WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.279 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today, we are 00:00:02.279 --> 00:00:05.759 not just looking at a biography. We're really 00:00:05.759 --> 00:00:08.419 dissecting a miracle. Or maybe, depending on 00:00:08.419 --> 00:00:11.240 how you look at it, a very calculated, very disciplined, 00:00:11.359 --> 00:00:14.259 and yeah, occasionally ruthless machine. We're 00:00:14.259 --> 00:00:18.230 looking at a man who stood on... I mean, a swampy, 00:00:18.250 --> 00:00:21.190 malaria infested island with absolutely zero 00:00:21.190 --> 00:00:23.750 natural resources. Nothing. We're talking not 00:00:23.750 --> 00:00:25.730 even enough fresh water to keep the population 00:00:25.730 --> 00:00:28.129 alive. And he just decides he's going to force 00:00:28.129 --> 00:00:30.350 it to become a first world metropolis. It's a 00:00:30.350 --> 00:00:34.070 story that sort of defies the standard laws of 00:00:34.070 --> 00:00:36.490 post -colonial physics. I mean, if you run the 00:00:36.490 --> 00:00:39.310 simulation of the 20th century 100 times, Singapore 00:00:39.310 --> 00:00:42.350 fails in 99 of them. Right. Usually the story 00:00:42.350 --> 00:00:45.060 goes something like this. charismatic revolutionary 00:00:45.060 --> 00:00:47.679 wins in attendance, the crowds cheer, the flag 00:00:47.679 --> 00:00:50.200 goes up, and then the country just slowly slides 00:00:50.200 --> 00:00:53.679 into corruption or civil war or, you know, economic 00:00:53.679 --> 00:00:55.539 irrelevance. The classic winning the war but 00:00:55.539 --> 00:00:58.060 losing the peace scenario. Exactly. But this 00:00:58.060 --> 00:01:00.259 story is the inverse of that. It involves a man 00:01:00.259 --> 00:01:02.340 who didn't even want independence. He actually 00:01:02.340 --> 00:01:04.319 fought tooth and nail against it. Yeah, that's 00:01:04.319 --> 00:01:06.799 the crazy part. But when it was thrust upon him, 00:01:06.900 --> 00:01:09.659 he built one of the most hyper -efficient... 00:01:09.849 --> 00:01:14.530 wealthy and controversial nation states in history. 00:01:14.689 --> 00:01:16.870 We are, of course, talking about the founding 00:01:16.870 --> 00:01:20.390 father of modern Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew. And 00:01:20.390 --> 00:01:22.549 the stack of sources we have for this deep dive 00:01:22.549 --> 00:01:24.650 is, well, it's honestly a little intimidating. 00:01:25.259 --> 00:01:27.700 We've got biographical dossiers, declassified 00:01:27.700 --> 00:01:30.219 intelligence documents, transcripts of radio 00:01:30.219 --> 00:01:33.340 speeches, even some very recent government gazettes 00:01:33.340 --> 00:01:36.439 from just last month, December 2025. It is a 00:01:36.439 --> 00:01:39.180 massive topic. But to really understand Lee Kuan 00:01:39.180 --> 00:01:42.140 Yew, you can't start with the gleaming skyline 00:01:42.140 --> 00:01:46.239 or the crazy rich Asians aesthetic we see today. 00:01:46.319 --> 00:01:48.700 You have to start with a moment of absolute trauma. 00:01:48.959 --> 00:01:51.019 The weeping. The weeping. If you go to YouTube 00:01:51.019 --> 00:01:52.540 right now and you search his name, I guarantee 00:01:52.540 --> 00:01:54.590 the first clip you'll see is from August. August 00:01:54.590 --> 00:01:57.530 9th, 1965. It's a press conference. He's 41 years 00:01:57.530 --> 00:01:59.510 old. Yeah, just 41. He's wearing that simple 00:01:59.510 --> 00:02:02.909 open collared white shirt. And he just he breaks 00:02:02.909 --> 00:02:05.870 down. He can't speak. He's physically wiping 00:02:05.870 --> 00:02:08.330 away tears on national television. And we need 00:02:08.330 --> 00:02:10.610 to be very, very clear for anyone watching that 00:02:10.610 --> 00:02:13.569 clip. These are not tears of joy. This isn't 00:02:13.569 --> 00:02:16.789 a we did it moment of triumph. No. He calls it 00:02:16.789 --> 00:02:18.770 a moment of anguish. He struggles to get the 00:02:18.770 --> 00:02:21.069 words out. But he says, for me, it is a moment 00:02:21.069 --> 00:02:24.569 of anguish because all my life. I believed in 00:02:24.569 --> 00:02:27.849 Malaysian merger and the unity of these two territories. 00:02:28.909 --> 00:02:31.550 He just announced that Singapore was being kicked 00:02:31.550 --> 00:02:33.770 out of the Federation of Malaysia. Kicked out? 00:02:33.930 --> 00:02:36.620 In his mind, he had failed. He thought Singapore 00:02:36.620 --> 00:02:38.639 was a dead man walking. And that is the hook. 00:02:38.780 --> 00:02:40.960 Everything that Singapore is today, the financial 00:02:40.960 --> 00:02:43.500 hub, the obsessive safety, the, you know, the 00:02:43.500 --> 00:02:46.120 clean streets, the obsession with reserves, it's 00:02:46.120 --> 00:02:49.659 all a direct overcompensation for that specific 00:02:49.659 --> 00:02:52.639 moment of vulnerability. Wow. The entire national 00:02:52.639 --> 00:02:55.080 psyche was forged in the trauma of that rejection. 00:02:55.580 --> 00:02:57.939 Lee Kuan Yew spent the rest of his life completely 00:02:57.939 --> 00:03:01.199 obsessed with one word, survival. So our mission 00:03:01.199 --> 00:03:05.349 today is to reverse engineer that survival. How 00:03:05.349 --> 00:03:07.949 do you go from weeping on national TV, believing 00:03:07.949 --> 00:03:10.810 your country is totally doomed, to becoming this 00:03:10.810 --> 00:03:15.069 global sage who advised U .S. presidents from 00:03:15.069 --> 00:03:18.169 Nixon to Obama and Chinese leaders from Deng 00:03:18.169 --> 00:03:20.930 Xiaoping to Xi Jinping? It's an incredible arc. 00:03:21.189 --> 00:03:23.090 We're going to look at the man, the methods, 00:03:23.310 --> 00:03:25.590 which were often incredibly harsh, and of course 00:03:25.590 --> 00:03:27.539 the legacy. And to do that, we have to rewind 00:03:27.539 --> 00:03:30.659 the clock way back before he was the father of 00:03:30.659 --> 00:03:33.080 Singapore and long before he was the scary authoritarian 00:03:33.080 --> 00:03:37.379 figure. He was just Harry. Harry Lee. That name 00:03:37.379 --> 00:03:39.300 alone tells you so much about his starting point, 00:03:39.379 --> 00:03:42.120 doesn't it? He was born in 1923, a third generation 