ABSTRACT
Gramscian hegemony is not a static formation, but a dynamic process of ideological struggles, a ‘constant battlefield’ where there are ‘always strategic positions to be won and lost’ and where ‘complex contradictions’ drive a dialectical politics of complicity and resistance in civil society (Hall, 1994: 460). The PAP government’s ideological ‘success’ does not mean that its ideological work has come to an end (Chua, 1995). Contemporary challenges from globalization and its attendant disjunctures have meant that the PAP government has to work even harder and more creatively to maintain ideological consensus. In particular, ideological work is heightened in moments of national crisis (Sim, 2006). This chapter discusses the occasions for ideological work, focusing on two congregational mechanisms – the annual National Day Rally speech and the periodic national-level public envisioning exercises – through which the people may be persuaded (rather than forced) to comply with the dominant ideology, rally around a consensus defined as the national interest, and thus maintain order and stability that, in the first instance, benefits the dominant interests of the elite.
