Critical Studies in Mass Communication

ISSN: 0739-3180 (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcsm19

Culture and the state: Manufacturing traditions for

tourism
WaiTeng Leong
To cite this article: WaiTeng Leong (1989) Culture and the state: Manufacturing
traditions for tourism, Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 6:4, 355-375, DOI:
10.1080/15295038909366762
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15295038909366762

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Critical Studies in Mass Communication

6 (1989), 355-375

Culture and the State: Manufacturing

Traditions for Tourism
WAI-TENG LEONG
O Most scholars in cultural studies treat culture either as a relatively autonomous
sphere of human activity or as largely influenced by economic forces. As a result, they
fail to consider the role of the state in the production, patterning, preservation, or
prohibition of culture. This essay is a case study of how the state in Singapore
influences the production and patterning of cultures through the policy of national
tourism. National tourism is a central part of the nation-building process in newly
independent nation-states, where a national culture is actively created and projected
to the international polity and international mass market. The chief image of national
tourism in Singapore is the diversity of ethnic "traditions": the lifestyles, food,
religious rituals, and customs of selected groups are simultaneously advertised and
manufactured for the potential tourist to sample, savour, and see. This policy of
national tourism has important implications on the way cultures of ethnicity are
lived.
N THE last few years, the institutional
Iduced
growth of cultural studies has proa wealth of theories and methodologies for the cultural analysis of a wide
range of phenomena: media, the arts,
literature, value systems, beliefs, ideologies, youth styles, etc. The catalog of
theoretical perspectives runs from
Marxism (Raymond Williams) to structuralism (Roland Barthes) to archaeology (Michel Foucault) to feminism
(Laura Mulvey).
Many of these important perspectives
enable us to make sense of the links
between culture as signifying practices
and subjective reality of people and
Mr. Leong is a doctoral candidate in Sociology and Communication, University of California, San Diego.

structures of power and domination,

comprising institutions and social groupings of class, gender, and generation.
Certain versions of Marxist analysis of
culture (such as the work of the Centre
for Contemporary Cultural Studies)
show how economic institutions and
structures of class shape both the forms
of cultural configuration and the lived
reality of social groups. And some media
scholars convincingly demonstrate the
cultural hegemony and power of media
institutions in shaping the discourse of
other institutions and groups of people
(Gitlin, 1980).
Nevertheless, very few of these perspectives offer any theoretical insights on
the relationship between culture and the
state. State agencies are, after all, also
institutional structures of dominance and
Copyright 1989, SCA

356

MANUFACTURING TRADITIONS

DECEMBER 1989

power. And very often, these state struc- a professional group of historians. This
tures themselves influence the develop- version may or may not be discrepant
ment of those economic and media insti- from the culture of history that is verbaltutions that have a determinate impact ized ("oral histories") or not directly
on culture and social relations (Hall, articulated but that nevertheless "be1986). The absence of a space in cultural longs" to groups of people.
analyses for theorizing the role of the
The culture of the past is not monopostate does not necessarily mean that such lized by educational institutions; other
theories are inherently weak in explain- groups and institutions, such as the state,
ing issues of culture and power. Rather, capital, "high culture" institutions, volit means that there is a lacuna of research untary groups (historical societies or
that needs to be filled and that such preservation movements), and people in
research can further advance our under- general, create versions of history. These
standing of culture.
different versions are linked to a strucThe first step in an attempt to unravel ture of interests (Popular Memory
the relationship between culture and Group, 1982, p. 208). Thus, entreprepower, between culture and the state, is neurs mass produce history in the form
to recognize that culture is more than of novels, coffee-table book collections,
just a way of life comprising symbols, and a paraphernalia of nostalgia in the
objects, beliefs, values, customs, and interests of profit making, while museum
practices. Culture is also a tussle in curators select a range of products of the
which particular ways of life, or repre- past to sanctify either as forms of "high
sentations of those ways of life, are con- culture" or "folk culture."
tested and defended, manufactured and
If different groups create versions of
resisted, colonized and opposed. Consid- the past according to different purposes
er, for instance, the culture of the past or and interests, then the culture of history
"cultural traditions." Raymond Wil- is located in the arena of politics: given a
liams (1980, p. 39) points out that what multitude of various forms of history and
pass off as "cultural traditions" or "the various agents of historical production,
significant past" are actually selective there will always be struggles or contests
traditions: "From a whole possible area over visions and versions of the past.
of past and present, certain meanings Herein lies the politics of culture: Why
and practices are chosen for emphasis, are certain practices singled out as culcertain other meanings and practices are tural traditions while others are forgotneglected and excluded. .. . Some of ten or ignored? Who, in particular, links
these meanings and practices are reinter- people and practices to the past and for
preted, diluted, or put into forms which what purposes? Who defines the cultural
support or at least do not contradict other traditions for which groups? Which
elements within the effective dominant group is able to impose its version of the
culture."
past on other groups and why?
But cultural tradition is not just selecIn an attempt to make sense of the
tively screened or invented; there can be relationship between culture and the
many versions of that culture, and these state, I address these issues. The prelimivariants are related to different social nary part of this essay establishes why
groups. Thus, "academic history" is the the culture of the past is central for state
institutionalized version of the culture of elites in the process of nation building.
the past that is "owned" and guarded by An instance of this culture of the past is

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found in the imagery of national tourism.

I then focus on how certain cultural
images are selected and manufactured by
state elites for national tourism. The case
study focuses on Singapore, a relatively
new nation-state. National tourism and
related state policies, the case study suggests, can have an important influence on
cultural forms and categories that shape
and pattern the lives of social groupings.

THE STATE AND

CULTURAL TRADITION
The issue of culture and power often
implicates the role of the state. The state
is an institutional system of political
domination that is based largely on the
monopoly of legitimate use of violence
within a given territory (Weber, 1958, p.
78). The state is a relatively autonomous
power group with its own structure and
history; while, under certain circumstances, it may be subservient to economic or other interests of other groups,
by and large it has its own interests and
goals.
But the state is more than just an
organ of power. In one sense, the state is
a cultural group itself, typified by spectacles of elaborate display (Williams,
1984, p. 3). Thus, representatives or
personifications of the state, such as
kings, queens, presidents, and ministers,
participate in a theater of pageantries,
coronations, jubilees, and ceremonies.
The ostentation of such state ceremonies
involves a visual display of power. Just
as in commercial sports where championship trophies and rituals of triumph
have rallying significance because they
are about competition and honor, so state
ceremonies often celebrate and display
prizes of war victories, of political control over other states, or of political resistance from previous powers. Various