00:03:42.120 --> 00:03:45.099 Peronican Chinese. Now, we see that term Peronican 00:03:45.099 --> 00:03:47.240 a lot in the notes. Let's unpack that because 00:03:47.240 --> 00:03:49.400 it explains his initial disconnect with the people 00:03:49.400 --> 00:03:52.229 he later led. It's a crucial distinction. Peronkin 00:03:52.229 --> 00:03:55.030 means straights born. His family had been in 00:03:55.030 --> 00:03:57.050 the region for a long time. They were deeply, 00:03:57.210 --> 00:03:59.550 deeply acculturated to the British Empire. So 00:03:59.550 --> 00:04:01.610 not like the new immigrants from China. Not at 00:04:01.610 --> 00:04:03.590 all. They didn't speak Mandarin at home. They 00:04:03.590 --> 00:04:06.650 spoke English, Malay, and a dialect called Baba 00:04:06.650 --> 00:04:09.449 Malay. They wore Western clothes. They, you know, 00:04:09.509 --> 00:04:12.550 they played cricket. His grandfather, Lee Hoon 00:04:12.550 --> 00:04:14.449 Leong, was the one who gave him the name Harry. 00:04:15.449 --> 00:04:18.029 He worked as a purser on British steamships. 00:04:18.410 --> 00:04:20.750 and was a huge admirer of the British establishment. 00:04:20.990 --> 00:04:24.550 He wanted his grandson to be basically an English 00:04:24.550 --> 00:04:26.829 gentleman. Right. So Lee Kuan Yew was what they 00:04:26.829 --> 00:04:29.509 called an Anglophile. He grew up singing God 00:04:29.509 --> 00:04:32.560 Save the King. And in fact, and this usually 00:04:32.560 --> 00:04:34.939 blows people's minds, he didn't learn to speak 00:04:34.939 --> 00:04:39.060 Chinese until he was 32 years old. 32. That just 00:04:39.060 --> 00:04:41.139 seems like a massive political handicap if you're 00:04:41.139 --> 00:04:43.379 trying to lead a population that is majority 00:04:43.379 --> 00:04:45.660 Chinese immigrant. Oh, it was a huge liability. 00:04:45.779 --> 00:04:48.139 When he eventually entered politics, his opponents 00:04:48.139 --> 00:04:50.699 mocked him constantly. They called him a banana 00:04:50.699 --> 00:04:52.939 yellow on the outside, white on the inside. Because 00:04:52.939 --> 00:04:55.620 he wasn't one of them. Exactly. He had to work 00:04:55.620 --> 00:04:58.899 incredibly hard later in life to master Mandarin 00:04:58.899 --> 00:05:01.839 and Hokkien just so he could talk to the rickshaw 00:05:01.839 --> 00:05:04.540 pullers and the port workers without a translator. 00:05:04.720 --> 00:05:08.040 It wasn't natural talent. It was just a calculated 00:05:08.040 --> 00:05:11.060 necessity to survive politically. And what about 00:05:11.060 --> 00:05:13.399 the family dynamic? It sounds like his childhood 00:05:13.399 --> 00:05:16.779 wasn't exactly a bed of roses. His father, Lee 00:05:16.779 --> 00:05:19.889 Chin -kun, he worked for Shell. but had a serious 00:05:19.889 --> 00:05:22.089 gambling addiction. Yeah, he was a classic case 00:05:22.089 --> 00:05:24.290 of the charming but destructive father. He had 00:05:24.290 --> 00:05:27.250 a nasty temper, often violent, and he just blew 00:05:27.250 --> 00:05:29.490 the family's money on the tables, very distant. 00:05:29.769 --> 00:05:33.129 But his mother, Chua Jimneo, she was the steel 00:05:33.129 --> 00:05:35.089 in the family. She was the one who stood up to 00:05:35.089 --> 00:05:37.589 the father, managed the finances, and really 00:05:37.589 --> 00:05:40.810 kept the family afloat. Lee later credited her 00:05:40.810 --> 00:05:43.730 for his resilience. He saw a very clear lesson 00:05:43.730 --> 00:05:45.709 right there at the dinner table. If you want 00:05:45.709 --> 00:05:47.509 things to run correctly, you have to be disciplined 00:05:47.509 --> 00:05:50.649 because chaos, like his father's gambling, it 00:05:50.649 --> 00:05:52.949 just destroys everything. That desire for order 00:05:52.949 --> 00:05:55.350 over chaos. That is the through line of his entire 00:05:55.350 --> 00:05:57.610 political philosophy. He never, ever trusted 00:05:57.610 --> 00:05:59.629 that things would just work out. He believed 00:05:59.629 --> 00:06:01.550 you had to make them work out. But if his mother 00:06:01.550 --> 00:06:04.509 gave him the resilience, then World War II gave 00:06:04.509 --> 00:06:07.439 him the worldview. I mean, we cannot overstate 00:06:07.439 --> 00:06:10.360 how important the Japanese occupation of Singapore 00:06:10.360 --> 00:06:14.740 was to making Lee Kuan Yew who he became. This 00:06:14.740 --> 00:06:18.139 is the crucible. No question. It's 1942. The 00:06:18.139 --> 00:06:20.339 British, who were supposed to be these invincible 00:06:20.339 --> 00:06:22.959 masters, the protectors of the realm, they surrendered 00:06:22.959 --> 00:06:25.399 Singapore to the Japanese Imperial Army in just 00:06:25.399 --> 00:06:30.139 70 days. 70 days. Lee called it 70 days of surprises, 00:06:30.500 --> 00:06:32.980 upsets, and stupidities. You have to imagine 00:06:32.980 --> 00:06:35.899 the psychological shock of that. The locals looked 00:06:35.899 --> 00:06:37.860 up to the British. They were the superior white 00:06:37.860 --> 00:06:39.920 man in the whole colonial hierarchy. And then 00:06:39.920 --> 00:06:41.560 they just collapsed. They couldn't fight. They 00:06:41.560 --> 00:06:43.259 couldn't protect the civilians. It just shattered 00:06:43.259 --> 00:06:46.079 the myth. Completely. Lee realized right then 00:06:46.079 --> 00:06:59.360 and there that the British had... And that's 00:06:59.360 --> 00:07:01.620 the seed of independence. Yes, but it wasn't 00:07:01.620 --> 00:07:04.060 born from high -minded liberal idealism. It was 00:07:04.060 --> 00:07:07.060 born from pure anger at incompetence. And he 00:07:07.060 --> 00:07:09.779 almost didn't survive to do anything about it. 00:07:09.920 --> 00:07:12.120 There's this story about the Suk Ching Massacre 00:07:12.120 --> 00:07:15.019 that, I mean, it still gives me chills. This 00:07:15.019 --> 00:07:18.160 is a legitimate sliding doors moment for the 00:07:18.160 --> 00:07:21.259 entire 20th century. It really is. The Japanese 00:07:21.259 --> 00:07:24.899 military police, the Kempeitai, they were rounding 00:07:24.899 --> 00:07:28.379 up Chinese men to screen them for anti -Japanese 00:07:28.379 --> 00:07:31.100 sentiment. It was arbitrary. It was brutal. And 00:07:31.100 --> 00:07:32.540 they were looking for anyone with influence. 