Raffles’ Port City

history

In 1819, when Sir Stamford Raffles came to strike a deal that made Singapore a British colony, the population of Singapore is approximately 150. In 2 years, the population rose to 5000 mostly as a result of the establishment of the port providing ready access to population from other centers. By 1860 however, the resident population ballooned to around 80,800 comprising mainly of “temporary” immigrants coming from India, China as well as from the surrounding islands. This wasn’t purely luck or a matter of economic policy. Several things the British did was particularly important for encouraging the trade flows through Singapore and pushing the growth of Singapore into an important center for trade in the region.

Just 5 years after the establishment of Singapore as a free port under British rule, in 1824, the English and the Dutch brokered a deal to exchange Bencoolen (or Bengkulu in Sumatra) for Malacca. This was particularly important; the other port that was controlled by the British in the region was Penang, which the English established since 1790; the location was not that popular since ships from the east will still have to pass through the Straits of Malacca before reaching Penang.

With Penang and Singapore under the control of the British, the rivalry between the English and the Dutch in the region meant that Dutch control of the Straits of Malacca through possession of Malacca was a significant bottleneck. The Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 resolved the rivalry (somewhat) by allocating spheres of influence, opening up the entire chain of territories – Penang, Malacca and Singapore to British control and thus greater incentive for the Royal Navy to maintain the safety of the trading ships passing through the Straits of Malacca. The Dutch Navy was given the same responsibility on the side of the straits closer to Indonesia. Before that, piracy was extremely rampant along that straits and the numerous islands around provided safe bays for pirate ships. Stepping up security in these waters gave way to higher flow of trading ships thus facilitating the boom of the port of Singapore.

By 1825, the population of Singapore went past the 10,000 mark. And in 1826, the British East India Company officially took on Singapore as a colony of the British Empire after John Crawfurd signed a second treaty with the Sultan of Johor and the Temenggong, which extended British control of Singapore over to the entire island instead of just the port. The formation of the Straits Settlement consisting of Penang, Malacca and Singapore happened in the same year with Penang designated as the capital. In 1830, the capital was shifted to Singapore, further entrenching the important institutions of British governance in Singapore.

The decisions made by British to build up and enhance the value of Singapore and the injection of top civil servants and managerial talents into Singapore due to its designation as capital of the Straits Settlements (and subsequent establishment of the Straits Settlements as a crown colony in 1867) played an extremely important role in shaping the economic, political and administrative environment which proved extremely favourable to Singapore. The strength of governance has always been an important quality our growth has been attributed to – and it seems to have dated back way before the country’s independence.

Singapore Economic History

history

During my days doing my Masters, I had always wanted to start working on studying Singapore’s Economic history, primarily because we should be learning from the way we developed and not blindly attributing it to some brilliance on the part of individuals or organisation. To break down the black box and understand the practice of growth is something I endeavour as an Economist while the reluctance to attribute our development to specific individuals but rather to consider it down to naturalistic observations about policy, culture, and zeitgeist is my responsibility as an informed voter.

For one, the idea of Singapore as a location suited for trade really started way earlier than we initially had thought; and it has gone by various names: Sabana (2nd Century), Pulau Ujong (3rd Century), Simha-pura (transliterated somehow to ‘Singapura’ – 11th-13th Century and used later on as well), Tamasek (around 1330s), Temasek (circa 1689) and finally Singapore. It gained some importance as a port in 14th Century with trading by merchants as far as China, gaining some immigrants along the way; subsequently as a regional port under the Sultanate of Johor in 16-17th Century. In 1613 however, some Portuguese supposedly destroyed a settlement around the main river, killing most commercial activities on the island until Sir Stamford Raffles landed in 1819, reviving the port status of the territory.

It was indeed, no special original brilliance of Sir Stamford Raffles that helped Singapore become positioned as a entre-port; rather, his effort was the recognition of the need for British navy protection, garnering the resources required to build up this port and rallying support to keep this port a tax-free one that would help enjoy endless flow of ships and traders. The status of a free port was definitely innovation within the British Empire at that time. This particular innovation we inherited much later and became an important economic policy.

Training Philosophy

I believe in learning. And behind all that slogging for grades, what I really see is development of ability, and acquisition of skills. Grades and scores may be performance/progress indicators or checkpoints for me to assess my development, but in no way defining me.

When it comes to work, I absolutely believe that training is necessary – not so much developing our skills from scratch. No one can reverse all the bad habits of speech (eg. fillers, pet words, etc.) within a day or even a week but such training sessions serves to consolidate what we already know into one place and focus our application in various areas, often in a more disciplined manner. So many people I’ve come across in life have so much potential but the environment does not encourage them to shoot for the longer term goals of self-improvement, only the short-term objectives of completing the work on-hand.

