Lee Kuan Yew's Fascist island city state. A scary resemblance to Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany

Updated April 26, 2015
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Since Lee Kuan Yew came to power in 1959, he had with a singular determination decided to dismantle every single  democratic institutions put in place by the British and impose instead a total fascist dictatorship based on his personal view of how the island should be run, of course with him as the permanent leader.

As far as he was concerned, he knew better than anyone else. These cumbersome, fractious incessant democratic debates is not going to get his island anywhere, he thought, and according to him, only through one party rule or rather one man rule, that is he himself, can he bring any progress to his island. To that end he began his work with a single minded purpose.

Any student of history will see the uncanny resemblance to another of history's dictators, Adolf Hitler. When he came to power in 1933, he too had similar ideas. He thought these arguments in the Reichstag is doing no good. He knew much better than any Reichstag and to that end he like Lee Kuan Yew began dismantling the civil society and instead turn Germany into a one party one man fascist dictatorship with himself the supreme leader or Fuhrer, a loose translation meaning leader.

Singapore today is a nightmarish carbon copy of what Hitler created.

In Singapore today, there are no free newspapers. All news media is directly state controlled by law. News is censored and the state decides what is permitted to print and what is not. Reporters without Borders, an international monitor on worldwide press freedom places Singapore 150th down the list, next to Somalia and North Korea, just as in Nazi Germany where under Goebbels his propaganda minister, the news was completely hijacked. Hitler murdered journalists who tried to write independent news. Lee Kuan Yew didn't murder them. He jailed them and threw them out of their jobs. Some he exiled.

In Singapore today there are no free trade unions. Hitler murdered trade unionists he did not like. Lee instead, removed them from their posts and deprived them of jobs. He created a new organization called NTUC under which all unionized workers would come under. NTUC itself became a branch of the government, and directly under a government minister. Effectively there was no longer free trade unions in Singapore. Hitler in Germany did exactly the same. The purpose of both Hitler and Lee Kuan Yew was to make working conditions more attractive to employers. The rights of workers was not part of the equation.

The German Constitution before 1933, when Hitler came to power guaranteed citizens rights such as free speech and expression. Hitler removed these rights and any criticism of him or the Nazi party by anyone would result in severe punishment or even death. The Constitution was abolished and replaced by Adolf Hitler's ideas on how to live in Germany. Lee Kuan Yew has done exactly that. The Constitution of Singapore today is a dead letter. Every single fundamental human right provision is abrogated. No right to free speech, anymore. You need a government permit. Same permit requirement to assemble, same permit requirement for peaceful protest. Hitler totally subjugated his people through fear. So has Lee Kuan Yew.

Hitler's slogan was "Eine Reich Eine Volk Eine Fuhrer" or "One Country, One People, One Leader". The plan which was completely accomplished was to make a unified German people, thinking in one way according to Hitler, acting on one way according to Hitler and without any dissension or debate whatsoever. This is classic Fascism which was practiced by Hitler and before him Mussolini of Italy.

Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew had a far easier job brainwashing and subjugating his people than Adolf Hitler. Hitler had to subjugate an entire country of Germany. Lee Kuan Yew on the other hand had only one city to deal with. Lee's case with Singapore was as if, Hitler had only to deal with the city of Berlin. How much more easier and effective the suppression and repression will be on just one city. Lee's brainwashing and intimidation of a mere island has been so successful, he has effectively turned the entire island city state into a lynch mob. The brain washing is so complete that anyone with contrary ideas undergoes the serious risk of a lynching by Lee's brainwashed fanatic loyalists in that tiny dreaded island.

Lee Kuan Yew has created exactly this today in Singapore. For anyone to succeed or even lead a normal life, you have to accept Lee Kuan Yew's idea of government. Hitler encouraged people joining the Nazi Party, Hitler Youth, the SS and other grassroots organizations to show support for the Nazi party which the vast number of Germans did. In Germany under Hitler, it was absolutely essential to be a member of the Nazi party to get a job or even survive. It is the same today in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore. For a successful career, you have to join either the Peoples Action Party or any of the numerous grassroots organizations such as the Peoples Association to get a good and secure job. Without this requirement, your survival in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore is uncertain.

Hitler used to shoot his opponents. Lee Kuan Yew doesn't do that. Instead he uses his judges to destroy his opponents through defamation actions. To accomplish this, he recruits lawyers without any scruples willing to prostitute their judicial office to subvert the law as a tool to destroy political opponents.

Lee Kuan Yew's favorite tool, for which he has now become infamous and the butt of jokes around the world is his ingenious defamation lawsuits. His judges turn the law on its head by calling any normal legal criticism defamation, to be followed with astronomical damages awards running into hundreds of thousand of dollars.

As anyone can see, the propose of these law suits are not to compensate the victim, since no one has been defamed in the first place anyway. The main poison is the damages award. If you ask someone to pay several hundred thousand of dollars, they usually don't have it. They are immediately thereafter bankrupted and by the law disqualified from politics. In Singapore Lee Kuan Yew's defamation actions serve the purpose of destroying troublesome politicians far better than murdering them; you don't have the blood and gore and you don't render yourself liable to arrest and brought before the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

Just like the newspapers in Nazi Germany, Lee Kuan Yew's state controlled newspapers serves several purposes. One, it publishes the faces of his political victims. In that manner, it serves as a warning to anyone else not to have the audacity or temerity to do what he did, or else. It is extremely efficient in dampening anyone else who may have other ideas.

