99.9% of the people who know the work of LKY well fall into two
rather polarized camps: Yep, you either love him or hate him.
Like all other prominent personages who have managed to carve a
significant niche in the annals of history for themselves, they
will be judged either as messiahs or self-consumed villains
masquerading as heroes.
I personally, fall in that other 0.01%. I do admire the man. But I
stop way short of fawning over him. It is hard not to admire
someone who was instrumental in building Singapore to what it is
today. Sure, we must not forget the likes of Dr Goh Keng Swee who
was prominent among the Old Guard whom themselves must have credit
for their collaboration with LKY (and his collaboration with them).
But every leadership collaboration must have a human face, a
frontman if you will. LKY emerged as this frontman because he had
the charisma to. If his colleagues had minded this, they would not
have stuck with him through thick and thin. What is sure is that he
commanded their respect and captivated their dreams for a Singapore
vastly different from the one they were called to lead. The
Singapore dream was definitely not the dream on one LKY. It was a
shared dream and crafted socio-political vision that belonged to
the Old Guard collectively. The role of salesman of this dream and
vision, by concensus, fell to one LKY who did a remarkable job at
it, just as the other members of the Old Guard, I am sure, did
equally remarkable jobs in their own fields of planning and
governance.
So yes, it is fair to say that the "legend" of LKY certainly is a
little overplayed in the imaginations of most people. But people,
being who we are, need larger than life heroes from time to time to
help give us a sense of identity and to fire our imaginations that
dreams are certainly possible. The legend of LKY will live on years
after his passing and one thing will surely continue: many people
will continue to either love him or hate him. Perhaps for the
better. We all need heroes and villains to keep us passionate about
the things we care about.
