actually he was not wrong to adopt English as the
mainstream as he has to be fair to every race including the indians
and malays so that neither one has the advantage
Actually that is complete and total bullshit by Lee Kuan
Yew.
That
English is a `neutral' language is, of course, an ideological
illusion. Since
Singapore was a British colony for 150 years,
English was already a common
language
among the privileged local population who worked
for the colonial administration
and whose children had access to the limited
opportunities of learning the language.
This included the first
generation of political leaders who, as English speakers,
had
access to British university education
immediately after the second world war.
The
ideological promotion of English as a `neutral' language to all
ethnic Asian children
has suppressed this class dimension. The political utility of this illusory `neutrality'
is
that it enables the state to articulate, in
English, its own interests distinctly, apart
from
the interests of all racial
groups. It also effects a separation of
state/national interests
from those of the racial majority, and prevents state/national interests from
being
captured by the racial majority. The position of
monolingual Chinese speakers
illustrates this.
http://lukdomen.narod.ru/questia-geopol.pdf
I think we need to invent a new term to describe Lee Kuan
Yew's bullshit.
I suggest "harryleeism".
Next time someone comes and tell me that Singapore must use
english as "neutral" language, I will reply, "ar so you are a
follower of harryleeism."