lhs (print) issn 1742–2906

lhs (online) issn 1743–1662

Article

From Third World to First: A Case Study of

Lee Kuan Yew and Language Management
in Singapore 1

Phyllis Ghim-Lian Chew

Abstract

In the early 1960s, Singapore had a third world per-capita GDP of around $2,200 per
annum. By 1990 however, it had miraculously transformed itself into the ‘first world’,
placed second on the World Economic Forum’s global competitiveness rankings, with
a per-capita share of gross domestic product of more than $60,000 (US). Is there
something that developing countries may learn from its political-economic-linguistic
structuring policies and practices?
There have been many reasons offered to explain the Singapore ‘miracle’ but what
is little known are Lee Kuan Yew’s achievements in the linguistic arena. As one of the
world’s longest serving Prime Ministers, Lee’s name is synonymous with the history
of modern Singapore and any study on language sciences and the developing world
must take this into consideration.
This paper is divided into two main sections. Section 1 is on Lee’s linguistic strate-
gies to catapult his party to power in the 1955 and 1959 general elections on the eve
of the British departure while Section 2 outlines his language management policies.

Keywords: economics; language policy; management; Singapore

Introduction
In the early 1960s, Singapore had a per-capita GDP of around USD 2,200 per
annum, no different from many sub-Saharan African states in the decade of

Affiliation
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
email: phyllis.chew@nie.edu.sg

lhs vol 11.1 2015  31–50 doi : 10.1558/lhs.v11.1.19181

©2016, equinox publishing
32     From Third World to First

independence. However, by the 1990s, it had left its third-word counterparts

behind, having transformed itself into the ‘first world’, with a per-capita GDP
of more than USD 60,000.2 A closer look at its political-economic-linguistic
structuring policies and practices is therefore of great interest to the develop-
ing world.
Many factors have been ascribed to account for Singapore’s fast track from
third world to first and they may be grouped broadly under geographical,
economic, social and political. Geographically, the island is of considerable
importance, as Singapore has strategic control of the Strait of Malacca – the
most direct and navigable sea route between India and the South China Sea.
With its excellent deep water harbor, it is an excellent transit point for inter-
national air and shipping services (cf. Sugimoto, 2011). Its economic pol-
icies have also been highly commended as the sum of its foreign exchange
reserves and assets in its sovereign wealth funds annually exceeds its GDP. Its
low tax structure and strong currency ensure that the economy is one of the
freest,3 most innovative, competitive,4 and business-friendly5 and it is ranked
among the least corrupt countries along with New Zealand and Scandinavia.6
Socially, the population is work-oriented and educationally minded as there
are funded activities to affect behavior in almost every sector of life. The fully-
funded Social Security system and high residential ownership rate encourage
Singaporeans to stay loyal to their job and country. Last but not least, the polit-
ical stability that Singapore has enjoyed in the last half century has doubtless
contributed to its success. Lee Kuan Yew’s People’s Action Party (PAP) is dem-
ocratically elected and has won every election since 1959. As one of the world’s
longest serving Prime Ministers, Lee’s name is synonymous with the history
of modern Singapore and any study on language sciences and the developing
world must take this into consideration.7
While the above reasons have been suggested for the Singapore ‘miracle’,
what is little known are Lee’s achievements in the linguistic arena. Books on
Lee Kuan Yew often emphasize his trust in the rule of law, the respect for
property rights and proper accounting procedures (cf. Josey, 1980; Barr, 2000;
Siddiqui, 2010; Ang, 2013). Many accounts have also been written about his
belief in Confucian values and work ethics (Heng, 1992; Teo, 2005). How-
ever, relatively few have discussed his linguistic policies. Those who have con-
centrate mainly on language planning and policies (Kamsiah and Bibi, 1999;
Gopinathan et al., 2004; Baldauf and Chua, 2012), education and bilingual-
ism (Deterding, 2007; Curdt-Christiansen and Silver, 2011), Singlish (Ho and
Platt, 1993; Alsagoff, 2010) and the issues of globalization (Chew, 2009; Tan
and Rubdy, 2008). What have not yet been discussed are the more intimate
political-linguistic management policies pertaining peculiarly to Lee himself
which is the focus of this paper.
 Phyllis Ghim-Lian Chew     33

Lee Kuan Yew: A native speaker of English and Baba Malay

Lee was born in 1923 in Singapore of fourth-generation Hakka-speaking
migrants from Guangdong, China, who a hundred years before had left their
impoverished country for Banka, (today’s Indonesia), to make their fortune.
They were Babas and came from a relatively prosperous trading background
which spoke English and Baba Malay:
At home, I spoke English to my parents, Baba Malay to my grandparent and
Malay mixed with Hokien to my friends. Mandarin was totally alien to me. (Lee,
1998: 35)

