Updated Nov 22, 2010, "recently returned" changed to "visiting Australian permanent resident"
Ladies and Gentlemen,
In my last post of the same title, I said why I felt Parliamentary Elections in today's Lee Kuan Yew dictatorship will do the Singapore political oppostion no good. What they need is public and open resistance, non violent peaceful but defiant civil disobedience.
This is why I say it.
We see on the Internet at Lee Kuan Yew's Hong Lim Park, a sort of London's speakers corner, where Lee has grudgingly allowed public speaking, where both new and old opposition politicians are making their usual speeches about this and that, as they have done for the last 50 years.
James Gomez has begun speaking just as he did the last time in 2006 under the Worker's Party ticket and lost, talking once again about great things, how poor some Singaporeans are and how heartless and cruel Lee Kuan Yew and his friends are taking home several millions in salaries. So do the others, Jufrie Mahmood my old friend, Dr. Chee and everyone else who is expected to speak has spoken and will continue to speak. But it will only be speeches, nothing more, as has gone on for election after election for the last 50 years. The question really is whether anything is going to come of it, and in the remotest eventuality of any of them being returned, will they be able to do anything about it anyway.
Let us consider the most unlikely scenario, that James Gomez, the visiting Australian permanent resident, who has come out from the cold and won in Singapore's elections. Next day he walks into Lee Kuan Yew's Parliament and makes a completely justifiable demand that Lee Kuan Yew's salary be reduced to $60,000 a year instead of the several million he steals. And let us assume that Lee Kuan Yew just ignores him and does nothing.
In any other democracy, James Gomez would take his demand to the streets if Lee does nothing. He would agitate, organize and have his supporters protesting all over the island. That is what a true democracy is and that is what will happen in Australia, Gomez's new found home. But if Gomez cannot enforce his just demands or at least demand it until the cows come home, he is in effect completely ineffective, just as the present 2 half cooked opposition members of Parliament are.
And secondly, what is the opposition trying to achieve by making these speeches? Are they trying to convince the electorate that they should vote them in because they say good things? Have you asked yourself where they live, they live in HDB flats; government owned housing. Have you asked yourself where they work, probably in government or government liked organizations. The people live, work and play all in government organizations in circumstances where the police have free reign to arrest anyone and the courts carry out Lee's orders to the letter.
And even despite these circumstances as in Anson where Jeyaretnam (not to be confused with his son Kenneth) won, how long did he last anyway?
Let me give you some bad news, which you already know anyway. None in the SDP including the new entrant Gomez is going to win. It is not how the electorate vote that decides who wins or loses but who does Lee Kuan Yew want, and he wants noone in the SDP. That, I am proud to say, is the only opposition party that is determined to fight for freedom and democracy and Lee Kuan Yew does not want any of it. As I have said, if all else fails Lee Kuan Yew will fix the ballot papers to keep them out.
The other parties have a chance like the Workers Party and many other equally helpless minuscule ones that have sprouted out like mushrooms from the woodwork. Lee may see to it that some like the fraud opposition politicians Low and Chiam are allowed in. Lee is always looking for opposition politicians who are not a threat to his power and if you are one, your chances are good. It seems to me Kenneth Jeyaretnam stands a good chance. So far he appears to be a Chiam or Low Thia Khiang double. He has not ruffled any feathers, he has not criticized Lee for his outrageous salary and he has kept completely out of the people's human rights, all areas Lee Kuan Yew demands obedience.
A victory for Kenneth is good for Lee in more ways than one. He will have another opposition member in Parliament to boast as proof of a multi party Singapore, as just two members is hardly there; he will be able to boast of being truly fair by giving the son of his late arch enemy a chance; and as for Kenneth, it will be a lifetime job and political office, as Lee will make sure he wins each time. A win win situation you can say.
You notice Kenneth has kept at arms length from Gomez and from the Singapore Democratic Party, not suprising how badly he wants to get into Parliament.
It is not with pleasure that I write this. I wish with all my heart that Dr. Chee Soon Juan and members of his party will enter Parliament. But if contesting elections is all they are going to do, I see no better prospects.
I don't want to sound like a broken record, but with a man such as Lee Kuan Yew, the dictator of Singapore, I truly see no chance at all in ousting him unless you are willing to take him on on the streets, with the world watching. And you know, history is on my side when I say this.
Let there be no mistake, I am not suggesting a violent struggle such as the the ANC of South Africa, Sendero Luminoso or the Tupac Amaru of Peru. I am suggesting Mahatma Gandhi's non violent struggle as the only solution in dealing with tyrants like Lee Kuan Yew.
Gopalan Nair
39737 Paseo Padre Parkway, Suite A1
Fremont, CA 94538, USA
Tel: 510 657 6107
Fax: 510 657 6914
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Blog: http://singaporedissident.blogspot.com/
Your letters are welcome. We reserve the right to publish your letters. Please Email your letters to nair.gopalan@yahoo.com And if you like what I write, please tell your friends. You will be helping democracy by distributing this widely. This blog not only gives information, it dispels government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Singapore opposition's wasted election fever
Ladies and Gentlemen,
We read of election fever today in Singapore's minuscule helpless opposition parties, speech making at Hong Lim Park, the one place Lee Kuan Yew has allowed the public to speak; increased traffic in political news, more Internet postings on how bad Lee Kuan Yew and his party are, and ad infinitum. As is always the case every 4 years or thereabouts at Singapore's election time.
And at each election time, we have seen the same enthusiasm, hurried preparations by the same opposition parties every 4 years since 1959, but they have not made any headway at all. And yet today even after 50 years the opposition has still not realized what should have been obvious to anyone with open eyes, that they simply cannot win; why, because Lee Kuan Yew is not prepared to let them win, as simple as that.
I am sure they are not completely naive or overly optimistic, but why they go through this utterly futile exercise every four years, I simply do not know. But one thing they should know is this; they simply cannot win through the ballot box.
Let me say that again, the political opposition in Singapore simply cannot beat Lee Kuan Yew and his PAP at the polls because Lee Kuan Yew does not want any real political opposition; second because he controls the courts he will destroy any real opposition through the law and third, as he controls the newspapers he will tell any lie he wants about them and finally if all else fails, he will simply stuff the ballot boxes.
Lee Kuan Yew has long ago decided that only his family and his party are capable of ruling Singapore, noone else.
At the same time, he is not happy about being called a one party state, so he conveniently permits at his pleasure 2 men, Chaim See tong and Low Thia Khaing who pretend to be opposition, but who really in truth support the PAP. This way he can hoodwink the world into thinking he is a democracy.
Since 1959, there was only one real opposition member of Parliament, none other than the late JB Jeyaretnam who Lee Kuan Yew naturally booted out of Parliament at the first opportunity. Since then there has been none.
A clear proof of election rigging is the fact that these 2 half opposition men, if I could call them that; Low and Chiam have consistently kept their seats for decades, even though their housing estates are just next door to other wards, just 10 feet away, which were all invariably won by Lee Kuan Yew's party. In a crowded island city like this, why is it that men who live 3 feet away from another consistently vote one way in one and the other way in the other!
Singapore's political opposition parties should realize once and for all, even after 50 years, that they simply will not win any election playing to the rules of Lee Kuan Yew and his government. Unless they do something else, at every election, Lee Kuan Yew will win and if he did not he will engineer a win, as simple as that. With this in mind, the opposition should not be spending time and effort contesting an election where all the reins are in Lee Kuan Yew's hands.
But it is not all gloomy. As I have always said, Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore will collapse very soon, regardless of whether any opposition member contests elections. Various factors are all working together which will cause this demise, which are, the mounting brain drain of the educated out of Singapore, the falling birth rate, Singapore's inability to attract educated English speaking workers and the huge influx of Mandarin speaking immigrants from China who are of no use to modern Singapore.
As for the opposition, instead of playing along with these unjust rules which permit only Lee Kuan Yew and his party to win, they should take to the streets in peaceful protest. They may not get many to come forward but it does not matter. Peaceful protests attract great public attention and when they arrest the activists, great political profit can be made by both local Singaporeans and foreign countries against a repressive regime. Such dramatic events, I believe would cause others to join and thereby become a mass civil disobedience movement. Even if it did not and all the activists were arrested, it would still be worth it, since a mass movement being born is almost certain.
The question in my mind should not be whether civil disobedience would create massive support, it should be whether such action is right or is it wrong. And the answer can only be that it is the right thing to do.
To look on it from the darkest side, it may well be that any political leader choosing this path may lose all support. But even if that was so, still that is better than repeating again and again something that he already knows beforehand is a waste of every one's time.
That is why when I listen and watch the spirited and burning speeches of the opposition on rostrums set up in Lee Kuan Yew's Hong Lim Park to the same handful of stragglers, I feel sorry, because I know that their spirits going to be dampened yet again, because they simply cannot win.
Only if they see what I see.
Gopalan Nair
39737 Paseo Padre Parkway, Suite A1
Fremont, CA 94538, USA
Tel: 510 657 6107
Fax: 510 657 6914
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Blog: http://singaporedissident.blogspot.com/
Your letters are welcome. We reserve the right to publish your letters. Please Email your letters to nair.gopalan@yahoo.com And if you like what I write, please tell your friends. You will be helping democracy by distributing this widely. This blog not only gives information, it dispels government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
We read of election fever today in Singapore's minuscule helpless opposition parties, speech making at Hong Lim Park, the one place Lee Kuan Yew has allowed the public to speak; increased traffic in political news, more Internet postings on how bad Lee Kuan Yew and his party are, and ad infinitum. As is always the case every 4 years or thereabouts at Singapore's election time.
And at each election time, we have seen the same enthusiasm, hurried preparations by the same opposition parties every 4 years since 1959, but they have not made any headway at all. And yet today even after 50 years the opposition has still not realized what should have been obvious to anyone with open eyes, that they simply cannot win; why, because Lee Kuan Yew is not prepared to let them win, as simple as that.
I am sure they are not completely naive or overly optimistic, but why they go through this utterly futile exercise every four years, I simply do not know. But one thing they should know is this; they simply cannot win through the ballot box.
Let me say that again, the political opposition in Singapore simply cannot beat Lee Kuan Yew and his PAP at the polls because Lee Kuan Yew does not want any real political opposition; second because he controls the courts he will destroy any real opposition through the law and third, as he controls the newspapers he will tell any lie he wants about them and finally if all else fails, he will simply stuff the ballot boxes.
Lee Kuan Yew has long ago decided that only his family and his party are capable of ruling Singapore, noone else.
