It would have been easier to
accept LKY's contribution if there are less hypocrisies to his
stated principles instead of constantly deviating and adopting
totally contradicting new sets of principles as time
progresses.
Were the changes due to his own perception for his own political
convenience, or was it for the larger benefit for Singaporeans
?
How should one react if someone promises a ''goal in life'', but having received
one's support will say that the ''goal in life'' is not meant for you,
and is only for those who are more talented to have led you ?
History has been forgotten and allowed to be re-written with a new
slant for new political objectives.
Even MM LKY was referred by in some writings as the ''Father of Singapore's
Independence''.
Was LKY the one that started Singapore's move towards independence,
as Sun Yat Sen did for China - and rightfully creditted by all
Chinese as the ''Father of the
Republic of China'' ?
Or was David Marshall the first Singaporean politician that started
the ''political
conciousness of Singaporeans'' towards taking a more active role
for our own Future - much like Sun Yat Sen did for
China ?
As a compromise to outright independence from British Colonial
Rule, David Marshall made a first step towards independence in the
1950s with the idea of ''self-governance'';
and won the approval of the British Government for Singapore's
''Self-Rule''.
MM LKY was no better than Mao Tse Tung in riding on the wave of
political conciousness that was started by others, and bringing the
political process to its fulfillment.
Like Mao Tse Tung abandoning of Sun Yat Sen's vision for a China
flowering with people free from being shackled, LKY abandoned his
own political principles and visions of democracy - betraying the
trust of the early Singaporean generation who believed his
political vision for a Free Singapore based on Democratic
Values.
:
Think Again, Mr
Lee
The Straits Times, May 20, 1959
Leslie Hoffman,
then editor-in-chief of the Straits Times, wrote this editorial on
freedom and free speech, in response to Mr Lee Kuan Yew's speech
during one of the election rallies before the 1959
election.
I have been a newspaperman all my working life and I have spent
those 24 years on two Malayan newspapers -- the Malaya Tribune and
the Straits Times.
I was born in Singapore and educated here and what knowledge of
newspaper work I have, I acquired in Singapore.
It is with this background that I say that not since the Japanese
conquered this island in Feb 1942, has the press of Singapore faced
such a grave threat as it does today.
On Wednesday, Mr Lee Kuan Yew, secretary-general of the People's
Action Party, said at a lunchtime rally at Cifford Pier:
"Any newspaper that tries to sour
up or strain relations between the Federation and Singapore after
May 30 will go in for subversion.
"Any editor, leader writer, sub-editor or reporter that goes along
this line will be taken in under Preservation of Public Security
Ordinance.
"We shall put him in and keep him in."
I have no doubt that Mr Lee means what he says.
So did the Japanese when they said no one must listen to short-wave
broadcasts from outside Shonan -- as Singapore was then called --
or read any newspaper except the Shonan Shimbun, the only
English-language newspaper published in Japanese-occupied
Singapore.
But that did not prevent the people of Singapore from risking their
lives to listen to the BBC or New Delhi, or from passing around
cyclostyled transcripts of these broadcasts.
Recall those
days
Mr Lee Kuan Yew should recall those
days. He was here, as were other members of PAP central executive.
So was I and numerous other newspapermen who refused to work for
the Japanese.
The threat of death or imprisonment does not scare away anyone who
believes in freedom -- the freedom of the individual to think, to
read or to write as he pleases, within the confines of the laws of
the state.
And there are laws in Singapore which ensure that sedition can be
punished by the courts and that those found guilty of the offence
can be sent to jail.
BUT MR LEE PREFERS TO USE THE
PRESERVATION OF PUBLIC SECURITY ORDINANCE INSTEAD OF THE SEDITION
ORDINANCE.
A strange choice for a man who once opposed this same Preservation
of Public Security Ordinance in these words:
"What he (the Chief
Minister) is seeking to do in the name of democracy is to curtail a
fundamental liberty and the most fundamental of them all -- freedom
from arrest and punishment without having violated a specific
provision of the law and being convicted for
it.
And again: "If it is not
totalitarian to arrest a man and detain him when you cannot charge
him with any offence against any written law -- if that is not what
we have always cried out against in Fascist states -- then what is
it ?"
What Indeed
?
Mr Lee cannot have his cake and eat
it. He must choose between democracy and totalitarianism. And so
must his supporters.
His supporters, like Mr S Rajaratnam, a former president of the
Singapore Union of Journalists and a former member of the staff of
The Straits Times.
Mr Rajaratnam, writing in October 1955, in the Singapore
Journalist, organ of the SUJ, on "The Press and Mr Speaker" had
this to say:
"The press is fair game for
touchy politicians. In recent months the local press has been
accused of wilful distortions of weighty and lengthy pronouncements
by gentlemen who are struck by the facts that they do not read as
well in print as they sound.
"Believing as we do in free speech, we think that politicians are
perfectly entitled to air their views on whether a newspaper or a
journalist has done justice to their speeches. "But it is a
different matter when differences of opinion as to sub-editing
could result in a newspaper or a journalist being denied facilities
which are normally obtained in a free
country...
City of
Merdeka
"It is to be hoped that when they (the
Assemblymen) cry 'merdeka' (with or without a clenched fist), they
mean also 'merdeka' for the press and pressmen who have no
objection to having their ears boxed.
"All they ask is that they be allowed to carry on their pleasant
and unpleasant duties of reporting and commenting with the greatest
possible freedom.
"There will not be that feeling of freedom if a newspaperman feels
that he can be kept out of the Assembly by the Speaker, whose
decision cannot be questioned."
AND MR RAJARATNAM SHOULD AGREE THAT
NEWSPAPERMEN WILL NOT HAVE "THAT FEELING OF FREEDOM" IF THEY ARE
DETAINED IN PRISON BY A GOVERNMENT WHOSE DECISION CANNOT BE
QUESTIONED.
However that may be, Mr Lee and Mr Rajaratnam should know their
newspapermen better.
Threats will not prevent a good newspaperman from publishing a
story which he considers should be published, or from commenting on
an issue which is vital to the common good.
The Straits Times will continue to publish the news and honest
opinion, whatever the consequences -- even if the Preservation of
Public Security Ordinance is invoked against individual
newspapermen.
Mr Lee and his comrades should think again
