Lee Kuan Yew: The Man and His Ideas

by Han Fook Kwang

  Simply modelling a system on the American, British or West European constitution is not how Asian countries will or can go about it. The peoples of Asia want higher standards of living in an orderly society. They want to have as much individual choice in lifestyle, political liberties and freedoms as is compatible with the interests of the community. After a certain stage of advance in education and industrialisation, a people may need representative government, however chosen, in order to reconcile conflicting group interests in society and maintain social order and stability. Representative government is also one way for a people to forge a new consensus, a social compact, on how a society settles the trade-off between further rapid economic growth and individual freedoms.

  In Singapore, the British gave us their form of parliamentary government. Our problem has been how to maintain stability in spite of the destabilising tendencies of one-man-one-vote in a new society divided by race, language and religion. We have had to put political stability as the first priority. As we progressed to higher educational and economic levels, we have widened participation in decision making. But no Singaporean leader can afford to put political theory above the practical need of stability and orderly progress. On this, I believe I speak for most, if not all of Asia, at present.

  In a keynote address at the Create 21 Asahi Forum on November 20, 1992, in Tokyo, Lee took on those advocates who argued that human rights and democracy were universal phenomena to be applied to all societies. They added that governments should be pressured into adopting Western standards, which they said Asian authoritarians, such as Lee, were obstructing. He countered these views in this speech, which spelt out his alternative view that what people wanted was good government, not democracy per se.

  What people want is good government

  UK and US: Established modern democracies

  In modern times two nations have long and unbroken records for democratic government. First, the United Kingdom, next the United States.

  The British trace their democracy to the signing of Magna Carta in 1215, which led to the development of their Parliament. Indeed, up to 1911, the hereditary noblemen in the House of Lords had as much power as the people’s representatives in the House of Commons. Women got the vote only in 1928. And extra votes for Oxbridge University graduates and businessmen were abolished only in 1948.

  The United States declared independence in 1776. In 1788 the constitution gave the vote only to those who paid property tax or poll tax, which meant the well-to-do. There were barriers of age, colour and sex. In 1860 income and property qualifications were abolished, but other barriers like literacy tests and poll taxes discriminated against blacks and other disadvantaged groups. In 1920 women got the vote. Only in 1965 did the Voting Rights Act suspend literacy tests and other voter qualification devices which kept the blacks out.

  So full democracy was established in the UK in 1948 and in the US in 1965.

  France

  The French Revolution was in 1789 when they stormed the Bastille. Since then France has had five republics and two monarchs. Equalite, fraternite and egalite in 1789 did not succeed as a democracy until the 20th century.

  Is it any wonder then that so many Third World countries, former colonies that have received democratic institutions fashioned after US, British, French, Belgian, Dutch, Portuguese constitutions were not able to make these constitutions work without radically altering their nature, like converting themselves into one-party systems? What the UK, US and France took 200 years to evolve, these new countries, without the economic, educational and social preconditions, were expected to work upon independence, when during all the years of colonial tutelage there were no elections and no democratic government.

  When Anand Panyarachun was appointed prime minister, there was widespread support and no protest. But he was not elected.

  Western democracy universality presumed but unproven

  The existence of a civic society is a precondition for success in democratic government. What is a civic society? It is a society with the whole series of institutions between family and state to which citizens belong, independent voluntary associations, religious institutions, trade unions, professional organisations, movements to promote specific common interests, whether the Green movement, or the gun lobby, or anti-smoking, and so on.

  Professor Seymore Lipset of George Mason University (BBC World Service broadcast April 19, 1991) states the conditions for democracy in a different way: “A large middle class, economically secure, many people having skills, knowledge and security to take part in politics.”

  Dr Barbara Goodwin of Brunnel University (BBC World Service broadcast April 29, 1991) said that liberal democracy needs economic development, literacy, a growing middle-class, political institutions supporting free speech and human rights. It needs a civic culture resting on shared values making people with different and conflicting views willing to cooperate. She adds that democracy does not require everybody to be thinking the same but thrives on division or cleavages.

  The crucial point is that they must be able to live with their differences, as Professor Werber of Harvard University (BBC World Service broadcast April 29, 1991) says, cultural preconditions where the majority want to live in this community with relatively low conflict, relatively low violence and agree to a set of rule procedures governing collective life, where a set of deep beliefs and values to their culture is fundamental for democratic government.

  If we apply these preconditions to countries in Asia, we will understand why Asian democracy has had such a chequered history.

