Singapore's biggest problems; it's brain drain and third rate immigrants

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Singapore is a tiny island, tiny speck, with no more than 2.5 million or so local born and another 2.5 million or so, recently arrived Chinese immigrants from Communist China, mostly illiterate of any English.

With such a small tiny miniscule base to start with, any amount of emigration of its people, however small, must raise alarm bells. What will they do if this already tiny population decides to leave? There would be none left!

But in fact that is exactly what is happening. Among the already tiny local born population, there is an even tinier educated class, most of them wanting to leave if they can. In a survey among students and teenagers not long ago, about 60% stated, if given a chance they would emigrate to the West.

As we speak Singaporeans continue to leave for the West for settlement, mainly to Australia. Several newspaper reports have appeared giving the figures leaving as about 1300 a year. As this figure only reflects the head of households, if you add the spouses and children, many more are actually leaving, an unbearable figure for a tiny island, and mounting.

As you can imagine from these figures, Singapore is clearly not an attractive place in the world to migrate to. It is well known that the United States is the most attractive place for migrants attracting the best and brightest from across the world. Trailing closely behind are countries like Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Western Europe.

Every single Nobel Prize class scientist, Olympic athletes, performers, you name it from across the world seek out America as their country of choice. I can tell you it’s not just because of the money. It is also because America is a proud respected country, not a pariah state with a Lee Kuan Yew running around bullying everyone in sight.

As for Singapore, if its own citizens are desperately trying to flee, you can safely assume that it is probably very low down the totem pole for migrants.

Over the last few years, you have seen Singapore state controlled newspaper reports of Lee Kuan Yew and other top Singapore officials going to the places where Singaporeans have gone, such as Sydney and San Francisco, trying to beg them to return, as it is these Singaporeans, the best and the brightest, who have left.

Unfortunate for Lee's government none of these repeated attempts at persuasion appears to have succeeded and now it appears they have just about given up, resigned to the fact that Singaporeans who have gone to the West find their new homes far more desirable than Lee's fascist Singapore. They simply will not return. Can anyone blame them?

Singapore’s Lee has brought in large numbers of recent Chinese immigrants. There are also some Indians from India, mostly software engineers. None of these people qualify for the West which is why they chose Singapore instead, where they can earn a few more measly dollars than they could have in their impoverished homelands. The moment any of them are able to leave for the West, it would be Adios Singapore the very instant.

These people are simply second rate, and they are in Singapore simply because no one else will take them.

To anyone with eyes, it must be obvious why the Unites States and Western countries are so attractive while Singapore is so unpopular. Every human being, in addition to the need for money, also wants security in life and living. In the West you can depend on having a secure dependable life. Why, because you have the rule of law, because you have fundamental rights, the right to speak freely without fear of arrest and to know that your rights are protected by an independent judiciary.

Singapore is unpopular for all except the ignorant masses because it does not guarantee these rights. One has perforce to be insecure in Lee's Singapore. The courts have lost their credibility with judges repeatedly abusing the law to punish government critics, banning critical newspapers and deporting people such as me whom they find uncomfortable, despite the fact that I was born and raised in Singapore.

What you have today is a shrinking English speaking local population who are determined to go to the West in ever larger numbers. Those remaining are the food stall vendors, taxi drivers and bus boys that have little or no education. Their children who go to Singapore schools are taught in a strict regimen of brain washing, rote learning and toeing the line. There is no creativity, or independent thinking whatsoever; since how can you with Lee breathing down your neck and threatening to send you to jail any minute!

What is going to happen is this. With time, the local English educated population is going to shrink even lower from the already low number of 2.5 million. This is because of the additional problem of their lowest birth rate in the world and the world's rapidly dying old people who are not being replaced.

Since no one with any real quality or talent would ever think of going to Singapore, you are left with the ubiquitous recent immigrant from China who knows no English, a few Australians who temporarily work there for what they call, an Asian experience, a few East Europeans trying to escape from their even poorer former Soviet Bloc countries and that are that.

Such a polyglot mishmash of people just thrown together in a small island will have no common direction, no purpose and no common objective. Moreover the recent incidents of foreigner hatred and violence have been increasing and these people have been tearing at each other. As the Singaporean population continues to decline these incidents of racial hatred and xenophobia will only climb.

At the end you will find only Lee's family and friends remaining and an entire island full of people from elsewhere with no Singaporeans left. I don't think such a place can get very far. Nay, simply impossible.

As if all this is not bad enough, we have the 90 year old Lee the dictator, about the kick the bucket any minute. That I think will break the camel's back once and for all.

Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
Fremont, California
Tel: 510 491 4375