Lee Kuan Yew School dean to step down this year
SINGAPORE: The founding dean of a prominent school here on Monday said he was stepping down, four months after he stirred a heated debate with the comment that small countries like Singapore must “always behave like small states”.
Kishore Mahbubani, a longtime diplomat and the wealthy city-state’s former envoy to the United Nations, said he had written to the board of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy saying he would step down as dean at the end of the year.
In the statement to the school’s governing board, Mahbubani cited a double heart bypass operation last year and said he wanted to “focus on a new career that involves more time spent on reading, reflection and writing”.
“I realise that the time had come for me to take a fresh look at what I should achieve over the next decade as I enter my 70s,” said Mahbubani, who is 69 and has served 13 years as dean.
His statement did not refer to the controversy fuelled by his column in July that Qatar’s experience of conflict with its Arab neighbours offered big lessons for small countries.
In the piece titled “Qatar: Big lessons from a small country”, he warned that Singapore could face the fate of the Gulf state, which believed it could act as a middle power and exercise influence beyond its borders “because it sits on mounds of money”.
“I would like to emphasise as strongly as I can that this Qatar episode holds many lessons for Singapore,” he wrote in Singapore’s The Straits Times.
The first lesson, he said, was: “Small states must always behave like small states.”
Public criticism or perceived admonishments of the government are rare in Singapore.
His comments drew a sharp rebuke from Singapore’s political leaders and fellow former foreign service officials as flawed and intellectually questionable.