At any workplace, there are only 2 kinds of things that you can take with you when you leave. One is your track record (project references, achievements) and the other is your skills. In every project, we should seek to emerge from each one more capable and being able to deliver more or better in the next one. We should never be falling back on something we have already done. In other words, the only way to avoid becoming too comfortable with one’s position is to keep focusing on potential. And that means, while there is the 2 kinds of takeaways – what we should be putting our attention on is our skills.

Therefore, hurry to brush up skills and pull up socks, not to meet deadlines (though that eventually must be met anyways).

Thinking on your feet

I just went through a course on effective presentation skills and it was mentioned that Q&A is actually the most important part of the presentation – in fact so important it is more important than the presentation itself. After all, Q&A is where it is much harder to prepare and you are more vulnerable. I remember the trainer saying, some people are just born able to think on their feet and others will have to develop the ability to do so over their life.

It actually got me thinking about it. What set people apart in this sense? How was Tharman able to answer Stephen Sackur so quickly about the Trampoline that the host was a little surprised and stumped for a bit? It’s actually through preparation. It isn’t quite ‘born’, as we would think of. The truth is all of life is preparation. The way you spend every moment in your life, whether you have chosen it or not, is preparation for all of the moments ahead. And having the habit of thinking, having thought through different things, having pondered over issues far and wide or about things in the periphery of the related topic, is part of all the preparation that brought you to the point of being able to ‘think on your feet’. It might feel like you had a stroke of genius at the moment or people might have thought so but it’s not genius. It’s hard work, dedication and devotion to the topic area or issue implicated.

So prepare well for all the times ahead you have. And think; it sure takes practice but you get better.

Justified by Faith

Listened to Tim Keller’s Sermon again and thought this line was worth noting down:

“Forgiveness is you may go. Free justification is you may come.”

And then I got to listen to another sermon by Michael Baughen, and another line he shared struck me too:

“Religion is about achieving, the gospel is about believing.”

Yet it’s so tough because we are told we have to give an account of ourselves – so ‘despite’ this so-called free grace, our deeds are fruits of the faith and the surest manifestation of our lacking in our faith. In Jerry Bridges’ ‘Respectable Sins’, he quotes from older writers who calls for believers to:

“Work as if it all depends on you, and yet trust as if you did not work at all.”

That was all helpful, now on to living a life justified by faith.

Forgiveness, not Tolerance

It’s been a long time since I actually sat down to write an article, not to mention an article about my faith. I must say I haven’t been particularly attentive to the gradual shifts that are taking place in the world though I have my eyes set upon the economy, the structural things in the economy of Singapore. Having spent more than the past 4 years being abroad, I always thought I could share some new perspective about Singapore – how things are different here or the same. And more important, how much we have come to be part of ‘the world’.

The debates of the world that sets groups of people up against each other can stem from a variety of factors and in particular, culture seem to be highlighted. While globalization is said to make the world more homogenous, the role in its ability to bring cultures together so they may clash and interact in more profound manner is understated. In the clashing of cultures, and attempt to reconcile things, I believe that we have not become more polarized but allowed ourselves to accept sub-par standards of clarity that generates even more controversy. The refusal to clarify often stems from sensitivity – political, racial, religious or whatever. And one that I would like to highlight here is our messing up of the concepts of tolerance and forgiveness.

First, we look at the concept of forgiveness, which is more or less lost in this modern world. And the reason is that we have lost the concept of sin. We no longer think about transgressions the way we do. We think of it as a single-sided thing involving a mistake – the outcome and consequences that one has to bear is solely attributed to the system in place. The one that the victim has to bear no longer is part of that picture. This very subtle shift towards self-centeredness as a whole society is probably something people have observed time and again but seemed, by and large to be praised rather than resented. The ‘mistakes’ is therefore to be dealt with through the penalty of the system, a punishment that allows you to ‘pay’ for the mistake rather than to be forgiven of it. There is absolutely no mention of forgiveness in this whole cycle – the culprit doesn’t need to be forgiven by the victim, just to be released or ‘dealt with’ by the system of justice. And there is no wonder why we find that justice and forgiveness is incompatible. This is because we see punishment as diametrically opposing to forgiveness – and that if one were to consider wrong-doing a ‘sin’ then punishments are but necessary ‘sins’ against ‘sinfulness’.

