Ladies and Gentlemen,
You have read the recent reports in the Singapore press that civil servant's salaries will be raised. The report also states that many in the civil service are resigning their positions. But the report does not allude to the reasons. Here they are.
The majority of average Singapore citizens are fed up with Singapore. Singapore suffers from a strange situation where even though there is no abject poverty in Singapore, the majority if given a chance wish to emigrate. This is unusual as opposed to every other country where people leave when they are unable to feed themselves and their families. The reason can only be that they are fed up with living under a dictatorship, where they have no chance to make any decision about their lives, and where the decisions are made for them by the dictatorship. Educated individuals find this unacceptable and would prefer to live in free and democratic societies where their views count, as in Australia and New Zealand. Therefore in spite of the hardships involved in re-location and disruption to their lives, they are prepared to suffer the inconveniences and prefer to leave Singapore. The resignations from the civil service which the newspaper mentions is due to civil servants resigning to emigrate to Australia and New Zealand.
Honest and decent citizens of any country would be abhorrent when the state abuses the law to stifle dissent. This is what is happening in Singapore with the repeated politically motivated prosecutions of Dr. Chee and others. Any decent upright individual would feel a sense of guilt themselves where in their name, the dictators of the country abuse the law unjustly. Decent people therefore, in such circumstances would prefer to leave the country and go to settle in countries where there is rule of law and fundamental rights. They would prefer to live in free and democratic countries such as Australia and New Zealand which welcomes good people. This is the reason why there is such heavy attrition from the civil service, because the civil servants and their families prefer to live in respectable countries where there is rule of law and democracy, rather than in Singapore which is ruled not by law, but by Lee's dictate.
The quality of those who are prepared to work in the Singapore civil service is poor. This is because, the civil servants themselves, just like myself are fully aware that Singapore is ruled by Lee's dictates and it is not a democracy. Therefore those civil servants who are prepared to remain in the service are not the best because they lack the integrity and self respect of those other civil servants who resigned, since only those who lack self respect and honesty would be prepared to assist a regime which survives by bending and breaking the law for their self preservation. Therefore those remaining in the Singapore civil service cannot be truly dedicated persons serving the interests of Singapore. They are mediocre men and women, lacking in integrity, who are prepared to work as long as the pay is right and regardless of how offensive their work might be. In this regard, I am thinking of High Court Judges such as Belinda Ang who abuse the law by granting summary judgement in favor of Lee Kuan Yew against his political opponents.
The growth of the alternative media in the Internet, such as blogs like mine and others is another reason why the Singapore civil servants are resigning in droves. These civil servants, like everyone else are being continuously made aware of how shameful this present administration is, how much they abuse the law, deny fundamental rights of the individual everyday of their lives. Therefore, although there may be the few hard core unconscionable men or women who will do anything for money, many others become affected by what they read and realise that further co-operation with this regime of Lee Kuan Yew is immoral and unjust. Their conscience therefore makes them to stop further co-operation with this regime. This is the reason for the resignations from the civil service.
The government's plan to pay the civil servants more and more money is a sign of desperation on the part of the Lee regime. The government finds that they are unable to attract honest capable individuals to the service because the service has been discredited. Good people will not lend their support to this corrupt regime, a regime which abuses the law to silence their opponents. The administration therefore finds that the only way they can entice people to stay is by paying them more and more, in the hope that money, sufficient amount of it, will somehow make them stay behind. Money will be able to entice the opportunists and mercenaries to stay. The real professional cannot be bought with money. This is why despite the already very high salaries that are being paid at present, the civil servants still leave the service in droves.
Australia, New Zealand, USA and Canada attract the best qualified immigrants. This is because these countries have shown that they are based on the rule of law. Not on the whims of any dictator. In these countries, people are able to fulfil their potential on their own ability. They do not have to look away as if nothing happens, as they have to do in Singapore, when opposition politicians are daily persecuted merely because they oppose Lee's policies. Although there are those who apply to immigrate to Singapore, these are those who find themselves unable to emigrate to the Western countries because of lack of ability. They may also be applying to Singapore because they are ignorant of the political situation in Singapore. Or they may be persons who have no regard for decency or fairness and justice because all that matters to them is money. If Singapore hopes to employ these to replace the ever increasing numbers that wish to leave the civil service, they are not going to have the very best of civil servants. These too may work for a while and leave when they find another place more lucrative.
Singaporeans who are born in the country just as and Englishman German or anyone else who are born in theirs naturally feel a duty for their country of birth. But in Singapore, the majority of these very Singaporeans born and educated in Singapore are the ones who wish to leave the country and settle elsewhere.
And thanks to the Internet, and to blogs such as mine, they are reminded of the unjustifiable and dishonorable position they find themselves in, by continuing to serve the dictator. This is the reason why they leave. And the Singapore government which abuses the law to stifle dissent will find itself having to pay more and more money in a desperate attempt to try to retain their workers.
