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Book
Review: Lee Kuan Yew: A Single Man's Impact on Building a
Nation The Singapore Story, Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew, Volume 1, Singapore Press Holdings and the Times Publishing Group, 1998, 680 pages, and From Third World to First, The Singapore Story: 1965-2000, Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew, Volume 2, Singapore Press Holdings and the Times Publishing Group, 2000, 778 pages. Introduction With a population of 3.89 million living on a small island of 640 square kilometers, about 3.5 times of the size of Washington DC, Singapore is one of the richest countries in the world. Its GNP per capita, $29,610, ranked the 9th highest in 1999, according to World Development Report (2000/2001) of the World Bank, immediately after the US, surpassing many developed countries including Germany, United Kingdom, France, Austria, Canada, and Belgium. First-time visitors will notice that Singapore is as clean and pretty as Geneva, Switzerland, and as commercial and glamorous as Manhattan, New York. Orchid Road is a highlight of the city's commercial activities. Like Fifth Avenue in New York, it has numerous fashion shops of world famous brands, conspicuously displaying their latest designs behind huge windows. There is another city underground - two more floors of shopping malls and dining facilities. The frequent, round-city subway is down even further in the third and the lowest level. One can hardly take the subway without being lured to the shopping malls. Singapore is a country that perfectly combines modernity with some authentic Chinese characteristics. Unlike Fifth Avenue, some high-end department stores would distinctively decorate for Chinese New Year Festival using Chinese traditional red ribbons and paper cuts. Only then would one realize that almost 80% of Singaporeans are ethnic Chinese, although, ironically, the city, like many western major cities, has a Chinatown in addition to an Indian Village. In contrast to today's prosperity, during the 1950s, Singapore was merely one of the many colonial ports of the British Empire, with fewer than 1.5 million people. In 1959, Singapore's GDP per capita was only $400. How could this small island be developed into a splendid city and a flourishing country from a poor village-like port 50 years ago? To understand Singapore's contemporary history of the last half a century, Lee Kuan Yew's memoirs are a must-read. Lee decided to write his memoirs in order to show a younger generation of Singaporeans -- who may take stability, growth and prosperity for granted -- that these conditions did not come naturally, but required ceaseless effort and attention from an honest and effective government that the people elected. In his lawyer's steady, precise and clear language, he describes the perils of communist insurrection, communal riots and intimidation during the Malaysia years; he explains his strategy and approach to each challenge. In his forward to the memoirs, Henry A. Kissinger says that the father of Singapore's emergence as a state favors the ancient argument of whether circumstance or personality shapes events for the later generations. Interwoven with his pride for his achievements is his hope that the younger generation of Singaporeans will be vigilant and conscientious in maintaining Singapore's independence and vitality in an increasingly globalized world. The first volume of Lee's memoirs covers his family background, his student years in Cambridge, and his budding political career as a lawyer for labor unions and student associations. It gives a detailed account of his experiences as an assemblyman of an opposition party, People's Action Party (the PAP), and being an exceptionally young prime minister in a self-governing British colony from 1959 to 1965, during which time he forged a merger with Malaya in 1963 and divorced from Malaysia in 1965. The second volume covers the period from Singapore's independence up to the present day, with the first half of the book devoted to building a clean and effective government and a fair society, under his label "getting the basics right"; and the second half of the book devoted to Singapore's diplomacy in search for regional and international space. Professor Ezra Vogel of Harvard University, in his book "The Four Little Dragons", delineates a rather wide range of institutional and traditional factors that underlie the successful industrialization of Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore. He points out that the most special factor in Singapore's success story is its genuinely charismatic leader, Lee Kuan Yew. Lee was the youngest Prime Minister in the world, not even 36 years old, at the time of his appointment in 1959. Being one of the longest party leaders in modern history, holding 38 years of leadership since he established the PAP in November, 1954, he has solidly put his personal stamp on many aspects of Singapore - its recent history, its ideology, its languages and its social norms. Lee Kuan Yew's Relationship with the Communists Lee Kuan Yew's relationship with the communists was complex. People from the left criticized him as "a stooge of the colonialists", and people from the right claimed that "the PAP is pro-Communists", as Dr. Mahathir Mohamad said in 1965, who later became Prime Minister of Malaysia in the early 1980s. This is because Lee had mixed feelings about the communists. On the one hand, Lee admired the skills and dedication of unyielding communists; on the other hand, being a Cambridge trained lawyer, he respected rule and order and thought being chauvinists would only make matters worse. At