OBITUARY: How Lee Kuan Yew made Singapore the most prosperous, efficient, and quirkily repressive country in Asia
OBITUARY
23 March 2015Last updated at 06:28
Lee Kuan Yew: Reaction in pictures and tweets
Lee Kuan Yew has died at the age of 91. Singapore's elder
statesman, he is widely viewed as the man who brought the city-state into the
modern era and turned it into a wealthy business hub. The BBC looks at how the
news of his death unfolded.
Lee Kuan Yew was admitted to hospital in early February with pneumonia and
was later placed on life support. In the early hours of Monday, a statement from
the prime minister's office confirmed his death.
The announcement was not unexpected. Mr Lee's condition had deteriorated in
recent days. People had begun leaving tributes and messages of support outside
the Singapore General Hospital, where he was being treated, and at a community
centre in his local constituency.
One of the first to offer his condolences was UN Secretary General Ban
Ki-moon. In a
statement, he described Mr Lee as a "legendary figure in Asia, widely
respected for his strong leadership and statesmanship".
Within hours, the Facebook
page of Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong - who is Lee Kuan Yew's
son - was flooded with messages of condolence. "Thank you Mr Lee Kuan Yew for
the Singapore we now have," wrote one man. "Don't worry. Singapore will continue
to do well, in the way you have worked hard all your life ensuring that," wrote
another. At the hospital, meanwhile, Lawrence Hee, 68, said: "I'm very sad. He
created Singapore."
Sayeed Hussain, 59, with his wife Sharmin, 44, son Sanerm, 13, and daughter
Samira, 16, came to the hospital as a family before the children went to school.
"He was a great leader and role model. He did a lot for us, helped to shape a
multi-racial and multi-cultural Singapore. We wanted to start our day with no
regrets so we came here to pay our respects," Mr Sayeed said.
In Washington, US President Barack Obama spoke of a "true giant of history
who will be remembered for generations to come as the father of modern Singapore
and as one the great strategists of Asian affairs". The two men met in
Washington DC in 2009. Other leaders, past and present, also paid tribute,
including former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
As the sun rose, flags were lowered to half mast at government buildings,
including this one here at parliament. A state funeral is to be held on 29
March, the government said.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak - leader of the nation from which
Singapore was expelled 50 years ago - tweeted his condolences to Mr Lee's
son.
British Prime Minister David Cameron also released a statement, saying:
"[Former British PM] Lady [Margaret] Thatcher once said that there was no prime
minister she admired more than Mr Lee for 'the strength of his convictions, the
clarity of his views, the directness of his speech and his vision of the way
ahead'."
Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch said Mr Lee's role in Singapore's
economic development was undeniable but came with a "significant cost to human
rights".
In
a statement on Facebook, the party Mr Lee founded - the People's Action
Party - praised his "incalculable contributions to Singapore". President Tony
Tan described
Mr Lee as "the architect of our modern republic". And in an emotional televised
address, Lee Hsien Loong - his son and the current prime minister - said: "We
won't see another man like him. To many Singaporeans, and indeed others too, Lee
Kuan Yew was Singapore."
Ong Choo Bee, 71, a clerk, visited a tribute area at Singapore General
Hospital. "I think we'll have to wait a few hundred years before Singapore can
have another leader like Lee Kuan Yew. But he's left a good legacy and a strong
government."
Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was an ally of Lee Kuan Yew. "He
was not at all a charmer - he was not a flatterer. He had developed his point of
view. He would present it with great intelligence," he told the BBC.
Lee Kuan Yew forged strong ties with China, including a friendship with
leader Deng Xiaoping, and met successive presidents including Hu Jintao (below).
A Chinese
foreign ministry spokesman called him "a uniquely influential statesman in
Asia and a strategist boasting oriental values and international vision".
At the Istana, the prime minister's office, a steady stream of people arrived
bringing bouquets and condolence cards, reported the BBC's Tessa Wong. A tented
area has been set up for people to write messages and post them on boards. Some
of the well-wishers were in tears, others wore grim expressions.
"Dearest Mr Lee, you are our Superman. Superman never dies. Forever in your
debt," read one message. Another simply says: "Thank you for your contributions
to Singapore."
After midday, a hearse carrying Mr Lee's body arrived at the Istana. A period
of national mourning has been declared from 23-29 March and for several of those
days Mr Lee's body will lie in state at parliament house so the public can pay
their respects.
Singapore's main opposition Workers' Party turned its Facebook cover page black.
It was founded by JB Jeyaretnam, the city-state's first opposition MP who ended
up financially ruined because of court cases brought by the PAP. Its leader, Low
Thia Khiang, said
in a condolence letter that Mr Lee's death marked the end of an era in
Singapore's history.