Gopalan Nair
39737 Paseo Padre Parkway, Suite A1
Fremont, CA 94538, USA
Tel: 510 657 6107
Fax: 510 657 6914
EMail: gopalnair@us-immigrationlaw.com
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8 comments:
Dear Mr. Nair
I have always enjoyed your writing as they provide a different, if extreme, perspective. However, I take issue with your sweeping statements questioning the quality of those who are prepared to work in the Singapore civil service. There are many reasons why people choose to work in the civil service (genuine belief they can serve their fellow citizens, prefer the work life balance, serving a bond, yada yada) and you have done them a great injustice by casting aspersions on their competency, integrity, self respect and honesty. If you seriously want to inspire change with your blog, I would suggest you give people the respect they deserve. You are against the PAP, not your fellow hardworking, non-partisan Singaporeans who happen to be in the civil service for one reason or another.
Dear Mr. Alvin,
You are of course entitled to your belief that my writing is extreme. Others may disagree.
I stand by what I had said, namely, that the quality of civil servants in Singapore, has by reason of the very circumstances and facts prevailing has to be poor.
Let me give you a few examples. The Singapore Officail Assignees Office, a branch of the Civil Service, bankrupts persons who are sued by Lee Kuan Yew on clearly unjust charges. Are you saying that the Official Assignee is an upright human being in carrying out that dirty work? Is he not instead contemptible.
Second, take the Judges of the High Court. Are they not public servants required by law to exercise the law impartially. Is the judgement agaisnt Dr. Chee of $500,000.00 merely for asking Goh Chock Tong on the whereabouts of the missing millions purportedly given to Dr. Suharto an impartial act? Is the judge in this case a shameless gutless stooge of the Lee family or is he a respectable human?
Can you tell me of one single civil servant in one single department of the civil service who is not beholden to Lee Kuan Yew and his family?
And are these men and women who carry out the daily orders of Lee and Co to ensure they remain in power, men with integrity or men without it?
I stand by what I had said and I have no doubt about it
Gopalan Nair
Dear Mr. Nair
I accept where you are coming from. From your previous posts, I know you have had very bad experiences dealing with the PAP government. I respect your points of view and I certainly do admire your resolve to continue fighting for your cause and belief even when you are thousand of miles away.
But I still do not agree with your sweeping statement on all civil servants, many of whom are just doing a job to feed their families. Can you say that the civil servant who is serving his fellow Singaporeans at the CPF walk-in counter is incompetent, lacks integrity, self respect and honesty? He is but doing a job, with pride, so that he can feed his family back home. Can you say that of a social worker who spends many waking hours of her life trying to help juvenile delinquents because she genuinely believes she is helping them? I happen to have a friend just like that. Besides, I would contend that many civil servants these days are highly educated and mobile and are thus not beholden to LKY and family.
You judge the Official Assignee as contemptible carrying out the dirty work. You consider the judges as impartial, shameless gutless stooges. You are of course entitled to your opinions. I am not in a position to say whether you are right or wrong since I do not know the details of the cases at hand but what I do know is that these are civil servants at the apex of the government. Even if they are the people you think they are, I dare say that the majority of civil servants are competent, have great integrity, self respect and honesty. At least I would like to think I am one.
Best Regards
Alvin
Dear Mr. Alvin,
Thank you for your post. First, what I am doing is not because of what I had gone through with Lee's regime. Those days in Singapore was an exciting time. Adrenelin flowing. Looking back it was good. What I am doing now is because I know Singapore, for what it is, and remaining silent in these circumstances would not be right. So I speak.
Second, you are right about the regular common clerk in the civil service. Certainly it would not be right to call the ordinary clerk manning the counter at CPF incompetent or lacking in intergity. And neither would I say that of the countless other ordinary clerks, receptionists and secretaries.
Most certainly I would not call your friend who helps juvenile delinquents those things that I said. On the contrary, I can only have praise for such a person who selflessly helps others. Of course there are such good people in the Singapore Civil Service.
When I referred to these dishonest half qualified unconscionable persons, I referred to civil servants who permit themselves to be used as a political tool of the Lee government. I am referring to the Judges who abuse the law to bankrupt political opponents. I refer to civil servants in positions of authority such as the Official Assignee who know that what they do is wrong but yet do it, because it is beneficial to them.
You claim that you do not know that the Official Assignee is abusing the law to bankrupt political opponents and you have no idea about the law being twisted and used as a tool against political opponents. I am suprised at your ignorance and even more suprised that you are writing to me on these political issues when you have no idea about what is going on.
I will give you the benefit of the doubt and accept that you are indeed ignorant of the abuse of the law that goes on in Signapore to destroy opponents. Let me advice you and tell you that the law is indeed abused by judges to destoy opponents of Lee. You can take it from me.
I would also agree with you that the great majority of civil servants are not dishonest and lacking in integrity as long as they are prepared to uphold the rule of law, fairness and justice and not submit to Lee's demands for dirty work.
However regrettably it has been my experience that almost all civil servants, no mattter what their rank, are preapred to abuse their position of authority when called upon by Lee to finish off his opponents.
