PM Lee Kuan Yew 1977 Interview With BBC

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EXCERPTS OF AN INTERVIEW WITH THE PRIME MINISTER,
MR. LEE KUAN YEW, BY MR. LUDOVIC KENNEDY OF THE BBC,
ON 5TH MARCH, 1977
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NOTE: PART OF THIS INTERVIEW WAS TELECAST OVER
BBCs PROGRAM TONIGHT, ON 14.3.77
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L. KENNEDY: Prime Minister, how worried are you by recent reports
of the growing Communist guerrilla activity in Thailand, not only in the north of
Thailand but also on the Thailand-Malaysia border, which isnt so very far from
here?
PRIME MINISTER: Actually, the situation is better now than it was, say,
six months ago when there was almost no effective government in Bangkok, and
the border between Malaysia and Thailand was no mans land. In other words,
its free-for-all for the Communists. Now they have a government in Bangkok, a
civilian one backed by the military and they are cooperating with the Malaysia
Government in not eliminating , but at least keeping the Communists on the move
lky/1977/lky0305.doc
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instead of consolidating from platoons to companies, to battalions, and finally, to
brigades and divisions.
KENNEDY: Do you think in the long term it is only a matter of time
before Thailand goes the way of Vietnam and Cambodia?
PRIME MINISTER: I do not believe that its a simple business of dominoes
falling. It was a graphic, picturesque way in which the Rand Corporation and the
think-tankers got LBJ and then all that followed -- from the marines landing at
Danang in 1965.
But Thailand has got a problem or many problems.
One of the problems is how to ensure that her border areas which had never had
much government, even in the best of times, are now not turned into areas where
organised groups begin to build up military strongholds and from whence they
sally forth and knock down police posts, soldiers doing sentry duties and
gradually spread terror or fear and with fear comes obedience from the farmers
and the peasantry generally, and then recruitment of more sons of peasants into
their ranks.
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KENNEDY: Prime Minister, you are not worried about things in the
foreseeable. Is that right?
PRIME MINISTER: Foreseeable, it depends whether you are long-sighted
or short-sighted. If you say I am not worried for security of Singapore for the
next five to ten years, I think you are absolutely right.
KENNEDY: But you cant see beyond that?
PRIME MINISTER: I would not like to put on a pair of binoculars and go
beyond say, ten. In ten years, if the Western position, which really means the
America position in Asia, and in Africa for that matter, and God knows what
would happen in the Middle East, goes down and erodes in the way it has been
in the last 10 years, then we have to live with the realities of a very pervasive,
completely uninhibited and forward-going, forward-looking Soviet presence ...
KENNEDY: Yes, you say at the Commonwealth Conference in 1975: if
the United States were to withdraw form Southeast Asia, the Russians might
move in, or words to that effect. Do you still ...?
PRIME MINISTER: ... Since then, they have moved in, in a big way.
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KENNEDY: To the Indian Ocean?
PRIME MINISTER: And the waters of the South Pacific and Western
Pacific, and they have one of the largest fishing fleets in Southeast Asia. You
can see them with all the latest of anything in American gadgetary that you can
think of, for sounding out fish, depth of shoal and all the rest of it, in any single
time. I think you will find two or three very modern vessels under repair in our
dockyards. But that is not the only problem. The problem then will be growing
conflict, competition between them and the Peoples Republic of China.
KENNEDY: Well, I was going to ask you that, Prime Minister. Do
you have any misgivings about the intention of the Peoples Republic of China,
as far as Singapore is concerned and Southeast Asia generally.
PRIME MINISTER: You are asking me to say publicly that I have
misgivings about the intentions of a government, which we are on correct and
gradually cordial and probably in the future, friendly relations. Its hardly the
kind of question one puts on television. If you ask me privately, Ill say they are
extremely courteous, congenial host, very candid in the way in which they
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expound the philosophy of life and that philosophy includes the belief that the
East wind must triumph.
KENNEDY: That the East ....?
PRIME MINISTER: That the East wind must triumph. The East is red and
so eventually all Marxist-Leninist parties throughout the world, genuinely
Marxist-Leninist parties, not revisionist ones, they will triumph because that is
the course of history. But having been brainwashed in bourgeois British
institutions about civilization and the theories thereof -- rise and fall of Rome,
Bertrand Russell and Western civilization -- I am hoping it is not pre-determined.
In fact, one of my hosts who told me about this pre-determination, is now in some
