AskMeLah!

(In)Famous Quotes From Lee Kuan Yew 

Lee Kuan Yew is the founding father of Modern Singapore and the ex-Prime Minister. He is currently the Minister Mentor (MM), which is essentially an advisor to the PM and the cabinet, and his job is more "forecasting" for Singapore in his own word. [Updated Sep 2011: Lee Kuan Yew has officially stepped down from the cabinet after the watershed 2011 General Election.]

While MM Lee has been visionary and well respected during his reign as prime minister of Singapore, he seems to have lost that midas touch since he stepped down from his PM post more than 20 years ago as judged from the many controversial statements that he has made during these years, which we have captured here in this page, since he stepped down. It is perhaps time for him to step aside and let Singapore learn to survive and live without him for the future of Singapore.

"LKY was a very good leader in his first 20 years of rule, assisted by fine and committed good men like Toh Chin Chye, GKS and Rajatranam. Having said that, since the stepping down of these fine men, LKY has been courting many controversies ...... His last 20 years "achievements" are highly questionable without those early PAP fine men by his side." - Ang Sar Lee

* For the record, Askmelah was a great admirer of Lee Kuan Yew in the 70s and 80s, diminished somewhat in the 90s but completely disdain of his many controversial statements post millennium and has stopped buying and reading his books since.

-------------------------------------------

"If Singapore depends on the talent it can produce out of 3 million people, it's not going to punch above its weight....So you've got to accept the discomfort which the local citizens feel, that they are competing unequally for jobs. (It) cannot be helped." (23 Jul 2011, Todayonline)

[Askmelah's note: what's so interesting to punch above its weight that we have to accept more than the discomfort? Especially in the situations when we have too much growth (a blistering 14.7% in 2010 which surpass the previous record of 13.8 percent set in 1970) rather than negative growth. Any doctor will tell you too much of anything is no good for your health. Read more.]

   
"People get educated, the bright ones rise, they marry equally well-educated spouses. The result is their children are smarter than those who are gardeners""

• MM Lee on Elitism in his new book Hard Truths. The full text: "People get educated, the bright ones rise, they marry equally well-educated spouses. The result is their children are smarter than those who are gardeners. Not that all the children of gardeners are duds. Occasionally 2 grey horses produce a white horse but very few . If you have 2 white horses, the chances are you breed white horses. It's seldom spoken publicly because those who are NOT white horses say, "You're degrading me". But its a fact of life. You get a good mare, you don't want a dud stallion to breed with your good mare. You get a poor foal. Your mental capacity and your EQ and the rest of you, 70 to 80% is genetic. "

Source: Diary of a Singaporean Mind, Jan 2011

[Editor's note: Enough said about this controversial and simplistic view from this man, see an excellent blog by Lucky Tan on this issue and his hilarious take on the parallels of Meritocracy practised in North Korea and Singapore.]

   
"We are not preventing competition. What we preventing is duds getting into Parliament and government"

• Lee Kuan Yew responding to the question "Is Singapore really that vulnerable or is that an excuse to stifle political competition?" in his new book "Hard Truths". 

Source: The Straits Times, 15 Jan 2011 

[Editor's note: This statement shows the elitist in him who has little respect for his countrymen despite Singapore being one of most advanced economies and one of the highest literacy in the world, its citizens are still unable to fend and to decide who should govern Singapore. It is akin to the idea that we have a limited supply of talented chefs and restaurateurs, hence only certain restaurants would be allowed by the Government. Dumb!

As former Malaysian PM Mahathir put it, "this frank admission that he (MM Lee) determines who should represent the people of Singapore is incontrovertible proof that Singapore is a totalitarian state." Mahathir went on to contrast when both sides separated in 1965, supporters of the People’s Action Party (PAP) formed the Malaysian opposition Democratic Action Party (DAP), “which is alive and well today in Malaysia”. “But the rump Umno left in Singapore could not survive in the hostile atmosphere. For that matter, no other political party has been allowed to function properly in Singapore,” he added.]

"If Aljunied decides to go that way, well Aljunied has five years to live and repent."

• Lee Kuan Yew commenting the heavily contested Aljunied GRC and the consequences of Aljunied GRC voters had to face if the Opposition was to be voted in. Well, the opposition party had won the Aljunied GRC despite the grave warning, and it is now the PAP leaders that need to "repent" for the next five years. The then MM Lee himself has offered to step down from the cabinet after the last election. Read More.
• Askmelah also recalled MM Lee mentioned that the property values would drop if the ward fell into opposition. More than 16 months after the election, a HDB flat (executive maisonette) set a record in Hougang Street 21 sold with a Cash-Over-Valuation (COV) of S$225,000, about five times the average COV paid for such properties.

