Lee argued that foreign observers advocating Western-style democracies for Asian societies failed to understand the very different cultural context in which they would impose the system. He made this point in a feisty exchange during an interview with British Broadcasting Corporation’s Ludovic Kennedy in March 1977.
They would want the stars
“If we had British-style trade unions we would be bankrupt.”
KENNEDY: Prime Minister, you had some quite harsh things to say about Britain recently. At the opening of your Parliament the other day, you said of us, “A great people have been temporarily reduced to straitened circumstances by excessive cushioning of life by state subsidies.” Do you think that was quite fair?
LEE KUAN YEW: It is only one of the reasons for the economic and the social problems in Britain. It’s a vast subject, which you know more about than I do. But the part that I am concerned with is that one-man-one-vote means that at every election time, it’s an auction of, really, wealth that has not yet been created. So if I do not effectively debunk the theory that the government will provide – there is always more and more for less and less, there is no need really to try because we are doing all right now – we will be a broken-back state like so many of the others in the Third World. We’ve just got off the ground. We nearly fell flat on our faces with the problems of Confrontation during Dr Sukarno’s Indonesia, British withdrawal, and with it the bases were closed and so on. And now just the first touch of comfort – we are above the rice-line, there are a number of aspiring Wedgewood Benns who think we ought to be giving things for free, that we should not have prescription charges; it is wicked to make people pay for their medicine; it is wicked to make them pay for the extras the children have in school, like going out on outings and so on. It is a very attractive election programme.
Look, what has happened? Vast government expenditure, which fortunately in Britain’s case will all be paid for by North Sea oil. But we haven’t got North Sea oil, and I think we will be bankrupt.
KENNEDY: You also said, Prime Minister, that “If we had British-style trade unions we would be bankrupt.” Now, what did you mean by that?
LEE: Now, please! Some of the union leaders are good old friends of mine and I hope they will remain good old friends. In fact, they taught me a lot about labour and the labour movement and so on. But the way things have gone in Britain over the last ten years – well, really from 1964 onwards, 13 years – it’s not the kind of labour movement that I knew in Britain when I was a student there watching it, watching socialism, the democratic way, that the will of the majority is expressed periodically, within a period of five years, and once expressed, that will must be respected. Well, it’s a different Britain. That was old-fashioned constitutional theory. The new theory now which I am seeing evolved is: never mind what the majority will is. We, the union leaders who have been elected by a small group of very important people – the shop stewards and the people who stayed late into the early hours of the morning to make the crucial decisions when the others have got tired and gone home – have decided that this will be so. And quite rightly, Mr Denis Healey, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, tells the House of Commons what he hopes the budget should be, and then says, I will discuss it with the trade unions.
Well, if my colleague, who is Minister of Finance, is caught or trapped in that position, I think we are bankrupt. Yes, because they would want the moon, the stars and beyond, and why not? We have got some reserves, our credit is good, we could go on for five, maybe, seven years. Then what? Without North Sea oil.
KENNEDY: How can we put our house in order?
LEE: Why do you want to put your house in order? You’ve got North Sea oil that lubricates and will smooth out every friction. You will be as happy and as relaxed as the Arabs.
KENNEDY: I thought you were going to say, the same as you are.
LEE: No, I have got to work. Every grain of rice that we consume is paid for in foreign exchange. Nature did not intend that Singapore be an agricultural country. That’s why it was uninhabited. It was intended to be discovered or re-discovered (if you want to be sensitive to the feelings of people who believe in myths and mythology of the region) in 1819 by someone called Stamford Raffles, later made a knight, turned into an emporium, a base, a manufacturing centre, a financial centre, an independent republic. And it’s a fine mechanism, which, if we tamper around with the kind of screwdrivers and spanners that we have along the picket lines, when they squatted in front of the gate and didn’t allow lorries carrying coal or oil to pass into the power stations, well, the clock stops ticking.
Never before have the people of Singapore had a government which they can kick out of office freely, without hindrance, by just crossing them off the ballot.
KENNEDY: Would it be fair to try and sum up what you have been saying about these – on this loss of civil liberties, such as they are – that some small liberties have to be sacrificed in order to make sure that you have the greater liberty? Would that be a fair assessment?
LEE: One way of putting it. If you ask me to put it, I would say simply: Never before have the people of Singapore had a government which they can kick out of office freely, without hindrance, by just crossing them off the ballot. And never have they had a government which had to tend to their needs – every grumble, every bellyache – to make sure that the vote is on the side of the angels every five years.
KENNEDY: But did you ever feel, Prime Minister, it’s often been said in the West that a good democracy, a good democratic society is one in which you not only have a good government but you have a good opposition to match that government. Do you not ever feel the lack of that?
