Dr. Albert Winsemius, Singapore’s true founding father?

Dr. Albert Winsemius, a leading Dutch economist, was once called the ‘founding father’ of Singapore by Kees Tamboer in the leading Dutch newspaper ‘Het Parool’ (Tamboer). I personally feel this may be a bit of an overstatement considering Lee Kuan Yew’s essential role in the development of Singapore throughout the second half of the 20th century, but it is indeed correct that Dr. Albert Winsemius played a major role in at least the economic development of Singapore. I have researched Dr. Winsemius thoroughly in my Internal Assessment for the IB History course, but below you will find a more comprehensible, structured piece of research assessing the significance of Dr. Winsemius in Singapore’s economic development.

I would like to start by looking at the beginnings of Dr. Winsemius’ influence in Singapore’s economic development. Dr. Winsemius came to Singapore in 1960 as part of United Nations Development Programme to Singapore (Lee 66). He advised the Singaporean government on a possible economic roadplan to lead Singapore into the future. Dr. Winsemius’ first advise to Lee Kuan Yew was fairly simple; eliminate the communists and leave the statue of Sir Stamford Raffles (the founder of Singapore who landed here in 1819). Lee followed Winsemius’ advise, albeit with a few bumps along the way, as getting rid of the communists was fairly challenging and it was not until a few years later that the role of the communists had diminished.

After Singapore’s independence Dr. Winsemius made a five-point plan for Singapore’s development (Tamboer):

• 1: Manufacturing of low value-industries.
• 2: The Housing programme (HDB) and attracting foreign companies (Esso, Shell).
• 3: Upscaling of manufacturing.
• 4: Turn Singapore into an International Financial Centre.
• 5: Develop Singapore as an international traffic and transport center.

The question of course is whether the Singapore government actually followed his advise, and thus whether Dr. Winsemius was actually a significant contributor to Singapore’s success. Indeed evidence does point to this conclusion. As we know now the HDB-program is is highly successful in Singapore, providing relatively affordable housing in land-scarce Singapore for Singaporeans. Over 80% of Singapore’s citizens live in these HDB flats. Also the second part of the second step; attracting foreign companies, seemed to have been highly successful. Nowadays, Shell is one of the largest foreign investors in Singapore, employing over 2,600 people.

Part of Dr. Winsemius’ plan was to form Singapore into an International Financial Centre. His reasoning behind this plan was that Singapore was located perfectly in a time zone approximately between San Francisco and Frankfurt, and that by turning Singapore into a financial center for banking, it would create a “24-hour round-the-world service in money and banking” (Lee 89). In 1980, Singapore was the 6^th largest financial center, compared to rank 11 in 1970 (Choi, Rim, Park, Tschoegl). I have yet to find evidence that indicates that anyone else came up with the idea of Singapore becoming a centre of finance, and am therefore willing to conclude it was indeed Dr. Winsemius who pushed for this concept.

Lastly, point five of Dr. Winsemius’ plan was to turn Singapore into a traffic and transport centre. Again, it seems very clear that this advise has been carefully followed by the Singaporean government and that this was a major contributor to the success story of Singapore. Singapore Changi airport opened in 1981. Not much later (in 1988) it won the title world’s best airport (“Major Milestones.”). Changi is still seen as a major gateway to Southeast Asia, and Singapore’s popularity as a stopover has increased steadily over the years. In fact, Singapore is now the 4th most popular city for overnight visitors (Bender), which I believe is strongly related to Singapore being a popular stopover for tourists travelling onward to other parts of Asia. Tourism accounts for 6% of the GDP this year (Fensom), so it is a relatively significant contributor to the economic prosperity of Singapore.

Yet we have to be careful not to give Dr. Winsemius too much credit. Indeed, he made an economic plan for Singapore that was followed closely by the Singapore government, but Singapore would not have been so successful were it not for its ultra-safe environment and political stability, especially compared to other Southeast Asian countries. Lee Kuan Yew can be credited with enforcing strict rules in Singapore to maintain law and order. According to Michael D. Barr (one of the most respected historians when it comes to Lee Kuan Yew) stated that Lee Kuan Yew strongly believed in Asian values (community over self). His beliefs were that economic prosperity should be regarded higher than freedom of speech or democracy. This belief led to his policy of cracking down hard on crime, but also minimizing power of opposition parties to ensure a stable government that could plan ahead for long periods of time withlut the threat of being removed after elections. This in turn led to more stability in the country and this was in sharp contrast with other countries in the region, making Singapore an attractive place for companies to settle, and thus contributing to economic growth (Barr 2).

