Why Singapore fails in the global marketplace of competition.

Revised 07/01/07

Ladies and Gentlemen,

In my last post, I had said Lee is constantly shooting himself in the foot by his nonsensical and arrogant remarks. In this post, I try to show why the political repression in Singapore causes it to lose out against other countries.

The population of Singapore is small compared to others. The local Singaporean population is only about 3 million, not counting the foreigners working and living in Singapore. Therefore, the talent pool of skilled and capable workers has to come from this 3 million people. Not a large number to start with.

In order to succeed in Singapore, you of course, like anywhere else have to have ability. But unlike other democratic countries, success in Singapore needs one additional requirement; you have to be less than honest; you have to lack integrity and self respect. You need to be a person who is prepared to shamelessly and slavishly accept Lee Kuan Yew and his PAP as your masters, giving him your unconditional loyalty. This lifestyle of unconditional submission, where you are required to slavishly accept Lee and his power over you, regardless of whether he is a ruthless tyrant, is unacceptable to those who have integrity and self respect. Such people of integrity cannot and will not succeed in Singapore since Lee will not accept them. Only those who are prepared to prostitute themselves by their unconditional loyalty to Lee Kuan Yew and his PAP will succeed in the Singapore dictatorship.

More than 30 years of dictatorial rule by Lee and his ruling Peoples Action Party have made this very clear to the people of Singapore. Success in Singapore requires this distasteful dishonorable requirement of unconditional submission to this man Lee Kuan Yew and his party. As a result, the vast majority of educated and capable Singaporeans refuse to co-operate with this regime, which they consider dictatorial and violating of their human rights.

Of these large numbers of upright educated and capable Singaporeans who refuse to co-operate with the Lee Kuan Yew Administration, many either remain in Singapore and accept any job they get in silence and obscurity or alternatively, many of them emigrate to other democratic Western countries to realize their full potential, without having to kowtow to Lee Kuan Yew, his son and the minions and sycophants in the Peoples Action Party.

Of the 3 million or so of local Singaporeans, there are therefore far too few capable and qualified Singaporeans who are also prepared to be second fiddle to Lee, in sufficient numbers available to serve the Lee Administration. As a result, you find the Singapore government constantly having recruitment difficulties to man and run their separate government and civil service positions.

And in so alienating the capable and upright Singaporeans, the most able and capable Singaporeans are rejected for government service, because the Lee Administration is threatened by their presence. As a result, Singapore is not able to benefit by the abilities of such highly talented and honorable individuals.

Here are some examples of Lee’s sycophants in high positions. The former Chief Justice Young Pong Howe and the entire present judiciary, both in the High Court and the Subordinate Courts all have one characteristic in common. They all have decided that the spirit of the rule of law does not matter anymore. The only thing that matters is that they continue to receive lavish salaries, live lavish lifestyles and enjoy the worldly pleasures, thanks to the generosity of Lee Kuan Yew and his government. In return, they will make any judgment, any order that pleases Lee Kuan Yew.

The examples of the shameful political judgments by these so called judges are too numerous to enumerate but a few examples will suffice to shock your sense of justice and fair play. You will recall at the general election of 2001 at Cheng San, PAP Ministers were seen inside the Nomination Center/ Counting center, which was a clear violation of the Parliamentary Elections Act. The law which stated that politicians must not remain or loiter within such areas was made in order not to unduly influence the electorate or the officials in charge of counting or not to give the impression of such impropriety.

Despite the fact that it was proved that PAP Ministers were unlawfully within the said premises, the Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong, then the Attorney General came up with the outrageous nonsensical decision that it was all right for the PAP ministers to be within the premises! According to him, it was unlawful only if they loiter outside the premises! One can only come to the opinion that this man Chan Sek Keong is only concerned about keeping his job as the Attorney General by continuing to submit unconditionally to his master’s wishes.

Another laughable and tragic case was by Judge Belinda Ang. She decided that it was perfectly all right to find Dr. Chee Soon Juan an opposition politician guilty of defaming the character of Lee Kuan Yew and his son, the Prime Minister, and ordering Dr. Chee to pay them $500,000.00 even without a trial in what is known as summary judgment proceedings. This is a method by which the judge reads all the papers in the case and decides in favor of one party or the other, without the even the need for oral testimony of any witness! Such nonsense, can only happen in Singapore.

