“LIVING THE ASIAN CENTURY An Undiplomatic Memoir”

By Kishore Mahbhbani

Review by Tariq Mahmud

It is story of a story teller, a story of a person, a society and the state. Kishore Mahbubani, a seasoned diplomat and a widely acclaimed geopolitical analyst and a thinker has written his memoir with a flourish and flavour deserving of an well acclaimed academic-cum-diplomat.

Deeply conscious of his Sindhi roots, – his parents came from Hyderabad, Sindh, were a part of enterprising Sindhi diaspora that spread from Surinam to Hong Kong – Kishore – was born in Singapore, his homeland. He is anecdotal about his name. His first name Kishore, derived from Sansikrit means a young boy in Hindi, signifies his parental identity having born in a Hindu family, while his second name Mahbubani is an Arabic overlap, meaning endearing, signifying the elements of cosmopolitanism that were deeply entrenched in his psyche.

Kishore Mahbubani’s childhood was mired in numerous challenges including a broken family. His mercurial father being victim of his temperament was a peon with a Sindhi shop keeper in Singapore with compulsive habits of drinking, gambling and violence. At one stage Kishore’s father was imprisoned for a criminal offence.

This set the tone for Kishore’s mother to break up with his father and for taking care of her children as a single mother. Her brothers lent her a helping hand.

Kishore, a student from a poor household, was put on the school’s food supplement programme. From his very early life, Kishore cultivated the habit of avid readership while in school and keenly read Bertrand Russel. Russel’s work on skepticism influenced Kishore’s thought processes at a young age which over the years continued to develop and reached its intellectual best.  After finishing the higher secondary school, Mr. Mahbubani started his life as a helper with a Sindhi cloth shop keeper, measuring and stitching clothes for people.

His trajectory took a sharp turn when from nowhere he got the news of the president’s scholarship to study at the Singapore’s premium university, National university of Singapore. It was like a bonanza, and his mother was the first person to encourage him to apply as she figured out that the scholarship and the new journey in life would fetch him more money than what he was getting as an employee in the shop.

Kishore got the scholarship and enrolled at the National University of Singapore that transformed his life where progressed intellectually and made life-long friends that helped him to travel through a remarkable path of life of a diplomat And later, a world known geopolitical thinker and writer.

After finishing the university, he was selected in 1971 in the foreign service of Singapore Which included training in Australia and  an attachment at the Australian embassy in Germany. After wards he worked at the External Affairs Ministry of Singapore and was posted in Phnom Penh, Cambodia as charge de affaire. Phon Penh was a challenging post for the young Mahbubani who was entrusted to head the mission with only two years of diplomatic experience. This was the Khmer Rouge time – Phnom Penh was under siege, the Khmer Rouge forces backed by the Soviet Union and China had choked it from outside and was under incessant rocket and artillery attack. The genocide happened after he left the place. In one year he could share the sorrow and fear by living in a besieged city.

After returning to Singapore Mr. Mahbubani joined the Singapore External Affairs Ministry till he got the whiff of his next posting to Kuala Lumpur, KL. The news was received with a mixed feeling of physical comfort and political discomfort. Physical comfort was in the form of financial gains and upended residence while the physical discomfort was from the ‘neurotic relationship between the two countries ever since the break of the federation in the mid-sixties.

While posted in KL Mahbubani developed life-long friendships with diplomats from many other countries. During his tenure what he learnt was that diplomacy was not just about personal relationships though this is as important, but these diplomatic interactions also educated him about actors and processes that influence and shape the world. During his stint in KL, Kishore’s relationships with foreign diplomats remained both interesting as well as intriguing and most importantly harmonious.

In diplomacy over the years, he learnt that when it came to trade and national interest personal friend ship was a ‘taboo’. There was a specific threats the diplomats were warned; the hazard of ‘localities’ becoming too friendly to a place of one’s posting. Instead of having a detached objective view, the diplomat may well be seduced by the host country. He may well become an ‘echo chamber’ for the stand point of the host country. As a note taker he had seen that how brutal PM Lee Kuan Yew was to one of the ace ambassador when he lashed him with the charge of ‘localities’. Kishore could understand why president Lee was most feared in the meeting. To him country’s interest was paramount. Personal friendship at the place of posting though natural but a well clued diplomat had to draw a thin yet distinct line in this regard.

