it work better. A culture with greater freedoms of expression could fuel the innovative thought and creativity that the government's public service announcements solicit.

The beach may look pretty now, but imagine how much prettier it could be without the oil refineries.