The Wit and Wisdom of Lee Kuan Yew by Lee Kuan Yew

Author:Lee, Kuan Yew [Lee, Kuan Yew]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9789814385596
Publisher: Didier Millet,Csi
Published: 2013-05-29T16:00:00+00:00

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It is necessary to remind our young that when we started in 1954, and when we formed the government in 1959, we did not have the basic elements to be a nation. The attributes of nationhood were missing: a common ethnic identity – we will never have ethnic homogeneity – but we did not even have a common ethnic identity; we saw ourselves as disparate Hokkiens, Cantonese, Hakkas, Teochews, Hainanese. The Chinese Chamber of Commerce, up till recently, was structured along those lines. And the Malays were either Malays or Boyanese or Javanese or Minangkabau. They still have associations to bind people of the same ethnic origins. We did not have a common language. We couldn’t speak to each other. Nor did we have a common experience, a common sharing of historic events that creates a common culture.

1980

* * *

Communalists and religious fanatics can, from time to time, work up racial and religious passions and ordinary people can be carried along. We cannot have our minority races worked up and pitted in hatred or fear against the majority, or have one religion so zealous for converts, or so intolerant, that they have open friction with other religions. Any communal or religious collision will be nasty and costly. Our history is besplattered with such outbursts.

1987

* * *

We shall need another one to two generations before our national unity is able to stand severe racial or religious stress. Nationhood cannot be achieved by pressure-cooking.

1987

* * *

Last year, some English-educated intellectuals suggested that we should blur and erase our ethnic, linguistic and cultural differences to speed up nation-building. I believe this is neither realistic nor practical. People will resist such a policy, and by their resistance they will accentuate inter-ethnic differences […] The Chinese must draw on their traditional values in Confucianism, Taoism and Chinese folklore to complement them. The Malays must draw on Malay custom and Islam, the Hindus on their customs and the Hindu religion. If we try to put all these different background cultures into a blenderiser, we will end up with a non-descript melange.

1991

* * *

After two or three generations away from China, we have become rooted in the country of our birth. Our stakes are in our home countries, not China where our ancestors came from. The Chinese Thai is a Thai and in the end he wants Thailand to prosper so that his assets in Thailand can grow and his children’s future in Thailand can be secure. So too Chinese Singaporeans, Chinese Indonesians, Chinese Malaysians and Chinese Filipinos. They may invest and visit China frequently, but few want to make China their home.

1993

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Each group that came here carried its own ancestral memories. The Chinese remember the Emperor and the magistrates who represented him. To this day, the majority of Chinese Singaporeans do not want to be actively involved in political parties. It’s not in their culture. What they want is to have somebody governing them well and producing things that they want. But

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