Around the World in 80 Dinners - Bill Jamison [44]
The authorities are easing up on the strictness, however. Among other changes, gum chewers can now buy their treat at pharmacies if they’re willing to produce identification and sign a register. The government appears to be making small concessions to appease both citizens and world opinion, but PAP isn’t likely to head down a path that will gradually loosen its tight grip on power and public policy.
Many will say that’s a good thing. Unlike most cases where autocrats control affairs firmly and thoroughly, the leaders of PAP seem satisfied with their clout alone. They don’t raid the treasury, abide any corruption, dream of territorial conquest, or otherwise act like self-aggrandizing tyrants. Probably, they truly care about the economic strength of their city and sincerely want to keep it clean, safe, orderly, and running on time. If you judge them by these results instead of their tactics and obsessions, they make a Bill Gates success story look as simplistic as a game of Monopoly.
Singapore works in almost all respects. It’s clean to the point of pristine, as spick-and-span as a Disney theme park even without hundreds of sweepers constantly collecting the trash. People actually take pride in their public restrooms, invariably spotless and in good operating order. The crime rate ranks as one of the lowest in the world, a blessing for locals and travelers alike and a major inducement to foreign investment. PAP places a high priority on labor productivity, which translates to high-level attention to education and health. Public transportation covers every corner of the city and does it efficiently. The Housing and Development Board creates livable high-rise residential estates and new towns—home to 80 percent of the inhabitants—with easy access to schools, shopping, and employment opportunities.
Most impressive of all, Singapore stands out as a monument to multiculturalism. The British colonial roots remain entrenched in many ways—such as the use of English as the primary language of the realm—but the population is diversely Asian. Though Chinese descendants predominate, they come originally from a number of different provinces and still speak dissimilar dialects. Malays and Indians constitute significant minorities, and they, too, derive from various ethnic and linguistic backgrounds. In addition to English, the law recognizes Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil as official languages, and the major religions include Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Confucianism, and Taoism. The government stalwartly maintains respectful tolerance of these differences and clamps down forcefully on anyone breeding ill-will.
The city means business, in virtually every way that you can interpret the point. Founded as an Asian trading post in 1819 by Sir Stamford Raffles of the English East India Company, it grew into one of the British Empire’s great entrepô ts. It remains an international market center, but government-guided development has also created powerful financial and industrial sectors, resulting in the most advanced economy in Southeast Asia. Everything PAP does ultimately focuses on success in this sphere: even the ban on chewing gum began largely because of incidents where discarded gum clogged the doors of subway trains, impeding the