difficulties because he has got to explain. In May last year, I was the guest of the
Government of the Peoples Republic of China, and there was the Premier, Hua
Kuo-feng, now the Chairman, and his Foreign Minister then, Mr. Chiao Kuan-
hua, a man of great charm and sophistication, having been educated in German
universities, a man of the world. The irony of it was that he was unable to
perceive that within a matter of six months he had to explain why he wasnt on
the side of the real Marxist-Leninists and not on the side of the revisionists.
KENNEDY: So anything can happen?
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PRIME MINISTER: I am not really sold on the inevitability of the evolution
of man and society. I think Darwin, maybe, can explain how we became homo
sapiens, but what we will be, having got here, nobody really knows. And I dont
think even Rand Corporation, having taken a beating in what they thought would
happen in Vietnam would stick their necks out.
KENNEDY: Prime Minister, I believe that you are coming to the
next Commonwealth Conference in London this summer. Do you believe that
these Commonwealth Conferences which are a relic of empire really serve any
useful purpose now?
PRIME MINISTER: I dont first of all, subscribe to your aside, relic of
empire. I dont think the Conference in any way represents the past. Its what
we're grouping for into the future. The past is behind us but as a result of the past,
we have certain common doctrines or common denominations -- language, terms
of reference, methods of administrations, thought processes, saving grams,
telegrams, ministers who hold political responsibilities and permanent civil
servants who carry on whatever the ministers do. And we live in a completely
different world from what was empire. And this is a world of instant
communications and instant transportation -- almost instant with the supersonic.
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People are meeting and conferencing and persuading either for or against, at any
one time, any number of propositions -- whether it is the Arab-Israeli thing or
Rhodesia on which very few are on the side of the whites in Rhodesia -- I am
sorry to say or rather I am happy to say, depending on whether you think the
whites in Rhodesia have been wise or unwise. I am sorry because I think they
have been unwise -- they have left it too late. So youve got to mobilise opinion
...
KENNEDY: I thought you were going to say which side you are on,
Prime Minister, just then, in Rhodesia.
PRIME MINISTER: Yes, I am on the side of the winners, the blacks. They
must win.
KENNEDY: Do you think in Africa, which you travelled in
extensively, that they can ever achieve the same kind of multi-racialist society
which youve achieved so successfully here in Singapore?
PRIME MINISTER: Here again, you are asking me publicly to pass
judgement on an ideal which African leaders of great eminence have
passionately espoused, and I must wish them well and hope that the ideals can be
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achieved. I think the odds against such an ideal being established in the
immediate future are extremely great; because of the black-white dichotomy,
tied-up with history of exploitation, tied up with problems of slavery and what
the blacks underwent in America and the present black-white problem still
unsolved in America, tied up with Britains black-white growing conflicts and
that in France. So I think it is one of the most difficult problems of race
integration or coexistence ever posed to man.
KENNEDY: What is your view about President Amin coming to the
Conference, Prime Minister?
PRIME MINISTER: I need notice of that question. I dont know whether
he is coming. I would be surprised if he did. And I am not sure whether Ill be
agreeably surprised. Ill be hard put to go through the motions of protocol or
what protocol requires on such occasion.
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KENNEDY: You will find it embarrassing. Thats what you are
saying?
PRIME MINISTER: That is what you are saying.
KENNEDY: Prime Minister, you had some quite harsh things to say
about Britain recently. At the opening of your Parliament the other day, you said
of us, A great people have been temporarily reduced to straightened
circumstances by excessive cushioning of life by state subsidies. Do you think
that was quite fair?
PRIME MINISTER: I dont think you have quoted that in context. Thats
an abridgement or a summary, isnt it?
KENNEDY: I dont think so. Its from the document I got from
your office.
PRIME MINISTER: It is only one of the reasons for the economic and the
social problems in Britain. Its a vast subject, which you know more about than I
do. But the part that I am concerned with, is that 'one-man-one-vote' means that
at every election time, its an auction of, really, wealth that has not yet been
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created. So if I do not effectively debunk the theory that the government will
provide -- there is always more and more for less and less, there is no need really
to try because we are doing all right now -- we will be a broken-back state like
so many of the others in the Third World. Weve just got off the ground. We
