One of the best blog post of governing Singapore that I have come across. On many occasions I have lamented LHL is incapable of foresight. How Singapore desperately need that; how Peter Ong's toys to peer over the horizon won't cut it.
That blog post captures my sentiments exactly.
LKY had the privilege of caring abt his neighbourhood becoz his own house was well intact.
ReplyDeleteWith regards to peter Ho toys (the horizon scanning thing shld be peter ho not peter ong, very confusing becoz they back to back perm-sec), i can relate it to what my prof had told b4. what my prof said was that LKY greatest strength is that he sought to build institutions and systems, LKY did not personalize the system making it all about himself. this is something he did different from mahathir. malaysia post-mahathir is falling apart because mahathir made himself the centre, not the system.
Anyway, becoz LKY set the early principles to build up the civil service as a strong system. Thats why you till today you see the civil service experimenting with these new toys. The horizon scanning thing is actually like a civil service think tank staffed by a team of skilled analyst. Their core purpose is to generate foresight for the govt with the help of some technology.
At the end of the day, LKY knew that he wont be around 4ever and exceptional ppl wont emerge every election ( like how Manchester United has resigned to the fact that there wont be a next alex ferguson anytime soon). Hence it is important to have good institutions to fill the gap which these exceptional leaders had left behind. So even though there are no exceptional leaders around who can think superbly, there is still a think tank of analyst who can assist a good but not exceptional leader ( And to put it bluntly, still better than completely having no one who can generate foresight). that might also be the more enduring solution.
However, at the end of the day, the best way forward is still for singapore to find a new generation of exceptional leaders, aided by a team of good people in the civil service ( like peter ho's horizon scanning toy). that is like the perfect outcome.