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The story of Singapore’s struggle for success
BY: CHRISTOPHER FERNANDEZ
In his book, an authoritative work, author John Drysdale’s epic, “Singapore: The struggle for success” outlines the reasons why the island state was able to transform itself from a backwater to become a first world nation.
Not many Malaysians living now have witnessed the separation of Malaysia and Singapore who were once one nation but owing to differences of views and opinions the island of Singapore broke away to become a republic.
Singapore, under the astute leadership of Mr Lee Kuan Yew, as the first prime minister, focused on a number of qualities in the national psyche which included discipline, hard work, integrity and meritocracy among others.
While both Malaysia and Singapore were on the same level at the point of separation and their currencies at par level, today the story is remarkably different as one transformed into a beautiful swan while the other remained an ugly duckling.
Malaysians will do well to analyse and reflect on what went wrong in the twisted saga of their motherland and the reasons are obvious, Singapore conformed to the full tenets and obligations of democracy.
Malaysia, on the other hand, tinkered with their democracy to suit their whims and fancies and are paying the price for it. But what appears to be a worse indicator is that they have not learnt their lessons by still refusing to conform to pure democracy.
-THE MALAYSIA VOICE
** The views expressed on this opinion is of the writer and not the publisher