Ladies and Gentlemen,
Despite the official Constitution in the books, for the last 50 years since independence, the island is run literally by the Lee Kuan Yew family, I mean, the 91 year old moribund dictator and his son, assisted by handpicked Ministers Civil Servants, Policemen and Judges.
The government is not run particularly by any pre-existing rules but only ones they themselves made which concentrates on order and obedience. Singaporeans are not allowed to strike, to protest, to criticize the government or their Ministers and are required to obey all laws at all times.
Whereas other more developed democracies like the US, Canada or Europe which gives great importance to the balance of between civil liberties and the need for law and order, in Singapore civil liberties are irrelevant; only order matters.
As evidence of this, in Singapore the concept of probable cause for arrest, a foundationally important requirement is totally absent. One can be questioned walking along the street by any illiterate policeman for any reason whatsoever at his whim, and if the necessary answers are not forthcoming, arrested. This turns the island literally into a police state where all powerful policemen like thugs can roam the streets at will and arrest anyone they please who wouldn't dance to the tune.
After being arrested, his conviction in court is a bygone conclusion. Singapore courts do not have a jury and every single judge is a hand-picked Kangaroo for his total loyalty, like a Nazi judge who has to swear allegiance to Adolf Hitler.
The average Singaporean is totally without redress for anything done to him by Lee and his minions in his daily life. Of course the law courts are there but don't try bringing suit for redress; you won't succeed. What happens is this. You can bring whatever lawsuit you want against Lee Kuan Yew and his friends in government. The judge will carefully listen to your case, all the evidence and at the end of it all, he will merely say something like "You failed to prove your case". Period.
Lee Kuan Yew and his government have been abusing the legal system for so long, bringing defamation of character lawsuits resulting in million dollar awards against his opponents that today no one in the island has any confidence in the legal system. They simply know that you cannot expect to get any justice in the White Elephants Courts unless of course you happen to be connected to Lee or his family in which case the equation completely changes. They are simply above the law.
In Singapore you are completely at the mercy of the Lees. You can be denied the HDB flat of your choice with impunity, you can be denied a school of your choice for your child with impunity, you can be denied a job or fired from one with impunity, you can be deported with impunity, you can be maligned in the state controlled press with impunity. Simply put, they can do anything they want with you with impunity and there is nothing you can do, because there are no laws to protect you, no bill of rights to treat you fairly and no one in Singapore with any courage to stand up to the powers to be on your behalf.
If you are such a person as to be totally obedient and subservient to the Lee family and consider them simply your masters, you should have no problem. In fact such citizens are the very ones they are looking for. If you are prepared to simply do as you are told, do the job you are given without complaint and obey Lee's laws as and when they are amended, keep your mouth shut and go about your business, not only would you have no problem, the government would be highly appreciative. You would be a model citizen, Lee Kuan Yew style.
The government is not interested in your opinion, unless it corresponds to their own. You are particularly warned to keep views opposite to that of the Lees to yourself because if you persist, you will probably be facing a lawsuit and the consequent victimization and harassment which will inevitably follow.
But then you may ask, somebody has to do the thinking and decision making. Well for one thing, it is not you. In Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore, leadership is not a process of citizens formulating opinions and creating grassroots support for political action.
Lee Kuan Yew selects those who have shown support for him, places them at rigged elections which they always win, and the next instant, viola, they become leaders with a license to decide the laws for you. You as an ordinary citizen has no part in this equation. Your job is simply to obey what they tell you, keep your mouth shut and go about your business.
This sort of an existence would naturally be distasteful for anyone with a head on his shoulders. That is why the Singapore population can be divided into certain groups. The average layman is literally a clueless dummy and a thoroughly contended human being.
He has almost nothing in his head. He is not aware of any rights, never heard of the Constitution and believes that Lee Kuan Yew's police have the right to do anything to you and you are powerless. As far as he, the clueless Singaporean, is concerned, he believes that democracy only requires elections every 5 years and nothing more. This group is Lee Kuan Yew and Son's favorite because they will never be a threat to them. The plan is, as long as they are clueless dummies, they can rule forever.
The other group is the small minority who are aware that Lee Kuan Yew has turned the island into a police state. They find life in Singapore distasteful and most have left for settlement abroad. Lee Kuan Yew and his son detest this group and consider them "quitters" for having abandoned their island which needs them most. But how can you, on the one hand, demand absolute obedience and at the same time expect them to have any brains?
Those who leave are the best and the brightest which a small tiny island like Singapore needs for its very existence. It is a group they can ill afford to lose. In the past Lee Kuan Yew, his son and various ministers have gone to the major cities in the West to coax and cajole them to return but since no one wants to, they have literally given that up. In fact this ever growing brain drain will be the very reason for the island's demise.
The next group are the lowly paid construction workers. Singapore is not interested in them since they are merely transitory and are not allowed to settle in the island. If they do anything even the most innocuous thing to annoy the state, they are instantly deported.
Lastly you have the highly paid Caucasian bankers and other professionals. They of course are fully aware of what Singapore really is, just a police state. But they have no concern about this. They are there merely to make money and go home. It would have made no difference if they had been in the darkest depths of Africa. They are not here either to tell Africa or Singapore how to live.
The moribund 91 year old Lee Kuan Yew is about to die. We have not heard of him for some time. Whether he is dying sitting up or lying down is any body's guess. The big question is what happens after he goes.
In an island where there are no real rules but what one man decides in a rubber stamp Parliament, it becomes questionable whether after his demise, Lee Kuan Yew's son will be allowed to continue to make the rules, or whether others will obey those rules, or even if the million dollar minions who dance to his tune will continue dancing.
For any country to have a peaceful seamless transition from one government to another, or upon the death of a dictator, you need a set of rules upon which to go by. In Singapore you have none. What you have are rigged elections every five years where any real opposition is maligned and threatened with defamation lawsuits leaving only the handpicked minions to become Ministers.
With JB Jeyaretnam and Chee Soon Juan disqualified from elections even before they could even run, with repeated defamation actions before the Kangaroo judges and bankruptcy, the average Singaporean has lost all faith in elections Lee Kuan Yew style.
Lee Kuan Yew's son, who struts around the island like the prize rooster, thanks to his father, he is no different from the Russian thug, Vladimir Putin. And just look at what is happening in Putin's Russia. Except for the city of Moscow or St Petersburg, the entire Russian countryside lives even worse than any third world sub Saharan African country. Except for oil revenues, and some corrupt oligarchs, it has nothing, absolutely nothing. This is what happens when some dictator thinks he is too good to be true, and their people are no better than dummies.
These are indeed interesting times and I don't think we have long to wait. Everything will change upon the 91 year old dictators' death. But the million dollar question is how and in what direction. In an tiny island where the local Singaporeans are not more than 1 million and the vast majority are foreigners, one scenario is for the foreigners foreign businesses and capital to flee the island followed by an abrupt collapse of the entire economy.
I am holding my breath and I think you should too.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Monday, March 31, 2014
Friday, March 28, 2014
Decades of repression by one party Singapore dictatorship takes it's toll
Ladies and Gentlemen,
From Chia Thye Poh, Singapore's longest serving political prisoner in the 1960s, to Dr. Lee Swee Cho to JB Jeyaretnam to Chee Soon Juan to myself, Gopalan Nair and to a long list of others, too numerous to mention, Lee Kuan Yew and now his son, have ruled the island of Singapore with an iron hand, jailing, bankrupting and destroying anyone who came in his way to ensure their continued rule.
To achieve his aim, he hijacked every government employee, the entire police force and the compliant ever willing corrupt judiciary to achieve his ends.
Today any semblance of a real opposition or independent thinkers are totally absent. JB Jeyaretnam is dead, Chee Soon Juan of the Singapore Democratic Party is silenced, Tang Liang Hong has fled the island leaving no one in the island to question the actions of Lee Kuan Yew, now senile and gravely ill and his son.
Today, Singapore courts are nothing more than the tools for Lee and his son to silence criticism.
The Constitution is turned into a piece of scrap paper with no human rights at all.
For almost everything, you need a police permit which, by the way, they always refuse.