different times, different aspects of his thinking, in view of external circumstances, dominated his orientation towards the communists. It is hard to imagine today the psychological grip of communism in the 1950s and 1960s on the Chinese-speakers, who constituted about 76% of the Singapore's population at that time. There were several interrelated reasons for the strong surge of communism during this period. Chairman Mao Zedong's successful revolution in China of 1949 provided constant inspiration to many Chinese in Singapore. The communists made these people believe that what had happened in China would also come to pass in Singapore and Malaysia, that communism was the wave of the future, and those who opposed them would be buried by history. One characteristic of being Chinese overseas is the interminable kinship relations in Mainland China. Being patriotic, many of them donated money and materials for China's anti-Japanese war. They even had the aspiration of being part of China. Critics in Singapore's neighboring countries called Singapore "little China of Southeast Asia". Another factor that contributed the hardcore followers of communism, about 30% of the electorate of Singapore, was that many graduates from Chinese schools, especially those from Nanyang University, did not have English proficiency and were excluded from good jobs in Singapore. Their dissatisfaction with employment prospects interwoven with their resentment of the British imperialists provided fertile soil for the spread of communist ideas. Leaders of trade unions, Chinese clan associations, Chinese Chamber of Commerce, and students in Nanyang University and other Chinese schools, organized demonstrations and protests one round after another. So in order to move up young graduates on the economic ladder, Lee determined to switch all schools to using English as the teaching language in the 1960s and 70s, knowing that language was a highly sensitive and emotional issue to many people. Lee Kuan Yew was impressed by the total devotion of many young Chinese to communism, and served as a legal advisor in the early 1950s to trade unions with an intention to collect them as his own political supporters. Using anti-colonialism as the common denominator and the communists' initiative of forming united front, Lee formed an alliance with the communists by meeting discreetly in 1958 with the communist underground leader, Fang Chuang Pi, whom he calls "the Plen". While he preferred to play within the existing legal framework, using reasons and pragmatism to achieve Singapore's independence, the communists wanted to completely destroy the existing system and establish communist rule, knowing that would inevitably mean bloodshed. Nonetheless Lee played along with pro-Communists' popularity. With the support of the communists, Lee won decisively in the general election of 1959, and was formally sworn in as the Prime Minister of the self-governing state of Singapore. When Lee was the leader of an opposition party, the PAP, in the congress from 1954 to 1959, he observed that when the government arrested the leaders of demonstrations and protests they were considered heroes by the people who were against the British imperialism. He learned that simple arrest of demonstration leaders would only alleviate the social tension and would not help achieve independence at all. After becoming Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew did not want to make the mistake that his predecessors, David Marshall and Lim Yew Hock, had made. He did not want to arrest demonstration leaders and had explosive confrontation with the public when the communist-inclined leaders' apparent self-sacrifice and dedication encouraged many more people around them to become pro-Communist and to form a united front against the British colonists. In order to dilute the influence of the communists in a bigger population and at the same time achieve independence from the British, Lee actively sought to merge with Malaya, despite his early recogniton of the differences in leadership style between him and Tunku Abdul Rahman, Prime Minister of Malaya, and between the ministers of both sides. The communists were strongly against the merger because they were afraid that they would lose the advantageous position of having a large portion of the population being Chinese, and that they would never be able to be in charge of the government in Kuala Lumpur. Lee Kuan Yew defined the official position of the PAP as being "non-communist" rather than "anti-communist". Lee was never a communist in appearance or in his heart. He thought the communists were really looking for mass destruction and anarchy under the name of anti-imperialism. His fundamental difference with the communists provided the British with a least bad alternative later in their preparation to withdraw from Singapore. Lee's refusal to give more room to the communists to organize in his secret meeting with the Plen in May 1961 resulted in a split of the PAP in August 1961. Thirteen pro-Communist PAP assemblymen broke off to form the Barisan Sosialis. This presented the most serious threat in Lee's political career. He survived this challenge by merely one vote in the assembly, which enabled the PAP to remain as the majority. After the successful passage of the referendum on merger with Malaya in September, 1962 but before the completion of the merger in 1963, Lee notified the Plen in public that he should leave Singapore because Kuala Lumpur would be in charge of Singapore's internal security after September, 1963. Thus Lee could claim many years later in 1995 when he met the Plen in Beijing that he did a fair play with the communists who supported him in becoming the Prime Minister in 1959. Lee
