Ex-US official played role in setting up of Speakers' Corner

Joseph Nye coined 'soft power' term, also left an imprint on the LKY School

- Bhagyashree Garekar

WASHINGTON - Not many would know that former Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) dean Joseph Nye, who famously coined the term "soft power" in international relations, played a role in Singapore's decision to set up the Speakers' Corner.

Dr Nye, who also served in national security positions in the Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton administrations and led efforts to slow the spread of nuclear weapons, died on May 6 at the age of 88.

The story of his role in how Singapore's version of London's Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park came about was related by founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, then Senior Minister, to an American journalist in early 1999.

"Joseph Nye, head of the Kennedy School, recently came to Singapore as part of our international advisory board to get our universities to improve their standards," Mr Lee told The New York Times columnist William Safire during an interview in Davos, Switzerland.

"At the time he was there, there was this little fuss about a dissident who said, 'I'm going to speak at Raffles Place... without a permit.'"

The reference was to opposition figure Chee Soon Juan, who had been arrested for breaching the Public Entertainments Act.

"He (Dr Nye) asked, 'Why don't we let him speak?' I said the law has been on the statute book for the last 50 years.

"If everybody just turns up at a busy junction at lunchtime and makes a speech and runs around, and everybody does it, there would be pandemonium. We are not that kind of a society.

"He says, 'Why don't you have a Hyde Park?' I said, 'Yes, we'll think about that. We'll probably do it.'"

Sure enough, Speakers' Corner was set up in Hong Lim Park the following year, on Sept 1, 2000.