Nations

This is just about the time for the National Day Parade in Singapore. Curiously it’s not at all like a parade, more like a kind of mass-participatory cabaret show. The usual venue, the National Stadium, is about to be demolished to make way for something bigger and better. This is the expected fate of almost everything on the island and lends to the place a curious sense of being constantly in transit – it’s as if one is permanently seated in a particularly well-provided for waiting lounge, ready for the gate to the future to open. So this year the parade will take place on a kind of temporary stage out on the water, as far as I understand it. It will be a big success, as it has to be, and Singapore will take one step closer to convincing itself it is a nation.

When I first came here, back in 1988, I found the stress on nationhood startling, especially as it manifests itself in schools. Given the unlikeliness of Singapore being a nation at all the fuss made about being Singaporean was understandable but generally tiresome. I mean it’s a fairly interesting experiment to carve a sense of nationhood out of almost nothing, but it seems curiously besides the point in a world in which national borders are becoming ever more doubtful. But it seems to keep the younger kids amused, though there’s a dangerous degree of cynicism amongst teenagers and young adults about the whole enterprise. For myself, I can live with it all but I think I have less sympathy now with nationalisms of any shade than I have ever felt before. I suppose I occasionally feel some pride in being English when I hear Jerusalem sung, but that’s because it feels good to be born in a country that has adopted such a weird and wonderfully eccentric piece as somehow representing the nation. And there’s always Blake himself to be proud of, the quintessentially English poet. Shakespeare doesn’t count as he has always been beyond nationality.

Here at Maison KL, safely far away from the strains of Stand Up For Singapore, I’ve been treating myself to a bit of Bach at home (the Brandenburg concertos) and a lot of the Temptations in the car (driving out to the post office at Ampang Point this afternoon to pay some bills). Noi has already got the place clean and Devan has been round to poison any termites that might dare to lunch on our (plentiful) wood. I’ve said it before, and I daresay I’ll say it again – with a full sense that I’m incredibly lucky to be able to say it at all: life is good, very.