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Nation and conservation: postcolonial water narratives in Singapore rituals

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Nation and conservation: postcolonial water narratives in Singapore rituals

Abstract

Considering environmental themes at memorial sites for the late Lee Kuan Yew in comparison with environmental themes at National Day 2015 and SG50 (celebrating Singapore’s fiftieth year of independence), this paper focuses on two images of water: the Singapore River Clean-up and Water Wally, the iconic Public Utilities Board mascot. Have themes of sacrifice turned to themes of changing habits and rational pleasures? The National Day celebration, though entwined with memorials, and by design invoking postcolonial memory, was also a future-oriented celebration. Where they appeared, green and blue visions of the environmental good delineated necessities, but also hopes. Bringing together analysis of symbols and power, ritual and history, this article considers Singapore’s key environmental and postcolonial history in relation to a palette of red, green and blue cultural politics.

Summary

This article examines how environmental themes—specifically water—were deployed in Singapore’s national rituals in 2015, comparing the memorial sites for Lee Kuan Yew (March) with the National Day Parade and SG50 celebrations (August). Kaplan introduces a framework of “red, green and blue cultural politics” to trace how water narratives shifted from postcolonial sacrifice (red) through environmental sustainability (green) to a distinctive Singaporean sensibility of pleasure, engagement, and future-oriented hope (blue). The two central water images she tracks are the Singapore River clean-up and Water Wally, the Public Utilities Board mascot. The Singapore River story narrates the red politics of transformation from “third world to first,” while Water Wally embodies a blue politics in which conservation becomes a matter of desire and enjoyment rather than duty and sacrifice (pp. 126–127).

The core argument is that Singapore’s water narrative has undergone a political transformation. In the early postcolonial period, water security was inseparable from the fraught relationship with Malaysia and the imperative of national survival; the Singapore River clean-up, prominently displayed at tribute sites, narrates this red politics of state-led transformation. NEWater—though a product of the same visionary state—was not the focus of memorial imagery. Instead, Water Wally, introduced alongside NEWater in 2005, became the vehicle through which Singaporeans express affection for their water system, and the ABC Waters programme reframed the engineered water infrastructure as a site of public enjoyment rather than restriction (pp. 129–134).

Primary sources include Kaplan’s own ethnographic fieldwork at tribute sites (Marina Barrage, Botanic Gardens), observation of the 2015 National Day Parade, and analysis of PUB signage, poster boards, and the “What Makes Us, Us?” SG50 sticker campaign distributed to all Singaporean households (pp. 129–133).

Key Findings

  • Singapore’s water demand was 380 million gallons per day at the time of writing, expected to double to 760 million gallons per day by 2060 (p. 127).
  • Long-term water agreements with Malaysia were signed in 1961 and 1962, fixing prices until 2011 and 2061 respectively; the 2061 agreement remained in force (p. 127).
  • NEWater, formally introduced to the public drinking system on National Day 2002, had passed more than 130,000 scientific tests and met up to 30% of the nation’s water needs, with plans to triple capacity to meet 55% of future demand by 2060 (p. 132).
  • Water Wally was introduced by PUB in 2005 and appeared at every National Day Parade thereafter; by SG50 he was selected as one of 50 “What Makes Us, Us?” icons sent to all Singaporean households (pp. 131–133).
  • Sixteen community tribute sites were established for Lee Kuan Yew, plus two additional environmental sites: Marina Barrage and the Botanic Gardens (p. 129).
  • The Botanic Gardens was inscribed as Singapore’s first UNESCO World Heritage site in August 2015 (p. 127).

Conclusion

Kaplan argues that Singapore’s water narrative has sutured red politics of prudence and necessity with green duties to nature and blue stories of future enjoyment and hope. The shift from sacrifice to pleasure—embodied in Water Wally’s “deliberate childishness”—represents a new social contract in which conservation is a desire rather than a duty, a moral attribute rather than a compromise. However, she cautions that this blue politics may be less binding than past social contracts grounded in sacrifice, and that the public’s ready acceptance of debts to past successes “may no longer be renewable” (p. 135).

Context

  • Kaplan’s fieldwork was conducted at Singapore tribute sites in 2010, 2012, and 2015, and at the 2015 National Day Parade; the study draws on her broader comparative project Water Cultures: Fiji, New York, Singapore (p. 125).
  • The article contributes to the historiography of Singapore’s national rituals (building on Kong & Yeoh 1997; Leong 2001) and introduces the “red, green and blue” cultural politics framework as a tool for analyzing postcolonial environmental narratives across national contexts (pp. 126, 134).

References