Misunderstanding Singapore

Having lived in Singapore for the past ten months , on this my third trip here , I sometimes think the so-called Red Dot must be the most misunderstood country on earth .
Its plight is owed to the outsized improbability of the place , hence its stubborn refusal to fit neatly into categories others have designed for the purpose of taming perceived “ otherness.
” Indeed , Singapore is variably misunderstood , the nature and degree of misunderstanding varying according to who is trying to cram it into which pigeonholes and why .
What the Chinese get wrong about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ assume that since nearly three-quarters of the country ’ s roughly 3.5 million citizens are ethnic Chinese , Singapore is a “ Chinese country.
” In some ways it is .
In most ways that count it isn ’ t .
Singapore is the only majority-ethnic-Chinese country not geographically part of historical China .
That is improbable .
Like Hong Kong , too , its roughly 150-year history as a British colony and mercantile hub makes it different , institutionally and attitudinally , from China .
In the 19th and early 20th centuries @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Singapore sought actively to modernize by adopting many British institutions and manners , including English and sometimes Christianity .
Meanwhile , in China efforts to modernize traversed the 1911 Revolution on a roughly similar trajectory , but soon detoured into chaos and then Marxism .
The path dependency deviation between the groups matters .
Singapore was also thrust into sovereignty suddenly and against its will , yet another mark of improbability as history goes .
Malaysia kicked it out of the newly formed federation in 1965 , possibly the most fraught year @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tiny , still mostly poor and virtually defenseless country to survive .
Singapore survived anyway , its near-death experience profoundly shaping its sense of self in ways sharply divergent from the experience of mainland Chinese .
Most ethnic Chinese in Singapore , too , as also in other Southeast Asian countries , are descendants of minority dialect communities—mainly Hokkien , Hakka , Teochew , Cantonese , Hainanese , and the special category of Peranakan ( a Chinese-Malay mixed group with a unique cultural style whose origins go back 15th-century Malacca ) .
Collectively @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or overseas Chinese , among themselves they are “ Tang people ” because it was during the Tang Dynasty ( 7th-10th centuries ) that the ancestors of these groups migrated south before some headed out on Southeast Asia ’ s waves .
All this differentiates ethnic Chinese in Singapore from majority Han , Mandarin-speaking Chinese in China .
But since 3.5 million people is less than the standard margin of error in the Chinese census , it is easy for mainland Chinese to misunderstand a thing so small that it seems almost negligible @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Chinese officials that Singapore is a multi-ethnic and multi-confessional society , as liberal an aspiration as a state is liable to adopt nowadays , Chinese officials typically smile and check their Rolexes .
They are patient , and lately a little more insistent .
Singaporeans , meanwhile , understand China better than Chinese do Singapore , because they need to .
This has led to muted schizophrenia .
On the one hand , many Chinese Singaporeans feel proud to have tutored their big brother to the north on how to run an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ system , despite knowing that the sources and nature of the one party differ .
On the other , many upscale Singaporean Chinese wince at mainlanders ’ brusqueness , lack of worldliness , and the cloying nouveau riche behavior of wealthy Chinese whilst traveling abroad—including to Singapore ’ s spiffy Marina Bay Sands and Orchard Road shopping meccas .
What Europe and the U.K. get wrong about Singapore Many Europeans , and British if we count them separately , not only misunderstand Singapore , but some lately do so willfully .
It ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into the desultory but encompassing and protracted Brexit bust-up of the European Union .
Both “ remain ” and “ leave ” factions in Britain , and diverse Continentals too , have over the past few years enjoyed tossing Singapore about by calling a would-be post-EU Britain a “ Singapore on the North Sea ” or a “ Singapore on the Thames.
” What is usually meant by such epithets is that Britain will adopt beggar-thy-neighbor policies to get the better of its former partners .
Some commentators , for example Pippa Norris @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have specifically mentioned environmental standards , labor rights concerns , and food safety protocols .
By implication , therefore , they suggest without apparently having thought it through that Singapore ’ s environmental standards are lower than , say , Indonesia ’ s ; that its labor rights record , for citizens and permanent residents at least , is worse than Thailand ’ s ; and that its food safety protocols are inferior to , say , Malaysia ’ s .
This is nonsense , of course .
But it doesn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ each other .
As with mainland Chinese not being bothered to look at real , existing Singapore , Europeans typically know little about how Singapore actually works .
Now , as far as imaginable beggar-thy-neighbor traits go , it ’ s true that banks in Singapore are typically more willing to ignore where large cash deposits come from , at least to a point , than is the case in the United States or Western Europe these days .
After U.S. pressure on Switzerland some years ago caused changes in Swiss banking practices @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not carefully enough—to fill the vacuum thus created .
Singapore ’ s government-owned DBS Bank got implicated in Malaysia ’ s 2015 1MDB scandal , after which the authorities backpedaled quietly but assiduously to relative safety .
It is true , too , that Singapore has a famed maximum-security private warehouse—so not a bonded warehouse within the jurisdiction of Singapore Customs—called La Freeport , nicknamed Singapore ’ s Fort Knox .
La Freeport is for wealthy people to store and transit expensive items without taxes levied , customs fees collected , or questions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
( Several countries have free-port facilities . )
It is true , too , that as the world ’ s largest maritime transshipment hub , officials know that the parade of ships lined up coming to and leaving the Port of Singapore Authority may be carrying cargos not fully listed on their manifests .
But it would be extremely expensive to all concerned , if not impossible logistically , to fully inspect every ship in port , and carriers know that .
So do the smugglers who pay kickbacks to some even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Look , we ’ re talking here about a society heavily populated by overseas Chinese in a place that before World War II had a well-deserved reputation for over-the-top gambling , prostitution , opium dens , and more .
The current generation , while hardly the same as their precursors , has not jumped completely out of its cultural skin .
Boy Scouts they aren ’ t .
It is also true that corporate taxes are low in Singapore .
But what attracts large corporations to site their Southeast Asian operations here is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ banking “ courtesies.
” It ’ s the presence of ample talented human capital available to work for multinational enterprises , Singapore ’ s lack of “ friction ” ( read : bureaucratic corruption ) , its safety , political and fiscal stability , and willingness to invest in itself .
Indeed , if one looks functionally at Singapore , it resembles less a typical country than a multinational corporation with global reach that just happens to have a flag , a U.N. seat , and an anthem .
It doesn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ epitomized by the state-owned collection of sectoral-critical companies under the umbrella of Temasek , as it is an industrial policy .
With assets of about $ 320 billion , Temasek ’ s only shareholder is the Singapore Ministry of Finance .
That , too , is improbable .
Together with Singapore ’ s more conventional sovereign wealth fund , the GIC ( Government of Singapore Investment Corporation ) , with estimated assets of $ 440 billion , a back-of-the-envelope calculation of Singapore ’ s deployable surplus financial assets comes out to around $ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ man , woman , and child .
( The exact numbers are not published so as to discourage currency speculation by local and international traders . )
A post-Brexit “ Singapore on the Thames , ” or for that matter any individual European Union member-state these days , should be so lucky—or so provident and economically competent—to have that kind of liquidity at the ready .
They could really use it about now .
What the U.S. gets wrong about Singapore So what of a United States , with a national debt of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 75,757 per capita in the red ?
How do Americans misunderstand Singapore ?
Let us count a few of the ways .
Singapore is an authoritarian state , right ?
Well , Singapore is a one-party state , but not much less so than Japan has been since it re-emerged as a sovereign state in 1951 .
No one claims that Japan isn ’ t a democracy , so why Singapore ?
There are regular elections .
.
.
which the People ’ s Action Party happens always to win .
