JUNE 17 — It’s amazing the amount of press coverage, especially in the Chinese press, devoted to the visit of Lee Kuan Yew, Minister Mentor of Singapore. In the past 48 hours, even former PM Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad got into the act by posting on his blog some, shall we say — nasty — comments about LKY (or MM as he is known in Singapore). To quote from Dr Mahathir:
2. But we already have a new Middle Kingdom now. During Lee Kuan Yew's triumphant visit to Malaysia he made it known to the Malaysian supplicants that Singapore regards the lands within 6,000 miles radius of Singapore as its hinterland. This includes Beijing and Tokyo and of course Malaysia.
3. Of course this self-deluding perception places Singapore at the centre of a vast region. It is therefore the latter-day Middle Kingdom. The rest are peripheral and are there to serve the interest of this somewhat tiny Middle Kingdom.
4. Kuan Yew also explained that the fear Singapore Chinese would control Iskandar whatever is not justified. Malays can also work there. It is good to know that Malays can also work in their own country. I wonder as what? Maybe someone should make a study of the Malays of Singapore just to know what it is like to be a Malay minority in their own country.
Yes, we have to say that Dr Mahathir is consistent — he is consistently on bad terms with LKY and he is consistently using the racial card against the “Singapore Chinese”.
Dr Mahathir and LKY’s bad relations are well known — LKY said as much in his book “From Third World to First: The Singapore story, 1965-2000”. Although he did mention that he managed to get a lot done with Dr Mahathir.
What I am more curious about is why Malaysians are so worried about what an 85-year-old person says? For example, his comments about crumbling infrastructure in Penang compared to Ipoh sparked off a war of words between DAP and Gerakan over who is responsible for Penang’s decay. Why do Malaysians take his words, in this case just a side remark, so seriously?
Imagine the hoo-haa if he has said something about the quality of DAP’s or Gerakan’s leadership. Or his comments to the entire leadership of MCA when he met them in his hotel suite.
I suspect the reason why Malaysians, especially the Chinese press, take his comments so seriously is in part based on historical sentiment, and another part based on Singapore’s economic performance. Both are related.
Part of the old Malay elite establishment has never forgiven Tunku Abdul Rahman for letting go of Singapore in 1965. Many wanted the Tunku to use the military to control LKY and keep Singapore in Malaysia. Some of the sentiments are still there today. They simply do not like the idea of a “too-smart-for-his-own-good” LKY getting away with “Malay” land and creating a Chinese “dot” between the Malaysian and Indonesian Malay sea. The fact that Singapore has transformed itself into a fully developed nation with the highest standard of living is another thing they cannot stomach.
The economic success has also added the political dimension. Remember these famous LKY words in 2007:
“We are a standing indictment of all the things that they (Malaysia) can be doing differently. If they would just educate the Chinese and Indians, use them and treat them as their citizens, they can equal us and even do better than us and we would be happy to rejoin them."
LKY was, of course, referring to the NEP policy in Malaysia, and argued that Singapore’s meritocracy policy had brought economic prosperity to Singapore. This was not disputed much but what got people up here unhappy and rattled were his comments that non-Malays are marginalised. Needless to say, the bulk of the non-Malay population was happy with the comments and the Malays unhappy. The non-Malay parties in the BN were forced to rebut LKY and ask him to apologise. LKY, being LKY, did not apologise even after a letter from Malaysia’s PM. LKY’s reputation for talking straight was such that it made a fool of the non-Malay BN parties who had to criticise LKY in public knowing that the bulk of their members agreed with his statements.
What, of course, was not said by anyone was that it was precisely Malaysia’s policies that had benefited LKY and Singapore. Many of the smartest non-Malays have migrated to Singapore, and modern Singapore was built by ex-Malaysians. In the first Singapore Cabinet, the majority of its members were born in Malaya. Even today, many of the top civil servants and top corporate people in Singapore are ex-Malaysians.
It is this dimension, that Singapore’s success was in part built by ex-Malaysians, that has resulted in mixed feelings towards Singapore. The fact that Singapore can create a prosperous society with no natural resources (remember the joke about Singapore having to drink toilet water) purely on meritocracy has cut deep into the Malaysian psyche, both among the Malays and non-Malays. For the non-Malays, Singapore’s meritocracy policy reinforced everything they believe in. For many Malays, the same policy invokes fear on how far they are behind the Chinese if meritocracy was adopted. Hence the constant fear mongering about how bad the Singapore Malays are treated in the island republic.
At the end of the day, Singapore and Malaysia are neighbours and they cannot stop being neighbours. The politics of fear and/or envy will exist in this relationship long after LKY leaves Malaysia. In fact it will probably stay with us as long as talented non-Malays move down South and help build a prosperous Singapore.( By James Chin)
No comments:
Post a Comment