https://qz.com/365459/how-lee-kuan-...cient-and-quirkily-repressive-country-in-asia
Over many years and visits, I watched with admiration and anxiety as Lee built Singapore into the most prosperous, efficient, and quirkily repressive regime in Asia. “Disneyland with the death penalty,” as cyberpunk writer William Gibson labeled it. The press was muscled into docility, political opponents were sued into bankruptcy, human-rights activists were hustled into jail. Drug dealers were hanged, rowdy schoolboys flogged. But the corruption rampant elsewhere in Asia was virtually unknown in Singapore. People were afraid to talk about anything controversial, but the economy boomed and personal income hit US levels. Singapore became the country western journalists loved to hate and hated to leave.
Over many years and visits, I watched with admiration and anxiety as Lee built Singapore into the most prosperous, efficient, and quirkily repressive regime in Asia. “Disneyland with the death penalty,” as cyberpunk writer William Gibson labeled it. The press was muscled into docility, political opponents were sued into bankruptcy, human-rights activists were hustled into jail. Drug dealers were hanged, rowdy schoolboys flogged. But the corruption rampant elsewhere in Asia was virtually unknown in Singapore. People were afraid to talk about anything controversial, but the economy boomed and personal income hit US levels. Singapore became the country western journalists loved to hate and hated to leave.
