Singapore. Street protests are a likely scenario.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Although we have not seen street protests like there are in the Middle East today, it’s happening in Singapore is not as unlikely as it would appear. There are numerous areas of glaring injustice in Lee Ruling Family's Singapore but because they are carried out in a subtle and not so glaring manner, Singapore islanders may not have seen the need to act. But as the injustice and repression continues, it is not unlikely that the volcano of discontent, so far dormant may explode once and for all with devastating ferocity.

In the first place there is the open and undisguised corruption of the Lee Ruling Family. You realize that Lee Kuan Yew and every member of his family and friends openly pay themselves several million dollars a year which they call a salary. I would call it corruption because no island state's leader and their friends are entitled to pay themselves millions and get away with it. As if this was not enough, they steal among themselves several millions more through state controlled companies with their friends and family in positions of ownership and control. All this siphoning of funds is nowhere disclosed which they due with impunity. Why impunity? Because they control the courts of law and judges and if anyone even so much as whispers an accusation against them, there comes the sure defamation lawsuit, criminal charges and the victim either ends up in jail or bankrupted.

This is both corruption and theft by the Lee Ruling Family. The people know this but have not so far managed to raise a public outcry and condemnation through mass protests and civil disobedience. In time, the people will rise.

Then you have the massive imports of Chinese immigrants to overwhelm the island to the detriment of the Malays and Indians who are equal citizens. Today with this continued policy of the government to flood the island with Chinese immigrants from Communist China, almost every other person you see today in Singapore is from Communist China who are given instant citizenships with a red carpet welcome, whereas no Malays are welcome and no Indians from India either.

Today the social interaction, culture and traditions of the island are no longer that of Singapore, but that of Communist China. The culture and character of the island has changed completely. The mannerisms of the islanders have become more like those in China, of a people who know no democracy, no understanding of English and ever willing to live in slavery as they do there, whereas had the thinking been according to modern western philosophy, the people would have been up in arms against the Lee Ruling Family.

But the positive side of this is the fact Singaporeans are English educated and are able to travel to the west with increasing affluence among those connected to the government, which enables some to realize that they need not live under the tyranny of the Lees as they do now and with sufficient growing unhappiness, public protests and demonstrations cannot be ruled out.

And then you have the racial discrimination openly carried out against the Malays and the Indians by the majority Chinese Lee Kuan Yew government. Under the government laws and policies, a system of apartheid is openly enforced. In government housing in which 99% of the islanders live, Malays and Indians are allowed to live only in designated areas among the Chinese. They are not allowed to live in tenements where they form the majority of residents. This racial discrimination is intended to ensure they do not acquire political power through unity of numbers and to ensure they will forever be subservient to the majority Chinese population to which the Lee Ruling Family belong.

Sooner or later the Malays and Indians who are marginalized and discriminated by their own island government may not sit idly by for too long and perhaps with the help of the Malaysian and Indian governments may one day rise up to demand their just places in society. It is therefore not unlikely that Malays and Indians on their own or in unity may demand fairness and justice through public demonstrations, public protests and civil disobedience.

Malays and Indians suffer racial discrimination in many other ways. For instance in jobs, first preference is always given to Chinese and the Indians and Malays either cannot find jobs or are given only those that the Chinese do not want.

What is even worse is the fact that Singapore is the only place in the world where any foreigner is given equal chance for any jobs as are locals. In fact large sections of the local population are unable to get jobs because the employers, themselves recent immigrants from China, give them to their fellow countrymen from China instead of the local islanders.

As Singapore does not have any form of social welfare, unemployment insurance or minimum wage laws, these large numbers of unemployed Singaporeans look with envy, unhappiness and anger at the recently arrived immigrants from China who have managed to take all the jobs, while they remain unemployed and in poverty in their own island city state.

I am absolutely sure that as this intolerable injustice against Singaporeans in their own island by denying jobs to them and instead giving them to foreigners. This is going to touch a raw nerve among Singaporeans, if it has not done so already, who would finally stand up in public outrage and mass protests. If it is not anything else that moves Singaporeans to mass action, it has to be this evil of job discrimination against Singaporeans in their own country.

These injustices already have their manifestations in other forms at present. Almost every single Singaporean who is able to leave the country has done so or is the in the process of leaving, resulting in the island having the highest rate of brain drain in the world.

Because people are so unhappy, they are not getting married and not having children either, resulting in the world's lowest rate of marriage and childbirth, which is 1.2. This means a couple cannot even replace themselves. To add to the already bleak outlook, Singapore has a very large aging population which means people are dying off and there are insufficient Singaporeans to replace them, unless of course the island continues to bring in plane loads of Chinese immigrants from China to replace them.

But it is most unlikely that all Singaporeans would either continue to leave the island or simply remain quiet in the fact of this repression and injustice. There will be a few who love their country so much that they will say that something has to be done. It is this small core of dedicated loyal Singaporeans who will form the spearhead for the revolution that will emerge sooner than later. I have confidence in that.

Gopalan Nair
A Singaporean By Birth
Attorney at Law
Fremont, California, USA
Tel: 510 657 6107 or 510 491 4375.