A Review of Singapore Story 1965 - 2000

From Third World to First
Memoirs of Lee Kuan

INTRODUCTION
This is the second of Lee Kuan Yew's books that covers the post independence era of Singapore. In his first book he talks of his childhood, under British rule, the pre-World War II era, a brief period of Japanese occupation (1942-1945), followed by British taking control again. He briefly mentions the atrocities committed by the Japanese in this book. This is a long memoir, 763 pages long - a heavy hard cover book! It covers the total spectrum of challenges faced by Singapore.

It gives a different perspective from the anti-Singaporean propaganda that we have been fed, that Singapore is/was a draconian state, where the government interfered with your personal freedom. But the fact of the matter is that if one is a law-abiding citizen, one doesn't have anything to worry.

Part I of the book, "Getting the Basics Right" is really interesting and covers the early days when Singapore had to make it as an island country with practically scant resources of its own.

Part II is his dealings with various governments and administrations. The chapters that delve into his opinions and dealings with the USA, Japan and China are interesting. Unless one is really interested in the regional politics most of Part II can be skimmed.

LKY- THE MANLee Kuan Yew (LKY), born on September 16th 1923, is the founding father of independent Singapore. He read law in Cambridge University, England from 1946 to 1950. He returned to Singapore in 1950. He was a Labor Lawyer prior to entering politics. In 1954 he formed the People's Action Party (PAP), which has dominated Singapore's politics since 1959. He became Prime Minister at the age of 35. He initially formed a united front with the communists. Later the PAP parted ways with the communists. In November 1990, he stepped down as PM and handed over the reigns to the current PM. LKY is a brilliant individual who catapulted Singapore from a Third World British colony to the first world in a span of thirty years. Granted Singapore is an island country and had just over 2 million people at the time of independence.

THE MEDIA LED PERCEPTIONThe Western has been very critical of LKY and portrays many of his policiesas "high handed". But the fact is he operated under the principles of democracy. Again the Western media has portrayed democracy in Singapore as a sham with the opposition parties being marginalized and permitted a handicapped namesake existence. However, the reality is that the PAP took a "market" approach to democracy, wherein their strategy was one of dominance and obliteration of the "competition" by serving the public. If he was that far off base, the people could have voted the PAP out, but they didn't'. People exercised their "purchasing power" by voting for their choice of party.

THE EARLY CHALLENGESAt the very beginning the emphasis was on survival. Singapore as originally part of Malaysia for the first few years after Malaysia gained independence. Singapore had independence thrust on them when they were expelled from Malaysia. Singapore being an island country, had no natural resources, was dependent on Malaysia for water. They relied on the presence of the British armed forces, both for protection and money. Besides having a tenuous relationship with Malaysia, they were faced with the economic fallout of theBritish pulling out. Singapore needed jobs fast. They bet on the West and rather than be skeptical of Multi-National Corporations (MNCs) they went out of their way to attract MNCs that resulted in an economic boom. Their rationale was brilliant, they had no resources, nor were they a major market. The MNC's only viable option was to make things in Singapore and export the goods to the West.

Early in his tenure as the PM, LKY busted the Public Daily Rated Cleansing Workers led by Suppiah, a Tamil immigrant. That set the stage for a better relationship with the Unions. Similar to Reagan, who was active in the Actors Union, prior to becoming the President, who took on the Air Traffic Control Union. Barring fighting the exceptional cases of oppression and exploitation, he observes, "Unions primarily serve a small group of privileged members getting high pay while there is a growing band of underpaid, under-employed workers. Moreover, rising wages force employers to become capital intensive, investing in expensive machines to get donewith fewer workers". He set out to transform Union-Management relations from "being militant and confrontational to a cooperative and partnership model".

The government played a key role in attracting Foreign Investments. They built the infrastructure and provided well-planned industrial estates, equity participation in industry, fiscal incentives and export promotion. He notes, "Most important, we established good labour relations and sound macro-economic policies, the fundamentals that enable private enterprise to operate successfully". Their largest infrastructure development was Jurong Industrial Estate, built in 1960, which eventually covered 9,000 acres, with roads, sewers, drainage, power, gas and water all laid out. When Jurong lay largely vacant in the 60's, people called it "Goh's Folly". Their break came in 1968, when TI came and started production 50 days after they decided to go ahead. National Semiconductor, HP, GE and a host of other high tech companies followed.