00:07:32.699 --> 00:07:35.480 Right. Volunteers, civil servants, teachers. 00:07:35.779 --> 00:07:38.360 So Li went to the screening center at Jalon Bazaar. 00:07:38.540 --> 00:07:41.480 He stood in line. And as he's standing there, 00:07:41.680 --> 00:07:45.589 he just senses. Something is wrong. He sees the 00:07:45.589 --> 00:07:48.069 men being herded onto these trucks. Survival 00:07:48.069 --> 00:07:49.689 instincts kicked in. I mean, they must have been 00:07:49.689 --> 00:07:51.870 screaming at him. He knew he should not get on 00:07:51.870 --> 00:07:53.689 those trucks. So he walked up to the Japanese 00:07:53.689 --> 00:07:57.649 guards and used a very mundane bureaucratic excuse. 00:07:57.750 --> 00:07:59.329 He said, I've left my clothes behind. Can I go 00:07:59.329 --> 00:08:01.350 home and get them? And the guard just let him 00:08:01.350 --> 00:08:03.889 go. The guard just waved him off. Lee went home, 00:08:04.029 --> 00:08:06.490 hid in his room, didn't come out for days. The 00:08:06.490 --> 00:08:08.889 group he was standing with, the men who got on 00:08:08.889 --> 00:08:10.610 those trucks, they were driven to the beach at 00:08:10.610 --> 00:08:13.879 Chongi and machine gunned. he survived by a hair's 00:08:13.879 --> 00:08:17.259 breadth that is just terrifying and then talk 00:08:17.259 --> 00:08:19.620 about pragmatism he spends the rest of the war 00:08:19.620 --> 00:08:22.139 working for the japanese this is what separates 00:08:22.139 --> 00:08:24.120 lee from your typical romantic revolutionary 00:08:24.120 --> 00:08:26.759 right no he didn't run into the jungle to fight 00:08:26.759 --> 00:08:29.470 a guerrilla war no He learned Japanese. He got 00:08:29.470 --> 00:08:32.389 a job in their propaganda department, the hujibu, 00:08:32.490 --> 00:08:35.889 because he was translating allied radio intercepts. 00:08:35.889 --> 00:08:37.809 He wanted to know what was really happening in 00:08:37.809 --> 00:08:40.110 the war. He wanted information. He also ran a 00:08:40.110 --> 00:08:42.490 black market business making glue called stick 00:08:42.490 --> 00:08:46.009 fuss. Yes, stick fuss. Because the Japanese war 00:08:46.009 --> 00:08:49.210 economy was so bad, there was no glue. So Lee, 00:08:49.370 --> 00:08:51.950 the future statesman, is in his kitchen boiling 00:08:51.950 --> 00:08:55.299 tapioca to make adhesive. He was a hustler. A 00:08:55.299 --> 00:08:57.860 total hustler. But that period taught him that 00:08:57.860 --> 00:09:00.379 power is raw. It's not about constitutions or 00:09:00.379 --> 00:09:02.360 rights. It's about who has the gun and who has 00:09:02.360 --> 00:09:05.179 the food. He saw the brutality of the Japanese, 00:09:05.340 --> 00:09:08.100 especially the Kempeitai, but he also weirdly 00:09:08.100 --> 00:09:10.860 respected their discipline. He internalized that 00:09:10.860 --> 00:09:14.019 ruthlessness. So the war ends, the British return, 00:09:14.360 --> 00:09:17.320 and Lee goes off to the UK. He crushes it at 00:09:17.320 --> 00:09:19.740 Cambridge Double First Class Honors. The star 00:09:19.740 --> 00:09:22.740 student. But he returns to Singapore in 1950, 00:09:22.940 --> 00:09:25.620 not as a loyal subject, but as a man with a plan. 00:09:25.779 --> 00:09:28.740 He becomes a lawyer. But he doesn't join some 00:09:28.740 --> 00:09:31.679 fancy firm to make millions. No, he starts representing 00:09:31.679 --> 00:09:33.779 the trade unions and the postal workers. Which 00:09:33.779 --> 00:09:36.200 is just a... brilliant pivot. Here's this Cambridge 00:09:36.200 --> 00:09:39.480 educated elite wearing a suit, but he's fighting 00:09:39.480 --> 00:09:41.639 for the guys in the sweaty singlets. He was building 00:09:41.639 --> 00:09:44.100 a power base. That's what it was. He was bridging 00:09:44.100 --> 00:09:46.340 the gap between his English educated circle, 00:09:46.500 --> 00:09:49.279 the bourgeoisie, and the Chinese speaking working 00:09:49.279 --> 00:09:51.340 class who actually had the numbers. And this 00:09:51.340 --> 00:09:54.279 leads directly to the formation of the PAP, the 00:09:54.279 --> 00:09:56.080 People's Action Party, in the basement of his 00:09:56.080 --> 00:09:59.419 house in 1954. And this brings us to what you 00:09:59.419 --> 00:10:02.129 could call the marriage of convenience. Because 00:10:02.129 --> 00:10:04.210 the PIP wasn't just Harry Lee and his moderate 00:10:04.210 --> 00:10:07.309 friends, was it? No, not at all. This is the 00:10:07.309 --> 00:10:09.169 part that gets scrubbed from some of the simpler 00:10:09.169 --> 00:10:12.750 history books. Lee Kuan Yew knew he couldn't 00:10:12.750 --> 00:10:14.929 win the masses alone. He couldn't speak to them 00:10:14.929 --> 00:10:18.470 effectively yet. So he allied with the pro -communists, 00:10:18.490 --> 00:10:21.809 led by this incredibly charismatic young firebrand 00:10:21.809 --> 00:10:24.690 named Lin Shin Strong. So you have the bourgeoisie 00:10:24.690 --> 00:10:27.649 lawyers on one side and the hard left trade unionists 00:10:27.649 --> 00:10:29.789 on the other. That just seems like a recipe for 00:10:29.789 --> 00:10:32.090 disaster. They hated each other ideologically. 00:10:32.409 --> 00:10:35.649 Lee called it riding the tiger. He knew the communists 00:10:35.649 --> 00:10:37.710 wanted to use him as a respectable front man 00:10:37.710 --> 00:10:40.330 to avoid getting arrested by the British, and 00:10:40.330 --> 00:10:42.429 he wanted to use their street cred to get votes. 00:10:42.710 --> 00:10:44.629 Both sides thought they could outsmart the other 00:10:44.629 --> 00:10:46.929 in the end. Exactly. It was a high -stakes game 00:10:46.929 --> 00:10:49.629 of political chicken. Spoiler alert. Lee won. 00:10:50.110 --> 00:10:54.230 In 1959, the PAP wins a landslide election. Singapore 00:10:54.230 --> 00:10:56.830 becomes self -governing and Lee Kuan Yew becomes 00:10:56.830 --> 00:10:59.870 the first prime minister. And immediately that 00:10:59.870 --> 00:11:03.529 Puritan Street comes out. Oh, instantly. He launches 00:11:03.529 --> 00:11:05.629 what he called the anti -yellow culture drive. 