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### A: “I wonder if that is a concern of yours about the next generation. I saw your discussion with a group of young people before the last election and they were saying what they want is a lot of these values from the West, an open political marketplace and even playing field in all of these things and you said well... |
### A: “But is that a concern that the younger generation doesn’t realize as much as it should?”### B: “I believe they have come to believe that this is a natural state of affairs, and they can take liberties with it. They think you can put it on auto-pilot. I know that is never so. We have crafted a set of very int... |
### A: “There are people who think that Singapore may lighten up a little bit when you go, that the rules will become a little looser and if that happens, that might be something that’s a concern to you.”### B: “No, you can go looser where it’s not race, language and religion because those are deeply gut issues and it ... |
### A: “The public view of you is as a very strict, cerebral, unsentimental. Catherine Lim, “an authoritarian, no-nonsense manner that has little use for sentiment”.### B: “She’s a novelist, therefore, she simplifies a person’s character, make graphic caricature of me. But is anybody that simple or simplistic?” |
### A: “Sentiment though, you don’t show that very much in public.”### B: “Well, that’s a Chinese ideal. A gentleman in Chinese ideal, the junzi (君子) is someone who is always composed and possessed of himself and doesn’t lose his temper and doesn’t lose his tongue. That’s what I try to do, except when I got turfed ou... |
### A: “One aspect of the way you’ve constructed Singapore is a certain level of fear perhaps in the population. You described yourself as a street fighter, knuckle duster and so forth.” | ### B: “Yes.” |
### A: “And that produces among some people a level of fear and I want to tell you what a taxi driver said when I said I was going to interview you. He said, safer not to ask him anything. If you ask him, somebody will follow you. We’re not in politics so just let him do the politics.”### B: “How old is he?’ |
### A: “I’m sorry, middle aged, I don’t know.### B: “I go out. I’m no longer the Prime Minister. I don’t have to do the difficult things. Everybody wants to shake my hands, everybody wants me to autograph something. Everybody wants to get around me to take a photo. So it’s a problem.” |
### A: “Yes but...”### B: “Because I’m no longer in charge, I don’t have to do the hard things. I’ve laid the foundation and they know that because of that foundation, they’re enjoying this life. |
### A: “So when you were the one directly in-charge, you had to be tough, you had to be a fighter.”### B: “Yes, of course. I had to fight left-wingers, Communists, pro-Communist groups who had killer squads. If I didn’t have the guts and the gumption to take them on, there wouldn’t be the Singapore. They would have ... |
### A: “Well, you don’t have a lot of dissidents in prison but you’re known for your libel suits which keeps a lot of people at bay.”### B: “We are non-corrupt. We lead modest lives, so it’s difficult to malign us. What’s the easy way to get a leader down? He’s a hypocrite, he is corrupt, he pretends to be this when... |
### A: “But that may produce what I was talking about, about a level of fear.”### B: “No, you’re fearful of a libel suit? Then don’t issue these defamatory statements or make them where you have no basis. The Western correspondent, especially those who hop in and hop out got to find something to show that they are im... |
### A: “Let me ask a last question. Again back to Tom Plate, “I’m not serious all the time. Everyone needs to have a good laugh now and then to see the funny side of things and to laugh at himself”.”### B: “Yes, of course.” |
### A: “How about that?”### B: “You have to be that.” |
### A: “So what makes you laugh?”### B: “Many things, the absurdity of it, many things in life. Sometimes, I meet witty people, have conversations, they make sharp remarks, I laugh.” |
### A: “And when you laugh at yourself as you said?”### B: “That’s very frequent. Yeah, I’m reaching 87, trying to keep fit, presenting a vigorous figure and it’s an effort and is it worth the effort? I laugh at myself trying to keep a bold front. It’s become my habit. I just carry on.” |
### A: “So it’s the whole broad picture of things that you find funny?”### B: “Yes, life as a whole has many abnormalities, of course.” |
### A: “Your public life together with your private life, what you’ve done over things people write about you and Singapore, that overall is something that you can find funny?”### B: “Yes, of course.” |
### A: “You made one of the few people who laugh at Singapore.”### B: “Let me give you a Chinese proverb “do not judge a man until you’ve closed his coffin. Do not judge a man.” Close the coffin, then decide. Then you assess him. I may still do something foolish before the lid is closed on me.” |
### A: “So you’re waiting for the final verdict?”