Somewhere In China ?

Hantu Laut


It's the reality of Malaysian politics.


Polarisation of the races, fault of not only the Malays, but equally responsible, if not more, are the Chinese and Indians, giving too much prominence to their own culture and language and giving national identity and the national language a backseat.


I have nothing against people speaking their own language anywhere, anytime, but it would be more appropriate to use the national language in political gatherings, political debate or political speeches of any kind if one truly believe in the making of a national identity. 


The U.S is one nation that has become analogous, the cohesion of different ethnic origins to proudly call themselves American. They speak one common language while maintaining whatever culture and language peculiar to them.So do the Japanese,Korean,Chinese and so forth.


One can understand if the elderly Chinese or Indians can't muster the Malay language but for  the very young generations who can't speak fluent Malay is an abomination.

 

 Advertised on a rabid pro-opposition blog.


Insincere politicians that provide lip service and pro-opposition bloggers who plastered their blogs with posters and banners depicting the desire for "Oneness" is nothing but a charade and pulling wool over the eyes. Needless to say, their hypocritical indulgence are doing great disservice to the nation.


Strange as it may sound for a Chinese, one Hannah Yeoh, a DAP state assemblyman, a great pretender of some kind, demanded that her newborn's race be recorded as "Malaysian" in the birth certificate. She Is Chinese and her husband Indian. It makes one wonder since when the word "Malaysian" has become a genealogy of race. 


What makes more sense and more appropriate would be for her to ask for  "Chindian" as her child's race, a more appropriate genealogy for offspring born of wedlock of Indian and Chinese parents, which are already in use, unofficially. If Eurasian can be the epithet of race, why not Chindian and Machin for the offspring of Malay who married Chinese? Maybe, Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka should coin these words for general usage.


I am for doing away with the race column because I suffered the same malady as the Chinese and Indians because of my grandfather's origin.My birth certificate shows I am of sub-continent origin though I have natives blood in me.For all intents and purposes I would or should be a Malay because we have for few generations shed the Afghan/Persian culture and took up the Malay custom and language.


My criticism is not directed toward any race but against politicians in general and in this particular case, Chinese politicians, who, sadly and selfishly, have taken chauvinistic approach toward the national language. These are the very same people who talked incessantly about integration of the races and domination of multiracialism in a pluralistic society yet do everything possible against achieveing that objective.

A nation must have a lingua franca (common language) before it can speak of national identity.In that respect the Indonesian Chinese are more adapt to speaking the Indonesian language among themselves even when they travel overseas.If you are inside Indonesia you would be hard pressed to tell the difference between Indonesian Chinese and Indonesian Malay because they speak the same language.For that matter, Thailand and the Philippines are the same where Chinese had become inconspicuous, thoroughly assimilated and adopted local culture and names.


Two months ago my wife and I was in Hong Kong and had dinner in an Indonesian restaurant, next to our table was a group 10 elderly Chinese all looking as Chinese as can be.We soon realised they are not Hong Kong Chinese because they spoke in Indonesian and occasionally in Chinese.


How is the DAP going to woo the Malays to join the party and field Malay candidates in elections if their political gatherings and debates appeared as if they were held somewhere in China.


They talked about the unfair advantage of the current system favoring Malays and discrimination against other races when they themselves could hardly shed their bastion of Chinese chauvinism.They forget or could not care less that there are other Malaysians who are interested to hear what they have to say about national politics and not confine the gathering to just an all Chinese affairs.


I have many Chinese friends, they may agree or disagree with me, but the truth is out there. I foresee Malaysia's hazardous long and winding road to win national identity.......a failure that rest squarely on the shoulders of the three major races in the country.


Religion may be seen as one of the dividing factors to national unity which is understandable but should not be a major cause of failure of attaining national identity. The U.S is more complicated, a more diverse melting pot but they all consider themselves American first.


The Arabs, the Pakistanis and other Muslims who migrated to the West had turned out to be the misfits of Western society due to their refusal to shed some of their cultural practices that could not sit well in a Western concept.They ended up isolated from the general population and live in their parochial and clannish hemisphere.


The old adage "When in Rome do as the Romans do" always rang true.





Everything including posters and banners exclusively in Chinese.For the less initiated you may think it was somewhere in China. I did, when I watched the first few minutes of the video.



More debate, somewhere in China


In singapore, most leaders are trilingual.


Meet Singapore founding father:


Kuan Yew's National Day speech

Malaysian Chinese leaders should take a leaf out of the books of Singapore top Chinese leaders who had no qualm and not shy away from being fluent in Malay even though Singapore is predominantly Chinese and they can give two hoots about speaking Malay.

The Bar Council: Give Them The Lee Kuan Yew's Remedy

Hantu Laut


Yes! Start a new bar, academy of law or whatever, where lawyers are lawyers,  not loudmouth politically bias legal pariahs cooking the government's goose for the opposition.

It's as clear as day they are taking sides. 

Start a new bar council or influence members of the bar to kick out the punkish committee, the progeny of that opposition mole Ambiga Sreenevasan.


Defender of freedom and the downtrodden, my foot!


This government wasn't born yesterday.Stop fooling the people that you are lawyers, you are not, your are uncouth lawyers and politicians. 

Step into the ring if you want a fair fight.Don't shit on me under the protective cover of the Legal Profession Act


Yes! Give them the Lee Kuan Yew's remedy for their long suffering illness.


In 1988, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew when debating the bill on the new Academy Of Law said it was his duty to put an end to politicking in professional bodies.


He said “If you want to politicise, you form your own party… you think you can be smarter than the government and outsmart it, well, if you win, you form the government. If I win, we have a new Law Society. It is as simple as that,”

Members of The Bar Council have lost  their impunity. They have shown complete indiscretion and abused of the Legal Profession Act.


Enough is enough! It's time to kick their arses!

Singapore's Lee Family and Nepotism

A blogger feels the wrath of the ruling family

Singapore’s ruling Lee family, apparently angered by a comment made on a Singapore-based blog Temasek Review Emeritus, has come down hard, with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, his wife, Ho Ching, his brother Lee Hsien Yang, all demanding apologies for intimating that they have filled top government positions with family members.

