The Lion's Roar by Irene Ng
Page Count: 717
Chapters : 39
Time Taken: 8 Hours
Keith's Take
The second book is an impressive follow-up to the first. I still stand by the fact that someone should turn Irene's biographies into a screenplay. We don't need another Little Nonya.
We need a Rajaratnam biopic.
The foreword penned by Lee Hsien Loong aptly captures the feeling I got from finishing the second book.
"In all these different phases, I was always struck by how Raja could stay warm, affable and unflappable, getting along with all sorts of people. Perhaps this explained his remarkable ability to bridge conflicting perspectives and persuade others to his point of view, which won Singapore many friends and diplomatic successes."
One gets a deep sense that Rajaratnam was a man, who was uninterested in power and just wanted to serve.
I must add a personal note here.
I cried when reading this book. (I don't do this a lot)
The last years of Rajaratnam's life was marked by tragedy. First, his wife, Piroska suffered from late-stage emphysema, a severe form of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Every breath she took was a painful gasp for air. And at the end of her days, in 1989, it was him who had to 'let her go'
The doctors told him there was nothing they could do for her. Given her critical condition, they wanted to put her back on a ventilator. Raja looked into her frightened eyes, turned to the doctors, and said no. He kept faith with her.
He was guided by another consideration, one that Piroska had raised with him earlier: “Apart from the distress and terror that intubation involved, there was no guarantee that she would not emerge from the ordeal with serious impairment to her mind as well as to her personality.” It was thus for him nothing less than an act of love when he asked the doctors to treat her with medication and “let nature take its course”.
Soon after, in 1994, he found himself slipping into dementia.
For a man , who enjoyed the intellectual life - this was torture.
The biggest heartbreak-
Unwilling to let Piroska slip beyond the horizon of his fading memory, he inscribed her name in many places around the house. One below her portrait in the living room said: “This is my beloved wife Piroska, whom I married in London, and who died in 1989.” Another stuck on a photo on the mantelpiece said: “My darling Piroska, I’ll miss you.” And yet another, found inside his weathered Samsonite leather briefcase: “Piri passed away 1989 – 18 Aug”.
It was yet another reminder how unfair life could be.
While the end of his life was marked by heartbreak, his life is a testament to the great contributions he made to Singapore.
This book will show you just that, a man who represented Singapore well on the international stage, and who showed that Singapore could punch above its weight.
Keith's Notes
My raw notes on the book. It's not gospel, just my honest thoughts.
The Fracture within the PAP
The popular imagination in Singapore and perhaps, international discourse seems to suggest that there was complete alignment within the PAP as to why Singapore was kicked out/separated from Malaysia.
LKY's autobiography shows the divergent perspectives and this biography added in even greater detail.
It seems that throughout the years of merger, only Raja and DPM Toh still believed the merger between Singapore and Malaysia could work out.
The decision to shut out Raja and Toh was based on cold, and some would say cold-hearted, calculation. Lee recalled later: “Goh and I had already learnt our lesson that if we brought them into the picture, we would have no end of trouble. They would not have been convinced. They would say, ‘to hell with it’.”
Anxious to avoid a racial collision, Lee authorised Goh to discuss with the top UMNO leaders any proposal for constitutional rearrangements of Malaysia. Lee’s starting point was more along the lines of a looser re-arrangement, not a complete separation. Ever pragmatic, however, Goh decided otherwise. He remembered all too clearly how the previous negotiations had come to nought.
In his relentless pursuit of a Malaysian Malaysia, however, Raja missed at least two things. One, he overestimated the force of democratic reason. And two, he underestimated the force of Malay nationalism. By his own admission later, he also overlooked one flaw in human nature. It was this: “Once race, language and religion, which are meaningless differences, are translated into political differences and magnified falsely as immutable parts of human nature, then we enter into the realm of irrational and violent politics.” Rather than a sober and reasoned debate over the best course for the future of Malaysia, “politics became a struggle for supremacy of a privileged race, language and religion – and not for political justice, equality, economic development and meritocracy”, he said.
Arguably, he had another blind spot: his inability, or perhaps unwillingness, to see that he and Toh were pushing some of their colleagues to the limits of their support. It was not that the others lacked the stomach for the battle; it was just that they no longer saw the point of it.
