21 - 27 December 2000
Issue No.513
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 21 - 27 December 2000 Issue No.513 |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
Plain Talk
By Mursi Saad El-Din
This week I am going to deviate from my normal policy of not meddling with politics and concentrating on culture. The reason for this is a book which has just been published, the memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew with the intriguing title From Third World to First: The Singapore Story, 1965-2000. By mere chance I was witness to Singapore's miraculous change from a poor British trading post to a thriving Asian metropolis, where per capita income has grown dramatically since the 1950s.
The book brought back memories of my first meeting with Lee Kuan Yew some time in 1963 in Kuala Lumpur. Singapore merged with Malaysia in September of that year, and the prime minister of Singapore had residence in Kuala Lumpur which, if I remember rightly, was called the White House. He invited me to lunch with some of his close colleagues, Rahim Ishaq, S R Nathan, and Devan Nair who was at that time secretary-general of the trade union. All three later became presidents of Singapore.
This was the beginning of a relationship -- I would not really call it friendship -- which continued until 1976. At that time I was a member of the Egyptian delegation that accompanied Mrs Jihan Sadat on her official tour of the Far East. Our ambassador to Singapore assured me that Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew had invited only the head of the delegation, but upon seeing my name in the list, changed his mind and invited the whole delegation instead. The prime minister and Mrs Sadat were receiving the guests invited to the dinner he gave in her honour, and when my turn came he greeted me like an old friend: I was pleasantly surprised, since we had not met for a decade, but Mrs Sadat was positively astonished.
I had occasion to meet with Lee Kuan Yew two more times. Once during elections I accompanied him on his campaign, making the rounds of the countryside, sitting in low-brow cafés and sharing glasses of beer -- his favourite drink. I listened to his speeches, delivered either in perfect English (he was a graduate of British and American universities) or in Chinese (with simultaneous translation). It was at this time, too, that we discovered we were born on the same day, 26 September.
The reasons for my visit to Singapore was to select a political party to join the Afro-Asian Solidarity Movement. It was clear to me that Mr Lee Kuan Yew's party was a better choice than the communist party, presided over by Dr Lee Sie Choh who, angered by my decision, published an article in his party's newspaper accusing me of being an American agent. On that visit I encountered the people's poverty and misery from within.
The next time I saw the prime minister was when Nair invited me to attend the international Labour conference. Things had developed significantly and Singapore had left the Federation of Malaysia. I spent a day with the prime minister and his family on a small island. We spoke of politics, of economics, of how we could make use of Malaysia's attempt to construct a free-trade zone in Port Said.
After that I went often to Singapore and always stayed at the Raffles Hotel. I saw a minor island turn into one of the world's most thriving economic centres. Prefaced by Henry Kissinger, this book depicts the saga of that success.
That is why I feel its publication is such a significant event. And as a first-hand witness of the events it deals with, I commend its accuracy and appeal.
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