Lee Kuan Yew: Difference between revisions

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Lee Kuan Yew was quite a bit more like [[Stalin]] than like Roosevelt, but, since Singapore is a tiny city-state and world-capitalist entrepôt, he also seemed resembled New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, under whom that world city, too, became cleaner, safer, more prosperous – and more sterile, unequal.

Like Giuliani and Stalin, Lee was clever, disciplined, effective, prescient, racist, vicious, vindictive and a control freak. He cleaned the streets and waterways, selected the shade trees, imposed a somewhat robotic examination-driven meritocracy in education, and secured the comforts of investors, and tourists, and tiny ~~Singapore’s~~ 70,000 resident millionaires (in U.S. dollars) and 15 billionaires by importing more than 1.5 million virtually rights-less migrant workers to keep wages down and instill fear and cultural sterility in generations of Singaporeans.

Like Giuliani and Stalin, Lee was clever, disciplined, effective, prescient, racist, vicious, vindictive and a control freak. He cleaned the streets and waterways, selected the shade trees, imposed a somewhat robotic examination-driven meritocracy in education, and secured the comforts of investors, and tourists, and tiny Singapore's 70,000 resident millionaires (in U.S. dollars) and 15 billionaires by importing more than 1.5 million virtually rights-less migrant workers to keep wages down and instill fear and cultural sterility in generations of Singaporeans.

But while any New York mayor is curbed by state and federal leaders and an independent judiciary, under a Constitution that was crafted in open debate among brilliant founders - Lee abolished all curbs and virtually wrote and interpreted the constitution by himself: ~~“We~~ have to lock up people, without trial, whether they are [[communist]]s, whether they are language chauvinists, whether they are religious extremists. If you don’t do that, the country would be in ruins,” he said in 1986 while imprisoning and cruelly abusing Catholic Church social-justice workers who were certainly opposed to his practices and whom he also claimed but never proved were Communists.

But while any New York mayor is curbed by state and federal leaders and an independent judiciary, under a Constitution that was crafted in open debate among brilliant founders - Lee abolished all curbs and virtually wrote and interpreted the constitution by himself: "We have to lock up people, without trial, whether they are [[communist]]s, whether they are language chauvinists, whether they are religious extremists. If you don’t do that, the country would be in ruins," he said in 1986 while imprisoning and cruelly abusing Catholic Church social-justice workers who were certainly opposed to his practices and whom he also claimed but never proved were Communists.

Like many a silver-tongued anti-colonialist, anti-racist firebrand who turns his colonial masters’ noble rhetoric against them but winds up employing their tactics against those he’s leading, Lee very tellingly foreshadowed his own transformation from tribune of the oppressed to autocrat of the oppressed during a 1956 debate in the colonial assembly by condemning Singapore’s British oppressors a bit too deliciously.

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As if acting out his own prescient taunt to the Brits about the delights of their repression, he used a terrified parliament and judiciary and press to smear, bankrupt, imprison, harass and exile other potential founding fathers.

And, with incredibly petty vindictiveness, ~~Lee’s~~ government pursued Chee Soon Juan, who was fired in 1993 from his teaching job at the National University of Singapore after he had joined an opposition party, and who was repeatedly imprisoned and bankrupted simply for joining an opposition party and for holding small street demonstrations to air criticisms that state-controlled media wouldn’t publish.

And, with incredibly petty vindictiveness, Lee's government pursued Chee Soon Juan, who was fired in 1993 from his teaching job at the National University of Singapore after he had joined an opposition party, and who was repeatedly imprisoned and bankrupted simply for joining an opposition party and for holding small street demonstrations to air criticisms that state-controlled media wouldn’t publish.

When Chee, who ~~couldn’t~~ pay his huge bankruptcy penalty, was prohibited from leaving the country to address a human-rights conference in Oslo, Thor Halvorssen, president of the Human Rights Foundation, published an open letter to ~~Lee’s~~ son , Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, noting that, ~~“In~~ the last 20 years he has been jailed for more than 130 days on charges including contempt of Parliament, speaking in public without a permit, selling books improperly, and attempting to leave the country without a permit. Today, your government prevents Dr. Chee from leaving Singapore because of his bankrupt status … It is our considered judgment that having already persecuted, prosecuted, bankrupted and silenced Dr. Chee inside Singapore, you now wish to render him silent beyond your own borders.”

When Chee, who couldn't pay his huge bankruptcy penalty, was prohibited from leaving the country to address a human-rights conference in Oslo, Thor Halvorssen, president of the Human Rights Foundation, published an open letter to Lee's son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, noting that, "In the last 20 years he has been jailed for more than 130 days on charges including contempt of Parliament, speaking in public without a permit, selling books improperly, and attempting to leave the country without a permit. Today, your government prevents Dr. Chee from leaving Singapore because of his bankrupt status … It is our considered judgment that having already persecuted, prosecuted, bankrupted and silenced Dr. Chee inside Singapore, you now wish to render him silent beyond your own borders."

Another one-time founding father of Singapore, its former solicitor general Francis Seow, had to flee the country after declaring that its Law Society, which he headed, could comment critically on government legislation. Seow was arrested and detained for 72 days under Singapore’s Internal Security Act on allegations that he had received funds from the United States to enter opposition politics. “[T]he prime minister uses the courts … to intimidate, bankrupt, or cripple the political opposition. Distinguishing himself in a caseful of legal suits commenced against dissidents and detractors for alleged defamation…, he has won them all,” wrote Seow , who, convicted and fined ''in absentia'' on a tax evasion charge by Singapore’s courts, lives in exile in Massachusetts, where he has been a fellow at the East Asian Legal Studies Program and the Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School.

