What Mr Lee taught me about fear and courage

I was a young foreign service officer, just about a year into my stint on the Malaysia and Brunei Desk at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, when I was assigned to staff then-Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew on a trip to Malaysia.

It was June 2009, and this was Mr Lee’s first trip to our closest neighbour in over 10 years. It would also, as it turned out, be his last.

Coming quick on the heels of Barisan Nasional’s and Umno’s unprecedented General Election losses, the historic eight-day trip spanned Kuala Lumpur, Perak, Penang, Kelantan and Pahang.

Mr Lee took some younger ministers with him on the trip, including then-Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam and then-Education Minister Ng Eng Hen, and met Prime Minister Najib Razak, royalty, ministers and businessmen.

More than its public positioning as a trip down memory lane, it seemed to me that Mr Lee embarked on this punishing multi-state trip to leverage what goodwill or influence he had, and lay the path for the next generation of leadership.

I can only imagine what his emotions and reflections were, on a trip back to a country he had fought so hard to unite with, and which had thrown us out in a moment of public anguish.

While dining with the small Singaporean delegation one evening, he spoke about Singapore’s early days.

How, even after we became independent, Malaysian ground troops continued to operate in Singapore: A foreign army on sovereign soil.

Knowing that Malaysia would be watching closely, the decision was made to roll out our 18 newly acquired AMX-13 light tanks at our National Day Parade in 1969, in what became our first mobile column drive-past.

More than simply to instil pride and confidence among our people, I think the move was an outward display to Malaysia that we were playing the long game — even if internally we were not quite sure yet whether we would succeed.

They subsequently withdrew their troops.

“You think I wasn’t afraid?” He paused. “I was so afraid. I was 35.”

Hearing Mr Lee relate this and other stories about Singapore’s independence journey was deeply affecting: I had never so starkly understood how easily our fate could have turned, and how tenuous our continued existence was, even today.

That night, I was shaken to my core.

Having grown up in modern Singapore, where Mr Lee has been a larger-than-life figure for all of my adulthood, it was easy to forget that he became Singapore’s Prime Minister at just 35 — an age I am rapidly approaching.

Like any other young person would be in the face of such events, he was afraid, but he also knew that there were hundreds of thousands of people whose livelihoods depended on whether Singapore would survive. And so he pressed on.

Hitherto, I had always taken it as a given that leaders such as Mr Lee were of a different breed, that they did not fear what the rest of us so humanly did. That night, I realised that he was a different sort of man, not because he had no fear, but because despite his fears, he led our nation to independence — at an age when so many of us today have vastly different dreams.

Meeting other leaders later on the trip, Mr Lee said to them, in Malay: “In my mind, I still cannot separate Singapore from Malaysia.”

Forty-four years after our independence, he was still not certain that Singapore’s longer-run sustainability could be assured without merger, and yet he did his best within the circumstances to ensure that Singapore survived.

We travelled on to Penang, a Chinese-majority port led by the Democractic Action Party, a political party formed by members of the de-registered People’s Action Party of Malaysia.

Mr Lee looked intently out the window throughout the drive from the airport to our meeting with Penang’s Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng. He observed Penang’s airport, its roads, its buildings.

Commenting on the state of its infrastructure, he said softly to himself that this could well have been Singapore had we stayed in Malaysia.

Today, Singapore at 52 faces a whole new set of challenges: An ageing population, disruptive technologies, regional competitors snapping at our heels, narrowing geopolitical space, security threats, a changing employment landscape and evolving citizen aspirations.

On top of the perennial issues of jobs and the cost of living.

Over the past few months, I have asked Singaporeans about their belief in the longer-term future of Singapore.

Few were optimistic. Some are hedging their bets and preparing to move abroad. Singapore is an aberration, they say; city-states were never meant to last.

Each generation has its own sets of challenges, and none can nor should be easily compared.

But I cannot help but remember that trip to Malaysia almost a decade ago, and the fear I glimpsed in a young Mr Lee, at the helm of a nascent nation with a very uncertain future.

It took a special group of lions and the lionhearted to have acted in spite of their fears, and to have pushed ahead not knowing where our country would head.

The foundations we are fortunate enough to build on today were laid by dint of the courage, grit and resolve of Mr Lee and our founding generation.

What would have happened to what we call Singapore today should they not have dared? It is anyone’s guess.

So have faith yet, in little Singapore. Never forget that a better future is worth fighting for, even if at times the battle ahead seems daunting and uncertain; even if, at times, we fear.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Genevieve Ding is a grassroots leader and advocate of gender and development issues. She works at NTUC Enterprises on a fintech initiative. She was previously with unions and the Ministry of Finance. This piece, written in her personal capacity, first appeared in The Birthday Book 2017, examining challenges and opportunities for Singapore with the theme “What Should We Never Forget?” TODAY will be running other essays from the book in the coming weeks.