Entering the Post-LKY Era
The Negatives
But with the positive comes the negative. A mythology has been built up around Lee Kuan Yew. No doubt he is amongst the best post-colonial leaders in history. He has many admirable qualities: relentlessness, cunning, intelligence and foresight are amongst these.
However, he has been known to abuse libel law in prosecuting his political opponents, misusing the law via libel lawsuits to prosecute them and ensure political dominance, as in the case of JB Jeyaratnam and Andrew Seow. Allegations about misuse of the Internal Security Act in Operation Cold Store and Operation SPECTRUM remain unaddressed till today.
The PAP, whose ethos (i.e. guiding beliefs & schema) derived from his style of leadership, has generally failed to evolve and adapt to socio-political, such as gazetting alternative media that challenge the narrative of government-controlled media narrative.
The misappropriation of public funds for pro-PAP purposes, in the form of the People’s Association, blurs the boundaries between the government and the party. This results in public confusion over the contours of the political party and the government, as well as raising questions about the use of public funds for politically-driven purposes. The choice to politicise town councils harms constituents and is counter-productive, where another approach would be better.
This lack of media freedom corrodes the ability of the establishment to correct with the plurality of views and conversations present and evolving in the diverse and changing Singaporean milieu of the early 21st Century.
Open and ongoing public dialogue is crucial to the construction of Singaporean identity, especially in an age of digital economies, free flow of human capital and competition for talent. Control of the public discourse doesn’t benefit the nation.
Not only does it delegitimise and disenfranchise the stakeholders, but having a single perspective leads to predictability and inagility – a single style of response for every situation. There’s always more than one way to view and resolve a situation, true for both groups and individuals. Overspecialisation leads to vulnerability and groupthink.
As an institution, the PAP displays an inability to engage in constructive dialogue and is a political monopolist whose mandate is increasingly questioned. Every election since the 1984 General Election has seen a general downwards trend in their popular vote share, despite the constant gerrymandering and the engineering of public perceptions via MediaCorp and Singapore Press Holdings – denying various perspectives and groups a legitimate platform for voicing concerns.
Lee Kuan Yew, by his actions, compromised the robustness of Singapore’s civic society and political ecosystem, for the sake of building a political monopoly and political monoculture. A political monopoly serves no one except the monopolist. And as any farmer will tell you, a monoculture can result in diseases wiping out an entire crop.
The Singapore which PAP had to work with in 1965 was not a fishing village, but a major international ports due to its strategic position at the southern most point of Asia and straddling the Malacca Straits and South China Sea. Maritime trade between the Asia-Pacific, Middle East, Africa and Europe were already transiting through here in the early 20th Century.
Finally, in 1965 Singapore had an established civil service, public utilities infrastructure, a major international port and public transport network, gaining independence at a time when European countries were investing abroad after the post-war boom. The PAP merely had to work with this existing infrastructure to help Singapore progress.
While Singapore’s economic miracle is often credited to Lee Kuan Yew, it was the Dutch economist Albert Winsemius that formulated the strategy, while Goh Keng Swee was the architect of independent Singapore’s defence, education and economic policies. Sinnathamby Rajaratnam was the architect of Singapore’s foreign policy, responsible for forging Singapore’s international links.
If anything, Lee Kuan Yew ensured they had the resources and logistics to implement and execute their policies – a vital but supporting role. But he neither the architect nor spearhead for these efforts, as popular myth holds.
The End
Regardless of what his critics have to say, he was a man of ambition, vision and principles. Though there are valid criticisms, history will remember the facts and the outcomes that Lee Kuan Yew has achieved. The narrative will almost certainly change.
Will Singapore and its institutions endure without him? Almost certainly. The markets will continue to function, capital flows will transit through the marketplaces of the city-state and the MRT’s will continue to almost certainly reliably break down for the foreseeable future. Businesses will rise and fall. Political parties will evolve and change.
His death offers an opportunity for change to the PAP, the local political ecosystem and Singapore, in the wake of the challenges that Singapore faces. We live in the age of digital economies, a multi-polar world and the resurgence of China, India and Russia as the Great Powers of the world. Fundamental principles and lessons can be drawn from the past.
But Lee Kuan Yew, like many great mean, must be consigned firmly to the past. Lessons can be drawn from his wisdom as we face the future. But we must learn from his mistakes and oversights, as much as his successes. In the words of Schopenhauer: “Let us see rather that like Janus—or better, like Yama, the Brahmin god of death—religion has two faces, one very friendly, one very gloomy.”
Lee Kuan Yew was just as human as any other statesman. Smarter than most, more cunning than most, compassionate to his friends and family while ruthless to his adversaries. He had the same frailties and mortality as all who experience the human condition. Rest well old man.
- See more at:
http://theindependent.sg/blog/2015/03/23/entering-the-post-lky-era/#sthash.uRnXyB4M.dpuf
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