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.

Those Awful Aussies

Hantu Laut

After reading Pasquale's take on the bunch of nosey Aussie lawmakers demanding Malaysia to drop the sodomy case against Anwar Ibrahim, it kind of intrigues me as to the reason for such interference. If the proverbial "birds of a feather flock together" is any true than among the 50 or so Australian lawmakers there must be faggots and homophile who wanted to impose their will on another sovereign nation where such sexual anomaly is a criminal offence.

Homosexuality, sodomy and zoophilia may be accepted in Australia but it is not in Malaysia and is considered a criminal act.

Michael Danby the spokesman of the group said "A lot of people know Anwar Ibrahim, a lot of people have been to Malaysia, and a lot of Australian parliamentarians think it's a shame that this is happening for the second time to the leader of the opposition in what is a developing democracy,"

Wonder whether Mr Danby and his colleagues knew what Anwar does behind closed doors and on what basis they made their own judgement of his innocent?

According to Pasquale here the Australians must first stop the mass murder of Aboriginal people and foreign students before interfering in other people's business.

Are they still killing Aborigines?

I am not sure of that but killing Indian students seem to be a new past time for Australian new bush rangers.A few Indian students have been bludgeoned to death in apparent racist attack.Some Indians could have been mistaken for Abos.

These rich Indian kids came to Australia to study and being rich they also brought with them some bad habits, their affluent lifestyle the Indian way.Expensive clothes,posh cars and extravagance lifestyle which the low-life Aussie couldn't understand and tolerate.

Black people are supposed to be poor and lead the low-life.The low-life Aussies have no clue where those goddam black asses came from (because low-life Aussies have no concept of the outside world), thought those Indians had made it good robbing and stealing from white men.

This reminded me of the early days when Britain exported its convicts to Australia hoping to make it the biggest penal colony on the face of the earth.It didn't turned out that way.The country is just too beautiful to give it to the scums of the earth.Today, Australia is an extension of the British Empire.

In 1788 six shiploads of convicts arrived Port Jackson in Australia.The Abos were not pleased to see the British convicts land on their soil.They thought they are bad news....and they were right!

It's the beginning of terrifying times for the Abos.

In 1802 when the Brits landed in Tasmania there were 20,000 Abos living on the island for almost 12000 years,undisturbed,unperturbed and completely cut off from the mainland.Eighty years later there were none.They were wiped out by the great British past time......sport hunting and white man's diseases.

Those hardened criminals dumped on Tasmania took care of the Abos.They see the Abos as wild game and to be hunted down.Tied them to trees and used them for target practice.They shot more Abos than the Tasmanian tigers then.One brutal bush ranger (what they called this wandering criminals those days) said "I shoot an Abos as easily as I shoot a sparrow and I get a lot of fun from this sort of sport"

Another even more brutal bush ranger killed an Abo man, seized the dead man's wife, cut off his head and fastened it round the wife's neck and drove the weeping woman to his farm to be his slave.

Wherever the Brits and other Europeans landed the first thing they do is to enslave the natives, if they resisted, decimate them, it's a good holistic approach.It happened in Africa, America and almost in India but there were too many Indians and the Brits didn't have enough bullets to shoot them all.

Malaysians and Singaporeans were lucky, they didn't have to cut our heads or penises to get compliance, they have begun to be civilised.We were spared the terror that befell the Red Indians,African and the Abos.

The 50 Aussie lawmakers must have forgotten to read the Bible, the impenitent sins of the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah and divine retribution.

Today, God's mill have come to a grinding halt, we need human laws to take care of such indiscretion and Malaysia is doing exactly that.

Is Anwar Ibrahim innocent?

It is for the Malaysian court to decide not you 50 bumptious Aussie lawmakers.

So, shut up and mind your own business.

Malaysia's Killing Season.

Hantu Laut

The killing season is here again.Every festive season Malaysians would go on a rampage on the nation's highways killing and maiming themselves and other road users.

The Asia-Pacific region has the highest road fatalities in the world taking 44 percent of the world total where only 16 percent of the total world vehicles are found.Malaysia gets top marks for this shameful state of affair.It has got the highest fatalities per capita in the world.Certainly, not something to be proud of.

If Malaysians work as aggressively as they drive, this country would have a quantum leap in its economic development and we need not wait until the year 2020 to be a developed nation.Unfortunately, many Malaysians are only aggressive at the wheels but not at the workplace.

It has become part of their daily ritual to break the law whenever the 'mata-mata' is not around. The car instead of being a vehicle of convenience had become a vehicle of death and destruction.

In Kota Kinabalu, about 2 weeks ago, three doctors were killed and one seriously injured when the car they were in slammed into the back of a bus, overturning the bus and killing one passenger.

Speeding, overtaking using road shoulder to beat the queue, overtaking on double line,jumping the red light and other breaches of the law are common occurrences on Malaysian roads.

If stupid is too harsh a word to describe Malaysian motorists sense of road courtesy than stupid it would be.It is common for Malaysians to give way to those that break the law, the queue jumpers.Try queue jumping in the West, you'll swear by your grandmother's grave that you wouldn't do it again.

