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Wednesday, Mar 25, 2015 - 17:22 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

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A Man Of His Time

"Why paper black and white?"

"Yesterday Prime Minister died."

- Overheard at news vendor


The papers were indeed blacker (if not particularly whiter) than the norm, with the skies happening to be a complimentary grey, and I at was a loss.

Eulogies are expected to be courteous affairs, and not without reason; we are here for a short span, and then we are not. Most are not without some fault, yet we who are left miss them, they whom have taken first to the road that all eventually take. And so we recount their kindnesses, their generosities, the pleasantries shared. We do not recount petty spats whilst they lie silent, they who have gone ahead.

Then there are those who are certainly not, "most people".

It gets more complicated here. Then, tributes of the above form are not wilfully denied, but simply not possible. Many more knew of them, than they knew of - it is just the way it is. Their legacy is public. It was where they worked. And, it is beyond reasonable doubt, that few worked as he did.

The papers soon filled. Pages upon pages, from those who knew him, some at a distance, some closer up. These writings were without fail strongly laudatory, for these are our papers, after all. Which, however, was not without small irony, for few spoke - and wrote - his mind as he did.

It would be remiss, then, to abandon his virtues so soon upon his departure, and in all frankness he had many of them. Many were his detractors too, but the wise among them recognized his intellect. He had a vision and a fire, and on this unprepossessing anvil at Asia's tip, he forged a nation.

But such praise is in plentiful supply, and one might learn more in hearing his dissenters out; Singapore at independence was hardly a backwater fishing village, it is said; imprisonment without due process and political intimidation, it is scoffed; a nanny state, it is sniffed.

And these charges are not wholly untrue; but some may be besides the point. We were not quite poor then, perhaps, but hardly prosperous either. Our neighbours were friends, but of the sort that were after a more intimate union, and on their terms. So much could, and would, have gone badly.

It was a time of possibilities - oft unpalatable. It was a time of uncertainty, of upheaval, of whispered promises. And to the men who walked in it, it was a world of brass knuckles, of hatchets, and of dark cul-de-sacs. It was a world of knives aplenty; they went in the front, they went in the back.

He is accused of not being a saint, but as far as I know, he never claimed to be one. There were circumstances, and there are no regrets. A standard justification, critics sneer. Anybody can plead external factors. What about the men who were shut away, who were driven off? Who pleads for them?

It may be that one cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs, but this comes as scant consolation for those whom were broken. It is not my place to speak for these men. And it may be callous to state that they were relatively few; but in this arena, such numbers are all we have.

We traded. We have always traded. We have bought and sold, in this natural merchants' port, set in the Eastern sea. And in those years, a deal was made. A man bartered precious things on our behalf. He drove a hard bargain, and we are undoubtedly the richer for it, as wealth is measured.

For such is the way of leaders. It is not hard to point out mistakes in hindsight. It is in practice impossible to get it perfectly right, or even for all to agree completely on what is right. He offered - and delivered - a firm hand in stormy waters, and an exceedingly level head at the wheel.

No, he was not "nice", at least when not in his private capacity. That would be a stretch. He was, by all accounts, not magnanimous. He was not easy-going. He was hardly agreeable. In other words, he was just about what a newborn city-state with little in reserve desperately needed.

He was a man of his time. In these parts, it is further probably right to say that he was the man of his time.

A very bright star has fallen this night.






Appendix

Asked once how he wanted history to judge him, Mr Lee replied without missing a beat:

"I'm dead by then... I did some sharp and hard things to get things right. Maybe some people disapproved of it. Too harsh, but a lot was at stake and I wanted the place to succeed, that's all... At the end of the day, what have I got? A successful Singapore. What have I given up? My life."


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