Lee Kuan Yew became prime minister of Singapore in 1959 and ran the place until 1990, when he stepped down to become a senior minister and then was appointed minister mentor by his son, with many of his critics alleging he has continued to run the island republic from behind the scenes. After an interregnum from 1990 to 2004 when Goh Chok Tong held the premiership, Lee Hsien Loong took over as prime minister and has led the People’s Action Party government since.

Among other Lee family members who have held high positions in government are the elder Lee’s daughter, Lee Wee Ling, who is director of the National Neurological Institute. His other son, Lee Hsien Yang, was chief executive officer of Singapore Telecommunications from May 1995 until April 2007. He was appointed the chairman of the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore in 2009.

Ho Ching, Hsien Loong’s wife, has run Temasek Holdings, the sovereign wealth fund controlled by the Singapore Ministry of Finance, since 2002 after serving as president and chief executive officer of the government-owned Singapore Technologies. Although she has been criticized for some disastrous investments, including one in former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s Shin Corp that Fortune Magazine called a "spectacular misjudgment" as well as several others in flagging western investment banks, she has never been asked to step down.

TR Emeritus, as the blog is known, hastily took down the article, which is no longer available. Apparently written by a contributor or in response to another article, it has been described as pointing out that the elder Lee’s appointing Hsien Loong prime minister and Hsien Loong appointing his wife to head Temasek Holdings “was nothing short of ‘cronyism’ and nepotism.”

The blog has posted a full apology, saying, among other things, that “we recognize that the article meant or was understood to mean that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong had secured, or was instrumental in securing, the appointment of his wife, Mdm Ho Ching, as the Chief Executive Officer of Temasek Holdings (Private) Limited for nepotistic motives. We admit and acknowledge that this allegation is false and completely without foundation. We unreservedly apologize to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong for the distress and embarrassment caused to him by this allegation.”

Richard Wan, representing TR Emeritus, was unreachable. He posted a statement on the website saying he would no longer respond to questions from the press. He also asked TRE readers to “refrain from making such comments about Mdm Ho Ching with regard to her appointment in Temasek Holdings (Private) Limited. Any such allegations put up by anyone on TRE will be deleted.”

That may not have been enough. On Feb. 17, the government-controlled New Paper reported the parliament had pushed through an amendment to the Evidence Act that gives the courts the discretion to admit deleted online posts as evidence. The amendment, according to the paper, gives the courts “the discretion to consider relevant evidence by widening the admissibility of several categories. Among them are changes to the computer output evidence - which means computer printouts and sound and video recordings can be treated just like other evidence in Singapore courts.Read more.

Living A Life With No Regrets

Hantu Laut

The man that I have always admired.No world leaders of this century can match this man's love for his country and sheer determination to build up a tiny island nation into one of the most modern and prosperous nations in the world.

The article below is a tribute from his daughter.

Living a life with no regrets - Lee Wei Ling

When all is said and done, my father has led a meaningful and purposeful life

About 20 years ago, when I was still of marriageable age, my father Lee Kuan Yew had a serious conversation with me one day. He told me that he and my mother would benefit if I remained single and took care of them in their old age. But I would be lonely if I remained unmarried.

I replied: 'Better lonely than be trapped in a loveless marriage.'

I have never regretted my decision.

Twenty years later, I am still single. I still live with my father in my family home. But my priorities in life have changed somewhat.

Instead of frequent trips overseas by myself, to attend medical conferences or to go on hikes, I only travel with my father nowadays.

Like my mother did when she was alive, I accompany him so that I can keep an eye on him and also keep him company. After my mother became too ill to travel, he missed having a family member with whom he could speak frankly after a long tiring day of meetings.

At the age of 88, and recently widowed, he is less vigorous now than he was before May 2008 when my mother suffered a stroke. Since then I have watched him getting more frail as he watched my mother suffer. After my mother passed away, his health deteriorated further before recovering about three months ago.

He is aware that he can no longer function at the pace he could just four years ago. But he still insists on travelling to all corners of the Earth if he thinks his trips might benefit Singapore.

We are at present on a 16-day trip around the world. The first stop was Istanbul for the JPMorgan International Advisory Council meeting. We then spent two days in the countryside near Paris to relax. Then it was on to Washington DC, where, in addition to meetings at the White House, he received the Ford's Theatre Lincoln Medal.

As I am writing this on Thursday, we are in New York City where he has a dinner and a dialogue session with the Capital Group tonight, and Government of Singapore Investment Corporation meetings tomorrow. After that, we will spend the weekend at former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger's country home in Connecticut. Influential Americans will be driving or flying in to meet my father over dinner on Saturday and lunch on Sunday.

Even for a healthy and fit man of 88, the above would be a formidable programme. For a recently widowed man who is still adjusting to the loss of his wife, and whose level of energy has been lowered, it is even more challenging.

But my father believes that we must carry on with life despite whatever personal setbacks we might suffer. If he can do something that might benefit Singapore, he will do so no matter what his age or the state of his health. For my part, I keep him company when he is not preoccupied with work, and I make sure he has enough rest.

Though I encourage him to exercise, I also dissuade him from over exerting himself. I remind him how he felt in May last year when, after returning from Tokyo, he delivered the eulogy at Dr Goh Keng Swee's funeral the next day.

He had exercised too much in the two days preceding the funeral, against my advice. So naturally, he felt tired, and certainly looked tired on stage, as he delivered his tribute to an old and treasured comrade-in-arms. A few of my friends were worried by how he looked and messaged me to ask if my father was OK. Now when I advise him not to push himself too hard, he listens.

The irony is I did not take my own advice at one time and it was he who stopped me from over-exercising. Once, in 2001, while I was recovering from a fracture of my femur, he limited my swimming. He went as far as to ask a security officer to time how long I swam. If I exceeded the time my physician had prescribed, even if it was just by a minute, he would give me a ticking off that evening.

Now the situation is reversed. But rather than finding it humorous, I feel sad about it.

Whether or not I am in the pink of health is of no consequence. I have no dependants, and Singapore will not suffer if I am gone. Perhaps my patients may miss me, but my fellow doctors at the National Neuroscience Institute can take over their care. But no one can fill my father's role for Singapore.

We have an extremely competent Cabinet headed by an exceptionally intelligent and able prime minister who also happens to be my brother. But the life experience that my father has accumulated enables him to analyse and offer solutions to Singapore's problems that no one else can.