At the same time, he is not happy about being called a one party state, so he conveniently permits at his pleasure 2 men, Chaim See tong and Low Thia Khaing who pretend to be opposition, but who really in truth support the PAP. This way he can hoodwink the world into thinking he is a democracy.
Since 1959, there was only one real opposition member of Parliament, none other than the late JB Jeyaretnam who Lee Kuan Yew naturally booted out of Parliament at the first opportunity. Since then there has been none.
A clear proof of election rigging is the fact that these 2 half opposition men, if I could call them that; Low and Chiam have consistently kept their seats for decades, even though their housing estates are just next door to other wards, just 10 feet away, which were all invariably won by Lee Kuan Yew's party. In a crowded island city like this, why is it that men who live 3 feet away from another consistently vote one way in one and the other way in the other!
Singapore's political opposition parties should realize once and for all, even after 50 years, that they simply will not win any election playing to the rules of Lee Kuan Yew and his government. Unless they do something else, at every election, Lee Kuan Yew will win and if he did not he will engineer a win, as simple as that. With this in mind, the opposition should not be spending time and effort contesting an election where all the reins are in Lee Kuan Yew's hands.
But it is not all gloomy. As I have always said, Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore will collapse very soon, regardless of whether any opposition member contests elections. Various factors are all working together which will cause this demise, which are, the mounting brain drain of the educated out of Singapore, the falling birth rate, Singapore's inability to attract educated English speaking workers and the huge influx of Mandarin speaking immigrants from China who are of no use to modern Singapore.
As for the opposition, instead of playing along with these unjust rules which permit only Lee Kuan Yew and his party to win, they should take to the streets in peaceful protest. They may not get many to come forward but it does not matter. Peaceful protests attract great public attention and when they arrest the activists, great political profit can be made by both local Singaporeans and foreign countries against a repressive regime. Such dramatic events, I believe would cause others to join and thereby become a mass civil disobedience movement. Even if it did not and all the activists were arrested, it would still be worth it, since a mass movement being born is almost certain.
The question in my mind should not be whether civil disobedience would create massive support, it should be whether such action is right or is it wrong. And the answer can only be that it is the right thing to do.
To look on it from the darkest side, it may well be that any political leader choosing this path may lose all support. But even if that was so, still that is better than repeating again and again something that he already knows beforehand is a waste of every one's time.
That is why when I listen and watch the spirited and burning speeches of the opposition on rostrums set up in Lee Kuan Yew's Hong Lim Park to the same handful of stragglers, I feel sorry, because I know that their spirits going to be dampened yet again, because they simply cannot win.
Only if they see what I see.
Gopalan Nair
39737 Paseo Padre Parkway, Suite A1
Fremont, CA 94538, USA
Tel: 510 657 6107
Fax: 510 657 6914
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Blog: http://singaporedissident.blogspot.com/
Your letters are welcome. We reserve the right to publish your letters. Please Email your letters to nair.gopalan@yahoo.com And if you like what I write, please tell your friends. You will be helping democracy by distributing this widely. This blog not only gives information, it dispels government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Singapore's (or Australia's) James Gomez
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Singapore one party state's state controlled newspaper Straits Times online edition of Nov 14, 2010 has the story "James Gomez joins the SDP". It tells us that at Hong Lim Park, Singapore's version of London's Speakers Corner, with one difference, that in Singapore you are watched when you speak by Big Brother; Gomez had announced his joining Dr. Chee Soon Juan's Singapore Democratic Party and that he may even contest the next general elections as their candidate.
James Gomez is a highly desirable candidate, there can be no doubt about it. He has a PhD in a social science discipline and has many years of research experience in studying Singapore politics.
But as much as I would love to see him in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore parliament, I can tell you this much.
He not only has no chance of winning, and what is more, he is a serious impediment to SDP's electoral prospects.
My friendly advice to him is both to stay out of politics and stay away from opposition political parties; because it would do him no good and neither the party.
If there is one human being that Lee Kuan Yew or his son for that matter wants to keep out of their Parliament is Dr. James Gomez, other than Dr. Chee himself of course.
James Gomez knows too much and if he is to get into Parliament, he will ask difficult questions which they have no desire or intention to answer.
They know, Gomez is the genuine product, not the "government approved" "half opposition" such as Low Thia Khiang and Chiam See Thong.
If only Gomez was like them, not only would he have been in Parliament a long time ago, they would have even invited him to their PAP as a candidate.
But not being another Low Thia Khaing, and knowing too much, Gomez has to be destroyed at any cost.
And it is very easy for them to do the dirty work, thanks to Gomez himself for giving them sufficient rope.
I can predict very correctly that Lee Kuan Yew's as certain as sunrise, smear campaign against Gomez is going to be like this.
Firstly he is a fly by night politician, literally so.
You notice that in 2006, when he had lost the election, the first thing he did was to book the first flight out to Sweden where he was permanently stationed for several years. It was indeed a night flight, "so fly by night", a slogan they are bound to repeat non stop.
They are going to say that he is a man who runs away at the first opportunity rather than one who stands and fights for his people.
In fact they are gong to say that for more than half a decade, Gomez was living and working abroad permanently, not in Singapore.
After Sweden he went to live in Japan for some years, never living in Singapore at all.
They are going to say that he maintains his Singapore passport only for show, that he is a man who has all along been living abroad, who flits in and out of Singapore like a housefly, makes a speech or 2 and gets his name reported in the press, pays for his HDB flat which he has rented out while he permanently lives elsewhere, and leaves on the next flight out.
A man who does not even want to live in Singapore among his people, preferring rather to live in Australia permenently is surely not a political representative that can be trusted by any Singaporean. So much for that.
Then we have his dishonesty alleged to have committed at the Parliamentary Elections Nomination Center in 2006.
You will recall that he said he had handed an election form to the Election Officer when in fact he was caught red handed on video tape putting that very same form into his briefcase.
A blatant lie, the Lee Kuan Yew faction is going to say.
They are going to say there surely cannot be a greater dishonesty shamelessly carried out by any politician living or dead; that he is the most dishonest person there can ever be, a man not to be trusted and never voted into Parliament.
In 2006 Lee Kuan Yew himself spent several days speaking in public and widely telecast and publicised, calling Gomez a lair, a cheat, and many other unflattering names you could think of.
In fact many believed that it was Gomez who had ruined the chances of the Workers Party GRC team in Aljunied and without him, they would have won a GRC.
One cannot deny there is justification for this argument, although any reasonable person would have given him the benefit of the doubt and dismissed his actions as a mistake.
But you are not talking about reasonable people in other countries, you are talking about Singaporeans, a fear ridden people who have consistently voted for the PAP mostly out of fear.
In such a society, Gomez with a rather blemished history for honesty or for his commitment to Singapore stands no chance at all.
Even today, it is well publicised fact that Gomez does not live in Singapore.
He lives and works in Australia where it is believed he is a permanent resident, as a Professor at Monash University in Melbourne, for the past several years.
With the imminent elections in Singapore, he has flown into Singapore recently a few times to make speeches and this last time to publicise his membership of the SDP.
I expect he makes these short overnight flights into Singapore in between his teaching assignments at Melbourne Australia.
This fact that even today, he is nothing more than a fly by night character who only comes in and out occasionally into Singapore but yet wants to represent Singaporeans in Parliament, an unsavory fact that Lee Kuan Yew's people will be drumming into the electorate.
Frankly with this kind of a record, just packing up and leaving but keeping a Singapore passport just for namesake, is not a person most would be prepared to trust.
And lastly PAP journalists would have a field day questioning him on his switching political parties.
In 2006 he stood as a Workers Party candidate, but now has gone over to the Singapore Democratic Party.
A man who cannot make up his mind what he wants. I am sure they are going to ask him why he left the Worker's Party?
Did he not know that Low Thia Khiang was nothing but a PAP stooge when he joined them or did he join them anyway despite knowing it? A very difficult question to answer indeed.
And as for Dr. Chee Soon Juan, he is making a terrible mistake if he allows Gomez to contest under his party's ticket.
In this event, Lee Kuan Yew's men would claim, quite justifiably too that SDP is a party that associates with fly by night slimy characters such as Gomez, and in the process, discrediting the SDP.
The Singapore Democratic Party stands for many in Singapore including myself in California as the one real political party willing to to face Lee Kuan Yew's PAP.
Dr. Chee has stood his ground among his Singaporeans and unlike Gomez has not opted to live permanently in Stockholm Sweden or Melbourne Australia just because he lost elections.
And everyone in the SDP has stood their ground in Singapore and never backed off when faced by a bully such as this.
Gomez is not made of that mettle.
He is seen as a man who runs at the first opportunity of trouble, a sort of quitter, who comes back in the middle of the night, periodically for a few nights at a time to contest elections and immediately thereafter disappears at night on the next flight out to his permanent residence and job in Australia.
This is a bad idea for Gomez and a bad idea for Dr. Chee's SDP.
In fact I would suggest to Gomez to do the honorable thing, be loyal and grateful to his new country Australia.
It is Monash University in Australia that has given him a job and it is Australia that has given him his new home and new opportunity. Gomez should thank them for it.
Gomez should do the honorable thing and take up Australian citizenship and continue living in Australia which has accepted him.
He can of course contribute to the betterment of Singapore from Australia but to claim to be wanting to represent Singaporeans in Parliamentary Elections, a people whom he has literally abandoned, is somewhat stretching it.
When I came to the United States, this country country accepted me, admitted me to the Bar and gave me a living.
This is where my 3 children were educated with college degrees, and which made them proud upright individuals, something which Singapore could never have given.
I appreciated that and felt the only right thing to do is to become an American citizen. That was the only honorable thing to do.
That does not mean of course that I could not fight for the betterment of Singapore, a country in which I was born. That I intend to do.
But for me to try to contest Singapore elections, even if that was possible, like what Gomez is trying to do, is simply wrong.
Talking of honor, there could not be a more honorable person than Dr. Chee. He stands his ground. He takes all the punishment thrown at him, but stand he does, without wavering.
The only difference between me in California and Gomez in Melbourne Australia is that I have given up my Singapore passport, Gomez has held on to his.
But in every other respect, Singapore is as distant to him from Australia as it is to me from California.
Gomez, take my advice, don't waste your time or that of the SDP. Furthermore your name is going to be dragged though the dirt for a mile. It is not worth it.
Remember Lee Kuan Yew controls the entire media in Singapore. Before you could bat an eyelid, you would have been the next most evil person beside Satan.
