Lee Kuan Yew: The Man and His Ideas

by Han Fook Kwang

  In this respect, the communist countries are thoroughly consistent. They have decided that the mass media is a very powerful instrument. They do not let anyone use it, other than those who will advance the cause of the communist state, and to advance its current policies. The Russians have even objected to anybody beaming any television programme on them without their consent. This is in anticipation of the next stage through satellite dissemination, when simple television sets can receive programmes via satellite.

  For developing countries the mass media, developed in the West, presents a specially sensitive problem. Its impact is bad enough in developed countries. Most Western democracies have problems in getting majority governments. Most governments are returned on a minority vote, whether it is in Canada or Britain. If you have laissez-faire in dissemination of views, regardless of whether they are truthful, sound or relevant, but because they sound smart or witty, the end result tends to be very erratic.

  However, when it comes to garnering votes, provided you are allowed to get your point of view across, however hostile the press or the TV commentators, a determined and effective political leadership can beat them.

  This is because the more hostile the media are, the more people make a mental discount of criticism and attacks. Those of you who lived through the Japanese occupation know how we interpreted the newspapers and the news broadcasts. When the Japanese said they had a famous victory in the Coral Sea, we looked for the small print to see how many ships they claimed to have sunk. Then we waited a few weeks to see how many hospital ships came back to harbour.

  But the mass media, particularly the TV, has an insidious and dangerous way of influencing values and changing behaviour patterns.

  You have to fill television time. You open your station at 5.30 pm. It has got to be kept going till midnight and on two channels. It costs thousands of dollars, creative minds and good supporting technicians to make a good feature. So it is easier to fill up by buying programmes, usually American or British. I have seen Perry Mason in Cairo, speaking Arabic. I watched in astonishment. Here was a country absolutely against the American system and establishment. But they faced the problem of filling time. There are many such popular series. But these programmes convey the whole ethos of the producer society.

  I have seen Perry Mason in Cairo, speaking Arabic.

  Similarly with newspapers. They have got to fill the pages. What is easier than to buy features? Some features are good. I enjoy reading James Reston, even though from time to time I disagree with his views. But many features are of indifferent quality, and some are positively bad.

  The most dangerous part of the mass media is its power of suggestion. People are imitative. If nobody had reported hijacking, or how easy and successful hijacking can be, there would not have been so many hijackings. I believe the Pilots’ Association was right that if you want to cut down hijackings, then report all the hijacking failures, and block out all the hijacking successes, particularly how they were successfully executed. The craze spread by imitation, until the impossible happened – they hijacked a Soviet aircraft. That took some doing. Obviously, despite the Iron Curtain, the ideas leaked through.

  This brings me to Singapore. I read a recent series in the New Nation. It was imitating what the Western journalists are doing. It was ostensibly respectable. First, a serious study of homosexuality. Then a protracted series on lesbianism. Then unwanted babies.

  The Lord Chief Justice of Britain said, in a recent case on pornography, that if anybody showed the muck in a case before him to his daughters, he would take the man and wring his neck with his own hands. How did it come to such a pass? By a gradual, insidious process of suggesting that this is all right, that there is nothing wrong with it. It has led to “anything and everything goes”.

  Twisting the necks of language and culture chauvinists would not have best served our purposes. They deserve special treatment.

  Fortunately for us, the New Nation, The Straits Times, or for that matter the Herald and the Eastern Sun, they did not, and do not, have the same impact on our population. The Chinese or the Malay press and, in a more limited way, the Indian press, in the mother language, makes much more emotive and powerful appeals. They pull at the heartstrings. That is why in the case of the Nanyang Siang Pau, though I did not twist their necks, we took firm measures. And the business is not over yet. Twisting the necks of language and culture chauvinists would not have best served our purposes. They deserve special treatment.

