Aljunied

3The Green line, 57 km-long, crosses Singapore, from Changi in the East to Tuas in the West.

4First stop in Aljunied, where dormitories for migrants, (more or less legal) “leisure areas’ and a concentration of religious associations are located. This neighbourhood is apart from the national territory ; you are hosted in the WP (Workers’ Party) territory, the biggest opposition party. His secretary-general, Low Thia Khiang, was one of the only two first non-PAP members of parliament (MP) – out of 84, then 87, in 2001 and 2006 – before the (relative) wave in 2011 (6, then 7 elected MPs) and the stabilisation in 2015 (6 elected MPs).

5Gerrymandering, very short official campaigns, expensive guarantees, selective racial quotas for the candidates, limited freedom of expression (Singapore is ranked 151 ^st by Reporters without Borders) : in this context, political life is tough for the WP.

6However, photographs of the very large crowd, which gathered there for the rallies before the last elections, initiated an unexpected fervour. Aljunied is the symbol of porosity ; it challenges the security and ideological fortress via its underground life, with punk and ska shows ; this is also where people can find kretek (clove cigarettes), smuggled from Indonesia, near exits of the metro station.

Kallang

7This feeling of transition is confirmed one stop further, near the magnificent sport complex. This luxurious box looks empty, away on the left-shore, at the mouth of the Singapore River. The government built it without having been able to fill and animate the small and old stadium, most of the time deserted by fans, in the nearby neighbourhood of Lavender. In the sports field, PAP is overtaken and no more in tune with the reality. The population does not recognise itself through its national teams. The importation of champions (e.g. from Balkans or China), via an Olympic Committee led by a Deputy-Prime Minister and the Speaker of Parliament, shows the limits of the sports policy.

8Sportspeople, like the swimmer Joseph Schooling (gold medal in the Rio Olympics), not only complain about the lack of support. But, beyond this, calls are launched against the sleeping comfort due to the numerous and generous grants ; in this wake, recently, the timorous football coaches were primarily targeted because of their pusillanimity and their too much defensive tactical options.

9Eventually, in sports and Kallang as well, young people are trying to go over the “governmental guardianship” and the surrounding passivity. In addressing this trend, the government – at least most of its members – seems to be out-dated.

City Hall

10Let us leave the sleeping suburbs of the well-named “heartlands” and venture downtown, into the institutional and economic areas. If Singapore is a fortress, here is the donjon (the fortified tower), close to Fort Canning, where the allied troops precisely entrenched in 1942. Everything is higher and cleaner. In a very certain way, is this area where the Cabinet would be figuratively retreating ? In any case, it gives the impression of being increasingly cut off from reality, while it still tries to control every aspect of daily life. Meanwhile, nothing should resist it, including nature and geography : the famous Raffles Hotel, located on Beach Road, does not offer views on the sea anymore but on broad areas of reclaimed land, now densely packed with skyscrapers.

11Within walking distance from City Hall, you can reach the Presidential Palace (Istana). Last August, Halimah Yacob (the former Speaker) was elected president without any elections ( !). As usual, constitutionalist funambulists competed through tough acrobatics with contortionist (and pusillanimous) political advisors : the election was reserved for Malay candidates, officially because of the concern of equity between the “races” (official word to denote the official categories of main ethnic groups in the country) of the last presidents – or, according to harsh critiques, mainly through social media platforms, wasn’t it like that just to kick out a potential Chinese opponent : Tan Cheng Bock ? At the end of the day, the only accepted candidacy was Halimah Yacob’s, with two other potential contenders deemed to have fallen short of official criteria, hence the idea spread online of a “selected” more than “elected” president.

12Not far, the Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has been challenged by his blood and political families because of the interpretation of the testament of his father Lee Kuan Yew : did it plan the destruction, or not, of his house on 38 Oxley Road, as it could become a possible memorial (actually quite useful for a possible fragile government) ? An otherwise familial dispute turned into a spectacle for national public scrutiny.

Raffles Place

13At the bottom of the skyscrapers, the traffic jam, full of old Fords around the square and of sampans on the river, is substituted by canalised waves of employees spit by overcrowded coaches and metros (locally known as MRTs), which are regularly disrupted. But, instead of willing channelling every flows – often too much and even in a figurative sense (people, cars, as well as ideas) –, some old senior officials – and even some ministers – start to regret an aseptic business sphere. They miss the interest for risk in order to resuscitate the spirit of entrepreneurship. Because of all the references and toponyms to the English founder Raffles (1781-1826), would Singaporeans have forgotten their pre-colonial history as an entrepôt ?

