Singapore and the Overton Window

I love reading about Singapore. Everything is available in English so it's easy to read, and yet every single sentence will just have baseline assumptions that are wildly different than in America. Just so many sentences you would never encounter in America. We're both former British colonies, but Singapore is very different.

For instance, from Dollars and Sense, a Singaporean financial publication:

While the government has iterated in 2018 that there is no plan to change the EIP, they have said that depending on the individual case, HDB may grant an extension of time to sell and exercise flexibility for those who are in extenuating circumstances.

Isn't this weird feeling? Like, it's obviously not weird in Singapore, but to an American reader doesn't this just feel unusual? It's written like the government is some corporation making a press release about internal plans the public is unaware of. In America, I think it would be written more like:

In 2018, the Trump administration upheld the EIP, but instituted a new directive allowing the HDB to be more flexible and offer time extensions to those facing issues selling their homes due to extenuating circumstances.

This ascribes agency to an elected politician, and doesn't seem to imply that the government was like, asked about secret plans to change a policy and then a press release just said "No." But wait, what's going on here? Why is the government granting time extensions to people selling their homes? Doesn't that imply that people have a deadline to sell their home being imposed by the government? That's weird.

Well, it's not actually private land being bought and sold here. What's being bought and sold is 99-year leases being rented from the public housing board. That's what the HDB is: Public Housing, that 75% of the country lives in. In Singapore it's illegal to own more than one HDB flat. Theoretically you can own both an HDB flat and a private condo, but most housing on the island is public, so most people aren't going to do this. When you buy a new HDB flat, you have six months to sell your old one. You are not allowed to own two concurrently. You must sell your current flat. Also, you can't sell your flat unless you've lived there for at least five years. Why do I keep saying "flat" instead of house or home? Hahaha. A house? On Singapore? Okay Scrooge McDuck tell me about your castle in Mocaco next. The country isn't even 99 years old, so no 99 year lease has ever expired, but when it does? Ownership reverts to the government and you are not compensated. That's it. Lease over. Bye. The land is reclaimed for redevelopment. In 2020 some 60-year leases expired and literally everyone just had to move before the deadline.

But why would people have trouble selling their homes within six months? In the US, selling your home goes super fast as soon as it goes on market. Is it related to this EIP thing? Why yes. The EIP is of course in reference to the fact that it's illegal in Singapore to sell your home to someone of a different ethnicity than you. (Well, not always, but very often this is *de facto the case.) In Singapore, every single neighborhood, block, and housing complex has a set ethnic quota to prevent the forming of ethnic enclaves. Your neighborhood is never going to be more than 25% Malay. 25% of the country is Malay, so 25% of your neighbors will be Malay. Your neighborhood will also never be more than 8% immigrants unless they're Malaysian immigrants in which case they count as Malay. No Ex-Pat American Enclaves in Singapore! If selling your home to someone of a different ethnicity would upset this quota, then it's not allowed. EIP is "Ethnic Integration Policy" and it is one of many government policies which purport to prevent a system of segregation like we see in the United States. Their politicians will literally pull up maps of segregated American cities to demonstrate why the EIP is necessary.

If you're a white person from American living in Singapore, well, for one, no you're not. "White people" don't legally exist in Singapore. You are now "Other." As everyone knows, the four races are Chinese, Malay, Indian, and Other (CMIO). So, let's start again. You're an Other living in Singapore. You've been living in your HDB flat for over five years and you're like super integrated in Singaporean culture and stuff now. Nice and assimilated just like the government hopes. You even throw a "le" here and there in your sentences. But, well, you bought a new flat in another neighborhood because I don't know you just wanted to, it's newer and nicer and people move for all sorts of reasons. However, your block is at its maximum quota for Chinese, Malay, and Indian people and its maximum quota for permanent residents like you. You have to sell your flat, it's illegal to own two, but you can't sell it to someone who isn't "other" because of quotas. You have to sell it to another Other. They could be Filipino, White, Eurasian, Burmese, Arab, Thai, or Other Other (these people are all legally the same as white)... but they can't be Chinese, Malay, or Indian. Now, there are lots of other Others living in Singapore. Less than 10% of the population, and not all of them are eligible to buy HDB flats, or aren't on the market for on, or don't want to live in your flat specifically for whatever reason, but surely there are other Others out there who want to buy your flat. There must be... you legally have to sell it to one of them... But... they also ideally should be a Singaporean citizen. Because if they're immigrants like you, it might upset the ratio of immigrants, so the sale could be blocked for that reason too. So this further limits your pool of buyers. Over 90% of the country is ineligible to buy your flat and it's not like the other 10% all want it either. After all, you don't want to live there.

