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particularly instructive on the challenge of melding the market economics of
even so friendly an interlocutor as Singapore with the political and social
realities of a China midway between Mao and reform.
Lee Kuan Yew would not be true to himself were he less than frank about his
analysis of the difference between the individualism of the West and the priority
for social cohesion in countries such as his and in much of the rest of Asia. He
does not ask us to change our patterns, only to refrain from imposing them on
societies with different histories and necessities.
These views have subjected Lee Kuan Yew to considerable criticism in the
West. Those of us who prize our values while understanding the complexities of
a new country in a different culture are prepared to leave it to history to pass
judgment as to whether there were other options available to him. But, for a
generation, every American leader who has dealt with Lee Kuan Yew has
benefited from the fact that, on international issues, he has identified the future
of his country with the fate of the democracies. And he has done so not passively
but by making a seminal political contribution to the struggles of our time.
Henry A. Kissinger
New York, United States of America
Preface
I wrote this book for a younger generation of Singaporeans who took stability,
growth and prosperity for granted. I wanted them to know how difficult it was
for a small country of 640 square kilometres with no natural resources to survive
in the midst of larger, newly independent nations all pursuing nationalistic
policies.
Those who have been through the trauma of war in 1942 and the Japanese
occupation, and taken part in building a new economy for Singapore, are not so
sanguine. We cannot afford to forget that public order, personal security,
economic and social progress and prosperity are not the natural order of things,
that they depend on ceaseless effort and attention from an honest and effective
government that the people must elect.
In my earlier book, I described my formative years in pre-war Singapore, the
Japanese occupation, and the communist upheavals followed by racial problems
during our two years in Malaysia.
The Japanese occupation (1942–45) filled me with hatred for the cruelties
they inflicted on their fellow Asians, aroused my nationalism and self-respect,
and my resentment at being lorded over. My four years as a student in Britain
after the war strengthened my determination to get rid of British colonial rule.
I returned to Singapore in 1950, confident of my cause, but ignorant of the
pitfalls and dangers that lay ahead. An anti-colonial wave swept me and many
others of my generation. I involved myself with trade unions and politics,
formed a political party, and at the age of 35 assumed office in 1959 as the first
prime minister of an elected government of self-governing Singapore. My
friends and I formed a united front with the communists. From the start we knew
that there would have to be a parting of the ways and a time for reckoning. When
it came, the fight was bitter, and we were fortunate not to have been defeated.
We believed the long-term future for Singapore was to rejoin Malaya so we
merged with it to form Malaysia in September 1963. Within a year, in July 1964,
we suffered Malay-Chinese race riots in Singapore. We were trapped in an
intractable struggle with Malay extremists of the ruling party, United Malay
National Organisation (UMNO), who were intent on a Malay-dominated
Malaysia. To counter their use of communal riots to cow us, we rallied the non-
Malays and Malays throughout Malaysia in the Malaysian Solidarity Convention
to fight for a Malaysian Malaysia. By August 1965 we were given no choice but
to leave.
The communal bullying and intimidation made our people willing to endure
the hardships of going it alone. That traumatic experience of race riots also made
my colleagues and me even more determined to build a multiracial society that
would give equality to all citizens, regardless of race, language or religion. It
was an article of faith which guided our policies.
This book covers the long, hard slog to find ways of staying independent and
making a living without Malaysia as our hinterland. We had to work against
seemingly insuperable odds to make it from poverty to prosperity in three
decades.
The years after 1965 were hectic and filled with anxiety, as we struggled to
find our feet. We were relieved when we found in 1971 that we had created
enough jobs to avoid heavy unemployment even though the British withdrew
their forces from Singapore. But only after we weathered the international oil
crisis in 1973, with the quadrupling of oil prices, were we confident that we
could make it on our own. Thereafter it was hard work, planning and
improvising to establish ourselves as a viable nation linked by trade and
investments to the major industrial countries, and a successful hub for the
dissemination of goods, services and information in our region.
Our climb from a per capita GDP of US$400 in 1959 (when I took office as
prime minister) to more than US$12,200 in 1990 (when I stepped down) and
US$22,000 in 1999 took place at a time of immense political and economic
changes in the world. In material terms, we have left behind our Third World
problems of poverty. However, it will take another generation before our arts,
culture and social standards can match the First World infrastructure we have
installed.
During the Cold War, when it was far from clear in the 1960s and ’70s which
side would win, we aligned ourselves with the West. The Cold War divide made
for a simpler international environment. Because our immediate neighbours were
against the communists, we enjoyed both regional solidarity and international
support from America, Western Europe and Japan. By the late 1980s it was clear
we were on the side of the victors.
This is not a how-to book, whether to build an economy, an army, or a
nation. It is an account of the problems my colleagues and I faced, and how we
set about solving them. I wrote my earlier book as a chronological narrative. To
do so for this volume would have made the book too long. I have written by
themes, to compress 30 years into 750 pages.
Lee Kuan Yew
Singapore
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