200 Years of Policing

There is a strange new ad campaign praising the local police for 200 years of policing. There are quite a few layers to unpack here - the inheritance of colonial institutions and the troubling embedded culture within them, the professional institution that obeys rules passed down regardless of whether they contradict previous ones or not, and finally the strange need to advertise this at all.

I’ll start with the last one first - why advertise 200 years of policing?

I want to avoid going back to the ideas of Seeing Like A State all the time but they are very germane. States are often worried about how they’re perceived. If everything around you has been provided by the state, you are wrapped up in the state’s pocket universe. You will not question the very concrete under your feet and air coming through your vents, will you? It is important that the state be seen as legitimate, a provider of the life you want. The state also derives legitimacy from longevity. Something that has lasted for millenia is simply trusted by many people. It is why old things do not die. We cling on to them precisely because they’re old.

The Buddhas of Bamiyan were destroyed by the Taliban. It was a terrible loss of the shared cultural heritage of humanity. The Chinese destroyed many symbols of the previous eras during the Cultural Revolution. As European colonists expanded across North America they bulldozed and destroyed Native American cities such as Cahokia. Symbols of the old that you cannot digest and appropriate have to be destroyed, lest they subconsciously fuel the idea that your order can be changed.

The Singaporean police are a colonial institution handed over to Singaporean authorities by the British. Originally the police force was used to keep peace on the island, which derived nearly half of its income from shipments of opium from Bengal to Hong Kong. The deep irony here is that the Singaporean police, in their 200 years of policing helped to gut the foundation of China, create the very unrest that drove millions of Chinese to the straits to then eke out a living in the center of the factory of death that doomed their neighbors. These same people then came to capture that institution and turn its drug-dealer-protection into a firm stance against drug-dealing. Like all colonial institutions, they carry a strange burden with them. A culture of monkeys-hitting-each-other that gets passed down long after the hose has stopped spraying.

What’s most interesting to me and perhaps most important as part of the building of a state is a professionalized workforce. A professional workforce is, to me, one that does the job it is told to focus on without going above that grade. The word and role professional is something I realize I am incredibly ill-suited for. I cannot simply accept that the leaders know what they’re doing. I have a deep abiding mistrust for authority and also a high-agreeableness and desire to comply on the surface so that the authorities never find out. It’s not a recipe for a happy life.

But the professional workforce, especially in the context of police work is one that enforces the law without questioning the law. It is what is expected of a police force. It’s one of the core building blocks of a modern state. Singapore’s transition from colonial holding to independent country means taking as many of the building blocks as were ready at that time and using them. It is not easy to construct even a simulation of a police force very quickly. So, I guess, whoo hoo 200 years of policing. It is something to cheer up I guess.