IDIERI 2015: ‘Open Culture in the Asian Century: Reimagining Drama Education’ A response to ‘Critical Questions: Processes and Provocations’ 1 July 2015 National Institute of Education (Singapore) Creating ‘Places’ of Radical Openness in Singapore On 16 February 2013, more than 4000 Singaporeans gathered to protest parliament endorsement of the Population White Paper which proposed a population increase from 5.4 million to 6.9 million by 2030 (Au 2013; National Population and Talent Division 2013, vii). This proposed population strategy has been perceived as a threat to Singapore’s emerging national identity as citizens will only comprise 55% of this increased population (Singapore Democratic Party 2013, 11). One speaker, activist Vincent Wijeysingha who spoke most persuasively on the matter at the protest, argued that the Population White Paper ‘attacks us in our very deepest identity...the fear of being displaced in our own homes is a fear as old as humanity itself...We feel betrayed that those whom we trusted to govern us...now appear to have closed their ears against our fears...And they have said that if we are not willing, they will put spurs in our sides and if we are still not willing, they will replace us with those who are’ (Wijeysingha in Au 2013). Displaced Being replaced What does it mean to be a an ordinary Singaporean?
Transcript
IDIERI 2015: ‘Open Culture in the Asian Century: Reimagining Drama Education’ A response to ‘Critical Questions: Processes and Provocations’ 1 July 2015 National Institute of Education (Singapore) Creating ‘Places’ of Radical Openness in Singapore On 16 February 2013, more than 4000 Singaporeans gathered to protest parliament
endorsement of the Population White Paperwhich proposed a population increase from
5.4 million to 6.9 million by 2030 (Au 2013; National Population and Talent Division
2013, vii). This proposed population strategy has been perceived as a threat to
Singapore’s emerging national identity as citizens will only comprise 55% of this
increased population (Singapore Democratic Party 2013, 11).
One speaker, activist Vincent Wijeysingha who spoke most persuasively on the matter
at the protest, argued that the Population White Paper ‘attacks us in our very deepest
identity...the fear of being displaced in our own homes is a fear as old as humanity
itself...We feel betrayed that those whom we trusted to govern us...now appear to have
closed their ears against our fears...And they have said that if we are not willing, they
will put spurs in our sides and if we are still not willing, they will replace us with those
who are’ (Wijeysingha in Au 2013).
Displaced Being replaced What does it mean to be a an ordinary Singaporean?
It is timely for Singapore to reflect on Kuo Pao Kun’s Open Culture. As stated in
IDIERI’s call for abstracts, Kuo’s ‘Open Culture advocates for contemporary cultures to
be simultaneously rooted in situated histories and open to multiple influences, without
fear of dissolution or loss of identity’ (IDIERI 2015a). I would like to build on Kuo’s
concept of Open Culture in relation to two aspects: first, in terms of national identity and
what being Singaporean means and second, the institutional culture that shapes what
young citizens can be. I will be illustrating the first part of this presentation with some
nostalgic official graffiti unique to Singapore. Sociologists Joe Hermer and Alan Hunt
have defined official graffiti as regulatory signs that ‘mark, scar and deface public
spaces’ even whilst conveying the impression of legitimacy through iconic symbols of
official commands (Hermer & Hunt 1996: 456). I would like to extend this to public
service campaign posters in Singapore that attempt to regulate the cultural practices of 1
a nation.
The Population White Paper has certainly provoked debates around Singapore’s
national identity but most of this discourse has focused on nurturing a socalled fragile,
emerging national identity without interrogating the underlying assumption that
Singapore needs a strong, stable, shared National Identity in the first place.
Some Singaporeans may recall former deputy prime minister S. Rajaratnam’s call to
practice a ‘collective selective amnesia’.
