Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore Story (2023)

historytoday.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 203 posts

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore Story (2023)

#11

Post by epolanski »

seanlinmt wrote: post #7

Singapore is a strange outlier among successful democratic countries. There's always stories that are untold. For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lim_Chin_Siong?wprov=sfla1 Operation Spectrum untracing the conspiracy' https://share.google/2mRpZk3RGaYUKCRXS

It's not really a proper democracy, the same party has ruled since the founding of the country.

There are severe restrictions on speech, assembly, press and important legal and political barriers for the opposition parties. It is very easy to land in front of a tribunal for defamation or similar for expressing dissent or accusing the government of corruption.

The truth is that Singapore has been lucky that Lee Kuan Yew and most of his successors have been good bureaucrats and politicians. That makes the ruling party also somewhat popular.

Lee Kuan Yew has been an astonishing nation builder and an extremely brilliant man with a huge sensibility for politics and understanding the world.

But it's still a system that's waiting for the wrong people to be put in charge and test the limits of their "democracy".

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore Story (2023)

#12

Post by roenxi »

zorked wrote: post #9
seanlinmt wrote: post #7

Singapore is a strange outlier among successful democratic countries. There's always stories that are untold. For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lim_Chin_Siong?wprov=sfla1 Operation Spectrum untracing the conspiracy' https://share.google/2mRpZk3RGaYUKCRXS

"He was one of the founders of the governing People's Action Party (PAP), which has governed the country continuously since independence" Very democratic country.

I have no idea and probably not, but it is a bit more complex than that. There isn't any particular rule saying that the only functional democratic model is multi-party democracy. One could imagine a successful democratic model with one party allowing diverse internal factions, for example. It is really hard to get a read on China, but their success raises some interesting questions of how exactly their internal party decision making is set up.

That being said, I would assume that a one party state isn't very democratic. It'd be an unstable democracy.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore Story (2023)

#13

Post by watwut »

JadeNB wrote: post #6
ggm wrote: post #3

Weaponised the court system to repress union backed opposition, despite having been engaged with the union movement in his early years (as I understand it) It is a kind of workers paradise. If you're well behaved and don't shout you get a good education, health system and housing. 95% owner occupied is pretty damn good. Huge dependence on south Malaysia migrant workers shuttling over the bridge every day, so it's "ho…

> Many people would feel safer in Lee Kwan Yew's Singapore than in the USA. Better housing and health policy, less graffiti and street violence. Of all the things wrong with the USA, when picking just two, it seems strange for one of them to be graffiti. I have lived in the USA all my life, in some more and some less urban areas, and even from the people most afraid of cities I have never heard graffiti mentioned as…

You was never attacked by a wild graffiti jumping out of the wall to beat you up? weird /s

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore Story (2023)

#14

Post by watwut »

ggm wrote: post #8
JadeNB wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many people would feel safer in Lee Kwan Yew's Singapore than in the USA. Better housing and health policy, less graffiti and street violence. Of all the things wrong with the USA, when picking just two, it seems strange for one of them to be graffiti. I have lived in the USA all my life, in some more and some less urban areas, and even from the people most afraid of cities I have never heard graffiti mentioned as…

Eh, you're right. It's just a bugbear for me, tagging and social cohesion decline feels like a parallel, but it may be my projection. I'm in Crete right now and it's decaying beauty, no money for streetscape fixes, bad pavements and unending dissatisfaction written all over the marble walls. I may be displaying my age. Feeling safe equates to being on the street, and unafraid. The tagging isn't the problem the social…

In some places, graffiti means "gang activity" as local gangs tag their turf. If you are from such place, then it kinda makes sense to be afraid of graffity.

But where I am from, there are two kinds of graffity:

- Cool elaborate pictures, usually in "legal zones" walls city dedicated to it. They take time to create, hence preference for legal place and are made by artists.

