Public order is a non-negotiable good

Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam served a reminder that Singapore should be prepared for public order incidents while speaking last Friday at the 70th anniversary celebrations of the police’s Special Operations Command (SOC), an elite force of more than 900 officers who safeguard the nation against public disorder and security threats. His comments may seem surprising, given the good law-and-order situation that prevails here, but they are apposite in the salutary light of events elsewhere that deteriorated very quickly once a spark was lit.

Examples include the 2019 Hong Kong protests, the 2021 Capitol riots in the United States, and the 2019 Christchurch mosque shooting. The Hong Kong incident shocked those who had taken for granted the public order landscape in a place where a general orderliness in the conduct of public life had underpinned its remarkable economic success before and after its return to China. That the Capitol, lying at the electoral heart of American democracy, could come under threat from violent Americans revealed the underbelly of national politics in that country at that time. Peaceful New Zealand, on its part, was an unsuspected venue for the horrendous mosque attacks.