My tribute
by Tan Kok Tim
Mr Lee Kuan Yew [16 September 1923 – 23 March 2015] and Dr Goh Keng Swee were from well-to-do middle-income families.
There was no real need for both to enter politics to struggle against the British for independence, and later the communists, the communalists, and the Malaysians.
They were supported by a capable team with similar strong zeal of passion and conviction.
With a strong combination of law and economics they learned from UK, both applied and adapted the art of governing and the theories of development economics to transform Singapore into an economic miracle in one generation.
Singapore was lucky and fortunate to have them.
In a short span of 25 years as prime minister, he set up many state institutions for modern Singapore to rely on to survive and thrive.
Many past Commonwealth leaders made a mess of their countries due to corruption after they had attained independence.
The problems of governance in many countries have become protracted since the end of WWII and for some even up till today.
Singapore is a shining beacon of hope compared to the many endemic eyesores of decadence in the Commonwealth of Nations today and what we see in many other countries around the world. Some are bankrupt due to huge national debts.
Beyond all odds and seemingly impossible situations, Mr Lee built Singapore into a modern-day metropolis. A lesser man would have found the task daunting, if not impossible.
His achievements should be made into university case-study materials on the art of governing.
It must become a must read and study tutorials for all undergraduates who aspire to become noble statesmen following in his footsteps.
This is the way for future generations to truly do justice to Mr Lee’s vision and sterling achievements.
Few will be able to follow in the very large footsteps of Mr Lee and emulate what he accomplished as today’s world in this age and time is driven by materialism and greed rather than frugality and conservation.
The greatest testament and tribute is from India, which declared a national day of mourning on 29 March, the funeral of the late Mr Lee. India’s flags were at half mast and there was no entertainment on that day across that huge nation.
This is an unprecedented recognition and respect accorded by a huge nation to a faraway small island nation’s prime minister, who retired from office 25 years ago.
As far as I am concerned, our former Prime Minister, the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew is the greatest statesman of the century.
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Exhibition traces Lee Kuan Yew’s visionary contributions to S’pore’s aviation
The exhibition, to mark Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s 100th birth anniversary, will run from Saturday to Sept 30, at Cloud9 Piazza. ST PHOTO: DESMOND FOO
Esther Loi
UPDATED 8 HOURS AGO on 16th Sept 2023 in Straits Times.
SINGAPORE – Visitors to Jewel Changi Airport can enjoy a free exhibition that documents how the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew made Changi Airport the world-class aviation hub it is today.
The exhibition, to mark Mr Lee’s 100th birth anniversary, will run from Saturday to Sept 30, at Cloud9 Piazza, located at level five of Jewel Changi Airport.
It will move to another location at the airport after October.
Featuring six interactive zones, The Courage To Dream – The Making Of The Changi Airport Story is an immersive exhibition with rarely-seen archival documentary footage, interactive storytelling screens, and sensory exhibits.
Visitors can “step into” a living room of a typical Singaporean family living near Paya Lebar Airport in the early 1970s, complete with low and loud rumbling sounds that the residents faced back then. ST PHOTO: DESMOND FOO
Tracing the history of aviation in Singapore, visitors will begin their journey by travelling back to the 1970s to learn about the history of Paya Lebar Airport. A life-sized living room set and realistic auditory effects help take them back in time, so they can experience the inconveniences of living in central Singapore with aeroplanes flying over them back then.
An audio clip of the historical moment of the first-ever mention of Changi – during Mr Lee’s speech to a crowd at Katong Community Centre in 1970 – is also featured here.
The next chapter follows the struggles behind Mr Lee and his team’s decision to move the country’s airport to Changi Airport, when the pace of air traffic growth outstripped that of Paya Lebar Airport’s capacity. Visitors can play with an interactive digital screen to better understand significant trade-offs of the move.
An interactive digital screen allows visitors to learn about the considerations Mr Lee Kuan Yew and his team had about moving the airport to Changi. ST PHOTO: DESMOND FOO
They are then guided through Mr Lee’s deliberations during key events in the 1970s, like the oil crisis and his decision to convene a committee to construct two runways at Changi, through archival footage and news articles. Additionally, for the first time ever, the signed cover page of the Special Committee on Airport Development final report – which gave the green light for the development of Changi Airport – is available for public viewing.