Stay in Australia and enjoy a Thee Star Beer or whatever else they drink in the West side of Melbourne. Do yourself and the SDP a favor by not contesting Singapore's elections now.
If you really want to enter Singapore politics, I suggest you do this.
Give up Australia and return to Singapore permanently.
Stop this flitting in and out of Singapore like a housefly.
For 10 years show your commitment to Singaporeans, living among them and fighting for them.
Then in the year 2021, when you are past 50 years old, contest under whatever party you want.
In that case I say you have a slim chance of succeeding.
I say slim because even then it is not certain.
Gopalan Nair
39737 Paseo Padre Parkway, Suite A1
Fremont, CA 94538, USA
Tel: 510 657 6107
Fax: 510 657 6914
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Blog: http://singaporedissident.blogspot.com/
Your letters are welcome. We reserve the right to publish your letters. Please Email your letters to nair.gopalan@yahoo.com And if you like what I write, please tell your friends. You will be helping democracy by distributing this widely. This blog not only gives information, it dispels government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
Singapore one party state's state controlled newspaper Straits Times online edition of Nov 14, 2010 has the story "James Gomez joins the SDP". It tells us that at Hong Lim Park, Singapore's version of London's Speakers Corner, with one difference, that in Singapore you are watched when you speak by Big Brother; Gomez had announced his joining Dr. Chee Soon Juan's Singapore Democratic Party and that he may even contest the next general elections as their candidate.
James Gomez is a highly desirable candidate, there can be no doubt about it. He has a PhD in a social science discipline and has many years of research experience in studying Singapore politics.
But as much as I would love to see him in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore parliament, I can tell you this much.
He not only has no chance of winning, and what is more, he is a serious impediment to SDP's electoral prospects.
My friendly advice to him is both to stay out of politics and stay away from opposition political parties; because it would do him no good and neither the party.
If there is one human being that Lee Kuan Yew or his son for that matter wants to keep out of their Parliament is Dr. James Gomez, other than Dr. Chee himself of course.
James Gomez knows too much and if he is to get into Parliament, he will ask difficult questions which they have no desire or intention to answer.
They know, Gomez is the genuine product, not the "government approved" "half opposition" such as Low Thia Khiang and Chiam See Thong.
If only Gomez was like them, not only would he have been in Parliament a long time ago, they would have even invited him to their PAP as a candidate.
But not being another Low Thia Khaing, and knowing too much, Gomez has to be destroyed at any cost.
And it is very easy for them to do the dirty work, thanks to Gomez himself for giving them sufficient rope.
I can predict very correctly that Lee Kuan Yew's as certain as sunrise, smear campaign against Gomez is going to be like this.
Firstly he is a fly by night politician, literally so.
You notice that in 2006, when he had lost the election, the first thing he did was to book the first flight out to Sweden where he was permanently stationed for several years. It was indeed a night flight, "so fly by night", a slogan they are bound to repeat non stop.
They are going to say that he is a man who runs away at the first opportunity rather than one who stands and fights for his people.
In fact they are gong to say that for more than half a decade, Gomez was living and working abroad permanently, not in Singapore.
After Sweden he went to live in Japan for some years, never living in Singapore at all.
They are going to say that he maintains his Singapore passport only for show, that he is a man who has all along been living abroad, who flits in and out of Singapore like a housefly, makes a speech or 2 and gets his name reported in the press, pays for his HDB flat which he has rented out while he permanently lives elsewhere, and leaves on the next flight out.
A man who does not even want to live in Singapore among his people, preferring rather to live in Australia permenently is surely not a political representative that can be trusted by any Singaporean. So much for that.
Then we have his dishonesty alleged to have committed at the Parliamentary Elections Nomination Center in 2006.
You will recall that he said he had handed an election form to the Election Officer when in fact he was caught red handed on video tape putting that very same form into his briefcase.
A blatant lie, the Lee Kuan Yew faction is going to say.
They are going to say there surely cannot be a greater dishonesty shamelessly carried out by any politician living or dead; that he is the most dishonest person there can ever be, a man not to be trusted and never voted into Parliament.
In 2006 Lee Kuan Yew himself spent several days speaking in public and widely telecast and publicised, calling Gomez a lair, a cheat, and many other unflattering names you could think of.
In fact many believed that it was Gomez who had ruined the chances of the Workers Party GRC team in Aljunied and without him, they would have won a GRC.
One cannot deny there is justification for this argument, although any reasonable person would have given him the benefit of the doubt and dismissed his actions as a mistake.
But you are not talking about reasonable people in other countries, you are talking about Singaporeans, a fear ridden people who have consistently voted for the PAP mostly out of fear.
In such a society, Gomez with a rather blemished history for honesty or for his commitment to Singapore stands no chance at all.
Even today, it is well publicised fact that Gomez does not live in Singapore.
He lives and works in Australia where it is believed he is a permanent resident, as a Professor at Monash University in Melbourne, for the past several years.
With the imminent elections in Singapore, he has flown into Singapore recently a few times to make speeches and this last time to publicise his membership of the SDP.
I expect he makes these short overnight flights into Singapore in between his teaching assignments at Melbourne Australia.
This fact that even today, he is nothing more than a fly by night character who only comes in and out occasionally into Singapore but yet wants to represent Singaporeans in Parliament, an unsavory fact that Lee Kuan Yew's people will be drumming into the electorate.
Frankly with this kind of a record, just packing up and leaving but keeping a Singapore passport just for namesake, is not a person most would be prepared to trust.
And lastly PAP journalists would have a field day questioning him on his switching political parties.
In 2006 he stood as a Workers Party candidate, but now has gone over to the Singapore Democratic Party.
A man who cannot make up his mind what he wants. I am sure they are going to ask him why he left the Worker's Party?
Did he not know that Low Thia Khiang was nothing but a PAP stooge when he joined them or did he join them anyway despite knowing it? A very difficult question to answer indeed.
And as for Dr. Chee Soon Juan, he is making a terrible mistake if he allows Gomez to contest under his party's ticket.
In this event, Lee Kuan Yew's men would claim, quite justifiably too that SDP is a party that associates with fly by night slimy characters such as Gomez, and in the process, discrediting the SDP.
The Singapore Democratic Party stands for many in Singapore including myself in California as the one real political party willing to to face Lee Kuan Yew's PAP.
Dr. Chee has stood his ground among his Singaporeans and unlike Gomez has not opted to live permanently in Stockholm Sweden or Melbourne Australia just because he lost elections.
And everyone in the SDP has stood their ground in Singapore and never backed off when faced by a bully such as this.
Gomez is not made of that mettle.
He is seen as a man who runs at the first opportunity of trouble, a sort of quitter, who comes back in the middle of the night, periodically for a few nights at a time to contest elections and immediately thereafter disappears at night on the next flight out to his permanent residence and job in Australia.
This is a bad idea for Gomez and a bad idea for Dr. Chee's SDP.
In fact I would suggest to Gomez to do the honorable thing, be loyal and grateful to his new country Australia.
It is Monash University in Australia that has given him a job and it is Australia that has given him his new home and new opportunity. Gomez should thank them for it.
Gomez should do the honorable thing and take up Australian citizenship and continue living in Australia which has accepted him.
He can of course contribute to the betterment of Singapore from Australia but to claim to be wanting to represent Singaporeans in Parliamentary Elections, a people whom he has literally abandoned, is somewhat stretching it.
When I came to the United States, this country country accepted me, admitted me to the Bar and gave me a living.
This is where my 3 children were educated with college degrees, and which made them proud upright individuals, something which Singapore could never have given.
I appreciated that and felt the only right thing to do is to become an American citizen. That was the only honorable thing to do.
That does not mean of course that I could not fight for the betterment of Singapore, a country in which I was born. That I intend to do.
But for me to try to contest Singapore elections, even if that was possible, like what Gomez is trying to do, is simply wrong.
Talking of honor, there could not be a more honorable person than Dr. Chee. He stands his ground. He takes all the punishment thrown at him, but stand he does, without wavering.
The only difference between me in California and Gomez in Melbourne Australia is that I have given up my Singapore passport, Gomez has held on to his.
But in every other respect, Singapore is as distant to him from Australia as it is to me from California.
Gomez, take my advice, don't waste your time or that of the SDP. Furthermore your name is going to be dragged though the dirt for a mile. It is not worth it.
Remember Lee Kuan Yew controls the entire media in Singapore. Before you could bat an eyelid, you would have been the next most evil person beside Satan.
Stay in Australia and enjoy a Thee Star Beer or whatever else they drink in the West side of Melbourne. Do yourself and the SDP a favor by not contesting Singapore's elections now.
If you really want to enter Singapore politics, I suggest you do this.
Give up Australia and return to Singapore permanently.
Stop this flitting in and out of Singapore like a housefly.
For 10 years show your commitment to Singaporeans, living among them and fighting for them.
Then in the year 2021, when you are past 50 years old, contest under whatever party you want.
In that case I say you have a slim chance of succeeding.
I say slim because even then it is not certain.
Gopalan Nair
39737 Paseo Padre Parkway, Suite A1
Fremont, CA 94538, USA
Tel: 510 657 6107
Fax: 510 657 6914
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Blog: http://singaporedissident.blogspot.com/
Your letters are welcome. We reserve the right to publish your letters. Please Email your letters to nair.gopalan@yahoo.com And if you like what I write, please tell your friends. You will be helping democracy by distributing this widely. This blog not only gives information, it dispels government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Singaporeans, a people without conviction
Ladies and Gentlemen,
A Singaporean today is vastly different from peoples around the world. The virtues that one expects of human beings is in fact an impediment to success in that one party island city state. What would be extolled as virtues in other societies are in fact in many cases crimes according to their way of thinking.
The late JB Jeyaretnam of Singapore was a great criminal lawyer who dedicated almost his entire life for the advancement of his people's freedom and rights. Yet according to Singapore, he was none other than a common crook, who was guilty of embezzlement and other crimes, disbarred and discredited. His name is carefully removed from every possible document, so that hopefully future generations will not even know who he was. I thought this sort of thing was only done in fictional futuristic countries such as George Orwell's 1984 but I am wrong.
The same goes for Dr. Chee Soon Juan, and many others in the history of Singapore. I too, according to the Singapore psyche is a very bad man, who had "insulted" their judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean in 2008 and "misbehaved" in public and insulted their police officers as well as other crimes. Very soon, Singapore will have me disbarred as being unworthy of practicing law in Singapore.