Kuan Yew is a keen observer and a fast learner. Through his
dealings with the communists over many years, he learned numerous
organizational techniques from the communists and applied
them in the PAP. After he formed the government in 1959, In
order to combat the psychological grip of communism and to
educate the English-speaking civil servants who lacked understanding
of the political danger they were in, Lee set up a political
center to teach top-ranking civil servants about the communist
threat and the prevailing social and economic problems. He
also launched well-publicized campaigns to clean the streets
through mobilization of everyone, including ministers to toil
with their hands and soil their clothes in order to serve
the people. He tried his best to prevent the communists from
exploiting the grievances of the underprivileged or the local
Chinese. One Country, Four Languages Singapore never had one common language. It was a polyglot community under colonial rule, with every ethnic group trying to hold on to its own language and culture. The British left the people to decide how to educate their children. But the result today is that English is the working language, providing cohesiveness for all three ethnic groups, and all students are obligated to learn English in school today. Mandarin, Malay, Tamil, along with English are all official languages, despite the fact that almost 80% Singaporeans are ethnic Chinese, only about 14% Singaporeans are Malays and 7% are Indians. The only other country with four official languages is Switzerland, where 75% of population speak Swiss German, 20% speak French, about 5% speak Italian and a few thousand of people speak Romanche. But the difference is that Switzerland is a loose confederation of cantons, whereas Singapore is known for its strong state. Lee says, "If Singapore is a nanny state, I'm proud to be the nanny." How did the nanny alter the laissez-faire approach that the British successfully fostered in Hong Kong? The Chinese language and culture are among those most resilient. Even in Yuan and Qing dynasties, when China was ruled by the Mongols and the Manchus respectively, it was those foreign rulers who adjusted themselves to the rich Chinese language and culture rather than the other way around. Another characteristic of the Chinese, in addition to keeping their kinship relations, is their tenacious uphold of their language and culture. In this respect they are similar to the French. The Chinese-speaking parents definitely wanted their children to be educated in Chinese for their cultural identity. Successful Chinese merchants who helped finance Chinese schools and Chinese cultural activities supported this wish. In Singapore, the Chinese tend to do better than other ethnic groups, both educationally and financially. The Chinese Chamber of Commerce and the teachers unions of Chinese schools all actively promoted the Chinese language and culture throughout the 1950s, 1960s and well into the 1970s. As Communism was spreading among many trade unions, Chinese schools and clan associations under the slogan of the united front, the communists also tried to accentuate the importance of the Chinese language. All of these made the fact that the Chinese language did not prevail in Singapore seem implausible. Ironically, Lee Kuan Yew, being ethnic Chinese, could barely speak his mother language. He grew up speaking English with his parents. In order to have direct communication with various ethnic groups in his campaign in the late 1950s, he made intense efforts to learn Hokkien, Mandarin, and Malay. Being able to give speeches in native languages helped subdue the accusation that Lee was a "stooge of the colonists" and made it easier for the non-English educated to accept him as their leader. Recognizing the importance of English in international commerce and the strong emotional attachment of ethnic groups to their native languages, Lee decided early on that the only politically defensible position on the language debate was to make three native languages all official, and use English, of which Lee is a master, as the working language so that no race would have an advantage. Lee realized early on that English is the future of international commerce, which is what Singapore is all about. To promote the teaching of English and at the same time to avoid being seen as "an oppressor in a government of pseudo foreigners who forget their ancestors" were tricky. But Lee Kuan Yew is a political genius. He was able to manage these conflicting objectives at the operational level. In order not to alienate his Chinese base, he sent all three of his children to Chinese schools until his two sons finished their primary schools and his daughter finished her high school. He had journalists of major newspapers taken his pictures when he visited his children in Chinese schools. He made intense efforts to master Malay in preparation for his campaigns in the late 1950s and 60s, so that the Malays and Indians perceived him as a Singaporean nationalist, rather than a Chinese chauvinist. He was accepted as a leader of more than just for the Chinese speaking. Lee introduced the teaching of three languages, Mandarin, Malay and Tamil, in English schools. This was well received by all parents. To balance this, he introduced the teaching of English in Chinese, Malay and Tamil schools. Malay and Indian parents welcomed this, while a hard core of the Chinese-educated did not welcome what they saw as a move to make English the common working language, and expressed unhappiness in Chinese newspapers. They berated those who chose English schools