In a coffee shop set-up, visitors can watch a short film about the creation of Changi Airport, which features rarely seen archival documentary footage. ST PHOTO: DESMOND FOO
Visitors can also enjoy a short film of rarely-seen archival documentary videos of the construction of Terminal 1, which opened in July 1981, and listen to first-hand interviews with pioneering airport leaders.
Personal anecdotes of Mr Lee’s vision for Changi are featured, some of which include his vested interest in adding greenery to the airport, keeping its toilets as clean as possible, and eliminating queues.
Lastly, visitors are encouraged to explore the future of Singapore’s aviation, by looking ahead to the Changi East development and the upcoming Terminal 5.
The Garden City experience was part of Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s vision, in which he hoped to build an airport boulevard of uninterrupted greenery for vehicles driving to and from Changi Airport. PHOTO: THE STRAITS TIMES
At a media launch on Friday, Mr Jayson Goh, executive vice-president of airport management at Changi Airport Group, said Mr Lee’s decision to relocate Singapore’s airport from Paya Lebar to Changi was a “pivotal moment” for Singapore’s aviation history.
He added: “Through the stories in the exhibition, we hope visitors are able to appreciate how difficult and courageous the decision was back then, and how impactful it is still for us today.
“Without Mr Lee’s vision, courage and conviction, there will be no Changi Airport today.”
MORE ON THIS TOPIC
Immersive exhibition on Lee Kuan Yew’s life and legacy aims to inspire young Singaporeans
Lee Kuan Yew at 100: Taking Singapore beyond the LKY legacy
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Remembering Lee Kuan Yew on his 100th birthday
Singapore would not be what it is today without him, but let’s not build a personality cult around our founding prime minister.
Prof Tommy Koh
PHOTO: ST FILE
UPDATED 55 MINS AGO on 16th Sept 2023 in Straits Times.
As a pioneer generation diplomat and law teacher, I had the privilege of working under Mr Lee Kuan Yew and spending time with him over the decades.
Vignettes big and small from those years come to mind as we mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of our founding prime minister this week. For instance, I had the pleasure of looking after him and Mrs Lee when they visited New York in 1968 and 1975, and Washington in 1985 and 1988.
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Lee Kuan Yew at 100: Taking Singapore beyond the LKY legacy
At first, he was the authoritarian leader whose “system” I loved to critique. Then I realised I was a product of that system.
Chua Mui Hoong
Associate Editor & Senior Columnist
Taking Singapore beyond Lee Kuan Yew’s legacy, in order to secure the future, would be the best way to honour Mr Lee for his life work on Singapore. PHOTO: ST FILE
UPDATED 15 SEP 2023, 8:11 AM SGT in Straits Times.
My first serious assignment as a political reporter in 1991 was to check out a new book about Singapore, which was not available in Singapore but was doing a roaring trade across the Causeway in Johor Bahru, Malaysia. It was an “own” story, which meant the idea came from me, and I had pitched it to my supervisors and obtained their permission to work on it.
I travelled to Johor on a short day trip and interviewed booksellers. I rang up book distributors and stores, and interviewed readers and commentators on the book. Titled Singapore: The Ultimate Island (Lee Kuan Yew’s Untold Story), by T. S. Selvan who was then living in Australia, the book had been published in late 1990. By the time I wrote the story, it had sold over 10,000 copies in Malaysia, mostly to Singaporeans, according to the book distributor and booksellers I spoke to in Malaysia then
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Forum: When Lee Kuan Yew visited my father
While the nation commemorates the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew‘s 100th birthday on Sept 16, I have a memorable experience to share after reading Chua Mui Hoong’s commentary (Lee Kuan Yew at 100: Taking Singapore beyond the LKY legacy, Sept 15).
Mr Lee was a boss who cared for his subordinates’ health and well-being. It was in 1966 or 1967 when my late father, unionist and MP Ho See Beng, was hospitalised in Singapore General Hospital for a bleeding stomach ulcer.
