One Life. No. 001
Lee Kuan Yew
Primeiro chefe de governo de Singapura
19232015
Pequeno demais para sobreviver. Mais rico que a Grã-Bretanha.
6 fontesTranscriçãoLer enquanto ouve
A história em resumo
Lee Kuan Yew cresceu na Singapura britânica e quase morreu aos dezoito anos, quando soldados japoneses faziam a triagem de homens chineses durante a ocupação. Estudou Direito em Cambridge, voltou para casa e, em 1959, tornou-se primeiro-ministro de uma Singapura autônoma. Convencido de que a ilha não sobreviveria sozinha, levou-a para a Malásia em 1963. Dois anos depois, o parlamento da Malásia votou pela sua expulsão, e ele chorou na televisão.
O que veio depois foi a obra da sua vida. Atraiu as empresas estrangeiras que muitas nações novas estavam confiscando, construiu casas que as famílias podiam comprar e comandou um governo rígido e limpo. Também prendeu pessoas sem julgamento: seu governo dizia combater comunistas, e os críticos diziam que muitos eram opositores políticos.
Em 2014, o último ano completo da sua vida, Singapura era mais rica por pessoa do que a Grã-Bretanha, que um dia a governou. Quando ele morreu, em 2015, cerca de 454.700 pessoas fizeram fila para passar diante do seu caixão.
Nas palavras dele
…um absurdo político, econômico e geográfico.
Tive de fazer algumas coisas feias, prender sujeitos sem julgamento.
O que eu ganhei? Uma Singapura bem-sucedida. Do que eu abri mão? Da minha vida.
Traduzido do inglês.
Fontes (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)
Atualizado em 5 de outubro de 2026.
Transcrição
Transcrição em inglês, como o filme por enquanto.
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.
