LKY's dual conflicting personalities

Lee Kuan Yew has once again annoyed Malaysian UMNO leaders, and embarrassed Chinese MCA and Chinese-dominated Gerakan, when on Friday he told an International Monetary Fund conference in Singapore that Malaysia and Indonesia had problems with their Chinese minorities because they (the Chinese) were successful and hardworking and therefore systemically marginalised.

From that assertion he postulated that the attitude of Malaysia and Indonesia towards Singapore was shaped by the way they treated their own Chinese minorities – those two Malay-dominated nations would like to see a compliant Singapore, just like their own Chinese citizens.

DPM Najib was correctly mild in his response, just brushing Lee aside by saying he (Lee) was ‘naughty’, while Mahathir, an old foe of Lee, remonstrated with great disgust. And right immdiately behind them, the one and only, His Ampu-ness Raja Bodek, rushed out to show his Malaysian-ness, as did a number of other Chinese Malaysian leaders like Gerakan Lim Keng Yaik and MCA Ong Ka Ting.

However, DAP’s Lim Guan Eng – probably more to hentam (wallop) Raja Bodek than to support Lee Kuan Yew – took the opportunity to criticise His Ampu-ness and the other Chinese leaders.

Lim expressed his disgust with Raja Bodek and the others for denying an ‘obvious fact’, which according to Lim is that “... The Chinese and other non-Chinese have been systematically marginalised by discriminatory government policies that only favour the rich and politically connected.”

“Such politics of denial is dishonest as BN leaders themselves have stated that discriminatory policies such as quotas and the New Economic Policy (NEP) are necessary for racial harmony and national stability.”

Lim zero-ed in on Raja Bodek for saying that LKY did not understand nor appreciate the challenges in administering a country that’s bigger and more complicated and diverse than Singapore.

Lim stated: “This is perverse logic. If so, then can we support the apartheid policies of South Africa in the 1980s just because South Africa is bigger, more diverse and complicated than Malaysia?”

He condemned Raja Bodek for being so thick skinned as to say the Chinese are not compliant when he (Raja Bodek) was compliant towards UMNO by not daring to even respond to the attacks by Penang UMNO Youth leaders who humiliated him publicly with demonstrations and banners.

OK, that’s the usual Malaysian politics. We can virtually predict who would say what. But why did LKY say those things?

LKY has this habit of wanting to show he’s both tough and intellectual, a sort of brainy Schwarneggar. Years ago, he instituted a social programme to turn Singapore into a ‘rugged’ society. He also like to play intellectual games with many, relishing crushing people with his wits and intellectual manoeuvres.

There’s no doubt he’s intelligent, far sighted and had done well for Singapore, but his weakness is his conceit which is much bigger than his Singapore Island, even the modern version with reclaimed land.

I have read his 2-volume autobiography, where he would make much ado about which world leaders praised him or his speeches. It’s true that Margaret Thatcher admires him – in a TV interview Thatcher named him as one of 3 world leaders she admired, the other two being Deng Ziao Ping and Ronald Reagan.


But when LKY mentioned one other British PM (was it James Callaghan?) as having praised his (LKY) speech or something, I read that British PM’s book to verify how true LKY's assertion was, and found only a fleeting reference to LKY, certainly lots less than what Big-Head had inflated it into.

Now you wouldn't believe this, but LKY has what I suspect is a cultural cringe towards the British, one that he would never admit to. He was awarded some British honours, and oh, in his book he crowed and coo-ed at how much that meant to an ex colonial like himself.

I was just amazed at how he was overwhelmed by his British honours. In fact I was deeply disappointed that he, a so-called intellectual and most certainly a man who had propelled Singapore into its First World standing, ‘looked up’ to such a useless meaningless piffling nonsense as a British (or any) royal award.

Look, there are lots of toothpick-using, street-spitting Hongkie towkays who have been made knights of the British realm for lesser reasons. Can you ever imagine tough, intellectual, assertive world-class Harry Lee lapping up a royal pat on his head by the Great White Mother in dear old England. What a split personality.

But yes, LKY like to poke at others whom he reckons are beneath his ‘towering’ intellect. But as Dr Mahthir said, the ‘real’ Chinese, the ones in China, ignore him.