UNIQUE THINKING FOR A UNIQUE ENVIRONMENTUnlike India, that took a laisez fare approach after Independence by retaining the bureaucracy that the British left behind. LKY really thought through what Singapore needed and his rationale is convincing. He started from the premise that Singapore was unique with a multi racial community of Chinese, Malays and Indians. None of the models of the developing countries were applicable to Singapore and he literally had to invent on the run. He established the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) that functioned as a Central Reserve Bank, except for the printing of money. The Monetary Policy is the jurisdiction of the Currency Board, and completely out of reach of politicians.

He was very protective of Singapore and did not allow any foreign influence be it from China, Russia or the US. LKY took some bold and controversial decisions. Banning of long hair and Playboy seems extreme. But it makes sense to enforce stopping things like chewing gum, littering, smoking in buildings, and spitting. He mentions how chewing gum caused a problem by blocking the coin slot of a turnstile to enter the train platform and banning chewing gum got rid of the problem! Independent Singapore was a young island-city country and his approach to social issues is that of a strict father. Quite a few people in the States thought the whipping of the American boy was well deserved and wished the US had something like that! Which is an artifact of the old British Law.

He also pushed for the Greening of Singapore and the cleaning up of the environment.

DEALING WITH COMMUNISTSThe initial united front with the communists was one of convenience and he knew well from the start that they had to part ways. He saw through the insidious ideology and treated them as a virus. He is brazenly anti-communist and instituted laws that prevented them from propagating their subversive and coercive propaganda. Criticism based on facts was permitted, but any propaganda that maligned the government on emotional grounds or incited unrest or violence was punished. Call for strikes had to be made through secret ballot to eliminate the intimidation and coercion of a show of hands. The parting of ways with the communists was bitter and resulted in them being decimated. India can learn from this. Any individual who publicly makes threats and insights violence, should be put in jail with no hearing or bail for a period of time.

LEVERAGING THE CHINESE MAJORITYHe was fortunate that Singapore had a Chinese majority ( 75.4% Chinese, 14.6%Malay, 8.6% Indian) and by performing and delivering results to all the citizens, the PAP party was able to retain majority ever since Singapore gained Independence. Using this mandate, he was able to provide low cost housing, start the Central Provident Fund (CPF) for people to fund their own retirement - "A Fair, Not Welfare Society". He goes on to comment on the failure of the European welfare model, where the state takes on a major role in providing a "Safety Net". He delves into weeding out corruption.

Throughout the book he refers to Confucian principles and pretty much refers to Singapore as a Chinese State that is secular and allows the practice of any religion. His approach is one of ensuring that the minority communities are served and given equal opportunities. He talks about preserving the Chinese Culture and is concerned about the youth being influenced by Western ways. He ignores the Tamil and Malay issues regarding retaining their cultures, leaving it up to the respective communities.

Adjusting to low cost housing was not easy for some of the peasantry. Some of them moved in with their pigs into high rises! Some raised chickens in their flats!

He extols Confucian Values – filial to one's parents, honest, upright, hardworking, thrifty, sincere to one's friends and loyal. He also admits the dark side of Chinese Confucianism – nepotism, favouritism and corruption.

He enforced the good Chinese Confucian values, which he believed were consistent with the attributes needed for rapid growth. We on the other hand denigrate our "Hinduness" by referring to our previous slow rate of growth as "the Hindu Rate" of growth. Besides Indian Values are pretty much the same as the Chinese Confucian Values.

SEEKING AND REWARDING TALENTTalent in Singapore is sought after and rewarded. They have nurtured a meritocracy, wherein talent is welcomed regardless of ethnic background. He points out that most of his colleagues, including himself, who took part in the early days of independent Singapore were immigrants and not natives. As a result, Singapore like the US, attracts talent from all over the world. While the majority of the politicians, bureaucrats and officials were Chinese, there are a few people of Indian and Malay origin.

