The father of modern Singapore Lee Kuan Yew is entitled to his own interpretation about individual politicians around the world just like any other person.
However how informed and knowledgeable he is to call one community in Sri Lanka brighter than the other is a big question.
Having founded the People’s Action Party (PAP) with his Jaffna born multi-talented buddy Sinnathamby Rajaratnum whom he later appointed as his Deputy Prime Minister and associated with so many eminent Sri Lankan Tamils through him, it is likely that Lee Kuan Yew has quite positive memories of the Tamil community in Sri Lanka. Even otherwise with Singapore being the home to thousands of Sri Lankan Tamils he would have got enough opportunities to cultivate contacts.
However with no such friends among other Sri Lankan communities he is certainly ill-equipped to make a sweeping racist statement like the one he has made in his latest book that “Sinhalese who are less capable are putting down a minority of Jaffna Tamils who are more capable”.
The octogenarian politician’s interpretation one may say exposes his own biases and prejudices against the communities here as the fact remains that one gets capable talented people among all communities in Sri Lanka. And even the Tamils in Sri Lanka who may find LKY’s comments quite flattering may still agree that one cannot ethnicize talent in Sri Lanka. There’s a whole host of Sri Lankan born scientists, astronomers, nuclear scientists all over the world from all communities. In sports there was Duncan White who won Silver at 400 hurdles at 1948 Olympics, Mohamed Lafir who won World Billiards Championship in 1973 and Muralitharan remains the highest wicket taker in both ODIs and Test cricket while Susanthika Jayasinghe won the silver medal in 200m at 2000 Sydney Olympics.
The Jaffna Tamil community that LKY tries to portray as the victims undoubtedly had been one of the most hardworking and focused communities here. His repeated references to Tamils here as Jaffna Tamils indicate that the legendary nation builder is clueless about the basic demographic structure of Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka is in the process of rebuilding the nation after a horrible war and there’s a responsibility by the likes of senior international politicians of the calibre of LKY to avoid making statement that would harm the reconciliation process by pitting one community against the other.