1 See http://remembersingapore.org/2013/01/18/singaporecampaignsofthepast/ for examples of some of these posters.
Being a Singaporean is not a matter of ancestry. It is conviction and choice...Being a Singaporean means forgetting all that stands in the way of one’s Singaporean commitment, but without in any way diminishing one’s curiosity about the triumphs and failures of one’s distant ancestors (Rajaratnam in Hong & Huang 2008: 54).
However, such a commitment and choice requires a singular definition of what Being
Singaporean means. And such a statement forgets that Being Singaporean was never
very well defined in the first place. Take for example, speaking Singlish, which for SG50
(Singapore’s 50th anniversary celebration fund) is one of the ‘things that make us who
we are’ (SG50 2015). But what is Singlish in the first place but a hybrid language that
combines English , Malay and Hokkien ? As an efficient and expressive everyday 2 3 4
street language (Lee 2004), Singlish has successfully established itself as ‘a
selfappropriated identity marker, standing for being Singaporean’ (Chua 2003: 38). But
do Singaporeans only speak Hokkien, Malay and English? Surely not.
How then did Singapore achieve racial harmony without defining the Singaporean? I
want to suggest that Kuo’s understanding of Open Culture provides a more nuanced
conception of what Being Singaporean means. Being Singaporean is not about
selective cultural amnesia and becoming some sort of ‘gluey porridge where the
component cultures become indiscernible’ (Kuo 2005: 248257). Rather, I would like to
put forward the provocation that Being Singaporean rests on an ambiguity of identity.
2 Singapore’s official language. 3 Singapore’s national language. 4 One of seven distinct Chinese dialects spoken in Singapore.
2
In other words, refusing to define Singapore’s national identity is crucial to maintaining
multiculturalism. But this need not mean a lack of depth. As social scientist and
geographer Doreen Massey has noted, ‘the local and the global really are mutually
constituted’ (Massey 2005: 184). Singapore’s national identity can never be purely local.
It is constantly shaped by the global just as the global is shaped by the local. A nation’s
identity is necessarily one that embraces the personal histories of its people whilst
generating new identities through one’s cultural practices and identifications.
For Massey, ‘arriving in a new place means joining up with, somehow linking into, the
collection of interwoven stories of which that place is made’ (119). If I extend this to the
notion of national identity, it suggests that Singapore’s national identity is a dynamic
construct of individual identities, an amalgam of these individual storiessofar. This also
means, as Massey notes, that one can never ‘hold places still’ (125). We cannot fix
national identity. Acknowledging this ambiguity, demands a radical openness. A
willingness to consider that it is not national identity, but a constantly shifting collection
of identities rendered through the interactions and practices that become a part of the
everyday in Singapore.
Political geographer Edward Soja uses ‘Thirdspace’ to describe ‘a constantly shifting
and changing milieu of ideas, events, appearances, and meanings’ that provides new
alternatives, opportunities and possibilities for openness and diversity (Soja 1996: 2,
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99). Thirdspace is potential. Thirdspace is not constrained by past or present social
interactions even though it might view a possible outcome of this arrangement as a
place. It is futureoriented and offers clear view of a multitude of possibilities, where
each possibility is a place. But how might one start to perceive the possibilities offered
in this theoretical Thirdspace? Might drama offer a glimpse of what some of these
radical places of openness in Singapore might look like?
As an applied theatre practitioner in 2011, the young people I taught at a particular
school complained that the principal had decided to remove Literature from the options
available to Normal stream students so that they would not need to learn it as part of
their SingaporeCambridge General Certificate of Education (GCE) ‘Normal’ level
(NLevel) examinations. Literature was apparently considered ‘difficult to score well in’
and so the decision was made to stop offering this subject. Perhaps I should also
mention that Normal is not quite the average student in Singapore. Only 39% of
secondary one enrolments in 2013 were for the Normal stream (Ministry of Education
2013). Implicit within this Principal's decision were then certain definitions of what a
good school is, what a successful student looks like and what a student who is in the
Normal stream is capable of. There is a pragmatic approach to what skills and
knowledge must be prioritised, and a paternalistic assumption of what students will
need for the future. What are the potential consequences of institutions steeped in such
a paternalistic and pragmatic culture?
