Blank Doll speaks.

Was strangely pleased when I came across the statement "One of the most successful schools at getting students into American Ivy League universities is Raffles Junior College in Singapore" in the Economist.

Look, you have to be quite thick not to sense the little ribbing the dear Economist was clearly enjoying when it mentioned Raffles Junior College and Singapore. Is Raffles Junior College, and by extension Singapore, merely successful at getting students into these schools or is it successful at producing talent? Interesting question which nonetheless shall get no answer from me since I cannot be objective.

I am very pleased with the latest issue of the Economist since it has confirmed a little intuitive reasoning of mine that democracy and meritocracy are rather contrary ideas. Suffice to say, I cannot imagine any country that would cling to an egalitarian tradition if this means sacrificing its best talents to the tyranny of the mediocre.

I do have a problem with the concept of equality of opportunity though. It serves as a useful justification for the current socio-economic disparities in certain countries (this brings to mind the Econs S session where one of the teachers were particularly smug about Singapore's first world income and third world inequality because if we are to believe in the extrapolation of current trends, rising income disparity even in the presence of a relatively free labour market could come to be the rule rather than the exception) since the rich may still keep their wealth and the poor harbour their hopes. But, how does it work? Equality of opportunity, in my opinion, may seem like a very attractive solution but it would appear eminently difficult to put into practice without at least some form of positive discrimination. Scholarships and grants? Unless you restrict them specifically to the lower income groups, how does one ensure that they do not go to the children of higher income households with the ability to employ tutors to provide their offspring with the advantages witheld from children of less advantageous families?

Do not misunderstand me, I harbour no burning need for social justice. I believe in an unequal world, perhaps sometimes even an unfair world. The strong should have privileges granted to them that the weak cannot have- accidental strength, and it is merely weakness on the part of the strong not to use them. Yet it would seem to me that part of the contract between the state and society is to strive to allow for equality of opportunity without resorting to social redistribution. It is rather like believeing in a class society with substantial inequality but with the caveat that social mobility be a given.

On to the issue of importing human capital into Singapore and the odd article from the Straits Times, courtesy of the Econs S listing, that has as usual, confirmed my beliefs that no child should be let near that broadsheet. I could even have been more forgiving towards it if it had been a mouthpiece for the PAP (it is my opinion that propaganda is very important and that citizens should be able to identify propaganda, reason it and then accept it. Mindless rejection is as bad as mindless subservience.) but I refuse to believe such absurd opinions could have come from any member of that august body of sensible leaders.

We are a plural society. It could have been a structural weakness- just look at Paris and the banlieus, but we have made it a sort of strength if not just a cultural feature of Singapore's social landscape. True, we are not all equal heirs to the wealth of our nation, but then that was never writ in the social contract. We are a plural society because of immigration. None of our families can be traced beyond three generations without stepping off Singaporean soil, five if you happen to be a Straits Chinese and maybe a couple more if you happen to be a Malay.

We were a plural society before we were a nation. Singapore's early wealth was founded on this fact, that she be the heart at the crossroads of the world, the humble custodian of the Malaccan Straits and a beacon of light within the British Empire. A nation state, that most recent artifact of Man's conception, cannot possibly compare with that.

An aside, the Straits Times journalist also irked me with his loose use of the word nationalist to describe himself. What he really wanted to use was xenophobic bigot since he suggested that he'd rather go to a food centre with locally hired employees washing his toilet than say, one who hired a Sumatran.

If Singapore is to be the hub of South East Asia, if she were to be a beacon of light in the modern world economy, then how can she not have a globalised market for human capital? Our Miracle, that phenomenon that lifted us from Third World to First within the span of 40 years, would have been impossible without the contribution of people who could not possibly have identified themselves as Singaporeans in the way that we may today.

This is the root of it, nationhood is an identity. It is a concept. Freedom of labour another. Inherent in the concept of nationhood is not only the unspoken contract that the state defends society but also the agreement that society must return to the state by strengthening it. It is understandable for people to fear for their jobs, but irrelevant to even consider restricting Singapore's labour market in such a way that might take her off course in the scramble for talent.

Singapore is very successful at churning out world class talent. She would not, of course, be very successful however if say, the American Ivy League universities decided to be 'nationalistic' about things and reserve all their places for their American compatriots.

C'est tout.