I was exchanging emails with a reader, and here I replied to a question he had on political activism and strategy:
Anonymous:
Amos,
Here's what I'm actually curious about now.
You said the future opposition won't be anyone we know. New faces, competent, emerging when the public starts demanding change. I think you're probably right about that. But who shapes what those new faces run on? Someone has to plant the ideas early enough that they become the common sense a future politician can run on without explaining themselves.
That's actually the most interesting version of what you're doing. Not activist-as-persuader. Activist-as-groundwork. The person who moves the Overton window before the politician arrives.
So here's my question. You mentioned you're posting something about Malay discrimination soon. How does that fit into the larger frame? Is that a separate issue for you or do you see it connecting to the economic stuff — the idea that racial inequality and class inequality in Singapore are actually the same problem wearing different clothes?
Because if you do see it that way, that's a more sophisticated argument than most people in Singapore are making. And it's also a much harder one to land with a general audience without sounding like you're importing American frameworks wholesale.
How are you thinking about that?
Amos:
That’s exactly what I’m trying to do, push the Overton window. People treat politicians with an overimportance because the news covers them most and they directly affect legislation, but it’s really activists, and the work of the common people that changes what opinions are acceptable. The politician just exploits what is acceptable at the time. In fact the politician can’t stray too far out of the overton, otherwise they can’t get elected. Activists can, because they don’t necessarily care about getting elected.
Specifically, the most important thing to influence public opinion is public protests. In Singapore it’s illegal, and that’s precisely why it’ll be so effective. I need people to be willing to sacrifice their lives, to go to prison, to die for political change. That kind of dedication changes the hearts and minds of people who otherwise wouldn’t care. All the legal ways of trying to promote change if you look at history, will probably not be enough, or at least will make progress far slower. People need to free themselves from the fear of death and protest. Though I understand most people are too afraid, and for some it’s genuinely not strategic, so hopefully many non-protestors can still help working behind the scenes, promoting the protest, producing content, donating money, praying, or whatever.
I have 6 topics that I feel are a priority because they are both the most important and can sway elections, and I hope to write extensively about all of them. They are: Cost of living, Freedom of expression, National Service, Education Reform, Work Reform and Malay and Indian Rights. They are important because they affect the largest groups of people and have the largest effect on people. Gay rights, Death penalty reform and Climate change though important, are not as important, and won’t change election outcomes. Those aforementioned topics will.
Cost of living of course is the biggest issue that affects the most people. From an activist’s standpoint though, the limitations of promoting that issue is that it’s economic. It deals with taxes, numbers, abstract concepts. Even if you link it to concrete items like food and housing prices, it’s still abstract, hard to understand, and boring for a lot of the discussion. Still important enough in spite of the difficulty though which is why you still talk about it.
But you supplement it with say promoting Malay and Indian rights, most discriminated group of people in Singapore, less education and work opportunities, more likely to go prison for the same crime, getting fucked over by the chinese even though they’re the original, indigenous people of Singapore. Something about mentioning race of course, triggers emotions in a way lack of taxes to the rich can’t. And because a disproportionate amount of Indians and Malays are poor, they will very likely be the first people who would be willing to protest and go to prison for a political cause. Because they have barely any money compared to the middle-class Chinese, and therefore have far less to lose.
Talk about those 6 issues, and you pretty much cover all the issues that Singaporeans are affected by and care about. And if you run on those issues and eventually do get elected, it’s not baby steps to improvement, it’s a massive overhaul. It’s the creation of a system that eliminates poverty, discrimination, censorship and mental health issues completely. It will truly be a Singapore Revolution, one that is entirely achievable during my lifetime
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