Lee Kuan Yew: The Man and His Ideas

by Han Fook Kwang

  History is a long process of attrition. It will go on. And one day, it will come back together. You see, this is not like a map and you can take a pair of scissors and cut off Singapore and then take it and paste it in the South Pacific and forget about it. It is not possible. This is part of the mainland of the continent of Asia. And that Causeway … You know, the Japanese blew it up; it was still rebuilt. It is part of history; and you are part of history. You are part of this place as much as I am. As much as Inche Othman Wok, my colleague, is. And I say that is the way it will be in the end.

  I guarantee you this: there will be a constitution which we will get redrawn in which minority rights … You know, it is very easy in Singapore for people to stand up and if you talk, “One race, one language, one religion,” there will be a lot of trouble, you know. We do not want that sort of thing. That is stupidity. So we are going to get the chief justices of India, Australia, New Zealand and a few others together with our own Chief Justice and a few of our eminent lawyers to draft “entrenched” clauses … You know, “entrenched”: no government can just cancel the clauses. Entrenched, and enforceable.

  If anybody thinks he is being discriminated against either for a flat or a scholarship or a job or for social welfare relief because of race or language or religion, he can go to the court, take out a writ; and if he proves that it was because of discrimination on the ground of race, language, religion or culture, then the court will have to enforce the constitution and ensure minority rights.

  We are an equal society. You are equal to me; I am equal to you. Nobody is more equal than others. In some places, they say, “We are all equal.” But what they mean is, they are more equal, you see – which makes life very difficult. But here, when we say “equal”, we really mean it. We do not have to do it in Singapore. But we are thinking in terms of 100, 200 years, 1,000 years. You must help them emerge. And there is only one way: education and economic thrust.

  You are equal to me; I am equal to you. Nobody is more equal than others.

  In this speech at a seminar on communism and democracy on April 28, 1971, Lee talked about the problems facing newly emerging countries like Singapore with no tradition of government and a shared sense of security. Worse, in Singapore’s case, the number of people at the top who mattered was so small they could all fit into a Jumbo jet which if it crashed would mean the end of Singapore.

  Singapore’s fate depends on 300 men

  In your eleven and a half years in school, my colleagues and I have been trying to give you the kind of education which will prepare and equip you for your part in making Singapore a better place to live in. If you have done your share of work, including extracurricular activities, you will find life in Singapore a rewarding challenge.

  For six years, 1959 to 1965, we planned on the basis of a Singapore which would be together with peninsular Malaya. On August 9, 1965, we became independent on our own. We had to make fundamental changes in our political, social and security policies. Most important of all, education had to be geared differently to prepare you for a different way of life. We knew that there would have to be considerable cooperation with Malaysia in security matters. But we knew economic cooperation would be slow in developing. There would be less and less entrepôt trade. We had to concentrate more on manufacturing, mostly for exports to world markets. So we would require fewer clerks and shopkeepers, but more technicians, engineers and executives.

  I have put the subjects – politics, economics and security – in the order of their importance to your future. Without a stable political situation and a rational and realistic political leadership, there can be no economic development. There will be little investment in factories, few jobs, massive unemployment, and a dangerous internal security position. And without a thriving economy, you need not worry about defending the homes that you have not built, and the wealth that you have not created.

  Unfortunately, this is too true of many new countries. The political situation is confused, and the support of a poorly educated people is sought by emotional appeals, not rational argument. After a new government is elected, its promises cannot be fulfilled. Then violence results from frustration.

  New countries, like Singapore, face many problems: a lack of the instruments for effective government, not enough trained administrators, engineers, technicians, not enough capital, and scarce technological expertise. Further, poor organisation of whatever meagre trained manpower there is makes the problem worse. But given tough-minded and honest political leadership, these problems can be slowly overcome.

  There is as yet no large core of people in Singapore to provide the reflexes for national, as against individual survival.

  In established societies in the West, like Britain, a system of government has gone on unchanged, or changing only gradually, for over three centuries. They have developed a large number of people who, whilst fighting for their personal or sectional interests, have made a habit of putting their country’s interests above their own. They have learned from experience that without national security and a strong economy, their own interests will be lost. They have developed the reflexes necessary for group survival as against individual survival. In times of grave crises – as in the Second World War – they joined to form a national government, sinking their party rivalries to make sure that the nation survived.

  New countries do not have this continuing hard core of people to provide for continuity in political leadership. Worse, they do not even have enough political leaders with any understanding of their economy, and what to do to generate economic growth.

  The first generation leaders are the men who had led their people to independence. They seldom understand that government means more than just mobilising mass support for protest against the injustices of colonialism. After independence they cannot deliver the goods. They had not learned about administration and economic growth. They are not able to create confidence in a government’s promises and undertakings. They cannot get foreign investments to add to domestic capital. Then they have not educated and trained their young in the skills and disciplines which can use this capital and machinery to bring about the better life.

