Starting Points: Lee Kuan Yew

Showing posts with label Lee Kuan Yew. Show all posts

May 26, 2010

The Political Awakening of a Singapore Student

Thursday, 27 May 2010

Natalie Koh

I am an ordinary Singaporean student who, until now, has been brainwashed like many of you. Now I know the ugly truth. I'd like to share my experience with you about my struggle in taking off the blindfold the PAP has tied on me for years.

I believe it is about the same for most young Singaporeans as it was for me. The brainwashing starts at the secondary school level when most students still do not have the maturity to be able to accurately judge if what they read is true or false. Most of them would not even be interested in politics at that age.

Like some of you, I also viewed Social Studies and National Education as propaganda of the government. But for the sake of getting good grades, many just memorise the PAP’s version of Singapore’s past and regurgitate it when needed.

Drilled into our minds from young that the PAP are the good guys and all who oppose it must be bad, more and more Singaporeans come to accept this twisted view without question.

The awakening for me came when I took up a political science module at the National University of Singapore where I'm now studying. It was about politics and governance of Singapore. That got me thinking about Singapore’s history and the role the PAP, civil service, and trade unions played in it. I also started to examine the subject of the PAP’s political hegemony.

When I signed up for the module, the first thing that I wanted to do was to find out the truth. I thought that in university, there would be more freedom to scrutinize criticize the Government and its policies. But, this turned out not to be the case at all.

The lecture notes given to students spoke highly of the PAP, and denounced the opposition. The lecturer himself, Dr Bilveer Singh, did not take an unbiased view. Whenever he mentioned the opposition, it was to criticize them and to emphasize that they were puny compared to the PAP.

I remember Dr Singh saying that Dr Chee Soon Juan is a symbol of blundering. I was thinking, “Okay, so where’s your evidence?” But he didn’t even bother to support his point and took whatever he as if it was factually true.

And most of the students just accepted it without questioning the accuracy of his statement.

In his textbook (which was a compulsory text for all of us), the lecturer wrote that Dr Chee had ousted Mr Chiam from the SDP. This was, of course not the truth, as those of you who have read Dr Chee’s detailed account of what actually happened would know.

But as this article is about how I discovered the truth about Singapore’s history and politics, I will not digress any further.

What jolted me to the truth was Dr Chee’s books, A Nation Cheated and The Power of Courage. What I read shocked me. I read and re-read it again and again to make sure I had read everything correctly.

The shocking truth has been scrupulously kept away from the eyes of Singaporeans. I am sure the majority of Singaporeans are blissfully unaware that Mr Lee Kuan Yew was not the hero who fought for Singapore’s independence. Rather the true hero was Mr Lim Chin Siong, who failed to become Singapore's first prime minister only because he was continuously thwarted by Mr Lee Kuan Yew and the British.

The book documented from declassified papers that “it was Lim Chin Siong who insisted that Singaporeans’ freedom and independence were not for compromise.” And that was also why the British considered him such a threat to their colonial rule, and tried all ways to cripple him. Please refer to A Nation Cheated for more details.

Everyone knows that there were riots in Singapore’s history, and these riots were explained by the Government that the Malayan Communist Party “in charge of Lim Chin Siong” was behind the whole affair and that it was (Chief Minister) Mr Lim Yew Hock who purged Singapore of the troublemaking communists.

But I learnt from this book that “it was then Chief Minister Lim Yew Hock who had purposely provoked the riots to enable the detention of Mr Lim Chin Siong.” The colonial government and Mr Lee Kuan Yew (London’s “best ally”) had no qualms employing the tactic of provoking a riot and then using the outcome to “achieve a desired political result”.

Lim Chin Siong (left) and Lee Kuan Yew

Another shocking fact that A Nation Cheated reveals is that “Lee had confidentially said that he values the [Internal Security] Council as a potential scape-goat for unpopular measures he will wish to take against subversive activities."

Another controversial issue was the clause the British introduced that would bar ex-detainees, or subversives, from standing for elections. It is revealed that “Lee Kuan Yew was secretly a party with Lim Yew Hock in urging the Colonial Secretary to impose the ‘subversives ban’.”

Yet, in Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s memoirs, he wrote “I objected to [the introduction of the clause] saying that ‘the condition is disturbing both because it is a departure from democratic practice and because there is no guarantee that the government in power will not use this procedure to prevent not only the communist but also democratic opponents of their policy from standing for elections.”

Mr Lee pretended to be the good man by pushing all the blame to the British. It was written that “Lee told Britain’s Seceretary of State, 'I will have to denounce [the clause]. You will have to take responsibility.'”

After I first read the book, I was thinking “no, no way, this can’t be the truth, everyone knows that Lee Kuan Yew was the founding father of Singapore.”

