This is an extract of Lee Kuan Yew’s transcript of what was discussed during a dialogue session with 200 diplomats and academics during his visit to the Internation Institute for Strategic Studies in London. This extract was from Monday, September 29 2008 Straits Times Review and Forum section.
Can Singapore allow more freedom of expression?
I start off from the first principles. What was it that I had to do to get this improbable country to become a country and eventually a nation? We were a disparate people, rioting against each other just a year before independence because Malay extremist forces stirred up problems.
So let’s work from the first principles. I have to have a stable, peaceful society. How do I achieve that? I had strict laws against inciting racial or religious problems. At the same time, I made quite sure that everybody’s treated equally. Your religion’s respected.
We also got everybody mixed up in the (housing estates), no longer in enclaves. Every constituency has its quota of the less successful. Everybody has the sae chances in education and we chose a neutral language – English.
Malaysia threw out English and went with Malay. The Chinese and the Indians decided to have their own schools. Now they have got a divided society.
So these are basics which you have got to get right: level playing field, meritocracy, regardless of race, language or religion. That’s part of our national pledge.
Now we’ve arrived, why not we run a liberal democracy? Why should we? I get a clear mandate. The slowest score we ever had was 60 per cent of the electorate. Why?
Oh, because the press is controlled. The press is controlled? Everything’s reported but no crusading on anything is allowed. The Internet is there. You can do what you like. But we try to prevent ourselves from being sidetracked.
Now we’ve got a coherent Singapore. Do we want an incoherent Singapore and have the whole thing come to bits? Think about it very carefully. Next five years, do you want your homes to be worth more or less? A taxi driver, the smallest hawker, has a home worth $150,000. He’s a stakeholder. You vote the wrong government, property prices drop, you are in trouble. You produce the right government, more infrastructure, roads, underground trains, more connectivity, better environment, clean water, drains become little rivulets, you improve your asset. Why should we change that? Because the Western media and political scientist say that’s wrong. Is it?
I have any number of testimonials, unsolicited, from visitors saying “I love your place. I’m going to settle here”. Look at the people who are coming in to settle. We have in the last few years 30,000 Indian professionals who have taken up residence. We welcome them. We have (thousands of) Chinese and Indian companies. Why have they come? It is because we offer them a platform from which they can market their wares throughout South-east Asia and on to China and India. Do we want to risk that?
We can see that LKY’s ego is certainly quite big. Although some of his policies did work and made Singapore a much better living place than compared to the post-war/post-separation period, he has become a little too over confident of himself. Granted, his policies still work today, and it certainly has worked very well. The culture that he intentionally built in Singapore over the years has been educated and ingrained into us. We have become the government pets who ’obeys’ to their every call.
He’s so confident (or afraid, some might say) that he does not even think that Singapore should move to liberal democracy, because what is going on now is working fine. He trys to instill the fear in us, ‘you choose the wrong goverment you are in trouble’. Basically I think that he is trying to say that the PAP has the experience, has the guts, and has the ability to lead Singapore. They know our need and wants. Are we willing to sacrifice that security of economic stability to someone who is not experienced and might destroy our economy? If we are not willing to sacrifice it, then LKY will not move on to liberal democracy.
I had a talk with my dad not long ago. I asked him if he thought that he was brain-washed by the government with his upbrining. He declined, and paused, saying “You have to understand that my era was different from yours. At that time we were lost, and LKY came and gave us stability. He was the one who made so many lives better by creating economic wealth for almost everyone. That is why I will still support him. He proved that he is capable of dealing with dire situations, and for the better good. Your generation is different. You were born went Singapore was undergoing economic boom, and when there was peace and stability. You don’t have as much linkage to Singapore as the older generation have. Your generation is instead influenced by outside ideals, and you compare it to the stable globalised Singapore. From there, you can make your own ideas and have your own thinking of what the government do is right or wrong. It is because they did not have as much impact in your life as what my time did.”
You starting to think if my dad takes sociology as well? Well he’s a blue-collared worker, and not earning much compared to most average family incomes. But his family was not rich either, so he isn’t picky or choosy on material wealth. But the thing is, LKY made a huge impact to these working classes, and if has influenced their thinking that, maybe there is no other way but his way. They do not want to risk losing what they have earned over these past decades. And LKY has the right to be egoistic, because he knows that these people will vote for him and PAP.
As it becomes our generation to be the working class, things might change. Many of us now are quite against the government (oh yes we all know that!) and what is the government going to do to make us influenced to their system? But we must know that maybe 40% of our generation who don’t learn sociology might just flow throught life as it is; easy and stable. Are the rest of us willing to sacrifice the stability of the past 3 decades to fight what we believe in; a liberal democratic society? Or are we just going to keep quiet, complain in our minds, and say that society limited our actions?