The Babas or Peranakans were then the social elites of Singapore, more loyal to
the British than to China (Jurgen, 1998). They were usually traders, the mid-
dleman of the British and the Chinese, or the Chinese and Malays, because
they could speak both English and Malay. Later generational Babas such as
Lee’s parents and grandparents had lost the ability to speak Chinese through
a gradual assimilation to the Malay-Indonesian culture. Hokien (from Fujian
province, China) was the original mother tongue of the Babas but by the time
of the second and third generation, Babas could only speak it in a pidginized
way as they had mainly begun to switch their mother tongues to Baba Malay, a
creolized form mixed with some Hokien loan words to suit a localized Malay
context (Clammer 1980).
Hence, although Lee was first enrolled at age 7 in a Chinese-medium (Man-
darin) school in 1930, in line with pro-nationalist China sentiments at that
time, he soon found classes in Mandarin ‘tough-going’ since he spoke no Man-
darin at home. His spattering of street Hokien was of no help either as these
two Chinese languages came from linguistically unrelated families. His family
then transferred him to an English-medium elementary school which he nat-
urally excelled.8 His powerful command of English was not unusual, since he
spoke English with his parents, and he became the recipient of a number of
scholarships in English. As an ‘English’ schoolboy, he played cricket, tennis
and chess and joined the Scouts. Similar to other political leaders such as
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (India), Mohamed Llaquat Ali Khan (Pakistan), and
Tengku Abdul Rahman (Malaysia) all of whom would later become prime
ministers of their native countries, Lee graduated from Cambridge University,
UK. An Anglophile, he was mostly known as ‘Harry Lee’ for the first 30 years
of his life, and still is to his friends in the West and to many close friends and
family (cf. Lee, 1998; Bloodsworth, 1986).
His wife, Kwa Geok Choo, also of Peranakan descent, attended the Meth-
odist Girls’ School – an English-medium school set up by Methodist mission-
aries; and like her husband, won a scholarship to study in Cambridge and
similarly, graduated as a barrister. There academic achievements placed both
34     From Third World to First

Lee and his wife solidly in the English-educated ‘camp’ and their ideological
outlook upon graduation, was in sharp contrast to the Singapore masses who
spoke Mandarin and other Chinese dialects and who had been schooled in the
Chinese-medium schools (Josey, 1980). At ease in the English language and
immersed in its culture, it is not surprising that Lee was disposed to believe
that it was the ‘best language’ for Singapore’s future (Ibid.).
The stage is now set for us to discuss Lee’s linguistic management policies
in the Singapore story. The paper is divided into two sections. The first sec-
tion reveals the relationship of language and politics while the second sec-
tion discusses the role of language and economics. More specifically, Section
A discourses on how Lee’s linguistic strategies in the 1955 and 1959 political
elections played a crucial role in catapulting him to power while Section B
discusses Lee’s language management in Singapore and its relationship to the
transition of Singapore’s third world to first world status.

Section A
Both the 1955 and 1995 elections were landmark elections in the history
of Singapore. 1955 was the first time a majority of legislative seats were to
be freely contested and also the first time that local would share executive
power with the colonial authorities. The 1959 general elections, on the other
hand, was distinctive in being the first legislative assembly election to be held
since full internal self-government was granted by the British government in
London and where voting was made compulsory.
As a young returned lawyer, Lee was acutely aware of the linguistic dimen-
sion of politics and identity. Lee had observed that the then prominent Minis-
ter for Commerce and Industry, J. M. Jumabhoy, could only speak in English
and be understood by only a small English-speaking Indian elite rather than
the masses of vernacular speaking Indians. Like Jumabhoy who could not
speak Tamil, the language of the majority of Indians in Singapore, as he was a
native speaker of Guajarati; Lee could not speak Hokien, the language of the
majority of Chinese in Singapore as he was a native speaker of Baba Malay
(Yap, 2009). Noting the example of Jumabhoy who in his opinion was more of
an estranged elite rather than a leader of the masses (like Mahatma Gandhi),
Lee realized that those who used only English were often unqualified to voice
the genuine opinions of the people. Speaking only in halting Mandarin, Lee
realized that his lack of Mandarin or Hokien which was the language of the
Chinese masses would be his primary liability (Ibid.). However, he resolved
that if he could not speak their language well, he could at least make himself
acceptable through other ‘linguistic’ strategies, such as: (1) alignment with the
Chinese-speaking masses; (2) formation of a party with the Chinese-educated;
as well as (3) a host of other language oriented strategies.
 Phyllis Ghim-Lian Chew     35

Alignment with the Chinese-speaking masses

In 1950, it was expected of bright young returning graduates like Lee to join
other Singapore elites in the English-speaking civic or political parties of the
establishment.9 There was for example, the Singapore Progressive Party (SPP),
the party of his employers, John Laycock and A. Mallal, and through which
Lee himself had gained his first political experience by volunteering as their
election agents, which involved among other things, the putting up of posters
and the designing of political captions. However, Lee calculated that with the
granting of universal suffrage, the game would tilt in favor of the Chinese-
speaking majority, not the SPP (Lee, 1998: 195). Lee also observed that it was
the Chinese-educated (those who were schooled in Mandarin) rather than the
English educated (those who were schooled in English) who were the ones
who would reach the unschooled masses as many of them could speak the
various Chinese vernaculars; while the English educated, who were Babas, like
himself, could only speak Malay. In 1955, the vote of the masses would count,
since automatic registration of voters would by then be implemented; and for
the 1959 election, the votes of the masses would count even more because by
then, compulsory voting would be operational (Ong, 1975).10 This meant that
the use of the vernacular would be essential as tools of mass communication.
Lee realized too that the masses were most unlike his privileged background;
and that to win the elections, he too would have to project a different identity:
We understood that to win over Singapore we got to win over the Chinese-educated.
The English-educated was a small fraction of the population. (Lee, quoted in Han
2011: 248)

