Singapore: analysis of a great leader

Singapore sembra un’isola felice e forse lo è. Uno strano miscuglio tra Cina e  Malaysia; colta, pulita, ricca e effervescente. Lee Kuan Yew  capo carismatico con una velatura di dittatore ha però formato lo stato moderno di Singapore imponendo legge e ordine. Come sempre poi succede a quelle latitudini…ha instaurato una ‘democrazia…ereditaria’ per la quale ha lasciato il potere a suo figlio, che però continua a consigliare negli affari di stato. Interessante esperimento.

Il Direttore Scientifico: Maria Gabriella Pasqualini

Singapore, one of the safest and least corrupted countries in the world, with his small 640 m2 land and a population of 5 million people, owes the success to its founding father who headed Singapore from the third world to the first during his forty years of leadership.

Lee Kuan Yew was born in 1923 in Singapore and made his law studies at Cambridge University in the UK  from 1946 to 1950. Although influenced by the British culture, he returned to Singapore with the determination to get rid of British colonial rule and give Singapore to the Singaporeans.

At the age of 35, in 1959,

 became Singapore’s first elected prime minister. As he says in one of his works “there are books to teach you how to build a house, how to repair engines, how to write a book. But I have not seen a book on how to build a nation out of a disparate collection of immigrants from China, British India, and the Dutch East Indies, or how to make a living for its people when its former economic role as the entrepot of the region is becoming defunct”.

In 1963 Singapore joined the Federation of Malaysia but this union did not work and finally the independence for this small city-state arrived in 1965. Lee Kuan Yew’s Singapore was not a natural country but a man-made, a trading post the British had developed into a nodal point in their worldwide maritime empire. “We inherited the island without its hinterland, a heart without a body” – he writes. His task did not seem easy at all.

Despite the difficulties, Lee Kuan Yew, supported by his party, the PAP (People’s Action Party) felt his duty was to give his people hope and not demoralize them, and he started his job step by step, according what he considered the very first priorities:

• Get international recognition for Singapore’s independence

The choice of a good minister of foreign affairs was an important step for his government and Singapore could take its place at the UN table in 1965

• Defend the territory

“Building an army from scratch” is the title of the second chapter of his famous book. Singapore had never had an army and when the countries he counted on turned their back, he was able to look forward and find a solution. A secret collaboration with Israel started until some more countries offered their help in training soldiers and supply equipment and Singapore could handle the continuous Malaysian threat.

• Keeping law and order

Singapore lived racial riots and race related problems many times at the beginning of its creation, but the Minister Mentor was determined to make it clear to all that the government would enforce the law impartially regardless of race or religion. With a majority of Chinese Singaporeans, he never let his government be impartial and discriminate the minorities.

• How to make a living for his people

He based everything on the people as Singapore had no natural resources. He believed Singapore needed to be different from its neighbors. His housing plan included an area dedicated to the clean industries that settled in the country such as Philips, Apple, Motorola, Hewlett-Packard, Mitsubishi etc who gave a job to many young women and housewives.

Lee kuan Yew was supported by a good entourage with whom he used to share opinions but never he hesitated in taking the final decision wherever he believed it necessary. Often criticized by the Western and accused of dictatorship, he had to build a nation from the nothing.

A fair, not welfare society

“We believed in socialism, in fair shares for all. Later, we learned that personal motivation and personal rewards were essential for a productive economy”. The construction of his society was based on this concept and followed by three main points: housing, public health and education.

He believed in the sense of ownership as vital for a new society which had no deep roots in a common historical experience. The home ownership scheme launched in 1963 by the Housing and Development Board (HDB), revised in 1968, let the Singaporeans own and apartment for them and their families. Transforming the rural society was not easy and the culture shock was inevitable. He tells many stories about this shock such as people scared of elevators or keep willing have pigs and chickens in the new apartments for a long while.

The Central Provident Fund (CPF) started by the British and clearly inadequate as pension scheme, was revised and could be used also for a take-home pay, co-pay medical expenses and savings as retirement benefits of pension.

 

Lee Kuan Yew’s ’s aim was to avoid placing the burden of the present generation’s welfare costs onto the next generation. Looking at the pension system in Europe and America – and learned lessons from the failure of the welfare in Britain and Sweden – he decided that all workers should accumulate their own savings for old age. He found fairer and sounder to have each generation pay for itself and each person save for his own pension fund.

Same concept for the public health. Studying the British National health Service, a failure, and the American-style medical insurance schemes, expensive, Lee Kuan Yew decided for a Singaporean solution. Instituting the Medisave, the Medishield and the Medifund, the new system was a fair success.

Keeping the government clean was another huge success. He fought hard the corruption in his government until he and his Party could establish the opinion that corruption in public office is a threat to society and honesty became a habit in Singapore culture.

The Minister Mentor

Great observer of human behavior, both charismatic and transformational, servant and participative leader, he was the creator of the Singapore we know, a safe, rich, green and not corrupted city-state, a model of incredible success. Often criticized by his opponents and defined as a democratic dictator by the Western countries, with a lack of flexibility, Lee Kuan Yew remained in power for over forty years until he stepped down from his position in 1990. To this day, he still remains as one of Singapore’s most influential politicians and currently serves as Minister Mentor to Singapore’s current Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, his son. The new government is facing new challenges like the aging of the country, the need of renewal some public transport infrastructures, the increase in the cost of living. Will it be able to follow the teachings of one of the greater leaders of the history?

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