I often wonder whether the foreign journalists or the casual visitor like you has fathomed or can fathom the mind of an Oriental.
LEE: As a Western-educated Singaporean, I understand what you are saying. And perhaps if I could get a nice sparring partner, it will provide me with a backdrop that contrasts. But I often wonder whether the foreign journalists, or the casual visitor like you, has fathomed or can fathom the mind of an Oriental. And I am having to look after Orientals whether they are of Chinese descent or Malay or Indian or Eurasian or Ceylonese and so on. What’s inside is completely different: Is this a good government that I can trust to look after me and my family, and will see that my children are educated and will have a job better than mine, and have a home better than mine? Is it fair or is it unfair, unjust, favouring its relatives, its friends; looting the public purse for its relatives, for itself so that ministers live in luxury while the masses live in squalor?
Those are the crucial issues because those are the issues that have toppled governments in the Third World. You can ask any taxi driver – he is the most uninhibited Singaporean you can think of. You can ask any bartender in any hotel. He’ll let off a bellyache. But at the end of the day, when he puts his cross, when election comes, he has given me and my colleagues over seventeen and a half years – come June, eighteen years in office. In five successive elections, the percentage of votes has gone up from a first-time high of 53 per cent to an all-time low of about 47½, to an all-time high, last December, of 72½ per cent, which I think is cause for some satisfaction.
Western notions of democracy were not universally applicable, argued Lee at an Asahi Shimbun symposium in Tokyo on May 9, 1991. Instead, Asian societies will evolve their own forms of representative government which would not be mirror images of Western liberal democracies. Rather, the democratic system would have to be adapted by Asian societies to meet their needs.
Universality of democracy?
The West, led by America, puts the credo simply as democracy is universally good for all peoples, and that to progress, modernise and become industrial societies, they should become democracies. Now that the Cold War has ended, I hope it is possible for Western political scientists to write in more objective terms. Why has democracy not worked in most of these newly independent countries? In particular, why has an Am
erican-based constitution failed to work in America’s only former colony, the Philippines? The Philippines experiment in democracy started with independence and elections in 1946. That experiment in democracy failed in 1972 with martial law, long before Marcos was ousted in 1986. A second American-based constitution was promulgated by President Aquino in February 1987. While a constitutional commission was sitting to frame this constitution, four coups were attempted. In May 1987, elections were held for a Senate and a House of Representatives. This still did not settle the loyalty of the armed forces because three more coup attempts followed.
For many centuries democratic governments were found only in a few nations, where the character of the people and their circumstances were favourable: first in Britain, then exported to her former white colonies or dominions like America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
When Westerners speak candidly
From time to time a Western leader speaks out from the heart. Mrs Thatcher did this in March this year. She was in the United States to receive the Medal of Freedom from President Bush. In a TV interview, talking about Europeans who want political union, she said, “We the UK are 700 years old. Germany’s Parliament is only 40, Spain a dozen years old, Portugal even less.” (Sunday Times, London, March 10, 1991.) She could have added that America’s is over 200 years, Canada’s 123, Australia’s 90, New Zealand’s 83. The French on the other hand have had 7 constitutions and governing charters in the 200 years since their revolution in 1789, and two of these were monarchical aristocracies, not democracies. And their present constitution is only 33 years old from 1958 when General de Gaulle took over after the collapse of the 4th French Republic.
Mrs Thatcher’s view was that in spite of sharing a common European history and culture for over 2,000 years since the Roman Empire, only the British can claim 700 years of parliamentary democracy since Magna Carta. She also reminded the Germans that they have been democratic for only 40 years.
Pessimistic British view of democracy for the Soviet Union
When Western commentators are not writing to convert a Third World country to democracy, they are more objective. For example, when they discuss the Soviet Union, they say openly that democracy will not work. Jonathan Eyal, Director of Studies, Royal United Services Institute in London, in The Independent newspaper (March 22, 1991) said, “The middle-class ethos, responsible in the West for enshrining compromise and moderation as supreme values, is still lacking in the USSR. … They are, therefore, advising Mr Gorbachev to create domestic institutions, in order to provide his country with the instruments for a social dialogue.
Now if democracy will not work for the Russians, a white Christian people, can we assume that it will naturally work with Asians?
“Yet democracy is not simply a matter of ballot boxes, elections or political parties. Indeed, democracy may not be a political system at all but, rather, a way of life which depends on an accepted social contract, mutual respect, moderation and the explicit acceptance that no one is the possessor of a universal truth.”
He concluded that “The Soviet empire will collapse sooner rather than later.”
European historians ascribe Russia’s lack of a liberal civic society to the fact that she missed the Renaissance (middle 15th to end 16th century) and also the Enlightenment (18th century). These were the two leavening experiences that lifted Western Europe to a more humane culture. Now if democracy will not work for the Russians, a white Christian people, can we assume that it will naturally work with Asians?