The second purpose is self censorship by which I mean the entire island takes a cue from the revelation. Anyone whose picture has appeared in the state controlled press as a government critic will not get a job anywhere in the island. No government department will employ him nor will any private employer. By chance if some ignorant employer gives him a job, Lee Kuan Yew state security apparatus will send out their agents to order his dismissal.

Let me give a few well known examples. Chee Soon Juan was a critic of Lee Kuan Yew and a professor at the university. He was subjected to the same signature weapon of Lee Kuan Yew, the defamation action and immediately terminated from his professor job. John Tan is the president of the Singapore Democratic Party, Chee's party. He was convicted in 2008 of wearing a T Shirt with the image of a kangaroo in Judicial robes. Immediately after his conviction, he was dismissed from Cook University in Singapore where he had a job as professor. Recently Roy Ngerng has been in the news for questioning the bona fides of Lee Kuan Yew's handling of state retirement funds. The son has sued him for defamation and he was immediately thrown out of his job in a hospital.

Gandhi Ambalam was the Chairman of Chee's political party. He had a good job as a journalist. He was thrown out of his job and has ended up permanently unemployed.

What is Lee Kuan Yew and now his son trying to achieve by doing this? The answer must be simple. Either you join me or else. It is my way or the highway.

It would be incorrect to say that this single minded style of government didn't have any benefits, it did. When Germany was defeated after the First War in 1918, its economy was in shambles. After Hitler came to power, he managed to turn the country around and make it the most successful European country, a spectacular achievement no doubt. The people had jobs, more money and better lives. It wasn't true that there were no detractors, there was. But when faced between starvation and bread, the Germans naturally chose bread. In Singapore you have the same situation. This dictatorship of Lee Kuan Yew without a doubt brought tremendous benefits to a great many Singaporeans. There was more jobs and a better standard of living. In both countries there were the detractors, but they were both afraid of the consequences if they spoke. In Germany you may be shot, in Lee's Singapore you may be bankrupted.

But will it last? Nazi Germany was defeated not through natural causes but by defeat in the Second World War. How would it end in Singapore, I really don't know.

But I know this much. Democracy is a far more lasting and durable system. Despite its hiccups and distractions, the free flow of ideas minus the dreaded defamation actions, creates a more confident society, free of their shackles, to debate question and throw up new ideas. Where the laws are administered not by kangaroo judges but by free and independent judges. Where the Constitution is reclaimed and brought back to life where men know that they are ruled by laws, not by some puny tin pot dictator like Lee Kuan Yew's son. These are attributes which would give respect to the island republic, it would attract truly talented thinking people, not just the bootlickers and sycophants that hang around Lee Kuan Yew's son waiting for the crumbs. Such a country would be one where I would be proud to return to, where I would willingly raise my children in.

But this Lee Kuan Yew dictatorship which runs on the basis of I know better than you system, is chasing out any self confident successful educated thinking citizen out of the island, and instead fleeing for settlement in the West. In their place, hordes of Chinese nationals are brought with very little idea of their rights and very happy to live they way they lived under the Chinese Communist Party. The Indians who are brought are no better, by and large second rate whose only reason to come is because they are unable to emigrate to their first choice destination, the United States.

I am not sure whether there is indeed going to be a revolution in Lee's Singapore, but what I am certain is it is on a steady descent from a First Class  towards a Third Class Third World country. Why I say this? Well firstly, no one with any qualities and intelligence would want to willingly live in a dictatorship just for the money. If you have people willing to put up with this nonsense, it is only the third rate poor quality immigrant. With a poorer quality stock of people, surely you cannot expect any realistic progress.

With the continuation of the dictatorship the present existing problems already hurting the island will exacerbate. The already high brain drain will climb even higher. The island will be emptied of its thinking citizens and replaced by what the former President Devan Nair called "department store dummies".

And the lack in confidence among its citizens for this dictatorship would mean the already abysmally low birth rate to drop even further.

In the end, you would have a tiny island totally bereft of its own thinking citizens and like a total blood transfusion, completely replaced by third rate poor quality immigrants, because any good quality immigrant would have preferred to go the United States, Canada, Australia or New Zealand. Surely poorly qualified simple minded "department store dummy" immigrants cannot help any island, let alone a tiny island such as this.

Completely ridding itself of educated thinking individuals with some self respect and replacing it with third rate Chinese nationals who would prefer to go the West if they could, is bad enough for any larger country but it could be crippling for a tiny island like this. I am not sure the place will withstand any instability, let alone a complete blood transfusion style of replacing native Singaporeans for outsiders. A very dangerous scenario.

Finally you may wonder why I can write this very critical piece of writing and still remain un-bankrupted or not locked up. Well the reason is I am now in Fremont California and beyond the reach of his Kangaroo courts. So there nothing much he can  to me. Like a coward, he would only pounce on those helpless souls who are physically within his island, and whom he is free to abuse at will.

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