Permit to speak, permit to own a printing press, permit to protest, permit to assemble, all of which has never ever been granted, which is why the island has not seen a peaceful protest for decades.
Chee Soon Juan, the only one with any balls, who used to do it has been repeatedly imprisoned which is why he too has stopped completely.
Today the island has the calm of the cemetery.
But this sort of open and blatant repression and abuse of power takes it toll on the one party government. It has to.
Today except for the good news that we read on a daily basis in the state controlled press in the island, in substance, the island is going to the dogs.
The highly publicized repression of government critics such as JB Jeyaretnam and even myself is obviously repulsive to every Singaporean with any decency.
Everyone knows JB Jeyaretanm is no criminal and branding him so results in Lee Kuan Yew government and it's law courts losing all credibility.
As a result citizens, who find such abuse repulsive and abhorrent, leaving the island and doing so in greater and greater numbers for settlement in the West, leaving only those unable to do so, meaning the unskilled, remaining.
In the past, the government, including Lee Kuan Yew himself used to visit the major cities in the West such as Sydney and Melbourne pleading with the Singaporean Diaspora to return with purveying sentiments such as the need to serve their motherland.
It seems, none of that worked.
Not only did no overseas Singaporean wanted to return, the numbers leaving have spiked even more.
And the people have shown their abhorrence and revulsion to this sort of government by other ways too.
The island has the lowest fertility rate in the world today with people refusing to marry and couples having no children or on the rare occasion just one child, which not only fails to replace even the parents, it roundly reduces the number of Singaporeans in total.
In the past, alarmed with this phenomenon, which can literally cause an island with no more than 1 million locals to literally disappear, they began various government campaigns to encourage marriage and procreation, some of them comical.
In desperation they even began showing porn movies late at night in the hope that couples after watching it would go and have sex; not to mention the generous tax breaks given to coupes with children.
After they found that despite all this, after screening these porn movies at night and giving generous tax breaks, Singapore's still refused to marry or have any children, they have given up trying.
Such nonsense of porn movies and such like is no longer being mentioned in the state controlled newspapers anymore.
Lee and son have finally given up and are resigned to the fact of the languishing Singaporean.
In desperation, they have resorted to importing unprecedented numbers of foreigners into the island to replace those who are dying and leaving; otherwise there won't be anyone left.
But this wholesale importation of foreigners, whom they conveniently call "foreign talent" mainly from China brings with it it's own set of problems.
Chinese from China are a people who have ingrained in them the propensity to protest.
Protests happen everyday in China as can be seen in the protests recently outside Malaysia Embassy in Beijing over the disappearance of flight MH 370.
And those coming to Singapore bring with them this practice, something which Lee is totally afraid of.
Recently Chinese bus drivers went on strike over bad working conditions and we can expect more of that causing the government to be so terrified as to wet their pants.
One can see why the government is so terrified.
The island is jam packed like sardines with people and any civil disobedience anywhere in the tiny island would inevitably spread across the island and would probably unseat Lee Kuan Yew and his son.
Just a few months ago, another incident, unheard of in the island's history occurred.
About 400 hundred Indian works rioted setting fire to police vehicles.
Many involved were deported with about 20 still in custody awaiting trial.
If that is not bad enough, today's state controlled newspaper carries a story that some Bangladeshi workers have rioted with others over a cricket match on television.
It appears rioting and fighting has become a common occurrence in a previously regimented and subdued island, thanks to the huge numbers of "foreign talent".
As result of the total dearth of locals, the conscript army cannot find any necessary numbers of recruits leaving the armed forces of Singapore understaffed becoming a threat to national security.
Another reason for this is the people's anger against the double standard adopted by the government in national service, not to mention the natural dislike of the military by ethnic Chinese.
Singaporeans have to serve national service but foreign immigrants who become Singaporeans are exempted.
This unjust double standards, causes many young men to deliberately abscond or desert national service by going abroad and refusing to return.
Even the large numbers of recent immigrants given almost instant citizenship to make up the numbers is not solving their problem.
Most of them who accept citizenship have no interest in ever sinking roots in the island and are in reality merely opportunists and transient workers, who leave as soon as they find a better opportunity elsewhere.
There are reports to suggest that most of these recent immigrant turned citizens are actually using the island as a stepping stone to greener pastures such as Australia.
These are insurmountable problems like a malignant cancer which is spreading across the tiny island and destroying it from it's very foundations.
Periodically we read reports in the state controlled press that Singapore has won some awards such as Singapore Airport being the best in the world.
Frankly such awards mean nothing for the average Singaporean whose life is no longer controlled by him, but is completely at the mercy of Lee Kuan Yew and son.
With almost no citizen participation in government, with a system that governs from top down, with a thoroughly discredited government and a judiciary, where their leaders are the most corrupt in the world paying themselves millions while the average person can hardly make ends meet, I think the damage has been done.
JB Jeyaretnam, Chia Thye Poh and the long list of others whom Lee Kuan Yew has persecuted is now beginning to take this regime down.
With the non stop emigration to the west and the very best among Singaporeans overwhelmingly opting to leave rather than stay, I think we have done very well in putting this regime in their right place and showing to the world that behind the veneer of the state controlled press, it is nothing but a farce on it's way down fast .
Of course they would go on writing self praise and the self proclaimed grandiose achievements in their state controlled press but other than that, they are incapable of doing much more. Just as Pravda and Izvestia of the former Soviet Union, it is simply propaganda which will die a natural death.
And as for me, I can write this free from arrest in Fremont California because they cannot sue me here and hope to succeed. We do not have Kangaroo courts as in Singapore.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont California USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
From Chia Thye Poh, Singapore's longest serving political prisoner in the 1960s, to Dr. Lee Swee Cho to JB Jeyaretnam to Chee Soon Juan to myself, Gopalan Nair and to a long list of others, too numerous to mention, Lee Kuan Yew and now his son, have ruled the island of Singapore with an iron hand, jailing, bankrupting and destroying anyone who came in his way to ensure their continued rule.
To achieve his aim, he hijacked every government employee, the entire police force and the compliant ever willing corrupt judiciary to achieve his ends.
Today any semblance of a real opposition or independent thinkers are totally absent. JB Jeyaretnam is dead, Chee Soon Juan of the Singapore Democratic Party is silenced, Tang Liang Hong has fled the island leaving no one in the island to question the actions of Lee Kuan Yew, now senile and gravely ill and his son.
Today, Singapore courts are nothing more than the tools for Lee and his son to silence criticism.
The Constitution is turned into a piece of scrap paper with no human rights at all.
For almost everything, you need a police permit which, by the way, they always refuse.
Permit to speak, permit to own a printing press, permit to protest, permit to assemble, all of which has never ever been granted, which is why the island has not seen a peaceful protest for decades.
Chee Soon Juan, the only one with any balls, who used to do it has been repeatedly imprisoned which is why he too has stopped completely.
Today the island has the calm of the cemetery.
But this sort of open and blatant repression and abuse of power takes it toll on the one party government. It has to.
Today except for the good news that we read on a daily basis in the state controlled press in the island, in substance, the island is going to the dogs.
The highly publicized repression of government critics such as JB Jeyaretnam and even myself is obviously repulsive to every Singaporean with any decency.
Everyone knows JB Jeyaretanm is no criminal and branding him so results in Lee Kuan Yew government and it's law courts losing all credibility.
As a result citizens, who find such abuse repulsive and abhorrent, leaving the island and doing so in greater and greater numbers for settlement in the West, leaving only those unable to do so, meaning the unskilled, remaining.
In the past, the government, including Lee Kuan Yew himself used to visit the major cities in the West such as Sydney and Melbourne pleading with the Singaporean Diaspora to return with purveying sentiments such as the need to serve their motherland.
It seems, none of that worked.
Not only did no overseas Singaporean wanted to return, the numbers leaving have spiked even more.
And the people have shown their abhorrence and revulsion to this sort of government by other ways too.
The island has the lowest fertility rate in the world today with people refusing to marry and couples having no children or on the rare occasion just one child, which not only fails to replace even the parents, it roundly reduces the number of Singaporeans in total.
In the past, alarmed with this phenomenon, which can literally cause an island with no more than 1 million locals to literally disappear, they began various government campaigns to encourage marriage and procreation, some of them comical.
