This article is a review of William Lim's book Alternatives in Transition. It was published in the Bangkok Post, Outlook Section on 2 February 2002. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to meet William Lim in Taipei in 2002.
Alternatives in Transition: The Postmodern, Glocality and Social Justice
by William S.W. Lim
Select Publishing: Singapore, 2001
ISBN 9-8140-2218-7
Reviewed by David Reid
In the opening essay of this collection William Lim clearly points out that modernity is a Western construct. He then goes on to say that “[m]any Asian countries are experiencing a protracted step-by-step battle with modernity. Unlike the West, Asian countries with their different historical and cultural experiences will have to take a much more painful and disruptive path towards modernity.” Despite this Lim believes that Asian countries can confidently construct their own form of modernity without merely imitating the West. This book serves as a guide to the future of Asian societies. Not what will be, but what is possible.
Lim opposes the uncritical rejection of the old in favour of the new, particularly in the post-colonial colonial states. He sees that much of the vital urban fabric has been destroyed in favour of uniformity. A uniformity that often served the interests of the colonial rulers or the maintenance of government control.
As an architect Lim decries the proliferation of high-rise buildings in Asia’s ever expanding metropolises. He also states that the “wide application of decorative traditional forms and motives on buildings” only gives them a perceived cultural authenticity. Modernity should not be equated with modernisation in non-western countries.
The four Asian tigers for some time adopted the developmental state-—a single-minded philosophical orient-ation where “the main driving force is the battle for survival and the determination of the leaders and people of these countries to use this opportunity to catch up economically and get out of the poverty trap.” The loss and destruction that resulted from this has been to some extent arrested and in more recent times conservation programmes have been implemented.
In the essay "Let the people live in the city, Chinatown" Lim pleads that the city centre be home to a mixed residential population and not just a big shopping, commercial and entertainment complex. “A city centre can only be healthy if people live in it… Chinatown must exist for residents as well as tourists.”
Lim does not merely limit himself to the discussion of his own profession architecture however. He paints with a much broader brush and is unafraid to tackle much bigger issues such as the impacts of globalisation and social justice.
Lim is a strong defender of “Asian values”, a term that many cringe at, seeing it as simply as a means of justifying authoritarianism and human rights abuses. However, Lim quotes leading Gandhian intellectual Ashish Nandy in defense of Asian values. “When the Americans speak about American values they do not have to justify themselves… When the Europeans speak about European values they do not have to justify themselves. But the Asians and Africans have to justify themselves whenever they talk about their values… I am wondering if that if the Asian values are not taken seriously by Asians then who will? … It would be interesting if Asians could live by the European values but they cannot. They suffer from a peculiar disease called Asianness.”
As a Singaporean Lim is perhaps better placed than most to understand what Asian values mean. In the cultural melting pot of Singapore, where Malay, Chinese and Indian cultures all intersect, to construct common values is perhaps a great challenge. Some Singapore intellectuals even claim that Singapore has achieved modernisation without modernity. So what are the Asian values that Lim talks of?
They are values which do not see the past as something frozen. “Yet,” Lim says, “in the Asian emerging economies, modernization has often become synonomous with getting rid of the past.” And this is where the postmodern comes in. Umberto Eco is quoted as saying “[t]he postmodern reply to the modern consists in recognising that the past, since it cannot really be destroyed, because its destruction leads to silence, must be revisited, but with irony, not innocently.”
Hence in the postmodern there is the opportunity to remember the past while embracing the opportunities of the present. Lim presents his analysis of Mohamed Sultan, a row of formerly dilapidated low-rise terrace shops and houses that has metamorphosed into the most exciting nightlife district in Singapore with bars, dance clubs and restaurants. The regeneration of this district was spontaneous and unplanned, unusual in Singapore where planning is usually centralised and strictly controlled by the government. “Perhaps” Lim remarks “this reflects the spirit of pluralism, tolerance and rebelliousness of postmodernism, as well is an indicator of the demand for more space, cultural or intellectual, within our urban environment.”
Lim's plan for a futuristic pedestrian sky-link on Singapore's Orchard Road is similarly daring and confident. It is this sort of confidence which Asia needs if it is, as Lim suggests, to create its own future without imitating the West.
Alternatives in Transition is a bold statement. Lim clearly avoids retreating from the challenge of modernity and taking refuge in tradition. He establishes himself as a leading postmodern thinker. He asks the important questions without pretending to have all the answers or bowing to convention. This book is essential reading to understand the transitions in culture and urban design underway in Asia today.