Papers and broadcast media were dominated by his death. The Straits Times,
Singapore's leading daily, called Lee Kuan Yew the "man most instrumental in
shaping Singapore".
23 March 2015Last updated at 08:26
Singapore mourns founding father Lee Kuan Yew
Flowers, messages and other tributes are piling up
outside the hospital where Lee Kuan Yew died
Singapore has begun seven days of
national mourning following the death of its founding father, Lee Kuan Yew.
Mr Lee, who was 91, led Singapore's transformation from a small port city to
one of the wealthiest nations in the world. World leaders have paid tribute to Mr Lee, who served as the city-state's
prime minister for 31 years. US President Barack Obama described him as a "giant of history" whose advice
had been sought by other world leaders. The Chinese foreign ministry called him "a uniquely influential statesman in
Asia" and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he was "deeply saddened" by Mr
Lee's death. The period of national mourning will culminate in a state funeral next Sunday
and Mr Lee's body is to lie in state at parliament from Wednesday to
Saturday. A private family wake is taking place on Monday and Tuesday. News of Mr Lee's death came in a government statement that said he had
"passed away peacefully" in the early hours of Monday at Singapore General
Hospital. Mr Lee had been in hospital for several weeks with pneumonia and was
on life support. State television broke away from its normal schedules and broadcast rolling
tributes.
Thousands are also expected to pay their respects at
the Istana, the prime minister's official home
A steady stream of Singaporeans, many openly grieving, arrived at the
hospital where an area has been set aside for flowers and other tributes. "I'm so sad. He is my idol. He's been so good to me, my family and everyone,"
said resident Lua Su Yean, 64. "His biggest achievement is that from zero he's built up today's
Singapore." A hearse carrying Mr Lee's body later arrived at the Istana, the prime
minister's official residence, where a book of condolence has been set up. In an emotional
televised address, Mr Lee's son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, paid
tribute to him. "He fought for our independence, built a nation where there was none, and
made us proud to be Singaporeans. We won't see another man like him." Lee Kuan Yew - widely known LKY - oversaw Singapore's independence from
Britain and separation from Malaysia and co-founded the People's Action Party
(PAP), which has governed Singapore since 1959.
Lee Kuan Yew on the role of the state
I am often accused of interfering in the private lives of citizens. Yes,
if I did not, had I not done that, we wouldn't be here today (National Day Rally
in 1986) In quotes: Lee Kuan
Yew
Mr Lee set about creating a highly educated work force fluent in English, and
reached out to foreign investors to turn Singapore into a manufacturing hub. He embarked on a programme of slum clearance, industrialisation and tackling
corruption. He was a fierce advocate of a multi-racial Singapore. However, Mr Lee also introduced tight controls, and one of his legacies was a
clampdown on the press - tight restrictions that remain in place today. Dissent - and political opponents - were ruthlessly quashed. Today, PAP
remains firmly in control. There are currently six opposition lawmakers in
parliament. Other measures, such as corporal punishment, a ban on chewing gum and the
government's foray into matchmaking for Singapore's brightest - to create
smarter babies - led to perceptions of excessive state interference. Mr Lee criticised what he saw as the overly liberal approach of the US and
the West, saying it had "come at the expense of orderly society".
My first collision with the peculiar majesty of Lee Kuan Yew’s Singapore came in 1986 when, as a junior cog at Time magazine, I edited a story on his government’s alleged harassment of its minuscule opposition party.
Big mistake.
Lee’s press chief sent in a lengthy refutation. I trimmed it to fit on the letters-to-the-editor page, and sent the changes back for Lee’s approval. The prime minister, I was told, wanted the letter published in full. I dithered. Weeks passed. One day the government cut Time’s circulation in the island-state by 90% as punishment for having “engaged in the domestic politics of Singapore.” Soon I found myself at the Istana government center inquiring sheepishly about mending relations.
Lee would not see me. Nine months and much lost circulation and advertising revenue later, the circulation ban was quietly lifted.
Over many years and visits, I watched with admiration and anxiety as Lee built Singapore into the most prosperous, efficient, and quirkily repressive regime in Asia. “Disneyland with the death penalty,” as cyberpunk writer William Gibson labeled it. The press was muscled into docility, political opponents were sued into bankruptcy, human-rights activists were hustled into jail. Drug dealers were hanged, rowdy schoolboys flogged. But the corruption rampant elsewhere in Asia was virtually unknown in Singapore. People were afraid to talk about anything controversial, but the economy boomed and personal income hit US levels. Singapore became the country western journalists loved to hate and hated to leave.