Furthermore, Lee Kuan Yew strongly advocated retaining English as the first language of Singapore (Lee 181). I strongly believe that another reason why many companies settled in Singapore was because, just like in Hong Kong, language was not an issue which made doing business much easier. Laws were all written in English, as was the language that people spoke on the street. For expats this made the transition much easier, and Singapore became an attractive place to settle expats and their families.

All in all, Dr. Winsemius has played a very significant role in the economic development of Singapore. Many of his plans were implemented and contributed significantly to the economic growth of Singapore. However, we must recognize that it is not solely economic policies that lead to economic success. In Singapore’s case, the management of society also contributed to Singapore developing into one of the four Asian Tigers, and this can largely be credited to Lee Kuan Yew.

Works Cited

Barr, Michael D. Lee Kuan Yew The Beliefs behind the Man. 2nd. ed. Kuala Lumpur: New Asian Library, 2012. Print.

Bender, Andrew. “Bangkok Tops The World’s 10 Most Visited Cities.” Forbes. 06 Jul 2013: Web. 19 Aug. 2013.

Choi, Sang Rim, Daekeun Park, and Adrian Tschoegl, eds. “Banks and the World’s Major Banking Centers, 2000.” Wharton Knowledge. The Wharton Financial Institutions Center, n.d. Web. 17 Mar 2013. <http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/papers/1141.pdf&gt;.

Fensom, Anthony. “Singapore’s GDP Surprise.” Diplomat. 16 Jul 2013: Web. 19 Aug. 2013.

Lee, Kuan Yew. From Third World to First The Singapore Story: 1965-2000. 1st ed. Singapore: Marshall Cavendish, 2000. Print.

Tamboer, Kees. “Albert Winsemius, ‘founding father’ of Singapore.” IIAS Newsletter. 9. (1996): Web. 27 Feb. 2013. <http://www.iias.nl/iiasn/iiasn9/soueasia/winsemiu.html&gt;.

“Major Milestones.” Changi Airport Group. Changi Airport Group, 25 Sept 2012. Web. 19 Aug 2013. <http://www.changiairportgroup.com/cag/html/media-centre/major_milestones.html&gt;.

Egypt and the Weimar Republic

The current situation in Egypt is highly worrying. With the army taking control over the government and supporters of Morsi taking the streets, there seems to be no clear solution in sight. I myself do not foresee the conflict calming down anytime soon either. What however I find very interesting that the current deadlock is the result of a situation that has already occurred once in history, namely in 1920’s Germany.

Similarly to Egypt, Germany had long been ruled by a dictator, in Germany’s case the ‘Kaiser’, and in Egypt we had Mubarak ruling the country with a tight grip. After the First World War Germany was defeated, or more precisely, the system of one leader ruling the country. The country was turned into a direct democracy, where the number of votes would directly correlate with the number of seats a party would get allocated. The system sounds good, but in practice it didn’t work as well. Not used to being able to express their opinion, Germans started to form their own parties which would represent their own view, resulting in many small parties with little cooperation between them. Sounds familiar? It should, because something very similar happened in Egypt after the revolution. Parties that were once banned were all of a sudden allowed to express their opinion, and people who were previously unable to form their own party, could now do so freely. 

Of course coalitions were formed in both countries, and some parties with similar views would work together. Nevertheless, the system proved inefficient in Weimar Germany because no party had a clear majority. The result of this was an inefficient government. In Egypt it went a bit different, with a coalition of the Al-Nour Party and the Freedom and Justice Party creating a majority in parliament, thus making it easier to get laws passed.

Now this is where the comparison gets tricky. In Egypt the army took over recently, and now has full control over the government. It would seem that the army still somehow pledges a slight alliance to the old regime of Mubarak, similarly to the army in the Weimar Republic, which was led by Paul von Hindenburg (generally regarded as a supporter for the Kaiser). However, the army did not take over in Germany. It did not necessarily support the Weimar government, but stood to the side and did not interfere. One would argue that it should have at some point, to prevent the increasing power of the National Socialist Party. 

Extremism is often a threat in new inefficient governments, as it is in Egypt. The ultra-conservative Al-Nour party quickly gained support in Egypt, and got 27.8% of the votes. If we were to draw a link between the Al-Nour Party and the National Socialists in Germany (disregarding the political differences for a moment, but looking purely at extremism) we can conclude that both parties similarly quickly gained support after a power vacuum. My personal reasoning for this is that citizens are simply not used to the freedom caused by a pure and free democracy, and therefore long back for a party with usually more authoritarian ideas, because it is a comfortable system for the citizens.

