Lee Kuan Yew 'Doesn't Trust' The Nation He Built

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Mar 30, 2015 @ 1:03 PM22,381views
Lee Kuan Yew 'Doesn't Trust' The Nation He Built




Muhammad Cohen
Contributor

I write about the casino business in Macau and around Asia. Full bio
Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.
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As editor at large for Inside Asian Gaming following nearly a decade as a special correspondent for Macau Business magazine, I cover the casino business in Macau and throughout Asia. I’m also a columnist for Asia Times and The Guardian. After writing in the US for The New York Times, Washington Post, Sports Illustrated and others, I joined CNN as a news writer and producer in Washington, then moved to Hong Kong in 1995 (for six months, I thought) as a producer with CNBC. In Hong Kong, I returned to print at Bloomberg as a regional business editor, worked as an editor at both Hong Kong English language dailies, and headed Asia-wide media relations for a top US multinational. I’m also the author of Hong Kong On Air, a novel set during the 1997 handover about TV news, love, betrayal, high finance and cheap lingerie, and founder of Writing Clinic, where writing gets better. You can follow me via my website www.muhammadcohen.com, on Facebook and Twitter @MuhammadCohen.
The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.


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Imagine a banana republic where the founding father really was the founding father. In this tiny nation with less than six million inhabitants, the founding father ruled for three decades while his son made the most rapid ever recorded rise through the military ranks, amid claims that the nation is, and due to its small size has to be, a strict meritocracy. Then the father gave way to a trusted caretaker named Goh, while maintaining a cabinet seat that many believe allowed him to maintain control, until his son was ready to ascend to the prime minister post. Beyond what natives call “the father, the son and the holy Goh,” the son’s wife runs one of the national investment funds that control billions of dollars in citizens’ money with great autonomy and little transparency.

While this little country boasts the trappings of democracy and rule of law, if has had the same ruling party since its founding. In the last parliamentary election, opposition got 40% of the votes, but won less than 10% of the seats. Over the nation’s 50 year history, opposition figures have often found themselves dragged into courts and sued into bankruptcy, which not only ruins them financially but makes them ineligible for political office. This country pays its politicians and senior bureaucrats the world’s highest salaries in those categories to combat corruption, while it has become a safe haven for funds of dubious pedigree from across the region. No wonder that despite per capita GDP ranking among the world’s highest, there’s an extraordinary degree of cynicism among the largely well-educated population and so many of them aspire to leave the country.
Lee Kuan Yew’s tragic flaw was not having faith in the nation to which he dedicated his life. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara, File)

The country described isn’t some banana republic, it’s Singapore, which bid farewell to founding father Lee Kuan Yew on Sunday. Lee rightly deserves credit for Singapore’s rise from a mosquito infested seaside village to a global financial powerhouse. From education to urban planning, the city that Lee built is worthy of admiration and emulation. Perhaps his greatest achievement is that he created a real sense of nationhood among Singapore’s disparate (though predominantly Chinese) population, avoiding the ethnic discord that plagues neighboring Malaysia. The economy, though hardly the world’s second freest, has yielded enviable results.

Lee Kuan Yew’s tragic flaw was that he lacked faith in the nation he dedicated his life to building. As Martin Lee, founder of Hong Kong’s Democratic Party, told the BBC, “He doesn’t trust his own people, so he won’t give then genuine democracy.” The eminent legal practitioner and scholar added that Singapore has the “semblance of rule of law, but citizens always lose” when they go up against the ruling party in court. Singaporeans’ freedom of expression is strictly limited. On the economic front, Singapore’s government, through its investment funds that grab a third of salaries, holds golden shares is companies that control 60% of GDP. (That’s why it was such a surprise that neither casino license went to a government linked company.)
The bargain that Lee crafted with his people – trust us, keep quiet and the government will take care of things – held up well for decades. Critics derided Singapore as a nanny state, but a young, small nation in a volatile region, born during the American war in Vietnam that saw its national treasury bombed, needed strong supervision. But as Singapore has matured and income disparity has grown as foreign workers depress salaries, the bargain has begun breaking down. It’s time to get rid of the nanny and give Singaporeans freedom to find their own way. Lee successors have to begin trusting that nation the founding father nurtured.
Hong Kong On Air author Muhammad Cohen is Editor At Large for Inside Asian Gaming. Follow him on Twitter @Muhammad Cohen.










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