LEONG

state apparatuses, such as the parliament, the presidential system, the constitution, the law, the military, and the
public school (Mangan, 1986), engage in
rituals that evoke an aura of national
pride and often a tradition of imperialistic power and domination over other
states.
States rely mostly on historical symbols to rally the citizenry in a collective
ritual of nation building and national
unification. Public holidays and national
festivities that commemorate things,
people, or events of the past often represent state attempts to create social cohesion and corporate identity or to mobilize
public sentiments into certain actions.
The impact of the visual splendor of state
ceremonies and holidays is to jostle our
collective memory, reminding us that
some things or events have to be remembered. Thus, the collective memory of a
"National Day" or "Independence
Day" celebrates the liberation from colonial tutelage and cements people into
new efforts of social and economic reconstruction. More often than not, such state
rituals seek to transform loyalty to the
previous authoritative order into allegiance to the new elites.
In the context of newly independent
countries, the culture of the past is a
central concern of state elites in their
attempts to unify, manage, and rule the
newly franchised populace. Indeed,
states actively manufacture cultures as
part of the wider construction of a
nation-state and national identity. After
the two world wars, many new states
were created in Africa and Southeast
Asia, particularly in the context of decolonization. Many of these states were
not nations because "nations" are both
cultural and political entities, and cultural homogeneity or identity were precisely absent in these ethnically plural
societies. Where state development pre-

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MANUFACTURING TRADITIONS

dates the emergence of a nation, state

authorities have to actively construct
some cultural basis for the maintenance
of political cohesion within the territory
of the state. Nationalism is one among
many hegemonic attempts by state
authorities to create a culture of consent
to a new nation-state. State elites attempt
to construct a "popular" culture that is at
the same time a "national" culture.
Nationalism is based on feelings of
cultural identity and belonging to a cultural group, represented as "the Nation." Since there is no single culture
common to all members of a society who
reside within the territory of the state,
nationalism is always an artificial construct, a myth or ideology created by
state intellectuals or elites. The culture
of the nation-state is in fact an "imagined
community":

DECEMBER 1989

claims to defend and revive are often its own

inventions, or are modified out of all recognition.

This is the case because though it stresses

the folk, "nationalism becomes important precisely when these things become
artificial. Genuine peasants or tribesmen, however proficient at folk-dancing,
do not generally make good nationalists"
(Gellner, 1964, p. 152).
The creation of nationalism is evident
in the way history textbooks are rewritten in order to fabricate or glorify some
events or traditions (Ferro, 1984; Sullivan, 1985, p. 65). A new history is
contrived also through the erection of
monuments and museums, and new or
past heroes are worshipped in the spirit
of nationalism. Cultural nationalism
thus preserves, recreates, and/or invents
a national heritage through the revival
and transformation of some events, pracimagined because the members of even the tices, or people. The manifest function of
smallest nation will never know most of their this creation and re-creation of culture is
fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of to build a national identity to unify the
them, yet in the minds of each lives the image
of their communion.... It is imagined as a diverse social groups for the purposes of
community, because regardless of the actual government and mobilization for ecoinequality and exploitation that may prevail nomic development. The latent function
in each, the nation is always conceived as a of this "national culture" is the developdeep, horizontal comradeship. (Anderson, ment of xenophobia and national ethno1983, pp. 15-16)
centrism because a sense of pride of one
nation involves in part a sense of disdain
In the ideology of nationalism, state for the achievements of another nation. A
intellectuals vehemently reject the sense of loyalty to one nation amounts to
former colonial or authoritative order at best a sense of indifference to, or at
and recoil from the culture of the past in- worst a sense of distrust of, another
attempts to conjure romantic myths nation.
about "folk heritage" and national traditions. Ernest Gellner (1983, p. 55) notes
that
Admittedly, nationalism uses the pre-existing, historically inherited proliferation of
cultures or culture wealth, though it uses
them very selectively, and it most often transforms them radically. Dead languages can be
revived, traditions invented, quite fictitious
pristine purities restored.... The cultures it

NATIONAL TOURISM AND

THE STATE

The relationship between culture and

the state can be understood in the context
of newly independent countries and some
of their policies that directly and indirectly affect cultural groups. Newly

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independent countries are interesting

cases for studying the role of the state in
shaping culture because here the state's
role is overt, stemming from its direct
involvement in economic planning, nation building, and social engineering.
Political independence from colonial
powers has conferred extensive powers
to many state elites in Third World
countries. The state in many of these
countries has inherited from colonial
powers a centralized bureaucracy and a
monopoly of legitimate use of force (police and military). The state also has
come to assume a dominant role by virtue
of its competitive drive toward economic
modernization. It has taken rein over
various institutions (education, media,
social control agencies) in attempts to
forge new national identities and citizen
loyalty.
Part of the nation-building effort
involves economic development, and
most states have taken an interest in
tourism as part of economic planning.
Tourism offers an alternative to a declining export industry which was formerly
developed in relation to colonial powers.
Tourism also is a potential generator of
foreign exchange (Wood, 1979, p. 277).
For example, virtually all Southeast
Asian countries have actively promoted
international tourism in the last 20
years.
The link between the state and tourism lies not only in the fact that tourism
is a source of foreign exchange income
which states seek to reap but also in the
role tourism plays in national image
management. A given nation-state always seeks to be a cultural and political
entity, distinct and separate from other
nation-states. And national tourism
presents images to the international
world of the distinctiveness of the
nation-state. The cultural image of the
nation-state as presented in tourist

LEONG

paraphernalia and travel brochures is

therefore both political and economic.
National tourism projects to the international polity a distinctive image of what
the nation is and to the international
market a selling image for drawing visitors and travellers into the country.
The economic and political aspects of
tourism therefore compel state elites to
be concerned with tourism. Most states
have taken a unilateral role in tourism,
becoming planners of tourist development, marketers of cultural meanings,
and arbiters of cultural practices (Wood,
1984, p. 353). Certain aspects of culture
of the past (e.g., traditions of some cultural groups) have been selected, transformed, and represented as a "national
heritage" or "national tradition" of that
country and then marketed for tourism.
In this way, certain visions of history, of
tradition, of heritage, real or fabricated,
have been produced for tourist consumption.
Ironically, these versions of history or
these invented traditions, although targeted at the visitor, the foreigner, and the
tourist, do affect locals because the locals
themselves often visit the tourist places in
their own country. Many of the monuments, statues, and shrines are constructed not only for touristic attractions
but also for indoctrinating into the local
citizens a sense of the nation's past and
achievements. Thus, schoolchildren who
are shepherded through national museums are given a lesson about their
national heritage. Images of the past in
this way can serve the dual function of
national tourism and nationalism.

TOURISM AND HISTORY

Because a sense of the past often looms
large in tourists' images of a place or
setting, tourism entrepreneurs play on
images of the past for mass consumption.

