I SAY THIS not because I like a good bit of Singapore bashing, although I do, but for the sake of ordinary Singaporeans because I have read elder statesman Lee Kuan Yew's two-volume autobiography.
It convinces me that if this recession does not give Singapore a chance to break out of the mould in which he has cast it then any bounce up is likely to change into just another bounce down again at an early stage.
Let me give Mr Lee his due first.
He was the right man for his times. In the early 1960s communist subversion was a real threat that needed forceful counter-measures, there was a real need to define Singapore's place within a Malayan confederation and the Singapore economy needed a jump-start.
None of it could easily have been done within the political factionalism that would have prevailed in the absence of a strong leader.
But that was the 1960s and, although Mr Lee has supposedly taken a step back from the centre stage, you will pardon me if I think it is only to become prompter in a play in which he has also written every line for the actors.