The Passing of Mr Lee Kuan Yew

Mr Lee Kuan Yew passed away on Monday morning, 23 March 2015. The last three days have been internally confusing. I wanted to express my gratitude towards this great man, but I did not know how. Today I decided that I should at least share articles that formulate in words what I feel about him.

Mr Lee Kuan Yew's lawyer, Davinder Singh, remembers the man

Here is a quotation from the article that I personally feel important.

"My father immediately stood up when it was announced that Mr Lee had arrived, even though he must have known that, standing so far away in the midst of hundreds of parents and cadets, Mr Lee would not have been able to see him. After he stood up, others from all races followed. It was then that I truly realised what this Chinese man meant to my Punjabi father who was not even born in Singapore."
"It were these spontaneous reactions from migrants, who had seen what life was like in their home countries and now felt protected by a man they completed trusted, that made me pause and think."

The text in italics expresses my personal feeling about Lee Kuan Yew and Singapore.

Critics call Singapore an autocracy. But I never felt more free than when I lived there.

Personally important quotation:

But in the coverage that followed the death of Singapore’s founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew on Monday, Western media has painted a very different picture. They describe a crushing autocrat that chained his people and stripped them of basic freedoms. My experience was quite the contrary. Outside of this tiny island utopia, I never felt more free.

Again, the text in italics formulates my feeling.

Beyond foreign leaders, international brands join in to pay tribute to LKY

Closer to my present occupation, this article was a surprise find. Perhaps I underestimated Singapore's gravity as an economic destination.

On Wednesday evening I went to the tribute site at Jurong East, just behind JCube. I have two anecdotes that I feel worth sharing.

• I saw Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam and Ms Halimah Yacob there. To my surprise, they said "Thank you for coming." I thought it was I who should be thankful to have a tribute site arranged near where I live.
• I saw a young father, around my age, with his young daughter, probably younger than Primary 1 age. He softly said to his daughter, "Let's give respect and then we go home." It brought so many thoughts, memory, and feelings to me. I start to understand that we all try to introduce some understanding about the past to the next generation, "to link the far past with the far future."

Rest in peace, Mr Lee Kuan Yew. Thank you for enabling Singapore to be what it is today.