Singapore Loses a Visionary
Goh Keng Swee, who helped to build the island republic,
dies
The death on May 14 of Goh Keng Swee is a reminder that of the
original group behind the formation of the PAP and the independence
movement in Singapore, only Lee Kuan Yew and Toh Chin Chye now
survive and only Lee himself is still heard from. The death is a
reminder that Lee Kuan Yew did not build Singapore by
himself.
Gone are the likes of Lim Chin Siong, Devan Nair, Ong Eng Guan, S.
Rajaratnam, all of whom played critical roles in the early years of
the PAP and most as ministers in the 60s and 70s.
Of the group, only Goh was regarded as the intellectual equal, if
not superior, to Lee. But as a civil servant before he became a
politician, he had neither the skill nor the taste for Lee's brand
of ruthless street politics. So it was his skills as an
administrator and clear-headed thinker about economic development
that he was to prove his worth forging new institutions and
policies. Meanwhile, Lee kept command of the centre of power and
the PAP.
Goh's work was the bedrock of the industrialization force-fed by a
government facing the consequences of the withdrawal of Britain's
military garrison, once a key part of the Singapore economy, and
the rapid growth in the workforce due to a post 1945 surge in the
birth rate.
Goh also played a key role as Defense minister in the creation of
the Singapore Armed Forces and later still as education minister
and deputy prime minister prior to the elevation of the then young
Goh Chok Tong to that post in 1985. Although he remained on various
boards and committees,
Goh was almost invisible for the past 25 years of his life so for
most Singaporeans under 45 years of age his accomplishments are
little known. Even less is known about his relationship with Lee, a
man of very different character from the discreet, reserved Goh.
Nor has Goh – as far as is known – written memoirs which would give
his version of events between 1950 and 1980, the formative years of
modern Singapore.
The Lee Kuan Yew version as related in his two volume biography may
be factually accurate but obviously others, Singaporean and
Malaysian, saw things from very different perspectives. But Lee
still rules, the others are almost all gone.
Devan Nair became president before being publicly disgraced by Lee
and exiled in 1985. He died in 2005. Toh Chin Chye, the same age as
Lee and first chairman of the PAP left the cabinet in 1981 and
after several years as a disgruntled backbencher retired from
politics altogether in 1988.
Lim Chin Siong, the Chinese-educated workers' leader who founded
the PAP with Lee, was detained as an alleged Communist (an
allegation for which there was no evidence, according to British
intelligence) from 1964 to 1969 before being forced to renounce
politics. He was in exile in London for 10 years returning to
Singapore 1979 and dying in 1996. One Eng Guan, another fiery
Chinese-educated politician and mayor of Singapore, whom Lee only
just beat in a party committee vote to become prime minister in
1959, formed another party after clashing with Lee and left
politics in 1964 .
Those who stayed with Lee all through included Rajaratnam, who died
in 2006, and important but lesser figures such as Lim Kim San, the
force behind the Housing Development Board, who died in 2006, Hon
Sui Sen, first head of the Economic Development Board and then
Finance Minister who died in 1983, and Ong Pang Boon who was forced
into retirement in 1984 at the early age of 55 .
As time as passed and these names have slipped into the dim
distance the continued dominance of the Lee family in Singapore
politics has tended to obscure the roles of other pioneers. In
politics as in war, history is written by the victors. But as
Stalin's ghost will have learned, history can also be re-written.
So expect some future revision of Singapore history to make more
mention of the above names.
http://asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2471&Itemid=195
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