Lee co-founded the People's Action Party (PAP) in 1954 and won his first seat at the Tanjong Pagar division during the 1955 general election. He became the de facto opposition leader in parliament, to Chief Ministers David Marshall and Lim Yew Hock of the Labour Front. Lee led his party to its first electoral victory in 1959 and was appointed as the state's first prime minister. To attain complete home rule from Britain, Lee campaigned for a merger with other former British territories in a national referendum to form Malaysia in 1963. Racial strife and ideological differences later led to Singapore's expulsion from Malaysia and subsequent independence in 1965, less than two years after the merger.
The Singapore Story From Third World To First Pdf 15
Lee was born at home on 16 September 1923, the first child to Lee Chin Koon and Chua Jim Neo, at 92 Kampong Java Road in Singapore, then part of the British Empire.[19] Both of Lee's parents were English-educated third-generation Straits Chinese,[20] with his paternal side being of Hakka descent from Dabu County.[21][22] He was named 'Kuan Yew',[a] meaning 'light and brightness', alternately meaning 'bringing great glory to one's ancestors'. Lee's paternal grandfather Lee Hoon Leong, who was described as "especially westernised", had worked on British ships as a purser, and hence gave Lee the Western name 'Harry'.[23] While the family spoke English as its first language, Lee also learned Malay.[19] Lee would have three brothers and one sister, all of whom lived till old age.[24]
Lee's first speech as prime minister to a 50,000-strong audience at the Padang sought to dampen his supporters' euphoria of the PAP's electoral win.[124] In the first month of Lee taking power, Singapore experienced an economic slump as foreign capital fell and Western businesses and expatriates left for Kuala Lumpur in Malaya, fearing the new government's anti-colonial zeal.[124] As part of an 'anti-yellow culture' drive, Lee banned jukeboxes and pinball machines, while the police under Home Affairs Minister Ong Pang Boon raided pubs and pornography publications.[e][128] The government cracked down on secret societies, prostitution and other illegal activities, with TIME magazine later reporting that a full week passed without "kidnapping, extortion or gangland rumble(s)" for the first time.[128] Lee also spearheaded several 'mobilisation campaigns' to clean the city, introduced air-conditioning to government offices, and slashed the salaries of civil servants. The last act provoked anger from the sector, which Lee justified as necessary to balance the budget.[129]
Lee took measures to secure his position in the aftermath of the 1957 party elections. In 1959, he delayed the release of leftist PAP members arrested under the former Labour Front government and appointed five of its leaders,[f] including Lim Chin Siong, as parliamentary secretaries lacking political power.[127][136] Lee clashed further with Lim when the government sought to create a centralised labour union in the first half of 1960.[137] Trouble also arose from former mayor and Minister of National Development Ong Eng Guan, who Lee had appointed in recognition of Ong's contribution to the PAP's electoral win.[137][138] Ong's relocation of his ministry to his Hong Lim stronghold and continued castigation of the British and civil servants was regarded by his colleagues as disruptive and Lee removed several portfolios from Ong's purview in February 1960.[139][138]
In the party conference on 18 June 1960, Ong filed "16 resolutions" against the leadership, accusing Lee of failing to seek party consensus when deciding policy, not adhering to anti-colonialism and suspending left-wing unions.[140] Lee regarded it as a move to split the party and together with his allies expelled Ong from the party.[141] Ong resigned his seat in December, precipitating the Hong Lim by-election on in April 1961 which he won against a PAP candidate.[139][142] The death of the PAP assemblyman for Anson that April triggered a second by-election. For the first time, Lim's faction openly revolted against Lee and endorsed Workers' Party chairman David Marshall who won the seat.[139][143]
A referendum for merger was scheduled for 1 September 1962. Lee ensured that the ballot lacked a "no" option, with all three options having varying terms for admission into Malaysia.[155] The ballot was crafted by Lee and Goh Keng Swee to capitalise on a mistake which the Barisan had made the previous year. The Barisan had inadvertently endorsed merger under terms "like Penang" (a state of Malaya) with full citizenship rights, not realising that Malayan law entitled only a native-born to qualify for automatic citizenship, which would disenfranchise nearly one third of those eligible to vote;[158] it issued a clarification but never recovered from the mistake.[159] Lee placed the flag of Singapore alongside option A with the terms of Singapore retaining control of education and labour policy, while portraying the Barisan's choice as option B favouring entry into the federation with no special rights, next to the flag of Penang.[160] When Lim called for his supporters to submit blank votes, Lee countered that blank votes would count as a vote for the majority choice. 71% eventually voted for option A, while 26% cast blank votes.[161] In November, Lee embarked on a ten-month visit to all fifty-one constituencies, prioritizing those with the highest count of blank votes.[162]
