Hmmm I would agree with you if you were talking about a scandinavian country with a homogenous population or like japan or something.

But Singapore was definitely not a country with little diversity. Chinese is the majority but its malaysian and indian population were 15 percent and 7.5 percent respectively, by percentage there are more malays in singapore than african americans in the US.

One of the main motivations singapore chose to have english as their primary language was not only because its the international business language but rather because they needed an objective third party language. Each language carries its own historical and cultural baggage, if singapore had forced its population to speak chinese there would have been race riots everyday. Instead they chose english were it gave everyone in singapore a level playing field. Which makes this both an economic decision as well as a socio-political decision.

Another snippet is their housing plan which is heavily criticized in the west which forces every ethnicity to live with each other. Like every apartment complex building had to have 15 percent malay and 7.5 indian. Despite it being a bit heavy handed in my view, had they not do that though, there would just have entrenched ethnic enclaves as humans love to divide ourselves into tribal groups.

The founding of singapore is a very spectacular piece of history, I can talk about it all day but i will stop now.

Not inside, maybe just see the outside, cause isnt his daughter still living inside there?

But yeah ofc LKY will say that, it was more in line with his personality. Yet, its really not up to him, it has historical and cultural significance, his son did the right thing to preserve it for singaporeans.

Hes not wrong though, since its inception, singapore was ran as an authoritarian regime with lee kuan yew as the de facto dictator. However, I doubt thats what he cares about or what you are objecting to.

But rather, here in the west, the word "dictator" has its own negative connotations and baggage that goes with it. After all, the majority of autocrats in the world extracts the nation's wealth to enrich their own pockets, rarely are the nation's citizens wellbeing a concern. Lee Kuan Yew on the other hand is a great exception to this rule, a servant to the nation, he had duty and responsibility and created one of the most prosperous nations with an almost incorruptible bureaucracy. Afterall for the individual, only duty can balance the power one wields.

And yet I see in this thread, some of the most asinine takes on this small nation. People who should take a step back and ask themselves why LKY was considered such a great man by leaders in both the free world and the third world, but no, instead they will keep typing in their basement, unfairly criticizing the respect to duty singaporean leaders have to their nation.

I would love to visit singapore one day and visit their "white house" where LKY once resided to pay my respects.