### B: “No, the final verdict will not be in the obituaries. The final verdict will be when the PhD students dig out the archives, read my old papers, assess what my enemies have said, sift the evidence and seek the truth? I’m not saying that everything I did was right... |
### A: “For the greater good?”### B: “Well, yes, because otherwise they are running around and causing havoc playing on Chinese language and culture, and accusing me of destroying Chinese education. You’ve not been here when the Communists were running around. They do not believe in the democratic process. They don’t ... |
### A: “So leadership is a constant battle?”### B: “In a multiracial situation like this, it is. Malaysia took the different line; Malaysians saw it as a Malay country, all others are lodgers, “orang tumpangan”, and they the Bumiputras, sons of the soil, run the show. So the Sultans, the Chief Justice and judges, gene... |
### A: “This is the last part of the last question. So your career has been a struggle to keep things going in the right way and you’ve also said that the best way to keep your health is to keep on working. Are you tired of it by this point? Do you feel like you want to rest?”### B: “No, I don’t. I know if I rest I... |
### A: “It’s not going to be freezing if there are fires.”### B: “No but our embassy says the skies have cleared. Kiev because the President has invited me specially and will fly me from Moscow to Kiev and then fly me on to Paris. Paris I am on the TOTAL Advisory Board together with Joe Nye and a few others. They wa... |
### A: “Well, I hope you continue. Thank you very much, I really enjoyed this interview.”### B: Likewise. |
### A: Singapore is a place of memories for many Australians with rather bitter memories of World War Two; but today Singapore is a very busy island of nearly two million people, a flourishing centre of trade and a volatile centre of politics. And perhaps no politician in Singapore is more volatile than its Prime Minis... |
### A: What were you doing during those years of the Japanese occupation?### B: Well, I was a student at Raffles College, now the University of Singapore, doing English literature. Mathematics and Economics. And the Japanese came, knocked us about, and the three-and-a-half years was really a nightmare. I'm not quite su... |
### A: What did this period teach you about the nature of colonialism, because this gained you experience of both British and Japanese colonialism?### B: Well it was a traumatic experience. One day, you had the British there in all the big houses and all the big cars, and occupying all the big shops and streets in town... |
years and we might then learn how to do it about as well as the British, or nearly as well. In about two weeks of fighting - there wasn't much fighting, either, there was a lot of running – we discovered that this superiority was really the capacity to use guns and to frighten the other chap. And, in a matter of days, ... |
### A: Do you think there is a sense in which the Japanese could be said to have liberated Asia from European colonialism?### B: Well, yes, in a way they accelerated the process. They made it very difficult for either the British, the Dutch or the French to drag the process out over decades. Once you've broken the spel... |
### A: Now, after the war you went to England for university education, to Cambridge. In fact, like so many other anti-colonial leaders from Asia and Africa. Did your English experience at the University serve to confirm your anti-colonial attitudes?### B: Well, I would say yes; but the important thing had already happ... |
### A: Well of course, during the years you were in Britain, Britain was in fact giving up many of her overseas colonies. But in 1950 - this was the year you returned to Singapore you made a speech to the Malayan Forum in which you said that Malaya was the only remnant of colonial imperialism left in Asia, surrounded b... |
### A: Well, this leads me to another question. You know that you hear often expressed in the West that Malaysia is fundamentally a British conception. Now, you know better than I do the nature of British imperialism, and you know that when the British are withdrawing from a colony, you know the manner in which they do... |
former Governor-General. But I do not think the British set out to create this as part of a definite objective of policy to implement Malaysia. They had secondary ideas like having a Borneo Federation of Sarawak, North Borneo and Brunei. And the whole idea, to my mind, looking back over these years, was that they would... |