I am glad you wrote your letter. You should try to read more on Singapore's state of affairs.
Please continue writing to me. And thank you.
Best Regards
Gopalan Nair
Dear Mr Gopalan,
In this article, I totally agree with you on why Singaporeans are leaving the country. After studying and spending a good part of my youth overseas, I can assure you that the Singapore government operates very differently from other governments. However, I think Australia is used as a bad example here. Many Asian students who go there to study can attest that racism is very real in Australia. No, I am not talking about public lynching, or stoning. The racism there is more, docile. Usually it's the refusal of entry into pubs or clubs. Other times, they will be shouting out of their cars and asking Asians to go home. To be fair, not every Australian is like that. But if one was to compare the incidents of Asian "persecution" in Australia, vs Caucasian "harrasment" in Asia, there is no surprise on which example will have the higher statistics. What I am trying to say is this: the grass is not always greener on the other side. But the growing dissent is a major push factor for the average disgruntled Singaporean to consider migration.
I am not contesting this article. The facts are strong and true. But I just want to highlight to my fellow Singaporeans that it's not always better overseas as a second class citizen. Australia does not return the courtesy, that we give them when they come to Singapore
Yours truly,
Singapore Patriot.
My Dear Mr. Anonymous,
Can I assume that you are one of the "agents" of the PAP Administration lurking in cyberspace recently deployed to attack those critical of Singapore by concealing their identities trying to stem the growing opposition among the Internet community to Lee Kuan Yew and his dictatorship. I sense there now a feeling of desperation on the part of PAP using people such as yourself to argue the unarguable, to defend the indefensible.
You seem to be quite serious in what you wish to say. You are even very polite and are in fact agreeing with me on my article on the whole excpet for my reference to Australia.
The reader of this will recall that only a few days ago, the state controlled Straits Times reported that the Singapore government is now worried by the overwhelming numbers of people on the Internet who detest their government and their policies and have employed agents to counter these arguments of Lee's opponests. The PAP Minister in charge of this operation said that the agents deployed to carry out the dirty work will remain anonymous and they will avoid being directly confrontational to the PAP critic but will use kind and gentle words and tend to agree mostly, but also try to refute the argument. The reason for their not wanting to been seen all out against the PAP critic is because this will tend to make what they say look like propoganda. They naturally want to avoid sounding like propoganda!
From the insistence of this writer to remain Anonymous and the style of not being entirely confrontational makes me certain that this "anonymous" is one of those moles lurking in cyberspance doing the double talk for Mr. Lee Kuan Yew.
Now let me debubnk this fellow, myself, openly, not hiding behind any facade. Here it is.
In spite of what Mr. anonymous says, the fact is that overwhelming numbers of Singaporeans are in fact lining up and filling forms at the Australian High Commissiion in Napier Road desperately trying to get out of Signapore. So if the truth of the pudding lies in the eating, this is by iteself proof enough that Australia is a much more desirable country than Singapore, not only for Sigaporeans, but also for educated Indians, Chinese as well as for Turkmens, for the likes of them.
Second,not all Australians are saints and neither are all Singaporeans. If the Australian tells you "Asian go home" you should turn around and say " Go home you bloody Nazi". That is what you shoud do, and that is what I will do. Unless of course you are timid like a rabbit with delicate nerves, so much so that at the slightest provocation, you will go home and cry under your pillow. My advice to you to grow up. Be a man, if you are one and stand up to your rights.
Just becasue some Australians are idiots, should not prevent me or anyone else from going to Australia which overwhelmingly welcomes people from all over the world with equal oppurtunity under the rule of law.
The rule of law. Yes we should talk about that. Australia has the rule of law. And it is illegal under Australian law to discriminate against any Asian. This makes Australia great. So if any Asian is refused entry to a pub or other establishment, the proper thing to do is to complain to the Authorites.Australin law will protect you and that pub owner will be prosecuted. That I assure you. Australia respects the rule of law. It is a great country, not some banana republic.
Not so in Singapore. Singapore does not have the rule of law. We have read and heard many instances of minorities like the Malays who are deliberately discriminated in Singapore. To date no action has been taken by the Singapore government against those discriminting in this way, even though Singapore laws officially prohibits discrimination under the Constitution.
I hope you now realise your attempt to mislead the reader has backfired. Signaporeans are not as stupid as you think. Almost all the readers of this article may have even visited Australia. So stop trying to malign the good name of Australia.
You should tell your Singapore PAP bosses that this harebrained idea of trying to counter the arguments of PAP opponests by writing nonsense under under false pretenses is doomed to failure.
And also next time, when you write such a nice letter, please identify yourself.
Gopalan Nair
Blogger
Attorney at Law
Fremont, California, USA
hi,
some suggestions:
1. don't allow analymous posting
2. BTW, i think you could "euphemize" your post... its a little too harsh... but i think i agree with the "facts"
Well said Mr. Gopalan
I totally agree with you!
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