nearly fell flat on our faces with the problems of Confrontation during Dr.
Sukarnos Indonesia, British withdrawal and with it the bases were closed and
so on. And now just the first touch of comfort -- we are above the rice-line. Any
number of aspiring Wedgewood Benns who think we ought to be giving things
for free, that we should not have prescription charges; it is wicked to make
people pay for their medicine; it is wicked to make them pay for the extras the
children have in school, like going out on outings and so on. It is a very
attractive election programme.
When I was in China, I was giving a vivid series of
lectures on what they called teachers by negative example. And so when they
espoused the Wedgewood Benns line, I said, well, that is a teacher by negative
example. Look what has happened? Vast government expenditure which
fortunately in Britains case will all be paid for by North Sea oil. But we havent
got North Sea oil, and I think we will be bankrupt.
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KENNEDY: You also said, Prime Minister, that If we had British-
style trade unions we would be bankrupt. Now, what did you mean by that?
PRIME MINISTER: Now, please! Some of the union leaders are good old
friends of mine and I hope they will remain good old friends. In fact, they taught
me a lot about labour and the labour movement and so on. But the way things
have gone in Britain over the last ten years -- well, really from 1964 onwards, 13
years -- its not the kind of labour movement that I knew in Britain when I was a
student there watching it, watching socialism -- the democratic way -- that the
will of the majority is expressed periodically, within a period of five years, and
once expressed, that will must be respected. Well, its a different Britain. That
was old-fashioned constitutional theory. The new theory now which I am seeing
evolved is: never mind what the majority will is. We, the union leaders who
have been elected by a small group of very important people -- the shop stewards
and the people who stayed late into the early hours of the morning to make the
crucial decisions when the others have got tired and gone home -- have decided
that this will be so. And quite rightly, Mr. Denis Healey, as Chancellor of the
Exchequer, tells the House of Commons what he hopes the budget should be and
then says, "I will discuss it with the trade unions."
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Well, if my colleague, who is Minister of Finance, is caught or trapped in
that position, I think we are bankrupt. Yes, because they would want the moon,
the stars and beyond and why not? We have got some reserves, our credit is
good, we could go on for five, maybe, seven years. Then what? Without North
Sea oil.
KENNEDY: How can we put our house in order?
PRIME MINISTER: Why do you want to put your house in order? Youve
got North Sea oil that lubricates and will smooth out every friction. You will be
as happy and as relaxed as the Arabs.
KENNEDY: I thought you were going to say the same as you are.
PRIME MINISTER: No, I have got to work. Every grain of rice that we
consume is paid for in foreign exchange. Nature did not intend that Singapore be
an agricultural country. Thats why it was uninhabited. It was intended to be
discovered or rediscovered -- if you want to be sensitive to the feelings of
people who believe in myths and mythology of the region -- by one called
Stamford Raffles, later made a knight, 1819 -- turned into an emporium, a base, a
manufacturing centre, a financial centre, an independent republic. And its a fine
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mechanism, which, if we tamper around with the kind of screwdrivers and
spanners that we have along the picket lines, when they squatted in front of the
gate and dont allow lorries carrying coal or oil to pass into the power stations,
well, the clock stops ticking.
KENNEDY: Do you think that the recent Haw Par affair is a
symptom of declining standards in British life?
PRIME MINISTER: No, I think it is a symptom of this craze for easy
money. Only a fool works hard to get to the top. The bright will work out some
clever scheme all within the law. You juggle the books, prices of stocks go up
and down in accordance with your profits that you disclosed or chose not to
disclose. The moment you say you are taking over a company -- the magic, the
touch of Midas or the belief that there is a touch of Midas makes it go up --
people who are in the know buy before the takeover is announced. Its an
episode in the life of the British people, in fact, in the life of the Western
European peoples or Americans too.
KENNEDY: Have you any complaints in the decision of the
metropolitan magistrate that Mr. Slater had no case to answer?
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PRIME MINISTER: Mr. Kennedy, I spent four years of my life trained in
the intricacies of the laws of England. I was called to the bar as barrister at the
Middle Temple. I was subsequently made an honorary bencher which entitles
me to certain privileges without fee. I have absolutely no comment whatever.
KENNEDY: If I could just ask you this: In view of the fact that the
