Lee Kuan Yew, Founding Father and First Premier of Singapore, Dies at 91
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
"if there is a freak result [and the opposition wins], within two or three years, the army would have to come in and stop it” http://leewatch.info/quotes/
That date is not far off: Singapore's next general election must be held by January 2017, and the opposition is all but guaranteed to take a sizable portion of seats. Thanks to Singapore's first-past-the-post politics, if they grow from the current 40% to tip over 50%, they'll suddenly have an unassailable majority... and what then?
I'll give the final word to Lee's last standing arch-enemy, Chee Soon Juan:
“Why is he still so afraid? I honestly think that through the years he has accumulated enough skeletons in his closet that he knows that when he is gone, his son [Lee Hsien Loong, the current Prime Minister] and the generations after him will have a price to pay. If we had parliamentary debates where the opposition could pry and ask questions, I think he is actually afraid of something like that. ...
Mr Lee Kuan Yew fights all his demons within himself to try to shore up his reputation. In the process, however, he destroys the very legacy that he so desperately desires to establish.”
– Chee Soon Juan, Secretary-General of the Singapore Democratic Party
There are times when you unfortunately will get stuck with down votes - but most times, there will be plenty of people who will read your comment even if it's grayed out - and then vote it up.
In addition, the idea that it was some sort of backwater place before LKY is something of a myth, along with the "no natural advantage" canard. Its strong economy grew in large part due to its strategically positioned port, which has existed since 1819. Can't really take credit for that.
That isn't to say that the country couldn't have been run into the ground in the 1960s, but they had a far larger head start than the ruling party likes to admit.
Interestingly, probably one of their most successful economic policies is one that is stridently ignored by the rest of the world:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_housing_in_Singapore
San Francisco in particular could afford to take a leaf out of this book.
Here are a few thoughts:
- your understanding of the Lees in Singapore have no historical context. You cannot view his leadership in a vacuum. You cannot look at Singapore politics and say it needs a dash of 'Western liberalism & democracy' and proclaim Chee Soon Juan one of its administrators. LKY, and the Singapore of his time, was a product of the times. There is no other place like it.
- No other place like it: that at the point of independence, we could have become "either a Palestine or a Switzerland". He was prescient on that. Few other small states are sandwiched between two giants (India and China), few other small states are at the best spot of an important shipping route, and in that sense he — and Singapore — had a leg up
- The most successful opposition party in Singapore is the Worker's Party, a party which is nearly as old as the ruling party. They are just as organized, if not more, and they are gaining momentum and strength. Like Lee's party, they have no overwhelming 'ideology', it is about 'what works for Singapore'. Voters like that. Voters don't like SDP, and they don't like Chee. Singapore voters don't trust loose cannons, and I as someone who has been in the 'opposition' most of my life would rather vote for the PAP if it presented a better candidate than the opposition, which is usually the case.
- Odds are stacked against the opposition, that is true; but the odds are lowered now, Lee Hsien Loong is not his father and the media is not nearly as powerful now. I would say that other than the Worker's Party, every single opposition candidate and party is unelectable. God help us if they do. Personality cults and horrible politics. No ability to execute. Voters will not give them the benefit of the doubt; we do not see the 'ability to govern' in them, and that counts more than 'what party one is from'
- Throughout the land there is a profound sense of mourning. Even among the ones who have spent their lives on the fringes of Lee's Singapore. He was a lion, and Singapore will not be the same without him.
- It will not descend into chaos, it will not swing the popular vote for the opposition. My read is that the PAP will still be in majority power for then next two elections.
- In the meantime, the work that has to be done is about how we ensure that we are ready for a post-PAP future. The reality of post-LKY is upon us today, and that changes things. Rapid destruction of our institutions isn't the answer. The building of our capacity with our people, institutions and processes may be.
- In many ways, we are more ready than the world thinks for that future
- You'd think that well-educated well-travelled Singaporeans who have the world at their feet (can live and travel and work anywhere, pretty much) would immediately switch allegiances and vote in 'democratic figureheads'. We will not.
- That doesn't come from conservatism. It comes from a practical belief that these figureheads, like Chee, will be the end of Singapore as we know it — and that's not from believing the propaganda of the state. It comes from knowing that the Singapore model works, but needs tweaking; and that the situation you have described above isn't going to end well.
- After working on the ground for the opposition in the last elections, I believe Singapore voters are rational and no longer afraid.
- The odds are good, but the goods are odd. That's the Singaporean opposition right now.
I'm Singaporean (though currently based in San Francisco) and identify myself as a supporter of the PAP.
