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To: sangkancil@malaysia.net
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 19:18:56
Subject: [sangkancil] SG DAILY: Economist: Send in the Clowns (fwd)
From: pillai@mgg.pc.my (M.G.G. Pillai)
Reply-to: pillai@mgg.pc.my (M.G.G. Pillai)
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From: forum@sintercom.org (Wynthia Goh)
Date: 20 Oct 97
Originally To: sgdaily@list.sintercom.org
The Economist <www.economist.com>
October 11th 1997
Send in the clowns
Singapore
Bureaucrats in Singapore are surely the envy of their counterparts
elsewhere. Their meticulously planned city boasts high employment, safe
streets, minimal congestion, cleanliness (at least when Indonesia is not
burning its forests), helpful media and citizens who are usually
well-behaved. Some of them, however, do venture one complaint: that
Singapore is a little, well, dull.
Hence a government drive to inject some gaiety and spontaneity. And who
better to liven up the atmosphere than a few street performers? So the
authorities have decided to roll out the red carpet for the island's
musicians, actors, jugglers, snake charmers and sword swalloers. After a
two-year ban, busking is back.
On closer inspection, however, the carpet appears to be composed of fine
strands of red tape. To apply for a licence, buskers must belong to a
government-approved arts group and persuade a special committee of their
"artistic merit". Their licence allows them to busk only at a specified
place and at certain times. They must promise not to involve members of the
public in their routines, avoid "inappropriate behaviour", and stay away
from busy areas, such as subways and shopping centres. Then they have to
secure the permission of shopkeepers, police and local authrities.
For the intrepid souls who survive these administrative hurdles, the rewards
will be intangible. The new scheme requires performers to turn over all
their takings to charity (although they may deduct expenses such as travel,
instrument repair and snake food). In a country that issues permits for
satellite dishes, car radios, copiers, prostitutes, hournalists,
air-conditioning installers and gibbons, the idea of licensing buskers has a
certain bureaucratic inevitability. But the new regulations have met with a
distinctly cool reception. Callers to radio chat shows have denounced the
rules as "murdering" the arts.
"They've carried the whole thing too far," says Leo Lim, a blind accordion
player, who makes an honest (if illegal) living by playing melancholy tunes
to rush-hour crowds in an underpass near bustling Orchard Road. For the past
ten years, Mr Lim has played a game of hide-and-seek with the police,
refusing to stop despite having had three accordions and dozens of
harmonicas confiscated.=20
Officials say the idea is to promote art, not to nourish ragtag street
performers like Mr Lim. Without stringent standards, they fear, busking
might degenerate into a disguised form of begging (which, of course, is also
illegal). So foreign buskers are expressly forbidden, lest the island's tidy
parks are overrun by grubby backpackers. Arty types fume that the
authorities miss the point of busking: it is an informal and spontaneous
transaction where talent is rewarded with cash, and rubbish with cold
stares. But spare a thought for Singapore's hapless regulators. Relaxing the
city-state's tight grip on its citizens - while reassuring its cranky
hardliners that social chaos will not ensue - requires of bureaucrats a
finesse sword-swallowers might envy.
=A9 Copyright 1997 The Economist Newspaper Limited. All Rights Reserved=20
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