Saturday, March 21, 2009
Campaigns in Singapore
Life in Campaign City http://www.ps21.gov.sg/challenge/2007_07/feature.html"Other countries have election campaigns. In Singapore, campaigns refer to nationwide efforts to get the denizens of Singapore to stop littering, save water, speak Mandarin or plan their families according to whatever the authorities think should be best."
CAMPAIGNS WERE FIRST CONDUCTED IN THE 1960s to combat habits considered undesirable or even threatening to the newly-independent country. As Singapore's main resource is human resource, perhaps this was the government's attempt to shape this resource. The government envisioned a "rugged society". However, this was threatened by the hippy culture; hippy men with long hair certainly did not gel with their vision. Subsequently, signs were put up in post offices and government offices to indicate that men with long hair will be served last, with pictures illustrating what was classified as "long hair".
Another big campaign - perhaps the biggest - of this early period was the anti-littering campaign. The Keep Singapore Clean campaign in 1968 lasted just one month, as police, health officials and others went around the island preaching against the evils of filth. What really gave the campaign impact was the follow-up: those caught littering were dealt with an iron fist.
Clean and smoke-free
Fines of $500 were imposed - a massive sum at the time. So enthusiastic were the powers that be on collaring the dirty culprits that they even followed possible offenders and waited for them to slip up. Decades later, one ex-smoker recalled that he gave up puffing because of the Keep Singapore Clean campaign. He was inspired to clean up his unhealthy habit because officers were trailing smokers, waiting for them to throw cigarette butts on the road, or even to drop some ash. As a result, smoking, which he used to indulge in to relax, became too stressful. Other campaigns followed over the years; some were given more exposure through advertisements, banners, posters, theme songs and fines, while others like the Eat More Wheat campaign, which was introduced when a rice shortage seemed imminent, got less fanfare.
When asked just how many campaigns there have been over the years, one spokesperson says wryly, "It's easier to count the stars…"
Indeed, Singaporeans have been exhorted in song to Save Water (Think of shortage and drought/Waste not water…), and to be polite to each other (Courtesy is for free/ Courtesy is for you and me…). They have been encouraged to roll up their sleeves and Use Your Hands. There have been schemes to increase population. They have been badgered to stop smoking because of the health dangers involved. They have even been told to plant trees and to keep public toilets clean and to flush after using.
Procreation disincentives
If the Keep Singapore Clean campaign was considered to be the campaign that defined the '60s agenda as that of cleanliness, then the Two is Enough and Speak Mandarin campaigns in the '70s defined the decade's focus as being on family planning and language policy. Parents in the 1970s were given "disincentives" to procreate with accouchement fees in Class C maternity wards for couples bearing their fourth and subsequent child. Tagged onto the delivery bill, the fee was (and remains) $400 for each of the first three children, before soaring above $1,000 for subsequent births. In education-obsessed Singapore, there were even threats that "third and fourth" children would be bumped to the back of the queue for choice schools.
There were also nightmare scenarios of not having enough buns to go around because "the more you have, the less they get". This campaign worked so well that the current birth rate is below replacement level and the government has to reverse their policy stand. Singaporeans are now offered a basket of tax-breaks and other incentives to have more babies.
Cajoled to be cool
The Mandarin campaign initially discouraged the use of Chinese dialects and banned their use over the airwaves. Popular Hong Kong serials were dubbed from Cantonese into Mandarin, and the public was informed that "Mandarin is the Chinese language". The campaign was so successful that it prompted the late Kuo Pao Kun, a local playwright, to write Mama looking for her Cat, which examined the plight of old folks who only spoke dialects and who found themselves increasingly isolated by language policies.
Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong's leadership (1990 - 2004), which altered the paternalistic approach of governing to a more gracious style of leadership, changed the frowning face of campaigns to something more nurturing. Speaking about the low birth rate in 2000, PM Goh says, "I have no authority to order you to get married, or to decide how many children you should have."
Instead, English-speaking Singaporeans were cajoled to speak Mandarin and were told "Huayu, cool".
Fine with fines
Campaigns are still being launched, but instead of the inexorable media blitz, they are more low key. For example, READ Singapore is treated as a national reading initiative, and there are ongoing pushes against drink-driving. The courtesy campaign has also been subsumed under the Singapore Kindness Movement.
Not everyone is comfortable with this state of affairs. Child of the '70s, Yeo Chay Hoon, wrote to The Straits Times, suggesting a return to the anti-spitting and courtesy campaigns. In an interview, she also expresses concern that her area, Taman Jurong, is a dengue hotspot and suggests an anti-dengue campaign. While she wants the campaigns to increase public awareness, she is also supportive of imposing fines to get the message across. "People laugh that Singapore is a 'fine city'. I think it's ok," she muses. "I wish we could teach people through education, but if it doesn't work, and it's important, there's no choice but to slap a fine."
Ms Yeo says she didn't know about the television advertisements that were being telecast with the message "If they breed, you will bleed", or even about the flyers that came with the newspapers. Perhaps this lack of awareness says something about the efficacy of campaigns. As pace of life speeds up, and information via TV, radio, flyers, bus and taxi ads and the Internet overwhelms us, the retaining value of campaigns may be lost. Barring special circumstances like SARS and bird flu outbreaks, selective awareness and retention have become the automatic response.
A flush of guilt
But we can take comfort in the fact that many of the old lessons have sunk in deep, even creating mild conflicts when they contradict the messages of later campaigns. The Two is Enough campaign is a good example. Despite current incentives to get Singaporeans to have three or more children, the population still isn't biting.
Another lady recalls how the toilet flushing campaign put her in a little dilemma.
"During the Save Water campaign, we were told not to flush so often as it would waste water. But later, threatened with a fine for not flushing, I flushed all the time, but felt guilty about wasting all that water."With the "half-flush" function in new toilets however, that problem is laid to rest.
boo!
11:37 PM
