One Life. No. 001
Lee Kuan Yew
Primer jefe de gobierno de Singapur
19232015
Demasiado pequeño para sobrevivir. Más rico que Gran Bretaña.
6 fuentesTranscripciónLeer mientras escuchas
La historia en breve
Lee Kuan Yew creció en el Singapur británico y estuvo a punto de morir a los dieciocho años, cuando soldados japoneses seleccionaban a hombres chinos durante la ocupación. Estudió Derecho en Cambridge, volvió a casa y en 1959 se convirtió en primer ministro de un Singapur autónomo. Convencido de que la isla no podría sobrevivir sola, la integró en Malasia en 1963. Dos años después, el parlamento de Malasia votó su expulsión, y él lloró en televisión.
Lo que siguió fue la obra de su vida. Atrajo a las empresas extranjeras que muchas naciones nuevas estaban expropiando, construyó viviendas que las familias podían comprar y dirigió un gobierno estricto y limpio. También detuvo a personas sin juicio: su gobierno dijo que combatía a los comunistas, y sus críticos dijeron que muchos eran opositores políticos.
En 2014, el último año completo de su vida, Singapur era más rico por persona que Gran Bretaña, que antes lo gobernaba. Cuando murió en 2015, unas 454.700 personas hicieron fila para pasar ante su ataúd.
En sus propias palabras
…un absurdo político, económico y geográfico.
Tuve que hacer algunas cosas feas, encerrar a tipos sin juicio.
¿Qué he conseguido? Un Singapur exitoso. ¿A qué he renunciado? A mi vida.
Traducido del inglés.
Fuentes (6)
- Lee at the UN Special Committee on Colonialism, 26 July 1962 (National Archives of Singapore)
- Lee’s press conference, 9 August 1965 (NAS); Malaysia’s Dewan Rakyat, 9 August 1965
- Lee Kuan Yew, The Singapore Story (1998) and From Third World to First (2000)
- Lee’s interview with Seth Mydans, The New York Times, 1 September 2010 (NAS transcript)
- Han Fook Kwang and others, Hard Truths to Keep Singapore Going (2011)
- World Bank WDI; SingStat; HDB; Remembering Lee Kuan Yew (gov.sg)
Actualizado el 5 de octubre de 2026.
Transcripción
Transcripción en inglés, como la película por ahora.
Lee Kuan Yew cried on television the day his country was born.
He thought Singapore couldn't survive: tiny, no natural resources, its water piped from Malaysia.
Within his lifetime, it grew richer per person than Britain, which once ruled it. How?
At 18, under Japanese occupation, he slipped away from a group of men being taken to be shot. It taught him, he said, the meaning of power.
After the war, he studied law at Cambridge with Kwa Geok Choo. He called her the better student.
Back home, he won a strike for the postal workers, and 100 unions made him their lawyer.
With the unions behind him, he co-founded a party, and at 35 he was prime minister.
He took Singapore into Malaysia. Two years later, after race riots, Malaysia's parliament voted Singapore out. That was the day he cried.
Now survival meant jobs, so he and his team brought in foreign factories.
An American chip plant was up and running in 50 days.
He wanted every family to own its home. Otherwise, he wrote, a soldier would feel he was fighting to protect the property of the rich.
Nine in ten households came to own theirs.
He paid his ministers well, to keep them honest, he said. One of them took bribes. He went to jail.
They even made the island bigger: sand became land.
In 1990, he stepped down after 31 years. He had ruled hard: rivals were locked up without trial, and critics were sued.
"If nobody is afraid of me," he said, "I'm meaningless."
When his wife, Choo, could no longer speak, he read her poems every night.
"What have I got?" he said. "A successful Singapore. What have I given up? My life."
When he died, at 91, more than 400,000 people queued to say goodbye.
He had feared Singapore couldn't survive. It outlived him.
