The most brilliant politician you never knew is on his deathbed. Hooked up to a ventilator – a contraption designed to replace the most basic of human functions –  a withered 91 year old faces the inevitable. Alongside him, a nation awaits, heavy with the knowledge that for many, their world will never be quite the same. 

To capture the essence of Singapore’s former Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, you could point to the fact that Nixon once described him as a man who “might have attained the world stature of a Churchill, a Disraeli, or a Gladston” were he born in another country. Or the fact that Lee has served as a mentor to likes of Deng Xiaoping and Xi Jinping. Or, more recently, Obama’s assessment that Lee is a “legendary figure of Asia in the 20th and 21st centuries.”

These vaunted accolades are guaranteed a place in the historical chronicles. However, to judge a man by his accomplishments, certainly one who has left an indelible imprint on the national psyche of an entire country, one needs to  really delve into  the flavors, the rhythms, the rojak of Singapore life. 

David Fuller's view

I mentioned Lee Kuan Yew frequently from the 1970s to the 1990s, and rate him as the greatest political genius during my lifetime.  Intellectually brilliant, highly disciplined and with a will of steel, he turned what was little more than a costal swamp with no resources, in a politically difficult region, into one of the most successful economies on the planet.  In terms of economic governance, Lee Kuan Yew was second to none during the last century.

One of his greatest achievements, too infrequently mentioned, concerned the emancipation of women.  There was little evidence of sexist discrimination or glass ceilings in Singapore.  Its women are refreshingly direct high achievers, and this has long been a huge factor in the country’s success.