Singapore is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ let ’ s be frank about what they means : The opposition is not going to win political power short of pigs flying and the moon audibly whistling “ Majulah Singapura.
” The system is subtly but effectively rigged—I mean protected—against that .
So Singapore is not a liberal democracy by law or constitutional guarantee .
There are limits on due process , for example , that Americans would not tolerate .
But despite that , Singapore produces mainly liberal outcomes .
Aside from its both principled and pragmatic quest for ever more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are free to leave the country and return at will , to read anything they like , and to write and say anything they like so long as it doesn ’ t cross the line into potentially incendiary bigotry or intolerance .
The line can move this way and that if the authorities think it needs to , so most critics self-police .
Once you ’ ve been here a while , you understand the reasons for this .
Given its location and multi-ethnic composition , Singapore lacks the buffers of external security @ @ @ @ @ @ @ obviously not always—enjoyed .
For various reasons , Americans tolerate more individuated noise and ambient disorder than most people ; Singaporeans , like most East Asians , place a higher premium on conformity and risk-avoidance .
Americans demand political agency and voice ; in Singapore those qualities rank lower on the priority list .
Younger people sometimes chafe at this , but not enough yet to approach any significant tipping point .
China will not pluralize its politics in a Western sense anytime soon , and Singaporean elites will not abandon their paternalist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ death penalty !
Yes , and so do thirty U.S. states .
Singapore has not used that penalty much lately , and it still has virtually no violent crime or serious drug problem .
It has no gun violence either , because tens of thousands of guns aren ’ t lying around .
But Singapore is a police state !
Really ?
Then where are the police ?
Except during the famous annual Formula One race , where the cops are out in force to protect people against large numbers of drunken foreign @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Maybe they ’ re sunk down in their cop-lairs watching the CCTV monitors that are ubiquitous here .
Indeed , that might be why women of any age can walk anywhere , day or night , without fear of assault .
And why there is virtually no graffiti or petty vandalism .
But the caning !
Singaporeans did not invent caning as a punishment ; the British did .
I dislike the paternalism it represents , but I ’ m not a Singaporean so it ’ s none of my business .
As @ @ @ @ @ @ @ old Michael Fay , few Americans know that , beyond stealing road signs and squirreling them away in his room for no particular reason , Fay said “ Fuck you ” to the judge during his trial .
Had he done that in , say , Kentucky or Texas , he ’ d have longed for a mere four switch swats on his asinine teenage ass .
But the chewing gum ban !
That ’ s just Singapore ’ s way of implementing James Q. Wilson ’ s “ broken windows ” theory @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seamless and associative .
It worked in the New York City subway system , and it works in Singapore .
Ah , but efficient , technocratic , shiny , chip-on-shoulder Singapore has screwed up the COVID-19 crisis big time , hasn ’ t it ?
The U.S. media reports that number of cases has skyrocketed lately , and numbers don ’ t lie .
It ’ s true that numbers don ’ t lie , but it ’ s equally true that those who rely on numbers without sociological filters to tell them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ press reports on Singapore ’ s handling of the pandemic have been misleading .
Let ’ s summarize the record .
Singapore felt the foul winds from Wuhan very early in what became the pandemic .
If Americans generally or the U.S. government had been paying attention to what was happening here , they wouldn ’ t have been caught with their britches down .
But ’ merkins , as Lyndon Johnson used to pronounce it , pretty much never care about , pay attention to , or deign to listen to foreigners—especially @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as this .
You play with and pet a cute little bunny , you don ’ t seek advice from it or respect its capacity to teach you anything .
The last public lecture sponsored by the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University , my host for the year , took place on January 31 .
I should know because I delivered it .
From mid-January through mid-March , Singapore kept its infection curve fairly flat , as effectively as—if not more so than—Taiwan , South Korea , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : temperature monitoring , testing , tracking , selective isolation , and a judicious use of masks .
But schools and businesses remained open , and the economy hummed as usual .
At the university , classes continued , as did smaller-scale meetings .
I could feel some ambient tension , but trust in government and amid society—both earned from having endured the SARS ordeal in 2003 , and some lesser public health scares thereafter—remained high .
By mid-March the pandemic had spread to Europe , the Middle East , and North America @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Singapore imposed international travel restrictions .
Now , my wife and I experienced this shift in tactics personally .
We had long since planned to visit Western Australia in mid-March , travel to Bali to mark a birthday , and then return to Singapore on March 25 .
We made it to Perth on March 15 just a half-hour before mandatory 14-day quarantine for all international travellers to Australia went into effect .
We never made it to Bali ; all our flights were canceled out from beneath our toes .
So we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it back to Changi Airport on March 19 about 15 minutes before Singapore ’ s 14-day mandatory quarantine kicked in .
Otherwise , frankly , the virus had its fortuitous uses : We enjoyed Cambodia ’ s Siem Reap in early February without having to vie for oxygen with the usual hordes of Chinese tourists , and we happily floated back and forth to Batam Island in Indonesia during the last week in February to visit a Bali-themed spa , and all but had the place to ourselves .
But by mid-March a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their semesters kyboshed by the virus , sought to return home .
The government was not about to refuse them entry , but despite careful precautions , some imported cases made it through , and a small but frightening number of community-to-community cases inside the country eluded tracking .
As a result , the government rolled out its pre-planned “ Circuit Breaker ” intervention on April 6 .
The new restrictions emphasized social distancing .
The government also distributed free masks to all Singaporeans , permanent residents , and work visa holders .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Singapore has never imposed the strict lockdowns characteristic of most Western countries that got a late start dealing with the problem .
Buses and rail still run , though largely empty , and there ’ s traffic aplenty on the PIE ( Pan-Island Expressway , the same one you saw in “ Crazy Rich Asians ” ) that we can see here on the edge of the NTU campus .
The government has tried to ride the crest of the wave , keeping the infection curve flat without flattening the economy .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ near-real-time data , and the government has acted as the data suggested it should .
It ’ s possible to fine-tune responses on a small island with a technocratic mentality , a good track record , and an adequate reservoir of social trust .
Alas , size matters .
This fine-turning , close-to-real time reaction mode , has worked , too .
The one glitch so far has concerned the foreign migrant-worker dormitories , where some 300,000 Bangladeshis , Tamils from India , and a smattering of mainland Chinese live .
And this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has mischaracterized .
These are dormitories for temporary contract workers , so it ’ s close-quartered housing .
Far be it from me to defend the way the government and the less-than-diligent managers of the dormitories have tended to treat these workers over the years , who in the main do construction and landscaping jobs .
But the workers themselves mostly consider themselves fortunate to have the work considering their alternatives .
Once the virus made it into the dorms , it spread fast and wide , accounting for the sharp spike in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ government made haste to limit the contagion once its extent became known , and the number of new dormitory-related cases has come down .
The key piece of information here that the U.S. media failed to report is that the foreign temporary workers live and work mainly separate from the rest of the population , and they have not functioned as infection vectors into it .
Because they are overwhelmingly healthy young men , their cases have been asymptomatic or mild .
None has died from COVID-19 or even required ICU care , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The number of new cases per day in the general population has actually fallen since the workers ’ dormitory problem erupted .
The number of ICU cases as a whole has remained steady or has fallen .
Total deaths from COVID-19 in Singapore went from 2 on March 21 to 23 as of May 28—out of a total of about 5.7 million people on the island .
The result is that Singapore ’ s record , measured by deaths per million to date , stands at 4 .
The number for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Yes , numbers don ’ t lie .
Seeing Singapore for what it is We all know how people like to describe their closest friends—informally , endearingly—as “ crazy.
” We know what that really means : that we know someone well enough to see and appreciate their unique idiosyncrasies .
