Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Goodbye. My last post.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I wish to tell you that I won't be writing anymore blogs here attacking the Singapore administration, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew or his son, his Ministers or any Singapore government  officers anymore. And I wish to tell Mr. Lee Kuan Yew and his son, Mr. Lee Hsien Loong, that it was not my intention to attack him personally, and my writings was actuated by a genuine interest in the island of Singapore and its progress.

This will effectively be my last post. I thank the readers. After all I am an American citizen and live in the United States. It is the Singaporeans who live in Singapore who should decide what is best and what form of government they want, not I.

There are some derogatory articles against me in the Internet which adversely affect me professionally as a lawyer in the United States. I would request the Singapore administration as well as those who have put up these articles to please remove them. This is because my clients and potential clients in the USA are inclined not to hire my legal services upon reading them.

I would additionally ask the Singapore authorities to lift the travel ban against me visiting Singapore if I need to travel there in the future.

Once again, I have no adverse feelings against the Lee family or any government individual in Singapore. I will not be writing anymore articles in this blog. As a goodwill gesture and in consideration of my undertaking to stop attacking the Singapore government or its politicians or Ministers in this blog, I would hope that you would please remove all derogatory articles against me in the Internet.

Thanks very much and Goodbye.

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

Saturday, April 5, 2014

Singapore's North Korea style propaganda in their state controlled press

Ladies and Gentlemen,

     What is particularly annoying and a downright insult to one's intelligence is the daily propaganda spewed by the Singapore island city state's state controlled newspapers by handpicked minions pontificating on any number of topics from the reasons for the low birth rate, the lack of Singaporeans assertiveness or confidence and how and why we should keep fit, matters about which they have no special expertise whatsoever! Just read the state controlled newspapers such as the Straits Times and you will see what I mean.

     And mind you, these hand picked ministers who were scholars on government scholarships have no better understand of any of these things than the ordinary Joe Blokes next door.

     Below is an annoying piece of report in their state controlled press Straits times of April 05, 2014 titled "Families face a different set of pressures today: Chan Chun Sing" See http://www.straitstimes.com/archive/saturday/breaking-news/singapore/story/families-face-different-set-pressures-today-chan-chun-sing-20140405


Second Minister for Defence Mr Chan Chun Sing hosting a discussion with educators, exercise scientists, pre-enlistees and servicemen on how to strengthen fitness for national servicemen and how students can be better physically prepared for NS on April 5, 2014. -- ST PHOTO: LIM SIN THAI
                         
     A little back ground of this gentlemen Chan Chun Sing.

    Only as recent as a few weeks ago no Singaporean had even heard of this character. All of a sudden, the state controlled newspapers of the island publish reports that Chan Chun Sing has been appointed a Minister and a series of reports appear in which he gives lectures to a forced-to-attend, handpicked orchestrated audience on a wide series of issues, about none of which he has any special expertise ranging from child bearing, families and why national servicemen refuse to serve.

     From reports in the state controlled press, he was a Scholar sent abroad for an education at government expense and upon return was fielded at elections where his winning is not in any doubt, at rigged elections, was instantly there after made a member of parliament and a Minister, which under Singaporean politics, gives him a right to lecture the citizens in any range of subjects from child birth to astronomy if he so desired.

     In this picture he is seen lecturing a group of reluctant national servicemen who would have much preferred to spend their time at the mall, forced to attend, sit upright and listen to his nonsense.

     The report states his topic of speech was why the youg couples are reluctant to have children. Since he is not trained and does not have any special knowledge in the subject, surely the man next door, Mr. Joe Blokes of Block 65 Toa Payoh Singapore would have known equally as much if not more about the subject than this character, but nobody has the courage to ask him that because it would mean a defamation action in the Kangaroo courts and instant bankruptcy and impoverishment.

     Lee Kuan Yew's one party state Singapore uses its state controlled press as a propaganda tool, not different from North Korea. Since independent newspapers are prohibited and only state controlled ones allowed to circulate, they use this to daily brainwash their citizens on why Lee Kuan Yew, his son, the Prime Minister and any other handpicked minions such as this to lecture their version of how life is to be lived.

     Anyone with any independence of mind would flatly consider this just plain rubbish, and only those who are without the means to leave the country or ignorant of their rights are forced to submit.

     Thanks to blogs such as mine which can write the truth from abroad without fear of being arrested and charged for defamation, the powers to be in Lee's island are finding it more and more difficult to brainwash their citizens.

