Majulah Singapura
We chanced last
Saturday on the National Day Parade of Singapore, a live broadcast from TV’s NewsAsia,
and live streamed in the Internet.
Singapore glowed
in white and red - yellow, green, blue, gray, along all the colors of the
rainbow, as one group after another, from children to elders, civil and
military, paraded and performed for an island massively attired in tropical
casuals led by the father-son Lee Kwan Yew-Lee Hsien Loong, leaders since the
country’s inception without forced dynastic succession. Wedged was Goh Chok Tong who followed LKY,
was PM for 14 years before LKY’s son, a former General, took over.
What made us
perk up while watching the show is the recent acknowledgement from the book, The Metropolitan Revolution: How Cities and
Metros Are Fixing Our Broken Politics and Fragile Economy, that metropolises in the
US fuel the nation’s economy and is defining a new local polity. The account had columnist Tom Friedman write:
“… if you want to be an optimist about America today, stand on your head. The country looks so much better from the
bottom up – from its major metropolitan areas – than from the top down … the
great laboratories and engines of our economy are now our cities.”
We
promoted a trans-rational geo-social grid of the world since the 70s. We divided the world around major metropolitan
areas: NYC, Chicago, Houston, LA, Vancouver, and Montreal, for North America, one
of nine continents we identified from three spheres. Sphere West was North America, Western
Europe, and Eurasia (former USSR). Sphere East was SubAsia, China, and South
East Asia-Pacifica (SEAPac). Sphere
South was South America, Southern Africa, and North Africa and the Middle East
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and SEAPac are nebulous. SEAPac to us is
a continent of six metropolitan areas: Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok,
Sydney, and Suva. After the lead of the
earthrise image from the moon, the national boundaries so precious to the
post-colonial arrangements faded in the new global configuration. The metropolises were defining political and
economic arrangements.
Singapore
went ahead even in the cultural pole.
This year, its theme of “many stories, one Singapore” recognizes the
function of stories and how unity can be attained in the recognition of
diversity. Just start with its three
major languages of Chinese, Malay, and Tamil, and its overarching Singalish, and
already, the cultural challenge is formidable.
We’ve felt that Singapore was too small a geography, and too specialized
in its financial and commercial practices (thought of Singapore as primarily a
transit point that encouraged a lot of bookkeeping shenanigans) that we earlier
dismissed it as an exception rather than the rule.
Now
comes an account in the aforementioned book of a metropolitan revolution
stirring in America. Not content to wait
for Washington to get its act together, the authors relate how pragmatic
leaders are taking the helm of governance in cities like NYC finally
capitalizing on its diversity; Portland, Oregon, deep in selling
“sustainability” solutions to urban problems, and Northeast Ohio where groups
use industrial-age skills to invent 21st C materials, tools and
processes. Then there’s Houston helping
immigrants ascend the employment ladder, Miami forging ties with southern
“neighbor” Brazil and other nations, Denver and Los Angeles building
world-class urban centers, and even Boston and now bankrupt Detroit finding
innovative ways into the economy of the new century.
Coming
through strongly in their stories are the catalytic and facilitative nature of
the network of leadership in the new metropolises. Sounds like Singapore.
Obviously,
Saipan is no Singapore, though some argue that with a Casino in Saipan, it
can. Sorry, folks. Zhongguo already has Macau and Hong Kong, and
Korea has offerings we cannot even come close to duplicating for well-off
Nippon and nouveau riche Renmin. Tinian Casino has yet to make a dime. Nope.
Pentagon looms too large in the shadows and we do not have the political
muscle of a Guam to assert ourselves beyond being a strategic military
location. At best, we can stick a
handout further for more food stamps, or, surreptitiously promote baby tourism
since we do not do money laundering well!
We
are not being cynical here, though we are not surprised many of our young
are. We can develop a catalytic and
facilitative leadership style, willing to look reality in the eye, forsake the
illusory economic boom in the past (we could not even connect water pipes,
though we did provide cushy jobs in government and its agencies) forego the
delusion of grandeur in the future (we are Pentagon’s strategic military
location), and live with what we’ve got: a handful of Chamolinians, lots of
Chinese, Filipinos, sprinkling of other Micronesians and Austro-Polynesians,
Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Indians, Caucasians via America, Australia, and
Europe, Africans from all over, et al.
Hey, we have enough ingredients to make up an incredible stew. So, why don’t we?
That’s
what we can learn from Singapura – many stories, even many directions, but one concerted
endeavor. Biba, Marianas?
Jaime Vergara
pinoypanda2031@aol.com
yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!