Source: Todayonline, 1 May 2011 

"If they choose the opposition, then I say, good luck to them. They have five years to ruminate and to regret what they did. And I have no doubts they will regret it.” - Apr 2011"

• The comments is the first from the Minister Mentor since the election campaign begun in earnest. Mr Lee, 87, has been known to involve himself in hotly-contested constituencies, such as in Cheng San in 1997 and Aljunied in 2006

'I don't think there should be a retirement age'

• Asked for his views on the ageing workforce's impact on productivity and growth, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew said Singaporeans would be healthier and happier if they worked for as long as they could. He said Singaporeans have to accept the "painful" prospect of being paid less as they work into old age. "You are superior, and suddenly your junior overtakes your position and you have less pay and he's the boss. So you find the psychological switch unpleasant, but that's life," he said.

Source: TodayOnline.com, Jul 29, 2010 

[Editor's note: Can not retire and yet foreign cheap labours are allowed in to take the low end jobs, Singapore seniors may be the most unfortunate people in the world. His words are also not convincing for a man whose salary is S$3 million for not doing much except forecasting and advising occasionally.]

"No amount of engineering can prevent flooding"

   
"Our women will become maids in other people's countries, foreign workers"

• "You know, the cure for all this talk is really a good dose of incompetent government. You get that alternative and you'll never put Singapore together again: Humpty Dumpty cannot be put together again... and your asset values will disappear, your apartment will be worth a fraction of what it is, your jobs will be in peril, your security will be at risk and our women will become maids in other people's countries, foreign workers."
• MM in Justifying million-dollar pay hike for Singapore ministers (Straits Times, 5 April 2007)

Source: Wikipedia

[Editor's note:

• It is no shame to be maids or foreign workers, it is honest living with tears and sweat afterall.
• However our women are too pampered and too highly educated to work as such.
• There are many government in the world that takes modest wages and yet competent, e.g. China, the early PAP government and yet producing amazing results, the willlingness to serve overrides everything else
• On the contrary the global economic meltdown has demonstrated that paying top dollars to attract the best and the brightest talents may do more harm than good. The high pay simply is no substitute for passion to serve the country and the willingness to give back to the society. Read more.]

"So, when I heard Dr Tan Cheng Bock, I decided I would stand up and tell him he’s wrong…you have to decide whether you think he knows more or I know more. You have to decide whether he will give you the answer to Singapore’s future — or that I am likely to give you the better road to the future." 

• Then SM Lee arrogantly rebuked Dr Tan Cheng Bock, then MP for Ayer Rajah, who urged the Government to tone down its calls for the recruitment of foreign talent and reassure Singaporeans that they came first (14 August 1999)

[Askmelah's note: fast forward one decade later and now the Govt is doing exactly what Dr. Tan was advocating then i.e. give priority to Singaporeans. We are seeing them in the latest Government's policies on education, health care, housing, jobs etc. Dr. Tan was right afterall and Lee was proven otherwise. Lee has stayed in the ivory tower for far too long that he has lost touch with the ground.]

"The choice to take a hostile stance to immigrants is something that Singapore cannot afford to make.... Like it or not, unless we have more babies, we need to accept immigrants." (Source)

[Askmelah's Note: Singaporeans esp the Chinese used to make a lot of babies, funny how the man himself who created the problem in the first place is now pretending that it is not his past policy failure and put the blame squarely on the people who now too use to his over-zealous "Stop-at-two policy" and the endless quest for excellence (read material pursue) that resulted in low fertility rate. The Government instead resort to the "opium" approach of importing lots and lots of immigrants and labours. Askmelah thinks that the current leaders are building a bigger problem for future leaders to solve. It is not sustainable.]

• [Askmelah's Notes: LKY in his often controversal selective-wording-in-making-a-point style, trivalised many other important factors about Singapore's miracle: Strategic geographical location, hardworking population, dominant Chinese and enterprising business culture, selfless and dedicated PAP pioneers, an established infrastructure and civil service system left by the British, the crisis which united the nation as a result of explusion from the Malaysian Federation, the ISA, the young and hungry population etc etc the list goes on. Globalisation? Maybe but certainly not the only key factor, definitely not the top five IMHO.]

"I’m not intellectually convinced that one-man, one-vote is the best. We practise it because that’s what the British bequeathed us"

• Said this in an interview with Fareed Zakaria for Foreign Affairs magazine in 1994. [Source]

Along similar line of thoughts:
“They say people can think for themselves? Do you honestly believe that the chap who can’t pass primary six knows the consequence of his choice when he answers a question viscerally, on language, culture and religion? But we knew the consequences. We would starve, we would have race riots. We would disintegrate.” - Lee Kuan Yew, The Man & His Ideas, 1997

[Editor's note: It is a shame for MM Lee to put down the system where many iliterates in the 1950s and 60s who put this man and his party into power using exactly the same system that he now does not think will work despite the country has reached a first-world status and more well educated workforce. This view also contrasts sharply from his 1956 speech when PAP was still an opposition party and majority of the population then had little or no education.] 

