Harry Lee Grand Master of Asia:"India is not a real country"
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Lee Kuan Yew, Grand Master of Asia
|March 1, 2013On his desk in the Oval Office, President John F. Kennedy kept a small plaque that reminded him of the vicissitudes of life, even for the leader of the most powerful nation on earth. It read: “Oh God, my boat is so small and thy ocean so large.” In the turbulent sea in which statesmen, corporate leaders, investors, and the rest of us are trying to get our bearings in international affairs today, where can one find wise coordinates?
In thinking about the rise of China, the stumbling of the United States, the potential of India, or the claim that the twenty-first century will belong to Asia, whom should we look to for insight about this uncertain future? Among the seven billion inhabitants of planet Earth today, only one has created a modern Asian city-state whose six million citizens now enjoy higher levels of income than Americans. Only one individual has been called “mentor” by Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese leader who initiated China's march to the market, and its new leader Xi Jinping. Only one individual has been called upon for counsel about these developments by every U.S. president from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama. That individual is Lee Kuan Yew, the founding father of Singapore.
Over the past 18 months, we have been privileged to engage Lee Kuan Yew in a series of interviews and conversations about these issues. Having listened, reviewed what he has written and said in other settings, and then returned to follow up, we have been able to drill down in ways that capture many of his most penetrating strategic insights.
As they have embraced the magic of Adam Smith’s marketplace, Asian economies have grown at unprecedented rates. In a nation of 1.3 billion, China has raised more than 600 million people out of conditions of abject poverty and created a rapidly expanding middle class already larger than the entire population of the United States. On its current trajectory, for the first time in history, millions of individuals will experience a one-hundred-fold increase in their standard of living in a single lifetime. In Europe, that took one thousand years.
After three decades of double-digit growth, an economy that was smaller than Spain’s in 1980 now ranks second in the world and will become number one in the next decade. Do China’s leaders intend to displace the United States as the predominant power in Asia in the foreseeable future? Lee Kuan Yew answers: “Of course. Why not? Their reawakened sense of destiny is an overpowering force.” Will a China that has risen to become the world's largest economy follow the path chosen by Japan and Germany, accepting its place within the postwar order created by the United States? Lee says decidedly not. “It is China’s intention to become the greatest power in the world—and to be accepted as China, not as an honorary member of the west.”
Nevertheless, Western ideals of individuals’ basic rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness have become part of the mental geography of China’s “golden billion,” who are becoming increasingly part of the world outside China. Lee thinks this bodes well for the future of the Asia-Pacific: “peace and security in the region will turn on whether China emerges as a xenophobic, chauvinistic force, bitter and hostile to the West, or educated and involved in the ways of the world, more cosmopolitan, more internationalized and outward looking.”
Will India rival or even surpass China’s rise? The U.S. government recently asked its $50 billion intelligence community this question. Their recently released report, Global Trends 2030, forecasts that “the most rapid growth of the middle class will occur in Asia, with India somewhat ahead of China in the long term.” Lee Kuan Yew disagrees strongly. As he puts it, provocatively: “When Nehru was in charge, I thought India showed promise of becoming a thriving society and a great power,” but it has not “because of its stifling bureaucracy” and its “rigid caste system.” Being deliberately provocative, Lee says: “India is not a real country. Instead it is thirty-two separate nations that happen to be arrayed along the British rail line.”
In the competition between East and West, he expects Asia to overshadow the Euro-Atlantic powers. The principal reasons why have more to do with culture than with numbers. In his view, “Westerners have abandoned an ethical basis for society, believing that all problems are solvable by a good government. In the East, we start with self-reliance.”
No one will agree with all of Lee's views. No one, however, can fail to be challenged by his direct, pithy answers, or to be enlightened by his insights. For navigating in the buzzing, booming confusion of international affairs today, the strategic grand master is a source of wise coordinates.
