From Third World to First The Singapore Story pdfdrive com

43. Epilogue
As a boy of six, I rode in a bullock-cart on wooden wheels bound in a metal
strip, without springs or shock absorbers, enjoying a hilariously bumpy ride on a
dirt track to my grandfather’s rubber estate. Fifty years later, in 1977, I flew in a
supersonic Concorde from London to New York in three hours. Technology has
changed my world.
I have had to sing four national anthems: Britain’s 
God Save the Queen
,
Japan’s 
Kimigayo
, Malaysia’s 
Negara Ku
, and finally Singapore’s 
Majulah
Singapura
; such were the political upheavals of the last 60 years. Foreign troops
have come and gone – British, Australian and Indian, then the Japanese, with
their auxiliaries, the Taiwanese and Koreans. The British returned after the war
and fought the communist insurgency. Then came independence for Singapore.
Indonesia mounted Confrontation against Malaysia. The swirling currents of
political changes swept me along.
Would my colleagues and I have embarked on our journey had we known
the hazards and perils we would face when we formed the People’s Action Party
in November 1954? Had we known how complex and difficult were the
problems that lay ahead, we would never have gone into politics with the high
spirits, enthusiasm and idealism of the 1950s. We could feel the swelling pride
of the Chinese in both Singapore and Malaya at the success of communist China.
Yet, there we were in the 1950s, a small group of English-educated colonial
bourgeoisie, without the ability to reach the Chinese dialect-speaking masses
who were the majority, going headlong into the fray. How could we ever hope to
compete against the Malayan Communist Party? We did not think in those
terms. We just wanted the British out.
We pressed on, oblivious of the dangers ahead. Our visceral urges were
stronger than our cerebral inhibitions. Once plunged in, we were sucked ever
deeper into the struggle. We had to fight the communists sooner than we
expected, contending against their open-front labour, student and cultural
organisations, all backed by their armed underground. We solved that problem

---

by merger with Malaya in 1963 to form Malaysia, only to discover that the
Ultras in the UMNO Malay leadership wanted a Malay-dominated society. This
led to communal riots, endless conflict, and eventually separation and
independence in 1965. We found ourselves facing Confrontation by Indonesia.
After that ended in 1966, the British announced in 1968 the withdrawal of their
armed forces. We overcame one problem only to be faced with an even more
daunting one. There were times when it looked hopeless.
We learnt some valuable lessons in those early years as apprentices in the
exercise of power. We never stopped learning because the situation kept on
changing and we had to adjust our own policies. I had the advantage of several
ministers who read widely and were attracted to new ideas but not mesmerised
by them – Keng Swee, Raja, Sui Sen. We passed interesting books and articles
we had read to each other. When we started, we were ignorant and innocent, but
we were saved by being careful to probe and test ideas before we implemented
them.
My colleagues and I forged our camaraderie under these intense pressures. In
successive crises, we had to put our lives in each other’s hands. We trusted each
other, knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses and made allowances for
them. We did not take any straw polls to tell us what popular sentiment wanted
us to do. Our task was to swing the people around to support what had to be
done so that Singapore could survive as a non-communist, non-communal,
viable society.
I was fortunate to have had a strong team of ministers who shared a common
vision. They were able men determined to pursue our shared goals. The core
team stayed together for over two decades. Keng Swee, Raja, Sui Sen and Kim
San were outstanding. They were all older than I was and were never inhibited
from telling me what they thought, especially when I was wrong. They helped
me stay objective and balanced, and saved me from any risk of megalomania
which could so easily come with long years in office. I also had Toh Chin Chye,
Ong Pang Boon, Eddie Barker, Yong Nyuk Lin, Kenny Byrne and Othman Wok
– capable men of integrity, dedicated to the cause.
When we started in 1959 we knew little about how to govern, or how to
solve our many economic and social problems. All we had was a burning desire
to change an unfair and unjust society for the better. To do that, we had to win
political power. Having gained it, we had to retain the support of our people to
continue our unfinished job.
I sought out able men and placed them in positions of authority as ministers

