February 2012 - Association of Dutch Businessmen

Singapore
The other Singapore:
Poverty and the inevitable
celebration of CNY
TEXT Francine Linssen
This month’s column was supposed to be about poverty
and small entrepreneurs in Singapore. I had wanted to
tell you more about the huge poverty gap between the
rich and the poor and how the lowest social layers in this
society cope. The picture that would come with it was one
of an old hairdresser in Chinatown. He has no barbershop,
only a chair. His customers sit on it in a dilapidated alley
behind Club Street. After giving some other examples of
small entrepreneurship caused by poverty I would zoom in
on the different groups of people that live a hard life here;
local elderly with no children, workless people, ethnic
minorities, single parent families. However when looking
for recent poverty (gap) numbers to give this column some
foundation, all I found were allegations from opposition
parties and old numbers:
- By 2000 the richest 10 percent of Singaporeans earned
36 times more than the poorest 10 percent. 1]
- According to the 2000 Census, 12.6 per cent of
households earned less than $1,000 per month. 1]
- ‘The reason why the poor in Singapore are not more
visible is that the Ministry of Community Development
and Sports conduct frequent raids through its Destitute
Persons Service, looking for and picking up vagrants.’… 1]
In 2008, researchers at the Lee Kuan Yew School
of Public Policy published a paper titled Singapore’s
Policy Responses to Aging, Inequality and Poverty: An
Assessment that concluded that ‘..high and increasing
income inequalities are an outcome of the particular
set of policies adopted by Singapore, and not due to the
general effect of globalization alone.’ 2] This paper also
indicated that the rich-poor gap in Singapore has become
a political issue that – if left unattended – could undermine
the support for Singapore’s current strategy of managing
globalization 2] . It is hard to tell whether action is being
undertaken, as there are no further statistics available.
I have to conclude that I can’t write about hidden poverty;
it is too well hidden!
Poverty is not a good topic in this time of the year
anyway as all Chinese people are getting ready for Chinese
New Year; a time for many to invest in luck and prosperity!
I think that poverty is generally being looked upon as ‘bad
luck’ and ‘next life better’ but it must be said that there are
also many Chinese who do charity. 2012 is an auspicious
(veelbelovend!) year as it is the year of the Dragon and
considered the ‘best’ year in the Chinese Zodiac 3] . The
country expects to see more births this year as it has seen
every time when the Dragon came around. Most people
celebrate Chinese New Year (CNY) over three days. It is
crucial to start with a clean slate so the preparations can
take weeks. Families clean their homes, buy new clothes
and settle their debts before the year is over 4] . Lion and
dragon dances scare away the evil spirits. It is basically
all about the opposite of poverty; fortune and prosperity
(voorspoed!) and that is just what I would like to wish the
poor of Singapore. Gong Xi Fa Cai!
Sources / more information on:
1]
http://yoursdp.org/index.php/truth-about/106-poverty-insingapore
2]
http://www.tremeritus.com/2009/10/22/poverty-andincome-inequalities-in-singapore/
3]
http://www.chinesezodiac.com/dragon.php
4]
Passage, Friends of the Museums Singapore (January/
February 2012)
16