ABSTRACT
Singapore's government knew that it was faced with a dire need for a paradigm shift. It must continue to reinvent itself or stagnate. There have been signs in recent years that the government, under Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, is doing that, is trying to loosen up, with perhaps spotty results. There was a public relations campaign, for example, to demonstrate that Singapore is indeed a 'funky town' that has its own wild side to walk on. Censorship and diminished creativity in Singapore had been necessary, and sometimes from the creative person's point of view, unfortunate, but it had helped the nation arrive at a higher developmental state without undue hindrance. When Japan rebuilt after World War II, it brought manufacturing techniques and a method of developing states to modernity within decades that could be emulated, as Singapore has demonstrated.
