Cultural homicide, ayoh! Ziauddin Sardar arrives in Singapore to find it's been occupied

New Internationalist, April, 2001 by Ziauddin Sardar

It has been my misfortune to arrive in various places around the world only to be engulfed in local crisis. I am no stranger to war, rumours of war, coups d'etat and various natural disasters. But never before had I stepped off a plane to be confronted with cultural homicide.

Changi Airport is globalization run riot, an impersonal consumerist cornucopia of designer labels. It is also dedicated to being the world's premier transport hub. From here you can go anywhere, ushered along by the ubiquitous Singapore Girl. Whenever I arrive in the building, I leave as rapidly as possible, hoping for a talkative ride into Singapore city centre, courtesy of a local taxi driver.

And that is how the full scale of the culture crisis overwhelmed me. I was spared the usual inquisition that introduces conversation-- where are you from, how's the economy there, how long are you staying, what do you think of Singapore. Enough to say I was down from Kuala Lumpur for the weekend to invoke a deluge of angst. `Ah, no need sorry for my Singlish lah. You boleh Singlish, ah? Very bad, ah. Prime Minister say Singlish cannot, ah. So now what, ayoh?' A few rapid-fire inquiries on my part and the full enormity hit me, as surely as if I'd been in Delhi the fateful day the British took over. Phua Chu Kang was to take English lessons! The End.

Let me elaborate. Phua Chu Kang is the highest-rated show on Singapore television. It is a locally produced sitcom about a lovable, rascally private building contractor, the said Phua Chu Kang. In the rich mix that is Singapore, Phua Chu Kang is played by local superstar Gurmit Singh, a born-again Christian Sikh who is married to a Chinese. His greatest comedy creation is a know-all operator who knows nothing and botches everything. The comedy emerges from the delicious observation of everyday, indigenous life expressed in the full tropical profusion of the native dialect. Phua Chu Kang, like most Singaporeans, speaks only Singlish. Singlish is the exotic lingua franca nurtured from English byway of Chinese, Malay and various Indian Subcontinental accretions. It is as rich, encrusted and lush a dialect as the road bridges across the highway from Changi Airport. These concrete structures are completely enveloped by green vines intermingled with brightly flowering bougainvillea. They look like natural phenomenon, outgrowths of the earth.

Singlish is authentic local repossession. It is an indigenous cultural form that has dug its roots deep into the fabric of imperialism, the force that created the artificial nation-state of Singapore and its ethnic mix. But, Singapore now has globalized visions of future riches. The most successful of the Asian tiger economies, it is the Switzerland of the region. It is an attainment-oriented, high-achieving paternalist autocracy. Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong always strikes me as man at home with Singlish. But that is not the kind of place his Singapore is destined to be. To globalize one must Americanize and Singapore is Americanizing with a vengeance.

Prior to my arrival, Goh made a speech denouncing Phua Chu. Kang for polluting the airways with his native patois. Singlish was diverting the youth of the nation from their mission to succeed. It was no random outburst. Nothing in Singapore is random. In precise terms this attack on Phua Chu Kang defines the meaning of globalization. Globalization is cultural homicide writ large, and television is the mirror wherein the future is displayed.

In the service of global yuppiedom

Success means inculcating globalized manners, mores and values, as seen on TV. Consequently, internalizing global identity means eradicating what comes naturally. Singapore culture must be ersatz, like all the renovated shop houses around the downtown marina. These elegant buildings, in colonial fusion style, have been lovingly renovated to service global yuppiedom. They house French, Spanish, Mexican, Mediterranean, any nationality except Asian, franchise restaurants. Here tourists and upwardly mobile local entrepreneurs indulge in fine wining and dining to the strains of the latest pop classics. Local architecture is just a quaint backdrop?

When you globalize everything what you get is Singapore. When you want to know what Singapore is about you watch SBC, the Singapore Broadcasting Corporation, local purveyor of television. Once upon a time SBC was modelled on the BBC, which even seconded staff to train Singaporeans in public-service broadcasting. But that is not the kind of animal globalization is. SBC has become a mutli-channelled hydra; its main outlet provides 24-hour entertainment-driven programming, mainly consisting of imported American series. It also runs its own CNN clone news channel. In Singapore it is easier to find out who is dating whom in Hollywood than anywhere in the world, except perhaps Hollywood.

Being Singapore, the change of direction is deliberate, planned and purposeful. The objective: to be a regional broadcasting hub, a production centre selling regionally, thinking and looking globally; synergistically intermeshing the entire communications revolution experience, IT savvy, hot wired into mass global popular culture. And that is why Phua Chu Kang must learn to talk proper English, or at least a mid-Pacific variant.