Complete media blackout on MM Lee’s remarks in National Geographic magazine
December 27th, 2009 | 
Author: Written by Our Correspondent
The Singapore media has imposed a total media blackout on MM Lee’s remarks made in the National Geographic magazine on 20 December 2009.
Speaking to journalist Mark Jacobson on how he had governed Singapore, MM Lee said he is aware that “many Singaporeans are unhappy with the influx of immigrants, especially those educated newcomers prepared to fight for higher paying jobs.”
“Over time, Singaporeans have become less hard-driving and hard-striving. This is why it is a good thing that the nation has welcomed so many Chinese immigrants.” Lee was quoted saying.
Lee describes the country’s new subjects as “hungry,” with parents who “pushed the children very hard.”
“If native Singaporeans are falling behind because the spurs are not stuck into the hide, that is their problem,” he quipped.
After the Temasek Review has published a report on MM Lee’s interview on 24 December, a massive outcry broke out in cyberspace with many netizens expressing their disgust and outrage at his views.
Over 60 comments were posted on Temasek Review in one day alone, condemning MM Lee for his remarks. The issue was such a hot topic of discussion that it was even featured on “Top News”, an online aggregator.
Despite intense public interest in the story, it did not warrant even a brief mention in any of the Singapore papers, including the Chinese tabloids.
The Singapore media has always published any news about MM Lee faithfully, including his frequent overseas trips and numerous speeches made in Singapore and elsewhere.
For example, MM Lee’s recent visit to India was given extensive publicity by the Singapore media when it was hardly covered by the Indian press.
As the “foreign talent” issue is a burning hot topic of late among Singaporeans, the media has a duty to report MM Lee’s views on the matter to the rest of Singapore.
After all, though by his own admission, he is “not doing much work except forecasting”, he still appears in the news on a regular basis, more so than his son the Prime Minister.
Did the Singapore media miss the story or was it “under instructions” from some other authority not to publish MM Lee’s remarks?
In any other democracies like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia and Hong Kong, such callous remarks made by a prominent politician would be splashed on the front pages of most papers almost immediately.
The former Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso often made the headlines for his infamous gaffes which helped swayed public opinion against him leading to his crushing defeat during the August general election this year.
In Singapore, the media is completely controlled by the ruling party via the Singapore Press Holdings, led by a former minister Dr Tony Tan.
News portraying government leaders in a bad light are censored while scandals involving opposition politicians are played up and given prominent coverage, e.g. the recent extradiction to U.S. of a Reform Party member on charges of arms-trafficking.
Without a free and independent press, it is little wonder that more than 90 per cent of Singaporeans inteviewed has faith in their leaders and public institutions, according to a report released by the United Nations Development Programme in September this year.
In the age of the internet, it remains to be seen how long more the Singapore media can afford to keep a lid on sensitive news as such without alienating their readers who are flocking to alternative news sites like Temasek Review.
Related articles:
1. MM Lee should apologize to Singapore Malay and Indian communities for uncalled for remarks
2. MM Lee slammed by netizens for callous remarks
3. MM Lee: good to welcome Chinese immigrants as Singaporeans have become less “hard-driving”
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41 Responses to “Complete media blackout on MM Lee’s remarks in National Geographic magazine”
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27/12/09
The mainstream medias which are made up of the newspapers, Media Corp and CNA, must toe the line of the PAP government and only publish the good side and we are now in the Internet Age which is known as Deep Space, and is free for all and totally uncensored and the news reported are always proven to be true at the end of the day. Good to see that fellow local born Singaporeans are responding are angry with Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew latest remark ie calling us “lazy” and I will not be surprise next he calls us “ungrateful” (exactly like the former Prime Minister Dr Mahathir who first called his Malays people “lazy: then “ungrateful”) looks like both are “abang adik” or “big brother small brother”.
Regards
Andrew Chuah
You can run but you can’t hide
Send the article to relatives / friends. They cannot censor that.
To TR,
Any possibilities Temasek Review goes into paper form as well? Sorry, if I have been ill informed about your plans. I am a new subscriber to this site and I think you guys are great.
Regards.
ERr it is not on “the website that cannot be mentioned on TR”.
So is the other socio-political website also part of the evil empre? Investigate TR, and let us know.
Talking of the evil empire, ever tot MM, like the Seth Lords, is energised by the negative tots of others. The criticism on TR etc feed his strength. So if you want to weaken him, ignore him. Don’t criticise him. Makes him stronger.
Seriously there is an ancient Greek?legend that when people start ignoring the gods and goddesses they worship, these deities lose their power and will cease to exist. Happened to Zeus and the other Olympians.
