What Does He Really Mean?

I always enjoy what Lee Kuan Yew has to say. All his talks are very well-thought of, intelligent, practical, and relevant. University professors may be intelligent, however most of the thoughts are not practical or relevant to the real-world. The fact he is a politician really makes him unique: how many politicians, past or present, who are comparable? I am not ass'ing up Lee, but just to be fair

Recently Lee was interviewed by Tom Plate and Jeffrey Cole and his talk has generated some stirs in Malaysia.

Lee: When [Malaysia] kicked us out [in 1965], the expectation was that we would fail and we will go back on their terms, not on the terms we agreed with them under the British. Our problems are not just between states, this is a problem between races and religions and civilizations. We are a standing indictment of all the things that they can be doing differently. They have got all the resources. If they would just educate the Chinese and Indians, use them and treat them as their citizens, they can equal us and even do better than us and we would be happy to rejoin them.

Most people don't care to read the sentence properly: Lee said 'If Malaysia would just educate the Chinese and Indians, use them and treat them as citizens' and that is the key to understand the whole statement.

If A, then B

If A is not true, it doesn't matter what B is.

Now is A true? So what are all the hu-ha's??

Other interesting thoughts:

Here is what he has to say on setting up of public policy school in Singapore:

Lee: I think that's an investment worth making because [students from the region] will go back and they will tell their media chaps and their leaders and say, look this country works because it's working like this: first, it's honest; second, it's rational; third, it makes decisions and follows through on those decisions. The decisions are made after very careful consideration of all options and consequences.

Immediate that points out what most countries in the world are lacking big time. Instead, these countries delude themselves by buying what advanced countries have. No, that is called masturbation, not advancement.

Full transcript of the interview here