Singapore - the manufactured city

I spent two weeks in Singapore at the end of February with a friend who was having radio therapy. Enjoyed it, inspite of myself. But there are somethings that are very disturbing.

For instance, everything in Singapore is manufactured, to near perfection maybe, but manufactured and unspontaneous nevertheless.

Take the Night Safari, the Jurong Bird Park , both leisure centres, manufactured for the recreational needs of Singaporeans. Why travel to the Mara or to Serengeti or to Kruger when its been brought right into your neighbourhood?

Take the trees, many of them rootballed from the Malaysian forests I am told, planted always in a row, with branches growing like the arms of dancers in a synchronised ballet.

Take the most frightening manufacture - Singapore Firepower, proudly "better, smarter and more lethal" (My paper, Thursday, February 21) Showcased at the Singapore Airshow during the time of my visit. First of its kind, the Redback Weapon System - a lightweight multibarrel 40mm weapon fires ammunition electronically, and allows the weapon to go hot immediately after long periods of dormancy. Also able to be fired remotely. Also a low cost compact personal weapon (CPW), low recoil and accurate, that combines the designs of hand held compact pistols and sophisticated sighting systems with a retractable butt-stock feature of a full sized sub machine gun. Singapore has big ambitions in the highly cut throat arms manufacturing business, according to the Vice President of Singapore Technologies Kinetics, who produce these firearms.

But small arms are particularly dangerous. According to the International Action Network on Small Arms

• Modern conflicts claim an estimated half a million people each year. 300,000 of these are from conflicts, and 200,000 are from homicides and suicides. Over 80 percent of all these casualties have been civilian 90 percent of civilian casualties are caused by small arms. This is far higher than the casualty count from conventional weapons of war like tanks, bomber jets or warships.
• Estimates of the black market trade in small arms range from US$2-10 billion a year.
• Every minute, someone is killed by a gun
• At least 1,134 companies in 98 countries worldwide are involved in some aspect of the production of small arms and/or ammunition.
• Civilians purchase more than 80% of all the firearms that are currently manufactured worldwide each year.
• There are at least 639 million firearms in the world today, of which 59% are legally held by civilians.

So even if Singapore Firepower can boost Singapore's GDP, this contribution seems rather sinister, given that the city state is so easily accessible to the countries in South Asia and South East Asia that are struggling with violence brought on, among other things, by the proliferation of small arms.