APRIL 2 — It was a November evening in the mid-90s, more pertinently at the height of the “Asian Values” hype — a confounding abstraction — and we were in a crowded parked bus in Jurong.
From the top of the steps I shout to the rowdy multinational crew after a day of university revelry masked as debating, “Anyone from Singapore?” They shouted back — “Nooooo!!!!” To this I screamed, “Time for Lee Kuan Yew jokes, then.” Laughter broke out, and fictional constructs were hurt without restraint. Singaporeans, they are good fun.
It was probably difficult to expect free-spirited undergraduates with an inflated sense of their selves to be mildly reverent even when standing in the republic that Harry built. In fact we were likelier emboldened since much of Jurong is reclaimed land, which means Malaysian sand, so we were probably more in Malaysia than in Singapore.
Today, I have to admit with the passing of Lee Kuan Yew or LKY — our favourite topic of mirth, envy and reflection south of Johor Baru — a realigning must ensue, of what was, is and will be for Malaysia-Singapore relationships, and in the same breath Malaysia per se. For no foreign citizen has had as much impact on Malaysia as that man.
He has been for a long time, the island itself to Malaysia.
Impact of course is observable and measurable, however LKY weaves into the Malaysia story as much as the Singapore story that we, actors of the present, must leave it to social scientists in decades to come to debate and negotiate the nett effect he bore down to all and sundry, whether good or bad.
Separately it is befuddling that he and Mahathir Mohamad are so alike yet so opposed to each other. It appears Machiavelli’s finest students in life were overbearing to each other — in a strange way expected, and perhaps telling.
Why is LKY significant to Malaysia and Malaysians?
Two brothers
The first country most Semenanjung people visit is Singapore. And even if it is the second or third, it has the most immediate effect, for it is massively palpable to the Asian mind.
Singapore comes across as a city state on a mission. Relentless and impatient to achieve before exceeding every standard of modernity on offer — efficient housing to clockwork buses — before sundown at Merlion Park.
Singapore did not need to feel ashamed to lack modesty in its ambition, it was Lee’s city and Lee was all ambition.
And for Malaysians it was disorienting... this First World island. So similar yet so different, it therefore upsets our personal equilibrium. Assuaged only by the fact food is tastier across the border in Malaysia. How can they be us, and at the same time not us?
It’s easier to appreciate things working as they should in Singapore, so life is more predictable but good.
Elsewhere democracy, participation, social emancipation and equality bred organically in the larger countries around like Thailand and The Philippines without being at the complete mercy of pragmatism of development.
Because the former’s lessons are more nuanced and appear unnecessary when compared to a colour TV. Yet in time they will become invaluable when a nation seeks to define itself.
For a direct Malaysia-Singapore comparison, Malaysia-Singapore Airways split in the 1970s, and 40 years later Malaysia Airlines is punch-drunk in the aviation industry while Singapore Airlines stays as a gold standard of how a commercial airline should be operated profitably.
Those cutting distinctions are present in many socio-economic realities, carving up a story of two brothers parting after a feud on separate paths into the wilderness with wildly different outcomes.
It’s not that Singapore prospered markedly more, it was that LKY intended the prospering to heighten the chasm between the two growth models which rendered Singapore, the natural other to Malaysia.
It was revenge. The saddest day of LKY’s life was when Singapore was asked to leave Malaysia, and psychologically haunting every Malaysian administration in his lifetime, even if the disregard for the human intangibles has spurred critics to observe the island republic as being soulless — would not have bothered him while alive.
Even while in Malaysia, he made our first prime minister Abdul Rahman nervous and constantly unnerved. Lee must have felt that if he can win the argument, he did not need to win Abdul Rahman the man over. He could not fathom why another leader cannot yield to better judgement. Politics as a people game never did resonate too well with LKY.
Still, he beat his tormentors at their game in his time, the greater and long-term game would be future Singapore prime ministers’ challenge. He has air-conditioned the island, the next guy can add meaning to the inhabitants.
So unsurprisingly, it is the fiercely open competition bordering on the antagonistic that marked the Lee years as prime minister and then senior minister.