When I think about LKY's decision to exclude Rajaratnam and Toh Chin Chye- I once again realise an unsettling truth of politics.
Even generals and trusted confidantes can be sacrificed to achieve a political goal. One must have a certain killer instinct to last as long as LKY did. If he did to his friends, his war-tested allies, imagine if you were an adversary in his way.
Taking The Bitter Pill
A leader is only needed when difficult decisions needed to be made.
LKY told them directly- it was either separation or risk civil war. At that point, there were Malay Ultras in UMNO that were advocating for invasion. Those voices were serious and the possibility of armed conflict was very real.
The prospect of a military takeover filled Raja with dark thoughts – should it occur, it must come at a high cost to Malaysia, but what levers did Singapore have that it had not already pulled? For a fleeting moment, he considered resorting to an underground struggle by forming a united front with the armed communists. Toh also toyed with the thought. It was, however, dismissed quickly enough – Raja admitted later that it was “a bit of lunacy” Nevertheless, it reflected the depths of their desperation.
Raja stared at the blank space next to his designation “Minister for Culture” on the piece of paper that would decide Singapore’s fate – the Separation Agreement. He took out his pen from his shirt pocket, fiddled with it; then a quick scrawl of his signature
I think Rajaratnam felt the most anguish because he had the most skin in the game. He was the one who ran the PAP operations in Seremban, his hometown. He had the most immediate relatives in Malaysia. Think about the amount of anguish he must have felt when he signed the paper.
He knew the moment he signed it, they had to fend for themselves.
You know the crazy part? He couldn't show it to them. He had to absorb their rage and sorrow and display his stoic self. No matter how much he loved Seremban, he knew he had to serve Singapore.
Once again, I think an excellent leader must have the stomach to do unsavoury things for the greater good. It's this killer instinct that is needed to survive in such an anarchic world.
This is also why I find the prospect of leadership (true leadership) an exhausting one.
The social media world shows you the glitz and glamour of being a leader. You ride private jets, speak on big stages and everyone adores you. But, that's not leadership.
Leadership is choosing between a rock and a hard place. You will be misunderstood, lonely and traumatized. But, you must march on.
The Immediate Objective of Foreign Policy
When Singapore was thrust into statehood, the founding team had to find their footing immediately.
What should they focus on?
Singapore's first foreign minister, who was a journalist a decade ago, had to define the country's foreign policy outlook.
The ultimate watchword, which stayed with Raja for the rest of his life, was survival. For him, it did not merely mean the physical survival of the country, although that was important, but also the survival of its distinctive national values. “Our duty is to see that Singapore survives and prospers,” he said, “not just because it is Singapore but because of the kind of Singapore we are trying to build.”
This Singapore would be a model multiracial, democratic socialist society. It was this vision of Singapore’s future that galvanised his will to persevere.
To have any hope of realising it, however, he knew that two conditions had to be met. First, peace and security in the region. Second, economic prosperity for Singapore. “If these two conditions are denied, prospects of succeeding are nil,” Raja observed. “Our whole objective in regard to our foreign policy would be to ensure these conditions: Peace and security in this region, prosperity for Singapore.
One would read later on that- that Raja was an active champion in promoting regional stability. He would go above and beyond to help prevent ASEAN from the fate of balkanization.
Singapore may be a small state, but Raja demonstrated that size is not an indicator of wisdom.
Positioning Singapore
In his first international tour, Rajaratnam displayed excellent statesmanship.
The objective was to "befriend and trade with as many countries as possible" while ensuring that other states didn't interfere in Singapore's domestic business.
He accomplished this exceedingly well.
First, he set out Singapore’s policy of being friendly with all- even those who were unfriendly with Singapore.
Consider this example of how Raja began mending relations with China at a low point in the bilateral relations (China still denounced Singapore as a neocolonial state at this point):
While his preference was for a low-key diplomatic posture, he could not avoid the inevitable questions from the international press. They wanted to know, for example, what was Singapore’s position on a UN seat for Communist China? Raja replied that Singapore backed China’s admission into the UN. This was in the interest of reducing international tensions and promoting peace in the region. Better to have the PRC thrashing out problems in front of the world body, he reasoned, than out of it quarrelling with countries.