This meant playing down a pro-English-speaking, pro-British stand and

instead adopting an anti-colonial culture by attacking the privileged posi-
tion of the pro-British English-educated middle class, to which he himself
belonged. While he was already emplaced with the crème de la crème of the
English-speaking society; what he needed now was to cultivate the Chinese-
educated, most of whom had Communist sympathizers. One strategy was
to seek the support of the labor unions who were predominantly Chinese-
speaking, by volunteering to serve as their legal advisor. No union was too
small or humble for his help, be their members’ street vendors, taxi-drivers,
trishaw riders and/or bumboat operators (Yap et al., 2009: 29).

Forming a political party with the Chinese-educated

Together, Lee and the leaders of the more powerful Chinese-educated trade
union leaders formed the People’s Action Party (PAP) in November 1954, with
the immediate aim of contesting the upcoming 1955 elections. The Chinese-
educated within his party were useful as they could communicate with leftist
36     From Third World to First

trade unions such as the Shop and Factory Workers’ Union and the Bus Work-
ers’ Union, as well as with dialect speaking lower-income groups such as barbers,
manual workers, farmers, clerks, and teachers (Hill and Lian, 1998). Lee became
the PAP’s secretary-general and an executive committee was formed with both
Chinese and English-educated radicals (Turnbull, 1989). The branches catered
to the interest of this ‘grassroots’ group with songs, dances, cooking and literacy
classes, radio and motor repair in Mandarin. According to Lee (1998: 242), ‘the
English-speaking members would attend, but there were no social and cultural
activities specifically organized for them ….’ This linguistic-political alliance has
been described by Bloodsworth (1986) as ‘The Tiger and the Trojan horse’ – the
‘tiger’ being the Communists; and the Trojan horse, the PAP, as they aspired to
capture power from within.
As Lee had envisaged, the 1955 election saw mass support forthcoming
for parties aligned to the agenda of the Chinese educated. The masses of
Chinese speaking people who had hitherto remained apathetic politically
were now aroused by an anti-colonial propaganda campaign conveyed to
them primarily through Mandarin and Hokien. Accordingly, two left-wing
parties – the Singapore Labor front (SLF) led by David Marshall and the PAP
led by Lee Kuan Yew made the biggest gains. On the other hand, his bosses
from the English-speaking SPP suffered a shock defeat from which it never
recovered.

Other Language Management Strategies

Names and naming narratives by which we describe ourselves influence our
perceptions of others – and all these must consciously or unconsciously frame
our personal and group identities. It was the practice of Baba families to give
their children both English and Chinese names as a symbol of their own
hybrid identities. On returning from Britain, Lee was then popularly known
as ‘Harry’, a name which not only connoted an Anglicized-Christian identity
but also a privileged Baba one. Politically ambitious, Lee was careful not to
forefront his privileged English-educated identity which was hardly a point
of favor with the Chinese-educated masses not least because for a long time,
the Chinese-educated had despised the Babas for their inability to speak Chi-
nese (cf. Hardwick, 2008). In addition, a significant number of Babas were
Christians – and it was also not politically prudent to be aligned with a minor-
ity religion associated with the well-heeled and colonial power. Indeed, when
queried about his identity, he would only say he was only ‘technically’ a Baba
and no further (Lee, 1998).
Lee renounced his Baba background and its pro-assimilative tendencies for
a more pro-Chinese ethnic stand. One way to signal this was to discard his
English name and forefront his Chinese name:
 Phyllis Ghim-Lian Chew     37

In 1950, I decided to try to have myself called to the Singapore bar using only my
Chinese name and I succeeded – and Lee Kuan Yew became my public persona, what
I stood for and saw myself as – a left-wing nationalist – and that is how I appeared in
newspaper reports of my cases in court. I was mildly annoyed when I was reported
as Harry Lee – politically it was a minus. I did not name myself. I have not given any
of my children a western name, nor have they in turn given their children western
names. (Ibid.: 142)

By sending his children to Chinese-medium schools, Lee snubbed the prefer-

ences of the Baba community who traditionally sent their children to English-
medium schools. This well-calculated move endeared him to the Chinese
educated who would later give him the political clout he badly needed. By
this means he showed in his own words that he was ‘… as keen and anxious
as anyone to retain the best features of Chinese education … (Lee, 2000: 173).
On his children’s education, Lee recounts: ‘I make sure my three children will
not suffer. So they have Chinese as their first language, then English, then
Malay (Han, 2011: 262). Following their father’s dictates, Lee’s children (which
include current Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong) were publicly
schooled in Chinese but privately tutored at home in English and Malay:
Therefore I could say, that I was convinced that Chinese schools were good for them
because they were able to master English at home. However for their university edu-
cation, I said I would not send them to a Chinese-language university. Their future
depended upon a command of the language of the latest textbooks which would be
in English. (Lee, 2000: 177)

