LEE: Want Singapore to be like SriLanka with Unending Racial Strife Between Sinhalas & Tamils, Because Sinhalas Imposed their language upon WHOLE SL??

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Bas Baskaran
Date: Fri, Dec 23, 2011 at 8:01 PM
Subject: Singapore Vs Sri Lanka
To: chelvadurai@gmail.com


My lifelong challenge by Lee Kuan Yew. It was released about two weeks ago.

Would like to share excerpts (on page 60/61) from it.

"Following my experiences as a student in London and Cambridge, I believed firmly that knowing one’s mother tongue was a must. It gives one the sense of belonging to a culture, and increases self-confidence and self-respect. Hence, we decided that we must teach each student two languages English and the mother tongue. However, implementing the policy was most difficult.

The Chinese challenge

The first bid for Chinese supremacy came eight weeks after separation from Malaysia. The Chinese Chamber of Commerce issued a challenge. It wanted the government to guarantee the status of the Chinese language in the constitution, although our constitution made the four major languages official languages. The Chamber’s treasurer, Kheng Chin Hock, a champion of the Chinese language, argued that Chinese was used by more than 80 per cent of the population and should be the first among the four languages.

I gave him a dressing down. Did he want Singapore to be like Sri-Lanka, with unending racial strife between Sinhalese and the Tamils because the Singhalese imposed their language upon the whole country? Did he want Malays and Indians to feel discriminated against? ..

I told the Chamber that if they wanted to continue pushing for the primacy of the Chinese language, they could go ahead and make that an election issue. That stopped them.

I made it clear that every ethnic community in Singapore could keep what it already had. Nobody would stop them from learning their own language or using it. But if they did not learn English, they would pay a price. The price would be decided by the market."

To me, this sums up the reason why Ceylon retrogressed and Singapore progressed and continues to progress.

http://www.4-traders.com/SINGAPORE-PRESS-HLD-6491128/news/SINGAPORE-PRESS-HLD-Launch-of-My-Lifelong-Challenge-Singapore-s-Bilingual-Journey-by-Lee-Kuan-Yew-13899516/



His lifelong challenge reminds me of some of Mr. Rajaratnam’s (one of the founding fathers of Singapore) public statements:

In April 1978 he said: There are many parts of the world where to be a minority is to be resented and be oppressed. In the kind of Singapore we are creating there are no majorities and minorities but simply good men and bad men with the good men whatever their race, language and religion invariably triumphing over the bad men whatever their race, language and religion.

In February 1985, when addressing the gathering of the Ceylon Tamil Association, he said: Racial and religious conflicts are growing at an unprecedented rate in many parts of the world and all of them arose as a consequence of crooked politics and cowardly leadership.

The aspiration of both Mr. Lee Kuan Yew and Mr. Rajaratnam (to achieve what they set out to achieve) is reflected in the Singapore pledge:

We, the citizens of Singapore,
pledge ourselves as one united people,
regardless of race, language or religion,
to build a democratic society
based on justice and equality
so as to achieve happiness, prosperity and
progress for our nation.