Frankly, between Singapore and Cuba well Singapore would be all the more liberal and democratic.
I'm not too sure. Singapore has been termed an 'illiberal democracy' by Western observers. Given the government's extensive PR machine, its propensity to sue, and the many entrenched Western business and financial interests in the country, this is as far as they would go to describe Singapore.
In truth, from an economic angle, the PAP has veered so far from its socialist roots that it probably ranks right up there with the US as the world's most neoliberal country. With one difference: while the US government's share of private business is much lower than ours, it's been estimated that our gov't controls as much as 75% of the economy through the GLCs and TLCs. We also have a higher Gini coefficient than the US, the highest income inequality in the developed world.
From a social angle, we've never been liberal or libertarian. Rather, repeated revisions to the Consitution and statutory laws have rolled back so many of our rights and freedoms that we've become a quasi-fascist state in every sense except name. Using a compliant judiciary to further political repression further stymies our avenues of expression. One man walking down the street can be charged with staging a procession. The irony is that in communist countries like Cuba or China, it is a constitutional right for workers and unions to stage strikes and sit-ins to demand better working conditions.
Having a parliament with elections once every 5 years does not a 'democracy' make, if parliament is merely a rubber-stamp body; if constitutional rights are trampled with impunity; if the judiciary is beholden to the executive; if elections are rigged in favour of the incumbent; if the electoral overseeing body is not independent.
Sure, Singapore is a lot richer than Cuba, partly because of the crippling trade embargo by the US and its allies. Notwithstanding, between a communist country with egalitarian outcomes, income parity and a vast social safety net (though all limited by poverty) and a wealthy but quasi-fascist neoliberal country whose wealth is locked in the hands of big business, government-controlled entities and a minority of individuals and the masses have little voice, I'm not sure the latter is superior. If I'm poor and indigent and ill, Cuba would probably take better care of me than Singapore ever could.
Scadanavian countries are socialist in orientation or social democracies and rather different from Communism and a dictatorship of the poletariat.
You got my point. While all communists are ideologically socialists. not all socialists are communists. Not all socialists are violent. And not all socialists states are doomed to be dictatorships; there are flourishing social democracies as well, often with better socio-economic and happiness indices than rightwing capitalist countries (democratic or not).
So: do you arrest a bunch of people who profess to be socialists, if there's no evidence of their being a stooge of outlawed communist organizations, no evidence of either a history of violent activities or planning to resort to violence sometime in the future?
Vis sa vis how good or bad liberal democracies ah, Churchill put it best, " democracy is probably the worst form of government tried until you tried all others. "
That wasn't his exact quote, but I know what you mean, and I'd agree. Just that today's democracies — even Western liberal democracies — have deviated so far from the Athenian ideal that one questions the whether the majoritarian concept has long been subverted by powerful lobby groups, corrupt politicians and usurpation by the
private corporate interest.
But Churchill's quote is moot: Singapore is not, never was, a democracy.
Freedom House's 2009 report has categorically stated that "Singapore is not an electoral democracy."
Wade agree's that they were communist but peaceful communist......and thus they were wrong to be arrested.
Don't put words in Wade's mouth. He did not say that the detainees were communists, 'peaceful' or otherwise. Throughout his discourse he used the more precise, less value-laden term "Leftists".
He said, "There was, it must be underlined no basis for arresting people in Singapore simply because they were Communist." And quoted the Office of the UK Commissioner as saying: “There is no law in Singapore under which it was an offence to be a Communist or under which Communism as such is unlawful.”
He also went to great lengths to debunk "The Communist Conspiracy" as a bogus legitimation (based on declassified papers) used by the British to justify Cold Store, whose actual motivations were political and opportunistic in nature. The extensive transpired correspondence shows that the British colonial authorities and ISC knew that these people were not communists, had no violent inclinations, had no links to CPM, Beijing or Moscow and there was no basis for arresting them. But they went ahead with the arrests as to ensure a particular geopolitical outcome favourable to them.
Wade's only concession to communism was this statement: "In July 1962, the British noted that that while they accepted that Lim Chin Siong was a Communist, there was no evidence that he was receiving directions from the C.P.M., Peking or Moscow."
But he qualified it by following it up with: "Our impression is that Lim is working very much on his own and that his primary objective is not the communist millennium but to obtain control of the constitutional government of Singapore."
Nevertheless, Wade's reading of the papers here re LCS may even be called into question. In the book
Comet in our sky: Lim Chin Siong in history (Tan Jing Quee, Jomo K.S.; 2001), also based on declassified UK Archives papers, Dr Greg Poulgrain of Griffith University in an essay observes that the British Governor of Singapore and his Chief Secretary in their reports to London stated that the police
found no evidence to establish that Lim was Communist.
Just so, LCS himself, to the day he died, has consistently denied being a communist, though his socialist credentials were never in question.
The only person who is still persistently calling LCS a communist despite conclusive evidence to the contrary is LKY himself.
So are u debating and disagreeing and saying cold store arrested peaceful socialist and not peaceful communist?
Here's what I'm arguing:
1. Those arrested were Leftists first and foremost. The key Barisan Sosialis members were definitely socialists, but there was no evidence they were communists or were a front for foreign communist politburos. They were by and large a committed, idealistic, nationalistic group intent on establishing socialist governance througn peaceful constitutional means. There were probably some dyed-in-the-wool communists in the 111, but small in number, politically inconsequential and
not the true targets of the operation.
2. There was
no evidence that any of them, much less the targeted politicians, had planned or were planning any violent activities.
3. There was thus
no legitimate basis for the Cold Store arrests.
4. That the 'Communist Conspiracy' was just an excuse to get rid of formidable rivals who were a challenge to LKY's power and to further British policy in forging a Greater Malaysia compliant to British interests.
