Singapore's reluctant soldiers. National Service defaulters. Singapore newspapers say "Military veterans discuss how to get the young to understand why they serve NS"

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Tiny Singapore island with no more than perhaps a mere million local citizens continues to struggle to keep their national service citizen army.

Their state controlled newspaper of April 03, 2014 carries the report "Military Veterans discuss how to get the young to understand why they serve national service" in a last ditch desperate measure to keep their vacant barracks barely occupied, the government plans to " give talks at schools and to full time national servicemen" why they have to serve National Service.

The truth is, for decades now, young Singaporean males, already a fast diminishing number as a result of a very low birth rate, massive emigration to the West and the general dissatisfaction of serving a country which literally treats them as second class citizens while treating foreigners better, have just about decided that there is no reason to serve a country which does not care for them, a sentiment thoroughly justified in Lee Kuan Yew's one party totalitarian police state.

In Singapore males born in the island have to serve 2 years of national service while foreigners who are allowed to immigrate in droves are exempted from any service.

Although the government conveniently claims that it is for national security, a claim hard to justify when there are no external threats whatsoever, after their 2 years of service they are required to perform no less than 10 years of reservist duties of as much as a month each year in the army, a plan principally calculated to keep them in the island so that they will not leave as thousands do in emigration to the West.

The reservist requirement is naturally highly disruptive in their careers resulting in the curious result of employers actually preferring foreigners instead of locals as they are not subjected to this yearly disruption in work.

In addition to the injustice to national servicemen having to serve in the army while foreigners are exempt and the difficulty in finding jobs where employers prefer foreigners to locals, you have an authoritarian you-listen-to-me-or else style of government where the handpicked scholar ministers pontificate to the citizenry as to how you should live and what you should do, while they themselves are completely above any accountability whatsoever.

In addition you have glaring abuse of authority by the self proclaimed government, elected through rigged elections every 5 years.

For instance the grandson of Lee Kuan Yew, the son of the Prime Minister who by the way happens to be his son, is allowed to avoid all reservist duties by remaining in the US after his college where it is understood he works for Google. It seems he has said he has no intention of returning to Singapore and would probably become an American citizen.

Another instance is the case of the President Tony Tan's son, who has been allowed deferment from national service for a long 12 years, on the ground that he is pursuing his education whereas all other mortals are not allowed the privilege.

These are only 2 instances of abuse of authority which I am personally aware but from gleaning the Internet I am sure you can find thousands of other instances such as this, where it is one rule for Lee Kuan Yew and his friends at the top but quite another for the ordinary man.

In writing this blog, I have come across hundreds of instances of young men asking how they could avoid national service and how to remain outside Singapore of those who are already abroad.

Singapore will not be able to sustain their law of national service as long as they disregard the interests of the citizen and run the country as if they can do anything anytime they want to their people.

As long as they carry on as a repressive one party authoritarian police state giving scant regard to the people's rights, the island is doomed in their national service policy.

No amount of going around giving lectures to students in schools and national servicemen is going to reverse the visceral hatred for national service and the authoritarian administration which demands it.

You don't need to be a rocket scientist to know what is wrong. Lee Kuan Yew and son's Singapore one party police state should understand that to make the young feel they have a stake in their country, they first have to end their one party totalitarian rule. They have to introduce a free press where citizen's hopes, aspirations and their grievances can be openly canvassed without fear of defamation actions in Kangaroo Courts.

They have to have free and fair elections where opposition parties with diverse opinions are allowed to stand for elections without fear of being arrested, thrown in jail and bankrupted.

Ministers should stop being corrupt and stop paying themselves $3.7 million a year each and however much more secretly they steal from tax payers money and call it a salary.

Rule of Law should be introduced and judges ordered to stop being corrupt and use the courts as a means to destroy the opposition.

All races, citizens of Singapore, Malays Chinese and Indians should be treated equally and fairly and the giving of perks and sops to government toadies and Peoples Association members, a grassroots organization of Lee's ruling party should stop.

And the mass importation of foreigners into the country due to the misguided harebrained policy of growing the national GDP at any cost has to stop. The country should grow through their citizen's endeavors and not by simply bringing foreigners in to run the casinos and banks.

I can go on but you see my point. These half hearted attempts to give lectures to schoolboys of the need to serve their island will not work because it doesn't solve the root causes of the problem.

And what is even more annoying is that the person who is calling for this, Chan Chun Sing, a recently appointed Scholar Minister, Chinese Ming Emperor style, is a heretofore unknown individual who we understand is a scholar but more importantly a distant relative of the Lee family who has suddenly sprouted from the woodwork to pontificate over us.

This scholar ministers of the style of the Chinese Ming Emperor, where students are sent overseas to pass exams and upon return are deputized to become Ministers is like a magician taking the rabbit out a hat. They suddenly descend upon you from above and tell you what to do, and if you answer back, you are sued for defamation.

It is a stupid country and a stupid policy which is bound to fail. Asking students in school to serve national service simply is not going to work with the underlying nonsense that goes on in the one party police state.

On this subject, I would proudly claim that I have had the opportunity to advice numerous readers of this blog on how they should avoid national service if they want to although statistically I do not have a figure on how many have actually managed to avoid national service through my efforts.

But on a personal note, I am not personally against national service, although it is not because of any sense of pride in serving a one party police state. What I am trying to do is to persuade young men to avoid their reservist duties and leave the country.

But the 2 years of national service itself, for the training it gives young men is beneficial in many ways. For one, it teaches one the use of firearms and weapons. In the US where there is no national service, young men would have to go thorough a firearms range training to know how to shoot, which in Singapore you can learn it free at national service. Second, you get time to get outdoors and the exercise and fitness training cannot be bad.

I would advice young men to do national service for the benefits it gives, not because you are loyal to the corrupt multi millionaire Lee Kuan Yew and Son, and once completed, say thanks and move abroad. Although I am not a hunter, in the US, you can buy a gun and shoot pig, deer and other game if you want if that is your passion. Even if that is not your interest, at least you have a feather in your cap to say you know how to shoot. And that's not bad.

You can buy a decent rifle for a few hundred dollars at a gun store and at the frequent gun shows and fairs, you could get very interesting weapons such as German World  War 2 rifles, Czech, Italian and other European, and many collectors items. A great deal of history lies behind those weapons as you can imagine.

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