Please join the ‘Lee Kuan Yew Soothsayers’ Fart Club’.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=wall&gid=369677965455
To Temasek Review Editors
Can you write in to National Geographic’s journalist Mark Jacobson and request for the oral interview tapes to be made available to you and you will then post it on your site for all of us to hear. That is, if an oral interview was recorded.
Some journalists like to record, others don’t as their shorthand is good enough. But an American journalist would know better and record it as he knows he is dealing with an Asian dictator who loves lawsuits against western journalists. So journalist Mark Jacobson better have proof LKY said what he said.
I am very certain all readers here & elsewhere on the Net will be very interested to hear it directly from LKY’s mouth. You see, an oral interview will allow us to discern the intensity of mockery when he called us lazy Sporeans.
And LKY is always fiery with his emotions, so it would be very educational for us all Spore citizens to understand the state of his emotions throughout the interview.
This is truly sickening….Thank God for the new media.
More and more people will eventually see thru the smokescreen.
We are no longer living in the 60’s or past glory.
singaporeans are now more widely travel…the younger generation will change this place….Just hope its not too lat.
And so what’s new? Singapore, a city ruled by one family for 60 years. What do you expect? This country is no better than Cuba, Zimbabwe and other ruled by strong men. Granted you are free to travel and make money (up to a certain point)but the difference is subtile. This is still a police oppressive state with no freedoms. Like many other old dictators, Lee Kwan Yew think of his country as its own private estate….Like many old dictators, as they get old he becomes more paranoid, obsessed, senile…
He might have been good for the country but now he is like a sour bottle of milk. Way past is expiry date.
It is about time the old dictator resigns and let new blood take the helm of the country. Even if they make mistakes. And no, by this i don’t mean his son, grandson or great great grandson nor the puppets of his regime.
Young bright singaporeans, rise!!! Fight for your ideas, fight for your freedom. Enough is enough!
REVOLUTION!!!!
censorship REALLY shows all the singporeans that he indeed made a BIG mistake and he quickly get HIS medias to blank them out . Polictics needs strong and able person who is not only fast thinking and when in trouble , remedy the problem quickly with his team . This is not al all happening here . Our problems due to ALL the crap policies have BOOMZ and its to late alrerady so he trying to get the FTs to balance out during voting period . What he doesn’t know is 80% of the ppl are not happy and waiting to kick his ASS .
What do you expect from the Shitty Times. It is so sad that the staff in SPH have sold their souls to the devil.
Anyway, in the age of the internet, nobody really reads the Shitty Times anymore.
Not only is it full of BS but it destroys our rainforests as well.
Time for change.
Fret not. Here is the extract from NGO’s website
But taking a typically Darwinian stance, the MM describes the country’s new subjects as “hungry,” with parents who “pushed the children very hard.” If native Singaporeans are falling behind because “the spurs are not stuck into the hide,” that is their problem.
so does that mean that msm does not support these ill remarks of mm lee?
why?…
@Time for Change on Sun, 27th Dec 2009 2:41 pm
Dont tar all ST journos with the same brush lah.
I personally know people who work there and they often they are just trying to get by, some have already quit cause they cant take the BS anymore.
The ones that deserve to be slimed are the editors and some of the long serving BS columnists.
of course i am not agree to what MM say, but now i have to agree!
WHY?
Blame our self! we are the one who vote for the PAP, so why blame the old man? Time to wake up Sporeans, u pay him 3m per year and this is what we get in return.
Have u all wake up? Stop sleeping under the lighting!
U got to use the hammer to hammer the lighting!
wake up wake up
my fren
the country are in deep shit!
Maybe old man lee is angry the people of Singapore are not supporting or FEARING him as much as before.
His impersonal attitude reeks of dictatorship. The kind that will just turn around and tell you, “So what? You got a roof over your head.”
On a personal note.. it just feels like a master telling a slave to work hard because the master provided food, water and shelter. Otherwise the master will just hire another slave.
I think this analogy is fitting.
LKY is candidly speaking his mind like all bigtime capitalist boss would among themselves about their expectations for their workers in their payroll; he’s just saying “you guys must be cheap, hardworking and be grateful to the boss for letting you work for him otherwise I’ll look for cheaper, more hardworking and eager beavers from elsewhere to replace you.” Working people shouldn’t be surprised by such boss mentality. His son, LHL seems to have shown more respect for his citizens by likening us to being shareholders in a multi-billion dollar sovereign fund holding called Singapore Inc.