magistrate decided that there wasnt a case to answer, was it right and correct of
the Singapore Government to bring extradition proceedings against Mr. Slater?
PRIME MINISTER: You may find this difficult to believe. But, you know,
I have got so many things on my plate that, really, Mr. Slater and his activities
occupy only a minor part of that plate. These decisions were taken by the
Attorney-General, who, in this particular case, was, I think, careful enough not to
risk his own reputation and, therefore, had the opinion or opinions of two
separate eminent silks at the English Bar, and they advised that there was a case.
KENNEDY: I only asked the question, Prime Minister, because the
whole case has stirred up a lot of interest in Britain.
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The London Times did express some concern in a
leading article that if any of these people were extradicted here they might not get
a fair trial. What is your comment on that?
PRIME MINISTER: I dont know who wrote the article. But I think it was
so funny. It isnt true. Once upon a time, the London Times carried a certain
aura which was a reflection of the patina of empire. It had solemn columns on its
front page. It reports news, straight. It does not crusade. It does not
sensationalise. I think that editorial is a piece of good sensational writing,
worthy of the best of The Express-types. We allow British silks especially
during their summer vacation, which is, I think June till October, to come
out here and lead our own advocates. So there are hundreds of British QCs
who know what the truth is. And I think I can go to the Middle Temple and
they will still provide me with free port after dinner.
KENNEDY: And yet, Prime Minister, when one talks about justice
in Singapore -- you have in fact abolished trial by jury.
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PRIME MINISTER: Yes. since 1969, and weve had far better
administration of the criminal law and justice. You see, the Anglo-Saxon
tradition of trial by jury may be good for Anglo-Saxons or the descendants
thereof. It never really worked for non Anglo-Saxons.
KENNEDY: Why not?
PRIME MINISTER: I dont know -- many reasons. The French dont have
it. They are Latin. I think the idea of 12 random jurors sitting there and deciding
whether you ought to go to jail or not or whether you ought to pay damages or
not, its completely alien.
And I never forget my first case when I was assigned
to defend four murderers. Remember the famous jungle girl case in Singapore in
1950-51?
KENNEDY: I just remember the name.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, a Dutch woman was running away from the
Japanese, gave her daughter to a Malay woman to look after. She came back
after the War, reclaimed the daughter. The Chief Justice, then an Englishman,
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pending hearing of the case, sent the girl who had been converted into Islam to a
convent to be looked after, and hell broke loose. The Police force mutinied.
Malays and Muslims took out their knives and a lot of white men, just because
they're white, nothing to do with the case, were killed. These four men were
accused of killing an RAF officer and his wife and child. They were travelling on
a bus from RAF Changi down to town. I was assigned -- I had no choice. My
job was not to ask them whether they were guilty or not because I knew what the
position was and so did they. All I did -- and it was my first case -- was to work
on the weaknesses of the jury -- their biases, their prejudices, their reluctance,
really, to find four Mussulmen, guilty of killing in cold blood or in a heat of great
passion, religious passion, an RAF officer, his wife and child. I did the simple
tricks of advocacy -- contradictions between one witness and another,
contradiction between a witness and his previous statement to the police and the
preliminary enquiry -- and a long submission to the judge, the four were
acquitted. The judge was thoroughly disgusted. I went home feeling quite sick
because I knew Id discharged my duty as required of me, but I knew I had done
wrong. I decided when we became the government, we will not allow this
foolish, completely incongruous system which will never take root here, because
no juror will take upon himself the onus of saying, Yes, he will go to jail.
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KENNEDY: Prime Minister, what do you say to the fact that some
people have been detained in prison here for something like 13 years without
trial. Is that justice?
PRIME MINISTER: It is outside the laws of the courts. Its legislation
which the British passed when they were faced with a communist insurgency -- a
revolt. Same laws, the same ones, I suspect, is now in operation in Ulster. There
are three of them -- you are right -- 13 years since 1963, really coming on to 14.
Two of them are doctors. I defended them for sedition when we were fighting
the British together. I brought out the most ferocious sedition trial QC then at the
British Bar -- Dennis Pritt. We became great friends. He was a communist or
sympathiser -- a Marxist; I wasnt. I learnt a lot of the tricks of the trade,
