On Straits Times 1 December 2003, Mr. Scott Bedbury Branding guru advises Singapore to make its image more ‘human’ to make the country more appealing to people around the world. In short, he suggested that Singapore would benefit from having a ‘warmer’ image that could draw more investors to Singapore as well.

What was he driving at when he said that Singapore image should be more ‘human’? I believe he was telling us that Singapore should be a culture city and this means we got to make Art our future, Asian Renaissance here we come!!

Gone is the literature of the great cultural heroes, who struggled and suffered and succeeded in the grounding of a culture, a creed, and an ideal. Gone is the time, when novel and drama were built around simple personalities, who through their sincerity and selflessness in the struggles of their world, mirrored the problem of human life and at the same time opened a wider horizon of human possibilities – Where are the creative thinkers and visionaries of our time? Why great ideals are gone? Because in this Capitalist world human are too smart, no one is prepared to sacrifice to chase high ideal without any monetary gain.

Pico della Mirandola in his Oratio said, “nothing in the world can be found that is more worthy of admiration than man”, which is often considered as the manifesto of the Renaissance and of Humanism, we become conscious of the high degree which the dehumanization of life and especially the arts has reached in our time. When a journalist asked Andre Malraux, why in our time there are no longer paintings or sculptures of great men like in the renaissance, answered: “Because modern man does not believe any longer in man”. How are we going to bring back the faith in humanity?

My Belief

There is only one language
The language of our heart
Where we will unite as one
Thanks to God Almighty

There is only one religion
The religion of love
Art is the human expression of that love and love is God
Love is the connection to God Almighty

There is only one caste
The caste of humanity
Everyone is born equal
That's the gift of God Almighty

There is only one God
He is omnipresent
The power is to believe not to analyze
We must continue to have faith in God Almighty

- There is only One God belonging to all - Sunflower
1983

Through nurturing of arts with the understanding that “Art is the human expression of that love and Love is God. Love is the connection to God” we can bring back the faith in humanity. Art has spiritual power and the potential to be the Universal Language for the world, with this knowledge and wisdom I believe Art could shape the future with great faith because we need the future’s world to be rule with love and this balance is long over due for the whole of humanity.

Do Singaporeans understand why Bro. Jo sacrifice his entire life to build LaSalle? All these years of sacrifices what did he get out of it? He got nothing in term of monetary gain but what he got is the love of God. Like Bro Jo I too believed that Art got a hidden spiritual power and only those who believes in it could bring out this kind of power even without education. Sad to say that we have allowed Capitalism to take over the meaning of our existence, for this reason we witnessed so much violence in this present world. There is an urgent need to bring back the ‘Spirit of the Human Soul’ to save humanity.

A Great Nation must have Art as its core because true art is the best way to bring back our soul as it distracts you from the materialistic world. I know that art has a spiritual connection to ‘The Consciousness’ especially the performing arts. It cannot be bought. We cannot have art just because our leaders want it. We cannot just say, ”We have money now, we are ready for art, and we must have art”.

Similarly, the Government can’t just expect the citizens to produce babies, ”Now I wanted so much babies, go and produce and I will pay you so much per head”. It is very worrisome with such pragmatic attitude as I already heard young couples that just got married and they are delaying the pregnancy to wait for the Government announcement how much they will be pay per head. How can a strong and meaningful society evolved through Capitalist mean of you give me so much I will pay you so much? It is so sad and worrisome for future generation if this is the way to go in nation building?

I strongly believe once we allowed Capitalism to dominate the world, it will attack our minds, our culture, our religion and other things will become the target and this means our emotion is eliminated thus we can’t feel our soul because money has replaced our consciousness, thus a sense of Godliness in us!

Therefore, in our present society, the artists and us must be fully aware of our time and try to understand the criss-crossing and complex social and cultural problems before we will be able to contribute and reintegration by implanting an enthusiastic creativity into the growing generation. The artist must become a conscious and responsible co-worker in the struggle for permanent peace, solidarity and cooperation between the various national, religious and ideological groups, so that the present selfish attitude will disappear and what appear will be a better society feel with love and compassion for humanity. (The ‘Band Aid’ and ‘Live Aid’ spearhead by Mr Geldof was a very good example how one artist with ‘The Consciousness’ had made a different for the people in Ethiopia where the Capitalist world had turned a blind eyes to it suffering?) That is why I believe creative arts with its character are one of the greatest influences in social and cultural reconstruction because of its suggestive and evocative power.

There is also a great need to create the awareness that ‘Tolerance to World Cultures Diversity Equal Harmony’. The New World Order should make the effort to develop and then integrate World Cultures, instead of creating chaos for the entire world because without order and direction where will we be heading? The New World Order should be shaped by Artists whose creative imagination, feeling, compassion and intuition are able to penetrate deeper into ‘The Consciousness ‘ and ‘Sub-consciousness’ of man, so that man become moved, motivated and propelled to action and reach a harmonious world order and to achieve a new golden age, richer, more creative and, hopefully happier than the one the politicians, economists, religious and social leaders had given to us.

Many intellectuals will say that it might sound impossible or too far fetch for artists to take the lead to harmonize the world, but if you don’t try you will not know whether we could achieve it or not. “What people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can."- Henry David Thoreau. There is always the first time for everything and now the time is right to explore, as there is the need to expand our horizon into this untouched area. In order to fulfill or realize this high ideal we must as Singaporean be totally committed and dedicated to help each and everyone to understand the importance of bringing our soul back where it should belong to help build a stronger and freer Singapore, especially for future generation?

Mr. Lee Kuan Yew said that nothing is free in life; I understood that nothing would be given to you if you don’t strive or fight for it, even for ‘Freedom and Peace’, therefore instead of complaining I rather put my thoughts into actions? If there is no compassion in the system, then it is up to the citizens to strive for it, even if we got to go up to the Government to voice our concerns about the sad state of affairs in a progressing society like ours? Therefore, our social and cultural obligation to our children and their children is to enable Singaporeans to develop individual with revolutionary minds because that’s what Europe Renaissance is all about and thus the essence of art.

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