SDP chief Chee Soon Juan reviews Constructing Singapore: Elitism, Ethnicity and the Nation (Amazon).  Wall Street Journal:

The “Singapore Story” — the title of the first volume of founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew’s autobiography — is that a mandarinate elite built a bastion of political and economic success on twin pillars of good governance: meritocracy and multiracialism. “Chimeras,” say Michael Barr and Zlatko Skrbis, professors at The Flinders University of South Australia and The University of Queensland, Australia, respectively. The authors tear apart the Lee mythology with commendable academic rigor and gusto, arguing that such propaganda serves only to “facilitate and legitimize rule by a self-appointed elite dominated by middle-class Chinese in general, and by the Lee family in particular.” …

These schemes are designed to support and enhance a political infrastructure where power is concentrated in a select few. If all this seems like social engineering at work, that’s because it is. Mr. Lee has never been shy about his intentions to rear future generations of elites.

A more in-depth examination of the programs and considerable resources used to implement Mr. Lee’s eugenics agenda would provide the reader with a better understanding of the extent to which the Party went to ensuring that the elite reproduced and that the “lumpen masses” (to use Mr. Lee’s term) did not. In the 1980s, the PAP sought to increase fertility among university-educated women through financial incentives and dating services, while providing major subsidies for the voluntary sterilization of poor and uneducated parents. …

How public policy impacts ethnic groups in Singapore is also keenly examined. Ethnic discrimination is carried out at the highest level of government. One prominent indicator is Singapore’s government-sponsored overseas university scholarships to students. Citing statistics from 1966-2007, the authors note that of the 228 President’s Scholarships awarded only 14 (about 6.1%) went to minority ethnic students. The percentage dropped to 3.5% in the years between 1981 and 2007, even though minority ethnic groups make up more than 20% of Singapore’s population. The number of scholarships given by the Singapore Armed Forces to minorities is even more telling: only 2.2% of the awards given between 1971 and 2007 went to non-Chinese recruits. Messrs. Barr and Skrbis point out that it is not so much a question of whether, but rather of how consciously, these selection panels base their decisions on the wishes of Mr. Lee.

Both Mr. Lee and his son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, have openly stated that Singapore is not ready for a non-Chinese head of government. But in an irony that only autocratic systems can sustain, Mr. Lee has outlawed public discussions of race relations in Singapore. Using The Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act, the government could interpret any discussion of religious issues as stoking racial sentiment, and could potentially detain without trial persons found doing so, putting any honest discussion of the subject in a deep freeze.