But I am getting maudlin. Both my father and I have had our fair share of luck, and fate has not been unfair to us. My father found a lifelong partner who was his best friend and his wife. Together with a small group of like-minded comrades, he created a Singapore that by any standards would be considered a miracle. He has led a rich, meaningful and purposeful life.

Growing old and dying occurs to all mortals, even those who once seemed like titanium. When all is said and done, my father - and I too, despite my bouts of ill health - have lived lives that we can look back on with no regrets. As he faces whatever remains of his life, my father's attitude can be summed up by these lines in Robert Frost's poem Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening:

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

This article appeared in the Sunday Times on 23 Oct 2011.

'Disease has not affected my mind, my will, my resolve'

SINGAPORE - Singapore's founding father Lee Kuan Yew has said that a neurological disease has not affected him mentally, a local report said Monday.

"I have no doubt at all that this has not affected my mind, my will nor my resolve," the former prime minister, who turned 88, was quoted as saying in The Straits Times.

"People in wheelchairs can make a contribution. I've still got two legs, I make a contribution," he said.

Lee said the disease surfaced two years ago when he was 86.

"At 86, many of my contemporaries are either in wheelchairs or not around. So I'm grateful to be still around at 86, although less steady than before," he said at the sidelines of a community event.

"But as you see, one learns to adjust, and I take steps which are wider apart to maintain some balance."

Lee's battle against the neurological disease was first revealed on Sunday by his daughter Lee Wei Ling, director of the National Neuroscience Institute of Singapore, in her weekly column in the Sunday Times newspaper.

She said Lee was suffering from sensory peripheral neuropathy which has caused the sensation from his legs to the spinal cord to be impaired and made his walking unsteady.

She said her father was determined to fight the disease and practised walking on a treadmill at home three times a day without fail.Read more.

The Infallible Anwar Ibrahim

Hantu Laut

When everyone think the undesirable side effects of the sex video has worn off, alas, new CCTV video evidence has emerged that revealed Anwar and Eskay's arrival and departure from the building at about the same time the sex video was taken of Anwar's sexual tryst.

Why is Eskay trying to fix Anwar whom he claimed his very good friend? I must say, it's one million dollar question, or larger still, maybe, a twenty million ringgit question.Why Eskay betrayed Anwar is still a mystery.

Would you sellout your very good friend for money? Obviously, some people would do anything for money.You good Christians would know who Judas is? His full name is Judas Iscariot, one of the 12 disciples of Jesus, who betrayed him for 30 pieces of silver.

Is Eskay a Judas or a 'man of conscience' as he claimed to be when he exposed the sex video?

Anwar may have weaknesses that his friends knew they can take advantage of if they do not get what they want from him.

In Western society politicians and those holding high public office better stay clear of weaknesses of character because if you are caught with your pants down you are dead meat, your opponents and society in general would make sure they send you to the dustbin of history. Many political angels in the West have fallen on the wayside for their sexual indiscretions, but in Malaysia it is a small matter. If one is to go by the Western moral standard a leader must possess, oppositions leaders and Anwar's supporters have made Anwar an exception to the rule. He is just infallible, incapable of committing sins or even if he did it's nobody's business.

As usual there would be a quick denial from PKR. Here, the sycophantic PKR vice president N.Surendran who usually wasted no time blaming UMNO for all of Anwar's woes has become an expert in photo analysis.

Instead of saying the man in the video is a spitting image of Anwar, which is obvious even to the naked eyes, he blamed UMNO for planning and faking the video.He also questioned the shirt that Eskay used, saying it is not the same shirt as in the sex video.

Obviously, he knew very little about photography and make a quack analysis of the video.He probably have not heard of 'backlighting' where the object in front of the camera with a light source behind him would be in silhouette and would appear dark and colourless. The video was exactly that, Eskay was in silhouette and Anwar facing the light source. Eskay could also have brought a spare shirt to change after his own act. The sex video revealed a door to an adjoining room which Eskay eventually escaped to leaving Anwar on his own.

Here, Anwar says PKR will not indulge in smut politics and will not waste time countering this kind of dirty politics. They will counter-terrorise the BN with socio-economic issues. Well and good. Anyway, Malaysia is not alone in the global economic downturn, many Western nations are in worse positions, some on the verge of bankruptcy. Just think of Greece,Ireland,Spain,Portugal and even the U.S, which recently have to increase its debt ceiling because it ran out of cash.

Malaysians are spoilt lot, they want every thing cheap or free, and if they don't get it, they blame the government and more often than not instigated by badass politicians.It's also very true the government must look after the welfare of the people but giving subsidies on almost every consumables imaged would eventually break the finances of the nation.

I do believe there was something very wrong with the government finances and economic policy that began to rot under the previous administration and is getting worse. If Najib do not find a formula to arrest the slide he would be sitting duck soon. His decision to scrap the ISA and other draconian laws has been well received by majority of the people.He may need new 'necessary evil' laws to take care of terrorism and national security which the oppositions have declared they would oppose.

I am in Cambodia at the moment, a poor country, very much poorer than Malaysia.Amazingly, the price of regular petrol is US$1.13 and premium petrol at US$1.36 per litre, much much higher than in Malaysia but the Cambodians took it in their strides knowing with the high world prices of oil there is nothing much their government can do.Those who can't afford would not buy a car, they buy small motorbikes which consumed much less petrol or take the tuk-tuk which is dirt cheap, a bit uncomfortable, but it gets you there. Cars are dirt cheap too and what are considered posh cars in Malaysia are ordinary and common cars here.Range Rovers,Hummers,Porsche Cayenne,Lexus are common cars on the dirty and sometimes muddy streets of PhnomPenh.

In Malaysia a guy who earned less than RM1,000 would dare buy a car, a Kancil at least. No deposit and low instalment payments were the main attractions but they forgot they have to fuel, maintain and repair the car.Unfortunately, that's the typical Malaysian psyche and more rampant among the bumiputras.

If you can't get it blame the government.

Malaysia must get out of the middle income trap and the only way is to increase productivity, wages and standard of living, certainly not by giving subsidies.Direct subsidies should only be given to the old and infirm.

Lee Kuan Yew (LKY) may not be wrong when he says Anwar probably knew about the trap but "walked into", and he did indeed commit the acts for which he is currently indicted.

Anwar has threatened to sue LKY but there seemed to be no progress on the case.

Taking LKY on would be like living between a rock and a hard place, may just open another can of worms.