00:11:06.190 --> 00:11:09.269 Yellow culture was his term for anything decadent, 00:11:09.289 --> 00:11:12.950 Western or morally loose. I love the list of 00:11:12.950 --> 00:11:16.340 things he went after. He banned jukeboxes. Jukeboxing. 00:11:16.399 --> 00:11:18.659 You raided places selling pornography. He cracked 00:11:18.659 --> 00:11:21.600 down on long hair on men. Literally, if you had 00:11:21.600 --> 00:11:23.480 long hair, you were served last at government 00:11:23.480 --> 00:11:25.600 offices. It sounds kind of funny now, but the 00:11:25.600 --> 00:11:28.299 message was deadly serious. The party is over. 00:11:28.419 --> 00:11:32.000 We have a country to build. He banned jukeboxes 00:11:32.000 --> 00:11:34.460 because he thought they encouraged idling, loafing 00:11:34.460 --> 00:11:36.440 around. He wanted a population that was working, 00:11:36.559 --> 00:11:39.559 studying, or sleeping. That's it. He even introduced 00:11:39.559 --> 00:11:41.720 air conditioning to government offices, but not 00:11:41.720 --> 00:11:44.419 for comfort, for efficiency. And then he slashed 00:11:44.419 --> 00:11:46.179 civil service salaries to balance the budget. 00:11:46.279 --> 00:11:48.419 He was signaling that leadership was about sacrifice. 00:11:49.139 --> 00:11:51.259 But look, the biggest issue on his mind wasn't 00:11:51.259 --> 00:11:53.679 jukeboxes. It was the existential question. We 00:11:53.679 --> 00:11:56.820 need to remind you, Singapore in 1959 was not 00:11:56.820 --> 00:11:59.399 viewed as a viable country. Not by anyone. It 00:11:59.399 --> 00:12:01.940 was a port city with no hinterland. It imported 00:12:01.940 --> 00:12:03.940 its water, its food, its construction material, 00:12:04.100 --> 00:12:06.769 everything. Lee believed, quite logically, that 00:12:06.769 --> 00:12:09.669 an independent Singapore was a complete absurdity. 00:12:09.850 --> 00:12:12.909 It was like imagining New York City trying to 00:12:12.909 --> 00:12:15.409 be a country without the rest of the United States. 00:12:15.509 --> 00:12:17.690 It had to be part of the larger Malayan Federation. 00:12:18.250 --> 00:12:20.970 So his entire political platform was merger. 00:12:21.149 --> 00:12:24.450 We must join Malaya. And this brings us to the 00:12:24.450 --> 00:12:27.190 battle for merger. This wasn't just backroom 00:12:27.190 --> 00:12:30.049 deals. He took his case directly to the people. 00:12:30.210 --> 00:12:33.370 He gave 12 radio speeches. These are legendary 00:12:33.370 --> 00:12:36.539 in Singaporean history. He explained in agonizing 00:12:36.539 --> 00:12:39.019 detail why the communists were wrong and why 00:12:39.019 --> 00:12:41.720 merger was the only path. He spoke directly to 00:12:41.720 --> 00:12:44.320 the people in multiple languages, bypassing the 00:12:44.320 --> 00:12:46.820 left -wing press. It was a masterclass in political 00:12:46.820 --> 00:12:48.940 communication. But he didn't just use words. 00:12:48.960 --> 00:12:51.179 He used the knuckle duster, as he would say. 00:12:51.259 --> 00:12:52.980 We have to talk about Operation Cold Storm in 00:12:52.980 --> 00:12:56.299 1963. Yes. This is where the authoritarian label 00:12:56.299 --> 00:12:59.330 really begins to stick. By 1963, that marriage 00:12:59.330 --> 00:13:01.629 of convenience with the communists had totally 00:13:01.629 --> 00:13:04.269 collapsed. They broke away to form the Barristan 00:13:04.269 --> 00:13:07.049 Socialist Party. And they were strong. Very strong. 00:13:07.090 --> 00:13:08.750 They could have won the next election. So what 00:13:08.750 --> 00:13:11.649 does Lee do? He arrests them. February 1963. 00:13:12.169 --> 00:13:16.649 A massive dragnet. Over 100 arrests. left -wing 00:13:16.649 --> 00:13:19.210 activists, opposition leaders, newspaper editors, 00:13:19.450 --> 00:13:22.370 and his old ally, Lim Chin -siang. They were 00:13:22.370 --> 00:13:24.250 all detained without trial under the preservation 00:13:24.250 --> 00:13:27.269 of public security ordinance. Now, Lee's official 00:13:27.269 --> 00:13:30.809 line was that he was reluctant to do it, that 00:13:30.809 --> 00:13:32.730 the British and the Malayans forced his hand 00:13:32.730 --> 00:13:35.429 to ensure security before the merger could happen. 00:13:35.529 --> 00:13:37.509 That's the official narrative, but declassified 00:13:37.509 --> 00:13:40.269 documents. Well, they suggest Lee was actually 00:13:40.269 --> 00:13:42.669 quite enthusiastic. He needed to clear the board. 00:13:42.809 --> 00:13:45.070 He decapitated the opposition leadership right 00:13:45.070 --> 00:13:47.230 before the election. So whether they were a violent 00:13:47.230 --> 00:13:49.250 threat or just a political threat is still debated. 00:13:49.429 --> 00:13:52.409 It is. But the result was clear. The PAP won 00:13:52.409 --> 00:13:55.149 and the left was crushed. So the board is cleared. 00:13:55.470 --> 00:13:59.029 Merger happens. Malaysia is formed in 1963. Mission 00:13:59.029 --> 00:14:01.350 accomplished. For about two years. It was a disaster 00:14:01.350 --> 00:14:04.149 from day one. A total clash of ideologies that 00:14:04.149 --> 00:14:06.549 just couldn't be reconciled. Lee Kuan Yew wanted 00:14:06.549 --> 00:14:09.330 a Malaysian Malaysia. Which sounds nice and inclusive, 00:14:09.529 --> 00:14:11.850 but it was political dynamite in that context. 00:14:12.149 --> 00:14:15.309 He meant a meritocracy where race didn't determine 00:14:15.309 --> 00:14:18.029 your political standing. But the federal government 00:14:18.029 --> 00:14:21.799 in Kuala Lumpur, led by the UMNO party, wanted 00:14:21.799 --> 00:14:24.799 a Malaysia where Malay political supremacy was 00:14:24.799 --> 00:14:27.440 enshrined in the system. They saw Lee's call 00:14:27.440 --> 00:14:30.379 for equality as a direct challenge. A challenge 00:14:30.379 --> 00:14:33.480 to their special constitutional rights. Tensions 00:14:33.480 --> 00:14:36.679 escalated fast. You had the 1964 race riots in 00:14:36.679 --> 00:14:39.659 Singapore. People died. It was incredibly ugly. 00:14:39.899 --> 00:14:42.159 And then came the moment that probably sealed 00:14:42.159 --> 00:14:46.220 Singapore's fate. Lee Kuan Yew went to the Malaysian 00:14:46.220 --> 00:14:48.659 parliament in Kuala Lumpur and gave a speech. 