Cabinet ministers had robust and candid discussions when coming up with novel laws such as the elected presidency and group representation constituency (GRC) schemes. READ MORE:
Through his new book, Creating Three Unique Singapore Laws: An Inside Story, former deputy prime minister S. Jayakumar gives readers a glimpse of the debate behind these laws that had not been made public previously.
Creating Three Unique Singapore Laws: An Inside Story is published by Straits Times Press and available for $38.90 (excluding GST) at major bookstores and online at
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Paging Mr Arbiter of Truth, please report at the Arbiter of Trtuh office, pronto🤣🤣🤣
Very Happy see sir and Thank you❤
Singapore Decision Intelligence explains policy tradeoffs in plain English.
HOW TO SURVIVE UNDER PAP GOV🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Can wealth be carried forward?😅
The Opposition won GRCs . This is not to the credit of PAP. Let's not be confused here. It's made winning that much more difficult and still WP won one GRC and then another. I don't like the way he put it as if the GRC helped WP to win. Totally disappointed by the old man
Will he outlive LKY age?
I wonder whether these somewhat discriminatory or biased policies Singapore inherited when it gained independence (disfavoring ethnic Chinese?), was a consequence of the national geographic lines set in place with the development of the natural sciences circa Charles Darwin's seminal work. Backed up of course with Europe' superior weapons technologies by the 1700s, that it used to justify the reorganization of the global order, based on ideas of point of origin of genetic groups and cultures.
With the idea that self governing countries would serve as proprietary production bases, developing unique goods and services, that continents and peoples could fairly trade in. As being the long term overarching plan that would define the peaceful and prosperous future of the planet. A vision that left South East Asian Chinese, out of luck in terms of gaining acceptance as governing or ruling powers in the region (except for Singapore) aside from the still highly influential role in trade and finance of Chinese communities Worldwide. Especially if such "dispersed Chinese" networks did not adequately assimilate with local populations, via intermarriage as well as adoption of indigenous (so-called Indo-European) customs.
So far so good, if one were an optimist or idealist, or even had no problem with being called naive. But 200 years after the first steam ships, railways, and then electrification of cities, where is a country like Singapore, in the face of Hong Kong now being run by China, and Taiwan not even being a recognized nation? First Europe, and now America indubitably still has a part to play in all of this, together with Western allies from India, to Japan, to Indonesia, to Thailand, to Australia. All to varying degrees having a hand in upholding (abiding and complying), to these global mandates and policies, when it suits local interests. While concealing them to the general public, mainy when they are subverted or diverted.
This brings us to former Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore S.Jayakumar, who strikes me (at the risk of being impersonal) as being the perfect specimen of the ideal (19th and 20th century) New World Order policeman for this scientific age. That for better or worse, obviously called for a dismantling of cultural and ethnic baggage, that in his case, was the deconstructing of his South Indian, Tamil roots. That may have been the very criteria that qualified him for the role. Even though this raises 2 questions.
First is that even possible? I.e. can an individual or even entire communities actually be completely transplanted from their ethnic base (replete with millennia worth of genetic memory)? While the second question is, is that even advisable? To answer the first question, context is vital. And so we look to the Islamization of the indian subcontinent with the rise of the Mughal Empire in the 1700s, that arguably served as the primer that permitted Great Britain to colonize India as a Christian Empire by the 1800s.
A sequence of events that can be framed as consolidating forces represented by monotheistic cultures, overwhelming polytheistic powers. As the basis of this more recent wave that powered the migration of Tamils and other South Indians into SouthEast Asia. From this vantage point, how does an English educated, Singaporean statesman of South Indian Extraction stack up, in terms of preferences, priorities and principles in this still changing Global World Order? More so through the Cold war eras and the threat from the Communist and Socialist Blocs.
That may actually speak of an older schism between East and West, also reflected with the division between Eastern Orthodox Christianity and Roman Catabolism (and its offshoots). Revealing natural power polarities that are still facing ongoing reconfiguration with the rise of the Global South, that India (as well as Indonesia) is irrefutably a part of. In other words, even if you could reform a person's cultural values and principles, scientific thought may suggest that spatially and temporally determined biology, still has impact on neurology at the end of the day
While my own answer to the second question of whether cultural transplantation is even sensible. Is that all cultures, religions, nations throughout history, are products of a world in motion that does not stop. So that the only question is the level of success found in such old arrangements or new deals (measured via level of vitality and viability retained, against toxicity and dysfunction present). That in the face of cultural gridlock if not social paralysis (some define as stemming from the managed decline of Europe, juxtaposed with the rise of China) currently being faced worldwide, this does create some anxiety to say the least.
More so if the hypothetical overarching masterplan for a New World Order mentioned earlier, is still in place, as it has always been (now past 2 world wars, and through many more crisis since then). If indeed the visionary and enlightened, or else deluded and demented plan to polarize all the world into distinct frequency ranges and spectral fields, defined by genetic makeup of homogenous populations, is still in tact. So that nations and cultures can generate laser-like precision in generating thoughts, feelings and actions within society. Analogous to a high-resolution, high fidelity transmitter and projector, rendering a perfect 3D reality into being (coded and processed in multidimensional data and energy fields) that can then result in greater truth, beauty and wisdom.
1. GRC is supposed to comprise three members (including one member from minority race). With the subsequent enlargement of GRC, effectively lesser candidates from minority race could be elected by this mechanism.
2. Sufficient notice should be given before introducing the race dimension for the elected presidency. That abrupt change is deemed to used to shut Dr Tan Cheng Bock out. This is very damaging.