Shamefully, it’s more than two decades since I visited Singapore. But even in the mid-1990s it was striking how clean, efficient, modern and organised the country was. Those who know, tell us it’s gotten even better – with a still brighter future in prospect courtesy of free enterprise at its rival, Hong Kong, being crushed under a communist jackboot.
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Further confirmation of Singapore’s global status came through yesterday when the World Economic Forum announced its postponed in-person 2021 annual meeting will be held in the Asian city state (May 13-16). The WEF had previously planned to switch May’s meeting from the Davos Kongresssentrum to another Swiss resort, Buergenstock.
The WEF says the latest change was to ‘safeguard the health and safety of participants…with regards to Covid-19 cases…Singapore was best placed.’ No great surprise. The country has handled the pandemic better than most, with just 29 mortalities from over 58 000 confirmed cases.
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Singapore’s continued success raises another issue. Given how the pandemic has impacted the world, it now seems blindingly obvious that the smaller the unit, the easier to manage. Rational minds will be questioning whether large nation states have outlived their usefulness. Wondering, too, whether all of mankind would do better following a Singaporean model. Indeed, thousands in the Western Cape already believe this to be so.