Given that it had full control of mainland China, the PRC had a better claim to sit on the Security Council than the government in Taiwan that currently occupied the seat, he added. This was Singapore’s position from the outset, and it would remain consistent until the China question was resolved in the UN in 1971.
When asked about Taiwan, a thornier issue then:
Raja declined to be pinned to a fixed position. He presented the issue as one to be decided at a later stage, after the question of China’s admission was settled at the UN. His initial posture was based upon a belief that it was not for any country to get involved in the dispute between the two rival Chinese governments and to decide Taiwan’s status. It was also not in Singapore’s national interest to get entangled in it.
Second, he invited countries to trade and invest in Singapore. He was explicit about rejecting foreign aid. Neither did he go around bashing the colonial powers, demanding for reparations.
(The upside of refusing foreign aid - is political independence. Kishore Mahbubani in his memoirs, Living The Asian Century, highlighted how big powers would often use withdrawing foreign aid as a stick to coerce countries to fall in line with their foreign policy position.)
He took a practical view- seeing independence as a chance to reset and rebuild relationships. This was best illustrated in his handling of the 'blood debt' problem with Japan.
During a state visit in 1966, the Japanese foreign minister, Etsusaburo Shiina asked for Raja’s views on the blood debt issue after previous impasses.
Adopting a gracious posture, he responded that Singapore was “primarily concerned with the future”. Then came the regretful “but”. “But unfortunately,” he said, the blood debt issue was one “which could not be simply discarded.” Over the course of public debates in pre-independence days, the figure arrived at was $50 million, and this “being an emotional problem involving the people of Singapore and in which the domestic politics of Singapore was an important factor”, Raja felt that the $50 million figure had to be strictly maintained. To resolve the issue, he proposed that the $50 million be split, with half to be disbursed as a grant of $25 million and the other half to be in loans. The Japanese minister said he was glad to hear a “positive view” from Raja, and left his office beaming.
Third, he sought goodwill.
Where did he start? The Afro-Asian bloc. He knew that at this point, China and Indonesia were looking to build the Afro-Asian conference as a possible alternative to the UN and Singapore knew it had to be integrated within the bloc.
Raja had a clear vision for what they needed to achieve: to build Singapore’s image and reputation as an Afro-Asian partner.
I want to give you an example of how locked in they were.
No matter what cropped up, they focused on their mission. Nothing else mattered; not their welfare, not their comfort, and certainly not their egos. Nowhere was this better illustrated than in Malawi. The south-eastern African country had earlier declined to host the Singapore group because its official guesthouse was occupied by another state guest. Undeterred, the Singapore leaders said they would pay for their own board and lodgings.
They ended up in a mountainside inn, far removed from the town centre. But, they met the PM of Malawi, Dr Banda, who was now a supporter of Singapore's participation in the Afro-Asian conference.
How Raja did one thing was how he did everything. To be clear, Malawi wasn't a big African power. It was a small country in Southern Africa. But, Raja didn't care. He was serious about getting the goodwill of everyone. (And, that included Malawi)
Yielding the Foreign Policy Dividend
Singapore's approach to foreign policy was simple yet effective.
Friendliness engenders trust.
Trust reduces transaction costs and thereby lubricates trade.
Rajaratnam's enterprising approach towards building diplomatic links made it easy to trust Singapore.
What was the outcome?
In December 1965, at the new government's first budget, Lim Kim San shared how China and the Soviet Union experienced a 180-degree turn in their relationship with Singapore.
These countries previously deemed Singapore as a neo-colonialist plot were now reconsidering their stance.
For one, China was increasing their trade with Singapore by purchasing rubber “after a long lapse of time". Trade doubled from $247 million in 1965 to $409 million the next year.
The Soviet Union even signed a free trade agreement with Singapore that saw their government newspaper, publishing lengthy laudatory articles about the “young state”
Beware The Smiling Crocodiles
Rajaratnam was acutely familiar with the playbook of covert ops.
He had experienced firsthand what communist infiltration into the PAP felt like.
A key tactic, he knew, was to exploit the country’s internal divisions as well as its political, military, economic and psychological vulnerabilities. Another was to infiltrate political parties, trade unions and civic groups to influence and shape the country’s political environment and sway the government’s policies. This could be achieved through, for example, fostering relationships with individuals or organisations that might be unaware of their machinations, or supplying cash and other support to ensure victory for certain political candidates. If confronted and exposed, the standard response would be to deny, deny, deny.