Later, this strategy would give him the political clout to change Southeast
Asia’s only Chinese-medium university, Nanyang University, from a politi-
cally influential bastion of Chinese-speaking activists in the 1950s and 1960s
to a more subdued English-speaking one.11 Lee attributed his political survival
after this remarkable change to the fact that: ‘unlike many champions of the
Chinese language who sent their children to English schools, my three chil-
dren were completely educated in Chinese schools’ (Ibid.).
Lee recognized the use of Mandarin and Hokien as the key to the hearts of
the electorate – the fluency of both were beyond his reach:
they could wax eloquent, could quote proverbs, used metaphors and allegories or tra-
ditional legends to illustrate contemporary situation. They spoke with a passion that
filled their listeners with emotion and exhilaration at the prospect of Chinese great-
ness held out to them … I knew that even if I mastered it, it would not be enough.
(Lee, 1998: 186)

The use of Hokien and other Chinese-inspired regional tongues was and
still is an important signifier of quintessential Chinese identity by especially
first generation migrants who still retained fond memories of their ancestral
38     From Third World to First

homeland (Leong, 2010). Chinese languages which were the mother tongues
of the masses serve not just to ‘warm up’ the crowds, but also tug at the heart-
string since there remains nuances that cannot be conveyed in English.12
The other language that could reach a big audience was Malay13 but Lee’s
dominant language was English. His mother tongue, Baba Malay, was the
lingua franca in the domain of domestic transactions (Chia, 1994). The Chi-
nese educated looked down on its hybrid nature and sensitive to languages,
Lee dismissed it as unsuitable and inadequate for political life:
However it was a pidgin … it was limited, it was difficult to move crowds with it.
There could be no flight of rhetoric. (Lee, 1998:187)

Thus, on several public occasions, he had to pretend he could speak Chinese,

when in reality he could not:
I suffered embarrassment when a newspaper reported that Lam Tian, my Chinese
educated rival in the Democratic party said I could not read or write the language
and therefore not capable of representing the Chinese voter … I blithely claimed I
could read, write and speak Mandarin, Hakka and Hokien and also spoke Malay – as
I was advised by Chinese reporters that it was best not to admit lack of my command
of mother tongue. Actually my spoken Hokien and Hakka were pathetic. (Lee, 1998:
183)

Lam Tian challenged me to a debate in Cantonese-speaking Kreta Ayer Street of

Tanjong Pagar. I dodged it and counter-attacked by saying I have to get things done
in the Legislative Assembly and there a candidate needs to have good English. But I
made a supreme effort to say a few words in Mandarin in my biggest rally in Banda
Street, another Cantonese area. A friendly Sin Pao reporter called Jek Yuen thong
drafted two paragraphs for me, and then spent several hours coaching me to read a
speech that took only three minutes to deliver. But the crowd was with me, and they
cheered me for the effort. (Lee, 1998: 184)

To arouse the crowd, Lee began to look around for a fluent Chinese orator
which he found in Lim Chin Siong (Harper, 2002). Schooled in the Chinese
classics and the Shui Hu Chua (Water Margin) rather than Shakespeare, Lim
(and his other Chinese-educated colleagues) built a mass base for what would
have otherwise been a caucus of English-educated elite. In the 1955 elections,
Lim managed to captivate the masses of Chinese-educated, dialect-speaking
farmers, factory workers and hawkers who had turned up in huge numbers
to support the Union and the elections. In the April 1955 election under the
PAP , Lim was elected to his seat in the Bukit Timah constituency and entered
the Legislative Assembly at the age of 22. Like a ‘comet in the sky’ (Ibid.), Lim
eclipsed Lee and other English-educated leader of the PAP with his passion-
ate speeches in Hokien.
 Phyllis Ghim-Lian Chew     39

Other Chinese speakers who were courted included Lee Khoon Choy
(1988: 52–54) ‘roped in’ to participate in the 1959 election:
I was one of those roped in almost at the last minute, perhaps because I was Chinese
educated but not a communist. I had been told that I had a role to play in the party
because I was bilingual … we were particularly short of people who could speak
effectively in Hokien.

Meanwhile, Lee’s close identification with Lim strengthened his own pop-
ularity and public image as a ‘man of the masses’. Throughout this period,
Lee used socialist, anti-colonial language to ensure his political-linguistic
identity to Lim. He had been after all, the solicitor for most, if not all, the
Chinese-educated detained party leaders and cadres even if he could only
have communicated with them through an interpreter (Harper, 2002). He
protested whenever the British Special Branch detained the pro-Communists
in his party such as the popular Lim, but evidently relied upon such deten-
tions to remove his more charismatic Chinese-educated opponents and enable
him to retain control. Evidently, Lee played a skillful linguistic hand as an anti-
colonial for the Chinese-educated masses and as trusted ally of the British.
Nor surprisingly, in the 1959 elections with the implementation of compul-
sory voting, the PAP reaped the full force of the Chinese-educated and lower-
income groups and won a landslide victory, winning 43 of the 51 seats in the
Legislative Assembly. However, it was the English-educated Lee, rather than
the Chinese–educated Lim who was elected Prime Minster as Lim had been
conveniently detained by the Lim Yew Hock government and unable to con-
test the 1959 elections because the constitutional team to London led by Lim
Yew Hock, with Lee as the sole PAP representative, had ‘conveniently’ agreed
to the stipulation that pro-Communist Chinese-speaking detainees (such as
Lim Chin Siong) were disqualified to run in the 1959 elections (Tan, 2001).
Hence, with Lim imprisoned by the British, Lee was assured of not being over-
shadowed by a charismatic Hokien-Mandarin speaker; but yet be able to ride
on the wave of his popularity.
While Lee maintained scrupulously the facade of unity with the leftist aspi-
rations of his Chinese-educated colleagues, he always knew that one day he
would have to break the alliance when it suited him (Harper, 2002). The inev-
itable happened in 1961 over the question of merger with Malaysia – the 13
PAP MPs who did not support Lee’s White Paper proposals on merger were
expelled from the party.14 When Lim Chin Siong left the PAP, he took with
him close to 60% of the PAP Chinese-educated cadre to form the Barisan Sos-
ialis (Socialist Front). During this time, devoid of his ‘star’ Chinese speakers
such as Lim and Ong Eng Guan, Lee decided to learn Hokien seriously ‘rather
than groom another man who might again give us trouble’:
40     From Third World to First

