Lee Kuan Yew's Singaporeans, a subjucated people

Ladies and Gentlemen,

If one thing 91 year old incapacitated Singapore strongman Lee Kuan Yew has successfully accomplished to perfection, after decades of sustained assiduous effort, undoubtedly an almost unprecedented award winning feat, is the total subjugation of his entire island population.

For the last 50 years in Singapore, under his direct rule and now indirectly under his son the Prime Minister whom he has placed in that position, one thing that anyone in that island has to know is this; to survive, you have to support Lee Kuan Yew's ruling party, the PAP.

It is best to publicly proclaim your support by volunteering at one or more of the various grassroots organizations of the ruling party ruling PAP, such as Peoples Association, which guarantees your career path success. If you are unable to do this, at least you should keep your mouth shut. But on no account publicly show your dissatisfaction, because if you do, you are literally committing suicide. 

Singapore today is almost Stalin's Soviet Union. You either support Lee and Son or there is only penury for you; nothing in between. To show your support there are various avenues. There is the Peoples Association.

There are also others such as the Residents Committees, Citizen Consultative Committees all of whom attract Singaporeans and permanent residents from all walks of life to volunteer under the guise of civic and public consciousness, when in fact, their main concern is self preservation, career advancement and business opportunity under the patronage of the supreme Lee Kuan Yew and Son

From judges to common clerks in government departments, one common denominator is this; they all either openly support Lee Kuan Yew's ruling Peoples Action Party or alternatively, they are the "no comment" people, by which I mean, they answer you with "no comment" to any political question.

But one thing is certain, no one, not a single human being would openly dare to criticize Lee Kuan Yew, his son the Prime Miniter or the government because if he did, sooner or later, it will be the end of his survival in the island.

Lee Kuan Yew and son employ a pack mentality against their opponents. Through their wide all compassing network of agents both seen and unseen, you will notice your employer telling you to behave, your friends leaving you and very you soon you lose your job or your business.

If you are foolish enough to persist even after warnings, you may even be sued for defamation of character (Lees favorite tool of subjugation) , bankrupted and jailed.

Although it is true on paper that the island has a Constitution entitling everyone freedom of speech and expression, these rights no longer exists in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore. They have been effectively abrogated and today, the island is simply a one party state which demands total and absolute allegiance to Lee Kuan Yew's Peoples Action Party, period.

The effect of this fundamental pre-requisite to survive in Singapore has obviously hugely detrimental consequences both to the individual as well as to the future of the state.

If everyone is forced to think one way in order to survive, this effectively destroys curiosity, creativity and effectively makes the entire population servile, obedient, only capable of following orders but never able to lead or the courage to influence others on your views. It reduces productivity, stagnates the society and takes you back, not forward in the global market.

Lee Kuan Yew has had a policy of making fools and criminals of anyone who dared to openly question authority, even though, in any other country such men would have been considered model citizens.

This deliberate policy was to educate and warn the entire island population, like how you would train a monkey, that there are grave dangers in questioning the Singapore government while at the same time, sending an equally strong signal that obedience and submission to authority has far reaching permanent benefits.

The famous late JB Jeyaretnam was an highly respected opposition politician and lawyer who fought for freedom and democracy for his people and to do away with the dictatorship and one party oligarchy in the island.

Although it was obvious, none of what he did was wrong, indeed his actions were highly honorable and patriotic for fighting for the people's  rights, he was hauled before Lee's compliant Kangaroo judges, vilified and maligned in the state controlled press, made to pay astronomical damages, bankrupted and jailed. He has since died.

Using the state controlled press Lee Kuan Yew has effectively labeled him a criminal when in actual fact he was the people's hero.

It is some sort of Orwellian doublethink, where a criminal is labeled a hero, while a upstanding citizen is labeled a criminal.

You can imagine the effect on the people of such manipulation of the state apparatus. It was plain foolish to try to be a JB Jeyeratnam because it would mean penury.

On the other hand, those who were willing to lick ass are all given top jobs with top money. Take the case of the discredited corrupt judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean who was willing to abuse the legal system to punish Lee Kuan Yew's political adversary Chee Soon Juan, a victim of hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages paid to the Lees.

She was only a mediocre lawyer but nevertheless given a job in the government linked law firm Allen and Gledhill after which she was rapidly made a judge and big money, in return she does the dirty work to please the Lees.

In any other respectable legal jurisdiction, she would be disbarred for abuse of legal process. In Lee's Singapore, she is a highly respected brilliant specimen of a human being. Mothers would encourage their daughters to become Belinda Ang Saw Eans, never to be like JB Jeyaretnam!

This carrot and stick behavior training for Singaporeans was very successfully practiced by the Lee Kuan Yew administration resulting today in every single person realizing that there is no place for anyone to think they are smarter than the Lees.

It has become a fact of life that to live, you cannot have the luxury of going around proclaiming that Lee Kuan Yew is wrong, he is violating the Constitution, that what he is doing is illegal and to say that Singapore does not have democracy and it is high time to introduce it.

The vast number of Singaporeans would consider my writings a total waste of time and would be wondering why I did not do as everyone else, kept my mouth shut and made a good living in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore, because it serves no purpose to get into trouble.

Why cause trouble and misery upon myself when one could have lived a comfortable life under Lee Kuan Yew and Son in stable peaceful clean uneventful boring Singapore. After all, if you don't bother the Lees, they very seldom bother you!

I trust you see the reasoning, which surely makes a great deal of sense. And in the Singaporean sense, I have to be a bloody fool doing all this!

If everyone in Singapore is merely a follower, then you may well ask, who does the thinking? Well the ones who do the thinking are the professionals. In Singapore, it is a select few, you could say "licensed thinkers" who are allowed to think and formulate opinion.

This is how it is done.

Children whose parents are government supporters are given government funded scholarships to study abroad. Those selected are carefully chosen.

Applying nepotism, relatives and friends of the Lee family are given preference but others also have a chance. These students are promised top government appointments upon return at salaries of several millions a year.

After they study abroad and receive international exposure, they will return, contest elections which they invariably win, made ministers in the government and from then on licensed to formulate policies and laws which other ordinary mortals have to obey.

The state controlled newspapers, which work more like a company bulletin, will regularly publish the new laws and why they are enacted. The average man is not encouraged to question these laws but simply follow them. Which is why life in Singapore is so boring because there is nothing one can do except obey.

You could also clearly see the consequence of the islanders total subjugation through their inaction to the injustices done to men such as JB Jeyaretnam.

Although it was crystal clear that all he suffered at the hands of the government and the Kangaroo courts was downright wrong, no one came forward to openly show him support. There were no mass demonstrations in his support, simply nothing.

Singaporeans reactions to Chee Soon Juan was even more telling. Not only did no one come forward in his support, he could not find a single lawyer in the entire island to represent him. In the end, all he could find is a Singaporean Indian lawyer suffering from serious bipolar disorder who apparently doesn't know in which world he is at any one time. A total mad hatter.

In Singapore, everyone is a mere worker and nothing more. He has no interest in politics except to show his support for the ruling party in the hope of getting favors. He does not know much history unless he is a history teacher. He has no interest in philosophy because it doesn't serve any purpose. He is simply an automaton who goes about his life today as he did yesterday hoping that nothing will upset the serenity and calm of his boring life.

I personally don't think a country like this can hope to go very far.

Caveat: The reader should be aware that the only reason why I can write this without being instantly arrested by Lee Kuan Yew police is because I am physically writing from Fremont, California USA. Had I now been within Singapore, arrest and imprisonment is certain.

Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com