Lee Kuan Yew
Singapore
“Sir, I had not intended to intervene in any debate. But I was doing physiotherapy just now and reading the newspapers and I thought I should bring the House back to earth. Mr Rajaratnam had great virtues in the midst of despondency after a series of race riots when we were thrown out during Independence.”
“A point of clarification, Sir. The Member has compared Singapore against Switzerland, Denmark and Finland. Can I ask him if he considers Singapore's population to resource ratio equal to Denmark, Switzerland and Finland?”
“The Member has not answered my question. Is he saying that we are comparing apples with apples? Is he saying that the system of government in Finland, Denmark and Switzerland can bring them from First World to a superpower? Can they do that?”
“I am putting a simple question and ask for his clarification. He has compared Singapore as if it were a Denmark, a Switzerland or a Finland. Their system, their governments, never produced the kind of transformation that we have had, and their system and their governments have a broader base, and can afford a mediocre government.”
“At the end of the day, that will be the same for the Malays, for the Indians and for all the others. S Rajaratnam was aiming for the stars. I went along with him with the pledge, and we must try to live up to the pledge. But to say, let us forget race, language, religion, culture, that is not doable.”
“So there is a wide range of options open and it depends on your judgment on the quality of the people you appoint, and also what is the objective of appointing people to these positions, whether you want them to stay effectively until retirement, which means you have to avoid appointing good people to these positions early which is, I thi…”
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Every one of 506 lines we hold for Lee Kuan Yew, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 11 of 11.
“It is on the 8th of December, 1965, the day when His Excellency the Yang di-Pertuan Negara addressed this Assembly. It is in Chinese, and if I may just read the relevant extracts before I give an interpretation of what I think it means. It says here: [The Prime Minister read the extracts in Mandarin which he then translated into English as follows]: They have attributed three reasons why we have convened this Parliament. `First, to give legal seal to our departure from Malaysia which was a neo-colonialist plot to divide and rule. Second, to get legal cover for our abuse of public funds. Third, to use this Session of Parliament as a platform for propaganda to cheat the people and confuse them.' They, therefore, came to these conclusions: `Under these circumstances, to attend Parliament and to lend support and credence to the mockery enacted by the PAP., either intentionally or otherwise, we are helping the P.A.P, to cheat the people with regard to Singapore's false independence.' And the final conclusion is: `Therefore, if we are to oppose them, we must resolutely expose the PAP., the falseness of their parliamentary democracy, and their anti-the-people's views. Also we must go a step further and expose the falseness of Singapore's independence. And in this way we can raise up the level of consciousness of the people. Therefore, we must oppose the debate in this Assembly and it is something which must he done.' Mr Speaker. Sir, I think it is important that we should understand how they have come to this conclusion. It is pretty dreary reading, to follow the tortuous paths that they have followed since they started off with "phoney merger" ending up in "phoney Malaysia", and now finding themselves denouncing Singapore as a phoney independent country.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, before I go into the programmes for this Session of Parliament, I would like to put forward the difficulties with which we will be confronted as a result of the decision of the Opposition to boycott this Parliament. I do not know for how long they intend to absent themselves from this Chamber. I would like to be able to say that despite their absence we shall attempt to put forward every act of legislation, every decision of policy, fairly and squarely before this House, and before the people to whom we are ultimately responsible. It means, in other words, an added responsibility of not only putting forward our point of view hut of all the conceivable opposing points of view which we have considered before we have decided to over-rule them. There must be a scrupulous presentation of the reasons for and against legislation and policies. To begin with, I would like to remind the House why the Opposition has decided to absent itself. On the day on which we assembled, the Barisan Sosialis issued a special edition of its Party publication called Shih Chen Pao. On page 4, it sets out why it was not to participate in this Legislature.”