I am currently traveling, and unfortunately got hold of LKY's passing a little late (though I had been following his health the past few days) and still feeling a little shell-shocked. I am personally very disappointed at all the comments on HN - most of them drowned out by expats and armchair political scientists.
Well if you had grown up in Singapore, read it's history, lived in HDB flats, recited the pledge and national anthem every goddamn day in school, played football at the void decks, served in the army, you will come to realize what a genius LKY was.
It's nice to see a message from a Singaporean from the other side.
"I went to America once and here is everything I have to say about American politics and its people, and if you disagree you must be a brainwashed American."
Meh.
Something I frequently noticed working for a company with a Singaporean headquarters was confusion between authority and logic.
Those random references I made, including playing football in the void decks, are just part of the collective Singaporean experience that has made the country as it is. All were due to the various policies crafted by LKY and his team.
Look, by the time I cared about politics or even had voted for the first time, the GREAT LEADER had already retired and was a shadow of his former self.
Having criss-crossed the globe and now running a startup that has offices in three (very) different countries, I have come to appreciate and admire the man and his vision.
I am not trying to make the man a saint. He had his flaws and there are many policies I strongly disagree with. However at the end of the day, a man's genius is measured by the number of goals he scored, subtracting off his own-goals. And his score runs pretty high.
Just to make myself clear, it's not reverence. It's respect.
What worries me, though, is that they are allowed to exist at the Government's forbearance. If they start to pose a real threat to the PAP's dominance, everything I've seen leads me to believe that the PAP will play dirty and strike them down as hard as is necessary. As said, I hope I'm wrong, but...
I'm also not sure I share your belief in Singapore voters being "no longer afraid". I've had Singaporeans tell me, entirely seriously, that they can't vote for the opposition because their votes are recorded and then they won't get government jobs.
The PAP that you describe is no longer alive. It is one in which some of its top members are messaging me (a known volunteer for the opposition) and giggling with me over Amercians' perspectives of Singapore as seen on Hacker News.
They can't even get a newsletter going without fighting about it -> level of disorganization and in-fighting.
[Source: I'm Singaporean]
It's completely factually wrong and there are few Singaporeans (even the ones in Chee's own party) who would give that quote (and the man who said it) any legitimacy whatsoever.
Somehow, LKY planted all his family members in powerful roles of the government and the government run companies.
Government linked corporations (GLC) controll 60 percent of the singapore Economy. Tamasek holdings is one such. The CEO of Tamasek is the wife of the current prime minister, who is the son of LKY.
Another benevolent dictator in the making? Maybe, the elections can tell.
My friend's brother went to Singapore from India as an electrician in 2010. He was making S$550 per month, and was living in a shack somewhere in Singapore. Cheap labor imported from Malaysia, Indian, China, Thai, Burma, Phils help the government linked companies make profits. And this explains why Singapore does not have minimum wage.
You guys don't make my job any easier by shitting on Singapore whenever you get the chance to, without even the least interest in learning the truth about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VexrmTacOAA
Once in awhile, I watch that footage of Meet the Press to remind myself what a sharp political leader he was. RIP the benevolent dictator.
Yes Singapore has it's own set of societal problems, but I'd rather have that than the numerous problems that is deeply entrenched in Philippine society nowadays.
Rest in peace Mr LKY. Your accomplishments are legendary.
Bribery as a matter of course for accomplishing mandated tasks is its own kind of servitude.
Singapore was a backwater country with no natural resources when he came to power. It's since evolved into one of the primary economic hubs in Asia, with a higher per-capita GDP than her former colonizers, Great Britain.
To transform a country in such short a time is nothing short of remarkable.
"Every time we look back on this moment when we signed this agreement which severed Singapore from Malaysia, it will be a moment of anguish. For me it is a moment of anguish because all my life ... you see, the whole of my adult life ... I have believed in merger and the unity of these two territories. You know that we, as a people are connected by geography, economics, by ties of kinship..."
Quote taken from transcript of a press conference given by LKY on August 9th, 1965 [1]
[1] http://web.archive.org/web/20140809182331/http://www.nas.gov...
Circa 2001 their GDP per capita was 1/3 lower than Japan, and about 1/5 lower than Hong Kong. They suffered a decade of stagnation from the early 1990s until 2003. They've been on a tear ever since, with GDP per capita now 45% higher than Japan and Hong Kong. Quite a jump in just 13 or 14 years.
Likely within another few years they'll pass Malaysia in GDP, with Malaysia having six times the population.
