MM Lee: what will they say of me after my coffin is closed?

From Straits Times

Accepting the award, MM Lee, 85, thanked the Rotary International president and added a wry remark of his own.

He quoted a Chinese proverb which says that ‘when the coffin is closed, then you have the final verdict’, and explained that it served as a ‘reality check’ for him.

‘When I am praised on occasions such as for honorary degrees, I try to keep my sense of proportion by recalling this proverb,’ he said to laughter from the audience. ‘After I have left the scene, the biographers, historians and editors will track my career and pronounce their verdicts.‘

EDITORS’ NOTE:

When he is still alive, MM Lee is able to control what Singaporeans say of him. The sycopantic and subservient state media worship him like God who cannot commit a single mistake. Even articles written by the foreign media had to be censored of critical remarks about him before they are allowed to be republished for local readers.

Like Mao Zedong before him, the cult of Lee Kuan Yew will eventually fade away into oblivion and before his real achievements and failures can be objectively studied and assessed on their individual merits by future generations of Singaporeans.

His “achievements” have been blown out of proportion through years of rigorous, systematic and brainless propaganda. He cannot take full credit for transforming Singapore into a developed nation. On the contrary, he should be held accountable for the many misguided ecnomic policies leading to a widening income gap, a loss of identity and belonging to the country by native-born Singaporeans and the loss of billions of reserves in ill-timed overseas investments.

The British left us their Westminister Parliamentary system of democracy which was corrupted by MM Lee to become a rubber-stamp Parliament for his autocracy. Now he had bequeathed us a flawed system of governance lacking healthy checks and balances with over concentration of power in the hands of a few.

Our citizens are deprived of economic, political and civil rights which put us forever at the mercy of handouts from a nanny state. All our institutions are under the influence if not direct control of the ruling party. Unless we become part of the ruling clique, ordinary citizens are barred from participating in the nation-buidling process.

We are “digits” in our own land of birth, labor to be exploited till the end of our productive lives before we are shipped out to some neighoring islands to perish there on our own. Though we are materially richer than many other Asian countries, we are spiritually poor. Singaporeans are amongst the unhappiest people in the region.

MM Lee’s arrogance will be the cause of his downfall. In spite of his desperate attempts to exonerate himself from any blame, his performance as Chairman of GIC is laid exposed for all to see. Figures do not lie. We have lost and are still losing our reserves built up painstakingly over the years.

While the state loses billions of dollars of public monies with impunity, more and more Singaporeans are falling below the poverty line. We were told that we cannot depend on the state to help us because Singapore need to save to build up our reserves for rainy days. When our reserves are lost, we are reassured that Singapore will be able to recoup the losses in the future. We will never be able to touch the monies which belong rightfully to us, not even smell it.

MM Lee once made an infamous remark that he will rise out of the coffin if there is something wrong with the way Singapore is run. The future of Singapore should be the least of his concern because there are many capable Singaporeans out there who are more than qualified than him or his son to govern the nation.

What he should be worried about most is his fast disappearing legacy. He should have stepped down a long time ago to give the generations after him to plot their own destiny. But he chooses to linger on and cast a shadow over the entire nation. By remaining in power longer than he should, he has done Singaporeans a great disservice. He is living on past glories and completely out of touch with the realities in a new world order.

After he is long gone, he will be put into the rightful place together with other dictators like Suharto and Mahathir who curbed the civil rights of the people and democratic institutions of the land to serve to preserve and perpetuate their political hegemony. History will be a lot crueler to you, MM Lee and it is a pity you will not be around by then to hear the final verdict pronounced on you with your own ears.