360

MANUFACTURING TRADITIONS

Meanings of the past are produced and

reproduced in tourism in various forms:
Historical Tourism. A sense of history
is often an integral part of tourist attractions. Many places that were previously
sites of symbolically significant events or
of the homes of famous personalities are
now a resource for the tourist industry.
Shrines, museums, and monuments are
all memorializing structures (Jackie,
1985, p. 300). Museums selectively preserve the past for exhibition to locals and
foreigners. Monuments and statues are
contrived erections that both attract the
tourist and at the same time glorify a
version of the past. Antiquity itself can
be a resource: tourism can transform
feelings of the past into sentimental nostalgia so that hideous desolation can
become romantic ruins (Jackie, 1985, p.
288).
History in Tourism. While certain
sites gain a tourist following by virtue of
some historically significant event or
personality, or by virtue of some spectacular contemporary display of a glorified
past, there is always an element of history in all other forms of nonhistorical
tourism. Places which are visited for
reasons of cultural or ethnic appeal bear
traces of "quaint," "exotic," or "folk"
customs or practices that imply continuity with the past. Tourism always
emphasizes, among other things, the uniqueness of a place, not only in terms of its
history or historical significance but also
its traditions. Even scenic landscapes
which ostensibly have no association
with any historically significant event
have a history of their own. Thus, those
who travel miles to see canyons and
volcanic structures are often given an
account of how these rock formations
evolve and develop through centuries of
time. In general, all landscapes are
infused with memories of one sort or
another (Lowenthal, 1975).

DECEMBER 1989

Packaged History. Tourist literature

(guidebooks, tour maps, brochures, and
pamphlets) presents in written form the
historical tourism and the history in
tourism. Similarly, tour guides not only
tell of geography but also recount the
history of a given geography. Both the
tourist literature and the tour guide
explicity convey the historical images of
a place.
Tourists' Sense of History. The historical images that are encapsulated in
monuments and places or that are narrated by tour guides and tourist literature are presented to the tourist. But
what messages are ultimately received by
the tourist? That is an empirical question. Much would depend on the type of
tourists (Cohen, 1972; 1974), the phenomenology of their experiences (Cohen,
1979), and their motivations for travel
(Smith, 1989).
Re-reconstructed History. Tourists
take snapshots and collect souvenirs
which evoke or embody a sense of the
place in time. Photographs and mementos freeze history and provide visual
memory of the experience of a history of
a place. Many tourists enjoy recollecting
memories of the tour as much, if not
more, as taking the tour itself. So the
returning tourist gives a narrative of
these snapshots and souvenirs to friends
and relatives, recounting the packaged
history of the objects and the place
visited, all these constituting the history
of his or her own experience. These same
friends and relatives may at some future
date visit the places and may rely on the
recounted narrative as a framework or
prism to interpret or reinterpret the collective memory of these tourist attractions.
There are, in short, a chain of processes through which the culture of history is produced and reproduced in tour-

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ism and a range of touristic products that

embody that history.

NATIONAL TOURISM
IN SINGAPORE
The links between the culture of the
past and national tourism, between culture and the state, can be more concretely
understood in an empirical case study of
how the state affects cultural configuration through mass production of cultural
images and traditions for the tourist
economy. Singapore is an island country
in Southeast Asia that was formerly a
British colony. The period of selfgovernment began in 1959. For the past
two decades, Singapore has been ruled
by a political party of elites that has
dominated through various strategies to
eliminate or foreclose external opposition and internal dissent. The dominance
of a single political party without any
significant countervailing center of
power has meant that government, public bureaucracies, and party are virtually
synonymous institutions or categories.
In Singapore, then, the presence of the
state, represented by the political party
of elites, is everywhere felt. The state is a
conductor in an economic orchestra of
local corporate capitalism and multinational investments. It has a virtual
monopoly in education, social services,
and public utilities. It is the major landlord, since more than 80% of the population lives in state housing. Forms of
communication, such as television, radio,
telephone, and new communication technologies, are state owned, while the news
media and entertainment machinery of
film and popular music are state controlled through licensing, censorship,
and import restrictions. In short, every
institutional sphere of social life is in one
form or another under the vigil of the
state.

LEONG

The Singapore Tourist Promotion

Board (STPB) is a state organization
that actively seeks to draw tourists from
the Asian and the Western worlds. This
organization sells "Singapore" overseas
through regional offices in Zurich, London, West Germany, New York, Los
Angeles, Paris, Sydney, Auckland, Taipei, and Tokyo. In addition to extensive
local and foreign advertising which
appears in the Los Angeles Times, The
Washington Post, and The New York
Times, the STPB issues official licenses
to approved tour guides in Singapore.
One of the many massive campaigns
the STPB has conducted was in 1978,
when 200,000 buttons, 17,000 posters,
27,000 stickers, and intensive radio and
television advertising were used to convey the image, "Courtesy is our way of
life," with happy and smiling faces of
Singaporeans beckoning the viewers to
visit the country (Wood, 1984, p. 369). A
nationwide education on courtesy was
conducted, especially among cabdrivers,
travel agents, airline staff, sales clerks,
and food vendors, groups that were likely
to interact with tourists.
Tourism in Singapore is a big business: earnings from tourism have
increased from U.S.$30.7 million
(SS64.6 m) in 1964 to U.SJ1991.8 million (SS4182.9m) in 1983. The country
received, in the single year of 1984, 2.9
million visitors, which contrasts with the
total population of 2.4 million people.
("What Makes Our City," 1985, p. 8)
This figure jumped to 3.2 million tourists in 1986 (Buang, 1987) and 4 million
in 1988.

SANITIZING CULTURES
The intrinsic nature of tourism is contrivance. Resorts and places are structured and promoted to attract the tourist.

362

MANUFACTURING TRADITIONS

Even places that were previously in a

state of untouched nature become different as soon as they draw a tourist
crowd, and economic entrepreneurs or
the state begin to market them. There is
always an element of invention or transformation of place, of history, of traditions in marketing for tourism.
In Singapore, the transformation of
landscapes and of styles or means of
livelihood has been quite drastic. Before
political independence in 1965, when
tourism was not a conscious product of
planning, Singapore was like any other
Southeast Asian city, an apparently
haphazard maze and mix of diverse land
uses (McGee, 1967). There were no
zoning laws; the central business district
was the hub of day and night life; highrise multinational commercial skyscrapers stood beside the low-rise merchant
shops of the local petty bourgeoisie;
hawkers and peddlers sold fish, vegetables, meat, and general produce on the
street pavements. On the coastal sections
of the city-state were fishing villages
where huts, crudely built but functionally adequate, stood on stilts (kelongs),
with little river boats (sampans and
bumboats) tottering along with thewaves on the shores. Such styles of livelihood evolved even before the arrival and
establishment of the British Empire in
1819. Indeed, Singapore was then a fishing village and trading port, and immigrants from various parts of China preceded the colonization of the country. In
this regard, the ostensibly confusing mix
of street peddlers, trading merchants,
and fishing villages legitimately constituted the living, unplanned traditions of
the country. The development of tourism
has meant that these real traditions have
been supplanted somewhat by contrived
traditions.
The transformation of place was part
of an overall urban process of growth

