Singapore. Minds destroyed

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The worst thing a government can do is to change the thought process of it's people, by making them, over a period of time alternating between punishment and reward coupled with constant propaganda to think the way the government desires.

In Singapore, people are compelled under pain of punishment to live their lives, not the way they want dictated by their reason, but to calibrate their minds and actions to comply with government directive's and thinking. And they do this with excuses totally nonsensical which the people are forced to accept, contrary to their rational thought process. One of which is the mantra that we are Asians, and therefore we are different.

Tell me, why is being Asian or European matter, for one to hold a placard outside the Parliament House to protest price increases. Why is that man being sent to jail for doing something that anyone whether European Asian or African should be free to do? But in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore, you are not allowed to do that, and according to government thinking, only bad people would hold a placard outside Parliament House. And that is why, through coercion, people are forced to think in a warped and contorted way, just because Lee Kuan Yew demands it. And this is the worst form of punishment that a government can do to it's people, by destroying their normal thought process.

In order to survive, Singaporeans deliberately change their thought process to become individuals who gain the acceptance of the rulers. Singapore has one party rule. It has no free press. The unions are not free. History is re-written and the truth buried. The law is abused to silence critics. There is no free speech or expression. All these things are wrong and if I can see it, anyone else can regardless whether he is Asian American or Eskimo. Yet in Singapore, you are not allowed to publicly articulate any of these grievances. If you did, you stand to be found out, targeted and victimised, with a resulting loss of job, loss of seniority or even worse, being sent to prison.

Not wanting to attract the ire of Lee Kuan Yew and his minions in authority, the Singaporean puts on a public face which is not his own, suppressing his true feelings. He one person in public and another in private. He becomes the classic Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

When he goes home in private he curses the whole system to high Heaven, but in public he usually has no opinion. But if confronted to state his stand, he will probably say the following; there is nothing wrong with a one party sate, a free press is bad, unions should not be free and people should not be given the right free speech or expression! I am not a psychologist and cannot say whether such dual thinking will cause any permanent damage to a person's thought process and whether he will eventually begin to believe what he says publicly!

In Singapore today, you have an entire population that have been brainwashed this way, and who go about their lives accepting government dictates even though even though completely irrational.

Take for instance the Judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean who recently ordered Lee Kuan Yew's critic Dr. Chee Soon Juan to pay $410,000.00 in damages. I am sure she knows she abused the law, but because Lee Kuan Yew says he is a thief, she too accepts it and acts accordingly. In this way, she manages to keep her job as a judge and live a comfortable life. It is the same for every other Singaporean. They lives their lives and adjust their thought process to the tune of the latest thinking of the Singapore government to secure their careers and their pay checks.

This sort of mind coercion goes on in every fascist dictatorship around the world. In Iran, the Islamic regime forces upon its people an extreme form of the religion, forcing people to accept the stoning women to death and whipping them for crimes as a perfectly normal thing to do. Just as in Singapore, the government tells us that it is perfectly all right in this day and age to cane a man or imprison him indefinitely without trial. It is not that Singaporeans accept this brutal barbaric form of punishment or the denial of a right to a fair trial. But there is nothing they can do, because criticism results inevitably in retribution. So they deliberately make themselves think there in nothing wrong in sending a man to jail without trial or to whip a human being.

In 2003, I was in Amman airport waiting for a flight to Amsterdam, where I met a Iraqi Kurd who was leaving for Canada. I asked him if all the terrible things that was said about Saddam Hussein was true. This is what he said. If you were watching TV and Mr. Hussein's picture appeared on the screen, you had better have a smiling face. If anyone of Mr. Hussein's informers saw you cringing or showing distaste, you will be arrested. That was how much the Iraqi people were required to comply. Even your facial expression can result in your arrest! Imagine that.

In Singapore, it is no different. If you are found to be openly criticising Lee Kuan Yew or his government, your actions will pass through the grapevine to the authorities. You may find yourself warned, demoted in your job, fired or even prosecuted.

What this does is to create an entire generation of people who have abdicated their normal thought process and calibrated it to the government's standards. This results in the destruction of one's honor, one's principles and one's morality.

It turns them into a Russian who sang prises to Stalin despite knowing that he had just send a thousand people to their death. A people like this cannot aspire to greatness, just as Russia never realized it and never will.

Gopalan Nair
39737 Paseo Padre Parkway, Suite A1
Fremont, CA 94538, USA
Tel: 510 657 6107
Fax: 510 657 6914
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Blog: http://singaporedissident.blogspot.com/

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