Transcript of a lecture given at NUSS on 22 August 2012. The event was organized by the NUSS Graduate Club

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Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. It’s a real honour and pleasure for me to be here this evening, to give a talk, to share with you certain ideas, thoughts, musings, on a topic that is of great interest to me.

Someone once described the ideal audience as intelligent, highly educated and a little drunk. Well, you qualify except on the last point. But there’s somebody among you who’s probably now wishing for a stiff drink or two to calm her nerves. This is a nice, caring friend of mine who worries endlessly on my account, because of a what she calls my ‘ daring and dangerous’ political speeches. When I told her that my talk this evening would be about Mr Lee Kuan Yew, she let out a little shriek of horror, threw up her hands, rolled her eyes, shook her head, and said in utmost exasperation, ‘You really are so mm-chai-see!’ And she genuinely believes that right here, hidden among you somewhere is this hall, is a PAP man in black with the handcuffs at the ready, to escort me out after the lecture!

I would like to say to my kind, nervous friend, ‘It’s okay. There’s no need to be afraid.’ Ten years ago, five years ago, maybe even as recently as one and half years ago, public speakers would need to be a little afraid if they dared to speak on politically sensitive topics, that is, those subjects forbidden by the famous out-of-bounds markers. But since the amazing General Election of last year, things have changed, and today it’s okay for Singaporeans to speak freely and openly (but civilly and respectfully, of course) on any issue of national interest and concern.

For nearly 20 years now, I have been writing commentaries and giving talks, on various aspects of the Singapore political situation, and all of them, without exception, have been underlain by one common, unquestioned assumption—the powerful influence of Mr Lee Kuan Yew. Whatever my topic—the uneasy relationship between the PAP government and the people, the lack of civic liberties and other democracy deficits, the attitude of young, sophisticated Singaporeans who see emigration as an attractive option—the conclusion reached each time invariably pointed to the self-evident truth of Mr Lee’s dominance in the political scene, whether as Prime Minister, Senior Minister or Minister Mentor, in the fifty years of his leadership.

Indeed, it would be no exaggeration to say that the sum total of Singapore’s successes and reverses, its strengths and weaknesses, its best and its worst, can be ultimately traced to one man, the founding father of the ruling party and the first prime minister. Mr Lee has been aptly compared to the huge banyan tree, and his colleagues to the little saplings allowed to grow in its shade. To the outside world, his name is synonymous with Singapore.

It was inevitable that at some point I would be tempted to pull together all these separate allusions to Mr Lee, and come up with a single, comprehensive narrative, with Mr Lee as the focal point of interest. And the most fitting time to share this narrative is now. For this is a crucial period in Singapore’s development, a time of great uncertainty and change, brought about by the unprecedented events of the General Election of 2011 (GE 2011), which events can, arguably, be traced to Mr Lee. For the most bitterly contentious issues in the election leading to the worst ever performance of the PAP, were none other than those policies that he had most stoutly defended and promoted, namely, those related to the enormous ministerial salaries, and the liberal employment of foreign workers.

The rejection of these policies was by extension a rejection of Mr Lee. This astonishing, never-before-seen hostility against the most prominent leader in Singapore, has ushered in a somewhat awkward transition which, for the purposes of this presentation, I will call a post-Lee Kuan Yew era, although Mr Lee is still around. I have used the prefix in the phrase to refer not, to Mr Lee’s physical demise, but to the more shocking demise of his long and illustrious political career, brought about by circumstances that no one could have imagined, least of all, Mr Lee himself. Thus a post-LKY era is used here not in the literal but in the ironic sense, not in the temporal but the experiential sense, to refer to the present, when Mr Lee is still around to witness and be daily reminded of possibly the most painful fact of his political career—that he was, in effect, the biggest casualty in GE 2011.

Sometime in the future, the term may be much softened by nostalgic memory and retrospective regard. But right now, it can only have a disquieting surreality, as, in the aftermath of a bruising election, the most powerful man in Singapore is, paradoxically, reduced to a political nonentity with nothing left to do except tie up the loose ends of his legacy, by writing his memoirs, giving advice when asked, making personal donations to his pet causes such as the proper teaching of Mandarin in the schools, and traveling abroad, when he can, to receive honours.

Yet when Mr Lee joined the campaigning in May last year, his thoughts could not have been further from this drastic change in his political fortunes. As in the previous elections, he entered the fray with his usual energy and buoyant optimism, convinced that his vision for Singapore would once again prevail, that despite voter discontent here and there, he could always count on a sensible majority to return his government to power with another ringing endorsement, and enable it to go on with its good work.

For Mr Lee’s vision for Singapore was a truly admirable one—to enable a tiny, vulnerable, resource-poor island-state to become such an outstanding example of prosperity and stability that the whole world would have to sit up and take notice. To achieve this vision, Mr Lee knew, from the start, that he needed to do only two things: first, compel the party he founded to conform to his stern image of a hard-working, competent, disciplined and incorruptible leadership, and second, compel the people he led to conform to an equally stern image of a totally co-operative, totally compliant society that had better not give any trouble. Underpinning both aims, of course, was an unshakeable confidence in himself and a corresponding disdain for those liberal democratic processes that could only cause distraction, disruption and unruliness.

