Lee Kuan Yew: The Man and His Ideas

by Han Fook Kwang

  (Speech to the International Press Institute, June 9, 1971; text on page 425)

  Ultimately, it was Singapore’s elected leaders who bore responsibility for the well-being of its people, he would contend. The people had backed the government to improve their lot. His government, in turn, to honour the people’s trust and meet their expectations, was not one to hesitate to clear any roadblocks in its way, including a querulous and interfering media, whether foreign or local.

  The Eastern Sun closed in 1971 after the government published details of a black operation involving a communist intelligence service through its front organisation in Hongkong. The Singapore Herald folded the same year after it was taken to task for adopting a virulently anti-government line in its reporting and for having questionable foreign funding. That year also saw the arrest under the Internal Security Act of three senior journalists from the Nanyang Siang Pau for playing up communist propaganda and instigating Chinese chauvinistic feelings.

  The Newspaper and Printing Presses Act of 1974 provided the legal framework for greater government control, including the right for it to decide who would own newly created management shares which conferred voting rights 200 times greater than that of an ordinary share. The Act was amended several times subsequently, giving the government powers to restrict the circulation of publications which it deemed were engaging in Singapore politics, or which refused to grant it a right to reply to their articles on Singapore.

  These actions were to set the bounds within which the media, both local and foreign, would have to operate. While not seeking to nationalise the press or subject it to direct state controls, as had been done in some developing states, Lee would grant the pressmen a fair deal of freedom, but clearly on his terms.

  Lee would often counter Western commentators who portrayed him as a harsh dictator by saying that all he needed was half an hour on television to show viewers he was not the man they made him out to be. He would appear often on American and British television, such as the CBS News programme “Face the Nation”.

  The liberal critique

  But would not such government controls stifle the free flow of information and ideas? Would this not breed corruption and abuse of authority? Indeed, could a capitalist free market economy thrive in the absence of a free market of ideas?

  The Singapore government’s management of the press would receive widespread criticism from the West over the years. Western commentators would come to acknowledge Singapore’s economic achievements and Lee’s role in pulling it off in such a short time. But they could not accept his conception of how the press should operate in a free and democratic society, often labelling Singapore’s press laws draconian. Its media they would lambast as being neutered, pliant and sycophantic. Lee and his government’s stand towards the media was portrayed variously as an attempt to check criticism, stifle democracy, and even to maintain the People’s Action Party domination of the political scene in Singapore.

  Indeed, in March 1987 the US State Department deplored the Singapore government’s move to restrict the sale of the Asian Wall Street Journal in Singapore. It had done so after the newspaper refused to grant it the right of reply to one of its reports which proved erroneous. In an aide-mémoire sent to the Singapore Foreign Affairs Ministry, the US argued that the press should be free to publish or not to publish what it chooses, however irresponsible or biased its actions might seem. The logic of its case was that where the media was free, the marketplace of ideas would sort the irresponsible from the responsible and reward the latter.

  Lee would counter that, far from weeding out the irresponsible from the responsible, the marketplace of ideas in a multiracial society could, and did, lead to riots and mayhem. Events had proven this to be the case only too painfully.

  What was striking was that the Singapore electorate was by and large prepared to go along with this tough stand towards the media. Few voters, surveys showed, rated press freedom high on their list of priorities. The notion of the press as a fourth estate of government, out to check the executive at every turn, was not one that held much sway with the people, who looked to the authorities to bring material progress and development. Nor did the people accept the Western conventional wisdom that only an adversarial press could do its job credibly. The American idea of a press which is free to publish anything even if it was irresponsible or biased finds little sympathy in Singapore.

  This was a fundamental difference in outlook on the role and scope of the media from that taken in the West. The American mistake was to assume the universality of its system and values, Lee would assert in many interviews and speeches over the years.

  Asian Wall Street Journal – Its circulation was slashed from 5,000 to 400 a day in 1987 after it refused to publish in full the Singapore government’s reply to one of its articles criticising Sesdaq, the second securities market here. It stopped circulating here in 1990 when the government amended the Newspaper and Printing Presses Act (NPPA) to require publications to obtain an annual permit if they had circulations above 300 and covered Southeast Asian politics and current affairs. But it reversed its stand in 1991, obtained a licence and was allowed 2,500 copies.

  “… the US model is not a universal standard. The media in other countries play different roles. These roles have grown out of their different historical experiences, political systems and national temperaments. They represent equally valid functions which the press fulfils in different environments.

  “A more appropriate model for the Singapore media would be the BBC World Service, which reports events impartially, but provides an interpretation from a definite perspective – in the BBC’s case, the point of view of Western liberalism. The BBC broadcasts in Singapore on FM, 24 hours daily. It was a service meant for the British community including their troops stationed in Singapore. When they departed in 1971, I personally asked them to continue it as a service to Singaporeans.

