Opinion | Like Bismarck, Lee Kuan Yew's legacy risks being squandered
Toh Han Shih says there are parallels between Lee Kuan Yew and the great German leader Bismarck, and such figures are hard acts to follow
While covering the funeral of Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore last month, I witnessed my country grieving. Thousands lined up for hours to pay tribute to Singapore's founding father. One man queued from 11pm to 5am the next day to pay his respects to Lee, whose body was lying in state in Parliament House, and he went straight to work after that. In total, more than 1.2 million people paid their respects at different venues.
At a mass for Lee in a Catholic church, Singapore Catholic Archbishop William Goh said, "We are not canonising Mr Lee, because although he was a man of many achievements, he had his flaws." Goh cited the arrest of 22 people in 1987 under Singapore's Internal Security Act, including many with links to the Catholic Church, as a "dark period". Goh urged people to forgive Singapore's first prime minister and move on.
"Lee's critical legacy is fear and control. With Lee Kuan Yew's departure, Singaporeans can begin to grow up from our arrested adulthood," one of the men who were detained in that incident told the .
Lee's draconian measures were similar to those of a great German statesman, Otto von Bismarck. In the late 19th century, Bismarck pushed through anti-socialist laws which restricted political meetings, closed newspapers and led to the arrest of socialists. Lee was a key figure behind the arrest of members of the Barisan Socialis (a Singapore socialist party), newspaper editors and trade unionists in the early 1960s. There was nothing Asian in the methods of Lee, who had preached "Asian values".
Although Bismarck suppressed the socialists, he created Europe's first welfare state with pension schemes and workers' health care funds. Similarly, Lee created Singapore's Central Provident Fund and built affordable housing.
Bismarck united many disparate states into the German Empire, just as Lee united different racial and religious groups into the Singaporean nation. When Bismarck was de facto ruler of Prussia from 1862 to 1871 and Germany from 1871 to 1890, his country grew from a backward, largely rural economy to one of Europe's richest and most industrialised nations, while its army became the most powerful in Europe. Likewise, Lee bequeaths to Singapore one of Asia's richest countries with strong armed forces.