Lee Kuan Yew's Chinese Excellence And Malay Paradox

Hantu Laut

Reported in the Straits Times, Feb 7th:

BY THE time Singaporean kids start Primary school, one in four are myopic. One in two Primary 6 pupils are myopic and towards the end of their teenage years, four in five 18-year-old males are myopic - and the trend is believed to be similar for females.

These alarming statistics has earned Singapore the unofficial title of one of the most myopic nations in the world. Ophthalmologists in Singapore cite genetic and environmental factors as the reasons for such high rates of myopia - or short-sightedness - in Singapore.

Also, Singaporeans' lifestyle which usually involves near-work activities such as watching television and using the computer for prolonged periods of time, contributes to soaring rates of myopia here.

Amy Chua had better described the Chinese gruelling parenting for excellence in her book "The Battle Hymn Of The Tiger Mother" which not only exist in the Chinese American families but among most Chinese Diaspora worldwide and I say Singapore should take distinction in this obsessive compulsive parenting.

My ten-year stay in Singapore where my children were educated have witnessed how parents particularly mothers pressured their children to reach academic excellence with almost zero tolerance.It's all work and no play for many Singapore's children.

A sore pimple in the Malay Archipelago, this 704 sq. kilometer (1/3 reclaimed land) nation outshone its bigger neighbours in academic and economic excellence.

The man who almost single-handedly transformed this tiny island nation into an economic powerhouse that have put bigger and more resourceful nations to shame had also created an ophthalmic nightmare and a society of rat-racers.

Political correctitude is not in his vocabulary.If success breeds arrogance than Lee Kuan Yew has it all and his cut is often the deepest with little attempt at diplomacy even when dealing with his bigger neighbours.

Lee is not an enigma, is not a person who generally expressed himself in metaphorical or allegorical language, he often spades in ethnicity and the genealogical trees that makes him looked like a consummated racist.He spares no time for turkeys.He has paid tribute to the minority Sri Lankan Tamil in Singapore and agonised the Malays at home and across the Malay Archipelago.

His diatribes had angered and caused much discomfort to his neighbours.

The Malays, particularly across the causeway have taken great exception to some of his salvos.

Here, a worthy read on Lee Kuan Yew and the Singapore Malays.

Also read:
Dr M:Kuan Yew just a 'mayor'

Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew Urges Muslims to ‘Be Less Strict’

Temasek

Singapore’s founding father Lee Kuan Yew has urged local Muslims to “be less strict on Islamic observances” to aid integration and the city-state’s nation-building process.

Singapore has a predominantly Chinese population, with minority races including Muslim Malays and Indians, and Lee has always stressed the importance of racial harmony.

“I would say today, we can integrate all religions and races except Islam,” he said in “Lee Kuan Yew: Hard Truths to Keep Singapore Going,” a new book containing his typically frank views on the city-state and its future.

“I think we were progressing very nicely until the surge of Islam came and if you asked me for my observations, the other communities have easier integration — friends, intermarriages and so on…” he stated.

“I think the Muslims socially do not cause any trouble, but they are distinct and separate,” Lee added, calling on the community to “be less strict on Islamic observances.”

During the book’s launch on Friday, the self-described “pragmatist” warned Singaporeans against complacency, saying the largely ethnic Chinese republic was still a nation in the making.

Describing Singapore in the book as an “80-storey building on marshy land,” Lee said it must contend with hostility from larger Muslim neighbors.

“We’ve got friendly neighbors? Grow up… There is this drive to put us down because we are interlopers,” he said, citing alleged Malaysian and Indonesian efforts to undermine Singapore’s crucial port business.

Singapore was ejected from the Malaysian federation in 1965 in large part due to Kuala Lumpur’s preferential policies for ethnic Malays, and has since built up Southeast Asia’s most modern military to deter foreign aggression.

Turning to local politics, Lee said the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP), which has been in power since 1959 when Singapore gained political autonomy from colonial ruler Britain, will someday lose its grip on power.

“There will come a time when eventually the public will say, look, let’s try the other side, either because the PAP has declined in quality or the opposition has put up a team which is equal to the PAP… That day will come.”

“In the next 10 years to 20 years, I don’t think it’ll happen. Beyond that, I cannot tell.”

Lee said that despite a survey showing the contrary, he believed Singaporeans were not yet ready for a non-ethnic-Chinese prime minister.

“A poll says 90 percent of Chinese Singaporeans say they will elect a non-Chinese as PM. Yes, this is the ideal. You believe these polls? Utter rubbish. They say what is politically correct,” he stated.

He also defended the policy of promoting marriage between highly-educated Singaporeans, a policy seen by critics as a form of social engineering, and dismissed the notion of love at first sight.

“People get educated, the bright ones rise, they marry equally well-educated spouses. The result is their children are likely to be smarter than the children of those who are gardeners,” he said.

“It’s a fact of life. You get a good mare, you don’t want a dud stallion to breed with your good mare. You get a poor foal.”

People who are “attracted by physical characteristics” may regret it, he said.

Lee also revealed that he had donated to charity all his earnings of 13 million Singapore dollars ($10 million) since stepping down as prime minister in 1990 after 31 years in power.

Singapore’s cabinet ministers are the highest paid in the world as part of a strategy to prevent corruption and attract talent from the private sector.

Lee, who holds the special title minister mentor, now serves as an adviser to his son Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who came to power in 2004.

Amid all the hard-edged talk, Lee showed his tender side when asked about his late wife Kwa Geok Choo, who died aged 89 in October last year.

“It means more solitude. No one to talk to when the day’s work is done,” Lee said in the book, the result of exclusive interviews with journalists from the country’s leading daily, the Straits Times.
Source: Agence France-Presse

Poem For Harry Lee

This is the story of Harry Lee Kuan Yew,

Promised us he’ll govern Singapore anew,

Claimed to be better than Marshall the Jew,

So to him and the PAP our votes flew,

Then seemingly he came in as PM the new,

But soon us S’poreans he started to screw,

One by one all our rights away he blew,

Our brave ones disagreed with his view,

So under the ISA in prison them he threw,

One such poor soul was Dr. Lim Hock Siew,

With a hatchet everyone he threatens to slew,

And in extreme fear of him Singaporeans grew,

Highest salaries he and his ministers withdrew,

Boasting that they are the only brightest few,

Today life in Singapore is no honey and dew,

It has become so bad even a gum you can’t chew,

So its time time to vote out Lee and his crew,

Since all their evils we now already knew.