@@ Line 23: / Line 23: @@
 Lee Kuan Yew was quite a bit more like [[Stalin]] than like Roosevelt, but, since Singapore is a tiny city-state and world-capitalist entrepôt, he also seemed resembled New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, under whom that world city, too, became cleaner, safer, more prosperous – and more sterile, unequal.
-Like Giuliani and Stalin, Lee was clever, disciplined, effective, prescient, racist, vicious, vindictive and a control freak. He cleaned the streets and waterways, selected the shade trees, imposed a somewhat robotic examination-driven meritocracy in education, and secured the comforts of investors, and tourists, and tiny Singapore’s 70,000 resident millionaires (in U.S. dollars) and 15 billionaires by importing more than 1.5 million virtually rights-less migrant workers to keep wages down and instill fear and cultural sterility in generations of Singaporeans.
+Like Giuliani and Stalin, Lee was clever, disciplined, effective, prescient, racist, vicious, vindictive and a control freak. He cleaned the streets and waterways, selected the shade trees, imposed a somewhat robotic examination-driven meritocracy in education, and secured the comforts of investors, and tourists, and tiny Singapore's 70,000 resident millionaires (in U.S. dollars) and 15 billionaires by importing more than 1.5 million virtually rights-less migrant workers to keep wages down and instill fear and cultural sterility in generations of Singaporeans.
-But while any New York mayor is curbed by state and federal leaders and an independent judiciary, under a Constitution that was crafted in open debate among brilliant founders - Lee abolished all curbs and virtually wrote and interpreted the constitution by himself: “We have to lock up people, without trial, whether they are [[communist]]s, whether they are language chauvinists, whether they are religious extremists. If you don’t do that, the country would be in ruins,” he said in 1986 while imprisoning and cruelly abusing Catholic Church social-justice workers who were certainly opposed to his practices and whom he also claimed but never proved were Communists.
+But while any New York mayor is curbed by state and federal leaders and an independent judiciary, under a Constitution that was crafted in open debate among brilliant founders - Lee abolished all curbs and virtually wrote and interpreted the constitution by himself: "We have to lock up people, without trial, whether they are [[communist]]s, whether they are language chauvinists, whether they are religious extremists. If you don’t do that, the country would be in ruins," he said in 1986 while imprisoning and cruelly abusing Catholic Church social-justice workers who were certainly opposed to his practices and whom he also claimed but never proved were Communists.
 Like many a silver-tongued anti-colonialist, anti-racist firebrand who turns his colonial masters’ noble rhetoric against them but winds up employing their tactics against those he’s leading, Lee very tellingly foreshadowed his own transformation from tribune of the oppressed to autocrat of the oppressed during a 1956 debate in the colonial assembly by condemning Singapore’s British oppressors a bit too deliciously.
@@ Line 31: / Line 31: @@
 As if acting out his own prescient taunt to the Brits about the delights of their repression, he used a terrified parliament and judiciary and press to smear, bankrupt, imprison, harass and exile other potential founding fathers.
-And, with incredibly petty vindictiveness, Lee’s government pursued Chee Soon Juan, who was fired in 1993 from his teaching job at the National University of Singapore after he had joined an opposition party, and who was repeatedly imprisoned and bankrupted simply for joining an opposition party and for holding small street demonstrations to air criticisms that state-controlled media wouldn’t publish.
+And, with incredibly petty vindictiveness, Lee's government pursued Chee Soon Juan, who was fired in 1993 from his teaching job at the National University of Singapore after he had joined an opposition party, and who was repeatedly imprisoned and bankrupted simply for joining an opposition party and for holding small street demonstrations to air criticisms that state-controlled media wouldn’t publish.
-When Chee, who couldn’t pay his huge bankruptcy penalty, was prohibited from leaving the country to address a human-rights conference in Oslo, Thor Halvorssen, president of the Human Rights Foundation, published an open letter to Lee’s son , Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, noting that, “In the last 20 years he has been jailed for more than 130 days on charges including contempt of Parliament, speaking in public without a permit, selling books improperly, and attempting to leave the country without a permit. Today, your government prevents Dr. Chee from leaving Singapore because of his bankrupt status … It is our considered judgment that having already persecuted, prosecuted, bankrupted and silenced Dr. Chee inside Singapore, you now wish to render him silent beyond your own borders.”
+When Chee, who couldn't pay his huge bankruptcy penalty, was prohibited from leaving the country to address a human-rights conference in Oslo, Thor Halvorssen, president of the Human Rights Foundation, published an open letter to Lee's son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, noting that, "In the last 20 years he has been jailed for more than 130 days on charges including contempt of Parliament, speaking in public without a permit, selling books improperly, and attempting to leave the country without a permit. Today, your government prevents Dr. Chee from leaving Singapore because of his bankrupt status … It is our considered judgment that having already persecuted, prosecuted, bankrupted and silenced Dr. Chee inside Singapore, you now wish to render him silent beyond your own borders."
 Another one-time founding father of Singapore, its former solicitor general Francis Seow, had to flee the country after declaring that its Law Society, which he headed, could comment critically on government legislation. Seow was arrested and detained for 72 days under Singapore’s Internal Security Act on allegations that he had received funds from the United States to enter opposition politics. “[T]he prime minister uses the courts … to intimidate, bankrupt, or cripple the political opposition. Distinguishing himself in a caseful of legal suits commenced against dissidents and detractors for alleged defamation…, he has won them all,” wrote Seow , who, convicted and fined ''in absentia'' on a tax evasion charge by Singapore’s courts, lives in exile in Massachusetts, where he has been a fellow at the East Asian Legal Studies Program and the Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School.