“What a fine place” — that’s the joke about Singapore. It’s a play on words, a double meaning; it’s both a nice place and somewhere that you’ll get fined for almost anything, including spitting, chewing gum, littering and not wearing a seatbelt.
You can also be fined, like almost everywhere else in the world, for street performing. However, the permit system is the best I’ve come across. The following may sound like I’m pro permits. I’m not: the moment you have one, people can be denied permission, which infringes on everybody’s right to sing in the street. However, if there has to be a permit system, this might be the right one. Comments are welcome.
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SINGAPORE’S PERMIT SYSTEM
Origins
There wasn’t always a permit system. But like most other areas of constraint in Singapore, a genuine concern for the welfare of society has misguidedly led them to extend political control to street performance. How that came about is a fascinating story.
The permit was put in place thanks to the actions of a single individual, Joseph Ng.
“In 1994 Josef Ng, a performing artist, snipped his pubic hair before a small audience in a symbolic protest against police entrapment of gays, punishment by flogging, jail sentences for “victimless” crimes, and news media exposure of those convicted. He was fined $1,000 for committing an obscene act, and prohibited from future public performances; the organiser was fined under the Public Entertainment Act; the performance group was barred from receiving any grant or assistance; and the government declared a general rule forbidding all performances without fixed scripts (Government Acts, 1994). Singapore now requires the prior submission of scripts from applicants for public entertainment acts. (biotechnics.org)
From that moment on, buskers would now need to have their entire act approved. There’s probably a wonderful short story out there about the government fining a musician for getting the lyrics to their own song wrong…
The National Arts Council (NAC) issued this statement:
“NAC finds the acts vulgar and completely distasteful, which deserve public condemnation. By no stretch of the imagination can such acts be construed and condoned as art. Such acts, in fact, debase art and lower the public’s esteem for art and artists in general.
If an artist has any grievances there are many other proper ways to give vent to their feelings. Artists with talent do not have to resort to antics in order to draw attention to themselves or to communicate their feelings or ideas.”
[No antics? Does this include all tomfoolery and hijinks?]
So, one man bares his pubes, and Singapore’s street scene is changed forever. For a complete report of the controversy, click here. And for an entertaining read on Joseph Ng’s protest, click here.
Specifics of the permit
The permit is awarded after an audition process, apparently based on “competency and skill in performance, expression and confidence in performance, engagement with the audience, and innovation and originality”. Here’s a run down of the rest:
There is no limit to the number of people who can get a permit, and roughly 5/6 of entrants pass the audition
It’s free
They do auditions 4 times a year
Busking is permitted from 10 a.m. to 10:30 p.m.
The Result
Removing the permit system wouldn’t have much of an effect on the busking scene in Singapore. It’s impossible to know how many people are put off by the audition process, but the system isn’t even enforced thoroughly —the police only harass people who have been complained about.
My gut feeling is that Singapore is just too neat and tidy to have much of a street scene. You only see tourists outside. Everyone else is underground in these cavernous and never-ending shopping malls around which the rest of the city is placed. If aliens landed in Singapore they’d think that we had shopping malls so big that we were required to build cities around them.
And what would a busker scene even look like in a booming financial city without a counterculture movement? We were only there for a week, but the people we spoke to, artists who you would expect to know something about this, hadn’t heard of any rebellious groups. Of the Singaporeans we met, the city’s harshest critic was upset: there are too many unused guitars in Singapore. Kids leave them in cupboards to collect dust. He is trying to start a movement to change that.
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So, what do you think?