Ladies and Gentlemen,
Singapore is today, clearly on the decline. It is facing problems from every side, which it simply cannot solve. It has a declining population, from an already small population of about 3 million it is suffering a massive brain drain and it's wages have risen above those of other countries and is now no longer competitive.
The reason for all these problems is Lee Kuan Yew himself. Over several decades he has painstakingly and deliberately ruined the reputation and credibility of the island city state. By his routine abuse of the law to destroy political opposition, both Singaporeans and foreigners have lost all trust in the Singaporean legal system. By Lee Kuan Yew hijacking the press and media, people realize they can no longer expect the truth from this government. When Lee Kuan Yew and his family and their friends and relatives siphon off state assets with impunity (multi million dollar salaries) the people feel cheated. When Lee Kuan Yew has you arrested for criticizing him, the people feel themselves no better than slaves.
Without Singaporeans respecting the government and while foreigners laugh at it when you mention for instance it's chewing gum ban, Singapore simply cannot expect to get anywhere. Lee Kuan Yew has himself shot Singapore in the foot, not once but repeatedly over decades. It is now crippled and the only way for it is down.
Take the problem of the brain drain. Teo Chee Hean (I hope I have spelt it right), is Singaporean Deputy Prime Minister. In March this year he said this in Parliament, "Our overall (Civil Service) resignation rate has increased from 4.8% in 2005 to 5.7% in 2006. We are losing lawyers, accountants and management executives. The resignation rate of the Management Executive Scheme (which employs graduate officers across the ministries) was 10.6% up from 7.4% in 2005. At some of the entry grades, the situation is quite serious, with resignation rate as high as 25%. Members of the House would also have read from newspapers that for our Home Team (Police Force), there has been a 40% increase in the resignation of junior officers in January and February this year, compared to the same period last year".
Someone from the outside would be surprised why almost everyone wants to leave the Singapore government. After all there are no calamities, no wars, no murders, no earthquakes except for the occasional flood. Why then do so many highly skilled and qualified people want to get out of the government and eventually out of the island altogether. The answer is simple. Educated capable people demand not only a salary, they also demand freedom, democracy, fundamental rights of free speech and expression, an independent judiciary, the rule of law and a country where you don't have thieves as your rulers.
Consider the fact that Singapore has the lowest birth rate in the world. Why? The answer lies in the same problems, an unhappy people who fear having a family in the fear ridden island.
Then you have the brain drain, a very serious problem for an island with an already pre-existing small population of only 3 million. Even from this small society, as many as 1,000 people a year leave for permanent settlement abroad mainly to Australia, New Zealand and Canada. The number of a thousand only counts the head of the household. If you count the family and children as well, the number is more like 5,000 a year. And this rate of attrition has been going on for several decades now, only to have increased in recent times.
And then you have problems with nature and climate change. Most parts of Singapore are only a few feet above water. With air temperatures, and sea water temperatures constantly rising, the sea level rises. With increase air temperature, you have much more intense thunderstorms and deluges of rain, which causes floods. Last moth alone you have 2 severe floods that caused Orchard Road, Singapore's prime shopping district to be underwater. It resulted in several millions in loss. Unlike Pakistan where floods are seasonal, Singapore's flooding is year round, from which there is no escape.
Not satisfied that the situation is already bad enough and they should back off, Lee Kuan Yew has no such intention. He is determined to make the situation worse. Periodically he will charge or sue someone for defamation of character or send someone to prison on the claim that his sensitivities have been offended. Each time he does it, Singapore's reputation or the lack of it, falls even further both locally and internationally. And this in turn causes all the other problems that I mentioned.
For instance, when they charged me with "insulting" a judge for criticizing Lee's judge, there was overwhelming sympathy for me both in Singapore and overseas. Just for that Singapore's reputation may have gone down one notch. Then you have opposition politician Dr. Chee Soon Juan who has been repeatedly sued and bankrupted for no rime or reason. Whenever Lee does that, it's reputation drops one notch down. Now you have Alan Shadrake who wrote a book that Lee did not like. His arrest too has been internationally and locally condemned. Again one notch down. In a few months I will be disbarred from practicing law there because I have offended Lee Kuan Yew. When that happens Singapore goes down another notch.
As you can see, my job has been all these years to expose this tyranny in Singapore and bring about democratic change. You can see that I have been pretty successful when Lee Kuan Yew finds himself in this quandary from which he cannot escape. He has in fact helped the cause of the Singapore freedom brigade, by bringing these charges against me, by charging Alan Shadrake and persecuting all the other victims of his in Singapore's shameful history.
Abusing power comes with a price and Lee Kuan Yew is now paying it.
