Another slap in the face to Singapore this month, with Kanye West making a surprise guest appearance at the wedding of the grandson of Kazakhstan’s President and Repressor-in-Chief Nursultan Nazarbayev. Elsewhere, Dennis Rodman was back in North Korea to hang with his “pal” Kim Jong-Un, a.k.a. the guy who had his ex-girlfriend executed by firing squad in August.
This isn’t the first time we’ve lost out in the superstar celebrity visit stakes. Back in 2011, Beyonce, Mariah Carey and Usher performed in Libya for Mad Dog Gaddafi; and Jennifer Lopez has carved out a successful second career singing sweet nothings to monsters like Chechen dictator Ramzan Kadyrov and, as recently as July, Turkmen overlord Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov (a.k.a. Gurby from the Block).
As F1 rolls around once again we’re not short of celebrity visitors here ourselves—but the rest of the year? Forget about it. (And no, K Pop “stars” don’t count.)
You know what’s wrong, don’t you? We’ve lost our edge. Gotten soft and lost our nasty, bitter repressive edge. Celebs these days aren’t impressed by bans on chewing gum and jaywalking—they need to see some real evil being enacted before they come running. If we really want the big names in town on a regular basis, we’re going to have to get tough: Sentence taxi drivers who don’t stop for passengers despite having a green light to immediate and painful death. Ship anyone who blocks the way up an escalator off to five years of forced labor in the Jurong Rock Caverns. Make stupid haircuts punishable by permanent banishment. Chop the hands off anyone who tries to put five or more fruits in a cocktail.
We used to be good at this, folks! Remember when William Gibson described Singapore as Disneyland with the Death Penalty? Now that’s a tagline to drive visitor numbers! None of this airy-fairy, touch-feely ‘something for everyone’ nonsense of nowadays. Theme park rides and the gallows—it’s just what the modern-day A-lister expects from his vacation.