That ’ s part of the wonderment of real friendship .
Something roughly similar , if less intimate , happens with countries .
You can ’ t really appreciate them , for better and not , until you know them well enough @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you do , the boxes that people back home say they fit into begin to look shabby and all but silly .
Singapore is more improbable than most countries , true ; but the same observation applies , I think , in the round .
Luckily or not , this year I ’ ve experienced Singapore both in normal times and now in the throes of COVIDaggedon .
And from this perch one degree north of the equator I can look , virtually at least , upon my own country and city—Washington , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dismay .
I don ’ t fear the planned trip home in about seven weeks ’ time .
I fear what kind of semi-stunned society I ’ ll find once I get there .
The virus is almost incidental .

Having lived in Singapore for the past ten months, on this my third trip here, I sometimes think the so-called Red Dot must be the most misunderstood country on earth. Its plight is owed to the outsized improbability of the place, hence its stubborn refusal to fit neatly into categories others have designed for the purpose of taming perceived “otherness.” Indeed, Singapore is variably misunderstood, the nature and degree of misunderstanding varying according to who is trying to cram it into which pigeonholes and why.
What the Chinese get wrong about Singapore
Mainland Chinese misunderstand Singapore because they assume that since nearly three-quarters of the country’s roughly 3.5 million citizens are ethnic Chinese, Singapore is a “Chinese country.” In some ways it is. In most ways that count it isn’t.
Singapore is the only majority-ethnic-Chinese country not geographically part of historical China. That is improbable. Like Hong Kong, too, its roughly 150-year history as a British colony and mercantile hub makes it different, institutionally and attitudinally, from China. In the 19th and early 20th centuries a small but significant minority of Chinese in Singapore sought actively to modernize by adopting many British institutions and manners, including English and sometimes Christianity. Meanwhile, in China efforts to modernize traversed the 1911 Revolution on a roughly similar trajectory, but soon detoured into chaos and then Marxism. The path dependency deviation between the groups matters.
Singapore was also thrust into sovereignty suddenly and against its will, yet another mark of improbability as history goes. Malaysia kicked it out of the newly formed federation in 1965, possibly the most fraught year in recent Southeast Asian history for a tiny, still mostly poor and virtually defenseless country to survive. Singapore survived anyway, its near-death experience profoundly shaping its sense of self in ways sharply divergent from the experience of mainland Chinese.
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Most ethnic Chinese in Singapore, too, as also in other Southeast Asian countries, are descendants of minority dialect communities—mainly Hokkien, Hakka, Teochew, Cantonese, Hainanese, and the special category of Peranakan (a Chinese-Malay mixed group with a unique cultural style whose origins go back 15th-century Malacca). Collectively known as Nanyang (Southern Sea) or overseas Chinese, among themselves they are “Tang people” because it was during the Tang Dynasty (7th-10th centuries) that the ancestors of these groups migrated south before some headed out on Southeast Asia’s waves.
All this differentiates ethnic Chinese in Singapore from majority Han, Mandarin-speaking Chinese in China. But since 3.5 million people is less than the standard margin of error in the Chinese census, it is easy for mainland Chinese to misunderstand a thing so small that it seems almost negligible. When Singaporean diplomats and politicians insist to Chinese officials that Singapore is a multi-ethnic and multi-confessional society, as liberal an aspiration as a state is liable to adopt nowadays, Chinese officials typically smile and check their Rolexes. They are patient, and lately a little more insistent.
Singaporeans, meanwhile, understand China better than Chinese do Singapore, because they need to. This has led to muted schizophrenia. On the one hand, many Chinese Singaporeans feel proud to have tutored their big brother to the north on how to run an efficient, “smart” one-party state system, despite knowing that the sources and nature of the one party differ. On the other, many upscale Singaporean Chinese wince at mainlanders’ brusqueness, lack of worldliness, and the cloying nouveau riche behavior of wealthy Chinese whilst traveling abroad—including to Singapore’s spiffy Marina Bay Sands and Orchard Road shopping meccas.
What Europe and the U.K. get wrong about Singapore
Many Europeans, and British if we count them separately, not only misunderstand Singapore, but some lately do so willfully. It’s been sporting to drag the country-cum-metaphor into the desultory but encompassing and protracted Brexit bust-up of the European Union. Both “remain” and “leave” factions in Britain, and diverse Continentals too, have over the past few years enjoyed tossing Singapore about by calling a would-be post-EU Britain a “Singapore on the North Sea” or a “Singapore on the Thames.”
What is usually meant by such epithets is that Britain will adopt beggar-thy-neighbor policies to get the better of its former partners. Some commentators, for example Pippa Norris in a recent Foreign Affairs essay, have specifically mentioned environmental standards, labor rights concerns, and food safety protocols. By implication, therefore, they suggest without apparently having thought it through that Singapore’s environmental standards are lower than, say, Indonesia’s; that its labor rights record, for citizens and permanent residents at least, is worse than Thailand’s; and that its food safety protocols are inferior to, say, Malaysia’s.
This is nonsense, of course. But it doesn’t matter when European scribblers do battle with each other. As with mainland Chinese not being bothered to look at real, existing Singapore, Europeans typically know little about how Singapore actually works.
Now, as far as imaginable beggar-thy-neighbor traits go, it’s true that banks in Singapore are typically more willing to ignore where large cash deposits come from, at least to a point, than is the case in the United States or Western Europe these days. After U.S. pressure on Switzerland some years ago caused changes in Swiss banking practices, Singapore moved carefully—as it turned out not carefully enough—to fill the vacuum thus created. Singapore’s government-owned DBS Bank got implicated in Malaysia’s 2015 1MDB scandal, after which the authorities backpedaled quietly but assiduously to relative safety.
It is true, too, that Singapore has a famed maximum-security private warehouse—so not a bonded warehouse within the jurisdiction of Singapore Customs—called La Freeport, nicknamed Singapore’s Fort Knox. La Freeport is for wealthy people to store and transit expensive items without taxes levied, customs fees collected, or questions asked about where the stuff came from. (Several countries have free-port facilities.)
It is true, too, that as the world’s largest maritime transshipment hub, officials know that the parade of ships lined up coming to and leaving the Port of Singapore Authority may be carrying cargos not fully listed on their manifests. But it would be extremely expensive to all concerned, if not impossible logistically, to fully inspect every ship in port, and carriers know that. So do the smugglers who pay kickbacks to some even as they bribe others into discretion.
Look, we’re talking here about a society heavily populated by overseas Chinese in a place that before World War II had a well-deserved reputation for over-the-top gambling, prostitution, opium dens, and more. The current generation, while hardly the same as their precursors, has not jumped completely out of its cultural skin. Boy Scouts they aren’t.
It is also true that corporate taxes are low in Singapore. But what attracts large corporations to site their Southeast Asian operations here is not mainly the tax rate or any banking “courtesies.” It’s the presence of ample talented human capital available to work for multinational enterprises, Singapore’s lack of “friction” (read: bureaucratic corruption), its safety, political and fiscal stability, and willingness to invest in itself.
Indeed, if one looks functionally at Singapore, it resembles less a typical country than a multinational corporation with global reach that just happens to have a flag, a U.N. seat, and an anthem. It doesn’t so much have an industrial policy, epitomized by the state-owned collection of sectoral-critical companies under the umbrella of Temasek, as it is an industrial policy. With assets of about $320 billion, Temasek’s only shareholder is the Singapore Ministry of Finance. That, too, is improbable.
Together with Singapore’s more conventional sovereign wealth fund, the GIC (Government of Singapore Investment Corporation), with estimated assets of $440 billion, a back-of-the-envelope calculation of Singapore’s deployable surplus financial assets comes out to around $218,000 in the black for every Singaporean man, woman, and child. (The exact numbers are not published so as to discourage currency speculation by local and international traders.)
