THE petition to rename Changi Airport as the Lee Kuan Yew Airport has set me thinking.
This is going to confuse and befuddle air travellers who, for decades, have been drawn to Changi Airport on the strength of its track record of consistently being the world's top airport.
Our nation's founding father, Mr Lee, stressed that he was averse to personal glorification of the visceral nature.
Rather, he would have wanted his stellar legacy to be exponentially improved upon.
The way forward would be to strengthen interracial togetherness and solidarity, reduce sectional divisiveness, create more and better paid jobs for all, build the infrastructural ballast to sustain a larger and more demanding citizenry, provide affordable and quality healthcare, housing, social amenities, transport, education, and so on.
If achieved, all this would greatly improve the lives of Singaporeans living in a very successful Singapore, an attainment Mr Lee would surely be proud of.
Renaming roads, parks, buildings, institutions and the like are just cosmetic gestures, unworthy of serious consideration.
A regime change in some countries has often resulted in the immediate and complete destruction of statues or edifices built to adulate the previous ruler.
Initiatives that add to the quality and depth of the common citizens' lives are self-sustaining and have a permanence and significance that override simplistic, populist short-term quests for immediate visceral satisfaction.
Ho Kong Loon
This is going to confuse and befuddle air travellers who, for decades, have been drawn to Changi Airport on the strength of its track record of consistently being the world's top airport.
Our nation's founding father, Mr Lee, stressed that he was averse to personal glorification of the visceral nature.
Rather, he would have wanted his stellar legacy to be exponentially improved upon.
The way forward would be to strengthen interracial togetherness and solidarity, reduce sectional divisiveness, create more and better paid jobs for all, build the infrastructural ballast to sustain a larger and more demanding citizenry, provide affordable and quality healthcare, housing, social amenities, transport, education, and so on.
If achieved, all this would greatly improve the lives of Singaporeans living in a very successful Singapore, an attainment Mr Lee would surely be proud of.
Renaming roads, parks, buildings, institutions and the like are just cosmetic gestures, unworthy of serious consideration.
A regime change in some countries has often resulted in the immediate and complete destruction of statues or edifices built to adulate the previous ruler.
Initiatives that add to the quality and depth of the common citizens' lives are self-sustaining and have a permanence and significance that override simplistic, populist short-term quests for immediate visceral satisfaction.
Ho Kong Loon