  Take Thailand. In May this year we saw Bangkok’s population of about seven to eight million willing to demonstrate its anger against a military regime whose coup it had a year earlier approved of. But it disapproved of General Suchinda becoming the prime minister when he was not elected, or at least that was the ostensible reason. The trouble was that the opposition or outrage of seven to eight million people of Bangkok was not shared by the 50 million other Thais in the countryside. Bangkok opposed Suchinda not because he was not elected, but because they felt that the military were not honest themselves, and that honest government was what they wanted. They wanted to remove the military and get an honest government. When Anand Panyarachun was appointed prime minister, there was widespread support and no protest. But he was not elected. Indeed he had not participated in elections and said publicly that he did not want to. What the people wanted was to get rid not only of the military but also of the corrupt drug traffickers. They have now got rid of the military, but they still have drug traffickers. Narong Wongwan, the man who was named as prime minister after the March elections before General Suchinda became prime minister, was denied a visa to the United States in July 1991 because he was suspected of being involved in drug trafficking. He has won again in the September elections. In due course he will again become a minister. Overall, in the September elections, the four pro-democracy parties only marginally improved their positions, winning 185 seats, an increase of only 23 seats or six per cent. The traditional big-spending parties maintained their grip in the rural areas of the north and centre. What is needed for democracy to produce good governments are fundamental social and educational changes so that good men like Anand will contest and win elections without vote-buying or intimidation.

  In other societies, when a dictator is overthrown, the wife and close collaborators would probably have been mobbed and lynched before they got away, and if they got away would never return.

  Next the Philippines. Six years ago, Mrs Imelda Marcos fled the country (with her husband); so did Eduardo Cojuangco. Yet they were able to return and contest in elections for president. They were among the top four candidates. The president, Fidel Ramos, got 5.3 million votes, Cojuangco got 4.1, and Mrs Marcos 2.3. In other words, had Cojuangco and Mrs Marcos combined, their votes could have beaten Fidel Ramos.

  A society where such remarkable events are possible needs a special kind of democracy. In other societies, wh
en a dictator is overthrown, the wife and close collaborators would probably have been mobbed and lynched before they got away, and if they got away would never return.

  Take Pakistan. In 1988, after General Zia Ul Haq, the president, was killed in an aircraft explosion, elections were set for October 1988. On August 21, 1988 in Sunday Telegraph, London, the late Professor Elie Kedourie, Professor of Politics at the London School of Economics, who has studied Pakistan, explained that to expect the coming elections to re-establish democracy was a triumph of hope over experience. He wrote: “Civilian, constitutional government was proved to be inept, corrupt, and quite unable to arrange a Third World economy, or deal with the ills and conflicts of a divided society suffering from deep rivalries, mutual fears and antagonisms … For such a style of government to be practicable and tolerable, it has to be rooted in attitudes to, and traditions of, governance which are common ground between the rulers and the ruled: the supremacy of law, the accountability of those in power and continuous intercourse with the public from whom they derive their authority; the sturdiness of civil society, and the practical impossibility for any government to ride roughshod for long over its innumerable and multifarious interests and associations. None of this, of course, obtains in Pakistan, or in the Indian subcontinent from which it was carved. Here the ruling tradition was of Oriental despotism where the will of the ruler was law … May it not be that a regime of elections, parliaments and responsible government is unworkable in countries like Pakistan, and that to persist in attempts to set up or restore such a regime must lead to continual tumults in the body politic, and successive interventions by the armed forces?”

  Pakistan held its elections in December 1988. Mrs Benazir Bhutto won and became prime minister. In less than two years, her government was dismissed on allegations of massive corruption. Nawaz Sharif’s Islamic Alliance won the elections in October 1990 and he became prime minister. In less than two years, his coalition was under stress. The army was sent in in May 1992 to put down violence and lawlessness in the province of Sind. I know both Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif personally. They are capable leaders and the equals of other leaders in the Third World. But the essential preconditions for democracy in Pakistani society are missing.

  Let me mention one simple but fundamental problem. The majority of the voters, both in the Philippines and in Pakistan, are peasants or farmers. The landlords control their lives and their votes. The majority of members elected into the legislatures of both countries are landlords. They have blocked legislation for land reforms without which there can be no fundamental change in the economy. They have also blocked moves to have the children of their peasants educated. They prefer to have them uneducated but loyal, and beholden to them.

  Neither country has a background for democratic government. There are no habits in the people for dissension or disagreement within a restrained and peaceful context. Murders and violence are part of every Filipino election. The lawlessness that is in Sind province, the shootings with heavy weapons and automatics between warring Sindhis, Muhajirs, Pashtuns, Baluchis in Karachi bear witness to the absence of a civic society.

  Adverse economy breaks down democracy

  There is one phenomenon which poses the question of whether democracy is secure even in the developed countries. Democracies broke down and gave way to dictatorships in Europe during the world depression of the 1930s. The two earliest democracies, UK and US, withstood the Great Depression pressures. They were severely tested. There were general strikes in Britain. But constitutional democracy weathered the storm. A Labour coalition government was formed in which the Labour Party was a minority supported by Conservatives, to accommodate the demands of the workers. But the Labour Party was soon discredited for having taken office in this opportunistic way and produced no results.

