A new book about Lee Kuan Yew is out, but as reported before, the Singapore-published book’s author, Tom Plate, is one of Lee’s top apologists and “candid” opinions are few and far between. CNA:
A detailed and candid book on Singapore’s Minister Mentor, Lee Kuan Yew, billed as the first extended conversation with a Western journalist was launched on Wednesday.
“Conversations With Lee Kuan Yew” is written by American columnist Tom Plate.
How does an American present an accurate and non-judgemental view of Singapore? For columnist Tom Plate, he took that challenge head-on – and being from Los Angeles, he approached the story as if he was writing a screenplay on a blockbuster that is Singapore.
Tom Plate, author of “Conversations With Lee Kuan Yew”, said: “You come into a room, and you start talking with him and he cracks a joke and you say something. And then you disagree, he agrees, and back and forth, and it’s almost like a movie.
“No footnotes, a lot of dialogue and it’s an intimate but issue oriented profile of a political giant.” …
For the author, it was also an opportunity to dispel some Western perceived myths about Singapore.
Mr Plate said: “He’s state of the art political management – I mean this is not a chewing gum, caning environment; this is a serious place, brilliant people.
“We Americans don’t know everything, we’ve made our share of mistakes, but we make a terrible mistake when we write Asia off.”
And what was his most memorable moment with Mr Lee?
Mr Plate said: “At one point, his press secretary felt that Minister Mentor was tired and we should cut the session short and (as a) typical journalist, you’re a journalist, you know what I mean, we weren’t going to let that happen, right?
“We want to squeeze every last minute we could and I said ‘No, I’m not moving. You can leave, but I’m not moving.’ And I think Lee Kuan Yew might have overheard the conversation and he came back and he said, ‘No I’m staying, we’re going to finish.’ So he was very committed to finishing the project.”
Speaking briefly at the book launch, Mr Lee acknowledged that “on the whole, he (the author) got my point of view across.”
Filed under: Book review, Event, Quotes | 4 Comments
i read one of the Article in this book about Mr.Lees opinion about Sri Lanka. being a Sri Lankan who studied in Singapore i want to say thank you Mr. Lee for speaking the truth . i wish we had a leader like you here in Sri Lanka to make this country better . may u live long sir .
I admire MM Lee for being the great leader that he is even after he stepped down from being a PM. To MM. Lee, I am proud being a singaporean because of a leader like you steering the wheel of this country until it because what it is today.
Thank you, Sir. and may you live forever.
Am absolutely enjoying the book. Very good read and I like the style of writing too.
Best wishes!
Dear Chamalka
You do realize when you made your comments that if Sri Lanka had had LKY as leader, you; as an ‘incapable’ (that’s a synopsis of what he thinks the Sinhalese race is) Sinhalese, would have had no significant place in your country, don’t you? The more capable tamils (Jaffna tamils?) would be having your job despite your Singapore education!
Be thankful that SL is a full fledged democracy – if you did not experience what it took to make Singapore what it is today you cannot make any comparisons – my knowledge of Sri Lankans (all ethnic groups) is that they would never have accepted LKY style of governance! Never!