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Some of you may have heard of Brian Lim, a space entrepreneur who is
commercialising Australia’s space industry. He was ‘kicked out of Polytechnic after [his]
first year’ and every time he tried to gain the knowledge to work in the space industry
through polytechnic and the National University of Singapore he was ‘knocked...back for
not having the knowledge to execute and no one [was] willing to give [him] the help to
attempt this’ (Lim 2014). Lim did not excel in school, he was a ‘Normal’ student in
secondary school who had to retake his Olevel examinations and failed in Polytechnic.
Regardless of whether the institutions he approached actually had the resources at that
point in time to support him, I suggest that Lim left Singapore because its pragmatic and
paternalistic institutional culture could not support his ambitions.
Fagan Cheong, a founding member of PK:SG (Parkour Singapore) suggests that
parkour ‘encourages [one] to be very open minded and see things in different
ways...different perspectives’ (Cheong 2015). For Cheong, parkour has taught him to
view obstacles in his life as opportunities that open up alternative routes when
traditional routes fail (Ibid.). He credits parkour as a practice that has played a formative
role in his life. Applying parkour's philosophy of movement to his lived experiences, he
says, ‘In our life, if the traditional way doesn’t cut it then we have to find another way to
overcome the obstacle....And I think it’s the feeling of overcoming which basically
teaches us. It shows us we are progressing in our lives’ (Cheong 2015). I wanted to
explore the possibility of creating alternative pathways for young people who could not
access their aspirations through established academic paths and I wondered if a
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practice that combined applied drama and parkour or Art du Deplacement would
encourage the articulation of radical places of openness that deviate from a culture that
can be stultifying.
This empty place… It’s not a race They say Complicated maze It’s not darkness or light Pure black or pure white A blank space if you might (Participant A).
This poem was written by a participant at an Art du Déplacement x Applied drama
workshop that I cofacilitated at Singapore Poly in Dec 2014. ADD shares some
philosophies of movement with parkour. After Art du Déplacement Academy Singapore
(or ADD Academy) taught the participants various opportunities to insert creative
movement into one’s everyday environment we invited the young people to declare their
fears and dreams as they vaulted over tables. The fears included ‘fear of being closed
off’, ‘fear of mediocrity’, ‘fear of constant failure’ and ‘fear of society’s expectations’.
‘Dream of freedom in comfort (a.k.a rich)’ was perhaps unsurprising for Singapore, but a
couple of participants said ‘dream of being myself’, and two others said ‘want to be
happy’ and these responses intrigued me more.
Then each participant chose a line from a selection of poems and scripts that resonated
with their approach to obstacles in their lives and devised movement scenes in pairs
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based on the ADD movements learnt. After they had shared the scenes they were
invited to freewrite, reflecting on the scene that they had created using the line they had
chosen as the title of the piece.
The Empty Place suggests a shapeshifting conception of place. This empty place is
sometimes a sort of labyrinth with invisible boundaries that cannot be crossed,
sometimes an unmarked surface that invites one to define its possibilities. As a preface
to her poem, this participant explained, ‘I’ve been looking for something inside
me...recently I’ve just been feeling like empty space. I have nothing concrete to hold on
to. And I know it’s there, but to me I can’t believe it’s there’ (Ibid.). This empty place is
not the same as ‘placelessness’ in the sense that is usually associated with Marc
Augé’s NonPlaces. Auge’s nonplace highlights a sense of detachment, privilege and a
lack of care associated with constant geographical mobility (Augé 1995: 5, 78, 111).
The performance of empty place makes abstract fear specific. Performed in the
presence of others, the empty place is a request for support.
