From Third World to First The Singapore Story pdfdrive com

Straits Times
, 6 August 1999)
In October 1999 Mahathir called on the Associated Chinese Chambers of
Commerce and Industry in Malaysia to assist bumiputras to make up the loss in
their share of national wealth after the economic crisis because many bumiputra
companies were saddled with debts. “Bumiputra businessmen suffered greater
losses because they were new in the field and had huge loans to service, forcing
some of them to sell their companies to Chinese businessmen out of
desperation.” (
Star
, 13 October 1999) “We not only need to help these
businessmen, but also create and groom a fresh corps of bumiputra businessmen,
and for this, we are asking for the cooperation of the Chinese Chambers of
Commerce.” (
Straits Times
, 13 October 1999) The group’s president, Datuk Lim
Guan Teik, replied, “I think it is fair, as citizens of a multiracial country, that the
strong should help the weaker.” (
Straits Times
, 13 October 1999)
At separation, the Tunku did not expect us to succeed. He tried to use three
levers to impose his will on Singapore: the military, the economy and water. We
countered the military leverage by building up the SAF. We overcame their
economic hold by leapfrogging them and the region to link up with the industrial
countries. As for water, we have alternatives – our own reservoirs provide about
40 per cent of our domestic consumption, and with modern technology for
desalination, reverse osmosis and recycling of used water, we can manage.
To speak of Singapore-Malaysia problems as “historical baggage” is to miss
the point. If it had been only “historical baggage”, then after more than 30 years
as two independent states, our relations should have stabilised. But the root
cause of the recurring problems in Singapore-Malaysia relations is our
diametrically different approaches to the problems facing our two multiracial
societies.
Singapore set out to become a multiracial society of equal citizens, where
opportunities are equal and a person’s contribution is recognised and rewarded
on merit regardless of race, language, culture or religion. In spite of our meagre
natural resources, we succeeded, and our policies have benefited all our citizens,
including our Malays. We have a growing middle class of professionals,

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executives and businessmen, including Malays, who have developed a strong
competitive spirit and take pride in being what they are on their own merit. Each
time we are rated as the best airline in Asia, the No. 1 airport, the No. 1
container port, it reminds Singaporeans what a cohesive meritocratic multiracial
society can achieve, better than if we were a Chinese-dominated one and lacked
solidarity. This was not what Malaysia’s leaders thought would happen when
they asked us to leave in 1965.
When UMNO politicians use coded language like “special relationship” or
“historic links” or “being insensitive”, they are signalling that they want
Singapore to be obliging and accommodating, and not to stand on its legal rights.
Malaysia’s ethnic Chinese and Indian ministers have told our ministers that we
are too legalistic and do not know how to deal with UMNO leaders; that if we
are tactful and trust the Malay leaders’ words, these leaders can be most
responsive. This overlooks the difference between our responsibilities to our
different electorates. Singaporeans expect their government to represent their
interests in a partnership of equal and independent states.
Hence the Singapore-Malaysia relationship will continue to have its ups and
downs. Singaporeans need to take these gyrations with equanimity, neither
euphoric when relations are good nor despondent when relations turn bad. We
need steady nerves, stamina and patience, while quietly standing up for our
rights.
Malaysia had tried to industrialise through import substitution but without
success. They saw how with investments from MNCs we succeeded. Daim
encouraged Mahathir to privatise their inefficient state-owned enterprises and
invite foreign investments; he changed policies and succeeded. Mahathir wanted
Malaysia to excel, with a better airport and container port, a bigger financial
centre and a “Multi-media Super Corridor”. He has built up-to-date container
wharves at Port Kelang and a new super airport 75 kilometres south of Kuala
Lumpur. This made us re-examine our competitiveness, improve our
infrastructure and work smarter to increase our productivity. Suddenly a
calamitous financial crisis hit all countries in the region and decimated
currencies, stock markets and property values. The crisis will eventually work
itself out and economic growth will resume.
Despite my differences with him, I made more progress solving bilateral
problems with Mahathir in the nine years he was prime minister, from 1981 to

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1990, when I stepped down, than in the previous 12 years with Tun Razak and
Hussein Onn as prime ministers. He had the decisiveness and political support to
override grass-roots prejudices to advance his country’s interests. He had pushed
the Malays towards science and technology and away from obscurantism. He
had the courage to say in public that a lady doctor using a pencil to examine a
male patient (which the Muslim religious leaders wanted) was not the way to
treat patients. Even at the height of his unpopularity during the Anwar-led
unrest, the people, particularly Malaysian Chinese and Indians, knew they had
no better alternative to Mahathir leading UMNO and the National Front. He had
educated younger Malays, opened up their minds with the vision of a future
based on science and technology, especially computers and the Internet, which
his Multi-media Super Corridor symbolised. The majority of the Malays and all
the Chinese and Indians in Malaysia want this future, not a turn towards extreme
Islamic practices.
My view appeared to be contradicted by the results of the November 1999
general election, when Mahathir won with a two-thirds majority of the seats but
lost the Kelantan and Terengganu state governments to the PAS and some 20
incumbent UMNO MPs. I am not sure if this was caused by a shift towards a
more Islamic society. The losses were accentuated by the dismissal in September
1998 of Anwar Ibrahim, his deputy prime minister and protégé of 17 years.
Arrested three weeks later under the Internal Security Act, he was brought to
court after two weeks with a black eye, charged with corruption and sentenced to
six years’ imprisonment. Then he was also convicted for sodomy and sentenced
to a further nine years. This change in the relationship between the two men,
both held in high esteem, was too sudden. The unsavoury disclosures that
followed alienated many Malays, especially the young. Anwar’s wife was able
to contest and win election to Anwar’s seat in Parliament.
When naming his new cabinet, Mahathir said this would be his last term. He
has the time to put in place a successor capable of realising his vision of
Malaysia in the year 2020 as a modern, high-tech nation.
Three decades after separation, the close ties of families and friends still bind
the two peoples. At the end of the day, however deep-seated the differences
between the two, both sides know that if they lash out at each other without
restraint, there is a risk of unscrambling the interracial harmony that holds each
country’s multiracial society together. Malaysia needs multiracial tolerance as

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much as Singapore does. A younger generation of leaders will soon be in charge
in both countries. Free from the personal traumas of the past, they can make a
fresh start at a practical, working relationship.

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