Old Man' 4 year Nightmare Continues

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Paper: The Straits Times
Section: Singapore
Date published: Wednesday, February 2, 2005

Lively Exchanges

What happens when Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, 81, founding prime minister of Singapore, meets a roomful of students in their 20s? Differences of views, lively exchanges, laughter. Below are excerpts from some exchanges at the NUS Kent Ridge ministerial forum on Monday

A chance for everyone

Student: Singaporeans have the tendency to not regard Singapore as home. We lack that sense of ownership.

At best we tend to see Singapore as a comfortable hotel and, at worst, it’s even a prison that people don’t have money and resources and the talent to take off from.

MM Lee: What makes you feel you don’t own this place?

Student: I do. It’s just the impression I have from talking to people…

MM: Once you say you feel you own this place, then I’m prepared to say all right. Can you give me one friend who tells you that he feels…

Student: I’ve spoken to many taxi drivers and they come from various walks of life, aside from other people.

MM: What do you think will give those friends of yours who do not feel they own this place a sense of ownership? You tell me.

Student: I don’t know. That’s why I was hoping that you could say something on this.

MM: You’re describing to me a malady which I do not know exists, which has been talked about.

The chattering classes talk about this, we want ownership. How do you get ownership?

Make all the decisions. Every decision, we are part of it…

This is a phase Singapore is going through because a younger generation feels that they are entitled to a bigger space…to be in charge. They will be in charge, but only some of them will be in charge. Not everybody. But everybody will have a chance to give his input.

Stability doesn’t come easy

Student: My name is Jamie Han, history honours student.

I’m not questioning your decisions in the past, I’m sure at those times, there was a need for consensus and stability. But I think we have come to the stage where stability is already here and that, in order to progress, the minority viewpoints have to be heard.

And I’m not saying that the People’s Action Party is corrupt or anything now.

The truth of the matter is this: No matter how enlightened a despot is, ultimately, he’ll turn into a tyrant if there are no checks and balances in place.

MM Lee: There’s nothing to prevent you from advocating that, pushing that strenuously and finally getting a political party to adopt your platform, and we will put it to the vote. That’s the democratic way of doing it.

I would beg to express my reservation that we have established unity and therefore all is well. You do not, maybe you do not realise how sensitive and how fragile some of this apparent unity could be…

(MM Lee talks about the 1964 race riots, the Jemaah Islamiah plot to blow up seven bombs in Singapore around 2001 which was disrupted, making the point that fault lines exist in Singapore society.)

Please do not assume that what you see as stability is something we can take for granted. It has to be worked for, looked after, nurtured and any incipient problem nipped in the bud…

Student: With all due respect, sir, I just wanted to say: One, that you are using the fear of the past in order to prevent progress; and second, you are picking examples of countries which suit your argument but I can raise a dozen others to counter with you.

But this is not a philosophical discussion, so thank you for your time.

Adversity? Move on

Student: I’m a motivational speaker with my own one-man start-up… I go around the schools to give seminar talks to kids and youth but I don’t charge, so am I considered a social entrepreneur?

And if so, are there any social entrepreneurs you could share with us to encourage me and other social entrepreneurs to have a passion or fire burning right here in our hearts and right in this place we call Singapore?

MM Lee: I’m afraid I’m very ignorant about this. What is a motivational speaker? I plead ignorance, real ignorance.

Student: Basically I talk to the kids…about personal experience, share some motivational stories with them hoping that you can inspire them.

MM: I’m not an evangelist, I don’t go round trying to convert people. I’m a practical man. My answer to you is: If you like to do that job and if you think you can go into business and you have already started, try and get a lot of experience so that you will have a lot of data to draw from and give to people.r

Student: Actually, I do have one experience…I suffered a stroke when I was 16 and it has been five years. I have moved on.

I’m not 100 per cent now – but I could make it past the A levels, O levels, up to NUS.

MM: I follow, I understand. Well, good for you.

You’ve got to overcome adversity. My wife suffered a stroke. I have to spend all my time telling her: Forget it, let’s start from here, move on.

And I say good luck to you, move on.

 

[scroobal]

Jamie Han
Thinking critically
In reply to Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, NUS student Jamie Han said he had written several letters ot Straits Times, and one was published. This was that letter published on Jan 1, 2005.

"Our smart students not willing to think critically "

I FIND it ironic that after decades of praising the education system for producing students who are adept at memorising formulas, a skill that has enabled them to be world beaters in international mathematics and science competitions, the Government now wants youths who are able to express their opinions about what sort of Singapore they want to build.

