Here, he gladly gave us a short and sincere passage, candid views and heartfelt reflections. Please enjoy what he has to share with us and maybe, you would like to share what you feel with us too!!

What Singapore means for me - Kishore Mahbubani

The meaning of Singapore is perfectly clear to me because I can easily conceive of alternate paths my life could have taken. Why do I say this? Simple. I could have just as easily been born in Guyana or Suriname, Lagos or Accra, Mumbai or Calcutta. These are the places my first cousins were born in.

When India and Pakistan split in 1947, my Hindu parents and their siblings left Sind. They scattered all over the world. It was a pure historical accident that brought my parents to Singapore. This historical accident saved my life.

I say this because if I had been born in similar impoverished circumstances in the other cities I mention above, I would never have enjoyed the remarkable opportunities provided by Singapore. The combination of Singapore’s social welfare and meritocracy policies saved me and my family.

At the age of six, when I was enrolled in a primary one class in Seraya School, the school principal put me on a special feeding programme because I was technically underweight. Each recess we went into his office to drink from a bucket of milk with a ladle we all shared. After that, I benefitted from bursaries all my life.

When I finished my A-levels in 1966, my mother sent me to work as a textile salesman in High Street. This is what all young Sindhi boys did. I earned $150 a month. Fortunately, I was offered the President’s scholarship. That paid $250 a month. So my mother wisely advised me to take the President’s scholarship instead. That’s how I ended up in University. My life changed forever.

I am confident that if I had not been from Singapore, I would never have gone to University. Indeed, none of my first cousins older than me went to University. Much later a few younger ones did.

But good schooling and a university education was not all that Singapore provided me. For the last 50 years, from self-government in 1959 to 2009, Singapore has enjoyed an enviable record of political stability, economic growth, communal harmony (with the exception of 1964), increased human welfare and ever-increasing educational standards.

As a result of this rapid growth, my life has changed beyond recognition. As a child, my family of six lived in a one-bedroom terrace house. Today, we live in a six bedroom house. If Singapore would not have prospered, neither would have I.

The real meaning of Singapore is always brought home to me when I visit my first cousins. Let me emphasize one thing. They are not suffering. Indeed most of them are far wealthier than I am. But they live in cities or countries which have enjoyed far more turmoil and political instability.
Both Guyana and Suriname are like Singapore. They are multi-ethnic societies. Both have experienced ethnic strife. This strife traumatized my relatives. More recently one of my first cousins experienced a real horror: her son was shot dead while filling gas in a petrol station in Lagos. This is why I truly value Singapore’s stability and safety.

My national day message to my fellow Singaporeans is a simple one: please do not take this stability, prosperity and safety for granted. By all historical odds, Singapore should not have thrived as well as it has. And if we want to continue to beat the odds, we cannot take for granted what we have accomplished.