Ladies and Gentlemen,
Singapore island is tiny. It has no more than about 2.5 million local citizens and another 2.5 million recently arrived immigrants, mostly Chinese nationals.
It's judges are actually Lee Kuan Yew's politicians who masquerade as judges. Their principle function is to destroy any political opposition to him or his government, which they shamelessly do. Lee Kuan Yew and his friends pay themselves the highest salaries in the world, no less than $3.7 million a year each! In fact this is outright corruption.
The newspapers are all state controlled. Not a single human right exists. There is no freedom of speech, expression or assembly. Any attempt by anyone to engage in any of this risks defamation lawsuits, bankruptcy or prison.
In a sentence, Singapore is a very unpleasant place to live compared to almost any other country in the world.
I know this. I don't live there anymore. And just like me, thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people and Singaporeans also know this. As a result almost every single person capable of leaving and working elsewhere has left the island for Australia and the west.
Owing to the almost non existent birth rate and massive emigration, Singapore has been trying to attract immigrants for some time. But this bad reputation that the island has of being no more than a fiefdom run by Lee Kuan Yew, his family and friends naturally is an impediment. Who in their right mind would want to come and live in Singapore island where they are literally living as slaves at the mercy of this government who control everything and anything in their island.
As a result the quality of immigrants and those of Singaporeans staying behind continues to decline. One obvious example is the very poor quality of journalism in the island. The extent of English language proficiency in their state controlled Straits Times is atrocious. I recall the quality of writing was much better in 1970 or before than it is now. In earlier days people had some respect for the newspaper. Today, the paper is no better than the sort you find in Somalia or North Korea, according to respected international surveys.
The same goes for every other government sector in the island. The police force has high ranking officers whose understanding of their jobs and what policing should be is simply zero. Many of them are Malays, the least successful among the 3 races in the island. It appears probable that because the police force is so discredited as being nothing more than a bunch of thugs who run around taking orders from the Lee family, the other races who have more choice over their careers simply stay away. I remember when I was arrested for writing a blog in Singapore in 2008, my arresting officer was a Malay Deputy Superintendent of Police. He did not think his job involved anything else, other than being a hit man for the government; simply doing anything he was told.
It is the same with a civil service and every other branch of the government. The quality of the people there are simply poor and getting worse. It is one thing for a large populous country to suffer a dearth of qualified and dedicated people, it is quite another for a place which has no more than a mere 2.5 million!
This is not uprising, since how does one convince anyone with any brains or any self respect to serve an organization such as this. Why would anyone who has been living for instance in Australia, where they live in a hardly fought and won democracy, move to an island where Lee Kuan Yew thinks he owns it? Or he will arrest you if you question him?
There are only a few types of people who would willingly live in a place like that. One type is the thoroughly despicable sort who have no scruples whatsoever and would like anybody's ass as long as the price is right, such as Lee Kuan Yew's Tamil minister for law Kasiviswanathan Shanmugam or K Shanmugam as he prefers to call himself; to avoid tongue twisting. For large sums of money he stays and serves his master. He is quite prepared to argue anytime that even one sole peaceful protestor is a criminal and should be arrested unless he has a permit from his master!
The other type is the recent immigrant arrivals. Many of them are Chinese nationals who come here because the money is better. So also are the Filipinos or Bangladeshis. The only consideration for them, and understandably so, is the better wages they get than in their native countries. They understand that they should stay away from interfering in the way the island is run. For them it does not matter if the dictator happens to be an Arab oil sheikh in Abu Dhabi or a Chinese gangster in Singapore. For the better wages, they mind their own business. After all Singapore island is not their country.
And then you have the locals. Many of them are what the former President of the island, Devan Nair, no relation of mine, called "department store dummies". They have no idea about their rights, they are not concerned whether their prime minister was a donkey, and they just go about their daily lives eating at hawker food centers, doing their daily jobs to work another day. Such things as their rights which an average American would be very concerned about does not even cross their minds. Such things as human rights does not register very high in their simple heads.
I honestly don't think with a bunch of people such as this, the island can get very far. There are no dedicated thinking intelligent Singaporeans left in the island. All of them who considered such things as human rights have all left. And they are being replaced by totally ignorant immigrants on the one hand, and mere foreign workers who are there temporarily for a buck on the other. Thinking intelligent and confident people would not want to live in a place like this.
