Lee Kuan Yew's son, the Singapore Prime Minister who was appointed by his father admits to Washington Post that he has lost control over his people. See http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-03-15/opinions/37732858_1_china-japan-dispute-south-china-sea-china-and-japan/2
In the Interview he says:
Is that hard for you?
It is a major change, of course, which we hope we will be able to navigate safely over a period of time and not suddenly.
To make [government] more transparent and open to social media?
It’s completely open to social media. Previously, everything was orderly and predictable. Now there are many more voices, views and interests. . . and the outcome is a lot more difficult to predict, and the reactions are more difficult to judge.
For the last 52 years, first his father and now his son, also remotely by his father has systematically destroyed the free press, jailed dissenters, subverted the rule of law and turned the courts into Kangaroo courts, criminalized speech expression and assembly. It was all right to do it as long as the people were kept ignorant and voiceless. All that changed with the Internet. And what is worse, they have an English education. For the first time they don't have to take the nonsense anymore. They are no longer as helpless as the father and son would like.
To make matters worse, just as they did anything they wanted to their helpless subjects, they brought in far too many Chinese from Communist China to replace the huge numbers leaving the island.
What is left is an island that is bleeding its people. They are leaving. They don't want to take that anymore. They are leaving the island for settlement abroad. They don't want to live like sheep or poodles. The foreigners who come in to replace those leaving have no interest in their new home. They are there temporarily before they too leave; only to be replaced by equally disinterested others.
Father and son dictatorship have finally realized the game is up. If they curtail immigration, the island economy and business will collapse. Far too may people rely on these foreign businesses. If they continued the unlimited immigration by flooding the island with foreigners as they are now doing, there won't be any Singaporeans left, just foreigners.
They can democratize the island, but if they did, they themselves, the dictators which they are, would be unseated. If they don't democratize, more Singaporeans would leave the island speeding the island's collapse. It is a case of tails I lose and heads I lose.
I should now say, I told you so. Old Chinese saying, dictatorships never last long. Poor Lee Kuan Yew's son has run out of ideas. All we have to do is wait and watch the collapse.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Tel: 510 491 4375
3 comments:
Lee Kuan Yew speaks about Singapore's changing demographics
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1261274/1/.html
Dear Mr. Nair,
have you read the piece of Joseph Stiglitz in the New York Times? What's wrong with him? He is clearly lacking any profound knowledge about Singapore, why does he talk about it? Above all he simply ignores the fact that Singapore has one of the highest Gini-coefficients of the world, contrary to the main claim in his article! Can you please rebutt him, this is scandalous! It is either complete lack of knowledge (which would be very bad for a nobel laudorate) or systematic misinformation of the U.S. public on his part. Either way, he just discredited himself completely.
A good response to the crappy article by Stiglitz.
Think he is being paid by LKY? Think he is looking an appointment with Temasek?
http://qz.com/64785/joseph-stiglitzs-singapore-is-hardly-the-one-i-grew-up-in/
If you are really interested, google his background, origin, religion ... and it will all become clearer :)
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