How did that manifest in Singapore?
When a few newspapers started to 'suspiciously take risky racial and political lines,' he knew that foreign agents had entered the chat. During a time of nation-building, they could take no risk in allowing others to compromise the Singapore project. Thus, they clamped down on multiple newspaper outlets which were funded by foreign agents looking to sway public opinion in Singapore.
The crazy thing was that one of the newspapers, Eastern Sun, was actually pursuing a moderate editorial policy and was a consistent supporter of the government. As it turned out, this was a ploy to gain respectability in the mainstream first and be used as a weapon in the future for the communist sources funding it.
Yet, he was a realist. He knew there was no point in being angry or upset at others trying to influence Singapore's politics.
“Small nations must accept competitive interference as a fact of life,” he said, “just as they should be ready to accept at face value protestations by big powers that their relations with small nations would be conducted on the basis of mutual respect and non-interference in one another’s internal affairs.”
He added: “But so long as we remember that a crocodile is dangerous even when it is friendly, nothing is lost by observing diplomatic niceties.” His insight into “competitive interference” attracted the attention of other leaders, including Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi. She quoted it in a speech in 1975, referring to Raja as “a leading statesman from Southeast Asia”.
So, if we were to look at our current state of play- we have become more open and diverse. This only means that today, we are more susceptible than ever to foreign interference.
But the problem is that the dark arts today are more subtle than they were in the 1960s and 1970s.
Raja knew he had to educate the population on the dark arts at play. But, there was a dilemma.
By its very nature, covert action was deceptive and intended to be deniable. This not only made it more threatening, but also that much harder to expose.
Any attempt at educating the public will always make the incumbent appear power hungry and clamping down on opposition.
When the PAP implemented the POFMA with the aim of countering online falsehoods with correction directions ( a relatively moderate policy, all things considered), it was criticized as a sign of the PAP looking to control the political narrative online and target political detractors.
I suspect no matter what policy they sought to implement- it would get the same criticism. Such, is the challenge of countering the dark arts.
Engaging Opposition
In recounting a story of how Tay Kheng Soon, a vocal critic of the PAP wanted to save the Singapore Herald through a co-operative, Irene highlights Raja's monk-like patience:
Although this was patently impractical and unworkable, Raja was “willing to listen to our proposal in an open-minded way”, recalled Tay. He added: “Right through, I felt he was a very decent guy. My impression was that this was a man of integrity.”
This was one of Raja’s self-cultivated traits – his ability to engage, and sometimes disarm, critics when he put his mind to it. Rather than coerce them, he tried to court them and to co-opt them. This required a high tolerance not only for different views, but also for repeated disappointment.
This was also why LKY wanted Raja to represent Singapore for their international tours. Lee recalls Raja's strength - "Raja was bland; however you treat him, he still smiles, he is still dignified,” By bland, LKY meant unreadable (Old British English)
How many men in positions of power would take an attitude of condescension? How many of them would dismiss people with lesser power than them? After all, Raja was a man with better things to do.
The Opposition's Role
With the country facing existential challenges at every turn, he was more interested in sound practical solutions than gratuitous point-scoring, which solved nothing. “There is a persistent tendency for critics of Government policy to view its actions as though Singapore were an island cut off from the rest of the world,” he lamented. “Unless the average citizens and, in particular, the critics have a sound grasp of developments in our region as well as in the world outside, their understanding of our domestic policies would be inadequate and possibly completely off the mark.”
His advice to the critics:
When you criticise a government policy, you must also consider whether there are better alternatives. If there are, it is your responsibility to tell what these alternatives are. If there are not, then the people must be told that this is the least unsatisfactory of the many unsatisfactory courses open to a government.
Contra Arm-Chair Intellectuals
Singapore intellectuals needed to remember, he said, that the problems and priorities they were dealing with were different from what foreign intellectuals faced in their own countries. “Our intellectuals must be sensitive to the needs and aspirations of Singapore society, and more important, feel deeply involved in the fate of their society.”
Here's an example:
In one university forum in May 1969, some in the audience shouted their objections to the government’s plans to abolish the jury system.
