Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- INTRODUCTION: Globalization and the Nation-State
- 1 The Making of the Singapore Nation-State and the Quest for a National Identity
- 2 The Rhetoric of Asian Values and the Embracing of a “New Asian” Identity
- 3 Creating National Citizens for a Global City
- 4 Re-Branding Singapore: Cosmopolitan Cultural and Urban Redevelopment in a Global City-State
- 5 At “Home” in a Globalized City-State?
- CONCLUSION
- Bibliography
- Index
- About the Author
3 - Creating National Citizens for a Global City
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 October 2015
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- INTRODUCTION: Globalization and the Nation-State
- 1 The Making of the Singapore Nation-State and the Quest for a National Identity
- 2 The Rhetoric of Asian Values and the Embracing of a “New Asian” Identity
- 3 Creating National Citizens for a Global City
- 4 Re-Branding Singapore: Cosmopolitan Cultural and Urban Redevelopment in a Global City-State
- 5 At “Home” in a Globalized City-State?
- CONCLUSION
- Bibliography
- Index
- About the Author
Summary
We need the resources from a sound, competitive economy to build a world-class home, and we need a world-class home to anchor Singaporeans to create a first-world economy for Singapore. Singapore risks becoming like one of those well-run, comfortable international hotels which successful business executives check in and out. What makes a home different from a hotel is where the heart is. Most homes are less comfortable than a hotel, but they are where the people feel they belong, where they are king and where they can decorate and arrange the furniture the way they like. This, in essence, is what distinguishes a home from a hotel.
(Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, Straits Times, 14 October 1999.)INTRODUCTION
Former Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong's quote provides a typically colourful account of the latest set of perceived challenges facing Singapore. Continuing my exploration into the national response to globalization in Singapore, this chapter turns its attention to the government's project of “globalizing” the nation since the early 1990s and its related efforts to create a sense of home among its citizens. I argue that going global has posed particular challenges to the government, not the least of which is a trend among Singaporeans wishing to emigrate. In this chapter I analyse one of the main governmental responses to these “unhomely” consequences of globalization: the affective citizenship-building strategies put forward in the Singapore 21 policy.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Responding to GlobalizationNation, Culture and Identity in Singapore, pp. 82 - 118Publisher: ISEAS–Yusof Ishak InstitutePrint publication year: 2007