Thus, when Mr Lee joined the hustings of GE 2011, he must have been specially gratified that at the advanced age of 86 and still in good health, he could continue to promote his vision, and entrench permanently the PAP model of governance that he had created and nurtured. His carefully devised plan for a smooth transition and leadership succession, had already been securely put in place, a plan by which his successors would always be stringently selected, trained and tested, to ensure that they would always abide by the principles embodied in the model of governance. Mr Lee left nothing to chance.

If, like his PAP colleagues, he was aware of signs of impending trouble in GE 2011, such as the greater-than-usual rumblings of discontentment from the people, the rise of a young, noisy and bold Internet population and the emergence of a newly energized opposition, he showed no indication of it, but went among his constituents cheerfully telling them that he would be around for a while to take care of them.

As for the openly defiant Aljunied GRC, he sallied forth to give them a good scolding for not knowing what was for their own good, using words that amounted to a Biblical curse: ‘Live and repent!’ The outburst must have been most alarming to his colleagues who had been carefully cultivating a placatory style to win over a newly assertive electorate. Suddenly there was disarray in the PAP camp.

Some future analyst might be tempted to identify that thunderously dramatic moment in Aljunied as the precise point at which Lee Kuan Yew, the most senior and respected member of his party, became its greatest liability. What could never have happened in any of the previous elections, happened very quickly in this one, as Mr Lee’s colleagues scrambled to do damage control.

Midway through the campaigning, the Prime Minister called a press conference to gently but firmly, dissociate his government from Mr Lee’s behaviour. It was an extraordinary public repudiation of his father that must have been the most difficult decision he had to make.

But it was only the beginning of a series of equally painful decisions. Immediately after the election, the Prime Minister announced that Mr Lee had decided to resign as Minister Mentor (together with Senior Minister Mr Goh Chok Tong). In view of Mr Lee’s earlier ebullient optimism, the decision must have been a most reluctant and anguished one. Next came the announcement, obviously in continuing appeasement of a still angry electorate, of the setting up of a committee to review the ministerial salaries, followed in due course by the announcement that the policy of the foreign workers would also be looked into.

There was still much more placating work to do. What could not be publicly announced but could be clearly signaled to the people, was a quiet dismantling, or at least a toning down, of the special hallmarks of Mr Lee’s rule. These included the two fearsome instruments of control, the ISA (Internal Security Act) by which political activists could be detained indefinitely without trial, and the defamation suit by which political opponents could be financially ruined. Although both instruments are still officially around, it is obvious that they will never again be used in the same way that Mr Lee had used them. Indeed, it will not surprise anyone if eventually they take on a symbolic rather than a substantive function.

Other policies initiated or endorsed by Mr Lee, which have been around for a while but which had been controversial in their time, such as the GRC (Group Representation Constituency) system, and NMP (Nominated Member of Parliament) system, will likely come up for debate in a Parliament that now has a noticeable and confident opposition presence.

Future PAP proposals that are reminiscent of the old era, for instance, proposals for changes to existing electoral rules, that suspiciously smack of gerrymandering, will be strenuously scrutinized, debated and resisted, not only in Parliament but in the social media. Gone are the days when PAP proposals could simply be tabled, pushed through and rolled out in one swift, easy sweep.

As for Mr Lee’s most infamous, egregious and draconian policy, that of population control decades ago, by which a woman would have to produce a sterilization certificate to enrol her young children in a school of her choice: well, the government would only be too glad to consign it forever to the dust heap of history, to erase it forever from collective memory.

The most visible disavowal of the LKY legacy is the complete transformation of the old PAP style of lofty superiority and stiff formality into its exact opposite—casualness, friendliness, approachability and buddy-buddyism, best exemplified by the new, young leaders as they fan out to reach the people. It is a style that can only irritate LKY who once spoke of the need for gravitas for proper leadership demeanour. He probably links this happy-clappy style with a lack of intellectual substance, as was evident when he walked out during a parliamentary speech by one of these new, young PAP recruits.

But the strongest repudiation of Mr Lee is his colleagues’ quiet but firm exclusion of his presence at public events of political contesting, when PAP heavyweights normally make an appearance to gain support for their chosen candidate. This exclusion was already evident in the campaigning in GE 2011 after the Aljunied incident, and was again apparent in the campaigning in the Presidential election some months later.

As for the Hougang by-election this year, under normal circumstances, Mr Lee would only have been too happy to lend his enormous prestige to the PAP contestant. But now his presence is seen as more toxic than tonic. In any case, Mr Lee’s haughty pride and integrity would never have allowed him to be where he was not wanted, to be seen as a sad, spent force. When he resigned as Minister Mentor, one can easily imagine him rejecting outright his colleagues’ offer of a continuing position, but under a different designation, like the Emeritus title accepted by Mr Goh Chok Tong.

