Disneyland with the Death Penalty - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

"Disneyland with the Death Penalty" is an article about Singapore

Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

written by William Gibson

William Gibson

William Gibson is an American-Canadian science fiction author.William Gibson may also refer to:-Association football:*Will Gibson , Scottish footballer...

, his first major piece of non-fiction, first published as the cover story

Cover story

Cover story may refer to:* a story in a magazine whose subject matter appears on its front cover* a fictitious account that is intended to hide one's real motive, e.g. when a terrorist pretends to be farmer to buy fertilizer or to provide an explanation in case it is found; the story in the case of...

for Wired
Wired (magazine)
Wired is a full-color monthly American magazine and on-line periodical, published since January 1993, that reports on how new and developing technology affects culture, the economy, and politics...

magazine's September/October 1993 issue (1.4).

The article follows Gibson's observations of the architecture, phenomenology and culture of Singapore, and the clean, bland and conformist impression the city-state conveys during his stay. Its title and central metaphor—Singapore as Disneyland with the death penalty—is a reference to the authoritarian artifice the author perceives the city-state to be. Singapore, Gibson details, is lacking any sense of creativity or authenticity, absent of any indication of its history or underground culture. He finds the government to be pervasive, corporatist and technocratic, and the judicial system rigid and draconian. Singaporeans are characterised as consumerists of insipid taste. The article is accentuated by local news reports of criminal trials by which the author illustrates his observations, and bracketed by contrasting descriptions of the South-East Asian airports he arrives and leaves by.

Though Gibson's first major piece of non-fiction, the article had an immediate and lasting impact. The Singaporean government banned Wired upon the publication of the issue, and the phrase "Disneyland with the death penalty" became a byword for bland authoritarianism that the city-state could not easily discard.

Synopsis

The title "Disneyland with the Death Penalty" refers to the subject of the article, the Southeast Asian city-state of Singapore

Singapore

, whose strictly-guarded sterility Gibson describes with horror. After opening the article with the Disneyland metaphor, Gibson cites an observation attributed to Laurie Anderson

Laurie Anderson

Laura Phillips "Laurie" Anderson is an American experimental performance artist, composer and musician who plays violin and keyboards and sings in a variety of experimental music and art rock styles. Initially trained as a sculptor, Anderson did her first performance-art piece in the late 1960s...

that virtual reality

Virtual reality

Virtual reality , also known as virtuality, is a term that applies to computer-simulated environments that can simulate physical presence in places in the real world, as well as in imaginary worlds...

"would never look real until they learned how to put some dirt in it" in relation to the immaculate state of the Changi Airtropolis, Singapore's international airport. Beyond the airport, he notes that the natural environment has been cultivated into "all-too-perfect examples of itself", such as with the abundance of golf courses. Singaporean society is a "relentlessly G-rated experience", controlled by a government

Government of Singapore

The Government of Singapore is defined by the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore to mean the Executive branch of government, which is made up of the President and the Cabinet of Singapore. Although the President acts in his personal discretion in the exercise of certain functions as a check...

akin to a megacorporation, fixated on conformity and behavioural constraint and with a marked lack of humour and creativity.

Gibson finds it painful to try to connect with the Victorian

Victorian era

The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...

Singapore, of which few vestiges remained. In an attempt to uncover Singapore's underlying social mechanisms, the author searches fruitlessly for an urban underbelly, rising at dawn for jetlagged walks on several mornings only to discover that the city-state's "physical past … has almost entirely vanished". He gives an overview of the history of Singapore

History of Singapore

The history of Singapore dates to the 11th century. The island rose in importance during the 14th century under the rule of Srivijayan prince Parameswara and became an important port until it was destroyed by Acehnese raiders in 1613. The modern history of Singapore began in 1819 when Englishman...

from the founding of modern Singapore

Founding of modern Singapore

The founding of modern Singapore in 1819 by Sir Stamford Raffles paved the way for Singapore to become a modern port and established its status as a gateway between the Western and Eastern markets....

