I want to attend Our SG dialogue in Teochew

It's a good start if leaders recognise that citizens are indeed equal to the Govt

By Chua Mui Hoong, The Straits Times, 9 Sep 2012

I want to attend an Our SG Conversation dialogue. The one in Teochew. Even if it takes place on a weekend evening when I'm off work.

Now, I am a political journalist who writes and edits political commentaries for a living. Those of my ilk consider feedback dialogues and national conversations work.

In 20 years, I've covered them all. The Next Lap. The Singapore 21 Committee. Remaking Singapore Committee. The Committee on Singapore's Competitiveness. I've sat in on press conferences; seminars; countless discussions. All were done as part of my work as a reporter. I've never been willing to attend any of those dialogues in my personal time, because my working hours are satiated with them.

But I'll make an exception for Our SG Conversation.

First, because it's meant to be a conversation among citizens. That means all of us take part as equals.

It's not meant to be an exercise in zheng hu (the government) soliciting views from "the people" to put into a nice report full of recommendations which are forgotten next year. (Although to be fair, some of those past reports yielded tremendous benefit.)

Now, to understand how radical the concept of citizens speaking to each other and to the Government as equals is, go back to 1995.

That was before the Internet became a phenomenon. The People's Action Party (PAP) government took issue with some political commentators. Minister George Yeo laid out the parameters for policy discussion thus: Before engaging in political debate, remember your place. Don't be "boh tua, boh suay" ("no big, no small", Hokkien for observing rules of who is junior and who is senior).

He said: "You must make distinctions - what is high, what is low, what is above, what is below - and then within this, we can have a debate, we can have a discussion."

If those parameters remain, and citizens are relegated to a secondary position below government folk, we might as well end the Our SG Conversation right now.

Of course, it cannot be a free-for-all. People should come in good faith, speak out of conviction, and observe the golden rule: Speak to others as you would like them to speak to you.

Or as Minister Heng Swee Keat, tasked to spearhead the "national conversation" about Singapore's future, put it: we must be "sincere, authentic and respectful".

Presumably he meant respectful of all others, not just of zheng hu.

It's a good start, if this generation of PAP leaders recognise that citizens are indeed equal to the Government; and act as though respect cuts both ways.

Second, Our SG Conversation promises to be a departure from past mass consultation exercises. It will likely be the biggest in terms of people reached, if plans announced yesterday come to fruition.

Previous mass consultations tended to be for a selected group. Even when an exercise has "cast its net" far and wide, that always depended on which pond you were fishing in. This time round, people interested to attend one can e-mail voices@oursgconversation.sg.

There should be a telephone number they can call, too, for those who don't do e-mail.

The most tangible sign of a break from the past is the promise that dialogues will be held in dialect too. Even if past exercises had some peripheral sessions in dialect, these were not explicitly encouraged, given the Government's longstanding policy of discouraging dialects.

The use of dialects represents a mindset shift in this Government: the recognition that people matter more than policy. The feelings of people who are dominant dialect speakers, and the need to include them in this important conversation about Singapore's future, override the policy imperative that dialects must not be encouraged at official events.

In the one month since Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said he wanted to kick-start a conversation about Singapore's future, there has been much chatter - and scepticism - about what this exercise will entail, and whether Singapore needs another Big Powwow.

My take is that a country gels better together when its citizens can talk freely about its ideals and its problems, the way a family gets closer when it shares its dreams and travails. Every generation that comes of age needs one.

But the quality of the conversation matters. And here, Our SG Conversation needs to improve on past processes.

For one thing, the Government must make it clear that this is a conversation about Singapore, not about the political party or the Government.

Some older folk will remember what happened with The Next Lap, the 1991 report from a massive consultation exercise on Singapore's future with nearly 2,000 people: The PAP made it its election manifesto for that year's General Election.

Today, such a hijacking of the national agenda for a party's partisan ends would be considered politically unacceptable.

But some PAP critics will still say nothing good can come from a PAP government-initiated conversation. To me, that's a limiting view, because the Government is clearly the best people to initiate and organise such a massive effort.

But to overcome any suggestion of party political interest, the Government's actions in Our SG Conversation must be clearly national, and not partisan in nature.

This requires proactive engagement of other political parties and civil society groups. In this respect, the composition of the 26-member panel tasked to "facilitate" and "catalyse" the conversation disappointed. Apart from Mr Heng, there are another seven ministers and MPs.

All are from the PAP.

Appointing a non-PAP MP to the committee would have shown clearly the non-partisan nature of the effort. Even if rejected, the offer would have sufficed.

Singaporeans will be watching to see how the views of groups considered more critical of the Establishment are treated. One difference is that these groups no longer need to wait to be invited to take part. They can step forward. If their views are silenced or sidelined, or their participation rebuffed, sceptics' fears that this is just a wayang (show) will be confirmed.

What has been announced about Our SG Conversation makes a good start for a new kind of engagement. The process so far is sufficiently different from past exercises, and sufficiently tailored to today's digital natives using a website, Facebook and Twitter.

Of course, process is only the beginning. The substance of the engagement must live up to the symbolism. That is fodder for future discussion.

For now, I like what I've seen of Our SG Conversation.

I would love to attend a dialogue in Teochew.

I hope Mr Heng, who is also Teochew, facilitates it.

Now, if only Mr Low Thia Khiang, Workers' Party MP and a mean Teochew speaker, were also on the committee, and could have been co-facilitator. That would be a sign indeed of inclusiveness for Our SG Conversation.