A post-Brexit “Singapore on the Thames,” or for that matter any individual European Union member-state these days, should be so lucky—or so provident and economically competent—to have that kind of liquidity at the ready. They could really use it about now.
What the U.S. gets wrong about Singapore
So what of a United States, with a national debt of nearly $25 trillion—which translates into $75,757 per capita in the red? How do Americans misunderstand Singapore? Let us count a few of the ways.
Singapore is an authoritarian state, right? Well, Singapore is a one-party state, but not much less so than Japan has been since it re-emerged as a sovereign state in 1951. No one claims that Japan isn’t a democracy, so why Singapore? There are regular elections . . . which the People’s Action Party happens always to win.
Singapore is a “managed” democracy, and let’s be frank about what that means: The opposition is not going to win political power short of pigs flying and the moon audibly whistling “Majulah Singapura.” The system is subtly but effectively rigged—I mean protected—against that. So Singapore is not a liberal democracy by law or constitutional guarantee. There are limits on due process, for example, that Americans would not tolerate. But despite that, Singapore produces mainly liberal outcomes. Aside from its both principled and pragmatic quest for ever more multi-ethnic and multi-confessional harmony, people here are free to leave the country and return at will, to read anything they like, and to write and say anything they like so long as it doesn’t cross the line into potentially incendiary bigotry or intolerance. The line can move this way and that if the authorities think it needs to, so most critics self-police.
Once you’ve been here a while, you understand the reasons for this. Given its location and multi-ethnic composition, Singapore lacks the buffers of external security and social stability that America has typically—but obviously not always—enjoyed. For various reasons, Americans tolerate more individuated noise and ambient disorder than most people; Singaporeans, like most East Asians, place a higher premium on conformity and risk-avoidance. Americans demand political agency and voice; in Singapore those qualities rank lower on the priority list. Younger people sometimes chafe at this, but not enough yet to approach any significant tipping point. China will not pluralize its politics in a Western sense anytime soon, and Singaporean elites will not abandon their paternalist outlook either.
But Singapore has the death penalty! Yes, and so do thirty U.S. states. Singapore has not used that penalty much lately, and it still has virtually no violent crime or serious drug problem. It has no gun violence either, because tens of thousands of guns aren’t lying around.
But Singapore is a police state! Really? Then where are the police? Except during the famous annual Formula One race, where the cops are out in force to protect people against large numbers of drunken foreign chowderheads, you rarely see any. Maybe they’re sunk down in their cop-lairs watching the CCTV monitors that are ubiquitous here. Indeed, that might be why women of any age can walk anywhere, day or night, without fear of assault. And why there is virtually no graffiti or petty vandalism.
But the caning! Singaporeans did not invent caning as a punishment; the British did. I dislike the paternalism it represents, but I’m not a Singaporean so it’s none of my business. As for the infamous 1994 case involving then-18-year old Michael Fay, few Americans know that, beyond stealing road signs and squirreling them away in his room for no particular reason, Fay said “Fuck you” to the judge during his trial. Had he done that in, say, Kentucky or Texas, he’d have longed for a mere four switch swats on his asinine teenage ass.
But the chewing gum ban! That’s just Singapore’s way of implementing James Q. Wilson’s “broken windows” theory, which holds that public order is seamless and associative. It worked in the New York City subway system, and it works in Singapore.
Singapore and COVID-19
Ah, but efficient, technocratic, shiny, chip-on-shoulder Singapore has screwed up the COVID-19 crisis big time, hasn’t it? The U.S. media reports that number of cases has skyrocketed lately, and numbers don’t lie.
It’s true that numbers don’t lie, but it’s equally true that those who rely on numbers without sociological filters to tell them social truths are muttonheads. Recent U.S. press reports on Singapore’s handling of the pandemic have been misleading.
Let’s summarize the record. Singapore felt the foul winds from Wuhan very early in what became the pandemic. If Americans generally or the U.S. government had been paying attention to what was happening here, they wouldn’t have been caught with their britches down. But ’merkins, as Lyndon Johnson used to pronounce it, pretty much never care about, pay attention to, or deign to listen to foreigners—especially one from such a teeny little place as this. You play with and pet a cute little bunny, you don’t seek advice from it or respect its capacity to teach you anything.
The last public lecture sponsored by the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University, my host for the year, took place on January 31. I should know because I delivered it. From mid-January through mid-March, Singapore kept its infection curve fairly flat, as effectively as—if not more so than—Taiwan, South Korea, and Hong Kong, by using similar methods: temperature monitoring, testing, tracking, selective isolation, and a judicious use of masks. But schools and businesses remained open, and the economy hummed as usual. At the university, classes continued, as did smaller-scale meetings. I could feel some ambient tension, but trust in government and amid society—both earned from having endured the SARS ordeal in 2003, and some lesser public health scares thereafter—remained high.
By mid-March the pandemic had spread to Europe, the Middle East, and North America. So, like many countries, Singapore imposed international travel restrictions. Now, my wife and I experienced this shift in tactics personally. We had long since planned to visit Western Australia in mid-March, travel to Bali to mark a birthday, and then return to Singapore on March 25. We made it to Perth on March 15 just a half-hour before mandatory 14-day quarantine for all international travellers to Australia went into effect. We never made it to Bali; all our flights were canceled out from beneath our toes. So we hastened our return to Singapore and made it back to Changi Airport on March 19 about 15 minutes before Singapore’s 14-day mandatory quarantine kicked in.
Otherwise, frankly, the virus had its fortuitous uses: We enjoyed Cambodia’s Siem Reap in early February without having to vie for oxygen with the usual hordes of Chinese tourists, and we happily floated back and forth to Batam Island in Indonesia during the last week in February to visit a Bali-themed spa, and all but had the place to ourselves.
But by mid-March a large number of Singaporean students abroad, their semesters kyboshed by the virus, sought to return home. The government was not about to refuse them entry, but despite careful precautions, some imported cases made it through, and a small but frightening number of community-to-community cases inside the country eluded tracking.
As a result, the government rolled out its pre-planned “Circuit Breaker” intervention on April 6. The new restrictions emphasized social distancing. The government also distributed free masks to all Singaporeans, permanent residents, and work visa holders. While economic and cultural activity slowed, Singapore has never imposed the strict lockdowns characteristic of most Western countries that got a late start dealing with the problem. Buses and rail still run, though largely empty, and there’s traffic aplenty on the PIE (Pan-Island Expressway, the same one you saw in “Crazy Rich Asians”) that we can see here on the edge of the NTU campus.
The government has tried to ride the crest of the wave, keeping the infection curve flat without flattening the economy. The tracking and monitoring methodology has produced actionable near-real-time data, and the government has acted as the data suggested it should. It’s possible to fine-tune responses on a small island with a technocratic mentality, a good track record, and an adequate reservoir of social trust. Alas, size matters.
This fine-turning, close-to-real time reaction mode, has worked, too. The one glitch so far has concerned the foreign migrant-worker dormitories, where some 300,000 Bangladeshis, Tamils from India, and a smattering of mainland Chinese live. And this is the glitch that the U.S media has mischaracterized.
These are dormitories for temporary contract workers, so it’s close-quartered housing. Far be it from me to defend the way the government and the less-than-diligent managers of the dormitories have tended to treat these workers over the years, who in the main do construction and landscaping jobs. But the workers themselves mostly consider themselves fortunate to have the work considering their alternatives. Once the virus made it into the dorms, it spread fast and wide, accounting for the sharp spike in the raw number of cases. The government made haste to limit the contagion once its extent became known, and the number of new dormitory-related cases has come down.