as money-minded and shortsighted. Many Chinese-speaking parents who were deeply attached to their language and culture could not understand why their children were allowed to be educated completely in Chinese under the British, yet under their own elected government had also to learn English. Lee Kuan Yew restated publicly that all four major languages in Singapore were official and equal. He met the committees of all four chambers of commerce under the full glare of television lights in 1965, and made it clear that he would not allow anyone to exploit the Chinese language as a political issue. He was also acutely aware that no country in Southeast Asia wanted a Chinese-language university. On the contrary, they were phasing out Chinese-language schools. Employment opportunities for Chinese-educated high school and university graduates were rapidly declining. To deal with the remaining opposition from students of Nanyang University and to make up the English deficiency of its faculty members, Lee persuaded the school council to move the whole university - staff and students - into the campus of the University of Singapore in 1978, so that both teachers and students would be forced to use English and share English-teaching facilities. The majority of Chinese-seeking parents and students accepted this change as unavoidable. He only wished that he had merged the two campuses earlier, thereby saving several thousand Nanyang graduates from their poor economic status, handicapped by their inadequate command of English. Thus the Chinese language and culture did not dominate the landscape of Singaporeans' social life despite the overwhelming proportion of the Chinese in the total population. Singapore's Relationship with Malaysia Singapore's relationship with Malaysia is unusual. Malaya became independent from the British in August 1957 and became Malaysia in 1963 with the inclusion of Singapore, Sarawak and Sabah on the island of Borneos. But Singapore was separated from Malaysia and became an independent country two years later, in August 1965. Singapore is more resource-poor than Japan. It has almost no natural resources aside from its deep-water ports. Only 4% of the total area is arable land. Although the scientific research of growing vegetables in water on roofs of buildings is successful, to apply this result widely encounters logistical and technical difficulties such as plumbing system of a building. Singapore still has to rely on Malaysia today to provide most of its food and fresh water, their lifeline for the island. Whenever there is a tension between Malaysia and Singapore, Malaysia uses cutting water supply as a threat to make Singapore yield. How could Singapore manage? This bilateral relationship is perplexing until one reads Lee Kuan Yew's memoirs. After the breakup with the pro-Communist members in the PAP in 1961, Lee sought an alliance with Malaya mainly for two reasons. He realized that Singapore could never achieve complete independence from the British simply because it was too small in area and could not defend itself. He also wanted to submerge the overwhelming pro-Communist sentiment in Singapore in a much bigger country Malaya, where Chinese were a minority. The Prime Minister of Malaya, Tunku Abdul Rahman, was a friend of Lee back in their Cambridge years. But he was against the merger because he was afraid that Chinese-dominated Singapore would disturb the racial balance in the whole country. The British came up with an ingenious way to solve this problem. They suggested to include Sabah and Sarawak, two nearby British colonies, in the merger so as to keep the original Chinese proportion of Malaya unchanged. With Malaya holding the big umbrella for Singapore, the British finally gave up control of Singapore's defense and foreign policy. The Federation of Malaya became Malaysia through this four-way merger in September 1963. Tunku, according to Lee, forced the separation of Singapore from Malaysia two years later. But according to other sources, Tunku claimed, "Lee wanted it." What happened is that Lee disagreed with Tunku on a number of important issues. Lee supported a Malaysian Malaysia as a multiracial society of equal citizens, while Tunku wanted a Malay-dominated Malaysia. They also differed on economic policies such as tax revenue sharing policy. Being who he is, Lee criticized publicly some federal policies. He continued visiting foreign countries and meeting with foreign officials, speaking on behalf of Singapore. From Lee's point of view, all he wanted was a practical, business-like working relationship with Tunku, not a loyalty-based relationship. But his bold leadership style offended Tunku. Tunku wanted to bring him down and cultivate his own man as leader in Singapore. Saving Lee again this time were the British, according to Lee's discovery from the British archive. He had actively made contacts with supporters of the British Labor Party and anti-colonial Malaysian and Singaporean students during his Cambridge years. Many of them became his proteges in his later political career. Lee had very good rapport with top officials of the British government over the years, both in London and Kuala Lumpur, including Prime Ministers Harold Macmillan and Harold Wilson, Secretary of State Duncan Sandys, British High Commissioners Philip Moore and Anthony Head. His good relationships with British Labor Government officials were also based on a similar basic philosophy of support for the underdog and moral principles of equality between men of all nations and races, underpinned by a belief in socialist brotherhood. Tunku could not bring down Lee and eventually said to him at their private meeting in