including how to lose in a controlled manner ones temper or pretend to. How to
put up a specious argument -- a sound, solid law, and we got them off, between
him and us. And the two doctors know that all they have to do is to say, I
denounce the use of armed force to overthrow the government and therefore do
not support the Malayan Communist Party in their attempt to do so, and they
will be released.
KENNEDY: Are you saying that in ...?
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PRIME MINISTER: And they refused to do that.
KENNEDY: But are you saying, Prime Minister, in a strong and
prosperous society that you have here now in Singapore -- the last election you
won the biggest victory ever, you got all the seats in Parliament -- that if you
release these three people that you couldnt contain them?
PRIME MINISTER: No, thats not the point. We can release these three
people. We released one -- Dr. Poh Soo Kai, as a trial to see what would
happen. We released him in 1972 after we won the last elections with nearly as
good a majority -- 69% of the electorate. And what did he do? He gave
medicine and treated a known, wanted, injured terrorist. There is now evidence
by a lawyer, at present under interrogation, who has gone up to a Magistrate and
made a confession, on his own. Now, we have to get him struck off the rolls.
But thats not all. He also gave large quantities of antibiotics and other essential
medical supplies to couriers, to send them to terrorist forces in the jungle, all in
the course of the four years he was out -- from 1972 to 1976.
KENNEDY: So these other two will have to stay there, forever?
PRIME MINISTER: No.
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KENNEDY: Until they sign your documents?
PRIME MINISTER: No, they dont have to sign a document. All they say:
I denounce the use of force. I do not support the Malayan Communist Party in
their use of force to overthrow the government. But if they believe, as I think
they do, that this is inevitable, that there will one day be a great victory parade
and they will be on the rostrum where all the local Lenins and Maos will be --
well, then they stand firm on principle and wait for tomorrow. I am offering them
another alternative: go to any country thats willing to accept you. I am not
trading. I am not doing a Chilean exchange with the Russians. You are free to
go. They are good doctors, well-trained. You need them for your medical help.
I would let them go and help you relieve your shortage of doctors with no
conditions whatsoever.
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But if I allow them here to go out and feed medicine,
treat injured terrorists, slip supplies into the jungle -- apart from the trouble I am
creating for myself, I think the Malaysian Government will take a very dim view
of my cooperation in joint security problems.
KENNEDY: I am also told, Prime Minister, that there are other
people who have been put in prison because you personally brought charges
against them for saying libellous things about you during the elections. Is that
so?
PRIME MINISTER: No, no, no.
KENNEDY: I have got it wrong?
PRIME MINISTER: You have got it wrong. I cant bring a criminal charge
against anybody. The Attorney-General does that. There are two forms of libel -
- criminal libel, civil libel. These men during an election campaign went around
saying that I have made through my wife and my brother, who are practising law,
$500 per conveyance per flat. And as we have already sold 150,000 flats --
public housing. I am therefore worth somewhere between $50 to $70 million.
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KENNEDY: He said all that?
PRIME MINISTER: Yes.
Well, the Attorney-General -- and I thank him for it --
did not act during the election or that would have lost me votes. But after the
election, with modern tape recorders, you cant deny what you have said. So
they pleaded guilty.
KENNEDY: Did the Attorney-General ask you? Did he have your
permission to do this?
PRIME MINISTER: No, he doesnt have to ask me.
KENNEDY: So you didnt know anything about it?
PRIME MINISTER: No, I knew that he must act. If he knows his job, he
must act. I am a lawyer, he is a lawyer. In fact, I am more senior a lawyer than
he is. I was called to the Bar earlier than he was. Then, you see, whats the
point of suing them in civil libel because they are men of straw. But I still got to
sue them because some of them, whilst they may be men of straw, have the
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capacity to make a really rousing speech. And corruption in a developing
country -- sad to say -- is very often a way of life for those in office.
KENNEDY: Wouldnt it be more generous of you, Prime Minister,
to have said about these people, if they will withdraw what they said, if they will
make an apology, then you will forget about it?
PRIME MINISTER: Thats for the civil side. I have offered that. However,
I will not forget about it because I think we must still enter judgement so that
they cannot interfere in the next elections. If you get bankrupts turning up and
uttering more and reckless falsehoods in the next round, I am in trouble, because
some fool one day may light a prairie fire.