Graham Allison is director of Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and Robert D. Blackwill is Henry A. Kissinger senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. They are coauthors of Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master’s Insights on China, the United States, and the World, published Feb. 1 by MIT Press).
http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/lee-kuan-yew-grand-master-asia-8169
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I think he means 35 separate nations. And he just is too stupid to understand how non-confucian countries work. Although, state government has more authority than federal government in India, it's just the way it operates.
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Originally posted by gobDestroyer:
Although, state government has more authority than federal government in India, it's just the way it operates.
He is just the ruler of a tiny city state after all. He has no experience whatsoever of ruling a big country with multiple huge cities, local governments and huge provinces.
He is just a frog in a well.
“Who is this ridiculous man who wastes my time? Running Singapore is like running Marseilles. I am running a whole country!”
-Francois Mitterrand, President of France“A little Emperor … of a tiny Middle Kingdom.”
“All those who met the great man from the little country were lectured on how Malaysia should be run.”
“Singapore is a tiny country. Don’t talk big.”
- Mahathir Mohamed, Prime Minister of MalaysiaPAP also got rid of the old Singapore city council. Lee Kuan Yew cannot tolerate other centres of power outside of his control. He needs total control.
City Council of Singapore
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On the racist views of the grand master of asia, peranakan baba Harry Kuan Yew:
"Three women were brought to the Singapore General Hospital, each in the same
condition and needing a blood transfusion. The first, a Southeast Asian was given the
transfusion but died a few hours later. The second, a South Asian was also given a
transfusion but died a few days later. The third, an East Asian, was given a
transfusion and survived. That is the X factor in development."
- Harry Lee Kuan Yew
Lee Kuan Yew: Race, Culture and Genes
http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/APCITY/UNPAN004070.pdf
Indians cannot be prime minister of Singapore says asian grand master peranakan baba Harry Lee Kuan Yew:
Were you a candidate for the top job?
I was considered as a member of the group. At that time, we did not know who would be the successor to Lee. We finally made the decision to pick Goh Chok Tong. He agreed on condition that I agreed to be his number two. So I was the second DPM; he was the first DPM. In 1988, Lee asked Goh to take over, but he was not ready. He said: two more years. So two years later, he took the job.
Lee did not agree with your decision to pick Goh.
No, he did not disagree. He said he would leave it to us. His own first choice was Tony Tan. Goh Chok Tong was his second choice.
I was his third choice because he said my English was not good enough.
He said Dhanabalan was not right because Singapore was not ready for an Indian prime minister. That upset the Indian community. There was quite a bit of adverse reaction to what he said. But he speaks his mind. He is the only one who can get away with it.
http://www.singapore-window.org/sw00/000310a4.htm
Although the sinkeh dominated Singapore's population, it was the babas who dominated public decision-making. In effect, a baba minority captured sinkeh Singapore, and that minority's attitudes were more those of Victorian England than China.
It was the babas who were the framers of Singapore's rules and institutions. Many of Singapore's most prominent Chinese have had baba backgrounds.Lee Kuan Yew, who became prime minister of Singapore aged just 35, is the most obvious example. He claims a Hakka heritage, although his upbringing was that of a baba: at home, he spoke English with his parents and baba Malay to his grandparents. "Mandarin was totally alien to me and unconnected with my life," Lee said of his childhood.
For Lee, Chineseness was an acquired skill and later a political necessity. He was not brought up as a Chinese with a focus on China, but as a baba who looked to England...
http://www.managementtoday.co.uk/news/648273/
"Mandarin was totally alien to me and unconnected with my life," Lee said of his childhood.
For Lee, Chineseness was an acquired skill and later a political necessity.
Singapore was not ready for an Indian prime minister. That upset the Indian community.
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Old picture of a newly married Chitty couple. The groom A Subramaniam Pathair is wearing a traditional South Indian wedding dress and the bride L Chinamah Naiken is wearing the Baba-Nyonya headdress and the Malay Baju Kebaya Panjang Labuh.