Unfortunately, as in the case of the bilingual policy, we cannot have our cake and eat it, a fact that has taken the Government some time to figure out.

The more we reward students for their ability to memorise model answers, the less willing students will be to use their critical minds. Why should they risk getting low grades by expressing critical, unorthodox views when it is so easy for them to just be spoon-fed by their teachers?

In his article, 'Lost generation or future leaders: Our call' (ST, Dec 30), Mr Verghese Matthews questions whether figures of authority have instilled in young people the critical spirit and the moral courage to use it for the good of society.

He is optimistic that there is hope yet for Singapore's future: 'I am confident that there are many young critical thinkers in our society who are testing the waters.'

I applaud Mr Matthews' attempt to bring into public discussion the question of whether enough is being done to encourage critical thinking among Singaporean youths, but alas his article has come two decades too late for my generation.

Having gone to a top secondary school and junior college, and now doing my undergraduate studies at a local university, I can safely say that there is an appalling lack of passionate, critical thinkers, even among the intellectual elite of Singapore's youth.

It is not that my generation does not have smart people with critical-thinking skills. The problem is that too many of my peers lack the moral courage to speak out after going through an education system that rewards conformity and punishes originality.

We have become a generation of sheep, too afraid to challenge the authority of our herders. The few wolves left among us who do challenge the status quo run the risk of being labelled as anarchists and troublemakers.

It is no wonder that many have become so jaded that they no longer feel it worth their while to carry on expressing their views, choosing instead to either remain quiet or to head for greener pastures elsewhere, in which case they run the risk of being labelled as 'quitters'.

In both cases, the ultimate loser is Singapore, for conformity results in stagnation, while 'invention is always born of dissension', as the French philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard so rightly pointed out.

In 1784, the great German philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote his famous essay 'What is Enlightenment?' in which he appealed to his countrymen to have the courage and resolution to use their own reasoning skills instead of blindly depending on the authority of so-called experts.

More than two centuries on and in a country far away from his beloved Prussia, his emotional appeal still remains relevant.

Sadly, the works of Kant seldom take pride of place on the bookshelves of many of our policy-makers, who would much rather fill their shelves with more 'practical' books, such as those by economist John Maynard Keynes.

The price Singapore is paying for their narrow reading habits is an entire generation of lost sheep: Gen S. My generation.
Jamie Han Li Chou

 

[scroobal]

Lee Kuan Yew and Jamie Han
February 2nd, 2005 | Author: yawningbread | Categories: Columns and Commentary | Tags:
Once again, when challenged, Lee Kuan Yew threw down the gauntlet. If you think you have a better point of view, he said to about 1,500 mostly NUS students at the Kent Ridge Ministerial Forum, then form a political party and win people over.

“There is nothing to prevent you from pushing your propaganda, to push your programme out either to the students or with the public at large… and if you can carry the ground, if you are right, you win. That’s democracy. We’re not preventing anybody,” he said.

If only it were so simple.

The Ministerial Forum was held on 31 January 2005, and featured some lively exchanges between Lee and the audience.

Jamie Han, an undergraduate, had argued for less government control and remarked that “no matter how enlightened a despot is, ultimately, he’ll turn into a tyrant if there are no checks and balances in place.”

Lee’s words were in response to Han’s remark.

Lee went on to add three interesting remarks:

Firstly, that the current leadership had proven its mettle, having seen the country through the Asian financial crisis in 1997 and the Sars outbreak in 2003.

Secondly, the People’s Action Party had remained in power by delivering results and getting good people to be with the party.

Thirdly, he spoke of his own courage in the 1950s and 1960s. “I took my life in my hands and said I stand for this,” suggesting that unless his critics were prepared to do likewise, their views were less worthy.

These were interesting remarks, because all three of them begged more questions.

It was interesting that even though he put to his critics the “electoral test” to prove themselves, he couldn’t do the same for the present PAP government. For them, the proof lay in their handling of the Asian financial crisis and the Sars emergency. Well, if that’s the case, then the Thai, Hong Kong and Korean governments did just as well too, and in a competitive democratic environment to boot.

It is difficult for the PAP to claim a true electoral mandate when the electoral rules are so stacked against the opposition.