Also, Singapore is very much like Switzerland: they have to import many/most of their workers, except whereas Switzerland focuses on the high end, they focus on both (importing Chinese bus drivers and American programmers). Its a weird mix that isn't sustainable (also, they should stop using cheap construction for everything, concrete shouldn't be used so much in a modern city!).
I'd argue they stopped growing in real terms years ago. Most of their added GDP the last five years has been purely low value debt derived 'growth.'
Also, the last time the US Dollar behaved like it is now, it caused a large emerging markets crash, and it's likely that will be repeated again (if to a lesser degree).
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-03-16/strongly-ri...
The countries that benefited hugely from China's rise, will suffer as China's boom turns into decades of stagnation. That will include Singapore, Australia and much of Asia in general. I think given China is repeating Japan's debt mistakes, and has a similar demographics problem (but much worse given the extreme poverty covering 2/3 of their population), China will at best probably mimic Japan's post 1980s stagnation.
There are plenty more foreigners willing to emigrate to a prosperous and safe city state.
Quite a few people I spoke to were from China and said they came to the country to study. As I understand they are provided full scholarships if they stay to work for X years after completing their studies.
You are right about lower class workers though - Singapore and Malaysia, like GCC countries, also import a lot of construction workers from India.
At some point, a country should provide social mobility to remain healthy. Switzerland is a great example: they take refuges who many take lower-level jobs, but their children are basically Swiss and move up the ladder quickly. Singapore isn't like that.
But both make it very difficult for "unskilled" people to acquire residence or citizenship. This avoids the need to provide an option for social mobility among the lowest earners by ensuring that they get shipped out to become someone else's problem before they have kids, and some undemanding fresh meat is imported instead, because life as a maid/construction worker in Sg is still more lucrative than toiling in the fields in the Philippines/Bangladesh/etc.
(lived in Switzerland for two years)
From an Asian or third world POV, Singapore is creating thousands if not millions of jobs that wouldn't otherwise exist. These workers aren't abducted from their countries and shipped in chains to be sold as free labour as used to be the case in another country just a couple centuries ago. They voluntarily seek income and non-monetary benefits such as living in a country with clean roads, a fair justice system, clean water from the tap, ample food, and pay several times what they'd get at home which goes a LOT further when sent back home to the family (source: I lived and worked in India for an Indian company, on a project involving Pralahad's "bottom of the pyramid"; never was I so grateful to be born in the West).
An illustrative example is the market for maids. Although I don't personally have a house maid, plenty of middle class income families here have a full time one because they can afford it (around $500/month + lodging and food I believe is the going rate, although the families I know pay upwards of $2000). Bump the cost of a maid to a Western minimum wage on a PPP adjusted basis, and the locals will start doing their own cooking and cleaning, and the Pinay ladies who get to spend a few years in Singapore won't have that opportunity anymore. Their jobs mostly won't go to Singaporeans, they'll just disappear, just as your illegal Latina maids in the US would disappear if "la Migra" was more thorough.
Singapore is not responsible for the policy failures of other states (indeed a strong argument can be made for Lee Kuan Yew being instrumental to the bettering of policy and prosperity in a lot of much larger states such as his influence on Deng Xiao Ping, and his part in the creation and direction of ASEAN).
As such my personal opinion, however politically incorrect in the Western ivory tower it may be, is starting to lean towards Western policies being the "inhuman" ones - "close the borders and go protectionist on your labour markets" - with a huge opportunity cost in millions of jobs that simply disappear or become illegal (as with the extraordinary 11 million illegal immigrants estimated to live in the US, over 3% of the population!) which aside from sucking more from a worker point of view, is a breach of the rule of law and therefore yet another attack on the primacy of individual rights.
A strong case can be made for the opposite argument: look at Australia for a tightly regulated foreign labour market, with high worker benefits, a comfortable welfare state, and thus a much flatter society which can be argued to be nicer to live in for citizen. It also has millions of people knocking at the door and being turned away (see any discussion about "Big Australia").
And therein lies the uncomfortable part of any immigration discussion: how do you define who gets rights? What is a citizen? Who is part of my "group"? What defines my home and what do I want in it? We Westerners benefit from excellent borders, so we do not need to think too hard about these things.
For tech jobs talent, the immigrant status is different of course.
I'm not telling Singaporeans what to do, this is just for the note.
