Singapore children are deprived of a childhood. They become adults the moment they are born

updated 08/25/2014: A sentence has been removed so as not to offend the feelings of the majority ethnic Chinese population in the island.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

If I was to have a conversation with a 12 year old boy, I would much prefer to have it with an Australian boy and not a Singaporean one.

Why? Because it would be far more interesting with the Australian.

The Singaporean one would probably be able to read and write better. But he would have nothing original in his head. This is why.

An integral part of human development requires that children are allowed to play. An Australian boy would probably study a few hours, even less, but would be spending the rest of the time playing around in his yard, chasing Kangaroos, playing with other kids, talking, laughing and doing the things children normally do when they are 10.

This is the part that Singaporean children are completely deprived of. Apart from the fact that there are no Kangaroos to chase around, being a tiny sardine packed concrete jungle, they never get a chance to relax and play like other kids.

In Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore, they always have to get top marks in school, the only thing that matters in that blasted island.

Even at the age of 6 or 7, they return from spending half a day in school studying and spend the rest of the day studying at home.

Not that the Singaporean kid has realized at that tender age of the importance of an education, it is because he has no choice. On the one hand, the classes are so rigorous that a 6 year old boy is expected to function as a 16 year old anywhere else, because as I said in my earlier blog, if he fails that most important test at the age of 12, he is delegated to the dumb class, a path that leads to Singapore's dumb jobs, such as running around as Lee Kuan Yew's policemen arresting anyone who shows any independent thinking, or some puny clerk in some office somewhere.

On the other hand, if he does well at studies, he can hope to land one of the professional jobs, where he can strut around in a white shirt and a tie, or if he is very lucky, become a Minister in Lee's government where he can literally earn millions, or a chance to be corrupt, to put it another way.

Naturally no parent would want their kid to end up as a coolie in Lee and Son's Singapore, so the pressure is from both sides, one at school and the other from the parents.

Question is, does this torture that children go through in Singapore make them any better. Absolutely not.

They become dull, dumb and totally devoid of any independent thinking.

Their spending long days sitting on a chair and doing homework makes them both physically and mentally weak. They lack the art of social graces, because they spend their time in isolation in front of a book.

The lack of sunlight and physical exercise makes them even paler and insipid. You won't expect a Singaporean to play rugby in the All Blacks, not because they were born physically any weaker but because the Singaporean upbringing makes them not only physically weak but mentally as well.

If you were to ask an Australian child what he wants to be, you would be surprised to find that he might want to be mountaineer, a policeman, a fire fighter or even a cyclist and win the Tour De France. The Australian boy would be far more articulate compared to the Singaporean one who would very probably not even speak because he is afraid to say the wrong thing. Even if he did, he would probably say he wants to be a banker and make lots of money, something he probably heard from his mother.

Although Australia has a slightly larger population than Singapore although a vast continent, their accomplishments far exceed what any Singaporean has managed to achieve. What this shows is that more and more studying does not make people any better. In the Singaporean case, it makes them dumb, which is exactly what Lee Kuan Yew and Sons, who own that island,  want them to be.

The reason for this diabolical education system for children is the master plan of Lee and Sons. When they make the exams for children so difficult, only a few will manage to succeed. And large numbers would be delegated to the lower classes, which will provide the numbers for Lee's menial jobs, to mow his palace lawn for instance. And Lee could conveniently say that it was not his fault that you have to mow his lawn, it is your own fault because you failed the test.

Unfortunately I too was the product of Lee's education system and had I not left early enough, I would have ended up exactly where Lee wanted me, to mow his palace lawn. But at an early age, I was able to leave, first for Germany (then West Germany) and later to England. As a result I managed to escape some of Lee's brainwashing although it took me awhile adjusting to society elsewhere.

I am not a child psychologist by training but common sense says that this sort of punishment for young children, almost totally depriving them of a childhood does long lasting permanent damage to any child's development. They end up as adults weak both in mind and spirit and totally unprepared to life in the outside world, except of course in Singapore if they did what they were told and did the jobs allocated to them by Lee and Sons.

What angers me is that Lee does this not because he thinks this system is any better, he does this for dishonest reasons, to create a population which would never have the courage to question him, because they simply cannot think. And an unthinking population is what any dictator anywhere dreams of.

I am not sure how you can take your kids out of this brainwashing, but my advice to you this. If you want your kid to grow up normal with ideas of his own and the courage to do it, send him elsewhere. Send him to Australia, to England, Europe or Canada or the US or to any other respectable country that is honest with their people. Otherwise you are damaging their minds permanently and they will end up as the dull witted Singaporean version of an adult that you see everywhere in that island today.

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