Ladies and Gentlemen,
Let me tell those of you are either planning to live there or are living there. To succeed you have to be a zombie.
Shocking but true. A zombie, one would consider to be someone without a mind of his own and quite prepared to swallow everthing thrown at him by the authorities. If you are one such person, very good for you in Singapore.
The reason for the zombie culture in Singapore is the Lee Ruling Family. They have been running the island for the last 52 years or so and don't appear likely to ever want to give up. So naturally, if you support them with everything they tell you, like a zombie would, you would not only be fine but very successful too.
But otherwise, a person of an independant mind is going to become very unsuccessful. If you were a lawyer, you may be even disbarred like I was. Of course it doesn't mean anything if you live overseas but in Singapore you cannot survive at all, with a mind like that.
This stupidity which the Lee Ruling Family demands cuts across every sphere of life.
For instance, if you are a student, you end up with a very bad education. The teachers in Singapore are all zombies too because they want their students to be like them and never question authority. And especially for a student, if you behave like this, you will cease to be a student and end up a zombie.
Take the legal profession for instance. An independent lawyer would see the need to represent everyone, even the Lee Family's political opponents, such as Chee Soon Juan. But if you did you would perhaps lose your livelihood. I remember one lawyer who had such a mind of his own and in fact, not only defended Chee but also cross examined the dictator Lee himself. Since then this rather unusual Singapore lawyer has lost all his cases, his clients have all left him and I suppose he himself thinks he should have been a zombie lawyer like the others. In fact had he not been so bravado he may have been sucessful like the other zombie lawyers.
Especially in politics in Singapore, being a zombie is mandatory. You have the recent winner in Lee's Singapore elections where Low Thia Khiang and his Workers Party had won. Low is a zombie politician, and therefore successful. He makes money running his own company and gets paid to speak in Parliament as well. So does his other zombie friends. He accepts the rule of the Lee Kuan Yew family as an established fact which is what the Lees expect him to believe. So he goes into Parliament like a zombie accepting what the Lees throw at him.
Then there are others. A man called Chee Soon Juan. He is not a zombie. He has a mind of his own. he has criticized the Lee Ruling Family. Because of that he is having a very hard life. He is sued bankrupted and sent to Coventry. I am not sure if he has realized that to succeed in Singapore you have to be a zombie.
Thousands of Singaporeans have left the island for a life abroad. They had refused to be zombies. And with such a refusal, there is no success in the island.
I am not suggesting at all that you should not be a zombie. Afterall Singapore has many of those. Naturally many are quite willing to live like one. And bring up their children as zombies. Lee Kuan Yew likes that. But the problem is many more are refusing to be zombies. I certainly don't. But not everyone has to be like me.
If you want to live in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore like a zombie, be my guest. You will have a pretty good life. But good life as a zombie? Is that not an oxymoron?
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
Fremont, CA, USA
Tel: 510 657 6107 or 510 491 4375
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3 comments:
Dear Mr Nair,
I think you can write an article on the 'lift upgrading program' that is going on. You and I know that people in their right minds are not willing to pay thousands of dollars for a facility like that (there are other reasons why people don't want it). Yet the government's representatives would claim that they have 'majority's support' and go ahead with it, forcing it down our throats.
As I think of it my heart burns in anger.
http://temasektimes.wordpress.com/2012/06/02/fk-you-sir-angry-jc-student-scolds-dpm-teo-for-dodging-questions-at-pre-u-seminar/
what can be done ? Ask LKY or LHL no need to save their face; either merge with any first world country like America/ Canada or wanna merge with third world country like North Korea or reunite with Malaysia ? Ask PAP what they have done to their own citizens, it is bad karma for them.
Hi, I agree with you. I was in a job and whenever I expressed a different idea at work I will be called "difficult". Over there you just need to do what was told. Even when you have a better way of doing things, just keep your mouth shut. My boss said she knew I have my own thinking but I just need to do what was being told. I paid a big price for not understanding the need to just follow even if it is not right, at the start of the job. My colleagues then were mostly foreigners. Now I work like what you called "zombie". I feel that this seems to be the culture in most companies in S'pore and more apparent if it is a traditional one. Is it because we are still Asian and still has the trait of emperor/dynasty style of leadership eventhough we are already living in the 21st Century?
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