Working through my backlog of issues of The Economist, I’ve been amused by the spate in its pages between the government of Singapore and the press concerning the storied history of the Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER) in the country. To chronicle the story, the whole thing began when the newish Banyan column in The Economist published a piece on the recent demise of the FEER. It included a paragraph on the magazine’s legal troubles in Singapore and referred to bans imposed against the publication by the Singaporean government.
I’ve been a regular reader of The Economist long enough to know that the Singaporean government never misses an opportunity to rise to the bait whenever its name is disparaged in the press, so predictably enough a letter from the High Commissioner of Singapore in London was duly published in the next issue. In it, the High Commissioner claimed that the FEER has never been banned by the government. Instead, publication of the FEER in Singapore ceased because the magazine voluntarily declined to comply with local rules.
A week after that, The Economist published a letter by Philip Bowring, a former editor of the FEER. He claimed that while the Singaporean government never actually used the word “ban”, what happened was effectively the same thing. The usual circulation of about 10,000 copies a week was cut to only 500 copies to be circulated according to directions from government officials. The FEER declined to publish at all under such restrictions but the Singaporean government chose to create an advertisement-free pirate edition anyway to circulate as it saw fit.
Once again, the Singaporean government had to respond. This time, the High Commissioner claimed that the government acted to restrict the circulation of the FEER in the country because it had interfered with its domestic politics. The implication is that by allowing a limited circulation anyway, the government was extending a favour to the publication. He also claimed that there were further discussions about regularly circulating an advertisement-free edition of the FEER but as the government was only willing to approve a circulation of 2,000 copies a week, the FEER declined and voluntarily ceased publication in Singapore.
What’s more interesting is that at the same time, The Economist also published a letter from a reader who correctly pointed out that as the Singapore government demands a right of reply to criticism against it, The Economist would be forced to give it the last word or else have the argument drag on interminably. This however would have the unfortunate implication that The Economist agreed with the Singaporean government’s version of events. The reader therefore suggested that the newspaper publish his own letter alongside the reply from the Singaporean government to indicate that this was not so, which as can be seen, The Economist indeed did.
The reason I chose to relay all this is because I think it is a timely reminder that Singapore isn’t quite the clean-cut boy scout it likes to portray itself as being. Malaysians in particular seem too ready to hold up Singapore as an example of a country that gets it right. While the Singaporean government is unquestionably more competent at what it does, I believe it’s worth keeping in mind that they’re not necessarily any nobler or cleaner. Of course, Malaysians shouldn’t be too complacent as well. In 1999, the Malaysian government jailed Murray Hiebert, a correspondent of the FEER for criticizing the judiciary, becoming the first country in the Commonwealth to jail a journalist for what he wrote in more than 50 years. I have a particularly vivid memory of that episode because I was working as an intern for the New Straits Times when Hiebert was first charged.