Left politics in Singapore

Submitted by AWL on 18 May, 2021 - 6:46
Singapore climate rally

Jamie Teo, a food courier and socialist activist in Singapore, spoke to Sara Lee, a Workers’ Liberty activist.


When did you start being politically active?

I came across Marx around the age of 16 or 17 and started to awaken politically. I didn’t start doing political activity until I went to Perth, Australia, for university and came across Socialist Alternative. I met them at an orientation event and was invited to attend their protest against Trump in the Central Business District. I went to their branch meetings and reading groups. I felt they were good politically, but what made me a little doubtful was that they seemed to do loud protests very often — somewhat excessively. They were protesting about important things like immigration, indigenous rights, anti-racism, and the Christmas Island detainees. The protests had educational value. But every week, the protest was about a different thing, and the approach just seemed scattered.

What was student politics like? What socialist organisations had a presence in the student movement and what did you think of them and the student movement in general?

There seemed to be increased interest in socialism because of Bernie Sanders’ campaign in the US and Jeremy Corbyn’s in the UK. Socialist Alternative did good work around the issues of student debt and international students’ extortionate fees, arguing that free education had to be won back. Socialist Alternative had the strongest presence in student politics despite appearing to be a quite small organisation.

There was a high level of corruption in the student movement. If you wanted to launch a campaign and be elected as a student rep, you had to be loaded. Your parents had to be wealthy, so you could spend money on campaign stickers, badges, posters and leaflets. There was a grouping known as “the Independents,” and some of their members were Young Labour members. They were the ones waging these sorts of campaigns, making student politics a popularity contest more than a political one.

Seeing the sheer level of corruption in the student movement in a Australia was eye-opening for me. I grew up in Singapore which has a more repressive political environment, but it was clear that even in more liberal democracies, there are real problems in terms of democracy on the left and in the student movement.

When you came home to Singapore, you volunteered with the Singapore Democratic Party, one of the bigger Opposition parties. Why did you volunteer with them, and why did stop volunteering with them?

I wanted to continue doing political activity and the SDP seemed like the most left-wing political party in Singapore. They were, of course, liberal social democrats, but they did acts of civil disobedience. Their leader Chee Soon Juan did some one-man campaigns that I felt were meaningful — making arguments against the IMF, for example. He seemed to have a coherent-enough worldview that was rather anti-capitalist.

I stopped volunteering with the SDP because of how racist they were. They are very anti-migrant and that is their ammunition against the ruling party. I would say that, over time, the SDP has generally moved backwards politically. In the late 1990s, they were into radical civil disobedience. They had protests and hunger strikes. They were against the ban on gay sex (Section 377A of the Penal Code) even before it became a mainstream issue in Singapore. But when the Workers’ Party made big electoral gains in 2011 and there was a greater Opposition presence in Parliament, SDP took a leaf out of their book and started moderating their politics in order to achieve the same results.

Now Chee Soon Juan is incredibly interested in municipal affairs in the constituency he’s hoping to get elected in [Bukit Batok]. He criticises the PAP MP for that constituency for not being a good enough estate-manager for the residents, constantly posting on social media about maintenance issues in that ward.

Do you think there will one day be an independent party of the working class in Singapore — one with open membership and a democratic structure?

Yes but not until the People’s Action Party ceases to rule and there is greater space for democratic action.

What do you think of the succession crisis in the PAP? Some say it will compel them to become more authoritarian.

The succession crisis in the PAP can only be a good thing. The Party has shown fissures for a while now. I don’t think that they will resort to being more coercive and authoritarian simply because they are on the decline. I doubt, for example, that they will go back to being as authoritarian as they were in the 1960s. The PAP is mainly composed of political careerists and military generals, none of whom are competent enough to pull it off. It’s also just not empirically true that the ruling party tends to be more coercive when support for them is waning. They suffered big losses in the 2011 election but no new restrictions on free speech were introduced. They won big in 2015, and quickly enacted new restrictions on free speech in the form of POFMA [providing for government controls over internet and social-media content].

Why did you join SG [Singapore] Climate Rally (the youth-led environmentalist group)?

They seemed like the only independent, left-wing political force in Singapore. At the very least, they are conscious that building mass support around environmentalist demands requires the support of the working class. Again, because of Corbyn and Sanders, there is increased interest in anti-capitalist politics.

What is it about the organisation or its members that they’ve got good politics?

SG Climate Rally was founded because a group of young people wanted to organise Singapore’s first-ever public rally on climate change, despite the fear of state repression. Naturally, the people that it brought together were brave, militant people who had a certain level of conviction. Since its inception, SG Climate Rally has had an emphasis on collective action.

Of course, identity politics has a real influence on people in SG Climate Rally. The theories of change that a lot of its members subscribe to are probably variants of poststructuralist thought. For a while, there was a great deal of talk about having a decentralised organisation or a flat structure. But we’ve moved away from that now, which goes to show that people aren’t necessarily wedded to such ideas.

They can be convinced of better politics.

The reason people are taken by identity politics is that they are awakening politically and have an appetite for seemingly radical ideas. That awakening, that appetite for ideas, is only to be encouraged. Socialist activists must find a way to win the battle of ideas and increase the level of political clarity. But for this we need to have a more democratic structure, and a democratic culture of debate when we discuss political ideas.

This website uses cookies, you can find out more and set your preferences here.
By continuing to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.