I still owe a friend a post about the SAF's recent efforts to recruit more women, but while I organize my thoughts for it, I would like to offer some comments about a controversial argument I came across yesterday.
Alex Au published a post entitled "The right to burn the flag" in his blog. In it he makes a few propositions:
- The Singapore flag does not represent Singapore as a country (or nation), but the state.
- National symbols tend to be informal and unofficial, but widely recognized as embodiments of the collective identity of the people; whereas state symbols are the artificial creations of the state, represent its political identity, and reverence for them are artificially enforced through ritual (like NDP) and laws (like the Singapore Arms and Flag and National Anthem Act)
- Because the PAP is so intertwined with the Singapore state, it is legitimate for someone to reject state symbols in the name of rejecting the PAP, since the former was a product of the latter.
- The right of freedom of expression gives citizens the legitimacy to reject (in extreme cases, i.e., to burn) the symbols of an illegitimate state.
Those are very controversial arguments indeed. But for me, not so much because of the question of whether it is legitimate to desecrate the symbols of an "illegitimate" state.
Alex's position, while understandable, is also problematic, because whether a state is "legitimate" or not is a highly subjective one. For an example, just look at Egypt today. Those who supported the army's ouster of Morsi say that he was an "illegitimate" leader who threatened democracy. Those who support Morsi say that the military government was "illegitimate" because it overthrew a democratically elected leader. The same situation happened in Thailand in 2006, and in Chile in 1973.
Alex has framed the argument in terms of principle. But there is much inconsistency in reality. If it is right to burn the North Korean flag because it represents a brutal hereditary dictatorship that starved its people and terrorizes the region, is it still right to burn the American flag (a country that invaded Iraq in 2003, but also destroyed the totalitarian regimes of Nazi Germany and militarist Japan)?
The question I'm interested in is the relationship between the state/nation and its symbols. Are the distinctions that Alex made in that post really so clear-cut? In the context of Singapore, is it possible, or necessary, to make these distinctions?
Fundamentally, Singapore as a nation-state is an artificial creation. We do not have the ethnic, religious or cultural homogeneity that allows other nation-states to define themselves. In addition, Singapore's colonial legacy also meant that there was a need to create a sense of identity that did not exist in the pre-colonial period.
Consequently, what Alex has defined as "state" symbols also became "national" symbols. If the artificial symbols of the Singapore government are not the authoritative representations of Singapore as a country, than what is?
Alex further argues that a country's symbols "may consist of iconic images of landscape, an immediately recognisable accent, cuisine, architecture, music or some forms of mordant humour. Generally, the collection of symbols would have come together organically." But many of the items that he lists were themselves the products of the PAP-led state. HDB flats, iconic buildings (some of which the state ironically demolishes). And some items like cuisine are not unique to Singapore, since they can be found in Malaysia too.
The overlapping of these images across territorial boundaries partly accounts of the "culture wars" that happened in the region in the past, such as Singapore's food wars with Malaysia, and between Malaysia and Indonesia over the origins of the song Rasa Sayang.
Therefore, even the informal and unofficial markers of "national" identity can pose challenges in a people's efforts in self-identification.
I do not deny the notion that these informal markers are important, they are. The problem is, as I have alluded to earlier, why some symbols and not others? Why reject the flag, and not HDB flats? Effectively, every creation of the state - tangible or otherwise - is a symbol of the state's authority and jurisdiction.
What alternatives do we have in lieu of the "state" symbols? If the people need not identify with the flag (or other creations of the PAP-state), are there other symbols that we can appropriate? Would there be a sufficient consensus for them? If alternatives do not exist, then wouldn't we have to formulate new artificial markers to replace them?
I can agree that national symbols can be informal in nature. Their power lies precisely in the way everyone recognizes them without the need for rigorous and overt enforcement (a concept known as intersubjectivity)
But does one have to reject the state's symbols to reject the state? As Alex himself pointed out, the appropriation of state symbols have been used in opposition politics as well, "to forfend accusations of disloyalty." We see the state flag displayed and the pledge recited in opposition rallies, and we hear Majulah Singapura sung in the anti-population white paper protest last February.
Ironic? Maybe. But I think it alludes - even if to a limited extent - to the success of these symbols as markers of national identity. Or maybe the fact that we are a state and not quite a nation, so the distinction is irrelevant anyway.
WK
*The writer blogs at http://thebluesweater.blogspot.sg