The second remark, about the PAP remaining in power by getting good people to be with the party, begs the question: Would these people today – the third generation leadership – be with the party if they had to face the rough and tumble of truly competitive electoral politics? In other words, before belittling others for not standing for election, one should ask how many of the PAP’s new faces and ministers would have agreed to join the PAP in the first place if they too had to face tough elections with the rules stacked against them?

In other words, is PAP’s electoral sweep the result of having good people, or is having good people the result of being able to promise an easy electoral passage?

Thirdly, when Lee spoke of his personal courage and conviction – and indeed no one can argue he was short of either, nor should one suggest that those times were not dangerous – it is easy to forget that the playing field was also much more level.

In the 1950s and early 1960s, they were all single-member constituencies, not the group-representation constituencies that so dominate the map today and that make it extremely difficult for small, nascent groups or independent candidates to fight their way into parliament. Constituency boundaries were not gerrymandered mere weeks before Nomination Day, and minimum deposits were not prohibitively high.

Nor was the press then controlled by the incumbent as much as today. In the last few years, even websites deemed to be political have been required by the Media Development Authority to put up good behaviour bonds, forfeitable should content on those websites cross some invisible line.

(Thus it was adding insult to injury when Lee told Han that the least he could do was to set up a website.)

All these point to the retort one can give every time the PAP boasts of their trial by fire in the 1950s and early 1960s, demanding that others do likewise before they are given any hearing: Give us the same level playing field that existed then.

* * * * *

Another point made by Jamie Han went off in a different direction. He said, “I think we have come to the stage where stability is already here and that, in order to progress, the minority viewpoints have to be heard.”

Lee’s reply to that was, “I would beg to express my reservation that we have established unity and therefore all is well. You do not, maybe you do not realise how sensitive and how fragile some of this apparent unity could be…”

Once again, I thought Lee’s remark very interesting. It struck me that he immediately understood “minority viewpoints” to mean racial or religious minorities. I doubt if Han had such a narrow construction in mind when he asked the question. True, Lee didn’t exactly specify racial and religious minorities, but his mention of the fragility of our apparent unity certainly suggests that.

Lee’s leap testifies to the government’s inability to grasp that societal diversity can manifest in many dimensions other than race and religion. If you do not even see these other dimensions, then how do you begin to give due respect to other minority points of view? This is going to be the weak link in Lee Hsien Loong’s call for an “open and inclusive society” [see footnote].

Now, about the apparent unity that in reality is very fragile, I actually do agree with Lee. I think it’s very easy to mistake the surface calm and the absence of rude words in our mass media for “unity” or “stability”. But I would argue that being oversensitive to the dangers has made things more fragile rather than less.

What we have in our public discourse is a smothering of angry, offensive and downright ignorant language when it comes to race or religion. In its place is an incessant call by ministers and some journalists for more understanding.

For example, look at what happened after the September 11th attack by al-Qaeda on New York. Asad Latif, an otherwise insightful, credible writer for the Straits Times was reduced to writing almost puerile articles pleading for understanding of Islam as a peaceful religion. Other interdenominational groups were marshalled by the government to issue joint statements reaffirming tolerance.

I’m not saying they were wrong, I’m not saying that Islam is not a peaceful religion, but that the inescapable impression was that it was so government-organised.

Once that impression is created, it is very difficult for truly independent civil society groups to speak out about tolerance too, because the message, however worthy, has acquired the stink of government propaganda.

It might have been better not to be too careful and to let offensive words appear. Then wait for reasonable people, independent of the government, to heap condemnation on the offenders. That way, people at large can see that tolerance of minorities is a civic virtue with deep roots, and not merely a government platitude.

By being so risk-averse to censor out all angry language, by monopolising the message of tolerance and not trusting independent groups to say it in their own way, our society will never mature.

 

[scroobal]

http://kentridgecommon.com/?p=5534

A discussion of the national issues raised during the Kent Ridge Ministerial forum
By The Kent Ridge Common
Published: October 20, 2009
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⋅ Share (Facebook) ⋅ Post commentDuring the Kent Ridge ministerial forum, Minister Mentor (MM) Lee Kuan Yew addressed 9 pre-selected questions. According to Professor Tommy Koh, the forum moderator, the students who wished to ask MM questions were told to submit them via email, and out of a total of 500 possible questions, the 9 best were selected. Thus, this article will attempt to address national issues that were brought up during the forum. Although issues pertaining to other countries were also discussed, this article will only focus on national issues.

 

[hairylee]

Anybody knows the status of Jamie Han now?