It is quite clear that currently the Prime Minister and his team are grappling with a colossal task: how to strike the right balance between the need, on the one hand, to divest the old model of those elements no longer acceptable to the people, and the desire, on the other, to preserve its core principles of hard work, discipline, competence, moral integrity and incorruptibility. These words which once rang with grand authority now have a hollow resonance, following the people’s grievances about what they had perceived as gross PAP negligence and complacency that had resulted in, among other things, a widening income gap between the rich and the poor, an influx of foreign workers overcrowding the buses and trains, and the incredibly easy prison escape of a top terrorist. There is little wonder then that the PAP leaders have to do some urgent repackaging and come up with new terminology, such as ‘new normal’ and ‘inclusiveness’.

At this stage of my deliberations, I would like to ask a rather tantalising question: why did Mr Lee’s colleagues who for decades had lived with, even appreciated, his style, suddenly decide that they could no longer afford it? How could this inner circle, groomed by Mr Lee, cast in his image, utterly respectful of his seniority and authority in the best Confucianist tradition, have repudiated him the way they did?

A ready answer would of course lie in the unprecedented exigencies of GE 2011. After the election, Mr Lee’s colleagues must have realised that they had to do something quickly, if they did not want a repeat of the disaster four or five years hence. Indeed, by the next General Election, the opposition would presumably be stronger, and the voters more assertive, making their task that much more difficult.

Hence Mr Lee’s colleagues, much as they disliked it, had no choice but to let him go. They must have been mightily relieved that he had himself offered to resign, but even then, given the highly charged atmosphere of those days, they still had to convince the people that Mr Lee’s domineering influence was well and truly gone, that he would no longer be the power behind the throne. All these moves were really no more than those dictated by the brute calculus of political survival.

But this straightforward answer obscures the complexities of the relationship between Mr Lee Kuan Yew and his colleagues, a subject of considerable interest to political commentators. For years, I had tried to infer as much as I could from the behind-the-scenes tensions and disagreements between a strong-willed, old man used to doing things his way, and his younger colleagues acutely aware that his way could be hopelessly out of sync with the changed mood and temper of the times.

While Mr Lee preferred the knuckleduster approach, his colleagues know they have to settle for the soft touch or what they call ‘the light footprint’; while Mr Lee believed in the efficacy of instilling fear, they understand the greater efficacy of consultation and persuasion.

Indeed, the conflicts go back a long way, (back to a time when many of you here today are too young to remember) when Mr Lee’s colleagues bravely tried to dissuade him from certain proposals that he had put forward in his usual peremptory style. These proposals can only be described as the eccentric side of his genius—changing the one-man one-vote system after a humiliating loss to a hated opponent in a by-election, bringing back the traditional practice of polygamy to solve the intractable demographic problem of declining births, setting up a kind of Bohemian enclave to contain the unruly artistic crowd.

Moreover, Mr Lee had the habit of making blunt, scathing criticisms in public, sometimes deeply embarrassing his colleagues. On one occasion, during the premiership of Mr Goh Chok Tong, Mr Lee revealed that his choice of successor had been Dr Tony Tan and not Mr Goh whom he then proceeded to evaluate in the most unflattering terms. On another occasion, which was much more recent, he had harsh words to say about the Malay-Muslim community, which greatly upset them. If the target of his criticism was the sensitive neighbour from across the Causeway, then all diplomatic hell could break loose, forcing his poor colleagues to rush in for a massive mopping-up job.

Understandably, these long-suffering colleagues had to draw a line somewhere and impose their own restraints on the irrepressible Mr Lee, especially when the political stakes were high. And the stakes were highest in a general election where Mr Lee’s irascibility could mean a severe loss of votes.

This was exactly what the colleagues had feared in the general election of 2006 in what may be known as the ‘James Gomez Incident’. Mr Gomez, a member of the opposition Workers’ Party, had angrily accused the PAP government of ignoring his application form to register as a candidate in the coming election. Unknown to him, there was a surveillance camera in the premises, which showed him, not submitting the application form as he had claimed, but quietly putting it in his sling bag before walking away.

This act of brazen dishonesty and taunting accusation was something that Mr Lee simply could not tolerate. He was furious, and for a while his colleagues joined him in vigorously attacking Mr Gomez in the campaigning. But when they became aware of a rising tide of voter sympathy for Mr Gomez, they stopped. Mr Lee continued to be angry well after the election, calling Mr Gomez a bare-faced liar and challenging the Workers’ Party to sue him. He must have been most annoyed with his colleagues for not taking action against Mr Gomez and probably privately rebuked them for being weak-willed and cowardly.

The James Gomez incident may be seen as a precursor of the more serious Aljunied incident where the political stakes were even higher, forcing the PAP government to realize that they simply had to do something, once and for all, about Mr Lee’s propensity to cause trouble.

In the light of the astounding, almost bizarre plunge of Mr Lee into political anonymity after GE 2011, one is tempted to ask an intriguing ‘What if’ question. What if the Aljunied incident had never taken place? What if the PAP performance in the election, even if bad compared to those in previous elections, was considered by the leaders as good enough for them to brazen things out, to act as if nothing had happened, to carry on as before? After all, in the eyes of the world, it was a clear victory, and in the eyes of Mr Lee, continuing endorsement of the PAP.