Even if you are a straight crook, as long as you remain subservient to Lee, you will still survive and thrive. As a dictator, Lee always rewards unconditional loyalty and subservience. Glenn Knight was formerly a Public Prosecutor with Lee's Attorney Generals Chambers. During his shameful career as Lee's enforcer, he has done a lot of dirty work, including successfully prosecuting and imprisoning JB Jeyaretnam, an opposition politician on Lee's trumped up charges. Finally Knight himself committed a criminal offense of fraud for which he was imprisoned for a day and disbarred. After about a decade of being out of practice, but still keeping in the good books of Lee and his cronies, we read that he has been re-admitted to practice law and will be entering the lucrative practice area of white collar crime. Even though a dishonest unscrupulous criminal, this man will succeed, because he has unconditionally sold his self respect and his soul to his master, Lee Kuan Yew.

Now let us look at the others. The good people. The people with some pride, some integrity and great ability. Dr. Chee Soon Juan as you know was a former psychology professor in the National University of Singapore with a PhD in psychology. A highly educated and talented man. But with one difference from the abovementioned Lee's successful elite, the judges and heads of civil service. The one difference is that Dr. Chee is a man of integrity. He believes that Singapore’s interests are compromised and damaged by the denial of human rights in Singapore by Lee Kuan Yew. As was his right as a citizen of Singapore, he spoke publicly against Lee Kaun Yew and contested national elections as an opposition candidate against Lee Kuan Yew and his ruling party.

In Lee's eyes what Dr. Chee did was intolerable. So, as has happened time and time again, whenever opposition candidates with any capability have challenged the authority of Lee Kuan Yew, false charges of theft and defamation of character were promptly cooked up, Dr. Chee was fired from his professorship position, hauled before the courts with his compliant judges and promptly fined and bankrupted. Simultaneously Lee's propaganda sheet, the state controlled newspaper the Straits Times promptly published the false reports that Dr. Chee was a criminal, a cheat, a liar and every other epithet that one could think of.

Just like Dr. Chee, many other good men have been removed and silenced. Mr. Tang Liang Hong, JB Jeyaretnam, a good criminal lawyer and Francis Seow who is exiled in the USA come to mind. Not just them but there were many others. There was Wee Han Kim, a lawyer who stood as a Workers Party candidate. He was sued for defamation resulting in his having to pay several hundred thousands of dollars to Lee. There was the Malay gentleman, Jufrie Mohammed, a friend of mine. He decided to give up politics rather than suffer unrelenting harassment and persecution at the hands of Lee.

Other excellent citizens, highly talented with high integrity and a deep love for Singapore are men and women such as Gandhi Ambalam, a graduate of the British London School of Economics in Journalism and Economics. A highly educated and talented man who would have been a Godsend to Singapore and Singaporeans had he been able to serve his people with his skills and talent. Problem was, he criticized Lee Kuan Yew. From that point, as you know, he was sidelined, dismissed from his job as a journalist with Singapore Press Holdings, disgraced and sent to prison. Now Gandhi Ambalam works vigorously for democracy in Singapore as the Chairman of the Singapore Democratic Party. Chee Siok Chin another exemplary citizen was a highly experienced teacher. When she began to question the policies of the Lee Administration, the same misfortune befell her. She now works fearlessly for the advancement of freedom in Singapore. Yap Keng Ho also known as Uncle Yap is a fearless fighter for freedom and a highly skilled software engineer. If Uncle Yap knew he was right, he will wrestle with 5 lions anytime without fear. That is the sort of man Uncle Yap is. He is a good friend of mine.

What I am trying to say is this. Such people like Dr. Chee and the others that I mentioned are highly talented people. They are not criminals. Just the opposite. They are men and women with high ideals and principles, upright men and women with great honor, integrity, education and ability, who would have been able to serve the people of Singapore greatly for their betterment and for the betterment of the country. But instead of honoring such capable and honorable men and women, the very people that Singapore most needs, Lee criminalizes them, removes them from their positions of work and leaves them in positions where they are no longer able to serve their people in the best way they can. This injustice being done to these great men is a great loss for Singapore for which Lee remains solely responsible.

And when the general public of Singapore, which is only about 3 million native born, see the injustice done to such people of ability such as Dr. Chee, they decide either to withdraw their support for the government or they decide to emigrate. This leaves only a very small number of dishonest people like the Chief Justice and Judge Belinda Ang who are available to work for the Singapore government.

That is why I say that because Lee Kuan Yew continues to alienate and antagonize the majority of honest decent Singaporeans, which is not more than a small population of 3 million or so, Singapore will continue to fail as it is doing, in the global marketplace of competition with other larger countries where their citizens are proud of their governments and eager to serve them.

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