Lee Kuan Yew said “No” to permanent migrant refuge In 1978, then-Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew sat down with the New York Times to discuss refugees. He said: “You’ve got to grow calluses on your heart or you just bleed to death.” Source The late Lee Kuan Yew was referring to being “callous” to the plight of Vietnamese refugees who were on boats drifting across the sea, fleeing from poverty and conflict and looking for new land. This was the late 1970s. The world was busy re-building itself after World War II. In China, markets began to open up after Chairman Mao’s death. The Four Asian Tigers (Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan) were zipping through rapid industrialization, building skyscraper economies. In Vietnam, the war had just ended in 1975 and people were trying to re-build their lives from the scraps left behind by war. Singapore, 1972Source No refuge for Vietnamese migrants stranded at sea 2 million people fled Vietnam between 1975 and 1995. Hordes of Vietnamese boat people drifted across the South China Sea, but only 800,000 survived to tell the story. Lives were lost at the hands of pirates, overcrowded boats, and storms. Lives were also lost at […]
10 years ago