In this ‘what if’ scenario, where Mr Lee would still be a dominant influence, one can easily imagine, knowing his implacability, that he would make use of his remaining years to toughen up the PAP leadership, to make sure that the GE 2011 debacle would never happen again. To punish Singaporeans for voting irresponsibly, for jeopardizing, in his view, the very survival of the nation, he would most certainly reinforce the climate of fear, resorting, if necessary, to extra-constitutional measures. (Some years ago, at a public function, I asked Mr Lee, whether in the event of a serious threat of a freak election, he would send in the army. He did not answer directly but emphasized his responsibility to prevent any government from coming in and squandering the vast national reserves).

Mr Lee’s unremittingly tough stance would likely alienate the more moderate of his colleagues, and could even create an open split in the party, a ‘what if’ scenario that would certainly have major political repercussions for the society.

But whatever the extent of Mr Lee’s fall, no evaluation of him will be complete without due acknowledgement of his very real achievements. Indeed, his brilliant success in making Singapore what it is today is unreservedly acknowledged by both his admirers and detractors, and is extensively documented. It must be the regret of many Singaporeans on both sides of the divide, that his political exit had not taken place some years earlier, when it would have been graceful, noble and pleasing, instead of being the ignominious and embarrassing fact it is today.

Beyond all these considerations, even his severest critics will have to agree that here indeed was a man of extraordinary conviction, boldness, strength and purposefulness. To this laudatory list, I would like to add one more shining attribute—selflessness. I believe that Mr Lee’s commitment to the well-being of his country was completely devoid of any self-interest, vainglory or personal cultishness, a quality rare enough when seen against the megalomania of so many world leaders bent on having magnificent monuments put up for them.

The best proof of the selflessness of Mr Lee’s commitment to Singapore was in his ardent—some would say unrealistic—desire to take care of the nation for all time, beyond his earthly sojourn, beyond even the life of his party. Surely greater love than this hath no leader!

Mr Lee’s worst fear was of a rogue opposition party taking over and laying its corrupt hands on the fabulously vast national reserves that his government had so carefully built up for the society’s permanent well-being. To prevent this, he did something extraordinary. He changed the constitution to build in a special custodial role for the President of Singapore, empowering him to prevent any government from appropriating the reserves.

Whether this system can actually work in practice is another matter. But the passion behind it must impress by its sheer force and sweep. A man of little sentiment, Mr Lee expressed his love for his beloved Singapore in the best way he knew how—by a grand political strategy.

But even this towering passion could be sobered by a dose or two of reality and take on a melancholy tone, as happened when Mr Lee paid a visit to New Zealand years back. While being shown around, he suddenly turned to his host and said sombrely, ‘ Your country will be around 100 years from now, but I’m not so sure about mine’.

The unavoidable and, to me, dismaying truth about Lee’s brilliance, genius and vision is that, somewhere along the way, he allowed it to harden into inflexibility, intolerance and vindictiveness. Because his knuckleduster approach had worked so well in the early years of his rule when he gave order to a young Singapore beset by threats from all sides—from Communist sympathizers, communalists, racist newspaper editors, intransigent trade unionists, rioting students, triads and gangsters—he had come to believe that it should work for all time, under all circumstances. His vision had narrowed into a singularly monolithic, undifferentiated one, trapping him in a time warp.

It also gave him a sense of his infallibility, which had two distinct consequences. Firstly, it blinded him to his own faults while amplifying those of others. Secondly, it gave a particularly vicious quality to the way he treated all those who dared to oppose him openly. Indeed, his hatred of his political opponents was so intense that he had no qualms about incarcerating them for years, even decades, bankrupting them or forcing them to flee into permanent exile. In short, his vision had taken on a dark side that had no place for those human qualities that we normally like to associate with even our sternest leaders, qualities such as empathy, magnanimity and humility. Mr Lee had become his own worst enemy, his own nemesis.

A man of intense pride, he is unlikely ever to have this perspective of himself, and to his dying day will probably regret that his people for whom he had worked so hard for so long, never appreciated him, never understood the depth of his commitment to them, when he declared, famously, that even when dead and inside his coffin, if he sensed a problem out there, he would up and solve it for them.

I remember being so impressed by this passionate declaration that I wrote a poem on it, a rather light-hearted one. Here it is:

The coffin was enormous
To match the godlike status,
For both in life and death
He was a true Colossus.

Someone who with the Opposition
Was clearly in cahoots,
Whispered, ‘Ah, a new dawn!
No more defamation suits!’

At which the corpse sprang right up
‘Who said that?’ it roared,
‘He’s defaming my good name,
So get our lawyers on board!’

Now living out his remaining years in political limbo, Mr Lee has lost that great Coffin Moment. When I think of those angry words that he had flung at the Aljunied constituents that day, I can’t help wondering if he may be using the very same words today to throw at the whole nation, in a mixture of sorrow and anger. ‘Live and repent!’ he may be saying to an entire society moving towards its ruin because it had failed to heed him. I’ve also written a poem on the subject, as a kind of sequel to the Coffin poem:

Ah, all that mayhem in Parliament,
Democracy’s noise and furore!
I could have quashed it all,
But my Coffin Moment’s no more.

