LEE Kuan Yew will be well remembered. His distinguished service is marked by the improvement and advancement of Singapore from slums and squatter settlements in 1964 to become a livable modern garden city.
Lee, a lawyer and politician, was meticulous in the physical transformation of Singapore. He transformed it in a systematic fashion that raised the standards of living and home ownership.
The transport system is ranked among the best. It is known that contemporary Singapore is built on a solid foundation of both greenery and water sufficiency that is adequate and affordable despite its industrialisation, modernisation and urbanisation.
The redevelopment plans for a sustainable future are commendable. He will be remembered as a great strategist who had clarity, consistency and confidence to turn the old backward city-state into a modern and thriving economic powerhouse.
His zero tolerance for corruption, discipline and efficiency that stamped out corruption and turned it into an island of integrity has won him much merit and praise.
In that, he has left a mark. Lee’s pragmatic foreign policy forged a close relationship with China through his strong support for China’s One China policy so much so that Chinese President Xi Jinping describes Lee as “an old friend of the Chinese people”.
He successfully brokered direct talks between China and Taiwan in 1998. He had both trade and diplomatic ties with North Korea and maintained goodwill with Myanmar’s junta military.
But why did his relationship with Malaysia fail?
For an intellectual who had good command of both English and Bahasa Malaysia, building a forthright and positive relationship with Malaysia’s first prime minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman, and thereby to have made a success of the Sept 16 pact possible, but then it went awry is incomprehensible.
Had he fared well in that, it would have been a reference for comparative politics and inter-cultural tenacity.
Was this breakdown because he did not believe in democracy?
As he said, “democracy has worked and produced results only when there is an honest and effective government, which means a people smart enough to elect such a government...”
Did he think that Malaysians were not smart?
PKR leader Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail said: “We hope the close ties between Southeast Asian neighbours and initiatives by Lee Kuan Yew and other past leaders can only be strengthened from here on.” (NST, March 23).
How would this inter-regional relationship be forged based on Tunku’s bitter experience, and later Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s, who was only able to get Lee’s agreement to a change in time zone?
Immediately after Lee’s death, Singapore’s Home Affairs Minister Teo Chee Hean revoked a legal provision for free speech that had been set in 2000.
Meanwhile, the secretary-general of the Workers’ Party, Low Thia Kiang, has criticised the “muzzling of the press and curbing of political liberties”.
Will this spark into something bigger? Lee had dedicated his entire life for a successful Singapore; we hope the present Singapore government takes note of the gaps and make plans to remedy them.
Hopefully, reassessing relationships and gaining on mutual satisfaction and happiness will go a long way.
Mena Jeyaram , Subang Jaya, Selangor