  Although The Straits Times prides itself on a very large circulation, of 120,000 on weekdays and 150,000 on Sundays, the total Chinese press circulation, Nanyang, Sin Chew, Shin Min, Min Pao, is double that. Every copy of a Chinese newspaper has at least two and a half to three times the readers of an English newspaper. Not only are the families who buy them larger, Chinese papers are found in all coffee shops, clan associations, clubs, eating places. The Bertha Hertogh riots took place not because of The Straits Times, but because of Utusan Melayu, though both printed pictures of the Dutch Eurasian Muslim convert in a convent. The Malay paper tugged at Muslim emotions in a way the English paper could not.

  We are a very exposed society. We cannot adopt either the Russian or Chinese method. We cannot shut off the outside world, jamming broadcasts and banning imports of publications. Even jamming is a difficult and expensive game.

  Whether it is on permissiveness of pornography, or on any subject, your duty, as indeed it is that of RTS [Radio and Television Singapore], is to inform, educate and entertain. Inform people of what is happening in Singapore and in all parts of the world, of events relevant to us. Educate them, not just in the three Rs, but continue the process which we are doing in the schools, inculcate values which will make Singapore a more cohesive society, and a viable nation. Entertain to sell your papers, but this can be done without unnecessary salacious or blue jokes.

  Even in business, news must be factual and correct. Let me read you the chairman’s statement of a British investment company called Hume’s Holdings Ltd, from their 46th annual report, September 1972. A sound, balanced chairman of an investment trust said this of his financial press. Whoever is responsible for our business pages should take this to heart. “Takeovers. A major factor affecting activity in the stock and share markets during the past year was the continuing and growing turnover in the ‘takeover’ market. Genuine mergers arising from quiet and objective negotiations between company boards with a view to commercial and industrial efficiency seem to be outdated. The spotlight of publicity given to the emotive and sometimes intemperate arguments employed by offering companies with a view to promoting vast industrial conglomerates, followed by greater commercial and industrial power in fewer hands, seems to be a fashion which some people may regard as being extremely inimical to the public interest.”

  The important part is: “The investor and the consumer, under these conditions (meaning emotive reporting), must find it increasingly difficult to judge the efficiency of and the fair price for the component parts of the various industrial and commercial processes which produce the end product or service. Whether the public is presented with an entirely objective view on these matters by spokesmen in the city and by the financial press, must be open to question.”

  Every morning, my task begins with reading five, four now, newspapers. It can be tiresome. I note the scurrilous, the scandalous. I can live with that. But when any newspaper pours a daily dose of language, cultural or religious poison, I put my knuckle-dusters on.

  He does not want to invite a libel suit, hence his phrase “an open question”. You should not be overawed just by the technical competence of the production. Because people in advanced countries write well, in polished rounded phrases, it does not mean the content is right. We should not follow them, imitating them stupidly and mindlessly. We should exercise our own moral judgement on whether that is good or bad for us.

  We have many cultural, many linguistic groups. One of the dangers of bilingualism is tha
t one day, sooner or later, large numbers of our population will be exposed to communist Chinese publications. I believe the risk is a calculated one, and minimal. Provided a person is also educated in the English language, he has a window open to another world. Then he can read communist literature and propaganda with some detachment, and exercise his own critical judgement.

  But when we ban communist literature, the Western press applauds. Nobody questions the rightness of that policy. These are dual standards the West imposes on us. If freedom of the press is not affected by banning most communist Chinese publications, then why not ban Western publications? But imagine the howl of protest every time Time or Newsweek is banned in Saigon or Thailand.

  The Western press had praised Manila as one of the great centres for freedom of expression, for giving full liberty to the human soul and spirit. I was amused to read that the gentleman who came to see me last year on behalf of the Press Foundation of Asia, Mr Roces, was recently arrested and detained. Now he is under house arrest.