---

and top public officers to administer an honest, efficient system and be
responsive to the needs of the people. We had to keep the workers on our side
and at the same time tend to the needs of investors whose capital, knowledge,
management skills and overseas markets would enable us to make a living
without our traditional hinterland, Malaysia.
We learnt on the job and learnt quickly. If there was one formula for our
success, it was that we were constantly studying how to make things work, or
how to make them work better. I was never a prisoner of any theory. What
guided me were reason and reality. The acid test I applied to every theory or
scheme was, would it work? This was the golden thread that ran through my
years in office. If it did not work, or the results were poor, I did not waste more
time and resources on it. I almost never made the same mistake twice, and I tried
to learn from the mistakes others had made. I discovered early in office that
there were few problems confronting me in government which other
governments had not met and solved. So I made a practice of finding out who
else had met the problem we faced, how they had tackled it and how successful
they had been. Whether it was to build a new airport or to change our teaching
methods, I would send a team of officers to visit and study those countries that
had done it well. I preferred to climb on the shoulders of others who had gone
before us.
In retrospect, it was our good luck that Singapore did not come to greater
harm from some of the high-risk policies and actions that we embarked on. We
worked with the communists in a united front; we could have been chewed up
and swallowed as happened to social democrats in Poland and Czechoslovakia
after World War II. We acted in the naïve belief that the force of electoral
arithmetic would gradually bring about a less communal Malayan society; time
has shown that racial loyalties cannot be overcome by the pulls of common
economic interests. When faced with bleak economic prospects, I allowed an oil
refinery at Keppel, thus placing a great fire hazard next to our major economic
asset, the main harbour. And Chinese middle school student riots in the 1950s
made such an indelible impression on us that we postponed implementing a
national education policy with English as our working language from 1965 until
1978, and so reduced the economic prospects of many cohorts of Chinese
students.
I learnt to ignore criticism and advice from experts and quasiexperts,
especially academics in the social and political sciences. They have pet theories
on how a society should develop to approximate their ideal, especially how

---

poverty should be reduced and welfare extended. I always tried to be correct, not
politically correct. Foreign correspondents representing the Western media in
Singapore preached their theories and criticised my policies, hoping to influence
the voters and the government. It was just as well that the people were as
pragmatic and realistic as the government.
Would I have been a different person if I had remained a lawyer and not
gone into politics? My work experience would have been more limited and my
horizons narrower. In politics I had to range over the whole gamut of the
problems of human society. As the Chinese saying goes, “the sparrow though
small has all five organs”. Small though we may be, our needs are the same as
those of any large country, domestically and internationally. My responsibilities
gave me a wide perspective of human societies and a worldview which a lawyer
would not have.
But I never allowed myself to forget Singapore’s unique situation in
Southeast Asia. To survive, we had to be better organised and more efficient and
competitive than the rest of the region or there was no reason for our role as a
nodal point between the advanced and the developing countries. After
everything had been analysed and argued, I went by my gut instinct of what
would work in Singapore. I had persuaded our people to oust the British and join
Malaya. Then we found ourselves thrown out of Malaysia. Thereafter it was our
duty to make Singapore succeed and give our people a future.
A united and determined group of leaders, backed by a practical and
hardworking people who trusted them, made it possible. Did I expect an
independent Singapore, with a GDP of S$3 billion in 1965, to grow 15 times to
S$46 billion in 1997 at 1965 dollars and to have the 8th highest per capita GNP
in the world in 1997 according to the World Bank? I have often been asked this
question. The answer is “no”. How could I have foreseen that science and
technology, especially breakthroughs in transportation, telecommunications and
production methods, would shrink the world?
The story of Singapore’s progress is a reflection of the advances of the
industrial countries – their inventions, technology, enterprise and drive. It is part
of the story of man’s search for new fields to increase his wealth and wellbeing.
Stamford Raffles of the East India Company found an island of 120 fishermen in
1819 and turned it into an emporium on the sea route from India to China. As the
commercial centre of the British Empire in Southeast Asia, it prospered through
international trade. When steamships replaced sailing ships, and again when the
Suez Canal opened in 1869, traffic increased and added to Singapore’s growth.

---

During the Japanese occupation (1942–45) shipping was drastically reduced
by the war, amounting to a blockade. Trade declined precipitately, food and
medicine became scarce, and half the population of one million left for
peninsular Malaya and the Riau islands. Many who remained were half-starved.
After the victory of the Allies in August 1945, shipping resumed, bringing food,
medicine and other essentials, and the dispersed population returned. Trade and
investments brought recovery.
With each technological advance Singapore advanced – containers, air travel
and air freight, satellite communications, intercontinental fibreoptic cables. The
technological revolution will bring enormous changes in the next 50 years.
Information technology, computers and communications and their manifold
uses, the revolution in microbiology, gene therapy, cloning and organ
reproduction will transform man’s life. Singaporeans will have to be nimble in
adopting and adapting these new discoveries to play a role in disseminating their
benefits.
People in Singapore learnt quickly from their interaction with foreigners. We
sent our brighter students abroad to study in developed countries, at first on
scholarships given by these countries, later on scholarships given by the
Singapore government. We also noted the increasing social difficulties these
advanced societies faced because of their liberal social and welfare policies. I
benefited from the lessons others paid for. I met many able foreign leaders who
educated me and added to my understanding of the world.
Getting together a team to succeed my colleagues and me was almost as
difficult as getting Singapore off the ground after independence. The second
generation leaders brought a fresh burst of energy and enthusiasm into the
government. Their experiences and ideas are more in tune with the younger
generation and can lead Singapore in the new millennium. I derive immense
satisfaction watching them gain in confidence and get into their stride.
What does the future have in store for Singapore? City-states do not have
good survival records. The Greek city-states no longer exist as states. Most have
not vanished physically, but have been absorbed by the hinterland in a larger
entity. The city-state of Athens has disappeared. But the city of Athens survives
in Greece, with the Parthenon to bear witness to the achievements of the original
Athenians. Other cities in big countries have been sacked and destroyed, their
people decimated or dispersed, but the nations they were part of have endured
and new people have repopulated and rebuilt them. Will Singapore the
independent city-state disappear? The island of Singapore will not, but the