   
"You take this job on like my original team did, 'This is for life'. We were putting our lives at stake taking on the communists. If you lose, they'll pull our fingernails out and brainwash us and we know that and they make no bones about it. That's number one, you must have the convictions to want to do it and do it not for glory but because you feel you have to do this."

•  MM Lee responding to the question "After 57 years in politics, what are the most important lessons that you would distil for an aspiring politician in Singapore? Source: The Straits Times 22 Jan 2011

[Editor's Note: It is interesting to see how many existing batch of PAP politicians are ready to get their fingernails pulled out. It is more likely some are going for the big paycheck and glory. The same can not be said about the opposition politicians as they face higher likelihood of public humiliation, procecution and even bankruptcy, just ask JB Jayaratnam,Tang Liang Hong and Francis Seow.] 

"Who dares to tell me that my time is up? I'm on the J.P. Morgan board, the (French oil giant) Total board and a few other boards. When they reappointed me, I told them,'Look, the moment  I'm slipping, please tell me. I'm already 80-plus'"

-Source: The Straits Times 22 Jan 2011

[Editor's Notes: Who dares! I remember years ago on a Mediacorp TV's interview, when challenged by a reporter by the name of Ken on a factual discussion, MM Lee retorted that "if my grandson talked to me this way, I will thumb him down."]

"If you are polite to me, I'm polite to you but I'll demolish your policy. It is the job of every government to do that if you want to stay in power."

• MM Lee responding to the question whether PAP has systematically demolished opposition. Source: The Straits Times 22 Jan 2011

“That was my intention. If the new PM fails, I have failed...... Mahathir never thought that way. He undermined his successors”

• Singapore’s founding father said in his book, Lee Kuan Yew: Hard Truths To Keep Singapore Going” comparing the approach he used with his successor Goh Chok Tong and that of Malaysia’s fourth prime minister. Source: Yahoo! News

“Without the elected president and if there is a freak result, within two or three years, the army have to come in and stop it.”

• The infamous remark made by MM Lee during an interview with Straits Times in 2006 in which he threatened to send in the army should the PAP lose power via a “freak election” one day. (Source: Temasekreview.com). 

“Please do not assume that you can change governments. Young people don’t understand this”

• Lee Kuan Yew on the results of the 2006 election. 
• Askmelah's note: and we are accused by Taiwanese writer Li Ao (李敖)  of being "Stupid"

“Anybody who decides to take me on needs to put on knuckle-dusters. If you think you can hurt me more than I can hurt you, try. There is no way you can govern a Chinese society.”

• Lee Kuan Yew: The Man and His Ideas, 1997 

"It (the unification with Malaysia) would only be possible when Malaysia practised meritocracy"

•  Source: New Straits Times-December 19, 2000, and Singapore-window.org

(Editor's note: The only way that the Malaysians will take back Singapore must be on their own terms rather than on Singapore's terms. Ideology has no place in this unfortunate cirucmstances) 

"If I have to shoot 200,000 students to save China from another 100 years of disorder, so be it."

• Lee Kuan Yew endorsing the Tiananmen massacre, Straits Times, 17 August 2004, Source: mindbloggingstuff.blogspot.com
• While Deng had succeeded in suppressing dissidents, other dictators had failed miserably e.g Libyan's dictator Gaddafi and likewise for many preceding last Chinese emperors of the various dynasties.

"If National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan is unable to defend this policy (HDB asset enhancing), he deserves to lose at the next general election."

• MM Lee Kuan Yew commenting on the topic of escalating HDB prices at a dialogue during a housing conference as part of a series of events to mark the Housing and Development Board’s 50th anniversary (2010). Updated Sep 2011: while Mah Bao Tan won the election marginally, he was still fired as the ground had clearly demonstrated their displeasure at many of his policy missteps.

 
"I think we were progressing very nicely until the surge of Islam came.....I would say, today, we can integrate all religions and races except Islam""

"I'm quite accustomed to a hostile group... it's not going to change me and I'm not going to change you – we are going to prosper and you are going to prosper but if I allow you to run my country, we will spiral downwards and hit rock bottom." 