00:14:49.399 --> 00:14:52.000 But he didn't just give a speech. No, he spoke 00:14:52.000 --> 00:14:54.220 in flawless Malay. He went into the lion's den 00:14:54.220 --> 00:14:56.000 and spoke their language better than some of 00:14:56.000 --> 00:14:58.139 them did. Exactly. He out -debated the Malay 00:14:58.139 --> 00:14:59.940 leadership in their own tongue. And this didn't 00:14:59.940 --> 00:15:02.399 impress them. It terrified them. They realized 00:15:02.399 --> 00:15:05.120 this man wasn't just some nuisance mayor of Singapore. 00:15:05.340 --> 00:15:07.700 He was a potential prime minister of the whole 00:15:07.700 --> 00:15:10.120 federation. He could appeal to everyone. So Tunku 00:15:10.120 --> 00:15:12.399 Abdul Rahman, the Malaysian prime minister, basically 00:15:12.399 --> 00:15:15.029 decided he's got to go. Hived off. That was a 00:15:15.029 --> 00:15:17.009 term they used. They decided to just cut Singapore 00:15:17.009 --> 00:15:19.190 loose. The calculation was that Singapore would 00:15:19.190 --> 00:15:21.950 fail on its own and come crawling back on Malaysia's 00:15:21.950 --> 00:15:24.529 germs later. Which brings us right back to that 00:15:24.529 --> 00:15:29.610 weeping man on TV. August 9th, 1965. Singapore 00:15:29.610 --> 00:15:32.830 is independent, unwillingly. And Lee Kuan Yew 00:15:32.830 --> 00:15:35.549 is staring at a country with no army, no economy, 00:15:35.690 --> 00:15:38.370 and hostile neighbors. This is the pivot point. 00:15:38.529 --> 00:15:41.570 The third world to first. journey begins right 00:15:41.570 --> 00:15:44.129 here. And it starts with the economy, which is 00:15:44.129 --> 00:15:46.009 about to just fall off a cliff. Right. Because 00:15:46.009 --> 00:15:48.230 in 1967, the British announced they were pulling 00:15:48.230 --> 00:15:50.450 their military bases out. And that was something 00:15:50.450 --> 00:15:53.230 like 20 percent of Singapore's GNP. It should 00:15:53.230 --> 00:15:55.409 have been a death sentence. But this is where 00:15:55.409 --> 00:15:58.330 Lee Kuan Yew and his team, specifically Dr. Gokeng 00:15:58.330 --> 00:16:01.169 Swee, the economic architect, did something radical. 00:16:01.789 --> 00:16:03.750 I mean, you have to understand the context of 00:16:03.750 --> 00:16:05.889 the 60s. Most developing countries were anti 00:16:05.889 --> 00:16:07.870 -Western. Right. They were nationalizing industries, 00:16:08.110 --> 00:16:10.450 kicking out foreign companies. Neocolonialism 00:16:10.450 --> 00:16:13.009 was the enemy. And Lee does the exact opposite. 00:16:13.289 --> 00:16:17.129 He pivots 180 degrees. He says, we have no domestic 00:16:17.129 --> 00:16:20.549 market. We need the world. So he aggressively 00:16:20.549 --> 00:16:23.929 courted multinational corporations, the MNCs. 00:16:23.970 --> 00:16:26.690 He told the Americans and the Japanese, come 00:16:26.690 --> 00:16:29.559 here, set up your factories. We will be cheaper, 00:16:29.700 --> 00:16:33.200 safer, and more reliable than anyone else. He 00:16:33.200 --> 00:16:35.200 practically laid out the red carpet for them, 00:16:35.279 --> 00:16:37.879 built the infrastructure, guaranteed the rule 00:16:37.879 --> 00:16:41.600 of law. But to make it safer, he had to do something 00:16:41.600 --> 00:16:43.919 the unions really didn't like. He brought the 00:16:43.919 --> 00:16:46.159 unions to heel. He basically said, you can have 00:16:46.159 --> 00:16:47.919 jobs or you can have strikes. You can't have 00:16:47.919 --> 00:16:50.470 both. He passed laws that made strikes illegal 00:16:50.470 --> 00:16:52.950 in essential services. He disciplined the workforce 00:16:52.950 --> 00:16:55.090 to be attractive to foreign capital. It was a 00:16:55.090 --> 00:16:57.590 tradeoff. A huge one. Suppression of labor rights 00:16:57.590 --> 00:17:00.049 in exchange for rapid employment. And it worked. 00:17:00.330 --> 00:17:03.009 Texas Instruments, Hewlett -Packard, General 00:17:03.009 --> 00:17:05.910 Electric, they all came. Singapore became a manufacturing 00:17:05.910 --> 00:17:08.230 hub. But you can't have investment without security. 00:17:08.880 --> 00:17:10.940 And Singapore was surrounded by big neighbors, 00:17:11.160 --> 00:17:13.579 Indonesia and Malaysia, who weren't exactly friendly. 00:17:14.180 --> 00:17:16.960 Indonesia was actually waging a low -level conflict 00:17:16.960 --> 00:17:19.880 called Confrontasi, setting off bombs in Singapore. 00:17:20.220 --> 00:17:22.680 So he had to build an army from scratch. And 00:17:22.680 --> 00:17:24.960 here is a detail that I find fascinating, and 00:17:24.960 --> 00:17:27.400 it shows just how pragmatic he was. He asked 00:17:27.400 --> 00:17:29.500 for help to train his army. The British were 00:17:29.500 --> 00:17:32.299 leaving. India refused. Egypt refused. Who did 00:17:32.299 --> 00:17:34.819 he ask? Israel. Israel. But he couldn't tell 00:17:34.819 --> 00:17:37.299 the neighbors, hey, the Israelis are training 00:17:37.299 --> 00:17:39.529 us. Because Singapore is surrounded by Muslim 00:17:39.529 --> 00:17:41.849 countries. That would have caused a geopolitical 00:17:41.849 --> 00:17:44.390 firestorm. So what do they call the Israeli military 00:17:44.390 --> 00:17:46.950 advisors? Mexicans. Mexicans. I mean, can you 00:17:46.950 --> 00:17:49.210 imagine that? All these guys, just some tanning 00:17:49.210 --> 00:17:52.690 military consultants from, you know, Mexico City. 00:17:53.150 --> 00:17:55.750 It's hilarious in hindsight, but it was deadly 00:17:55.750 --> 00:17:58.289 serious. He took help from Israel because they 00:17:58.289 --> 00:18:00.930 were the only ones who knew how to defend a small, 00:18:00.930 --> 00:18:04.230 surrounded nation with a conscript army. And 00:18:04.230 --> 00:18:07.230 he instituted national service mandatory conscription 00:18:07.230 --> 00:18:10.490 to make sure every single man had a stake in 00:18:10.490 --> 00:18:12.829 defending the country. Now let's talk about the 00:18:12.829 --> 00:18:15.589 visual aspect of this transformation. The Garden 00:18:15.589 --> 00:18:17.829 City. Because I always thought the trees in Singapore 00:18:17.829 --> 00:18:20.569 were just... Nice, you know, for aesthetics. 