I had two good tutors, both from our radio station, who first had to teach me a whole
new Romanised script to capture the Hokien pronunciation of Chinese characters.
Hokien is not like Mandarin; it has seven ones instead of four, and uses different
word combinations of verbs, nouns and adjectives. (Lee, 1998: 354–355)

Recalling his first rally speech in Hokien during a 1962 by-electing, he said
that even his children laughed at his mistakes with the wrong sounds, round
tones, and wrong sentence structure. He wrote:
I could not afford to be shy or embarrassed. It was a matter of life or death. It was not
just a question of fighting Ong. I was preparing for the inevitable showdown with
Lim Chin Siong and the communists. (Ibid.)

Quoting a Chinese proverb, he said that his linguistic journey was as ‘difficult
as lifting the tripod brass urn in front of a temple’ (Ibid.). He would mumble
to himself words and phrases in Hokien while travelling in a car. Every spare
moment he had were spent revising Chinese to the get the sounds right, mem-
orizing new words to get them embedded in his mind so that he could roll
them off his tongue without looking at them. However, although he was able
to make his policies understood in Hokien, he was never able to speak use the
language impassionately (Leong, 2010).
Lee (2000) attributes his political success through his linguistic efforts:
… because I learnt Chinese later, and they saw my intense efforts to master both
Mandarin and the Hokien dialect, I was able to relate to the Chinese educated and
have them accept me as a leader. (Ibid: 173)

Section B: Lee Kuan Yew and Language Management

While Section A has shown Lee’s linguistic acumen with regards to political
stratagems, Section B will show Lee’s understanding of the economics of lan-
guage policies. Very early in his career, Lee had predicted that English and
Mandarin would be the two foremost world languages and that their acqui-
sition and placement as the first and second language of Singapore would
enable Singaporeans an economic advantage in both the East and the West (cf.
Lee, 2000, 2012). However, at the dawn of independence in 1959, 33 mother
tongue groups were in place and 98% of the Chinese considered a dialect
(other than Mandarin) to be their mother tongue (Murray, 1971: 125; Chua,
1964). This was far from his vision of a first world state. Lee had to ensure that
he remained in power long enough for this shift to take place. This section will
briefly summarize through four major steps how a draconian language shift
took place in the homes and schools through legislative measure made effec-
tive in education and the media; and how the lingua francas of Singapore,
 Phyllis Ghim-Lian Chew     41

Malay and Hokien, were changed within the space of a generation to English
and Mandarin in line with the creation of a global state.

Step 1: The Creation of four official languages

In 1959, it was not yet possible for Lee to implement his English-Mandarin
mother-tongue policy as he had only just gained power and his political posi-
tion was tenuous. First things first, he had to reduce the 33 odd languages
to just four official ones. This policy of ‘multilingualism’ may be understood
against the structural political changes in the post-war period – a time when
a wrong move would result in a tinderbox going up in flames, as evidenced in
Angola from 1975–2002, the Democratic Republic of Congo from 1960–1965
(Berman, Eyoh and Kymlicka, 2004). In 1956, the government of Sri Lanka
adopted the controversial anti-English law, the official Sinhala Only Bill, a
decision which ultimately led to civil strife and over time contributed to the
outbreak of civil war in 1983 (De Silva, 1998). As Lee later explained in his
biography: ‘To announce that all had to learn English when each race was
intensely and passionately committed to its own mother tongue would have
been disastrous’ (Lee, 2000: 146).
Lee legitimated four language-medium schools, parallel to the four offi-
cial languages of Singapore15 – English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil, all of
which were constructed to correspond to the four named ‘official’ ethnic
groups in the newly independent state – the ‘Chinese’ represented by Manda-
rin, the Eurasians represented by English, the ‘Malays’ represented by Malay
and the ‘Indians’ represented by Tamil. While this appeared on the surface
to be ‘representative’, it must be noted that the four languages chosen were
not the mother tongues, but rather the ‘symbolic’ languages of the differ-
ent races. This is because the Chinese do not speak Mandarin, the Indians’
Tamil and the Malays’ Malay as might be presupposed; they instead are more
likely to be speaking Hokien, Malayalam, and Boyanese respectively. To take
one example, in 1957, the Chinese having migrated from different regions of
China spoke the following, mostly unintelligible, languages such as Haina-
nese, Hakka, Cantonese and Khek and therefore had to use Hokien as their
lingua franca (Chew, 2013). A similar situation prevailed among the Singa-
pore Indian community who spoke a diversity of languages such as Gujarati,
Bengali, Punjabi, Hindi, Tamil and Urdu. The Malays spoke languages such
as Boyanese, Bugis, Minangkabau, Bawaenese, Madurese, Acehnese, Javanese,
Sudanese, etc. (Trocki, 2006). This convenient multilingual group of students
under major language groups of ‘Chinese’, ‘Tamil’, and ‘Malay’ as ‘mother
tongues’ is a clever sleight of hand to ignore the existence of a more complex
sociolinguistic scenario.
42     From Third World to First