Perhaps Singapore’s greatest attraction for us was Lee himself. Ethnic Chinese but English-speaking (he learned Mandarin Chinese only in his 30s), Cambridge-trained and street-educated, he worked for Singapore’s Japanese occupiers and dabbled in the black market during World War II. He consorted with underground communists during the Malay peninsula’s move toward independence from Britain, and, after Singapore separated from neighboring Malaysia in 1965, built the resource-poor island into a regional power through sheer force of will.
He was a thoughtful interview subject, particularly incisive on the need for a strong US presence in Asia. Also pleasant company, though loathe to suffer fools like me. When, at some function two decades ago, I proffered a compliment that he seemed to be unusually fit “for a man your age.” He scowled, turned on his heel and walked away.
Though mocked for his authoritarian streak, Lee was at heart a progressive social engineer. He believed in the perfectibility of mankind, and his Singapore was a bubbling laboratory of schemes both sound and silly. He banned jukeboxes, chewing gum and Playboy (his successors added tobacco advertising and e-cigarettes to the list). He raised civil service salaries to private-sector levels to attract top talent and discourage payoffs: cabinet ministers today make nearly $1 million a year, five times as much as their U.S. counterparts.
Worried about overpopulation in Singapore’s early days, Lee launched the “Stop at Two” campaign that included subsidies for vasectomies. When the program succeeded a bit too wildly, it was replaced by the “Three or More” campaign, with subsidies for having vasectomies reversed. To improve the local gene pool, the “Graduate Mothers Scheme” offered special incentives to would-be moms with college degrees (most of them ethnic Chinese, whose fertility rates lagged those of the other major ethnic group, Malays). When the government concluded that young people were not marrying in sufficient numbers, it introduced the “Romancing Singapore” campaign, which sponsored river cruises and other match-making events for singles.
Romance and Singapore are words not often heard together in that famously nonsense-free zone, but Lee was clearly a man of passion—for his country and especially his vision of it. So convinced was he of his rightness that opposition was deemed not just unpatriotic but, worse, stupid. Lee’s results speak for themselves, but he rarely missed an opportunity to do it for them. In frequent articles and books, he expounded on matters great and small—like the proper room temperature for sleeping (66 degrees Fahrenheit).
When, in 1998, he finished the first volume of his memoirs, The Singapore Story, I timidly inquired on Time’s behalf about serial rights. They were secured without fuss, and Lee even volunteered to sit for a chat in a hotel room near my Hong Kong office.
He was, as ever, worried about America’s commitment to Asia. He was also having trouble getting comfortable in his chair. An aide brought more cushions. “My rear end hurts,” he said. “Getting old isn’t fun.” I trimmed the 700-page book down to a 7,500-word excerpt, which depicted the early years of an impatient young man who knew what he wanted, and sent it off for his comment. This time, he found nothing to complain about.
The forthright and farsighted Cambridge-trained lawyer who transformed Singapore from a colonial entrepot in Southeast Asia to one of the world’s most important financial centers has died.
Lee Kuan Yew, the city-state’s founding prime minister and one of Asia’s most prominent statesmen, had been in the hospital on life support for several weeks, suffering from severe pneumonia. He was 91.
“The Prime Minister is deeply grieved to announce the passing of Mr Lee Kuan Yew, the founding Prime Minister of Singapore,” says a statement on the prime minister’s official website. “Mr Lee passed away peacefully at the Singapore General Hospital today at 3:18am.”
For much of his adult life, Lee dominated the politics of this small island nation, assembling the People’s Action Party (PAP) in 1951 and ensuring its control over Singapore for half-a-century and counting.
While Lee’s undeniable talents that propelled Singapore’s meteoric rise will define his legacy, the man sometimes described as Asia’s Henry Kissinger also leaves behind a country at the crossroads.
“We are at an inflection point,” his son and incumbent prime minister Lee Hsien Loong said in a 2013 speech, “Our society is more diverse, our economy is more mature, our political landscape is more contested.”
The Singapore that his father inherited and helped build when he was prime minister between 1959 and 1990 is now an entirely different country. And Lee’s passing could potentially trigger a shift in Singapore’s political and economic landscape.
The Singapore of Lee’s youth. This photo was taken in 1941, when he was 18.(AP Photo)
Singapore was barely a shadow of the economic powerhouse that it is today when it was expelled from Malaysia and became an independent nation in 1965. After hundreds of years of colonial rule as part of “British Malaysia,” the island had been invaded by Japan in WWII and left in a shambles. Its population was a mix of traders, former indentured servants, escaped convicts and businessmen, who frequently clashed along economic and racial lines.
“…Singapore was doomed to live on the wits of its people,” The Economist (pdf) wrote of the separation, “They were not a promising mix.”