So you’re celebrating freedom,
You say it’s come at last.
I could have stopped the madness,
But my Coffin Moment is past.

Disruption, disorder, chaos,
A terrible era is born,
I can do nothing now,
My Coffin Moment is gone.

Mark you this, you people,
You’ll live to regret and repent,
Your rejection of what I’d offered,
The gift of my Coffin Moment.

You know, I have been such a keen and fascinated observer of Mr Lee for so long that I would hate to end a talk on him with something as trivial as a doggerel. What I would like to do now is to share with you, very briefly, some thoughts about an entirely different kind of post-LKY era, which could yet be the most brilliant vindication of Mr Lee’s special philosophy, his special model of governance.

You must all be aware of a certain significant geopolitical development in the world today, a trend being set by a group of five countries called BRICS (comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). Although an economic grouping, BRICS is said to have the potential to be a political model, that might even replace the Western model of liberal democracy which is now undergoing much stress and strain. BRICS is attractive because it cleverly espouses, on the one hand, the strong leadership associated with authoritarian regimes, and, on the other, the unbridled capitalism of fully practising democracies. In other words, instead of seeing these two systems as mutually exclusive, it has skillfully combined them and come up with something that has the best of both worlds. Although still a model in the making, it is being watched with great interest by emerging economies in the developing world.

Now the Singapore model created by Lee Kuan Yew is precisely of this kind: it does away with certain elements of democracy such as free speech and an independent media, but unabashedly embraces its other half, capitalism. The resulting material prosperity has caused international economic surveys to consistently rank Singapore among the top three business-friendly countries in the world. When Deng Xiaoping visited Singapore in 1978, he must have been so impressed with what he saw, that he took back ideas for his own plans for an overhaul of China; soon afterwards, he put China firmly on the capitalist road, but with the authoritarian face of Communism intact.

The BRICS influence is likely to grow in a highly globalised world, where powerful international investors are looking around to see where they can park their billions. Singapore is an attractive destination. In fact, a top investor from the US, Mr Jim Rogers, and the co-founder of Facebook, Mr Eduardo Savarin, have already made Singapore their home and the base for their business operations. It is very likely that other big businessmen, notably from China, India and Russia, will follow suit. And it is no secret that the PAP government simply loves to welcome big money to its shores.

What long term implications would this have for Singapore? Would these new citizens with their enormous clout turn the nation into one huge, mega business corporation, fittingly called Singapore Inc? What would eventually happen to Singapore culture and identity?

Above all, what would Mr Lee think ( from whatever ethereal, eternal abode he might be in)? Would he feel pleased that at last his vision was being vindicated, not only by his country, but by the world? Or would he be dismayed by the loss of a Singapore identity?

I think it would be the latter. For Mr Lee cared deeply about roots, about the special nexus of family and community. More than 30 years ago, when he worried that the younger generation was becoming too westernized because of their English-medium education, he introduced the policy of compulsory mother-tongue learning, in the belief that it would restore traditional values to give society the cultural and ethical ballast it needed. Again, through his memoirs, he had a strong message for the younger generation: ‘Know where you have come from’.

In the light of this concern with roots and belonging, Mr Lee would be alarmed by Singapore Inc. Could he have done something in his time to prevent it? Could he have had one final, great Coffin Moment to save the country he loved so well?

This is a subject that is obviously far too vast for this talk, and certainly far too complex for me to do more than share a few anxious conjectures, throw out a few teasing questions that might be worthwhile picking up.

We are indeed in the midst of one of the most exciting times in Singapore’s history, a time fraught with paradoxes, perils and promises, brought about by a general election that has been described as a watershed, a sea change, a transformation, not least because it ended the era of Lee Kuan Yew. Mr Lee’s legacy is so mixed that at one end of the spectrum of response, there will be pure admiration and adulation, and at the other, undisguised opprobrium and distaste. But whatever the emotions he elicits, whatever the controversies that swirl around him, it will be generally agreed that for a man of his stature and impact, neither the present nor the future holds an equal.

I had the pleasure and honour of being presented the inaugural ‘Humanist of the Year’ award by the Humanist Society (Singapore) on 23 July 2011. Below is the transcript of my speech at the presentation:

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I must begin by warmly thanking the Humanist Society for the inaugural award of Humanist of the Year. What an honour! Now somebody once described the ideal audience as intelligent, highly educated and a little drunk. Well, you qualify except on the last point. But not to worry. I am so intoxicated with the sheer pleasure of the award that I have enough giddy-headedness and light-heartedness to share all round!

But there’s a group of people who, alas, can’t share in my joy today. They’re my deeply religious friends, who are genuinely concerned about my spiritual welfare and who will view this award from a society of atheists, agnostics and free-thinkers as yet one more proof of the woeful state of my soul. I think they’ve given up on me! If I dare tell them that it has taken me thirty years of hard work to reach this status of the sinner, they will surely shake their heads in disbelief and say sadly: ‘Well, a fraction of that effort would have earned you sainthood!’