00:18:20.950 --> 00:18:23.509 Oh, no. With Lee Kuan Yew, nothing is ever just 00:18:23.509 --> 00:18:26.950 aesthetics. Everything is strategy. He was obsessed 00:18:26.950 --> 00:18:30.089 with greenery. He launched tree planting campaigns 00:18:30.089 --> 00:18:33.289 in the 60s. He personally chose the types of 00:18:33.289 --> 00:18:36.789 creepers to cover concrete flyovers just to hide 00:18:36.789 --> 00:18:39.630 the gray. And why? Because he wanted to send 00:18:39.630 --> 00:18:43.109 a subconscious signal to investors. He reasoned 00:18:43.109 --> 00:18:45.269 that if a city in the sweltering tropics could 00:18:45.269 --> 00:18:48.930 be kept green, manicured, and orderly, it proved 00:18:48.930 --> 00:18:51.369 that the government was disciplined. It proved 00:18:51.369 --> 00:18:53.809 the workforce was disciplined. It was branding. 00:18:55.789 --> 00:18:58.349 Decisely. And that extends to what he called 00:18:58.349 --> 00:19:00.789 the most important invention of the 20th century. 00:19:00.950 --> 00:19:03.279 Don't tell me. The internet. Air conditioning. 00:19:03.599 --> 00:19:05.980 He really said that. Dead serious. He believed 00:19:05.980 --> 00:19:07.920 you couldn't have high mental productivity in 00:19:07.920 --> 00:19:10.160 the tropics without climate control. He made 00:19:10.160 --> 00:19:12.660 sure civil service buildings were AC'd so people 00:19:12.660 --> 00:19:15.039 could think clearly. He was an environmental 00:19:15.039 --> 00:19:17.420 engineer of the highest order. So we have the 00:19:17.420 --> 00:19:19.420 economy, we have the army, we have the trees. 00:19:19.960 --> 00:19:24.359 But to truly will a nation into existence, you 00:19:24.359 --> 00:19:27.680 have to mold the people. And this is where we 00:19:27.680 --> 00:19:30.130 get into the nanny state territory. This is the 00:19:30.130 --> 00:19:32.269 stuff that makes Western liberals very, very 00:19:32.269 --> 00:19:34.769 uncomfortable. But we need to look at it through 00:19:34.769 --> 00:19:37.049 his eyes. Lowe didn't just want to govern the 00:19:37.049 --> 00:19:40.150 state. He wanted to engineer the society. He 00:19:40.150 --> 00:19:42.109 believed that the government's job was to maximize 00:19:42.109 --> 00:19:44.650 the potential of the population, even if that 00:19:44.650 --> 00:19:47.470 meant, well, interfering in their private lives. 00:19:47.750 --> 00:19:50.930 Let's start with housing, the HDB. Right. When 00:19:50.930 --> 00:19:53.049 the Papi took over, people were living in these 00:19:53.049 --> 00:19:56.109 squatter settlements with open sewers. Lee embarked 00:19:56.109 --> 00:19:58.980 on a massive public housing program. Today, over 00:19:58.980 --> 00:20:02.980 80 % of Singaporeans live in HDB flats. But the 00:20:02.980 --> 00:20:05.380 genius wasn't just building them. No, the genius 00:20:05.380 --> 00:20:07.480 was allowing people to use their pension funds, 00:20:07.720 --> 00:20:10.559 the CPF, to buy these flats. He wanted a nation 00:20:10.559 --> 00:20:12.920 of homeowners. Because if you own property, you 00:20:12.920 --> 00:20:14.819 have a stake in the country. You're not going 00:20:14.819 --> 00:20:16.880 to riot and burn down your own block of flats. 00:20:17.259 --> 00:20:20.019 It was social stability through real estate. 00:20:20.119 --> 00:20:22.839 It anchored a rootless immigrant population to 00:20:22.839 --> 00:20:24.700 the island. But then he gets into the bedroom. 00:20:25.180 --> 00:20:27.630 Literally. Let's talk about population control. 00:20:27.789 --> 00:20:30.089 The pendulum swing here is just wild. In the 00:20:30.089 --> 00:20:32.690 60s and 70s, the fear was overpopulation. So 00:20:32.690 --> 00:20:36.269 the slogan was stop it, too. They penalized families 00:20:36.269 --> 00:20:38.630 for having more children. They taxed them higher. 00:20:38.769 --> 00:20:41.470 They gave them lower priority for schools. But 00:20:41.470 --> 00:20:44.650 then in the 80s, Lee looks at the census data 00:20:44.650 --> 00:20:47.950 and panics. He realizes that the educated women. 00:20:48.349 --> 00:20:50.670 The university graduates, they aren't having 00:20:50.670 --> 00:20:53.109 kids, while the less educated are having big 00:20:53.109 --> 00:20:55.849 families. And this reveals a core and very controversial 00:20:55.849 --> 00:20:59.430 part of his worldview, eugenics. He believed 00:20:59.430 --> 00:21:02.690 that intelligence was 80 % genetic. He famously 00:21:02.690 --> 00:21:04.690 said that if the smart people don't breed, the 00:21:04.690 --> 00:21:07.509 society will become stupid and the economy will 00:21:07.509 --> 00:21:10.029 collapse. That is candid. and incredibly offensive 00:21:10.029 --> 00:21:12.410 to a lot of people. It's hard truth, as he would 00:21:12.410 --> 00:21:13.809 call it. He didn't care if it was offensive. 00:21:13.910 --> 00:21:15.549 He cared if it was true, according to his data. 00:21:15.690 --> 00:21:18.309 So he launches the great marriage debate. He 00:21:18.309 --> 00:21:20.630 sets up a government matchmaking agency essentially 00:21:20.630 --> 00:21:23.569 for graduates. And then the graduate mothers 00:21:23.569 --> 00:21:26.430 scheme. This was the policy where graduate mothers 00:21:26.430 --> 00:21:28.910 got tax rebates in priority for their kids in 00:21:28.910 --> 00:21:31.970 schools. It was a complete disaster. It was wildly 00:21:31.970 --> 00:21:35.990 unpopular. It cost the PAP a 12 .9 % swing in 00:21:35.990 --> 00:21:39.940 the 1984 elections. felt it was unfair, elitist, 00:21:39.940 --> 00:21:42.380 and just plain wrong. So they pushed back. They 00:21:42.380 --> 00:21:44.339 pushed back hard. The government actually had 00:21:44.339 --> 00:21:46.299 to roll it back. It's one of the few times Lee 00:21:46.299 --> 00:21:48.160 reached a limit on how much he could socially 00:21:48.160 --> 00:21:50.319 engineer the populace. But he never backed down 00:21:50.319 --> 00:21:53.960 on discipline, corporal punishment, caning. No, 00:21:54.019 --> 00:21:56.200 he was a staunch defender of it. He believed 00:21:56.200 --> 00:21:58.619 that for a society to be free, it first had to 00:21:58.619 --> 00:22:00.940 be orderly. And if that meant caning vandals, 00:22:01.019 --> 00:22:03.759 so be it. Which brings us to the Michael Fay 00:22:03.759 --> 00:22:08.200 incident in 1994. An American teenager vandalizes 00:22:08.200 --> 00:22:11.220 cars with spray paint. The U .S. president, Bill 00:22:11.220 --> 00:22:13.920 Clinton, asks for leniency. And Singapore says 00:22:13.920 --> 00:22:16.599 no. Well, they reduced the strokes from six to 00:22:16.599 --> 00:22:18.779 four as a gesture, but they still caned him. 00:22:18.900 --> 00:22:21.160 It was a message to the world. Our laws apply 00:22:21.160 --> 00:22:22.920 to everyone, and we don't care if you're an American 00:22:22.920 --> 00:22:25.140 or if the U .S. president calls. It was the ultimate 00:22:25.140 --> 00:22:27.619 clash of Asian values versus Western liberalism. 