Fridge Magnet Wisdom

This in response to the parliamentary session on 38 Oxley Road Saga that has just started. Good idea? ;-)

Father's (Sad) Day 2017

A response to a bombshell of a sibling quarrel over the weekend (Sunday being Father's Day). A coup by a brother, if you like, while the other sibling is out of the country. And a complicit sister.

Some associated links on the matter:

1. Mothership.Sg:

http://mothership.sg/tag/38-oxley-road/

2. ST journalist Chua Mooi Hoong:

http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/time-to-reflect-and-seek-the-common-good

3. Channel News Asia (statement by PM 19/June 2017)

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/pm-lee-apologises-to-singaporeans-over-dispute-with-siblings-to-8958868

4. Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPD1EA-APdI

In a gist:

Basically, the late LKY's estate is divided equally amongst his three children. Initially it wasn't so neat a ratio. It was divided into 7 shares, with each sibling getting two with the remaining single share going to the daughter LWL. The rationale is that she is unmarried with no children and thus the extra share is for looking after her old age.

Now, apparently the last will of LKY has reverted back to the equal share idea (6 parts, 2 each) but with the provision that LWL could stay in the Oxley Road home as long as she wanted. Once she decides to move out, the place can be demolished as per LKY's often acknowledged  wish. LKY is more for remembrance on performance than on personality worship.

Now this demolition wish of LKY is not a firm thing. Apparently he has not included this wish in his previous wills except the first. That it found its way into the last will is what this argument is about.

LHL is curious why LHY's wife is involved in the drawing up of the will when the usual drafter is their cousin Kwa Kim Li. LHY denies his wife drafting the will but only acting as advisor and council. Kwa however denies writing the will. It appears she was only appending to the will what she was told by LHY's wife. Now, this issue itself is contentious. It means someone is lying.

LHY and LWL beef is why their brother is not respecting their father's wish to have the place demolished. Instead he has appointed a ministerial committee to look into how the place may be preserved. ("Place" or some kind of manifestation, this is not clear). It is understandable why LHL is doing this. LKY is a widely respected and honored politician in Singapore. Heck, he is THE founding father of modern Singapore... leading a team to turn a swampy port of call into a modern metropolis where everything works. Just ask the expats, ask the residents, ask Singaporeans. You may not love LKY, but you certainly have to respect him. He got things done, and he as a frugal man.

World leaders hold LKY in high esteem for his intellect and views on world affairs. I respect LKY for his love of the grassroots, the common folk. All he wanted was a place where a man could get an education, get married, have a home and a job. A safe place to do all that.

I've done some policy case-writing and learned a few things more than the average man regarding how Singapore is governed. And one thing I respect of LKY is him keeping his word. An example: when he cleared the hawkers off the street (for hygiene purposes) he built them hawker centers where they could sell their food/wares in a managed environment. And guess what, the HCs remained mostly in the same areas where the hawkers plied. Why you oddly see hawker centres in the Central Business District, a prime real estate area. The same applied to housing. Why you see HDB blocks again in the CBD or near-CBD. It is LKY's ability to manage people's expectation and life changes and growing the country at the same time that makes me respect him more. Certainly in a world where greedy leaders grab land, destroy people's homestead to build useless national projects or pocket money intended for economic projects, Singapore seems like heaven. And it is. As I've told folks often. You have a safe and un-intruded space to live, work and play, what else do you want?

Of course, Sg is not a place for political parties to flourish. None had done as good a job as the ruling party. (Truth be told, they weren't given a chance. You were either on the ruling party's manifesto or you are not. Then again, Communism was rife in the early history of Sg. And we know now how communist countries turned out.) So, whether you love LKY or hate LKY, you have to respect him. And perhaps wish there are more of him in the world today.

And for those of you who think Sg is homogeneous, think again. We have four races: Chinese, Malay, Indian and Others (eg. Eurasians). We are all educated in English and speak to one another thus. The Chinese each know their dialect but is tasked to learn Mandarin to speak to one another so no one dialect is deemed superior to the other. Growing up Singaporean is like a British kid going school to study in Russian and then speaking French at home. Who else in the world does that???

So you can understand if there is a lot of pain growing up in Singapore. But the 70s and 80s were economic "miracle times". High employment, good jobs, middle class growing, affordable housing, etc. And a country growing richer (GDP) by the year.

Yup, one thing I learned from the Singapore experience is that when a country is rich, it can do a lot for its people. Housing, good schools, amenities, etc. When you have a leader, make sure he knows his sums. And make sure he is incorruptible. Look at a neighbouring country. Enuf said, is what it is.  

The end.

Henry Kissinger on Lee Kuan Yew

Chaotic world will miss Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s leadership: Kissinger

SINGAPORE — “Lee Kuan Yew was a great man. And he was a close personal friend, a fact that I consider one of the great blessings of my life. A world needing to distil order from incipient chaos will miss his leadership.”

Those are the first three lines of a moving eulogy — as Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong called it — by former United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, himself a giant in global diplomatic circles.

