SM Goh Abroad

Singapore is not a liberal democracy, says Goh


Senior Goh Chok Tong wowwed his audience at a conference in London, by telling them that Singapore was not a liberal democracy and that we didn't have 'a totally independent' press.
He was the keynote speaker at the Singapore Conference, attended by around 200 corporate leaders and part of a smorgasbord of events billed as the Singapore Season.

Other events within the Singapore Season included arts performances, talks, and a food festival. The Straits Times described the Singapore Season as "the first concerted push by the Government to showcase Singapore art and culture abroad." -- same ST article as quoted below.

One can assume that the Singapore Season was meant as a huge roadshow to give investors and potential knowledge expatriates a picture of Singapore that was not uniformly sterile or totalitarian, a very common image we have abroad. Goh was there to do his part.

Here is the relevant portion from the second of the two Straits Times articles about the Singapore Conference, titled, 'Tiger beer, a musician and a whole lot of Singapore creativity'. This article summarised the question and answer session that followed Goh's keynote address:

Along with the push to get the population to think out of the box, SM Goh said: 'On the political side, we must accommodate other creative views.'

Responding to a question on whether Singapore is a democracy or a dictatorship, SM Goh said that Singapore is a democracy, but 'not a liberal democracy like in Britain or in the US'.

There is an independent judiciary system, although the Government does not believe in 'a totally independent press', but one that was 'responsible'.

The media in Singapore must reflect Singapore's interests, he said, repeating a point made by the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts in The Straits Times and Lianhe Zaobao forum pages recently.

Foreign journalists hired by the Singapore media, for example, should represent Singapore's views, not that of their countries of origin, he said.

-- Straits Times 16 March 2005

Taken from Yawning Bread

That is a really obvious statement of course. Based on Fareed's article on Illiberal Democracy, we obviously know that we are an illiberal democracy. Although Fareed might not even but Singapore in that category.

Sigh sigh... I thought he would have something more enlightening to say...