Step 2: The Symbolic Emplacement of Malay

Malay was not in Lee’s plan for either the first and second position. However,
Malay had been the traditional lingua franca of the region and had to be placed
somewhere that was no less honorable. The potential wrath of the Malay pop-
ulation was something not to be provoked especially as many had kinship ties
to the nearby hinterland of Malaysia and Indonesia. Sensitive to Malay feel-
ings as well as to Singapore’s geographical neighbours, Lee emplaced Malay
as the ‘national’ language of Singapore knowing that its role would be more
symbolic than real. The national anthem is in Malay and continues to be sung
each morning in Singapore schools although few children can understand the
meaning of the words. The state crest, army commands and its currency notes
were made to carry symbolic Malay inscription. Himself a native speaker of
Baba Malay, a close relative to Malay, he was able to win their support with this
practical compromise (Chew, 2011).

Step 3: The Creation of the English-knowing Bilingual

In 1966, an opportunity enabled the PAP to detract from their initial policy
of multilingualism. This was when the opposition, the Barisan Sosialis, a left-
wing predominantly Chinese-speaking and Chinese educated group that split
from the PAP in 1961, resigned from Parliament after a number of their lead-
ers had been arrested on charges of being ‘Communists’. Their resignation
left the PAP as the only major political party, a window of opportunity which
enabled Lee to institute economically motivated reforms at an even greater
speed. Further, in the general elections of 1968, 1972, 1976 and 1980, the PAP
won all of the seats in an expanding parliament. Indeed, Opposition parties
have not held more than 5% of parliamentary seats since 1984.
As an effectively one-party government, the stage was now set for more dra-
conian linguistic measures as a means to economic development. In 1972, Lee
moved strategically away from multilingualism, to announce a policy of ‘bilin-
gualism’. However, as with the multilingual policy where all languages were not
true equals, here too was a bilingualism which did not involve the actual mother
tongues of its citizens but only the symbolic ones, which had ‘official’ status.
Neither was it a bilingualism that meant (logically) any two of the four offi-
cial languages but rather a bilingualism which meant ‘English and one other
official language. Kachru’s (1985) and Pakir (1991) have already discussed this
“English-knowing bilingualism” of Singapore, a strategy which indirectly sealed
the dominant position of English once and for all.’ Here, English was designated
as the first language of the school and so it was referred to as ‘the first language’
while the other official languages such as Mandarin, Tamil and Malay were
described as the ‘second language’. With no opposition in Parliament, Lee was
now able to enunciate his support of English as first language fearlessly:
 Phyllis Ghim-Lian Chew     43

Suppression of the English language, which gives access to the superior technology of
the West, will be damaging to the developing countries. Not only will it blindfold the
next generation to the knowledge of the advanced nation, it will cause a brain drain.
But so many new countries have stifled the foreign language they have inherited.
Sometimes this is done, not so much to elevate the status of the indigenous language,
but to take away an advantage a minority ethnic group has by having greater compe-
tence in the former colonial language. This has been damaging. It blindfolds the next
generation to the knowledge of the advanced countries. Worse, it leads to an exodus
of the professionally trained. They can emigrate to the advanced countries, and do
because they do not intend to allow their children to be crippled by language blink-
ers. To get access to new knowledge, the best course would be to continue using the
language of the former metropolitan power, particularly where this happens to be
English. (Lee, 1971: 4–5)

Indeed, we may summarize that across all age groups in the Chinese, Indian
and Malay communities, the younger the child is, the more likely his home
language will be English. The compulsory acquisition of English in schools
under the rationalized cloak of ‘bilingualism’ led to a dramatic rise in the
enrolment of English medium schools from 47% in 1958 to 91% in 1979 to
99% in 1983 (Soon, 1988: 7, 21).

