I had read Paula Khoo's blogpost
HEAD AND SHOULDERS ABOVE US ALL with some interest last week. It was about the ISA detention of Dr Lim Hock Siew by LKY. The heated discussions that follows, sort of made me wanting to add a few words here.
The arguments can sort of be divided into 2 camps. The anti opression 'No draconian laws please'
humanist camp and the pro-developmemt
'Crush the troublemakers' camp.
From the humanist camp, you have your universal love and respect for human dignity. There shall be no excuse whatsoever to use evil laws and opression. Though I strongly support their principles, I am not going touch too much on it. Since they are mostly the usual stuff that sometimes fall into the trap of vocabulary elaboration. I also want to avoid sounding overly righteous and idealistic. It doesn't suit the image of a hardcore blue collar slave like me in a cosmopolitan city called Singapore.
But I would rather share some thoughts on points made by the Arthur a LKY protaganist. These are points that I feel should be re-examined more directly.
Our history books paints a scary picture of communist threats during the 1950s to 1970s. Indeed it could be scary indeed, had LKY not won Singapore could have became a leftist state like Myanmar and Vietnam. Thereby ending up as a military state with decades of under development.
Arthur argues that Singapore at that time was in a fragile state. To focus on steering the ship he had to use draconian laws to overcome destructive left/communist insurgency. The success of Singapore today is a testament that he made the right call.
Lets check out of the matters raised by Arthur(Please read Artur's comment yourself at the link above) :
1)
Dr Lim was leaning towards left and LKY towards democracy.
Maybe more of LKY leaning toward UK/US anti communist stance. Is democratic spirit more alive in Singapore today than Malaysia or Indonesia?
2)
The blanket term of 'communist/left movement threat'.
Life was hard back then, so it was natural for people to incline more towards the left in search of fairness. Oppressive publication, societies registraton and detention laws was the mainstay of British colonial rule after WW2. The populist movements was driven more by anti-colonial sentiments than communist ideaology. And many that LKY was the extension of Britain. For example
Fong Chong Pik in his memoir wrote that his detention by corrupt British backed cops was the turning point of him joining the left.
3)
Teh Ching Wan is a straighforward corruption that became controversial.
Did Mr Teh commited suicide because of his guilt towards the people of Singapore? Or was the pressure above too much too handle. If it is the latter, then it is a sad reflection of a society that to drives people to suicide in order to fight corruption. The courts fair action in dealing with Mr Teh case would have been sufficient to show the maturity of the Singapore estate. IMHO, anything else is just public relations( or worst political spinning). Another aspect that escape many of us, was the
ammendments to the laws pertaining to the appeal of criminal and civil cases that follows Mr Teh case.
4)
If LKY was not ruthless, he would have find it hard to rule.
You are right, it was difficult for him to win populist support in the war of persuasion. With ISA/ISD he will guarantee win because it is his side who is doing the persuasion only.
5)
Times are different, but Malaysia still uses ISA to stifle legitimate political dissent.
Yes time are different. But things are still the same in some way. Legitimate political dissent is a threat to UMNO rule in the same way leftist movement were a threat to LKY rule at that time.
For me, ISA should not be confused with left vs right, US Vs terrorists or UMNO vs Non-Malays. ISA is a trump card to stay in power when the chips are down. Basically anyone that controls the police and military hold this
Dai Di (Trump Card for HK card game).
The protagonist will argue that we need ISA to avert chaos. The antagonist will argue that ISA be abolished to prevent abuse. ISA and other oppressive tools is a manifestation of one individual /party quest for power to implement his ways or vision onto the society.
So its back to the age old question of ' whether a benevolent end justify the ruthless means?'. Such justification process is a slippery path. We would even find it hard on how to define a benevolent end? Or to determine which is the lesser of multiple wrongs?
Opressive rule thrives in society that over-relies on leaders and governments. Its sort of like a test of character and maturity of state (Not sure if anyone agrees with me on this).
Is a society too dependent on its leaders to work things out for them?
Or does masses play the leading role by moving together to find a way out of the mess?
Regards,
Kaki Tambak
