Chewing gum that sticks

dear PM mentioned in his NDRS about what he thinks he can do in Singapore that Hu Jintao can't do in China. and his example was that he can ban chewing gum in Singapore and make it stick.

hello?!!! how's that a source of pride?! that we are an autocratic government, more so than communist China?!

but of course his point wasn't that. his point was that he could institute a policy and the whole nation, theoretically, would fall behind it, moving as an orchestrated whole to make that policy a succeess and eventually lead to greater development.

but the example of chewing gum was just inappropriate.

i think a better example would have been how when Dr Goh Keng Swee came up with a blueprint to industrialise, and how that required the labour movement to work together with the employers and the government, we got our act together, biting the bullet sometimes, and manage to move nimbly enough to attract FDI and resulting in the phenomenal, near miraculous economic growth that we have.

and when we went into the electronics industry, same thing happened. we all got our act together really quickly, no quarrels, no bickering, just go. and that gave us the nimbleness we needed.

however, can the same modus operandi work in this day and age of the knowledge base economy, where even politicians have publicly admitted that they don't have all the answers?

or should we be more open to questioning, not to undermine the power of the government, but rather to open to ideas, so that we can collectively think creatively? or are we still saying that we can afford to be a people of lemmings following every single diktat that comes from the government?

i cannot stress enough that what i've said means that i am against the government. in fact, i am supportive. i think PM has his heart in the right place. and that is all the more reason why i think we should start speaking up, to inform him and his government where we think they might have erred so that they can do things better faster, and eventually benefitting themselves and the nation as a whole.