.

Deen

Temasek

Singapore Malays:A Questioned Loyalty

Hantu Laut

Did Mahathir provoke the Singapore Malays? Yes! he did and quite rightly so.What Mahathir inferred of the Singapore Malays was not far from the truth.

Are the Malays in Singapore marginalised?

Indeed, they are, but they are just too ashamed to admit that they are and looked down upon by the majority race. This can be clearly seen in the job market both in the private sector and the civil service where preference were for Chinese first, Indian second and Malay last.

Unless the Malay is really outstanding his chance of securing the job against his Chinese compatriot of equal educational standing is almost zero.Most jobs in Singapore called for applicants to be able to speak Mandarin which cancelled out most Malay applicants.The Singapore government also practised a policy of no Malays in sensitive positions in the civil service as their loyalty are much doubted.

In 1986 following the visit of Israeli President Chiam Herzog, which triggered off massive protests in Malaysia the then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew questioned Malay's loyalty and said "Are we sure that in a moment of crisis, when the heat is on, we are all together heart to heart? I hope so. But we ought to have a fallback position and quickly fill up all the missing hearts if some go missing."

In February 1987 in an article in FEER, Lee's son commented further on the status of the Malays in an open forum on why Malays do not hold sensitive positions in the armed forces. Explaining that there are no Malay fighter pilots, for example, because their religion might conflict with their duty to Singapore, he provoked a backlash of criticism from the Muslim community in addition to Singapore's Muslim neighbours. The article goes on to say, "these statements represented some of the most frank public commentaries ever made by Singapore's political leaders on the role of the Malays, which continues to stir emotions among the Malay community.

In Sept 19, 1999 the Straits Time reported Lee, in a forum with some polytechnic students said "If, for instance, you put in a Malay officer who's very religious and who has family ties in Malaysia in charge of a machine gun unit, that's a very tricky business.

"We've got to know his background. I'm saying these things because they are real, and if I didn't think that, and I think even if today the Prime Minister doesn't think carefully about this, we could have a tragedy."

"So, these are problems which, as poly students, you're colour-blind to, but when you face life in reality, it's a different proposition."

There are Malay officers in the Singapore Armed Forces but as Lee said they are under watchful eyes just in case their religion or their ethnicity screw up their brains, pointing the guns at Singapore instead of the enemies.

Singapore do not recruit top civil servants regardless of their ethnic origin. It is a government policy in what they say for security reasons they will not place a Malay in sensitive and critical positions because they simply don't trust them. Yet the Malays in Singapore are lulled into believing that they are not marginalised. Discrimination comes in many forms, unpalatable or subtle, Singapore Malays seemed quite happy to ignore the insults.

The Indians are more trusted and many held top management positions in Singapore civil service and GLCs for the simple reason Singapore is not on the southern tip of the Indian sub-continent, it is in the Malay Archipelago surrounded by over 200 million people of the same stock.

Singapore has a deep sense of insecurity.That's the very reason it has built up and strengthened its Air Force to be the best in the region and one that can give them not only a strike first capability but also strike deep into enemy's territories. Its highways could be turned into runways within minutes and the underground mass transit turned into bomb shelters.Singapore is well prepared for any eventualities.It has emulated Israel and its continued survival would be well protected by the Western powers.

Not only Singapore does not trust its Malay citizens , it also does not trust both its neighbours.Can you blame them?

The Singapore Malays are still in a deep slumber, they can't see beyond their HDB flats. If the leaders have openly expressed their doubts about Malays' allegiance and treat them as peripherals what would you call it.......love!!?

Big Fish In A Small Pond ?

Hantu Laut

This is the man that took a tiny crime-stricken tropical backwater island to become the most successful modern nation and an economic miracle no less in less than four decades of his regime.

Despite lack of natural resources Singapore became a financial and industrial powerhouse.A success story, a feat, that many world leaders could only dream about.

I have read almost every book written on Lee Kuan Yew, from the obscured James Minchin's "No Man Is An Island" to his two-volume memoirs and the latest book written on him by American columnist Tom Plate.

"One of the asymmetries of history" wrote Henry Kissinger of him. Kissinger's one time boss Richard Nixon was even more flattering and said had Lee lived in another time and another place, he might had attained the stature of a Churchill,Disraeli or a Gladstone.

Profoundly true but water under the bridge now.Few leaders could have attained what Lee had with a tiny nation that had no natural resources except the richness and diversity of its human capital.

In 1965 Singapore ranked the same economically with Chile, Argentina and Mexico, today its per capita GDP is 6 times more than those countries.Even more amazing the per capita GDP is higher than its former colonial master and richer than the purportedly richest nation on earth.The per capita is higher than Britain and the United States.

Talk about the success story of Singapore many Malaysians would not wonder in amazement . "Oh! It's a small country, easier to manage" some would say.True in a way but untrue in many ways.

Smallness will not guarantee success if you have rotten leadership, bad governance and run-away corruptions.That's where Singapore succeed and where other more resourceful countries failed.It persisted in zero tolerance for anomalies.

Obviously, Lee is a big fish in a small pond and he is not letting go of his lost opportunity to govern a bigger land mass......being kicked out of Malaysia as reflected in his regret and disappointment here.

Lee, no doubt is an accomplished leader, a great statesman, an intellectual with achievements unequalled in this modern era.All those do not necessary help smarten his views of hindsight.

His lamentation that Malaysia, if had been kept intact, would have benefited from what Singapore had achieved today in term of racial harmony and equality is just his pipe dream.

As Mahathir said in sarcasm of him as being "A big frog in a small pond" in Tom Plate's "Conversation With Lee Kuan Yew" comments by world leaders.

Keeping Singapore and hard-nosed Lee in Malaysia would have been genocidal and ended in unimaginable disaster. It would be Singapore wanting to leave Malaysia then when the Malays refused to concede political powers to the Chinese whom would have been same in numbers or in the majority. It's a sure recipe for disaster and Tungku Abdul Rahman was wise when he took the decision to expel Singapore to save the nation from ending up in violence and bloodshed. There would not be any Malaysia.There would not be a bigger pond for Lee to swim in. Sabah and Sarawak would have joined Singapore in breaking up the nation.