     North Korea is of course a different matter. They are prohibited from travelling abroad, Internet is banned, and would truly believe that Kim Il Sung was indeed the Great Leader whose body was transported by dozens of cranes into the clouds and returned to terra firma at the cries of his loyal subjects. They have no means to know the truth.

     Singapore is different. They have the Internet and can see through the nonsense of this charade. The sooner Chan Chun Sing, this handpicked toady realizes he is making a downright fool of himself the better.

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

Friday, April 4, 2014

Video. "Speakers Cornered". Singapore's disgraceful harassment of peaceful protesters during the IMF-WB Meeting in Singapore Sept 19-20 2006

Ladies and Gentlemen,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY1ilenkPaM.

During the IMF World Bank Meeting in Singapore held from 19th to 20th September in 2006, Chee Soon Juan, Secretary General of the opposition Singapore Democratic Party and his supporters had wanted to hold a protest at the Speakers Corner and move on to Parliament House and other locations to protest.

Although they had committed no crime, the police had encircled the protesters and prevented them from carrying out their plan to walk to the other locations, by literally encircling them and refusing them movement.

This is the video link to "Speakers Cornered" :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY1ilenkPaM.

You can see for yourself the disgrace of this one party police state where it's citizens are prevented from any human rights including the right to freedom of speech, protest or even movement.

Unbelievably this is the "first world country" that Lee Kuan Yew and his government claim they are, in reality no better than the worst third world totalitarian police state, where citizens can be prevented from even speaking, protesting or even walking if the police so decide.

This is the sort of disgrace that should warn any person who intents to immigrate to the island to stop and think. Do you want yourself and your children to live in a society where the police are at liberty to order you to do anything they want, stop you from engaging in even normal everyday activities, where you are powerless, like a slave to their masters.

Please do not immigrate to Singapore if you have a choice. And Singaporeans watching this video should leave the island for settlement aboard and young men should refuse to do national service for a country that behaves in this disgraceful way.

The following is an extract from Wikipedia on this protest:

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

Some members of the Singapore opposition, including the Singapore Democratic Party, conducted a protest rally and march on 16 September 2006. The so-called Empower Singaporeans Rally and March was set to start at 11 am at the Speakers' Corner at Hong Lim Park but was refused to continue to other planned stops at Parliament House, Suntec City, and the Istana.[42] On 11 September, it was reported that the police had started an investigation against these protest plans. The police reportedly had denied two applications for the planned peaceful protest and therefore confiscated leaflets that were handed out at Raffles City.[43] Dr. Chee Soon Juan, of the Singapore Democratic Party, held a speech at Hong Lim Park.[44] On 17 September, the protesters announced that they would continue their protest until Tuesday morning, 19 September, after Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's speech before the WB-IMF meeting.[45]

Thursday, April 3, 2014

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

What's holding Singapore back is its absence of democracy

Ladies and Gentlemen,

For any society, including Singapore in order to progress, the people have to know that they have rights, they are treated equally and fairly, that their Courts would protect them when these rights are violated, a sense that anyone can achieve their dreams through hard work and tenacity, no matter who you are.

And in order to ensure this, is why the founding fathers of Singapore (I don't mean Lee Kuan Yew) wrote the Constitution enshrining these rights and any law that violates it would be struck down by the Courts which are the guardians of the people.

This rule ensures that no tyrant can usurp power and trample the rights of citizens. This rule ensures that supremacy lies with the people, not with some government because the government is supposed to be accountable to the people.

The Singapore Constitution guarantees the citizen's rights, the right to free speech, expression, assembly, the rule of law and freedom of the press.

In the early days, in the 1950s and 1960s, Singapore was a democracy with the people's human rights secure. Any citizen could walk with his head high knowing that he has rights, that the Courts will protect his rights and through hard work and dedication, no matter who you are Malay, Chinese Indian or anyone else can reach the pinnacles of success. What mattered was who you were, not your political affiliation.

In a democracy with rights, the citizens are proud of their country, they work for their country, sink roots in the country, have families in the country and have real hope to achieve success in their country. They are prepared to live and die for their country.

And then comes Lee Kuan Yew who thinks he knows better than any Constitution. Systematically he unravels all the democratic institutions. He hijacks the press bringing all the newspapers under state control.

Instead of the press being a guardian of the people's rights it has turned into printed matter no different from a company bulletin or you could say, state propaganda.

Instead of it's duty to highlight the people's grievances, you have laudatory self aggrandizement of how good Singapore is on a daily basis.

Its shameful pages are nothing more than state press releases telling you what new laws have been legislated and how many pedophiles, up skirt cameramen and rapists have been sent to prison.

