“I’m not intellectually convinced that one-man-one-vote is the
best. We practise it because that’s what the British bequeathed
us.”
- Lee Kuan Yew, 1994
“Anybody who decides to take me on needs to put on
knuckle-dusters. If you think you can hurt me more than I can hurt
you, try. There is no way you can govern a Chinese society.”
- Lee Kuan Yew, The Man and His Ideas,
1997
“You’re talking about Rwanda or Bangladesh, or Cambodia, or the
Philippines. They’ve got democracy, according to Freedom House. But
have you got a civilised life to lead? People want economic
development first and foremost. The leaders may talk something
else. You take a poll of any people. What is it they want? The
right to write an editorial as you like? They want homes, medicine,
jobs, schools.”
- Lee Kuan Yew, The Man and His Ideas,
1997
“They say people can think for themselves? Do you honestly
believe that the chap who can’t pass primary six knows the
consequence of his choice when he answers a question viscerally, on
language, culture and religion? But we knew the consequences. We
would starve, we would have race riots. We would
disintegrate.”
- Lee Kuan Yew, The Man & His Ideas,
1997
“If we had considered them serious political figures, we would
not have kept them politically alive for so long. We could have
bankrupt them earlier.”
- Lee Kuan Yew on political opposition,
Straits Times, Sept 14 2003
“Political reform need not go hand in hand with economic
liberalisation.. I hold unconventional views about this.. I do not
believe if you are a libertarian, full of diverse opinions, full of
competing ideas in the market place, full of sound and fury,
therefore you will succeed.”
- Lee Kuan Yew, 2005
“There is nothing to prevent you from pushing your propaganda,
to push your programme out to the students or with the public at
large…and if you can carry the ground, if you are right, you win.
That’s democracy.”
- Lee Kuan Yew telling students to form
political parties, Straits Times, Feb 1, 2005
“Please do not assume that you can change governments. Young
people don’t understand this”
- Lee Kuan Yew on the results of the 2006 election
“They say, oh, let’s have multiparty politics. Let’s have
different parties change and be in charge of the Government. Is it
that simple? You vote in a Division Three government, not a
Division One government, and the whole economy will just subside
within three, four years. Finished.”
- Lee Kuan Yew, Today, Aug 15 2008
On JUSTICE
“Repression, Sir is a habit that grows. I am told it is like
making love-it is always easier the second time! The first time
there may be pangs of conscience, a sense of guilt. But once
embarked on this course with constant repetition you get more and
more brazen in the attack. All you have to do is to dissolve
organizations and societies and banish and detain the key political
workers in these societies. Then miraculously everything is
tranquil on the surface. Then an intimidated press and the
government-controlled radio together can regularly sing your
praises, and slowly and steadily the people are made to forget the
evil things that have already been done, or if these things are
referred to again they’re conveniently distorted and distorted with
impunity, because there will be no opposition to contradict.”
-Lee Kuan Yew as an opposition PAP member speaking to David
Marshall, Singapore Legislative Assembly, Debates, 4 October,
1956
“…you attack only those whom your Special Branch can
definitely say are communists. Then you attack those whom
your Special Branch says are aiding communists. Then finally,
when you have gone that far, you attack all who oppose you.”
-Lee Kuan Yew as an opposition PAP member speaking to David
Marshall, Singapore Legislative Assembly, Debates, 4 October,
1956
“These powers will not be allowed to be used against political
opponents within the system who compete for the right to work the
system. That is fundamental and basic or the powers will have
destroyed the purpose for which they were forged.”
- Lee Kuan Yew speaking in Parliament on the Preservation of
Public Security Act, a precursor to the ISA, Oct 14, 1959
“I can only express the hope that faith in the judicial system
will never be diminished, and I am sure it will not, so long as we
allow a review of the judicial processes that takes place here in
some other tribunal where obviously undue influence cannot be
brought to bear. As long as governments are wise enough to leave
alone the rights of appeal to some superior body outside Singapore,
then there must be a higher degree of confidence in the integrity
of our judicial process. This is most important.”