- Less cool stuff created by skinny "edgy" teenagers, who are jerks to the owners, but also completely harmless.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore Story (2023)

#15

Post by forthworld »

mc32 wrote: post #4
ggm wrote: post #3

Weaponised the court system to repress union backed opposition, despite having been engaged with the union movement in his early years (as I understand it) It is a kind of workers paradise. If you're well behaved and don't shout you get a good education, health system and housing. 95% owner occupied is pretty damn good. Huge dependence on south Malaysia migrant workers shuttling over the bridge every day, so it's "ho…

Singapore, like other ex-Colonies in SEAsia prove that having been a colony is not an excuse for not doing well. HK, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea were heavily colonized yet after emerging as independent states were able to overcome difficulties, educate their people, take what they learned from their colonizers and have become leading economies of the world. Governance is more important than one’s history when it c…

avg western history expert ,colonialism isn't an excuse bro, look at singapore and south Korea. Just govern better. skill issue. HK and singapore weren't traditional colonies, they were literally just offshore vaults the british built to process the wealth they looted from the rest of asia. they inherited global trade infrastructure on day one. and taiwan and korea? japan actually built factories and forced mass literacy / primary education

meanwhile the british spent 200 years intentionally destroying pre-existing industries just to kill competition, and then dipped leaving 90% of the population illiterate , zero human capital. also US allowed Taiwan and South Korea access to market , and allow protect their own domestic markets.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore Story (2023)

#16

Post by mytailorisrich »

mc32 wrote: post #4
ggm wrote: post #3

Weaponised the court system to repress union backed opposition, despite having been engaged with the union movement in his early years (as I understand it) It is a kind of workers paradise. If you're well behaved and don't shout you get a good education, health system and housing. 95% owner occupied is pretty damn good. Huge dependence on south Malaysia migrant workers shuttling over the bridge every day, so it's "ho…

Singapore, like other ex-Colonies in SEAsia prove that having been a colony is not an excuse for not doing well. HK, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea were heavily colonized yet after emerging as independent states were able to overcome difficulties, educate their people, take what they learned from their colonizers and have become leading economies of the world. Governance is more important than one’s history when it c…

The issue has never been previous status as colony but society and culture (East Asian countries and Sinpgapore are all part of the sinosphere culturally).

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore Story (2023)

#17

Post by ggm »

watwut wrote: post #14
ggm wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, you're right. It's just a bugbear for me, tagging and social cohesion decline feels like a parallel, but it may be my projection. I'm in Crete right now and it's decaying beauty, no money for streetscape fixes, bad pavements and unending dissatisfaction written all over the marble walls. I may be displaying my age. Feeling safe equates to being on the street, and unafraid. The tagging isn't the problem the social…

In some places, graffiti means "gang activity" as local gangs tag their turf. If you are from such place, then it kinda makes sense to be afraid of graffity. But where I am from, there are two kinds of graffity: - Cool elaborate pictures, usually in "legal zones" walls city dedicated to it. They take time to create, hence preference for legal place and are made by artists. - Less cool stuff created by skinny "edgy" t…

Completely harmless needs contextualising. In gross sense, no: damage to property is not harmless, it has consequences, costs. In personal safety terms sure tagging isn't mugging.

If you're down Proudhon's "all property is theft" then graffiti is a kind of tragedy of the commons. Go ahead. Graffiti the Uffitzi, Nelson's column, the Plaka. Stick it to the man!

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore Story (2023)

#18

Post by teleforce »

>Stamford Raffles stands – according to the plaque attached to the plinth – on the ‘historic site’ where he first landed as an agent of the British East India Company on 28 January 1819 and, thereafter, ‘with genius and perception changed the destiny of Singapore from an obscure fishing village to a great seaport and modern metropolis’.

This is one of the greatest lies ever told, that Singapore was an obscure fishing village when the colonial powers came to "modernise" Singapore.

Read the history books, Singapore is bang in the middle of ancient super powers of India and China. It's has been and always has been for most of its history a successful entreport for several thousand years before the colonials first visited, and the later Chinese immigrants settled in Singapore.

The founder of Malacca, where the Strait of Malacca name originated from, was himself a prince from Singapore and at the time better known as Temasek.

The people who originally settled in the Malay Archipelago several thousands years ago were successful maritime explorers. Their descendents discovered and migrated to wider Austronesia including Madagascar to the west, and New Zealand and Hawaii to the east several thousand years before the colonial powers "re-discover" these places. They also who speak their ancestors derivatives languages until now, that at one time US government tried to ban.

Post reply on HN