Essay Sample on Singapore Society

Introduction

By definition, nation-building is the sense of belongingness between the citizens of a given country and the state and also between citizens and themselves. Over the recent past, Singapore has been considered one of the most successful nations in applying nation-building to the country's building tasks (Chang, 1968). Based on this context, the success of Singapore governments with nation-building tool is inclusive of the task to build a society that is multi-racial, multi-religious and multi-lingual. In particular, nation-building has primarily helped Singapore to evolve into a non-Chinese society and the Singapore government, in turn, integrates and acculturates into what is referred to as a multi-racial environment. Drawing from this conceptual base, this essay seeks to discuss how Singapore's nation-building challenges and concerns could be understood with reference to the history of its nation and state building journey.

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To begin with, in the process of nation-building, Singapore's government has always sought to build up infrastructures and put this effort on Singaporean identities. In this regard, Singapore as a country has concentrated on forming bonds between the residents together, to efficiently seek for identity. Besides, throughout this process, the media has always been perceived as the cultural arm of this nation and state-building process. This, in essence, helps in understanding the primary and prevalent political challenges on how the Singapore societies can harness the digital revolution, to commoditize the skills and tools so that the country can create jobs and grow a new middle class (Sng, 2016).

Another key concern of Singapore's nation-building lies in the fact that there is an ongoing digital revolution. This, in essence, has brought about massive changes in the creation of Singaporean economic value, the organization of work, how people live with each other and also how various societies communicate. Therefore, drawn from the history of the nation, in which case Singapore suffered high unemployment rates, housing shortages, lack of various natural resources, and lack of land, this current concern can be clearly understood through the industriousness, competitiveness, and productivity which have been the primary determinant factors of Singapore's nation-building greatness. Thus, this being said, these concerns can be understood from the history of the nation-building process owing to the fact that even with modern day globalization which is accompanied by rapid international flows of ideas and people, the ability to maintain a viable nation remains synonymous with the ability to achieve modernity.

Building a political entity which corresponds to the given Singaporean territory, with regard to various accepted rules, principles and common citizenship is one of the primary concerns of Singapore's nation-building. In the modern day today, Singapore faces inevitable tensions of increasing diversity among its citizens. Therefore, with regard to its nation-building journey, this concern can be comprehended based on the fact that Singapore has, throughout its history, been committed to being a nation that enhances a sense of belonging to all its citizens regardless of the differences in race or ethnicity. This being one of the most crucial political ideologies of the nation, the concept of a multi-ethnic nation of Singaporeans with equal rights as citizens has, therefore, been deemed as the key cornerstone of Singapore's national ideology.

Besides, in the course of the nation-building process, Singapore has to redirect its focus from technology and direct it to humans instead. Despite the extensive advancements in technology, scholars contend that the services that accompany Singapore's nation-building process have to both accessible and convenient to everybody and hence enhance user-friendliness (Balakrishnan, 2017). This concern is effectively substantiated through Singapore's history in the sense that, Singapore's agenda of nation-building has essentially raised the intrinsic conceptual as well as the methodological concerns, as it did in the contemporary Singapore experience has throughout this journey, invariably ignited the long-contested issue on the purpose and the integrity of its history.

Lau (2005) contends that, being a small but dense city-state, Singapore is prone to various environmental challenges ad resource constraints such as water, waste and energy management. However, unlike many Asian countries, Singapore has strived to convert some of these urban challenges into global opportunities. The country's history which was characterized by lack of land and massive unemployment can essentially be used to explain this challenge through offering lessons from which the leaders, people and the nation as a whole, can learn and respond to. For instance, throughout the nation's history and in the course of its national-building, Singapore has quite often referenced its tough history of unemployment and limited national resources and this, to the modern day, has serves as a shaper of national identity.

A developed free market economy is also a key nation-building concern in Singapore. With the second freest economy in the 2018 index, Singapore can be said to owe its economic success to its extremely open and corruption-free business environment which is characterized by its prudent fiscal and monetary policies (Lim, 2017). Throughout the nation-building process, the Singaporean government has been cautious in the implementation of an active industrial policy that has helped promote diversification, economic development and also addressing business concerns. This being said, today, Singapore's successful evolution into a non-Chinese society has helped reassure other countries in the region which have a significant Chinese minority. This has therefore helped solve all the complex and dual nationality dilemma for over thirteen million Chinese in Southeast Asia.

Conclusion

In conclusion, through the various concerns and challenges posed in Singapore's nation-building journey, it is evident that its historical writing has had substantial connections to the process of nation-building. More fundamentally, Singapore's experience in nation building has made a lot of deliberative use of history and its perceived politicizing of the nation-building agenda, in fashioning what is primarily known as, The Singapore Story. Based on this context, there is a possibility that about ten years from now, Singapore is going to be a source of encouragement and inspiration to neighboring countries in building genuine multinational societies in which overseas Chinese will have the opportunity to contribute to their country of residence instead of being feared and discriminated against.

References

Balakrishnan, V. (2017). Singapore cannot afford to slow down. Retrieved from http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/opinion/singapore-cannot-afford-to-slow-down

Chang, D. W. (1968). Nation-Building in Singapore. Asian Survey, 8(9), 761-773. doi:10.1525/as.1968.8.9.01p0407p

Chin, N. C. (2013, August 20). A strategic shift in nation-building. Retrieved from https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/strategic-shift-nation-building

Lau, A. (2005). Chapter Nine. Nation-Building and the Singapore Story: Some Issues in the Study of Contemporary Singapore History. Nation Building, 221. doi:10.1355/9789812305503-011

Lim, B. (2017, January 18). Nation building reboot needed. Retrieved from http://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/nation-building-reboot-needed

Sng, W. S. (2016, February 23). Nation building 101: lessons from Singapore - CapX. Retrieved from https://capx.co/nation-building-101-lessons-from-singapore/