Hard (and very hilarious but somewhat worrying) truths
I decided that i should start reading Hard Truths. It is the first book that i have ever read that has been written or ghost written about/by Lee Kuan Yew. The nice thing about it is that it is actually more or less in his own words. Since it is mostly composed of interviews. The bits in between are written Straits Timese. Which is to say an admixture of condescension (to the reader), obsequeious grovelling (to LKY), nonsensical use of adjectives and tortured detail... which adds up to being disturbingly like some sort of political soft porn bedtime story.
I am now about fifteen pages deep, and i have since learnt three things:
(a) Singapore, being a world class city has a piazza - which my mother asked, is it a cross between a pizza and a prata - which is somewhere around Marina Bay. This was suggested by I M Pei and this Jap architect, so we reclaimed less of the Bay, and made it smaller so that we can see from one end of the bay to the other. I asked my sister, where be this piazza, as i thought really, i've been away too long. To which she also said, what piazza? And where is it? So we now have a mysterious piazza. I told her that it is the Echo Fountain in Marina Bay Sands, she says it can't be. It can't be there because MBS was built after the interviews. So we are now officially searching for the world class city's piazza.
(b) This is what Singapore is about: having a 3G army to defend ourselves against Malaysia and Indonesia, (who want to invade us, all the time, at any given opportunity. Screw the UN. Honestly.) This costs lots of money, so we have to make lots of money. To fund the army. Which will protect the lots of money which we are earning to fund the army. If anyone has doubted that Singapore is a military dictatorship in all but name, this is now confirmed in the Hard Truths, six pages in.
(c) Malaysia and Indonesia are constantly trying to find ways to bring us down. Batam, parachute jumps on our national day in 1991, (how dare they, only we can do joint military exercises with our friends that we won't invite you to), water, various competing ports. This is not seen as free market entreprenuership and attempting to better their own lot by taking advantage of what is clearly a thriving area. This is seen as a threat to Singapore's well being.
It is clear why i will never have made it in the civil service. All my values and views are mostly and naively diametrically opposed to LKY's. So it was a good idea that i got out when i did. Sometimes i wonder, should i have just sat there and swallowed it. You know, one job after another. Nope, there i have it confirmed in writing. I did the right thing. Leaving the civil service and saying goodbye to Singapore was a necessary part of my journey. The Hard Truths have convinced me of it.
(lso the whole eugenics thing... enough already. Are people not suffering enough with your insane fetishisation of so called intelligence?There are more important things in life than intelligence, like love and compassion, and neither can be found on the right side of an IQ test.)
There are other funny things in it. Like how LKY is really sarcy (If i was as intelligent as you are...) and incapable of allowing people to finish questions. Also trying to get him to stay on the topic is like herding cats. Several times i had to reread the question through an answer to see where this was going... but they asked about this, not that... oh i see... some cat herding going on here.
If i were him, i'd conclude really, that i failed. Why have a failed, because the place which he left is not stronger, but far more vulnerable. Environmental destruction, the encouragement of corruption to further our own ends, finally, this crazy, in his own words 80 storey building in the middle of a marsh. Which person in their right mind would have done that? Why would anyone want to build an 80, and very proudly he says over 100, storey building in the middle of a marsh? Surrounded by barbed wire fence, and predators, and the building is mostly a MINDEF HQ? Who'd want to live in that?
But let us be fair on the old man, really. It is not his fault that that was the prevailing wisdom of his time. He succeeded in accomplishing the mission, but it was the wrong one. It turns out. And that is what the entire world is finding out now. There are limits to growth.... more is not better. More is not possible. And now that we have painted ourselves into this corner, what the heck are we going to do about it?
Finally, what do i think Singapore's most wonderful crowning acheivement is? It's racial harmony and its beautiful mix of cultures. I still swoon when i go to Chinatown and see a Hindu Temple next to a Taoist one. I love the Straits Chinese architecture, the shop houses, the cool, secluded parts... i love still the fact that we have a way of finding the cracks, the chinks in crevises and doing something about it. Singaporeans may be the children of coolies, and long may that be so. There is nothing wrong with a that... if you believe in a meritocracy, you cannot believe that is a bad thing.
