MC First wrote:
To me, the thing is simple. No ah gong means no today’s Singapore.
Hong Kong progressed just as well without Lee Kuan Yew but with British governors. Is MC First going to say no British governor means no today’s Hong Kong? Then we can turn things around and say without Lee Kuan Yew, we would still have today’s Singapore because a British governed Singapore would have turned out just as well.
MC First wrote:
This is something that we can never take away from him and it is a legacy he has left behind. Ah gong is like our parents, a lot of times they dish out very good advice, but we just don’t want to listen.
There is no legacy to take away from Lee Kuan Yew because the legacy of Singapore is not Lee Kuan Yew’s but that of past British governors and generations of Singaporeans past and present.
Lee Kuan Yew’s advice was always about highlighting the 10 cents of good for you leaving you to figure out for yourself the $100 of good for him and his party.
MC First wrote:
Without a single doubt, ah gong was a man of integrity.
Without a doubt, Lee Kuan Yew wasn’t a man of integrity. As an opposition MP in the 1950s, he championed for press freedom only to turn his back on it once he cemented his power. Back in 1965, he pointed to the people as the ultimate determinant of the nation’s success. Many decades down the road, he pointed to his own party as behind Singapore’s success.
MC First wrote:
He ate and breathed Singapore.
LKY consumed the soul of Singapore to such an extent that more than half are left with either no balls or no brains.
MC First wrote:
YES, he was utterly ruthless against opposing politicians. But which politician is ever benevolent?! Politics is a dirty, dirty game. For instance, even the supposed enlightened Tang Emperor Li Shi Ming. He too had to kill his own brothers in order to become the Emperor. What you and me – people on the street, should really be concerned about is whether the power taken has been used to do GOOD or do EVIL?
There is a big difference between Lee Kuan Yew and Li Shi Ming. Lee Kuan Yew continued to do evil even after he has won power whereas Li Shi Ming did not. Why did Lee Kuan Yew have to detain Dr Chia Thye Poh and Dr Lim Hock Siew for 32 years and 19 years respectively? Surely the struggle to survive had long passed after 32 years and 19 years respectively?
MC First wrote:
From kampong to metropolis in less than FIFTY years, you think this is an easy feat?
Bullshit. Lee Kuan Yew himself boasted to businessmen in Chicago that Singapore was already a metropolis back in 1968. There’s no way Singapore could have transformed from kampong to metropolis in three years. Singapore was already a metropolis or nearly so by the time Lee Kuan Yew took power.
MC First wrote:
Just go across the Causeway and take a look at JB, and you can easily tell the difference.
But that difference had already existed long before Lee Kuan Yew took power. Singapore was already much better developed than JB during colonial times as one of three Straits Settlements and as a British Crown Colony.
MC First wrote:
In a land that is surrounded all over by Muslims, we are effectively a mini-Israel, but who has ever dared to challenge our sovereignty?
Our law minister Shanmugam has made it clear that that is largely due to US military presence in the region, not due to Lee Kuan Yew.
MC First wrote:
The SINGAPORE passport today is one of the few passports that allows you to travel uninhibited to any part of the world. Ah gong’s international diplomacy is the result for this convenience.
That’s nothing to boast about. Malaysian passport is not far behind with a Visa Restrictions Index of 163 compared to Singapore’s 167 (Straits Times, “Which passports are most accepted around the world?”, 18 Apr 2014).
By comparing Singapore’s score of 167 with Malaysia’s score of 163, MC First can at most say that Lee Kuan Yew diplomacy resulted in a measly 4 extra points compared to Malaysia’s 163 points or 2.5% extra convenience only.
MC First wrote:
My dad was a taxi-driver and my mum a housewife, yet they managed to buy a flat for $8,000 so that my family could have a roof over our head. All these were made possible by ah gong and his generation of pioneers!
You look at the advertisements all over MRT trains asking people to sell their flats back to the government for retirement funds. Hopefully, MC First can see that having a roof for two, three decades only to sell the roof back to the government means no roof at the end of the day. So at the end of the day, that was what Lee Kuan Yew gave many of the pioneer generation, the illusion of a roof over their heads.
MC First wrote:
They had integrity and were SELFLESS!!
If Lee Kuan Yew had integrity, how come he never admitted to his mistake of killing Singapore’s birth rate? If he had been selfless, how come he didn’t volunteer to fight the Japanese like Lim Bo Seng did?
That’s why ah gong deserved a grand send-off.
For all those reasons, Lee Kuan Yew did not deserve a grand send off.
So, we must give credit when it is due.
If credit due must be given, then credit must be given to Dr Albert Winsemius, not to Lee Kuan Yew as it was Dr Winsemius who masterminded our industrialization, not Lee Kuan Yew.
Ah gong did his very best to shape Singapore and we must ALWAYS be grateful for that.
Lee Kuan Yew did his best to consolidate his power. Instead, it was Dr Winsemius who gave us the plan and the ideas to shape Singapore’s post independence economy. MC First must not forget that Lee Kuan Yew himself said that both he and Singapore are indebted to Dr Winsemius. Thus, MC First should listen to his Ah gong Lee Kuan Yew and be grateful to Dr Winsemius instead.
Thank you
Ng Kok Lim
* Ng Kok Lim is a regular TRE contributor who specialises in rebuttal.
Source: www.tremeritus.com