In desperation they even began showing porn movies late at night in the hope that couples after watching it would go and have sex; not to mention the generous tax breaks given to coupes with children.
After they found that despite all this, after screening these porn movies at night and giving generous tax breaks, Singapore's still refused to marry or have any children, they have given up trying.
Such nonsense of porn movies and such like is no longer being mentioned in the state controlled newspapers anymore.
Lee and son have finally given up and are resigned to the fact of the languishing Singaporean.
In desperation, they have resorted to importing unprecedented numbers of foreigners into the island to replace those who are dying and leaving; otherwise there won't be anyone left.
But this wholesale importation of foreigners, whom they conveniently call "foreign talent" mainly from China brings with it it's own set of problems.
Chinese from China are a people who have ingrained in them the propensity to protest.
Protests happen everyday in China as can be seen in the protests recently outside Malaysia Embassy in Beijing over the disappearance of flight MH 370.
And those coming to Singapore bring with them this practice, something which Lee is totally afraid of.
Recently Chinese bus drivers went on strike over bad working conditions and we can expect more of that causing the government to be so terrified as to wet their pants.
One can see why the government is so terrified.
The island is jam packed like sardines with people and any civil disobedience anywhere in the tiny island would inevitably spread across the island and would probably unseat Lee Kuan Yew and his son.
Just a few months ago, another incident, unheard of in the island's history occurred.
About 400 hundred Indian works rioted setting fire to police vehicles.
Many involved were deported with about 20 still in custody awaiting trial.
If that is not bad enough, today's state controlled newspaper carries a story that some Bangladeshi workers have rioted with others over a cricket match on television.
It appears rioting and fighting has become a common occurrence in a previously regimented and subdued island, thanks to the huge numbers of "foreign talent".
As result of the total dearth of locals, the conscript army cannot find any necessary numbers of recruits leaving the armed forces of Singapore understaffed becoming a threat to national security.
Another reason for this is the people's anger against the double standard adopted by the government in national service, not to mention the natural dislike of the military by ethnic Chinese.
Singaporeans have to serve national service but foreign immigrants who become Singaporeans are exempted.
This unjust double standards, causes many young men to deliberately abscond or desert national service by going abroad and refusing to return.
Even the large numbers of recent immigrants given almost instant citizenship to make up the numbers is not solving their problem.
Most of them who accept citizenship have no interest in ever sinking roots in the island and are in reality merely opportunists and transient workers, who leave as soon as they find a better opportunity elsewhere.
There are reports to suggest that most of these recent immigrant turned citizens are actually using the island as a stepping stone to greener pastures such as Australia.
These are insurmountable problems like a malignant cancer which is spreading across the tiny island and destroying it from it's very foundations.
Periodically we read reports in the state controlled press that Singapore has won some awards such as Singapore Airport being the best in the world.
Frankly such awards mean nothing for the average Singaporean whose life is no longer controlled by him, but is completely at the mercy of Lee Kuan Yew and son.
With almost no citizen participation in government, with a system that governs from top down, with a thoroughly discredited government and a judiciary, where their leaders are the most corrupt in the world paying themselves millions while the average person can hardly make ends meet, I think the damage has been done.
JB Jeyaretnam, Chia Thye Poh and the long list of others whom Lee Kuan Yew has persecuted is now beginning to take this regime down.
With the non stop emigration to the west and the very best among Singaporeans overwhelmingly opting to leave rather than stay, I think we have done very well in putting this regime in their right place and showing to the world that behind the veneer of the state controlled press, it is nothing but a farce on it's way down fast .
Of course they would go on writing self praise and the self proclaimed grandiose achievements in their state controlled press but other than that, they are incapable of doing much more. Just as Pravda and Izvestia of the former Soviet Union, it is simply propaganda which will die a natural death.
And as for me, I can write this free from arrest in Fremont California because they cannot sue me here and hope to succeed. We do not have Kangaroo courts as in Singapore.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont California USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Singapore. The results of a You-Listen-To-Me-Or-Else government. A submissive society of obedient followers.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Tiny economic miracle, or so they claim, Singapore appears to have many insurmountable problems such as the precipitously unstoppable declining birth rate, the almost total lack of marriages or childbirth and ever mounting brain drain principally to Australia. These problems, as I said are insurmountable. The government of Lee Kuan Yew and his son have principally given up on these issues and have literally buried their heads in the sand. They appear resigned to their fate.
The reasons for Singapore's difficulties can be attributed to Lee Kuan Yew himself and by extension, his son.
The problem with Lee Kuan Yew who had been running the island for the 5 decades undisturbed and unquestioned is his grandiose megalomaniac philosophy of himself. As far as he was concerned, only he knew all the answers and no one else. Which required everyone else to simply play second fiddle.
At the same time, being completely insecure and always worried that someone would unseat him, the way to prevent that ever happening was to to destroy anyone who was in his path.
Ably applying the chicken and the monkey doctrine, which is accomplished by making examples of anyone who questioned him by destroying them, bankrupting them and jailing them, this practice sent sufficient shudders down every Singaporean spine keeping him in line and obedient.
According to Chinese lore, the Emperor used to kill a chicken to frighten all the monkeys who watched, the monkeys being Chinese people and the chicken being the Emperor's victim and example.
Using the courts as his principle tool, and applying corrupt judges to do his bidding, one prime example being Belinda Ang Saw Ean, even the most moderate of criticisms was turned into a defamation of character lawsuit sending opposition leader JB Jeyaretnam to jail, bankrupting and impoverishing him, the chicken was JB Jeyaretnam and the monkeys were Singaporeans.
The same tactic was applied to every other critic worth his salt such as Chee Soon Juan, Tang Liang Hong and a long line of others.
In my case, I was sent to jail for 3 months in September 2008 when I entered Singapore and wrote a blog in Singapore Dissident about Belinda Ang Saw Ean and was disbarred from practicing law in the island.
In my case, the signal being sent was to every other lawyer in Singapore not to question authority like Gopalan Nair, he being the chicken and Singapore lawyers, the monkeys.
Lee Kuan Yew's principal and sole instrument for repression and subjugation was demonstrably the Chinese Imperial practice of chickens and monkeys to keep subjects in line. And it has worked very well for Lee Kuan Yew and his Singapore.
You can see what this does to society. These repeated defamation lawsuits, threats of litigation and arrest done repeatedly over decades literally silences and enfeebles the entire society because nobody wants to be like JB Jeyaretnam, Chee Soon Juan, Tang Liang Hong or Gopalan Nair if they can help it.
At the same time as sending this terrible message through the entire society, he also ably uses the carrot.
Here students, willing to serve Lee Kuan Yew's one party police state government, are given state scholarships to study abroad after which they sign contracts to serve him and his government for a period of years.
I must add, these students are fully aware what the state apparatus is, a one party state which denies the freedom of speech expression or a free press, where the rule of law is abused for political ends, where one lives literally at the mercy of the Lee family. It should take a particularly unprincipled rascal to accept a scholarship like that, but that is what they are.
It is like Adolf Hitler dishing out scholarships to young Germans who then serve the Nazi Government under Hitler. Perhaps the comparison is rather exaggerated but in principle it is correct. In Nazi Germany, Hitler's employees sent Jews to the gas chamber. In Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew's employees like Belinda Ang Saw Ean bankrupts and jails innocent people whose only crime was to disagree with Lee Kuan Yew's government.
The income that are paid to these scholars who lick his ass and accept these scholarships are very generous indeed. If they were lucky enough, or unlucky, depending on your point of view, to be selected as Ministers, their salaries are astronomical, literally millions.
So these scholars, characterless and unscrupulous opportunists, accept these scholarships for the money it pays, never mind what they have to do for it.
The effect of this dog training on Singaporeans, the Chicken and the monkey behavior training or the carrot for obedience and the stick for disobedience, meant that an entire society of Singaporeans literally either gave up ever thinking anything about politics or they became obsessed with doing well in exams and being selected for a scholarship for the money.
As a result of this, the average Singaporean became a greedy opportunist completely devoid of altruism, principles or the ability to think independently. Their main purpose in life was the need to pass their exams and hope that Lee Kuan Yew or his son were watching so that they can graduate to become Minsters and bingo, they have struck gold.