“It is not possible to go back to this relationship. Before a new working relationship is established, we must first dispel the illusion that because we wanted merger in Malaysia, therefore we are vulnerable without merger. Whilst politically an independent Singapore holds hazards in the long-term, not just for overselves but for all in South-East Asia, economically it does not follow that it is within the dispensation of our neighbours to decide our economic destiny. Two years of confrontation have given us an opportunity to demonstrate that we did not live on the bounty of our neighbours. We did them a service, and if that service is not required, it could be extended elsewhere for other returns. It may take some time and no little effort before the same axiom is demonstrated with other neighbours. I am reasonably confident that eventually we can reach a rational relationship, not one in which the bigger assumes automatically that he must get the greater benefit, but a relationship in which each and every step is weighed in accordance with whether it is of value to them and to us. In other words, a relationship based on a quid pro quo. If we are not to get something out of it, naturally it is not our intention that we should give up something which is valuable. Similarly we ask nothing of our neighbours unless we give them something in return. In this way we hope to establish in the course of next year a new balance which has now become necessary as a result of our emergence as a sovereign State, living with the Government of Malaysia not as a State Government to Central Authority, but as two independent and sovereign regimes.”
“Whilst we laid the emphasis on the constitutional framework and good faith, intending to bring the territories and the peoples closer together as they operated within one national unit, sharing one economic system irrevocably wedded together by ties of common experience and the fact that their destinies had been so closely interwoven in the past, we found that there were certain inarticulate major premises upon which others had based their calculations, and the constitution, which was written and the inarticulate major premises of race, language and religion which were unwritten were irreconciliable. All that is over for us for the time being. The problem has not been solved, but for us the problem does not immediately arise. What we wish to do now is to get into a new working relationship with our former partners in Malaysia. This working relationship is likely to come about only if we approach it on a matter of fact basis of what is the common benefit to be derived in any act of economic or other co-operation. For the time being, our problem is that it is difficult for us, without being accused of intransigence, to bring about that spirit of co-operation as long as some people believe that Singapore out of Malaysia means the relationship which existed between Singapore and the old Malaya. Then, for many years, wanting merger, wanting reunification, and seeking a more enduring basis for our future, Singapore - not just the Government but the people - was prepared to tolerate a relationship which was not altogether mutual. Certain advantages accrued to Malaya without corresponding advantages to Singapore. Their products found markets in Singapore whilst our products did not find markets in Malaya. So it was in fact in a large number of fields of economics and finance.”
“When eventually Cyprus emerged as an independent Republic, her bases remained British and sovereignty remained with the British. For the price of about $70 million in loss of revenue over two years, which my colleague, the Minister for Finance, recounted yesterday, an excess of payment over actual Federal expenditure in Singapore of $25 million per annum, making approximately $50 million for two years, and loss of two years of currency profits at $10 million a year, we have acquired sovereignty without bloodshed. If we could put things in pecuniary terms, that was the price we paid in place of blood - not that the British would have taken that price for I think they knew the value of this real estate in Singapore. But be that as it may, perhaps it was our good fortune that someone with an antique gold sovereign exchanged it for a bagful of sweets; and who are we to complain when we have found ourselves the proud possessor of an antique gold piece? But there was another price which we paid besides the $70 million. Two years in which we came face to face very rapidly with the stark realities of conflict - conflict over race, over language, over religion. Very quickly all the cliches of inter-communal co-operation were shorn off as we found ourselves confronted with a somewhat crude and blatant attempt to subdue us as a submissive member of a federation, the inner workings of which we were not so conversant with before Malaysia.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, in moving the Motion of Thanks to the Yang di-Pertuan Negara for his Address, I am faced with the unusual duty of recounting to the House, first, the unusual circumstances in which we have found ourselves as a sovereign and independent Legislature, and, next, the problems that arise, in order to ensure that our sovereign status shall always be safe-guarded and respected by our neighbours. It is not often that a people achieve independence in the way we have. There were a number of unusual features about Singapore and its geographic, economic and demographic nexus with Malaya. There have been cases in history where nations have fallen apart into independent halves, like Syria and Egypt. But then Syria was already an independent nation before she went into voluntary federation with Egypt. There have been federations like the Central African Federation or the West Indian Federation which did not succeed; and component parts of the federated whole then became sovereign, as in the case of Zambia, Malawi, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago. But in the annals of nation-making, I think Singapore must occupy a unique place, for one of the most strategic islands in the whole world acquired sovereignty over the Western European bases without violent revolution. This is not to say that I altogether disapprove of violent revolution, but however violent we could have become - and the Cypriots in their revolution were extremely violent - we would never have achieved sovereignty over important base installations, important not just to Britain but to a whole host of other countries, for security and survival are intimately linked with certain checks and balances of power in the region.”