But when a man -- and Ive got one, unfortunately --
who is a lawyer and therefore must be presumed by the public to be a person
who knows the law, says words to the effect which he contests as defamatory,
which my lawyers advised me it is defamatory, well, let the case be argued
whether I am corrupt or whether I am not. Because if they can make this
corruption stigma stick, then I have had it. Then all the good that you have done
is wiped off because there is one thing, which a Singaporean voter expects and
has been made to expect: absolute integrity on the part of those in office. They
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may make mistakes. They will forgive me. But they know that they were honest
mistakes, not one where there was a 5% kickback.
KENNEDY: Can I go back to something that you were reported to
have said in 1955 when you first entered Parliament? At that time, when your
party, the Peoples Action Party, spoke out against arbitrary arrest, of detention
without trial and you yourself are reported to have said, We either believe in
democracy or we do not. If you believe that men should be free then they should
have the right of free association, of free publication. No law should permit
those democratic processes to be set at naught. Prime Minister, do you believe
that, today?
PRIME MINISTER: Yes. I believed that in the circumstances of that time.
I mean, I could, you know, quote you, Churchill that That was what I believed
then.
KENNEDY: But that was a worse time than now, was it not?
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PRIME MINISTER: Yes, of course. That was against a British colonial
government responsible to nobody other than Whitehall. This is 1977. I am 22
years older. I hope more mellow. I hope more charitable. I hope more
magnanimous. But I am also a realist. The magnitude of what one terms
licence or civil liberties or personal freedom has got to be adjusted to the
circumstances. And as far as the communists are concerned, they wanted both
ways -- both the ballot and the bullet. You cant. They want the ballot and
internally and internationally in the use of the bullet. They learnt it from the
Vietnamese: the battle was not fought in Vietnam alone; it was fought in
Washington, it was fought in the streets of Stockholm, it was fought in Sydney,
in Melbourne, in Paris, in London. Vietnam became a dirty word. They are
trying to do to me -- which they must try and they are trying to do to all the other
non-Communist governments in the region -- what they did to Thieu. If they can
portray me as corrupt, fatuous, dictatorial, capricious, wicked, vicious, then half
the battle is won because when the fight begins, Ive got to get arms. I have got
to buy them ...
KENNEDY: Can I interrupt you here for a moment. It seems to me
that you are saying that these things that I read out to you, you believed in at that
time ...
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PRIME MINISTER: Yes, of course. And I still believe in them.
KENNEDY: But ... qualify them today because of changed
circumstances.
PRIME MINISTER: No, because you cant have the ballot and bullet at the
same time.
KENNEDY: Well, you say you believe in free publication? But
isnt it true that newspapers here have to be licensed, that some have been
closed, some journalists have been put in jail ...?
PRIME MINISTER: No, just a moment. You are mixing them all up. It has
always been the case that a newspaper in Singapore and in Malaya, where the
British governed, must have a licence. And there has been only one newspaper
that had its licence withdrawn, and that was when it could not prove where the
money came from, besides a former Chief Minister of the State of Sabah.
KENNEDY: And have journalists been put in jail?
PRIME MINISTER: There is one at the moment, and he is, as a good
journalists, writing this time a real true story of what he has been doing. And I
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hope by the end of this week, the composition would have gone before a proper
magistrate with no police officers. At least thats what I hope they have the
sense to do, because it really is a very interesting story of how a non-communist
began associating with communists and slowly began to imbibe communist views
and interpolated communist views in his interpretation of Singapore.
KENNEDY: Would it be fair to try and sum up what you have been
saying about these -- on this loss of civil liberties, such as they are -- that some
small liberties have to be sacrificed in order to make sure that you have the
greater liberty? Would that be a fair assessment?
PRIME MINISTER: One way of putting it. If you ask me to put it, I would
say simply: Never have the people of Singapore, a government which they can
kick out of the office freely, without hindrance by just crossing them off the
ballot. And never have they had a government which had to tend to their needs --
every grumble, every bellyache to make sure that the vote is on the side of the
angels every five years.
KENNEDY: But did you ever feel, Prime Minister its often been
said in the West that a good democracy, a good democratic society is one in