That's what the most probable scenario would have been.

Of course, I do not expect everyone to agree with my hypothesis.

Where No Man Is An Island

Days of Reflection for Man Who Defined Singapore

New York Times

By SETH MYDANS

Published: September 10, 2010

“SO, when is the last leaf falling?” asked Lee Kuan Yew, the man who made Singapore in his own stern and unsentimental image, nearing his 87th birthday and contemplating age, infirmity and loss.

“I can feel the gradual decline of energy and vitality,” said Mr. Lee, whose “Singapore model” of economic growth and tight social control made him one of the most influential political figures of Asia. “And I mean generally, every year, when you know you are not on the same level as last year. But that’s life.”

In a long, unusually reflective interview last week, he talked about the aches and pains of age and the solace of meditation, about his struggle to build a thriving nation on this resource-poor island, and his concern that the next generation might take his achievements for granted and let them slip away.

He was dressed informally in a windbreaker and running shoes in his big, bright office, still sharp of mind but visibly older and a little stooped, no longer in day-to-day control but, for as long as he lives, the dominant figure of the nation he created.

But in these final years, he said, his life has been darkened by the illness of his wife and companion of 61 years, bedridden and mute after a series of strokes.

“I try to busy myself,” he said, “but from time to time in idle moments, my mind goes back to the happy days we were up and about together.” Agnostic and pragmatic in his approach to life, he spoke with something like envy of people who find strength and solace in religion. “How do I comfort myself?” he asked. “Well, I say, ‘Life is just like that.’ ”

“What is next, I do not know,” he said. “Nobody has ever come back.”

The prime minister of Singapore from its founding in 1965 until he stepped aside in 1990, Mr. Lee built what he called “a first-world oasis in a third-world region” — praised for the efficiency and incorruptibility of his rule but accused by human rights groups of limiting political freedoms and intimidating opponents through libel suits.

His title now is minister mentor, a powerful presence within the current government led by his son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. The question that hovers over Singapore today is how long and in what form his model may endure once he is gone.

Always physically vigorous, Mr. Lee combats the decline of age with a regimen of swimming, cycling and massage and, perhaps more important, an hour-by-hour daily schedule of meetings, speeches and conferences both in Singapore and overseas. “I know if I rest, I’ll slide downhill fast,” he said. When, after an hour, talk shifted from introspection to geopolitics, the years seemed to slip away and he grew vigorous and forceful, his worldview still wide ranging, detailed and commanding.

And yet, he said, he sometimes takes an oblique look at these struggles against age and sees what he calls “the absurdity of it.”

“I’m reaching 87, trying to keep fit, presenting a vigorous figure, and it’s an effort, and is it worth the effort?” he said. “I laugh at myself trying to keep a bold front. It’s become my habit. I just carry on.”

HIS most difficult moments come at the end of each day, he said, as he sits by the bedside of his wife, Kwa Geok Choo, 89, who has been unable to move or speak for more than two years. She had been by his side, a confidante and counselor, since they were law students in London.

“She understands when I talk to her, which I do every night,” he said. “She keeps awake for me; I tell her about my day’s work, read her favorite poems.” He opened a big spreadsheet to show his reading list, books by Jane Austen, Rudyard Kipling and Lewis Carroll as well as the sonnets of Shakespeare.

Lately, he said, he had been looking at Christian marriage vows and was drawn to the words: “To love, to hold and to cherish, in sickness and in health, for better or for worse till death do us part.”

“I told her, ‘I would try and keep you company for as long as I can.’ That’s life. She understood.” But he also said: “I’m not sure who’s going first, whether she or me.”

At night, hearing the sounds of his wife’s discomfort in the next room, he said, he calms himself with 20 minutes of meditation, reciting a mantra he was taught by a Christian friend: “Ma-Ra-Na-Tha.”

The phrase, which is Aramaic, comes at the end of St. Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians, and can be translated in several ways. Mr. Lee said that he was told it means “Come to me, O Lord Jesus,” and that although he is not a believer, he finds the sounds soothing.

“The problem is to keep the monkey mind from running off into all kinds of thoughts,” he said. “A certain tranquillity settles over you. The day’s pressures and worries are pushed out. Then there’s less problem sleeping.”

He brushed aside the words of a prominent Singaporean writer and social critic, Catherine Lim, who described him as having “an authoritarian, no-nonsense manner that has little use for sentiment.”

“She’s a novelist!” he cried. “Therefore, she simplifies a person’s character,” making what he called a “graphic caricature of me.” “But is anybody that simple or simplistic?”

The stress of his wife’s illness is constant, he said, harder on him than stresses he faced for years in the political arena. But repeatedly, in looking back over his life, he returns to his moment of greatest anguish, the expulsion of Singapore from Malaysia in 1965, when he wept in public.

That trauma presented him with the challenge that has defined his life, the creation and development of a stable and prosperous nation, always on guard against conflict within its mixed population of Chinese, Malays and Indians. Read more.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: September 11, 2010

An earlier version of this article contained a picture caption that misspelled Mr. Lee's name. He is Lee Kuan Yew, not Lee Kuan Kew.

Lee Kuan Yew Advises Japan For Free

MM Lee “advises” Japan on U.S. base and immigration

Temasek Review

At an advanced age when most leaders would have retired and spend their remaining days at home with their families, PAP strongman Lee Kuan Yew continues to tour the world dishing out his “advice” to other leaders and teaching them how to run their countries.

During a symposium in Tokyo where he is currently on official visit sponsored by Singapore taxpayers, Lee urged Japan again to reconsider moving the U.S. air base out of the island of Okinawa.

“‘We believe that (the US) presence brings about stability and peace and I believe they need a base in the north-east. If there is no base in Japan, then they cannot deploy their weaponry and project their power sufficiently,” Lee was quoted as saying in the Straits Times.

He stressed the need for the US to act as a counterbalance to China. The last time he said this last year, it triggered a massive outcry among Chinese netizens who pettered him with unflattering names like “traitor to the Chinese race” and “lackey of the Americans”, prompting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to intercede on his behalf.

Lee also called on Japan to emulate Singapore’s example and accept more immigrants in order to grow:

“You have the choice to keep Japan homogeneous and shrinking and stagnant economically, or you accept immigrants and grow.”

