Ladies and Gentlemen,
People abroad have a vastly different opinion of Singapore than what Singaporeans themselves know. Whenever I talk to Americans about the pathetic lives they live under a repressive regime, with about a third of the population either at or below the poverty line cooped up in their crowded pigeon hole government owned apartments stacked one above the other, they seem surprised.
Surely they say Singaporeans have no need to protest since they live comfortable lives although with some very strange laws such as chewing gum ban and caning for criminals. By the way the general perception abroad is that you are caned on the spot if you are found chewing gum! But for these rather strange laws, what are they complaining about they say, since there are no beggars on the streets like in Jakarta or Cairo and everyone seems as content as mother hen at her roost.
By the way I have had many ask me whether it is illegal in Singapore to break wind (fart) in public! You may have heard that yesterday, the government of Malawi in Southern Africa had passed such a law and anyone caught doing it will be fined. You know people consider Singapore so strange a place with the ridiculous anti chewing gum law that they reckon if there was ever any other weird laws, Singapore would be the place to have them! I have told them that as far as I know this Malawi law has not been introduced in Singapore but I do warn them that they are dealing with a very strange man there (Lee Kuan Yew) and he may well follow the Malawi example and imprison anyone who farts. Remember it is Unique Singapore!
With Lee Kuan Yew's state controlled newspapers who churn out the never ending good news on a daily basis without fail, no one outside will ever hear the truth as to how the poor suffer, even though it may not be visible to the naked eye.
I have read several reports from non Lee Kuan Yew state controlled sources that as much as one third in the island live in poverty. With the absence of state welfare, many Singaporeans and their children have to go hungry while the income disparity between the rich and the poor is one of the hishest if not the highest in the world.
If such a miserable life is not bad enough, you have Lee Kuan Yew's political repression, such as jailing a blogger like myself in 2008, jailing Dr. Chee Soon Juan for public protests and silencing any criticism in the media through contempt of court charges and crippling damage awards.
But because Lee Kuan Yew makes sure that his punishments never go to extremes such as murdering innocent people, the rest of the world fail to see the terrible repression under which they live and the suffering they have to endure.
As long as there is no spokesmen for the downtrodden Singaporeans which the world can witness, Lee Kuan Yew's repression of his people will continue to go unnoticed. Of course I write this blog and some or even many may read it, Dr. Chee Soon Juan would also write his blog articulating their plight but as long as he does not take real physical publicly visible measures such as public protests on their behalf, the rest of the world would continue to be hoodwinked by the Singaporean despot.
Of course there is no doubt Singapore would completely fail in due course. With the non stop brain drain, national service deserters who refuse to return, the languishing legal profession, falling childbirth and mounting emigration there is no hope for the Tiny Red Dot, a derogatory term coined by a former Indonesian president fed up with the arrogance of the Singapore strongman.
But if you want to see Singapore's distatorship fall a little quicker, then Dr. Chee has to act now. There has to be protests which will alert the world to what is going on there. Without such public displays of civil disobedience, the World will continue to think that Singapore is indeed the Disneyland with the Death Penalty but a Disneyland nevertheless.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
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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4 comments:
commendable article Sir
Can somebody inform Transparency Int'l that their ranking for Singapore is terribly inaccurate.
"Can somebody inform Transparency Int'l that their ranking for Singapore is terribly inaccurate."
I wonder how much Transparency International know about Singapore, before giving its ranking.
There are still a lot of unknowns about Singapore. Just takes its immigration policy. How much transparancy is there, how about the ambiqious clauses that are left to the interpretation of the case officers. How did some international criminals get to live in Singapore.
Suspicious
Dear Mr Nair,
The best thing Lee Kuan Yew did in the 1970s is to start the STOP at 2 birth control program.
If Egyptian Pres Mubarak had done something similar, Egyptian standard of living will not have collapse under the weight of 80 million people and led to this protest for his resignation.
You see, Pres Mubarak has actually done a great job economically (5% growth annually), compared with the corrupt fellow he took power from, and much better than the playboy who ran Egypt even before that.
Egyptian public service had changed from a prestigious job to a beggar job. 50% payrise offered by Mubarak is peanuts.
How, we switch over to Singapore strongman LEE KUAN YEW. Bloody hell, he has played his cards well and hide his bad cards even better - thanks to the little red dot being easy to run, and a successful propaganda campaign.
I do not see change coming. LEE KUAN YEW has to either make a big mistake that show up in public, or die first before we see political revolution in Singapore.
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