MANAGING GOVERNMENT LIKE A BUSINESSHe meticulously sought after competent people to join the party and stand for elections. At a later stage, he instituted a selection process for political and administration candidates which included exhaustive psychological tests. They asked MNC's how they went about recruiting talent. He quotes the system developed by Shell. Shell "concentrated on what they termed a man's "currently estimated potential". This was determined by three qualities – a person's power of analysis, his imagination and sense of reality. Together they made up an overarching attribute that Shell called "helicopter quality", the ability to see facts or problems in a larger context and to identify and zoom in on critical details. A panel of assessors, at least two of whom must know the candidate being assessed, would accurately rank executives of broadly similar quality. After trying this system out, finding it practical they adopted it and ABANDONED THE BRITISH SYSTEM THEY HAD INHERITED.

They constantly scanned the top echelons of all sectors in Singapore – the professions, commerce, manufacturing and trade unions – to look for men and women in their 30's and 40's, whom they would persuade to stand as their candidate. He found that ability can be assessed fairly accurately by aperson's academic record and achievement in work. Character is not so easily measured. After some successes and too many failures he concluded that it was more important, though more difficult to assess a person'scharacter. So he decided to have a psychiatrist and a psychologist test the candidate. They put prospective PAP election candidates who had the potential to be ministers through psychological tests designed to define their character profile, intelligence, personal background and values. While these test were not conclusive, they helped to eliminate the obviously unsuitable and was used for an ensuing face to face interview. Public sector companies were put on notice to be profitable or face the consequences of being shut down.

PRESERVING CHINESE CULTUREOne of issues LKY wrestled with was the conflicting aspects of the medium of education. Education in Chinese was seen as necessary to preserve Chinese culture, whereas education in English resulted in the youth adopting western ways which were seen as being in conflict with Chinese values. At the same time, the English educated had excellent employment opportunities while the Chinese educated languished. While he and his wife were educated in English medium schools, they sent their children to a Chinese school and spoke to them in English at home. They tinkered with the secondary education system to preserve the Chinese traditions and at the same time ensure proficiency in English as well.

Preserving Indian Culture is an issue that is relevant to India today. It is clear that a mixed medium of instructions is the solution, wherein the quantitative subjects (math, physics, chemistry) could be taught in English and the Social Sciences could be taught in the Regional Language. Furthermore, students in non-Hindi speaking states should be given the option of learning either Hindi or Sanskrit. The advantage of learning Sanskrit is that students will learn to read and write Devnagiri script (can read Hindi) and we will revive a language that is part of India's heritage.

PASSING THE BATONUnlike in India where people hold onto power until they are kicked out, or reach a comatose state, LKY groomed a successor and handed over the Prime Ministers post to Chok Tong in 1990 after 31 years in power. He encouraged and prodded other senior members to do the same. Chok Tong appointed LKY's son Loong as Deputy Prime Minister. LKY says, "Many of my critics thought this smacked of nepotism, that he was unduly favoured because he was my son. On the contrary, as I told the party conference in 1989, the year before I resigned, it would not be good for Singapore for Loong to succeed me. be seen as having inherited the office from me when he should deserve the position on his own merit." He jokes that for several years Chok had to endure the jeers of foreign critics that he was a seat warmer for his son – Loong. But the fact is, Loong is an intelligent accomplished person in his own right. Even though he benefited by being LKY's son, he has earned his own stripes by proving himself.

ABOUT THE FUTURELKY muses about the survivability of Singapore as an island country. Over the years they have transitioned from a low cost provider of goods to aprovider of high value goods and services. Many of the early assembly plants have been shifted to Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. As the standard of living and wages increases, there is a constant out flow of the non-competitive activities to neighbouring countries. The question he poses is whether Singapore can survive as a purely service oriented economy.

LESSONS FOR INDIAWhile the Singapore phenomena (over 3 million people) is not entirely relevant to India, what is relevant is that India needs to build 100 plus Singapores! Even if the Indian equivalent of a Singapore were to accommodate 6 million people, that would only serve less than half of India's projected population of 1.5 Billion by 2050!

The migration of activities out of Singapore is an opportunity for India to be on the receiving end. India can be the world's lowest cost producer of goods and services. What China can produce, India ought to be able to produce cheaper and better.

Ever since independence, the Congress Party in particular has been handing out platitudes and concessions to minorities. Good for politics, bad for the country. It is not clear their fortunes have changed. Current events indicate it has worsened. What is needed are opportunities, by way of jobs.

Maintaining India's cultural heritage is not to be taken lightly. Rather than debating whether primary and secondary education should be in English or the Regional language, what India should embark on, is a dual-medium of instruction.