Putting out fire

Among other things, the details of which are too harrowing and elaborate to deal with here, Lee introduced several bills in Parliament and these included the most fearsome of all, the Internal Security Act which gave the government unlimited powers to arrest any citizen and to hold him without trial initially for a period of two years; the abolishment of the Jury system which had been operative since its founding and of which no debate whatsoever was permitted as soon as the law was changed. To top it all. Lee initiated the total subjugation of the trade union movement which were often the base of powerful left-wing leaders in the PAP.

George often seems to me to write like a man trying to put out a fire with a hose that is too powerful for him. He rarely spares any punches as when he writes:

Power did not make Lee Kuan Yew an autocrat. Instinct did. A child who invariably got what he wanted: a schoolboy who was idolised by his family into believing he was someone apart from the crowd; an undergraduate who impressed his mates as self-centred and domineering; a qualified barrister whose ability fostered an overwhelming contempt for others; a Chinese with instinctive faith in elitism and the theory that some are born to rule while others are born to be ruled; a man alienated by his upbringing; driven by a need to make a place for himself—Lee Kuan Yew was a natural authoritarian.'