Blog Assignment Term 2 (EL-SS) NOTE to Mrs. Nathan: here's your essay=D

Hi all,
this post is a continuation of the assignment from my previous post. Attached below, is my essay for grading for English. Shout-out to Mrs. Nathan: Here's the essay, and it's not late



**************************Essay start****************************

Democracy is an idealism originating from ancient Greece. The concept is that everyone is equal and should be given equal rights, whether it is human rights, voting rights and so on. In Singapore, the government claims that we practice democracy here. In my opinion, it is a mix of authoritarian capitalism and democracy we practice here, mainly due to a few distinguishing factors.

Authoritarian capitalism is usually practiced by single-party nations. Here, the PAP wins in numbers since the other parties usually have insufficient members to take the majority of the parliament, even if they did garner the support of the public. This form of political control also involves a lot of intervention in the economy and reliance on overseas economies. The main sources of trade in Singapore are controlled by government agencies and usually are more of import/export trade, which mainly relies on international trade. Singapore’s economy is able to survive on this type of free trade only because its geographical location gives it a perfect advantage as a stopover and a ‘middleman’ for trading, even in its early years, where Sir Stanford Raffles used entrepot trade to attract passing ships to stop at Singapore. This trade is mainly dominated by the Port of Singapore Authority nowadays.

Singapore also controls the law, and in doing so, the media. Although we often speak of democracy and equal rights in voting, the laws are often created and put in place by the government, claiming to be for ‘communal good’. Although it is true, it creates the illusion that we are given a choice in the matter when the contrary applies.

However, we cannot call Singapore’s government as complete authoritarianism, mainly because there is no such thing as political murders or disappearances, but in my opinion, there are no needs for such things—the people usually take the government for granted and give them full control.

Furthermore, we cannot completely exclude elements of democracy that have been put in place in Singapore’s political environment. We are given equal rights, regardless of race, language or religion, and the government has made some effort in gathering public opinions before making decisions on some matters, and it is on moral grounds that the judicial system usually metes out punishments, not by public appeal.

Thus, I find there is the importance and need to differentiate between democracy and authoritarian capitalism, and the political system Singapore practices.

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Signing off,
xXdaSimXx
Frisay, 30 May 2008
2052 hrs