  Worse, when the first generation leaders pass away, there are no successors who have made it a practice of placing the national interest above their own. They worry more about their own future than that of the people. They then decide to make provisions for their own personal future. The result is a further decline in the economy, and a deterioration of the social order.

  In 1945 the British cut Singapore off from the Straits Settlements of Penang and Malacca, which were put into Malaya. The British wanted to hold us as a military base for as long as they could. They made a grave mistake. By 1963, when we rejoined Malaya in Malaysia, a way of government had become so established in Malaya that the changes and accommodation necessary, with Singapore as part of the Federation, were not acceptable to Malaysia.

  We have to live with what has happened. Events which took place before you were born, in 1945, and again in 1948, when the Malayan Communist Party staged its revolt in an armed bid for power, have shaped our destiny. You have inherited the past, including the mistakes and the successes of those before you.

  There is as yet no large core of people in Singapore to provide the reflexes for national, as against individual survival. We must make a habit of putting group interests first and personal interests next. Singaporeans must become more conscious that their very existence as a distinct people, in a poor and troubled Asia, depends upon our ability to react quickly and in unity to defend our interests.

  Many are too young to remember how bad things were. They take for granted Singapore’s orderly progress and continuing prosperity as the natural order of things. Those who do remember know that our present stability and prosperity have been built upon the cohesion, the determination and the planning of a small band of men. We are succeeding in creating a developed, albeit a small, nation. Singapore has a good chance of continuing to
be a successful nation if the next generation understands the ingredients of success:

  First, a stable political situation.

  Second, a well-educated and trained population, ready to work and pay for what it wants.

  Third, the ability to attract higher-level technology industries.

  Fourth, better standards of life and in a cleaner, greener and more gracious Singapore.

  Fifth, the competence of our defence forces to ensure that no one believes he can just walk in and take over what we have created and built.

  If all the 300 were to crash in one Jumbo jet, then Singapore will disintegrate. That shows how small the base is for our leadership in politics, economics and security.

  The main burden of present planning and implementation rests on the shoulders of some 300 key persons. They include key men in the PAP, MPs and cadres who mobilise mass support and explain the need for policies even when they are temporarily inconvenient or against sectional interests. Outstanding men in civil service, the police, the armed forces, chairmen of statutory boards and their top administrators – they have worked the details of policies set by the government and seen to their implementation. These people come from poor and middle-class homes. They come from different language schools. Singapore is a meritocracy. And these men have risen to the top by their own merit, hard work and high performance. Together they are a closely knit and coordinated hard core. If all the 300 were to crash in one Jumbo jet, then Singapore will disintegrate. That shows how small the base is for our leadership in politics, economics and security. We have to, and we will, enlarge this base, enlarging the number of key digits.

  It is strange, but true, that the fate of millions often turns around the quality, strength and foresight of the key digits in a country. They decide whether a country gains cohesion and strength in orderly progress, or disintegrates and degenerates into chaos.

  In the Second World War, Winston Churchill and a small group of men around him gave a whole nation the courage and resolution to fight against insurmountable odds. He triumphed and Britain triumphed. Today, in Britain, a new generation of leaders is trying to find a similar formula for national unity and collective endeavour, for her position in the top league of major developed nations under vastly changed world conditions. This leadership consists of several men of ability and determination. But they must also have the capacity to inspire their people to unite for a national cause, to place trade union and sectional interests second to national interests.

  De Gaulle succeeded in remaking France into a coherent nation after the shambles of defeat in the Second World War. The dissension between bickering political parties in the years from 1945 to 1958 resulted in the unhappy spectacle of unstable and short-lived coalition governments, with no long-term or consistent policies. Finally they were near civil war, as they got embroiled in Algeria for the sake of one million white French-Algerians. The recovery to the prosperity and progress France now enjoys owes a great deal to de Gaulle, his leadership, and the group of leaders around him who, even now after de Gaulle, chart the destiny of France.

  Let me explain one special feature about Singapore. Our population is mixed. Even the majority community, 76 per cent Chinese, is composed of different groups: the older generation are dialect-speaking. Then we have the Chinese-educated and the English-educated. Next, we have Malays, Indians, Ceylonese and Eurasians. They have different languages, religions and cultures. It is not easy to get these various groups to see politics alike. But the government has to reconcile different views and get people to support policies to further the interests of all.

