Excerpt from The Washington Post, A Public Enemy in Singapore, by Fred Hiatt:
Ambassador Chan [Heng Chee] says that her country must have a "tighter democracy" than America's, because it is a small, multiethnic city-state in a challenging region -- a rowboat next to America's aircraft carrier.
"In an aircraft carrier, you can be playing soccer in one corner and have jets taking off in another, and the carrier remains stable," she told me. "In a rowboat, it makes sense for everyone to row in the same direction."
I hope this clarifies the kind of democracy we have in Singapore, the everyone-row-in-the-same-direction kind of democracy.
Afterthought: Is tighter democracy something like a looser dictatorship?
