-“to build a democratic society, based on justice and equality” –

I can’t say I didn’t feel a thing when I heard that being read out to me yesterday morning when I was in the parade square. There was the hassle of an observance parade and all the pain of standing still when I am not supposed to, if a doctor’s orders are anything to be reckoned with. But there I was, and it was the first time in quite a number of years and after a series of tumultuous experiences that I was brought again to this familiar pledge and our anthem.

And that phrase up there struck me especially. I guess it’s not just because of my understanding of the various words up there. Democracy. Society. Justice. Equality. There is a nice ringing to the words when you string them up like that that almost resembles a poem. But there is a deeper meaning to that of course. The meanings are incontrovertibly subject to centuries of exhausted debate, but I half suspect that my emotive responses were stirred because of my own experiences of late of various systems as understood by my various friends either in SG or elsewhere. Of the US, of Germany, of the UK, of rural Cambodia, of China, of Taiwan. All these countries declare that they are or aspire to be akin to at least one of the ideals as enumerated in the quote, but either due to divergent construals, ethnic dissimilarities, historical differences or simply a confusion of priorities, these countries have become rather different and peculiar specimens of democracy in society stemming from justice and equality.

But let’s just look at SG. I will be – if I’m not yet one, which is at best contentious given that I am already in the military – in the civil service soon, so I am quite comfortable to declare that I ought to look at the deeper subtexts of this utterance. We have our social ideals that are laid out more explicitly on the table than other pledges, in that we acknowledge quite overtly that there are primordial or historical differences that we as a demographic have to overcome. Race, language and religion are dimensions that have proven of late to be catalysts of disaster and for implosions of societies, and thankfully we have put in place several policies for decades now to try to curb this. The efficacy of such policies is subject to debate and has been so, but the point at least is that coupled with these policies and our domestic intelligence, we have managed to stave off whatever proclivities there might have been that jeopardized such internal association that is society as we understand it.

But note that society here refers more specifically to what was accentuated at the outset of the pledge, that it is a commitment made by citizens of SG, not just societal members, but citizens both in and out of SG, but most certainly and exclusively of SG. So what happens in the laboratory called SG when its citizens are purportedly committed to build a society that is democratic, just and equitable (or egalitarian, which is I assure you very different from being equitable as the moral or political philosopher will tell you)? Or if we just look at the broad corpus of policies in place in SG or that which applies to Singaporeans?

Democracy by itself is almost always a safe ideal to have. One can always slink back to the traditional or purist definition and break the word up into demos et kratia (the people and power/rule). The Greeks had a good deal to say about this, because they happily toyed with the boundaries of people-hood. It is not just that women, children and slaves were not considered to be part of the people or citizenry. Only some men were considered citizens. So the idea of the polis and the rule of the few on behalf of the many (who were not citizens anyway and hence were justifiably denied rights to rule) was perfectly salubrious to them. The same can be said of any regime today. Insofar as Fidel and Raoul Castro are the only two citizens in Cuba, we have one and a half citizens in the blighted country today, that is quite plausibly deemed a democracy.

It’s because there is such a provision in ‘democracy’ ipso facto that we now have the more ‘enlightened’ ideal of liberal democracy, which – by its very name – intimates to the liberal or enlightenment tradition of prizing the individual. Insofar as women and children can be understood to be rational and have the capacity for independent thinking (and slaves should be an abolished category anyway), they all should be given rights of protection and some rights to decide some things for themselves. It is a bane if you ask me, because I believe more in the tyranny than the sagacity of the masses. To that extent therefore, I’m glad that there are no influential regimes today that are true liberal democracies. More common would be representative democracies that disguise themselves as being liberal politically, which works fine with me because I don’t see how they are in substance liberal democratically.

But we have chosen in our pledge to omit ‘liberal’, much to the dissatisfaction of some Singaporeans today. As a result, we are free to wander around the entire universe of ideas in history that trouble themselves with the invention of democracy. But we are restricted to be loyal to Justice and Equality, whatever their faces may be like. And this is when I have one grouse. Restricting ourselves to jurisprudential justice, I wonder why it is that our courts seem to have at best a muted function in raising concerns about our laws, which surely must be their bread and butter. Our courts pride themselves to be efficient and certainly immune to much financial corruption, but they are more like passive instruments that dispense rulings like a pharmacist does than an important mirror that reflects to the higher authorities of legislature what the problems are in our laws that may no longer be relevant or still subject to much debate that may have wider repercussions in our society if dismay or distress pervades. Entrapment is one big issue. The stretch of applicability of the death sentence is another. When talk is rife that the state is increasingly distant from the people on the ground, we need every possible avenue to hear the sentiments of the people. Note that I referred to the rife of talk, which surely is a result of perception. Even if – as I can imagine the retort to be – the courts do in fact so reflect the sentiments, the reflection is done most curiously in a rather embarrassed or muted way. We don’t see the courts doing it and we don’t see the results if they do so in fact.

To me, it is true that Justice has some immutable attributes. To kill an innocent person is wrong and begets punishment. To steal when the thief will not suffer extreme discomfort or inconvenience without so doing is wrong and begets punishment. But beyond that, I think there are more gray areas in today’s discombobulated world of morality and justice that than there are black and white zones. And to that extent, it is imperative that we work out what we as a people, as a citizenry who pay taxes and to which the state has a responsibility, believe to be right or wrong. Of course, the details of certain fundamental principles cannot be worked out by 4 million people. But I do hope that when it is clear beyond any shadow of doubt that certain rulings appear to be mishandled, a figure of authority can stand forth and explain the decision and subject himself to legal experts who do not happen to think that the decision is just. It is the spectacle of debate, even if not everyone can understand it, that might work in favour of a state and its citizenry that may be showing signs of disgruntlement.

Equality is a bigger ambiguity. If justice was a smoke in shadows, equality would be a shadow of smoke. Different societies have different objects that they want to be equitable or egalitarian about. Communists have more faith in the material, and almost everyone else in the immaterial. Are we talking about an equality in opportunity allocation, that everyone has an equal opportunity to get into the Deans List in NUS (which begs the question of when we start the equality: does every Singaporean then have a right to get into NUS regardless of his/her grades, that may be bad for reasons beyond his/her control)? Or do we want to dispense opportunities according to one’s needs and merits (geneses of which would be difficult to ascertain, and notoriously so)?

Sometimes when I studied big philosophical questions or even encountered relatively unnoticed ones that after ruminating for a bit got me frustrated because I saw deeper links to more intractable questions, I got inundated and wondered where to start. But there are times when I get so inundated that I personally wonder if I will get to my own answer even if I devoted my entire life to that one question. This question of equality and justice would likely be one. I suspect that it would be easier if I focus only on legal justice of the two questions, because the courts are systems that have rather clearly defined responsibilities on a fundamental level. But beyond that, statesmanship and policies have too many premises that are sturdy only when one is comfortable with upsetting a certain group of people. It becomes too difficult at the end of the day to work out the niceties to please everybody since policies usually have more free way and permeate certain boundaries and portfolios in a manner that the courts are less inclined to.

But thereagain, it is a bigger question and a more personal one that I have to settle first: will I be in the service for long? Its only fair for now to say that I am inclined to, but it is still too early to tell. It all depends on my experiences when I start work proper.

Happy Birthday Singapura.