My family and I were visiting him in hospital one evening when a senior nurse came into the room to say the Prime Minister was coming. She drew the curtains and my family made way for Mr Lee’s visit.
Today, there is so much talk about employee health and well-being initiatives that companies are promoting. But they are not focused on meaningful things which bosses could personally do to show their care and support for their subordinates’ health and well-being.
I believe more could be done in this regard, just like how Mr Lee visited my father.
Ho Meow Choo.
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Was he a foolish old man?
Our former PM Mr Lee Kuan Yew died in office as an MP.
He held office till his last breath, strong willpower and commitment.
With his commitment and responsibility to the nation, I believe he did not take leave from his MP post to go for extended leave of say, three to six months with his late wife in their twillight years to enjoy world cruises, like the Caribbean, Mediterranean, Alaska, South America, etc.
Or that he took leave to spend time on the Trans-Siberian rail, the Eastern & Oriental Express, and the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express.
Now he has left behind the millions to his grandchildren to spend it for them….?
Now he has left behind billions for the next/future govt/s of Singapore to spend it for him….?
For some of them [the younger generations] who inherit it all, I hope they will not callously call him a foolish old man.
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SPH FEATURE OF THE YEAR: REMEMBERING LEE KUAN YEW
He changed my life: My father and our founding father [by Chua Mui Hoong]
Over time, both distant, disapproving figures turned into real beings I could relate to
When I was growing up, God, my father and Lee Kuan Yew all merged into one.
I was the youngest child in a Teochew-speaking, working-class Chinese household. My parents were immigrants from China, who ran a hawker stall for much of my formative years.
My father was a stern patriarch who was not averse to using the cane. My mother was a traditional Chinese wife and self-sacrificing mother, with a twinkling sense of humour with those close to her. She tended to our household altar, placing platters of food there on religious or festive days. She prayed to the deity who I found out years later is supposed to be the Kitchen God, assigned by the Emperor of Heaven to report on a family’s doings. The offerings were meant to placate the deity and sweeten his tongue when he delivered reports.
As for Lee Kuan Yew, he was just the man who founded the nation that I heard and read about. Like God, he was everywhere in the ether. Like God, he was all-powerful and all-knowing. Lee Kuan Yew didn’t affect my family’s life much in a direct way, although his policies formed the arc within which ordinary lives like ours were lived.
My parents were street hawkers who were fined repeatedly for peddling their wares. Unlike many hawkers grateful to be relocated, they resisted being put into a centre for years. When the frequency of fines grew too overwhelming, they gave up. By then, choice sites like Newton were taken up; they were sent to Timbuktu – a small hawker centre off Alexandra Road, where they struggled to make enough to raise three children.
Apart from the way big policies of the day intersected with our lives, mine was not a political family. The closest I came to Lee Kuan Yew was hearing my father tell the story of how he was standing close by and witnessed the (to him) historic moment when Mr Lee was pushed into a big monsoon drain at Towner Road, while touring Kallang constituency in 1963.
Lee Kuan Yew close up
I first watched Lee Kuan Yew close up in 1983, when I was 15. By then, my parents could afford a second-hand black-and-white TV set. Sitting in the living room, I watched his National Day Rally speech live.
I didn’t know it then, but this was his famous speech on graduate mothers. It went on into the night, and I remember I was riveted, moving from the sofa to toilet reluctantly for pee breaks.
In junior college, we would discuss Lee Kuan Yew and Singapore politics incessantly. At 18, I won a Public Service Commission Overseas Merit Scholarship to study English literature at Cambridge University in England.
Like hundreds of exam-smart Singaporeans from poor families, who got government scholarships that opened doors to good careers, I am a beneficiary of the meritocratic scholarship system Mr Lee created.
In my case, though I was contracted to work in the civil service for eight years after my studies, I broke my bond. I approached Singapore Press Holdings, which agreed to hire me and buy out my bond. I remember walking to the Public Service Commission with the SPH cheque for $140,000 that bought my freedom from the civil service. I have remained grateful to SPH ever since. After 24 years, I still love my job as a journalist.
When I joined The Straits Times Political Desk in 1991, Lee Kuan Yew became less of a myth, and much more real.
