Singapore's reluctant opposition politicians

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Singapore's state controlled government newspaper Straits Times has the story "Lawyer Tan Lam Siong elected new Secretary General of National Solidarity party" which is supposedly  an opposition party, but in reality nothing of the sort, Jan 26, 2015 See report here. http://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/more-singapore-stories/story/lawyer-tan-lam-siong-elected-new-secretary-general-nation



The picture shows this lawyer Tan Lam Siong, extreme left, who is standing next to another lawyer also of the party. Someone not accustomed to Lee Kuan Yew's ruling PAP who have been the government for the last 50 years might go away thinking that Singapore has after all a multi party democracy with these supposedly opposition parties allowed to operate freely without being thrown in jail as they do in North Korea.

Nothing of the sort is true. In Singapore there is more than meets the eye.

In fact there is no real opposition whatsoever to Lee Kuan Yew and son's one party police state. If these people  in the photograph have any interest in furthering the cause of democracy in the island, they would have been locked up long ago, sued for defamation of character and bankrupted into penury, usually in that order.

The only reason why they are allowed to not only claim to be opposition politicians but also allowed to appear in the state controlled press grinning from cheek to cheek is simply because they are just impostors and frauds who willingly play the game of the ruling party by claiming to be one thing while at the same time making sure you are no different from the Lee's government, which is exactly what the Lee government wants.

Singapore has several so-called opposition parties. But, notice, none of them have any particular political ideology. They don't claim to be against the ruling PAP on ideological grounds, the PAP being a dictatorial regime while they do not claim to oppose the dictatorship. All these so called opposition political parties do is to merely criticize particular government policies, such as the massive immigration into the island, or issues relating to the state retirement fund known as the CPF but nothing more than that. They carefully leave alone the fundamental problem of the ruling party, which are the lack of any human rights, no free speech, no free expression or no right to peaceful protest.

Being lawyers, 2 of them in this picture at least, they well and truly know that Singapore is nothing but a dictatorship run by the dictates of the ruling elites completely devoid of any constitutional human rights whatever. I suppose they know, as lawyers should, that the Constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech, expression, assembly, the absence of a free press and Kangaroo courts make a mockery of the claim that Singapore is a democracy.

These people know exactly well that they are living under a tyranny no better than slaves where any attempt to exercise their universally declared rights would land them in jail and their livelihoods destroyed. But they make no complaint about any of this. Periodically they will make some fuss about the immigration policy or the high cost of living but when it comes to what really matters, which is basic human rights, they have no intention whatsoever of complaining. You should know why they are this way in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore. One wrong move and Lee and his son will make mince meat out of them.

We all know that it may be detrimental to your livelihood if you stand up to the Lee government. But that is exactly what true opposition leaders should be prepared to face. If you are not willing to face the hardships of standing up to your beliefs, assuming you had any, then why are you claiming to be opposition leaders? You should simply go away and admit that you are no better than the average Singaporean sheep next to you and be quiet.

By their refusal to do anything about their lives as peasants under the Lee regime, they are in effect disgracefully furthering the cause of the ruling PAP since their claim to be a political party in effect lends support to the lie that the Lee regime  wish to propagate, which is, that they are indeed a full fledged multi party democracy.

I am not sure what sort of legal education these people have as any rudimentary knowledge of Constitutional law would tell you that it makes no sense to argue about immigration policy when you lack your basic rights such as free speech and expression. It simply means that you can speak only as along as the government permits you.

Without freedom of speech, assembly and expression, arguing about Lee's immigration policy will get you nowhere.

If you say anything that the government does not like, you are punished in more ways than one; you may one the one hand face actual legal charges or you may be victimized through loss of job, loss of career or other forms of harassment. So what sort of a freedom is that.

It riles me to see these gutless cowardly characters parading as politicians in Lee's state controlled press, when they have no courage whatsoever to serve their people as true opposition politicians and standing up to the this one party police state. They are afraid to truly oppose the ruling party because of what will happen to them; yet they want to claim that they are opposition politicians. This is the height of hypocrisy and cowardice.

At the end of the day, the question simply is this. Do you want to live in a free society or are you content to live under some dictator. These people in the picture make it very clear that they are content to live under a dictatorship and a life where their extent of freedoms is not because of any law but at the pleasure of the Lee government.

In the end there are no 2 ways about it. You either have freedom or you don't. You either have a Constitution or you don't. And if you think that freedom is the prerequisite before anything else,. then they should demand it. If the government will not yield, they should break the laws and insist that their rights be restored.

Every single one of these people you see are cowards and hypocrites only capable to make any amount of noise as long as they are safe from the clutches of the Lee Kuan Yew regime. None of them have any leadership qualities as one would expect in the rest of the world where people stand up to what they believe and no tin pot tyrant like the Lees will stand in their way. But with people like these in the picture, you can be rest assured that before anyone runs from dictators, they would running the fastest.

You would be wasting you time voting for characters such as these who occasionally put out statements about Singapore's immigration policy which the government is quite happy to print in their newspapers, as long as you don't demand freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, free and fair elections or the rule of law.

Simply cowardly bums, that's what they are. And I pity Singaporeans. You simply have no leadership material whatsoever. A leader is one who has certain beliefs and will fight for them regardless of the consequence. You are safe with such men because they are leaders. In Singapore on the other hand, alas, you have characters such as these who do very well for the ruling Lee Kuan Yew dictatorship and for themselves.

Don't bet on any of these characters standing up for you. At the slightest sight of trouble, they would be the ones running the fastest.

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