Raja challenged them to volunteer at his constituency’s community centre to “test whether you are just talking for the sake of talking or really interested in the welfare of Singapore”
“If you volunteer to work three or four nights a week, then I will be prepared to listen to what you have to say with greater respect,” he said, adding that there are many urgent problems facing the people which would decide the fate of Singapore, and the jury system was not one of them.
Jury trials were abolished later that year.
Nassim Taleb once wrote, "Skin in the game –as a filter –is the central pillar for the organic functioning of systems, whether humans or natural. Unless consequential decisions are taken by people who pay for the consequences, the world would vulnerable to total systemic collapse."
The reason Lee, Raja and Goh suffered no fools because they had most skin in the game.
They were the ones who signed the papers to ratify Singapore's separation.
There was no place for them to run if they failed. It was make it or break it. The critics often had no skin in the game. They always had the option to emigrate and move out of Singapore.
Dealing with the Rise of China
This is Raja at the height of his prescience.
When China was still 'sleeping' and isolated from the world, he came to realize its better to wake the giant up gently. (Napoleon would have preferred China to keep sleeping)
Raja’s ability to make marked progress over the momentous nine days in China can be attributed partly to his strategic and gradualist approach. Rather than seeing cooperation with China as an end in itself or a zero-sum game, he approached it as a means to engage China in ways that he hoped would encourage its rise as a peaceful and responsible power with a vested interest in the stability of the region, while positioning Singapore as a useful economic partner for mutual benefit. He foresaw that, in the next two decades, the big geopolitical game in Asia would be not military, but economic
Raja spent 9 days in China trying to convince the government that Singapore was not a third China, and though anti-communist in its domesitc politics, it was friendly to all. He convinced them that Singapore could be a partner. He impressed upon the Chinese sufficiently that in a year's time, LKY could visit China. And then, subsequently, pave the way for the Deng visit to Singapore.
I would recommend a few folks in the US government pick up this book. There is a way to handle delicate issues without 'rancour, dispute or controversy'
Singapore, The Ivory Carving
How should one understand Singapore?
George Yeo famously called Singapore the bonsai. "As a small country, we should always have modest views of ourselves. Foreigners may compliment us for our achievements but sometimes these are just words of courtesy."
The idea is that Singapore is small, elegant and extremely unique. It cannot claim to offer policy lessons to other nations, it can only share what it has worked through for itself.
Rajaratnam would agree.
In his trip to China, he saw two great pieces of art.
One was a giant tapestry of the Great Wall of China so expansive that he had to stand back to take in the full view. The other was a tiny piece of ivory carved with Chinese characters so minute that he had to hold a magnifying glass.
This would be the metaphor he used to characterize Singapore vs. China.
“The tapestry is China,” he told his Chinese host, “the ivory carving is Singapore”. It took as much skill to weave the tapestry as to carve the ivory, he noted. To appreciate them, one must adopt the right perspective."
Raja in The Kampuchean Crisis
Rajaratnam's reputation as an astute statesman and diplomatic heavyweight grew during the Kampuchean Crisis. But, he had to face his greatest 'strategic, diplomatic and moral challenge of his life'
As Kampuchea fell to Vietnam in the Third Indochina War - it would have been much easier to settle for accommodation and appeasement. After all, everyone had more pressing problems. In fact, there were murmurs, the Thais who bordered Cambodia- was ready to accept this as a fait accompi. But, Raja saw that acquiescence would only create a 'dangerous precedent for the region.'
His logic:
If a foreign power could attack a country and oust its elected leaders on the pretext of saving the people from a bad government, no country would feel safe against a more powerful neighbour. It would be a harbinger of a more anarchic world in which rules of the jungle would again prevail.
On the other hand, if Vietnam and its Soviet backer could be taught that such aggression did not pay, then they – and perhaps others harbouring similar ideas – would be less likely to launch such adventures.
It was this conviction that drove Raja to deny the Vietnamese the fruits of their military aggression and to search for a political solution to the conflict. It inspired his diplomatic campaign that spanned Southeast Asia, non-aligned and Afro-Asian networks, Western capitals, international academic and media circuits, and the United Nations. It guided every decision that he made during this volatile period. Throughout the crisis, Raja would become the strategic dynamo behind ASEAN’s initiatives at the UN.