The Courts are turned into Kangaroos. Instead of being a guardian of the people's rights, one of their main purposes is to declare that government critics have been found guilty of defaming the rulers and have been fined a million dollars and bankrupted.

The average man whose rights have been violated has no avenue for redress. Beside the fact that to bring suit in the courts is prohibitive running in hundreds and thousands of dollars to file an action and litigate, there is no hope of success against government agencies before handpicked compliant Kangaroo judges.

You will not only lose, you would be made to pay crippling costs which will surely bankrupt you. The law courts have become totally inaccessible to the average citizen.

It is bad enough that the ordinary man has no hope of success to remedy the wrongs by the government, critics of the government such as Chee Soon Juan has no hope whatsoever. The moment he appears, he has lost even before he steps in the courtroom. He will be judged not on the basis of his claim but on the basis of who he is.

Government connected ethnic Chinese are preferred over the Malays and Indians even though they too are citizens. They get the best government housing flats, they get the jobs and they get the goodies. The Malays and Indians can do nothing about it other than suffering in silence.

The government is literally a farce. This is how their rulers are selected. Instead of the parliamentary system where political parties are free to appoint their candidates at elections, as required by the Constitution, Lee Kuan Yew uses the feudal Chinese Emperor Scholar system. In Chinese history, in the Ming Dynasty as well as the others, scholars who have passed their required exams are selected by the Emperor to rule over the peasant masses, who are supposed to obey them.

In Singapore Lee Kuan Yew and his son and the other high government officials select bright young students and send them on government scholarships to prestigious overseas universities.

Upon their return they are fielded at elections every 5 years in circumstances where they will invariably win; because the opponents are defamed, maligned and vilified in the state controlled press, subjected to defamation actions and threatened with arrest resulting in their understandably withdrawing their nomination.

In addition, the state security apparatus goes from house to house threatening the citizens to vote for their candidate. This is either overt or covert.

This is why for nearly the last 2 decades, no credible opposition has dared to stand against Lee's Peoples Action party. They know that running is tantamount to suicide.

You can imagine what this sort of a political atmosphere has over the people. For one, no one has any faith in the legal system, resulting in no one going to the Courts, unless of course you are a government official.

There is no longer the assurance that individual rights are sacrosanct because the government can do anything they want to you with impunity.

There is no faith in the press because you do not know whether what you read is real or fiction.

There is no longer the realization that through hard work anyone can reach the top. For success you need something else other than hard work. You need the recognition that you are a Lee Kuan Yew bootlicker, a Lee Kuan Yew ass licker, a sycophant and a groveller. You have to be a card carrying Lee Kuan Yew toady.

Because a great many educated Singaporeans of all races do not want to subject themselves, their families and descendants to this life of ignominy, they leave for the West. In Australia, you don't have to eat humble pie and play second fiddle to Lee Kuan Yew or anyone else to succeed.

If Gopalan Nair had failed in Australia or United States, not that he did, it would be because of his own fault, and not becase he was not in the good books of Lee Kuan Yew or any other tyrant.

Singapore could have been a great country, a great democracy, where Chinese Indians and Malays would have made their country proud.

We were particularly lucky because we have a hardworking Asian population, with a strong work ethos, who prize book learning and educational achievement not to mention the fact that we have the benefit of the wisdom of law and government derived from hundreds of years from Great Britain.

In fact we are even luckier than the Asian economic giants such as South Korea or Japan because we have something they do not have, the English Language.

Had we been allowed to continue as a democracy, we could have been the Jewel of the East, the Gibraltar of the East, a vibrant successful city state with great hope for the future, far more successful than what we are today.

Thanks to Lee Kuan Yew's stupidity in turning the island city state from a proud democracy to that of a Ming Dynasty scholar ruler system, despite the glittering skyscrapers that line the waterfront, it is nothing more than a Ponzi scheme government, where foreigners are allowed to come en masse and do anything they want to make a buck while locals with no hope or no security, continue to flee to the West.

To top it all, Lee Kuan Yew is now moribund, 92 years old, dying and ready to kick the bucket while no one in the island knows what or who or how the city will become the next minute thereafter.

As for me, the only reason why I can write this without having to spend several years behind bars is the fact that I am safe in San Francisco California. Lee can't expect to arrest me here since this is a democracy. Had I been in Singapore now, I would probably be within the cells at Central Police Station where I was in 2008, after writing a critical blog which Lee did not like.

Singapore is rushing headlong into oblivion. And there is no turning back. Lee is faced with a Hobson's choice. A sort of Catch 22. If he tried to introduce democracy now, he would be unseated the next minute. If he continued the way it is, it will self destruct very soon.

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