Singapore’s founding fathers didn’t always sing from the same hymnbook. Workers’ Party leader Pritam Singh noted this on Facebook while commenting on an SG Matters post displaying a picture of Singapore’s first foreign minister, S. Rajaratnam.
What caught my eye was the quote on the picture: “We are not anti-anybody. We are simply pro-Singapore.”
How different is that from US President Donald Trump putting “America first”?
Yet Trump is criticised as an isolationist, while Rajaratnam is admired for his brilliance. Is there a contradiction?
Even if there is, politics is the art of making accommodations, where Rajaratnam’s admirers may suddenly find themselves on the same page as Donald Trump.
His avoiding Israel on his recent Middle East tour was not unlike critics shunning the country, protesting its treatment of Palestinians in Gaza. The hostilities and the outrage feel like déjà vu.
Israel also angered Rajaratnam nearly 60 years ago.
Pritam Singh recalls that episode in his Facebook post, where he praises Singapore’s founding fathers.
Lee Kuan Yew, Goh Keng Swee, and Rajaratnam are “widely accepted as three of the brightest foreign policy minds in Singapore”, he wrote on Facebook on Sunday (May 18).
However, as he noted, they disagreed during the 1967 Six-Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbours.
Rajaratnam wanted to support a United Nations General Assembly resolution condemning Israel.
Goh Keng Swee opposed the proposed resolution out of concern that the Israelis would stop helping to build up Singapore’s armed forces.
Lee Kuan Yew, on the other hand, “believed that Singapore must stand up for the rights of small nations to exist” and “proposed a third way—to abstain from the General Assembly vote,” says Singh.
On the subject of Israel, Singh himself seems to be closer to Lee and Rajaratnam than to Goh Keng Swee.
Writing about “what Israel is doing in Gaza, particularly to women and children today”, he says:
“Singaporeans will make active contributions to address humanitarian disasters—not just in terms of donations, but they will also openly share their views on what principles our foreign policy should uphold.”
“For some positions are worth standing up for,” he adds.
That’s all very noble. But idealism isn’t the only fuel that gets you there. Self-interest may lead to the same position.
Consider Trump. The erstwhile unstinting supporter of Israel extended a snub by bypassing Israel on his recent Middle East tour.
He visited Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, claimed to have made deals worth $2 trillion, and promised to lift sanctions on Syria—but, unlike during his earlier trip in 2017, he did not visit Israel.
“Benjamin Netanyahu downgraded to spectator on Donald Trump’s Middle East tour,” said a Financial Times headline on May 15.
“Trump’s tour is largely about American interests in the region, including economic gains. Israel doesn’t have a trillion dollars to invest in the US,” the newspaper report added, quoting Michael Oren, the former Israeli ambassador to the US. “The Saudis and the Qataris do.”
In short, Trump was putting “America first.” His critics may not like it, but Rajaratnam would have understood. It’s no different from being “pro-Singapore”.
Rajaratnam, “pro-Singapore” as he was, recognised that leaders have to be mindful not only of national interests.
Speaking at the founding of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Bangkok on Aug 8, 1967, he said:
“It is necessary for us if we are to be really successful in giving life to ASEAN to marry national thinking with regional thinking.”
Singapore has to be pro-ASEAN, too, and a superpower, according to Trump’s critics, has to be more than “America first”.