DECEMBER 1989

and planning. But the role of tourism has

been significant. Two of the multitudinous mass campaigns instituted during
the early years of independence were
"Keep Singapore Clean" and "Towards
a Green Garden City." Both these selfconscious images of the new nation-state
were the efforts to reconstruct and transform a new environment for tourism and
urban development. Streets and roads
were rebuilt, as far as possible, after the
American gridiron pattern and replaced
the British style of winding, unplanned
streets. Parks and open spaces were
landscaped with new forms of greenery.
A September date was officially proclaimed as "annual tree-planting day,"
and ministers of state visited schools,
government offices, and community centers for a ceremonial ritual of tree planting. Fruit trees were replaced by decorative trees to avoid the sight of rotten
fruits dropping from the trees. Shop
owners were told to tidy up their frontages. Littering on the streets became a
public offense punishable by a U.S.$250
(S$500) fine while spitting on the sidewalk was liable to a U.S.$50 (S$100)
fine.
These cleaning campaigns included
the cleansing of cultural forms that were
considered unappealing to tourists.
Thus, the ingredients of what urban
economists call the "informal sector" of
economic production consisting of laborintensive but low-capital inputshawking, petty commodity production, cottage
industries, and night bazaars on street
pavements (pasar malam)progressively were eradicated. Hawking on the
streets became illegal and led to the
disappearance of open-air restaurants.
The keeping of domesticated fowl and
the growing of vegetables on home garden plots, common activities of traditional households for supplementary
subsistence, had been outlawed by state

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housing authorities. In such ways, the

real traditions of livelihood and economic
activities were suppressed.
The cleaning and cleansing of the
city-state have been so successful that
foreign travel guidebooks and foreign
observers have commented on the tidiness and cleanliness of the city, comments which suggest sometimes that the
city is antiseptic and clinically clean.
Why the state authorities chose to spruce
up the city instead of encouraging the
blossoming of street life is a difficult
question. Erik Cohen (1972, p. 171)
points out that the majority of international tourists originate from affluent
Western nations and that the facilities
provided for tourists must be commensurate with the expectations of these Westerners.
Many of the state officials in Singapore were educated in England and
America, and the prime minister was a
graduate of Cambridge University. The
image of a "clean-green" garden city
sold by the tourist industry could be
related to these state authorities' perceptions of the tastes and demands of Western tourists. However, there is always an
element of compromise or negotiation
between Western demands and local
supply, for while the affluent Western
tourists might feel comfortable with
familiar facilities, they also expect the
novelty and mystery of the exotic East.
In consequence, the tourist infrastructure of facilities is based on a blend of
Western standards and local flavor. For
example, the interior decoration of an
international hotel in Singapore is laced
with a jumble of foreign and local
designs. The upholstery may be designed
for the comfort of the Western visitor,
but the materials (rattan, cane, and
wood) may be indigenous to give a sense
of local peculiarity. Local food served in
international hotels is usually diluted

LEONG

(such as in the reducing of spices) and

served with forks and spoons rather than
chopsticks.

MANUFACTURING
THE EXOTIC
Without exception, the mass tourist
demands novelty and uniqueness of
place. The marketing of any given tourist attraction must therefore emphasize
the distinctiveness of place: for instance,
its peculiar scenic beauty, its unique
architectural design, its splendid works
of art, or the special charm of the
people's traditions. Where no such peculiarities exist, they can be invented, or
the ordinary can be transformed into
something exotic.
In Singapore, the demands of urban
and economic development within the
limits of small space leave very little, if
any, natural scenery for tourism. The
small island of 225 square miles (584
square kilometers) is largely a built-up
area of commercial buildings and multistory apartments which are mostly uniform in design because they are state
owned and mass constructed. There is no
unique, differentiating characteristic of
the environment when compared with
any other metropolitan city. In place of
scenery and landscape, the tourist industry emphasizes the country's "cultural
heritage." In choosing items of the cultural heritage to commodify for the tourist market, the nation-state makes an
official statement about its cultural
history.
By far, the most important selling
point of the tourist trade in Singapore is
the diversity of the "traditions" of various ethnic groups. The STPB has
stressed the uniqueness or exoticness of
Singapore through the marketing of the
heritage of different ethnic groups.

364
MANUFACTURING TRADITIONS

Images of ethnic "traditions" are played

upon repeatedly in tourist attractions
such as shopping areas, places of worship, festivals and public holidays, food,
and cultural performances. The first few
pages of a tourist brochure (published in
1983), which is circulated locally and
internationally, introduces Singapore as
a modern country with a rich diversity of
ethnic traditions:

DECEMBER 1989

also in regard to celebrations, customary

practices, and, most importantly, language. A Cantonese and a Hokkien who
speak their respective languages will not
understand one another.
Within the category of "Malay," there
are more than seven groups defined in
terms of locality of origin in different
parts of the Malay Archipelago: Javanese, Bataks, Minangkabau, Bugis,
Banjarese, etc. And within the category
Singapore today has been transformed from of "Indian" there are the Tamils, Hinthe entrepot of old as commerce and industry dus, Gujerati, Bengali, Punjabi, Mahave grown in importance. Its sophisticated layalam, Sighs, Sinhalese, Gurkhali, Sri
communications and transport networks, its Lankans, Pakistanis, and nine others
remarkable cleanliness and modern facilities
have produced an island that would surpass distinguished according to language,
even Raffles' most ambitious dreams (*Note: religion, and caste. As is true of the
Raffles was a founder of Singapore in 1819.) various "Chinese" groups, many of the
One aspect of Singapore that Raffles would languages spoken by these "Indian"
recognize is its multi-racial make-up: Singa- groups are not necessarily mutually compore's population of 2.5 million is 76% Chi- prehensible to each other. Finally, the
nese, 15% Malay, 7% Indian and Pakistani "Other" classification is a residual cateand 2% Others. Mosques, temples and gory blanketing a wide range of people
churches exist virtually side by side in Singa- from Australia to America and often
pore, where there is complete freedom of includes offsprings of inter-ethnic unions
worship. Constant contact with each other such as Eurasians.
has led to a rare harmony and tolerance.
This CMIO classification is, by and
This equality among races is present even
when it comes to languages.... (Surprising large, the product of colonial administraSingapore: A Magic Place of Many Worlds, tion. The British played a large part in
pp. 4-5)
the immigration of peoples from China
and India in order to secure a cheap
In the marketing of ethnic traditions, source of labor for colonial exploitation
the finer distinctions that exist in every- of resources. Given all these various
day life become blurred. Official bro- diverse groups, the colonial administrachures and handbooks give the impres- tors found it expedient to classify immision of four categories of ethnicity: grants according to the nation-state of
Chinese, Malay, Indian, and Others. origin (India, China, Malay ArchipelaThese categories are always spoken of go). For this reason, ethnic labels carried
and presented in that order: CMIO! In the pervasive ideology of the nation-state
reality, there are boundaries within a during that period of British imperialism
given "Chinese" group where at least 16 and were essentially administrative catecategories can be distinguished on the gories that facilitated the day-to-day govbasis of language/dialect and province of ernance of subject people by the British
origin in China, the most common being civil service. The CMIO categories were
Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese, Hai- convenient labels for bureaucratic funcnanese, and Khek. These various groups tions of form filling and census adminisdiffer not only in terms of cuisine but tration.

