Date : 16 January 2011
'Singapore is an 80-storey building on marshy land. We've learnt how to put in stakes and floats so we can go up for another 20, maybe over a hundred storeys. Provided you understand and ensure that the foundation is strong. Crucial is interracial, interreligious harmony. Without that, quarrelling with one another, we are doomed.' -- MM LEE KUAN YEW
The Straits Times
Hard Truths will be launched by Singapore Press Holdings' book publishing subsidiary Straits Times Press on Friday. It is based on 16 interviews with Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew. Below are excerpts on MM Lee's views on Singapore and being Singaporean.
16 January 2010
Q Are we really as vulnerable as you suggest? Critics would say you make things seem so dire that so many things practised elsewhere, including in small countries, such as political competition, will not be available here.
No, we are not preventing competition. What we are preventing is duds getting into Parliament and government. Any person of quality, we welcome him but we don't want duds. We don't want Chee Soon Juan, or J.B. Jeyaretnam. They're not going to build the country. But if any serious man turns up and forms an alternative equal to us, I say, 'Good'. Then we are getting a proper alternative. But look at the candidates they put up.
Now, are we not vulnerable? If we are not vulnerable, why do we spend 5 to 6 per cent of GDP (gross domestic product) year after year on defence? Are we mad? This is a frugal government, you know that well.
We dug a deep tunnel for the sewers at the cost of $3.65 billion in order to use the sewage water for Newater, to be independent.
We are not vulnerable? They can besiege you. You'll be dead. Your sea lanes are cut off and your business comes to a halt. What is our reply? Security Council, plus defence capabilities of our own, plus the Security Framework Agreement with the Americans.
They stopped sand. Why? To conscribe us. As Mahathir (former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad) says, 'Even at their present size they are trouble, you let them grow some more they will be more trouble'. We've got friendly neighbours? Grow up.
Why would we put a strong minister in Defence if it's not important? He's the strongest minister in the Cabinet next to the PM, toughest, most capable. We have always put a strong man there. Do we parade our vulnerabilities? We are living in an adult world. Why do we have peace? Because it is not cost-free if you hit us. If you hit us we will hit you and the damage may be more on your side.
Q But this point about not being a normal country...
Forgive me for saying this: Assuming that I'm just nearly as intelligent as you are, but I've lived more than 85 years and I've been through all these ups and downs and I've spent all my life since the age of 32 figuring out how to make this place work, right?
First, I believed and said the only way it could work was to join Malaya because otherwise we cannot live. Our water, our raw materials, imports, much of the exports come from Malaya. That was at that time. We couldn't get to Malaya because the Tunku didn't want the Chinese population.
We worked around that and we joined Malaysia. Then we found ourselves trapped, from a communist Singapore to a Malay-ultra Malaysia. Has Malaysia changed? How has it changed?
Why did I break down when we got out on the 9th of August? Because I left behind tens of thousands of people who had joined our rallies, and I knew that they were going to be handicapped, again a minority and leaderless. We provided the leadership. So when you tell me we're not vulnerable, I say, 'Oh, God!'
You speak to the SAF (Singapore Armed Forces) commanders. Why do they do this - two years of every young man's life, 4, 5 to 6 per cent of GDP and a frugal government that builds up reserves? We do this because of hallucinations? Or because that's the only way we can be left alone to survive and prosper?
Why do you think we spent all this effort to solve our water problem until we became specialists in water? Mahathir knew we needed Johor water. So when the water agreement was going to end in 2011 for Tebrau and Skudai, we knew we would be short. Then we discovered Newater. He thought we were bluffing. You say we're not vulnerable?
We should not gloss over our worries. They are real problems. And we are what we are because we can stand up for ourselves. If we can't, we've had it. The Security Council passes resolutions. So what? Who goes to Kuwait's rescue? The US. Why? Because of oil. Why? Because next stop would be Saudi Arabia.
Who's coming to our rescue because of water? The US? No. We rescue ourselves. Either the media grows up, especially the young reporters, or we're going to bring up a generation that lives in a dream world of security when none exists...
I had to make this society produce results, then we will become prosperous, then we can have a strong defence, and the world has a place for us. If you believe we're like Norway or Sweden or Denmark, then we won't survive.
Singapore is an 80-storey building on marshy land. We've learnt how to put in stakes and floats so we can go up for another 20, maybe over a hundred storeys. Provided you understand and ensure that the foundation is strong. Crucial is interracial, interreligious harmony. Without that, quarrelling with one another, we are doomed.
Q You described Singapore as a nation in transition, given its young history where we do not have a common language, culture or geography. What must Singapore be like before you consider it a nation?
There must be a sense of self, a sense of identity, that you are prepared to die for your country, that you're prepared to die for one another. Just look at the Chinese, how many times they've been invaded, but they have re-created themselves when the invaders got weak because there is that cohesiveness: same language, same culture and the same Han race.
Are we the same language, same culture? No. We have adopted one language which is a foreign language, like the West Indies or some African countries which have adopted English but they are not one nation. If we lose our second language, we lose all sense of our identity, not just the Singaporean. You don't create a nation in 45 years.
Q Is there a worry that the influx of foreigners into Singapore will further dilute the national identity we're trying to build?
Maybe, but what's the choice? I keep on saying to Singaporeans, please have two children at least, if possible three. They have not responded.
Q At the risk of sounding sentimental, is there anything emotional about being Singaporean?
I went to Perth and met the Singaporeans who have settled there. They fondly remember Singapore. The man who organised the gathering has kept his son's passport as insurance. The son graduated from a university in Perth and was working as an accountant for one of the big firms. I said, 'Why do you keep the Singapore citizenship?' He said, 'Well, he went back to do his NS, he wants to make sure he's got an alternative in case there's a downturn here.'
He came back and did his NS, but his family is there. If he marries an Australian girl, if they're jobless there, he'll bring his Australian wife here. Supposing Perth became dry, with climate change, they may decide to come back. We are in a world of transition. The old patterns no longer hold.
Q What constitutes the Singapore identity? How would you pick out a Singaporean in a crowd?
My definition of a Singaporean, which will make us different from any others, is that we accept that whoever joins us is part of us. And that's an American concept. You can keep your name, Brzezinski, Berlusconi, whatever it is, you have come, join me, you are American. We need talent, we accept them. That must be our defining attribute.
If we don't have that attribute, are we going to have only those who are like us, Chinese from China like us? Indians from India like us? Malays from Malaysia are different from us now. In time, people from China, India or elsewhere come here, they change. That's a defining attribute. English will be our working language, and you keep your mother tongue. It may not be as good as your English but if you need to do business with China or India or Malaysia or Indonesia, you can ramp it up.
(With thanks to SPH - StraitsTimes.com)
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