With due respect to Lee, he has really no business to poke into Japan’s domestic affairs. It is up to the Japanese themselves to decide if they need more immigrants and not the government.

Had Lee tried to replicate his immigration policies in Japan, he would have been voted out of office a long time ago.

Even in Singapore, there is rising frustration, resentment and anger on the ground at the PAP’s liberal immigration and pro-foreigner policies which have caused tremendous suffering and hardship to ordinary Singaporeans.

According to a recent Wall Street Journal editorial, the relentless influx of foreigners has depressed the wages of Singaporeans, increased the cost of living and led to a decline in the quality of life.

Lee is indeed a rare “treasure” to the world. By his own admission last year, he is not doing much work lately except doing “forecasting”. Japan is fortunate to have Singapore’s “forecaster extraordinarie” to do some “forecasting” for its future absolutely free of charge courtesy of Singapore taxpayers who is paying Lee’s astronomical annual salary of more than $3 million dollars.

Censored In Singapore:Selling Out Principle

By CLARK HOYT

Published: April 3, 2010

LAST month, on the same day The New York Times praised Google for standing up to censorship in China, a sister newspaper, The International Herald Tribune, apologized to Singapore’s rulers and agreed to pay damages because it broke a 1994 legal agreement and referred to them in a way they did not like.

The rulers had sued for defamation 16 years ago, saying a Herald Tribune Op-Ed column had implied that they got their jobs through nepotism. The paper wound up paying $678,000 and promising not to do it again. But in February, it named Lee Kuan Yew, the founding prime minister, and his son, Lee Hsien Loong, the prime minister now, in an Op-Ed article about Asian political dynasties.

After the Lees objected, the paper said its language “may have been understood by readers to infer that the younger Mr. Lee did not achieve his position through merit. We wish to state clearly that this inference was not intended.” The Herald Tribune, wholly owned by The New York Times Company, apologized for “any distress or embarrassment” suffered by the Lees. The statement was published in the paper and on the Web site it shares with The Times.

Some readers were astonished that a news organization with a long history of standing up for First Amendment values would appear to bow obsequiously to an authoritarian regime that makes no secret of its determination to cow critics, including Western news organizations, through aggressive libel actions. Singapore’s leaders use a local court system in which, according to Stuart Karle, a former general counsel of The Wall Street Journal, they have never lost a libel suit.

The notion that it could be defamatory to call a political family a dynasty seems ludicrous in the United States, where The Times has routinely applied the label to the Kennedys, the Bushes and the Clintons. But Singapore is a different story.

Lee Kuan Yew once testified, according to The Times, that he designed the draconian press laws to make sure that “journalists will not appear to be all-wise, all-powerful, omnipotent figures.” Four years ago, The Times quoted his son as saying, “If you don’t have the law of defamation, you would be like America, where people say terrible things about the president and it can’t be proved.”

Steven Brostoff of Arlington, Va., wondered whether The Times had other agreements like the one with the Lees, and asked, “What conclusions should we draw about how news coverage from these countries is slanted?” Zeb Raft of the University of Alberta, Edmonton, asked if The Times was admitting that certain world leaders “deserve to be treated with deference. This is the implication of the apology.”

George Freeman, a Times Company lawyer, said the 1994 agreement was the only one he knew about and that it applied only to The Herald Tribune. Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times, said, “Nobody in this company has ever told me what our reporters can write — or not write — about Singapore.” He said the Times newsroom has no agreements with any government about what can be reported. “We don’t work that way.”

Andrew Rosenthal, the editor of the editorial page, said, “If we have something that needs to be said on the editorial or Op-Ed pages, on any subject, we will say it, clearly and honestly.”

That is what the late William Safire did on the Op-Ed page in 2002, when he criticized Bloomberg News for “kowtowing to the Lee family” by apologizing for an article about the elevation of the younger Lee’s wife to run a state-owned investment company. Bloomberg, he said, had “just demeaned itself and undermined the cause of a free online press.”

Safire wrote that he took “loud exception” in 1994 when The Herald Tribune, then owned jointly by the Times Company and The Washington Post Company, “cravenly caved” over an article by Philip Bowring — the same Hong Kong-based columnist who sparked last month’s dust-up. “I doubt such a sellout of principle will happen again.”

Richard Simmons was the president of The Herald Tribune in 1994 and authorized the agreement that was broken last month — an “undertaking” by the company’s lawyers to prevent a repetition of the language that offended the Lees. “We had, in my view, no choice,” he said. “What the American media absolutely refuse to recognize is Singapore operates on a different set of legal rules than does the United States.” He said Western news organizations can accept the legal system there or leave.

For The Herald Tribune and all the other news organizations that have paid damages to Singapore’s rulers (The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Bloomberg) or had their circulation limited there (Time, The Asian Wall Street Journal, The Economist), the choice has been to stay.Read more.

New York Times pays damages to Singapore's leaders

(Reuters) - The New York Times Co apologized to Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew on Wednesday and paid S$160,000 ($114,000) in damages for an article about Asian political dynasties.

An apology in the opinion section of the New York Times' website said that any inference that Lee Hsien Loong "did not achieve his position through merit," was unintended.

The article, entitled "All in the Family," was published on February 15 in the International Herald Tribune (IHT), the global edition of The New York Times.

Lee Hsien Loong is the son of independent Singapore's first leader, Lee Kuan Yew. The New York Times also apologized to Goh Chok Tong, who succeeded the older Lee as prime minister.

Davinder Singh, the lawyer acting for the leaders, told Reuters that the IHT's publisher, editor of global editions, and the article's author, Philip Bowring, also agreed to pay damages of S$60,000 to Lee Hsien Loong, and S$50,000 each to Goh Chok Tong and Lee Kuan Yew, as well as pay their legal costs.

Singh said the article was "libellous" and the Singapore leaders had demanded an apology, damages and costs.

He said it was in breach of an undertaking made by both the publisher of the IHT and Bowring in 1994 that they would not make further similar defamatory allegations to those made in an article by Bowring in the IHT in that year called "The Claims about Asian Values Don't Usually Bear Scrutiny," for which the IHT and Bowring also paid damages and costs to the three leaders.

A spokesman for The New York Times Co declined to comment beyond the apology, while Bowring did not respond to a Reuters query for comment.

Singapore's leaders have in the past sued and won damages, or out-of-court settlements, from opposition politicians and foreign media including the International Herald Tribune, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and The Economist.