I reckon, Singapore will be in complete chaos and turmoil within a year. First when Lee Kuan Yew dies there will be chaos. As more and more capable Singaporeans leave, the new immigrants mainly from Malaysia and China would have neither the skills or the dedication of native born Singaporeans. In no time they too will leave. Very soon foreign born citizens would outnumber local born. These foreign born will come with their customs and idiosyncrasies that are alien to native born. Out of this you will have all sorts of problems. And when you have more problems, more will leave.
As Churchill said, "this is not the end, this is not even the beginning of the end, but you can say, it is the end of the beginning". He was of course referring to the impending Battle of Britain, the onslaught of the Luftwaffe over London. But the words are equally apt to describe the desperate situation Singapore finds itself in.
You see, a dictator could have got away with this sort of arrogance in larger countries like China and Russia. But when Lee behaves this way in a tiny island city state with a tiny population, you simply destroy yourself. There is no recovery.
You can see how badly the local Singaporeans consider their plight. Every other country, such as the US, Australia and even comparable New Zealand does not have the unbearably low birth rate and the huge brain drain that Singapore has. New Zealanders love their country and they live there, not try to flee from it. And they marry and have many more children than Singapore. Anyone can see that there is something terribly wrong with Singapore. And Lee Kuan Yew is to balme for it.
Is there any hope? I think not. Most of you know that Lee Kuan Yew has banned me from entering Singapore for criticizing his judiciary. At the rate things are going, I think I will be able to visit Singapore next year, 2011. I am quite sure of it.
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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1 comment:
Strutting and unbridled arrogance is all well and good when you had absolute control of all media, as Lee did until the coming of the Internet. Now it's plain for all to see that the emperor is paddling naked and the tide has gone out. What a truly bizarre, Kafka-esque state he has made of a once pleasant little island - all shiny chrome and glass outside and mud floors, pain and fear and anger inside its people's hearts. It will take generations to undo PAP's handiwork when they are finally toppled.
All we need do is look at the scientific evidence and the outcome of squashing 6.5 MILLION or more bodies into 700 sq. km is frighteningly predictable. The late Dr. John B. Calhoun demonstrated in his famous paper: “Population Density and Social Pathology” that as population density increased, social behaviour degenerated.
Among other findings, he developed the concept of universal autism -- in which all members of the last generation of mice in an increasingly crowded environment are INCAPABLE of the social behaviour that would allow them to produce the next generation.
In one of Dr. Calhoun's experiments, a square steel box, nine feet on each side, contained 2,600 mice, about 16 times what would be considered normal density. He determined that rodents rapidly developed a hierarchy when thrown together in such huge numbers, with those closest to the food supply growing most rapidly and, because of their size, assuming higher social status...
'Calhoun described his experimental universes as “rat utopia,” “mouse paradise.”
With all their visible needs met, the animals bred rapidly. The only restriction Calhoun imposed on his population was of SPACE – and as the population grew, this became increasingly problematic. As the pens heaved with animals, one of his assistants described rodent “utopia” as having become “hell” (Marsden 1972).
Dominant males became aggressive, some moving in groups, attacking females and the young. Mating behaviours were disrupted. Some became exclusively homosexual. Others became pansexual and hypersexual, attempting to mount any rat they encountered.
Mothers neglected their infants, first failing to construct proper nests, and then carelessly abandoning and even attacking their pups. In certain sections of the pens, infant mortality rose as high as 96%, the dead cannibalized by adults. Subordinate animals withdrew psychologically, surviving in a physical sense but at an immense psychological cost. They were the majority in the late phases of growth, existing as a vacant, huddled mass in the centre of the pens.
Unable to breed, the population plummeted and did not recover. The crowded rodents had lost the ability to co-exist harmoniously, even after the population numbers once again fell to low levels. At a certain density, they had ceased to act like rats and mice, and the change was permanent'
We are human beings not rats nor mice but nevertheless we are still subject to the laws of natural evolution. Note the parallel with increasing reports of more than 1 suicide per day, animal cruelty, maid abuse, and neglect of children and the elderly as the family unit breaks down under unbearable stress in Singapore.
We are now the 3rd most crowded place on earth. Lee & Co. are actually insane enough to try to make us No.1 in pursuit of GDP glory. Imagine that, we are, at this very moment, more overcrowded than any city in India or China or almost anywhere in the world you care to name! There has never been any explanation for how this nightmare 6.5m figure came to become a holy grail. After that then.....what? Unless Singaporeans rouse themselves from their stupor soon, they and their families will find themselves sleepwalking into Calhoun's macabre rat hell. Becoming a maid in a foreign country will seem like paradise then.
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