Singapore. Just sit back and enjoy Lee Kuan Yew's brave new world

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The ability of tiny Singapore’s island’s Lee Kuan Yew who has run the place for the last half a century to shock, even longer than Fidel Castro, never fails to amaze us.

According to the latest report in their state controlled press, the Straits Times, the tiny island which is a mere 26 miles on the horizontal radial and mere 26 miles on the vertical, an island which can easily be traversed in less than an hour, and which already has 5 million people stacked up one on top of the other in high rise apartments, is going to have, according to the latest government edict another 2 million people by 2030, which will bring the population to 6.9 million!

See: http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/singapore/story/5600-hectares-more-land-bigger-population-land-use-plan-20130131

Of course in any democracy, the wisdom of such a headlong rush to turn everyone in the tiny island into picked sardines, would be questioned and probably promptly shelved with the maker of such a ludicrous suggestion sent to the nearest mental asylum to have his head examined.

But not so in Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany nor in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore. Their decisions are not open to question. They are above you and me. They run a one party state. They control thought with the entire island media in their hands. They control the courts and any criticism may land you in serious trouble. It is like this in Lee’s island; you listen to me or else; I am going to get in another 2.9 million foreigners and you have to take it whether you like it or not. What Lee says to his people is this; I know better than you and all you have to do is sit back and enjoy the ride.

The fact that Singaporeans have had enough of them is already clearly evident on the ground. No one is having children and the birth rate is the lowest in the world. The brain drain is one of the highest in the world and a large segment of society is old and dying. And only yesterday, the opposition won a by election with a thumping majority.

But in their headlong rush to increase the GDP, they need more and more immigrants to pay taxes and start businesses. Any demographic expert would have said that such a drastic change in the character of the island with a small population can have devastating consequences. With an increasing proportion of the population which is foreign, 40% today, you are seeing all sorts of problems which the island never had. Foreigners bring their lifestyles and culture into the island upsetting that of native born Singaporeans. Today you see increasing levels of violence, burglary and theft which was not there before, caused mainly by foreigners who live in Singapore as if they were living in China or Bangladesh. This lowers societal standards and behavior and reduces it the level of the countries from which they come.

Already with the present population of 5 million in an already tiny island, you are seeing its effects. There is daily reports of trains overcrowding, and at some places like Raffles Place at rush hour, it is almost impossible to walk in the crowd.

I was at the subway station Raffles City in 2008 when I visited Singapore. Believe me, at the main concourse of the station underground between crossing lines, there were so many people; one simply couldn’t walk were you wanted. You could only go where the crowd was moving. I dread to think what would have happened if there was an emergency. I can assure you there will be a stampede with great loss of life.

But Singaporeans are either powerless to do anything to stop this or they are afraid. The island is governed by a select group of people by the Lee Kuan Yew government to run the show. As for the people, all they can do is just sit back and enjoy Lee Kuan Yew's brave new world or if their luck was bad, suffer under it. The average Singaporean is without much education, or independence of thought, which is what their one party state government wants. What they want is for people to do as they are told, while the few at the top will decide how you live.

They will build the skyscrapers, the parks and grounds and the shopping malls. They will decide either to give you privileges or none at all. They will tell you what you can say and what you cannot. They will guarantee that 6.9 million are able to live happily in an island the size of the size of a dot, and as for you, you have no choice but just accept it.

It is after all, Lee Kuan Yew's brave new world.

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