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Wednesday, Nov 12, 2025 - 23:04 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

Houses Of Canards

"I'm dead by then. There'll be different voices, different standpoints, but I stand by my record. 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."

- Lee Kuan Yew, Hard Truths to Keep Singapore Going




[N.B. It's been five years since the last instalment of TRIUMPH!
- which may have regained some relevance with GEOTUS's latest decision to admit 600,000 college students from China. This might be regarded as a partial takeup of Mao's offer of ten million women, half a century late.]


The decade-long saga over 38 Oxley Road, storied former residence of founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, appears to have come to an end with the local government announcing their intention to gazette the house as a national monument, expressedly against his repeated and explicit will, that extended to a signed letter requesting the Cabinet to respect his wish on the matter. Admittedly, he did then state that if the house were in fact preserved, it should be let out "for people to live in" - which might have however run into a bit of a bother given the recent scandal involving ministers possibly leasing state properties at a discount (they were of course cleared)

As it was, LKY's final known will again publicly requested for the house to be demolished immediately after his death, or after his daughter (the only remaining resident) moved out, a request that the latter apparently reiterated in her own final statement - which one has to say is consistent with all her past behaviour on this account. As we now know, this plea was not honoured.

Well, one believes that this should have been a straightforward affair: a man owned a house. He left it to his children, who then transferred its ownership between themselves. His son, now the sole owner of the house, now wants to honour his father's wish to demolish it. So, demolish the house - what's so complicated about it? Not so fast, says the relevant advisory board, the house has great historic merit, and in any case preserving it isn't about memorialising any single leader (though it was quickly noted that the other leaders' private residences weren't gazetted somehow, and it'll be stripped bare anyhow)

This has brought forth several schools of thought from citizens, with the most conventional probably being that the best tribute to LKY would simply be to respect his wish on his house, and that modern Singapore itself is his legacy. Here, one has to repeat the statement made in August that he is surely The Greatest Singaporean, critiques on authoritarianism and general (very strong) non-political correctness aside. When he says that he had dedicated his life to the nation, one can believe him.

A second opinion is that the seemingly-contradictory declaration by the government that they will respect LKY's wishes while simultaneously very clearly going against it by gazetting his house, is actually an even better tribute. Specifically, by trampling individual rights purportedly for the greater good, the government is actually applying the former Prime Minister's longstanding principles to himself. Personally, this is closer to the true transmission of LKY's Dharma, and the minister that attained the marrow by proposing it should rightly inherit the mantle and robe magic teacup of the office.

And a third, admittedly quite cynical explanation has been that it was always planned to happen this way; it is basic etiquette to turn down honours - at least initially - after all, and only accept them after multiple entreaties. This was famously demonstrated by Julius Caesar, for instance, when he thrice turned down Antony's offer of a crown, for the audience. About this, one has to comment that TRUMP has addressed his own residential arrangements far more decisively, by just turning up at the White House with some bulldozers one fine day, to kick off his US$250 million ballroom renovation - which, coincidentally, is almost exactly the same amount earmarked for Singapore's Founders' Memorial, to come in 2028.

Myself, I appreciate TRUMP's very-Napoleonish take:


The revival of the American Empire is at hand!

"GOD-EMPEROR, I bestow upon you the Gold Crown of the Kings of Silla!"
"I accept."
"Uh, we went over the protocol, you're supposed to first refuse it..."
"I so totally accept."

(Source: theguardian.com)




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