project singapore

LKY's in hospital. The news was released on FB by the Prime Minister's Office at 1847hrs today. There are (at the moment - 2151hrs) 454 'likes' -- whatever that means. (Honestly. How weird, or how spiteful, to "like" an announcement that someone is seriously ill...)
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"Mr Lee Kuan Yew was admitted to Singapore General Hospital yesterday after experiencing a suspected Transient Ischaemic Attack (TIA) associated with a prolonged episode of atrial fibrillation (i.e. irregular heartbeat). He has recovered but will remain warded for a few days for the doctors to adjust his medications and for observation.
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[A Transient Ischaemic Attack (TIA) is when blood flow to a part of the brain stops for a brief period of time. A person will have stroke-like symptoms which clear in less than 24 hours.]"
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What a coincidence... or maybe not so much a coincidence, given the way our media works here... But i was just thinking about LKY this morning, and writing a blog-post about him. i was meaning to come back tonight and write it up some more. But now i think i'll leave it as it was earlier today. God be with him.
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An extraordinary interview with Lee Kuan Yew on urban design in today's Straits Times, conducted by Liu Thai Ker last August, and due to be published in the e-version of Urban Solutions at the end of the month. i can't help but wonder about the timing -- right smack in the midst of the White Paper furore, and on the day of the planned protest event at Hong Lim Park...
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Still. No matter the politics, if i had to name the one person i find the most fascinating and whose mind i'd love to get into and understand, it would have to be LKY. Much as it may be seen as uncool and pro-Establishment to say so, i'm convinced that the label, 'Father of Modern Singapore', really does suit him to a T, no matter what we may say about how there were many other players in the story, he had a wonderful team working with him, yada yada. And i still think that the Singapore we live in now is truly and inescapably a miracle. It really did take an extraordinary conjunction of people, events both global and local, and just plain timing, to get us to where we are today. What were the odds, really, that someone like LKY, with his intellect, vision, work ethic, charisma, and sheer raw audacity, would have emerged just at the time when the British were losing their grip on their Empire, when natives all over the world were losing their faith in their colonial masters and agitating for independence; and that he would have found at the ready a team of brilliant men (and women... his wife was by all accounts an extraordinary woman...) who would share his vision and work together with him on Project Singapore...
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Yes, a heavy price was paid in the realisation of that vision. And to this day, i wonder if it was really a necessary price. My heart goes out to the old uncles and aunties who lived through those times and who saw their hopes and dreams for a future destroyed by the man they had put their faith in, who had promised to be on their side. When i'm working at the Chinese section on level 9 of the Bras Basah National Library, and i see all these old men shuffling among the shelves, taking down books and magazines nobody else reads anymore, i just feel terribly, terribly sad. And i don't know what to think. And i often wonder what LKY himself feels about all that now, years down the road and long after anything can be done to set things right in any way that truly matters.
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But even that doesn't detract from the magnitude of his achievement, or from the respect, admiration, and gratitude i feel towards him (mixed with a whole bunch of other feelings, of course....). He's been very quiet lately, and he just missed the Chinese New Year dinner at his Tanjong Pagar constituency this week. When he passes on, i will pay my respects at his wake, and if the public is allowed to, his funeral. i've been saying this to my students for many years. i haven't changed my mind.


[Edit: 18 Feb 2013
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Ok, he's out of hospital. But he's 90 this year already... What a life he has had.]
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