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which you not only have a good government but you have a good opposition to
match that government. Do you not ever feel the lack of that?
PRIME MINISTER: As a Western-educated, trained Singaporean, I
understand what you are saying. And perhaps if I could get a nice sparring
partner, it will provide me with a backdrop -- that contrasts. But I often wonder
whether the foreign journalists or the casual visitor like you, has fathomed or can
fathom the mind of an Oriental. And I am having to look after Orientals whether
they are of Chinese descent or Malay or Indians or Eurasians or Ceylonese and
so on. Whats inside is completely different: Is this a good government that I
can trust to look after me and my family and will see that my children are
educated and will have a job better than mine and have a home better than mine?
Is it fair or is it unfair, unjust, favouring its relatives, its friends; looting the public
purse for its relatives, for itself so that ministers live in luxury whilst the masses
live in squalor? Those are the crucial issues because those are the issues that
have toppled government in the Third World. You can ask any taxi driver -- he
is the most uninhibited Singaporean you can think of. You can ask any bartender
in any hotel. Hell let off a bellyache. But at the end of the day, when he puts
his cross, when election comes, he has given me and my colleagues over 17
years -- come June, 18 years of office. In five successive elections, the
percentage of votes has gone up from a first-time high of 53% to an all-time low of
29
about 47.5% to an all-time high, last December, of 72.5% which I think is cause
for some satisfaction.
KENNEDY: I was going to say to you, Prime Minister: Isnt it a
fact that there seems to be so little radical criticism in the newspapers.
PRIME MINISTER: You must be new to the game.
KENNEDY: ... in the newspapers of the government. Does that
mean that everybody is so ...?
PRIME MINISTER: The newspapers are not owned by the government.
KENNEDY: I am saying that isnt it a fact that there is so little
radical criticism of the government?
PRIME MINISTER: The radical criticisms are in pamphlets. So you cant
sue any printer.
KENNEDY: You mean, to sue for radical criticism?
30
PRIME MINISTER: No, no.
KENNEDY: What is wrong with that?
PRIME MINISTER: You see the difference in wavelengths. When you say
radical criticism you mean criticisms of policies -- that the government is too
right-wing or right-minded, it hasnt got the same compassion for the poor and
the starving and the underprivileged. Thats not the argument. When they hit
you, they hit you with a poisoned dart: that this is a corrupt, capricious, wicked,
vicious fascist system. Now, you tell me whether a newspaper with assets --
printing presses, goodwill, office which it owns -- will publish that. They are
free to do so and my party funds will improve.
But what they do now is the offset. I will give you a
whole stack of them.
They are just scurrilous, vicious, radical stuff. Thats radical stuff for you, which
no printer wants to touch.
KENNEDY: Prime Minister, could I just say this : You were once
asked by my colleague, Lord Chalfont, if it would be fair to sum up as being an
enlightened dictator. And you replied to him, no, you werent a dictator
31
because your poster or pictures of you werent all over the town. But would it be
true that you are nevertheless a kind of enlightened dictator behind the scenes?
PRIME MINISTER: I am on the scene all the time under the glare of the
footlights. My public behaviour and my private behaviour cannot be
compartmentalised. I am on parade all the time. Why need I be a dictator?
They come to violent ends. And like all men I like a quiet and a quick end, not a
violent one.
KENNEDY: But in one of your election speeches you said this --
you said: The real issue you faced -- you were talking to your electors -- is
what happens when the present leadership is gone. We are not immortal. Does
that mean that you have it in mind that, Prime Minister, to step down in the near
future?
32
PRIME MINISTER: If I said yes to that question, I know a lot of big
companies will be extremely unhappy and whose shareholders will be saying,
Look, is this true? And the stock market will not react favourably. My duty
is to acknowledge the fact that there comes a time when my colleagues and I,
who are now in our -- ranging between early 50s -- I am 53 -- to late 50s -- just
will not have the sheer physical vitality of reacting in a crisis. The mental vitality
may be there. But the pressure and the speed with which events are taking place
-- the changes, the geo-political upsets that have been going on in the last ten
years -- I dont think we can react in ten years time the way we reacted to one,
being booted out of Malaysia in three readings in the Malaysian Parliament in
one day and find a new way of how to make a living, how to feed our people.
Nor could we have reacted to the British Government having to say to us: we are
out; we can't afford the bases.
KENNEDY: Very briefly, you see yourself going on for the time
being but not for the indefinite period.
PRIME MINISTER: That is an understatement! I would like to be able to

