Singapore. The double edged sword

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The Singaporean in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore finds himself in an unenviable position, facing a double edged sword. Either he loses his soul or he loses any possibility of leading a peaceful meaningful life.

Singapore is a one party Stalinist style city state where every organ of power is in Lee Kuan Yew family's hands. The newspapers are all state controlled. The judiciary is in the pocket of the Lee family, ever willing to do anything they want to silence dissent. The civil service, the police, the army are all at the beck and call of the same family. There is no human rights. There is no right to free speech or expression, no right to peaceful protest or assembly. Simply nothing, in Lee's Singapore. It is simply this. Submit or else.

In this impossible situation, what does one do. To simply live and go along with your life, means you willingly accept these injustices by your silence. This makes you a collaborator, one who is willing to live by the dictates of a dictator and one who would willingly stand aside while the state brutalizes and abuses his fellow citizen. When you live like this, you lose your soul.

On the other hand, if you stand and resist these injustices which you rightfully must, you cannot conceivably live in peace in Lee's Singapore. You will be hounded, you will be bankrupted, you will be impoverished and you may even be sent to prison for long periods at the whim of this dictator.

Every single lawyer in Singapore, every single civil servant, every single clerk, every single human being is faced with this impossible choice and lives with it each day of his life.

When you meet ordinary Singaporeans and ask them this, they would, almost aways try to avoid it by saying something like, "I am not interested in politics". I am sorry to tell them, it is not so easy to avoid their circumstance. Unfortunately they have to face it, and there is no 2 ways about it. It is impossible for an honest upright human being to live such a life and simply say "I am not interested in these things".

Which brings me to what I would regretfully have to say about the ordinary Singaporean, that they are a bunch of spineless cowardly human beings who have completely lost the basic human qualities which one can find in human beings almost anywhere in the world, which is to have the courage to stand up for principle.

You see this cowardly trait in everything they do. For example there are countless bloggers who criticize the government. But yet, not a single one dares to put a name to what he writes. There are many who tell you in private that they hate the repression under which they live. Yet not a single one dares to state it openly.

You recently had an election in which every single ward was contested. But all of them have turned out to be opportunists trying their luck at elections. With them it is a case of you see them now and next minute they disappear.

Chee Soon Juan brought in James Gomez from Australia as a prize candidate. He was announced as a University Professor and so on and so forth. On his part he had vowed that he was going to defend your rights till the death. But like the rest of these disappearing opposition politicians, just after he lost the elections, he was nowhere to be seen, perhaps having caught the next flight out to his home in Melbourne Australia. I suppose he will return to Singapore in 2016 in time for the next elections, to make some more fiery speeches and promise you the sky, and if he loses again, he might perhaps come back again in 2021, perhaps not!

I have used James Gomez as an as example. Every single one of them is no different. Tan Jee Say of the SDP (or should I say formerly of the SDP) is nowhere to be seen either. Remember he was paraded as having had a PhD from England. Tell me what good is it to have a PhD, make a few speeches at an election and try your luck and clear out as soon as you lost.

And what has happened to Kenneth Jeyaretnam, who was introduced not only as the son of the late legendary JB Jeyaretnam but also as an Oxbridge graduate? He too appears to have gone into hibernation until 2016. A terrible let down for the good name of his respected father. Perhaps he thought that all he needed to do was to go on stage, make a few speeches, refer to his late father's name and that was all there was to it.

You know frankly, with characters such as this, I am surprised that 60% of the electorate voted for them. I want to say they have been very generous. I would not have voted for a single one of them. Yes, I would have voted for Chee Soon Juan because he is still there fighting, I would have voted for Wijeysingha, I would have voted for Chee Siok Chin, Chee's sister, and I would have voted for John Tan and some others in the SDP. But certainly not the sort like James Gomez whom you are probably not going to see until 2016!

And you know what, compared to these disappearing Singaporean politicians, I and this blog Singapore Dissident do much more for the Singaporean cause of freedom, than any of them, despite the fact that I had to relinquish my Singapore citizenship when I became an American citizen (Singapore does not accept dual nationality unlike the UK British Nationality Act or Israel, or the multitude of other countries in the world). But no one can deny the fact that I am Singaporean by birth.

I continue to agitate, from where I am, with my blog being read not only widely in Singapore but around the world. I am able to make these Singapore dictators boil with rage with what I do but they are helpless to do anything to stop me.

They had to arrest and jail me in 2008, when I went to Singapore, for what I wrote here. Once they did that, by their own actions, they cannot deny that they are aware of the Singapore Dissident. Since my return, I have continued to write attracting their fury even more, which they now show by disciplinary proceedings to have me disbarred as a lawyer in that island. All this is causing them to expend time and effort while I remain defiant and continue to write. My intention is to keep provoking them, causing them to retaliate, which is the only thing they know.

And through retaliation by acts which are clearly unjust, they hurt themselves in the eyes of the world, which has been my plan of action.

I can tell you that Lee Kuan Yew and his son fear me more than all these Singaporean disappearing opposition politicians combined. Why because the Internet today is powerful, and I write not incognito, but as Gopalan Nair, Attorney at Law from Fremont, California.

And why, because I continue to write my mind from here, with my name and locality clearly displayed in each blog post, which continues to have great effect on the multitude of Singaporeans and foreigners who read it, and most importantly, I don't disappear just after the elections.

And when I write I say it as it should be said, not what is safe to say, lest Lee Kuan Yew the Singaporean dictator is displeased and unleashes another defamation of character lawsuit.

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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