In their devised movement scene, Participant A and her partner, B, started from the
highest points at separate ends of the site, then moved towards one another, as if
meeting in a valley. Later, when asked about the creative process undertaken, and their
thoughts at this moment in the piece B said that the characters portrayed were ‘different
people in a person: ideal self versus actual self’ striving to overcome the obstacles in
one’s life. B observed that ‘we have a huge amount of opportunities that are waiting for
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us...but we don’t believe that we can attain it...because we are always blocked by what
ifs and what nots’ (Ibid.).
Participant B’s reflection read thus:
There are cemeteries that are lonely. Graves full of bones that do not make a sound. There are cemeteries that are lonely. Graves full of bones that do not make a sound. What I hear is a tearful trick That lays silence in this tearful world What I see are leaves in a tearful world. (Participant B)
Together, these poems suggest an awareness of a future that must negotiate precarity.
American philosopher Judith Butler defines precarity as a ‘politically induced condition in
which certain populations suffer from failing social and economic networks of support
and become differentially exposed to injury, violence, and death’ (Butler 2009: 25). A
blank space suggests the opportunity to define new paths but ‘lonely graves’ suggests
that no one will mourn for you if you fail. Those who attempt to create new paths do so
alone. Reflecting on the ADD x Applied Drama workshop, I have come to realise that it
enabled the expression of multiple places within Thirdspace. It is an urban placemaking
performance. When established pathways are not an option, an open culture might
expand future possibilities. At the same time, it is also important to recognise when
existing institutional cultures might be too fixated on a few established pathways and,
consequently eliminate all others.
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I have been thinking about the labyrinthbook created by Ts’ui Pên in Jorge Luis Borges’
The Garden of Forking Paths (1941). Unlike most stories where the protagonist must
select only one path, the labyrinthbook is ‘the chaotic novel’ that ‘chooses
simultaneously all of them. He creates, in this way, diverse futures, diverse times
which themselves also proliferate and fork’ (Borges [1941] 1964: 40). In the light of
Singapore’s 50th year of independence and discussions regarding the ‘next chapter of
the Singapore Story’ (Lee 2012), I suggest that it would be useful to view the Singapore
Story as a labyrinthbook that expands current possibilities to create a wider range of
futures for young people in Singapore.
Some of you may have heard about SKL0, a female urban artist who was arrested for
on 3 June 2013. Her stickers parodied official graffiti, remarking on Singaporean quirks 5
in Singlish quips that made people laugh. The day after her arrest, a petition appealing
for the reduction of her charges was put up online and this garnered 15,000 signatures
by 14 June. In March 2013, SKL0’s charge was reduced to seven counts of mischief,
instead of vandalism. This is a landmark event.There appears to be greater willingness
to listen and engage in dialogue and this conversation between young people and
institutions is certainly one that I hope to contribute to through applied performance.
There is more to be said but I'll end here: Young people who do not excel academically
in Singapore negotiate precarity with relatively less resources. I hope that urban
5 http://skl0.com/selected/cultureidentity/
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placemaking performances might keep alive the possibility of multiplicities, of alternative
futures that might actualise an infinity of forking paths. Growing this diversity of futures
cannot be the work of one person, or any one government agency. So I'd very much
appreciate your advice. Have you forged your own path? Or have you explored an
alternative path? What factors were there in place to support you?
Perhaps, these will help to create an environment that supports young people when
what they envision might seem unrealistic or impossible .
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Bibliography
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a. 'Call For Abstracts', IDIERI 2015, http://idieri2015.org/call_for_abstracts.html (accessed 23.6.15).
b. ‘Open Culture’, IDIERI 2015, http://idieri2015.org/pdf/Open_Culture.pdf
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Ministry of Education. (2012) ‘2014 Syllabus: Character and Citizenship Education. Primary’, Ministry of Education, Student Development Curriculum Division. http://www.moe.gov.sg/education/syllabuses/charactercitizenshipeducation/files/2014charactercitizenshipeducationeng.pdf (accessed 22.6.15).
