Q

I have made peace with LKY critics

I have made peace with sporadic LKY critics on my newsfeed.

On the first day, the offense i took was visceral and instinctive. With knowledge of his faults and failings, but respect for his brilliance, i had felt a personal loss. To have others take away my privilege to mourn this loss – much less to say for Lee’s family – seemed unfair. They can do this any other time, i thought. Why now? Why the need to be cruel?

On the second day, it became a more diffuse disappointment. I shook my head as friends showed me the latest snark amidst the mass of adulatory tributes. But this time, shaking off the bias that came with my private attachment to LKY, i reviewed these critiques. The anti-LKYs posts were varied: there were the irreverent, the pompous; the political, and the emotional. Some raised relevant arguments against his ideology, others dived straight into cold satire.

I then realized that these voices are necessary.

It is not that i agree or condone them – far from it. But it is exactly that: as we are allowed to mourn, to exalt, to love LKY; others have their right to do otherwise. How can we condemn others for not feeling the way we do, as if it were a choice? As we are allowed to decry critics for their lack of appreciation, so are critics free to denounce what they perceive as blind idolatry.

If every. single. citizen. in Singapore expressed only grief, what would that make us? North Korea.

Ironically, education for our generation – which Mr Lee had placed a premium on – is precisely why the nation consists of a multiplicity of voices. It is why we are discerning, capable of appreciating or disagreeing, bold enough to ram a foot against authority where ideology clashes with one’s own. In a twisted way, we should be proud to some degree that we have space for dissidence.

Mr Lee was a political legend. A controversial one. And rightfully, such a legend should have his fair share of fans and haters. It means he has been doing it right. If he had been as much of a tyrant as some claim, there would be no criticisms (allowed).

There was a particular thought i came across: “you cannot separate the man from his politics”. And it’s true. Much as most wish for compassion towards him and his family in a time of mourning, it is inevitable that the outpouring of love will be met with comments from some of his detractors. Many have the tact to keep it in, but others would see this as exactly the right time to voice out against support for LKY — because it is now that it has become most apparent and effusive.

So here i am to take back my words, or at least dilute them. Yes, i can accept the need for criticism, even if i do not understand it. I’m heartened, of course, that such a vast majority of us care enough to grieve, to be angered by critics. But it is also assuring that Singapore has come to a place where disgruntled netizens can speak up without the fear of arrest.

I have been accused of many things in my life, but not even my worst enemy has ever accused me of being afraid to speak my mind.

– 1955, The Wit & Wisdom of Lee Kuan Yew

Mr Lee, if as a hypothetical other, may have been proud of the presence of dissent, might have been the voice of dissent himself.

Published by

qing t

Responses

  1. A Avatar
    A

    I knew neither of you nor your blog, happened to be linked here by Reddit. Let me just leave a few words here.

    It is understandable for one to be upset when dealing with criticisms directed at his/her figure of respect. It is normal. From a logical perspective, anger or sadness (emotions as a whole) hardly result in any substantial improvement of task efficiency, in certain cases, it might even work against an individual.

    Are emotions undesirable, though? No. What separates humans from productivity machines is exactly this. Humans are flawed, none has ever achieved perfection. As you have come to accept, even a revered figure such as Mr Lee has his fair share of faults.

    Nevertheless, the feeling of emotions and the command of them are two separate matters. Emotions are shaped by logic, then translated into actions. We remove the bad from the end product.This is what civility means.

    The day a man stops feeling emotions is the one he ceases to be human. Humans have to feel it. Do not forget your feelings, do not deny them, instead, acknowledge them and shape them to be worthy actions of a person.

    Reply
  2. orang gadong Avatar
    orang gadong

    “If he had been as much as a tyrant as some claim, there would be no criticisms (allowed).”

    Miss Tan, I was teaching at NUS before you were born, and before Mr Lee retired from his job as PM. Most of the achievements you have seen in your lifetime and have attributed to Mr Lee Sr should probably be credited to Mr Goh and Mr Lee Jr (known as BG Lee in those days).

    Mr Lee was not a tyrant – he knew the dangers of imprisoning people to impose his will. In the 1980s, criticisms were not expressly forbidden, but still people were afraid to voice them due to a well-founded belief that the govt could and would go after them by legal means if the criticism were effective.

    Your own dept at NUS furnishes the excellent example of Dr Chee Soon Juan, who was quickly sacked on a pretext after standing for election. Another celebrated case is Dr Chia Thye Poh, MP and physics lecturer (from Nanyang University) who was indeed locked up for 32 years.

    [You may feel that Dr Chee’s sacking could be justified because of reason X or Y. However, the normal procedure when a financial error came to light was to correct it, with repayment if necessary. For example, when it came to light that a foreign lecturer’s wife had signed on an HDB property, the lecturer was turfed out of university accommodation, not sacked.]

    If you look at the administration of NUS nowadays, you see some excellent people who manage the university on the basis of sound values. In Mr Lee’s day, NUS was a very different place, reflecting a different civil service culture, which was harmful to Singapore. To give a well-known example, there was one faculty where the staff were terrified to give first class honours to students, because the Dean himself had only earned an upper second. In another faculty, one dept did not teach a certain theory because the HOD did not understand it himself.

    That was Singapore before Mr Goh asserted *his* values (e.g. by releasing Dr Chia from imprisonment). To know more about this era, you need to talk to people over the age of 50. But at this moment, I advise you and other young Singaporeans to start planning for a bright, long, future and not dwell too much on the past.

    Reply
    1. heyerisa Avatar
      heyerisa

      Thank you for input. That’s very useful information.

      Reply

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