That was a long speech, and I will not be able to talk about all of it at one go. One bit stood out for me though, when PM Goh talked about The Creative Society.
While I agree with the need to have a creative society to attract the best to set up shop here, I am afraid it doesn't quite work that way, wanting to see a society where creative energy is only channelled to positive and non-idle pursuits. A truly creative society that buzzes and thrives is one where you accept not just the Norio Ohgas, the Jack Neos, and the George Lucases, but also the public pubic hair snippers, the Catherine Lims, and the manglers of national songs.
Which society wouldn't want the artsy fartsy creatives and the high-tech geniuses? But the fringe types come with the territory. Some of them even express political dissent, have alternative sexual preferences, and consume contraband substances (I am not talking about chewing gum here).
And if Holland Village, Siglap, and Club Street are the best examples we can come up with as Little "Bohemias", we are in more trouble creatively than we think. Holland Village is this expat/yuppie hangout with overpriced food and bad parking, hardly a place of bohemians doing their creative stuff.
We replaced hawkers with food courts — witness the kind of food that exercise gave us. You cannot manufacture Food courts of Bohemia the way you plant instant trees along the ECP.You cannot buy creativity. You cannot spend a whole lot of money on two durians and say, look, we now have art and culture. Look, Singapore is now a Nexus for the Creative. Now we are truly like Sydney with their Opera House, and London with their National Gallery. Sorry, not even close.
Art and culture come from people, not from buildings. People like Singapore's most famous potter, Iskandar Jalil, who was forced to dismantle his gas-powered kiln of 43 years, that he had been using to fire all his works. Because of a neighbour's complaint (ahem, public feedback), the SCDF told him to dismantle it as the three 50kg gas cylinders exceeded the home limit of 30kg. When you break the spirit of an artist,and make him cry, by hiding behind the convenience of public feedback and fire safety regulations, no amount of talk will convince the global creative community that your society welcomes them, no matter how many Esplanades or Little Bohemias you build. If you screw your own, what makes you think foreigners will believe you when you say you welcome foreign talent?
Peter Hartcher, commenting on the farcical Speaker's Corner, wrote that Singapore has the "emblems of a liberal democracy without its substance" and "has all the
mechanisms of a democracy without the liberal values which give them meaning".
We seem to be the same way with creativity. We are keen to acquire the emblems of a creative, artistic and culture-rich society without its substance, and we have all the mechanisms of a creative society without the values of free expression which give them meaning.
And in the end, all we have to show for it are architectural white elephants and psuedo-enclaves that echo with proclamations of art and culture, while the potter weeps over his broken kiln.
