“We must have a tightly knit society, less exposed and more secure. To survive and keep standards up requires constant effort and organisation. If you slacken, if you give up, then the drains will clog up, traffic will snarl up, there will be flies, plague and pestilence.
“In other parts of the world, when their pigs suffer from swine fever, they hush it up. They pretend they do not have it. Net result: all pigs get infected, the position becomes permanently chronic. We can do likewise. But we will become permanently a chronic society: sick. So when we get swine fever, we announce it, alert everyone so that we can arrest the spread of the disease and bring back normalcy. This is what is required of this community: all the time, that push, that thrust to counter the natural sluggishness which this climate tends to build into our physical system, and, all that while, we must have an awareness of the realities of life.
“We can build the industries. We have what sociologists call a highly ‘achievement-orientated’ type of society. For every boy, every girl here tonight, there are fathers and mothers egging them on to perform better than the other pupils in school. Not all societies have this. In many societies, they are quite happy just to sit down under the banyan tree and contemplate their navel. So when there is famine they just die quietly. Here, they will not die quietly. If there is no food they will do something, look for somebody, break open stores, do something, plant something, and if they have to die, they die fighting for the right to live.
“We have done well for two years, better than I have dared to expect two years ago. But, let us have a sober appraisal of the problems ahead. … there is nothing which we cannot solve, given a little time.
“A good, striving, hardy people cannot be kept down.”
(Speech at joint Alexandra and Queenstown community centres’ National Day celebrations, August 15, 1967)
Lee identified culture as a key factor in the success of societies in a speech in 1967. He added then that, fortunately for him and for Singapore, culture was in its favour.
“I think you must have something in you to be a ‘have’ nation. You must want. That is the crucial thing. Before you have, you must want to have. And to want to have means to be able first, to perceive what it is you want; secondly, to discipline and organise yourself in order to possess the things you want – the industrial sinews of our modern economic base; and thirdly, the grit and the stamina, which means cultural mutations in the way of life in large parts of the tropical areas of the world where the human being has never found it necessary to work in the summer, harvest before the autumn, and save it up for the winter.
“In large areas of the world, a cultural pattern is determined by many things, including climatic conditions. As long as that persists, nothing will ever emerge. And for it to emerge, there must be this desire between contending factions of the ‘have’ nations to try and mould the ‘have-not’ nations after their own selves. If they want that strongly enough, competition must act as an accelerator, and no more than an accelerator to the creation of modern, industrial, technological societies in the primitive agricultural regions of the world.
“I think Asia can be very clearly demarcated into several distinct parts – East Asia is one: it has got a different tempo of its own. So have South Asia and Southeast Asia. I think this is crucial to an understanding of the possibilities of either development for the good or development which is not in the interest of peace and human happiness in the region.
“I like to demarcate – I mean not in political terms – demarcate them half in jest, but I think half with some reality on the basis of difference in the tempo according to the people who know what these things are. I mean East Asia: Korea, Japan and mainland China and including the Republic of China in Taiwan and Vietnam. They are supposed to be Mahayana Buddhists. And then there is Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, Ceylon, which are supposed to be Hinayana Buddhists. According to the Hinayana Buddhists, if the bedbug disturbs you then you take your mattress and shake it off; there is that compassion not only for the human being but for the bedbug, and you give it another chance and you let it off. Either it finds its way on to some other creature or it finds its way back to your bed. But watching the Japanese over the years, I have not the slightest doubt that is not what they do. And I think this makes some difference. I am not talking now – isms or ideologies. It is something deeper. It is part of the tempo, the way of life.”
(Speech to Foreign Correspondents Association, March 21, 1967; text of speech on page 396)
Lee believed it was precisely the underlying culture and values of the East Asian societies that had prevented them from being kept down. These cultural traits were the secret X-factor behind the so-called East Asian economic miracles.
Could other societies repeat their experience by emulating the economic policies they had adopted, as had been suggested by a 1994 World Bank report on the East Asian economies? Lee thought not. Unless the necessary values – hard work, thrift, an emphasis on education – were present, simply emulating the economic policies would not suffice to take others down the East Asian road to material progress, he contended.
Lee was not one to accept that societies could not be changed. He would launch a myriad of campaigns to “Keep Singapore Clean”, stop spitting in the streets, encourage tree planting, and boost workers’ productivity. If the effort required him to take to sweeping the streets to set an example, he was quite game.
In an interview with Foreign Affairs in 1994, he noted that the World Bank report had shied away from giving the cultural factor its full weight as a necessary condition for economic development.
