Honouring the Founding Prime Minister of Singapore, the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew

Mdm Speaker, just a supplementary question. I agree with the Prime Minister on taking time and doing this properly. I would like to also reiterate the point that Mr Lee was a giant among the Pioneer leaders and I would not be wrong to say that he was much loved and respected by many. Throughout his life, he had touched so many lives and communities. People from all walks of life feel connected to him and at many different levels and ways.

So, I would like to ask the Prime Minister: when we do honour to his life, how do we ensure inclusivity where all groups and communities can connect and relate to, when we are honouring him and all the Pioneer leaders and founding fathers?

Mdm Speaker, that is a very important question and that is why we are taking some time over the matter. It is not a matter of just having the right place or the right structure, but also a process by which we can involve people in discussing what is the best way to honour him, how can we develop this idea, conceptualise this idea of some sort of memorial for the founders which is more than just a memorial and have people feel that this is something which is right for Singapore and the right way to do it.

And then, after that, we find the correct place and then we make the right design. Also, if we are going to have a gallery, information and education, the right activities, so that everybody feels that this is part of our common heritage. Every country, as it develops its history, needs to develop these icons, these sacred memories and sacred places. We are early in the process. We are starting.

Mdm Speaker, as I have tried to explain in my Statement, I think these are all sensible proposals. But I hesitate to make decisions on them now. It is two weeks since the state funeral and three weeks since Mr Lee passed away. I think we need some time to pass, we need to have some overall sense of perspective and history and then there is time enough for us to make these commitments and decisions to honour him, not just in the next few months but really in the next few decades.

If you look at how other countries do it, when they have people who have made a big mark in their history pass away, you will have in their home town, perhaps, straightaway, a street named after you. But on a national basis, a memorial may be 50 years later, maybe 70 years, maybe several generations later. And then your position, your historical place is clear and emerges, perhaps, in sharper focus. If we are only going to do one thing, what is it which we want to do and then we do that.

So, I think we will give it some time. Mr Lee had got a lot to do with Changi Airport. He had a lot to do with our having a currency which is worth the paper on which it is printed. He had a lot to do with many other things, too – the Singapore River, the greening of Singapore. If we want to name things after him, there is no shortage of things which are suitable. I would say, let us take our time. Let us focus, in the first instance, on this idea of how should we remember our founders, not just Mr Lee, but the core founding fathers of the country. That, in itself, is a major exercise.

I think we should do that and then, over the years, there will be anniversaries, there will be birthdays, there will be 100th birthdays. We would come back to this and we would look at it again. At that point, I am sure these ideas of Dr Neo and others would still be there and, perhaps, by then, we would be a bit more ready to say, yes, we go.

Madam, multiracialism was one of the most important fundamentals on which Singapore was built. In fact, multiracialism was the reason why Singapore became Singapore as an independent republic. Therefore, I was very moved, during the period of National Mourning, that many minority Singaporeans expressed in the newspapers and wrote to me to say how grateful they were that they were born in Singapore and not as a minority somewhere else. And how in Singapore, they had seen equal opportunities and they have had a full chance to develop and their careers had in no way been hindered and they stand tall like everybody else.

I think that is the most important legacy which Mr Lee left towards multiracialism and one of the most important for Singapore. For minority Singaporeans, really, the way to honour Mr Lee is not to have a minority celebration, but a joint effort to participate fully in the national effort to do what we are trying to do. And remember, we are not canonising a person; we are honouring a human being.

This is SG50 and there are many activities which have been planned. I am very happy that a Malay community organisation is taking the lead to organise a commemoration for SG50. I think it is going to be on 8 August and it has involved other community organisations from the Chinese, Indians and Eurasian communities, to do it together as one. That is the sort of activities and the spirit in which I hope that minorities as well as the majority of Singaporeans will honour and remember Mr Lee.

Mdm Speaker, these are things which we can consider.