by Sir Stamford Raffles in 1819 to the Japanese occupation

Japanese Occupation of Singapore

The Japanese occupation of Singapore in World War II occurred between about 1942 and 1945 after the fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942. Military forces of the Empire of Japan occupied Singapore after defeating the combined Australian, British, Indian and Malayan garrison in the Battle of Singapore...

and the establishment of the Republic in 1965. He concludes that the 21st-century Singapore, effectively a single-party state

Single-party state

A single-party state, one-party system or single-party system is a type of party system government in which a single political party forms the government and no other parties are permitted to run candidates for election...

and capitalist technocracy, is a product first and foremost of the vision of three-decade Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew

Lee Kuan Yew

Lee Kuan Yew, GCMG, CH is a Singaporean statesman. He was the first Prime Minister of the Republic of Singapore, governing for three decades...

. As an aside, he quotes a headline from the South China Morning Post
South China Morning Post
The South China Morning Post , together with its Sunday edition, the Sunday Morning Post, is an English-language Hong Kong newspaper, published by the SCMP Group with a circulation of 104,000....

detailing the trial of a cadre of economists, a government official and a newspaper editor for divulging a state secret by revealing the Singaporean economic growth

Economic growth

In economics, economic growth is defined as the increasing capacity of the economy to satisfy the wants of goods and services of the members of society. Economic growth is enabled by increases in productivity, which lowers the inputs for a given amount of output. Lowered costs increase demand...

rate.

Gibson deplores the absence of an authentic metropolitan feeling, something which he blames for the "telling lack of creativity". He gives a psychogeographic account of the architecture of the city-state, noting the endless parade of young, attractive and generically attired middle class through the host of shopping centers, and comparing the city-state to the convention district of Atlanta, Georgia

Atlanta, Georgia

Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...

. He finds the selection in music stores and bookshops unrelentingly bland, musing whether this is partially attributable to the efforts of the Undesirable Propagation Unit (UPU), one of several state censorship agencies

Censorship in Singapore

Censorship in Singapore mainly targets sexual, political, racial and religious issues, as defined by out-of-bounds markers.-Implementation:The Media Development Authority approves publications, issues arts entertainment licences and enforces the Free-to-air TV Programme Code, Cable TV Programme...

. Amidst the near total absence of bohemianism

Bohemianism

Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits...

and counterculture

Counterculture

Counterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior...

, Gibson finds no trace of dissidence, an underground, or slums. In the place of a sex trade, the author finds government-sanctioned "health centers" – in fact massage parlours – and mandatory dating organised and enforced by government agencies. "[T]here is remarkably little", he writes of the city-state "that is not the result of deliberate and no doubt carefully deliberated social policy."

The creative deficit of the city-state is evident to the author also in the Singaporeans' obsession with consumerism as a pastime, the homogeneity of the retailers and their fare, and in what he characterises as their other passion: dining (although he finds fault with the diversity of the food, it is, he remarks "something to write home about"). He returns then to the theme of the staid insipidity of the city-state, observing the unsettling cleanliness of the physical environment and the self-policing of the populace. In detailing Singaporean technological advancement and aspirations as an information economy

Information economy

Information economy is a term that characterizes an economy with an increased emphasis on informational activities and information industry.The vagueness of the term has three major sources...

, Gibson casts doubt on the resilience of their controlled and conservative nature in the face of impending mass exposure to digital culture – "the wilds of X- rated cyberspace". "Perhaps", he speculates, "Singapore's destiny will be to become nothing more than a smug, neo-Swiss enclave of order and prosperity, amid a sea of unthinkable...weirdness."