“If you have a culture that doesn’t place much value in learning and scholarship and hard work and thrift and deferment of present enjoyment for future gain, the going will be much slower. But the World Bank report’s conclusions are part of the culture of American and, by extension, of international institutions. It had to present its findings in a bland and universalisable way, which I find unsatisfying because it doesn’t grapple with the real problems. It makes the hopeful assumption that all men are equal, that people all over the world are the same. They are not. Groups of people develop different characteristics when they have evolved for thousands of years separately. Genetics and history interact …
“Now if you gloss over these kinds of issues because it is politically incorrect to study them, then you have laid a land mine for yourself. This is what leads to the disappointments with social policies embarked upon in America with great enthusiasm and expectations, but which yield such meagre results. There isn’t a willingness to see things in their stark reality. But then I am not being politically correct.”
Is culture destiny?
Having identified culture as a key determinant in the success of the society, Lee believed that governments had a role to play in creating the right cultural ethos which would help it get ahead materially.
Although he stressed the importance of culture and values he did not believe a society’s rate of progress was predetermined. Culture, while a factor in success, did not fix its destiny. Nor was culture immutable. Ebbs and flows were found in the story of almost all societies, when underlying cultural tendencies gave way to other influences. Societies could also be shaped and imbued with traits which improved its chances of success. This, he believed, was the task of its leaders.
Governments could not change the peoples they were charged with. Nor should it pretend that it could by promising to make good the unequal endowments that nature had bestowed on them. What it could do, however, was foster the environment and tenor of society to help the people achieve their best.
“Genes cannot be created, right? Unless you start tinkering with it as they may be able to do one day. But the culture you can tinker with. It’s slow to change, but it can be changed – by experience – otherwise human beings will not survive. If a certain habit does not help survival, well, you must quickly unlearn that habit.
“So I’ve got to try and get Singaporeans to emulate or to ado
pt certain habits and practices which will make Singapore succeed. If you go and act like the Italians and wander around gradually, take your own sweet time, trundling luggage, you are not going to have a good airport that can compete with other people in the world. You’ve got to hustle and bustle, now, get on with it! Clear the baggage quickly!
Chinese or Singaporean? The ping-pong test
Lee launched the Speak Mandarin campaign in 1979 to help Chinese Singaporeans preserve their mother tongue and to counter the erosion of traditional values.
While the majority of Singaporeans were Chinese, Lee was ever mindful of the need to fashion a multiracial community in his fledgling state. The Chinese, while proud of their cultural heritage and keen to preserve the traditions which had helped them succeed, would have to be ever-mindful of the sentiments of the ethnic minorities in Singapore, as well as the Muslim communities that surrounded it.
“The past week of ping-pong was an interesting and important experience for Singapore. The question is: has the majority of our young people learnt that, although nearly 80 per cent of them are ethnic Chinese, they are Singaporeans? Or are they bemused enough to think that, being ethnic Chinese, they can identify themselves as members of a potential superpower? It is tempting to indulge in a sensation of greatness, without having to undergo the hardships and sacrifices of the people of China and, at the same time, as Singaporeans, enjoy the freer and better life here.
“When I watched the ping-pong on television the first night, I was slightly bewildered and angered. Instead of giving support and encouragement to our players, who were up against world-class opponents, a part of the crowd booed whenever our players played badly. I was also told that about 40 persons shouted slogans, wishing Chairman Mao long life. But there was no response to this from the bulk of the audience.
“However, from the second night on, there was no more booing. Instead, there were cheers whenever the visitors or our players acquitted themselves well in any rally.
“No one can ask of Singapore Chinese not to be ethnic Chinese. And it would be unnatural not to feel pleasantly reassured that, as Chinese, we are not unequal to other major ethnic and cultural groups in the world; that the Chinese, either because of ethnic or cultural attributes or both, are not inadequate and can make the grade, whatever the political system. But there are many people who are interested to know whether this ethnic, cultural and linguistic affinity will make us susceptible to manipulation through tugging at the heartstrings of our people and making them more Chinese-orientated and less Singaporean.
“After the past week, my assessment is that a portion can still be manipulated. But, unlike 10 years ago, the majority are now Singaporean. The situation should get better with each passing year. The orientation in our schools and the experience of the last 20 years have brought about this change.
“I believe a definite majority in Singapore are aware that our future, our destiny, depends on our ability to discern our collective interests and to protect these interests. For neither China nor any other country or government will protect us or our interests, just because we happen to be ethnic Chinese.”
(Speech at the Hong Lim PAP branch 15th anniversary celebration dinner, July 14, 1972)
“But I would say that if you had come to Singapore airport in the 1960s and you come to Singapore airport today, you would know that something has happened in the meantime and the place and the people are different, they are more effective.
“Today, supposing your last stop was Bombay and you land in Singapore, I would think you’d be a bit grateful that your bags are handled so rapidly. There you are, here, take it. You are through customs in a shot.”
When different cultures mix
But identifying culture as the hidden X-factor that had helped certain societies do better than others raised a very thorny issue. These societies, such as Japan or Germany, were homogeneous ones. How then would this cultural factor manifest itself in racially mixed societies? Lee was candid about his assessment of multiracial Singapore. He told the authors, “I have said openly that if we were 100 per cent Chinese, we would do better. But we are not and never will be, so we live with what we have.”