The people of Singapore on the other hand may have completely different opinions about what anyone of us, "criminals" but as far as Lee Kuan Yew and his administration is concerned, we are all a bunch of crooks best either put away for good or harassed their entire lives.
Then you have the "good people" of Singapore. Top of the list of of course is the 88 year old walking dead man or almost dead man, Lee Kuan Yew himself. According to their thinking, it was Lee Kuan Yew who single handedly made Singapore what it is today, an island of skyscrapers (never mind if they are all empty). It is he who built the roads, the railways everything, a modern Singaporean version of Big Brother.
But the fact that he is the biggest thief in the island is conveniently brushed aside, such as the fact that he pays himself $3.7 million a year, the same amount stolen by all his family members. And the fact that that he will sue anyone if they dared to question him about it and invariably win the law suit because he owns the judges in the island.
Singapore's "good people" also include his son, and his various ministers and his members of parliament who have nothing much to say except read out pre prepared speeches which are drafted by his Prime Ministers office.
The good people include his Minister of Law K Shanmugam a Tamil in a predominantly ethnic Chinese government. He picks a Tamil just as the late Saddam Hussein chooses Tariq Aziz as his Foreign Minister. Tariq Aziz, a Christian is chosen to appease the non Sunni population of Iraq just as Shanmugam is used to appease the non Chinese Singapore population. And of course he is a very good man because he extols all the doctrine of the man at the top, entirely without question. With this amount of loyalty, surely in the Singaporean sense, Shammugam is a gem of a man indeed.
Singapore's best people also include their best lawyer, Davinder Singh. His virtues are his lawyering skills where he successfully sues and bankrupts all Lee Kuan Yew's enemies, not one of his victims has ever escaped his exemplary "lawyering" skills. It is as if the Singapore courts were made for men like him, world renowned defamation lawyer Davinder Singh, never mind the fact that the whole trial is stage managed from the beginning with Lee Kuan Yew knowing he won even before stepping into the courtroom.
We also have Singapore's best citizens, the numerous men and women in Lee Kuan Yew's civil service who dutifully punish Lee Kuan Yew's political enemies and reward his supporters. According to Singapore thinking, these are highly qualified capable people whom Lee Kuan Yew wants to attract to his country and his government.
But at the end of the day, are these Lee Kuan Yew worshippers the best citizens any country needs. I think not. What Singapore needs is more Dr. Chee Soon Juans, more JB Jeyaretnams and more more Gopalan Nairs, people who have the courage to speak their mind for the good of their society. It so happens that every one of us who have been punished and vilified are men and women who want freedom for themselves and the people, who believe that freedom is the best way to go forward for any society and dictatorship and one party rule is universally a bad thing.
But for Lee Kuan Yew, freedom and democracy are bad words, not because it is bad for Singapore as he conveniently claims but because it is bad for him. With freedom, he cannot justify the total control of the press, the total control of the judiciary and the total control of the minds of Singaporeans.
Many faced with a situation where they simply cannot win, simply go along with the tide. Singapore population today comprise on the one part, totally unscrupulous people who would do anything for money, and on the other side, total ignorance which makes them totally compliant.
Lee's exemplary minister Shanmugam enacts a law which totally denies any right to protest whatsoever and extols the virtue of state censorship of newspapers. He of course does it for money, precisely several million dollars a year, which is his salary to please his master. In this shameful group are those in his administration in high places such as the civil service and the judiciary, all paid mind boggling incomes to say silly things. Clearly they are in it not for Singapore but for themselves.
Then you have the other ordinary millions of Singaporeans who have nothing to contribute because they know nothing of their rights. They include the security guard, the Chinese woman clerk who works for the multi national company on the 25th floor of one of the glass buildings along the sea front, and the taxi driver. They go about their daily lives in total disregard of these things that does not matter to them. They for their part don't care whether they have freedom of protest because they are not about to do it anyway!
And then you have the group who know and are unhappy with the whole thing. They are the ones who leave the island in droves permanently settling in democracies such as Australia.
Day by day, with the people understanding the extent of dishonesty it takes to survive in the one party state, the quality of the Singaporean continues to decline, leaving only unscrupulous mercenaries at the higher echelons of society; the ones who care leaving the island in increasing numbers and leaving behind only those at the bottom who have nothing in their heads.
While the ones who really cared are branded as criminals and are either bankrupted or driven into exile.
I can tell you this much. The quality of Singaporeans is fast declining day by day; Singapore itself is weakening into becoming a totally ineffective society because the thinkers, the very ones any society needs the most are branded criminals and hounded out of the island.
Singapore being small as it is, small island and small population needs its discerning thinking citizens the most if it ever wants to succeed. Instead it is either criminalizing them or driving them into exile. Not a good recipe for success.
Gopalan Nair
39737 Paseo Padre Parkway, Suite A1
Fremont, CA 94538, USA
Tel: 510 657 6107
Fax: 510 657 6914
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Blog: http://singaporedissident.blogspot.com/
Your letters are welcome. We reserve the right to publish your letters. Please Email your letters to nair.gopalan@yahoo.com And if you like what I write, please tell your friends. You will be helping democracy by distributing this widely. This blog not only gives information, it dispels government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
A Singaporean today is vastly different from peoples around the world. The virtues that one expects of human beings is in fact an impediment to success in that one party island city state. What would be extolled as virtues in other societies are in fact in many cases crimes according to their way of thinking.
The late JB Jeyaretnam of Singapore was a great criminal lawyer who dedicated almost his entire life for the advancement of his people's freedom and rights. Yet according to Singapore, he was none other than a common crook, who was guilty of embezzlement and other crimes, disbarred and discredited. His name is carefully removed from every possible document, so that hopefully future generations will not even know who he was. I thought this sort of thing was only done in fictional futuristic countries such as George Orwell's 1984 but I am wrong.
The same goes for Dr. Chee Soon Juan, and many others in the history of Singapore. I too, according to the Singapore psyche is a very bad man, who had "insulted" their judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean in 2008 and "misbehaved" in public and insulted their police officers as well as other crimes. Very soon, Singapore will have me disbarred as being unworthy of practicing law in Singapore.
The people of Singapore on the other hand may have completely different opinions about what anyone of us, "criminals" but as far as Lee Kuan Yew and his administration is concerned, we are all a bunch of crooks best either put away for good or harassed their entire lives.
Then you have the "good people" of Singapore. Top of the list of of course is the 88 year old walking dead man or almost dead man, Lee Kuan Yew himself. According to their thinking, it was Lee Kuan Yew who single handedly made Singapore what it is today, an island of skyscrapers (never mind if they are all empty). It is he who built the roads, the railways everything, a modern Singaporean version of Big Brother.
But the fact that he is the biggest thief in the island is conveniently brushed aside, such as the fact that he pays himself $3.7 million a year, the same amount stolen by all his family members. And the fact that that he will sue anyone if they dared to question him about it and invariably win the law suit because he owns the judges in the island.
Singapore's "good people" also include his son, and his various ministers and his members of parliament who have nothing much to say except read out pre prepared speeches which are drafted by his Prime Ministers office.
The good people include his Minister of Law K Shanmugam a Tamil in a predominantly ethnic Chinese government. He picks a Tamil just as the late Saddam Hussein chooses Tariq Aziz as his Foreign Minister. Tariq Aziz, a Christian is chosen to appease the non Sunni population of Iraq just as Shanmugam is used to appease the non Chinese Singapore population. And of course he is a very good man because he extols all the doctrine of the man at the top, entirely without question. With this amount of loyalty, surely in the Singaporean sense, Shammugam is a gem of a man indeed.
Singapore's best people also include their best lawyer, Davinder Singh. His virtues are his lawyering skills where he successfully sues and bankrupts all Lee Kuan Yew's enemies, not one of his victims has ever escaped his exemplary "lawyering" skills. It is as if the Singapore courts were made for men like him, world renowned defamation lawyer Davinder Singh, never mind the fact that the whole trial is stage managed from the beginning with Lee Kuan Yew knowing he won even before stepping into the courtroom.
We also have Singapore's best citizens, the numerous men and women in Lee Kuan Yew's civil service who dutifully punish Lee Kuan Yew's political enemies and reward his supporters. According to Singapore thinking, these are highly qualified capable people whom Lee Kuan Yew wants to attract to his country and his government.
But at the end of the day, are these Lee Kuan Yew worshippers the best citizens any country needs. I think not. What Singapore needs is more Dr. Chee Soon Juans, more JB Jeyaretnams and more more Gopalan Nairs, people who have the courage to speak their mind for the good of their society. It so happens that every one of us who have been punished and vilified are men and women who want freedom for themselves and the people, who believe that freedom is the best way to go forward for any society and dictatorship and one party rule is universally a bad thing.
But for Lee Kuan Yew, freedom and democracy are bad words, not because it is bad for Singapore as he conveniently claims but because it is bad for him. With freedom, he cannot justify the total control of the press, the total control of the judiciary and the total control of the minds of Singaporeans.
Many faced with a situation where they simply cannot win, simply go along with the tide. Singapore population today comprise on the one part, totally unscrupulous people who would do anything for money, and on the other side, total ignorance which makes them totally compliant.
Lee's exemplary minister Shanmugam enacts a law which totally denies any right to protest whatsoever and extols the virtue of state censorship of newspapers. He of course does it for money, precisely several million dollars a year, which is his salary to please his master. In this shameful group are those in his administration in high places such as the civil service and the judiciary, all paid mind boggling incomes to say silly things. Clearly they are in it not for Singapore but for themselves.
Then you have the other ordinary millions of Singaporeans who have nothing to contribute because they know nothing of their rights. They include the security guard, the Chinese woman clerk who works for the multi national company on the 25th floor of one of the glass buildings along the sea front, and the taxi driver. They go about their daily lives in total disregard of these things that does not matter to them. They for their part don't care whether they have freedom of protest because they are not about to do it anyway!
And then you have the group who know and are unhappy with the whole thing. They are the ones who leave the island in droves permanently settling in democracies such as Australia.
Day by day, with the people understanding the extent of dishonesty it takes to survive in the one party state, the quality of the Singaporean continues to decline, leaving only unscrupulous mercenaries at the higher echelons of society; the ones who care leaving the island in increasing numbers and leaving behind only those at the bottom who have nothing in their heads.
While the ones who really cared are branded as criminals and are either bankrupted or driven into exile.
