Kuan Yew and his naughty comments

On Sept 15 Singapore’s veteran politician Lee Kuan Yew was reported to have told his local audience:

"Our neighbours both have problems with their Chinese. They are successful. They are hardworking and therefore they are systemically marginalised

Indonesia and Malaysia want Singapore, to put it simply, to be like their Chinese -- compliant.

We need a government that will have the gumption and skill to say 'no' to our neighbours in a very quiet and polite way that doesn't provoke them into doing something silly."

Understandably this caused some concern here across the Causeway. Yesterday, in the absence of PM Abdullah, his deputy Najib said this:

"I do not know the reason he made such a statement but it should not have been made at all. It’s a comment that we can do without and it is not appreciated at all.

We do not sideline the non-bumiputra in this country. What are in place are efforts to create a balance between the bumiputra and the non-bumiputra."

And he said it was up to the cabinet (read: Abdullah) to decide if the government wants to send a diplomatic note to protest Lee’s statement.

And then today the floodgates opened. Gerakan was the first to defend their community honour, stating that Kuan Yew didn’t know what he was talking about and that he had been up this sort of mischief all along.

An upset Gerakan president Lim Keng Yaik said the former Singapore premier had a habit of making statements which infuriate Malaysians over the last 40 years.

While his deputy Koh Tsu Koon waxed lyrics about how the Malaysian government tried to uplift all races in the country. He even said we Malaysians have it better than the Singaporeans.

I don’t know if this episode will start another round of tit-for-tat between Malaysia and Singapore. However these are my thoughts on it:

• Kuan Yew’s remarks clearly fell within the long standing siege mentality which the island has adopted.
  
• Najib’s response, instead of showing anger against Kuan Yew, looked more like he was defending the shortcomings of his government policies.
  
• The Gerakan outburst sounded so pathetic as a political tool - both to curry favours from the local Chinese voters as well as to be in the good books of the big brothers at PWTC.
  
• I am sure MCA too will be making enough noise soon for the same reasons.
  
• Finally, when Abdullah comes back, he will pretend as though he has not heard anything about it, and when informed by the media, will say let bygones be bygones.

Humble pie time:

I was wrong on the final point. Abdullah did seek a clarification and got an apology note from Lee, and came out smelling like roses.