who campaigns?

what i was thinking about this morning.

thinking in terms of campaigns.. (maybe can substitute it with other words?)

what kind of campaigns (can be awareness, charity, persuasive) are there in singapore? (let's think of campaigns that reach a significant amount of people)
- local activist
- transnational activist
- the government

correct me if i'm wrong, are there more government campaigns than other campaigns? or are government campaigns more 'national' hence more people know about them and so it seems that campaigns in singapore are governmental. or maybe the combination of both.
speak chinese campaign,
courtesy campaign
romancing singapore
no smoking campaign
art outreach (not really a campaign but an educational organization with programs to teach art appreciation to the public. because we dunno how to appreciate art enough?)
nkf show?

the other campaigns that i can think of, are transnational.
breast cancer, women awareness, action for aids, landmines, LGBT awareness (got anot? i think not.. not sure)

are there any local campaigns?
the free hug campaign? hmm
is it possible for local campaigns to happen? or it is a once in a blue moon thing? is the group who want to save chek jawa a local activist campaign or is it a transnational one (since it is environmentalist)?

perhaps the 3 categories can be blurred into each other's boundaries.
government campaigns can also be a transnational one and vice versa, transnational campaigns can also be local ones and vice versa?

(just thought of another type of campaign, the transnational corporations)

i was just thinking about how all these work in sg. it seems to me you are either with the government or the transnational society if u want anything at all to happen. so maybe the local activists are also part of the transnational activists. since we all know english and is easier to communicate. (partly a joke)

hmmm...
is everything either governmental or transnational with spurts of ad hoc local activism?

this is what i think so far,
if there is a need for campaigns or awareness or anything like that (in sg), they most effectively work top down. ie the government directs it because they feel that there is a need of something in the society. in these cases they are not really what the people realized and thought that they needed themselves, that they could change themselves.
its difficult to look for any activism in local independent organizations. (if there are, it is spontaneous and ad hoc and they disperse right after.) if there are action needed to make the society 'better' or more 'aware', it seems to be mostly the job of the government who does this nationally.

on the other hand activism in sg seems to be under the umbrella of transnational activism. some sort of outside in. campaigns that are not governmental are most effective if they are connected to a transnational organization or corporation. and this could be attributed to the need for the state to maintain a 'global reputation'.
if transnational campaigns are outside in, then does that mean that the local activist are just hitching a ride to wherever these transnational organizations want to go?
or maybe it benefits both ways??

why am i thinking about this?
because i realised why community art or popular education is so unpopular in singapore. not just because nobody knows what those terms mean. i mean why i think that they will be hard to practice in singapore. or why there almost non being practiced right now.

1st i realised that community art has a different meaning in sg. was looking up the national art council website. community art is being organized by the art council, ie government.
for them, community art is to make art available for the community to appreciate. art is understood still in the sense that it is elite and 'high class' and only people who are 'talented' can make them. the art council is promoting art awareness. how to and why appreciate art.

but the community art that i learn here is different. it is about making art with the community, about letting the community express themselves and learn with and from each other. art is not thought of as a something that only 'talented' people can make, nor that only the final product is useful (as a form of analysis and decoration). in community art, the process of making art is also very important. everyone can be an 'artist' and learn from being artists together.

as i was thinking about this difference, it struck me that in a way, sg the country of people is a huge community in one. a community that changes when it is told that it is time to change. it is made to move in this huge body. instead of transforming internally part by part, it transforms externally as a whole. whether the community actually did transform wholly as it was told to, i dunno (since it only changed externally, not internally. how can u change as and when u want when u don't really understand why u r changing?)
but that's how i think the system works. (unlike here, where change is done in pockets, i think)

so what i am pondering over is, can campaigns and raising awareness.. change.. can it be born locally, bottom up?

maybe the system of governance is such that it is difficult for that? to make change we have to do it in indirect ways? through the transnational way?

on the other hand, are we effected/influenced by transnational thoughts and ideas?