Basket.

Yet another of the PAP Old Guard left us this week - Sinnathamby Rajaratnam, founder-member of the PAP and Singapore's first Foreign Minister. Coming just two months after the death of Devan Nair, it is a reminder to us all that the past is receding ever more quickly - for both Nair and Rajaratnam were holdovers from another era. Men who lived and worked for Singapore when it was less clean, less efficient and far less safe than it is today. Men who worked to make it what it is today - the sparkling, prosperous city-state we have all, whether you like to admit it or not, benefited from.

We owe much to this band that fought for Singapore when there were real menaces to combat, yet no one seemed to care much that he passed on. Not that many people even knew who he was. We can gripe and joke about the lack of freedom and the shittiness of this place all we want, but the fact is that, despite all its idiosyncracies, Singapore is one of the better places in the world to live in. And we, the present generation, do owe this to them. Please, at the very least remember him as someone who gave his all to create the world you now know.

This is not National Education by any stretch of the imagination. It is the truth that the PAP Old Guard shaped Singapore into what it is today, that they fought hard to make a success out of a tiny island with no natural resources that few gave a snowball's chance in hell of surviving on its own. It is the truth that the Singapore they were leaders of is nothing like the Singapore of today - that it was far more dangerous and poor. It is the truth that they made tremendous sacrifices and defeated great odds to create the First World standard of living we now (again, whether you like to admit it or not) enjoy.

Give this man and his comrades some credit. Don't say "I don't care", don't say "fuck", don't roll your goddamn eyes in derision when tribute is paid to them. That's the very least they deserve.

Rest in peace, Mr Rajaratnam. I for one do remember what you did for us.