The key piece of information here that the U.S. media failed to report is that the foreign temporary workers live and work mainly separate from the rest of the population, and they have not functioned as infection vectors into it. Because they are overwhelmingly healthy young men, their cases have been asymptomatic or mild. None has died from COVID-19 or even required ICU care, and only a few have required hospitalization. The number of new cases per day in the general population has actually fallen since the workers’ dormitory problem erupted. The number of ICU cases as a whole has remained steady or has fallen.
Total deaths from COVID-19 in Singapore went from 2 on March 21 to 23 as of May 28—out of a total of about 5.7 million people on the island. The result is that Singapore’s record, measured by deaths per million to date, stands at 4. The number for the United States at present is 306. Yes, numbers don’t lie.
Seeing Singapore for what it is
We all know how people like to describe their closest friends—informally, endearingly—as “crazy.” We know what that really means: that we know someone well enough to see and appreciate their unique idiosyncrasies. That’s part of the wonderment of real friendship.
Something roughly similar, if less intimate, happens with countries. You can’t really appreciate them, for better and not, until you know them well enough to see their unique characteristics. Once you do, the boxes that people back home say they fit into begin to look shabby and all but silly. Singapore is more improbable than most countries, true; but the same observation applies, I think, in the round.
Luckily or not, this year I’ve experienced Singapore both in normal times and now in the throes of COVIDaggedon. And from this perch one degree north of the equator I can look, virtually at least, upon my own country and city—Washington, D.C.—and what I see fills me with dismay. I don’t fear the planned trip home in about seven weeks’ time. I fear what kind of semi-stunned society I’ll find once I get there. The virus is almost incidental.


thebulwark--2020-06-09--Jeff Sessions Tries to Thread the Trumpist Needle

On the evening of May 22 , President Trump took to Twitter and resumed his long-simmering feud with Jeff Sessions , his former attorney general and now a candidate in Alabama to reclaim his old seat in the United States Senate .
Trump picked up on a theme that Tommy Tuberville , Sessions ’ s Republican primary opponent who holds Trump ’ s endorsement , has been hammering for months—that Sessions abandoned and betrayed Trump : On and on it went over what should have been a poignant , or at least restful , Memorial Day weekend , with Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ world , and Sessions desperate to thread the needle of being his own man while also remaining faithful to the Trumpist project .
It has been assumed by practically every pundit that Alabama is a safe seat for Republicans heading into November .
Democrat Doug Jones is on the ballot for a full term after having won the seat Sessions vacated when he was appointed attorney general in early 2017 .
Jones ’ s victory in the 2017 special election was always a bit of an outlier ; he was and remains a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and while a liberal in his politics , in tone he is a moderate , if not downright boring .
Jones had the perfect opponent in Roy Moore , a social-conservative caricature who was revealed in the late stages of the campaign to have allegedly once had a proclivity for , shall we say , attempting to date much younger women .
Once all of this was taken into account , many Republican voters were happy to stay home , vote for a third-party candidate , or even cross the aisle and cast @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conventional wisdom holds that Jones won ’ t be so lucky in a presidential election year .
All the usual qualifications abound : Alabama is a red state where President Trump remains popular ; Jones voted against the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh ; Jones ’ s opponent will be either Sessions , who has experience and near-universal name recognition in the state , or Tuberville , a former college football coach who remains relatively popular with voters ( or at least those who cheer for Auburn ) .
Facing such odds , Jones @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Birmingham after November .
I ’ m not so sure .
While Jones won ’ t be facing a tiny-gun-toting clown like Roy Moore , each of his potential opponents has a myriad of flaws .
Sessions is weighed down by all his Trump-related baggage , while Tuberville is a political newcomer who has never held political office—nor , it seems , a coherent political thought ( e.g.
, he opposes cuts to Medicaid or Social Security because “ you pay that through your paycheck ” ) .
Blessed with such competition , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a puncher ’ s chance to retain his seat .
Let ’ s look at each of the two GOP contenders in turn .
Jeff Sessions is the most-known political commodity in the race , having first been elected to the Senate in 1996 .
While Sessions was re-elected three times , it ’ s uncertain how much of his electoral success was due to his Buchananite policy agenda and how much to the power of incumbency .
If there was one issue that tied voters to Sessions it was immigration—the same issue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one of the earliest endorsers of Trump ’ s campaign in 2016 , which earned him Trump ’ s nod for the position of attorney general .
Yet when Sessions recused himself from the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election , which in turn led to the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel , voters broke with Sessions .
Earlier this year , when Sessions jumped into the race for his old seat , he seemed to believe that voters would be eager to send him back to Washington @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to force some other candidates out of the race ; by Super Tuesday , the only serious contenders remaining were Sessions , Tuberville , and Congressman Bradley Byrne , a sharp House member who rode into office during a 2013 special election with Tea Party support but whose efforts to out-Trump the field ultimately failed and may have doomed his political career .
Sessions outpaced Byrne by several thousand votes but lagged behind Tuberville in the primary vote , leading to a runoff scheduled for July 14 .
Sessions ’ s opponent , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; a man with no prior political experience or consistent policy positions , he publicly mulled a number of second-career options before declaring for the Senate .
Thanks to his nearly decade-long tenure as head coach of one of the state ’ s two football powerhouses ( along with amicable relations in the years since his departure from Auburn to coach elsewhere ) , Tuberville has been able to win the support of state leaders who themselves came to power long after Sessions became a power broker in Washington , D.C .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a microcosm of the Trump-Sessions clash—and it highlights the contradictions at the heart of today ’ s pro-Trump GOP , where personal fealty carries more weight than any policy or ideological persuasion .
Sessions did not merely accommodate himself to the new Trump reality ; he was an early proponent who saw many of his proposals on trade and immigration embraced by President Trump .
His fatal flaw was his own integrity , as he has repeated over and over again that it would have been improper , if not illegal , not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , besides , as he never tires of repeating , he did it to protect President Trump .
Tuberville attacked Sessions for abandoning Donald Trump in his great hour of need , a message that seems to have resonated with pro-Trump diehards .
No matter how much Sessions may have helped both Trump ’ s candidacy and his early months in office , his failure to protect the president from Mueller has proven to be an unpardonable sin .
Meanwhile , Tuberville has left himself open to a Trumpist attack from Sessions in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coach is far more sympathetic to free trade—and , consequently , relations with China—than either Sessions or the president he is so eager to serve .
The disconnect between a candidate professing obsequious pro-Trump loyalty while arguing for a trade policy that runs counter to Trump ’ s preferences may be explained by looking at Tuberville ’ s core support .
Tuberville holds endorsements from many figures in the state ’ s business community , particularly the farming and timber industries , both of which have been harmed by the president ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Republicans have a candidate who would pursue policies far more beneficial to their own well-being , as evidenced by the Club for Growth ’ s endorsement .
Much as members of the Republican establishment supported Donald Trump in hopes that they might restrain him to their own benefit , many state leaders believe that Tuberville could likewise be an avatar for their own interests .
Yet there remains the problem that Tuberville is an ambitious man with no prior public commitment to any of the policies or values associated with conservatism in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a longtime SEC football coach would have somewhat of a culturally conservative disposition , but that tells us nothing about what Tuberville actually believes about trade , health care , or even the basic legislative process .
Should Tuberville win the primary and then in the general election flip the seat back to the GOP , it ’ s a safe bet that he will fill three roles in the Senate .
First , he will represent the interests of the state ’ s business community in much the same manner as any @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be a reliable vote for whatever Mitch McConnell wants or needs .
Third , Tuberville is likely to remain a vocal Trump supporter—should the president be re-elected .