As a result the average Singaporean is unlike in other democratic societies, less concerned in excelling in any particular field of science or art but more concerned with being recognized and appreciated by the Lee Kuan Yew top brass. No single student ever dreams of going into a science or art hoping to excel in it and achieving success. Everyone of them is thinking only of passing exams, joining Lee's political party and getting recognized. The more you are recognized, the more your success.
As a result there are no brilliant lawyers in Singapore because brilliance does not get you anywhere, connections does. Neither are there great scientists. But there are millionaire scientists who are connected to the Lee Kuan Yew political party.
In every walk of life, not only in government but also in private business, just as it was in china today or the Soviet Union of the past, you cannot hope to succeed unless you happened to be on the right side of the fence. No Singapore businessman, worker, civil servant or anyone would dare openly to challenge Lee Kuan Yew or his son's authority.
Even assuming arguendo, that I was allowed to return to Singapore to practice law. No matter how hard I struggled and no matter how much I know, it won't do me any good. I won't get any cases and even if I did, judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean and company would make sure that I lose them all. I would be judged not by my legal acumen but by who I am.
And this is not how one lives in Australia, the United States or elsewhere. My success depends on who I am and how good I am, not whom I know or which political party I support or how obedient I am to Barak Obama. Through assiduous and persistent hard work and attention, I can hope to reach the skies, something that I can never aspire in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore.
It is this assurance and hope that makes countries such as Australia, Canada and the United States so much more attractive to live than a place like Singapore.
You can imagine why this sort of life would be unacceptable to anyone with an independent head. Success has a price in Singapore, and that is obedience to Lee Kuan Yew, his son and their party.
Just as myself who has no need to play second fiddle to Lee Kuan Yew because he could very easily succeed elsewhere, thousands of others are, as we speak running away to Australia Canada and beyond.
And the other thing that works against the Lee regime is education. If he could, he would have far preferred to keep his citizens ignorant and uneducated as education works directly opposite to totalitarian governments.
No matter what your education may be, education inherently creates curiosity and curiosity leads to greater awareness of rights, and greater awareness of rights leads to dissatisfaction and dissatisfaction leads to instability and instability leads to revolution and revolution leads to the overthrow of tyrants. This is a fact of life, which our Lee kuan Yew must be aware.
The huge mounting and on-going brain drain to the West would not have happened without greater education, and so are all the other problems to which Lee and son have no answers.
Even without anyone doing anything, the situation in the island, now in default mode, the forces are simply destroying the island.
Today it is by all accounts accurate to say that there are more foreigners in the island than locals. And the foreigners are bringing with them behaviors that Singapore finds unable to handle.
Only a few weeks ago, Indian migrant workers rioted, as they are accustomed to do in India when they felt disadvantaged, leaving the island police with no clue what to do, as this has never happened before, in a submissive complaint obedient Singapore.
Earlier Chinese bus drivers went on strike, something they do in China almost on a daily basis, which was never heard of in Lee's sheep like Singapore. A few weeks ago, Chinese nationals were caught trying to pass gutter oil to street vendors as cooking oil.
And even if they wanted to, they could not stop importing foreign labor, these unwelcome behaviors are progressively going to increase with more and more foreigners and fewer and fewer Singaporeans.
And this wholesale importation of foreigners into the island makes it a permanent hotel with revolving doors. Some come for a time and then leave to be replaced by others who similarly come and go. It turns the island into a transient temporary destination for workers needing some extra cash.
Singaporeans today having seen what they did to JB Jeyaretnam and others, have lost all respect for the island's courts. The civil service has lost respect when they routinely favor government supporters and victimize those who do not openly crawl and kowtow.
It has turned into an island that has only one opinion, that of Lee Kuan Yew's and no other.
It has turned the entire people into one that looks forward to being recognized and talent spotted by the Lee government for the riches that will inevitably follow.
So what is a Singaporean? He is one that tries to pass his exams, gets a job with either the government, government linked company or private company in that order, who joins the Peoples Association or other government grass roots organization, makes sure he is a team player and is liked by his bosses, one who hopes that for his support of the ruling party, he would be promoted to higher positions, makes sure that in his entire life he continues to praise and support them, and eventually, if he is lucky, perhaps will be made a Minister and live a life of luxury and opulence.
So who is not a Singaporean? Someone who likes to think and read. Someone who has perhaps understood that Lee Kuan Yew is a bully and is bad for Singapore. Someone who openly joins an opposition party and deliberately tries to rock the boat. Someone who tried to persuade others to protest and demonstrate publicly against the ruling regime. Someone who thinks that Singapore is a dictatorship and should be replaced by a democracy. Such a man has no hope in Singapore. He simply does not fit in. But such a man would do very well in USA Australia or Canada.
The reason why Singapore is bound to fail and fail very soon is because it does not have any independent minded people. And without them, in this day and age, no country can expect to succeed.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Tiny economic miracle, or so they claim, Singapore appears to have many insurmountable problems such as the precipitously unstoppable declining birth rate, the almost total lack of marriages or childbirth and ever mounting brain drain principally to Australia. These problems, as I said are insurmountable. The government of Lee Kuan Yew and his son have principally given up on these issues and have literally buried their heads in the sand. They appear resigned to their fate.
The reasons for Singapore's difficulties can be attributed to Lee Kuan Yew himself and by extension, his son.
The problem with Lee Kuan Yew who had been running the island for the 5 decades undisturbed and unquestioned is his grandiose megalomaniac philosophy of himself. As far as he was concerned, only he knew all the answers and no one else. Which required everyone else to simply play second fiddle.
At the same time, being completely insecure and always worried that someone would unseat him, the way to prevent that ever happening was to to destroy anyone who was in his path.
Ably applying the chicken and the monkey doctrine, which is accomplished by making examples of anyone who questioned him by destroying them, bankrupting them and jailing them, this practice sent sufficient shudders down every Singaporean spine keeping him in line and obedient.
According to Chinese lore, the Emperor used to kill a chicken to frighten all the monkeys who watched, the monkeys being Chinese people and the chicken being the Emperor's victim and example.
Using the courts as his principle tool, and applying corrupt judges to do his bidding, one prime example being Belinda Ang Saw Ean, even the most moderate of criticisms was turned into a defamation of character lawsuit sending opposition leader JB Jeyaretnam to jail, bankrupting and impoverishing him, the chicken was JB Jeyaretnam and the monkeys were Singaporeans.
The same tactic was applied to every other critic worth his salt such as Chee Soon Juan, Tang Liang Hong and a long line of others.
In my case, I was sent to jail for 3 months in September 2008 when I entered Singapore and wrote a blog in Singapore Dissident about Belinda Ang Saw Ean and was disbarred from practicing law in the island.
In my case, the signal being sent was to every other lawyer in Singapore not to question authority like Gopalan Nair, he being the chicken and Singapore lawyers, the monkeys.
Lee Kuan Yew's principal and sole instrument for repression and subjugation was demonstrably the Chinese Imperial practice of chickens and monkeys to keep subjects in line. And it has worked very well for Lee Kuan Yew and his Singapore.
You can see what this does to society. These repeated defamation lawsuits, threats of litigation and arrest done repeatedly over decades literally silences and enfeebles the entire society because nobody wants to be like JB Jeyaretnam, Chee Soon Juan, Tang Liang Hong or Gopalan Nair if they can help it.
At the same time as sending this terrible message through the entire society, he also ably uses the carrot.
Here students, willing to serve Lee Kuan Yew's one party police state government, are given state scholarships to study abroad after which they sign contracts to serve him and his government for a period of years.
I must add, these students are fully aware what the state apparatus is, a one party state which denies the freedom of speech expression or a free press, where the rule of law is abused for political ends, where one lives literally at the mercy of the Lee family. It should take a particularly unprincipled rascal to accept a scholarship like that, but that is what they are.
It is like Adolf Hitler dishing out scholarships to young Germans who then serve the Nazi Government under Hitler. Perhaps the comparison is rather exaggerated but in principle it is correct. In Nazi Germany, Hitler's employees sent Jews to the gas chamber. In Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew's employees like Belinda Ang Saw Ean bankrupts and jails innocent people whose only crime was to disagree with Lee Kuan Yew's government.
