Dangerous anti-English educated Chinese chauvinists???

The New York Times
April 11, 1985, Thursday, Late City Final Edition

SECTION: Section A; Page 2, Column 3; Foreign Desk
     
   The Prime Minister, 61 years old, a  British -educated barrister who
once called himself Harry Lee, has drawn closer in recent public statements
to a strong belief in traditional Chinese  values. In March, in his
characteristically outrageous style, he told Parliament that Singapore's
political system had been a success because its people were overwhelmingly
ethnic Chinese.

   ''Had the mix in Singapore been different,'' the Prime Minister said,
''had it been 75 percent  Indians,  15 percent Malays and the rest  Chinese,
 it would not have worked.''


The Straits Times, March 19, 1994

    IT SEEMED like a replay of last year's Budget debate. For the second
year running in Parliament, Leng Kee MP Ow Chin Hock rose to ask the
Education Ministry for a progress report on the teaching of the Chinese
language.   
  
   The request sounded innocuous in itself but for the manner and tone of
the question.
 
   When he rose to reply, Minister of State for Education Ker Sin Tze
could not have forgotten that when Dr Ow raised the same query last March,
he had alleged that the ministry's English-educated officials were slowing
down the pace of implementing the recommendations of the Chinese Language
Review Committee deliberately.

  The normally unflappable Dr Ker ticked off the MP for making the
insinuation again this year.

   A sharp exchange, in Mandarin, ensued, with Dr Ow denying the charge.



 Business Times
June 26, 1993, Weekend Edition

SECTION: Singapore News; Pg. 2

    SENIOR MINISTER  Lee Kuan Yew  has told an Australian business
magazine he believes that culture is the key determinant to a country's
economic  performance.

   To illustrate his point that culture determines performance, Mr Lee told
of how  British military officers during colonial times in Singapore separated
workers by race. "When doing a project they would put the  Chinese in the
middle and put the Indians  at the side, and the Indians were expected
to keep to the pace of the Chinese.
  And there was a hell of a problem, because one Chinese would carry
one pole with two wicker baskets of earth, whereas two Indians would carry
one pole with one wicker basket of earth between them. So it's one quarter.
Now that's culture."
"Maybe it has to do also with genetic characteristics -I'm not sure."



The Straits Times
March 13, 1993  pg27
HEADLINE: Not much seems to have been done: Ow 
     
    WHAT is being done to follow up on the recommendations of the Chinese  
Language Review Committee (CLRC)?

Not much, apparently, thought Dr  Ow Chin Hock  (Leng Kee).      

He made this clear when he suggested to Education Minister Lee Yock Suan on  
Thursday that the ministry's English-speaking officials, prejudiced against the 
Chinese-educated, were dragging their feet Dr Ow, also the Feedback Unit
chief, said that a report of two dialogues with members of the public he sent
to the Education Ministry had received no reply.


South China Morning Post     
March 16, 1992

    A MEMBER of parliament for the ruling People's Action Party has been    
strongly criticised in the letters column of the Straits Times newspaper for
racist remarks; offensive to Singapore's Indian community.      

    The unusual public criticism of a PAP parliamentarian in a newspaper that
is often a sounding-board for official policy was seen as an indication that the
Government was taking a serious view of the matter.     

    The PAP member, Mr  Choo Wee Khiang,  made the remarks in Mandarin in
a speech in parliament calling on the Government to be "selective" in
controlling the number of foreign workers.

  "One evening, I drove to Little India and it was pitch dark but not because 
there was no light, but because there were too many Indians around,"; he
said. Mr Choo later issued an apology in English.

    An Indian letter writer, who described himself as a;"pitch-dark skinned
one", said Singapore was a multi-racial country with people of many colours.

   "I think Mr Choo has no place in our parliament," the writer said."He is
not fit to be an MP."



The Straits Times, August 31, 1992   
                    
 Indian  as PM?  S'pore has a long way to go before it's ready         
 
Mr  Dhanabalan  was asked how he felt when Mr  Lee Kuan Yew  noted several
years back that he was of prime ministerial material, but that Singapore was
not ready for an  Indian  PM: "He was stating a reality, but reality does not
mean necessarily something to be happy about. I was not so unhappy
because of me personally, but I had to face up to
the fact that the population still would consider race an important factor
and the language in which you communicated with them. We have a long way to
go, and I do not know whether we will ever come to a  point where we have a
non-Chinese  Prime Minister.  I can't see it in the immediate future."