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CSMC

But these administrative classifications were operationalized in colonial

policies of the British Empire. There
was, for instance, a division of labor
according to these invented categories:
"Indians" were directed to work in tea
and rubber plantations and railway construction, the "Chinese" in tin mining,
shipping, and various social services, and
the "Malays" were left to their fishing
livelihood. Colonial administrators also
parceled out areas of the city for the
CMIO residential quarters (Hodder,
1953); ethnic residential segregation was
in this respect more planned than spontaneous.
After the British granted Singapore
sovereign and independent status on
August 9, 1965, the new state elites
adopted various strategies of nation
building: a combination of economic
modernization and cultural reshaping,
with important consequences for ethnicity. Urban planning and state housing
construction broke down the ethnic
enclaves established by the British
administrators; economic modernization
progressively broke down the occupational division of labor from one based on
ethnicity to a more universalistic criteria
of achievement.
Yet state elites who inherited the British colonial bureaucracy and government
machinery also inherited the CMIO
administrative categories. This was particularly evident in new identification
cards issued to every new citizen of the
new nation-state. Citizenship was
proven by a personal "identity card"
which carried the name, date of birth,
and ethnic origin of the individual. Since
state authorities did not invent those
ethnic categories but merely continued to
use preexisting colonial classificatory
schemes, it would be incorrect to talk
about the invention of cultural traditions
in this context (Hobsbawm & Ranger,

LEONG

1983). It would be more appropriate to

speak of the manufacture of cultural
traditions: colonial administrative categories provided the raw materials for the
manufacture of cultural traditions for
mass tourist consumption.
In spite of the reality of ethnic divergences, the state markets the cultural
heritage of the country in terms of "Chinese," "Malay," "Indian." Tourists
coming to Singapore are encouraged to
shop in "Chinatown," "Little India,"
and "Arab Street" (Muslims/Malays).
Even major travel guidebooks have
adopted these ethnic labels and list these
places as popular attractions (American
Express, 1988; Baedeker's, 1987; Berlitz, 1985; Fodor's, 1988; Insight, 1984;
Loose & Ramb, 1986; Wheeler, 1985).
Religious shrines are singled out as tourist spots, and those listed in major travel
literature correspond with the CMIO
categorization: Thian Hock Keng Temple ("Chinese," actually Hokkien), Sultan Mosque ("Malay," actually attended also by Indian Muslims), Sri
Mariamman Temple ("Indian," actually Hindu), and St. Andrew's Cathedral
("Others," actually attended by diverse
groups of people who happen to be Catholics.) In practice, the religious pluralism
of Singapore is marked by the existence
of Buddhism, Islam, Christianity,
Taoism, Shintoism, Confucianism, Sikhism, Jainism, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, and further subvarieties
of sects and denominations. These religions are drawn from various ethnic
groups but are not necessarily coterminous with ethnicity (Clammer, 1985, p.
34).
A calendar of events sells to the potential tourist different festivals and celebrations which happen to coincide with
the CMIO distinction: Chingay Festival,
Festival of the Hungry Ghosts, Lunar
New Year, and Mooncake Festival (Chi-

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MANUFACTURING TRADITIONS

DECEMBER 1989

nese), Hari Raya Pusa (Malays), Thai- dance and an Indian "traditional" dance.
pusam and Deepavali (Indians), plus The tourist is given a package of culNational Day, which commemorates the tures, wrapped up in 45 minutes of
nation's independence by a display of staged spectacle. This staging contrasts
these cultural "traditions" coexisting with the mundane life of the people: most
harmoniously. The various "traditions" "Chinese" in Singapore are second and
of the CMIO category are also adver- third generation immigrants, and folk
tised in terms of the food said to be dances or operas are not part of their
generic to the respective groupsnoo- popular culture. Folk dances of peasants
dles (Chinese), satay (Malay skewered planting rice in particular are unreal
meat), murtabak and curry (Indian).
because rice has never been grown in
Since, on average, most visitors stay no Singapore. Similarly, many of the "namore than three days in Singapore, mar- tive" arts and crafts sold in Chinatown
keters of cultural meanings try to show and Little India are imported from
and sell those messages quickly in a abroad. There is very little local produccondensed form. Staged performances tion of such exotic artifacts because most
must be sharp, short, and snappy, sum- of the cottage industries have been elimimarizing the cultural traditions and her- nated or displaced by economic modernitage of the nation in a neat package. ization and cleaning-up campaigns.
Next to the tourist office in Singapore
are located the Cultural Theatre and the
Rasa Singapura Food Center, and their
CONTRADICTIONS AND
proximity is not accidental. When the
CHALLENGES
Rasa Singapura Food Center was built,
a team of judges or connoisseur experts
How does the manufacture of cultural
were commissioned by the tourist board traditions by the state through national
to search throughout the country for the tourism affect the cultural practices of
best "Chinese" chef, "Malay" cook, and people in everyday life? This is a diffiso forth. Contracts were leased to these cult question which at this stage can only
star chefs to sell their respective ethnic be answered through indirect evidence
speciality cuisines in the food center. The and secondary sources of information.
creation of this contrived attraction is First, Singapore is a very small city-state
based on the belief that a hurried "eat (26 miles long and 17 miles wide), and it
and run" tourist who is constrained by is impossible for one to escape from the
time during his or her stay in Singapore onslaught of mass produced tourist
can nevertheless savor the ethnic dishes images. But since many of the tourist
within a single locale and afterwards images have little relation to lived pracwalk next door to the Cultural Theatre tices, it can be expected that most Singafor another taste of "Instant Asia."
poreans are aware that folk dances and
other
exotic customs are no more than
"Instant Asia" is a word used by the
performances
presented for the sake of
tourist board and state authorities. It is
tourist
dollars
rather
than lived as part of
an example par excellance of a staged
the
culture.
performance of manufactured traditions.
It consists of displays of Chinese, Malay,
Similarly, the Chinese who interact
and Indian "cultural traditions": a snip- within their own racial group are not
pet of classical Chinese opera, Chinese blind to the reality of finer distinctions
Lion Dance, followed by a Malay "folk" among the Hokkien, the Teochew, or the