Let me now tell you about my strange but wonderful 30-year journey during which instead of losing my soul, as my kind friends feared, I reclaimed it. It began with saying goodbye to the Christian god whom I had worshipped since converting to the religion at age 15. Now it is said that the reprobate will be punished with a huge, God-shaped hole in his inner being, rather like a massive crater blown out of the ground in a catastrophic volcanic eruption. This is of course just a fanciful way of saying that religion is so crucial to a person’s well-being, that its abandonment will leave an unfillable void, a dark, screaming abyss of despair.

When, at age 40, I left the Roman Catholic religion, I was most relieved to be spared this horrifying punishment of the God-shaped hole. Indeed, instead of the fearsome, gaping abyss, I saw a bright open expanse of ground waiting to be built upon anew. Instead of despair, I felt only excitement at the thought of constructing my own paradigm of belief, conviction, hope and guidance, to replace the old one imposed by the teachings of the Church.

Now if is true that learning begins with unlearning, and creation begins with destruction, there was a lot of demolition work for me to do first. Out came the wrecking ball, which I used with great zest to swing against and get rid of, once and for all, the contradictions of my old religion. They all had to do with a perfect God who, alas, created imperfect men whose imperfections could condemn them to eternal punishment, a loving, all powerful god who, alas, was either not loving enough to save his children from unspeakable suffering, or not powerful enough to do so.

For years, taking on the role of God’s defender and apologist, I was troubled by these contradictions which led to all kinds of paradoxes. So I cunningly adopted what must be the theist’s ingenious strategy to get around the problem, namely, by describing God apophatically, that is, in the language of negatives only. Thus God is incomprehensible, inconceivable, unknowable, unfathomable, ineffable, all these negatives in effect making him one huge mystery, like a black hole, into which all the troublesome, unanswerable questions about him could be simply swallowed up, and all rational thinking stopped instantly by the stern injunction of faith. I was determined that such a deity, causing confusion and distress all round, would have no place in my new paradigm.

Indeed, it would be a human-centred paradigm, that is, it would adopt the humanistic approach of rational thinking based on the use of reason rather than a dependence on divine or supernatural agencies, with a focus on the here and now, rather than the hereafter. For a start, it would use this approach to answer some of those large existential questions which human beings have been asking from time immemorial, in their desire to understand themselves and the world around them: Who are we? Where did we come from? What is our place in the universe? Where did it come from?

The avid seeking of factual knowledge is innate in human beings; hence it would be an essential part of my paradigm. The humanist approach, based on empirical evidence, would ensure that knowledge about our universe comes not from a literal interpretation of the story of creation in the Bible, but from the hard-earned discoveries of cosmologists, planetary scientists and geologists. It would also ensure that what we know about our human nature, our instincts, drives and passions, what we share with the animal world, comes not from theological teachings about man’s fall from grace and subsequent punishment by God, but from the meticulous work of biologists, evolutionary scientists, anthropologists and paleontologists.

Science, as we know, is not infallible, but scientific knowledge is reliable precisely because it is open, transparent and best of all, subject to independent verification and correction. Today, it is even more dependable because it can be validated by the most advanced instruments, such as the Hubble Telescope used in the exploration of the vast cosmos of distant stars and planets, and the electron microscope used in the exploration of the tiniest cells and molecules inside our bodies. Hence the knowledge forming a crucial part of my paradigm would be the science-based, empirically and instrumentally validated kind.

But knowledge is not enough; it needs wisdom to be useful. Indeed, even the most extensive and advanced knowledge would be quite useless on its own, a string of zeroes only, without the integer of wisdom to give it value. My paradigm therefore would have to comprise both knowledge and wisdom, in equal parts. You can see how ambitious it was becoming! So the next set of crucial questions to ask, to build this second stage of the model, would be: how should we behave towards each other? What ought we to do, to lead good, useful lives? How do we give meaning to our existence?

For the answers, I had to leave the domain of scientific fact and turn to that equally vast domain concerned with values—religious, moral and philosophical systems, folkloric traditions of myth and ritual, even primal, aboriginal belief systems. Here is a vast repository of human wisdom that has accumulated through the ages, which uniquely defines our human species. Here is a veritable Ali Baba’s cave of treasures for the truth-seeker to pick and choose!

Yes, I wanted to pick and choose. For surely, I thought, it is not given to any one religion to claim monopoly of truth, nor to any one philosophical system to claim totality of wisdom. Each is a manifestation of but one aspect of that vast, collective storehouse of human insights, which belongs to everyone. Moreover, it is a continually growing storehouse, since the human spirit never ceases its quest. Wisdom-seeking is thus always a work-in-progress, never a completed process.

Living in the new millennium, I considered myself extremely lucky to have a huge legacy of hundreds, indeed thousands of years’ worth of wisdom at my disposal. I remember the sheer joy of making this or that selection, from this or that religion, to take home for the construction of my personal paradigm. I eagerly co-opted the warmth of Christian love and agape, the hospitality of Islam, the compassion of Buddhism, the sensuous exuberance of Hinduism, the close affinity with nature of the primal, aboriginal religions. I helped myself with equal excitement to the treasure trove of the thoughts of philosophers, from both East and West, down the ages, from the ancients, right down to modern thinkers grappling with the special quandaries of our times. My paradigm would be unabashedly eclectic and hybrid, endlessly fluid, open to revision and change. Above all, it would be deeply spiritual, without being religious.