Forgiveness, rather, has to do with a pardon of the deed itself that still involve a cost from the deed – not so much the punishment that is just a fraction of the true costs, designed to attempt to pass on the cost the deed creates back to the perpetuator. Of course, God and all of us realize this merely serves to multiply the fallen-ness in the world when this punishment is not meted out by God. Only God, who is able to renew and restore, can also channel His wrath righteously at the perpetuator. Not even the victim, bearing just part of the cost of the deed (as God bears the other part) can be qualified to take revenge, having no means whatsoever to restore his state through his revenge. Vengeance therefore, can only be of the Lord’s. As victims, what we can offer on our part is only ‘forgiveness’ and that is to bear that cost inflicted upon ourselves and carry it no further. As culprits/sinners, all we can do is to ask for forgiveness, from the victims and from God Himself.

By now you might have realized that what we have always thought forgiveness is, or involves, is tolerance. But it isn’t. We can think of tolerance as something that has elements of overlap with forgiveness but misses the mark. I would say one could capture their relationship with a Venn diagram where the overlapping part involves the bearing of costs of the deed. What does not overlap that is in Tolerance, is that of being indifferent to the deed itself as a matter of principle. Forgiveness, on the other hand, by virtue of its necessity having arisen from the presence of a ‘sin’, will have to involve rejecting the deed. It would require that the deed in itself be considered morally wrong. Forgiveness does not allow you to ignore the evilness of the deed; rather, it fundamentally requires you to trust in and place your hopes on the repentance of the one who is forgiven. Tolerance requires nothing of that sort; rather it involves an inner stoicism that is rejected by Christians as the path to salvation. To believe one is tolerant can breed self-righteousness and that is why people who preach tolerance are themselves non-tolerant of people seen as intolerant. They might not have observed the irony but that by itself already shows that tolerance is not the lifeboat that can take us out of this mess in conflicts – whether it is about abortion or homosexuality, or Amos Yee. It is forgiveness.

Thesis-Writing

After pondering for a moment I finally decided to get a copy of Turabian’s Manual for Writers; as well as Umbeto Eco’s “How to Write a Thesis”. Writing skills turned out to be incredibly important for a public service job – and it pays to brush up my writing even if my career turns towards a more private-sector slant.

End of an Era

I’ve officially taken down ERPZ.net. It’s been running since 2009, collecting materials I used for tutoring Economics and Mathematics as well as General Paper. But life has progressed to a point that maintaining a site like that became increasingly difficult. As student life passes on into working life, the content of ERPZ.net may become increasingly distant from the audience it was originally targeting.

I’ve shifted my focus to writing more targeted rather than broad materials for students as evident from the eBooks published last year. I hope to continue this endeavour and benefit more students in Singapore in the years to come.

Coursera Data Science

So for the past few months since August, I’ve been sprucing up on my skills in R through the Coursera online course designed by a couple of folks from the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Biostatistics. It’s been interesting to pick up not only data analytics skills but learning about the different tools and platforms available online just for presenting data, doing visualizations and all that fancy stuff. I find it amazing how I first learn about Bootstrap, Spline Regressions, Permutation Tests, and a couple of other statistical techniques that might be useful in Econometrics through some of those courses in the Data Science Specialization.

So shortly after picking up those cool skills and programming some rather sophisticated looking data processing stuff (at least in my opinion), I actually started presenting stuff on various platforms using R! I wrote my first data analysis report on Rpubs, started a Github account and picked up Git (just a little; I simply wasn’t geeky enough), developed this rather useless fancy webapp and then even pumped out somewhat cooler slides to pitch it. All in all, I believe I gained more in this 3 months of learning from the series of online course than stuff I picked up in school over the past year (granted, that Advanced Math course sure was tough and made me feel like I picked up something, though I promptly forgot all of them).

Incentives & Virtue

I experienced a revival of interest in the intersection of Economics and Philosophy (or rather, the attempt to reconnect Economics with its philosophical roots) was sparked by Michael Sandel’s ‘Moral Limit of Markets’. I got to see his brilliance at the recent Rethinking Economics conference held in New York City. As it turns out, there is a passage from Analects of Confucius quoted by a recent article in New Yorker (it was a story about recent developments in cancer research involving the approach of targeting cancer cells and coaxing them to mature instead of dividing further):

If you use laws to direct the people, and punishments to control them, they will merely try to evade the punishments, and will have no sense of shame. But if by virtue you guide them, ad by the rites you control them, there will be a sense of shame and of right.

Of course, I’ve dealt with this before in something I once wrote introducing Sandel’s book. As a matter of fact indeed, Sandel is trying to draw to our attention something we already know at the back of our mind but decides to stay silent about.