  Even as we block communist printed propaganda every day, Nanyang, Sin Chew, Min Pao and Shin Min bypass it [the block] in exactly the way The Straits Times does. The Straits Times picks up foreign news services – Observer, New York Times, and so on. So the Chinese press picks up from Ta Kung Pao of Hongkong, a communist newspaper. They only reproduce what is published in Hongkong, and so pretend it is perfectly legitimate. After all, Hongkong is part of the free world.

  Every morning, my task begins with reading five, four now, newspapers. It can be tiresome. I note the scurrilous, the scandalous. I can live with that. But when any newspaper pours a daily dose of language, cultural or religious poison, I put my knuckle-dusters on.

  Do not believe you can beat the state. Mr Nixon, with Mr Agnew’s help, demonstrated that. I watched a programme one night 4 years ago, when Mr Nixon introduced his Cabinet, after he had just won the elections. Mr Agnew quite rightly said he, at least, had been voted for by the people and speaks for the majority. But these wiseacres, the skilful commentators, who can convey so much just by the right twinkle of an eye as they read the news – who voted for them? What right have they to pass hasty value judgements and tear down a president’s policies the instant they were announced?

  As Mr Nixon presented his first Cabinet, CBS had a panel of very quick, agile and nimble minds, ready to go. The moment Nixon was over, this panel of demolishers came on. They included John Kenneth Galbraith of The Affluent Society. He has a very felicitous turn of phrase which, if turned against you, can be quite waspish.

  He and most of the others began to shoot every one of Nixon’s team down. It made quite an impact on me. The Governor of Massachusetts, a Mr Volpe, was appointed Secretary for Transport. The Governor had been voted for, and had won his election. Most probably he would have beaten Galbraith if ever Galbraith stood for election against him. Galbraith said, “As for Governor Volpe, Massachusetts can well do better without him when he goes to Washington.” I am paraphrasing him. I cannot convey the derisive nuances.

  This panel did not know who would be in Mr Nixon’s team, or what job each member would be doing until it was announced that night. The panel had no time for considered judgements. The attitude was one of showbiz: “Right, let’s have some fun.” They shot the Nixon team down like clay pigeons – or so they thought.

  But in the end Mr Nixon won in spite of a hostile press and TV. I was interested to see how Time magazine quickly switched over support from McGovern and hailed the victor.

  Now, if in a developed society they can have such disorders aggravated, if not partly caused by the mass media, commentators and journalists in developing countries should not unthinkingly toss poison and pollution into the pool.

  I know even RTS trips up. I watched a programme one night at 11.30 p.m. There was one feature of a series. It must have cost very little to produce. All it had was a girl in a nightdress, a married man putting his clothes on and a telephone through which she was talking to all her other lovers. I wondered, “Is it Channel 5 or Channel 3?” I pressed again. It was Channel 5. First thing next morning, I shot off a note. RTS said it had been vetted. They put up a plausible explanation. A young university lady graduate thought the feature was good since it debunked the permissive society. This married man had got the 7-year itch. He needed to reassure himself of his virility. Telecasting it would show up the hollowness of the permissive society. When the middle-aged married man discovered that he was one among seven lovers, one for every day of the week, he collapsed, discomfited and demoralised. In the conversations over the phone, it turned out that none of the six minded his having his one day a week!

  Twenty years ago, you would not see Singapore boys and girls walking about with arms around each other’s waists.

  Filling time on television by buying feature serials allows this pervasive mood of promiscuity from the West to float in. We have got to fight it.

  Twenty years ago, you would not see Singapore boys and girls walking about with arms around each other’s waists. British boys and girls did that. Singaporeans did not. Their parents would frown upon it. Their friends would not admire them for having a boyfriend fondling them round the waist and parading them round the streets. But, gradually, through the daily exposure, they have come to accept this as normal decent behaviour.

  But there are certain norms of public conduct which, unless maintained, must affect the whole texture of that society. It is not possible to sustain the moral fibre of your society if “everything goes”. Everything does not go in Singapore. There are incentives and disincentives which will be applied. Some have a special responsibility – people in the news media, the PR man who draws his posters, the producers of snippets for television or cinema advertisement.