Singapore, considered to have the lowest political risk among Asian nations by many risk consultancies, is a hub for manufacturers, banks and expatriates, who value its stability. The ruling People's Action Party (PAP) has governed for 50 years.

Singapore was ranked 133rd among 175 countries in the World Press Freedom Index 2009 by Reporters Without Borders.

(Reporting by Neil Chatterjee in Singapore and Tiffany Wu in New York; Editing by Nick Macfie and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Here's the Times' apology, printed today:

In 1994, Philip Bowring, a contributor to the International Herald Tribune's op-ed page, agreed as part of an undertaking with the leaders of the government of Singapore that he would not say or imply that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong had attained his position through nepotism practiced by his father Lee Kuan Yew. In a February 15, 2010, article, Mr. Bowring nonetheless included these two men in a list of Asian political dynasties, which may have been understood by readers to infer that the younger Mr. Lee did not achieve his position through merit. We wish to state clearly that this inference was not intended. We apologize to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew and former Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong for any distress or embarrassment caused by any breach of the undertaking and the article.

Source:Reuters

The Singapore Solution

How did a sleepy little island transform into a high-tech powerhouse in one generation? It was all in the plan.

By Mark Jacobson

Photograph by David McLai

If you want to get a Singaporean to look up from a beloved dish of fish-head curry—or make a harried cabdriver slam on his brakes—say you are going to interview the country's "minister mentor," Lee Kuan Yew, and would like an opinion about what to ask him. "The MM?Wah lau! You're going to see the MM? Real?" You might as well have told a resident of the Emerald City that you're late for an appointment with the Wizard of Oz. After all, LKY, as he is known in acronym-mad Singapore, is more than the "father of the country." He is its inventor, as surely as if he had scientifically formulated the place with precise portions of Plato's Republic, Anglophile elitism, unwavering economic pragmatism, and old-fashioned strong-arm repression.

People like to call Singapore the Switzerland of Southeast Asia, and who can argue? Out of a malarial swamp, the tiny island at the southernmost tip of the Malay Peninsula gained independence from Britain in 1963 and, in one generation, transformed itself into a legendarily efficient place, where the per capita income for its 3.7 million citizens exceeds that of many European countries, the education and health systems rival anything in the West, government officials are largely corruption free, 90 percent of households own their own homes, taxes are relatively low and sidewalks are clean, and there are no visible homeless people or slums.

If all that, plus a typical unemployment rate of about 3 percent and a nice stash of money in the bank thanks to the government's enforced savings plan, doesn't sound sweet to you, just travel 600 miles south and try getting by in a Jakarta shantytown.

Achieving all this has required a delicate balancing act, an often paradoxical interplay between what some Singaporeans refer to as "the big stick and the big carrot." What strikes you first is the carrot: giddy financial growth fueling never ending construction and consumerism. Against this is the stick, most often symbolized by the infamous ban on chewing gum and the caning of people for spray-painting cars. Disruptive things like racial and religious disharmony? They're simply not allowed, and no one steals anyone else's wallet.

Singapore, maybe more than anywhere else, crystallizes an elemental question: What price prosperity and security? Are they worth living in a place that many contend is a socially engineered, nose-to-the-grindstone, workaholic rat race, where the self-perpetuating ruling party enforces draconian laws (your airport entry card informs you, in red letters, that the penalty for drug trafficking is "DEATH"), squashes press freedom, and offers a debatable level of financial transparency? Some people joke that the government micromanages the details of life right down to how well Singapore Airlines flight attendants fill out their batik-patterned dresses.

They say Lee Kuan Yew has mellowed over the years, but when he walks into the interview wearing a zippered blue jacket, looking like a flint-eyed Asian Clint Eastwood circa Gran Torino, you know you'd better get on with it. While it is not exactly clear what a minister mentor does, good luck finding many Singaporeans who don't believe that the Old Man is still top dog, the ultimate string puller behind the curtain. Told most of my questions have come from Singaporeans, the MM, now 86 but as sharp and unsentimental as a barbed tack, offers a bring-it-on smile: "At my age I've had many eggs thrown at me."

Few living leaders—Fidel Castro in Cuba, Nelson Mandela in South Africa, and Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe come to mind—have dominated their homeland's national narrative the way Lee Kuan Yew has. Born into a well-to-do Chinese family in 1923, deeply influenced by both British colonial society and the brutal Japanese occupation that killed as many as 50,000 people on the island in the mid-1940s, the erstwhile "Harry Lee," Cambridge law degree in hand, first came to prominence as a leader of a left-leaning anticolonial movement in the 1950s. Firming up his personal power within the ascendant People's Action Party, Lee became Singapore's first prime minister, filling the post for 26 years. He was senior minister for another 15; his current minister mentor title was established when his son, Lee Hsien Loong, became prime minister in 2004.

Lee masterminded the celebrated "Singapore Model," converting a country one-eighth the size of Delaware, with no natural resources and a fractured mix of ethnicities, into "Singapore, Inc." He attracted foreign investment by building communications and transportation infrastructure, made English the official language, created a superefficient government by paying top administrators salaries equal to those in private companies, and cracked down on corruption until it disappeared. The model—a unique mix of economic empowerment and tightly controlled personal liberties—has inspired imitators in China, Russia, and eastern Europe.

To lead a society, the MM says in his precise Victorian English, "one must understand human nature. I have always thought that humanity was animal-like. The Confucian theory was man could be improved, but I'm not sure he can be. He can be trained, he can be disciplined." In Singapore that has meant lots of rules—prohibiting littering, spitting on sidewalks, failing to flush public toilets—with fines and occasional outing in the newspaper for those who break them. It also meant educating his people—industrious by nature—and converting them from shopkeepers to high-tech workers in a few decades.

Over time, the MM says, Singaporeans have become "less hard-driving and hard-striving." This is why it is a good thing, the MM says, that the nation has welcomed so many Chinese immigrants (25 percent of the population is now foreign-born). He is aware that many Singaporeans are unhappy with the influx of immigrants, especially those educated newcomers prepared to fight for higher paying jobs. But taking a typically Darwinian stance, the MM describes the country's new subjects as "hungry," with parents who "pushed the children very hard." If native Singaporeans are falling behind because "the spurs are not stuck into the hide," that is their problem.Read more.