It is Good Night and Not Goodbye
During this year’s National Day Rally, I couldn’t help feeling a sense of loss when PM Goh Chok Tong announced his intention of stepping down as Prime Minister to make way for DPM Lee Hsien Loong before the next general election.
I have my utmost respect for SM Lee Kuan Yew, who was Prime Minister from our independence in 1965 to 1990. Under his leadership Singapore progressed from Third World to First in less than 3 decades, an incredible feat for a tiny city-state with no natural resources. However, I was too young to see him in action back then.
PM Goh was the Prime Minister I grew up with. When he became Prime Minister in 1990, SM Lee said he was too "wooden" and advised him to see a psychiatrist. In that same year, we welcomed a new family member at home. Suddenly I became the middle child in the family, after being the youngest for 10 years. I didn’t suffer from the Middle Child Syndrome, but now I have to share my stuffed toys with my baby sis. This meant a great deal to a 10-year-old boy who needs his teddy bears to protect him from evil Barbie dolls that wake up in the middle of the night like Chucky.
As PM Goh spoke at this year’s National Day Rally, he’s a proven leader with impressive oratorical skills, able to rally Singaporeans together for the common good of Singapore; hardly the "wooden" person he once was. And here I am, a 3rd-year university student getting ready to leave home once again to continue my studies in Canada.
Some pundits think that PM Goh is just a seat warmer for SM Lee’s eldest son, DPM Lee. To this, I have for them a quote from Theodore Roosevelt:
It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again because there is no effort without error and shortcomings, who knows the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows in the end the high achievement of triumph and who at worst, if he fails while daring greatly, knows his place shall never be with those timid and cold souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
Although his speech at this year’s National Day Rally might be PM Goh’s last as Prime Minister, he isn’t stepping down until 2005. It is good night and not goodbye.