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CSMC

Cantonese despite the official tendency

to lump all these groups into a single
category. There is, however, evidence
that interethnic perceptions are less
sophisticated and tend to follow official
CMIO labels. Thus, a Hokkien person
tends to perceive the "Malays" as a
uniform group ("they all look alike"),
and all "Indians" are thought to be one
and the same (Wu, 1982, p. 13). In
addition, visitors who are unaware of the
rich diversity interact with Singaporeans
according to the official stereotypes presented in tourist imagery. The natives
would thus find it difficult to escape the
typecast of those packaged images.
Indeed, ethnicity has become an important basis for social interaction among
individuals:
The first thing that one Singaporean normally wishes to know about another is
whether he or she is Chinese, an Indian or a
Malay: other possible criteria such as class,
age or degree of educational attainment are
of secondary importance in placing someone
in the scheme of things.. .. "Singapore culture," on the few occasions when that term is
used, refers normally not to any new Singaporean synthesis or innovation but simply to
an agglomerate formed of the separate Chinese, Malay, Indian and European cultural
traditions.... It is interesting to observe that
political and cultural leaders within the constitutent ethnic groups of Singapore often
talk publicly as if they themselves accept the
stereotypes that others hold of them, favorable or unfavorable. Government ministers
who are Malay by ethnicity have been heard,
for example, to urge Malay audiences to be
less interested in agricultural matters and
more positively oriented towards urban
lifedespite the lack of evidence that Singapore Malays exhibit a "rural" world view,
and despite clear evidence that they are as
urban in outlook as the members of any other
ethnic group. In Chinese circles, on the other
hand, there has recently been a tendency to
propagate a Confucian view of morality,

LEONG

even to the extent of urging the "filial piety"

mode of loyalty to public institutions and the
"return" of the extended-family pattern of
residence (which wasas it still remains
rare among the ancestors of the Singapore
Chinese community). (Benjamin, 1976, pp.
120, 124)
The policy of creating a cultural tradition of extended family living has been in
effect for more than 10 years, and many
Singaporeans comply with this state
modelnot, however, because they are
passive conformists but because of practical rewards. These Singaporeans know
that there is no real culture of extended
families coming from a history of migration that was predominantly male or of
the character of a single generation family nucleus. The state as a major landlord
allocates housing along lines of this manufactured tradition such that priority is
accorded to those who choose to live on a
three-tier generational basis (parents,
their children, grandparents, and colinear kin). Since housing is a scarce
commodity highly in demand, and since
generational relatives often help in
freeing working mothers from their caretaking responsibilities, many Singaporeans have chosen a cultural strategy
created by the state but that serves their
own practical needs.
Culture that is created from above
raises issues not only of authenticity but
also of its contradictions with lived traditions. These cracks in the image of the
culture of the state bring to light the
tensions in hegemonic attempts to create
a popular national culture. A good
example is the sizeable group of "Straits
Chinese," or "Babas," who have been
residents in Singapore for several generations. Their settlement history qualifies
them to represent the real heritage of
Singapore, since their immigration preceded most other groups. Racially, they
are Chinese and are indistinguishable

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MANUFACTURING TRADITIONS

DECEMBER 1989

from other Chinese in facial and physical Malay heritage, but as long as they
appearance. Their unique traditions, attend schools in Singapore, carry an
however, are ignored in the marketed identity card, and live within a milieu of
tourist package of ethnic imagery CMIO categories, their cultural past
because they do not fit neatly into the becomes ascribed and inscribed by the
CMIO pigeonhole. They have adopted state.
the dress and language of the Malay
While official definitions of cultural
Archipelago inhabitants but not the reli- traditions and identity override the lived
gion of Islam. Their distinctive cuisine traditions and collective memory of the
(nonya) blends Chinese ingredients and Babas, these dominant definitions are
Malay spices, a combination which con- not always monolithically installed or
founds the official ethnic imagery. Thus, imposed upon the population without
the Chinese Babas are denied their own citizen opposition or resistance. An
sense of unique tradition and labeled example of discontent emerged over the
simply as "Chinese" on identity cards, issue of representation: the representaofficial forms, and census classifications. tion of the Japanese in images of historiThe denial or lack of recognition of cal tourism. This issue appeared in the
their culture is further reinforced by context of the early seventies when
state policies on education and language. America was hit by the oil crisis and
These policies continue to adopt and, in stagflation and the British Empire was
the process, institutionalize the CMIO progressively weakened. While multinacategories. English, Mandarin, Malay, tional corporations from Europe and
and Tamil are constitutionally recog- America began to withdraw or reduce
nized as official languages of the nation. their investments in Southeast Asia,
These languages are mislabeled in offi- Japan emerged as a new power in the
cial discourse as "mother tongue" (sup- world capitalist system, actively searchposedly a repository of tradition) in spite ing new opportunities for foreign investof the fact that not all "Chinese" speak ment.
Mandarin at home and that not all "InSingapore's economic growth has long
dians" are literate in Tamil. At present, been dependent on foreign capital, and,
all schoolchildren read English as a first eager to attract Japanese wealth, state
language of instruction; state policy has elites in Singapore have expressed favordecreed it mandatory for all to learn their able attitudes toward Japan in foreign
respective mother tongue as a second diplomacy. Over the last decade, various
language even though that mother "follow the Japanese" campaigns have
tongue is not spoken at home.
been instituted in industrial relations,
The Babas in particular are caught in where the Japanese style of management
this cultural muddle. Their children are is continually heralded as the most effirequired to read Mandarin, which by cient and desirable model for emulation.
official definition is the mother tongue of Erza Vogel's book which overtly celethe Chinese, but in reality Malay is the brates every aspect of Japanese culture,
home language of the Baba community. Japan as Number One (1979), was sancThe weight of official sanctions has tified by state elites in Singapore as the
meant that the state denies alternatives to official bible for all civil service bureauthe cultures and identities it has manu- crats to read and adhere to religiously. At
factured and regulated. The Babas may the same time, when attempts were made
privately trace their roots to Chinese and to woo the Japanese through such salu-

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CSMC

tatory and obsequious postures, it was

expected that Japanese tourists would
increase.
When plans were in the pipeline for
waxwork re-creations of Singapore's history as a form of tourist attraction, an
attempt was made to glorify the Japanese general who ruled Singapore during
the Second World War, General Tomoyuki Yamashita. The waxwork
would depict Yamashita accepting the
surrender of Singapore from the British
commander in defense. But the memory
of those who had lived through the Japanese occupation (1943-1945) was one of
trauma: the Japanese soldiers had practiced all kinds of inhumane torture and
rape. And in the Philippines, which the
Japanese also occupied before American
intervention, General Yamashita was
subsequently executed for such war
crimes. Those who had lived through the
trauma wanted to obliterate this unpleasant past from their memory. So,
"protestors in Singapore and the United
States threatened to blow up the waxwork as soon as it was erected. A newspaper, which was subsequently closed,
wrote that while the facts of history
should be accepted, 'to erect a monument
to it would be to display a weird historical masochism. And to do so for the sake
of attracting Japanese tourists would be
utterly obscene.' You can't hide your
history, was the Singapore Tourist Promotion Board's reply" (George, 1973, p.
105). The effigies were waxed according
to plan.
History here is not really what historians make it; rather, history is what the
state makes it. If real events of the past
promise to serve certain practical purposes of the present, then the state
decides that these should be commemorated. If no such events or practices
existed in the past (e.g., the extended
family households) but are thought to

