By Terence Chong
Guest Blogger
terencechong@iseas.edu.sg

 

In a world of cultural relativism, terrorism is one of few acts of irreducible singularity where black is black and white is white. It is tragic, devastating, and yet absolute in its own moral certainty, not just for its perpetrators and victims, but for politicians too.

The spectacle of terrorism has a knack for silencing clever arguments and making fence-sitters look churlish. The Sept 11 attacks needed no explanation because everything was so viscerally understood on ‘live’ TV, whether it was of jet planes slamming into the Twin Towers or office workers jumping to their deaths to avoid the flames.

The power of terror also goes beyond the corporeal. After all, it is often said that fear is too good to waste in politics. If Archimedes’ boast – “give me a place to stand and I'll move the Earth” – is a fundamental law of mechanics, then the Sept 11 attacks may be said to abide by the same logic.

Like Archimedes’ fulcrum, the terror of Sept 11 was used as the political lever to move the world. For America, it was the Patriot Act and the Iraq war, for Singapore it was the 2001 General Elections.

Indeed, Sept 11’s biggest impact on Singapore was seen in the 75 per cent of the popular vote for the incumbent party. The combination of fear and moral certainty carried the day on Nov 3, barely two months after.

That 75 per cent was more than just a surreal statistic. It was a numerical expression of a people’s fear. It was a quantitative measurement of popular desire for solace and comfort in a world that had just turned topsy-turvy.

A decade later, more mundane fears have replaced the spectacle of terrorism. The competition for jobs, the rising cost of living, immigration and cultural displacement come to mind, while the moral certainty that shaped the way ballots were cast in 2001 seems to have given way to a greater willingness to try the alternative. This is perhaps understandable since moral certainty finds little oxygen to flourish when the drama of terror is absent.

Nevertheless, terror is never far from the Singaporean consciousness. Whether the spectre of bloody racial riots or religious conflict, we are a people who have learned to live with the anxieties of our vulnerabilities. Whatever progress we have achieved has been because of these anxieties.

Terence Chong is Senior Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.