While Nelson Mandela celebrated his 90th birthday yesterday basking in
international adulation, I thought of another father of a nation, Lee Kuan Yew.
Singapore’s first Prime Minister will be 85 in September and is still going
strong. Sharp, authoritative, ranked among the top 100 public
thinkers/intellectuals in an online poll carried out by the Foreign Policy and
Prospect magazines in May, he is a living refutation of the image of doddering
old geezers and may he continue to challenge that stereotype for years to come.
But will his birthdays be greeted with the same outpouring of love?
He has never encouraged a personality cult, preferring to concentrate on
managing his little city state of more than four million people — as he still
does, as Minister Mentor in a Cabinet headed by his son, Prime Minister Lee
Hsien Loong — and his achievements are manifest from the moment one lands at
Changi airport. The quick, hassle-free immigration process, the drive down the
highway lined with trees and tower blocks point to a stable, well-ordered city
showing every sign of prosperity. Singapore has progressed from the Third World
to the First World as he says in his autobiography.
His achievements are evident even in the lives and aspirations of ordinary
Singaporeans, many of whom have studied abroad, holiday abroad. They may take it
for granted and ask how is that different from the lifestyle of people in the
Gulf, the South Koreans and the Japanese. Well, the Gulf has oil, the Japanese
and the South Koreans make things. What does Singapore produce except a
well-educated workforce? It has grown into one of the richest nations in Asia
with no other resources at all. And that is proof of the remarkable vision and
achievements of the old man. You have to … I better not complete the phrase.
And there lies the difference between Mandela and Lee Kuan Yew.
They have both worked with communists and transformed their nations. But they
could not be more different. That is clear from Time magazine editor Richard
Stengel’s birthday tribute to Mandela. Stengel who co-wrote Mandela’s memoirs, Long Walk to Freedom, writes about his willingness to work with his critics, his famous smile, his
refusal to see the world in black and white, his being “comfortable with
contradictions”, and his stepping down from office. Stengel writes in his Time magazine article:
In many ways, Mandela’s greatest legacy as President of South Africa is the way he chose to leave it. When he was elected in 1994, Mandela probably could have pressed to be President for life — and there were many who felt that in return for his years in prison, that was the least South Africa could do.
Lee Kuan Yew was never imprisoned. He worked as a translator for the Japanese
during the Second World War and, when Singapore returned to British rule after
the war, he was not imprisoned like other agitators.
Stengel writes about Mandela’s pragmatism. Lee Kuan Yew can be pragmatic too.
Singapore is one of the trusted allies of the US, providing naval facilities,
and was part of the US-led coalition during the Iraq war. And yet Lee Kuan Yew
has no use for Western liberal democracy. He proudly said recently that China
and Russia were looking at the Singapore model which had brought both stability
and prosperity. Despite English being the official language, Singapore may be
the inspiration for modern Shanghai rather than a descendant of London.
Some Western academics may not like what they see. England’s Warwick
University decided against setting up a campus in Singapore precisely for this
reason.
But for now who has served his country better — Mandela by stepping
down or Lee Kuan Yew by staying on?
There cannot be two opinions on that. It’s an absolute no-contest like elections in Singapore where the opposition won only two seats in the last general election.
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