Singapore. All that glitters is not necessarily gold!

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Surely something must be wrong. Lee Kuan Yew says Singapore has become first world country. Surely that must be good news, since it was not first world before. The state controlled papers are full of good economic news. That so and so multinational has set up shop in Singapore, that Singapore has bought so and so company overseas, that all the world have admiration for Singapore, that Singapore's overseas trade has increased to unprecedented levels and not to forget, Formula I, world circuit has come to Singapore. Surely if all this is true, Singapore has never had it so good. Should we not rejoice?

That Singapore is now the Zurich of Asia!

But wait a minute. The signs appear to be going the other way round. That is backward, not forward.

It appears that the majority of young people in Singapore wish to emigrate! People are refusing to have children! Australian High Commission in Singapore have lines of people waiting to fill up migration papers! They all wish to leave! Singaporean engineers, Singaporean hairdressers, Singaporean teachers, Singaporean diesel mechanics and so on and so forth, almost the entire native Singapore population, except card carrying Lee Kuan Yew supporters, all wish to leave permanently!

In order to try to stem the unstoppable tide of emigration of Singaporeans en mass, Wong Kan Seng, Lee Kuan Yew and the Rear Admiral Liu, Minister of Education have all come to the US to persuade Singaporeans to go home to Singapore, with lavish dinners and shows, but Singaporeans continue to boycott these government organised dinners, leaving the hosts to eat the dinners themselves! And most importantly, Singaporeans flatly refuse to go back!

As we speak, the original population of Singapore continue to decline with people leaving that country for good, never to return and compounded by the fact that women refuse to have any children in that island!

Singapore is therefore suffering a net loss of population, no matter how much good news is purveyed daily in the state controlled press and media. The fact is, no one believes any of the stuff being put out.

Lee attempts to lure talented foreigners to Singapore has failed miserably and continues to fail. To say that there are there are any "talented" foreigners living permanently in Singapore is itself a lie. A contradiction in terms. In fact a total oxymoron! There are none. There are no talented people living permanently in Singapore, period! It is quite obvious that anyone with any talent, need not live in a sterile authoritarian society where basic freedoms are lacking. Why should any person with any talent even pretend to tolerate the dictates of Lee Kuan Yew everyday through his state controlled press and media when he very well can have a much better living for him his family and children in the respected nations of the world such as Europe Canada Australia or the US? I say "respected" because Singapore has lost all respect among the nations of the world!

The foreign talent that Lee speaks about in his state controlled press is that which cannot find admission to the better countries of the world, such as Australia and Canada. Therefore Singapore being better than living in economically backward India, China or the Philippines, they are forced to accept the 2nd best by coming to Singapore, temporarily. I say temporarily because even while they are in Singapore, they are constantly looking out for Australia to which they will emigrate the moment they have opportunity.

Of course there are the thousands of workers from 3rd world countries who work in Singapore, but for them, all that matters is the better standard of living in Singapore than their home in Burma. These cannot be "talent", no matter how much you bend that word.

In the meantime, you have people who come in to work in Singapore. These again are those who either are unable to go to the better parts of the world, or who are not aware of the real repressive regime in Singapore. Once they find out the truth, they again will begin to leave.

It is not entirely inaccurate to compare Singapore with say Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi too has a majority foreign population that work and man the industry there, mostly Indian and Pakistani workers. But none of them have their families with them in Abu Dhabi. This is because they really do not treat Abu Dhabi as home. They are there just for the money, temporarily. When they have enough of it, they will go home to India. Singapore is in a way, no different. The fact that Singapore is not a democracy, that it denies fundamental freedoms for it's people is already well known throughout the world, thanks to Dr. Chee and others who have managed to expose the true Singapore. This knowledge therefore impedes all the efforts of Lee and his son to tell the world otherwise. The fact that Singapore is nothing more than a dictatorship which Lee runs with the help of his corrupt millionaire Ministers and Judges is well known. The cat is out of the bag.

But please remember the one big difference between Abu Dhabi and Singapore. Abu Dhabi has oil. The sheiks can continue to keep paying good wages to their foreign workers. Singapore does not have any oil. They only have their investment portfolio in Tumasek Holdings and other state owned companies which they created from Singaporeans hard earned wages in CPF and HDB charges. This investment portfolio without any additional input from Singaporeans cannot last much longer.

I understand most recently in utter desperation, because of the unstoppable tide of emigration from Singapore, it has adopted a new law which permits foreigners on holiday to work in Singapore in the hope that at least some of them might decide to stay. This is the height of their desperation! My advice to Lee is that he will not succeed, because nobody wishes to live in his country, this day and age as a slave, because that is all what Singaporeans are. A few Indians and Nigerians may decide to work at McDonalds at Scotts Road and they will go home when they have had enough. My dear Lee Kuan Yew, it will not work!

I have a suspicion that all that is being reported in the state controlled press is not necessarily correct. If not, why should Singaporeans themselves hate Singapore so much by not wanting to have families in Singapore, boycotting governments functions abroad and desperately wanting to escape from that island.

Why?

Gopalan Nair
39737 Paseo Padre Parkway, Suite A1
Fremont, CA 94538, USA
Tel: 510 657 6107
Fax: 510 657 6914
Email: gopalnair@us-immigrationlaw.com