Images: K Nadarajan RajaSince taking over as prime minister of Malaysia in 2009, Datuk Seri Najib Razak has been promoting a particular vision of nation-building, encapsulated in the catchy slogan ‘1Malaysia’. In an interview in 2010, the prime minister explained that he aims to strengthen Malaysian society by encouraging a spirit of tolerance that would gradually lead to the acceptance and, finally, celebration of Malaysia’s significant cultural diversity. According to official publications, 1Malaysia seeks to strengthen the relationships and cooperation among the country’s multi-ethnic peoples. While critics say that the concept merely re-packages old Malaysian ‘moderate’ values into a new public-relations tool for the Barisan Nasional, the ruling coalition, many others believe that if properly implemented, the campaign could be a step in the right direction. While a clear roadmap of how this pluralistic society – where ethnic identities are endemic and political – can achieve such an ideal has yet to emerge, Malaysia’s experience is of interest to countries across South and Southeast Asia for its capacity to maintain a fragile ethnic balance and minimise ethnic conflict.
In Malaysia, it has been rare for hybrid identities to survive into the modern period. For economic expediency, the British divided the indigenous Malay, Indian and Chinese diasporas by occupation and therefore also by geographic location. In part, this was similar to the divide-and-conquer policies used by the British elsewhere in the colonies, including between the Hindu and Muslim communities in India. In Malaysia, the Indians were employed in the rubber estates and other plantations, the Chinese in the tin mines, while the Malays remained in agriculture and fishing. Inevitably, this resulted in a society deeply divided along ethnic lines.
Against this complicated background, the forefathers of Malayan independence confronted the daunting task of maintaining the fragile multi-ethnic balance within the framework of the Constitution of Malaya, as the country was called prior to independence (not including ‘East’ Malaysia, consisting of the Borneo states of Sabah and Sarawak). After the Japanese occupation from 1942 to 1945, Britain’s overriding concern was to unite Malaya under one federation. Ironically but unsurprisingly, British efforts at crafting a constitution for an independent Malaya were hampered by the ethnic cleavages they themselves had created. As a consequence, the build-up to independence saw the growth of Malay nationalism and the emergence of three ethnically exclusive political parties: the dominant United Malays National Organization (UMNO), the Malayan Chinese Association (MCA) and the Malayan Indian Congress (MIC).
Though Malaya gained its independence from the British in 1957, the Federation of Malaysia only came into existence in 1963 with the amalgamation of Sabah and Sarawak as well as Singapore (which left the federation shortly thereafter). From the start, the political stability of multi-ethnic Malaysia was premised on the numerical majority and political primacy of the ethnic Malays, who together with the indigenous populations of Sabah and Sarawak were entitled to special constitutionally enshrined rights as bumiputeras – sons of the soil. At the same time, the Constitution guaranteed protection of the genuine and legitimate interests of the non-Malay communities. Since then, both at the federal and the state levels, Malaysian politics has been organised around ethnicity and race.
Today, most Malaysians continue to define their identity primarily by race. Indeed, it is rare to come across hybrid Malaysian communities that practice multiculturalism and do not classify themselves as solely Malay, Chinese or Indian, particularly because the state’s distribution of resources is based on race. In other words, no one wants to be left behind with respect to access to government employment, scholarships or education, sectors that have race-based quotas.
