National Courtesy Campaign (Singapore) - Origins

Origins

The National Courtesy Campaign was not actually the first of its kind to instill values of courtesy to Singaporeans, though they were not conducted on as big a scale as the National Courtesy Campaign over such a long period. More than 10 years prior to the introduction of the National Courtesy Campaign, there was already a Bus Safety and Courtesy Campaign, which was held in 1968, as well as the National Safety First Council Road Courtesy Campaigns and the Safety and Courtesy Campaign Week which were held between 1972 and 1973 among others. Thus, it can be seen that Singapore had already experimented using campaigns as a means of encouraging Singaporeans to acquire a more courteous disposition in their lifestyle. Nonetheless, the forerunner of the National Courtesy Campaign is usually recognized as the courtesy campaign that was conducted by the Singapore Tourist Promotion Board (STPB).

The courtesy campaign conducted by the STPB was meant to teach Singaporeans to be polite only to tourists for the benefit of the tourist industry. Then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew’s had followed the courtesy campaigns by the STPB with ‘interest and amusement: interest because most people were responsive to the campaign; amusement because no one protested that it was absurd to teach Singaporeans to be polite to tourists’. In his speech, he stressed the importance of being courteous in one’s everyday life as it would make life better for everyone. It was a desirable attribute which could be found in all cultivated societies, and something which we should practice for Singapore’s own self-esteem. If tourists do find Singapore a courteous nation, it was because it was ‘incidental’. This ‘prodding’ by Lee Kuan Yew thus saw the birth of the National Courtesy Campaign, which became a recurrent, annual campaign that was seen as a long-term project of aiming to imbue values of courtesy into Singaporeans within a period of 10 years.