For Lee Kuan Yew's son who has inherited Singapore island from his father deceased, he has one more problem, like all the others, for which there is no answer. It is flooding.
As it is, it is already bad enough for him. Thanks to his father who thought turning the island into a Fascist state is the best way to stay in power, he is slowly realizing that repression does not always guarantee his security. The island today is one classic repressive Fascist state with no human rights whatsoever. No freedom of speech, expression, assembly, a free press or rule of law. The Constitution has been de facto abrogated. If fear can silence and subjugate the entire island population, it also results in huge disastrous consequences.
Not wanting to live under Fascism, the cream of the tiny island population are emigrating in droves for settlement in the West. They don't want their children to be brainwashed and subjugated by the all powerful government. They don't want their minds to be destroyed. They don't want success on condition of being a PAP ruling party card carrying sycophant.
They are refusing to have any children or even get married. The island has the lowest birth rate in the world and a fast aging society where in 20 years half the population would be over 50. Desperate to stop the total extinction of the local population, they are bringing in planeloads of Communist Chinese and Indians to replenish the population, except that all these immigrants are poor quality, lacking education, proficiency in English or skilled. You don't see Europeans Australians or Americans wanting to live in Singapore. No surprise at all, since who in his right mind would want to live in a society such as this.
To add to the problems of Lee Kuan Yew's son, here comes Mother Nature with a new impossible problem, daily flooding. The island is only a few inches or a few feet above sea level. It is tiny, no more than 277 square miles, and just a flat piece of land sitting right at the Equator. As a result you have torrential rains almost on a daily basis. As the Moon goes round the Earth twice a day, there are 2 high tides daily. When the Sun is lined up with the Moon, you have king tides, tides rising several feet above normal.
At high tide, sea water level rises and encroaches into land. If there is rain coinciding, which is torrential like a flood dropping from the sky, the water cannot escape into the sea. And Lee Kuan Yew's son's island is submerged under water. And this is happening almost daily. And it is a daily gamble trying to guess whether it will flood today, since it all depends if it will rain at today's tide.
See Straits Times article of Flooding on December 10, 2015 here http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/heavy-rain-causes-flash-floods-in-central-Singapore
See Channel News Asia of flooding on December 11, 2015 here.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/heavy-downpour-causes/2338710.html
See Channel news Asia of flooding on December 5, 2015 here
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/flash-floods-seen-across/2321964.html
Severe flooding is now happening almost every day causing a heavy daily toll in damage and loss not to mention catastrophic danger to the entire island. The daily flood casualties are the motor vehicles. Severe damage is caused to thousands of cars each time there is a flood resulting in many being totaled and scrapped. The government provides no compensation and insurance does not cover the loss. Not only cars suffer damage, hundreds of businesses, shops and houses are damaged by flood water with no compensation from anyone.
What is more serious is the possibility of massive loss of life by drowning. You have Underground subways where the ground level entrance is only a few inches above sea level. In the event of a severe flood, which is going to happen more and more frequently, the underground train system will be flooded with trains full of people trapped underwater.
Flooding is a danger that is with us now with growing sea level rise. Year after year, day after day, the sea rises and Singapore floods get worse and worse. And the frequency of flooding is especially bad for Singapore sitting squarely at the Equator where torrential rain and thunderstorms are a daily occurrence.
And the sad fact is that no amount of engineering can solve Lee Kuan Yew's son's flooding problem. The simple fact of the nature of Singapore island's geography, the terrain and its location is its doom. As if Lee Kuan Yew's son did not have enough problems already. As for me sitting in California, I am watching the fun.
Lee Kuan Yew's son's Singapore is turning into the Underwater Lost City of Atlantis.
And if one lesson has to be learnt from all this, it is this. Fascism in 2015 does not work.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Facebookl: www.facebook.com/singapore.dissident
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