"Press Freedom" is one of the go-to criticism of Singapore. Reporters without Borders rank Singapore 139 (out of 180 states) in 2022 - just above Somalia, and below United Arab Emirates. This is an improvement! Previously, Singapore was ranked 160th! Surprisingly, UAE (ranked 1 position above Singapore has 2 journalist currently in prison. Singapore, being 1 position below UAE must be worst right? So... 3 journalists in prison? Nope. 0. Somalia has 1 media worker in prison... So... who knows how Reporters without borders rank these things. Without borders, without boundaries, and without logic, perhaps?
Anyway, in the mid-1980s, Singapore had a series of incidents where the Singapore Govt clashed with foreign press, specifically, Time magazine, Asian Wall Street Journal, Far East Economic Review, and Asiaweek. In the introduction by Norman Pearlstein, Head of the American Society of Newspaper Editors International Communications Committee, Singapore's "sins" were summarised.
At about 2:39 in the video, Lee Kuan Yew and Singapore is introduced with this litany of "sins":
- Oct 1986, Singapore cut Time Magazine's circulation to 2000 (from 18,000) for refusing to print in full a rebuttal from the Singapore about political dissent.
- Asian Wall Street Journal restricted to 400 from 5000 copies.
- December 1987, Asia Week
- Far East Economic Review also gazetted and sued. FEER withdrew from Singapore.
Lee Kuan Yew's reply or speech begins at 7:40.
Lee challenges the assumption that a free press is a universal standard of excellence. The Press in the US enjoys unparalleled freedom, and maybe it is what the US needs. Maybe being the Fourth Estate in the US is the best or correct role for the press. But the universality of that role in ALL societies and communities is not proven.
[This is cultural chauvinism.]
Lee covered the BBC in Singapore, and how the British acted to stop the Chinese press in Singapore from promoting the politics of the Malayan Communist Party in Singapore and Malaya. Singapore does not have a "history of a freewheeling rambunctious press" freely espousing competing ideas in the marketplace of ideas. The US believes that the press should be free to choose to "publish whatever it wants, however irresponsible or biased its action may seem to be, because the marketplace of ideas will sort out the irresponsible from the responsible and rewards the latter."
The press in other countries have a different role from the US model of the Fourth Estate. This roles grew out of their history, their experiences, their political system and their national temperament. Their roles are equally valid for their context.
The uncontrolled competition in the marketplace of ideas have sabotaged young democracies such as Sri Lanka and India where sectorial differences were magnified and emphasised, dividing the people, rather than bringing them together.
Singapore does not have one press. it has four, in four languages. The English press promoted the values and position of the colonial government (in the past). The Chinese press promoted Chinese language, culture and chauvinism. The Malay press agitated for Malay rights and privileges, and promoted Malay Nationalism. The Tamil press maintain ties of the local Tamil community with the mother country, Tamil Nadu.
We have NEVER been one community. The British kept the segments separate. It is the task of the government to try to create enough shared values in a single national identity. It is a gradual and long-term project.
English as a "stepmother tongue" and it has helped to create a shared value.
Lee then recounted the "Jungle Girl" story in the 1950s - known to us as the Maria Hertogh incident - as an example of how an innocuous (but insensitive) human interest story could spark a riot.
In 1986, Malaysian protest against Singapore for the visit by President Herzog of Israel to Singapore. Malays in Singapore saw the protests in Malaysia, and this set off similar protests in Singapore.
Foreign press in Singapore are free to report on events in Singapore to their audience in the West. If they get facts wrong, Singapore will reply, rebut and attempt to correct them. But it does not matter to Singapore what their ideological slant may be.
BUT... up to the 1970s, Singaporeans were mainly Chinese-educated. The English-language press had few readers and little impact. Up till then, it was the HK-based, Chinese language pro-Communist press that was the problem.
Singapore banned all those newspapers.
[And you don't see the ASNE or Reporters without Borders harping on this. Cos... not English?]
In the 1980s, things changed - from a mainly Chinese-educated majority to an English-educated majority.
