Singapore island gives up on floods

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Singapore's state controlled newspaper Straits Times reports in it's Sept 05, 2013 edition, "Heavy rains, flash floods reported over several parts of Singapore" Please see report http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/singapore/story/heavy-rain-causes-flashfloods-traffic-jams-several-parts-singapore-201

Several areas including Dunearn, Queenstown and Commonwealth were several feet underwater causing damage to many motor vehicles as is routine in these instances of frequent flooding. Only some months ago, it was reported that Singapore had several sea walls built to prevent these floods but it appears nothing is working. It sounds as if now they are resigned to the inevitable sea level rise in Lee Kuan Yew's tropical island with nothing further to be done, but just wait while the floods get higher and higher, more and more frequent until such time the island is no longer livable with it's sardine packed population.

I remember not too long ago when the flooding phenomenon first showed it's head, Lee Kuan Yew's son, the Prime Minister and the entire government was abuzz with theories upon theories daily in their newspapers as to how they would resist Mother Nature's resolve.

One theory was to build overheard storage tanks to hold the water, another was to build underground tanks, yet another was to plant spaces on rooftops to soak up the water, another was to build a huge underground tank in Dempsey Road and so went the fantasy for days and days without end. It appears none worked and the flooding has only become more frequent and more intense.

As of late there is no more fantastic solutions being published in their propaganda newspapers on solutions to the flooding. Lee Kuan Yew's sons' government it appears has finally given up. Apart from just reporting on the floods they have ran out of ideas.

And you notice it is like that with everything else in that island. At one point the state controlled dailies reported on attempts to solve a shrinking population and the low birth rate. All sorts of solutions were reported such as increasing the number of ethnic Chinese dating agencies (the government only wants to increase the Chinese birth rate, not Malay or Indian), announcing increased perks and allowances for mothers who gave birth and even showing pornography on late night TV in the hope they would procreate. When they found that despite all these efforts Chinese mothers fertility rate instead of rising, actually declined even further, that subject too was shelved. Now there is no more talk of trying to solve the island's world record low birth rate.

Once there was an attempt to make people speak better English. When instead of doing that, their English got worse, they gave that up too. Another case where they persuaded people to be more gracious. When they began slashing each other in gang fights and road rage incidents, that too was shelved. Then there was the worry over the brain drain. At one point Lee Kuan Yew, Goh Chock Tong and other senior ministers went to the capitals of the world to lure the huge numbers of overseas Singaporeans to return. When no one did, they gave that up too.

You can see that Singapore has not only given up in their attempts to solve the flooding issue, they have just about given up on everything else. This is what happens when you have a top down government giving orders and demanding obedience from a population which has altogether given up any participation with their government for fear that only praises will be heard and opposing views will not only be ignored but may even lead you into hot soup.

The end result is a total gridlock of ideas by the government with total apathy on the part of it's citizens. This is what happens in dictatorships and totalitarian countries all over the world. They try to solve the country's problems but when the people have to live in fear of their government, they don't usually want to say or do much. Without the people with them, totalitarian governments usually find it impossible to solve even mundane problems.

Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California, USA
Tel: 510 491 4375
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com