Another cause of fatalities are overloading, especially in small towns and rural areas.

A while ago, two Kancils collided head on, there were 15 passengers in the two cars.In this recent accident where 4 people were killed, there were 6 passengers in a Proton Wira.How the hell can you accommodate seven people in a Kancil?

It's about time the government enforce strict adherence that vehicle can only carry the maximum number of passengers specified by the manufacturers and makes it illegal to exceed the allowed limit.

Poor maintenance is another death call for Malaysian motorists.Some can afford to buy the car but have not enough money to maintain it thus jeopardising its road worthiness.

Adding to the problem is wrong enforcement by the police.Police mount regular road blocks not to educate motorists on the needs to observe the law and drive safely or check the road worthiness of the vehicles, they are only interested in checking 'road taxes', whether paid or not.

Every festive season the police would also dispatch hundreds of policemen to have their 'Ops this' and 'Ops that', to try reduce fatal road accidents but these "Ops" have turned out to be an exercises in futility.In its current "Ops Sikap" the death toll to date stands at 28 deaths out of 938 accidents.

The source of this tragic situation are no other than the driving schools and JPJ (Road Vehicle Dept).Bad schooling and corruptions.

A complete overhaul of the driving schools in this country and wiping out corruptions within the department responsible for issuing driver's licence are long overdue.Those who failed their tests and pay 'coffee money' through their tutors to get their "KOPI O" licences are the bad drivers and are more likely to be involved in accidents.

Good driving habits start at school, therefore, it would be good idea if the name and permit number of the driving school be registered on the driver's licence to enable the authorities to identify the bad apples.Driving school that produced high accident rate among its students should be struck off.

Related articles(updated):Shock for motorists using emergency lane

The Jihad Against the Jihadis

How moderate Muslim leaders waged war on extremists—and won.

By Fareed Zakaria | NEWSWEEK

Published Feb 12, 2010

From the magazine issue dated Feb 22, 2010

September 11, 2001, was gruesome enough on its own terms, but for many of us, the real fear was of what might follow. Not only had Al Qaeda shown it was capable of sophisticated and ruthless attacks, but a far greater concern was that the group had or could establish a powerful hold on the hearts and minds of Muslims. And if Muslims sympathized with Al Qaeda's cause, we were in for a herculean struggle. There are more than 1.5 billion Muslims living in more than 150 countries across the world. If jihadist ideology became attractive to a significant part of this population, the West faced a clash of civilizations without end, one marked by blood and tears.

These fears were well founded. The 9/11 attacks opened the curtain on a world of radical and violent Islam that had been festering in the Arab lands and had been exported across the globe, from London to Jakarta. Polls all over the Muslim world revealed deep anger against America and the West and a surprising degree of support for Osama bin Laden. Governments in most of these countries were ambivalent about this phenomenon, assuming that the Islamists' wrath would focus on the United States and not themselves. Large, important countries like Saudi Arabia and Indonesia seemed vulnerable.

More than eight eventful years have passed, but in some ways it still feels like 2001. Republicans have clearly decided that fanning the public's fears of rampant jihadism continues to be a winning strategy. Commentators furnish examples of backwardness and brutality from various parts of the Muslim world—and there are many—to highlight the grave threat we face.

But, in fact, the entire terrain of the war on terror has evolved dramatically. Put simply, the moderates are fighting back and the tide is turning. We no long-er fear the possibility of a major country succumbing to jihadist ideology. In most Muslim nations, mainstream rulers have stabilized their regimes and their societies, and extremists have been isolated. This has not led to the flowering of Jeffersonian democracy or liberalism. But modern, somewhat secular forces are clearly in control and widely supported across the Muslim world. Polls, elections, and in-depth studies all confirm this trend.

The focus of our concern now is not a broad political movement but a handful of fanatics scattered across the globe. Yet Washington's vast nation-building machinery continues to spend tens of billions of dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and there are calls to do more in Yemen and Somalia. What we have to ask ourselves is whether any of that really will deter these small bands of extremists. Some of them come out of the established democracies of the West, hardly places where nation building will help. We have to understand the changes in the landscape of Islam if we are going to effectively fight the enemy on the ground, rather than the enemy in our minds.

Once, no country was more worrying than bin Laden's homeland. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, steward of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, had surpassed Egypt as the de facto leader of the Arab world because of the vast sums of money it doled out to Islamic causes—usually those consonant with its puritanical Wahhabi doctrines. Since 1979 the Saudi regime had openly appeased its homegrown Islamists, handing over key ministries and funds to reactionary mullahs. Visitors to Saudi Arabia after 9/11 were shocked by what they heard there. Educated Saudis—including senior members of the government—publicly endorsed wild conspiracy theories and denied that any Saudis had been involved in the 9/11 attacks. Even those who accepted reality argued that the fury of some Arabs was inevitable, given America's one-sided foreign policy on the Arab-Israeli issue.

America's initial reaction to 9/11 was to focus on Al Qaeda. The group was driven out of its base in Afghanistan and was pursued wherever it went. Its money was tracked and blocked, its fighters arrested and killed. Many other nations joined in, from France to Malaysia. After all, no government wanted to let terrorists run loose in its land.Read more.