Singapore-Reasons of Success

Singapore can be regarded as a success now, even though there were incidents, such as the escape of terrorist Mas Selamat or the increase of crimes these years, affect the country’s image in a negative way. However, most of us take these successes for granted and think that all these were what our forefathers should do.

Singapore, from a mere Third-World country in the 1960s to a famous First-World country in 1990s is not an easy feat. Also, being the pioneers to host The Formula One Night Race and the Youth Olympic Games is certainly not by luck. Singapore legalized casinos and this means that Singapore’s society put behind these traditional values and transformed into a vibrant environment.

But do we achieve all these by sheer luck? No and our Minister Mentor will tell us more…
Our minister mentor Lee Kuan Yew gave a speech at the post-National dinner in his Tanjong-Pagar constituency regarding the reasons of the Singapore’s successes. Being father of Singapore, his opinions is by far the most reliable as he witnessed the young country growing into a world-class economy. He said that the four factors leading to Singapore’s successes are ‘Capable leaders’, ‘meritocracy’, ‘a level playing field’ and ‘the use of English as a working language’.

In my own opinion, the other factor is multi-racial Singapore, where there are equal rights for each races. Unlike Malaysia which is a racist country, the Chinese especially do not get to enjoy several privileges and the leaders are mostly Muslims. However, in democratic Singapore, capable men are the country’s leaders and they are made up of different religions.

The other factor, ‘Capable leaders’ is the biggest contributing factor as Singapore has undergone big changes under the leadership of PAP. One major change will be Singapore’s welcoming attitude to attract foreign talents to reside here. PAP has always been considering old policies and amend them if they are too traditional or deemed unfeasible.

No doubt it is not easy for Singapore to come this far and we should not take this for granted. Instead, why not try improve Singapore as a better society by doing your part as a citizen?