SINGAPORE (The Straits Times/ANN): Singapore has done well in providing housing for its people and in managing its reserves for future generations, and Indonesia has copied these policies with pride, said Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto during a state visit on Monday (June 16).
To this end, Indonesia is pushing ahead with its initiative to build one million apartments to house lower-income citizens, modelled after Singapore’s HDB programme, and also set up sovereign wealth fund Daya Anagata Nusantara, or Danantara, earlier this year – its version of Singapore’s Temasek.
Speaking during a joint press conference with Prime Minister Lawrence Wong at Parliament House, Prabowo said he had spent some time in Singapore when he was a boy and witnessed the early days of Singapore’s development.
“To be very frank, I’ve always admired the success of Singapore, and especially the success of the early leaders of Singapore, the leadership, statesmanship,” said the Indonesian President.
“In real life, we are not allowed to copy our friends’ homework or our friends. But in real life, why not copy best practice, right? It’s called copy with pride.”
He added that imitation was the highest form of respect, and cited Singapore’s orchid diplomacy as another area that Indonesia might want to “copy”.
“If you are imitated, that means you must be doing something good,” said Prabowo who was presented with an orchid named after his mother, the late Mrs Dora Sigar Soemitro, at a ceremony officiated by President Tharman Shanmugaratnam.
The Paraphalanthe Dora Sigar Soemitro has long pencil-shaped leaves and blush pink flowers with a golden forked lip marked with crimson spots. It can grow to some 40cm in length with eight to 12 flowers on each stem, with each flower measuring about 7cm wide.
President Tharman said the orchid, a beautiful hybrid with a lineage that includes Singapore’s Vanda Miss Joaquim and a rare Indonesian species from Kalimantan, expresses the ties between both countries, which go far back into history.
Both Singapore and Indonesia were part of a “dance of civilisations” – initially Hindu and Buddhist, then Muslim, Christian and Taoist – that shaped South-east Asia over the centuries, he added.
“That blend of cultures remains alive in our common heritage to this day,” said President Tharman in a Facebook post on June 16, after he hosted a state banquet for Prabowo.
He noted that the late Zubir Said, composer of Singapore’s National Anthem, had also come to Singapore from Sumatra in 1928.
Prabowo said he was touched that the unique orchid was named after his late mother.
His mother, who died in 2008, was from a prominent Minahasa family with both Minahasan and German ancestry. She met Prabowo’s father, Soemitro Djojohadikusumo, when they were studying in the Netherlands.
“I was given the honor of nominating a name, and I nominated the name of my mother to give respect to her for having raised me. For having raised maybe a difficult boy in his younger days, but finally, he became president of Indonesia,” Prabowo said.
“I’m very proud that my mother is honored in this way.” - The Straits Times/ANN