LEONG

serve future ends (extended family units

put the burden of caring for the aged on
the individual family rather than the
state), then such practices can be manufactured in the name of "cultural tradition." The past is often said to be an
enemy of modernity; but if it serves
practical purposes and dominant interests, we can wake the dead, dress it in a
language of "roots," "identity," "heritage," and "tradition," and display it on
a pedestal of marble for all to venerate.
The past can thus be "put on parade for
tourists" (Sharp, 1987, p. 47).
A second instance of contention
occurred in 1982. By this time, the economy had grown steadily, registering double-digit growth rates annually. Land
values and real estate were soaring. In
the interests of capital, the state was
willing to sacrifice a large slice of Chinatown, an important tourist attraction.
The state proposed to demolish large
sections of Chinatown and Orchard
Road/Emerald Hill which were historically rich in architectural styles but
located in a choice area of massive urban
growth. The official justification for the
demolition was that the buildings and
houses were derelict and unsuitable for
human living. The underlying motive
was in fact competition for space in a
land-scarce city, and those sections earmarked for clearance were precisely
spaces to be sold to capitalist enterprises.
The proposed "urban renewal" generated a series of protests in the form of
letters to the English press. The major
preservation groups, in a desperate
attempt to salvage whatever little visible
embodiments of history that remained,
framed their arguments along lines not
of historical sentiment (because romantic
nostalgia had little place in the drive
toward economic progress and technological advance) but of touristic appeal!

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MANUFACTURING TRADITIONS

This ironic twist of the discourse was

cleverly put forth: it was rationalized
that economic growth had eroded all the
scenic hills and natural environment and
so Singapore had fewer and fewer spots
of scenic beauty each year for tourism.
The prevalent picture was one of dull
concrete slabs and stacks of high-rise
buildings. The low-rise and unique
styles of housing in Chinatown and
Emerald Hill were rare picturesque
remains that should be capitalized for
the tourist industry.
Preservation of these structures was
argued on the grounds that demolition
would only leave Singapore barren of
exotic places for tourists to visit. This
discourse contrasts with the official discourse: while the state claims to draw
from the past for tourism (as in the
Japanese waxwork issue), preservation
groups whose memories and/or means of
livelihood are threatened by demolition
seek to defend and preserve their past for
the sake of tourism. Representations of
the past are political issues because
material and symbolic interests are at
stake. The end result of this crosscurrent
of tensions between preservation and
urban renewal, tourism and history, and
conservation for profits and sentimental
reasons has been a compromise weighted
in favor of capital and the state.
Large sections of Chinatown and
Emerald Hill were bulldozed for the
development of new private property like
shopping complexes, office buildings,
and hotels, while only a few structures
were preserved for tourism. The irony
here is that preservation for touristic
purposes merely amounts to transformation because of the contrived and staged
nature of touristic commodification.
Those who fought to keep their culture
of the past only come to witness their
past dressed up in new but strange
clothes. The old buildings in Emerald

DECEMBER 1989

Hill have been restored with new bright

colors and new additions; food and touristic items are now sold there for tourist
consumption.
Tourist culture in effect is a showcase
of postmodernism: a concoction of something "native" and something borrowed,
something old and something new. Such
a bricolage is comparable to the spectacular styles of some British youth subcultures ("punks"), in which various objects
from different sources are juxtaposed in
an ensemble which obscures their original meanings (Hebdige, 1979, p. 104).
In such a melange, authenticity is somewhat eclipsed by estrangement: dance
and other rituals, organized for tourist
consumption, become performances
rather than integral parts of the social
life of the participants. They are something to be watched by others rather than
something to be lived for themselves.
For instance, in Bali, the tourist capital of Indonesia, much of the dance and
theater historically formed part of the
elaborate rituals of religious and lifecycle events. Secularized and sanitized
for the tourist industry, they are now
shortenened and spiced to fit foreign
attention spans. Their elaborateness is
reduced to formulaic blueprints which
fill "the need for fast-moving, easily
understandable, hour-long performances
that could be performed on-call at hotels
or other tourist destinations" (Barnard,
1984, p. 5). In other parts of Southeast
Asia, too, the arts and crafts, garments,
and designs of hill tribes and city folk
have been transformed by the aesthetics
and money economy of tourism.
Because the bricolage of tourism is
shaped by economic and political forces,
such a culture is fragile and often subject
to contradictory pressures of tradition
and modernity, preservation and transformation, the desire for authenticity and
practicalities of stage management. The

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CSMC

political economy of national tourism is

such that the fate of any tourist place,
monument, or culture must depend on
the whims and fancies of politicians and
entrepreneurs. Bugis Street is an example of a tourist area that falls or rises
according to shifting political and economic interests. Although not advertised
in any official and commercial tourist
literature, Bugis Street is a popular
haunt that attracts tourists who hear of
its existence through friends or cabdrivers. After midnight, glamourous transvestites from all over the world parade in
stunning and provocative garb selling
pictures of themselves to amused tourists
or providing sundry services to the lonely. This exotic and seamy zoo of drag
queens has a place in the history of
Singapore: during the period of British
rule, these transvestites catered to the
sexual and entertainment needs of British soldiers, officials, and single male
immigrants. Bugis Street outlived the
British withdrawal of their military
troops by drawing interested tourists,
locals, and military men from Australia
and New Zealand.
Although a popular tourist spot, Bugis
Street represents all that the state
authorities in Singapore wish to eradicate. It is at odds with the orderliness and
control that the authorities have sought
to project as an image of the nation-state
in the clean-green campaigns. The
cleanliness movement has involved efforts to cleanse the city of the "dirt" in
social life, represented by informal economic activities which include prostitution, open-air food stalls, night bazaars,
and vibrant street cultures. State authorities are so adamant about creating and
maintaining a clean and orderly image of
Singapore that in 1979 Hollywood film
producer Peter Bogdanovich was banned
from reentering the country. Earlier on,
Bogdanovich shot a film in Singapore

LEONG

called Saint Jack about a pimp wrestling

with his conscience amidst graft and
treachery rampant in the underworld of
the early 1970s. Based on a best-selling
novel by Paul Theroux (1973), the film
aroused the wrath of state authorities.
The world of brothels (including Bugis
Street) and political intrigue portrayed
in the film jarred the nation-state image
that the authorities hoped to project to
the international polity. As a result, the
film, as well as the director, was banned.
Subsequently, plans were announced to
demolish Bugis Street ("Singapore
Without Sin," 1985, p. 42). Alcohol, the
sale of pirated cassettes, stalls selling
pig-intestine stew or turtle soup, and
sexual deviances were, in the official
eyes, "dirt" that could be found in Bugis
Street and that would be cleansed by
purification rituals of "urban renewal."
The political considerations that led to
the demise of Bugis Street were somewhat countervailed by economic considerations that led to a reversal of the
earlier decision. At the end of 1985, the
economy of Singapore, which has always
been fragile because of its dependence on
foreign investment, trade, and exchange,
registered negative growth rates. Even
though the number of tourists arriving in
Singapore has steadily increased over the
years, the rates of hotel occupancy
declined in 1985-1986 due to construction activity rising faster than the growth
of the tourist industry. In response to
such a discrepancy and economic downturn, state authorities started a frantic
search for more places to add to the
tourist map of Singapore. The preservation movement intensified with the hope
to draw more tourists who would fill the
empty hotels (Chiang, 1988; Khoo,
1989), and Bugis Street was resurrected
("Return of Bugis Street," 1989, p. 8).
As in the case of Emerald Hill, the
renaissance of Bugis Street merely trans-

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MANUFACTURING TRADITIONS

forms tradition into bricolage, disrupting

the original spirit and flow of everyday
life.