Knowledge and wisdom—they ultimately constitute the essence of any worthwhile guide for human behaviour. For knowledge needs wisdom to give it purpose, and wisdom needs knowledge to give it relevance. Their interdependence is reflected in the title of my talk: ‘Being Human, Humane, Humanist—the whole Shebang’, the three words linked together in an affirmation of human identity and dignity, ‘human’ connoting the knowledge we need to understand ourselves and others, ‘humane’ the qualities to bring to this relationship, and ‘humanist’ the use of reason to apply to both.

The value of the humanist approach is best seen in the need to take an informed and principled stand on the most controversial moral issues in our times, namely, abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality and human cloning. With specific reference to abortion: what would be an unacceptable stand according to the imperatives derived from my paradigm would be the outright condemnation of abortion as sinful under any circumstances, in the belief that God has already implanted an immortal soul made to his image at the moment of conception. One immediately thinks of extreme circumstances, such as when a young girl gets pregnant after a brutal rape, or when a woman is in danger of losing her life unless she terminates the pregnancy. How can abstract doctrine trump real crying human need?

The issue of abortion, like many issues related to life and death, will continue to be an emotionally-charged one. But whatever controversy it generates should have nothing to do with religious zeal, only with informed standpoints based on scientific findings. For instance, scientists may agree on a certain criterion by which abortion is inhumane and therefore unethical, such as the criterion of sentience, that is, the foetus becomes a sentient being when it is capable of feeling pain, and hence is entitled to protection under human rights, just as even lower forms of sentient life such as chickens are protected by animal rights. It does not matter if scientists do not agree on exactly when sentience takes place in foetal development. For the openness of scientific debate and the rigorousness of scientific method will ensure that reason, rather than religious emotionalism will prevail in the end.

Again in the equally contentious issue of homosexuality, the humanist cannot condone the religious fundamentalist’s prejudice against homosexuals based on Biblical evidence that they are an abomination in the eyes of God. The humanist would want to know if there is a genetic basis for gay behaviour, just as he would want to know if there is a genetic basis for criminal behaviour, since this will have an important bearing on questions of responsibility and justice. In general, the humanist will shy away from any extreme, absolutist stand on any human issue, simply because that will not square with the complex realities of the human condition.

Why the need for a paradigm? Why not simply go by the workings of the conscience which after all has served us well in our day to day lives?

My reason is a very personal one. I have to confess that my conscience can be a very unreliable guide in an increasingly complex world where forces such as globalization, the Internet, social media and most all, the mind-boggling advancement of scientific technology, especially biotechnology, have multiplied our choices, extended our moral dilemmas or even created new ones. The voice of my conscience is easily shouted down by the noise of competing influences, its sight easily dimmed by the swirling fogs of flux and change. Therefore for my own peace of mind I needed to work out for myself a clear system of rules and guidelines, my personal equivalent of the Ten Commandments, to provide a bright beacon where my conscience had only been a faint lamp.

A summary of my completed paradigm might go something like this: its goal, truth; its method, reason; its highest values, tolerance and compassion. It has given me a belief system which though avowedly secularist and atheistic, has all the hallmarks of a religion: there is a godhead, not out there, but right here, within each one of us, a sense of mystery and awe, not at miracles, but something even better, the marvels of nature everywhere around us, and best of all, there is a heaven right here on earth itself, a heaven of peace and harmony, attainable by all of us.

It has been an exhilarating 30 year journey—with no desire whatsoever, on my part, for arrival! For both knowledge and wisdom are inexhaustible and as goals, will always be beyond our reach: just when we think they are within our grasp, they slip away, but beckon and entice us on, making the journey more pleasurable than the destination, the road more enjoyable than the inn.

My quest for meaning—for ultimately that is what it is—has brought me so much satisfaction—emotional, intellectual, spiritual—that, at the risk of scandalizing my religious friends, I’m going to borrow the breathless language of religious ecstasy to describe it. Thus can I truly say that my atheistic journey has been no less than an epiphany, a rebirth, a moksha, a nirvana.

Currently I am following with great excitement the debate on human rights reported in the media, especially on the increasing world interest in the special Singapore model of governance, which critics say is unacceptably authoritarian, and which admirers say is a model worthy of world emulation. Minister Mentor has drawn attention to what he perceives as liberal democracy’s annoyance with Singapore’s success, and with the fact that Russia and China are showing keen interest in the model.

In the light of all this interest, I thought it a good idea to reproduce an excerpt (declined for publication by the newspapers) from a recent political speech I made, in which I told a little, wickedly satirical tale, set sometime in the future, about precisely this model being adopted by the world

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Let me share with you an idea that I have for a satirical play, on my favourite theme of the suppression of political liberties in Singapore.

Central to this proposed play is a question that goes straight to the heart of the famous absolutist philosophy of the PAP government, by which the only conceivable, not-to-be-questioned goal for Singapore is material prosperity, and the only conceivable, not-to-be-doubted means to secure this goal is PAP leadership. Everything else is an irrelevance or a hindrance, especially the political ideology of liberal democracy. As it stands, the unremitting realpolitik of the PAP has meant the curtailment of virtually all democratic freedoms in Singapore, except the basic, fundamental one of free and open elections.