Writing in the Washington Post, Dr Kissinger said that Mr Lee emerged onto the international stage as Singapore’s founding father and developed into a world statesman who acted as a kind of conscience to leaders around the globe.

Paying tribute to a colleague and friend he had known for more than four decades, Dr Kissinger recalled that fate initially did not appear to have provided Mr Lee with a platform to succeed, as he described Singapore’s turbulent post-colonial years which saw the Republic kicked out of Malaysia.

“It was cut loose because of tensions between Singapore’s largely Chinese population and the Malay majority and, above all, to teach the fractious city a lesson of dependency. Malaya undoubtedly expected that reality would cure Singapore of its independent spirit,” wrote Dr Kissinger.

“But great men become such through visions beyond material calculations. Lee defied conventional wisdom by opting for statehood,” he wrote, adding that Mr Lee’s choice reflected a deep faith in the virtues of his people.

“He asserted that a city located on a sandbar with nary an economic resource to draw upon, and whose major industry as a colonial naval base had disappeared, could nevertheless thrive and achieve international stature by building on its principal asset: The intelligence, industry and dedication of its people.”

Dr Kissinger, who was the US Secretary of State from 1973 to 1977, said that Mr Lee took Singapore to places it had never been, turning it into a global financial centre with quality education, no corruption and a high per capita income for her people.

“Superior performance was one component of that achievement”, said Dr Kissinger. “Superior leadership was even more important. As the decades went by, it was moving — and inspirational — to see Lee, in material terms the mayor of a medium-size city, bestride the international scene as a mentor of global strategic order.

“A visit by Lee to Washington was a kind of national event,” he added. “A presidential conversation was nearly automatic; eminent members of the Cabinet and Congress would seek meetings. They did so not to hear of Singapore’s national problems; Lee rarely, if ever, lobbied policymakers for assistance. His theme was the indispensable US contribution to the defence and growth of a peaceful world. His interlocutors attended not to be petitioned but to learn from one of the truly profound global thinkers of our time.”

Dr Kissinger said as a pilgrim in quest of world order and responsible leadership, Mr Lee understood China’s relevance and potential and often contributed to the enlightenment of the world on this subject.

“But in the end, he insisted that without the United States there could be no stability.”

Dr Kissinger added that in his dealings with Mr Lee over 45 years, the former prime minister was never emotional. Neither was Mr Lee a man of many sentimental words. “And he nearly always spoke of substantive matters. But one could sense his attachment. A conversation with Lee, whose life was devoted to service and who spent so much of his time on joint explorations, was a vote of confidence that sustained one’s sense of purpose.”

Dr Kissinger noted that Mr Lee’s domestic methods “fell short of the prescriptions of current US constitutional theory”.

“But so, in fairness, did the democracy of Thomas Jefferson’s time, with its limited franchise, property qualifications for voting and slavery.

“This is not the occasion to debate what other options were available”, Dr Kissinger wrote. “Had Singapore chosen the road of its critics, it might well have collapsed among its ethnic groups, as the example of Syria teaches today.”

Dr Kissinger ended with a moving note on Mr Lee’s wife, Madam Kwa Geok Choo.

“The great tragedy of Lee’s life was that his beloved wife was felled by a stroke that left her a prisoner in her body, unable to communicate or receive communication. Through all that time, Lee sat by her bedside in the evening reading to her. He had faith that she understood despite the evidence to the contrary,” Dr Kissinger wrote.

“Perhaps this was Lee Kuan Yew’s role in his era. He had the same hope for our world. He fought for its better instincts even when the evidence was ambiguous. But many of us heard him and will never forget him.”

Dr Kissinger’s words moved Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to comment on the eulogy on his Facebook page yesterday (March 24).

“Henry Kissinger was an old and close friend of my father’s,” the Prime Minister wrote.

“They first met in 1967, when my father was taking a sabbatical in Harvard, and Kissinger was still a professor. They kept close ever since, in and out of office. When my father was ill recently, Kissinger wanted to visit his old friend one more time, but sadly my father was not in a condition to receive him. Now he has written this moving eulogy to my father.” 
AGENCIES

My comment: Yup, LKY has always been a straight talker. If you watch his speeches, etc, throughout his career, you'll find that LKY was one mighty consistent fella. His beliefs, analyses, etc. Singapore and the world will miss him.  

Understanding The Singapore Story 1

Highlighting insightful articles I've come across during the national mourning week of LKY's passing: 

The Legacy of Lee Kuan Yew and the Myth of Trade-Offs
- Calvin Cheng rebuts critics on Singapore trading freedom for economic success 

THE Western press has been relentless in trotting out the opinion that Mr Lee Kuan Yew had built Singapore's undeniable economic success while trading off fundamental civil liberties.

Much as I understand that it is in the West's fundamental DNA to assert certain inalienable freedoms, as a Singaporean, I strenuously object that there has been any such trade-off.

Some of my Western friends who have never lived here for any period of time have sometimes self-righteously proclaimed, no doubt after reading the cliches in the media, that they could never live under the "stifling and draconian" laws that we have.