Over the years, I would cover Mr Lee on many more occasions, including in Singapore, at Tanjong Pagar and in Parliament, and overseas, in China and Malaysia.
Videos of him in the 1970s show a gruff, thuggish figure with an aggressive chin thrust, given to raised arms, finger-pointing and trouser-hiking. By the time I met him, from the mid-1990s, he was already in his 70s and 80s, and had mellowed considerably.
Fiery rhetoric
But when required, his oratory was just as fiery as ever.
Two parliamentary speeches in the last 20 years stood out for me. One was in November 1994. After hours of debate on the proposal to peg ministers’ pay to top private-sector professionals’, including a suggestion to put the proposal to a referendum, Mr Lee rose and put an end to it, saying: “I am pitting my judgment after 40 years in politics, and I’ve been in this chamber since 1955, against all the arguments on the other side… against all the arguments the doubters can muster.”
Enough said. Done deal.
In 1996, there were complaints about property purchases by Mr Lee and his son Hsien Loong, then the Deputy Prime Minister. Amid the unhappiness about ministers having an “inside track” to VIP priority bookings for condominiums, it took Mr Lee to call a spade a spade.
Businesses want to get the best customers to help sell and add value to their products, he said, adding: “Let us be realistic… I ask all of you to be honest, including Mr Chiam (See Tong). All ministers who carry weight, all MPs who are popular, you go to a hawker centre. If they gave the other customer one egg, they’ll give you two. Count on it.”
In words that entered the lexicon of Mr Lee’s hard truths, he thundered in the House, telling MPs to be realistic that some people would be given better treatment by businesses than others: “Let’s grow up!”
Over the years, I came to know of his reputation for imprisoning political opponents. I read critical biographies of him. I had even covered and written news articles on some of the defamation suits he brought against his critics.
But when I covered him at a press conference, or sat across a table from him in an interview, I would put aside those thoughts and focus on the issue at hand.
In any case, I usually had my colleagues around me. I wasn’t a political opponent. I was a journalist, and I knew Mr Lee respected the role of journalists. Much as he might berate us or our editors when he disagreed with something we wrote, he knew our job was to ask honest, if difficult, and to him annoying, questions. And while the Singapore Government can be authoritarian, it respects the rule of law.
I once asked if he was satisfied with the level of political contest, or if he should have done more to create the conditions for an alternative in Singapore.
His answer: “We’ll be quite happy if we get a small group of equal calibre contesting against us. I mean you look at the NMPs, they talk more sense, right? Would they fight an election? No. So? But they’ve got the brain power, they’ve got the knowledge, but they’re not prepared to jump into the sea.”
My counter: “That’s because many people are intimidated by the PAP, the climate of fear, crackdown on dissent and so on.”
Mr Lee: “No, no. Are you intimidated?”
Me: “Well, asking you this question, obviously I’m not. I just feel that there’s a perception.”
Mr Lee went on to add that if a person joined an opposition party, “he takes us on, we’ll take him on. But you can’t join the Workers’ Party and we just let him lambast us away. We’ll demolish him as hard as he tries to demolish us. That’s part of the game, right? I mean you say that’s intimidation?”
Growing fond
I don’t remember when exactly I started to get fond of him. It was certainly after my conversion to Christianity, when my concept of God changed from a punitive deity chalking up wrongdoings, to one who loved and sacrificed for humanity.
It was also after my own stern father became an unlikely doting grandfather who chased after his crawling grandson, trying to feed him durian. God and my father were no longer distant, disapproving figures. They had become real beings I could relate to.
And so had Lee Kuan Yew.
A few incidents come to mind.
In March 2003, I wrote a long, personal account of my battle with breast cancer. I wanted to destigmatise it, and to encourage people going through terminal illness, and their caregivers, to talk about it, and not to impose on those with serious illness the additional burden of secrecy.
Mr Lee wrote to me a few days later, wishing me good luck and good health, and saying he looked forward to reading my articles.
He also shared about the time his son went through chemotherapy, 11 years earlier, and how one lived with the uncertainty, even in remission, of whether the cancer would return. “The searing experience tempered his character and made him more philosophical about his life. I think it has similarly tempered you.”