In Hokkien, LKY’s boss mindset can be summed up like this: “ganglang xiongho ai chi ko ai pi”.
my taiwanese friend sent me this link, containing six parts commeting my city state early politic, economics etcs.
interestingly part 4-6 mentioning that our economics model, FT policy, IR coping from taiwan.
what interest me from my taiwan friend that our singapore FT policy different from them – that is taiwan foreign talent policy is to invite their own talented peoples from different parts of the world to return to their proud country to contribute to its present economics relevancy and politic vibrancy ie. economics drive politic not politic drives economics.
really kudos to my taiwanese friend knowing their personal democratic rights.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEYjcn_HMc4&feature=related
Dear All,
Link for the article in National Geographic Magazine:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/print/2010/01/singapore/jacobson-text
See for yourself whether you, as a Singaporean, deserves to be ridiculed to this extent.
So this is our current leaders’ reply about our genunine concerns regarding foreign workers taking jobs and making the competition so stiff that we don’t have time to spend with our loved ones? I say, lets reply with a response of our own during the next election.
Lets all send the link containing his remarks to as many people in our mailing list. Let them know. This is PAP’s reply to your concerns.
http://www.temasekreview.com/2009/12/27/complete-media-blackout-on-mm-lees-remarks-in-national-geographic-magazine/comment-page-1/
As he gets older he is getting more careless (or maybe just thinking more and more of himself) and his true colors are finally showing.
He basically has always been disdain for the citizens. He sees us as numbers – expendable. As we get more vocal, replacement is a natural choice – much like changing clothes.
The problem is that today the whole PAP is almost filled with these people – 100% for the upper levels. This is what we have which can be seen by the unacceptable statements coming from so many of them. Almost everyone has leaked out something which shows this thinking – even PM Lee with his “fixing” statement.
The MIW spend most of their time doing these instead of thinking of ways to better our lives.
It is time for the old fox to step down.He talked too much and mostly rubbish !!
There he goes again Farting and keeps on Farting but always comes out from the Wrong Hole.
When will he ever learn,that when he needs to Fart,he should use the correct organ in his body.
Good for us. At last he speaks without reservations due to old age . The more he talk , the worse it will affect his party . This will certainly help us to decide during polling day regardless of blackout period . Time for celebration . Please talk more so oppositions and locals can sit and enjoy .
Singapore media is a nation-building tool..That is what we learnt in media society class. It is not like the American media, a 4th governance. (I forget what they call it in class)
And ain’t there no freedom of the media (traditional) in Singapore anyway?
What luck to be born in such a socially-crippled state. Fortunately, I don’t take it for granted, y’all, SG is still very pretty and very safe.
The son said: “Is it better to take your medicine sooner or stretch it out? Take medicine once or two times? I prefer to make my medicine early, why? This is something we need to do, once we have done it, we can move on;”
After having taken the medicine (2% GST hike).
The father said: “Over time, Singaporeans have become less hard-driving and hard-striving. This is why it is a good thing that the nation has welcomed so many Chinese immigrants.”
“If native Singaporeans are falling behind because the spurs are not stuck into the hide, that is their problem,”
Whose fault?
This is Sinkapore
Acutally, I would rather not take the medicine if I don’t need to.
I was never convinced we need the 7% GST. Look what is happening, it accelerated the cost of living here. Ever since the talk about GST, the lives of Singaporeans has deteriorated.
We become expansive and jobs are leaving our shores faster than necessary.
This is what happens when MIW think they can do no wrong and only focus on milking the system as much as they can. Look around, their fingers are into every business that can make money.
I was in a kopitiam yesterday and overhead some uncles and aunties discussing this topic over coffee. Some of them were apparently upset and disappointed over these remarks.Apparently their children were surfing the net and managed to discover these news and updated them accordingly.
Seriously, I don’t even know if S’poreans are given the chance to work hard (or perform) in the first place. In my previous workplace, opportunities are given first to New S’pore Citizens, followed by Foreign Talent (could be PRs or non-citizens) and lastly Singaporeans.
Why? Because the boss himself is a FOREIGNER! Yeah, you got that right. A foreigner. Who else who he take care of first??
If we got one foreigner here today, soon enough there would be a swarm of them.
Singaporeans, our advice to you is to look elsewhere for work. We should just regard Singapore as a stopover just like our foreign counterparts.
To Hakita
“Singapore media is a nation-building tool…”
No, its a MIW-building tool. As part of Singapore, it doesn’t feel like its building a nation – unless you consider brainwashing as nation building… then again maybe that’s what it means….
To soulfly,
“… taiwan foreign talent policy is to invite their own talented peoples from different parts of the world to return to their proud country to contribute to its present economics relevancy and politic vibrancy …”
For MIW, those who left are probably anti-MIW and their thoughts are probably good riddance to bad rubbish…
However, with every mistake, the number of people they offend increases and even with those departed (which hurts the effort to change the MIW) the absolute percentage increases… will they ever listen? is it too late?
