Near the opening of Lawrence of Arabia, the epic film by Sir David Lean, a very elderly Sir Lawrence hops onto his motorbike for an early morning spin. Determined and uncaring as a teenager, he slams on the accelerator and roars down the country road like the proverbial bat out of hell. This is the end of his life, but the beginning of the film. An overnight storm has felled a tree across the road that on this fateful morning is to take Lawrence to his last violent run-in: a deadly collision with a stone wall.
Perhaps this biker or race car imagery works as reasonably well for Harry as for Lawrence, with one footnote: LKY, unlike Lawrence, always worries about potential disaster.
Driver Lee has always pushed the Singapore accelerator as fast as he reasonably can, though all the time worrying about an accident or upset. Like a seasoned race-car driver at Le Mans, he worries not what he will do to win the race as much as what he will do to save the day if the unexpected were suddenly to happen, as it often does.
LKY is very good at worrying. He might agree that it’s one of his best talents. He was worrying about the Islamic world long before September 11, 2001. That was the date when Americans, gliding without a care in the world along the country road, smashed into their stone wall.
It’s no surprise that LKY has given the Islamic challenge much thought. In addition to his deep-seated aversion to surprises, he does live in a country with sprawling Indonesia all but surrounding it—and with the rest of the mostly Muslim Malaysian peninsula above it. This is where very many Muslims live. Indonesia is home to more Muslims than any other country. (You may be surprised, though, that India, usually viewed as a Hindu culture, has the globe’s second largest concentration, with neighboring Pakistan third.)
So I suggest that the resurgence of the Islamic world could also have a dramatic effect on the world agenda, not just the American one. The late Samuel Huntington, a storied Harvard professor, coined the phrase ‘The Clash of Civilizations’ to title his most famous book. Huntington was fascinated by LKY’s Singapore, but once predicted that the country would not survive in its present, uncorrupted form upon Lee’s departure from earth. Huntington was to change that view after a wide-ranging conversation, perhaps not unlike this one, with Lee.
Lee recalls vividly: “We used to meet at the Asia Society and
so on, he came here and I went there; and one day, he sent me a piece he was
writing in the Foreign
Affairs called the ‘Clash of Civilizations’. Then I saw him and I
said, look, I agree with you only where the Muslims are concerned, only there.
I should have written it in a piece or in a letter to him, my thought turned
out prophetic.
I said, Hinduism, Chinese Confucianism or Communism, Japanese Shintoism, they
are secular really. They know that to progress, you must master science and
technology, and that’s where they are going to compete with you in the end. But
the Muslims believe that if they mastered the Quran and they are prepared to do
all that Muhammad has prescribed, they will succeed. So, we can expect trouble
from them and so, it happened.”
“And here we are today.”
“Yeah. Why did I come to that conclusion? Because I saw the Malays with whom I went to school; they were quite eclectic and secular during British times.”
I am puzzled: “Quite what?”
“Eclectic. You know, I will eat pork, [they will eat] whatever they eat, their halal food, and, in college, we’ll sit down the same table. Women will not have scarves and so on. But with the rise of oil money, the Saudis and others invited them to conferences and said, look, yours is a diluted voice of Islam. We are the gold standard, pray five times a day, do that, women should not show their limbs, cover up to the sleeves and the ankles, and gradually, now you see so many of the women with headscarves. Are you mad?”
I look at Lee and we both cannot help chortling. We mean no disrespect to any religion. Still, any religion that requires you to dress like Eskimos in all kinds of weather, including dense humid tropical heat, perhaps might merit a sartorial as well as ecclesiastical review by common sense.
He continues: “So, then one day, the prime minister of Mauritius comes by on his way to Australia for some conference. He said, are your Malays here in Singapore, are your Muslims becoming different? So, [Senior Minister] Goh Chok Tong says, why do you ask? He says, our Mus [they call them Mus for Muslims] have suddenly changed. The Saudis have built a mosque, beautiful mosque, and sent them preachers. Now, they have segregated themselves.”
Lee rolls his black eyes: “And I was listening to BBC, the reporter saying that was happening in Africa too. So, I see the oil money and the [hard-core] Wahabis rallying a Muslim world to their side. Now, in the years before the oil boom, when you go on a Haj, you go to a Third World country. Now, you go on a Haj, you are in a super First World country; you see brand-new great buildings, motorways, air-conditioned, everything. So, they are overwhelmed by this. It’s like, if you behave like a proper Muslim, Allah will give you oil!”
“So they were right all along!”
“Yeah! Now, you see, Islam came to Southeast Asia not by conquest but by traders from Yemen, and because it came with sailing ships, sailing boats, there was distance and, therefore, it developed in a different, milder way, especially in Indonesia where they had an under-layer of animism, Javanese superstition, Hinduism, Buddhism. So, even today, I believe the average Javanese is less prone to extremism. So, the people in Indonesia who are pushing a harder view are Arabs, of Arab descent, like Abu Bakar Bashir, who is a pure Arab.”
I interjected: “You mean the reputed ideological godfather of Jemaah Islamiyah, the militant Islamic movement based in Indonesia, the group that would like to conflate Indonesia, Malaysia, southern Islamic Philippines, Brunei and even Singapore into one vast orthodox Islamic state?”
Lee nods: “Of course, they have succeeded in getting the poor Javanese to follow them and sacrifice themselves.”
Such good friends, Saudi Arabia and the United States: “So, instead of invading Iraq, we should have invaded Saudi Arabia?”
Sometimes my so-called interviewing technique involves deliberately absurd suggestions.
“No way!”
“But 10, 15, 25 years from now, this Islam thing, a bigger problem or is it going to be a lesser problem?”
“Depends on what happens in the oil states, particularly Saudi Arabia. Especially if Saudi Arabia wants to modernize, which I think some of the princes want to do, like Prince Abdullah now, although he’s going about it slowly and he is an old man. So, it depends on who succeeds him. Then they’ve got to move away from this compact by which they plead with the Wahabis: you support my royal family and I will give you the resources to spread your Wahabism. So, now, women cannot drive cars, et cetera, but behind these high walls of all the royal princes and princesses, they take off their veils and put on their Parisian clothes; and the men got the bars and clubs to go to and so on. I mean, it’s a hypocritical society. So, for weekends, they go to Dubai.”
Lee is clearly no fan of this world, but has respect for cosmopolitan Muslims, especially Abdullah: “He’s now opened a King Abdullah University for Science and Technology, and within that university, all rules are off. Women can study with men, no scarves, you can drink what you like, et cetera, but the moment you leave, you’ve got to comply. If that side succeeds in gathering momentum, then I think Saudi Arabia will change, but if they go back to, if they regress and you get a younger generation of princes keeping up the same bargain with the Wahabis, I don’t know what will happen.”
“So, if there is one key to this ‘clash of civilizations’ business, it’s Saudi Arabia?”
“Yes, and they have the oil. So, are you going to invade and take over the oil?”
I joke: “Go back to bicycles!”
“And then, you cannot fly to Singapore anymore!”
“On Singapore Airlines!”
“Well, of course.”