Under a President Biden , a Senator Tuberville would be a witty , opinionated voice of opposition , but it seems unlikely that he would be part of any shift toward responsible Republican governance in the post-Trump era .
Tuberville ’ s rise has something of the scent of smoke-filled back rooms .
Without the support of numerous leaders in the state ’ s agricultural @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the former coach would have disappeared as a vanity candidate months ago .
Yet some institutional guardrails might have existed to prevent a candidate bereft of policy ideas from winning a seat in the world ’ s greatest deliberative body .
In the absence of a powerful party , leaders fall back on their own tribal self-interest , but in doing so they undermine the preconditions for any institutional renaissance that would lead to a more stable , less populist government .
Then again , less populism might not be to their advantage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Doug Jones .
Make no mistake : Jones is a liberal in every conventional sense ; he is not an economic or foreign policy progressive .
Consequently , if suburban and college-educated voters are faced with the option of an inexperienced , unpredictable Tommy Tuberville whose loyalty is to his financial backers and an erratic president or six more years of moderately liberal Doug Jones , they may just opt for the devil they know .
This is how parties collapse ; when they lack the institutional strength to protect their own @ @ @ @ @ @ @ corresponding risk that despite all reasonable arguments to the contrary , voters will abandon them .
Every election that Republicans spend arguing over loyalty to Donald Trump is an election with the potential for voters to flee to a party that does not make such demands .
It happened once before in Alabama .
There is no reason to think it can not happen again .

On the evening of May 22, President Trump took to Twitter and resumed his long-simmering feud with Jeff Sessions, his former attorney general and now a candidate in Alabama to reclaim his old seat in the United States Senate. Trump picked up on a theme that Tommy Tuberville, Sessions’s Republican primary opponent who holds Trump’s endorsement, has been hammering for months—that Sessions abandoned and betrayed Trump:
Later that night, Sessions responded:
On and on it went over what should have been a poignant, or at least restful, Memorial Day weekend, with Trump declaring Sessions persona non grata in his world, and Sessions desperate to thread the needle of being his own man while also remaining faithful to the Trumpist project.
It has been assumed by practically every pundit that Alabama is a safe seat for Republicans heading into November. Democrat Doug Jones is on the ballot for a full term after having won the seat Sessions vacated when he was appointed attorney general in early 2017. Jones’s victory in the 2017 special election was always a bit of an outlier; he was and remains a well-respected member of the Birmingham community, and while a liberal in his politics, in tone he is a moderate, if not downright boring. Jones had the perfect opponent in Roy Moore, a social-conservative caricature who was revealed in the late stages of the campaign to have allegedly once had a proclivity for, shall we say, attempting to date much younger women. Once all of this was taken into account, many Republican voters were happy to stay home, vote for a third-party candidate, or even cross the aisle and cast a vote for Doug Jones.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
The conventional wisdom holds that Jones won’t be so lucky in a presidential election year. All the usual qualifications abound: Alabama is a red state where President Trump remains popular; Jones voted against the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh; Jones’s opponent will be either Sessions, who has experience and near-universal name recognition in the state, or Tuberville, a former college football coach who remains relatively popular with voters (or at least those who cheer for Auburn). Facing such odds, Jones is thought to be headed home to Birmingham after November.
I’m not so sure.
While Jones won’t be facing a tiny-gun-toting clown like Roy Moore, each of his potential opponents has a myriad of flaws. Sessions is weighed down by all his Trump-related baggage, while Tuberville is a political newcomer who has never held political office—nor, it seems, a coherent political thought (e.g., he opposes cuts to Medicaid or Social Security because “you pay that through your paycheck”). Blessed with such competition, it stands to reason that Jones has a puncher’s chance to retain his seat.
Let’s look at each of the two GOP contenders in turn.
Jeff Sessions is the most-known political commodity in the race, having first been elected to the Senate in 1996. While Sessions was re-elected three times, it’s uncertain how much of his electoral success was due to his Buchananite policy agenda and how much to the power of incumbency. If there was one issue that tied voters to Sessions it was immigration—the same issue that prompted him to stand out as one of the earliest endorsers of Trump’s campaign in 2016, which earned him Trump’s nod for the position of attorney general. Yet when Sessions recused himself from the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, which in turn led to the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel, voters broke with Sessions.
Earlier this year, when Sessions jumped into the race for his old seat, he seemed to believe that voters would be eager to send him back to Washington. He certainly took up enough oxygen to force some other candidates out of the race; by Super Tuesday, the only serious contenders remaining were Sessions, Tuberville, and Congressman Bradley Byrne, a sharp House member who rode into office during a 2013 special election with Tea Party support but whose efforts to out-Trump the field ultimately failed and may have doomed his political career. Sessions outpaced Byrne by several thousand votes but lagged behind Tuberville in the primary vote, leading to a runoff scheduled for July 14.
Sessions’s opponent, Tommy Tuberville, is an interesting case; a man with no prior political experience or consistent policy positions, he publicly mulled a number of second-career options before declaring for the Senate. Thanks to his nearly decade-long tenure as head coach of one of the state’s two football powerhouses (along with amicable relations in the years since his departure from Auburn to coach elsewhere), Tuberville has been able to win the support of state leaders who themselves came to power long after Sessions became a power broker in Washington, D.C.
The interplay between Tuberville and Sessions is like a microcosm of the Trump-Sessions clash—and it highlights the contradictions at the heart of today’s pro-Trump GOP, where personal fealty carries more weight than any policy or ideological persuasion. Sessions did not merely accommodate himself to the new Trump reality; he was an early proponent who saw many of his proposals on trade and immigration embraced by President Trump. His fatal flaw was his own integrity, as he has repeated over and over again that it would have been improper, if not illegal, not to recuse himself from the Russia investigation—and, besides, as he never tires of repeating, he did it to protect President Trump.
Tuberville attacked Sessions for abandoning Donald Trump in his great hour of need, a message that seems to have resonated with pro-Trump diehards. No matter how much Sessions may have helped both Trump’s candidacy and his early months in office, his failure to protect the president from Mueller has proven to be an unpardonable sin.
Meanwhile, Tuberville has left himself open to a Trumpist attack from Sessions in the area of trade; the former coach is far more sympathetic to free trade—and, consequently, relations with China—than either Sessions or the president he is so eager to serve.
The disconnect between a candidate professing obsequious pro-Trump loyalty while arguing for a trade policy that runs counter to Trump’s preferences may be explained by looking at Tuberville’s core support. Tuberville holds endorsements from many figures in the state’s business community, particularly the farming and timber industries, both of which have been harmed by the president’s trade war. In Tuberville, business-minded Republicans have a candidate who would pursue policies far more beneficial to their own well-being, as evidenced by the Club for Growth’s endorsement. Much as members of the Republican establishment supported Donald Trump in hopes that they might restrain him to their own benefit, many state leaders believe that Tuberville could likewise be an avatar for their own interests.
Yet there remains the problem that Tuberville is an ambitious man with no prior public commitment to any of the policies or values associated with conservatism in the pre-Trump era. One might assume that a longtime SEC football coach would have somewhat of a culturally conservative disposition, but that tells us nothing about what Tuberville actually believes about trade, health care, or even the basic legislative process.
Should Tuberville win the primary and then in the general election flip the seat back to the GOP, it’s a safe bet that he will fill three roles in the Senate. First, he will represent the interests of the state’s business community in much the same manner as any other politician. Second, he will be a reliable vote for whatever Mitch McConnell wants or needs. Third, Tuberville is likely to remain a vocal Trump supporter—should the president be re-elected. Under a President Biden, a Senator Tuberville would be a witty, opinionated voice of opposition, but it seems unlikely that he would be part of any shift toward responsible Republican governance in the post-Trump era.
