1997

Watched "The Queen".

There are many years in my life which I would put down as turning points, discontinuities, when many things change at the same time. In 1983, when I really started being conscious of the world, started suspecting myself of being smart. In 1990, when I changed school, changed my home, and when life stopped being a bed of roses. In 1992, a year that was supposed to be ordinary but turned out extraordinary, a year of 2 summers. In 1999, when I fell in love for real for the first time, the start of a great (but unfortunately short) learning experience. In 2002, I started work.

I can't talk about them all, maybe I will one day. But in terms of concrete changes, 1997 was a momentuous year for me.

- I made a decision that would change the next 11 years of my life.
- My sister left for college; couldn't complain, it was a good college. But she hasn't been back since.
- My mother had breast cancer, and survived.
- There was the Asian financial crisis. It was the end of an era in which Singapore could guarantee a 10% growth every year, and the start of a more tentative, uncertain period for all of us.
- It was also a very important year for a company that I would one day work for.
- Hong Kong, but the handover is symbolic of a waning western influence in Asia, and a waxing Chinese influence.
- Watched my first R(A) movie, but I was underage. I felt that I had to break the law before it was too late. It was "English Patient", in the now defunct Riverside cinema at Clarke Quay. Nice film, which achieves the right blend between arty and farty. Unfortunately Minghella's later films would tend more towards the latter.
- Watched my first porn film, but I was bored.
- My uncle missed a flight back from Indonesia. That flight crashed into Palembang, killing, among others, the famous Singaporean model Bonny Hicks, and tainted the national consciousness because it took so damn long for the authorities to tell everybody what the hell happened.
- Radiohead released "OK Computer". It was one of the last great albums by a rock band.
- General elections. Tang Liang Hong, JBJ + company almost - but not quite - win their first GRC seat. Not long after ppl from high up sue their asses out of town.
- Princess Diana died in a car crash, which is the event in 1997 that "The Queen" reminded me of. There would be a great outpouring of grief when Princess Diana dies, and later when George Harrison dies. There are 2 reasons for this: they died young (for George Harrison, relatively young.) and because we already are in the era of the 15 minutes, and they are a dying breed: truly famous people. In our world, to paraphrase "The Incredibles", everybody is famous, and therefore nobody is famous.
- Tony Blair becomes PM and we would have the first 10 years of New Labour.
- The internet revolution gathers steam. This is 1 of 2 great events that shape the 21st century (the other one being the collapse of communism.) The great dot com bubble gathers shape.
- I earned my stripes in the air force.
- I realised that I wasn't going to hang around with my JC mates for a long time. Later on I would reflect that my values were very different from theirs.

I spent much of that year not having much of a direction, biding my time in NS, which for most of us is the hinge between childhood and adulthood. And I think NS is in some way a great pivot.

I also remember that although the 1990s are not as celebrated in the west as the 1960s, they are similar in the sense that they are a time of great hope and change. In the 1960s, there was the Civil Rights movement, which purportedly made the US more equal for Whites and Blacks. (But not really, it's never that equal.) Parallel to that there was the great decolonialisation, where a great number of nations, ours included, that became independent. It was also a time of great liberalisation, where western society became more tolerant and permissive, culminating in 1968, when a great wave of student riots around the world led a lot of people to wonder if people had gone too far. That would be the start of the conservative backlash that would culminate in 1980 with the election of Ronald Reagan.

Following that would be the 1970s, a period of time when the dust settles, and people would finally see where the changes that started in the 1960s have led us. Recessions. The oil embargo. The end of the Gold Standard. The rise of the American South. The end of organised labour. The rise of conservatism.

In the 1990s, we had the big bang that was the fall of the Berlin wall. (in 1945 the big news was the fall of Berlin.) We had the end of the great Cold War dictators: Pinochet, Suharto, Mobutu. We had the internet and the stock bubble. We had the rise and fall of the Asian tigers. We had trouble in Indonesia and East Timor. We had Bosnia, Rwanda, the Balkan wars and the Congo wars. We also had the first attack on the WTC in 1993, the FBI building in Oklahoma, the bombing of the Tanzania and Kenyan US embassies as well as the bombing of the USS Cole, in the prelude to 911.

In the 2000's, we could see the beginning of the end for the dominance of the West over the rest of the world. We saw Afghanistan and Iraq. We had 911. But more importantly, since it's hardly ever reported, we had AIDS infecting 30 million people. We had SARS, we had all sorts of strange communicable diseases. We have Chinese capitalists fucking around with the system, like the slaves at the brick kiln, the stuffing of cardboard into dumplings, paint for toothpaste, so reminiscent of Robber Baron era in the USA not long after the civil war when there were American capitalists fucking around with the system.

We had climate change that people have been studiously warning us about in the 1970s. Back then it was called "environmentalism", which really says very much about people. If you call it environmentalism, then people think of tree huggers, altruistic and noble deeds that are too high and lofty for the common man. Whereas "climate change" is more Adam Smith, more "it's your problem because it's everybody's problem", and admittedly more ugly.

We also have oil shortage. Maybe it means energy shortage because most of our energy comes from oil. Maybe it also means food shortage because most of our food comes from fertilised land and fertiliser comes from oil. In any case, I'll say it again, if we don't solve this problem we're all fucked.

Probably the 1960s are more romanticised in the people's imaginations, because it was an era of good living right after the terrible wars, but I think that when people look back 100 years from now they will see that the 1990s were no less significant than the 1960s.