Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T09:20:25.179Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

1 - Introduction: The Role of Success in Singapore's National Identity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2015

Terence Chong
Affiliation:
University of Warwick, UK
Get access

Summary

THE SINGAPORE STORY AS A SUCCESS STORY

The Singapore story is often narrated as a success story. It is a story of a little island cut from its hinterland and saddled with the challenges of mass housing, high unemployment and an uncertain future. Regardless of storyteller, the Singapore success story has always unfolded in a consistent manner. It begins with the “moment of anguish”, a painful self-realization of an unformed nation, the existential fear for one's self, followed by the Herculean effort to overcome all the odds, and finally, the achievement of success. Through hard work, pragmatic policies and sound leadership, the island made the transformation from an “absurd proposition” to a global city. A quick glance at several mainstream narrations of the Singapore story will show just how central the concept of success has become to the nation-building project. Publications such as Management of Success: The Moulding of Modern Singapore; Singapore: The Struggle for Success; Singapore: Re-engineering Success; Singapore's Success: Engineering Economic Growth; From Third World to First: The Singapore Story and so on have not only examined key public policies which have borne much fruit and contributed to the general levelling up of Singapore society but have also, as a body of literature, supported the implicit suggestion that success is a faithful companion of nation-building. Such publications and many others like them have framed the Singapore story with a straightforward linear narrative where events such as the 1985 recession, the 1997 Asian financial crisis, September 11, and SARS are presented to accentuate the cyclical act of meeting challenges and duly overcoming them. It is a story where the obstacletriumph binary is a necessary leitmotif. This body of literature, together with the state-friendly agents of knowledge production, including National Education and the local press, lends an evolutionary logic to the Singapore nation, thus allowing it to be imagined as dynamic, forward-looking and achievement-oriented.

The Singapore success story is usually narrated in two different ways, sometimes simultaneously. First and foremost, it is a story of material success. It is a tale of rapid transition from colonial port to global financial centre that pays homage to the coherent industrialization and urbanization processes that have swept across the island over four decades.

Type
Chapter
Information
Management of Success
Singapore Revisited
, pp. 1 - 18
Publisher: ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
Print publication year: 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×