Kishore got a taste of multilateral diplomacy in 1979, during the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) conference in Havana. Later, it turned into key strength of his diplomatic career which was further reinforced during his two tenures as Singapore’s Permanent Representative/Ambassador to the United Nations in New York.

In 1982 he was posted as Deputy mission chief, DMC. In Washington, it was a great news for him. In his own words, all the roads led to Rome during Roman Empire, he could now think all the roads led to Washington DC. His experience with the American friends had been rewarding. After his taking over at Washington DC, in July 1983, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew visited Washington. On his visit President Ronald Reagan hosted a lunch at the White House. Kishore was designated as the note taker of the meeting. PM Lee began the meeting by giving a broad geo political view of the world. He highlighted the Soviet expansionism in Afghanistan and Cambodia. Kishore strongly felt that President Reagan though had clear views as what was right and what was wrong, especially in geopolitics, he knew about the imminent threats but he was not adept at presenting his views in a highly intellectual framework. Instead he would use clever anecdotes and witty remarks. His famous anecdote was when he was shot at he quipped to his wife, ‘Honey, I forgot to duck’. Over all chemistry between the two leaders was good.

In 1984 at the young age of 35 years Kishore was elevated to the UN ambassador of Singapore. He served for two terms as the UN as ambassador with an interlude. A rare feat indeed.

He did have a dip in his family life with a break of his first marriage. He consummated second marriage, a happy one with the wife and the children. He also made a beginning with his pen and started writing for the ‘Foreign Affairs’ a reputed journal with an international brand.

At the UN what he learnt was the artful tweaking by seasoned western diplomats making firm commitment like a conditional intent. The simple addition of, ‘if circumstances permit’ would deflect a firm commitment.

Kishore is of the view that one of the great gaps in the country’s history was that the exceptional skills of Lee Kuan Yew both as a politician and a great statesman have not been properly studied. Many young Singaporean didn’t know how larger than life he was. This study couldn’t have been possible to introduce during Lee’s life time as he had such an awe-inspiring presence. Lee had the material to take a stand against any power and intimidate his powerful neighbours with ease.

However, at the age of 80 years Lee relented and agreed to attach his name to the school of public policy where Kishore served for many long years towards the end of his academic career. Kishore’s many close interactions with the three founding fathers of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, Goh Peng Swee and Rajaratnam have had a transformative effect on him. He went from a pacifist to a hard-nosed realist.

Kishore sums up his life as a successful diplomat, and that Geopolitics is an art and not a science, implying that the key goal in foreign relations should be to create more political space for the country one represents and multiplying its options. The UN experience gave him the feeling that power was more important than principle. Mr. Mahbubabi witnessed firsthand how the superpowers “agree to disagree” and at the look the other way when one of them impose unprincipled decisions on rest of the world. The permanent members hold the sway, they could bull doze even a procedural matter terming as a substantive, if they wished.

Later in life after his retirement from the Diplomatic career, Kishore had openings to premium universities of the world such as Harvard, George Town, Columbia, Oxford and many other renowned universities and premier schools. His stint with Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKYSPP) had been fairly enriching and rewarding for him and thus he made the LKWSPP his retirement home, as an adjunct at the school which in recent years has evolved into global fora  of intellectual discourse, comparable to the Harvard Kennedy School and Princeton School of Public Policy, USA.

To conclude and in Kishore’s own words, “it has been a joy to live the Asian dream and perhaps to contribute a little to the realization of the Asian century.”

It must be quite heartwarming for Kishore Mahbubani to see that the path he had trodden from poverty to plenty, from ignorance to education, and from intellectual curiosity to policy guidance, and his unquenchable thirst for knowledge and wisdom, are examples for millions to follow especially by the fellow Asians whose dream of reaching the Asian century is yet to be achieved fully and equitably.