The income that are paid to these scholars who lick his ass and accept these scholarships are very generous indeed. If they were lucky enough, or unlucky, depending on your point of view, to be selected as Ministers, their salaries are astronomical, literally millions.
So these scholars, characterless and unscrupulous opportunists, accept these scholarships for the money it pays, never mind what they have to do for it.
The effect of this dog training on Singaporeans, the Chicken and the monkey behavior training or the carrot for obedience and the stick for disobedience, meant that an entire society of Singaporeans literally either gave up ever thinking anything about politics or they became obsessed with doing well in exams and being selected for a scholarship for the money.
As a result of this, the average Singaporean became a greedy opportunist completely devoid of altruism, principles or the ability to think independently. Their main purpose in life was the need to pass their exams and hope that Lee Kuan Yew or his son were watching so that they can graduate to become Minsters and bingo, they have struck gold.
As a result the average Singaporean is unlike in other democratic societies, less concerned in excelling in any particular field of science or art but more concerned with being recognized and appreciated by the Lee Kuan Yew top brass. No single student ever dreams of going into a science or art hoping to excel in it and achieving success. Everyone of them is thinking only of passing exams, joining Lee's political party and getting recognized. The more you are recognized, the more your success.
As a result there are no brilliant lawyers in Singapore because brilliance does not get you anywhere, connections does. Neither are there great scientists. But there are millionaire scientists who are connected to the Lee Kuan Yew political party.
In every walk of life, not only in government but also in private business, just as it was in china today or the Soviet Union of the past, you cannot hope to succeed unless you happened to be on the right side of the fence. No Singapore businessman, worker, civil servant or anyone would dare openly to challenge Lee Kuan Yew or his son's authority.
Even assuming arguendo, that I was allowed to return to Singapore to practice law. No matter how hard I struggled and no matter how much I know, it won't do me any good. I won't get any cases and even if I did, judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean and company would make sure that I lose them all. I would be judged not by my legal acumen but by who I am.
And this is not how one lives in Australia, the United States or elsewhere. My success depends on who I am and how good I am, not whom I know or which political party I support or how obedient I am to Barak Obama. Through assiduous and persistent hard work and attention, I can hope to reach the skies, something that I can never aspire in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore.
It is this assurance and hope that makes countries such as Australia, Canada and the United States so much more attractive to live than a place like Singapore.
You can imagine why this sort of life would be unacceptable to anyone with an independent head. Success has a price in Singapore, and that is obedience to Lee Kuan Yew, his son and their party.
Just as myself who has no need to play second fiddle to Lee Kuan Yew because he could very easily succeed elsewhere, thousands of others are, as we speak running away to Australia Canada and beyond.
And the other thing that works against the Lee regime is education. If he could, he would have far preferred to keep his citizens ignorant and uneducated as education works directly opposite to totalitarian governments.
No matter what your education may be, education inherently creates curiosity and curiosity leads to greater awareness of rights, and greater awareness of rights leads to dissatisfaction and dissatisfaction leads to instability and instability leads to revolution and revolution leads to the overthrow of tyrants. This is a fact of life, which our Lee kuan Yew must be aware.
The huge mounting and on-going brain drain to the West would not have happened without greater education, and so are all the other problems to which Lee and son have no answers.
Even without anyone doing anything, the situation in the island, now in default mode, the forces are simply destroying the island.
Today it is by all accounts accurate to say that there are more foreigners in the island than locals. And the foreigners are bringing with them behaviors that Singapore finds unable to handle.
Only a few weeks ago, Indian migrant workers rioted, as they are accustomed to do in India when they felt disadvantaged, leaving the island police with no clue what to do, as this has never happened before, in a submissive complaint obedient Singapore.
Earlier Chinese bus drivers went on strike, something they do in China almost on a daily basis, which was never heard of in Lee's sheep like Singapore. A few weeks ago, Chinese nationals were caught trying to pass gutter oil to street vendors as cooking oil.
And even if they wanted to, they could not stop importing foreign labor, these unwelcome behaviors are progressively going to increase with more and more foreigners and fewer and fewer Singaporeans.
And this wholesale importation of foreigners into the island makes it a permanent hotel with revolving doors. Some come for a time and then leave to be replaced by others who similarly come and go. It turns the island into a transient temporary destination for workers needing some extra cash.
Singaporeans today having seen what they did to JB Jeyaretnam and others, have lost all respect for the island's courts. The civil service has lost respect when they routinely favor government supporters and victimize those who do not openly crawl and kowtow.
It has turned into an island that has only one opinion, that of Lee Kuan Yew's and no other.
It has turned the entire people into one that looks forward to being recognized and talent spotted by the Lee government for the riches that will inevitably follow.
So what is a Singaporean? He is one that tries to pass his exams, gets a job with either the government, government linked company or private company in that order, who joins the Peoples Association or other government grass roots organization, makes sure he is a team player and is liked by his bosses, one who hopes that for his support of the ruling party, he would be promoted to higher positions, makes sure that in his entire life he continues to praise and support them, and eventually, if he is lucky, perhaps will be made a Minister and live a life of luxury and opulence.
So who is not a Singaporean? Someone who likes to think and read. Someone who has perhaps understood that Lee Kuan Yew is a bully and is bad for Singapore. Someone who openly joins an opposition party and deliberately tries to rock the boat. Someone who tried to persuade others to protest and demonstrate publicly against the ruling regime. Someone who thinks that Singapore is a dictatorship and should be replaced by a democracy. Such a man has no hope in Singapore. He simply does not fit in. But such a man would do very well in USA Australia or Canada.
The reason why Singapore is bound to fail and fail very soon is because it does not have any independent minded people. And without them, in this day and age, no country can expect to succeed.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Friday, March 14, 2014
MH 370. A damning indictment of Malaysian military
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The ongoing information received shows that Malaysian military radar had spotted the missing plane turning sharp West after losing radio contact over South China Sea.
They also knew that immediately thereafter it climbed to 43,000 feet, 10, 000 feet above the service celling of the Boeing 777. It then dropped immediately thereafter to 23,000 feet, flew right across the Malay Peninsula over Penang and then made a right heading towards the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. All this, Malaysian military was aware.
My question to the Malaysian military is this. If you knew that one of your commercial aeroplanes is behaving erratically, diverting from its normal flight path within your airspace, flying right across your country, why did you not do anything?
Surely the right thing to do, in this day and age of piracy in the air and terrorism, is to scramble your fighter jets immediately to intercept this airliner and find out what exactly is the monkey business going on.
And had they done so, we would have known exactly what happened to the aircraft one week ago. Because of their inaction, although they may not have been able to save lives or perhaps, dozens of countries have been put through the agony of not knowing what happened, had to spend huge sums of money and effort to solve the jigsaw puzzle which it has now become.
This is downright inefficient. There is no other way to put it.
And this is where I have to confess that although I don't hold Lee Kuan Yew and his Son's administration in very high regard, I have to say that when it comes to safeguarding their borders, they are way ahead of the Malaysians.
As an example, I remember some years ago, a Spanish pilot flying his small single engine propeller private plane Beechcraft Bonanza from the Maldives to Singapore lost his radio while approaching Singapore. He also lost all electricity and had to rely on his flashlight pen to read the instruments to find his way. Not being able to contact the plane Singapore Air Force immediately scrambled jets to intercept him ordering him to land at Seletar. It was then they discovered why the aircraft could not communicate with Singapore ATC. What was even more surprising is the fact that the pilot, an elderly man, was paralyzed from waist down and had modified his aircraft to control the foot brake and rudder pedals with his hands!
And it appears that this very question, as to why they didn't do anything, was put to the Malaysian military, and their incredulous response appears to be "Since the plane did not appear hostile, we didn't do anything"!
I suppose if an unidentified aircraft had entered Malaysian airspace, flew over Kuala Lumpur and bombed it to smithereens, they would have still said, "We didn't do anything because the aircraft did not appear hostile"
So much for the efficiency, or rather the lack of, the Malaysian military. What were they doing at the time, drinking tea and smoking cigarettes?
