Singaporeans have only themseves to blame

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Horatius by Thomas Babington Macaulay:

"Then out spoke brave Horatius, the Captain of the Gate:
To every man upon this earth, death cometh soon or late;
And how can man die better than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods,"

In the 1960s Singapore island had about 3 million or so people. It was a small island and you really cannot fit that many more people; remember it is 26 miles horizontal and 16 miles North to South. Already by then it was almost as crowded as Gaza, the most densely packed place in the world.

But then Singapore has a Lee Kuan Yew, who thinks he knows best and there is no need for consultation. Like a Superman of the comic books, he will don his superman costume and make Singapore into a Disneyland, and if anyone questioned him, throw him in jail, sue him and bankrupt him.

Remember in the 1970s you had a sizeable Indian population and a much larger fast growing Malay population. The rest of course were Chinese. You could say then that the people had a sense of belonging to the island; they had families and they faith in their island and sank roots there.

But Lee Kuan Yew the superman had other plans. Never mind the Constitution; he intended to remain in power forever. To facilitate his objective, he did away with the free press, criminalized speech and expression and civil protest, and began his vendetta against JB Jeyaretnam, and opposition politicians bankrupting them and throwing them in jail. And then he started island wide racial cleansing, denying jobs and career prospects to Malays and Indians in favor of ethnic Chinese. He began to promote bilingualism in the island, but bilingualism meant only English and Chinese Mandarin. Tamil and Malay languages were not within the Singapore definition of bilingualism.

Muslim Malays were asked to lower the volume of Nammaz prayers by the Moissan from the mosque, so that Chinese would not be offended. Muslims were forced to live next to pork eating Chinese in crowded apartment blocks thus having to comprise their religion. Last year an Indian family was ordered not to cook curry in their apartments as a result of complaints by recently arrived Chinese immigrants who did not like the aroma.

Today what we have is a Singapore with no constitutional rights, no minority rights, no race discrimination laws, no labor rights, no minimum wage laws, a fast disappearing Malay population which now stands at a mere 11% when in fact the island was a 100% Malay in earlier times. The reason for their fall in numbers is due to Lee Kuan Yew government openly violating the Constitution which mandated equal rights by bringing in thousands and thousands of Chinese immigrants to boost their numbers; a deliberate policy to decimate minorities. The Indian population is almost disappearing with no more than 7% or so. Very soon there will be none left.

Housing laws have been changed. Malays and Indians are no longer free to live wherever they want but only dispersed among the Chinese, thus dissipating them instead of concentrating them. The Chinese openly speak their Mandarin in front of Malays and Indians who are at loss of understanding. In government offices, Chinese workers speak to each other in Mandarin discussing about a Malay or Indian about his issues.

The island has a corrupt judiciary which willingly bends the law to please Lee Kuan Yew in his plan to destroy the opposition.

True, Lee Kuan Yew government is responsible for the pathetic state of affairs in that tiny island. But are not Singaporeans themselves to blame. Take the Malay leaders in the island. What were they doing all these years when slowly but surely, Lee has turned the island from a Malay one into a Chinese one today. Were they sleeping? What were the Indians doing when they were systematically discriminated and eliminated? Were they sleeping? And what were the responsible Chinese who knew this was wrong and could have done something. Were they sleeping too?

If the blame was to lie with Lee Kuan Yew, the blame lies equally with the Singaporeans who allowed this to happen to their country. It is no good saying that you were afraid and therefore can do nothing.

The Malays could have put up a fight but they did nothing. So did everyone else.

It reminds me of Hitler's rise in Nazi Germany. What did the Germans do when Hitler occupied Austria in 1938, then Czechoslovakia, then Poland? Nothing. And what did they do when he began murdering Jews? Nothing too. And then it was too late.

It is the same again with Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore. Unless and until Singaporeans themselves will stand up and say no more, Lee Kuan Yew and his family will walk over you and transform the tiny island into a terrible monster. Then, like Germany after Hitler, it will be too late too.

Lee Kuan Yew has only yesterday threatened that he is going to increase the population of tiny Singapore to 6.9 million by building even higher apartment blocks to stack his people like on a rack vertically skywards. The people are alarmed of course but not Jufrie, nor any other leader  is going to do anything about it, because they are all afraid.

I hope Malay leaders like Jufrie Mahmood who sits quietly and calmly with Chee Soon Juan biding his time in the SDP heed what I say. It is not enough merely to make occasional noises and sit back for decades. I am sure he realizes it too. He has already lost the Singapore that he and I knew.

Alas, I could even say, it is too late.

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