Singapore's problem. A lack of thinking people.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

You may have heard the sad news of the death of Kim Peek, the person behind the character in the movie "Rain Man" played by Dustin Hoffman.

Kim Peek had a brilliant memory in his knowledge of the entire telephone book, all the zip codes in the US, English history, politics, music and everything else.

Yet he was unable to tie his own shoe lace or even put his own clothes on.

A real genius in many ways but lacking in others.

He died on Saturday in Murray, Utah at the age of 58. He is sadly missed.

But his death caused me to think of people with mental disorders. Which brought me to think about Singaporeans. Are Singaporeans a people with a split personality?

And that is in fact what Lee Kuan Yew has made Singaporeans into. A society of people who have to work and think and carry out solutions to problems.

Yet they are forbidden from the basic questions in life, such as, the right to be able to question authority on decisions that have bearing on their lives.

Let us look at this schizophrenic way of life in Singapore. A teacher in a Singapore school tells the children to be honest.

Yet she refuses to teach her children to complain when Lee Kuan Yew is himself dishonest, when he pays himself $3.7 million and several more every year as salary.

The teacher knows that the state unjustly punishes Dr. Chee Soon Juan by jailing him merely because he stood on a street corner and spoke about democracy.

Yet she refuses to tell her students that the state is wrong in their action.

A parent teaches a child to be honest and stand up for truth and justice.

Yet when Lee Kuan Yew sends Dr. Chee to jail unjustly, when Singapore's Minister for Law K Shanmugam makes illegal any form of protest, when the state abuses the law to punish government critics, the same parent tells the child not to complain.

If a psychiatrist were to be given this behavioural pattern and asked to diagnose the Singaporean, very probably the diagnosis would be like that of a schizophrenic, or someone with a serious mental disability.

Someone who has to think in a certain way and have certain value judgements, but yet is prevented from acting in accordance with it.

And this is how the average Singaporeans lives. He thinks in one way but is unable or unwilling to act according to those ideas.

And this form of dual personality, one in his mind and another in his actions, is drilled into his head from childhood and throughout his life.

And it is this lack of a thinking discerning questioning population that will continue to be an obstacle to Singapore's progress.

For a city state such as this, with no natural resources whatsoever, the most important resource available is the people.

Yet Lee Kuan Yew for his own selfish self interest, has deliberately instilled so much fear into his citizens that today they are effectively people going around with a split personality.

One in their minds and the other in their actions.

These people are not ones capable of competing in the world's marketplace of ideas and challenges. Not people capable of great things.

Take Gopalan Nair for instance.

In my case, to take one instance, I found Judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean to be completely biased and a simply a representative of Lee Kuan Yew, not a judge, in the defamation trial of Dr. Chee Soon Juan.

So the logical thing to do, as any other normal person would, is to say exactly that; which is, that this judge is biased corrupt and is misusing the law.

But the strange thing is, although everyone else who were at the trial came away with exactly the same opinion as I had, no one else, not a single other Singaporean was willing to publicly say so.

Therefore the question is, am I the only one that is mentally deranged or were the other entire population of Singapore mental defects!

I was of course imprisoned for saying it and the judge who tried my case told me that what I had done was a very serious criminal offense.

I did not think so. But the question is whether the entire Singapore population actually agreed with the judge's observation? Perhaps they did!

And after a while in Singapore, you are not sure whether you are actually in Alice in Wonderland! But since Singapore appears to chugging along for the moment at least, the other 99% of the population in the island perhaps think in this unusual double personality way.

And how do you think these people with a split personalty like this are able to compete in the world's market place of ideas innovation and change, where people are able to think and act without fear? I think not.

And that is why, Singapore is doomed to fail. The reason being it's people lack what it takes.

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/

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