• Channel NewsAsia  28 March 2007, "Australia no longer "white trash of Asia": MM Lee". In 1980, Lee Kuan Yew, the outspoken prime minister of Singapore, famously warned that Australia was living way beyond its means and in danger of becoming the poor white trash of Asia. Fast forward 30 years, he has to eat his own words as not only is Australia thriving, its currency is strongest now than in the last 30 years compared to SGD and Australia remains one of the top two countries to aspiring immigrants (Singapore on the other hand has cheapen its desirability by letting in so many immigrants with many of questionable qualities in the last 10 years and also resorts to free scholarships and free loan to students, low taxes, over-generous research grants/incentive schemes, high pays etc). 

“Now if democracy will not work for the Russians, a white Christian people, can we assume that it will naturally work with Asians?”

• Lee Kuan Yew, Asahai Shimbun symposium, May 9, 1991

“They say, oh, let’s have multiparty politics. Let’s have different parties change and be in charge of the Government. Is it that simple? You vote in a Division Three government, not a Division One government, and the whole economy will just subside within three, four years. Finished.”- Lee Kuan Yew, Today, Aug 15 2008

[Editor's Note: another classic fear mongering example by Lee Kuan Yew. How do you define Division Three? Was Chen Shui Bian's Government one or worse? It may have gone through some lows, but Taiwan economy is not finished even after eight years of Chen Shui Bian's rule (which also antagonised the mighty China who are always looking for opportunity to retake the "renegade province") and the country has recovered since. It is also overly arrogant of him to think that whoever party that is capable to take over the PAP party will be a division three government. A Government consist of not only the politicians but also a well established civil service, but admittedly the politicians can do big damage even for PAP politicians. Just look at the PAP's immigration and IR missteps which they are trying very very hard to rectify still.]

Quotes Prior To Stepping Down From Premiership.....

'I am probably the highest paid in the Commonwealth if you go by official salary. But I am probably one of the poorest in the Commonwealth... I am one of the best paid and probably one of the poorest of the Third World prime ministers.'

• Lee Kuan Yew responding to Workers' Party (WP) MP J.B. Jeyaretnam's charge that ministers here were paid much more than their counterparts in Malaysia, Australia and Britain. (1985)

"I am often accused of interfering in the private lives of citizens. Yes, if I did not, had I not done that, we wouldn't be here today. And I say without the slightest remorse, that we wouldn't be here, we would not have made economic progress, if we had not intervened on very personal matters - who your neighbour is, how you live, the noise you make, how you spit, or what language you use. We decide what is right. Never mind what the people think."

• Straits Times, 20 April 1987, Source: mindbloggingstuff.blogspot.com 

“I make no apologies that the PAPChannel NewsAsia | Posted: 28 March 2007 is the Government and the Government is the PAP.”

•  Petir, 1982

“One-man-one-vote is a most difficult form of government.. Results can be erratic.”

• Dec 19 1984

“If you don’t include your women graduates in your breeding pool and leave them on the shelf, you would end up a more stupid society…So what happens? There will be less bright people to support dumb people in the next generation. That’s a problem.”

• 1983 National Day Rally

“Even from my sick bed, even if you are going to lower me into the grave and I feel something is going wrong, I will get up.”

•  Lee Kuan Yew said this in 1988 National Day Rally, when he discussed the leadership transition to Goh Chok Tong in 1990

"Repression, Sir, is a habit that grows. I am told it is like making love - it is always easier the second time! The first time there may be pangs of conscience, a sense of guilt. But once embarked on this course with constant repetition you get more and more brazen in the attack. All you have to do is to dissolve organizations and societies and banish or detain the key political workers in these societies. Then miraculously everything is tranquil on the surface.

Then an intimidated press and the government-controlled radio together can regularly sing your praises, and slowly and steadily the people are made to forget the evil things that have already been done, or if these things are referrred to again they're conveniently distorted and distorted with impunity, because there will no opposition to contradict."

• Legislative Assembly Debate, Oct 4, 1956

“But we either believe in democracy or we not. If we do, then, we must say categorically, without qualification, that no restraint from the any democratic processes, other than by the ordinary law of the land, should be allowed… If you believe in democracy, you must believe in it unconditionally. If you believe that men should be free, then, they should have the right of free association, of free speech, of free publication. Then, no law should permit those democratic processes to be set at nought.” 

• Lee Kuan Yew as an opposition leader, April 27, 1955

“If we say that we believe in democracy, if we say that the fabric of a democratic society is one which allows for the free play of idea…then, in the name of all the gods, give that free play a chance to work within the constitutional framework.”

• Opposition leader Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore Legislative Assembly, Oct 4, 1956

Related URLs:

Mindboggling quotes by politicians in Singapore

Infamous Quotes from Singabloodypore

Famous Quotes of MM Lee Kuan Yew

'MM Lee, does your food go through a food taster?'

Return to TOP