‘Back Regions’ and ‘Dark Secrets’ in Singapore: The Politics of Censorship and Liberalisation

Abstract

The political transition from Lee Kuan Yew to Goh Chok Tong to Lee Hsien Loong has generally been interpreted as a trajectory of gradual liberalisation in Singapore. This discourse of liberalisation is encouraged by a variety of factors such as policy changes over censorship regulations, a younger and more cosmopolitan polity, the government's global city ambition and desire to turn the city-state into a creative hub. Such factors, however, often obscure the contemporary policing dynamics of the People's Action Party (PAP) state. Using Erving Goffman's concepts of the ‘back’ and ‘front’ regions, this paper will demonstrate how the PAP state operates in different social spaces and how it engages in the different politics of these spaces. Using specific cases from the theatre community, this paper argues that the discourse of liberalisation has grown because the PAP state has, in recent times, exercised its censorship powers in the ‘back regions’ of theatre, away from the media and public. Finally, it will examine recent amendments to the Films Act and the Public Order Act which clamps down on acts of civil disobedience, and show that this is consistent with what Goffman calls ‘dark secrets’—that is, facts that are incompatible with an individual's or institution's public image.

Notes

For example, the 1992 Censorship review committee report recommended several radical changes to the way censorship was applied to the arts and entertainment industry. It recommended a classification system for theatre, akin to that for cinemas, whereby violent or sexually explicit plays are given an ‘R(A)’—Restricted (Artistic)—rating. Another change recommended was that theatre groups with ‘good track records’ need no longer send in their scripts for vetting by Public Entertainment Licensing Unit (PELU) officers and that contentious scripts be referred to the Drama Review Committee (DRC) under the National Arts Council. The DRC, made up of academicians, theatre practitioners, writers and artists, was deemed more suitable to determine the artistic merit of scripts than PELU officers. The Drama Review Committee is now known as the Arts Consultative Panel.

Some have rejected this disguised form of symbolic violence by insisting on submitting their scripts to NAC for vetting. Jeff Chen, former resident director at TNS, explains

• For established companies, you no longer need to send in your scripts for vetting, because we [NAC] trust you … The major companies replied, “No thanks. We don't want it.” Wait our heads get chopped off and we don't know how [it happened], you know? It's like anytime you can just close down the entire company based on something you don't like. So, really, in practice we'll still do it to cover our own ass” (interview, 2 February 2002).

The many episodes of this controversy are too numerous to recite here but the highlights include death threats made against the playwright and the arrest of S. Thenmoli, the president of Agni Kootthu, for trespassing at the former Drama Centre (see Seet, 2002).

The PAP leadership often uses culturalist arguments to frame its relationship with citizens. As an ‘Asian’ society with conservative ‘Asian values’, Singaporeans are said to prefer order to chaos and a strong government to a weak one.

Adding momentum to the discourse of liberalisation was the government's acceptance of 17 of the 26 recommendations of the Report by the Advisory Council on the Impact of New Media Society (AIMS). Set up in April 2008, AIMS was appointed to study the social, legal and regulatory implications of a rapidly growing Interactive and Digital Media (IDM) or ‘new media’ sector in Singapore. Led by former Straits Times editor-in-chief Cheong Yip Seng, it was tasked with making recommendations to the government on how these issues should be managed without impeding the development of IDM. One of the accepted recommendations was the liberalisation and amendment of the Films Act. Predictably, the local media gave it a positive spin and announced that the “Govt signals mindset change” (Oon, 2009a). The report went on to quote the AIMS chairman as saying that

• he believed the recommendations accepted by the Government, such as on e-engagement and the partial liberalization of Section 33, will ‘greatly expand the political space for Singaporeans [and that] the rejected proposals ‘do not add up to be a significant inhibition to the liberalization of our political system’ (Oon, 2009a).