While many of us quietly, and perhaps too, secretly, revere the man, there are others who are indignant about the volume of media coverage and ground sentiments about the passing of the first Prime Minister of the country. Some took to social media to quibble about why they would not be that sad about Lee Kuan Yew's death, or that those who have suffered from f***ed up policies should be given the right to condemn the man.
And I was thinking, it's always easy to be critical of what someone does (or does not do). Evidently, how objective can one man's view of the world be? Do I agree with controversial policies including the graduate mother's scheme or media censorship? Do I think that the people in the like of Francis Seow and Chia Thye Poh whom were relentlessly eliminated deserved such treatment? No, and no.
I am not a LKY supporter. But what I do know is that without Mr Lee Kuan Yew's vision, courage and perseverance, we most probably would not have transcended from third world to first in [less than] 50 years. As Stefanie Sun puts it in her tribute on the local broadsheet, "...I do not see myself as a direct result of Mr Lee's exceptional accomplishments. I do, however, look to the people whom I love the most as living testimonials of his legacy." And I believe she speaks for many of us, well, at least for me. My parents are not really educated. Having only completed primary school education, life was hard for my family of five with my father as the sole breadwinner of the family. And had it not been for meritocracy, fair education policies, and equality between gender and among races, I reckon I would probably be a dishwasher or a cashier. Today, I am decently employed as a polytechnic lecturer. Sure, I grouse about the cost of our HDB flats today (and for me, it's more than half a million dollars for a measly 93 square metres) among many other things, but I am thankful that home ownership was an acuity that took shape back in the 1960s.
Could someone else have done the same, or even better? Perhaps, but I'm not sure because there is really no way of finding that out now, is there?
#RememberingLeeKuanYew #ThankYouMrLee
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