My question is: will the PAP be prepared to do away with even this last vestige of democracy, if they perceive that the very survival of the nation is at stake? Will the PAP, in extremis, be prepared to sever all ties with the free world of which Singapore has been a member all its life?

For purposes of the play, the answer is yes. Picture this scenario, sometime in the future. It is election time. A young, attractive, very charismatic opposition leader has appeared on the scene. Nobody has seen the likes of him before. He draws huge crowds, mesmerising them. He cleverly commandeers all the resources of the Internet, and the SMS, to promote his aims, and is succeeding spectacularly. Singaporeans are excited because for the first time, they see his party, boldly named ‘People’s Reaction Party’ or PREP, as a viable alternative to PAP.

The government watches him warily. They see him as a real threat. He is exactly the kind of politician they despise, the emotion-stirring demagogue, the smooth- talking populist who if he gets into power will most certainly squander the nation’s reserves within a year. To make matters worse, there is a configuration of events, both at home and abroad, that are likely to favour this upstart—a fever of change sweeping the world, toppling governments that have been in power for decades, the emergence of the young as a formidable political force, feared for their colonization of the Internet and the extremism of their views, at home the eruption of a major scandal that causes Singaporeans to question the much-vaunted competence of the government.

The PAP leaders huddle in urgent consultation. What should they do? If they do nothing, this rabble-rouser will steal the election, and destroy all that the PAP has been building up so painstakingly for half a century.

The leaders make a decision to prevent a freak election. They do the unthinkable. They send in the army. There’s a scene in the play that shows tanks in the background, helicopters whirring overhead, the riot police plunging into the crowds, scattering them, pulling all the troublemakers off the streets, throwing them into jail. Soon order is restored.

As expected there is an uproar of protest from the free world. But the PAP has done its calculations well, and made the correct predictions. True enough, the protest soon dies down. For the world has a short memory for such things, and is only too happy to go back to minding its own business. Even better, there is a definite softening of stance as critics both at home and abroad, begin to take into account the following considerations. Firstly, nobody was killed that day. Secondly, many so-called liberal democracies have done far worse things to their political opponents. Thirdly, Singaporeans continue to enjoy the good life. Lastly, and most important of all, Singapore continues to be a responsible, reliable, partner in international business and other activities.

But the strongest endorsement comes from a powerful bloc of nations that is increasingly seen as a rival to the Western bloc led by the US. It is the organisation called BRIC comprising the four nations of Brazil, Russia, India and China. The BRIC members go out of their way to applaud the PAP for what they describe as the real kind of leadership so sorely needed in a troubled world. Moreover, they invite Singapore to be a member, for they realize that the unique PAP model of governance can be developed into a BRIC model which can be offered to the world as an alternative to the western liberal model. From now onwards, authoritarianism will no longer be a bad word; all the negativity will go to democracy instead.

In the play, there is a scene showing all the five leaders of the bloc, now renamed BRICS, standing in a row for a photo-op, against the background of their national flags. All are dressed in pristine white, for BRICS has adopted the PAP official uniform, as a gesture of appreciation and gratitude. The little red dot has become a shining beacon of hope in the world. It is the moment of the PAP’s apotheosis.

A drama needs conflict for creative tension. The counterpoise to the triumphant PAP is a single individual. He is not a dissident, but an ex-PAP member, in fact a high-ranking minister. He was the only to protest against the decision to use force, to send in the army that day. Whether his decision was based on moral conscience or pure idiosyncrasy, is not clear. He is expelled from the party. Disgraced, embittered, broken, he suffers a massive mental breakdown and becomes a raving, ranting madman.

Wild-eyed and dishevelled, he wanders the streets and public places of Singapore, speaking to whoever cares to listen, resisting his family’s efforts to restrain him, to keep him from the public eye. Again and again, he recounts the events of that terrible day of democracy’s demise in Singapore, but it is a madman’s incoherent jabbering that nobody wants to listen to. In any case, nobody wants to be seen near him, for there are rumours of secret surveillance cameras everywhere. There are also rumours of kind, compassionate Singaporeans visiting him secretly in the darkness of night, offering food, medicine, solace.

He has become a national embarrassment. The PAP leaders don’t know what to do with him. Someone suggests incarcerating him on a small isolated, outlying island, out of the reach of the world media. Then, to everyone’s relief, he dies a natural death. His body is found very early one morning, crumpled in a heap, beside a bus stop. His family quickly take it away.

The play ends with an amazing scene—crowd upon crowd of Singaporeans coming to lay flowers on the spot where he had died. Dark-suited businessmen in their Mercedes, somber-faced academics, tai tais in their jewels and chauffeured cars, students, teachers, hawkers, waitresses, taxi-drivers, Singaporeans from all walks of life, come to pay silent tribute, for the time being ignoring those dreaded surveillance cameras.

“Fireside Chat” at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, on July 2nd, 2008.

Recorded from a speech made on February 22, 2008 at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.