Rajaratnam had the conviction to actively deny the legitimization of the Vietnam-installed Heng Samrin regime.
Here, I think Raja rightfully felt the greatest insecurity amongst the ASEAN countries. Singapore being the smallest was going to be the easiest military target to foreign aggressors. Naturally, he had to resist consensus and try to influence the rest of ASEAN to resist Vietnam's aggression.
At the end of the day, I think a strong leader cannot be briefed into a decision.
He must be guided by his conviction and principles. I think it is this moral courage that LKY and his core team had that allowed them to gain credibility on the international stage.
For The Love of ASEAN
Back then, many thought ASEAN was a weak political lightweight. After all, their association with each other was loose and they didn’t have the centralized governance that EU, its European peer had. They had only sought to avoid confrontation and co-operate when possible.
For ASEAN to be taken seriously, it needed more countries to respect it.
Raja’s efforts to harness the collective strength of ASEAN and take the fight to the international stage brought out aspects of him that many, including his own staff, had not seen until then. They showed him to be a subtle and sophisticated statesman, a Machiavellian operator, a crusader-cum-propagandist, a champion haranguer and an occasional arm-twister. He would demonstrate a mastery of the image-management aspect of foreign policy that would distinguish his diplomacy more than ever before
To shore up ASEAN’s credentials as a foreign policy actor, Raja exploited Singapore’s relationships with the major non-communist powers to mobilise diplomatic resources for the grouping. Given the Sino-Soviet rivalry complicating the conflict, he recognised that the situation could not be resolved without involving major powers such as America, Western Europe and Japan.
He spoke to key Western leaders like John Holdridge, who was the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs to respond positively to ASEAN's voice.
(Note: how he didn't make it about Singapore nor himself. He was always focused on ASEAN. He knew a victory for ASEAN was a victory for Singapore)
The Pol Pot regime was genocidal and Raja knew that neither he nor the international community could support pushing them back in the government. The next best option was to get the remaining factions to form a coalition government for Democratic Kampuchea.
Raja was obsessed and 'spared no effort'. He would patiently negotiate with each party, working with them on how best to form this coalition as a means to put pressure on Vietnam to withdraw from Kampuchea.
He knew if he could get a working government in-exile, Vietnam would not gain legitimacy. The crazy thing is that Raja went above and exceedingly beyond for a country that was so far from him.
But, he knew the principles of territorial integrity had to be upheld and he knew that it was a principle that both Singapore couldn't champion alone. ASEAN needed to be at the forefront of it.
Yet, he claimed zero credit for all these efforts.
I read all the footnotes of Irene's exposition.
These were all first hand accounts from his staffers. He didn't make a big fuss of it. He just did what he thought was vital for regional stability.
The Idea Driving Raja
This was the key idea that gave Raja’s own life a larger meaning: the conviction that the community – be it the world community or the national community – outlasted individuals.
As he said later,
If you have lived for yourself, you die, the immediate members of your family of course remember you. But they also will die and then you are forgotten, you are finished. That’s the end. There’s nothing of you left. Whereas if you get involved in something beyond yourself, whether helping to fashion your society or a great artist or whatever it is, then there is immortality.
Raja was a true believer in Singapore and ASEAN.
Everything he did came from a well-spring of conviction that he was serving a higher mission. If not, why would he go through all that hassle to get the factions in Kampuchea to meet.
It did him no good, and could be seen as diverting his precious attention for more 'important things'
Raja's Founder Mode
He recalled the chaos and turmoil left in its wake, with many visions of Singapore competing for dominance. It could have gone the way of communal politics or communism; it could have turned corrupt and become a basket case.
“None of these unpleasant possibilities materialised,” he said, “simply because at that time, you had a group of leaders with sufficient vision, courage and determination to take on the other contenders, subdue them, and create the Singapore you know today.”
The Singapore that they lived in was not something handed down on a platter by benevolent providence, he reminded them. “It was something deliberately, painfully created, initially by a handful of men of great vision and personal integrity and courage – qualities which are rare at the best of times but which fortunately were in the ascendancy at the moment of Singapore’s creation.” Singapore’s history would have been different had this group of unique personalities not come together from Singapore and different parts of Malaya at the right moment, he added. It was a one-off event.
