Lee Kuan Yew and Legitimization of Pragmatism in Politics

To be universally respected as a national leader is not an easy task, especially one that has governed during the turbulent times of global rivalry.  Yet, with the conflicts interests of Soviet-American bipolarity in the past and Sino-American duality in the present, Lee Kuan Yew shrewdly managed to make the island city-state liked by both sides, but somehow managed to extract beneficial economic externalities from balancing opposing ends.  Singapore, as a global entrepot with little prejudice in its political agenda on the international stage, greatly benefited.

Critics have not been kind to the man who turned a downtrodden island to one of the wealthy in the world during his lifetime.  They called him an authoritarian figure, who manipulated British heritage of democratic regimes and suppressed free speech, all in the name of stability in a supposed volatile region.  The island's majority Chinese population acquiesced with their leader's belief that they can never be safe in a neighborhood surrounded by Muslim-majority nations.  Muslim and Indian minorities, to this day, are prevented from physical congregation in ghettos, with quiet approval.

Indeed, the man himself has not shied away from controversy when it comes to expressing his skepticism of Western democratic idealism.  He openly believed that democracy, if it does not lead to better lives for citizens, is not a worthy one.  And he has repeatedly codified this belief in what he controversially called "Asian values," a set of beliefs that unified Asians but are fundamentally different from what are practiced in the West.  Yet this did not prevent Singapore from aligning with the West economically and militarily when the state needed it.

He was not soft when it comes to locking up suspected communists and bankrupting opponents through defamation laws.  And ironically, he did it all through the legal codes that the British left behind, using what are supposed to guarantee equality as instruments to consolidate the power of himself, his family, and the People's Action Party that he created and made sure to stay in power non-stop since the day of the country's founding.  People did not object, perhaps grateful for the rapid growth in the country's wealth and the persistence of its official's lack of corruption or graft.

His "soft" authoritarianism was subtle enough for his Western military allies that few Westerners living in the safe comfort of the city-state remark on the extensive media controls and harsh penalties for political dissent.  It was also strong enough for his economic partners outside the West that many sent officials to learn from just what made Singapore so successful not just as an economic entity but as a political system.  The different friends he made over the course of illustrious life is too evident in the list of dignitaries attending his funeral.

What allowed him, and his rapidly developing city-state to succeed, ultimately, was the thorough implementation of pragmatism.  Not hampered by political ideologies (unlike the Americans with spread of democracy and the Chinese with a socialist bottomline), Singapore was able to take the best from everywhere without thinking about the potential political consequences.  Everyone's money was good in the city-state, no matter what seemed to have been the origin of the ill-gotten cash.  The funneling of drug money from the Golden Triangle is a fitting example.

But whether his perfect pragmatism can be replicated in other countries is still a matter of doubt.  It can be said that the cleanness with which Singapore operates politically, and the neutrality it takes in international affairs is a function of both Lee Kuan Yew as a person and Singapore as small city-state with limited ability to project power abroad.  This allowed him to fly under the radar and extract benefits from dealing with everyone, without irking key foreign partners or be involved in greater power strategic rivalries that most certainly define the world today.

It will be interesting, though, to see where Singapore goes from here, without his physical tutelage.  The hodgepodge of immigrants with little common interests that defined the city-state in its inception is making a rapid comeback, as it relies more and more on immigrants for manpower.  And the youth, who takes the city-state's wealth and (both internal and external) safety as givens, are asking for more freedoms of expressions that their ancestors were willing to do without.  Whether Lee's successors can continue to espouse the cherished pragmatism under new, more complex conditions will be something political observers should be keen to see.