Asia’s top priority – political stability
The basic problem facing all Asian countries other than Japan is how to maintain political stability. Their old communities were in small territories ruled by tribal chiefs or sultans. European colonial governments later amalgamated these small territories into larger administrative units. Now these larger units embracing diverse peoples have become new nations. Rupert Emerson, Professor of Government in Harvard, defines a nation thus: “A single people, traditionally fixed on a well-defined territory, speaking the same language and preferably a language all its own, possessing a distinctive culture, and shaped to a common mould by many generations of shared historical experience.”
Professor Robert Tilman, University of North Carolina, in his book Southeast Asia and the Enemy Beyond (Westview Press, 1987), pointed out that by this definition, Thailand is the only country in Southeast Asia which is a nation, and that only if Muslims in the south are excluded. He sums up the situation thus: “For every Asean member there are tigers at the door, tigers in the jungles, and tigers in the kitchen. The future is fraught with risks for every state in the region. The association is a fragile organisation, and every state belonging to it is also fragile. Outside forces over which each has no control could loose centrifugal forces tugging at Asean unity. Outside forces might also set off internal chain reactions that could topple any of the current regimes and wipe out the gains of the last few decades.”
Political stability during a period of transition to a modern state is under great stress. But stability is the basic precondition for success. Whole people must acquire new knowledge and new skills so that they can work, repair and maintain machines, both for industry and agriculture. To do this there must be the firm framework of law and order within which learning, working and excelling are encouraged and rewarded. Several countries like South Korea and Taiwan have succeeded in industrialising.
Need for democratic participation in NIEs
After they have achieved a certain level of modernisation, new pressures threaten their political stability. Their people’s thinking and attitudes change as a result of education plus knowledge of the outside world, especially America, Europe and Japan. Educated Koreans and Taiwanese then question the basis of the legitimacy of their governments. The governments of South Korea and Taiwan have adopted more representative forms of governments. Both are in the process of adjusting to and absorbing these changes. South Korea has had more difficulties, especially with their trade unions. Korean culture has always extolled the fighter who fights to the bitter end. The spirit of give and take, to live and let live, is not part of traditional Korean culture.
Traditional culture and democracy
Progress towards democracy amongst Asian countries has been uneven because often the losing side has been unwilling to accept the results of an election, and instead continued to agitate and oppose both inside and outside their legislative assemblies. This has led to instability, and as instability threatens progress, governments curtail democratic rights.
Many Asian countries which have worked democratic constitutions have from time to time had to invoke emergency rule or martial law.
Many Asian countries which have worked democratic constitutions have from time to time had to invoke emergency rule or martial law. Even the British have had to do this in Northern Ireland. For democracy to work without being suspended from time to time, a people must acquire, if they have not inherited, cultural habits that make contending groups adjust differences or conflicts not by violence but by give and take. People must accept a view or policy as valid because that was the way the votes fell, whilst they work peacefully for a change in the next elections. But before this can happen, a people must have reached a certain high level of education and economic development which has produced a sizeable middle-class so that life is not such a fight for basic survival.
Japan reached that level long before World War Two. South Korea and Taiwan reached that level in the late 1970s. They are now moving towards more representative government. People in South Korea and Taiwan are at a stage where the active participation of knowledgeable managers, engineers, supervisors and workers in decision-making on the factory floor has become a way of life. Such people naturally have the urge to extend this habit of participation to matters of government.
No Singaporean leader can afford to put political theory above the practical need of stability and orderly progress.
In China, a
country with a large rural mass, some 80 per cent of her 1,100 million people, political change has to be differently geared for the rural and the urban areas. Peasants in the countryside are often content to live quiet lives and let the government be run by their betters, be they emperors or communist mandarins. This is why the communists in Albania were able to garner support from the rural areas. The problem for China is how to accommodate the desire of their educated and knowledgeable people in the cities to decide how they are to be governed. These are people who are well-informed about other societies, including Taiwan and Hongkong. But the 900 million peasants have different priorities and concerns. One-man-one-vote for 1,100 million Chinese to choose a president, a congress or a senate will lead to chaotic results. But then neither can a self-perpetuating communist party claim to represent the people. They have to win the support and cooperation of their educated in the cities because, without their participation, modernisation will be slow and difficult.
Political change – a Darwinian process
Each country in Asia will chart its own way forward. Every country wants to be developed and wealthy. They will adopt and adapt those features or attributes of successful countries which they think will help them succeed. If these features work and improve their rate of progress, they will be permanently incorporated. If they do not work or cause difficulties, they will be abandoned. It is akin to social Darwinism, a process of trial and error in which survival is the test of what works.
Lee Kuan Yew: The Man and His Ideas Page 50