Tuberville’s rise has something of the scent of smoke-filled back rooms. Without the support of numerous leaders in the state’s agricultural sector, it’s likely that the former coach would have disappeared as a vanity candidate months ago. Yet some institutional guardrails might have existed to prevent a candidate bereft of policy ideas from winning a seat in the world’s greatest deliberative body. In the absence of a powerful party, leaders fall back on their own tribal self-interest, but in doing so they undermine the preconditions for any institutional renaissance that would lead to a more stable, less populist government. Then again, less populism might not be to their advantage.
All of which brings us back to Doug Jones. Make no mistake: Jones is a liberal in every conventional sense; he is not an economic or foreign policy progressive. Consequently, if suburban and college-educated voters are faced with the option of an inexperienced, unpredictable Tommy Tuberville whose loyalty is to his financial backers and an erratic president or six more years of moderately liberal Doug Jones, they may just opt for the devil they know.
This is how parties collapse; when they lack the institutional strength to protect their own purpose and reputation—their own ideas—there is the corresponding risk that despite all reasonable arguments to the contrary, voters will abandon them. Every election that Republicans spend arguing over loyalty to Donald Trump is an election with the potential for voters to flee to a party that does not make such demands. It happened once before in Alabama. There is no reason to think it cannot happen again.


thebulwark--2020-06-09--Why America’s Protests Are the World’s Protests

This past weekend , a statue of slave owner Edward Colston was torn down by anti-racism protesters and a statue of Abraham Lincoln was graffitied with the names of black Americans killed by the police .
Where ?
Not in the United States , but in England .
In the capitals of Europe and in democracies around the globe , people are out on the streets , protesting police brutality and demanding U.S. criminal-justice reforms in the wake of the killing of George Floyd .
In Paris , 20,000 people marched towards the high court in a mass demonstration .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ two new protests in Paris—by the U.S. embassy and the Eiffel Tower—but they happened anyway .
French protesters link George Floyd ’ s death with the killing of Adama Traoré , who died in police custody four years ago and whose last words were reportedly , like George ’ s , “ I can ’ t breathe.
” Footage from Amsterdam ’ s Dam Square went viral as 5,000 people crowded together in support of Black Lives Matter .
In London , thousands marched towards Parliament chanting “ I can ’ t breathe.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trafalgar Square , protesters kneeled for nine minutes to mark the length of time that Floyd was pinned to the ground by the knee of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin .
In Rome , thousands of protesters gathered to denounce racism in both the United States and Italy .
They chanted , “ No racism , George Floyd is here , ” holding signs in English for the American audience and in Italian for their own government and their compatriots .
Demonstrators in Tokyo , Osaka , and Shibuya gathered to protest against @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and in Japan .
( A Kurdish man was injured by Tokyo police in May , a few days before George Floyd ’ s death . )
In the Philippines , university students attached their own cause—opposition to a controversial anti-terror bill—to the international protests .
They also kneeled to show their solidarity with black Americans .
Some of these international protests have ended in skirmishes with the police caused by a small but aggressive minority of protesters , prompting fierce debates about public safety and order amid a pandemic , similar to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ police brutality in the United States moved so many people around the world to protest ?
It is surely in part because of the nauseating footage documenting George Floyd ’ s last minutes of life .
And , to some extent , the protests are a result of the globalization of social justice activism .
( For what it ’ s worth , some government figures in Europe are keen to argue that racism in the United States has little to do with their respective countries . )
But many of the protesters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recent days are also , as they have explained , driven by a recognition that America has been—and ought to be—a standard-bearer for freedom and human dignity .
“ Everyone knows that this represents more than just George Floyd , more than just America , but racism all around the world , ” explained a student protester at a demonstration that began outside the U.S. embassy in London .
To paraphrase : America ’ s founding principles make what happens here uniquely important for the cause of democracy abroad .
“ We join @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and particularly the young , in their struggle for a society finally free of racism , ” reads a statement released by anti-racism organizations in France .
Many citizens of the free world see their own destiny as inextricably bound up with America ’ s .
Individuals in this country have the power to come together , seek to heal racial divides , and shape history .
Nonetheless , there is one individual whose voice carries more resonance than anyone else ’ s , both abroad and at home : the president .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ together , Trump stoked tensions .
The recent public statements from former presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush , former defense secretary James Mattis , and retired admiral Mike Mullen , among many others , have been moving and wise .
But they are reminders of how our leaders used to speak , not how they speak today .
Trump is not a unifier .
He lacks the capacity for empathy .
He is not compassionate .
He is , rather , a divider .
For the sake of unity , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ keep quiet .
Instead , he settles on cheap stunts .
Like his stunt last week at Lafayette Square—a photo op in which he awkwardly brandished a Bible as a prop in front of St John ’ s Church .
According to White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany , Trump wanted to look like Winston Churchill inspecting bomb damage during the Blitz .
What has the president done to deserve comparison with this great wartime leader ?
His use of tear gas on his fellow citizens to clear the way for his stunt @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Churchill , in his famous Iron Curtain address , spoke of the roots of Anglo-American liberalism— “ the great principles of freedom and the rights of man ” that were secured in such achievements as Magna Carta and the English Bill of Rights , and that found “ their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence.
” “ Here is the message of the British and American peoples to mankind , ” he said .
“ Let us preach what we practice ; let us practice what we preach.
” If @ @ @ @ @ @ @ power resided not just in its economic and military strength but in its ideals , so too did America ’ s enemies .
They feared that power as an existential threat .
Which is why they sought to exploit our flaws—why , for instance , the Soviets talked about segregation in the American South .
And in ending segregation , America not only struck a great and long overdue blow for justice , but also strengthened its moral standing vis-à-vis the Soviets .
In much the same way that the Soviets sought to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what they see when they look at America .
They can paint the United States as an oppressor : You see ?
The Westerners , the Americans , they are no better than we are .
That ’ s why the world ’ s totalitarian states have made public statements about Floyd ’ s murder .
The spokesperson for the Chinese ministry of foreign affairs , a notorious propagandist , tweeted , “ I can ’ t breathe.
” A Politico headline read , “ Chinese propagandists seize on George Floyd protests , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ both Western and Chinese audiences .
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad , the notoriously anti-Western and anti-Semitic former president of Iran , tweeted about the injustice against Floyd , quoting Tupac Shakur .
Iran ’ s state media have been covering the U.S. protests—and their suppression—nonstop .
And , of course , the Russians are not known to let an opportunity for whataboutism go to waste .
The world ’ s dictators and kleptocrats are no true friends of America—or of justice .
Their statements of criticism are made in bad faith .
But our friends @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t want our shared enemies to have that power .
They are inspired by self-preservation .
They are inspired by fear : If freedom in America collapses , then the free world will collapse .
They take Lincoln ’ s declaration that America is “ the last , best hope of earth ” more seriously than many Americans do because the boots of Chinese , Russian , and Iranian totalitarianism are closer to their necks than to ours .
The late Charles Krauthammer said : “ Europe can eat , drink @ @ @ @ @ @ @ protects her .
But for America it ’ s different .
If we choose the life of ease , who stands guard for us ?
” We would add : If America chooses “ the life of ease , ” who will stand guard for the free world ?
We—both authors of this article—were born outside of the United States .
One of us is British by birth , the other , Iranian .
For one of us , a migrant from Britain , America is the bigger and better sister , safeguarding @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of us , an asylee from Iran , America is the beacon of freedom and his savior against tyrants .
Our different backgrounds mean that one of us looks at America as the protector of freedom and the other as its messenger .
But we both see America as a nation of liberty and justice for all .
