Ethno-religious balance
People cite Singapore as a successful multicultural society when it’s 75% Han Chinese, 15% Malay, and 7.5% Indian—far different than America. Plus its ruling class appears to be interested in ruling well rather than attacking its majority.
That was just colonial legacy, what LKY inherited & had to manage, he would have preferred all Chinese society minus any Chinese Xtians & Mohammedans. He was rather open & candid abt these things & many SG policies r in place to deal with what he inherited.
SG immigration policy is designed to maintain ethnic balance of 3 groups as at independence, so higher Malay TFR means more Chinese & Indian immigration to SG to keep the balance
Govt will calibrate S’pore’s immigration intake to preserve racial balance: Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim, Oct 2020
Since bulk of housing is public, there r rules that make sure each housing complex has all 3 groups, this is to prevent formation of exclusive ethno-religious areas.
Muslim management
Precautions r taken against appointing Mohammedans to sensitive military posts (attached comment by LKY was made in 1999)
AT A Singapore 21 forum at Tanjong Pagar on Sept 18, a polytechnic student had asked Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew if certain instinctive emotional bonds among the ethnic groups could be overcome so that Singapore could become a nation. This was Mr Lee’s reply:
“Yes, I think so, over a long period of time, and selectively. We must not make an error. If, for instance, you put in a Malay officer who’s very religious and who has family ties in Malaysia in charge of a machine-gun unit, that’s a very tricky business. We’ve got to know his background. I’m saying these things because they are real, and if I don’t think that, and I think even if today the Prime Minister doesn’t think carefully about this, we could have a tragedy. So, these are problems which, as poly students, you’re colour-blind to, but when you face life in reality, it’s a different proposition."+++(5)+++
There is a local gov’t managed mosque building fund that SG Mohammedans can voluntarily contribute to. This is in part to prevent Saudi (& other foreign) funded mosques
Christian management
On Xtians & their missionary activities + involvement of Catholic church in SG politics, he cracked down.
Buddhists. And Buddhism is a very mild sort of, not an exacting religion. Ancestor worshippers, Confucianists. So it was a very relaxed situation, so long as we live and let live. Now don’t go and force him into your religion. If you want to convert, don’t do it in an aggressive way. And don’t convert a chap who already belongs to a religion that’s fiercely against conversion. Avoid that. So we have succeeded.
But when the Christians became very active and evangelical, … wanting to convert the Muslims, and the Catholics decided to go in for social action, we were heading for trouble! So the Buddhists reacted. And this Japanese group, Nichiren Soshu, very active group huge Buddhist groups were growing rapidly in our polytechnics and universities and in reaction to all these Christians they were being threatened. We would have headed for trouble quite unnecessarily. We’ve just got out of one trouble - communism and Chinese chauvinism and Malay chauvinism - and you want to land into another? Religious intolerance? It’s just stupid. Stay out of politics. The Religious Harmony Act was passed; after that, it subsided.
You cannot begin converting others and taking a tough line and expect others not to react, because they are losing their followers. You use the church for political purposes, the other religions will also enter the political arena, or they will lose out. So, as I told the Catholics and the Christians,
‘The Muslims must react. The Buddhists are reacting. And I will help the majority because the Buddhists are in the majority. And do you want that?’
So they stopped and agreed.
“Well, it’s part of the law, and it will be enforced if anybody breaches it. But if you ask the human rights groups, that’s a violation of human rights, we should allow everybody to do what they like. Free speech and free conversions, then you’ll have an enlightened society. I do not accept that as the happy conclusion or outcome.”
Lee had personally begged the Pope to cut this cancer out of Singapore; his ISD director had warned the Archbishop that there were too many ’truth and justice’ columns in Catholic publications. When the Archbishop failed to act, the ISD and the government decided to force his hand. They did not arrest the priests, but they detained in prison twenty-two young Catholic activists for participating in ‘a Marxist conspiracy to subvert the existing social and political system in Singapore through communist united-front tactics’. The Archbishop wavered. His diocese was in a state of terror, and packed the cathedral to pray for God to guide the government.
This infuriated Lee Kuan Yew, who regarded himself as Singapore’s only God in matters temporal. He summoned the nearest Vatican diplomat and told him to keep the Church out of Singapore politics, or else he would arrest the priests. The Archbishop was paraded at a press conference with Lee in order to say that the detentions had nothing to do with the Church - incautiously he added his hope that the government could prove its allegations against the detainees. ‘I have never said that I was going to prove anything in a court of law,’ Kuan Yew shot back. ‘It is not the practice, nor will I allow subversives to get away by insisting that I produce evidence that will stand up in a court of law.’ So the detainees underwent their trial not in a court of law, but in a television programme co-produced by the government-controlled media and the secret police.
Gender reality
Until early 2000’s, SG med schools used to openly favor men because many female docs work part time post marriage & kids & since gov’t was training them & was running healthcare, they didn’t want shortages which then have to be covered by importing foreign doctors (as NHS does)
Lee Kuan Yew Comment on PHD & Marriage - “So, my advice is: Please don’t wa ste time. It is more important and more satisfying than your PhD.”
Handling westerners
- Mr. Lee Kuan Yew’s interview with Mr. Tim Sebastian on BBC HARDTalk - “Don’t just pluck out a few words and toss at me and expect me to crumble …” YT