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A man for whom there was no taboo


Vladimir Lukashev
Expert on China and South-East Asia
“How to fight corruption?
Start by planting three of your friends. You know exactly why, and they know why "
Lee Kwan Yu
The scale of the personality of Lee Kwan Yu does not allow him to fully appreciate what he has done during his life. I do not pretend to carry out not only an exhaustive, but even an approximate analysis of its activities. I can only recall some episodes of Lee’s struggle for his country.
Lee Kwang Yew was elected Prime Minister of Singapore in 1959. The inheritance he received from Britain was terrible. In fact, the city-state at that time was a port dump. Cows were grazing in the streets of the town. Crime was off the charts - leaving the house after sunset was dangerous. The streets were controlled by "triad" bandits. All issues in the local administration were resolved through the pocket: how much you put on your paw, this will be the solution. Singapore was in a hostile environment. Malaysia constantly threatened war, and relations with Indonesia were also far from ideal.
There was another threat: local liberals championing European values. They argued that the Chinese, who constituted the majority of the population of Singapore, were a backward people with a slave mentality, and that many years of the lack of rights and freedoms among the people in the Chinese Empire and semi-colonial dependence during the opium wars had created a slave mentality among the representatives of the Chinese people. The Chinese, the liberals said, were accustomed to giving bribes. Corruption is a national trait of the Chinese people. They recommended introducing European values: humanizing punishment, legalizing drugs, negotiating with terrorists and making concessions.
Local liberals argued that the cruelty of punishment does not affect the number of crimes, and the death penalty does not reduce the number of terrorist attacks.
And in this completely hopeless situation, Lee made a decision, which no one took seriously. As it turned out, in vain. He offered to stop stealing and begin to imprison anyone who dared to break the law, even if he was a god. And in order to implement this decision, he created a special body and subordinated it to himself. As a result, very many officials and even friends and relatives of Li Kwang Yu went to jail.
When Islamic terrorists blew up several embassies in the city, Lee ordered them to be found and hung in accordance with the laws of Singapore. And those who knew, but did not report, went to jail for many, many years. So Lee Kwan Yew destroyed terrorism in Singapore. The fanatics were hanged, and the rest began to report on the upcoming terrorist attacks long before their implementation.
As for big business, Lee went in two ways: first, he gave great privileges and preferences to international corporations, and secondly, he created state-owned companies, of which he raised national champions.
In addition, Lee Kwang Yew has created an accessible and efficient education system and raised the standard of living in Singapore to a qualitatively new level. And for drug addiction and petty hooliganism in the city they were now punished with beating with sticks. Today Singapore is a fairytale city. Clean, comfortable for life and completely safe. No bandits, no terrorists. There is practically no unemployment. The level of education of the population is high. The economy is based on innovative enterprises. International corporations are investing enormous amounts of money in Singapore. The city has long become a world financial center.
I remembered that exactly 25 years ago, Russian young reformers promised to turn Russia into one big Singapore.