At 30, It’s Time to Grow Up : Singapore, in libel suit, exposes the true roots of its press repression

With an angry tirade that sounded more like a speech than court testimony, former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore has accomplished what critics in the island nation dare not: revelation of the true reasons behind press repression there.

Lee, 71, was testifying in a libel suit that he, Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (his son) and Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong brought against the American-owned International Herald Tribune. Last August, the Paris-based newspaper ran an article that the plaintiffs claim suggested nepotism was behind the selection of Lee’s son as deputy prime minister. The article did not name any of the three.

The elder Lee saw it all as part of a conspiracy to impose American “cultural supremacy” on tiny Singapore. “You have to get off your high horse, eat your words and pay damages for the damage you have done,” he ranted.

Earlier the newspaper, under official duress, apologized for the article. The Herald Tribune, which publishes its Asian edition in Singapore, has been harassed in the courts for two innocuous articles that would scarcely have been noticed in any real democracy. Lee sued under the tyrannical press laws he designed, which he said were meant to ensure that “journalists will not appear to be all-wise, all-powerful, omnipotent figures.” Presumably, that important role is reserved for Lee and his cronies, filial or not.

Singapore’s ambassador to Washington, S. R. Nathan, says that the nation cannot afford the luxury of a fully free press. That, he says, is because Singapore is a young and geographically confined nation in which Malays, Indians and Chinese live in uneasy coexistence and that a false news report could result in devastating ethnic conflicts.

So now comes the estimable former prime minister, who has dominated Singaporean politics since the nation’s founding in 1965, to put the lie to that explanation. Clearly, the real reason is to protect the ruling elite from criticism.

Singapore marks its 30th anniversary of statehood this year. That is admittedly not very long in the life span of nations. But it is long enough to grow up.