Lee Kuan Yew obviously misjudged the extent that mass communication, information and technology would have on his island. This sort of stupidity on his part suppressing human rights and a repressive political system is not going to go down well with an educated independent thinking population. It may have worked in the past in lesser developed times and societies but today, it is impossible to succeed.
Even a single blog like this, writing about what is going on in the tiny island tends to hurt it very much. I have no doubt in my mind as each day passes, even more people with an opportunity to leave are going to do so, which would mean even greater reliance on temporary guest workers to fill the void. On the whole you are not going to get the best human beings from these temporary guest workers. One reason is that the island cannot pay as much and for as long as can a place such as Abu Dhabi with their oil. So what you are going to get, as time progresses, is going to go from second rate to third rate and to the fourth.
Singapore's bad name internationally as the place which canes people for chewing gum, even though this is not entirely true, will be it's nemesis.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California, USA
Tel: 510 491 4375
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
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7 comments:
Some of the 2nd generation new immigrants from China are leaving this tiny island too after serving 2 years of nation service, they can see what is waiting for them and the true colour of this hybrid regime. Many of them are coming to USA to futher study and never return, one way ticket...most of them are top students ...however the hybrid regime need stupid and coward citizen to continue their enslavery... Hope majority of the citizen wake up from the nightmare soon. Every 5 years is like Nightmare in elm street part 1,2,3,4,5, etc...
Corruption in the Lee Family
Dr Lee Suan Yew, Lee Kuan Yew's younger brother, was on the board of directors of the company. He had purchased a unit in a condominium project developed by HPL called Nassim Jade.
It was also revealed that not only had Lee Kuan Yew, his brother and his son purchased these apartments, they were offered substantial discounts to boot.
At the soft launch, Madam Kwa Geok Choo [Mrs LKY], chose an apartment to buy. She was quoted a price of $3,578,260 (or $1,583 per square foot) for the apartment. This was a seven percent discount on the list price. Buyers at soft launches are usually given only a five percent discount.
To date, many questions remain unanswered:
1. Who made the decisions to sell the apartments at such discounts to the Lee family?
2. Who authorised Pamelia Lee to sell the units to her relatives?
3. How many more relatives or friends, apart from those readily identifiable, bought the units through such connections?
4. Why did Ong Beng Seng, owner of HPL, offer the units, and presumably the discounts, to the Lee family?
5. Why was there no enquiry into Lee Suan Yew's involvement in affair?
http://sgforums.com/forums/10/topics/127699
Although, as you allege, Singapore is run by Lee Kwan Yew and his cronies, look at the facilities he has provided this tiny nation.
Just compare that with India - the amounts of money flowing into this so-called democracy is staggering. Yet, this money is not being invested in infrastructure or health but rather flowing right into the pockets of criminal ministers and their crony capitalist friends - and we don't even know how much or to whom or how.
Plus, our roads continue to be deplorable, babies die of malnutrition every day, our women are raped and burnt hourly, and our senior citizens are targeted by robbers and thieves. Our police system is in shambles - a relic made 150 years ago implementing laws made 150 years ago, our civil service is an homage to mediocrity and casteism, and our politicians? They're the crookedest, most corrupt bunch around without a single thought or care about their constituency, leave alone their country.
BUT, we have these so-called "human rights". We have the right to freedom of speech and expression and we have the right to freedom of assembly and the freedom to practice any religion and the funniest right, the "right to equality"
Can I tell you something? I don't care if I can speak my mind if, as a woman, I can't wear jeans and walk NEAR my house at 8 PM at night. I don't care if I can assemble peaceably, if the entire police force thinks it's okay to harass women like me physically and verbally for visiting pubs, and speaking English.
And this right to equality? It means that I have to give up my seat, my shot at success to someone who has had exactly the same education as me BUT has a caste certificate declaring them to be "Scheduled Caste". It doesn't mean that an impoverished farmer has the right to access the same credit that I do when I want to buy a house I can scarcely afford but all he wants is money to buy seeds so that he can live. I have banks chasing after me whereas for him, the chase him out.
I am a lawyer as well, having studied at India's premier law school, and what I've realised is that these "human rights" or "fundamental rights" as they are called in India are an eyewash. Something to keep the intelligentsia preoccupied while the rich do what they do best, get richer. This is true in ANY jurisdiction, including the US. As lawyers, as workers, as engineers who work for others, we help these rich get richer. In India, it is so hard to start and continue a business - the barriers to entry are so high. Singapore demolishes this - supports small businesses and especially, technology-related start-ups. "Intelligent" Singaporeans may leave in search of "human rights" but trust me, Singapore is attracting high quality immigrants, especially out of India, and will continue to do so for the next twenty years. Indians who realise that these rights that we hear so much of mean nothing when you're hungry and scared and frustrated all the time. That it's okay to sacrifice a few rights, to live in safety.