But after I reread the book repeatedly, I finally accepted the concrete evidence. And after the initial denial came the horrid shock. We have been emulating and glorifying this person all this while.

I told my mom what I had read from the book. She got very angry with me and scolded me harshly. She said that I should not get involved in politics, and implied that I (and everyone who wants to stay safe) should just turn a blind eye to the truth.

I was thinking, “This is injustice!” My mom got angry with me that day. I was afraid that she might throw away my copies of Dr Chee’s books.

Now that I know the truth, I feel burdened. I cannot continue to propagate the stand that Lee and the PAP are righteous without lying to myself. I was also scared because what I wanted to tell others was akin to blasphemy, heresy.

I thought of people like Dr Chee who know far more about this subject than I do would feel much more aggrieved because not only do most people not believe us and may even say we are subversive and spreading lies about the Government, but the authorities will also do everything to hide the truth and fool the people.

Even now, I still need to mince my words whenever I discuss politics and Lee Kuan Yew in my family. Youths are forced to self-censor and cannot say much in public because we do not have any freedom of speech (unless it’s about singing the Government’s praises).

What has become of our so-called "democratic" country? I urge all of you, for the sake of your own honor and integrity, to please read and find out for yourselves the truth.

Natalie Koh is currently studying Chemistry at NUS.

Apr 4, 2010

The Public Editor - Censored in Singapore - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com

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By CLARK HOYT

LAST month, on the same day The New York Times praised Google for standing up to censorship in China, a sister newspaper, The International Herald Tribune, apologized to Singapore’s rulers and agreed to pay damages because it broke a 1994 legal agreement and referred to them in a way they did not like.

The rulers had sued for defamation 16 years ago, saying a Herald Tribune Op-Ed column had implied that they got their jobs through nepotism. The paper wound up paying $678,000 and promising not to do it again. But in February, it named Lee Kuan Yew, the founding prime minister, and his son, Lee Hsien Loong, the prime minister now, in an Op-Ed article about Asian political dynasties.

After the Lees objected, the paper said its language “may have been understood by readers to infer that the younger Mr. Lee did not achieve his position through merit. We wish to state clearly that this inference was not intended.” The Herald Tribune, wholly owned by The New York Times Company, apologized for “any distress or embarrassment” suffered by the Lees. The statement was published in the paper and on the Web site it shares with The Times.

Some readers were astonished that a news organization with a long history of standing up for First Amendment values would appear to bow obsequiously to an authoritarian regime that makes no secret of its determination to cow critics, including Western news organizations, through aggressive libel actions. Singapore’s leaders use a local court system in which, according to Stuart Karle, a former general counsel of The Wall Street Journal, they have never lost a libel suit.

The notion that it could be defamatory to call a political family a dynasty seems ludicrous in the United States, where The Times has routinely applied the label to the Kennedys, the Bushes and the Clintons. But Singapore is a different story.

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Lee Kuan Yew once testified, according to The Times, that he designed the draconian press laws to make sure that “journalists will not appear to be all-wise, all-powerful, omnipotent figures.” Four years ago, The Times quoted his son as saying, “If you don’t have the law of defamation, you would be like America, where people say terrible things about the president and it can’t be proved.”

Steven Brostoff of Arlington, Va., wondered whether The Times had other agreements like the one with the Lees, and asked, “What conclusions should we draw about how news coverage from these countries is slanted?” Zeb Raft of the University of Alberta, Edmonton, asked if The Times was admitting that certain world leaders “deserve to be treated with deference. This is the implication of the apology.”

George Freeman, a Times Company lawyer, said the 1994 agreement was the only one he knew about and that it applied only to The Herald Tribune. Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times, said, “Nobody in this company has ever told me what our reporters can write — or not write — about Singapore.” He said the Times newsroom has no agreements with any government about what can be reported. “We don’t work that way.”

Andrew Rosenthal, the editor of the editorial page, said, “If we have something that needs to be said on the editorial or Op-Ed pages, on any subject, we will say it, clearly and honestly.”

That is what the late William Safire did on the Op-Ed page in 2002, when he criticized Bloomberg News for “kowtowing to the Lee family” by apologizing for an article about the elevation of the younger Lee’s wife to run a state-owned investment company. Bloomberg, he said, had “just demeaned itself and undermined the cause of a free online press.”

Safire wrote that he took “loud exception” in 1994 when The Herald Tribune, then owned jointly by the Times Company and The Washington Post Company, “cravenly caved” over an article by Philip Bowring — the same Hong Kong-based columnist who sparked last month’s dust-up. “I doubt such a sellout of principle will happen again.”

