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Transcript of Speeches Made at a Reception Given by The 1 TRANSCRIPT OF SPEECHES MADE AT A RECEPTION GIVEN BY THE PRIME MINISTER, MR. LEE KUAN YEW, AT SRI TEMASEK ON 21ST OCTOBER, 1965, IN HONOUR OF THE TRADE UNION DELEGATES FROM AFRO-ASIA, YUGOSLAVIA AND MALTA. MR. LEE KUAN YEW Your Excellencies, distinguished friends from Afro-Asia, Yugoslavia and Malta, ladies and gentlemen, It is a great pleasure this evening to be able to welcome our friends from so many other parts of the world and to wish them a happy stay not only in Singapore but in what I hope will be the other half of their sojourn in South-East Asia -- the peripheral regions around Singapore. They have come at an interesting moment in our development from a colonial territory to a state in a federal, independent monarchy on to a unitary republic. And, as they will see from the newspapers, sometimes the most innocent things about anthropology, sociology, how man advances from the different stages of social organisation -- from Adam and Eve, if you like if you are a Christian, or from other Darwinian forces if you are not a Christian -- but lky\1965\lky1021.doc 2 whether you are a follower of Rousseau or whether you are a follower of Karl Marx, there is no doubt whatsoever that men develops in gradual stages. One of the stages is where they have got hereditary chiefs. And I am sorry to say that what I thought was an innocent aside on the development of man became the subject of unhappiness and a lot of diplomatic activity. However, I can assure them that like them in Afro-Asia, we are also learning how to be independent. And as I read my daily newspapers, I have come to the conclusion that one the pre-requisites of independence is how to prepare for your Chancery being burnt down and arrange for your second-hand cars to be burnt down with it and preferably, all your valuables moved out of the household and then claim full damages for brand-new cars, brand-new furniture, brand-new fittings and everything else! And of course inevitably, all civilised nations now having vented their wrath, find great pleasure in paying full compensation for it! But you see, our police are so efficient this side of the Causeway that I really am perplexed how we are to graduate to that stage! You know, I read about it from time to time: so and so burns down embassy in such and such a place; ambassador narrowly missed being beaten up alive by the mob. Then lo lky\1965\lky1021.doc 3 and behold, within 12 hours afterwards, in the corresponding capital, similar trials and tribulations for the representative of the host country in the other part of the world. My problem is ... I inherited a police force from the British which is run on very straightforward lines. And they are told to shoot at all rioters regardless of the slogans they are chanting. So, you see, it is quite a difficult problem: how to arrange these things! Supposing something happened ... Supposing, for instance, we were to send a mission to Leopoldville in the Congo and let us assume that a reactionary Tshombe regime which fortunately is no longer part of the Congo Government -- were to arrange for something unfortunate to happen to our property and to our personnel, and let us assume that the Congolese Government has got property and personnel here, and we would like to reciprocate the honour .....! You see, it is very difficult because you have then to call your Commissioner for Police aside and to tell him, “Well look, these chaps who have got the special red arm-bands .... Well, they will be chanting these slogans .... Never mind whether they break the law or not ... Just, you know, also keep on firing generally into the air and, if possible, just in the direction in which the chaps who are chanting the slogans are going for.” lky\1965\lky1021.doc 4 So, you see, that is how we graduate to nationhood! And it is all very sad and very dismaying. But never mind ... I have read since Friday the proceedings of the Conference, and I felt a little bit boosted up. I said to myself, "Here is a group of men who, in their individual countries, spend their lives boosting up a lot of fervour -- revolutionary fervour -- in order that their workers will be better off." And, here, thousands of miles away from their respective bases in Africa and Asia .... I am using the word `base' here now in a completely neutral sense. All I mean is you have a base where you set up camp and you leave your base; it has got nothing to do with missiles and launching-pads and so on .... I read about this every day in my Monitoring Digest: what the other parts of the world are saying about bases ... But their bases, as they say, are "mental" bases... And they have become mental cases! But I felt uplifted. I said to myself, "Here I see something sane and rational; a desire, a compassion for human beings, whatever their colour, whatever their creed, whatever their language, whatever posterity holds for them". And I felt encouraged that we were able, in a small way, to play host to a gathering of people who placed humanity and the future of the human race and, lky\1965\lky1021.doc 5 in particular, our part of the human race -- Afro-Asia -- between them comprising half, more than half the human family'.... I think there is some hope ... I am not necessarily exclusive, that I therefore say non-Afro-Asians have no contribution to make. In fact, I am quite sure they have. What I am particularly interested in is to see that Afro-Asians so comport themselves and so direct their policies that the rest of the world inevitably finds a climate of opinion building up in which any policy which militates against the interests of half or more than half of humanity in Afro-Asia will find a cold reception for their views, their attitudes not only in Afro-Asia, but throughout the world. So it is -- whether it is Rhodesia or whether it is tribal chiefs or maharajahs or what have you: as far as our sentiments and our sympathies are concerned, we are natural Afro- Asians. This is important. I am quite sure nearly 50 guests from Afro-Asia should be able to feel it. Like a water-diviner: you can walk around, you hold a stick in front of a man and if the thing moves, then you know he is a natural Afro-Asian. I claim to no genius, but I was brought up in an atmosphere which made it inevitable that I should be an Afro-Asian. I loathe colonialism; I loathed the lky\1965\lky1021.doc 6 Britishers who lorded it over me; I fought them, I hate them; in the end, I beat them. But in the process, I learnt to respect them. And just as well, because we should never under-rate our enemies. A Chinese proverb says "zhijizhibi, baizhanbaisheng" : "Know yourself, know him ; One hundred battles, one hundred victories". The corollory is also true: "Know yourself; under-rate your enemy; one hundred battles; great calamity all-round!" So you see, whether it is Rhodesia ... Naturally, we say, UDI is bad; therefore, non-recognition." It is impossible for us to say, "This is your colony; do what you like with it. It has got nothing to do with us." How can we say that? We were a colony yesterday. Supposing other chaps had said to Britain, "Yes, Singapore is your colony; do as you like to them." What would the world have owed us? Nothing. But fortunately for us, the world was not like that! There were lots of natural Afro-Asians. But of course, now we have a lot of poeple acquiring or wanting to acquire the accoutrements of being an Afro-Asian. I say, "Never discourage them. It is lky\1965\lky1021.doc 7 good. Better an unnatural Afro-Asian trying to become an Afro-Asian than an outright stooge blatantly and bizarrely acting out his role as a stooge!" So you see how happy I am this evening to be able to welcome so many guests from Afro-Asia to bear witness that small though we may be, dominated as we may be by three air bases and one naval base, the spirit in us is free. There is enough robustness, vitality and verve not just in a few of us but in our people to stand up, to speak our minds for ourselves, to determine our destiny for ourselves insofar as we can in an ever-shrinking world, a world in which independence and inter-dependence between powers and nations is a very real and vital factor in our survival. And finally, ladies and gentlemen, may I ask you to drink a toast to our friends from Afro-Asia, from Yugoslavia and from Malta. I don't know whether Russia is part of Afro-Asia or whether it is not, but I am in favour of more and more of the Afro-Asian spirit -- even by those who are not real and natural Afro-Asians, even by those who do not belong geographically to Africa or to Asia. Because I say this is something worth building up: a climate of opinion which begins to treat you and me, whether you are white with blonde hair, whether he is brown with grey hair, whether he is lky\1965\lky1021.doc 8 black with black hair, or whether I am yellow with brown hair or brown-black hair -- we are human beings.
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