The Secession Conundrum
TEMASEK REVIEW
By Yoong Siew Wah
True to his disingenuous character, the Minister Mentor Lee Kuan
Yew always has something up his sleeve which he would foist on the
unsuspecting public, ostensibly to score a point.
The latest is his baffling disclosure on Singapore’s separation
from Malaysia which he made in his eulogy to the late Dr Goh Keng
Swee at his state funeral.
It was anybody’s guess whether the distinguished audience at the
funeral was taken aback by his enigmatic disclosure that it was the
late Dr Goh who decided on his own, after discussions with Tun
Abdul Razak, the Malaysian DPM and Tun Dr Ismail Abdul Rahman, the
Minister of the Interior to have a clean break.
In other words it was Dr Goh alone who made the decision to
secede from Malaysia and later told PM Lee Kuan Yew about it. The
Chinese have a proverb: Behead first and report to the throne later
(xian zhan hou zou).
From events at that time and what MM Lee Kuan Yew said in his
memoirs it was the Malaysian PM Tunku Abdul Rahman who decided to
expel Singapore from Malaysia, choosing to “sever all ties with a
State Government that showed no measure of loyalty to its Central
Government”. Lee Kuan Yew was adamant and tried to work out a
compromise but without success. He was later convinced by Goh Keng
Swee that the secession was inevitable.
Lee Kuan Yew’s Malaysian Malaysia adventure against the Central
Government exacerbated by race riots in Singapore caused immense
alarm to the Malaysian leadership, in particular Tunku Abdul
Rahman. He came to the inevitable conclusion that he could not
resolve the crisis and decided that separation was the best
solution.
Singaporeans have been taken for a ride once too often by the
highfalutin MM Lee Kuan Yew and it is about time he shows some
civility and rsponsibility in enlightening the public as to his
motive, whether good or evil, in portraying Dr Goh as the
protagonist of the secession, especially when DR Goh is no longer
around to question its truthfulness. It shows Dr Goh to be a man of
gross impetuousity, making a decision on his own on a grave matter
affecting the destiny of millions of Singaporeans. Is this a fair
reflection on a statesman on whom the innumerable tributes show him
to be a man of sound principle and not one to have acted on his own
on such a grave matter as secession?
Well, the ball is now in MM Lee Kuan Yew’s court. There is
another appropriate Chinese proverb: He who ties the bell round the
tiger’s neck is the one to untie it (jie ling huan shi xi ling
ren).