Global IssuesSINGAPORE: As Country Mourns, Political Differences Set Aside
'Estimated waiting time: 3 hours', read a handwritten sign near the tail of the snaking queue outside the Istana, which is usually used to receive state guests. Yet thousands of Singaporeans waited patiently despite the sun beating down mercilessly.
After all, this is not the usual queue for the launch of the latest mobile phone. These Singaporeans were waiting for their turn to pay their last respects to the wife of this city-state’s founding father.
Aged 89, Kwa Geok Choo, better known in public as Mrs Lee Kuan Yew, passed away on Oct 2 after battling a series of strokes that had left her bedridden since June 2008.
The wake was held at Sri Temasek, official Prime Minister’s residence at the Istana ('palace' in Malay, where the president receives state guests, and the working office of the Prime Minister).
While Kwa guarded her privacy keenly when she was alive, the state-owned media, and ordinary Singaporeans in their blogs and Facebook pages, have spared no expense in offering tributes to the matriarch of Singapore's most powerful family and wife of Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, who was Singapore’s first prime minister from 1959 to 1990.
In 1949, Kwa became the first Asian woman to graduate with first-class honours at Cambridge University. An accomplished lawyer, she co-founded Lee & Lee, one of Singapore’s biggest law firms, together with her husband, and her brother-in-law Lee Kim Yew in 1955.
Kwa’s eldest son, Lee Hsien Loong, is Singapore's current prime minister; daughter Lee Wei Ling is director of the National Neuroscience Institute; and youngest son Lee Hsien Yang was head of the country's largest company, Singapore Telecommunications, for 12 years before moving to lead beverages and property giant Fraser & Neave.
Kwa is also mother-in-law to Prime Minister Lee’s wife, Ho Ching, the chief executive officer of state-owned investment company Temasek Holdings, who was ranked fifth in the 2009 list of world’s most powerful women by ‘Forbes’ magazine.
But while tens of thousands have paid tribute to the woman the elder Lee calls a 'great source of strength and comfort' in his memoirs, a number of disgruntled Singaporeans, hidden behind monikers, has been leaving what some have called 'puerile and debased' comments on online websites.
'The woman who has been controlling Singapore in the background is over,' said one user, 'Hooray', writing in the comments section of a socio-political website. 'Lets wait for the dictator’s turn. Its not far off now. Finally there is hope for dawn for Singapore.'
'She might have even instigated him to do some of the misdeeds like controlling the press/media, judicary, trade unions and locking up his political opponents under the ISA (Internal Security Act),' added another, 'Deen'. 'In other words she is one half of the dictator.'
But as the number of unsavoury comments — many unfit for print — grows, so too does support for the family in mourning as many call for compassion regardless of political views.
In Singaporean culture, strong emphasis is placed on respect for elders, ancestors and the deceased. And while some grudge Lee Kuan Yew for his ruthless treatment of political opponents, and an increasing number point the finger at Lee Hsien Loong for failing to address rising social problems within the tiny but affluent South-east Asian nation, 'gloating' over Kwa’s death or making it a political matter is regarded by many as blatant crossing of the line of decency.
'Some of your comments are so puerile and debased that they mock the very change (towards democracy and free speech) you are campaigning for,' commented Aaron Wong on the Internet. 'If you want to vote the PAP (Singapore’s ruling People’s Action Party) out, go ahead, and good luck. But to disgrace the dead while doing it? That’s just a disgrace to yourself.'
'People should be sensitive at times like this. . . .Understand that Mrs Lee has a family as well and no matter how much political involvement her family has been involved in, ultimately, they are still a family no different from yours or mine,' wrote 'Junior'.
Ironically, it was Prime Minister Lee himself who received flak two years ago when opposition leader Kenneth Jeyaretnam’s father passed away on Sep. 30, 2008, for sending a condolence letter that some found more snide than sympathetic.
Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam, a lawyer, was the first opposition party candidate to be elected member of parliament in Singapore, 16 years after the country gained independence. But he was brought down by a series of allegedly politically-motivated charges and fines that saw him disbarred, bankrupted, and prevented from taking part in future elections.
'He used to engage in heated debates in the House. Perhaps it was because he and the PAP never saw eye to eye on any major political issue and he sought by all means to demolish the PAP and our system of government,' Lee had written in his 2008 letter. 'Unfortunately, this helped neither to build up a constructive opposition nor our Parliamentary tradition.'
In contrast, the younger Jeyaretnam has earned praise for his 'humanity, compassion and common sense' in putting aside political differences when he wrote to Prime Minister Lee in the wake of his mother’s death.
'Although I never had the opportunity of meeting your mother, she was clearly an immense pillar of support to you, her husband and her extended family over the years,' said Kenneth Jeyaretnam in a letter to the prime minister. 'My thoughts are with your family at this most difficult time of loss.'
© Inter Press Service (2010) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service