His key point, which came with a sombre warning, was this: the confluence of events that made present-day Singapore could never be repeated, but “ ‘uncreation’, unfortunately, is both possible and in most cases inevitable”.
He cautioned: “What we have achieved so far slowly and painfully can be dismantled easily and rapidly once a creative leadership is replaced by a leadership of first-rate rogues, second-rate demagogues and third-rate miracle mongers.”
For a nation to be born, the founders and our pioneer generation had to go through excruciating and intense trauma.
I think popular culture glamourizes founder mode.
But, if you study the founding group of leaders.
Singapore was their first obsession.
It wasn't about making themselves the attraction. It was about delivering results for the Singaporeans. They knew how fast it could all disappear.
I think about this a lot. There is too much attention put on the personality and not the work these days.
The reason you know Raja and GKS were genuinely committed to Singapore was because they were happy to live a quiet life and evaporate from the public limelight once it was time to move on.
Throughout their entire career, they had almost zero lifestyle creep.
I don't think people today get how locked in these guys were.
It’s also no surprise they felt no need to write their memoirs. They just wanted to get the job done. But, I think it's a huge pity that Singapore is poorer for it.
Ego is the Enemy
And Raja crushed the enemy.
Imagine being Lee's comrade. You earned your stripes as a Founding Father. Now, there is someone 20+ years younger than you, who will be hailed as the new Prime Minister.
What would you do?
Raja didn't let his ego get in the way. He supported LKY's decision and welcomed Goh Chok Tong wholeheartedly.
Here's the scene at Bras Basah Community Centre when Raja would welcome GCT publicly as the new guard
When Goh arrived at the community centre, Raja, who outranked him as deputy prime minister (DPM), did two extraordinary things.
First, he honoured the younger man by draping a flower garland around his neck, a task usually assigned to grassroots activists. It was also quite uncustomary in an Asian society where respect was shown to seniors rather than the other way round. At 69, Raja was the oldest minister in the Cabinet, the grand old man of Singapore politics with 25 years under his belt. Goh, in contrast, was just 43 and had only eight years in politics – a political tenderfoot in comparison.
Second, Raja gave his vote of confidence to the second-generation leadership by pronouncing to the world: “These are the best men and I am convinced that they can take over even tomorrow, if necessary.”
No ego.
Harry and Raja
LKY was Raja's friend till the end.
Sure, he was merciless when he needed to be. But, I'd like to think that he was also a great friend.
When Raja turned 80 in 1995, they threw a birthday celebration for him at Shangri-La Hotel. But, by now, his mental decline was too obvious.
A jovial Raja, dressed in a safari suit, made a rambling speech in which he expressed his hope to live to 100, and even up to 400. His guests laughed along with him, but were saddened by the evident decline in his mental faculties.
LKY decided to get up and surprise everyone with an impromptu speech of his friend for 43 years.
He had learnt a lot from Raja, Lee said.
Two of the most important were “courage in adversity” – how Raja gave him heart during the toughest political battles – and “magnanimity in victory” – his singular ability to transcend personal vendettas and bitterness.
On the latter, he related how he had almost fallen off his chair when Raja proposed Marshall, a bitter PAP opponent in the 1950s and 1960s, for the position of ambassador to France in 1978. Only Raja could have his way on this, Lee told the guests. Marshall proved an excellent ambassador for 15 years.
Raja was touched by the unexpected personal tribute from the man who had been a central figure in his life since they met in 1952. In an interview with this author immediately after the party, he said that Lee meant a lot to him. “That’s why we stayed together as friends for so long.”
When Raja passed, Irene recounted the emotional moment at his funeral.
Lee broke down when he delivered his eulogy. Choking with tears, he said: “With his passing, Singaporeans have lost a patriot, a man of deep conviction and principle. His contribution was not in bricks and mortar, or concrete and glass, but in ideas, sentiment and spirit.” His voice cracked with emotion as he noted: “Every day when the pledge is recited in our schools, our children are reminded to live up to our aspirations as Raja expressed them.”
The hope we should have is that more men like Raja will continue to step up to serve Singapore.
If you liked this note, check out my interview with the author, Irene Ng.
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