Lee's perceptions that merger was becoming infeasible was also due to the federal government's obstruction of his industrialisation program and its imposition of new taxes on Singapore in November 1964.[185] He authorised Goh Keng Swee to renegotiate with Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Razak Hussein on Singapore's place in the federation in early 1965.[185] Seeking to provide an alternative to the Alliance Party government, Lee and his colleagues formed the Malaysian Solidarity Convention (MSC) with the Malayan and Sarawakian opposition on 9 May, with its goals for a Malaysian Malaysia and race-blind society.[185][188] The MSC was seen by UMNO as a threat to the Malay monopoly of power and special rights granted to Malays under Article 153.[189][190] UMNO supreme council member and future prime minister Mahathir Mohamad called the PAP "pro-Chinese, communist-oriented and positively anti-Malay", while others called for Lee's arrest under the Internal Security Act for trying to split the federation.[189][191] Mathathir in his speech stated the huaren (ethnic Chinese) of Singapore were of "the insular, selfish and arrogant type of which Mr. Lee is a good example...They are in fact Chinese first, seeing China as the center of the world and Malaysia as a very poor second".[192]
Such fears were sincerely felt by the UNMO leaders as one UMNO politician who was friendly with Lee privately told him: "You Chinese are too energetic and clever for us...we cannot stand the pressure".[193] Many UMNO politicians felt threatened by Lee, a politician who sought to appeal to both ethnic Chinese and Malay voters.[192] Albar warned in a speech that the Malay voters of Singapore must have been "misled" into voting for the PAP, and the UNMO would not allow this to happen in the next election.[192] Lee later wrote of Tunku that was "a nice man", but "he was a prince who understood power and knew how to use it. He did not carry a big stick, but he had many hatchet-bearers who would do the job for him while he looked the other way and appeared as benign as ever".[192] Tunku was a Malay aristocrat who spent his undergraduate years at Cambridge by his own admission on "fast women" rather than studying and whom Lee contemptuously noted had been awarded a degree at Cambridge that he did not deserve solely because he was an aristocrat.[194] Tunku in turn felt threatened by Lee, a man who had worked his way up via his intelligence and self-discipline, which made him very different from the people in his world.[194]
On 26 May, Lee addressed the Malaysian parliament for the final time, delivering his speech entirely in the Malay language. He challenged the Alliance Party to commit itself to a Malaysian Malaysia and denounce its extremists, and also argued that the PAP could better uplift the livelihood of the Malays.[189] Then-social affairs minister Othman Wok later recounted: "I noticed that while he was speaking, the Alliance leaders sitting in front of us, they sank lower and lower because they were embarrassed this man (Lee) could speak Malay better than them".[195] Then-national development minister Lim Kim San also noted: "That was the turning point. They perceived [Lee] as a dangerous man who could one day be the prime minister of Malaya. This was the speech that changed history."[195] Prime Minister Tunku labelled the speech as the final straw which contributed to his decision on 29 June that Singapore's secession was necessary.[196] The more extreme UMNO politicians such as Albar were pressing to have Lee arrested and martial law proclaimed, but Tunku chose to accept Singapore's secession instead.[194] The British Prime Minister Harold Wilson also quietly pressured Tunku to accept Singapore's secession, and warned him against a declaration of martial law.[194] As Britain was defending Malaysia from Indonesian attempts to annex the country, Britain was in a strong position to apply pressure on Malaysia. Lee in his memoirs stated that Singapore owed Wilson a major debt for his role in pressuring Tunku for a peaceful resolution of the crisis.[197]
In November 1978, after China had stabilized following political turmoil in the aftermath of Mao Zedong's death and the Gang of Four, Deng Xiaoping visited Singapore and met Lee. Deng, who was very impressed with Singapore's economic development, greenery and housing, and later sent tens of thousands of Chinese to Singapore and countries around the world to learn from their experiences and bring back their knowledge as part of the opening of China beginning in December 1978. Lee, on the other hand, advised Deng to stop exporting Communist ideologies to Southeast Asia, advice that Deng later followed.[248][249] This culminated in the exchange of Trade Offices between the two nations in September 1981.[250] In 1985, commercial air services between mainland China and Singapore commenced[251] and China appointed Goh Keng Swee, Singapore's finance minister in the post-independence years, as advisor on the development of Special Economic Zones.[252] 2ff7e9595c
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