Singapore. There is no honor in living under a dictatorship.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

An observer from abroad will notice that Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew and his family who run the island appear to think that as long as the citizens are given their basic needs, they will be grateful, happy and loyal citizens.

So it seems, in Singapore, the Lee family will do the thinking, the planning and the running of the island, building roads, skyscrapers, providing jobs, building schools, while the people are supposed to obey, listen, comply and work at their jobs.

Unfortunately, other than the fact that such a life is terribly boring, not to mention even slavish, in fact the ordinary human being capable of normal independent thinking, will find such a life rather distasteful.

Surely men don't live merely to eat and sleep, they want to exercise their minds as well, which the Lee family is unwilling to allow.

In the past, he has told people dabbling in opposition politics that they should mind their own business and work at their jobs; stating that if they wanted to engage in politics, they should apply to his government to form a political party and become a politician! Otherwise they shouldn’t be involved in politics!

Human nature, being different from what Lee thinks it is, I am sure he finds it rather surprising and disappointed to say the least, to see such a large number of Singaporeans from an already tiny population, eagerly trying to escape from his island to the West for settlement, in spite of the fact that the islanders are not too badly off compared to their more impoverished neighbors.

It is quite clear that he does not realize this fact since he has repeatedly in the past gone to the Western capitals of the world to which the fleeing Singaporeans have gone to try to coax them to return, and finding that not even a single one wishes to do so, he appears surprised.

Surely any person with the normal intellect can understand that simply giving a job to someone and demanding that he shut his mind off completely to his surroundings is something which most people would find unacceptable.

So you find in Singapore, with the Lee dictatorship determined to carry on in their mindless system of demanding obedience, you have a strange phenomenon of their citizens wanting to flee the island in spite of the glass buildings, skyscrapers and modern roads walkways.

It appears that Lee Kuan Yew has simply run out of ideas in either trying to retain his citizens, increase the almost non existent birth rate or somehow or other try to endear themselves to a people increasingly becoming hostile to them and their style of government which is, "you listen to me or else".

Well one thing is quite clear. The Lees have run out of ideas. All we have to do is to sit back and observe the local citizenry completely lost through emigration or lack of childbirth or dead; to be replaced entirely by foreigners being brought in by the planeloads to fill their places. Then we will see how they demand obedience from a bunch of foreigners. It is going to be very exciting times indeed.

Gopalan Nair
A Singaporean in exile
Attorney at Law
Fremont, California, USA
Tel: 510 491 4375