I was in Australia for work earlier in the week and started thinking about a piece on our founding father, Mr Lee Kuan Yew, one of two men I admire greatly, as discussed in my earlier post, “Admiration”. This week marks the first anniversary of his passing.

I returned home to a country immersed in all sorts of memorial activities, and engaged in a debate triggered by Dr Lee Wei Ling, his daughter. Dr Lee objects to this veneration of her father, which she sees as hero worship. There are many responses to her position. I see her love of her country, and her father.

I greatly enjoyed Dr Lee’s book, A Hakka Woman’s Singapore Stories, from which I obtained glimpses of her life. She traveled extensively with her father, and shares many of his views. One of these is a rejection of personality cults. They witnessed and understood the destructive impact of this from Mao Zedong’s China. Dr Lee doesn’t want Singapore to fall into the same trap, to become a nation held ransom by one man, in life and death. She wants Singaporeans to move on, to focus on working for the well being of Singapore. Therein lies her love for her country.

She fears too, that such veneration could create the impression in subsequent generations that LKY was motivated by his desire for fame, or creation of a dynasty. She wants posterity to remember her father for the type of leader he was, one who placed his call of duty ahead of personal glory. In this is her love for her father.

Her first fear, a personality cult taking hold, I’m inclined to think is unlikely. Demographics is against it. We are living in the Facebook world, shaped by the millennials and post-millennials. In which attention spans are short, and getting shorter. Where there are ten thousand distractions per second. It’s a small wonder that sufficient momentum could be gathered for these memorial activities. As much as it was a miracle, acknowledged by Dr Lee herself, that an otherwise generally apathetic lot like us Singaporeans could be capable of the collective outpouring of emotions this time last year.

I still remember vividly how Husband, Son, Bro and me queued, alongside many others, for hours under the blazing sun to pay our last respects. I remain very proud of Husband, the ang moh, who didn’t have to, but wanted to, because he understood. Understood LKY’s contributions to the country he now lives in, and my gratitude. Even prouder of Son, who was then aged only six, but did not fuss a second about the heat and wait, because he too, seemed to have understood the significance of the event.

That was a very unique moment in our history, which I doubt could ever be repeated. Demographics aside, our political landscape has changed. Giants of history, a la LKY, will be much harder to come by. I think our desire for remembrance is on balance, a good thing, and to be enjoyed whilst it lasts. As apathy and the mentality of entitlement are, in my mind, more likely to ride the tides of time, than the formation of a personality cult.

As for Dr Lee’s second fear, that subsequent generations come to view her father in the wrong way, I’m inclined to think history is the fairest arbiter, and history will be on his side. Mao could control 1.3 billion people, but he could not control how history would judge him. Thus, his immense contributions would always be measured against his equally immense mistakes. Likewise, Deng Xiaoping’s efforts to dismantle personality cults would always be seen as one of his greatest contributions to his country. And one of LKY’s greatest was to ensure that Singapore could run on smoothly without him, well before his passing. This, history could never interpret as the pursuit of his own cult.

I hope Dr Lee finds some comfort in these perspectives. I am often touched by her devotion to her parents, which is evident in her book, and columns. She, in my mind, embodies LKY’s achievement as a father, beyond his many achievements as our founding father.