### A: How long do you think the British bases will be in Singapore?### B: As of now, from now? |
### A: Yes.### B: It's very difficult to... Well, you told me at the beginning that you were not going to ask me any speculative questions. But this is a bit of speculation. |
### A: Well, let's put it in another way. You would like I presume to get rid of the British bases, and get rid of British influence in Singapore and in Malaysia.### B: I don't think it's a simple question of wanting to get rid of the British bases and influence in Malaysia. May I put it in a more personal way. First, ... |
### A: You're speaking now of your own independent Malaysian existence.### B: Yes. |
### A: And the phrase you used a few moments ago was "speaking as a Malaysian".### B: Yes. |
### A: Now, you are in fact Chinese. What does it mean to you to be Chinese?### B: I am not in fact Chinese. I am in fact a Malaysian. I am by race Chinese. I am no more Chinese than you are an Englishman. Were you born here? |
### A: Yes, I was.### B: Well then, you can't be an Englishman, No, I can't deny my ancestry. I am not ashamed of it. But I've never been to China. I don't believe my cousins or distant relatives of whom there must be many and none of whom I know; would be thinking and feeling completely different from me. I've been br... |
### A: Now, one of the difficulties about Malaysia, or the whole concept of Malaysia, is of course this problem of cultural amalgamation. Is there any historical basis for cultural or ethnic amalgamation in Malaysia? On the face of it there just doesn't seem to be, but you may have different ideas on this.### B: I'm so... |
gone through many different experiences, the Normans and the Danes and the Scots and the Welsh and the Irish, and now the Hungarians and the Poles and the French. He has taken in all these |
influences. So, I would say historically there are many instances of peoples who've come together to live in one territory and ultimately form a common milieu. And getting fused, and their culture and racial origins become more mixed. Well, I would say I'd agree with you that the problem in Malaysia is very different. ... |
### A: Well, each can learn from the other.### B: I think so. I think it is the only way. I mean, mind you, theoretically I expect it should be possible that we could try and run two societies, like Dr. Malan in South Africa is trying to do –the whites with the Asian civilization in the towns and Africans coming to the... |
### A: Well let me say that I accept completely this thesis or racial and cultural fusion. I think it's an admirable aim. But isn't your basic difficulty in Malaysia, the oft-expressed fear of the Malays, of Chinese domination?### B: It's not possible in Malaysia. They often say that they are afraid of the Chinese domi... |
Indians and Malays, Dayaks, Dusuns, Kadasans, Ibans and others, a common destiny. Sharing common trials and tribulations. When the Japanese came, the Malays suffered as much as the Chinese, the Indians, or anybody else. We went through a common experience as one people. And so the Chinese are not just one homogeneous g... |
and bred in the country are those who are infected by theories of working-class revolution, the example of the Great Communist Millenium as China has shown it is possible, and their thoughts wander along other paths. But I believe the majority want to seek a common salvation in a multi-racial Malaysia. |
### A: Well do you think the racial riots in Singapore last year augured well for the future of the Federation because you've said yourself these riots were probably inspired by the ultras in Malaysia agitating in Singapore, how do you think you're going to overcome that problem?### B: Yes it's probable the biggest set... |
repeated either the next or the time after that is might spread throughout the whole of Malaysia, not just Singapore. And then I think it would be very difficult to put the bits and pieces together again. Because once you've got a people through an agonising experience like that, and reason and compassion and humanity ... |
### A: I wonder if we could turn for just the last few moments to your own Government in Singapore, which you describe I think as nonCommunist rather than anti-Communist. Is this deliberate?### B: Oh yes, it's more than deliberate, I hope it conveys something. You know, the tendency in the West is to classify the peopl... |
fundamental to the Communists as to the West. You see, when we say "non-Communist" the West are not satisfied. They say, "Ah, equivocation, fellow traveller". Well, maybe. I don't think so. The communists know what non-communism means. It means no communism. That's why it's non. No communism in Singapore, in Malaysia; ... |
them we don't necessarily have to become British or American stooges. We are fighting for ourselves, not for America and not for the free world; but in so for as America and the free world or Australia or New Zealand or Britain help us to find fulfilment for our own people separately as not only non-communist but nonIn... |
### A: Mr. Prime Minister, I said at the beginning that your reputation for frank and honest speaking had preceded you. I would like to thank you very, very much for talking with me tonight, and to say finally that your answers were no less frank and honest than we expected. Thank you very much.### B: Thank you for the... |
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