Transcription
It is August 9, 1965. This… is Lee Kuan Yew. He has just learned that Singapore — his territory — has been kicked out of Malaysia. Now, he must deliver the news to his citizens — live, on national television. But he cannot continue. His voice cracks. He stops. He cries.
Why did this happen? Because Kuala Lumpur, capital of the Malay-Muslim majority Malaysia, is afraid of Singapore: afraid because it’s a Chinese-majority island… afraid because one day, its port might shine brighter than its own. So Malaysia expels Singapore — out of convenience.
For Lee, this is devastation. Half of Singapore’s water comes from Malaysia. Ninety percent of its food is imported across the causeway. Without Malaysia, Singapore is finished — a speck of land with no farmland, no oil, no minerals, no industry. At this time, Singapore is just a slum-ridden, overcrowded port. 75% of families live in shacks or squatter huts without toilets or running water. Families cook over charcoal, share filthy standpipes, and queue for public toilets. More than half the population cannot read. Ethnic riots between Malays and Chinese erupt in the streets, leaving bodies in the gutters.
This is the country Lee must lead. A country that looks less like a nation… and more like a failed state waiting to collapse. And yet — unbeknownst to him, these tears are not the end. They are the beginning of one of the greatest comebacks in history. Because the man crying on television that day… refused to surrender.
From this insignificant port, Lee Kuan Yew will begin to fight corruption, move the poor from slums into homes, and open the island to foreign investment. He will design a bureaucracy so strict that even spitting on the ground or chewing gum could land a citizen behind bars. Through iron discipline and relentless order, he will forge one of the richest nations on Earth — so rich and so well governed, it will become a textbook model of how to build a country. He would build a city richer not just than Kuala Lumpur, but than Malaysia itself. Cleaner than London. Safer than New York.
At his peak, Lee Kuan Yew is so respected by the world, so feared, that he dares to fine the United States for spying on him — and America pays. He even dares to call Australia “the white trash of Asia” for relying only on raw exports — and Australia listens. Because on that day, Lee discovered something. Singapore may not have resources. But its people… were its resources.
This is Lee Kuan Yew. The man… who made… Singapore.
For six weeks after his speech on national TV, Lee Kuan Yew disappears. He locks himself inside Changi Cottage. He cannot eat. He cannot sleep. Doctors prescribe him tranquilizers. Parliament itself hangs in limbo, not knowing what to do. But even in despair, he writes to the British Prime Minister Harold Wilson: “Do not worry about Singapore. My colleagues and I are sane, we are rational people even in our moments of despair. We will weigh all possible consequences before we make any move.”
After six weeks of recovery, this is the political chessboard Lee has to deal with: a tiny port with no army, no food, no natural resources, surrounded by enormously larger, possibly hostile neighbors. Diplomacy comes first. The world must recognize Singapore before it disappears. Within a month, Lee pushes his country into the United Nations and wins acceptance.
But the region around Singapore is dangerous. In March 1965, two Indonesian marines bomb Singapore’s MacDonald House, killing three civilians and injuring 33. The attack is part of Konfrontasi — President Sukarno’s violent campaign against the new federation of Malaysia, of which Singapore was briefly also part. Singapore captures the bombers, tries them in court, and sentences them to death. In Singapore, they are terrorists. But in Indonesia, they are soldiers following orders — heroes. Executing them inflames nationalist anger in Jakarta, where students storm the Singapore embassy. So Lee, desperate to stabilize relations with the Indonesian giant, personally flies to Jakarta. At the graves of the two marines, he bows and scatters flowers. He is not here to apologize. It is humiliating, but necessary. Singapore needs Indonesia to be its partner, not its enemy.
By 1967, Lee co-founds ASEAN with Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines. Singapore is no longer alone, now it cooperates with its neighbors. Militarily, the island is without troops. The British are leaving. Indonesia and Malaysia could one day turn hostile again. So in 1967, Lee creates the National Service: every young man must serve. For training, he secretly turns to Israel — a small country like his, which he admires for having defeated its much larger Arab neighbors with a smaller, disciplined army. Israeli advisors build the doctrine of the new Singapore Armed Forces. By 1971, 16,000 men stand ready. Lee’s rule is blunt: “If you cannot defend yourself, no one else will.”
Now that Singapore is recognized by the world, has ties with its neighbors, and can defend itself, Lee turns inward. And the greatest threat here is not just poverty — it is race. Chinese, Malays, Indians. These groups often clash violently. Lee declares that all races are “equal,” but the state will set the boundaries. He makes four official languages: Chinese, Malay, Tamil, and English. Every child can learn their mother tongue — but must also learn English, the common language that will unite them. Religion, too, is tightly controlled. Any attempt to spread faith in ways that could cause division is forbidden.
The economy, however, is still collapsing. To fix it, Lee brings in Dutch economist Albert Winsemius. His advice is blunt: “Forget ideology. Forget nationalism. If you want Singapore to succeed, make it irresistible to foreign companies. Keep taxes low, fight corruption, guarantee stability. Clean the island from top to bottom — no rubbish, no riots, no slums. Build factories. Train your workers. If you do this, multinationals will come.”