00:22:27.869 --> 00:22:30.049 Lee argued that the Western focus on individual 00:22:30.049 --> 00:22:33.750 rights led to decay drugs, crime, broken families. 00:22:33.990 --> 00:22:36.869 He championed so -called Asian values community 00:22:36.869 --> 00:22:40.329 over self, order over liberty. He'd just point 00:22:40.329 --> 00:22:42.170 to the safe streets of Singapore and say, this 00:22:42.170 --> 00:22:44.529 is the result of my way. And part of that order 00:22:44.529 --> 00:22:47.410 was zero tolerance for corruption. This is arguably 00:22:47.410 --> 00:22:50.309 his greatest achievement. Most post -colonial 00:22:50.309 --> 00:22:53.910 nations just drown in corruption. Lee kept Singapore 00:22:53.910 --> 00:22:57.710 clean. By giving the Corrupt Practices Investigation 00:22:57.710 --> 00:23:01.150 Bureau, the CPIB, absolute power. Power to arrest 00:23:01.150 --> 00:23:04.019 anyone. Anyone. To investigate bank accounts, 00:23:04.119 --> 00:23:06.799 to look into families, and the other side of 00:23:06.799 --> 00:23:09.859 the coin, paying ministers huge salaries. Right, 00:23:09.920 --> 00:23:11.720 that was the carrot. The logic was, pay them 00:23:11.720 --> 00:23:14.200 like CEOs so they aren't tempted by bribes. But 00:23:14.200 --> 00:23:16.500 the stick was ruthless punishment. There's the 00:23:16.500 --> 00:23:18.640 tragic case of Tess Ching -Wan, the Minister 00:23:18.640 --> 00:23:21.059 for National Development. He was a close colleague 00:23:21.059 --> 00:23:23.880 of Lee's, a founding member. In 1986, he was 00:23:23.880 --> 00:23:26.299 investigated for accepting bribes. And he wrote 00:23:26.299 --> 00:23:29.119 a letter to Lee Kuan Yew and then committed suicide. 00:23:29.630 --> 00:23:32.549 Lee Kuan Yew's response was chilling, but completely 00:23:32.549 --> 00:23:35.289 consistent. He published the letter. He didn't 00:23:35.289 --> 00:23:37.230 cover it up to save the party's face. He read 00:23:37.230 --> 00:23:39.789 it in parliament. He showed that no one, not 00:23:39.789 --> 00:23:41.950 even his closest friends, was above the law. 00:23:42.109 --> 00:23:44.690 It reinforced the system's integrity, even at 00:23:44.690 --> 00:23:46.950 the cost of a friend's life. Let's pivot to the 00:23:46.950 --> 00:23:50.789 global stage. By the 70s and 80s, Lee isn't just 00:23:50.789 --> 00:23:53.529 a local leader. He's become a geopolitical sage. 00:23:53.829 --> 00:23:56.269 He positioned himself as the China whisperer. 00:23:56.589 --> 00:23:59.349 Deng Xiaoping visited Singapore in 1978. This 00:23:59.349 --> 00:24:02.650 is a historic turning point. Deng looks at Singapore, 00:24:02.829 --> 00:24:05.890 this clean, prosperous, orderly city run by ethnic 00:24:05.890 --> 00:24:09.130 Chinese, and he's just stunned. He realizes that 00:24:09.130 --> 00:24:11.630 China under Mao's communism had fallen so far 00:24:11.630 --> 00:24:13.470 behind. He goes back to Beijing and basically 00:24:13.470 --> 00:24:16.400 says, we need to do what Singapore did. So Lee 00:24:16.400 --> 00:24:18.480 Kuan Yew essentially provided the blueprint for 00:24:18.480 --> 00:24:21.359 modern China's economy. In many ways, yes. And 00:24:21.359 --> 00:24:23.259 because of that, he was the only person who could 00:24:23.259 --> 00:24:25.500 walk into the White House and explain China to 00:24:25.500 --> 00:24:28.240 the Americans and then walk into Zongdanhai and 00:24:28.240 --> 00:24:30.900 explain America to the Chinese. He was the ultimate 00:24:30.900 --> 00:24:34.000 translator of East -West power dynamics. He supported 00:24:34.000 --> 00:24:37.049 the U .S. in Vietnam. which surprises some people 00:24:37.049 --> 00:24:39.509 given his non -aligned stance. He was a pure 00:24:39.509 --> 00:24:42.410 realist. He knew the U .S. would probably lose, 00:24:42.589 --> 00:24:44.789 but he wanted them to stay as long as possible. 00:24:45.250 --> 00:24:48.190 He said the war bought time for the rest of Southeast 00:24:48.190 --> 00:24:50.630 Asia to stabilize and not fall to communism. 00:24:50.950 --> 00:24:53.769 He was buying a firewall of time for Singapore 00:24:53.769 --> 00:24:56.569 to mature. But for all this international acclaim, 00:24:56.630 --> 00:25:00.049 at home, he was tough on the press. Tough is 00:25:00.049 --> 00:25:03.069 putting it mildly. He sued them. Repeatedly. 00:25:03.279 --> 00:25:06.099 The Far Eastern Economic Review, the International 00:25:06.099 --> 00:25:10.019 Herald Tribune, opposition politician J .B. Jaretnam. 00:25:10.279 --> 00:25:12.799 If you defamed him or impugned his integrity, 00:25:12.980 --> 00:25:15.440 he would take you to court and very often bankrupt 00:25:15.440 --> 00:25:17.660 you. He didn't believe in a crusading press. 00:25:17.740 --> 00:25:20.240 No, he told Charlie Rose once, I believe in truth. 00:25:20.599 --> 00:25:23.200 But to him, the truth was that the press shouldn't 00:25:23.200 --> 00:25:25.799 be a political player. They should report, not 00:25:25.799 --> 00:25:28.920 set the agenda. He saw the Western media as arrogant, 00:25:29.200 --> 00:25:31.339 trying to impose their values on his society. 00:25:32.559 --> 00:25:34.299 a climate where the press knew exactly where 00:25:34.299 --> 00:25:36.460 the out of bounds markers were. As he got older. 