Good question

Reader of this blog Siew Foong emailed to ask why do political leaders in Malaysia and Singapore who once enjoyed intellectual freedom in Western universities and institutions of higher learning often came home to use the knowledge they gained in free societies to suppress local freedom, including intellectual freedom in local universities?

I think this good question is too big for this small brain to answer for the moment. It may be better to direct it to, say, DPM Najib Tun Razak and Education Minister Hishammuddin Hussein, or Singapore's MM Lee Kuan Yew and PM Lee Hsien Loong. They should know better because they were overseas students in UK before and they have been in the governments for some years already.