I can tell you this much. The quality of Singaporeans is fast declining day by day; Singapore itself is weakening into becoming a totally ineffective society because the thinkers, the very ones any society needs the most are branded criminals and hounded out of the island.
Singapore being small as it is, small island and small population needs its discerning thinking citizens the most if it ever wants to succeed. Instead it is either criminalizing them or driving them into exile. Not a good recipe for success.
Gopalan Nair
39737 Paseo Padre Parkway, Suite A1
Fremont, CA 94538, USA
Tel: 510 657 6107
Fax: 510 657 6914
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Blog: http://singaporedissident.blogspot.com/
Your letters are welcome. We reserve the right to publish your letters. Please Email your letters to nair.gopalan@yahoo.com And if you like what I write, please tell your friends. You will be helping democracy by distributing this widely. This blog not only gives information, it dispels government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Singapore's thugs bully Alan Shadrake
PS.Nov 10, 2010, I have Emailed this blog post to the Singapore Attorney General Sundaresh Menon, to his Secretary shirleyne_chan@agc.gov.sg and to Hema Subramanian hema_subramanian@agc.gov.sg. If you feel strongly about this, give them a piece of you mind as well.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
What Alan Shadrake, the British author of Once a Jolly Hangman, convicted of contempt of court of Singapore's judiciary and now waiting to be sentenced is going through is nothing short of a thorough state sanctioned bullying more common in North Korea and Burma, not in a so called first world island city state.
All Shadrake did, let us not forget was simply to write a book which criticized the Singapore judiciary as being no more than an extension of the Singapore dictatorship to silence dissent, hang drug traffickers who do not have friends in high places and tailor their court judgments to suit their diplomatic and economic interests, not on their evidence.
What's wrong in writing that, you tell me. If Singapore didn't like what he said, then don't read his book. But if you are still not satisfied, then go ahead and write another book refuting what Shadrake wrote.
But no, that is not enough for this tin pot small time thug, Lee Kuan Yew and his bully boys in the police force and his Attorney Generals chambers. In the early hours of July 19, 2010, policemen break into his hotel room while he is sleeping like Hitler's Gestapo, ransack his room and in their well rehearsed and perfected procedure, look for his passport before anything else which they confiscate, handcuff him and take him away in their waiting police cars to Central Police Station where he is repeatedly interrogated day and night without the benefit of counsel.
2 days later they release him minus passport and tell him he has to wait another 4 long months in Singapore before his trial.
These tactics are nothing short of what gangsters do, they hold you against your will and blackmail you into submission if they can. Only thing in this case, Shadrake refused to be blackmailed.
Then they bring on a Tamil woman prosecutor in a predominantly Chinese country to prosecute him. I mention the word Tamil woman, her name is Hema Subramaniam, deliberately.
Singapore is predominantly ethnic Chinese and there are many ethnic Chinese lawyers in the Attorney Generals Chambers quite capable of prosecuting Shadrake.
I can only imagine why they have used this Tamil woman, probably because no other Chinese prosecutor wants the dirty job.
Chinese lawyers, with a much greater client base in a predominately Chinese society, are more capable of leading independent careers and are more and more refusing to stoop so low as to do the dirty work of a dictatorship to silence dissent.
I guess, not finding any other ethnic Chinese lawyer for the unwholesome job, they gave it this Tamil woman, who was ever ready and willing to bend any way demanded of her.
I would not be surprised that she is more than happy to do any amount of dirty work her masters want without which she would probably be without a job entirely in a predominantly Chinese city state.
I do not know how low she would be prepared to go, or what else she would be prepared to do for her master, but I shall leave this entirely to your imagination.
If someone has a picture of this woman, I would be grateful to see how this desperado woman looks.
What Shadrake is going through here is not a trial, it is a lynching. And the punishment he is suffering is not just from the court's decision, it is from every other direction.
First, he is being punished financially, being forced to remain in Singapore without any financial support. Remember he does not live in Singapore and went there merely as a visitor more than 4 months ago. He has no means of livelihood in Singapore at all and expecting him to pay his upkeep in a foreign country for nearly half a year is the worst punishment one can imagine.
Second the state controlled newspapers and media are having a field day on a daily basis defaming him and parading his picture in their newspapers. The intent in this action cannot be more clearer, it is to defame and discredit him while he is imprisoned within the island.
I hope Shadrake does not capitulate. I appreciate his difficult circumstances but there cannot be any greater joy for me than to see Shadrake standing defiant and this puny little dictatorship unable to overcome a brave man.
Lee Kuan Yew, look here; the World is watching. In your small island you use a Tamil woman and a Tamil Attorney General, both of whom pathetic souls who do your bidding because they are incapable of having any scruples in your predominantly Chinese country; to go after a man who wrote a book which you do not like. Either way you are not going to win this one, because the biggest losers would be you and these Tamils that you use for your dirty work.
Gopalan Nair
39737 Paseo Padre Parkway, Suite A1
Fremont, CA 94538, USA
Tel: 510 657 6107
Fax: 510 657 6914
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Blog: http://singaporedissident.blogspot.com/
Your letters are welcome. We reserve the right to publish your letters. Please Email your letters to nair.gopalan@yahoo.com And if you like what I write, please tell your friends. You will be helping democracy by distributing this widely. This blog not only gives information, it dispels government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
What Alan Shadrake, the British author of Once a Jolly Hangman, convicted of contempt of court of Singapore's judiciary and now waiting to be sentenced is going through is nothing short of a thorough state sanctioned bullying more common in North Korea and Burma, not in a so called first world island city state.
All Shadrake did, let us not forget was simply to write a book which criticized the Singapore judiciary as being no more than an extension of the Singapore dictatorship to silence dissent, hang drug traffickers who do not have friends in high places and tailor their court judgments to suit their diplomatic and economic interests, not on their evidence.
What's wrong in writing that, you tell me. If Singapore didn't like what he said, then don't read his book. But if you are still not satisfied, then go ahead and write another book refuting what Shadrake wrote.
But no, that is not enough for this tin pot small time thug, Lee Kuan Yew and his bully boys in the police force and his Attorney Generals chambers. In the early hours of July 19, 2010, policemen break into his hotel room while he is sleeping like Hitler's Gestapo, ransack his room and in their well rehearsed and perfected procedure, look for his passport before anything else which they confiscate, handcuff him and take him away in their waiting police cars to Central Police Station where he is repeatedly interrogated day and night without the benefit of counsel.
2 days later they release him minus passport and tell him he has to wait another 4 long months in Singapore before his trial.
These tactics are nothing short of what gangsters do, they hold you against your will and blackmail you into submission if they can. Only thing in this case, Shadrake refused to be blackmailed.
Then they bring on a Tamil woman prosecutor in a predominantly Chinese country to prosecute him. I mention the word Tamil woman, her name is Hema Subramaniam, deliberately.
Singapore is predominantly ethnic Chinese and there are many ethnic Chinese lawyers in the Attorney Generals Chambers quite capable of prosecuting Shadrake.
I can only imagine why they have used this Tamil woman, probably because no other Chinese prosecutor wants the dirty job.
Chinese lawyers, with a much greater client base in a predominately Chinese society, are more capable of leading independent careers and are more and more refusing to stoop so low as to do the dirty work of a dictatorship to silence dissent.
I guess, not finding any other ethnic Chinese lawyer for the unwholesome job, they gave it this Tamil woman, who was ever ready and willing to bend any way demanded of her.
I would not be surprised that she is more than happy to do any amount of dirty work her masters want without which she would probably be without a job entirely in a predominantly Chinese city state.
I do not know how low she would be prepared to go, or what else she would be prepared to do for her master, but I shall leave this entirely to your imagination.
If someone has a picture of this woman, I would be grateful to see how this desperado woman looks.
What Shadrake is going through here is not a trial, it is a lynching. And the punishment he is suffering is not just from the court's decision, it is from every other direction.
First, he is being punished financially, being forced to remain in Singapore without any financial support. Remember he does not live in Singapore and went there merely as a visitor more than 4 months ago. He has no means of livelihood in Singapore at all and expecting him to pay his upkeep in a foreign country for nearly half a year is the worst punishment one can imagine.
Second the state controlled newspapers and media are having a field day on a daily basis defaming him and parading his picture in their newspapers. The intent in this action cannot be more clearer, it is to defame and discredit him while he is imprisoned within the island.
I hope Shadrake does not capitulate. I appreciate his difficult circumstances but there cannot be any greater joy for me than to see Shadrake standing defiant and this puny little dictatorship unable to overcome a brave man.
Lee Kuan Yew, look here; the World is watching. In your small island you use a Tamil woman and a Tamil Attorney General, both of whom pathetic souls who do your bidding because they are incapable of having any scruples in your predominantly Chinese country; to go after a man who wrote a book which you do not like. Either way you are not going to win this one, because the biggest losers would be you and these Tamils that you use for your dirty work.
Gopalan Nair
39737 Paseo Padre Parkway, Suite A1
Fremont, CA 94538, USA
Tel: 510 657 6107
Fax: 510 657 6914
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Blog: http://singaporedissident.blogspot.com/
Your letters are welcome. We reserve the right to publish your letters. Please Email your letters to nair.gopalan@yahoo.com And if you like what I write, please tell your friends. You will be helping democracy by distributing this widely. This blog not only gives information, it dispels government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
Friday, November 5, 2010
Singapore. "US style not for us". Says who?
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Singapore's state controlled newspaper the Straits Times in the online edition of Nov 05, 2010, which in this case is on the point, since this story is about press freedom, reports "US style not for Singapore". It quotes a statement made by Lee Kuan Yew's recently promoted Indian sidekick K Shanmugam as the Minister for Law and Home Affairs in his speech at Columbia University, USA, yesterday.
And who the Hell are you anyway?
The nonsense or the arrogance he was spouting was this. Singapore he says is not entitled, according to him, of having a free press because Singaporeans are not like the Americans who, according to him are a larger country, rich and stable and strong enough to endure a free press, Singaporeans being not as judicious, fair and independent as the Americans.
I have this much to say to this Tamil side kick who can't find any other way to make a living than licking Lee Kuan Yew's Japanese rubber slippers. Simply Bollocks.
Look here you pathetic Tamil nothing, who was probably a son of a Tamil day laborer, who suddenly finds himself important because the Singapore dictator beckons him and gives him a job, let me tell you this. It is not for you to decide whether Singaporeans are entitled to read what they want and write what they want.
It is for them to decide, and if you thought even for a moment that you had that God given right to tell Singaporeans what they can read and not read, you have something else coming.
