JANUARY 4 — So another year has dawned. The Earth has gone, more or less, completely around the sun —Apart from having to remember to scribble a new final figure on bills and notes, we often use the arrival of New Year as a time to reflect so fittingly at the end of last year Kishore Mahbubani, formerly the country’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations and currently the dean of the prestigious Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, penned this reflection on Singapore entering its 50th year.

Writing the final part of his series on Big Ideas for the city state, he urged Singaporeans to love their country, suggested some ways in which they might show this love and identified  problems — unhappiness, racial divisions — that weigh on the country today.

Having read his books and enjoyed their premises it was encouraging to hear a figure like Mr Mahbubani admit there are problems but sadly the problems he identifies don’t strike me as the correct ones. 

His first major issue is that Singaporeans don’t keep the city clean: “ When you go jogging in East Coast Park on Monday mornings (as I do) or walk around HDB estates in the morning with soiled diapers and tampons occasionally being thrown out of windows.”    

According to the professor, this dirtiness — these flying diapers — show that people do not care for their country, that they treat their nation like a hotel, unlike the super clean country loving Japanese.

Now there are multiple issues here. Firstly Singapore isn’t really dirty. I don’t just walk around HDB estates I live in one and  I’ve never seen tampons thrown out of windows.

We may not sort our garbage into 15 different categories like they do in Yokohama, but the situation is OK, we do rely on immigrant litter collectors and cleaners but so do New York, LA or London. There are obviously some litterbugs but it’s not an epidemic.         

But the extent of the country’s cleanliness isn’t really the point. The issue is that one of the country’s leading intellectual’s Big Idea is we need to buck up and clean up. 

Cleanliness, has been the government’s mantra for 50 years and as the country grapples with an immigrant influx, issues of identity, inequality and democracy, let’s all be more tidy just doesn’t cut it anymore. It’s just not a big idea.

It’s the same patriarchal spiel in my opinion – our betters must tell us to tidy up, keep our nails trim and our mouths chewing gum-free or the country will descend into diaper-strewn savagery unable to survive.

“Love Singapore”. If we can practise this with total commitment and conviction, Singapore will survive another 50 years,” he begins the piece. 

We have S$300 billion (RM795.2 billion) economy, one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds, its second busiest port and the best equipped, most modern armed forces in the region and he thinks we might survive 50 years?   

I’ve recently been thinking of getting a parrot. I expect it to survive more than 50 years. 

A floating installation of 25,000 wishing spheres line the Marina Bay in the backdrop of the city’s financial district ahead of the New Year’s Day countdown celebrations in Singapore. — Picture by Reuters

Harking back to the era of a small nation cast out by Malaysia where everyone had to pull together to survive was acceptable 30 years ago but today this is nonsense. 

The country (though not everyone in it) is rich, its population is educated, its economy is diversified and agile — we have as good a chance as any nation of making it 150 or 500 years and we should be going forward with confidence, not recycling half century old fears. 

What I think is going on here is that in an era where every year we last is no longer an achievement and every step on the ladder of development can’t be hailed as a victory, our leaders are struggling to find milestones the nation can reflect on with pride. To be fair this a very serious challenge, defining national goals is something that Singapore’s institutions, its citizens and rulers have to evolve into a consensus.

Are we going to strive for happiness above everything, for quality of life, the raw accumulation of wealth, or do we want to become a centre of innovation, a repository of knowledge — or some combination?

There’s no shame in not having worked this out but I think setting the bar as low as don’t litter is something to be ashamed of.

Mahbubani is aware the nation needs new criterion on which to assess itself - he looks at figures that show Singapore is much less happy than its neighbours but his solution is less than satisfactory.

He suggests that we, as a nation, should laugh more and says that we might be ready for a few political cartoons as some of our leaders might consent to being parodied. 

“Singapore is clearly not ready yet for a serious political cartoonist.

However, we can try to encourage a culture of cartoonists by getting some of our leading citizens to allow themselves to be parodied.” 

Again the point is: New York will produce seven different subcultures that influence the world,  Seoul will carry on with its K-pop revolution,  but in Singapore we need a cartoonist and some of our leaders might be ready to parodied?

The lack of ambition is staggering. That one of the government’s most eloquent intellectual defenders was able to offer Singaporeans so little got me thinking of a New Year’s resolution for all Singaporeans;  

For too long we’ve allowed leader and authority figures to decide where this nation is heading, now it’s time we set our own goals and criterion for national success.

Personally I   think we should strive to establish the most vibrant, diverse and culturally rich city in Asia and eventually the world?

I can hear you laugh but we already have an impressive mix of races, an amazing geographic position, good infrastructure and considerable wealth.

I think we’ve got a shot and at least striving for this will be more interesting that trying to be as clean as Yokohama. 

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.