Posted on 06/07/2010 9:43:13 PM PDT by Maelstorm
SINGAPORE: This country, where painting graffiti can get you caned and drug smugglers are hanged, is trying a new tactic against the city-state's litterbugs: embarrassing them in front of their neighbours.
After studying the causes of littering for a year, the government yesterday boosted police patrols of "littering hot spots", added more and larger public rubbish bins and warned that two or more littering violations could lead to sentences of picking up litter in busy public areas while wearing a bright orange vest.
"We will continue to take a tough stance towards litterbugs and improve the bin infrastructure," said Andrew Tan, head of the National Environment Agency.
"Despite the progress over the years, littering remains a concern."
The shame campaign is the latest effort to reinforce a squeaky-clean image that helps Singapore regularly top expat quality-of-life polls. Singapore has one of the lowest violent crime rates and has a well-earned reputation for harsh punishments of minor crimes.
The government hopes public cleaning assignments will shame Singaporeans into putting refuse where it belongs.
(Excerpt) Read more at themercury.co.za ...
This is exactly the sort of punishment such matters should get.
I wish it were mandatory here.
What a lovely thought. I always thought corporal punishment would be perfect here for thugs. It would standardize punishment, eliminate court cases and de-clog the system, and also eliminate the accusations of wealthy people getting away with a slap on the wrist and poorer people getting more harshly punished. And it would keep prisons from overcrowding.
The world is complex because we allow those who benefit from unnecessary from the complexity to con us.
I will never set foot in this Orwellian Utopian Nightmare. May God have mercy on Singapore’s soul.
Capitalism has figured out ways to coexist and even thrive in nanny states.
I found the "police state" aspects of Singapore to be invisible - certainly far less visible than the police force in any American city.
Why Singaporeans leave Singapore?
http://www.temasekreview.com/2010/06/08/why-singaporeans-leave-singapore/
I wouldn’t want to live in Singapore because it is too damn hot. Then again I’ve heard the night life isn’t bad.
Sounds like they have an extremely bad case of keeping up with the Joneses.
I was in Singapore once and I noticed no litter.
I’d wager that Switzerland is just about as clean, yet, they lack the draconian legal measures Singapore has used to force littering to stop.
There’s something part and parcel with Swiss culture that internally FORCES them to be neat and clean....
Same for Japan...no Chinese or Indians.
I recall sneaking back into my youth hostel in Copenhagen late one night - about 3 am. Past the drunks on the curbs and benches with bottles, smokes and newspapers scattered about.
Had to catch a train and was out about 5:30 am. No drunks, no litter, and the the streets and sidewalks were still wet from being all washed clean. It was pretty spooky.
shame campaign...
Sounds good to me.
Newt Gingrich once said a nation will fail if it does not have either a strong common culture or a strong central government. Singapore has a lot of potentially disruptive cultural influences but it's a great place to live because the government, for example, would have no problem squashing any Muslim dissident in a second - and the Muslim dissidents know it. They content themselves with selling iced coffee to tourists on Singapore's Arab Street rather than building bombs - though as a tall, white, American-looking tourist, I did get a few nasty looks. :)
Many of the other cultures - Malays, Indians, Indonesians - don't care much about things like throwing garbage in the streets. Thus the draconian fines for littering - It's like policing a giant kindergarten class rather than Swiss adults who have a cultural respect for neatness. A lot of foreign commentators focus on the fines rather than the bad behavior that prompted them - the same reaction Rudy Giuliani got when he cleaned up New York City.
The nightlife is now very good in Singapore. I understand that is a big change from the way things were ten or fifteen years ago. Singapore is "liberalizing" (whatever that means) - they are just careful about it.
Singapore’s laws against vandalism are a pain in the ass to vandals.
I own and operate several online stores and Singapore was the very first one banned, i.e. you can not purchase anything from our stores and ship it to Singapore. Incredibly high rate of stolen credit cards shipping through this PRETEND sparkling clean paradise.
Most corrupt country on the planet in so far as credit card transactions are concerned.
One thing that always puzzled me was the signs warning of massive fines for urinating in lifts (elevators). I asked one of my Singaporean vendors why a neat, civilized country would have such a problem with urinating in lifts and he told me a few stories about the multiculturalism.
Even among the ethnic Chinese (about the same percentage in Singapore as whites in America), he said there was an element which needed to have such behaviors enforced by fines.
One such group was the Hainan Island Chinese, who came to Singapore in large numbers in 1956 after the Communists finally completed their conquest of the island. At the time, the Singaporeans welcomed them, because the ethnic Chinese were treated like second class citizens in the newly independent Malaysia. It was a decade or so later that Singapore gained independence from Malaysia and enacted civil rights type laws to ensure that Malays would not be treated the same in Singapore.
Incidentally, Malays are about the same percentage of Singapore's population as blacks in the United States, Indians are about the same percentage as Hispanics and European/Australian/American about the same percentage as Asians here. Even more fascinating is that each occupies a parallel place in the society and economy of each country.
So each country is a laboratory in racial relations which have taken very different approaches to deal with it.
Frankly, I'd like to see that here.
Just for the record, Copenhagen is Denmark, no where near Switzerland. However, also quite I (dare say) Germanic country....with probably more drunks than Switzerland, but, nearly as clean and tidy.
“...also quite I (dare say) Germanic country...”
Yes - my point was there are a lot of European countries that I (we?) think of as being clean and tidy. It was just a shock to my young (at that time!) and naive mind to see such a sudden and stark contrast in what the reality was, and what the average tourist was supposed to see. “Soylent Green” comes to mind. Of course that was a big city.
I’m sure that in the small villages in Switzerland (which I have also visited) the cleanliness is more “real” and pride is taken in one’s home. I was always impressed with all of the wonderful flowers that everyone had in their garden and flower boxes. Although it wouldn’t surprise me if the old-time notion of taking pride in one’s home is not somehow mandated by the village tourist board now.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.