2015 - Singapore - LKY's Final Journey Part 2: Funeral Service Proceedings @ NUS UCC - 29/3/15

• published: 30 Mar 2015
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Recorded live from Mediacorp ChannelNewsAsia (CNA) Channel from 1400hrs SGT to 1630hrs SGT on 29 Mar 2015. 2015 Mediacorp TV Singapore Pte Ltd. All Rights Reserved. You can watch "2015 - Singapore - LKY's Final Journey Part 1: From Parliament House to NUS UCC - 29/3/15" @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW-NxRVinV0 ________________________________________ Obituary: Lee Kuan Yew (BBC News, 22 Mar 2015) - With a sense of vision and a ruthless pragmatism, Lee Kuan Yew led Singapore as it transformed from a tiny island with no natural resources into a thriving economic success. He successfully channelled the energies of Singaporeans to create what has often been described as an economic miracle, a mixture of private and state capitalism. Mr Lee made Singapore prosperous, modern, efficient and practically corruption-free - and overseas investors flocked in. But while he was admired for his economic success, many expressed concern over his record on human rights. Lee Kuan Yew was born on 16 September 1923 in Singapore, the son of third-generation Chinese immigrants. His upbringing had a strong British influence and his grandfather dubbed him Harry Lee, a name by which he was known through most of his early life. Mr Lee went to an English school in Singapore but his further education was disrupted by the Japanese occupation, which began in 1942. For the next three years, he was involved in the black market and also used his command of English to work for the Japanese propaganda department. After the war he went briefly to the London School of Economics before going up to Cambridge, where he took a double first in law. During his time in England, Mr Lee became a devotee of the BBC Home Service, forerunner to Radio 4, and took time out to campaign for a university friend who was contesting a parliamentary seat in rural Devon. Mr Lee, a committed socialist from his student days, returned to Singapore where he became a prominent trade union lawyer. Prime Minister In 1954, he was a founder and the first general secretary of the People's Action Party (PAP), a post he was to hold for most of the next 40 years The PAP won the majority of seats in the 1959 elections and Singapore passed from overall British control and became a self-governing state. Mr Lee took Singapore into a merger with Malaysia in 1963 but it was short-lived. Ideological tensions and a series of violent clashes between ethnic groups led to Singapore's expulsion from the federation to become fully independent. It was a difficult move for Lee, who saw the alliance with Malaysia as a way of finally throwing off the area's colonial past. He described it as "a moment of anguish". Commercial and military links with Malaysia were maintained, however, and Britain was encouraged to keep its base in Singapore for the joint defence of the island and Malaysia. Mr Lee set about a huge programme of reform, designed to transform Singapore from the "cesspool of squalor and degradation" described in one contemporary account to a modern industrialised state. Corporal punishment To do this he maintained tight political control over every aspect of the city state, making it one of the world's most regulated societies. Mr Lee detained some of his critics without trial, restricted the media and foreign publications, and arrested a number of journalists. "Freedom of the press, freedom of the news media, must be subordinated to the overriding needs of the integrity of Singapore," he said. He justified his actions by claiming that the newspapers were being financed by hostile interests abroad. Mr Lee contended that in a developing nation some freedoms had to be sacrificed. The alternative to anti-communism was communism, and the West's concept of liberal democracy could not apply. However, some of his critics argued that holding all the parliamentary seats should have provided him with enough security to avoid having to use such repressive measures. As a committed anti-communist, he was accused of adopting a communist-style regime to further his policies although, unlike many communist regimes, the people of Singapore benefited financially from his rule. From 1960 to 1980, Singapore's GNP per capita increased 15-fold. Population control Israel provided the model, surrounded as it was by hostile Arab states. "Like Israel, we had to leapfrog the rest of the region, and attract multinational companies," Lee said. He understood the importance of building a good relationship with China, something that was helped by his friendship with the Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping. Deng, who visited Singapore in 1978, expressed admiration for Lee's economic policies; Mr Lee was impressed with the reforms that Deng instituted in China. You can read the rest of the above article @ http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-12975980