In the present push for racial equality in criminal justice , we must succeed first and foremost for the sake of black Americans .
But we must also succeed in order to dispense with the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ liberalism is no better than Chinese , Russian , and Iranian totalitarianism .
We must keep fighting for the equal rights of all citizens—so that we remain the “ shining city on a hill ” that others are inspired by .
So that America can both inspire freedom and have the moral footing to condemn the violation of others ’ rights—rights of Uighurs , of Tatars , of Bahaís—by their oppressors .
To quote Lafayette—that Revolutionary War hero , an American accidentally born in France— “ the happiness of America is intimately connected @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she is destined to become the safe and venerable asylum of virtue , integrity , tolerance , equality , and peaceful liberty .
”

This past weekend, a statue of slave owner Edward Colston was torn down by anti-racism protesters and a statue of Abraham Lincoln was graffitied with the names of black Americans killed by the police.
Where? Not in the United States, but in England.
In the capitals of Europe and in democracies around the globe, people are out on the streets, protesting police brutality and demanding U.S. criminal-justice reforms in the wake of the killing of George Floyd.
In Paris, 20,000 people marched towards the high court in a mass demonstration. Over the weekend, French authorities forbade two new protests in Paris—by the U.S. embassy and the Eiffel Tower—but they happened anyway. French protesters link George Floyd’s death with the killing of Adama Traoré, who died in police custody four years ago and whose last words were reportedly, like George’s, “I can’t breathe.”
Footage from Amsterdam’s Dam Square went viral as 5,000 people crowded together in support of Black Lives Matter.
In London, thousands marched towards Parliament chanting “I can’t breathe.” As they reached the monuments at Trafalgar Square, protesters kneeled for nine minutes to mark the length of time that Floyd was pinned to the ground by the knee of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.
In Rome, thousands of protesters gathered to denounce racism in both the United States and Italy. They chanted, “No racism, George Floyd is here,” holding signs in English for the American audience and in Italian for their own government and their compatriots.
Demonstrators in Tokyo, Osaka, and Shibuya gathered to protest against police brutality both in the United States and in Japan. (A Kurdish man was injured by Tokyo police in May, a few days before George Floyd’s death.)
In the Philippines, university students attached their own cause—opposition to a controversial anti-terror bill—to the international protests. They also kneeled to show their solidarity with black Americans.
Some of these international protests have ended in skirmishes with the police caused by a small but aggressive minority of protesters, prompting fierce debates about public safety and order amid a pandemic, similar to those taking place here.
Why has police brutality in the United States moved so many people around the world to protest? It is surely in part because of the nauseating footage documenting George Floyd’s last minutes of life. And, to some extent, the protests are a result of the globalization of social justice activism. (For what it’s worth, some government figures in Europe are keen to argue that racism in the United States has little to do with their respective countries.)
But many of the protesters who have taken to the streets in recent days are also, as they have explained, driven by a recognition that America has been—and ought to be—a standard-bearer for freedom and human dignity.
“Everyone knows that this represents more than just George Floyd, more than just America, but racism all around the world,” explained a student protester at a demonstration that began outside the U.S. embassy in London. To paraphrase: America’s founding principles make what happens here uniquely important for the cause of democracy abroad. “We join fully with the citizens of America, and particularly the young, in their struggle for a society finally free of racism,” reads a statement released by anti-racism organizations in France. Many citizens of the free world see their own destiny as inextricably bound up with America’s.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
Individuals in this country have the power to come together, seek to heal racial divides, and shape history. Nonetheless, there is one individual whose voice carries more resonance than anyone else’s, both abroad and at home: the president.
Instead of pausing to bring the nation together, Trump stoked tensions. The recent public statements from former presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, former defense secretary James Mattis, and retired admiral Mike Mullen, among many others, have been moving and wise. But they are reminders of how our leaders used to speak, not how they speak today. Trump is not a unifier. He lacks the capacity for empathy. He is not compassionate. He is, rather, a divider. For the sake of unity, the best he could do would be to keep quiet. Instead, he settles on cheap stunts.
Like his stunt last week at Lafayette Square—a photo op in which he awkwardly brandished a Bible as a prop in front of St John’s Church. According to White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, Trump wanted to look like Winston Churchill inspecting bomb damage during the Blitz. What has the president done to deserve comparison with this great wartime leader? His use of tear gas on his fellow citizens to clear the way for his stunt makes it all the more egregious.
Churchill, in his famous Iron Curtain address, spoke of the roots of Anglo-American liberalism—“the great principles of freedom and the rights of man” that were secured in such achievements as Magna Carta and the English Bill of Rights, and that found “their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence.” “Here is the message of the British and American peoples to mankind,” he said. “Let us preach what we practice; let us practice what we preach.”
If Churchill understood that America’s great power resided not just in its economic and military strength but in its ideals, so too did America’s enemies. They feared that power as an existential threat. Which is why they sought to exploit our flaws—why, for instance, the Soviets talked about segregation in the American South. And in ending segregation, America not only struck a great and long overdue blow for justice, but also strengthened its moral standing vis-à-vis the Soviets.
In much the same way that the Soviets sought to exploit segregation, our adversaries today love what they see when they look at America. They can paint the United States as an oppressor: You see? The Westerners, the Americans, they are no better than we are. That’s why the world’s totalitarian states have made public statements about Floyd’s murder. The spokesperson for the Chinese ministry of foreign affairs, a notorious propagandist, tweeted, “I can’t breathe.” A Politico headline read, “Chinese propagandists seize on George Floyd protests,” outlining the airing of propaganda to both Western and Chinese audiences. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the notoriously anti-Western and anti-Semitic former president of Iran, tweeted about the injustice against Floyd, quoting Tupac Shakur. Iran’s state media have been covering the U.S. protests—and their suppression—nonstop. And, of course, the Russians are not known to let an opportunity for whataboutism go to waste.
The world’s dictators and kleptocrats are no true friends of America—or of justice. Their statements of criticism are made in bad faith. But our friends in Europe and across the free world don’t want our shared enemies to have that power. They are inspired by self-preservation. They are inspired by fear: If freedom in America collapses, then the free world will collapse. They take Lincoln’s declaration that America is “the last, best hope of earth” more seriously than many Americans do because the boots of Chinese, Russian, and Iranian totalitarianism are closer to their necks than to ours. The late Charles Krauthammer said: “Europe can eat, drink, and be merry, for America protects her. But for America it’s different. If we choose the life of ease, who stands guard for us?” We would add: If America chooses “the life of ease,” who will stand guard for the free world?
We—both authors of this article—were born outside of the United States. One of us is British by birth, the other, Iranian. For one of us, a migrant from Britain, America is the bigger and better sister, safeguarding European freedom. For the other one of us, an asylee from Iran, America is the beacon of freedom and his savior against tyrants. Our different backgrounds mean that one of us looks at America as the protector of freedom and the other as its messenger. But we both see America as a nation of liberty and justice for all.
In the present push for racial equality in criminal justice, we must succeed first and foremost for the sake of black Americans. But we must also succeed in order to dispense with the fiction, the lie, that American liberalism is no better than Chinese, Russian, and Iranian totalitarianism. We must keep fighting for the equal rights of all citizens—so that we remain the “shining city on a hill” that others are inspired by. So that America can both inspire freedom and have the moral footing to condemn the violation of others’ rights—rights of Uighurs, of Tatars, of Bahaís—by their oppressors.
To quote Lafayette—that Revolutionary War hero, an American accidentally born in France—“the happiness of America is intimately connected with the happiness of all mankind; she will become the respectable and safe asylum of virtue, integrity, tolerance, equality, and a peaceful liberty.”