So Singaporeans don't have "human rights", so they can't say what they want when they want - but their women and children are safe at night, their entrepreneurship is encouraged, they have avenues of entertainment for their children, they have good roads and well-managed traffic - all this without a single police man in sight.
What Lee Kwan Yew has done has figured out how to make unruly races like the Chinese, Malays and Indians, behave like civilised people. Something these races have yet to do in their own countries. Just for that, I think the founding fathers of SIngapore deserve their millions.
To Maybe Mars,
You obviously know very little about Singapore in your praise for the island under the Lee dictatorship. Singapore already was an international city way back from the 1950s with international trade and commerce. India was a thousand times larger and not in that position of advantage.
Second you had a dictatorship where people are forced to run around like sheep. You can't do that in a large democracy like India.
As Rudyard Kipling said, India is an elephant. It may not catch up with the train but it eventually will.
And for your information, despite the "facilities" that the dictator you claim has
provided, "facilities" cannot feed anyone. The average Singaporean capable of leaving is doing so. It has the highest brain drain in the world, no children are being born and the locals are dying of old age. In their place obedient souls like you especially from the remote regions of China, who are looking for "facilities" are taking their places.
Of course Singapore welcomes sheep like you but anyone with any pride would much prefer to live in India. In India, despite the lack of "facilities" that you mention, at least you speak your mind without being arrested.
If you are an ignorant soul without much appreciation of being a human being, Singapore and its "facilities" would be a paradise.
So was Nazi Germany under Hitler. It too was full of "facilities". As any self respecting human being with any grey matter upstairs will tell you and Singapore's dictator, you can take your "facilities" and shove it up, you know where.
All those "facilities" don't count for a penny is you cannot live as a human being. You are a slave.
To the Readers on comment by Maybe Mars,
This is very probably someone from Singapore government cyber brigade who sends off these anonymous comments to attempt to overcome the overwhelming bad publicity Lee's government gets on the Internet.
For instance if he is genuine there is nothing preventing him to tell us who he is.
Like Communist China, they had some years ago publicly stated their need to counteract the bad publicity they get for their totalitarian administration. They do this as this person Maybe Mars does incognito.
A few downright lies found in the comment. He is probably no lawyer at all as he claims.
For instance the Indians who end up in Singapore are the uneducated coolies or professionals who cannot get accepted in the USA which is their first choice. Not being able to emigrate to even Australia, Canada or New Zealand, they reluctantly come to Singapore which turns out invariably as Hell for them being daily discriminated by the majority Chinese who have no respect for them or their curry. I have personally known many cases of their writing to me in utter misery for ever having chosen Singapore and say they should have stayed behind in Chennai India.
And for your information, the Indian population in tiny Singapore has already gone below 7%because not only recently arrivals are returning to India, locals Indians are emigrating in droves. The only ones that would find the island acceptable are the dummies from China who don't speak any English and the sort like Maybe Mars who works in Lee Kuan Yew's desperate Cyber Brigade for a penny.
comment by Maybe Mars who claims to be Indian.
What Lee Kwan Yew has done has figured out how to make unruly races like the Chinese, Malays and Indians, behave like civilised people
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Some people think that the British did a great job in India:
They stopped the unruly Indians from killing each other.
They stopped Hindus and Muslims from killing each other.
They stopped primitive customs like Suti (sp?) when the wife kills herself on her husbands funeral pyre.
They give India a good rail systems.
They established a good system of administration.
I could go on.
Despite all of these 'good' things the Indians, like Ghandi, fought to expel the British.
Using Maybe Mars' fawning logic on LKY, the Indians should never have expelled the British. Right?
Maybe Mars is an Indian Idiot!
Maybe Mars said
Can I tell you something? I don't care if I can speak my mind if, as a woman, I can't wear jeans and walk NEAR my house at 8 PM at night.
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This is because your Indian culture represses women. And the arranged marriages that you lot embrace adds to the plight of women in India.
Just fix your primitive culture. Nothing to do with LKY or Singapore.
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