TR EMERITUS

It gives me immense felicitation to regale from time to time the ideosyncracies and grotesque caricature manifestations of our so-called elected people's leaders for the enlightenment of the discerning and interested public. The redoubtable Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong is a big hit for such jocular portrayal. He was born with a golden spoon and had never known any hardship in his entire pampered life. Being the eldest son he was naturally Lee Kuan Uw's pet, principal heir and anointed successor. He started off as a prime minister in a quite impressive benevolent manner but along the way impregnated with the loftiness of egotism and showed frequent glimpses of gross inhumanity. I happened to ask him once as to where was he when I and my colleagues were fighting the communists in the front line at the risk of our lives. We were prime targets of the communist killer squad. What does he thnk that for what purpose that we were making such sacrifices. It could not be so ungodly that he could think that we were sacrificing so that he and his million-dollar minsters can sit on their fat asses and wallow in their luxurious livelihood at the people's expense. Is there any iota of humility and decency that could be detected among this eminent group. They were pocketing millions of people's money ostensibly for providing public service and civil servants like us live on poverty line, and below poverty line in my case, whilst they wallow in luxury. When our Pensioners' Association representatives approached for a raise in our poverty pension they were admonished that they were waiting for us to die because we had served our purpose and what we received was enough. They were peremtorily sent off. When Lee Kuan Yew was alive the family was a wholesome whole with harmony and filiality. Lee Kuan Yew had hardly warmed his grave and we now see the Lee family dissipated into aboriginal adversaries arising from their in-fighting. Lee Hsien Yang's offsprings seem to be better endowed intellectually and his eldest son Lee Shengwu is an Assistant Professor in Havard University. For some enigmatic reason he is hounded by Lee Hsien Loong so that he has to seek divine beneficence by migrating to the US for the time being. Shengwu was once asked by journalists what he thought of his uncle's vindtictiveness. He answered with a simple profound remark: Ozymandias. What does Lee Hsien Loong say? Lawrence Wong is a good choice as Lee Hsien Loong's successor. He has shown his competency in a cmmendable way and is now waiting for Lee Hsien Loong to step down. Is he latter proscrastinating?   Yoong Siew Wah * The author was the Director of Singapore’s Internal Security Department (ISD) from 1971 to 1974. He was Director of the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) in the 1960s, and had a distinguished career in the Singapore Special Branch in the 1950s. Mr Yoong has granted TR Emeritus exclusive right to his memoir, to be published on an independent website (work in progress), upon his passing.       Read More →

The late Lee Kuan Yew Following the death of founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew in 2015, Minister K Shanmugam made this posting on Facebook: Singapore without Mr Lee Kuan Yew will never be the same. The minister, now at the centre of the Ridout controversy, did get his prediction right. In fact, it was Minister Shanmugam himself who gave voice to how dramatically different Singapore had become without Lee Kuan Yew. It was he who told Parliament that Lee Hsien Yang had “essentially absconded” from Singapore. The son of Lee Kuan Yew absconding from Singapore? If anyone had predicted such a thing, you would have called the person a crackpot. Yet just eight years after the passing of the man credited with transforming Singapore from Third World to First World, his son was said to have absconded from the country. A truly stunning development which shows the astonishing turn Singapore has taken without Lee Kuan Yew. So many scandals and controversies have rocked the country. But each time, the People’s Action Party (PAP) chose to look the other way. The Keppel bribery scandal stands out. Just like that, Singapore’s zero tolerance against corruption was blown to smithereens. LKY, more than anyone else, was adamant about weeding out corruption. The Keppel bribery scandal completely goes against the grain of what he stood for. Would ministers have been lapping it up in colonial bungalows during the time of LKY? Remember that LKY himself lived modestly in spartan surroundings at 38 Oxley Road for decades. He would have hit the roof had he found out about ministers living in palatial bungalows with land the size of a few football fields. Strangely, it took an opposition politician, Kenneth Jeyaretnam, to blow the whistle on Ridout Road. We have to wonder why an opposition leader knew so much, and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong apparently knew little or nothing. Leadership succession after LKY has been stuttering and floundering. Heng Swee Keat waited and waited until he threw in the towel. Now it’s the turn of Lawrence Wong to be PM-in-waiting for nobody knows how long. Having missed his target for stepping down, PM Lee has not bothered to set a new one. Just one symptom among many of a country drifting sideways, directionless, and bereft of decisive leadership. Lee Kuan Yew famously said: “Whoever governs Singapore must have that iron in him. Or give it up. This is not a game of cards! This is your life and mine!” How the Ridout controversy is currently being played out tells us everything. Instead of knuckling down and showing iron and steel in getting to the bottom of it, they take the soft path of ownself investigate ownself and try to convince us that what we see is not what it seems. One nagging question remains: had Lee Kuan Yew not paved the way for his son to be Prime Minister, would things have turned out differently for the country?   Augustine Low      Read More →

Recently the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) celebrated “SAF Day,” a day in which the men and women of in the Armed Forces dedicated their loyalty to the nation. Back in the days of service, SAF Day was probably the biggest point of division between the official and the real. As a member of the SAF, it was an exceedingly important part of our calendar. There was always a parade (attended by the President) and lots of promotions. It was the time when “best units” were announced and that got senior management very excited. However, we on the ground level didn’t really care much for SAF Day for a simple reason – there was no public holiday attached to it. Having said what I’ve just said about SAF Day, I’ve actually become fervent believer in the SAF or at least the institution of National Service. I’ll never tire of saying it, the most “educational” part of my life was in the two and half years of national service. Sure, I have a degree from a respectable college but to me, what is important is not the paper but the process of getting that paper and the truth is, university was a wonderful party but exposed me to very little beyond academia. The army, by contrast, opened up a world that I never realized existed. Suddenly I had to get on with people who thought I lived in a bubble for the simple reason that my official address at the time did not start with “Blk….” I was effectively an outcast but at the same time I found the guys who would become my brothers from different mothers. The army was, I believe the first time in my life that I actually achieved things that were not bought for me or things that I was guided into. My father will probably vomit if he read this but the first time, I got my chin up the bar felt more like an achievement than getting my degree. In a world where kids are increasingly sheltered from the world outside their own bubble, National Service has become even more valuable. The computer game generation needs to understand that life, especially in war, is brutal and nasty. People often forget that you actually have to be uncomfortable in order to change and adapt. Its one thing to be able to fly up a low wall on a computer graphic. It’s another story when you’re carrying your webbing and just dashed 700 metres before you physically scale the wall. That experience humbles you because you realise that the task is real and it requires something within you in order to get done. Its very clear that the SAF has a mission to be able to defend Singapore from any external threat. It’s something which has never been tested. However, that doesn’t mean the SAF is redundant. If anything, modern life has made the SAF more relevant in its role of making the youth of Singapore discover the realities of life, of living life beyond that bubble that we’ve been led to believe is a natural state. For all that I might have complained about being in the SAF, I’m grateful to the institution and the people there who made me.   Tang Li *Although I’ve been based mainly in Singapore for nearly two decades, I’ve had the privilege of being able to meet people who have crossed borders and cultures. I’ve befriended ministers and ambassadors and worked on projects involving a former head of state. Yet, at the same time, I’ve had the privilege of befriending migrant labourers and former convicts. All of them have a story to tell. All of them add to the fabric of life. I hope to express the stories that inspire us to create life as it should be.      Read More →