Lee Kuan Yew, a companion to the Tamils!

COMMENT Lee Kuan Yew. He is THE man who curbed ethnic chauvinism to bring about racial and religious equality in Singapore.

He was a friend of Tamils in Sri Lanka. When C N Annadurai, a former chief minister of Tamilnadu who is widely known as Arignar Anna, visited Singapore in 1965, Lee apparently enjoyed the speech by him.

Lee had no qualms about criticising the Sinhalese domination of Tamils and said, on more than one occasion, that whatever the military might of the dominant race, the thirst of the Tamils for freedom and dignity from oppression cannot be stalled.

He went on to call upon the Sri Lankan Sinhalese community and leaders to respect the rights and contributions of Tamils in Sri Lanka.

When there was a necessity, Lee did not mince his words. He openly criticised the leadership of Mahinda Rajapakse for masterminding the massacre of Tamils in north of Sri Lanka in May 2009.

Lee said, on many occasions, that the Sinhalese leadership must embrace the path of moderation to resolve the problems of the Tamils. He remarked that continued oppression by the majority would not extinguish the move towards secession!

As Lee Kuan Yew era ends, S'pore braces for change

If Lee Kuan Yew represented the Singapore of yesteryear, his death this week raises the question of whether the generation of leaders in waiting will reshape the mould that transformed the city-state from a colonial backwater to a haven of prosperity.

While Lee had long retired from active leadership, his son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, is still the standard-bearer of a free-market model that relied on efficiency, low taxes, zero
tolerance for corruption and a distaste for the welfare state.

Like his father, he has continued to curb free speech and use defamation laws to muzzle critics and political opponents.

But Lee (right) has said he will hand over power by 2020 and speculation over his successor has swelled since he was treated for prostate cancer last month. That, along with a decline in the popularity of the long-dominant People's Action Party (PAP), has brought an unfamiliar whiff of uncertainty to Singapore.

Years of galloping growth have led to income inequality, resentment over immigration, overcrowded trains and expensive housing, issues that knocked the PAP’s share of the vote down to 60 percent from 67 percent in elections four years ago.

Since then, the PAP has faced calls to abandon what one senior party member dubbed a policy of “growth at all costs”.

“Some of our young were starting to doubt about their future in Singapore as they saw housing and cars beyond their reach because of the rapid rise in prices,” said Inderjit Singh, a sitting member of parliament for nearly 20 years.

The party must address these and other challenges, he said. “Failing to do so will see an erosion of support.”

My encounter with a legend - Lee Kuan Yew

COMMENT With sadness I write to express my deepest condolence to the family members of Lee Kuan Yew, the first prime minister of Singapore, who died in the wee hours of Monday morning, March 23, 2015.

At the time of his death, Lee was 91. His political life spanned a few decades, and he steered through, with purpose and vision in mind, a period of political and ideological turbulence.

He was admired by his friends, including world leaders, but at the same time his enemies condemned him for his ruthless ways.

Lee never wavered from his commitment and took on his enemies head-on. He built up Singapore into what it is today. He transformed Singapore from a mere Third World trading post into a glittering metropolis that attracted the attention of international business and commerce.

I had the opportunity to meet Lee when he visited Malaysia about two decades ago. I found him to be sharp, his questions often very probing in nature and quite argumentative. He was never  satisfied with  simple answers.

I met him the second time when I was a senior visiting fellow at the Institute of South-East Asian studies (Iseas) in Singapore. During a function he called me to discuss a few things about Malaysia.

Gallery Of Lee Kuan Yew

English as lingua franca gives Singapore a fighting chance

SINGAPORE, March 23 — Few might have realised the significance at that time, but in making English Singapore’s lingua franca, a decision he made within only a few weeks of separation from Malaysia in 1965, Lee Kuan Yew gave the Republic a fighting chance of overcoming the formidable crises post-Independence.

Adopting the international language of business, diplomacy, and science and technology was about the only way this resource-less tiny island could guarantee its survival after losing its economic hinterland in Malaysia. Unemployment was at 14 per cent and rising.


Lee captured the move’s criticality in his memoirs: “Without it, we would not have many of the world’s multinationals and over 200 of the world’s top banks in Singapore. Nor would our people have taken so readily to computers and the Internet.”

Just as importantly, picking this race-neutral language demonstrated his government’s anti-communalistic stance, helping to keep the peace in a newborn nation made up of a polyglot-settler populace who had struggled for years with racial and religious strife.

Lee Kuan Yew dies at 91

Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's first prime minister and architect of the tiny city-state's rapid rise from British military outpost to global trade and financial centre, died on Monday aged 91.

Although Lee had receded from public and political life over the past few years, he was still seen as an influential figure in the government of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, his oldest
son.

"The prime minister is deeply grieved to announce the passing of Mr Lee Kuan Yew, the founding prime minister of Singapore," the Prime Minister's Office said in a statement.

It said he had died at 3:18am at Singapore General Hospital, where he had been admitted on Feb 5 suffering from pneumonia.

