Ladies and Gentlemen,
What Singapore has going for it is it's island wide Stalinist style control over the media. Singapore government like Stalinist Russia controls the entire media, every single newspaper, TV station every magazine or article either written or broadcast. As a result they control the thought process in the island. George Orwell in 1984 stated what is happening in the island, who controls the thought process, controls the future. Alas this is the tiny Singapore island today. This gives the government the ability to paint a rosy picture. Reading the Singapore newspapers, you are not going to hear any bad news; the politicians are the best, the ministers are the best, the teachers are the best, the schools are the best, everything is just fine; that is what you are told. And by this pretense, which the world believes, they manage to get business and investment, jobs and money. But unfortunately this will not last simply because it is not true.
There are a number of fundamental weaknesses for which this dictatorship has no answer.
One of them is climate change. If you read the news, which unfortunately they cannot hide, you would have known the flooding occurs in the island not occasionally as in the past but almost every other day. They have no control over the climate. The island straddles the Equator and temperatures are becoming unbearable causing sea levels to continually rise and increasingly severe thunderstorms that drop almost an entire ocean of water each time it rains. It cannot build a dyke around the island as they could in Holland and with half the tiny island underwater there would be nowhere left. If the island cannot survive, this dictatorship cannot survive too.
Another is the monumental housing fiasco. 90% of the tiny island population live in government owned apartments that are leased for 99 years with the government retaining ownership. If the earlier apartments were built in the 1950s, 60 years of the leases have run out. These houses were leased using the people's retirement savings where each apartment costs several hundred thousand dollars. Now after having paid several hundred thousands of their retirement funds, eventually when the lease runs out, the government takes it and they have nothing. They would be left with no retirement at all! And if they wanted to sell it, no one would buy, since it is a depreciating asset, and worse, a depreciating asset with a termination date! Now if the island population find themselves cheated of their entire retirement savings by this government under false promises, there would either be a revolution, or there would be bloody murder! Either way this dictatorship has to fall.
Singapore has the world's lowest fertility rate in an already tiny island population. If no one is having any children, they can only function, as they do now, by importing large numbers of ethnic Chinese from Communist China who think they can earn a few bucks more in Singapore. These people have no loyalty to the island, no understanding of Singaporean culture and society. The island will be soon transformed into a clone of any city in mainland China. I cannot predict the consequences of such an alien society changing what was once Singapore, but I reckon, there is going to be some problems. Whether this will contribute to the eventual downfall of this dictatorship, I am sure it will.
Large numbers among Singaporeans emigrate to the West democracies. This is only to be expected. An educated person with skills and self respect would not want to live in a dictatorship like this without the right to free speech, Kangaroo courts, and forced submission to this dictatorship. I did not, which is why I left. Thousands like me have left for Australia, New Zealand, America and the West. And from the safety of being outside Singapore and where the dictatorship's thugs and their Kangaroo courts have no power over me, I can write and speak about Singapore and discredit the dictatorship. Almost every other Singapore émigré to the West discredits the island too. This tends to expose what the island really is, and will undoubtedly contribute to its downfall in the end.
Singapore has managed to carry on so far by hoodwinking the rest of the world into thinking it is something it is not. It has managed to carry on under hypocrisy and false pretenses. But truly no country can go on for too long like this. Soviet Union managed to go some way by propaganda through its state controlled Pravda and Izvestia. But it finally fell.
Singapore has managed so far by repressing any criticism and locking up and bankrupting its critics. This has been an inducement to foreign multi national companies which consider the island stable and it's people submissive. But this tactic of profiting by suppressing its own citizens cannot last forever although I concede that it may survive some time yet.
Singapore is like a wooden house which is rotten in its foundation. Slowly but surely the rot will work its way up and the structure has to collapse.
Western democracies on the other hand have got it right. They understand that a happy and free individual is a productive individual and an asset to his country. The majority of Singaporeans hate their government and if given a chance, would leave the island. Such a people cannot advance the island. I now live in United States and an American citizen. I love the United States for what it stands because I am free. Because I know I have rights. Because I know there is the rule of law. Because I know I don't have to agree with the government if I do not, and because I know I cannot be punished if I oppose the government. That is why I would do the best for my country now, America. Which is why I don't wish the Singapore dictatorship well even though I was born in that island.
You all know that people around the world if given a chance would want to emigrate to America, to Australia or New Zealand. Singapore island is very low on their list. But it is difficult to emigrate to these countries because they want only the best. The only ones who end up in Singapore are the Communist mainland Chinese, the impoverished Indians and Bangladeshis for the simple reason that they are not accepted in the West. You can see therefore in the skills ranking, that these are second rate people, and the unemployed Australian or New Zealander who ends up there. They are not the cream. The cream are in the US. I am sure you appreciate what this means. If you do not have the best in workers, you are not going to compete the best either. Which obviously explains why the ones who change the world live in the West. In Singapore, all they can do is to write some propaganda in their state controlled press about their inventing the universe! Another reason why the best would not come to that island is its ridiculous reputation. Who would want to come to an island where people can be caned and whipped just for chewing gum! Even if not true, that's what they think!
The decline in the quality of the Singaporean is due to actions of this dictatorship themselves. Singapore schools can produce good students. But when teachers are ordered to stymie and stifle creativity and individual thinking, children who are able to leave the island leave because they don't want to be brainwashed. And that is the reason why I left.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
San Francisco Fremont California USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
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