hand the torch over and hope it will burn brighter and better.
KENNEDY: Prime Minister, thank you very much.
33
PRIME MINISTER: Thank you.
--------------------

PM Lee Kuan Yew 1977 Interview With BBC

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1

EXCERPTS OF AN INTERVIEW WITH THE PRIME MINISTER,

MR. LEE KUAN YEW, BY MR. LUDOVIC KENNEDY OF THE BBC,

ON 5TH MARCH, 1977

NOTE: PART OF THIS INTERVIEW WAS TELECAST OVER

BBCs PROGRAM TONIGHT, ON 14.3.77

L. KENNEDY: Prime Minister, how worried are you by recent reports

instead of consolidating from platoons to companies, to battalions, and finally, to

brigades and divisions.

KENNEDY: Do you think in the long term it is only a matter of time

before Thailand goes the way of Vietnam and Cambodia?

PRIME MINISTER: I do not believe that its a simple business of dominoes

But Thailand has got a problem or many problems.

foreseeable. Is that right?

PRIME MINISTER: Foreseeable, it depends whether you are long-sighted

next five to ten years, I think you are absolutely right.

KENNEDY: But you cant see beyond that?

PRIME MINISTER: I would not like to put on a pair of binoculars and go

completely uninhibited and forward-going, forward-looking Soviet presence ...

KENNEDY: Yes, you say at the Commonwealth Conference in 1975: if

move in, or words to that effect. Do you still ...?

KENNEDY: To the Indian Ocean?

conflict, competition between them and the Peoples Republic of China.

KENNEDY: Well, I was going to ask you that, Prime Minister. Do

as far as Singapore is concerned and Southeast Asia generally.

PRIME MINISTER: You are asking me to say publicly that I have

misgivings about the intentions of a government, which we are on correct and

East wind must triumph.

KENNEDY: That the East ....?

so eventually all Marxist-Leninist parties throughout the world, genuinely

the course of history. But having been brainwashed in bourgeois British

Bertrand Russell and Western civilization -- I am hoping it is not pre-determined.

KENNEDY: So anything can happen?

PRIME MINISTER: I am not really sold on the inevitability of the evolution

happen in Vietnam would stick their necks out.

KENNEDY: Prime Minister, I believe that you are coming to the

next Commonwealth Conference in London this summer. Do you believe that

useful purpose now?

PRIME MINISTER: I dont first of all, subscribe to your aside, relic of

we have certain common doctrines or common denominations -- language, terms

of reference, methods of administrations, thought processes, saving grams,

telegrams, ministers who hold political responsibilities and permanent civil

communications and instant transportation -- almost instant with the supersonic.

one time, any number of propositions -- whether it is the Arab-Israeli thing or

Prime Minister, just then, in Rhodesia.

KENNEDY: Do you think in Africa, which you travelled in

which youve achieved so successfully here in Singapore?

PRIME MINISTER: Here again, you are asking me publicly to pass

judgement on an ideal which African leaders of great eminence have

immediate future are extremely great; because of the black-white dichotomy,

unsolved in America, tied up with Britains black-white growing conflicts and

that in France. So I think it is one of the most difficult problems of race

integration or coexistence ever posed to man.

KENNEDY: What is your view about President Amin coming to the

Conference, Prime Minister?

PRIME MINISTER: I need notice of that question. I dont know whether

he is coming. I would be surprised if he did. And I am not sure whether Ill be

agreeably surprised. Ill be hard put to go through the motions of protocol or

what protocol requires on such occasion.

KENNEDY: You will find it embarrassing. Thats what you are

PRIME MINISTER: That is what you are saying.

of us, A great people have been temporarily reduced to straightened

circumstances by excessive cushioning of life by state subsidies. Do you think