From a Singapore Angle

Returning to life in Singapore is a more drawn-out affair than originally anticipated. And even now, more than two weeks after touching down at Changi, there remains a considerable list of things to be done, mostly to do with setting up the apartment (it's a HDB 4A, nothing fancy, if you must know). All this is quite apart from the anticipation of another twenty (15x12x10") boxes, mostly books, still on a ship crossing the Pacific Ocean. But with the study in some semblance of order (photo to the left) and the internet connection up and running, it seems time to post a new entry.

Actually, it seems time for me to think seriously about how I want the blog to continue, and what form it should take. Once the semester starts, I can expect to be busy. Probably not as so thoroughly buried as I was over the last four months, but if past experience is any indication, it will be a full schedule.

In the meantime, a big "thank you" to all the well wishers (and in answer to this recent query: if I have my way, I will be studying for the rest of my life).

add: Penny is doing well. In fact, not only does she not seem to mind the heat or the humidity, she hardly missed a beat. The attention of four excited grandparents (and a host of uncles and aunties) goes a long way. There's also something to be said for not having to pad up just to go to the mall. (Photo: Penny's first day trip into Johor Bahru.)

* * * * *

The Kway Teow Man put up a long but interesting article by one Shirley Lim Geok-lin, "Singpore's elusive identity quest" (ST, June 8, 2006), which deserves to be read in full. I sympathize with much of the article, especially the parts to do with the author's identification of the problem. In a nutshell, as Singapore continues to connect up with (and benefit from) globalisation, there is an increasing felt "lostness" among Singaporeans of especially the younger generations. We are supposed to be more at home in the world at large than in any one given place, let alone Singapore. This is certainly an issue that will continue to haunt us for some time to come. But there are also less appealing parts to the article. What follows is not a detailedly argued critique or commentary, only some desultory reflections.

At one point, the author responds to an earlier letter to ST by a Li Shengwu, who "called to task an earlier letter praising the Ministry of Education's decision to review the literature syllabus to incorporate more local writing."

To insist on retaining an Anglo-American literature canon, which has already exited many British and US universities, on account of its supposed superior merit and universality indicates a mind that has not yet grasped the relation between aesthetic judgment and the ideology that produced the judgment.

The Internet and other IT technologies have spawned a younger generation of globally interlinked and hyper-modern sensibilities. The countries that produced Shakespeare, Yeats, Plath, Huxley and Larkin have revised their university curricula to include Anglophone literature by stunning masters such as Seamus Heaney, V.S. Naipaul, Toni Morrison and other writers who have emerged from new societies to produce texts received not just as local but as world writing.

First, notice that in revising their university curricula to include Heaney, Naipaul, Morrison and others, the British and American universities have not opted for that which is local to them, but that which is other. The example of these universities might suggest that we ought not be overly stubborn about Shakespeare and Yeats, but it does not support our including local literature--local to us--in our own curricula.

Second, there is a tension between, on the one hand, charging that Li has "a mind that has not yet grasped the relation between aesthetic judgment and the ideology that produced the judgment" that the old Anglo-American canon has "superior merit and universality" (which, incidentally, is a non-argument); but also saying that Heaney, Naipaul, Morrison and others have been received as "world writing".

The suggestion of the latter claim seems to be something like this: Heaney, Naipaul, Morrison--or Chinua Acebe and Wole Soyinka--might have begun as 'local' writers, but they have been received by, e.g., the British universities, to be of world statue. In other words, their writings exhibit qualities that can be appreciated by non-Irish, non-Ghanians, non-Indians, non-Carribeans--the people of the world. In particular, dare I say that these writings exhibit qualities that warrant their reception as good literature, as writings that are worthy of serious attention by non-Irish, non-Ghanians, non-Indians, non-Carribeans, and so on? And as the author later tells us, "If Singapore authors have not received world attention, it is not because they are local"--in other words, their productions too, might one day be received as "world writing".

But what the author holds out with one hand, she might as well have taken back with the other. If I had taken Heaney, Naipaul, Morrison, Acebe, or for that matter any number of Singaporean writers to have produced writings of "superior merit and universality", I would merely have displayed "a mind that has not yet grasped the relation between aesthetic judgment and the ideology that produced the judgment". If Mr. Li's preference for Shakespeare and Yeats betrayed an underlying ideology that "produced" his preference, the same can only be suspected of the judgments that led to the inclusion of Heaney, Naipaul, Morrison in the British curricula ("diversity" or "multiculturalism" perhaps), and more importantly, should be suspected of any proposed inclusion of any writer--local or otherwise--to Singapore's literature curricula.

I am thoroughly sympathetic with giving our own writers a chance; but presumably it is not just because they are ours, but also because they are good and worthy of attention. But what the author has insinuated, is that I couldn't possibly make judgments of the latter sort, except perhaps as a reflection of my being beholden to some "ideology". To believe otherwise is merely to displayed "a mind that has not yet grasped the relation between aesthetic judgment and the ideology that produced the judgment".