  Perry Mason in Cairo?

  Actor Raymond Burr, appearing in his well-known role as the lawyer Perry Mason.

  As a tiny island-state, bereft of resources and a natural hinterland, Singapore could ill afford to cut itself off from the outside world in an attempt to shield itself from alien cultural influences. The flow of trade and technology from the West, Lee recognised, would bring with it Western mores and values. This point was made strikingly to him while on a visit to the Middle East in the 1970s.

  “You have to fill television time. You open your station at 5.30 pm. It has got to be kept going till midnight and on two channels. It costs thousands of dollars, creative minds and good supporting technicians to make a good feature. So it is easier to fill up by buying programmes, usually American or British. I have seen Perry Mason in Cairo, speaking Arabic. … Here was a country absolutely against the American system and establishment. But they faced the problem of filling time. There are many such popular series. But these programmes convey the whole ethos of the producer society.

  “Similarly with newspapers. They have got to fill the pages. What is easier than to buy features? Some features are good. I enjoy reading James Reston, even though from time to time I disagree with his views. But many features are of indifferent quality, and some are positively bad.

  “The most dangerous part of the mass media is its power of suggestion. People are imitative. If nobody had reported hijacking, or how easy and successful hijacking can be, there would not have been so many hijackings. I believe the Pilots’ Association was right that if you want to cut down hijackings, then report all the hijacking failures, and block out all the hijacking successes, particularly how they were successfully executed. The craze spread by imitation, until the impossible happened – they hijacked a Soviet aircraft. That took some doing. Obviously, despite the Iron Curtain, the ideas leaked through.

  “This brings me to Singapore. I read a recent series in the New Nation. It was imitating what the Western journalists are doing. It was ostensibly respectable. First, a serious study of homosexuality.
Then a protracted series on lesbianism. Then unwanted babies.

  “The Lord Chief Justice of Britain said, in a recent case on pornography, that if anybody showed the muck in a case before him to his daughters, he would take the man and wring his neck with his own hands. How did it come to such a pass? By a gradual, insidious process of suggesting that this is all right, that there is nothing wrong with it. It has led to ‘anything and everything goes’.

  “Fortunately for us, the New Nation, The Straits Times, or for that matter the Herald and the Eastern Sun, they did not, and do not, have the same impact on our population. The Chinese or the Malay press and, in a more limited way, the Indian press, in the mother language, makes much more emotive and powerful appeals. They pull at the heartstrings. That is why in the case of [the Chinese language] Nanyang Siang Pau, though I did not twist their necks, we took firm measures.”

  (Speech to the Singapore Press Club, November 15, 1972; text on page 431)

  “Another model is the Japanese media, which also stay out of partisan politics, but go beyond plain reporting to shape public opinion to help build up a national consensus on important issues. …

  “Thus while the US model of the role of the press is good for the US, as a universal standard, its applicability has not been proven. …

  “Singapore’s domestic debate is a matter for Singaporeans. We allow American journalists in Singapore in order to report Singapore to their fellow countrymen. We allow their papers to sell in Singapore so that we can know what foreigners are reading about us. But we cannot allow them to assume a role in Singapore that the American media play in America, that of invigilator, adversary, and inquisitor of the administration. If allowed to do so, they will radically change the nature of Singapore society, and I doubt if our social glue is strong enough to withstand such treatment.”

  (Speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 14, 1988; text on page 438)

  Besides, he noted, the approach which was so heavily criticised by Western liberals was not so different from that practised in some of their own countries. Was there not an element of different strokes for different folks in their positions? he would ask.

  “No foreign television station claims the right to telecast its programmes in Singapore. Indeed America’s Federal Communications Commission regulations bar foreigners from owning more than 25 per cent of a TV or radio station. In other words, only Americans can control a business which influences public opinion in America. Thus before Rupert Murdoch purchased the independent TV stations of the Metromedia group in 1985, he first took up US citizenship. If a mighty nation of 240 million finds such safeguards necessary, what about a plastic, unformed society like Singapore?

  “As for the US print media, in 1976 the South African Ministry of Information was negotiating covertly to buy the Washington Star to soft-sell apartheid. When the story broke, a storm broke out in Washington and the purchase fell through. Americans were outraged at this South African attempt to soft-sell apartheid in America’s marketplace of ideas. But apartheid is patently abhorrent. If the marketplace of ideas automatically separates the good from the bad, and rewards the good, why this outrage at an attempt which is doomed to fail? When America reacts in this way, is it surprising that Singapore feels it cannot take chances with the offshore press taking sides on Singapore’s domestic debate?”

  (Speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 14, 1988; text on page 438)

  “If I were a Saddam Hussein, then I would be a pariah which, unfortunately for them, I am not. I have access to any of the leaders I would like to meet in Europe, in Asia and indeed in America.” – Lee, answering his critics who likened him to Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Picture shows Lee addressing guests at a White House dinner hosted for him on October 9, 1985 by US President Ronald Reagan.