  There can be few places in the world where it is necessary for senior Cabinet ministers to read three sets of newspapers every morning, one in Malay, two in Chinese and three in English. In the past few months, a Malay newspaper has been talking of nothing but Malay problems, and advocating “bumiputra” policies. One Chinese newspaper, on the other hand, has been playing up pro-Chinese communist news, and working up Chinese language issues. It is worth noting that this newspaper does not do this in its Malaysian edition. But the line taken by this paper has forced the other major Chinese paper to compete in drumming up chauvinistic and xenophobic sentiments. The English press, particularly one English language newspaper, financed by capital from obscure sources nominally from Hongkong, has been playing upon “with-it”-ism – permissiveness in sex, drugs and dress styles. On National Service, whilst giving lip-service support, this newspaper worked up a campaign to fault it on every count. These three newspapers set off three different pulls in three contrary directions. Unless checked, they will tear Singapore society asunder. Any government of Singapore that does not keep these divisive and disruptive activities in check is guilty of dereliction of duty.

  We must get the next generation on to more common ground to build their future upon. We must give our children roots in their own language and culture, and also the widest common ground through a second language, on which all can compete equally.

  Singapore’s civil service is widely acknowledged as one of the best in the world – modern, efficient and clean. Much of the credit must go to Lee and his colleagues for providing the much-needed leadership, especially in the early years. In this speech at the opening of the Civil Service Political Study Centre on August 15, 1959, Lee spoke about the political challenge for civil servants.

  The trouble with the civil service

  For several years, two of your ministers and I have been discussing the problems which a democratic socialist party, committed to a dynamic social programme, will have to face when it assumes power in Singapore. And one of these problems is the civil service through which we have to translate our policies. These two ministers were then your colleagues. They know the civil service as well as any one of you, for no one can accuse Dr Goh Keng Swee or Mr K.M. Byrne of not knowing the civil service in which they have spent the greater part of their lives.

  I myself am not altogether ignorant of the persons who make up the higher echelon of the civil service. Many of you were my contemporaries in school, in Raffles College and, later, in England. It is because we understood the good qualities and the weaknesses of our civil service that we have anticipated fairly accurately the problems that would face us when we assumed office. We debated then the possibility of making the civil service politically alert and alive to the great changes that were taking place and the even more tremendous changes that will take place in the pattern of governments in Asia.

  But although Dr Goh, Mr Byrne and I share a great deal in common with you in our educational background – the schools we went to, the colleges we attended, the courses that we took, the examinations that we passed – yet a great deal has happened since we left college. Since then we went through different social experiences, looked upon the same world through different looking glasses and saw different things. And in the end we began to think in different concepts and talk a different language, the concepts of political revolution and the language of the masses.

  There were two causes which made people like Dr Goh and Mr Byrne change from quiet senior civil servants to articulate mass leaders. One is their innate character. The other is the social-political experience of the last 18 years since the Japanese invasion. And this Civil Service Study Centre is, in part, an attempt to telescope into a study course the main elements of the political and social forces which caused the postwar revolutions in Asia. If nothing else, you will at least understand what was the genesis of the forces that have shaken the British Raj under which nearly all of you were recruited, and under which you were guaranteed a lifetime of service with a pension at the end.

  Some of you may be bewildered and perplexed by what you may consider the impatience with which we are asking for things to be done.

  Some of you may be bewildered and perplexed by what you may consider the impatience with which we are asking for things to be done. If so, then I hope that at the end of your course in this Study Centre, if you do not share our
impatience, you will at least understand it. You will at least appreciate why we consider it so vital, if the democratic state is to survive, for the democratic machinery to be in tune with the temper of the people and tempo of political change in the rest of Asia.

  Whether an administration functions efficiently and smoothly in the interests of the people as a whole or in the interests of a small section of the people, depends upon the policies of the ministers. But it is your responsibility to make sure that there is an efficient civil service.

  If you look around you in Southeast Asia you may be disturbed by the phenomena of newly independent countries passing from the first phase of democratic constitutions into military or semi-military dictatorships. Pakistan, Indonesia and Burma are grim reminders to us that the democratic state is not something which will look after itself just by the setting up of a democratic constitution. There are many reasons why in Southeast Asian countries like Pakistan, Indonesia and Burma the democratic system has broken down, and why in India and Ceylon it has, relatively speaking, succeeded. One of the reasons is that both in India and in Ceylon they had the administrators to run the machine of the democratic system. India had more civil servants than Pakistan. In Ceylon they had a long time to build up their civil service. And so, despite all the stresses and strains of racial religions and linguistic classes between Tamils and Sinhalese, Buddhists and Hindus, the administration did not collapse.

  We cannot pretend to be as fortunately placed in respect of the civil service as the Indian government was when it became independent. But we are certainly in a much better position than the Indonesians who were practically without any civil service when they took over from the Dutch. For the Dutch did not believe that the Indonesians should be taught how to govern themselves.