TOURISM, THE STATE,

AND ETHNICITY
In an attempt to examine the relationship between culture and the state, I
draw on the case study of Singapore to
show how the state produces a national
culture for tourist consumption. It may
be that the case of Singapore is not
typical of other nation-states. The authoritarian paternalism of the Singapore
state which controls and organizes various social institutions invites the Althusserian conception of "ideological state
apparatuses" (1971) that have a determinate impact on the culture of everyday
life. Such hegemonic state control is not
necessarily evident in societies where
limits have been imposed on the autonomy of the state through various checks
and balances or other powerful interest
groups. Yet this latter point should not
serve as justification for the continued
neglect of the role of the state by scholars
in cultural studies.
Certainly, in authoritarian polities
where the state is autonomous and dominant, state regulation of culture is
obvious. But it would be wrong to
assume that the role of the state in more
"democratic" polities is necessarily weak
or negligible. Scholars in political science
and historical sociology have in the last
15 years recognized the important role of
the state in shaping political reforms,
economic development, and social programs. Whereas the state in America has
been conventionally conceptualized as
weak or not as autonomous as states in
authoritarian regimes, today it is
regarded as an important actor in all
walks of life (Skocpol, 1985). It is perhaps time, too, for scholars in cultural or

DECEMBER 1989

communication studies to engage not

only in empirical studies about, but also
in theorizing on, the relationship
between culture and the state.
Although this essay is based on a case
study of Singapore, it is intended in its
theoretical thrust to be applicable to
other countries. Broadly, I argue that the
culture of the state involves attempts by
the state to forge certain symbols, beliefs,
and practices among large sections of the
population. But culture, especially culture that is created or transformed from
above, is related to a structure of interests. These interests may take the form of
exercise of state power. Alternatively,
the state may act on behalf of dominant
groups through its political, moral, and
intellectual leadership (Gramsci, 1971):
the state often regulates popular culture
to conform with dominant culture,
thereby maintaining relations of dominance and subordination in culture. By
doing so, it must make compromises and
concessions in order to win the consent of
the subordinate groups, but such concessions usually do not radically alter, and
in fact maintain de facto, the basic structures of authority.
In the context of nation building, the
state actively intervenes in the culture of
the people in the hope that popular
culture becomes national culture. This
process of cultural regulation typically
harps on the themes of "history" and
"tradition," consonant with a nationalist
ideology that emphasizes the cultural
heritage of the nation's achievements.
Sometimes, preexisting elements of the
culture of people are mined as raw materials for the manufacture of national
culture. Thus, images of multiculturalism are marketed in Singapore as selling
points for tourism and for the purposes
of the formation of a new nation-state
which entails a national identity that
incorporates diverse ethnic groups living

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CSMC

harmoniously within a given territory.

At other times, certain cultural traditions
are invented and created willy-nilly, as
in the extended family which has been
advertised as a tradition of Asian peoples
but which serves practical purposes of
relieving the state of the burden of child
care and aged care.
Tourism is an example of the way
culture can be mined, manufactured,
manipulated, and marketed for the joint
purposes of economic development (the
cultural image of the nation presented to
the international market as exotic) and
nation building (the cultural image of
the nation presented to the international
polity as distinctive from other nations).
In the case of Singapore, national tourism and the image of the nation-state
follow a model officially called "multiculturalism." In principle, multiculturalism accords equal status, recognition,
and treatment to various cultural elements. In practice, it selectively draws on
the traditions of some ethnic groups and
blurs other finer distinctions.
As a philosophy of the nation-state,
multiculturalism does not seek to create a
single culture out of a blend of other
cultures (the melting pot model); rather,
it aims to create a culture of tolerance of
other cultures (the salad bowl model in
which the ingredients remain unchanged
but tossed alongside each other). Yet
multiculturalism, when operationalized
into policies on language, education,
tourism, and so forth, can institutionalize
ethnic boundaries and affect the character and direction of ethnic relations. So,
in the process of shaping cultures,
whether for the sake of tourism or nation
building or both, states play a crucial
role in defining, maintaining, and directing social relations among various
groups.
The revival of ethnic consciousness in
many countries can be attributed to a

LEONG

great extent to various state policies

(Brass, 1985). National tourism tends to
invite and promote the restoration, preservation, and/or fictional re-creation of
ethnic attributes (MacCannell, 1984).
This is a form of "cultural involution" or
ethnic retribalization as individuals are
pressured to identify with an ethnic
group, to search for their ethnic past, and
to act according to the official stereotypes
of their cultural traditions. To conform
to the multiracial model projected by
tourism and other state policies, all racial
"Chinese" in Singapore must learn
Mandarin even though few speak it at
home, and all "Indians" must read
Tamil even though this is not the language of the so-called Indian communityIn other words, Singapore's multi-racialism
puts Chinese people under pressure to
become more Chinese, Indians more Indian,
and Malays more Malay, in their behavior. . . . It is bringing about a marked degree
of cultural involution in Singapore, in which
each "culture" turns in on itself in a cannibalistic manner, struggling to bring forth
further manifestations of its distinctiveness.
(Benjamin, 1976, p. 122,124)
States play a crucial role in freezing
what were previously fluid boundaries of
ethnicity. What was once taken for
granted can now become a matter of
consciousness. National tourism, by amplifying cultural consciousness (and its
corollary, cultural pride) of different
social groups can sustain those groups
that are being singled out and sponsored,
can suppress those groups that are
ignored or denied, and, through such
differential attention and neglect, can
heighten ethnic tensions among groups
(Wood, 1984). Just as the bases of tourist
culture can be traced to the political
realm, so the consequences of tourist
culture can also be political. Even though
culture is "peopled" by living social

374
MANUFACTURING TRADITIONS

DECEMBER 1989

groups, it is not always the autonomous

property of a given group. It is subject to
manufacture, regulation, and intervention by dominant groups and political
forces. For this reason, we must study

the complex links between culture and

the state, between the forms of cultural
aesthetics and the structure of political
interests, and between culture and social
relations.

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