Step 4. The Emplacement of Mandarin as the second ‘first language’

Even before the Chinese Communist government of China had decided
on reform and the opening up of China in 1980, Lee (2000: 146, 2012) had
already envisaged that Mandarin, after English would be the second key to
economic development. Hence, in 1973, under the cloak of bilingualism,
the weightage given to the ‘second’ language paper in the Primary School
Leaving examination (PSLE) was increased to ‘first’ language level. Each of
the two languages carried twice as much weight as Mathematics or Science.
Good students were streamed to ‘EM1’, the not so good students to ‘EM2’
and those who were performing badly to ‘EM3’. Second language papers also
became available at pre-university and tertiary levels (Gopinathan, 1979).
Minimum language requirements form a basis of admission to tertiary edu-
cation. Children were streamed according to their linguistic abilities and
higher education access made dependent on scores attained in the first and
second language.16
In addition, a Speak Mandarin Campaign, perhaps the world’s most suc-
cessful engineering campaign, was launched as early as 1979, immediately
after the visit of Chinese leader Deng Hsiao-p’ing to Singapore in 1978. The
implementation of the campaign was marked by wide-ranging activities, e.g.
phasing out of dialect programs over the radio, introduction of conversational
Mandarin lessons over the mass media, training for hawkers, taxi-drivers, bus
conductors, postmen and clerks manning government counters (Teo, 2005).
44     From Third World to First

The influential Goh Report (Goh, 1978) called for the restricted use of dialects
as a means to promote Mandarin.
Mandarin was propelled to replace Chinese languages such as Teochew,
Hakka, and Cantonese, Hokien which were publicly labeled publicly as dia-
lects, although such a classification is disputable by linguistics standards.
However, what was not stressed, both in government rhetoric and academic
writing, was the suitability of Mandarin as a culture-bearer. In reality, Man-
darin was a Beijing dialect from the north. Most Singaporean Chinese are
descended from immigrants from South China and their ancestral language is
not Mandarin but Hokien, Cantonese, Teochew, Hainanese, Hakka, etc. Cul-
tures, values and customs, especially those surrounding rites of passage, are
passed on through the use of dialects, not Mandarin. Customs and traditions,
even in basic practices such as the way of cooking, differ from one dialect
group to another.
Due to a system of rewards and punishments instituted in the education
system, the percentage of Chinese households using Mandarin as the domi-
nant language rose from 13% in 1980 to 30% in 1990, 45% in 2000 and 48%
in 2010. On the other hand, the figures for Chinese dialects fell from 76% in
1980 to 49% in 1990 to 50% in 2000 and 20% in 2010 (Chua, 1964; Depart-
ment of Statistics, 1981, 1991, 2011). These statistics are remarkable bearing in
mind that the number of speakers speaking English and/or Mandarin at home
in 1959 was less than 2%, the rest being dialect speakers. A one-party gov-
ernment had effectively created a scenario whereby Chinese Singaporeans are
moving towards a less complex language situation where English has become
dominant in formal communication, Mandarin in informal communication
and Chinese dialects, once the dominant mother tongues of its citizens almost
non-existent. They were also now possessors of the two foremost global lan-
guages in the world.

Conclusion
We have recounted how language has been used to intervene effectively in
both the political and economic life in Singapore. While natural resources,
a sustainable infrastructure, economic opportunities, peaceful neighbors,
authoritarian government, and luck are all important ingredients in the jour-
ney from third world to first, the most foundational must surely be leadership
for without it, all these elements would not fall into place. In this case study
of Lee Kuan Yew’s Singapore, we have been given a glimpse of how a linguis-
tically attuned leader has managed to propel himself to power and how once
installed, was able to align linguistic choices to major economic goals as a
means of achieving first world status in the shortest possible time.
 Phyllis Ghim-Lian Chew     45

It is a journey which has involved many obstacles and sacrifices, not least
the destruction of several native tongues which were found ‘useless’ in an
aggressive economic stratagem. For many of us, the loss of a mother tongue
is too much to bear for these tongues are very precious since it often sur-
rounds us from cradle to death and its loss may be likened to a loss of life. Yet
there is a mystical quality in the spirit of sacrifice, which is indispensable to
achievement. For Lee, his mother tongue, Baba Malay was also led to the sac-
rificial altar as it had no chance in his vision of ever being of pragmatic value
despite its centuries-old status as the lingua franca of Southeast Asia. If he had
thought Malay and Hokien (Lee’s other mother tongue) had been the nec-
essary keys to scientific and economic capital, he would have chosen them,
but since they were not, they had to be ruthlessly eliminated and replaced by
designated ‘winners’ such as English and Mandarin. Hence, abandoned by its
foremost son, Baba Malay (and the distinctive Baba culture) is currently in
imminent danger of extinction. Most Babas do not speak or use it in commu-
nication anymore and many of its formerly distinguished families who have
disagreed with Lee’s policies has themselves migrated to the UK or Australia
(cf. Tan, 2008; Chew, 2013).17 Among Chinese speakers, Hokien has also been
effectively replaced by Mandarin as the lingua franca within the space of one
generation (Liu, Zhao and Goh, 2007).
There is also a mystical quality in ‘walking the talk’ and attaining one’s
goals constitutionally, rather than through military coups, corruption or civil
unrest. Lee broke tradition by sending his three children to Chinese-medium
schools to learn Mandarin as a first language, a language in which they them-
selves were to excel, and a language which he and his wife did not speak at
home. It was a wise move to signal his sincerity and belief in the linguistic
prowess of China; as well as an expedient stratagem to win political votes from
the Chinese-educated. No one could accuse him of insincerity since he and his
family had also to learn to speak a linguistically unrelated language (Mandarin
vs. Malay and Hokien as mother tongues) to replace the ones that no longer
mattered. Lee (2012) himself spent much of his waking hours learning Man-
darin and in his lifetime, had gone through the painful process of learning six
languages. For Lee, language is basically a tool, a process and not an end prod-
uct – its life and death may be liken to the emergence and decline of flora.
Some tools are useful while others have become antiquated – just as species
may regularly appear through speciation and disappear through extinction (cf
Chew, 2009).
Some scholars are naturally concerned about ‘linguistic imperialism’ (Phil-
lipson, 1992) and the violation of linguistic human rights (Skutnabb-Kangas,
2000). It may be said that in Singapore, hegemonic practice was especially
excessive because local language were devalued at the expense and adoption
46     From Third World to First

