Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Singapore. The widening divide between the people and the Lee government

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Despite the claims from abroad, from people who cannot see beyond the skyscrapers that line the waterfront, that Singapore is a miracle, a paradise and a list of other sky high  praises, the fact remains that as each day passes, ever more locals are simply saying they don't want any part of it.

These are the painful facts. Despite the desperate pleas of the government, the people are refusing to have babies, a serious problem when you consider that the island has no more than perhaps 2 million local born citizens, whose numbers alarmingly continue to fall.

Singapore has one of the highest rates of brain drain to the West.

In the past senior government ministers including Lee Kuan Yew and his son had travelled to the capitals of the western world where so many talented Singaporeans have fled to, desperately begging them to return.

Anyone can see the serious damage being done to tiny Singapore if their skilled and educated leave in such great numbers; in fact even a small number leaving given their already tiny number is bad enough.

Not surprisingly, no one wanted to return. As we speak the deluge of emigration especially to Australia continues unchecked, which further reduces the already negligible numbers remaining.

Those native Singaporeans remaining in the island are in fact themselves dying of old age, with a great proportion consisting of persons aged 60 or more, the product of the baby boom of the 50s and 60s. 

Having already embarked on their misguided policy of expanding the economy at breakneck speed by bringing in foreigners to do the work as the local workforce pool is too small, now with the added problem of having the lowest fertility rate in the world coupled with unprecedented levels of emigration to the West, they are left with no choice but to continue to bringing in increasing numbers of foreigners into the workforce.

In this manner, like a complete blood transfusion, local Singaporeans are being completely displaced while the island is beginning to have a majority of foreigners claiming to be Singaporeans all of whom know nothing of the culture, ethos, identity or heritage of what being Singaporean means. As time progresses it will be 90% foreign and 10% local.

It is like changing England entirely by bringing in so many Italians that it is no longer England but Italy. 

The reasons why local Singaporeans are so disenchanted by their rulers must be very clear to anyone. How do you respect a government which pays it's Ministers $3.7 million a year and if you include bonuses, each would receive about $5 million at least. If this is not corruption , what is corruption?

You have bald and blatant nepotism. Almost every single person in top government positions are either Lee Kuan Yew's son or his relative. His son by the way is the Prime Minister. How do you respect a government comprised entirely of a dictator's family?

And then you have a state controlled press and media. The information you receive is carefully censored and selected leaving you not knowing at any one time whether you are actually told the truth and how much of it is left out.

And then you have a judiciary which would have put to shame the Court in Alice in Wonderland. Their Kangaroo judges are so adept at judicial somersaults whenever they have to deal with a political opponent which is when you begin to wonder whether night is in fact day or whether 2 and 2 actually make 25!

And lastly if you were to complain about any of this, you would be charged with a defamation lawsuit, contempt of court charges and if necessary sent to jail and bankrupted. Your guilty verdict is guaranteed.

I suppose now it will appear very clear why no one in his right mind, if he can help it, wants to bring up a family, get married and have children in Lee Kuan Yew's island paradise.

In my own case I have been having the butt end of the stick in the island since the 1980s as a lawyer and opposition politician.

Realizing that I wasn't going to be the good boy they expected of me by prostrating before the mighty Lee Kuan Yew, when I showed contrarian tendencies, they started by repeatedly bringing fake legal disciplinary charges to have me disbarred.

Then when I questioned the Attorney General on his stand over the late opposition politician  JB Jeyaretnam, they suspended me from practicing law for 2 years and when I spoke at an election rally in 1991, had me charged for contempt of court and made me pay a hefty fine.

More recently in 2008, when I criticized the judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean for showing bias against opposition  leader Chee Soon Juan while physically within Singapore, I was arrested and jailed for 3 months.

Later when I wrote a similar blog against another equally obnoxious political judge Judith Prakash from the US, for sending three men to jail just for wearing T shirts with a picture of a Kangaroo in judicial robes, I was disbarred from practicing law in the island.

Not that it matters to me since I am actively practicing in California and when the California state licensing body were informed of my disbarment in Singapore, rightly took no notice of it.

Since all this is deliberately very widely reported in their local press, the idea being to give the locals pangs of fear trickling down their spine of ever criticizing their rulers, it also has a clear counter productive effect.

English educated professionals would ask themselves if this is the sort of country they and their children should live in where critics are bullied into silence and if the victim refuses to co-operate, hounded for the rest of his life.

For the sake of argument, if I was living in Singapore, I would be denied every conceivable assistance that anyone else would have taken for granted. That is, until you repent and grovel at Lee Kuan Yew's feet, which many do out of necessity.

Just because I have been identified as a political opponent, every single application would be refused, whether it be for jobs or any benefit which others are entitled to.

In the end, it must be obvious that most decent people would find such a bully boy government not a place to live in which explains why despite all their efforts and pleas, the local Singaporean population is simply vanishing, thus creating a growing divide between the people and the government.

The educated thinking Singaporean is simply refusing to co-operate with their government.

Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Li Hongyi LKY's grandson and LHL's son took a government PSC scholarship to study at MIT. (Yhey changed the spelling from Lee to Li to fit in better with the PRCs.)

On completion of their studies, all PSC scholars have to come back to Singapore to serve out their bonds for 7+ years.

But, Li did not come back to Singapore, and instead has been working at Google in Boston for the past two years.
----

I was shocked to read this. I too took a scholarship from the PSC to study in the USA. While there, I was offered a job at Google on completion of my studies.

I applied to the PSC for permission to work at Google for two years before returning to Singapore to serve out my bond.

Guess what? I was denied this opportunity and had to return to S'pore on completion of my studies.

My name is not Lee or Li, and I am not related to LKY and LHL.

I guess that is why I could not take the job at Google.

F*ckers!

Anonymous said...

Perhaps Li Hongyi is there like a PAP trojan horse; to gain influence within Google, infiltrating vital US companies. After all, Blogger is owned by Google. Maybe Mr Nair should seriously consider blogging elsewhere before his posts somehow go missing.

Anonymous said...

An Island being swamped by foreign workers?

Sounds like racism to me.

The Singaporean Opposition can only move forward to the beat of Horst Wessel Lied dressed in brown suits next to bald men tattooed with swastikas if it continues to pander to racial paranoia.

Gopalan Nair said...

To Anonymous who said

" The Singaporean Opposition can only move forward to the beat of Horst Wessel Lied dressed in brown suits next to bald men tattooed with swastikas if it continues to pander to racial paranoia."

I really don't know what you mean and neither do I think the average reader here, but if it gives you a kick to write stuff that only you know, I will let you do it this time.

Steve Delfsen said...

The first anonymous who took a PSC scholarship and is now angry, what did you expect? With your brains, intellignce and grades you could easily have gone to Mhe USA yourslef with your parents help, private loans etc. Once there, with your brilliance, you could have applied for departmental fiancial assistance or gotten a campus job to fund yourself. Upon graduation, you are fre to accept the job with Google or do whatever you want.

Other avenues were open to you. Why did you choose a PSC scholarship?


Sorry if you think they are F*kers etc, that is what they are, and they do practice doubel standrads, one for the "digits" and one for themselves; but you chose their scholarship, remember that. If you put your head in teh jaws of teh dragon, you run the risk it may chomp! No point complaining, you knew or ought to have known better. Why did you take p their offer?