Look here you Tamil prick. The Singapore Constitution expressly provides in Article 14, the right to free speech and expression. That right is not just for Americans, that applies even to Hottentots in the Kalahari and even sons of Tamil coolies like yourself. Moreover, you might not have realized it because of your mediocre legal education from the mediocre University of Singapore where even peaceful protests are banned, the right to free speech and expression is an inalienable Universal Right enshrined in the United Nations.
And as for your ignorance of basic English language, which I suspect you suffer from, the word "inalienable" means something that cannot be taken away, not by you, not by your master Lee Kuan Yew and not by any other two legged living thing in this world, except God, which I am sure God will not do.
The gist of his stupidity that would make any hot blooded human being boil with anger is this. He says that because Americans are smarter than Singaporeans, they can handle fringe lunatic behaviour and by implication is suggesting that there are lunatics in Singapore (a group in which I assume he does not include himself) who will cause disruption in society, and therefore Singapore will rupture along racial and religious lines.
How does he know all this anyway? When was the last time there were racial riots in the country? And why does he think that Singapore will rupture and disintegrate?
I don't have to tell you why he spouts this drivel from his lips. It is very convenient for him surely. He can carry on licking his master's Japanese slippers for a living, his master and his sons will rule the country through the censorship of the newspapers, which is another way of saying that they are going to continue to dish out the propaganda which they have done for the last 50 years.
For those who may not understand that Singapore is no different from North Korea when it comes to the media, let me tell you. There is a government owned company in the island called Singapore Press Holdings, which by the way is owned by the Lee Kuan Yew family. This monopoly owns all the newspapers, all television stations, all radio stations and every other form of publication both visual and oral. No one is allowed to print and distribute any newspaper without a licence and as you expected, if you criticise the government your licence will be withdrawn. Not just that, the ownership of even a printing press requires a license, if not you go to jail
Just as in Communist China of today and the former Soviet Union, all news is carefully crafted to make the government look good and the critics look bad. Usually there is nothing about critics reported in the Singapore papers anyway, unless it is intended to make them look badly and poorly.
An example was my arrest in Singapore in 2008. For days on end I was reported in the newspapers as having criticized one of Lee Kuan Yew's judges, that I misbehaved in public, that I am more evil than even Adolf Hitler or anything else they wanted to say.
You have by now heard of the unstoppable and mounting brain drain of the educated and skilled from Singapore to Western countries for permanent settlement. Can anyone be surprised by it in these circumstances. What the government is trying to tell you is this, they have a right to selectively report what they want you to hear and conceal what they don't; distort the news so as to make them look good and their critics bad, and live a life where at any point of time you are unaware that any news you hear may or may not be true, take it or leave it.
I certainly would refuse to live a life like that under this Tamil sidekick of Lee Kuan Yew. Oh no, simply no. But the problem for Singaporeans is this. There is no way you can protest this injustice and the brainwashing of your mind. Firstly there is no political opposition since it is a one party state. Second, you are not entitled to even peacefully protest this violation of your right because you will be arrested, as even peaceful protests are illegal.
So an educated man in these circumstances has no choice at all. Either he has to take this lying down which to everyone would be totally unacceptable, or else just pack up and leave the country.
So now you know why so many educated skilled Singaporeans leave the country permanently for a like abroad. Can anyone blame them? I for one would not tolerate this nonsense at all. That is why I live in America.
As I said in my last post, if you look at it another way, truly you should in fact thank this pathetic soul for his silly speeches and actions. You see, it is he himself who is digging his own grave. I bet several more thousands of educated Singaporeans reading his determination to dish out propaganda through his state controlled press would finally say enough is enough and purchase their one way tickets to the first Western country that will take them.
Which means another couple of feet into the grave for Lee Kuan Yew, literally and his government politically.
And mind you, this is the First World Country that Lee Kuan Yew was talking about! Frankly, I don't think so.
I have always tried to use moderation in my language because that is the only gentlemanly thing to do. But in this case I may have used stronger language deliberately because anything less would not have done justice against this sycophantic Tamil licker of Lee Kuan Yew's Japanese slippers.
Gopalan Nair
39737 Paseo Padre Parkway, Suite A1
Fremont, CA 94538, USA
Tel: 510 657 6107
Fax: 510 657 6914
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Blog: http://singaporedissident.blogspot.com/
Your letters are welcome. We reserve the right to publish your letters. Please Email your letters to nair.gopalan@yahoo.com And if you like what I write, please tell your friends. You will be helping democracy by distributing this widely. This blog not only gives information, it dispels government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
Singapore's state controlled newspaper the Straits Times in the online edition of Nov 05, 2010, which in this case is on the point, since this story is about press freedom, reports "US style not for Singapore". It quotes a statement made by Lee Kuan Yew's recently promoted Indian sidekick K Shanmugam as the Minister for Law and Home Affairs in his speech at Columbia University, USA, yesterday.
And who the Hell are you anyway?
The nonsense or the arrogance he was spouting was this. Singapore he says is not entitled, according to him, of having a free press because Singaporeans are not like the Americans who, according to him are a larger country, rich and stable and strong enough to endure a free press, Singaporeans being not as judicious, fair and independent as the Americans.
I have this much to say to this Tamil side kick who can't find any other way to make a living than licking Lee Kuan Yew's Japanese rubber slippers. Simply Bollocks.
Look here you pathetic Tamil nothing, who was probably a son of a Tamil day laborer, who suddenly finds himself important because the Singapore dictator beckons him and gives him a job, let me tell you this. It is not for you to decide whether Singaporeans are entitled to read what they want and write what they want.
It is for them to decide, and if you thought even for a moment that you had that God given right to tell Singaporeans what they can read and not read, you have something else coming.
Look here you Tamil prick. The Singapore Constitution expressly provides in Article 14, the right to free speech and expression. That right is not just for Americans, that applies even to Hottentots in the Kalahari and even sons of Tamil coolies like yourself. Moreover, you might not have realized it because of your mediocre legal education from the mediocre University of Singapore where even peaceful protests are banned, the right to free speech and expression is an inalienable Universal Right enshrined in the United Nations.
And as for your ignorance of basic English language, which I suspect you suffer from, the word "inalienable" means something that cannot be taken away, not by you, not by your master Lee Kuan Yew and not by any other two legged living thing in this world, except God, which I am sure God will not do.
The gist of his stupidity that would make any hot blooded human being boil with anger is this. He says that because Americans are smarter than Singaporeans, they can handle fringe lunatic behaviour and by implication is suggesting that there are lunatics in Singapore (a group in which I assume he does not include himself) who will cause disruption in society, and therefore Singapore will rupture along racial and religious lines.
How does he know all this anyway? When was the last time there were racial riots in the country? And why does he think that Singapore will rupture and disintegrate?
I don't have to tell you why he spouts this drivel from his lips. It is very convenient for him surely. He can carry on licking his master's Japanese slippers for a living, his master and his sons will rule the country through the censorship of the newspapers, which is another way of saying that they are going to continue to dish out the propaganda which they have done for the last 50 years.
For those who may not understand that Singapore is no different from North Korea when it comes to the media, let me tell you. There is a government owned company in the island called Singapore Press Holdings, which by the way is owned by the Lee Kuan Yew family. This monopoly owns all the newspapers, all television stations, all radio stations and every other form of publication both visual and oral. No one is allowed to print and distribute any newspaper without a licence and as you expected, if you criticise the government your licence will be withdrawn. Not just that, the ownership of even a printing press requires a license, if not you go to jail
Just as in Communist China of today and the former Soviet Union, all news is carefully crafted to make the government look good and the critics look bad. Usually there is nothing about critics reported in the Singapore papers anyway, unless it is intended to make them look badly and poorly.
An example was my arrest in Singapore in 2008. For days on end I was reported in the newspapers as having criticized one of Lee Kuan Yew's judges, that I misbehaved in public, that I am more evil than even Adolf Hitler or anything else they wanted to say.
You have by now heard of the unstoppable and mounting brain drain of the educated and skilled from Singapore to Western countries for permanent settlement. Can anyone be surprised by it in these circumstances. What the government is trying to tell you is this, they have a right to selectively report what they want you to hear and conceal what they don't; distort the news so as to make them look good and their critics bad, and live a life where at any point of time you are unaware that any news you hear may or may not be true, take it or leave it.
I certainly would refuse to live a life like that under this Tamil sidekick of Lee Kuan Yew. Oh no, simply no. But the problem for Singaporeans is this. There is no way you can protest this injustice and the brainwashing of your mind. Firstly there is no political opposition since it is a one party state. Second, you are not entitled to even peacefully protest this violation of your right because you will be arrested, as even peaceful protests are illegal.
So an educated man in these circumstances has no choice at all. Either he has to take this lying down which to everyone would be totally unacceptable, or else just pack up and leave the country.
So now you know why so many educated skilled Singaporeans leave the country permanently for a like abroad. Can anyone blame them? I for one would not tolerate this nonsense at all. That is why I live in America.
As I said in my last post, if you look at it another way, truly you should in fact thank this pathetic soul for his silly speeches and actions. You see, it is he himself who is digging his own grave. I bet several more thousands of educated Singaporeans reading his determination to dish out propaganda through his state controlled press would finally say enough is enough and purchase their one way tickets to the first Western country that will take them.
Which means another couple of feet into the grave for Lee Kuan Yew, literally and his government politically.
And mind you, this is the First World Country that Lee Kuan Yew was talking about! Frankly, I don't think so.
I have always tried to use moderation in my language because that is the only gentlemanly thing to do. But in this case I may have used stronger language deliberately because anything less would not have done justice against this sycophantic Tamil licker of Lee Kuan Yew's Japanese slippers.
Gopalan Nair
39737 Paseo Padre Parkway, Suite A1
Fremont, CA 94538, USA
Tel: 510 657 6107
Fax: 510 657 6914
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Blog: http://singaporedissident.blogspot.com/
Your letters are welcome. We reserve the right to publish your letters. Please Email your letters to nair.gopalan@yahoo.com And if you like what I write, please tell your friends. You will be helping democracy by distributing this widely. This blog not only gives information, it dispels government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Toppling the Singapore dictatorship by digging their own graves.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The theories of Sun Tzu the great military strategist has been proved correct in many great wars including the great Chinese Revolution, a theory which said, first you have to win hearts and minds of the people, then you surely win the war.
I am sure if he were to be asked today on how to topple this Singapore dictator and his family, he would have said exactly the same; win hearts and minds and then victory is yours.
