(re)Presenting political perspectives : privileging pragmatism or persecuting pluralism?

• Main Author: Koh, Ian Russell
• Other Authors: Md Saidul Islam
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: DRNTU::Social sciences::Sociology::Social change
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/69028
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This research problematizes the arbitrary operationalization of “pragmatism” in the official narrative of Singapore’s history, and posits that the ideographic rhetoric often utilized by the State in its maintenance of ideological hegemony is being challenged by the activism of civil society within an anarchic cyberspace that resists easy regulation. Through semi-structured interviews with 4 intellectuals who have published extensively on Singapore’s postcolonial historiography and 3 individuals from the media industry, this paper attempts to interrogate and disentangle some of the hegemonic narratives that have emerged from half-a-century of independence and uninterrupted one-party rule. This paper concludes by acknowledging that while the space for dissent and counter-representations has found less persecution in recent years, the State needs to encourage and foster a plurality of perspectives from civil society and lay-citizens if a more holistic and frank account of History is to emerge, while at the same time fulfilling its role as the guardian of the collective conscience.