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
Fremont, California USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
The ongoing information received shows that Malaysian military radar had spotted the missing plane turning sharp West after losing radio contact over South China Sea.
They also knew that immediately thereafter it climbed to 43,000 feet, 10, 000 feet above the service celling of the Boeing 777. It then dropped immediately thereafter to 23,000 feet, flew right across the Malay Peninsula over Penang and then made a right heading towards the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. All this, Malaysian military was aware.
My question to the Malaysian military is this. If you knew that one of your commercial aeroplanes is behaving erratically, diverting from its normal flight path within your airspace, flying right across your country, why did you not do anything?
Surely the right thing to do, in this day and age of piracy in the air and terrorism, is to scramble your fighter jets immediately to intercept this airliner and find out what exactly is the monkey business going on.
And had they done so, we would have known exactly what happened to the aircraft one week ago. Because of their inaction, although they may not have been able to save lives or perhaps, dozens of countries have been put through the agony of not knowing what happened, had to spend huge sums of money and effort to solve the jigsaw puzzle which it has now become.
This is downright inefficient. There is no other way to put it.
And this is where I have to confess that although I don't hold Lee Kuan Yew and his Son's administration in very high regard, I have to say that when it comes to safeguarding their borders, they are way ahead of the Malaysians.
As an example, I remember some years ago, a Spanish pilot flying his small single engine propeller private plane Beechcraft Bonanza from the Maldives to Singapore lost his radio while approaching Singapore. He also lost all electricity and had to rely on his flashlight pen to read the instruments to find his way. Not being able to contact the plane Singapore Air Force immediately scrambled jets to intercept him ordering him to land at Seletar. It was then they discovered why the aircraft could not communicate with Singapore ATC. What was even more surprising is the fact that the pilot, an elderly man, was paralyzed from waist down and had modified his aircraft to control the foot brake and rudder pedals with his hands!
And it appears that this very question, as to why they didn't do anything, was put to the Malaysian military, and their incredulous response appears to be "Since the plane did not appear hostile, we didn't do anything"!
I suppose if an unidentified aircraft had entered Malaysian airspace, flew over Kuala Lumpur and bombed it to smithereens, they would have still said, "We didn't do anything because the aircraft did not appear hostile"
So much for the efficiency, or rather the lack of, the Malaysian military. What were they doing at the time, drinking tea and smoking cigarettes?
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
Fremont, California USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Lee Kuan Yew's Singaporeans, a subjucated people. The boring life of a typical Singaporean
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Let's call him X.
I have known X since 1980 when I returned to Singapore after my studies in England. I was working at Straits Trading Building at Battery Road doing my law pupillage. I met X by chance at lunch at the back lane food stalls between the river and Battery Road. The food stall no longer exists, made way for modernization.
X is an Indian, Kerala Malayalee. Strangely he does not speak any Malayalam and only a smattering of Tamil. He is a high school graduate. He is an ethnic Indian Singaporean, one of the small percentage of Indians in Singapore comprising 10% in a population of predominately Chinese with 75%.
X did his national service in the army of 2 years and went to work in a bank in downtown Singapore. The bank in Chinese owned, as are all local banks.
Since banks in Singapore do not ordinarily employ Indians but only Chinese, he was lucky to get a job as a Security Officer, one of the only departments which take non Chinese. The other jobs available are as drivers to the senior ethnic Chinese staff.
Ethnic Chinese are not employed as security officers or drivers as they are seen superior to jobs like that, which are given to Malays and Indians, Singapore's inferior classes.
One could not call X a very courageous or enterprising person. Considering himself lucky for the job, he worked in that bank for over 30 years now, his only job, finally being promoted to Chief security officer. The other security officers who work under him are all Malays or Indians.
Realizing his prospects would improve if he, an Indian, married a Chinese woman, he did so. I understand he has now 3 or 4 children but he will not say. Since I have joined the Singaporean political opposition, he considers it unsafe and unwise to associate anymore with me, as it could jeopardize his job in the bank. It is unsafe for anyone in Singapore to associate with anyone showing tendencies to political opposition. It is very dangerous to associate with me, a leading known outspoken target of the Lee Kuan Yew government.
X knows fully well, the government is a fraud, it is undemocratic, a violation of the Constitution. He knows all that. He particularly knows that it is a dictatorship and he personally hates the regime and what it has become.
However not having the courage to do anything about it, he has all these years, his entire career, lived a life suppressing what he really believes. Outwardly, not only is he a "no comment" person, meaning he will say "no comment" to any political question put to him, he is a card carrying member of the ruling party organizations such as Peoples Association or Residents Committees. This open support for the ruling administration has secured his career with the bank.
Financially you could say he has done reasonable well. Over the years of serving the bank, his salary has progressively increased, of course not to the extent the Chinese are paid. Presently being more than 65 years old, he has technically retired but is still working in the same job on a yearly renewable contract.
X has not joined any opposition. He has not joined any protest. He has never openly expressed any political opinion. He has never been in any demonstration. He has never publicly criticized the Lee Kuan Yew administration. X has not proclaimed himself to be a democrat. He has not openly said he is a fascist. X is not a nihilist. He is not an anarchist. X is not an arsonist. X is not a fatalist. X is not a skinhead. He is not a white supremist. Neither is he a black supremist. X is not a sailor. X is not a flier. X has no aspirations to sail the world. He has no aspirations to get lost in the African jungle. He has no aspirations to climb K2 from the South Face without oxygen. In other words, unable to put it any other way, X is simply a bore. In fact X has been a bore his entire life.
Some years ago I called him on the phone. He told me he admired me, I suppose for daring to challenge the Old Boy and leaving for the USA. All that takes courage and adventure. Lately I have been trying to call him. If I were to identify myself he would say he is not in. On occasions in the past, I had spoken to him by concealing my identity. I have since stopped doing this, as it is not proper to do it.
I wanted to talk to him to discover what goes on in the ordinary Singaporean head.
This is what people become in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore. Out of necessity, it makes them humans without a spirit. Human without any independent opinion. The need to survive turns them into sheep only capable of doing what they are told and behaving the way they are told. They have to hide what they truly think and outwardly engage in Doubletalk, or Lee talk regardless of how disgusting it may be. Can you imagine an entire life having to be lived this way!
X need not have lived the way he did. He could have stood up and called Lee Kuan Yew a liar and a cheat. He could have been arrested and sued for defamation and hauled before Kangaroo courts. He could have stood on a soap box outside his bank and spoken on the virtues of liberty and John Stuart Mill. Or if he thought otherwise, could even have narrated the history of the Ottoman Empire from 1453 to 1917. X could have gone into exile and returned and been thrown in jail. He could have lived a purposeful life. He could have had an exiting life. Despite all the hardships and troubles, X could have still said it was a life worth living.
X could have said,
And out spake brave Horatius
The Captain of the Gate
To every man upon this Earth
Death Comest Soon or Late
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds
For the Ashes of his Fathers
And the temples of his Gods
But not for X. He was content to have lived his boring uneventful life without any independent opinion. I do not know anything about X's children, a cross between Indian father and Chinese mother. I suppose they too would live the boring uneventful lives of their father, what else can they do?
This is a Singaporean Indian's boring miserable uneventful life under the supreme ruler Lee Kuan Yew and now his Son.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
Fremont, California USA
A Singaporean in Exile
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Let's call him X.
I have known X since 1980 when I returned to Singapore after my studies in England. I was working at Straits Trading Building at Battery Road doing my law pupillage. I met X by chance at lunch at the back lane food stalls between the river and Battery Road. The food stall no longer exists, made way for modernization.
X is an Indian, Kerala Malayalee. Strangely he does not speak any Malayalam and only a smattering of Tamil. He is a high school graduate. He is an ethnic Indian Singaporean, one of the small percentage of Indians in Singapore comprising 10% in a population of predominately Chinese with 75%.
X did his national service in the army of 2 years and went to work in a bank in downtown Singapore. The bank in Chinese owned, as are all local banks.
Since banks in Singapore do not ordinarily employ Indians but only Chinese, he was lucky to get a job as a Security Officer, one of the only departments which take non Chinese. The other jobs available are as drivers to the senior ethnic Chinese staff.