And that is why today, anyone who knows Singapore knows this dictatorship is crumbling, by the minute and by the day, despite the daily glorious nonsense put out by it's state controlled press.
It would not be wrong to say, the average man in Singapore has no interest in his government just as they have no interest whatsoever in his opinions.
The junta, if you could call it that, comprised of the 88 year old Lee Kuan Yew and his son, the Prime Minister whom the father himself placed in power and a number of scholars and relatives both close and distant of the father, actually run the island.
These men who rule, do anything they want because there is no one to question them.
If you are stupid enough to do that, you would either be sued or arrested and that is the end of that, remember the police and their judiciary will anything the Lee Kuan Yew family desires.
They pay themselves anything they want, which today is $3.7 million dollars a year each and another unknown amount which they siphon out of the various government agencies and wealth funds.
There are many millionaires in the island all of whom have become rich through government connections and running government linked companies.
Not a single one in the island ever got rich without Lee Kuan Yew's patronage.
The ordinary man who has no government connections are there simply to work to enrich Lee Kuan Yew and his relatives and friends at the top.
He does it by being very quiet and concentrating on his work.
Any attempt to think and question government policies is inimical to his health and liberty.
There are numerous laws in place that effectively silences all forms of criticisms.
His police force, which consists today of mostly uneducated Malays, the lowest and most neglected of all the 3 races of Chinese Indian and Malay, are used to terrorize the citizens, with powers to stop and search anyone without cause, to harass and hurt the poor and the disadvantaged and to arrest anyone criticizing the government at their masters orders.
As the judiciary is effectively only a mouthpiece of the Lee Kuan Yew government, the people have no redress to the law courts and don't expect to go to court for anything except when they have been arrested by Lee Kuan Yew's police or to pay fines and penalties for failing to pay their taxes on time.
Since Singapore is a one party state, laws can change anytime without any notice.
There is no public participation for enactment of laws, and even if there is, it is no more than a theatrical exercise with government agents pretending to be members of the public all claiming unanimously that the proposed laws are the best.
Just like in any other dictatorship of which Singapore is no different, the people, unless they are the government themselves, have no say whatsoever on how their lives would be as the government decides how they would live any minute of the day.
It is simply a case of take it or leave it, and in fact many do.
I am not the only Gopalan Nair in or was in Singapore who is unhappy.
There are many like me who are fed up with this life under a dictator and they have all left the island like I have; today they live in countries like Australia and other places in the free world.
They, just like I, have said, it is necessary to not only have material wealth, it is even more important to be free.
Material wealth without a spirit of freedom is not worth all the gold in the world.
And that is why, I, just like all the rest of thinking Singaporeans have told Lee Kuan Yew and his son that he can take all his money and wealth and shove it, you know up where.
And the main forces working against this Lee Kuan Yew dictatorship are not just Dr. Chee soon Juan, the Singapore opposition politician and the many other activists, it is Lee Kuan Yew and his family and friends themselves; it is they who are digging their own graves.
In the 1980s when they went against JB Jeyaretnam and broke every law to destroy and eventually kill him, you could conservatively say that several thousands of educated thinking skilled Singaporeans left the island permanently in disgust, not wanting to live in an island without the rule of law.
Similarly in the 1980s when Lee Kuan Yew brought trumped up professional ethics charges against me just for questioning the then Attorney General of Singapore, about half the lawyer population stopped practicing law there and emigrated to Australia, which is why there are no more than 3,000 lawyers today in that island of 5 million.
Then again in the 1980s they imprisoned 22 democracy activists and some for up to 3 years falsely claiming they were Marxists.
This caused another few more thousands of the best and brightest to emigrate to the West.
Last year, Lee Kuan Yew's handpicked Tamil Minister for Law, K Shanmugam, in a predominantly ethnic Chinese government, who treat him no better than a dog, passed a law, requiring even one peaceful protester to obtain a government permit or else he would be jailed.
This law, which is not only totalitarian but also unconstitutional would have driven another couple more thousand English educated Singaporeans abroad for good.
While it is tolerable for a large country such as the former Soviet Union to lose some thousands of it's population to the West; it is quiet another for a small island which at that time had no more than 3 million to lose it's people at this rate. Simply put, it is suicide.
And then you have either the ignorance or the arrogance of Lee Kuan Yew the dictator which contributes to this unstoppable brain drain.
I get the impression that he thinks, that regardless of how the people are treated, they will continue supporting you as long as you pay them enough.
I don't think this is the normal human strait and this is where the dictator has got it all wrong.
I recall his going to Melbourne and Sydney a few years ago trying to persuade Singaporeans to return home, but was surprised no one wanted to.
He should have been told that Singaporeans who have gone to live in Australia have done so because they want to be free, not because they want a few dollars more.
If Singapore has a problem today, it is a dire shortage of skilled manpower.
You hear stories every day of passengers at the Singapore airport not being able to converse with restaurant waitresses because they don't speak a word of English, only Mandarin.
Today you hear of Singaporeans going to government offices, where you would expect English to be spoken, where counter staff are only able to manage broken English and sometimes none at all.
It is all right if you are ethnic Chinese but what about an Indian or Malay Singaporean who knows no Chinese.
I have heard of one hilarious case of a Singaporean Chinese taxi driver taking a passenger to Tan Tock Seng Hospital when he actually wanted to go to Woodlands.
It seems the passenger, an Indian Sikh had just got off at Changi Airport, took a taxi, and began a conversation with the taxi driver who hardly spoke any English.
At one point the passenger thought the driver wanted to know his name to which he replied Santok Singh.
After that the Singaporean Chinese taxi driver did not understand a word of what the passenger said.
The driver on hearing Santok Singh mistakenly thought he heard Tan Tock Seng, and thinking that was where the passenger wanted to go, and promptly took him to Tan Tock Seng Hospital!
By the way for those who do not know Singapore there is a well known hospital there called Tan Tock Seng Hospital.
Of course, Santok Singh had no idea where he was and was naturally surprised that the driver had taken him to a hospital, especially when he was not even sick!
As to whether or not Santok Singh was upset for being taken to the hospital I cannot really say but I can say this much; he must have left Singapore thinking the people do not know English!
You have heard Teo Hean Seng, the Deputy Prime Minister's sad speech in Parliament where he said in the Singapore Police Force, the resignation rate is as high as 40%, requiring ever increasing numbers of totally illiterate policemen who know nothing else but to obey orders, most Malays and illiterate Chinese; that the resignation rate in the Civil Service is high high as 20 percent and across the board there are insufficient skilled Singaporeans to do anything for that matter.
The reason for this dearth in human capital is not because there are insufficient qualified Singaporeans, it is because anyone with any skills worth mentioning has already left or is the process of leaving permanently either to Australia, Canada or New Zealand.
Singapore has in effect become a training city for the Western world, Singapore trains them, and then they leave.
Nurses, aircraft technicians, plumbers, pilots, teachers, doctors, lawyers, you name it, they are all gone.
And in order to run the place this oligarchy with Lee Kuan Yew at the top have no choice but to scrape the barrel.
First they brought in the Malaysian Chinese.
When that supply ran out they tried to import Hong Kong and Taiwan immigrants, who mind you, do not have any English.
Today their only source of migrants are those from Peoples Republic of China with the same fundamental problem, no English.
They do bring in some impoverished Indians but they are only there temporarily, getting some skills to go on to Australia.
And that is why Sun Tzu was right, his theory is spot on even for Singapore.
Lee Kuan Yew has successfully managed to alienate every single right thinking Singaporean by his permanently dictatorial form of government.
He has managed to single handedly kick out hundreds of thousands of Singaporeans who would have gladly stayed and worked for Singapore.
He has successfully managed to send chills down the spines of every citizen for criticizing him or his government by jailing them, torturing them or impoverishing them, which is why Singapore has the lowest birth rate in the world and people are not getting married.
Lee Kuan Yew does not understand for some reason that to succeed in government you need the support of the people.
Today he has completely lost it.
And that is why we have to thank him for alienating the people.
We have to thank former Lee Kuan Yew's High Court judge GP Selvam for suspending me from practicing law for 2 years just for criticizing the then Attorney General Tan Boon Teik in 1988, to Judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean for bankrupting Dr. Chee Soon Juan for criticizing Lee Kuan Yew, to TS Sinnathuray, former Lee Kuan Yew judge for unjustly punishing the late JB Jeyaretnam and the list goes on.
It is these people themselves who are digging the grave of the Lee Kuan Yew government, because their unjust actions cause a reaction which hurts them more than anything I or anyone else can do.
Next week, the recently appointed Lee Kuan Yew stooge of a judge Loh Sze On, Quentin, is going to punish the well known British author for writing a book in which he criticized the Singapore judiciary.
By doing that Loh Sze On, Quentin would be doing those who are seeking democracy in Singapore great good by showing once again the lack of freedoms and fundamental human rights in that island.
We should thank him in advance.
Either the Lee Kuan Yew administration does not realize it or they don't want to, I don't know which but this is the truth as Sun Tzu would himself have said.
You don't win support and the right to rule by terrorizing the population, you win it by being nice to them and making them a party to your government.
By treating them like slaves, and instilling fear in them, you not only drive them away, but you cause them to withdraw their co-operation, which every government needs.
As no one with any self respect would want to co-operate with a government such as this.
You can of course get the bootlickers like K Shanmugam, the Tamil Lee Kuan Yew Minister for Law but the mistake that Lee Kuan Yew makes is to think everyone can be bought like him.
Let me say this. Nobody with any self respect wants to live in a country where his opinions do not matter one bit. And that is what life in Singapore is.
Today Singapore is as quiet as a cemetery.
There is not a single worker's strike, not a single protest, not a single whimper, nothing.
It is not because they live in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World where they are drugged into a perpetual state of happiness.
No, it is because they are afraid and they remain quiet, like the cemetery.
I do not want to live in a cemetery.
Gopalan Nair
39737 Paseo Padre Parkway, Suite A1
Fremont, CA 94538, USA
Tel: 510 657 6107
Fax: 510 657 6914
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Blog: http://singaporedissident.blogspot.com/
Your letters are welcome. We reserve the right to publish your letters. Please Email your letters to nair.gopalan@yahoo.com And if you like what I write, please tell your friends. You will be helping democracy by distributing this widely. This blog not only gives information, it dispels government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
The theories of Sun Tzu the great military strategist has been proved correct in many great wars including the great Chinese Revolution, a theory which said, first you have to win hearts and minds of the people, then you surely win the war.
