I was saddened by many unfriendly comments in ST and posted this :
I see two groups of distinct comments that are both valid and invalid.
One group wished Mr Lee well and wished that he recovers speedily because Singapore needs him. Another suggested that he is old and had done enough for Singapore but now incapable of doing anything anymore, and even if he recovers he is no contributor to Singapore and drawing a salary from tax payers coffers.
My humble belief is that the two needs to converged and find what is good and what is sound in our thinking. While many do not accept nor recognized Mr Lee as the "founding father" of modern Singapore, Singapore has incontrovertibly walked through and pass the road that Lee Kuan Yew had with his bare hand, and his leadership in harnessing the strength and ability of his team mates Goh Keng Swee, S.Rajaratnam, Toh Chin Chye, E W Barker, Devan Nair and others.
Though some may want to deny Mr Lee the prestige of a leading role in past achievements by up-honouring those who had somehow and somewhat had a fallout with him, one cannot deny that these very people had without a doubt recognized that Lee Kuan Yew was the only indisputable leader capable and willing to undertake that task of putting the sub-structure, and super-structure for the very modern Singapore we lived and thrived today.
Disagreement do not wash away and invalidate capabilities, nor the steeled leadership spirit. Disagreement do not also wipe away the very physical and outstanding Singapore that has risen forth from the mind and spirit of Lee Kuan Yew. You may argue that anyone having Lee Kuan Yew's position can do the same thing, but that is only an assumption and conjecture. But to every assumption and conjecture, therein lies the complete possibility of exactly the opposite outcome. In Lee Kuan Yew's case, he did not fail Singapore and the results are before our eyes, though one still have that rights to pretend to be blind.
In this context, Singaporeans are united in will and ability motivated by the presence of such a great man. A nation cannot live on its past achievements, and neither should it die on past failures. A nation's propensity to survival is not now, but lies somewhere in the future. Whatever that works and do not work now are for our calibration to a better future. Can we see the future? No. And that is the reasonable reason why sometimes things don't work because no one can see the future in its exact state. We calibrate our works according to the changes in life, and make them work.
Did Lee Kuan Yew did everything right? No. As many have said though in much unpleasant term, "He is not God". Indeed he is not. But what do we see after 50 to 60 years with the presence of Lee Kuan Yew. We saw the undying spirit and willingness to change, to calibrate and make the wrong right. There is no regrets. Every step and action taken were necessary in time and context. People can quarrel about it afterwards as though they had that power to see the future in its exact state, but does it matters any more? Were we any worst of as a nation? No.
After each quarrel and disagreement, we learnt to be better. We corrected the mistakes and made them right. It is not for now, but for the future...the future of the nation of Singapore.
And these are what I have seen done by Lee Kuan Yew, and he deserved every bit of our well wishes, even our little bit of honouring him for those difficult years that he had rigorously laboured. He is worth much more than every single cent we spent, for the dollars we have in our pockets.
Anthony Kan
*Article first appeared on https://www.facebook.com/anthony.kan.16/posts/10205060589648945