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Lee Kuan Yew at 80: Living
legacy
Tony Sitathan
 SINGAPORE - The Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore
was the scene of a gala celebration this month for the
80th birthday of the city-state's elder patriarch,
statesman and still very active Senior Minister Lee Kuan
Yew. More than 1,000 guests, grassroots leaders, foreign
businessmen and government representatives came to honor
Lee, who turned 80 on September 16.
Although he
appeared to have lost weight and his hair had thinned
and grayed considerably, the fire in his voice had not
ebbed with the passage of time. His English retained the
distinctive accent he acquired during his formative
years in Oxford, England, studying to be a barrister.
But he found no comfort being a barrister of law and
discovered that his true calling was politics.
Lee is credited for much of Singapore's
development from the rag-tag impoverished country he
inherited from the British and which in 1965 split from
Malaysia. It would be difficult to guess how Singapore
would have developed without the presence of Lee at its
helm for more than three decades. Perhaps it could have
developed at a similar pace to Malaysia, Thailand or
even Indonesia.
In his birthday speech, Lee
looked back in fondness at how his life had unfolded. "I
cannot say I planned my life. That is why I feel life is
a great adventure, exciting, unpredictable and at times
exhilarating ... To make life worthwhile, never lose
that joie de vivre. At the end of the day what I
cherish most are human relationships," he said.
Unlike Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir
Mohamad, who had a penchant for grand projects such as
the Petronas Twin Towers and the highly politicized
Bakun Dam project, Lee claims that he wants to be
remembered not through towering national edifices or
statues erected in his honor, but for the contributions
he has made to the lives of Singaporeans.
It was
evident from those gathered for the birthday ceremony
that after almost four decades at the center of
Singapore politics, Lee is getting more mellow and less
adversarial in his personal approach. Lim Kim San, the
former chairman of the Singapore Press Holdings and
former national development minister in Lee's cabinet,
noted: "I find him more sociable and friendly as he
moves around greeting old friends and colleagues,
finding out how they and their families are getting on.
The caring side of his nature is now more evident."
Compare that to the time when Lee remarked that
if he found an obstacle in the way of a policy or goal
he thought needed to be achieved, he would not hesitate
to use a bulldozer to clear the way. "Anybody who
decides to take me on needs to put on knuckle-dusters.
If you think you can hurt me more than I can hurt you,
try."
Lee has never shied away from confrontations
and is noted for his confrontational politics. As
someone charged with putting his house in order, he
makes no excuse for exposing the shortfalls of those
that went against his grain. Devan Nair, the disgraced
former president of Singapore; Francis Seow, the
self-exiled former solicitor general; Chia Thye Poh, the
political dissident who was incarcerated under the
Internal Security Act for more than two decades - these
were just a few of those who came under Lee's close
personal scrutiny.
It was perhaps this aura of
intolerance that earned Lee the disapproval as well as
the respect of the foreign media. He has never been shy
of making his views heard, no matter how unpopular with
the Western media, and he has thrown down the gauntlet
several times challenging them either to write the bare
facts, provide him with the right to reply, or face
libel action for personal acts of defamation. He has not
lost a single such case, a fact noted grimly by William
Safire, a Pulitzer Prize winner and noted columnist for
the New York Times: "... Some member's of Lee's family
... are not known to lose huge libel suits that come
before local judges."
One confrontation between
Lee and Bloomberg News Service was noted last year by
Safire. In a Times piece titled "Bloomberg News
humbled", Safire wrote: "In kowtowing to the Lee family,
the Bloomberg News Service - the feisty, aggressive
newcomer to coverage of global finance on cable and
computers - has just demeaned itself and undermined the
cause of a free online press."
Patrick Smith, a
Bloomberg columnist, had written a simmering article
about the control by the Lee family of several
conglomerates in Singapore. His implications of cronyism
and double standards got the article taken down from the
Bloomberg website - "digitally erased from the mind of
man", in Safire's words - with Bloomberg's apologies to
Lee Kuan Yew.
Lee is often credited for his
no-nonsense style in politics, and he credits the
effects of that to a clean and transparent government.
But he hopes to disprove economist Samuel Huntington's
theory that it is only because of Lee's iron will that
Singapore's government is efficient and effective, and
that after he is gone honesty and resourcefulness will
vanish from the island republic. Lee believes that the
pristine image of Singapore as an incorruptible
city-state will be preserved long after his demise.
It is true, though, that it was under Lee that
Singapore developed into one of the few countries in
Asia not to fall prey to corruption among their civil
servants nor to mismanagement by their bureaucracy. The
chance of being able to bribe a traffic policeman in
Singapore, for example, is next to nil. According to the
Global Corruption Report 2003, Singapore ranks as No 5
in the overall international ranking and No 1 in Asia.
Hong Kong is a distant second in Asia, and is ranked
overall at No 14.
Singapore has one of the
highest standards of living in Asia, comparable to those
of Hong Kong and Japan. It has one of the lowest rates
of unemployment, although the jobless rates have been
increasing of late, and has one of the highest rates of
savings among Asian countries. It is also one of the
first countries in Asia to pen a free-trade agreement
with the United States and has attracted billions in
foreign-investment dollars since the Economic
Development Board, charged with attracting foreign
investment, was formed in the early 1960s. Compare these
achievements to the Singapore that was once little more
than a small red dot on the map and dismissed as a
satellite city of Malaysia.
A tiny island
republic, Singapore now has reserves of more than S$120
billion (US$69 billion). Critics point out, however,
that Singapore's economic prowess was achieved at the
expense of political diversity. The nation has been
ruled by a one-party system for the past 38 years. The
opposition, many claim, has been muffled by the
government and the instruments of the state. The former
chief minister of Singapore and former ambassador to
France, David Marshall, once commented that the
Singapore media were "the running dogs of the
government".
Perhaps the simple truth of the
matter is that Singaporeans themselves are shy of
voicing their political leanings. Even the ruling party
was hard-pressed to recruit suitable candidates for the
last general elections. The fact is that Singaporeans in
general are more concerned about the virtues of their
economic well-being. So far no major crisis has rocked
Singapore except for severe acute respiratory syndrome
(SARS) and the growing unemployment rates. Nothing has
ever challenged the way Singaporeans think or look at
themselves. After all, if the system has worked for 38
years, who is to say that it won't work in the future?
The old adage "why fix it if it's not broken" holds true
as far as many Singaporeans are concerned.
As the
celebrations came to an end and the memories of Lee Kuan
Yew burned as brightly as the candles on his birthday
cake, Lee could not help but speak of the future. "What
will Singapore be like in 10-20 years from now?" he
mused. "We do not know how the cards will fall. There is
always that element of luck."
He ended the
celebrations by toasting the health of Singapore and all
Singaporeans, choking back the tears that welled up just
before he recited the national pledge. His voice broke
toward the end as it became charged with emotion. It was
a symbolic end to his birthday celebrations.
Lee
once said that even when he was dead and buried he would
arise from the ashes like a Phoenix reborn to safeguard
Singapore and its interests. It's best to take this with
a pinch of salt. But it's a fact that the next prime
minister after Goh Chok Tong will be Lee's son, Lee
Hsien Loong. With all the pieces in place, will
Singapore outlive the legacy of Lee Kuan Yew? For now,
the Lee political legacy will continue to be as much a
part of Singapore as Singapore is a part of Lee Kuan
Yew.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd.
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