Singapore celebrates five decades of independence

Singapore has commemorated 50 years since it became an independent state with an extravagant military parade.

Recalling Singapore’s achievements, Lee said there was ample reason to celebrate in the occasion.

In this Saturday August 8, 2015, photo, a couple sits in front of the…

Singapore is marking 50 years since independence with nationwide celebrations, including a huge military parade and fireworks display that will also pay tribute to former founding leader Lee Kuan Yew. Bloomberg’s annual index of the world’s most innovative countries now rates Singapore eighth, only two places behind the United States.

The occasional column by Lee, a senior adviser at the National Neuroscience Institute, is closely watched for glimpses into the private life of Singapore’s most influential family – Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong is her elder brother.

Yet, ironically, the outpouring of national grief that welled to the surface following his passing in March did more than anything else to remind Singaporeans what this year-long jubilee jamboree was all about.

“It is a real challenge, even in affluent Singapore… we have had cases where middle-class Singaporeans have been self-radicalised”, he said.

“The PAP clearly judges that between the death of the older Lee… and the anniversary celebrations, that there is going to be a big fillip to the government in the election”, he said. To make up for this, Lee Kuan Yew agreed to do a recording of himself reading the proclamation in 2012.

Tens of thousands of people are expected to attend an outdoor parade, complete with flybys by the air force and a Singapore Airlines A380 airliner. Its GDP per capita income at the time was 0, but today it’s ,000 notes Kishore Mahbubani, dean of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, writing for The Huffington Post. “It was here in 1958 that Majulah Singapura was first performed”.

The national day celebrations are a good example of this co-operation between the spiritual and the material, as an observer of last week’s dress rehearsal said: “Of course we know it’s a hugely expensive exercise in self-promotion, but we absolutely love it: it’s our national day!” With so many venues for celebration I will suggest that we go to the Gardens by the Bay.

The new spirit – or semangat yang baru – that it extols might be taken to reflect the remarkably changed sentiments, both at home and overseas, towards Singapore, its people and their prospects. “We are stronger as one people”. “It is everything we stand for and it is everything we hope to be”.

For a tiny country with few natural resources, the Republic of Singapore is an exceptional success story.