Perceptions of Undergraduates and Youths
[T]he extent of public participation of governmental policies and other public issues by the more educated, student and youth population is patently negligible. A general observation even by people who have not stayed long in the Republic will confirm this; the many surveys conducted on this matter validate such a perception. To begin with, despite the assurance from the government that voting in the elections is secret, the existence of serial numbers on the ballot paper, which the government said is needed for administrative purposes, seemed to have turned off many undergraduates. A survey of undergraduates at the National University of Singapore in 1991, conducted by the Democratic Socialist Club, found that a high 42.1 per cent of undergraduates believed that the ballot is not secret.’ This finding actually echoed the sentiment raised by the Workers’ Party some months earlier:
... the numbering of the ballot papers meant that the ballot was no longer secret. The PAP took advantage of the minds of voters by instilling fear...if they voted against them, they would be victimised.
(Hammer 1990: Issue 5)
Of relevance to our discussion here is the conclusion of at least four studies that were conducted of educated youths, particularly the undergraduates of the National University of Singapore, in different periods: in 1971, 1987, 1989/90 and 1994/95. They all reached a roughly similar conclusion: that university students are politically unaware, disinterested and apathetic. As an example, the study in 1971 concluded that:
… if the government...exercises often its coercive powers, (such people) realise that they cannot do much to influence the government and become cynical, thus have low feelings of political efficacy.’
In the 1989/90 study of educated youths in three organisations (the NUS, the People’s Association and the PAP Youth Wing) it was found that “political participation of the youth in Singapore takes place through avenues that are government-designed and defined.” Admittedly, it would have been more representative and useful if the above studies have bigger samples and conducted more randomly, but they do offer some feel about the extent of political awareness and involvement among Singaporean youth.
“SUBJECT” POLITICAL CULTURE
As referred to earlier, a country’s “political culture”, defined briefly here as “the particular distribution of patterns of orientation t political objects among the members of the nation” Almond and Verba: 1963:15), can be measured by three main types of citizens’ participation in the country’s politics: “parochial”, “subject” and “participant”. Debatably, for a long time, Singapore’s type of political culture is that of the “subject” variant. In this particular type of culture, citizens have some clear ideas about the country’s political system and process but they do not participate sufficiently in the political affairs of the State, as they would in a “participant” culture (Almond and Coleman: 1960; Almond and Verba: 1963; Almond and Powell: 1966). In a “participant” (or evaluative) culture, the citizen:
...not only thinks he can participate, he thinks that others ought to participate as well. Furthermore, he does not merely think he can take a part in politics: he is likely to be more active.’
(Almond and Verba: 1963:14-24)
Lest one forgets, such a participant culture had indeed existed here in the past. One example was the period of the early 1960s when the PAP was embroiled in a factional strife that not only gave birth to the Barisan Sosialis, but also witnessed a period of competitive politics between Government and Opposition forces. In 1963, university students protested against the government’s issuance of “Suitability Certificates” to screen students when they apply for university admission.’ In 1974- 75, Tan Wah Piow, Juliet Chin and other leaders of the University of Singapore Students Union openly criticised many government policies. Of course, these were exceptions. By and large, this Republic’s political culture, given the many governmental policies and other socialisation schemes has not assumed a “participant” variant. Such a political malaise seemed to be the case even in more recent times when indications of civil society were thought to have emerged...
This dearth of civil society is yet another reason to distinguish Singapore’s dominant one-party system and illiberal democracy from countries with approximate political orientations, such as Korea, Taiwan, and Israel.
Perceptions of Undergraduates and Youths
When tertiary students and educated youths themselves acknowledged the low level of political participation in Singapore, then at best, civil society is at an incipient stage of growth in the Republic. In 1993, the Singapore government initiated the National Youth Seminar with the theme “The Future is in Your Hands”. The Seminar brought together many educated youths from all segments of the society, and was organised by the National Youth Council with the Prime Minister delivering the keynote address. Asked to be a Resource Person for the Workshop Group on “Participation in the Political Process”, this present writer noted how the participants themselves concluded that much needed to be done to resolve the low level of involvement of youth in the political process. Being a government coordinated national seminar, it was revealing to know what they thought were the reasons for such a state of affairs. In the first workshop, seminar participants concluded that out of the six factors noted — as follows — four were related to the government’s policies and governing style:
• The PAP’S top-down rather than bottom-up approach.
• The youths were conditioned through the educational system to accept authority without question.
• Clubs and societies in tertiary institutions were not allowed to make political pronouncements, let alone participate in the political process.
• The element of fear, which makes people toe the establishment’s line of thinking.
• Given the absence of pressing issues or crises people were generally satisfied with the government’s performance.
• The over-emphasis on economic factors, which led people to be more interested in their careers and families.
In the second workshop, which separately discussed the same topic of political participation, the findings were quite similar:
• A perceived lack of freedom in Singapore. (Laws such as the Employment Act were offered as examples that were thought to constrict freedom).
• The general perception that the courts were somewhat biased and strongly influenced by the government.
• The fear that if people were to speak freely against the government, they may be arrested.
• The main reasons for the lack of youths’ interest in politics were “70% apathy and 30% fear”; and that “the only way to take part in politics was through the PAP...if they were to go against the PAP, they would be subjected to unfair scrutiny and prosecution.”
Yet another undergraduate survey painted the same picture: “The general consensus was that by and large, Singaporeans are afraid to speak up” (Demos, NUS Democratic Club: Vol. IV, NT I, p.2). Among the reasons offered by the undergraduates were the Republic’s “Asian culture” which was said to have not only discouraged openness, but made teachers less tolerant of new ideas. The respondents also stated that the general state of peace and stability enjoyed by the Republic have led to the notion “If nothing is wrong, don’t fix it” (Ibid.). The survey report ended with the statement that:
Many Singaporeans do not wish to speak up because they do not want to be ostracised. They would rather follow the crowd than say something controversial.
(Ibid.)
Obviously, one should be mindful to take these views as “perceptions” of university undergraduates and the youth in general as captured in the surveys and workshops. Given the limited nature of the samples, further verification from other surveys is needed to verify and confirm the findings. Certainly there are the psychological or emotional hangovers that most youth experience in some stage of their lives, and these may have little or no relationship at all to the government’s manner of ruling the country. Nonetheless, since such perceptions arc recurrent and probably widespread too, they do offer some indicators as to the nature of political culture in Singapore.
Many Singaporeans still remember the many veiled warnings by PAP leaders against critics who publicly commented on government policies — such as PM Goh’s warning in 1995:
“If you land a blow on our jaw, you must expect a counterblow on your solar plexus”.
(Straits Times: 24.1.1995)
--- Hussin Mutalib, Parties and politics : a study of opposition parties and the PAP in Singapore, 2004