Mdm Speaker, we should be very proud that we have a founding leader who did not want or need monuments to himself or encourage a personality cult. We should honour that. Madam, I have two points. One is on 38 Oxley Road. Personally, I feel that we should respect Mr Lee's wishes to demolish his house. Once, I personally approached him on the topic and I remember what he told me – that he believes that we should not allow sentiment to get in the way of progress.

But given the significance of the house, especially the basement of the house, where more than 50 years ago, a group of people gathered frequently to discuss the formation of a mass-based left-wing political party and their struggle for Singapore's autonomy and subsequent Independence from British rule, I wonder whether there is a case to be made for a greater effort to preserve its heritage value for future generations, while respecting his wishes to demolish the house.

I support the call by the hon Member Mr Ang Wei Neng to document the house using paper, photographs, films and digital media formats. And perhaps the furniture in the basement can be considered as historical artefacts, which can be donated to the Museum for a replica of the basement to be put up.

My second point is a wider one; it is on the Committee that is being set up under Mr Lee Tzu Yang. I support the proposal, but its remit seems to be rather narrow, focused on the Founders' Memorial. As there has been a great movement towards wanting to preserve our memories and the past for future generations, can I ask the Prime Minister whether he could widen the remit to consider the various proposals put up by the public and also to involve curators, historians and heritage specialists? As the Prime Minister said, there needs to be not only a detachment of time but also a detachment of emotion in going through all the proposals and deciding which ones should be kept, with a clear view that this is for the future generations.

Well, Mdm Speaker, if we go on what Mr Lee had said publicly, I think in the "Hard Truths" book, he said, "Whatever you want to do after I am gone, take pictures if you like, then demolish the building". That is on the record; his will follows that. We have to go in accordance with his wishes.

I think, in fact, the building has been documented. So, it is not that there is no information about the building; and photographs have also been taken and published,

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especially of the dining room where the important meetings took place.

On Mr Lee Tzu Yang's Committee, I think we have to focus the Committee because we are not able to comprehensively decide now on how we want to honour Mr Lee; neither is that Committee able to do so. We have to let time pass; we have to let perspectives emerge gradually over the years and decades. What we can do is to focus on one possible promising direction, which is a Founders' Memorial and an education gallery somehow linked to it, perhaps co-located, but anyway linked to it. And how do we conceptualise that so that it is something which is meaningful and which achieves our future-oriented purpose? That, itself, is a very big task. To go around adjudicating as to which other things you want to do would be hard to achieve.

Even for the Founders' Memorial itself, it would be necessary and very helpful to involve historians, people who have worked and lived in Singapore, ordinary Singaporeans, people who have expertise, who have seen how such memorial ideas are developed and gradually brought to reality and fruition over many years.

It is a very difficult process. You look at the 9/11 memorial. It is now 13 and something years since 9/11. The memorial is done but there were tremendous argumentations, disagreements, bitterness and battles along the way before they built it this way. Some people, including some significant sections of the families of the victims, are very unhappy with the way it was done and the outcome.

If we look at the way people honour presidents, whether George Washington or Eisenhower or Franklin D Roosevelt (FDR), from the time the person stopped being President or died, to the time when you do it, it may be – in Eisenhower's case, he died in 1969 and they are just arguing over his memorial now, they have not finished the dispute. In the case of FDR, he died in 1945. The memorial was built in the 1990s, so, it was about 50 years before it was built. Even then, there was also controversy: should he be seen in a wheelchair or not; why is it you are ashamed of his polio? Because attitudes had changed in those 50 years.

I think for us to think we can settle this within the next few months or years, that is being presumptuous. If we try to do that, we would make decisions which, even if we did not regret, our children would regret. And I do not think we should do that.

Madam, I want to thank the Prime Minister and the other hon Members who have spoken.

Whilst I am not against the idea of having memorials, I also do question the use of spending so much time debating on the issue of memorials. We are not short of memorials

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in Singapore. We have got Kranji, we have got the Civil War Memorial, we have got the Tan Kim Seng Memorial. We have got memorials everywhere but how much of it has actually impacted the way we think and carry out our duties as Singaporeans? How much of it has really impacted the way we live our lives as Singaporeans and our Singaporean identity?