English carries with it a cultural baggage from the British and the American civilisation. But Singapore cannot model itself on America - it does not have the historical, cultural or economic base for an American approach to life and politics.
[And with Donald Trump, Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Tucker Carlson, Glenn Beck, I'm not sure the US also can afford this "marketplace of ideas" approach. ]
At about this time, journals based in HK started to report Singapore TO Singaporeans. This was a new kind of press. This was an offshore Singapore press with Western correspondents, reporting Singapore as a Singapore newspaper for Singaporeans. They are Singapore press, but based off-shore. Their journalists take up issues, debating them, and taking sides.
Singapore is different from HK, Taiwan, or South Korea. Those are homogeneous people of a homogeneous culture, and none of them can be penetrated by English language press like Singapore.
Lee then gave examples of Singapore's readership of various journals compared to readership in other countries. And explain why Singapore and Singaporeans are more susceptible to influence by these English foreign press.
Singapore's domestic debates are a matter for Singaporeans to discuss and decide. We cannot allow American press to play a role where they have no stake in the outcome.
Singapore and Malaysia ban each other's newspapers to reduce our inter-communal conflicts.
The FCC of the US does not allow non-citizens to own TV stations in the US. Only US citizens can control a business that influences American Public Opinion.
So Rupert Murdoch had to first take up US citizenship before he could buy the TV stations of Metro Media Group.
If a "mighty nation of 250 million American" finds such a safeguard necessary to protect its people, what more a young nation with 2.5 million people?
[At this point, LKY wondered aloud if perhaps he might required foreign editors or newspaper owners to take up Singapore Citizenship first.]
Final example: South Africa was covertly trying to buy the Washington Star in 1976 to "soft-sell" Apartheid. When the story broke, there was outrage and the sale fell through. If the marketplace of ideas allow irresponsible and responsible ideas to compete and Apartheid is "patently abhorrent", and the marketplace of ideas will sort the good from the bad and reward the good, why be outraged?
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Q&A - the third question about the usefulness of the term "Third World" was a shot from left field. But Lee answers the question contemplatively, reflectively, and maybe even wistfully. Worth watching his response although he spends about a minute or so playing for time while he gathers his thoughts (because he was all ready for questions about Singapore (and him) not being friendly to foreign press, then this question about whether 'Third World" is an oversimplification. From 50:15 he speaks more to the point.
"Yes we are all human beings... we have different histories, we have different perceptions of what our futures are going to be, for the few days that I am here, I watch your television, I read your newspapers, I may even beguiled into believing that your issues which capture the headlines in the nightly TV news will determine the fate of the world. But I have to shake myself, and remind myself that, yes, what America does in the Presidential Elections is going to determine what her policies will be on free trade, or protectionism, on providing security for Asia, and the Pacific region, polices towards Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, but ultimately, you are the largest single factor, but you are not the total equation. It is also what the Russians/ the Soviet Union is going to do, what kind of China is going to emerge, what the Japanese will do in reaction or in response to the measures which will be taken to make them come back into trade balance with the US, whether their security arrangements with the US will endure beyond the year 2000, if not what takes its place, how much a burden-sharing can there be when they can only go as far as one maybe one and half percent of GNP for defence, and if they go beyond that, they'll have the rest of Asia alarmed. So it's going to be a very different world. You can recover your elan, you can stand tall, you can make new breakthroughs into space and high technology. I have to remember that my neighbours are still in the paddy fields, that I am in Southeast Asia, that even a few high-rise buildings in Singapore can become a kind of an affront to rice field cultures. And therefore it requires a different presentation of our relationship and our role in the region. So if you ask me can you classify them into first, second, and third worlds, I say yes, for the sake of simplification but if you want to be accurate, there are many more worlds than three or four."
"I meet leaders from many countries, from time to time in many conferences, and when I meet the Leader from Uganda I know that I am meeting somebody whose world has collapsed, and may not be put together again for another hundred years."
"We are not the same... and probably never will be."
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