Imagine that you are a young boy growing up in a fishing village. Your family is relatively well off and you are lucky enough you have access to education. You do well in school and somehow you find yourself at Harvard Business school studying law. You see a completely different world... a world of success and prosperity. You learn a lot. You see a lot. You like a lot of things, others you don't. Then it's time for you to go home and you are happy to go home, but you decided to bring back a lot of what is good in this place. You decide to create your eutopia.
Singapore is one man's idea of eutopia. It's a strange place that panders to one man's idea of what is and isn't right.
It has a strange mix of the traditional, the modern and the eccentricities of one person and one person alone. It has all the prosperity that this young man wanted to bring back. It is economically successful. It is a model of what Harvard teaches. Yet, it is a prison. By virtue of being one man's dream, it belongs to him and only him. Many do not find themselves in that place. The choice that many face is either to pander to his dream, be a part of his vision, or cease to exist. George Orwell never imagined this.