My answer to them is simple: Are you the sort to urinate in public when a toilet isn't available, the sort to vandalise public property, the sort that would leave a mess in a public toilet that you share with others? Are you the sort who would throw rubbish on the streets for others to pick up, the sort that would stick gum on train doors or leave them on the floor to dry up into one ugly black scar on the pavement? Are you perhaps a drug smuggler? Because we execute those. Or maybe you molest women? Because we would whip you. Are you the sort that would get drunk and then get into fights and maybe beat up a stranger in the bar? Back home you may get away with it but if you are that sort, then maybe this place isn't for you.

In short, are you a civilised person who wants to live in a civilised society? Because the things you cannot do in Singapore are precisely the sort that civilised people should not do anyway. If you are, you have nothing to fear.

Or maybe like the Western press has kept saying these few days in their commentaries on Mr Lee, you fear that you could be locked up because we do not have freedom of speech?

Do you want to come here and insult other people's race and religion? Maybe these are fundamental freedoms in your country, but in ours, because we have experienced deadly racial riots at the birth of our country, these are a no-no. But then again, why would you want to purposely offend others?

Or maybe you want to tell lies about our public figures, accuse them of corruption when you have no evidence to back them up, or accuse them of stealing, cheating, or all manner of untruths? If so, then be prepared to be sued for libel. Even if Western societies think that you can say these things about your political figures, we don't and we are better for it.

And those political opponents of Mr Lee who have been bankrupted, allegedly because they were such formidable foes? No such thing. Mr J.B. Jeyeratnam and Dr Chee Soon Juan may be the martyrs much adored by the Western press, but have you heard of Mr Chiam See Tong, the longest-serving opposition Member of Parliament who won five consecutive elections against Mr Lee's People's Action Party? Or Mr Low Thia Khiang, who not only won five consecutive general elections, but in the last one in 2011, also led a team that unseated the incumbent Minister for Foreign Affairs and our first female Cabinet minister?

Both these opposition MPs have never been sued, much less bankrupted. In fact, Mr Chiam won several libel lawsuits against Mr Lee's ministers. You would never have heard of them, or have chosen not to, because it doesn't fit the Western narrative that legitimate opposition was stifled by Mr Lee through lawsuits. It doesn't suit your narrative of trade-offs. The fact is that every single opposition politician successfully sued for libel engaged in the type of politics that we do not want, the kind founded on vicious lies being told in the name of political campaigning.

What about detention without trial? Again and again ad nauseam, the Western press has used the example of Operation Cold Store to bolster its narrative of Mr Lee as an autocrat, where 111 left-wing politicians were arrested on suspicion of being communist in 1964.

But what about Operation Demetrius, where in 1971, 342 persons suspected of being involved with the IRA were detained without trial by the British Army? Or closer to the present where thousands have been interred without trial by the United States in Guantanamo Bay on suspicion of being terrorists? Firstly, detention without trial is not something used only by the Singapore Government, but countries need to make their own judgment about applying such laws when they feel their security is threatened and the normal judicial process is inadequate; in the 1960s and 70s, communists inciting armed revolution were Singapore's greatest threat.

Whether those people were indeed communists will be a question no doubt debated endlessly by historians, in the same way as whether the 342 in Northern Ireland were indeed IRA members, or the thousands in Guantanamo Bay were indeed terrorists.

So where is the trade-off? How are we unfree?

I tell you what freedom is.

Freedom is being able to walk on the streets unmolested in the wee hours in the morning, to be able to leave one's door open and not fear that one would be burgled. Freedom is the woman who can ride buses and trains alone; freedom is not having to avoid certain subway stations after night falls. Freedom is knowing our children can go to school without fear of drugs, or being mowed down by some insane person with a gun. Freedom is knowing that we are not bound by our class, our race, our religion, and we can excel for the individuals that we are - the freedom to accomplish. Freedom is living in one of the least corrupt societies in the world, knowing that our ability to get things done is not going to be limited by our ability to pay someone. Freedom is fresh air and clean streets, because nothing is more inimical to our liberty of movement than being trapped at home because of suffocating smog.

These are the freedoms that Singaporeans have, freedoms that were built on the vision and hard work of Mr Lee, our first Prime Minister. And we have all of these, these liberties, while also being one of the richest countries in the world.

There was no trade-off.

Not for us.

Dated Saturday, 28 March 2015 (as published in The Independent in the UK)
- source http://ifonlysingaporeans.blogspot.sg/)
- first published The Straits Times, 27 Mar 2015)

My comment: Singaporeans have been living a free life since 1959. LKY has never told its people how to lead their lives the way perhaps Mao Zedong did with his Little Red Book and exhortations. There was no "do this do that" because LKY said so. Heck, it was up to us to pay attention to his speeches during election. If we cared about LKY, it was because he had a vision of Singapore and had a habit since early days to accomplish what he set out to do. Sure, we had to live with policies set by his govt, but those were largely to do with govt policies. If we didn't like it, we could vote him out of office. If LKY set out to be a dictator, he would have been overthrown a long time ago. Or Sg who have remained something of a backward Cuba ruled by communists.