A modern-day Chitty bride and her entourage, all wearing Malay dress. The bride is also wearing a Baba-Nyonya headdress. Hindu amalgam
Yet unknown to many Malaysians, for the last 600 years a small community (today about 700 people) known as the Melaka Chittys has been quietly practicing the values espoused by 1Malaysia, imbibing neighbouring ethnicities, languages and cultures to create a hybrid identity. Malaysia’s ethnic politics and cultural diversity have long drawn the attention of scholars from around the world, but even 54 years after independence this society continues to be viewed primarily through the prism of its most dominant and visible ethnic communities. Its numerous smaller hybrid communities, meanwhile, remain largely unknown. In fact, in official parlance they are often classified under the vague category of ‘Others’, though the Chittys themselves are lumped together with the ‘Indians’.The Melaka Chittys live tucked away in Gajah Berang, a small village on the shores of the famed Melaka Strait that was given to them by Dutch colonisers in 1781. Now it is located in the heart of the historic town of Melaka. Also known as the ‘straits-born Hindus’ or the ‘Indianperanakans’ (the Malay word for ‘local born’), the heterogeneous Chitty community was born of a long history of inter-marriage between women from the local Malay, Javanese, Chinese and Batak communities and Indian traders from Kalinga (presumably in modern-day Orissa and Andhra Pradesh, though most today claim to be of Tamil origin). These latter settled in Melaka during the heyday of the spice trade in the early 15th century, long before the arrival of the European colonisers. In fact, the Chittys trace their roots back to the days of the founder of the Melaka sultanate, King Parameswara (1344-1414).
While the Chittys went on to assimilate an extraordinary mix of cultural practices due to these mixed marriages, two distinct features continue to define them 600 years later. First is their steadfast adherence to Hinduism; second, a local Malay patois that is their lingua franca. Local sources at Gajah Berang suggest that while the Indian men remained loyal to their religion over hundreds of years, their local wives introduced a host of local practices, food and clothing into their households. The results have been fascinating. The Chittys unwaveringly observe Hindu festivals and auspicious days with much fanfare, but the offerings made to the gods – nasi lemak, kuih-muih, chili achar – are obviously influenced by Malay cuisine.
Chitty wedding attire is another striking example. The groom wears traditional South Indian outfits, while the bride holds her own in an ethnic Baba-Nyonya headdress and the Malay baju kebaya panjang labuh. In fact, the Baba-Nyonya are themselves a mixed community, emerging as a result of Chinese-Malay intermarriages. Locals in Gajah Berang suggest that the Baba-Nyonya and Chittys also bonded due to intermarriage; as a result, the Chittys borrowed the Baba-Nyonya bridal headdress for their own wedding ceremonies. The baju kebaya, meanwhile, is the traditional clothing for Malay women; the panjang (long) labuh (loose) refers to the types worn by Malay women in the neighbouring state of Johor.
It is interesting to note that despite their mixed heritage and dilution of their Indian ethnicity, the Chitty community is still generally seen as Indian in Malaysia. Yet in a country where an overwhelming majority of Indians speak Tamil, the Chittys stand out as having consistently used the Malay language for six centuries. In fact, most Chittys speak no Tamil whatsoever except for religious purposes, and even then it is sparingly used. At the same time, it is very common in a Chitty home today to find members belonging to an array of ethnic communities. Chitty cuisine is also indicative of all these multicultural influences, particularly of the Malays.
How has Chitty culture survived in spite of frequent intermarriage? The answer, simply, is that when a Chitty man marries a non-Chitty woman, the bride is required to ‘adapt’ to the Chitty way of life, embracing Hindu practices, the Malay language and a host of other Chitty cultural practices. At the same time, the woman is free to introduce additional cultural practices of her own into the house, especially when it comes to food and dress (and historically, the locally spoken Malay language). Some believe that such compromises have allowed the Chitty way of life to continue despite dwindling numbers and constant intermarriages.
Now, however, many older Chittys lament that members of the younger generation are quickly leaving behind their unique heritage and assimilating into the mainstream Tamil Indian culture of Malaysia. This may be particularly true for those who marry ethnic Indian women, adopt mainstream Tamil Indian cultural traits, send their children to Tamil-language schools and seek to recover what they see as a ‘lost’ language and culture. On a deeper level, this ‘return’ to their original ‘pure’ ethnic ancestry could be regarded as an attempt to belong to the mainstream ethnic communities by shedding the image of marginalisation. There are others, however, who believe that the unique Chitty identity must be maintained at all costs.
