Asian Values and Vices - Who decides your cultural ethos?

Tourism is a cause and consequence of globalization, for it entails an increase in the movement of people across boundaries, such that the thesis and antithesis of polarizing cultures and identities create new synthesis of countercultures. However, the global upsurge of tourism becomes political when the state employs different strategies to construct an artificial but favourable image for global consumerism. Subsequently, it dictates the cultural evolution of local communities, through a ceaseless reduplication of signs, images and simulations which effaces the distinction between the image and reality (Baudrillard). As a result, the globalization of tourism practices a form of social tyranny on cultures that are not aligned with the national image.

While globalization has played a large part in influencing tourism and economic developments, it has the potential to wither away Singapore’s genuine elements and original character. The consequence of this withering effect is that Singaporeans have become lost and disenchanted, to the extent that it undermines the national identity of Singapore. As Singaporeans become entrapped between images and identities, should nation branding takes precedence over nation building or vice versa?

The endorsement of the casino reflects the government's intentional effort to suit tourism policies along capitalistic lines, since it will create jobs and generate the economy. However, the cultural identity that the government tries to project to the world - such as the idea of an "Instant Asia", or concepts of multiracialism, - means that tourism projects are correlated to the process of nation-building.

Consequently, the tourist is treated with an “alternating reality” of Singapore - it is oriental yet cosmopolitan, mystique yet modern, rooted yet ephemeral. However, the Singaporean suffers from a sense of disenchantment. In the vein of Jean Baudrillard and Benedict Anderson, the casino reveals a fact that we are living in a world of hyperreality, imagined communities, and a consumer society characterised by shallowness and self-gratifying enjoyment of inauthenticity.

Nevertheless, if any positive extrapolation can be drawn from the casino, it is that we are finally living in a post modern age, where cultural construction is determined not by the state, but by the walterschaunng of the individual. The CMIO legacy by the British will be slowly eroded away by the state's own indeterminancy of his cultural directions. To begin with, their appeal to Confucius values is a Foucaldian archetype and Machiavellian attempt to prevent Singaporeans from realizing his true Self, in order to prevent potential destablising political orders. Secondly, it remains a fallacy why we are always framing ourselves against a distant China whenever the state talks about Speak Mandarin campaigns or Asian values, when we are living so close to our Malay neighbours in a Malay archipelago.

Fact of the matter is, China is an economic behemoth, and the state cannot afford to cut off any linkages with China. This is why the Muslims' appeal against the state has fallen on deaf ears. The Malay archipelago has no bearings on the economic pursuits of Singapore, Singapore remains the Leviathan in the Malay archipelago, and has the capacity to over ride cultural sentiments.

If Malaysia and Indonesia are the new economic super powers - more powerful than US, China or India - one would be sure that the state will not give a go ahead to the casino, in order not to mess with the cultural ethos of the Malay archipelago.

That said, there is no Asian Values, Confucian values, need to speak Mandarin in a state that practices ideological hegemony for economic gains. Choices of life pursuits and moral discipline are left to the Self, and virtues would be pursued not as an end, but as a mean.