Ethnic Chinese are not employed as security officers or drivers as they are seen superior to jobs like that, which are given to Malays and Indians, Singapore's inferior classes.
One could not call X a very courageous or enterprising person. Considering himself lucky for the job, he worked in that bank for over 30 years now, his only job, finally being promoted to Chief security officer. The other security officers who work under him are all Malays or Indians.
Realizing his prospects would improve if he, an Indian, married a Chinese woman, he did so. I understand he has now 3 or 4 children but he will not say. Since I have joined the Singaporean political opposition, he considers it unsafe and unwise to associate anymore with me, as it could jeopardize his job in the bank. It is unsafe for anyone in Singapore to associate with anyone showing tendencies to political opposition. It is very dangerous to associate with me, a leading known outspoken target of the Lee Kuan Yew government.
X knows fully well, the government is a fraud, it is undemocratic, a violation of the Constitution. He knows all that. He particularly knows that it is a dictatorship and he personally hates the regime and what it has become.
However not having the courage to do anything about it, he has all these years, his entire career, lived a life suppressing what he really believes. Outwardly, not only is he a "no comment" person, meaning he will say "no comment" to any political question put to him, he is a card carrying member of the ruling party organizations such as Peoples Association or Residents Committees. This open support for the ruling administration has secured his career with the bank.
Financially you could say he has done reasonable well. Over the years of serving the bank, his salary has progressively increased, of course not to the extent the Chinese are paid. Presently being more than 65 years old, he has technically retired but is still working in the same job on a yearly renewable contract.
X has not joined any opposition. He has not joined any protest. He has never openly expressed any political opinion. He has never been in any demonstration. He has never publicly criticized the Lee Kuan Yew administration. X has not proclaimed himself to be a democrat. He has not openly said he is a fascist. X is not a nihilist. He is not an anarchist. X is not an arsonist. X is not a fatalist. X is not a skinhead. He is not a white supremist. Neither is he a black supremist. X is not a sailor. X is not a flier. X has no aspirations to sail the world. He has no aspirations to get lost in the African jungle. He has no aspirations to climb K2 from the South Face without oxygen. In other words, unable to put it any other way, X is simply a bore. In fact X has been a bore his entire life.
Some years ago I called him on the phone. He told me he admired me, I suppose for daring to challenge the Old Boy and leaving for the USA. All that takes courage and adventure. Lately I have been trying to call him. If I were to identify myself he would say he is not in. On occasions in the past, I had spoken to him by concealing my identity. I have since stopped doing this, as it is not proper to do it.
I wanted to talk to him to discover what goes on in the ordinary Singaporean head.
This is what people become in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore. Out of necessity, it makes them humans without a spirit. Human without any independent opinion. The need to survive turns them into sheep only capable of doing what they are told and behaving the way they are told. They have to hide what they truly think and outwardly engage in Doubletalk, or Lee talk regardless of how disgusting it may be. Can you imagine an entire life having to be lived this way!
X need not have lived the way he did. He could have stood up and called Lee Kuan Yew a liar and a cheat. He could have been arrested and sued for defamation and hauled before Kangaroo courts. He could have stood on a soap box outside his bank and spoken on the virtues of liberty and John Stuart Mill. Or if he thought otherwise, could even have narrated the history of the Ottoman Empire from 1453 to 1917. X could have gone into exile and returned and been thrown in jail. He could have lived a purposeful life. He could have had an exiting life. Despite all the hardships and troubles, X could have still said it was a life worth living.
X could have said,
And out spake brave Horatius
The Captain of the Gate
To every man upon this Earth
Death Comest Soon or Late
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds
For the Ashes of his Fathers
And the temples of his Gods
But not for X. He was content to have lived his boring uneventful life without any independent opinion. I do not know anything about X's children, a cross between Indian father and Chinese mother. I suppose they too would live the boring uneventful lives of their father, what else can they do?
This is a Singaporean Indian's boring miserable uneventful life under the supreme ruler Lee Kuan Yew and now his Son.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
Fremont, California USA
A Singaporean in Exile
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Lee Kuan Yew's Singaporeans, a subjucated people
Ladies and Gentlemen,
If one thing 91 year old incapacitated Singapore strongman Lee Kuan Yew has successfully accomplished to perfection, after decades of sustained assiduous effort, undoubtedly an almost unprecedented award winning feat, is the total subjugation of his entire island population.
For the last 50 years in Singapore, under his direct rule and now indirectly under his son the Prime Minister whom he has placed in that position, one thing that anyone in that island has to know is this; to survive, you have to support Lee Kuan Yew's ruling party, the PAP.
It is best to publicly proclaim your support by volunteering at one or more of the various grassroots organizations of the ruling party ruling PAP, such as Peoples Association, which guarantees your career path success. If you are unable to do this, at least you should keep your mouth shut. But on no account publicly show your dissatisfaction, because if you do, you are literally committing suicide.
Singapore today is almost Stalin's Soviet Union. You either support Lee and Son or there is only penury for you; nothing in between. To show your support there are various avenues. There is the Peoples Association.
There are also others such as the Residents Committees, Citizen Consultative Committees all of whom attract Singaporeans and permanent residents from all walks of life to volunteer under the guise of civic and public consciousness, when in fact, their main concern is self preservation, career advancement and business opportunity under the patronage of the supreme Lee Kuan Yew and Son
From judges to common clerks in government departments, one common denominator is this; they all either openly support Lee Kuan Yew's ruling Peoples Action Party or alternatively, they are the "no comment" people, by which I mean, they answer you with "no comment" to any political question.
But one thing is certain, no one, not a single human being would openly dare to criticize Lee Kuan Yew, his son the Prime Miniter or the government because if he did, sooner or later, it will be the end of his survival in the island.
Lee Kuan Yew and son employ a pack mentality against their opponents. Through their wide all compassing network of agents both seen and unseen, you will notice your employer telling you to behave, your friends leaving you and very you soon you lose your job or your business.
If you are foolish enough to persist even after warnings, you may even be sued for defamation of character (Lees favorite tool of subjugation) , bankrupted and jailed.
Although it is true on paper that the island has a Constitution entitling everyone freedom of speech and expression, these rights no longer exists in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore. They have been effectively abrogated and today, the island is simply a one party state which demands total and absolute allegiance to Lee Kuan Yew's Peoples Action Party, period.
The effect of this fundamental pre-requisite to survive in Singapore has obviously hugely detrimental consequences both to the individual as well as to the future of the state.
If everyone is forced to think one way in order to survive, this effectively destroys curiosity, creativity and effectively makes the entire population servile, obedient, only capable of following orders but never able to lead or the courage to influence others on your views. It reduces productivity, stagnates the society and takes you back, not forward in the global market.
Lee Kuan Yew has had a policy of making fools and criminals of anyone who dared to openly question authority, even though, in any other country such men would have been considered model citizens.
This deliberate policy was to educate and warn the entire island population, like how you would train a monkey, that there are grave dangers in questioning the Singapore government while at the same time, sending an equally strong signal that obedience and submission to authority has far reaching permanent benefits.
The famous late JB Jeyaretnam was an highly respected opposition politician and lawyer who fought for freedom and democracy for his people and to do away with the dictatorship and one party oligarchy in the island.
Although it was obvious, none of what he did was wrong, indeed his actions were highly honorable and patriotic for fighting for the people's rights, he was hauled before Lee's compliant Kangaroo judges, vilified and maligned in the state controlled press, made to pay astronomical damages, bankrupted and jailed. He has since died.
Using the state controlled press Lee Kuan Yew has effectively labeled him a criminal when in actual fact he was the people's hero.
It is some sort of Orwellian doublethink, where a criminal is labeled a hero, while a upstanding citizen is labeled a criminal.
You can imagine the effect on the people of such manipulation of the state apparatus. It was plain foolish to try to be a JB Jeyeratnam because it would mean penury.
On the other hand, those who were willing to lick ass are all given top jobs with top money. Take the case of the discredited corrupt judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean who was willing to abuse the legal system to punish Lee Kuan Yew's political adversary Chee Soon Juan, a victim of hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages paid to the Lees.