Thousands of people had been leaving flowers and cards at the hospital over the past three days, praying for his recovery.

"Thank you for giving us, Singaporeans, a great nation to live in, a country that I can be proud of, a country where I can go out a midnight and not be afraid," one Singaporean, Nurhidayah Osman, wrote on the prime minister's Facebook page in reaction to Lee's death.

"Harry" Lee became Singapore's first prime minister in 1959 and held onto power for over three decades, overseeing the island's transformation from a port city battling crime and poverty into one of Asia's most prosperous nations.

Even after stepping down as leader in 1990 - signing off as the world's then longest-serving prime minister - the acerbic Lee stayed on in the cabinet until 2011. He was a member of parliament until his death.

Singapore’s first PM Lee Kuan Yew dies aged 91

SINGAPORE: Singapore’s first prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, one of the towering figures of post-colonial Asian politics, died Monday after a long illness, plunging the city-state he steered to prosperity into mourning.

Lee’s son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, said in a statement that he was “deeply grieved” to announce the passing of his 91-year-old father at the Singapore General Hospital.

He declared a seven-day period of national mourning before the late leader is cremated on March 29.

Lee’s remains will first be taken to the Istana state complex for a two-day private family wake before lying in state at Parliament House for five days for the public to pay their respects.

US President Barack Obama led world leaders in hailing Lee, an autocratic politician who dominated Singapore politics for half a century.

“He was a true giant of history who will be remembered for generations to come as the father of modern Singapore and as one of the great strategists of Asian affairs,” Obama said in a statement.

“Lee Kuan Yew was a legendary figure in Asia, widely respected for his strong leadership and statesmanship,” a spokesman for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said.

Lee, whose health rapidly deteriorated after his wife died in 2010, was in hospital for nearly seven weeks with severe pneumonia.

Two years before he died, Lee revealed that he had signed a medical directive instructing doctors not to use any life-sustaining treatment if he could not be resuscitated.

He served as prime minister from 1959, when colonial ruler Britain granted Singapore self-rule, to 1990, leading Singapore to independence in 1965 after a brief and stormy union with Malaysia.

In 1959, Dwight Eisenhower was the US president, and when Lee stepped down, the first George Bush was in the White House.

Eugene Tan, associate professor of law at the Singapore Management University, said that Lee’s death “certainly marks the end of an era”, adding that “it raises the question of how Singapore is going to go from here”.

The widely revered Singapore patriarch’s passing is also likely to cast a pall over preparations for the city-state’s 50th anniversary of independence on August 9.

Disproportionate international profile

On Lee’s watch, Singapore became a sea trade, air transport and financial hub as well as a high-tech industrial centre, prospering despite its compact size and lack of basic natural resources.

“I have to say his success is in taking advantage of Singapore’s natural assets, by which I particularly mean using its geography at the end of the Malay peninsula and on the end of the Malacca Strait,” said Michael Barr, an associate professor of international relations at Flinders University in Australia who wrote a book on Lee’s career.

On the diplomatic front, Lee’s counsel was often sought by Western leaders, particularly on China — which Lee identified early as a driver of world economic growth — as well as more volatile neighbours in Southeast Asia.

Singapore-based political analyst Derek da Cunha told AFP that “Lee Kuan Yew gave Singapore an international profile completely disproportionate to the country’s size.”

But the British-trained lawyer was also criticised for jailing political opponents and driving his critics to self-imposed exile or financial ruin as a result of costly libel suits.

Singapore strictly controls freedom of speech and assembly and, while it has become more liberal in recent years, still uses corporal punishment for crimes considered relatively minor elsewhere, such as spraying graffiti.

Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, acknowledged Lee’s economic legacy but said “it also came at a significant cost for human rights”, adding that younger Singaporeans are asking when greater political liberalisation can take place.

“Now that Lee Kuan Yew has passed from the scene, perhaps that long overdue conversation can finally proceed.”

‘I am satisfied’

Lee stepped down in 1990 in favour of his deputy Goh Chok Tong, who in turn handed the reins to the former leader’s eldest child Lee Hsien Loong in 2004.

The People’s Action Party (PAP), which was co-founded by the elder Lee, has won every election since 1959 and currently holds 80 of the 87 seats in parliament.

Lee retired from advisory roles in government in 2011 after the PAP suffered its worst poll result since it came to power, getting only 60 percent of votes cast amid public anger over a large influx of immigrants, the rising cost of living, urban congestion and insufficient supply of public housing.

He rapidly began to look feeble after his wife of 63 years, Kwa Geok Choo, died in 2010, and has rarely appeared in public in the last two years.

In his last book “One Man’s View of the World”, published in 2013, Lee looked back at his remarkable career and concluded: “I am not given to making sense out of life – or coming up with some grand narrative on it — other than to measure it by what you think you want to do in life.”

“As for me, I have done what I had wanted to, to the best of my ability. I am satisfied.”

Source- AFP