and use of English and Mandarin. Critical linguists have questioned whether
the global trend for English to be introduced in all schools and at earlier grades
at the cost of local language such as that undertaken in Singapore from the
1960s are tenable longer term (cf. Mahboob, 2002; Mahboob and Paltridge,
2013). Pennycook (1999) has also questioned the belief that English is linked
to national and economic development as studies show that students educated
through such reforms have shown no marked difference from students who
are educated in their local languages.
It is possible that anyone can reason their way to convince someone of the
truthfulness of their perspective, and what is ‘truth’ is something that has been
debated thorough time immemorial. However, I think that truth is what pro-
duces the results of social justice before the tribunal of life. A philosophy in
my view should not just be a ‘science of words’, what A. J. Ayer (1998) called
‘talk about talk’, but also a ‘science of action’, which includes the factoring of
social justice for all peoples. For Lee (1998, 2000, 2012), justice is the practi-
cal expression of awareness and the understanding that the world’s material-
istic conception of life has led to the widening gap between the poor and rich
nations and that unless this is bridged by the realization that we all live in a
global, world, whose accessibility is liked with the accessibility that a lingua
franca affords, we cannot solve the economic problem.
While a debate of words and human rights carries on in intellectual circles,
there is no denying that Singapore has been an economic powerhouse not
least because of its enviable possession of the two foremost global languages of
the twenty-first century. The ‘access paradox’ (Joseph and Ramani, 2007: 189)
must be borne in mind; that is, by providing access to the dominant language,
we entrench its dominance, and by denying access to the language of power,
we entrench marginalization. Whether the journey from third world to first
has been worth the undertaking can only be individually answered by those
who have enjoyed both its fruits and the pain of mother tongue abandonment.

Notes
1. This paper was first presented at the Lahore College for Women University and Free
Linguistics Conference (University of Sydney) 11–13 January 2013.
2. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_
capita on 2 June 2013.
3. Li, Dickson (2010). Singapore is most open economy: Report. Asiaone. 10 May 2011.
4. The Global Competitiveness Index 2009–2010 rankings and 2008–2009 comparisons.
World Economic Forum, 2010.
5. Singapore top business paradise for business: World Bank. Asiaone, 26 September 2007.
6. According to the Corruption Perceptions Index, Singapore is consistently ranked as
one of the least corrupt countries in the world, along with New Zealand and the Scandinavian
countries. Retrieved from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index on 2
June 2013
 Phyllis Ghim-Lian Chew     47

7. Under Singapore’s second Prime Minister, Lee was appointed ‘Senior Minister’ in 1990.
Under his son Lee Hsien Loong, Singapore’s third Prime Minister, Lee held the advisory post of
‘Minister Mentor’. Lee Kuan Yew passed away in 2015.
8. The Chinese stream school Lee attended in his early years was Choon Guan Primary
school; the English-streamed school was Telok Kurau Primary School.
9. This had been the case with other prominent Babas such as Lim Boon Keng, Song Ong
Siang, T. W. Ong, etc.
10. The electorate increased from 53% in the 1955 elections to 90% in the 1959 elections
(Ong, 1975).
11. The planning of Nanyang University (established in 1956) was begun and financially
supported by the Chinese-educated.
12. Watercolorist Ong Kim Seng 66, remembers listening to fiery Hokien speaking politi-
cians with former PAP minister – turned opposition leader Ong Eng Guan in the early 1960s: ‘it
never failed to rouse the crowd’ (Leong 2010).
13. Up to 1957 in the majority age group of 15–54, two years before independence, as many
as ‘two-thirds declared that they could speak Malay’ and only 31% were able to speak English
(Chua, 1964).
14. They together with Lim Chin Siong, Poh Soo Kai, James Putuchary, S. Woodhull left the
PAP to form the Barisan Socialis (Socialist Front).
15. ‘Official’ status meant that the language would be used in Parliament, the Courts and in
the Civil Service as well as in the press, radio, television and movies.
16. Tan (2008), a Baba who speaks no Chinese, reminisced how his 10-year old was
streamed into a vocational institute and classified as educationally subnormal as his Mandarin
was abysmal. He thought something was very wrong as his son was a precocious kid who by the
age of ten ‘had read most of Agatha Christie’s novels’. Like many Baba parents of his era, he chose
migration for the sake of his son’s educational advancement.
17. Ibid.

About the author

Ghim Lian Phyllis Chew is a Professor in the Department of English Language
and Literature, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological Univer-
sity, Singapore. Her Research interests are Language, sociolinguistics, comparative
religion, and world Englishes.

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