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Reflections by Special Adviser
Happy birthday IPS.
When you are busy, time passes very quickly. Thirty-three years have passed since I returned from Washington, D.C.. One of the first Singapore leaders who invited me to lunch was our Patron, Mr Goh Chok Tong. He was then Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence. It was not a free lunch. He asked me to be the Director of the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS).
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I have spent many years of my life working at IPS, twice as director and once, as chairman. I love IPS and regard it as one of my institutional babies. I am very proud of its achievements during the past 35 years.
Looking to the future, I have given thought to what the work of IPS should focus on. It should seek to preserve and protect some of our most precious achievements, such as meritocracy, no corruption, racial and religious harmony, multiculturalism, free trade and free economy, gender equality, care for nature and environment.
At the same time, IPS should study some of the challenges to Singapore’s unity, cohesion and fairness, such as poverty, inequality, an ageing population, identity politics, and attempts by foreign countries to influence and manipulate our public opinion.
Singapore has been extraordinarily successful. To remain successful, we must understand more fully the revolutionary changes taking place in the world and their impact on Singapore. The revolutionary changes I refer to include the biotechnology revolution, the digital revolution, robotics revolution and Artificial Intelligence revolution. Singapore has to constantly reinvent itself to seize the new opportunities and to look after the casualties of these revolutions.
There is also another task for IPS, which is to broaden the space in Singapore for intellectuals and artists. We must strengthen the culture of accepting disagreements. No one must be stigmatised because he or she disagrees with the government. The contestation of ideas is an essential characteristic of democracies. And, contrary to what the Americans think, Singapore is a democracy.
Tommy Koh Special Adviser Director (1990–1997), (2000–2004)