Instead of falling apart, though, Singapore thrived. Ramshackle single-storied houses in rural kampongs—Malay for villages—have now given way to an iconic glass and steel skyline complete with some of the world’s most profitable casinos where Asia’s second largest concentration of millionaires (after Qatar) can burn some cash.
The Marina Bay Sands casino in 2010.(Reuters/Vivek Prakash)
This city-state of a little more than 715 square kilometers is now one of the richest countries on the planet, in terms of per capita GDP, with an economy entirely incommensurate for its tiny size.
And this ambitious growth trajectory was engineered under Lee’s close supervision. Bereft of any natural resources, a young prime minister pushed the island to develop key infrastructure, including a world-class port and an airport.
Alongside these projects, Lee focused on housing and jobs—Singapore’s preceding British overlords had other concerns—and established the foundations for the Housing Development Board (HDB) and the Economic Development Board (EDB).
The HDB transformed this swampy island into a first-rate, first-world metropolis, and helped pull Singaporeans—of Chinese, Malays and Indian descent—out of their ethnic enclaves and into carefully planned mixed townships. The EDB, meanwhile, slowly built up Singapore’s mix of industries and businesses, dodging recessions and crises to assemble an economy that could support a population swiftly moving out of poverty.
From a per capita GDP of about $500 in 1965, Lee’s administration raised it a staggering 2800% to $14,500 by 1991.
It came with a price, however: Little room for dissent, debate or a free press.
Yet, in under three decades, the little “red dot”—as a sneering Indonesian president once described Singapore—had become an unlikely Asian success story, with diplomatic clout that belied its size.
And Lee, the son of a Shell Oil storekeeper, established himself as a statesman of reckoning, having steered Singapore through the treacherous geopolitics of the East and the West.
“When Lee Kuan Yew speaks,” the introduction to a 2013 book on Lee observed, “presidents, prime ministers, diplomats, and CEOs listen.”
Lee and his wife Kwa meet with Japanese Emperor Hirohito and his wife Empress Nagako in the Imperial Palace in 1968.(AP Photo)
Whither Singapore?
By the time Lee stepped down as prime minister in 1990—remaining “senior minister” till 2004, and “minister mentor” till 2011—Singapore’s remarkable turnaround under his leadership was indisputable. Instead, the question was whether it was sustainable.
And few understood that better than Lee himself. “Singapore cannot take its relevance for granted,” he said in a 2009 speech. “Singapore has to continually reconstruct itself and keep its relevance to the world and to create political and economic space. This is the economic imperative for Singapore.”
But Lee’s son, the current prime minister, has inherited an entirely different Singapore than what his father had to reinvent 50 years ago.
The once unshakeable political domination of the PAP is fraying. The general elections in 2011 was the worst ever for Lee’s party since independence in 1965, although the PAP remained in control of 81 out of 87 seats in parliament. Then, in 2013, the opposition wrested control of another seat in a by-election, with the widest margin in decades.
And the next general elections in 2017 will be a “a deadly serious fight,” the prime minister said last year, a far cry from the years between 1968 and 1981 when the PAP won every seat in every election.
The political downfall has been so extraordinary for a party once so completely in control that, after the 2013 by-election debacle, Singapore’s widely-respected former foreign minister, George Yeo, publicly wondered on Facebook: “Whither Singapore?”
Tightrope
Much of this electoral disgruntlement has to do with the widening income gap in Singapore, which is also the world’s most expensive city to live in. Despite the wave of prosperity that has washed over this city-state in recent decades, it has one of the highest Gini Coefficient—a measure for wealth inequality—in the developed world. Low income families in the country are struggling to make ends meet, even as the government is pouring more money into subsidies.
As ordinary Singaporeans falter, the success of better skilled immigrants—and their growing numbers—has increasingly caused friction, forcing the government to cut back on foreign workers.
Non-resident population growth (pdf), as a result, dropped to 2.9% in 2014, compared to 4% in 2013. Foreign employment growth also fell to 3% in 2014, from 5.9% in 2013.
That is unlikely to help an economy built on overseas talent, instead risking slowing it down precisely when the government could do with more money to share.
Still, resentment against immigration runs so deep in certain sections that Singaporeans staged a mass rally—a very rare event in a tightly-ruled country—in 2013 against a government paper that forecast rising numbers of foreign residents.
And that’s the tightrope that prime minister Lee—or whoever replaces him in 2017—must negotiate, seeking to balance sustained economic growth with the rising aspirations of this developed Asian country.
In his time, of course, Lee Kuan Yew made it all look rather easy.
Flowers, messages and other tributes are piling up
outside the hospital where Lee Kuan Yew died 
Thousands are also expected to pay their respects at
the Istana, the prime minister's official home 
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