  Only one society is more exposed than us – Hongkong. There, everything goes. But nobody cares. Nobody is trying to build a nation in Hongkong. If they try, Beijing will come down on them. Nor does Hongkong have one-man-one-vote every five years. So everything goes, from the US 7th Fleet, to agents from Taiwan, to communist officials working in the Bank of China on top of which is the neon slogan “Long Live Chairman Mao”! The few Britons in charge read the South China Morning Post and the Hongkong Standard. The English press influences about 5 per cent of the population. When I am in Hongkong, I make a point of reading the Chinese press. If they tried representative government, one-man-one-vote, they would be ruined.

  We can control the input of the pernicious and the vicious and prevent our people from overexposure to what is bad. I believe the safest way is cultural inoculation, steeped early in our own traditional values. We can watch the temporary aberrations of the West without harm to ourselves. Americans can afford to lose five to six years in riotous, drug-induced madness. They can continue to grow and not collapse, because 208 million people have that momentum to carry them through these lost years.

  Nevertheless, I was astounded to learn how this madness had penetrated even their institutions of excellence. When I saw the decorations outside, I thought it was a bit early for Christmas. Then they told me it was for Thanksgiving! My mind went back to one Thanksgiving at Harvard not long ago. The whole college was closed for Thanksgiving. There was nothing to eat. So the Master of the College invited me to his home. And he had also invited several of his brightest students. The discussion turned to drugs. The brightest of them said he had tried LSD. This discussion was absolutely deadpan. There was no disapproval, no opprobrium expressed by anyone. The Master expressed surprise. He inquired what it was like. The student said, “That is exactly the point. Lots of people like to know about it. I think I might write about it in the next issue of the college magazine!”

  One night, in October 1970, somebody pressed the fire alarm at 12.30 am. Dogs, cats, boys, girls who should not have been there, all tumbled down into the quadrangle.

  This must be corrosive. In 1968, they told me 40 per cent smoked marijuana at weekends. In 1970, they told me 60 per cent smoked marijuana regularly. But
they claimed it did no harm at all.

  One night, in October 1970, somebody pressed the fire alarm at 12.30 a.m. Dogs, cats, boys, girls who should not have been there, all tumbled down into the quadrangle. But the young in America have reached a stage where if you were a girl, and you had no boy to go to for the weekend, you feel there must be something wrong with you. Maybe a new society will evolve in which roles are switched. All a male has to do is to spawn away. The female will look after herself and the children. The women are qualified to work. They can, if necessary, nurture any accidental or intended children. It does not matter whose child it is. Maybe such children will grow up less inhibited and more creative. The idea of knowing your father and your mother may become old-fashioned.

  Of course, man is adulterous. So is woman. And there is considerable hypocrisy about. But hypocrisy helps to maintain public decorum.

  But I would like to see this brave new world tried out elsewhere, for at least one generation. I am not in favour of experimentation until it has been proven. Until it is demonstrated that the change is for a better, stronger society, this experimentation is not for Singapore.

  Many a once scandalous conduct has become acceptable. Traditional values are being gradually eroded. There is a reason for taboos in society.

  For instance, in the old days, if you are a divorcee, you are not invited to Buckingham Palace. The reason was to discourage divorces and remarriages. Not that adultery did not take place. But then Cabinet ministers divorced their wives and remarried. Things become complicated. Eventually, their wives had to be accepted at the Palace. Because ministers have set an example, others followed. A principle once breached is easily demolished.

  We must inoculate ourselves from this epidemic. When the children are young, make them understand that there are basic traditional values they should hold fast to – what is good, what is bad, what is to be admired, what is to be despised, who is a hero, who is a villain. This is what we are trying to do in the schools through bilingualism. Do not shoot this down. If you do, you have got to fight me. I feel strongly about certain things, and this is one of them.