“How important is freedom of press to economic future?” was the question posed to Mr Ho Kwon Ping at the DBS Asian Insights Conference 2015 on Friday.
Mr Ho, chairman of the Singapore Management University (SMU) and Executive Chairman of Banyan Tree Holdings, said such freedom was important and that in the context of Singapore it was a “very big question.”
“We got the Charlie Hebdo kind of freedom which is totally unrestrained freedom to go into any area regardless of its sensitivity,” he explained. “I think all of us in Singapore recognise already the necessity to have certain, what we call, OB markers, out-of-bound markers, certain areas which are sensitive based on our own heritage and which should be dealt with very carefully and not just be freely expressed.”
But the question of how free the press is is a smaller question to ask than the ones about where the so-called “OB markers” are and the role of civil society in Singapore, he said.
“[As] we evolve as a society, [with] less cohesiveness and also greater diversity, where are these OB markers going to be? We’ve already seen with the case of Amos Yee and other young people that will probably be coming out over the next many years, a lot of young people are going to try to test the system. They’re going to try to push the boundaries and these boundaries are not well-defined in Singapore.”
Mr Ho said that if Singapore was to “future-proof” itself, “we really urgently need to empower and strengthen civil society.”
Why is this so?
Observing that 60 per cent of the participants at the conference was of the view that the ruling party “may not be around the next 50 years”, Mr Ho said:
“I think whether we agree with that or not, and that’s another whole other scenario, I think given the uncertainties ahead, it is absolutely important that civil society be strengthened and that aspects about civil society today in Singapore that’s not strong enough because the only way you can maintain a cohesive society against political change, against socio-economic change, is to ensure that the fabric of that society is kept intact by many different players at much more different levels, rather than just the old paradigm of the governed and the governers. It is going to be about self-government and participatory democracy… And that’s going to be a challenge for Singapore and not just freedom of the press.”
It is a point which Mr Ho had raised previously, particularly in April where he spoke at the IPS-Nathan Lectures.
A culture of participatory democracy, he said then, could only work if civil society is actively engaged in decision-making.
To effect this, he called for information to be made freely available and for this to be largely unrestricted for civil society players.
In order to do this, he said rather than a Freedom of Information Act, Singapore should instead have a Code on Information Disclosure.
While not legally enforceable, such a code would nevertheless be “morally binding”, Mr How was reported as having said.
Such a code would enable and encourage critical enquiry and may also result in different interpretations of data and information; but this will stand the next generation in good stead as they play an increasingly active role in shaping the nation’s direction.
“We should trust in our young people enough to allow space for them to develop their own opinions,” Mr Ho said then. “In the end, our future leaders of Singapore should be bold enough to own the future rather than defend the past.”
