[lg policy] Singapore: Forbes Lee Kuan Yew's Legacy for Singapore: A Language Policy For A Globalized World

Tue Mar 24 15:14:57 UTC 2015

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   [image: Yunita Ong] <http://www.forbes.com/sites/yunitaong/> Yunita Ong
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 Forbes Asia <http://www.forbes.com/forbesasia> 3/23/2015 @ 1:42PM 967
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Kuan Yew's Legacy For Singapore: A Language Policy For A Globalized World
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As a Singaporean attending college abroad, I often reflect about how my
upbringing has made me a product of who I am. On Monday morning at home,
friends, family and fellow citizens woke up to the news that the founding
father of modern Singapore, Mr Lee Kuan Yew, passed away.

He lost a battle with severe pneumonia that morning but in his lifetime, he
won many others. There was the fight for survival so chronicled in our
national history textbooks – his leadership of a nation with no natural
resources, no hinterland, almost nothing, taking a country many doomed to
failure from “Third World to First,” the title of one of his
autobiographies. There were the crackdowns on dissidents and opposition
politicians, which he believed was the necessary price for social order and
economic success.

It is his bilingual policy that I have been reflecting deeply about. As a
relatively successful young Singaporean who did well enough in school to
earn a spot in an American college – I see myself and my grasp of language
molded in his vision.

When Singapore gained independence from Malaysia in 1965, Lee knew the
resource-poor country needed a unique economic model.

Elder statesman Lee Kuan Yew attends the launch of his new book on
international affairs, at the Istana Presidential Palace in Singapore on
August 6, 2013. Singapore’s founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew is widely
credited with transforming Singapore from an economic backwater to one of
Asia’s fastest-growing economies. AFP PHOTO/MOHD FYROL (Photo credit should
read MOHD FYROL/AFP/Getty Images)

“We knew that if we were just like our neighbors, we would die,” Mr Lee
told the New York Times in 2007. As the colonial powers gave up their grip
in the region, many turned to reinforcing their identity as independent
nations by rejecting Western influence within their countries.

Lee is widely credited for mandating in 1966 that all students learn a
“mother tongue” – a language associated with their ethnicity.

“If we were monolingual in our mother tongues, we would not make a living.
Becoming monolingual in English would have been a setback,” he wrote in his
memoirs. “We would have lost our cultural identity, that quiet confidence
about ourselves and our place in the world.”

Lee’s bilingual policy was uniquely influential because it made Singapore
highly adept with the forces of globalization.

In a letter to Lee’s son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, President Tony
Tan said
<http://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/more-singapore-stories/story/mr-lee-kuan-yew-was-architect-our-modern-republic-says-p>:
“Singaporeans today are able to leverage on our bilingual and bicultural
edge to take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves around
the world.” A English-speaking workforce became Singapore’s best resource,
I learned in high school history classes, because we could then woo foreign
direct investment from multinationals in the West. With China’s economic
ascendency, many of Singapore’s Mandarin-speaking population (ethnic
Chinese are three-quarters of the nation) have been able to take advantage
of opportunities there. China was Singapore’s top trading partner in 2013,
with bilateral trade amounting to $91.4 billion.

In the country’s early years, it was also a tool of social cohesion for a
country made up of Chinese, Malay and Indian diaspora populations. English
gave them a platform for them to socialize and also compete in school on an
equal footing, but their language kept them rooted to their heritage. It
helped put to rest ethnic tension that could have impeded economic progress.

Lee has been called Singapore’s “father” in the popular press – it’s a fair
assessment for me because I see my life’s journey molded in his views.
Since leaving high school, my Mandarin has become rustier – but what those
years of language classes gave me was the intuitive sense of what some say
is one of the world’s toughest languages to learn. My ability to read
Mandarin financial documents and translate news articles (albeit with a
handy Mandarin-English dictionary by my side, nowadays) has not just helped
me at work – it has also shaped the direction I want to go in my career –
as a journalist covering Asia’s rising economies. In school, I was always
reminded when my Indian and Malay friends went off for their “mother
tongue” classes, that their different culture and background called for
understanding and respect. Bilingualism taught me an important lesson about
living among different cultures – something that has helped me incredibly
with life in the United States’ melting pot of cultures.

But perhaps what’s most interesting about Lee’s bilingual policy is that he
personally struggled with Mandarin. Born to English-speaking parents, he
recounted in a book, “My Lifelong Challenge: Singapore’s Bilingual Journey”
his difficulty with mastering the language and by extension, owning his
heritage. For him, learning Mandarin was an uphill battle to make the very
difficult possible – the same struggle he wrestled with during his
political career to make a little island at the tip of the Asian continent
survive and eventually, thrive. For his perseverance, I am deeply thankful.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/yunitaong/2015/03/23/lee-kuan-yews-legacy-for-singapore-a-language-policy-for-a-globalized-world/

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