Tweet
Confucius...
I first came across Lee Kuan Yew’s name in 1968 while reading Kwame Nkrumah’s book, Dark Days in Ghana. In the immediate wake of the 24 February 1966 coup that overthrew him, Nkrumah received many messages of support from all over the world. Only a representative sample of these letters was published in the book.
Lee began his statement by saying that it had taken him two weeks to compose his thoughts. He had visited Nkrumah’s Ghana on two occasions and did not “believe that [the] political changeover has written finis to the chapter of what has gone before”. He went on: “The Ghanaians are a vigorous and lively people and they deserve all the vision and leadership which you strove to give them, to make Ghana into a strong modern part of an Africa whose unity you have always espoused… May what you stand for, a united Africa and a great Ghana, triumph and flourish”.
No other statement of solidarity in the book could match Lee’s in grandeur, genuineness and beauty of simplicity. Who was this Far Eastern leader, I began to wonder, who could write so well-meaningly about our country and its future? At the time and given where I was, I could find no material to hand which might have enlightened me about Lee himself or his country, Singapore, until I came to England.
I first came across Lee Kuan Yew’s name in 1968 while reading Kwame Nkrumah’s book, Dark Days in Ghana. In the immediate wake of the 24 February 1966 coup that overthrew him, Nkrumah received many messages of support from all over the world. Only a representative sample of these letters was published in the book.
Lee began his statement by saying that it had taken him two weeks to compose his thoughts. He had visited Nkrumah’s Ghana on two occasions and did not “believe that [the] political changeover has written finis to the chapter of what has gone before”. He went on: “The Ghanaians are a vigorous and lively people and they deserve all the vision and leadership which you strove to give them, to make Ghana into a strong modern part of an Africa whose unity you have always espoused… May what you stand for, a united Africa and a great Ghana, triumph and flourish”.
No other statement of solidarity in the book could match Lee’s in grandeur, genuineness and beauty of simplicity. Who was this Far Eastern leader, I began to wonder, who could write so well-meaningly about our country and its future? At the time and given where I was, I could find no material to hand which might have enlightened me about Lee himself or his country, Singapore, until I came to England.
It's time we use our minds to solve the ills that plague us.
Comment