The generation gap - among political leaders

Younger PAP leaders sweating needlessly about the post-65ers

By Mafoot Simon
April 22, 2006
The Straits Times

I MISSED the first telecast of Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew's dialogue with the 10 young Singaporeans, and decided to watch the repeat telecast last week. Unknown to me, my 24-year-old son was also watching the show in the comfort of his own room.

As he came out of his room at the end of the programme, he commented: 'Your friend is sweating.' I think that's his generation's way of saying someone is going through a tough time - such as when being grilled by 10 people at the same time.

He was exaggerating about the 'friend' bit of course, but I do not think he was about the 'sweating' bit. Many in his generation must have seen it that way. After all, they have almost zero bonding with MM Lee, and his generation.

My taciturn young son caught me completely by surprise. I had not known that he had any interest in political matters. It is to the credit of the dialogue participants that for many who watched the debate, it would have been difficult to remain disinterested. Letters to the media and coffeeshop talk bear this out.

Two things have preoccupied me ever since.

The first was why MM Lee - known for his short fuse, and for not suffering fools gladly - allowed himself to be subjected to a gruelling 1 1/2 hours of sometimes-rude remarks from the 10 young participants.

Why should he go to all the trouble when he already knew, not least from a Straits Times survey of 413 Singaporeans aged 21 to 34, that seven in 10 said they wanted to vote in the coming General Election, but six in 10 said they would not be disappointed if there was a walkover in their constituency?

Why should he go to all the trouble when he already knew that bread-and-butter issues like the cost of living, jobs and housing topped the list of concerns important to these young people?

After all, a lot of hard work and preparation went into the one-hour programme. There was the preliminary session at the Istana on Saturday that lasted almost 2 1/2 hours. Two days later, it was 1 1/2 hours of recording. And what about the preparations beforehand?

One participant confessed that he spent a whole weekend reading up on Mr Lee and policies such as the Group Representation Constituency 'to come up with questions'.

What he probably did not know is that MM Lee must have read up on the group as well, particularly the seven journalists whose thoughts on current issues are quite accessible through their writings.

MM Lee, according to one participant, 'showed that he had taken effort to remember specific details about us before the camera started rolling' during the taping of the programme.

He started life as a cross-examiner, MM Lee told the group. What he did not say was that he is also a consummate negotiator. And to perform both roles well, he does his homework thoroughly - including boning up on whom he is up against.

Here is an untold story about what happened when MM Lee went on an official visit to a country keen to forge better relations with the Republic. A meeting with a group of the country's top administrators was on the schedule. A day earlier, he asked to be briefed about each and every single member of the administration he was to meet.

Dutifully, his aides gave him the briefing. But they could not get details on one man. MM Lee blew his top, saying that unless he knew each and every one of them, he would not know where they were coming from in the discussion.

'He was like an angry lion. I have never seen anything like it,' was how one witness put it.

Expose them?

BEFORE MM Lee explained the reason he agreed to the dialogue, I harboured a worry that he might actually have wanted to 'expose' the young journalists who write often about their pet peeves - the lack of opposition, the lack of a level playing field for political parties, a climate of fear - peeves which might not resonate at all with other young Singaporeans not from the same English-educated background.

Indeed, I 'sweated' - to borrow my son's lingo - when he pointed an accusing finger at this newspaper for 'purveying an unnecessary falsehood' about the secrecy of the vote in elections.

But all turned out well. He told The Straits Times his reason for taking part: 'I met the young journalists to get a sense of their attitudes to elections and politics. They gave me this but they were over-emphatic in putting across their views.'

This brings me to my second preoccupation about the dialogue.

Generation gap

AS MUCH as it revealed a generation gap in the ways Singaporeans have reacted to the debate, it also revealed a 'generation gap' among three generations of political leaders. Two were sanguine. The third seemed fearful.

Sure, except for MM Lee who is now the only political leader of his generation in the current Cabinet, the other two might not represent the sentiments of their own different generations. But unless a survey is done, let us look at it for what it is worth.

Here is what MM Lee, the only one left among the first generation of leaders, said about the post-65 generation:

'It is not possible to make them like their parents. When they grow older and assume responsibility for their families, their world view will be different. When they grow older and have to leave the comfort of their parents' homes and fend for themselves, they will reorder their priorities. It happens with every generation.'

The second reaction was that of Foreign Minister George Yeo of the second-generation leadership: 'I think it is normal that at any time in any society for there to be a generation gap, and for young people always to want things to be faster, to be different from their elder brother or sister or parents or uncles. That is normal.

'It will be very unusual if we have in a society young people having the same taste and being completely content with what their parents want,' he told the Chinese daily, Lianhe Zaobao.

The third reaction came from a third-generation leader, the Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports, Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, who said that the debate signalled a gulf between what the young want and what the PAP has delivered.

Speaking as the chairman of the People's Action Party's youth wing at the Young PAP's 20th anniversary last week, he said: 'I will speak very frankly and say that many of us, after watching the televised forum...emerged with an acute sense of discomfort.

'Discomfort, because it may signify that there is a gulf between what the young people think they want or need, and what the party has actually delivered...

'Whatever you may think of the younger generation, the fact remains that the PAP will have to understand, induct, teach and prepare this younger generation to take over, sooner or later.'

This reaction seems to me unnecessarily fearful. The 'acute sense of discomfort' was probably unnecessary too.

First, the gulf that Dr Balakrishnan referred to may not be as big as he imagined.

As the reactions of the older generation leaders showed, they were fully aware of what young people's wants were.

As Mr Yeo said, 'it is normal' for these to be different from that of older Singaporeans.

Second, the group of voters we call the 'young generation' is itself not monolithic.

And to borrow Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto's 80/20 Rule, 80 per cent of the noise made by the young could probably be the work of only 20 per cent. By some estimates, it may even be just 5 to 6 per cent.

So it is good to have the older generation of leaders 'tempering' the exuberance of the third generation. I should hurry now to my son.