OK children and killing each other... must go now...
I am now about fifteen pages deep, and i have since learnt three things:
(a) Singapore, being a world class city has a piazza - which my mother asked, is it a cross between a pizza and a prata - which is somewhere around Marina Bay. This was suggested by I M Pei and this Jap architect, so we reclaimed less of the Bay, and made it smaller so that we can see from one end of the bay to the other. I asked my sister, where be this piazza, as i thought really, i've been away too long. To which she also said, what piazza? And where is it? So we now have a mysterious piazza. I told her that it is the Echo Fountain in Marina Bay Sands, she says it can't be. It can't be there because MBS was built after the interviews. So we are now officially searching for the world class city's piazza.
(b) This is what Singapore is about: having a 3G army to defend ourselves against Malaysia and Indonesia, (who want to invade us, all the time, at any given opportunity. Screw the UN. Honestly.) This costs lots of money, so we have to make lots of money. To fund the army. Which will protect the lots of money which we are earning to fund the army. If anyone has doubted that Singapore is a military dictatorship in all but name, this is now confirmed in the Hard Truths, six pages in.
(c) Malaysia and Indonesia are constantly trying to find ways to bring us down. Batam, parachute jumps on our national day in 1991, (how dare they, only we can do joint military exercises with our friends that we won't invite you to), water, various competing ports. This is not seen as free market entreprenuership and attempting to better their own lot by taking advantage of what is clearly a thriving area. This is seen as a threat to Singapore's well being.
It is clear why i will never have made it in the civil service. All my values and views are mostly and naively diametrically opposed to LKY's. So it was a good idea that i got out when i did. Sometimes i wonder, should i have just sat there and swallowed it. You know, one job after another. Nope, there i have it confirmed in writing. I did the right thing. Leaving the civil service and saying goodbye to Singapore was a necessary part of my journey. The Hard Truths have convinced me of it.
(lso the whole eugenics thing... enough already. Are people not suffering enough with your insane fetishisation of so called intelligence?There are more important things in life than intelligence, like love and compassion, and neither can be found on the right side of an IQ test.)
There are other funny things in it. Like how LKY is really sarcy (If i was as intelligent as you are...) and incapable of allowing people to finish questions. Also trying to get him to stay on the topic is like herding cats. Several times i had to reread the question through an answer to see where this was going... but they asked about this, not that... oh i see... some cat herding going on here.
If i were him, i'd conclude really, that i failed. Why have a failed, because the place which he left is not stronger, but far more vulnerable. Environmental destruction, the encouragement of corruption to further our own ends, finally, this crazy, in his own words 80 storey building in the middle of a marsh. Which person in their right mind would have done that? Why would anyone want to build an 80, and very proudly he says over 100, storey building in the middle of a marsh? Surrounded by barbed wire fence, and predators, and the building is mostly a MINDEF HQ? Who'd want to live in that?
But let us be fair on the old man, really. It is not his fault that that was the prevailing wisdom of his time. He succeeded in accomplishing the mission, but it was the wrong one. It turns out. And that is what the entire world is finding out now. There are limits to growth.... more is not better. More is not possible. And now that we have painted ourselves into this corner, what the heck are we going to do about it?
Finally, what do i think Singapore's most wonderful crowning acheivement is? It's racial harmony and its beautiful mix of cultures. I still swoon when i go to Chinatown and see a Hindu Temple next to a Taoist one. I love the Straits Chinese architecture, the shop houses, the cool, secluded parts... i love still the fact that we have a way of finding the cracks, the chinks in crevises and doing something about it. Singaporeans may be the children of coolies, and long may that be so. There is nothing wrong with a that... if you believe in a meritocracy, you cannot believe that is a bad thing.
OK children and killing each other... must go now...
Comments