I was touched by his good wishes for my health.
He also sent me a note in June 2010 to say he enjoyed reading my book Pioneers Once More, a history of the Singapore public service. He offered some vignettes of senior civil servants that he said I could include in future editions. Again, I was touched by his generous words, and that he bothered.
I began to see a lot more of Mr Lee from December 2008 to October 2009, when my colleagues and I conducted 16 interviews with him for Hard Truths. He was vigorous, engaging, sometimes a little testy, but never rude or nasty.
I heard him speak of his wife and his daily ritual of reading to her when she lay bedridden after a stroke. Devoid of her company, he would converse with the nurses during lunch. I heard the stoic loneliness in his voice after she died. I saw the indulgent grandfather reluctant to forbid his grandchildren to touch his things when they sniffled, but who would discreetly wipe down his computer with disinfecting wipes after they left so as not to catch their bug. Although he was reputed for having no small talk, he sometimes told us about his ailments or his day.
I covered Mrs Lee’s funeral in October 2010 at Mandai Crematorium. He walked up to her coffin with a single red rose. His hand touched his lips, then her forehead, planting a kiss there once, and then, as though he could not bear to part, again.
Somewhere along the line amid those incidents, I grew fond of the old man.
In 2012, I was involved in another round of interviews for the book One Man’s View Of The World. Last year, we interviewed him a few more times to update the book.
He grew visibly more frail over the years. From open-buttoned jackets, he moved on to buttoned up ones, sometimes with a scarf round the neck. From walking in his trainers, he had to be supported.
We once had to wait 30 minutes for him to rest and he apologised, saying he had not been able to keep his food down. He had an injury once, and conducted the interview with a heat pad around his thigh. He was on meal supplement Ensure and various medications his security officers would give him. His speech got slurred towards the end. From over two hours, the interviews went down to 45 minutes or less.
It pained me to sit across the table over several years and watch Mr Lee weaken. He was the founding father of Singapore. I liked to remember him as the vigorous Prime Minister in television footage, or at least as the still active Minister Mentor in 2009, who told us no question was off limits, and hurried us to complete our book, chiding us not to let the grass grow under our feet.
But somewhere along the line, I came to see him less as Lee Kuan Yew the mythic figure, the great statesman, the fearsome political leader. I came to see him as a man, a flawed but still great mortal, a man who did his best for his country, for his time, the best he knew how.
Luckily for all of us, his best was enough.
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Honour of founding modern S’pore is Mr Lee’s, not Raffles’
By ANTHONY OEI
Published APRIL 06, 2015 in Today newspaper
Updated APRIL 06, 2015
I liked the “Remembering Mr Lee Kuan Yew – Special Issue” (April 5). It is a comprehensive account of his life, accomplishments and funeral, and is a handy reference for present and future generations.
The article, “From mudflat to metropolis”, set me thinking about our history and the notion that Sir Stamford Raffles was the founder of modern Singapore. That honour, correctly, belongs to Mr Lee.
Our colonial past has a place in our history, but there is no need to glorify it. When Mr Lee’s People’s Action Party took over the government in 1959, after 140 years of British rule, Singapore was blemished by slums.
It had all the aberrations of a backward country, such as low living standards, low-paid jobs, high unemployment, a shortage of housing, water, electricity, schools, health-care facilities and public transport, as well as dirty streets and smelly, choked drains.
I lived through that degrading era. Raffles founded Singapore in 1819 and set up a trading outpost for the erstwhile British Empire, but he did not establish a modern society.
Mr Lee did, and the house he built is a shining example of modernity, a prosperous, progressive and peaceful First World nation.
And he did it in one generation, through his vision, political acumen, sheer commitment and determination and fierce fighting spirit. As he once declared: “We dug our toes in, we built a nation.”
He was a politician extraordinaire who deserved the tributes and expressions of gratitude bestowed on him. We could have had an incompetent leader or, worse, a corrupt tyrant. Many developing countries are still in the doldrums because of that.
As we enjoy his wonderful legacy, let us reflect on this question: What if there had been no Lee Kuan Yew?
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tankoktim 