Catherine Lim - Controversy

Controversy

Dr Lim first crossed swords with the PAP in 1994 when she wrote a landmark article published in The Straits Times – PAP and the People: A Great Affective Divide, which peeved then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong so much that his press secretary challenged her to enter politics and take responsibility for her views. Goh said at a PAP event that Lim had “gone beyond the pale” to imply that he was not really in charge in the article. “When my authority is being commented on or undermined by wrong observations, I have to correct them, or the view will prevail that I am indeed not in charge of Singapore…..If left unchecked, snide comments would, over time, erode the people’s respect for the office,” he said.

From comments made at the time by PM Goh and other Cabinet Ministers, especially George Yeo, this episode gave rise to the political "out of bounds" marker that came to be known as "boh tua boh suay" (literally, "no big, no small" in the Chinese dialect of Hokkien, to mean "no respect for rank and seniority"), that was to stifle political discussion for some years. This all changed with the advent of the Internet and the change in the political ground around the 2011 general election, which made this stand on, and demand for, unquestioned reverence for political authority the anachronism that it - arguably - had always deserved to be.

Lee Kuan Yew dismissed Catherine Lim’s views as “the popular theory that the Western press writes about.” In his memoirs, Lee is quoted as saying:

“Supposing Catherine Lim was writing about me and not the prime minister….She would not dare, right? Because my posture, my response has been such that nobody doubts that if you take me on, I will put on knuckle-dusters and catch you in a cul-de-sac….There is no other way you can govern in a Chinese society.”

Catherine Lim did not join politics. Her column was subsequently stopped by the Straits Times and she remained on the fringes of Singapore socio-political life.