You can see how it might take a while to sell your flat. Eventually, it'll work out, but yeah, you're not gonna see one week sales the way you do in America. You might come up on that six month mark.

While the government has iterated in 2018 that there is no plan to change the EIP, they have said that depending on the individual case, HDB may grant an extension of time to sell and exercise flexibility for those who are in extenuating circumstances.

So now this sentence makes sense. But wow... what a different country... None of this would ever be considered acceptable in the United States by either the left or the right. It's completely outside the Overton Window along, like, the Z-Axis.

Is it better? Worse? I have absolutely no answer for you. It doesn't function within my existing paradigms for understanding politics. What reading about it does is shake my preconceptions about what is natural or normal about how societies can be structured. I probably can't form a solid opinion on Singaporean politics without living in Singapore. Certain things might stick out to me as obviously against my morals, like their eugenics program, or their status around LGBT rights... but most of it just falls completely outside of my flowchart.

It feels like the Simpsons skit (CW Racist Caricature of a Chinese Person) where Homer is given a cursed object that comes with a free cursed frozen yogurt, and he gets his choice of toppings, but they contain Potassium Benzoate. Homer doesn't know if that's good or bad, and the racist caricature tells him that it's bad (but it might not even actually be).

Racist Caricature: We're demolishing all of the kampong villages on Singapore
Homer: That's bad
Racist Caricature: To eradicate homelessness and give everyone stable affordable housing with modern amenities!
Homer: That's good!
Racist Caricature: But you're only allowed to sell your home to people of the same race!
Homer: That's bad!
Racist Caricature: In order to ensure racially integrated neighborhoods and prevent redlining!
Homer: That's good!
Racist Caricature: But it also ensures the indigenous Malay population will always be a proportionate minority no matter where they live!
Homer: Uhhh....
Racist Caricature: That arguably could be a bad thing given a history of Colonialism in Malaysia! Specific language and culture become diluted! That's bad! Or not! Since otherwise wealth would further concentrate in the hands of Chinese people! Said Chinese people are not indigenous but do have centuries of history on the island and there wasn't a city on the island before the British Empire built one there but the island wanted to be a major economic asset to the Malaysian Federation anyway but Malaysia ejected it because it's not majority Malay, but also because of race riots, but also this resulted in the enshrinement of multicultural harmony in the constitution, but also that might just be a way to paper over more subtle forms of racism that ensure the economic dominance of the Chinese population, which would be worse without the ethnic integration policies established as part of the multicultural harmony project.

Ultimately, it makes me think outside of my own cultural box. I can't judge that situation as if it was an American political policy. And then when I return to look at my own country, it looks different than before. Parts of the background are now foregrounded. Things stick out that didn't before. What I once tuned out as the way things are now is now instead the way things are here, specifically. Binaries are broken and I have to consider things from new angles.

I do this with a lot of different countries. Singapore is just one of my favorites to read about because of examples like this. Every sentence is a rabbit hole. Is Singapore better? Worse? It's just different. It has problems we don't, and doesn't have problems we do. Now I am aware that some things can be problems, and that it's notable that we don't have that problem. Now I am aware some problems we have can actually be solved, and some of those solutions may be things I never previously considered, which may have significant downsides I also never previously considered. Interesting! The world is bigger to me than it was before.