Drawing towards the end of the essay, Gibson briefly covers two applications of the death penalty by the Singaporean justice system; he excerpts a report from The Straits Times
The Straits Times
The Straits Times is an English language daily broadsheet newspaper based in Singapore currently owned by Singapore Press Holdings . It is the country's highest-selling paper, with a current daily circulation of nearly 400,000...

about Mat Repin Mamat, a Malay man sentenced to death for attempting to smuggle a kilogram of cannabis

Cannabis

Cannabis is a genus of flowering plants that includes three putative species, Cannabis sativa, Cannabis indica, and Cannabis ruderalis. These three taxa are indigenous to Central Asia, and South Asia. Cannabis has long been used for fibre , for seed and seed oils, for medicinal purposes, and as a...

into the city-state, and follows this with a description of the case of Johannes Van Damme

Johannes van Damme

Johannes van Damme was a Dutch engineer executed by hanging in Singapore for smuggling heroin. He was the first European executed in Singapore since its independence....

, a Dutch engineer found with significant quantities of heroin with the same consequence. He expresses reservations about the justice of capital punishment, and describes the Singaporeans as the true bearers of zero tolerance

Zero tolerance

Zero tolerance imposes automatic punishment for infractions of a stated rule, with the intention of eliminating undesirable conduct. Zero-tolerance policies forbid persons in positions of authority from exercising discretion or changing punishments to fit the circumstances subjectively; they are...

. After hearing the announcement of Van Damme's sentencing, Gibson decides to leave, checks out "in record time" from the hotel, and catches a cab to the airport. The trip is conspicuous for the absence of police along the road, but there are an abundance of them at the Changi Airtropolis, where Gibson photographs a discarded piece of crumpled paper, incurring their ire. Flying into Hong Kong he briefly glimpses the soon-to-be-destroyed shantytown Kowloon Walled City

Kowloon Walled City

Kowloon Walled City was a densely populated, largely ungoverned settlement in Kowloon, Hong Kong. Originally a Chinese military fort, the Walled City became an enclave after the New Territories were leased to Britain in 1898....

at the end of one of the runways at the chaotic Kai Tak Airport

Kai Tak Airport

Kai Tak Airport was the international airport of Hong Kong from 1925 until 1998. It was officially known as the Hong Kong International Airport from 1954 to 6 July 1998, when it was closed and replaced by the new Hong Kong International Airport at Chek Lap Kok, 30 km to the west...

, and muses about the contrast with the staid and sanitised city-state he has left behind. The essay ends with the declaration "I loosened my tie, clearing Singapore airspace."

Impact and legacy

The Republic of Singapore responded to the publication of the article by banning

Censorship in Singapore

Wired from the country. The phrase "Disneyland with the death penalty" became a famous and widely-referenced description for the nation, adopted in particular by opponents of Singapore's perceived authoritarian

Authoritarianism

Authoritarianism is a form of social organization characterized by submission to authority. It is usually opposed to individualism and democracy...

nature. The city-state's authoritarian and austere reputation made it difficult to shake the description off; Creative Review
Creative Review
Creative Review is a monthly magazine targeted on the commercial arts and design scene. Creative Review has a circulation of around 20,000 readers. In general it focuses content on media originating in United Kingdom, Europe, and the United States, showcasing some of the best contemporary...

hailed it as "famously damning", while The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

associate editor R.W. Apple, Jr. defended the city-state in a 2003 piece as "hardly deserving of William Gibson's woundingly dismissive tag line". Reviewing the work in a 2003 blog post, Gibson wrote the following: "That Wired article may have managed to convey the now-cliched sense of Singapore as a creepy, anal-retentive city-state, but it didn't go nearly far enough in capturing the sheer underlying dullness of the place. It's a terrible *retail* environment. The endless malls are filled with shops selling exactly the same products, and it's all either the stuff that kicks Cayce

Cayce Pollard

Cayce Pollard is the fictional protagonist of William Gibson's 2003 novel Pattern Recognition.- Personal history :Aged 32 during the events of the Pattern Recognition, Cayce lives in New York City. Though named by her parents after Edgar Cayce, she pronounces her given name "Case"...

into anaphylactic shock or slightly sad local-industry imitations of same. You could easily put together a smarter outfit shopping exclusively in Heathrow." "Disneyland with the Death Penalty" was assigned as reading on the topic of "Singaporean progress" for a 2008 National University of Singapore

National University of Singapore

The National University of Singapore is Singapore's oldest university. It is the largest university in the country in terms of student enrollment and curriculum offered....