We have a good education system, and I would not trade our healthcare system for what you're likely used to; as a gay Singaporean, I have no curtailing of my social freedoms. I cannot marry or adopt legally yet, but that's the conversation that we're soon going to have (and which the "West" has only just recently gotten). The civil service is good. More can be done for the low income, and that's happening at the moment. The roads are clean and everything gets fixed. I walk around the city at any time of day and night with no fear, in any neighbourhood. Which ways are up for debate?
I'm not comfortable with blanket statements about Singapore politics and society from armchair political scientists.
Convenient of you to blame it all on the fundamentalist Christians (purely colonial Western influences, no doubt), when any identified Christians are 18% and there's as many Anglicans as mega-churchers. Your Chinese Buddhists are clinging to this law, the Muslims and Christians are fellow-travelers. Majority wat!
You have to realize as a Singaporean you have been exposed to an enormous amount of propaganda (not that other countries aren't, but you are very close to the situation).
Among other things the democracy and elections are a sham as you must know. Opposing candidates can't have any media exposure until a couple of weeks before an election. If a neighborhood votes in an opposition candidate, they lose funding for public transportation etc in their area.
Also there is a lot of crime that goes unreported and unsolved, and you probably know this too. Chinese gangs/mafia violence, loan sharking, and the police spend half their year looking after brothels since they don't work full time throughout the year.
The healthcare system basic cost and access is hugely better than many western countries with clinics scattered into every neighborhood, but the quality is also not nearly on the same level. There are definitely some aspects of it I thought were very refreshing. The medicines prescribed can be ridiculous though.
The list could go on and on. Laws stack up against tenants and are made so landlords can take advantage of them. Agents are unnecessary middle men that could be replaced with simple phone apps but grift large amounts of money from the overall economy.
Basically Singapore is a double edged sword. The financials are managed well in general compared to many other countries. It is not the wonderland people make it out to be, and Singaporeans don't realize the propaganda they've been fed and all the freedoms they don't have. Singapore is so far above all the surrounding south east asian countries though it is easy to see why people get caught up in thinking they are the best at everything since locally the neighboring countries' governments are a joke.
Yes, i do realize there are vast differences between immigration in the UK (or the west overall) and Singapore, but find that blaming class differences and/or the mistreatment of poor immigrants to policies is to simplify the issue.
Some all-too-typical stories: http://twc2.org.sg/
You really can't. There's no comparison to be made between the way Singapore treats Bangladeshis and the UK treats Poles.
Three of Four Asian Tigers (Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea) are more democratic/free and equal in prosperity comparing with Singapore.
IMHO, a great strategic port and super effective government are probably key reasons that power the its great achievements. I hope people don't consider quasi-dictatorship style of governing the cause of economic miracle.
China did this too, later.
Yes, intrinsically bad. It's pretty clear to anyone who doesn't live in a gun "bubble". Number one cause of death by gun? Suicide. Watch that YouTube clip[2] in full; it summarises my opinion quite well. The second amendment makes sense in the era of muskets, but in the present day only serves to make everyday life less safe, and police officers more Ferguson-ey.
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_co...
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-re...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona...
Plus that in Europe, the powers-that-be have largely wanted to avoid revolutions, which means that the public's access to firearms as well as right to self-defence is restricted and police, gendarmerie and similar organisations have true monopoly on (lawful) violence. America, in turn, is a child of revolution and is revering the overthrowing of powers-that-be who were perceived as tyrants.
That's just my understanding of the history how the United States has come to this situation, not a value statement that it's how things should be.
(Just for comparison, compare to other countries colonized at the same time or earlier, like Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela, Honduras, Colombia, Nicaragua - they all have much higher homicide rates than the U.S.)
Not sure I understand. Switzerland has 1/2 the guns, but nowhere near 50% of the US' homicide rate. Are you saying the ability to legally carry a gun is the reason for the difference?
The states that legally allow carrying a concealed weapon without a permit (VT, AK) have some of the lowest murder rates of all states.
As for concealed carry permit states, VT and AK have murder rates remarkably consistent with geographical neighbors. You are dead wrong to claim they are somehow special.
Where I live (Finland) the ratio is 2:5 (2 million legal guns, 5 million people). That's the highest in EU. We also have among the highest homicide rate in EU, but these two rates are not really connected (i.e. very few of the homicides done with a gun.).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_co...
When we arrived at the airport, my wife was detained because the silver earrings she was wearing were cast from a mold to look like empty bullet cartridges (with feathers and various doodads attached, nothing that had attracted any attention in any of a dozen high security settings). The bureaucrat who interrogated her claimed that whether she was in very serious trouble or not was entirely in his hands.