---

sovereign nation it has become, able to make its way and play its role in the
world, could vanish.
Singapore has existed for 180 years since its modern founding by Stamford
Raffles, but for the 146 years before 1965 it was just an outpost of the British
Raj. It thrived because it was useful to the world. It is part of the global network
of cities where successful corporations of advanced countries have established
their businesses. To remain an independent nation, Singapore needs a world
where there is a balance of power that makes it possible for small states to
survive, and not be conquered or absorbed by larger countries.
Peace and stability in the Asia Pacific depend upon a stable triangular
relationship between the United States, Japan and China. China and Japan have
competing geopolitical interests. The Japanese invasion and occupation of China
still trouble their relationship. The Japanese share more interests with the
Americans. A balance between the United States and Japan on one side and
China on the other will set the structure and context for other relationships in
East Asia. If there is an overall balance, the future of the region is more than fair
and Singapore can continue to be useful to the world.
I did not know when I started my political life in the 1950s that we would be
on the side of the winners of the Cold War and that Singapore would enjoy
economic and social progress that flowed from stability, enterprise and links
with the West. We were living through a period of immense political, social and
economic change. The most difficult years were from independence in 1965 to
British withdrawal in 1971. Only when the main units of the British forces had
left and we did not suffer severe unemployment did I feel we were less
vulnerable.
The future is as full of promise as it is fraught with uncertainty. The
industrial society is giving way to one based on knowledge. The new divide in
the world will be between those with the knowledge and those without. We must
learn and be part of the knowledge-based world. That we have succeeded in the
last three decades does not ensure our doing so in the future. However, we stand
a better chance of not failing if we abide by the basic principles that have helped
us progress: social cohesion through sharing the benefits of progress, equal
opportunities for all and meritocracy, with the best man or woman for the job,
especially as leaders in government.

---

---

Index
Abdul Razak, Tun,Abdurrahman Wahid,Adam Malik,Ahmad Haji Taff, Ahmad Mattar, Akbar Tanjung, Akihito, Crown Prince,Albright, Madeleine,Ali Alatas,Allen, Richard,Alwi Shihab,Amien Rais, Anand Panyarachun, Anglo-Malayan Defence Agreement (AMDA), Anwar Ibrahim,Anwar, Dewi Fortuna, ANZUS (Australia, New Zealand, US treaty), APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation): 1999, Auckland, Aquino, Benigno (Ninoy), Aquino, Cory,Arab-Israeli Six-Day War,Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), American intervention benefits Asean,and Cambodia,and East Timor,Australia and the ICAP affair, China’s influence on overseas Chinese in Asean,dialogue partners,economic agreement with the European Community, economic issues, foreign ministers’ meeting, Bangkok, 1979,isolating Vietnam in the UN, members, objectives, Western reaction to Asean’s engagement of Myanmar,Asean Free-Trade Area (AFTA),Asean Regional Forum (ARF), Asean summits,Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM),Asian dollar market, Asian financial crisis, Asian Wall Street Journal (AWSJ)
,Asiaweek
,Asif Zadari,

---

Association of Muslim Professionals (AMP), 240
Au, Alex, 100
Aung San Suu Kyi, 362, 364
Australia:
and East Timor, 320–1, 434–9
and Indonesia, 434–9, 443
Asia foreign policy, 432–4, 439–40, 443
diverting boat people to Singapore, 440–1
ICAP affair, 372–3
immigration policy, 165, 439–40
media portrayal of East Asia, 433
regional defence arrangements, 62–4, 73, 429–31, 441–2
Singapore military training, 430–1
welfarism, 441–2
World War II, 429, 437
Aw Kow, 215–16
Aw Sian, 217
Aw, Eileen, 162
Azahari, 344
Aziz, Sartaj, 468
Badawi, Abdullah, 436
Baker, Jim, 528
Balewa, Abubakar Tafawa, 392–4, 396
Balladur, Edouard, 479, 481
Bambang, 316
Banda, Hastings, 402
Bandaranaike, Felix, 461
Bandaranaike, Sirimavo, 454, 461, 463
Bandaranaike, Solomon, 460
Bangladesh, 406
Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) incident, 93–4
Bank of England, 90, 93, 97, 100
banks, Singapore:
“Big Four”, 94–5, 100
Development Bank of Singapore (DBS), 77–8, 86, 99–100, 739
Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC), 99–100, 195, 246–7, 739
Overseas Union Bank, 99
Post Office Savings Bank (POSBank), 129
United Overseas Bank, 99
Barisan Sosialis, 131–33, 135
Barker, Eddie, 163, 175, 210, 241, 251–2, 755, 758
Barnett, Robert, 506
Barre, Raymond, 475
Barrow, Errol, 440