Much is written in English about the Far East by people behind a notebook half a world away. As night in the West is day in the East, many think this East is exotic - they hang and shoot people on the streets, they manufacture, pollute, and have huge surpluses. Even the closest thing to the educated and refined West, Japan, has got umbrella hats, talking bras, and has disgraced CEOs who commit suicide - how strange, this wild, wild East.
But its not difficult to garner support and encouragement when you are in the comfort of a million people around you who think or are brought up the same Western way. Hence, I have little respect for the majority of journalists (or financial analysts) - though not only from the West, but also by those in the East commenting on the West.
Take the death penalty for drug smuggling in Singapore for example. Few people consider that one has actually got to take the effort to smuggle drugs AND be caught. It is an active task. Smuggling drugs and other serious offences, would be no different taking a sharp knife and stabbing oneself repeatedly with it. Yet people continue to take that gamble - they want to take that gamble, and they know the consequences.
Alan Shadrake the focal point here, is a classical old fool. He actively sought publicity, and knew he would get it by visiting Singapore. He could very well continue his slander and throw his tantrums from elsewhere. But no, when people stopped listening, he made the choice of his life - he was old, desperate and needed to make a statement - at least Amnesty would take note, and the British press plus their readers would give him a few hundred, maybe a thousand google hits and Alan Shadrake would go down in history as the man who stood up for his Western ideals in a Singapore dungeon.
On the point of press freedom, Singapore is free - there is freedom to do anything, except stupid things that cause racial or internal divide - and there are no shortage of these type of people. But there are lots to do in Singapore, you could start a pub, teach English, sell wine online - the tools are all there, easier than another country in the world. Or you could try to tear all these down with freedom to peddle drugs, murder, start a mob, enjoy graffiti and making a fool of yourself, and be a true free democracy, and land yourself in jail or at the gallows doing it - yet again, you did ask for it didn't you.
If the West wants to learn and do business in the East, one would suggest it learn, or at least understand the culture of the East quickly. Because I've seen with my own eyes, many hoping to succeed by parachuting managers from Australia to Asia - how close is Australia to Asia? proximity - close enough, culturally - a world apart. Companies expanding in China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, without understanding the landscape, and they are genuinely puzzled why they fail.
But this leads to something bigger - everything in Asia exists for a reason - the talking bras, the junta, the opposition to the Tibetan monk, the death penalty, fist fights in parliament. They will always exist, no amount of frustration venting in the West or political pressure will change, nor nobel peace prizes, nor even a war declared unilaterally on basis of non-existent WMDs.
To understand why they exist is the challenge - and a challenge that must be overcome before a prudent investor puts his first penny into this region.
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Press freedom: The Singapore grip
The country presents itself as a modern liberal democracy yet has an autocratic political culture
Editorial
The Guardian, Wednesday 17 November 2010
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Singapore is proud of its place near the top of many international rankings. Its school system is by some measures the world's best. The island state promotes itself as diverse, competitive and cultured – an exciting global hub. But there are two league tables which shame Singapore. The first, compiled by the campaigning group Reporters Without Borders, places the country 136th in the world for press freedom – below Iraq and Zimbabwe. The second is the rate at which Singapore executes convicted criminals: arguably higher, per capita, than any other country in the world.
Singapore presents itself as a modern liberal democracy: it has a parliament, elections, courts, a constitutional right to free speech and the consumerist gloss of capitalism. Its citizens are free to become rich and to travel. Many do both. The country has by any measure succeeded since independence. But its autocratic political culture – overseen by the country's founding father and now official minister mentor Lee Kuan Yew – is highly and needlessly restrictive. The media is largely state-owned. Defamation and contempt laws threaten dissent. The latest victim of these is Alan Shadrake, a British-born writer sentenced yesterday to six weeks in prison and a large fine after being found guilty of contempt of court. His book Once a Jolly Hangman questioned the independence of Singapore's legal system, and its use of the death penalty.
It is depressing that a country as successful as Singapore should feel the need for such restrictions on free speech. Singapore argues that, without them, the balance between the country's Chinese, Malay and Indian populations would be upset. But the reality is that other successful parts of Asia – Hong Kong and Taiwan, for instance – have thrived by extending free speech and the rule of law. Singapore is making itself a less significant place by refusing to give its people the sorts of freedoms that are routine elsewhere.
On a practical level, the decision to prosecute Mr Shadrake was also foolish. His book has had far greater attention because of it, and Singapore's reputation has been harmed. Mr Shadrake is quite right to attack a criminal justice system whose victims are often poor migrant workers. His book was legitimate and – despite the court's claim to the contrary – largely accurate. The suspicion is that the Singapore government resented the exposure of a squalid system of routine executions which sits uneasily with the image it likes to present to the world. Singapore wants to be judged as a first-world nation. It must find the confidence to allow its citizens the freedoms that go with that status. Repression is not the route to success. In the end, it will prove its enemy.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2010
