Strike season is here — rounds of negotiations, showboating, threats and showdowns. Trade union leaders beat their chests and cry exploitation and unfair treatment for their members, employers cite poor productivity and point to their bare larders.
We know what will happen — after threats of the “mother of all strikes” and promises of severe legal action, the two sides settle at a wage increase just above inflation a few days after the deadline for negotiations has passed.
Strike season is just one example of broken governance in SA. South Africans ought to look east for examples of a better way. Before you accuse me of being a capitalist apologist and not respecting the struggle of the working class or needing my mind decolonised as I have not experienced the lived realities of racism, just hear me out.
Singapore was a British crown colony that received independence from the British in 1965. It was a small outpost with no resources. Beyond the sweaty band of British colonialists, the island was populated by Chinese, Malay and Indian ethnicities who loathed each other. It was arguably the poorest, vilest and most disease-ridden outpost of the British Empire.
Singapore should be just another postcolonial basket case, another made-up country formed by British imperial whim, limping from one coup to the next with its different ethnicities doing their best to undermine each other. Yet it succeeded. Rwandan president Paul Kagame refers to Singapore as “an inspiration for us in Rwanda”. The vision of former Ghanaian president Jerry Rawlings was for his country to emulate Singapore.
When I was in Shanghai in the early 2010s a student told me she had reported the street hawkers that sold food just beyond campus gates to the municipality. It was summer and food scraps the hawkers poured into the stormwater drains caused a horrible stench. Upon receiving her complaint the authorities thanked her for bringing up the issue and kept her informed as they addressed the problem. There was no need for organisation, threats of legal action or calls for consultations. No elected representatives were involved; the municipality just did its job.
The Chinese have since the 1980s been sending officials to Singapore to learn things such as how to set up special economic zones and how to run efficient and clean local governments.
Lee Kuan Yaw, the late prime minister of Singapore, said Asians have little doubt that a society in which the interests of society take precedence over that of the individual suits them better than the individualism of the US. Lee argued that for developing countries wishing to overcome poverty, hard choices need to be made. Dithering on policy choices and endless rounds of consultations are not an option. Once policy choices are made they must be executed, with adjustments made along the way and mistakes admitted to.
It is healthy that Asia is rising and challenging the West. Asia as a bloc has already surpassed the West in economic vitality, and its different governance forms are challenging the doctrines of neoliberal economic principles. However, it is important that SA and other African countries remain discerning as we look to Singapore and other Asian countries for good examples to follow.
Asian values won’t provide all the answers. Talk of Asian values was all the rage in the 1990s as academics, journalists, and especially Asian authoritarian governments, raved about their supposed superiority over US-style democracy. However, as soon as the 1997 Asian economic crisis hit and economic bubbles burst, the Asian values discussion lost its potency.
Nevertheless, the South African government ought to look to Singapore for lessons, and it ought to increase exchanges at civil service, business and civil society levels. Given the dismal state of SA’s municipalities and that Singapore is the leading country in governance and municipal management, there are important lessons to be learnt.
• Dr Kuo, a former lecturer at the Shanghai International Studies University in China, is adjunct senior lecturer in the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business.
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