the summer of 1965, "it's better for Singapore not to be part of Malaysia." Malaysia's guarantee of water supply to Singapore was part of the 1965 Agreement of Separation, which was later deposited in the United Nations. Singapore also relied on the fact that the Straits of Malacca had been international waters for centuries. If any of these were breached, Singapore could go to the UN Security Council. With these pre-conditions, Lee built an air force for emergency use, despite the small physical size of the country, and managed the relationship with Malaysia through a number of Malaysian prime ministers, Tunku, Razak, and Hussein Onn. Their relationship was characterized by Lee's finance minister in the 1970s, "The Malaysian attitude on economic cooperation is one of envy and disdain. They believe that Singapore cannot survive without Malaysia and that our prosperity is completely dependent upon them. Nevertheless, they are irritated and annoyed by the fact that despite our size and vulnerability, we have progressed beyond their expectations." (p269, vol.1) Lee Kuan Yew was very aware of this "envy and disdain" and was very shrewd and political in managing this relationship. When Dr. Mahathir Mohamad was the Deputy Prime Minister of Hussein Onn, Lee recognized that he would succeed Hussein some day. He knew that Mahathir was a fierce fighter and could cause lots of trouble. He decided to put behind their old antagonism, dating back to 1965, by inviting him to Singapore in 1978. Mahathir accepted the invitation and followed up with several subsequent visits. Through their long and frank discussions, Lee cleared up suspicions of each other. He won Mahathir's commitment that Mahathir would have no intention of undermining the independent Singapore. After Mahathir became the Prime Minister in 1981, he asked his ministers and officers to learn from Singapore, which no previous Malaysian prime minister had ever said publicly. Thus whenever there were issues straining the bilateral relations, they never blew out of the proportion and were handled at the technical level. Is Lee Kuan Yew Chinese? Lee Kuan Yew's encounter with the British tradition started in his childhood through his grandfather, whom he admired for being a pursuer on British ships. Although the Great Depression wiped out most of his grandfather's wealth, his description of the order, the discipline and the efficiency of British captains, first officers and engineers on the ships greatly impressed Lee. Being the oldest son of a five-child household, Lee became the de facto head of the household when he was merely a teenager, because his father, in his view, was nothing more than a rich man's son. He had much respect for his mother as she stood up to his father, prevented her dowry from being gambled away, and was determined to raise her children in the way she had wanted. Lee grew up speaking English with his parents. Because he did not understand Mandarin, he could not catch up with classes in Chinese schools. After he was transferred to an English school at the age of seven, he excelled with little effort. He went on to Raffles Institution and Raffles College. Being the first in his class, Lee obtained Queen's scholarship, and spent four years in Cambridge studying law. He returned to Singapore with academic distinction in the summer of 1950. On the one hand, Lee is very British. Britain and its empire constituted the world that he had known all his life, a world in which the British were central to Singapore's survival. While he wanted Singapore's freedom to decide what Singaporeans should do with their lives, he also wanted and needed Singapore's long historical, cultural and economic ties with Britain to be maintained. His Cambridge education in those immediate postwar years taught Lee that fundamental social changes do not have to be violent. Constitutional and peaceful approaches to change can yield much better results from social point view. He acquired British meritocracy, fairness and reasoning in his way of doing things, which distinguished him from the Communists. On the other hand, Lee wanted to preserve some traditional Chinese values and morals that he thought were good for young students and for society as a whole. When Lee was a legal advisor to the Chinese middle school student leaders in the 1950s, he was impressed by their vitality, dynamism, discipline and social and political commitment. By contrast, he was dismayed at the apathy, self-centeredness and lack of self-confidence of the English-educated students. After he merged Nanyang University with University of Singapore in 1978 to foster English as the working language, he feared loss of the discipline, determination, and responsibility based on Chinese traditions, morals and social values, all of which the Chinese schools instilled in their students. He wanted to transmit these values to students in the new bilingual schools. Lee felt the special urgency to do so when the increasing exposure to Western media and America's consumerism was eroding the traditional moral values of the students, which were permeating Singapore faster than the rest of the region because of the prevalent English education. Lee decided to preserve the best nine of the Chinese schools under a special assistance plan (or SAP). These SAP schools would admit students in the top 10% passing the primary school graduation examination. These schools succeeded in retaining the formality, discipline and social courtesies of traditional Chinese schools. Ezra Vogel characterized this tension well in his comparison of Singapore with Hong Kong in his book "The Four Little Dragons". He says that if Hong Kong entrepreneurs