Singapore's steady decline towards mediocrity. Because authoritarianism and education do not mix

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I really do not know what the dictators of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew's son and his collaborators think, but really, authoritarianism and education, or even common sense simply do not mix. If you try to flex your muscles on an educated population, they simply will refuse to obey. It is as simple as that. And that is exactly what has been happening in Lee Kuan Yew's son's Singapore island.

In the most recent election, an overwhelming 70% of locals in the island voted for Lee Kuan Yew's son's dictatorship. But contrary to what you may think, that is nothing to be happy about for the dictators. Indeed they should ask themselves who are these people who voted for them anyway. Is it a sign of strength for the regime or rather one of regression and decline?

The truth is, the 70% who supported this regime are inferior individuals, both in mind and spirit. They are the ones who have remained in the island while the educated and self respecting sort who can think for themselves have all left for settlement in Western democracies.

The truth is, anyone who can think independently as has the means to leave the island has already left. So these citizens who appear to support a totalitarian regime are those who do not understand what freedom is, given their poor education or collaborators who work for this regime and whose livelihood depends on them. In addition to these pathetic cases, the government has brought in 2 million or so foreigners mainly from China to work in the island. Since they are from a Communist regime, and have been sufficiently brainwashed not to question authority, they have all of course as expected voted for Lee Kuan Yew's son and his dictatorship. If necessary they would have voted for a donkey if that is required as well. As you can see, the 70% vote is clearly no indication of any clear thinking men and women intelligently voting; they are just the votes of the misinformed, those afraid, or those who have no principles or any independent thought.

It is not hard to understand why no one with any ability of independent thought would have left the island. You don't need to be an Einstein to see why the entire system of government there is simply nonsensical. And no one should put up with it.

For example, anyone anywhere who does not like his government or their rulers is entitled to criticize them. But in Singapore this is not allowed. If you do, you are sued for defamation charged in court bankrupted and harassed for the rest of your life. Would anyone even with modicum of self respect would want to tolerate that?

If you don't like your government, you may want to tell others in public by a making a speech. There is nothing wrong with that. Yet in Singapore, if you did this, you are charged and sent to prison for making a speech without government permission. Why should anyone have to get government permission to make a speech!

Everyone should be entitled to form a society to promote their mutual interests. Yet in Singapore, if you want to do this, you need the government's permission. What nonsense is this? Why should you need government permission to form a society of friends?

Everyone should be allowed to live their lives in privacy. But in Singapore there is no privacy at all. The Singapore government employs thousands of its citizens in intelligence work, spying on it's own citizens. It is the Internal Security Department, a sort of Ton Ton Macout. At every moment of time you are watched and any attempt to criticize the rulers will end up in your being tailed and reported on. The Singaporeans who live in the island know this, but they are not the sort of people who would object. After all they are quite happy to live this way, given the 70% overwhelming support for the regime.

Anyone living in a society would expect to have the rule of law and a society run in accordance with the rule of law. In Singapore there is none. The judges are appointed by the dictators based on their loyalty to Lee Kuan Yew's son and his minions. As a result every case is decided according to the government's wishes. They are always right and you are always wrong, that is, if you are seen as a opponent of the regime.

If you are seen as openly against the regime, you are charged with trumped up crimes, your face is published prominently in the state controlled newspapers and thereafter you are as good as finished. You will not get a job anywhere, your friends will abandon you because they don't want to get into any trouble and you will live the rest of your life in misery.

If you have any logic or common sense, you would naturally prefer to read real news, not propaganda. In Singapore you have no choice. You only have propaganda. The entire media, newspapers, radio, TV are all owned and controlled by the state. There is no independent news circulating within Lee Kuan Yew's son's island. You can if you want look at the Internet. But that is all you can do.

I am not suggesting that you cannot succeed in Lee Kuan Yew's son's island, of course you can. But to do that you have to lead a pretty disgraceful life. Let me put it this way, although the examples are rather extreme, but it serves to explain the dire state of affairs. Adolf Eichmann, Hitler's adjutant was a very successful individual in Nazi Germany. But he lived a disgusting life, for his success he was killing innocent Jews to please Adolf Hitler. In Singapore you did dirty work to please Lee Kuan Yew's son.

It is to some extent like that if you wished to succeed in Singapore. You have to publicly declare that the dictatorial government of the island is actually a good thing, abusing the rule of law is a good thing, denying the right to free speech and expression is a good thing and jailing those who criticize the regime is a good thing. It would take a pretty rascal to live a life like that but that is exactly how Lee Kuan Yew's son and those who profit from his patronage live very successful lives.

But thankfully, the vast majority of human beings anywhere including Singaporeans are not like that. In fact most people in the world are pretty decent people. They would rather leave the island rather than to put up with this nonsense. Which is why the island is suffering from the largest brain drain in the world, leaving only those helpless without any means to leave, the ignorant or the collaborators to remain.

As time goes on, as more and more educated Singaporeans who are disgusted with living in a totalitarian system leave the island, the numbers who are willing to live their lives as slaves will increase. And we can expect in the future that the numbers supporting the regime will become even larger and we might even see what was the case in Nazi Germany where 100% of Germans supported Adolf Huitler or 100% of Singaporeans supporting Lee Kuan Yew's son's People Action Party.

But I don't think this sort of mindless conformism would get Singapore any greatness. It will drive it into the gutter.

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