Beyond the confines of 38 Oxley?

LKY has willed that his house in Oxley Road be demolished upon his death. He had observed that  conserved houses he had visited like Shakespeare and Nehru were in shambles and were costly to preserve. He spoke of how the demolition would send the land value of his house and surrounding houses up. The family urged Singaporeans to respect his wishes.

I feel LKY may have under estimated the power of a historical icon on a netizen's identity and sense of belonging to his/her country. Already we do not have a hinterland with a mountain or lake that will stand forever to which we can feel attached. Beyond the well manicured Botanical Gardens (which we are incidentally fighting for World Heritage Site status) and a potential buzzling state of art "LKY International Airport" we do need more places where one can saunter into imagining the political meetings that took place in that very room decades or a century ago and absorbing the spirits of those moments. Don't we get those goose pimples when we visit some museums? Hey some emotional needs when fulfilled can not be valued against the soaring condo prices in that same piece of property.

Soren Kierkagaard, the great Danish philosopher told a parable about a spider who lived in the ceiling of a barn. One day it discovered a single strand of web that brought it down to the floor of the barn where it then built a web and amassed a lot of food as in flies and little insects. It became fat and prosperous. A long time passed and one day when surveying its kingdom it came across that single strand of web hanging from nowhere. Thinking it did not serve much purpose, it clipped it whereupon his whole domain collapsed.

Yes for LKY "His legacy lies beyond the confines of 38, Oxley Road". For many of us who are not Titans or men of great reason like him and who are frail in emotional needs, we need to be often reminded of that single spider web upon which our whole world and origin hangs.

Yet we must respect the wishes of one who gave us so much.