The next 20 years
This holiday has been a very midlife one. I met many friends during my stay here, and of course made many new ones in Indonesia. We have five more days to go, and looking back on the collected conversations, which i do when i leave them each evening, i think that perhaps it is where i am right now, but taken as a whole, with the news and the general breakdown of social order as well, the failure of politics and morality... the quality that is required over the next 20 years, will be courage. Courage to do the right thing, and the right thing... like reality, is to live equitably with this one planet and the many living beings who share it.
There is only one conversation i have with my friends, which is, what exactly is happening right now? We have always been critical of the government and its model of governance because it was so inherently inhumane, but most people sort of went along with it because it meant that economic stability and some sort of quality of life was the result. Those who could and did see that this was not sustainable and wouldn't really work in the long terms because it wasn't really addressing the fundamentals of existence, just sort of muttered darkly in the corners and got on with it.
This year, it has exploded magnificently. War and starvation are now unirradicable (is there such a word?), the model of development in the last 180 years (since the Industrial Revoluation) has broken down, imploding and exploding, the enviroment will require several lifetimes to recover, and several hundreds and thousands of species have been made extinct.
What really really kills me is that people who can do something about it continue to listen to the people who screwed it up in the first place. Why would you want to continue to listen to the pharmecueticals whose very existence depends on illness? Why would you want to listen to economists and bankers who clearly did not predict the financial meltdown and in fact who contributed to it with their greed and stupidity? Why would you want to listen to damaged zealots who still believe that peace can be found at the end of a gun and the military industrial complex who feed that derangement like a demented pusher? Why would you listen to the maniacs who have polluted the water, devastated the landscapes, destroyed innocent lives just so that they can make a few dollars? Why?
Because you, the people who can do something about it, are morally bankrupt as well, that is why.
In the first ten years coming back and saying, this is not going to work was a bit insane. Why won't it work, it is working now. It won't work because it all built on a bed of sand. Its a house of cards. One day all this will pass and in its passing it will cause a lot of pain and suffering. It is not building up to a good future. On the contrary it is building up to a shitty future. A future which is not unlike the dystopian miseries we see over and over again in films, in literature, in the drawings of William Blake and Hieronymous Bosch, in Mad Max, in Waterworld. You don't think it is going to happen, think again. It is heading there, no doubt. In some parts of the world, it is already there.
And we will not be able to isolate ourselves when the world comes knocking. Or indeed screaming at the gates. No. We will be in the firing line. Thatcherism has failed. Lee Kuan Yewism is the height of selfishanomics. Let us now get real and replace that with some proper values, where the human heart is cherished and enobled.
And of course this has come true. Because things have gotten more extreme in 10 years, the income levels have become so wide, that it is now no longer tenable. It is now much easier to say, i'm not insane. This form of development is not a good idea.
But the problem now is, there is no alternative. Or we have evolved in such a crazy way, that the way back is going to be as difficult as the way forward. Esepcially in Singapore, where there are 5 million people.
In Ireland you look at it and go, yeah. It is not overpopulated. People can eke out a living somehow, if the land was redistributed and people grew their own food, had good new technology for heat and transport, we'd have smaller, more contracted communities, but it would work. In Singapore, i look at it and go, what the...
OK, say we forcibly repatriated the 2.5 million people who weren't Singaporean, which i am not in favour of, what would happen to the other 2.5 million who are left. There is no space for 2.5 million people on this island to grow their own food, clothe themselves, etc, is there? What would a sensible self-sufficient Singapore look like? What would its optimal population be? No idea.
So the next twenty years, if anyone is serious about challenging the hegemony of the PAP, they will need a vision of a sustainable, sane Singapore. Which i'm not sure Singaporeans who are a materialistic greedy bunch would buy into. But i think that is the only way forward. And then they can set about putting that vision together.
