This is a user contributed article
I have deep respect for Professor Kishore Mahbubani. He has articulated Singapore’s progress to the world with clarity and conviction. When he calls us “one of the most remarkable stories of human history,” he is right to celebrate what we have built together in one lifetime.
We all know the figures. From S$500 per capita to over S$94,000. From third world to first. These are achievements that deserve recognition, and Professor Mahbubani has done our nation a service by reminding the world of them.
Yet, with great respect, I believe the story he tells is incomplete. And an incomplete story, however impressive, cannot guide us for the next 60 years.
Singapore’s success did not begin with monetary policy. It began with geography. In 1025, the fleets of Rajendra Chola sailed to Temasek because this island guarded the Strait of Malacca. In 1819, Sir Stamford Raffles chose this spot for the very same reason: a deepwater, sheltered port at the crossroads of global trade.
We did not make the Strait. We were handed it. Nature gave us a platform that kings, admirals, and merchants had already recognized for a thousand years. Our task was to steward it wisely. We did. But we should be humble enough to admit that geography bailed us out long before finance perfected us.
I respect Professor Mahbubani’s mastery of geopolitics. His 2023 address on The Asian 21st Century reminds us to be prudent, to not choose sides, to protect our economic space. That counsel has served us well. Small states, he says, must be “realistic.”
I agree. But realism without humanity is just survival. A country that only preserves room for money but never asks what that the purpose is for will one day find it his soul empty.
Even today, listen to the framing: power balances, ASEAN as a buffer, US-China contest, economic rise. All vital. But listen for what’s missing. Where is the Singaporean who doesn’t want to be a buffer? Where is the freedom to choose a life that isn’t about GDP, but about meaning? We master geopolitics. But do we master ourselves?
So, if we measure ourselves only by GDP, assets, and fiscal prudence, we mistake the results for the foundation. The foundation of any remarkable story must be humanity.
A remarkable nation asks more than “How rich are we?” It asks:
1. Do our people have freedom of speech to question, to imagine, to dissent in good faith?
2. Do our citizens have the right to live in alignment with their calling— whether that calling is in business, art, science, or service — without being reduced to their economic output?
3. Do we encourage our young to venture into adventure and philosophy, or do we signal that only finance and assets confer dignity?
I think of my own life. I wanted to study Animal Ethics, Conservation Science. My government asked me, “How will you afford a flat?” ” Who will look after you? Not the state”. I pursued my calling away from Singapore and truly fulfilled in wealth of knowledge, skill and experiences in my field of profession overseas but remain unemployable in Singapore. Purchased my two-room home in Singapore through what I earned overseas. I sleep well at night as my life feels complete though a failure by Singapore standard and unemployable.
I have a classmate who wanted to pursue the same calling. The shackle around his ankles were tighten and he was unable to freed. So, became a banker. He’s successful millionaire, living in Penthouse. He’s also empty with 2 failed marriages! That’s the cost of an incomplete story.
A port builds wealth. People build worth
I am not dismissing economic strength. It gives us options. But options are meaningless if our people do not feel free to choose them. The next chapter of our story cannot be written in balance sheets alone. It must be written in the lives we enable.
So let us honour Professor Mahbubani’s work by completing it. Let us pair fiscal excellence with human flourishing. Let us ensure that Singapore is known not just for its reserves, but for its reservoirs of courage, creativity, and conscience.
Imagine a Singapore where a philosopher or naturalist is celebrated alongside a fund manager. Where a young Singaporean can choose the monastery or the mountain and not be called a failure. Where speech is not merely permitted but valued as the raw material of progress.
That, my distinguished friends and leaders, would be a remarkable story not just for historians, but for humanity.
Miss Thana Chandran, remains a proud citizen of Singapore.
