Leninism, Asian Culture and Singapore (Part 1) posted on Monday, December 20, 2004
By Chung-Kwong Yuen
Lengthy analysis published in Asian Profile, June 1999, and posted 27
Sept 1999 in response to Buruma & Mahbubani dialogue "Are Singaporeans
Afraid to Think" in Straits Times.
-
1. Introduction 2. Lenin 3. PAP and the Communists 4. The Mandarins 5.
From Guns to Butter 6. Rule by Book 7. Would you join my party? 8. How
Green is my Valley?
-
1. Introduction
Singapore is a place that arouses deeply divided feelings among
observers. Economically, it is one of the great success stories of
this century, but it is also widely seen as an authoritarian state
that limits freedom of speech and political rights. Even more
importantly, its leader Lee Kuan Yew has set himself up as the
proponent of an alternative model of economic and political
development for the poorer nations, one that rejects western decadence
while incorporating "Asian" values of studiousness, achievement
through hard work, and deference to authority and group. That is,
instead of humbly pleading guilty to liberal charges of sacrificing
human rights for the sake of prosperity, he claims to have invented a
superior ideology more applicable to the less developed part of the
world than what North America and Europe wish to export. This elevates
the polemic to a higher level of controversy, with western journalists
constantly carping on Lee's speeches and the actions of the Singapore
government, hoping to detect chinks in their armours, while they
answer in kind through their various public relations channels. In the
end, neither side has been able to strike a knockout blow, and a
standoff has ensured.
This is not a simple standoff between good and bad; between democracy
and dictatorship; not even between east and west. Lee's stance is
discomfiting to the western liberals precisely because it cannot be
neatly labelled and then dismissed. If he were just an ignorant Asian
dictator, on route to his inevitable downfall like, say, Ferdinand
Marcos, then his ideas would pose no threat to the orthodoxy of the
western nations. The fact is however that his policies achieve
economic prosperity while ignoring many of the sacred cows of standard
political thinking, a situation that cannot be taken in without a
serious and painful reassessment of one's basic tenets; in fact,
something that threatens the currently fashionable ideological
paradigm. Considering that the great Soviet Union has collapsed like
good old capitalists said it would, is little Singapore going to defy
the most well proven liberal thinking?
But what exactly is Lee's so successful ideology? There is nothing
special about a belief in education, hard work, family, social
hierarchy, and so on. These are not the particular inventions of Lee
Kuan Yew, or even particularly Asian. Lee's invention is much more
original. It is a unique combination of Leninist organizational
tactics with capitalist industrial and commercial technology
implemented among a population with an Asian social background,
resulting in a strictly controlled and paternalistic corporate entity
that has delivered material wealth to its members. In this article, I
wish to analytically examine the various facets of this structure.
--
Leninism, Asian Culture and Singapore
By Chung-Kwong Yuen
Lengthy analysis published in Asian Profile, June 1999, and posted 27
Sept 1999 in response to Buruma & Mahbubani dialogue "Are Singaporeans
Afraid to Think" in Straits Times.
-
1. Introduction 2. Lenin 3. PAP and the Communists 4. The Mandarins 5.
From Guns to Butter 6. Rule by Book 7. Would you join my party? 8. How
Green is my Valley?
-
1. Introduction
Singapore is a place that arouses deeply divided feelings among
observers. Economically, it is one of the great success stories of
this century, but it is also widely seen as an authoritarian state
that limits freedom of speech and political rights. Even more
importantly, its leader Lee Kuan Yew has set himself up as the
proponent of an alternative model of economic and political
development for the poorer nations, one that rejects western decadence
while incorporating "Asian" values of studiousness, achievement
through hard work, and deference to authority and group. That is,
instead of humbly pleading guilty to liberal charges of sacrificing
human rights for the sake of prosperity, he claims to have invented a
superior ideology more applicable to the less developed part of the
world than what North America and Europe wish to export. This elevates
the polemic to a higher level of controversy, with western journalists
constantly carping on Lee's speeches and the actions of the Singapore
government, hoping to detect chinks in their armours, while they
answer in kind through their various public relations channels. In the
end, neither side has been able to strike a knockout blow, and a
standoff has ensured.
This is not a simple standoff between good and bad; between democracy
and dictatorship; not even between east and west. Lee's stance is
discomfiting to the western liberals precisely because it cannot be
neatly labelled and then dismissed. If he were just an ignorant Asian
dictator, on route to his inevitable downfall like, say, Ferdinand
Marcos, then his ideas would pose no threat to the orthodoxy of the
western nations. The fact is however that his policies achieve
economic prosperity while ignoring many of the sacred cows of standard
political thinking, a situation that cannot be taken in without a
serious and painful reassessment of one's basic tenets; in fact,
something that threatens the currently fashionable ideological
paradigm. Considering that the great Soviet Union has collapsed like
good old capitalists said it would, is little Singapore going to defy
the most well proven liberal thinking?
But what exactly is Lee's so successful ideology? There is nothing
special about a belief in education, hard work, family, social
hierarchy, and so on. These are not the particular inventions of Lee
Kuan Yew, or even particularly Asian. Lee's invention is much more
original. It is a unique combination of Leninist organizational
tactics with capitalist industrial and commercial technology
implemented among a population with an Asian social background,
resulting in a strictly controlled and paternalistic corporate entity
that has delivered material wealth to its members. In this article, I
wish to analytically examine the various facets of this structure.
--