In 1999, Goh Chok Tong coined the term heartlanders and cosmopolitans to describe two kinds of Singaporeans. Heartlanders were the HDB-dwelling folk, of taxi-drivers, stallholders, shopowners, etc. Cosmopolitans were those who were highly educated, with an international outlook. Cosmopolitans were socially mobile, but risked becoming rootless. Heartlanders were less globalised, but they were authentic, and according to Goh, play[ed] a major role in maintaining our core values and social stability. (In my opinion this flawed heartlander-cosmopolitan typology was invented as a way to avoid discussing Singapore society in Marxist terms; the real division was between the haves and have-nots.) Just about a decade later, heartlander-cosmopolitan has been re-mapped on a population experiencing profound demographic shifts. New heartlanders are the Singapore-born, and the new cosmopolitans are the immigrants. The difference now is that the new heartlanders are more educated, more vocal, and are asserting their authenticity in unprecedented ways--such as the angry rejection of the deficient Singaporean-ness of the new cosmopolitans. Certainly theres something eerily prescient about Gohs pronouncement back then that the challenge for us...is to get the heartlanders to understand what the cosmopolitans contribute to Singapores and their own well-being, and to get the cosmopolitans to feel an obligation and sense of duty to the heartlanders.
Posted on: Mon, 05 May 2014 11:37:09 +0000
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