00:25:36.859 --> 00:25:39.880 He stepped down as PM in 1990, but stayed on 00:25:39.880 --> 00:25:42.599 as senior minister, then minister mentor. He 00:25:42.599 --> 00:25:44.400 never really left the stage until the very end. 00:25:44.559 --> 00:25:47.640 And he kept being provocative. In 2011, he released 00:25:47.640 --> 00:25:50.880 the book Hard Truths, and he made comments about 00:25:50.880 --> 00:25:53.180 Islam and integration that were so controversial, 00:25:53.420 --> 00:25:56.140 his own son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, 00:25:56.279 --> 00:25:58.660 had to publicly distance the government from 00:25:58.660 --> 00:26:00.980 them. He just didn't have a filter for what we'd 00:26:00.980 --> 00:26:03.160 call political correctness. He didn't care about 00:26:03.160 --> 00:26:05.559 being polite. He cared about stating what he 00:26:05.559 --> 00:26:08.470 saw as the facts, however uncomfortable. He was 00:26:08.470 --> 00:26:10.410 worried that the younger generation was taking 00:26:10.410 --> 00:26:12.809 Singapore's success for granted, that they were 00:26:12.809 --> 00:26:15.549 becoming soft. We have to talk about his final 00:26:15.549 --> 00:26:18.849 years and specifically his house, 38 Oxley Road. 00:26:19.410 --> 00:26:21.970 This story has taken a major turn very, very 00:26:21.970 --> 00:26:24.210 recently. The irony of this whole house situation 00:26:24.210 --> 00:26:28.299 is just it's heavy. So Lee Kuan Yew. hated personality 00:26:28.299 --> 00:26:30.859 cults. He didn't want statues. He didn't want 00:26:30.859 --> 00:26:33.819 shrines. And he explicitly stated in his will 00:26:33.819 --> 00:26:36.660 that his home, a simple pre -war bungalow at 00:26:36.660 --> 00:26:39.220 38 Oxley Road, should be demolished after his 00:26:39.220 --> 00:26:41.799 death. He wanted it gone. He didn't want it to 00:26:41.799 --> 00:26:44.059 become a place of pilgrimage. He wanted the land 00:26:44.059 --> 00:26:46.740 returned to the state or redeveloped. He was 00:26:46.740 --> 00:26:49.140 completely unsentimental about bricks and mortar. 00:26:49.299 --> 00:26:51.140 He was worried it would fall into disrepair. 00:26:51.259 --> 00:26:54.980 But here we are. It's January 18, 2026. And just 00:26:54.980 --> 00:26:58.390 last month, On December 12, 2025, the government 00:26:58.390 --> 00:27:01.450 officially gazetted the site as a national monument. 00:27:01.650 --> 00:27:04.759 Right. For years, there was a stalemate because 00:27:04.759 --> 00:27:07.259 his daughter, Dr. Liu Wei Ling, was still living 00:27:07.259 --> 00:27:09.799 there. But after she passed away recently, the 00:27:09.799 --> 00:27:11.859 legal hurdles cleared and the government moved 00:27:11.859 --> 00:27:15.420 to preserve it. They argued it has too much historical 00:27:15.420 --> 00:27:17.960 significance. I mean, the basement is where the 00:27:17.960 --> 00:27:20.859 Piafu was formed. It's where independent strategies 00:27:20.859 --> 00:27:23.720 were hatched. So the man who planned everything, 00:27:23.859 --> 00:27:26.299 who controlled every aspect of Singapore's development, 00:27:26.539 --> 00:27:28.720 couldn't control the fate of his own living room. 00:27:28.880 --> 00:27:31.420 It symbolizes the tension between the man and 00:27:31.420 --> 00:27:34.119 the myth. The nation he built feels a need to 00:27:34.119 --> 00:27:36.940 own his legacy, even if it contradicts his personal 00:27:36.940 --> 00:27:40.119 wish for privacy. It's the state acting in what 00:27:40.119 --> 00:27:42.619 it sees as the national interest over the individual, 00:27:42.859 --> 00:27:45.420 which, ironically, is exactly the philosophy 00:27:45.420 --> 00:27:50.000 Lee Kuan Yew taught them. That is, wow, that's 00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:52.319 a paradox wrapped in an irony. It really is. 00:27:52.339 --> 00:27:55.900 He trained them too well. So let's try to wrap 00:27:55.900 --> 00:27:58.019 this up. We've looked at the weeping man, the 00:27:58.019 --> 00:28:00.019 street fighter, the economic architect, the social 00:28:00.019 --> 00:28:03.130 engineer. What's this summation here? Lee Kuan 00:28:03.130 --> 00:28:05.269 Yew was not a Democrat in the Western sense. 00:28:05.450 --> 00:28:07.630 He never pretended to be. He was a pragmatist. 00:28:07.670 --> 00:28:09.730 He traded civil liberties for economic survival 00:28:09.730 --> 00:28:12.890 and social order. He famously said, I am not 00:28:12.890 --> 00:28:15.390 interested in political theory. I am interested 00:28:15.390 --> 00:28:18.609 in what works. And it worked. The data is undeniable. 00:28:18.750 --> 00:28:21.769 GDP, life expectancy, homeownership. It all just 00:28:21.769 --> 00:28:24.730 skyrocketed. Yeah. He took a place with no future 00:28:24.730 --> 00:28:26.809 and gave it a future. But he was also a knuckle 00:28:26.809 --> 00:28:29.720 duster politician. He neutralized his enemies 00:28:29.720 --> 00:28:32.599 ruthlessly. He created a sterile political environment 00:28:32.599 --> 00:28:35.700 and he left a legacy that is incredibly hard 00:28:35.700 --> 00:28:37.319 to follow. Here's the final thought I want to 00:28:37.319 --> 00:28:39.759 leave with you, the listener. Lee Kuan Yew built 00:28:39.759 --> 00:28:42.880 a nation of educated, critical thinkers. He built 00:28:42.880 --> 00:28:45.799 a first world economy. But in doing so, did he 00:28:45.799 --> 00:28:48.200 create a society that eventually outgrew the 00:28:48.200 --> 00:28:50.400 need for his style of leadership? That is the 00:28:50.400 --> 00:28:53.259 big question, isn't it? Could a Lee Kuan Yew 00:28:53.259 --> 00:28:57.470 exist? in the Singapore of 2026? Could you run 00:28:57.470 --> 00:29:00.410 a modern, hyper -connected, educated populace 00:29:00.410 --> 00:29:04.190 with that same iron fist? Or was he a man for 00:29:04.190 --> 00:29:07.210 a specific season, a crisis leader who was necessary 00:29:07.210 --> 00:29:10.269 then but would be impossible now? That is definitely 00:29:10.269 --> 00:29:11.710 something that you want. If you want to see the 00:29:11.710 --> 00:29:13.650 intensity of the man yourself, go to YouTube 00:29:13.650 --> 00:29:15.569 and look up the battle for merger speeches or 00:29:15.569 --> 00:29:18.269 that 1965 press conference. Watch his eyes. You'll 00:29:18.269 --> 00:29:20.049 see exactly what we're talking about. It's history 00:29:20.049 --> 00:29:22.220 in the raw. Thanks for joining us on this deep 00:29:22.220 --> 00:29:24.460 dive into the giant of Southeast Asia. We'll 00:29:24.460 --> 00:29:25.039 see you next time.