More languages
More actions
Li Guangyao 李光耀 | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Harry Lee Kuan Yew 16 September 1923 Singapore |
| Died | 23 March 2015 (aged 91) Singapore |
| Political orientation | State capitalism |
| Political party | PAP |
Li Guangyao (16 September 1923 – 23 March 2015), also spelled Lee Kuan Yew (LKY), was a Singaporean politician who served as the first prime minister of Singapore from 1959 to 1990. He also founded and served as secretary-general of the People's Action Party from 1954 to 1992. Lee is considered a founding father of Singapore and his autocratic leadership transformed Singapore into a highly developed capitalist state.
He admitted that his government was not "excessively democratic" and made Singapore rely on Western investment.[1]
Early life[edit | edit source]
Li was born in a rich family and attended the best English-speaking schools: Raffles Institution and Raffles College.[1] His anglophile family members encouraged English not only because it provided better job opportunities, the rationale behind Straits Chinese going to English-medium schools, but also because they felt a close attachment to the British Empire as a cosmopolitan construct.[2]
Despite his Anglo-centric upbringing, Lee became a 'born-again chinese' and set out to learn mandarin as a direct result of his experience within the Imperial metropole, where he was forced to come to terms with the fact of his less-than-Britishness. As he recalls it ‘people there saw me as a Chinese, and so I became a Chinese.’[2]
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Vijay Prashad (2008). The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World: 'Singapore' (pp. 250–2). [PDF] The New Press. ISBN 9781595583420 [LG]
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Jones, Christian (2022). The Straits Chinese Between Empires: 'The Social and Cultural World of the Straits Chinese; Language' (pp. 34-35). [PDF] Geneva: Graduate Institute Publications, Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement. ISBN 978-2-940600-40-3 doi: 10.4000/books.iheid.8895 [HUB]