Thank you Mr Lee Kuan Yew. And may your soul rest in peace.

I’m not a politically-inclined person; neither do I know very much nor want to know much about politics but I think that is what all of us who has ever lived in Singapore, and not only Singaporeans and its Residents should say to him; whether you like him or not and whether you agree with him or not.

I must emphasize very strongly that I have no affiliations of any sort to any political parties anywhere in Singapore (or globally) and neither do I want to join any political party so don’t even think about it.

The late Lee Kuan Yew is one of the founding fathers of Singapore and there is no way that you can deny that he is the pivotal figure in the short history of Singapore as an independent country to date.

While I might not have agreed with all his policies and beliefs, now that I’m older and more well travelled, I realised and understood that whatever the late Lee Kuan Yew has done was necessary and critical to the survival and progress of Singapore; I respect all of that even though I still don’t fully agree with it. Sure there are social costs but then again, there is no such thing as perfect in the real world.

While the late Lee Kuan Yew had great foresight, he was not a fortune teller and he wouldn’t have known what the impact of his policies would have in the crazy fast changing world today. Sure that some of his policies could use some updating but still, if you think about it objectively, it worked and it propelled Singapore into the developed nation that it is today. You can’t deny any of that.

With the passing of Lee Kuan Yew, we have officially closed a large and critical chapter in the history of Singapore. It is a shame that he didn’t manage to make it past the 50th National Day but oh well.

Let’s all take some time to reflect and thereafter move forward while learning the lessons from looking back.