I wanted to share my favorite excerpts from The Tommy Koh Reader (2013). Tommy Koh, a former Singaporean diplomat, is a lawyer who spent 20 years in the United States. In addition to supporting various Singaporean artists--some of whom were jailed over his protestations--he has expertise in international sea rights (unclo), diplomacy, and of course international law.
On interracial marriage: I was disappointed with [LKY's] views on race. He revealed that if his daughter had wished to marry a black African, he would have had no qualms telling her, "You're mad." [A common British expression for "crazy" or "unrealistic."] He also expressed reservations about inter-racial marriages. We should not judge a person on the basis of colour, race or religion. (2011)
[In this excerpt, which is hyperlinked, Koh criticizes some of Lee Kuan Yew's more controversial comments, including what he calls LKY's reservations about interracial marriages.]
My own thoughts: I can see how Singaporean founder Lee Kuan Yew's über-practicality makes him suspicious of interracial marriages--including white and Chinese--especially when differences between two people's upbringings are vast. Practical-minded men see probabilities as more poignant than possibilities. LKY would argue the separation of Barack Obama's parents supports his views; Koh would point to Barack Obama's life as a counter-argument.
Unlike LKY, Koh does not transfer his professional adherence to practicality to personal relationships, despite politics being a form of relationship-building. In truth, Koh's success in resolving post-1991 issues between the former Soviet Union and the Baltic states required him to be equal measures idealistic and practical--a practical idealist, if you will--whereas LKY was practical in a most lopsided manner. No one disputes LKY's open-hearted, transparent style meant some of his comments could be taken out of context. For example, LKY once said Muslims were more difficult to integrate than other religions, a comment he later retracted. What he meant was that he believed the average Muslim holds onto his or her religious beliefs more firmly than the average Christian or Buddhist. As a result, anyone marrying a Muslim would most likely have to convert, and one can see greater obstacles to marriages between Muslims and other religions that would not exist in relationships between, say, Buddhists and Christians. In context, everything LKY said made sense, but one sometimes had to give him an extremely sympathetic ear to avoid misunderstandings. Ultimately, it seems clear Singapore benefitted from a well-balanced team of founding diplomats and politicians.
On Singapore's foreign policy: "Singapore's leaders... use a vocabulary which suggests that Singapore adheres to the Realist school, which takes a cold-eyed, unsentimental view of the world. The Realist worships power and is usually dismissive of other considerations. How can a Realist State attach so much importance to international law? Singapore's ideology is actually not Realism, but Pragmatism. Our adherence to international law is based upon utility and not morality. Small States are better off in a world ruled by law than in a lawless world." (2013)
On Singaporean values: "The Singaporean cultural DNA includes a gene that respects all faiths."
A reminder Trump's Presidency is a feature, not a bug, of USA culture: "I observe that American politics has been afflicted by three unwholesome influences. These are Hollywood, Madison Avenue and television. Hollywood exerts a powerful and pervasive influence on every aspect of American life and culture... in judging the presidential debates, 'the public responds overwhelmingly to the sweat on the brow [a Nixon vs. Kennedy reference], style, manner and personality' rather than to the substance of the debate... speeches by American politicians are often characterized by bombast, hyperbole and exaggerations." (written in 1983)
On USA's political structure: If you are interested in understanding USA politics, you must read Tommy Koh's "De Tocqueville Revisited" speech at JFK School of Government, Harvard University, September 5, 1986. It is the best summary I have ever read regarding USA's political structure. Sample sentence: "The US system of government, characterized by the separation of powers among the three branches of government and by many checks and balances, is designed to protect the liberty of the individual."
On cities: "[C]ities succeed in the global economy if they can achieve excellence in one or more of the following three areas: thinking, manufacturing and trading."
On South China Sea: "First, it is the highway for trade, shipping and telecommunications. 80% of world trade is seaborne. 1/3 of world trade and 1/2 the world's traffic in oil and gas pass through the South China Sea. Freedom of navigation in the South China Sea is, therefore, of critical importance to China, Japan, South Korea, ASEAN and other trading nations and maritime powers.
Second, it is rich in fish and other living resources. Fish is a principal source of protein and fishing is a source of employment for millions of Asians who live in coastal communities.
Third, it is presumed that there are significant deposits of oil and gas in the continental shelves underneath the South China Sea...
[A]rtificial islands are not entitled to any maritime zones except for a 500m safety zone... A rock is entitled to a 12-nautical mile (22 km) territorial sea... An island is entitled to a territorial sea, a 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone and a continental shelf. Under Article 121 of the convention [UN Convention on the Law of the Sea], the difference between a rock and an island is that an island is capable of sustaining human habitation or economic life."" ("Mapping Out Rival Claims to the South China Sea," The Straits Times, 13 September 2011)
On environmental preservation: "47% of Singapore's total land area is covered by greenery." (2012) [My own note: don't let the shiny skyscrapers fool you--most of SE Asia is and was mostly tropical jungle.]
On recycling waste: "We should also consider... by requiring industrial and commercial establishments, as well as hotels and food courts, to separate food waste from other kinds of waste at source. The food waste, when treated by anaerobic digestion, will produce biogas which can, in turn, be used to generate renewable electricity."
On air conditioning: the joke among foreign diplomats is that Singapore, because of air conditioning over-use, actually has two seasons: "summer outdoors and winter indoors."
