A friend looks at Lee Kuan Yew’s legacy

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(From right) Mr & Mrs Ong Teng Cheong (Deputy PM, later President of Singapore), Mr & Mrs Lee Kuan Yew (then Prime Minister of Singapore), the late Sultan Iskandar of Johor, then Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia, current Singapore prime minister Lee Hsien Loong (partly hidden) and Ang Lai Soon.

I FIRST met Mr Lee Kuan Yew when I was a youngster at our parents’  house in Kuching.

Singapore was then a much troubled city , with no natural resources, moving from colonial rule to a rather uncertain future.

Today I find Singapore an exceedingly green, clean, vibrant, well governed ,organised and law abiding nation state, a unique oasis of peace, fairness,   equality, stability , efficiency and prosperity free of the tensions so prevalent in the turbulent world today.

This oasis is the creation of the Founder of Modern Singapore Lee Kuan Yew, an eminent statesman , a    person of exceptional   intellect and wisdom.

This is his legacy , a fitting legacy to a great man and will go down in history as a highly significant achievement.

He influenced the world and inspired nations and peoples everywhere.

China’s modern progress owed much to Lee Kuan Yew.

The much troubled world has much to learn from Singapore. The small Third World country is now a successful model First World country.

A country which looks for perfection , even the plants and flowers at their airport which are so perfect that they look like artificial ones!

A man of humility, I had mentioned to the great man a few times that he would make a great president of the republic.

He must have declined the honour many times.

Throughout his life his love was for his people and his country Singapore. And not forgetting that he was a very caring husband and father in private life.

It is appropriate, I feel, that Singapore should consider naming something substantial in the republic, the city or its international airport after the founder of modern Singapore for making Singapore what it is today and for inspiring so many countries and peoples throughout the last and this century.