Lee listens. With the influx of foreign money, factories rise. American and Japanese giants arrive — Texas Instruments, Hewlett-Packard, General Electric. The dockyards the British abandoned become shipyards. Lee funnels resources to create Singapore Airlines and Neptune Orient Lines. The education system is instantly reoriented to produce engineers, technicians, and workers who can serve these companies.
With the earnings from these investments, Lee transforms daily life. Three-quarters of Singaporeans still live in slums and huts, so he supercharges the Housing Development Board (HDB), the nations' public housing. Hundreds of thousands are moved into concrete apartments with running water and electricity every year— giving every family a stake in the nation. To pay for it, he forces workers to deposit around 20% of their wages into the CPF, Central Provident Fund. On paper, it is for their retirement. In reality, it becomes a giant pool of national capital used to build housing, finance infrastructure, and fund investments. But notice: he never diverts money into welfare handouts. No subsidies. Every citizen must stand on their own.
To have an efficient apparatus that can manage all this, Lee doubles the salaries of ministers and civil servants to enhance their commitment, then unleashes the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB). Anyone caught taking bribes goes to jail. When his own Minister for National Development, Teh Cheang Wan, is caught taking a million dollars in bribes from two private companies, the CPIB moves in immediately. Before he can stand trial, Teh swallows pills and kills himself. Lee’s reaction is cold: ''He has done wrong. He has received bribes. I cannot save him. No one is above the law, even a loyal minister like him is expendable — because if we accept one exception then everyone will do it."
Finally, Lee launches the “Garden City” campaign. He orders trees planted along highways, rivers cleaned of sewage, and parks carved into the city. Cleanliness and greenery become propaganda — a signal to the world that Singapore is no longer a slum. By the early 1970s, in just a few years, Singapore has a flag. An army. An economy. And a propaganda machine blasting one message: Singapore is rising.
In the 1970s, Lee Kuan Yew shifts to expansion. Factories are not enough. He builds Changi Airport, opened in 1981 — instantly ranked among the best in the world. The Port of Singapore grows into one of the busiest on Earth, a crossroads between Asian exports and Western markets. Singapore Airlines, launched in 1972, becomes a global symbol of luxury and efficiency. Foreign electronics, shipping, finance, and technology all flow into Singapore — first to expand, then to reach the rest of ASEAN.
But growth is never enough without order. Chewing gum? Banned. Drug traffickers? Hanged. Littering, spitting, jaywalking? Fined thousands of dollars. Opponents? Bankrupted by lawsuits, or detained without trial. Press? Controlled, censored. Lee’s philosophy is brutal: “We decide what is right. Never mind what the people think.”
His foreign policy is just as ruthless. In the 1970s, the American CIA tries to infiltrate Singapore’s intelligence service. Lee exposes them publicly, humiliates Washington, and fines the United States $100 million. And America pays. He calls Australia “the white trash of Asia” for living off raw exports. He dismisses India as a “nation of unfulfilled greatness.” And he warns Africa: corruption will destroy you.
At the same time, he balances East and West. Singapore hosts American warships in its port but also opens to China. When Deng Xiaoping launches reforms in 1978 to open China to the world, he studies Singapore as the model to copy. The world’s most populous nation now learns from one of the smallest.
Inside Singapore, Lee engineers society itself. Housing quotas force Chinese, Malays, and Indians to live side by side. English becomes the language that unites them. The “Stop at Two” campaign discourages families from having more than two children — until Lee realizes it is pushing the country toward rapid aging. Long-haired men are banned from public service. Women are pushed into schools and jobs. He even suggests that only smart women should reproduce, while the poor should sterilize themselves. Lee is not just making policies. He is manufacturing Singaporeans.
But his toughness is not an accident. He grew up with a gambler father who squandered the family’s money. His mother, not his father, held the family together. In 1942, he watched the British Empire collapse in just 70 days in Singapore to the Japanese army. The shock never left him: “In 70 days, the British Empire was finished. I decided then, no one will push Singapore around again.” Under the Japanese, he narrowly escaped the Sook Ching massacres, when tens of thousands of Chinese men were rounded up and executed. He survived by pure luck — told to fetch his clothes, then spared by a different guard. To survive, he learned Japanese, adding it to his English, Malay, and Chinese. He even tried to sell glue during the war before becoming the top student of his generation. These scars taught him: never depend on anyone, never trust chance. Everyone must stand on their own.
And the results prove him right. By the year 2000, Singapore’s GDP per capita — $24,000 — already matches Canada ($24,000) and France ($22,000). By 2025, today, it reaches $90,000 per person — higher than the United States ($85,000), and far above its neighbors Malaysia ($12,000) and Indonesia ($5,000). In education, Singapore ranks at the top of the OECD PISA tests, beating Finland, Japan, and South Korea in math, science, and reading. A country with no resources has become an intellectual and financial hub.
But the cost is freedom. And Lee’s defense to this is blunt: “I am often accused of interfering in people’s private lives. Yes. If I had not, we would not be here today.”
In his last years, Lee is walking through the Garden City he created. Time made him frail. By the 2010s, his health declines. And in March 2015, he dies at the age of 91. At his funeral, almost two million Singaporeans line up in the rain to say goodbye to the dictator who gave them hope.
This is Lee Kuan Yew. The man… who made… Singapore.