  There is no guarantee that the present democracies will survive if there is a prolonged world depression.

  In the US, a charismatic leader in Franklin D. Roosevelt brought in the New Deal. He laid the foundations for the social security programmes that were to be carried to excess in the 1960s.

  But in Italy in the 1920s the Depression led to the rise of Mussolini and the Fascist Party. In Germany Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power in 1932. In Japan the military took charge and led Japan first into Manchuria, in 1931, and next into China, in 1937. In 1941 General Tojo took charge openly as prime minister and led Japan into Southeast Asia in December 1941. In Spain, there was the dictatorship of General Franco, in Portugal that of Salazar.

  There is no guarantee that the present democracies will survive if there is a prolonged world depression.

  People want good government

  All peoples of all countries need good government. A country must first have economic development, then democracy may follow. With a few exceptions, democracy has not brought good government to new developing countries. Democracy has not led to development because the governments did not establish the stability and discipline necessary for development. What is good government? This depends on the values of a people. What Asians value may not necessarily be what Americans or Europeans value. Westerners value the freedoms and liberties of the individual.

  My values are for a government which is honest, effective and efficient in protecting its people, and allowing opportunities for all to advance themselves in a stable and orderly society, where they can live a good life and raise their children to do better than themselves.

  As an Asian of Chinese cultural background, my values are for a government which is honest, effective and efficient in protecting its people, and allowing opportunities for all to advance themselves in a stable and orderly society, where they can live a good life and raise their children to do better than themselves. In other words:

  (a) People are well cared for, their food, housing, employment, health.

  (b) There is order and justice under the rule of law, and not the capricious, arbitrariness of individual rulers. There is no discrimination between peoples, regardless of race, language, religion. No great extremes of wealth.

  (c) As much personal freedom as possible but without infringing on the freedom of others.

  (d) Growth in the economy and progress in society.

  (e) Good and ever improving education.

  (f) High moral standards of rulers and of the people.

  (g) Good physical infrastructure, facilities for recreation, music, culture and the arts; spiritual and religious freedoms, and a full intellectual life.

  Very few democratically elected governments in the Third World uphold these values. But it is what their people want.

  When Asians visit the US many are puzzled and disturbed by conditions there:

  (a) Law and order out of control, with riots, drugs, guns, muggings, rape and crimes.

  (b) Poverty in the midst of great wealth.

  (c) Excessive rights of the individual at the expense of the community as a whole; criminals regularly escape punishment because the law which presumes innocence over-protects their human rights.

  The United States cannot tackle its drug problem by solving the problem within its country. So it has to try to solve the problem by attacking the drug problem in the drug-producing countries. It has invaded Panama to capture Noriega. It has secretly kidnapped the Mexican doctor for having tortured and killed a US drug enforcement agent. The United States courts have held these actions as legal. But if put to the International Court at the Hague there can be little doubt that they are clear violations of international law, whether or not they were in accordance with US law.

  It is Asian values that have enabled Singapore to contain its drug problem. To protect the community we have passed laws which entitle police, drug enforcement or immigration officers to have the urine of any person who behaves in a suspicious way tested for drugs. If the result is positive, treatment is compulsory.

  Such a law in the United States will be unconstitutional, because it will be an invasion of pri
vacy of the individual. Any urine test would lead to a suit for damages for battery and assault and an invasion of privacy. Only members of the US armed forces can be required to have urine tests. That is because they are presumed to have consented when they enlisted. So in the US the community’s interests have been sacrificed because of the human rights of drug traffickers and drug consumers. Drug-related crimes flourish. Schools are infected. There is high delinquency and violence amongst students, a high dropout rate, poor discipline and teaching, producing students who make poor workers. So a vicious cycle has set in.

  Democracy and human rights presumed to lead to good government

  Whilst democracy and human rights are worthwhile ideas, we should be clear that the real objective is good government. That should be the test for ODA. Is this a good government that deserves ODA [Overseas Development Assistance]? Is it honest and effective? Does it look after its people? Is there an orderly, stable society where people are being educated and trained to lead a productive life?

  You may well ask: How do people get a good government in a developing country? I believe we can learn a valuable lesson from the property and educational qualifications the UK and the US had in their early stages of democracy. This can work well in the towns where most people are educated. Moreover it will encourage people to get educated. In the rural areas, the educated are fewer. So more traditional methods of representation, like the village headman or chief, can be the basis of representation. Such an approach can be criticised as elitist, but the chances of getting a good government will be better.

  Human rights: Progress likely if approach is more realistic