Writing & Critical Thinking course.

Critical reception

The article provoked a strong critical reaction. The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...

characterised it as a "biting piece on the technocratic state in Singapore". It was recommended by postmodern political geographer Edward Soja

Edward Soja

Edward William Soja is a postmodern political geographer and urban planner on the faculty at UCLA, where he is Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning, and the London School of Economics. He has a Ph.D. from Syracuse University...

as "a wonderful tour of the cyberspatial urbanities" of the city-state. Journalist Steven Poole

Steven Poole

-Biography:Poole studied English at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and has subsequently written for publications including The Independent, The Guardian, The Times Literary Supplement, The Sunday Times, and the New Statesman...

called it a "horrified report", and argued that it showed that the author "despises the seamless, strictured planes of corporate big business" and is "the champion of the interstitial". In a review of Gibson's 2010 novel Zero History
Zero History
Zero History is a novel by William Gibson. It concludes the informal trilogy begun by Pattern Recognition and features Hollis Henry and Milgrim from Spook Country, the middle book, as the protagonists.-Plot:...

for The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...

James Purdon identified "Disneyland" as one of the high points of Gibson's career, "a witty, perceptive piece of reportage, hinting at a non-fiction talent equal to the vision that had elevated Gibson to digital-age guru."

Philosopher and technology writer Peter Ludlow

Peter Ludlow

Peter Ludlow , who also writes under the name Urizenus Sklar, is a professor of philosophy at Northwestern University. Before moving to Northwestern, Ludlow taught at University of Toronto, the University of Michigan, and the State University of New York at Stony Brook...

interpreted the piece as an attack on the city, and noted as ironic the fact that the real Disneyland was in California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

—a place whose "repressive penal code includes the death penalty". Urban theorist Maarten Delbeke noted that Gibson cited the computerised control of the city-state as responsible for its sanitised inauthentic character, a claim Delbeke called "a conventional, almost old-fashioned complaint against technocracy". In a 2004 article in Forum on Contemporary Art & Society, Paul Rae commented that "[w]hile an ability to capture the zeitgeist is to be taken seriously in a context such as this one, Gibson’s journalistic reportage is inevitably unrefined", and cited the accusation of Singapore-based British academic John Phillips

John Phillips (academic)

Professor John Guest Phillips FRS FZS was Professor of Zoology from 1967-79 at the University of Hull and later Vice-Chancellor of Loughborough University from 1986-1987. He was educated at Llanelli Boys' Grammar School and the University of Liverpool. Elected FRS 1981...

that Gibson "fails to really think [his critiques] through".

In S,M,L,XL
S,M,L,XL
S,M,L,XL is a book by Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau, edited by Jennifer Sigler, with photography by Hans Werlemann.It was first published by Monacelli Press in 1995 in New York and 010 Publishers in Rotterdam...

(1995), urbanist and architectural theorist Rem Koolhaas

Rem Koolhaas

Remment Lucas Koolhaas is a Dutch architect, architectural theorist, urbanist and "Professor in Practice of Architecture and Urban Design" at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, USA. Koolhaas studied at the Netherlands Film and Television Academy in Amsterdam, at the Architectural...

took issue with the acerbic, ironic tone of the article, condemning it as a typical reaction by "dead parents deploring the mess [their] children have made of their inheritance". Koolhaas argued that reactions like Gibson's imply that the positive legacy of modernity

Modernity

Modernity typically refers to a post-traditional, post-medieval historical period, one marked by the move from feudalism toward capitalism, industrialization, secularization, rationalization, the nation-state and its constituent institutions and forms of surveillance...

can only be intelligently used by Westerner

Western world

The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...

s, and that attempts such as Singapore's at embracing the "newness" of modernity without understanding its history would result in a far-reaching and deplorable eradication.

Singaporean Tang Weng Hong in turn wrote a critical response to both Gibson and Koolhaas.

External links

"Disneyland with the Death Penalty" at Wired.com

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Synopsis

Impact and legacy

Critical reception

Related topics

External links