Richard Simmons was the president of The Herald Tribune in 1994 and authorized the agreement that was broken last month — an “undertaking” by the company’s lawyers to prevent a repetition of the language that offended the Lees. “We had, in my view, no choice,” he said. “What the American media absolutely refuse to recognize is Singapore operates on a different set of legal rules than does the United States.” He said Western news organizations can accept the legal system there or leave.

For The Herald Tribune and all the other news organizations that have paid damages to Singapore’s rulers (The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Bloomberg) or had their circulation limited there (Time, The Asian Wall Street Journal, The Economist), the choice has been to stay.

Singapore is tiny, with a population of around five million, but it has outsized economic power as a financial hub, making it an important source of news. For The Herald Tribune, the economic stakes are large: more than 10 percent of its Asian circulation is in Singapore. It prints papers there that are distributed throughout the region. It sells advertising to companies throughout Asia that want to reach readers in Singapore.

“If you want to be a global paper, it has lots of banks, lots of commerce, a highly educated, English-speaking population,” said Karle. “It’s hard to turn your back on that.”

Faced with this predicament when the Lees objected to the article last month, The Herald Tribune apologized and paid up — $114,000 — before it was even sued. Karle said the paper could have spent a million dollars for a worse result in court: forced to pay higher damages and make a more humiliating apology.

But settling the way it did has its own price. Roby Alampay, the executive director of the Southeast Asian Press Alliance, told Agence France-Presse, “This continuing line of major media organizations too quick to offer contrition and money is a sad sight and a persisting insult on legitimate journalism, fair commentary, free speech and the rights that Singaporeans deserve.”

Safire told The American Journalism Review in 1995 that the world’s free press should unite and pull out of Singapore in the face of any new libel action. I think that is what should happen too, but it never has.

That leaves the Times Company with its own choice if another challenge arises. “Singapore is an important market for The International Herald Tribune,” the company told me in a statement. “There are more than 12,000 I.H.T. readers who shouldn’t be deprived of the right to read the paper in print or online. In addition, getting kicked out of Singapore would also make it more difficult for others in the region to get the I.H.T. since we print in Singapore for distribution there and in the neighboring areas.”

Google faced a similar painful dilemma in China. With potentially billions of dollars at risk, it stuck to its principles, and The Times applauded editorially. I think Google set an example for everyone who believes in the free flow of information.

E-mail: public@nytimes.com.

Sep 29, 2009

Singapore Wealth Fund Says Investments Fell 20% in Year - NYTimes.com

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By REUTERS

SINGAPORE — G.I.C., a sovereign wealth fund of Singapore, said Tuesday that its investments fell more than 20 percent in the year that ended in March, but recovered more than half that loss during the rally on financial markets since then.

G.L.C., or the Government of Singapore Investment Corp., the larger of the city-state’s two wealth funds, said it had increased exposure to alternative investments like real estate and natural resources but was bearish on bonds. The fund said its managers were optimistic about emerging markets and Asia.

The fund’s portfolio shrank by more than a fifth in the year that ended March 31, but it has ridden the financial meltdown better than its sister fund Temasek by paring its exposure to equities before the crisis and through a well-timed sale of part of its Citigroup holding.

G.I.C., headed by Lee Kuan Yew, the former prime minister, is the largest sovereign fund in the world after those of Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia and Norway, according to Deutsche Bank.

The fund says it manages more than $100 billion; analysts estimate the figure at $200 billion to $300 billion.

It said in the annual report that cash represented 8 percent of its holdings at the end of March, up from 7 percent a year earlier. The fund appears eager to put that money to use soon.

“In normal circumstances, we should not be holding cash, particularly now when cash earns you close to zero interest,” the fund’s chief investment officer, Ng Kok Song, said in a statement accompanying the report.

Mr. Ng also said bonds had become riskier because of the threat of rising inflation, as Western governments and central banks faced political constraints in an environment of high unemployment that could prevent them from unwinding stimulus measures.

“Global economic growth will be higher in the emerging than the developed economies,” he said. “The developed economies will undergo further deleveraging, while the emerging economies will be compelled to engender domestic demand.”

Sovereign wealth funds, like most investors, were badly hit by the meltdown in global financial markets. The funds, which together manage an estimated $3 trillion, were big investors in Western banks at the start of the financial crisis but many have since pared their stakes.

G.I.C. said its investment in UBS was still showing a loss. This month, it said it had made a $1.6 billion profit from halving its stake in Citigroup.

G.I.C.’s annual performance and subsequent recovery resemble that of Temasek, which said this month that its portfolio slumped by 55 billion Singaporean dollars, or $38.8 billion, in the year that ended in March, a 30 percent decline, before recouping most of its losses.