Singaporeans, a people content to live under a dictatorship

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Singapore is in effect a dictatorship, which no one aware of it's style of government will deny. Regardless of what it says, you know the truth. The Constitution does not guarantee free speech, assembly, a free press or any of the other liberties that others in the world enjoy. People are forced to toe the government line through the island’s police force and the courts which take orders directly from the Lee Kuan Yew Ruling family.

You can live in Singapore but only if you are prepared to allow the Lees to do anything they want without question. If you do you are marked, punished and identified for eternal harassment, victimization, intimidation and discrimination.

To an ordinary person, who I assume most people are, such a life would certainly be distasteful. A life such as this is tantamount to your accepting the fact that the Lee Ruling Family are kings and you are their absolute subjects.

I would assume faced with such an unacceptable choice, one would have done one of the following. One would have protested, resisted and challenged them openly and worked to overthrow them.

Or one would have packed up and left Singapore for good for a new life elsewhere where they could live free.

But one would not have thought that the vast majority of Singapore island citizens would simply accept such a life and stay without question. Unfortunately this is how Singaporeans live. The vast majority of Singaporeans, both native born islanders and recent immigrants mostly from mainland China simply live their lives in Singapore  accepting life under the Lee Kuan Yew Family’s absolute rule.  

Dividing Singaporeans into segments of thought, would come out something like this. We can assume the majority of Singaporeans are native born. This section of the population have been so intimidated over the years by Lee Kuan Yew suing them for defamation of character for even the slightest criticism, imprisoning them and bankrupting them that they have been terrified into total submission and silence. They are by and large resigned to the fact that there is nothing they can do. Whether they like it or not, they have no choice but to accept the Lee family ruling over their lives with absolute impunity and eternally. One can in fact describe them no better than slaves.

Then you have the recently arrived mainland Chinese people who are given instant citizenship. They are by and large simply opportunists. They don't care who is in power or who is not. For all they care, Lee Kuan Yew can be a monkey if he likes, as along as it does not affect them. They have come to Singapore because they can earn more than the peanuts they get in the rural parts of China from which they came. If they could have gone to Australia, they would have readily done so, but Australia does not want them.

Finally you have the few who work for the Lee Ruling Family government. They have an education and qualifications. But what they do not have is pride, self confidence or principles. It is quite all right for them to work for a dictatorship as long as the money is good. I would call these educated Singaporeans who sell their conscience and their self respect to the highest bidder as unscrupulous opportunists.

Let me give you an example of such a man. K Shanmugam is Lee Kuan Yew's handpicked Minister for Law. In that position, he has managed to promote and enact numerous items of legislation that take away even the little rights that Singaporeans may have had. A few years ago, he passed legislation that required even a single protestor even peacefully to require a government permit which by the way will never be granted. For al lawyer he knows that the Constitution is supposed to guarantee the right to peacefully protest as enshrined in the UN Declaration. But as it is comfortable for him, with his large salary he gets for the dirty work he does, it becomes perfectly acceptable to do this.

Such are the men and women who surround the Lee Ruling Family in Singapore, devoid of any principles, convictions, loyalty, patriotism or moral righteousness who prostrate at their feet for high monetary reward. And with the help of these bootlickers, the Lee Ruling Family continues to subjugate the masses who are willing to live this way anyway.

The other section of Singaporeans are the ones who simply refuse. They find it impossible to live this way and therefore leave the island permanently for the West. But as long as Singapore can attract the temporary workers from Mainland China who are given instant citizenship and as long as there are enough Singaporeans who are willing to live this way, the Lee Ruling Family will go one for a bit longer. But it certainly will not last.

One thing that must be apparent is this. Because of the large numbers of temporary Chinese immigrants in Singapore which the Lee Ruling Family relies on, any sudden change or uncertainty will also mean that they would leave as quickly as they came.

One such sudden change that can come about is the very probable death of the Singaporean leader Lee Kuan Yew. Since everything and everybody in the island depends on the dictates of this one man, who is now 89, as is the case in all dictatorships, his death would mean a sudden drain of foreign capital, a sudden exodus of Singaporeans leaving the island, because no one has any respect or confidence in his son, whom he placed as Prime Minister. 

With the 89 year old Lee's demise, Singapore will collapse and the vast majority of it's people would disappear abroad.

This cannot be a secure future for Singapore or for the Lee Ruling family. So far they are making good with the bootlicking opportunists at the top and a population without ideals, ideas, passions or even self respect, willing to live under the rule of the Lee Ruling Family. This is not a strong foundation upon which the island survives and secondly with the death of the 89 year old strongman Lee, it will collapse in a minute.

If you can see the writing on the wall, perhaps the time has come for even those undecided to pack up now with your families and your belongings and head to the West like Australia. It may be a very good idea.

Gopalan Nair
Singaporean by Birth
Critic of the Singaporean Lee Regime
Attorney at Law
Fremont, California, USA
Tel: 510 657 6107 or 510 491 4375