- Lee Kuan Yew in parliament, March 15, 1967
“We have over a hundred political detainees, men against whom we
are unable to prove anything in a court of law. Nearly 50 of them
are men who gave us a great deal of anxiety during the years of
Confrontation because they were Malay extremists. Your life and
this dinner would not be what it is if my colleagues and I had
decided to play it according to the rules of the game.”
- Lee Kuan Yew speaking to the Singapore Advocates and
Solicitors Society, Mar 18, 1967
“I will make him crawl on his bended knees, and beg for
mercy.”
- Lee Kuan Yew on J. B. Jeyaretnam, as reported by Devan Nair,
1981
“We have to lock up people, without trial, whether they are
communists, whether they are language chauvinists, whether they are
religious extremists. If you don’t do that, the country would be in
ruins.”
- Lee Kuan Yew, 1986
“It is not the practice, now will I allow subversives to get
away by insisting that I’ve got to prove everything against them in
a court of law or [produce] evidence that will stand up
to the strict rules of evidence of a court of law.”
- Lee Kuan Yew, 1988
“The same law applies to me. Nobody has sued me for libel
because I do not defame my enemies.”
- Lee Kuan Yew, Success Stories, 2002
“Most libels, and I have taken about 30 actions, take place at
election time. It has not stuck because I am prepared to go before
a court, stand in the witness box and face the most aggressive of
lawyers who can cross-examine me on my personal history.”
- Lee Kuan Yew, Straits Times, Sept 30 2002
On FREEDOM
“My colleagues and I are of that generation of young men who
went through the Second World War and the Japanese Occupation and
emerged determined that no one–neither Japanese nor British–had the
right to push and kick us around. We determined that we could
govern ourselves and bring up our children in a country where we
can be proud to be self-respecting people.”
- Lee Kuan Yew, “The Battle for Merger” (1961)
“Let us get down to fundamentals. Is this an open, or is this a
closed society? Is it a society where men can preach ideas – novel,
unorthodox, heresies, to established churches and established
governments – where there is a constant contest for men’s hearts
and minds on the basis of what is right, of what is just, of what
is in the national interests, or is it a closed society where the
mass media – the newspapers, the journals, publications, TV, radio
– either bound by sound or by sight, or both sound and sight, men’s
minds are fed with a constant drone of sycophantic support for a
particular orthodox political philosophy? I am talking of the
principle of the open society, the open debate, ideas, not
intimidation, persuasion not coercion…”
- Lee Kuan Yew, Malaysian Parliamentary Debates, Dec 18,
1964
“Any time, every time, you can damn the Prime Minister and so
long as it is not a lie and a criminal lie, nothing happens to
you. You can say a lot of things. You can write books
about him, damning him. So long as it is not a libel, go
ahead.”
- Lee Kuan Yew, Parliament, February 23, 1977
“I am often accused of interfering in the private lives of
citizens. Yes, if I did not, had I not done that, we wouldn’t be
here today. And I say without the slightest remorse, that we
wouldn’t be here, we would not have made economic progress, if we
had not intervened on very personal matters – who your neighbour
is, how you live, the noise you make, how you spit, or what
language you use. We decide what is right. Never mind what the
people think.”
- Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, Straits Times, 20 April
1987
“There is nothing to forbid anybody from nailing his colours to
the mast, and indeed it is the safest way to do it. Nail your
colours to the mast, defend it and say,”This is my flag, this is
what I believe in. I believe in open debate, arguments, persuasion,
I hope to win by votes.” But start manipulating innocent
professional groups, cultural groups and make them support
political causes, whether its freedom of the foreign press or
whatever, then I say you are looking for unpleasant linkages with
what has happened in the past.”
- Lee Kuan Yew, 1990 National Day
Rally
