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SCMP Reporter

For weeks now red-and-white flags and bunting have been spreading across the cityscape, covering more housing blocks and office towers each day. The decorations hang in neat rows from the upper storeys and main entrances of almost all buildings.

While the form of the cheerfully nationalistic adornments may vary, the message they carry remains the same. 'My Singapore. Our future' says one of the most popular slogans.

Today marks Singapore's National Day, the 36th since it left the Malaysian Federation to chart its own course as a sovereign state.

At the time of separation in the mid-1960s, few observers rated the new country's chances of success. These days, most analysts predict that Singapore's prospects should continue to be among the brightest in the region.

The fundamental shift in perception is based on the republic's remarkable achievements since it was founded.

In the phrase preferred by Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew, the man most closely associated with the country's spectacular transformation, Singapore has moved from third world to first in the space of a couple of generations.

Marshalled by a de facto one-party state, few societies anywhere have experienced as rapid and comprehensive a makeover as have Singapore's 3.2 million people. Living standards have jumped as policy-makers updated the city-state's traditional role from regional entrepot to a hi-tech economy.

As incomes have risen, villages have been bulldozed to make way for tower blocks, and traditional industries have been replaced by wafer-fabrication plants. By many conventional yardsticks, Singapore is a success story. As ministers from the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) are fond of remarking, however, past successes are themselves no guarantee of future well-being.

As Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong watches today's traditional parade at the National Stadium, he will be aware that the country faces challenges ahead that are as tough as any tackled since independence.

Most pressing for Mr Goh's government is this year's sudden downturn in the export-reliant economy, which has pitched the country into an unexpected recession. The contraction could deepen underlying social problems, especially the vulnerability of older, less-educated Singaporeans. The dip in economic fortunes also comes as the country faces a general election, which must be held by next August.

When he delivers the National Day address later this month, Mr Goh may aim to put the current drop in economic activity into perspective and set out what it may mean for the man in the street.

Economists say the prime minister could also touch on the now-familiar need to diversify the nation's income streams by tapping into the most promising sectors of the new economy, such as biotechnology.

On a long-term horizon, Mr Goh may also be concerned about the task of instilling a suitably hungry and innovative spirit in a younger generation who have no direct experience of the collective hardships faced in the 1950s and 1960s.

Today's Internet-using, brand-conscious 20- and 30-somethings can appear more in tune with the fashions and fads of mainstream western consumer culture than Singapore's domestic interests.

This apparent selfishness, combined with a disinterest in the wider political process, is clearly troubling senior PAP leaders. In the run-up to National Day, the theme was given an airing by Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hisen Loong, the man tipped by Mr Goh for the top job later this decade.

'Our youths today have been well brought up, and have the benefit of a good education. They enjoy the fruits of Singapore's peace and prosperity, and abundant opportunities,' Lee Kuan Yew's son said at a conference.

'It is important, however, that our youths look beyond their own careers and interests, to be engaged in the issues that concern our community, such as an ageing population, maintaining economic competitiveness, and managing relations with neighbouring countries.'

These generational concerns are related to a more fundamental debate about how open and pluralistic a society Singapore aims to be as the 21st century progresses.

Although dominated by a single political party with a marked fondness for rule-making and control, Singapore has broadened the arena for discussion under Mr Goh's premiership.

The push for a more inclusive style of governance is viewed as being more appropriate for today's faster-moving, technology-savvy and, above all, more international society.

Political discourse is more open than it was a decade ago, the arts and social scene is livelier, and rules on many innocuous meetings such as garden parties and auctions have been relaxed. The most high-profile reform was the establishment just after last year's National Day celebrations of a Speakers Corner in a downtown park.

One local commentator summed up the break with the past: 'For the first time since the colonial era, a Singaporean could speak to a public gathering without first obtaining a . . . licence.'

This gradual change is noted by those outside the PAP circle. 'If you look at the kind of things we do now, they simply would not have been tolerated 10 years ago,' says one non-PAP activist.

Despite the stated intention of the Goh administration to press on with its own style of glasnost, however, questions remain whether the reforms constitute a substantive shift.

The Think Centre, a civil society group, points out that while anyone may address their follow citizens from Speakers Corner, they may not advertise their speech in advance.

As the police made clear this year, under long-standing rules that would constitute a demonstration or gathering that would require a permit.

Government ministers argue that while committed to a general relaxation, ground-breaking policies must be carefully measured and should reflect what they see as the interests of the majority. Wong Kan Seng, minister for home affairs, talks of answers suitable for 'all Singaporeans, even if they are the proverbial silent majority'.

In a telling contribution to the national discourse on social reform last week, Mr Wong said greater openness was a laudable goal but its practice had to be adapted to Singaporean realities.

'Do not believe those few Singaporeans who tell you that with democracy, human rights and press freedom, a hundred flowers will bloom and Singapore will prosper,' Mr Wong said. 'If this were so, there would be great prosperity in the world. We all know that this is not the case.'

The levers of control remain firmly in the hands of Mr Goh and his party associates as they attempt to deal with the problems of the present and anticipate the concerns of tomorrow.

In among today's calls from the prime minister for all citizens to pull together, there will be clear indications that Singapore, at 36, is no longer a young nation but is fast approaching middle age. The path the country's leaders choose now will shape the kind of society the city-state becomes as it matures.



Challenges of a new millennium