The Prime Minister and other speakers have spoken about how Mr Lee had his ideals and wanted us to carry on those ideals and that the best way for us to honour his memory and that of our founding fathers would be to carry on those ideals.

I thought a more important question is: how are we going to ensure those ideals are shared and imbibed by all Singaporeans and are carried on through the generations so that we will always be proud to say that we are Singaporeans, so that we always say we believe in those ideals?

We can have a memorial but, after a while, people would look at the memorial and say, "Oh, yeah, he did something for Singapore". But it is the ideals and values that are so important to make sure that we continue to thrive and be strong as a nation.

Perhaps, also we might want to think about how our children can be educated. Instead of just being told about certain days to remember, but exactly what a difference those days make to us and how we can make that difference, too, and how children in schools can be taught those ideals and they can imbibe them and they become a part of the Singaporean psyche. But to do that, we also need to have our educators who believe in that. How do we ensure that our teachers believe in that, our principals believe in that? How do we ensure that our civil servants believe in that? Do we all do that or are we just here to do a job?

I thought maybe, as Singaporeans, that is what we want to be thinking about as well, that, as we reflect on the solidarity that we have shown – thankfully for that – and, yet, something that we should not take for granted because it is something that we must develop and entrench within the way we think and the way that we live our lives. So, I urge the Government to think about how we can help our citizens, particularly our children, to remember all these things.

I agree fully with Ms Chia Yong Yong on her very sensible views. Indeed, it is the ideals and the way we live our lives which are much more important than any physical thing you build.

And, yet, it is helpful to have what you might call a local habitation in a form for those abstract ideals to focus our minds to generate the emotion and to bond people. Everybody has that. The Israelis have Masada. Every recruit goes there; he is presented his rifle there;

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he remembers an event 2,000 years ago relevant to their spirit today. If you go to other countries, for instance, in Britain, you go to Parliament Square, you have got Winston Churchill's statue there; Trafalgar Square you have got Nelson's statue over there. If you go to Washington on the National Mall, it is a pilgrimage, not a tourist visit, especially if you visit the Vietnam War Memorial or the Second World War Memorial which I just visited last year. It focuses your mind and brings people together. So, too, with our week of National Mourning and the state funeral service. It is a form, but it meant something to the participants, it left an indelible mark and it changed them.

We had, by chance, a choir comes through Singapore – St John's College, Cambridge – and because of the Cambridge connection, they offered to sing at the Lying-in-State downstairs. They came and they did a beautiful rendition of "Home". It was such a success that we decided we would ask other school choirs and other performing groups, including Jeremy Monteiro and his group, to come and perform during the Lying-in-State. It was a tremendous success – not just for the people who came to pay respects, but for the people who came to sing. And as one of the school children said, "It is not the performance, it is a tribute."

So, you will need these symbols, these physical things, but what are they which are full of meaning and not empty? That is what we are looking for.

Education is an important part of this. After the National Mourning period, we are rethinking how we can do the National Education content in the schools so that you try to get some of the same impact. Otherwise, I can write the best textbooks in the world but, between the textbook and the presenter and the listener or not very hard listener, each stage, there is attrition, evolution, dilution. Eventually, you get an empty message rather than something substantial. And, yet, if we can have one really powerful experience and it is emotional as much as it is intellectual, then I think it will bring people together. That is in the schools.

On TV, we have had one week of old footage broadcasts. It took many years to assemble all that material. Firstly, to create that material – living it. Secondly, to gather it all together, organise it and present it. And I think it had a big impact. At another time, it might not have had quite so much but, at that moment, it reminded people what all these were about. We need to do more of that during this SG50 year and beyond, not in a big gush of overhauling information, but in a continuing trickle just to remind ourselves where we come from and what we should be committing ourselves to. I think, that way, we will be able to achieve our bigger objectives.

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