On water: "Water is more precious than gold. Without water, there would be no life on earth. The irony is that we take water for granted. In some countries, water is treated as a public good and given away for free. This invariably leads to over-consumption and wastage... By 2050, as many as 3/4 of the world's population could be affected by water scarcity... [Today] The fact that 700 million Asians do not have access to safe drinking water... is unacceptable." (2012)
© Matthew Rafat (2020)
On interracial marriage: I was disappointed with [LKY's] views on race. He revealed that if his daughter had wished to marry a black African, he would have had no qualms telling her, "You're mad." [A common British expression for "crazy" or "unrealistic."] He also expressed reservations about inter-racial marriages. We should not judge a person on the basis of colour, race or religion. (2011)
[In this excerpt, which is hyperlinked, Koh criticizes some of Lee Kuan Yew's more controversial comments, including what he calls LKY's reservations about interracial marriages.]
My own thoughts: I can see how Singaporean founder Lee Kuan Yew's über-practicality makes him suspicious of interracial marriages--including white and Chinese--especially when differences between two people's upbringings are vast. Practical-minded men see probabilities as more poignant than possibilities. LKY would argue the separation of Barack Obama's parents supports his views; Koh would point to Barack Obama's life as a counter-argument.
Unlike LKY, Koh does not transfer his professional adherence to practicality to personal relationships, despite politics being a form of relationship-building. In truth, Koh's success in resolving post-1991 issues between the former Soviet Union and the Baltic states required him to be equal measures idealistic and practical--a practical idealist, if you will--whereas LKY was practical in a most lopsided manner. No one disputes LKY's open-hearted, transparent style meant some of his comments could be taken out of context. For example, LKY once said Muslims were more difficult to integrate than other religions, a comment he later retracted. What he meant was that he believed the average Muslim holds onto his or her religious beliefs more firmly than the average Christian or Buddhist. As a result, anyone marrying a Muslim would most likely have to convert, and one can see greater obstacles to marriages between Muslims and other religions that would not exist in relationships between, say, Buddhists and Christians. In context, everything LKY said made sense, but one sometimes had to give him an extremely sympathetic ear to avoid misunderstandings. Ultimately, it seems clear Singapore benefitted from a well-balanced team of founding diplomats and politicians.
On Singapore's foreign policy: "Singapore's leaders... use a vocabulary which suggests that Singapore adheres to the Realist school, which takes a cold-eyed, unsentimental view of the world. The Realist worships power and is usually dismissive of other considerations. How can a Realist State attach so much importance to international law? Singapore's ideology is actually not Realism, but Pragmatism. Our adherence to international law is based upon utility and not morality. Small States are better off in a world ruled by law than in a lawless world." (2013)
On Singaporean values: "The Singaporean cultural DNA includes a gene that respects all faiths."
A reminder Trump's Presidency is a feature, not a bug, of USA culture: "I observe that American politics has been afflicted by three unwholesome influences. These are Hollywood, Madison Avenue and television. Hollywood exerts a powerful and pervasive influence on every aspect of American life and culture... in judging the presidential debates, 'the public responds overwhelmingly to the sweat on the brow [a Nixon vs. Kennedy reference], style, manner and personality' rather than to the substance of the debate... speeches by American politicians are often characterized by bombast, hyperbole and exaggerations." (written in 1983)
On USA's political structure: If you are interested in understanding USA politics, you must read Tommy Koh's "De Tocqueville Revisited" speech at JFK School of Government, Harvard University, September 5, 1986. It is the best summary I have ever read regarding USA's political structure. Sample sentence: "The US system of government, characterized by the separation of powers among the three branches of government and by many checks and balances, is designed to protect the liberty of the individual."
On cities: "[C]ities succeed in the global economy if they can achieve excellence in one or more of the following three areas: thinking, manufacturing and trading."
On South China Sea: "First, it is the highway for trade, shipping and telecommunications. 80% of world trade is seaborne. 1/3 of world trade and 1/2 the world's traffic in oil and gas pass through the South China Sea. Freedom of navigation in the South China Sea is, therefore, of critical importance to China, Japan, South Korea, ASEAN and other trading nations and maritime powers.
Second, it is rich in fish and other living resources. Fish is a principal source of protein and fishing is a source of employment for millions of Asians who live in coastal communities.
Third, it is presumed that there are significant deposits of oil and gas in the continental shelves underneath the South China Sea...
[A]rtificial islands are not entitled to any maritime zones except for a 500m safety zone... A rock is entitled to a 12-nautical mile (22 km) territorial sea... An island is entitled to a territorial sea, a 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone and a continental shelf. Under Article 121 of the convention [UN Convention on the Law of the Sea], the difference between a rock and an island is that an island is capable of sustaining human habitation or economic life."" ("Mapping Out Rival Claims to the South China Sea," The Straits Times, 13 September 2011)
On environmental preservation: "47% of Singapore's total land area is covered by greenery." (2012) [My own note: don't let the shiny skyscrapers fool you--most of SE Asia is and was mostly tropical jungle.]
On recycling waste: "We should also consider... by requiring industrial and commercial establishments, as well as hotels and food courts, to separate food waste from other kinds of waste at source. The food waste, when treated by anaerobic digestion, will produce biogas which can, in turn, be used to generate renewable electricity."
On air conditioning: the joke among foreign diplomats is that Singapore, because of air conditioning over-use, actually has two seasons: "summer outdoors and winter indoors."
On water: "Water is more precious than gold. Without water, there would be no life on earth. The irony is that we take water for granted. In some countries, water is treated as a public good and given away for free. This invariably leads to over-consumption and wastage... By 2050, as many as 3/4 of the world's population could be affected by water scarcity... [Today] The fact that 700 million Asians do not have access to safe drinking water... is unacceptable." (2012)
© Matthew Rafat (2020)
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