Value Of Friends

During the launch of book Men-In-White book, one of the authors mentioned taking Dr Toh Chin Chye for a car ride around town, and he asked what was the spiky looking building at Esplanade Drive. This was sad. Was this how the founding chairman of the richest political party in the world lived out his last days?

Dr Toh Chin Chye 1921 – 2012

Thanks to the account of former journalist Pang Cheng Lian, we are glad to learn that he had friends who bothered to hold monthly lunches with him. And put up with a cantankerous old man with a failing memory. The people who cared for his company included former MPs Ho See Beng, Robin Sim, and ex-colleagues in the Cabinet, Ong Pang Boon, Lee Chiaw Meng, Tang See Chim, to name a few.

These are guys with personal knowledge of Toh's contribution to the nation, not third party accounts. The man who could have been Prime Minister on two momentous occasions. Once on 17 July 1961, when Lee Kuan Yew wrote him that the trade unions, the Middle Road Crowd, wanted Lee to resign and Toh to take over as the Prime Minister. Then again in 1964, consequent to race riots in Singapore and Malaysia, when Lee offered to resign, purportedly as an attempt to defuse the strained relations between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. Extremists from UMNO (United Malays National Organization) were demanding the Tengku should arrest Lee and prevent him from causing more political mischief and ethnic tension in Malaysia. In that eventuality, Toh or Dr Goh Keng Swee would have been the next logical choice to become Prime Minister of Singapore.

Straits Times wrote that "..it is caricature to say personal bitterness drove him into embarking on a late career as a vocal critic", implying he was unhappy for being booted out of cabinet prematurely at age 59. We believe his outrage stemmed from the shoddy treatment of faithful stalwarts who stood by the party during the nascent trials of nation building, only to be cast aside like used douche bags to make way for technocrats parachuted in. Hear his words from an 2002 interview:
"You don't repay their loyalty by throwing them out suddenly. They have no jobs to go to... We have the responsibility to help them find another job."

It is said his physical deterioration accelerated with the demise of his wife, and then adopted daughter. In the end it is the love of human beings that sustain life, not pecuniary pursuits.