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Singapore to preserve 38 Oxley Road for history, not as Lee Kuan Yew memorial

The Singapore government is not seeking to memorialise founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew and family by preserving his former home and instead is enabling future generations of citizens to understand their country’s struggle for independence, Acting Minister for Culture, Community and Youth David Neo has said.

Detailing the reasons behind the government’s intention to preserve 38 Oxley Road as a national monument, Neo told parliament on Thursday that the space and its importance could not be replicated elsewhere, including the coming S$335 million (US$256 million) Founders’ Memorial.

The National Heritage Board (NHB) and Singapore Land Authority (SLA) on Monday said that the home was of historic significance and national importance, and worthy of preservation as a national monument “with one possible outcome being a heritage park”.

Neo said in parliament: “The focus of this education therefore is on the pivotal historical events that happened there, one that brought us from colonial to self-rule, to independence, rather than the lives of those people who lived there.”

Following patriarch Lee’s death in 2015, his younger children, Lee Hsien Yang and the late Lee Wei Ling, made public in 2017 their conflict with older brother and then prime minister Lee Hsien Loong, whom they accused of trying to block the demolition of the home against their father’s wishes. The brothers have been estranged since.

Singapore’s then prime minister Lee Kuan Yew delivering a speech in Hong Kong in 1990. Lee and other members of the People’s Action Party held meetings at his house at 38 Oxley Road in pre-independence Singapore. Photo: AFP

Lee Hsien Yang, who claimed he had received asylum protection in the United Kingdom and who still owns the property, on Monday night posted a statement on social media saying the Singapore government had “chosen to trample on Lee Kuan Yew’s unwavering wish to demolish his private house”.

Social Media Asia Editor