I just about had it with the monopoly the ruling party has on the media.
Singaporeans should be more consciously aware of choices they make during the General Election. How many voters actually are aware of the hidden side of things as surfaced in TR?
I support TR for reporting news that the Straits Times have kept mum.
Btw if the Straits Times really do report it, that would be interesting.
i’m totally disgusted with the SPH lapdogs… it’s really an insult to the nation’s intelligence that they think they can continue keeping us in the dark forever.
HOWEVER. if we keep calm and think about it – for once i actually agree with mm’s comments. there’re so many immigrants now – i’ve observed a number of prc colleagues at my wkplace. & just look at the prc students in the schools. there is no doubt that the chinese are very ‘hungry’. & remember that the prc chaps that come over to s’pore aren’t even the ‘best’ in china – so just imagine how vast the competition is out there! i get pretty worried how tough it’ll get for us and our kids in the future. mm may have worded it poorly, but we seriously need to think about what he’s really saying – s’poreans cannot afford to be complacent. we obviously don’t want to compete by lowering our pay, but if we don’t keep improving, sooner or later we’ll be overtaken by the world. then all of us out of jobs..
http://www.news.gov.sg/public/sgpc/en/media_releases/agencies/pmo/transcript/T-20091228-1.html
you can see the full transcript here, according to PMO. actual words uttered by LKY were less blunt, but meaning still the same.
@elaine,
There are a couple of ways for a business to be competitive – increase the productivity of each worker, exploring new opportunities or decreasing the cost of business.
With the constant inflow of cheap labour, a business would take the path of least resistance by employing people who demand a lower salary.
Someone recounted to me that when she was interviewed by a Singaporean law firm, one of the first question posted to her was, “How late can you work till?”
I’m not sure what you meant by ‘improving’ but the bottomline is that you must be willing to work long hours and cheaply too.
C K
Actually, there is a key factual error in this article: if you look at the transcript, and even the main article at Nat Geo, at no point does LKY say that “If native Singaporeans are falling behind because the spurs are not stuck into the hide, that is their problem”. Even the quote “the spurs are not stuck into the hide,” imho, was taken out of context by the author, and given a more Darwinian and politically incorrect slant which was probably not intended by LKY himself.
I urge all readers here to suspend judgement before reading the interview transcript
http://www.news.gov.sg/public/sgpc/en/media_releases/agencies/pmo/transcript/T-20091228-1.html
Every society will evolve and when we reach a certain standard of living, culture and the arts will become an important part of the society. That is a necessary part of society and Singapore has reached that. So to say that those are not important is just ignorance on the part of LKY. Every other first world country has a highly developed culture and arts scene, that comes along naturally when we have a stable economy. We are not living in a war zone or third world economy!
This is bullshit
Why the hell is the Singapore government covering up for the mistakes they make through a media blackout? This is exactly the kind of nonsense that the government denies by saying “Singapore is an open country”. And hell, this old fart’s been in power too long that he’s drunk in it.
Minister mentor? Sounds synonymous with “Brilliant Comrade” to me
The people should not be afraid of the government, but the government should be afraid of the people. Are we suppose to just continue sitting here and let them dictate our every right while eating the shit they feed through their puppet media? I know i wont. And u can guess who i’m voting for.
Hmm…i think everyone is too angry about the blackout to even pay attention to what Mr Lee is saying. He is saying that we have become too complacent. Maybe it shouldnt be at the expense of national identity but if they do not use other methods then the country’s economy will not progress. And i think he is right, because parents are going easy on their kids these days. How can we remain competitive if we are not willing to go further than others?
Well i don’t agree on the part about parents going easy on kids these days. Just look at how parents nowadyas are pushing their kids at such a young age to the extent that it is too much for the kid to handle. It’s good to put pressure but too much pressure only creates a negative impact. It might be that Singaporeans have become too complacent. But then again, even though we are fighting our ass off, Singaporeans in general think the ‘white’ are better (eg. employers always favor them thinking they’re smarter and can work better than the locals). And if we talk about schools, just look at who all the PSC scholarships are going to? More than 1/2 to the china nationals or other foreigners and hardly many places left for the locals. And if u mention about economy getting better, i agree we do need those professional skills but what’s with the influx of no skill workers esp from China (as mentioned by mm Lee chinese immigrants) who can’t even speak a word of english (so many being toilet cleaners, cashiers or mending food counters etc)?! N these pple here are basically just working to earn n then get themselves a better life back home once they’re done here. So that’s revenue leakage i say, how does that make the economy better?