I am sure if he were to be asked today on how to topple this Singapore dictator and his family, he would have said exactly the same; win hearts and minds and then victory is yours.
And that is why today, anyone who knows Singapore knows this dictatorship is crumbling, by the minute and by the day, despite the daily glorious nonsense put out by it's state controlled press.
It would not be wrong to say, the average man in Singapore has no interest in his government just as they have no interest whatsoever in his opinions.
The junta, if you could call it that, comprised of the 88 year old Lee Kuan Yew and his son, the Prime Minister whom the father himself placed in power and a number of scholars and relatives both close and distant of the father, actually run the island.
These men who rule, do anything they want because there is no one to question them.
If you are stupid enough to do that, you would either be sued or arrested and that is the end of that, remember the police and their judiciary will anything the Lee Kuan Yew family desires.
They pay themselves anything they want, which today is $3.7 million dollars a year each and another unknown amount which they siphon out of the various government agencies and wealth funds.
There are many millionaires in the island all of whom have become rich through government connections and running government linked companies.
Not a single one in the island ever got rich without Lee Kuan Yew's patronage.
The ordinary man who has no government connections are there simply to work to enrich Lee Kuan Yew and his relatives and friends at the top.
He does it by being very quiet and concentrating on his work.
Any attempt to think and question government policies is inimical to his health and liberty.
There are numerous laws in place that effectively silences all forms of criticisms.
His police force, which consists today of mostly uneducated Malays, the lowest and most neglected of all the 3 races of Chinese Indian and Malay, are used to terrorize the citizens, with powers to stop and search anyone without cause, to harass and hurt the poor and the disadvantaged and to arrest anyone criticizing the government at their masters orders.
As the judiciary is effectively only a mouthpiece of the Lee Kuan Yew government, the people have no redress to the law courts and don't expect to go to court for anything except when they have been arrested by Lee Kuan Yew's police or to pay fines and penalties for failing to pay their taxes on time.
Since Singapore is a one party state, laws can change anytime without any notice.
There is no public participation for enactment of laws, and even if there is, it is no more than a theatrical exercise with government agents pretending to be members of the public all claiming unanimously that the proposed laws are the best.
Just like in any other dictatorship of which Singapore is no different, the people, unless they are the government themselves, have no say whatsoever on how their lives would be as the government decides how they would live any minute of the day.
It is simply a case of take it or leave it, and in fact many do.
I am not the only Gopalan Nair in or was in Singapore who is unhappy.
There are many like me who are fed up with this life under a dictator and they have all left the island like I have; today they live in countries like Australia and other places in the free world.
They, just like I, have said, it is necessary to not only have material wealth, it is even more important to be free.
Material wealth without a spirit of freedom is not worth all the gold in the world.
And that is why, I, just like all the rest of thinking Singaporeans have told Lee Kuan Yew and his son that he can take all his money and wealth and shove it, you know up where.
And the main forces working against this Lee Kuan Yew dictatorship are not just Dr. Chee soon Juan, the Singapore opposition politician and the many other activists, it is Lee Kuan Yew and his family and friends themselves; it is they who are digging their own graves.
In the 1980s when they went against JB Jeyaretnam and broke every law to destroy and eventually kill him, you could conservatively say that several thousands of educated thinking skilled Singaporeans left the island permanently in disgust, not wanting to live in an island without the rule of law.
Similarly in the 1980s when Lee Kuan Yew brought trumped up professional ethics charges against me just for questioning the then Attorney General of Singapore, about half the lawyer population stopped practicing law there and emigrated to Australia, which is why there are no more than 3,000 lawyers today in that island of 5 million.
Then again in the 1980s they imprisoned 22 democracy activists and some for up to 3 years falsely claiming they were Marxists.
This caused another few more thousands of the best and brightest to emigrate to the West.
Last year, Lee Kuan Yew's handpicked Tamil Minister for Law, K Shanmugam, in a predominantly ethnic Chinese government, who treat him no better than a dog, passed a law, requiring even one peaceful protester to obtain a government permit or else he would be jailed.
This law, which is not only totalitarian but also unconstitutional would have driven another couple more thousand English educated Singaporeans abroad for good.
While it is tolerable for a large country such as the former Soviet Union to lose some thousands of it's population to the West; it is quiet another for a small island which at that time had no more than 3 million to lose it's people at this rate. Simply put, it is suicide.
And then you have either the ignorance or the arrogance of Lee Kuan Yew the dictator which contributes to this unstoppable brain drain.
I get the impression that he thinks, that regardless of how the people are treated, they will continue supporting you as long as you pay them enough.
I don't think this is the normal human strait and this is where the dictator has got it all wrong.
I recall his going to Melbourne and Sydney a few years ago trying to persuade Singaporeans to return home, but was surprised no one wanted to.
He should have been told that Singaporeans who have gone to live in Australia have done so because they want to be free, not because they want a few dollars more.
If Singapore has a problem today, it is a dire shortage of skilled manpower.
You hear stories every day of passengers at the Singapore airport not being able to converse with restaurant waitresses because they don't speak a word of English, only Mandarin.
Today you hear of Singaporeans going to government offices, where you would expect English to be spoken, where counter staff are only able to manage broken English and sometimes none at all.
It is all right if you are ethnic Chinese but what about an Indian or Malay Singaporean who knows no Chinese.
I have heard of one hilarious case of a Singaporean Chinese taxi driver taking a passenger to Tan Tock Seng Hospital when he actually wanted to go to Woodlands.
It seems the passenger, an Indian Sikh had just got off at Changi Airport, took a taxi, and began a conversation with the taxi driver who hardly spoke any English.
At one point the passenger thought the driver wanted to know his name to which he replied Santok Singh.
After that the Singaporean Chinese taxi driver did not understand a word of what the passenger said.
The driver on hearing Santok Singh mistakenly thought he heard Tan Tock Seng, and thinking that was where the passenger wanted to go, and promptly took him to Tan Tock Seng Hospital!
By the way for those who do not know Singapore there is a well known hospital there called Tan Tock Seng Hospital.
Of course, Santok Singh had no idea where he was and was naturally surprised that the driver had taken him to a hospital, especially when he was not even sick!
As to whether or not Santok Singh was upset for being taken to the hospital I cannot really say but I can say this much; he must have left Singapore thinking the people do not know English!
You have heard Teo Hean Seng, the Deputy Prime Minister's sad speech in Parliament where he said in the Singapore Police Force, the resignation rate is as high as 40%, requiring ever increasing numbers of totally illiterate policemen who know nothing else but to obey orders, most Malays and illiterate Chinese; that the resignation rate in the Civil Service is high high as 20 percent and across the board there are insufficient skilled Singaporeans to do anything for that matter.
The reason for this dearth in human capital is not because there are insufficient qualified Singaporeans, it is because anyone with any skills worth mentioning has already left or is the process of leaving permanently either to Australia, Canada or New Zealand.
Singapore has in effect become a training city for the Western world, Singapore trains them, and then they leave.
Nurses, aircraft technicians, plumbers, pilots, teachers, doctors, lawyers, you name it, they are all gone.
And in order to run the place this oligarchy with Lee Kuan Yew at the top have no choice but to scrape the barrel.
First they brought in the Malaysian Chinese.
When that supply ran out they tried to import Hong Kong and Taiwan immigrants, who mind you, do not have any English.
Today their only source of migrants are those from Peoples Republic of China with the same fundamental problem, no English.
They do bring in some impoverished Indians but they are only there temporarily, getting some skills to go on to Australia.
And that is why Sun Tzu was right, his theory is spot on even for Singapore.
Lee Kuan Yew has successfully managed to alienate every single right thinking Singaporean by his permanently dictatorial form of government.
He has managed to single handedly kick out hundreds of thousands of Singaporeans who would have gladly stayed and worked for Singapore.
He has successfully managed to send chills down the spines of every citizen for criticizing him or his government by jailing them, torturing them or impoverishing them, which is why Singapore has the lowest birth rate in the world and people are not getting married.
Lee Kuan Yew does not understand for some reason that to succeed in government you need the support of the people.
Today he has completely lost it.
And that is why we have to thank him for alienating the people.
We have to thank former Lee Kuan Yew's High Court judge GP Selvam for suspending me from practicing law for 2 years just for criticizing the then Attorney General Tan Boon Teik in 1988, to Judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean for bankrupting Dr. Chee Soon Juan for criticizing Lee Kuan Yew, to TS Sinnathuray, former Lee Kuan Yew judge for unjustly punishing the late JB Jeyaretnam and the list goes on.
It is these people themselves who are digging the grave of the Lee Kuan Yew government, because their unjust actions cause a reaction which hurts them more than anything I or anyone else can do.
Next week, the recently appointed Lee Kuan Yew stooge of a judge Loh Sze On, Quentin, is going to punish the well known British author for writing a book in which he criticized the Singapore judiciary.
By doing that Loh Sze On, Quentin would be doing those who are seeking democracy in Singapore great good by showing once again the lack of freedoms and fundamental human rights in that island.
We should thank him in advance.
Either the Lee Kuan Yew administration does not realize it or they don't want to, I don't know which but this is the truth as Sun Tzu would himself have said.
You don't win support and the right to rule by terrorizing the population, you win it by being nice to them and making them a party to your government.
By treating them like slaves, and instilling fear in them, you not only drive them away, but you cause them to withdraw their co-operation, which every government needs.
As no one with any self respect would want to co-operate with a government such as this.
You can of course get the bootlickers like K Shanmugam, the Tamil Lee Kuan Yew Minister for Law but the mistake that Lee Kuan Yew makes is to think everyone can be bought like him.
Let me say this. Nobody with any self respect wants to live in a country where his opinions do not matter one bit. And that is what life in Singapore is.
Today Singapore is as quiet as a cemetery.
There is not a single worker's strike, not a single protest, not a single whimper, nothing.
It is not because they live in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World where they are drugged into a perpetual state of happiness.
No, it is because they are afraid and they remain quiet, like the cemetery.
I do not want to live in a cemetery.
Gopalan Nair
39737 Paseo Padre Parkway, Suite A1
Fremont, CA 94538, USA
Tel: 510 657 6107
Fax: 510 657 6914
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Blog: http://singaporedissident.blogspot.com/
Your letters are welcome. We reserve the right to publish your letters. Please Email your letters to nair.gopalan@yahoo.com And if you like what I write, please tell your friends. You will be helping democracy by distributing this widely. This blog not only gives information, it dispels government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
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