[Nasional-e] Singapore's paradox of freedom and order

[Ambon]

 Singapore's paradox of freedom and order
  David Ignatius International Herald Tribune, The Washington Post Saturday,
September 28, 2002

Lee Kuan Yew

SINGAPORE Why is one of the world's most successful politicians also one of
the most litigious? That's the paradox of senior minister and former leader
Lee Kuan Yew, the man who built this island nation into a world-class
economic success but still battles critics as if his life depended on it.
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If you were to ask political and business leaders in Asia which living
statesman they most respect, Lee probably would nearly top the list. By
tapping Singapore's brainpower and work ethic, he created a jewel of the
global economy. Yet in defending his personal reputation he remains as
combative as when he first became prime minister of a poor and primitive
Singapore at age 35.
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Perhaps he is an example of what Orson Welles tried to explain in "Citizen
Kane." Great men and women, no matter how far they rise in life, never
entirely escape the fears they had when they were young. Lee's fear may be
that Singapore will be seen as just another corrupt Southeast Asian country
rather than as the island of legality and clean government it became under
his stewardship.
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There is a picture of him in his autobiography with a broom in hand,
sweeping the streets of Singapore in an effort to persuade his fellow
countrymen to keep the country clean. It was taken in 1959, the year he
became prime minister. The ramshackle buildings and dusty streets in the
picture are long gone, but mentally Lee still has that broom in hand.
Singapore's problem is a bit like China's. When does a country become rich
and successful enough to loosen its grip on media and citizens and operate
more like a modern democracy? When is it stable enough to stop worrying so
much about social control? Lee perplexes me. He is probably the smartest
politician I have interviewed in more than 25 years as a journalist. Yet I
find his behavior toward the press appalling, not least in the courtroom
combat he launched during the 1990s against the newspaper I edit, the
International Herald Tribune. He waged similar legal jousting with the Far
Eastern Economic Review, now owned by Dow Jones. Those legal fights were
destructive for all sides, yet Lee remains ready to rumble when he feels his
reputation has been tarnished.
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His latest dustup with the press came last month after Bloomberg News
published a commentary by the columnist Patrick Smith. The article alleged
that Lee had engaged in nepotism when the top post at a government
investment firm was given to the wife of his son, Lee Hsien Loong, who is
Singapore's deputy prime minister. Lee's lawyers threatened to sue, and
Bloomberg quickly issued a public apology and agreed to pay damages and
costs.
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Another victory for Lee? Maybe. But I suspect that such sensitivity sits
uneasily with Singapore's hard-won reputation as a modern, progressive
nation. It makes people wonder whether there is something wrong, and in that
sense may hurt Singapore more than it helps.
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So on a visit here this month, I asked Lee to explain why he was so
thin-skinned. If someone told George H.W. Bush that his son's elevation to
the presidency was an example of nepotism, he would just laugh it off, I
said. Why did Lee respond so sharply?
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Lee's answer was revealing, because it showed his fear that Singapore could
lose what he has worked so long to build. "That's different!" he said,
dismissing the comparison to the Bush family. "This is a hard-won premium
that we command," he said, noting that Transparency International ranks
Singapore as the least corrupt country in Asia. "Everybody knows that if you
impugn our integrity, we must clear our name. How can it be otherwise?" he
said.
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"We are the best paid of all ministers in the region, but not the most well
off. That's because we run it differently. Our people know that. If they
doubt that, we are out."
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But why take it so seriously? No columnist is going to change what people
think of Singapore.
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"One Patrick Smith, followed by dozens of Patrick Smiths," Lee replied. "If
he gets away, everybody gets away. More calumny is showered on us, and where
do we end up?" Where you end up, in relaxing controls on public debate, is
with the kind of open and democratic society we have in the West. That
doesn't mean opening the gates to calumny and abuse. America has libel laws,
too, after all, but they deliberately provide a lower standard of protection
for public figures, to foster a more open debate. By reacting as he does
whenever falsehoods appear in the press, Lee may be inhibiting Singapore's
march into that kind of future. Lee told me last year that efforts to
control information were counterproductive in the Internet age. "I don't
think we can stop it now," he said. "I don't see any alternative. You either
use the Internet or you are backward." Lee reiterated that determination to
become a more open society in our conversation this month.
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"We have been changing," he said, noting that articles appear now in the
local press that would never have been published two years ago. Bravo. But
the real milestone will be when someone publishes a defamatory article about
Lee's family and he, like former President Bush, just laughs it off.
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