Will
US, China or S'pore
be around in 2100?
Will
tiny Singapore, with nearly a million foreigners be
able to survive the global onslaught on nationalism?
Jan 16, 2000
Will Singapore still be around in 50 years? This was
a question Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew once asked
even before the new nationalism-sapping economy was
upon us.
He was looking at how history had disposed off those
small - but rich - ancient states along the Silk Route
and made them disappear.
The most modern (once wealthy) example was Lebanon
that I once visited.
My introduction to Beirut, its bombed out capital,
was the sight of a couple of armed teenage guerillas
of Mr. Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Liberation Organisation
(PLO) stopping and searching my taxi as it was leaving
the airport.
Why weren't Lebanese police doing this job? That was
Lesson 1. More was to come. I had to apply to the
PLO - not the Lebanese government - for a press pass
that allowed me to work as a journalist.
Lebanon had long lost its sovereignty to foreigners.
The PLO was just one master. Others were proxy forces
of Iran, Syria and Israel.
The government of Lebanon, an independent, sovereign
state and a UN member, was just incidental. Things,
have of course, improved since my visit; the PLO was
booted out long ago. But foreign forces still run
parts of it.
Lebanon was, of course, in the wrong neighbourhood.
Well, Mr. Lee's misgivings about Singapore's survival
have vanished and people are feeling a lot better
for it.
And now comes the New World.
In the past decade or so, the globe has spinned into
an unpredictable orbit that is causing a futurist
like Alvin Toffler to question whether the nation-state
will become obsolete in the 21st Century.
"Will there always be a United States? A China? A
France?" asked the writer of the best seller "Future
Shock" during an interview with USA Today last August.
Since his 1970 landmark book, Toffler has been one
of the world's most influential futurists.
In a series of global best sellers, co-written with
his wife Heidi, he anticipated, long in advance, today's
computer revolution and the rise of the "knowledge
economy" and their impact on the 21st Century.
In addition, there are other forces of immense importance
at work - such as cloning, the fragmentation of the
family, cable television, VCRs, satellites, customised
products, the speed-up of daily life, niche markets
and virtual agents.
He said nations would not necessarily disappear, but
were clearly losing some of their power in global
affairs.
Other forces are gaining strength, among them the
giant global corporations which were exerting more
influence on the course of world events than many
nations.
And so do resurgent religions. Islam is clearly a
major player whose interests reach far beyond any
individual nation. The Catholic Church is a fundamental
behind the scene actor from East Timor to Croatia,
and was a decisive player in the events that led to
the downfall of the Soviet Union, he said.
Then there are the fast-multiplying NGO's (non-governmental
organisations) ranging from Greenpeace to thousands
of lesser-known but very active groups. They are Internet-savvy
and gaining power.
The recent protest in Seattle against the World Trade
Organisation was only the opening shot of a looming
conflict between NGOs and IGOs (inter-governmental
organizations) like the WTO, the IMF, the World Bank,
and many others. The NGOs are going to be demanding
a voice in these IGOs, which until now have represented
only nation-states.
Post-National Power?
"Before 1648 and the Treaty of Westphalia, you didn't
really have nations in the modern sense. You had city-states,
duchies, principalities, Papal States and so on.
"Moreover, you had little sense of nationalism or
national loyalty. You were loyal to a king or to a
prince or to the church, but not necessarily to a
nation. So you didn't have many of what we now regard
as the essential defining characteristics of the nation-state,
" Toffler said.
The nation-state in modern times is essentially a
country with an integrated economy, a national market
and a co-extensive political structure. Without a
national market, nationhood is empty of power.
"You may have a state, but it won't be a nation-state.
What is happening now is that national markets and
national economies are becoming less important,
"By contrast, global markets and the global economy
are growing more important. Regional markets and economies,
and even local markets and economies, also are growing
more important.
"At the same time, nations are having a harder time
controlling their own borders, currencies, ecological
conditions and information flows.
"So there are many signs that the power of the nation-state
is diminishing in today's world, while new political
entities (or old, revived ones) grow in relative clout.
I believe we'll see all kinds of new political units
spring up - many made possible by the Internet.
"We may see a league of city-states allied with a
group of NGOs - all electronically connected, "Internetted"
and perhaps with weapons of mass destruction available
to them.
Does Separatism Have a Future?
Toffler also dwelt on the large number of separatist
and secessionist movements in the world, describing
them as the "revolt of the rich." In the past, it
was poverty that drove people to demand rights, rebel
and secede.
Today some of that is still going on. But increasingly,
rich regions were demanding autonomy or the right
to separate from the countries of which they were
a part.
"In country after country, rich regions are saying
we don't want to pay taxes to central governments
to help the poorer regions, because, apart from hating
taxes in general, we know the money isn't going to
get to the poor anyway.
"It's going to be siphoned off by corrupt political
forces in between," he said.
(The reluctance of rich regions to help poor ones
is also taking place in Singapore, except that it
is among individuals - with similar consequences).
Wherever you have advanced economies, centralised
governments will have to give up power to maintain
power. Toffler believes.
A nd when you add regions to transnational NGOs, religions,
and corporations, plus financial markets that now
dwarf national central banks, it becomes clear that
nation-states will have to come to terms with the
non-national Global Gladiators.
They form a circle of spotlights on issues like foreign
influx, bond breaking and individualism, marriage
and family - and of course, nationalism - into a broad
inter-weaving perspective.
Like an earthquake, these pressures on nationhood
are being felt in Singapore and the region and not
every one will be able to overcome them.
Seah
Chiang Nee
