Reviews ___________________________________________________________________

Chris Lydgate Lee's Law: How Singapore Crushes Dissent. Melbourne:

Scribe Publications. 2003. 318 pp. ISBN: 090801189X

Historical accounts usually run the gamut of differing degrees of in-

terpretation. There are variations of the facts and nuances of the truth.
However, in some cases the essence of the matter is the same. Chris
Lydgate's journalistic account of one of Singapore's most important
political figures captures the essence of his subject – Joshua Benjamin
Jeyaretnam, or JBJ – in Lee's Law: How Singapore Crushes Dissent.
Jeyaretnam's portrayal as a venerable, erstwhile lawyer cuts a tragic
figure in the history of Singapore's social and political development.
The book traces JBJ's origins and life within the context of the city-state's
development, especially through the backdrop of his family upbring-
ing, British colonialism, the Second World War and its aftermath, the
political and social upheaval that followed, and the events leading up to
Singapore's independence. The main theme of the book is Jeyaretnam's
fight for justice and fairness – first as a lawyer and then as an opposi-
tion politician – in the Singapore judiciary, as well as against the PAP
government at the polls and in the courts. He became the sole opposition
parliamentarian in 1981 after winning the Anson by-election, breaking
the PAP’s monopoly of all seats in Parliament.
Lydgate's book has the almost-deceptive subtitle of how Singapore the
state crushes dissent. It is in fact about one dissenter, J. B. Jeyaretnam.
It chronicles the key events of his life, from his rise in the civil service
and his break from the state's dominant party system, to his foray into
opposition politics. In the same vein, Lydgate also exposes the lack of
political rights and civil liberties that should normally come with a de-
veloped country such as Singapore. This should give food for thought to
academically inclined readers who may not have a practical appreciation
of the hard realities of being an opposition politician in Singapore.
Although Lee's Law is written in a journalistic style, Lydgate provides
a valuable ground-level account of the workings of the PAP regime as
personified by Lee Kuan Yew and how it treats any serious opposition
to its control. Lydgate's incisive insights neatly summarize the truths as
well as ironies of a given event or incident, even to the moment. This is
too often ignored or missed in many academic works on politics.
Among the memorable incidents recounted are those of the court
cases involving Jeyaretnam against members of the regime or its vested
interests. Lydgate relates key exchanges and uses them to illustrate the
manner in which J. B. Jeyaretnam faced his opponents in court, while also

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commenting on and summarizing the crux of these cases. They show,

with varying degrees of clarity, how the Singapore judiciary acted and
reacted, as well as the political influences and pressures placed upon
them. These cases also revealed more of Jeyaretnam's character and the
dynamics with which his vocation as a trial lawyer sometimes clashed,
in later years, with his role as an opposition politician. More often than
not, they reverberated off each other with unenviable consequences.
The writing contains prodigious usage of language and trenchant
statements which bring out revealing facets of human behaviour in the
various political actors; for instance: 'And while Goh aimed several jabs
at Jeyaretnam, he never showed a knack for the vicious form of political
ju-jitsu that came so naturally to Lee.'
Although not an explicit, blow-by-blow critique of Singapore's politi-
cal evolution, Lydgate manages to capture important aspects of Singa-
pore's political life: the gradual erosion of human rights, the rise of a
powerful 'nanny state' and the creation of a political system that imposes
its will on the people on behalf of an elite, and which tries to persuade
its citizens that this is for the greater good of the country. It shows, for
instance, how a country can develop into a First World state without
the accompanying civil and political liberties that would normally be
associated with such development.
Along the way Lydgate does not hesitate to criticize and point out
Jeyaretnam's faults. There are a few important ones, among them his mis-
placed idealism and his infamous tendency to want to seek confrontation
based on the principles of his beliefs. There was also his stubbornness
and faith in the law, ultimately found to be misplaced. However, this
does not detract from the basis of his actions, showing his commitment
to fighting for the 'common man'. It is these actions that highlight the
true nature of the PAP regime through its persecution of Jeyaretnam.
The strength of this book is its engaging, journalistic style that brings
out the tension and themes of the period. For example, in summing up
Singapore's political climate, Lydgate writes that the 'atmosphere of
crisis', though legitimate, 'provided intellectual camouflage for the gov-
ernment's efforts to dictate the destiny of its citizens'. Although it serves
as a good primer or popular history of JBJ's life, it could also have been
a more serious work if it had contained, for instance, more details and
background of the laws that JBJ ran afoul of, or some technical aspects
of the parliamentary jousts and other processes that could have painted
a fuller picture of Jeyaretnam's struggles. However, it captures the pa-
thos and even engenders anger at Lee's PAP regime for its treatment of

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Reviews ___________________________________________________________________

Jeyaretnam, something that may contribute to academics' understanding

of how the Singapore government crushes dissent.
At times reading like a political pot-boiler, at other times reading like
popular history, but never quite either, Lee's Law is never mundane. In-
deed, rather than merely recounting a politician's life story, it recounts
his struggles. Jeyaretnam's story is sadly also the story of many of those
who suffer quietly under the PAP-dominated system, which is all the
more tragic for being both highly pragmatic and subtly oppressive.
In spite of the book's journalistic style of writing, it holds academic
value and academics should read and consider it when studying Sin-
gapore. Academic studies of opposition parties and politicians in Sin-
gapore have been few and far between. Although more are needed to
increase the depth of Singapore studies, books such as Lee's Law provide
a valuable resource that helps to fill in important gaps and increase
insights into the political history of Singapore.

Roderick Chia
Information & Communications Coordinator
Bangkok, Thailand.

Carl A. Trocki, Singapore: Wealth, Power and the Culture of Control. 2006.
London and New York: Routledge. 211 pp. ISBN: 0415263867

What makes Singapore history boring is the way in which the stories
are usually narrated. Singapore history tends to be explained in terms of
two representative figures: Stamford Raffles and Lee Kuan Yew. Raffles
is the founding father of the port of Singapore while his reincarnation,
Lee Kuan Yew, is founding father of the Singapore nation-state.
The author of the present book, Carl Trocki, is fully aware of this
pitfall. To avoid it, he demonstrates Singapore history through an inter-
esting theme: the power of the Chinese masses pitted against an alliance
of other powers. These powers comprise the local English-educated
Chinese elites and the forces of global Euro-American capital (p. 185).
The book can be broadly categorized into two sections. The first sec-
tion (Chapters 1-3) narrates stories about Singapore from the pre-Raffles
era until the Second World War. The second half of the book (Chapters
4-6) is about independent Singapore, from the time of transition after
the Second World War until today.

134 __________________________ The Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies 23•2006