Singapore could be a centre for this terrible PAP word - heartware - coming up with solutions to fix a screwed up world. and it has started doing stuff like this...like recycled water, like green tech, like an education system which recognises the spiritual in people, racial harmony, a system of governance which places people, not greedy corporations at the heart of government. We could start redistributing income, giving greater benefits to people, sharing the wealth in a meaningful way. That would be a real vision to work towards. That would be a good way to spend the next 20 years....
There is only one conversation i have with my friends, which is, what exactly is happening right now? We have always been critical of the government and its model of governance because it was so inherently inhumane, but most people sort of went along with it because it meant that economic stability and some sort of quality of life was the result. Those who could and did see that this was not sustainable and wouldn't really work in the long terms because it wasn't really addressing the fundamentals of existence, just sort of muttered darkly in the corners and got on with it.
This year, it has exploded magnificently. War and starvation are now unirradicable (is there such a word?), the model of development in the last 180 years (since the Industrial Revoluation) has broken down, imploding and exploding, the enviroment will require several lifetimes to recover, and several hundreds and thousands of species have been made extinct.
What really really kills me is that people who can do something about it continue to listen to the people who screwed it up in the first place. Why would you want to continue to listen to the pharmecueticals whose very existence depends on illness? Why would you want to listen to economists and bankers who clearly did not predict the financial meltdown and in fact who contributed to it with their greed and stupidity? Why would you want to listen to damaged zealots who still believe that peace can be found at the end of a gun and the military industrial complex who feed that derangement like a demented pusher? Why would you listen to the maniacs who have polluted the water, devastated the landscapes, destroyed innocent lives just so that they can make a few dollars? Why?
Because you, the people who can do something about it, are morally bankrupt as well, that is why.
In the first ten years coming back and saying, this is not going to work was a bit insane. Why won't it work, it is working now. It won't work because it all built on a bed of sand. Its a house of cards. One day all this will pass and in its passing it will cause a lot of pain and suffering. It is not building up to a good future. On the contrary it is building up to a shitty future. A future which is not unlike the dystopian miseries we see over and over again in films, in literature, in the drawings of William Blake and Hieronymous Bosch, in Mad Max, in Waterworld. You don't think it is going to happen, think again. It is heading there, no doubt. In some parts of the world, it is already there.
And we will not be able to isolate ourselves when the world comes knocking. Or indeed screaming at the gates. No. We will be in the firing line. Thatcherism has failed. Lee Kuan Yewism is the height of selfishanomics. Let us now get real and replace that with some proper values, where the human heart is cherished and enobled.
And of course this has come true. Because things have gotten more extreme in 10 years, the income levels have become so wide, that it is now no longer tenable. It is now much easier to say, i'm not insane. This form of development is not a good idea.
But the problem now is, there is no alternative. Or we have evolved in such a crazy way, that the way back is going to be as difficult as the way forward. Esepcially in Singapore, where there are 5 million people.
In Ireland you look at it and go, yeah. It is not overpopulated. People can eke out a living somehow, if the land was redistributed and people grew their own food, had good new technology for heat and transport, we'd have smaller, more contracted communities, but it would work. In Singapore, i look at it and go, what the...
OK, say we forcibly repatriated the 2.5 million people who weren't Singaporean, which i am not in favour of, what would happen to the other 2.5 million who are left. There is no space for 2.5 million people on this island to grow their own food, clothe themselves, etc, is there? What would a sensible self-sufficient Singapore look like? What would its optimal population be? No idea.
So the next twenty years, if anyone is serious about challenging the hegemony of the PAP, they will need a vision of a sustainable, sane Singapore. Which i'm not sure Singaporeans who are a materialistic greedy bunch would buy into. But i think that is the only way forward. And then they can set about putting that vision together.
Singapore could be a centre for this terrible PAP word - heartware - coming up with solutions to fix a screwed up world. and it has started doing stuff like this...like recycled water, like green tech, like an education system which recognises the spiritual in people, racial harmony, a system of governance which places people, not greedy corporations at the heart of government. We could start redistributing income, giving greater benefits to people, sharing the wealth in a meaningful way. That would be a real vision to work towards. That would be a good way to spend the next 20 years....
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