As Singapore’s 15th Parliament opens, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong has called for a “we first” society. This echoes a thread running through Singapore’s nation-building journey.
In 1991, the Government’s White Paper on Shared Values affirmed that Singapore must place “nation before community, and society above self”.
Nicholas Thomas is research fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS), and Justin Lee is the head of IPS Policy Lab, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore.
This piece was first published in The Straits Times on 4 Sep 2025.
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