Getting the past right to look into future

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Apr 22, 2011
Getting the past right to look into future
I REFER to the report on new People's Action Party candidate Chan Chun Sing ("Singapore needs 'creativity and gumption to beat odds of history'"; Monday).

Major-General (NS) Chan confined himself to South-east Asian history to show that states of Singapore's size rarely survived beyond 100 years. He gave the example of the Lanfang Republic, which survived only 107 years before being swallowed up by Dutch occupation. The lesson he drew from this experience was that the republic should have built up its own defences instead of relying on relations with the faltering Qing dynasty.
The only force that has ever successfully invaded us since our founding was not from within South-east Asia.
Mighty India too had been swallowed by British occupation. If India, like much of the rest of the non-European world, could not defend itself against European colonisation, what more could we expect from the Lanfang Republic?
Indonesian kingdoms mightier than the Lanfang Republic were also swallowed by the Dutch. Try as the weaker state might at self-defence, the reality of this world had always been that of stronger states swallowing up weaker ones just as big fish would eat smaller ones. This continued right up till the end of World War II when the United States started to play the global police role. As the biggest fish of all, the US is in a position to prevent any fish from gobbling up any other fish.
MG Chan refers, too, to the Sultanate of Demak, which lasted only 73 years. But the demise of Demak is no more special than the demise of many other Indonesian dynasties, including the great Majapahit empire. Power struggles and infighting had almost always caused these states to decline over time.
Lack of defence is not the reason these states fell apart. Many of them, including Demak, grew more powerful through military conquests. The more appropriate lesson to learn would be the harmful consequences of power struggles.
The more absolutist a nation is, the more violent the power struggles, and the more devastating the consequences.
Democracy has evolved as a way for peaceful contest of power. The more we disrespect democracy, the more we mould ourselves into a strong, absolutist state, the more devastating the power struggles in future.
MG Chan says that the two historical states hastened their slide into obscurity by forgetting to be relevant to the world. But it was precisely because they were relevant to the world that they were targeted and conquered.
Similarly, it was Singapore's relevance, long before the PAP came along, that made us one of the prime targets for Japanese invasion.
Similarly, if the historical states had forgotten to be cheaper, better, faster, they would not have become targets for conquest.
MG Chan says the states were distracted by domestic politicking and neglected to groom "strong, forward-looking" leaders. But no strong, forward-looking leader would have changed the fate of those being colonised then.
Those who claim to be "strong, forward-looking" have quite often turned out to be bullying and short-sighted instead. We need to understand the past first before we can look into the future.
Ng Kok Lim
http://www.straitstimes.com/STForum/OnlineStory/STIStory_659610.html


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