To put all these thoughts together into one clear statement, the recent interference of the army in Egypt was most likely not a bad thing at all, considering the threat of extremism in the new democracy of Egypt. Lessons can be learned from Weimar Germany, where extremism led to terrible events. Not to say that anything even closely related would happen in Egypt, but the threat is always there. This just shows how direct democracy is not always the best system. Even though under a dictator there is no clear control over the actions of certain branches of the government, it usually does create a stable situation in the country.

 

Dutch Colonialism and its influence on Indonesian Language

Many colonial countries have brought a lot of death and destruction to their colonies. The Netherlands is no different, and as a Dutch citizen I am still very ashamed of this. An example is the wiping out of Balinese kings in 1906 in Bandung, a terrible event that still for me is the true image of Dutch colonialism; a complete misunderstanding of the importance of culture leading to terrible events. However, the Dutch have also had a positive influence on Indonesia during their time there, and one of these were noted by me during my recent trip to Bali.

Indonesian language; Bahasa Indonesia, has been influenced quite a lot by the Dutch. While driving past a local car rental place, I noticed a sign saying ‘knalpot’. Knalpot is the old Dutch word meaning ‘exhaust’. The introduction of this word in the Indonesian dictionary indicates that the Netherlands did bring some advancements to Indonesia, such as the motorbike (although when seeing the terrible traffic in Kuta, Bali, one would almost wish they never did so).

Other Dutch words that are used in modern day Bahasa include ‘kantor’ (from the Dutch word ‘kantoor’, meaning ‘office’), kabel (cable) and bioskop (cinema). All these words are words that would represent a modern Western society, and thus it would seem as if the Dutch did indeed try to modernize Indonesia (even if it was just for themselves).

Not all changes in language were positive. The Dutch brought the words ‘oom’ en ‘tante’ to Indonesia, which mean ‘uncle’ and ‘aunt’. I found this out when a friend from school who is from Indonesia approached me when I used the word ‘tante’ on the phone with my mom. In Indonesia they are used to address someone older than you, usually as a sign of respect. The fact that they would use a Dutch word to show respect to someone would indicate that the Dutch were seen as a ‘higher’ people, a community that needed respect from the Indonesians. Now this may seem obvious considering that the Dutch were the colonists, but being able to draw this conclusion from just the use of certain words is quite unusual.

It is interesting to note that so many conclusions about a country’s colonial history can be drawn just from the language that they use. I have done no further research on the topic yet, so in my next blog post I will try and see if I can find any evidence of the claims that I made in this post.

Otto Braun A.K.A. Li De

Yesterday I came across a figure who may have had the most interesting life, one that most communists at the time could only dream of. Mr. Otto Braun, a German communist born in Munich in 1900, started his career in Germany as a member of the communist party there. He rose up fairly quickly in the party, but eventually got arrested. In 1928 he escaped from a prison in Berlin with the help of his lover, Olga Benario. Both of them escaped Germany and went to Moscow, where they joined the Cominern (International Communist) movement. Braun was sent to China and Olga to Brazil.

Herr Braun was sent to China by Stalin to support the Communist Party of China to help them get control over China. Braun now took on his Chinese name, Li De, and he got a position of command in the First Front army, fighting the Kuomintang. He also later on participated in the Long March alongside prominent communists such as Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. In 1939 Braun left China and headed back to the Soviet Union, since he was not welcome in his own country – with the Nazi party controlling it.

Back in the Soviet Union Braun worked as a translator and later as an interrogator for captured German officers after Operation Barbarossa, and in this position he was asked to the turn these officers against their own country. After the war Braun worked as a lecturer in Krasnogorsk.

He was then allowed to return to Germany, albeit the communist DDR, where he again worked as a translator, this time from Russian to German. Braun died in 1974 in Varna, Bulgaria, while on holidays.

Most interestingly is that only in 1964 the German Communist Party discovered that the person who was known as Li De in China was Otto Braun who was now working for it, indicating how incredibly humble Herr Braun must have been.

Not often does one hear of people who were part of a political party in three different countries, and Otto Braun’s life may be the most colourful of any German communist. Most interestingly is that only in 1964 the German Communist Party discovered that the person who was known as Li De in China was Otto Braun who was now working for it, indicating how incredibly humble Herr Braun must have been about his extraordinary life.

This guy is just one example of those many characters that make history interesting and worth studying.

Sources:

Grothe, Solveig. “Maos deutscher Helfer.” Spiegel Online. n.d. Web. 29 May. 2013 <http://einestages.spiegel.de/external/ShowTopicAlbumBackground/a5046/l0/l0/F.html&gt;

.Braun, Otto. A Comintern agent in China, 1932-1939. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1982. Web.