Is there a Singapore alternative?
Below is the speech that Dr Chee Soon Juan gave at the University of Sydney on 10 June 2014:
Professor John Keane, Professor Lily Rahim, my fellow Singaporeans, ladies and gentlemen,
I want to thank the Sydney Democracy Network and the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre for organising this event and the opportunity to address you. I’ve been to the University of Sydney a few times and each I’ve been made to feel very welcome.
The situation is little different in Singapore as you might expect. When I visited the National University of Singapore a few years ago, I was promptly surrounded by university officials and told to leave.
At the Nanyang Technological University, mass communications students came up to me when I visited there and did an interview with me, but the president of the university, no less, intervened and forbade the publication of the report.
But I finally managed to figure how to address university students. All I have to do is to get on the plane and fly 4,000 miles to this place that everyone calls Australia and - voila - I can talk to students again.
This is the side of Singapore that few people outside of the country know about. Singapore has always made the headlines for its cleanliness and efficiency, a great airport and pristine public parks - and, may I add, they are well-deserved. We have had a government, dominated by the PAP, during the early years of our Republic which saw that orderliness and a clean, well-functioning environment contributed to respectable standards of living.
The downward slide
Of late, however, there has been deterioration in the quality of life in Singapore. And the populace, long known for its docility, is becoming increasingly restive over this downward slide.
With about 7,000 persons per sq km, Singapore has the third highest population density in the world. Not surprisingly, it is also one of the most stressful places in which to live and work. For example,
Singaporeans are more likely to have suffered from depression, stress and fatigue than most of our Asian counterparts.
Psychiatrists reveal that up to 90 percent of their patients are suffering from mental health issues caused by stress from work.
Singaporeans work the most hours compared to other comparable economies with falling real incomes.
Singaporean workers are the least happy in Asia.
We rank 70th position out of 194 societies in the Quality of Life Index.
In the Happy Planet Index, we poll a dismal 90th position out of 151 countries.
The elderly are pressured to continue working after retirement; the number of elderly Singaporean men working is at a record high.
In 2012, Singapore recorded 467 suicides – the highest number in 20 years and a 30 percent increase from the previous year. That's more than one person taking his/her own life every day. The Samaritans of Singapore (SOS), an organisation that works to prevent suicides, attributes the tragedy to extremes in stressful living conditions in Singapore.
Among similar economies, we have the highest income inequality.
