SDP chief Chee Soon Juan calls out George Yeo, Kishore Mahbubani for brushing off question about Singaporeans' happiness
SINGAPORE: A comment from former Foreign Affairs Minister George Yeo during a Bloomberg interview last month received a lot of attention, and Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) chief Chee Soon Juan has somewhat belatedly weighed in, saying that the happiness of Singaporeans should be no laughing matter.
Mr Yeo, together with longtime diplomat Kishore Mahbubani, sat down with Bloomberg’s Mishal Husain in front of a live audience in Singapore to discuss a range of topics.
At one point, Ms Husain noted how while Singapore is one of the wealthiest countries across the globe, its citizens are also among the unhappiest.
Mr Yeo started his answer with a quote from Lee Kuan Yew, who had told Singapore’s officials to “never promise happiness,” which elicited laughter and a smattering of applause from the audience.
“We can promise infrastructure, economic development, education, whatever, but never promise happiness,” he added. Mr Mahbubani, meanwhile, voiced his agreement.
Chee Soon Juan’s response
“Apparently, to these wealthy people, Singaporeans’ unhappiness is something of a laughing matter. Can this be any more sickening?” Dr Chee said in a video on Oct 14.
In it, he had earlier compared Singapore to Finland, which has a similar population. However, the cost of living in Finland is lower, property prices are lower, and while Finland is ranked sixth on the quality of life index, Singapore is in 42nd place.
Dr Chee also pointed out that Finland’s ministers have a much lower salary than Singapore’s, with its Prime Minister earning about $20,000 a month in comparison to Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, who makes $300,000 monthly.
In his latest social media post, the SDP chief wrote that he had received some pushback over the comparison he had made between Singapore and Finland, as the latter country is much bigger and has more resources.
Dr Chee answered this by writing, “We make the mistake of equating land size with quality of life, and even happiness.”
Moreover, Finland’s policies have prevented the accumulation of extreme wealth, which Dr Chee believes is a big contributor to the unhappiness and low quality of life in Singapore.
He also returned to the issue of Mr Yeo and Mr Mahbubani appearing to find humour in the unhappiness of Singaporeans, calling it “extremely disturbing.”
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Dr Chee had found the question of why Singapore is so wealthy but its people so unhappy to be both serious and pertinent.
“One would have expected the two gentlemen to examine, or attempted to examine, the factors that led to such a state of affairs.
It is unfortunate that they chose, instead, to brush it off by saying that it is not the govt’s role to promise happiness – and then revel in the seeming cleverness of Yeo’s response, with Mahbubani enthusiastically cheering him on…
The question of the people’s happiness – and whether it is the govt’s responsibility – should be the subject of greater public debate and scrutiny,” he added. /TISG