PETALING JAYA: Malaysia should be thankful to former Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew for having "successfully wiped out” the communists and Chinese chauvinists in the island republic as they could have disrupted the peace in Malaysia.
Former Information Minister Tan Sri Zainuddin Maidin said Malaysia's peace could have been threatened if the two groups continued to be strong in Singapore at a time when Malaysia was also faced with pressure from such groups inside the country.
“Lee was not chauvinistic. He ‘taught’ the Chinese, closed Chinese, Tamil and Malay schools as well as succeeded in upholding socialism to achieve a stable Singapore,” Zainuddin said in an article on Utusan Online.
He said that if not because of Lee, Singapore might have become a communist or chauvinist country.
"Thank you, Lee, for wiping out the Chinese chauvinists, unlike the Chinese community here,” Zainuddin said.
He was commenting on Lee’s latest book, One Man’s View Of The World, which said that the race-based policies in Malaysia have placed the country at a disadvantage.
Zainuddin said Lee had firmly and effectively abolished race-based schools for the sake of uniting Singaporeans via a single language, namely English.
“Unfortunately in Malaysia, we have failed to form a united race because we did not dare to implement Bahasa Melayu as the national language,” he said.
He said Lee could not accept the New Economic Policy because he only viewed it in terms of its merit and current political needs.
“He did not view it from the historical and sociological aspects which shows that the Chinese civilisation is far older than other communities including the Europeans.
“Hence, it is unfair to hope that Malays compete under the same meritocracy policy in Singapore,” Zainuddin said.
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