  No cocker spaniel

  Lee’s government was to develop the position over the years that circulation in Singapore by foreign newspapers and journals was a privilege granted by the Singapore government on its own terms. These were, namely, that they should report developments in Singapore “as outsiders for outsiders”. That is, they should not become a partisan in the country’s domestic debate. If they found these conditions intolerable, they were free not to sell their papers in Singapore, he argued.

  Over the years, he was to confront the powerful Western media on numerous occasions, restricting the circulation of international magazines such as Time, The Economist, and Asian Wall Street Journal when they failed to publish replies from the Singapore government to correct inaccuracies in their reports. This, he maintained, was the only way to ensure that he retained the right of reply, which these publications preached, but practised more in the breach.

  But would this not stop the flow of information to Singaporeans and foreigners residing in the Republic? Would this approach not be at odds with the country’s often-stated desire to become a hub for information, finance and technology?

  He anticipated these criticisms. Curbing a paper’s circulation, he countered, would not deprive Singaporeans access to information. He offered the proscribed publications free access if they would circulate without advertisements. This sent a clear message: no stoking of political controversy in Singapore for the sake of boosting circulation.

  To reinforce his point, he went so far as to move a Bill in Parliament to grant immunity from the country’s copyright laws. This was to allow Singaporeans to make any number of copies of the gazetted publications as they chose. Copies of these were also made available at public libraries. This, he argued, showed that the curbs against the foreign publications were not an attempt to stop the flow of information, but rather to stop publishers from seeking to profit by reporting on Singapore events with a certain twist to the news.

  Despite the barrage of media criticism that these moves attracted, he remained adamant that right was on his side.

  “The media slams, sloshes, jabs me, pokes me. You expect me to enjoy it and be passive and roll over like a cocker spaniel? Or do you think from time to time, using words, not using violence, I turn the probe on them. The moment they recognise that I have the right of reply, they lose their sharpness, they lose their willingness to give that slight twist because they know that I’ll put it right. I think that’s fair.”

  (Interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation, June 14, 1995)

  He was also to acquire a formidable reputation for taking errant journalists and publishers to court to put right articles which impugned his integrity and that of the system in Singapore. He believed that any suggestion of the sort had to be squashed if it was not to take root insidiously. Referring to one of his many court cases against a foreign commentator who had cast aspersions on his leadership and likened it to a dynasty, he said:

  “If I had not taken him to court and asked him to prove what he said and offered myself as a plaintiff and a witness for him to throw his accusation to my face, I would not be able to look at my voters, my electorate, in the face. …

  “How do you prove one side right and the other side wrong by writing letters to each other? You are English. You know the fundamental rule of proving the truth. You meet face to face. You confront fact with fiction, truth with lies and the judge or the jury decides. …

  “If you don’t challenge it, there are any number of crazy, idiotic, vicious people who are out to get me down, who’re going to spread it and say, ‘Read this, he’s done nothing about it. It must be true.’ But I’ve done something about it and the story can’t take off. I have sued 15 or 20 times over the last 30-odd years and they come back with the same story that I have been plundering the place, I’ve enriched myself, and if I had not stopped it each time on its tracks, I would not have survived or enjoyed the reputation that I think I do enjoy, that I’m prepared to stand up and be scrutinised.”

  (Interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation, June 14, 1995)

  This no-nonsense approach was to win Lee many critics. They
charged that he had resorted time and again to intimidation of the press to curb dissent at home and criticisms abroad. This, his critics claimed, would undermine the emergence of a civil society in Singapore, prevent democratic institutions and instincts from taking root, and keep the people in check. Lee was unmoved by such attacks. On the contrary, he argued that a free press, in its eagerness to fault and check its leaders and institutions – as well as its drive to boost its sales by whipping up public controversy and political intrigue – had overstepped itself. The result was a general debasing, even demolition, of the very institutions which these liberal commentators claimed to champion.

  “Is it not more entertaining to have a plethora of opinions so that everybody is entertained and gets the spice that he wants? I’m not sure that the end result in Britain has been a great improvement over the years.

  “As a result of press circulation and the desire to titillate and satisfy the cravings of an ever-jaded population, you have demolished the monarchy. You have degraded your members of parliament and your ministers with stories of sleaze and sexual peccadillos. You have downgraded your courts and made them look less than fair. You have demoralised your police force. Even the Church of England no longer has that same aura of authority and wisdom.

  “I’m not sure that this is a better Britain. I think the Britain that I knew after World War II was better. I am not saying that Britain should remain unchanged, but there were certain fixed positions. What do you want a monarchy for if you don’t want to regard it with some esteem? Of course, all kings have had their weaknesses …”