Thread: State of the Republik

Let me just cut you to the chase.

Have you noticed the size of Indonesia and that of Singapore?

There!

hi milan,

i think that argument holds no water. i get told that often by indonesians, yet when you speak to an educated indonesian they agree that particular point is rather inconsequential.

yes indonesia is larger, but they also have over 50 times the population to contribute and pay taxes, etc. china is larger than indonesia, yet it is on a better economic bath than indonesia. if indonesia wants to attribute it's problems to it's size, then start breaking it up! i am sure many states / provinces would leap at the opportunity for independence. do i think this would solve anything? absolutely not..

ct

Also keep in mind that the British left a good legacy to both, Singapore and Malaysia as a system, which any other colonies never left for the countries they colonised/colonialised.

hi,

milan, you're point highlights my point exactly - there's something special about singapore because both malaysia and singapore were left with the same by the british and look where malaysia is now - sure a few steps ahead of indonesia, but still leaps and bounds behind singapore.

thorsten - indonesia would take burma's money / investments if the animals in power in burma were to offer it to them.

singapore is one of the most important harbours in the world because of strategic planning. could it have been in neighboring sumatra? why not? of course it could have, but again there's very little focus on tomorrow in indonesian politics, let alone focus on 20-30 years from now. policies are reactive and usually only put in place so that some greedy bugger can cash in.

great infrastructure doesn't just happen and money doesn't just pour into a country - to attract investments and to build world class infrastructure takes time, commitment, sound policies, sound planning and most importantly a desire for a government to want tomorrow's generation to have it better than today's..

ct

singapore is one of the most important harbours in the world because of strategic planning.

By strategic planning, I assume you mean the vision and implementation undertaken by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles? If you agree, then that credit falls to the English...which is exactly the case with Hong Kong. In both cases, the current status of both major ports is the result of colonialization.

I agree the credit falls to the British for the concept and the kick off - but the Singaporean government has embraced what they were left with by the British and progressed it incredibly since gaining independence.

The Dutch did actually develop quite a lot of infrastructure in Indonesia throughout their time here - granted they did pillage from Indonesia - but whatever they left has decayed beyond usable condition. Take Surabaya for example, it was set up as one of the major trading ports of S.E. Asia - and supposedly the largest in all of the Dutch colonies. Anyone been to Surabaya? Sorry to say, it's a filthy, under-developed hole - there's nothing prosperous or pleasant about the city other than the people and seeing it out the window of an aeroplane as you depart..

ct

responsible governance involves maintaining control and making difficult decisions that represent the interests of all, as opposed to allowing those decisions to be made in the interests of a few because of ignorance amongst voters..

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/ ... 50/1/.html

Mr Goh also touched on liberal democracy. He said as Singapore develops, he believes Singaporeans will want the country's politics to be more liberal.

But Mr Goh said Singapore cannot follow the model of liberal democracy practised in some big countries which allows for unregulated public protests.

He said Singapore is a small country and the whole place will come to a halt if there is a big demonstration in the city.

For a large nation, the rest of the country continues producing, even if there is a demonstration in the capital.

Mr Goh raised the possibility of Singapore having designated areas for people to demonstrate in what he called a managed kind of freedom.

ct