14While the former Prime Minister Goh mentioned a middle-life crisis during the 2015 jubilee, the economy shows signs of weakness. The growth relies partly on the underestimated industry and factories in the suburbs. If Singapore is still ranked as the second country for Doing Business, the Lion City (Singa Pura) was ranked the fourth most opaque financial Centre in the world according to the 2015 Financial Secrecy Index.

Buona Vista

15Here, the Ministry of Education promotes a perfectible meritocracy. Nearby, would the building of foreign campuses (ESSEC, INSEAD, Yale-NUS) and parks dedicated to research, like Fusionopolis and Biopolis, challenge the uses and habits for more innovation ?

16Similarly, not far, the Mediacorp campus, which hosts public media (under surveillance), seems to lose the grip, while a new elite is on the way to shade it. It is true that this emerging elite has been trained either overseas or in the old campus of the venerable National University of Singapore but, beyond the only post-colonialism issue, this elite seeks – above all – to move away from Lee Kuan Yew’s era and his authoritarian practices – which would persisted according to it. This is the objective, among other, of the new independent news website newnaratif.com.

17To sustain these intellectual initiatives, as the Cabinet is too much distracted by the forthcoming succession of the Prime Minister and the opposition is too busy with a judicial case, only associations would be able to take over on the field, at the grassroots level…

Pioneer

18Is this name a homage or a call ? If we validate the former hypothesis, where can Singapore find its next scouts and pioneers ? The nearby Nanyang Technological University hoped a metro station would bring its students along. But is it because of the fear of students’ demonstrations, in a remote campus, far away from downtown ? The fact is that the metro station has eventually been built in a very dense housing area.

19Actually, it makes sense : it is more probably in this kind of neighbourhoods, rather than in think tanks and institutes, that the country is at the crossroads. Informally, Singaporeans from various social and educational backgrounds, work as volunteers to promote interracial/interreligious dialogue and to fight poverty, embodied by unexpected homeless people.

20In parallel, true and old pioneers, who now average 70-year-old, working as diplomats, journalists or scholars call for “more people to speak up and challenge authority”. They also rebutted the idea of vulnerable and weak micro-State, according to a highly discussed op-ed last spring.

Conclusion

21On the way to its Far West (and East), the country is hesitating to open and find new paths. This trail would not cross any more the usual old networks made up of classical elites. It would explore areas far behind the only Central Business District. From Pioneer to Tuas, in the periphery, works are launched (like in Changi) : not only urban or in ports but also social ones. Singapore is learning (again) its geography and its vivre-ensemble. Let us wait for the next connection before going on. Caution : upgrading works in progress.

From east to west, along the first (green) metro line,…

22... inaugurated at the end of 1987: yesterday the pride of Singapore and today a test object for the government because of repeated malfunctions – and the accident that occurred at the beginning of November at Joo Koon.

In the Eunos station district: development work faced with the difficulty of reconciling legacies of the past and constraints of the future…

Paya Lebar station : seen from a food court (a group of former street vendors installed side by side and now settled), the Malay district of Geylang is transforming behind the skytrain, where the Ramadan bazaar is set up each year.

Jurong East Station: most stations are adjacent to malls (shopping centers), the main places where Singaporeans live, until late in the evening. Here too, security prevails, surveillance cameras are activated and the police keep watch.

Between Jurong East and Chinese Gardens stations: the area is expected to become a second Central Business District in order to relieve congestion in the first. It will notably house the next Singapore-Kuala Lumpur high-speed train line.

Chinese Gardens station: South Asian workers – too numerous for the taste of the population, but not for the government which needs them for its construction sites – are taking advantage of their leave. They come out of their dormitory camps and play cricket; while waiting for this plot to in turn be invaded by cranes?

Lakeside Station: left, government poster calling for resilience in the event of a terrorist attack, translated into English and Malay (two official languages, in addition to Mandarin and Tamil); posters are generally careful to accurately represent the four official racial groups: Chinese (74.34% of the population – government figures for 2017), Malays – almost exclusively Muslims (13.38%) –, Indians (9.05%) and others (3.23%).

The Singaporean metro network (end of 2017).