Old family photo from British colonial times. Note the Malay dresses worn by the women. Tattering history
The history of the Melaka Chitty has yet to be recorded by professional historians. This lack of scholarship rests primarily on the absence of written records within the Chitty community, as most such documents have been lost over the last six centuries. Most Chittys feel that over time they have also lost their sense of community and their connection to their history and culture; old traditions of oral history and storytelling are fast disappearing.A local group, the Chitty Cultural Association, has taken the initiative to locate, collect and preserve the few historical sources that remain. A small museum in Gajah Berang appears to be the community’s most complete and perhaps its only local repository of historical narrative. The association believes that some relevant primary documents still survive in archives in India, Indonesia and Portugal; the Chittys in Singapore, who migrated to the island soon after its separation from Malaysia, also possess some historical photographs. At the moment, however, the exact whereabouts of this potential documentation is unknown. If located, preserved and made accessible, such documents would be invaluable to the study of Melaka Chitty history – and could also offer today’s Malaysians an increased sense of their shared past and identity.
Consequently, today very few Malaysians are even aware of the existence of this unique community, and often confuse the Chittys with the better-known Indian trading caste, or chettiars. In the early Melaka period, the Chittys had wielded considerable influence in the court, and even held high offices like that of the syahbandar (harbour master) andbendahara (a position almost equal to the prime minister). However, they later earned a degree of unpopularity for indirectly siding with the Portuguese conquest of Melaka in 1511 in return for trade privileges, as part of a power contest with the Indian Muslims who also wielded considerable power under the Melaka sultanate. Over the years, however, the Chittys have become less visible due to decreasing numbers, intermarriages as well as migration to Singapore, where many have converted to Christianity.
While the Chittys themselves believe that their history provides valuable lessons for today’s 1Malaysia campaign, this diminishing community today faces a serious identity crisis. Even as many Chitty men marrying Indian women now identify less with their Chitty roots, some continue to hold on to their unique ways and practices, which have historically merged with original Tamil culture to create something exceptional and truly Malaysia. In recent years, as Malaysian Indians have asserted their own identities more strongly, the Chittys have remained generally untouched by this process. In fact, the Chitty Cultural Association recently made a request to the government, noting that due to the community’s unique heritage and historical roots in Melaka state, it should be granted the status of bumiputera like the other mixed communities, such as the descendants of the early Portuguese settlers in Melaka.
Among the Chittys, the notion of 1Malaysia exists and already has a history. Whether this history can be replicated once again in a country that has been practising ethnic politics since its independence remains to be seen. But given their minuscule numbers, rapidly diminishing identity and lack of visibility, it is highly unlikely that their unique heritage can be held up as an example of how ‘unity in diversity’ can be achieved through the creation of new communities through inter-marriage. Furthermore, as long as the historically created ethnic-based political parties continue to exist in present-day Malaysia, the three major races will continue to cling to their own identities, thus effectively negating any historical gain that may have been made by such hybrid communities.
~ Anindita Dasgupta is an associate professor of history at Taylor’s University in Kuala Lumpur.
~ K Nadarajan Raja is secretary of the Chitty Cultural Association and a former chairperson of the Chitty Museum in Melaka.
http://www.himalmag.com/component/content/article/5035-.html
Chitty
The Chitty are a distinctive group of Tamil people found mainly in Malacca and Singapore, who are also known as the Indian Peranakans.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitty
Harry Lee Kuan Yew is a hakka peranakan. There are also indian peranakans. Both are peranakans. I am curious as to the views of Harry Lee Kuan Yew towards the indian peranakans.
Hakka peranakans like Harry Lee Kuan Yew and Lee Hsien Loong can become prime ministers of Singapore. Indians cannot be prime minister of Singapore.
What about indian peranakans? Can they be prime ministers of Singapore?