But what happens when people from differing cultures are mixed in a multiracial context? Would not the more hard-driving group streak ahead of those which placed less emphasis on the pursuit of material wealth? And how would the government of a nascent multiracial state deal with such a tricky problem?
Lee’s Malaysian experience in the early 1960s made clear to him the explosive nature of ethnic grievances, especially when there was a twinning of the ethnic and economic divides.
“One of the problems which has worried me is the uneven rate of development within the community, because the Chinese, Indians, Ceylonese and Eurasians progress at a faster rate than our Malays. If we do not correct this imbalance, then, in another 10 to 20 years, we will have a Harlem, something not to be proud of. So from politics I have had to go to anthropology and sociology to seek the reasons for this.”
(Speech to Southeast Asia Business Committee, May 12, 1968; text of speech on page 398)
As with many other questions that Lee turned his mind to, he would look up authorities, either through his reading or in face-to-face meetings, for possible answers. These he would ponder to help him make up his mind. In the case of the crucial question of why some ethnic groups performed less well than others, he was to cite, in a speech in May 1968, the work of sociologist Judith Djamour, who did research on the Malays in Singapore in the 1940s and 1950s.
She argued that Singapore Malays and Chinese “certainly appear to have different cultural values. Singapore Chinese on the whole considered the acquisition of wealth to be one of the most important aims in life, and almost an end in itself; they are indefatigable workers and keen businessmen. Singapore Malays, on the other hand, attached great importance to easy and graceful living.”
“I did the exact opposite.” Rather than gloss over differences between the races in Singapore’s multiracial population, Lee took community leaders into his confidence, urging them to work together to help improve their community’s lot.
This view, Lee found, appeared to be supported by that of Bryan Parkinson, a Fellow at the Centre for Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Hull. In the January 1968 issue of Modern Asian Studies, he attributed the cultural differences between the Malays and Chinese to their having different “maximising postulates”, or in other words, different ideas of what success meant, although neither view might be considered superior to the other. Parkinson wrote:
“This desire to succeed is no more absent from rural Malay society than it is from any other, but to the Malay success means something different from what it does, for example, to the Malaysian Chinese. The Chinese seem to regard success as being the improvement of their economic position even if this requires fundamental change or innovation. The Malays seem to regard success as doing what their forebears have approved and practised, but doing it as well as they can. Wealth and economic advancement are desired by the Malays, but not at the expense of renouncing utterly the traditions and traditional occupations of their forebears to which they have grown accustomed. …”
The upshot of this was of crucial significance. As Parkinson argued,
“There is nothing irrational about Malay values, and to criticise them in terms of other values is reprehensible. But if the values of the Malays remain basically unaltered, and there is no reason in Malay terms to explain why they should alter, then it is likely that economic advance for them will remain relatively low.”
This was the worrisome conclusion that Lee was to reach. Given this background, he recognised that while efforts could be made to alleviate the situation and narrow the economic gaps between the races, the innate differences in aptitude and ability could not be wished away. Nor were the gaps likely to be bridged easily, or any time soon.
“This poses an extremely delicate problem. We tried over the last
nine years systematically to provide free education from primary school right up to university for any Singapore citizen who is a Malay. This is something we don’t give to the majority ethnic group – the Chinese. They pay fees from secondary school onwards. We don’t find it necessary to do it for the other ethnic minorities, because broadly speaking, they are making similar progress as the Chinese. All are achievement-orientated, striving, acquisitive communities.
“The reluctant conclusion that we have come to after a decade of the free education policy is that learning does not begin in school. It starts in the home with the parents and the other members of the family. Certainly the adoption of values comes more from the home, the mother, than the teacher. This means change will be a slow process. It can be accelerated in some cases by our judicious intermingling of the communities so that, thrown into the more multiracial milieu we have in our new housing estates, Malay children are becoming more competitive and more striving.”
(Speech to Southeast Asia Business Committee, May 12, 1968; text of speech on page 398)
Singapore’s Malay dilemma
Members of the self-help group Mendaki help to motivate Malay youth in Singapore to “shift gears” and make their lives a success.
lee believed that government efforts could help communities improve their lot and help narrow the inequalities between various ethnic groups. But he was never under any illusion that the economic or ethnic divide would soon be bridged.
“I think we are foolish if we believe that these things can be wished away. There are deep and abiding differences between groups. And whatever we do, we must remember that in Singapore, the Malays feel they are being asked to compete unfairly, that they are not ready for the competition against the Chinese and the Indians and the Eurasians. They will not admit or they cannot admit to themselves that, in fact, as a result of history, they are a different gene pool and they do not have these qualities that can enable them to enter the same race.
Lee Kuan Yew: The Man and His Ideas Page 23
