Day 3 at World Bank/IMF

Final day at Suntec was pretty fun. There was a forum on "youth and active citizenship" and a few of us, or maybe two of us, took the chance to ask some questions pertaining to transactional national identities, and civic vs civil engagement in Singapore. I did not know that one of the MPs, Penny Low for Punggol, was there. So what happened after that was a brief meet-the-people session between the Singaporean students and Penny Low. Well, think I won't say much here, but lets just say that it was pretty much in line with what you would expect.

Afternoon was pretty productive. We managed to work out some form of structure for an Asian regional form of civil society. Apparently these guys from all over Asia have been holding quarterly video conferences through the World Bank to address various regional problems. My understanding is that they are now improving this system to turn it from a talkshop into something more substantial. Honestly speaking, I am a bit skeptical of this whole thing. Partly because I think Singapore is dealing with some abstract sort of civil societal problems that is slightly different from the developing countries. So it was quite interesting when Bernise, this person who started Singapore International Youth Council (http://www.shoutsingapore.org/), asked Chelsea and I if we are interested in doing more advocacy work through her network. Edmund Twohill, who is Paul Twohill's bro, went one step further and asked if we want to consider to start something more political in nature through his other civil societal network, which I can't remember its name. I think it is good that such things do exist in Singapore. But I do have some reservations with taking part in them; maybe I'm just a bit jaded with too much talk about civil society in Singapore.

I tried to ask Penny for her opinion on what does citizenship means for me, and where do I draw the boundaries between a global citizen and a national citizen, if Singapore is indeed pushing for a global city. What does it mean for a Singaporean who serves two years of National Service and yet finds himself competing against foreign talents in searching for employment, with (undisclosed) statistics that a substantial percentage of the work force in Singapore are being taken up by foreigners. And why are we talking about citizenship when the nation is always articulated in terms of dollars and cents.

With all due respect, I don't think that her answers were conclusive. Later at night, we went to watch Singapore Dreaming. I think it is a film that raises more questions than answers about the choices that citizens have when the ideological structure of the day is one that is based on pragmatism and a neo-liberal economy.

It is back to school again tomorrow. The past three days have been quite an experience. It is quite a break from the drudgery of school life, and almost feels like I'm in a different country, since Suntec is somewhat isolated from the rest of Singapore. And this country-within-a-country contains people from all over the world, and are really serious about the politics of the day. The political theories that I learn in PS sort of springs alive during this period, and gave me some sort of conviction that one does not need to be a civil servant in order to understand the underlying mechanisms of our political culture. Mixing with fellow like-minded passionate people, taking nothing for granted in what people wants you to believe, and taking a dispassionate disengagement from people when emotions clouds the mind, are probably some ingredients in tearing down the political fabric of this world.