My people, your people
Singapore under LKY was heavy handed with opposition. The propaganda machinery can churn out as much material as it can but those dissidents who spent decades in prison will not be forgotten,
Said Zahari, Chia Thye Poh, Lim Hock Siew, Poh Soo Kai, Ho Toon Chin and many more, lost their years to the undemocratic strength of one man.
Or using the courts and state apparatus to diminish men like JB Jeyaretnam to oblivion from public life, even though the opposition was whittled to pittance in Parliament long before.
The pain he inflicted on them and their families cannot be placated by efforts today to humanise Lee, by his relations to his wife and family. As human as LKY can appear, acts of inhumanity don’t dissipate because of any frailty he had.
An iron fist for his people unable to appreciate the better Singapore he had in mind, and a pat on the shoulder before a warm embrace for millions of Malaysians who turned to the southern nation since 1965.
The unskilled but willing, passed as brawn to the factories, buses and lavatories, returning across a crowded Causeway checkpoint daily. The skilled, tempted and kept, to bring further glories.
There was no pretext in LKY’s time when luring the best Malaysia had to propel Singapore forward.
Therefore today, most Malaysians have a Singaporean cousin, literally, to remind them.
The fear of 714sq kilometres
Our local ultras would cyclically point out the inequalities down south, especially for Malays. No less in the military, that while Singapore mandates national service — the one with guns and torpedoes — the limits of ascension for Malays.
However, the bigger puzzle is that Singapore has always been the real military threat for the country. Maybe not actually, but in political language, media characterisation and public discourse, it is Singapore.
That is LKY’s legacy. From an autonomous state that transferred military reliance from the British to the Malayan military, and then to complete self-reliance quickly after separation by sensationally arming every male through an Israeli-copied defence structure, Lee turned all eyes to the south.
This despite all of Malaysia like a fruit sits in a bowl called Indonesia. The fourth most populous country in the world whose islands envelope our federation with millions of its citizens living amongst us, with a military with a history of bloody conflicts throughout the archipelago. More scarily, they actually fought Malaysian forces during Konfrontasi at sea and land — as their paratroopers landed to firefights.
Yet, to Malaysia’s leader Singapore lay ominous.
This was likely to be the Umno government’s characterisation of a government without them as one dictated by Lee Kuan Yew. A non-Umno reality would be a People’s Action Party PAP — LKY’s party — controlled reality.
While in the 60s and early 70s the spectre of LKY cast a heavy shadow on the country, the same cannot be said after the Mahathir years began. But a Singapore waiting to carry out LKY’s will to undermine Malay rule in Malaysia was propaganda manna and Umno was never going to give it up even when the possibility dimmed by the year.
And now Lee is gone. How will Umno play up Singapore’s hidden hand in our political system? Will the Indonesian military feature more now?
Goodbye Harry
He said before: “I do not believe that democracy necessarily leads to development. I believe that what a country needs to develop is discipline more than democracy.”
Which would suggest — to the cheeky at least — that on bad days in the Singapore Republic’s infancy LKY would have readily considered hudud type punishments if it gave the right outcomes. I said cheeky.
LKY was worried less about people and more about getting things done, and maybe that myopia is why he would never rise above a certain level in my estimate of statesmen. For you see, people are not cattle, and it does matter how they get there.
As for the Malaysia and Singapore juxtaposition, while there are mountains of interrelations because of a common colonial history, proximity and demographics the LKY era emphasised the ideological divide with the alacrity of a trailing umbilical cord, from an unknown mother — which is why our two countries will remain close but with a bittersweet aftertaste for the foreseeable future.
He would not mind it though. He got his way till the end.
That despite having Harry as his Western name on his birth certificate — as any Harry is typically expected to be friendly and chirpy— Lee Kuan Yew remained an intellectual recluse by choice.
Nations are long term projects, they will always rely on ideals not outcomes to stay the course, even if the latter guarantees their short term security.
Lee was not built for ideals, and if it may appear that Singapore sees people and resources as means rather than ends far more excessively than other nations, then the criticism directed at its modern-day architect will strike a chord.
But still, I guess a character is still a character. So goodbye Harry, it has been quite the ride.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