I'm no second amendment fanatic, but as an American, it was shocking to find myself in a position where some minor official could plausibly even claim to have so much power. The fact that Singaporean society is willing to make that kind of tradeoff for the sake of safety made me realize that it was not somewhere I could ever live.
The craziest part was that the Singaporeans and expats I met there did not even see it as a tradeoff. It was more like "these are the rules, if you follow them you will be so safe, whether the rules are right or just or good isn't a well-posed question". We were just having two different conversations.
Singaporean officials are also very keen on following the letter of the law, and in Singapore that letter happens to state that unauthorized possession of ammunition is a Very Big Deal.
What are these moral laws you speak of? Your opinions on what is right and what is wrong?
The cases you present for firearm possession is simply a case of false dichotomy. Firearm possession is not inherently immoral. The armies of the country would definitely need them to protect the country against others, especially for Singapore who is surrounded by hostile neighbours.
Citizen ownership of firearms, on the other hand, is a highly impractical thing. It is illegal to own firearms in the country and that is just how the laws of the countries were set up in the first place. I would not go as far as to say that owning them is immoral, but by intentionally breaking the laws of the country, what are you trying to imply?
Same. I'm not sure whether capital punishment should still be a thing, but anyone given a life sentence should have the option to choose death instead. Life in a supermax prison is deeply inhumane.
Conversely the USA has a much higher percentage of its population sitting in prison. I suspect many of those people would prefer a caning over the loss of many productive years of their life.
Singapore has a different set of problems than the rest of the world. I think that's refreshing.
Strip away the jingoism, and I really don't see how the USA is any less of a police state than Singapore. From stop-and-frisk to civil forfeiture and the TSA, the United States is every bit a police state with just a thin outer layer of constitutional democracy.
I've lived in both countries for extended periods, and I know which I'd prefer to live in. (Though if we look at California in isolation, I might prefer that, but only for the nice weather and cheap cars.)
And sure, you can bitch about it in the USA -- common as it is. Except the media doesn't care (unless you have particularly compelling video footage) and the government is too scared to act.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Kidney_Foundation_Sin...
After all we just jailed a man over pineapple tart corruption.
NKF is not the government. That's kind of like saying that TSA molests people, and that the federal government is responsible for it.
I see no downsides.
Thailand: Perhaps 30+ times from 1989 to two weeks ago. My wife (mainland Chinese Muslim) and I lived there for awhile, and our daughter was born there. We can read and write to some extent, speak the language, and have many friends - local and foreign - from all levels of society (journalism, finance, diplomacy, mafias, restaurant and bar operators, media, etc.) including those who have been 'kicked out'.
Malaysia: Perhaps 5-10 times from 1989 to a month ago, including smaller islands, though never to Borneo. It has a worrying governmental tendency to trend toward the Singaporean model, however away from KL this is lessened. Many successful Malaysians are either economic migrants to Singapore or operate businesses owned in some way by Singapore-resident straits Chinese.
Indonesia: Twice since 2012, but for months at a time spanning the most populous parts of the archipelago. Have had in-depth one-on-one discussions about the history of western relations with its diplomats. Have been invited to attend conferences in its national university. Owing to corruption, it has its issues, but it has preserved a certain admirable diversity that increases as you move east. Sure, they have their problems (eg. deforestation). However, the two faced Singaporean government blames the Singapore-owned palm oil plantations - burned regularly - on Indonesia ... but in fact I've had Singapore-resident Straits Chinese admit to me they own them.
What about you, just-arrived 7 point karma naysayer?
More totalitarian: how do you quantify that?
I was born and brought up in Singapore and do business in all those countries (tech startup). That sentiment is alien (and not just because I'm Singaporean), it's because Malaysia for example is more totalitarian and is also on the way to becoming a failed state economically and socially. You seem to be reasonably well-versed in the cultural aspects of those countries, but how much of the political institutions do you know — to back up such a claim, anyway? Have you seen Thailand and the junta lately?
Malaysia certainly has aspirations to be as totalitarian as Singapore; however, the government is too incompetent and consumed with in-fighting to actually accomplish it.
Thailand is just a garden-variety military dictatorship, the junta hold the levers of power but doesn't really appear to know what to do with them.
And that only you get to make personal attacks on anybody. Your thoughts are so clever and I am so intimidated. I must surely be wrong.
Care to substantiate that?
Singaporean in opposition politics here — desperately wanting to know.
D'oh! I've been wondering how Singapore's low-taxing government accumulated all the capital that it invested, and that answer is so obvious: they took it from people somewhere else. Would you mind pointing me to a book that fills in the details?