thought of Singapore as a bit dull, rigid, and too tightly controlled, Singapore's leaders thought Hong Kong as too speculative, decadent, and undisciplined. In connection with promoting Chinese traditional moral values, Lee defined the role of the media as "to reinforce, not to undermine, the cultural values and social attitudes being inculcated in our schools and universities." Using examples that press reports and photographs had caused racial riots with loss of lives, Lee asserted that freedom of the press must be subordinate to the overriding needs of Singapore, and to the primacy of purpose of an elected government. Lee's contentious treatment of freedom of speech and press has been one of the strongest criticisms. In his memoirs, he touches this issue explicitly in his description of his campaign for PAP against the opposition parties in the 1950s and in his management of public media in the 1980s. In both occasions, he effectively used the form of public debates against his opponents. When his opponents declined to go on broadcasting, Lee replied, "If an accuser is not prepared to face the person he has attacked, there is nothing more to be said." Chinese immigrants from different regions of South China spoke different dialects. Lee thought only Mandarin could be the common language for the Chinese speaking. After the merger of Nanyang University with the University of Singapore in 1978, Lee thought that the time was right to encourage the use of Mandarin. He stopped giving speeches in Hokkien. The opening of China in the 1980s brought a decisive change in the attitudes of Chinese to learning Mandarin. Professionals and supervisors knowing both English and Mandarin commanded a premium in the labor market. Politically, Lee tried to foster a Southeast Asian identity instead of a Chinese identity in Singapore. In his official meetings with Premier Hua Guofeng, Chairman Mao and other leaders in China in May, 1976, he made it clear that Singapore did not want China to embrace Singapore as its "kinsman country" because that would make Singapore's neighbors suspicious and isolate Singapore. He also said explicitly that Singapore could not establish diplomatic relations with Mainland China until other Southeast Asian countries did so, particularly Indonesia. Lee intentionally emphasized the distinctiveness and separateness of his delegation from the Chinese. He deliberately included a Malay in the delegation and arranged every official meeting in English with interpreters. He visited China more frequently in the 1980s and 90s, and relaxed his emphasis on his distinctiveness from the Chinese in China as China opened up to the West. But he still prioritized Singapore's relations with its neighbors over that with China as its neighbors can directly impact Singapore's lifelines. Lee Kuan Yew's Legacies: Today's Situation Lee Kuan Yew's memoirs help us understand Singapore's political culture at large and many government policies in specific. Samuel Huntington of Harvard University, in his forward of the book "Culture Matters" (published by Basic Books, 2000), uses Lee Kuan Yew's success in making Singapore an uncorrupt and meritocracy based society as an example to show that political leadership can accomplish a cultural change. Lee's principles are passed on to his successors and have become guidelines for many current policy decisions. His strict adherence to meritocracy, delivery of promises and emphasis on some traditional Chinese values are all reflected in various speeches of his successors. For instance, Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong decided to raise the salary budget for government employees from $28 million to $34 million in 2001, while Singapore's public service is regularly rated as one of the most efficient and competent in the world. How did he justify this increase? "Judge my government by its results," he says, " the quality of political leadership is all important; that this is fair to make this increase, given the ministers' huge responsibilities and impact on people's lives." He also said in his national day speech in 2000, "Friends are important, but a family is indispensable." "As individuals, we must be able to see beyond personal wants and wishes, and support policies for the overall good of the country … Remember that the opportunities you have had to do well came from a cohesive society that nurtured you." Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (Lee Kuan Yew's oldest son) says that government scholarship will continue to reflect the meritocratic values underpinning Singapore society, and dismisses suggestions that government scholarships be given on the basis of need. The only person whose importance in Singapore's history worth mention in parallel to Lee Kuan Yew would be Sir Stamford Raffles, the founder of Singapore in 1819. Sir Stamford Raffles, an official of the East India Company, purchased Singapore from the Sultan of Johor (one of the states in today's Malaysia, right opposite to Singapore) in order to counter the Dutch influence in the area. This tiny fishing village, located at the crossroads of the East and West, thus became a trading post of the British. The British left their landmarks, including Raffles Hotel, the most prestigious hotel on the island, and Botanic Garden on the Orchid Road, a collection of world rare flowers and plants, as well as a law-based community. In comparison, what Lee Kuan Yew left is a prosperous and vibrant country, thriving upon the principles he used to build Singapore from the Third World to the First, which he entitled the second volume of his memoirs. (The author is a freelance writer based in Boston, Massachusetts.) |