She was only a mediocre lawyer but nevertheless given a job in the government linked law firm Allen and Gledhill after which she was rapidly made a judge and big money, in return she does the dirty work to please the Lees.
In any other respectable legal jurisdiction, she would be disbarred for abuse of legal process. In Lee's Singapore, she is a highly respected brilliant specimen of a human being. Mothers would encourage their daughters to become Belinda Ang Saw Eans, never to be like JB Jeyaretnam!
This carrot and stick behavior training for Singaporeans was very successfully practiced by the Lee Kuan Yew administration resulting today in every single person realizing that there is no place for anyone to think they are smarter than the Lees.
It has become a fact of life that to live, you cannot have the luxury of going around proclaiming that Lee Kuan Yew is wrong, he is violating the Constitution, that what he is doing is illegal and to say that Singapore does not have democracy and it is high time to introduce it.
The vast number of Singaporeans would consider my writings a total waste of time and would be wondering why I did not do as everyone else, kept my mouth shut and made a good living in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore, because it serves no purpose to get into trouble.
Why cause trouble and misery upon myself when one could have lived a comfortable life under Lee Kuan Yew and Son in stable peaceful clean uneventful boring Singapore. After all, if you don't bother the Lees, they very seldom bother you!
I trust you see the reasoning, which surely makes a great deal of sense. And in the Singaporean sense, I have to be a bloody fool doing all this!
If everyone in Singapore is merely a follower, then you may well ask, who does the thinking? Well the ones who do the thinking are the professionals. In Singapore, it is a select few, you could say "licensed thinkers" who are allowed to think and formulate opinion.
This is how it is done.
Children whose parents are government supporters are given government funded scholarships to study abroad. Those selected are carefully chosen.
Applying nepotism, relatives and friends of the Lee family are given preference but others also have a chance. These students are promised top government appointments upon return at salaries of several millions a year.
After they study abroad and receive international exposure, they will return, contest elections which they invariably win, made ministers in the government and from then on licensed to formulate policies and laws which other ordinary mortals have to obey.
The state controlled newspapers, which work more like a company bulletin, will regularly publish the new laws and why they are enacted. The average man is not encouraged to question these laws but simply follow them. Which is why life in Singapore is so boring because there is nothing one can do except obey.
You could also clearly see the consequence of the islanders total subjugation through their inaction to the injustices done to men such as JB Jeyaretnam.
Although it was crystal clear that all he suffered at the hands of the government and the Kangaroo courts was downright wrong, no one came forward to openly show him support. There were no mass demonstrations in his support, simply nothing.
Singaporeans reactions to Chee Soon Juan was even more telling. Not only did no one come forward in his support, he could not find a single lawyer in the entire island to represent him. In the end, all he could find is a Singaporean Indian lawyer suffering from serious bipolar disorder who apparently doesn't know in which world he is at any one time. A total mad hatter.
In Singapore, everyone is a mere worker and nothing more. He has no interest in politics except to show his support for the ruling party in the hope of getting favors. He does not know much history unless he is a history teacher. He has no interest in philosophy because it doesn't serve any purpose. He is simply an automaton who goes about his life today as he did yesterday hoping that nothing will upset the serenity and calm of his boring life.
I personally don't think a country like this can hope to go very far.
Caveat: The reader should be aware that the only reason why I can write this without being instantly arrested by Lee Kuan Yew police is because I am physically writing from Fremont, California USA. Had I now been within Singapore, arrest and imprisonment is certain.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
If one thing 91 year old incapacitated Singapore strongman Lee Kuan Yew has successfully accomplished to perfection, after decades of sustained assiduous effort, undoubtedly an almost unprecedented award winning feat, is the total subjugation of his entire island population.
For the last 50 years in Singapore, under his direct rule and now indirectly under his son the Prime Minister whom he has placed in that position, one thing that anyone in that island has to know is this; to survive, you have to support Lee Kuan Yew's ruling party, the PAP.
It is best to publicly proclaim your support by volunteering at one or more of the various grassroots organizations of the ruling party ruling PAP, such as Peoples Association, which guarantees your career path success. If you are unable to do this, at least you should keep your mouth shut. But on no account publicly show your dissatisfaction, because if you do, you are literally committing suicide.
Singapore today is almost Stalin's Soviet Union. You either support Lee and Son or there is only penury for you; nothing in between. To show your support there are various avenues. There is the Peoples Association.
There are also others such as the Residents Committees, Citizen Consultative Committees all of whom attract Singaporeans and permanent residents from all walks of life to volunteer under the guise of civic and public consciousness, when in fact, their main concern is self preservation, career advancement and business opportunity under the patronage of the supreme Lee Kuan Yew and Son
From judges to common clerks in government departments, one common denominator is this; they all either openly support Lee Kuan Yew's ruling Peoples Action Party or alternatively, they are the "no comment" people, by which I mean, they answer you with "no comment" to any political question.
But one thing is certain, no one, not a single human being would openly dare to criticize Lee Kuan Yew, his son the Prime Miniter or the government because if he did, sooner or later, it will be the end of his survival in the island.
Lee Kuan Yew and son employ a pack mentality against their opponents. Through their wide all compassing network of agents both seen and unseen, you will notice your employer telling you to behave, your friends leaving you and very you soon you lose your job or your business.
If you are foolish enough to persist even after warnings, you may even be sued for defamation of character (Lees favorite tool of subjugation) , bankrupted and jailed.
Although it is true on paper that the island has a Constitution entitling everyone freedom of speech and expression, these rights no longer exists in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore. They have been effectively abrogated and today, the island is simply a one party state which demands total and absolute allegiance to Lee Kuan Yew's Peoples Action Party, period.
The effect of this fundamental pre-requisite to survive in Singapore has obviously hugely detrimental consequences both to the individual as well as to the future of the state.
If everyone is forced to think one way in order to survive, this effectively destroys curiosity, creativity and effectively makes the entire population servile, obedient, only capable of following orders but never able to lead or the courage to influence others on your views. It reduces productivity, stagnates the society and takes you back, not forward in the global market.
Lee Kuan Yew has had a policy of making fools and criminals of anyone who dared to openly question authority, even though, in any other country such men would have been considered model citizens.
This deliberate policy was to educate and warn the entire island population, like how you would train a monkey, that there are grave dangers in questioning the Singapore government while at the same time, sending an equally strong signal that obedience and submission to authority has far reaching permanent benefits.
The famous late JB Jeyaretnam was an highly respected opposition politician and lawyer who fought for freedom and democracy for his people and to do away with the dictatorship and one party oligarchy in the island.
Although it was obvious, none of what he did was wrong, indeed his actions were highly honorable and patriotic for fighting for the people's rights, he was hauled before Lee's compliant Kangaroo judges, vilified and maligned in the state controlled press, made to pay astronomical damages, bankrupted and jailed. He has since died.
Using the state controlled press Lee Kuan Yew has effectively labeled him a criminal when in actual fact he was the people's hero.
It is some sort of Orwellian doublethink, where a criminal is labeled a hero, while a upstanding citizen is labeled a criminal.
You can imagine the effect on the people of such manipulation of the state apparatus. It was plain foolish to try to be a JB Jeyeratnam because it would mean penury.
On the other hand, those who were willing to lick ass are all given top jobs with top money. Take the case of the discredited corrupt judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean who was willing to abuse the legal system to punish Lee Kuan Yew's political adversary Chee Soon Juan, a victim of hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages paid to the Lees.
She was only a mediocre lawyer but nevertheless given a job in the government linked law firm Allen and Gledhill after which she was rapidly made a judge and big money, in return she does the dirty work to please the Lees.
In any other respectable legal jurisdiction, she would be disbarred for abuse of legal process. In Lee's Singapore, she is a highly respected brilliant specimen of a human being. Mothers would encourage their daughters to become Belinda Ang Saw Eans, never to be like JB Jeyaretnam!
This carrot and stick behavior training for Singaporeans was very successfully practiced by the Lee Kuan Yew administration resulting today in every single person realizing that there is no place for anyone to think they are smarter than the Lees.
It has become a fact of life that to live, you cannot have the luxury of going around proclaiming that Lee Kuan Yew is wrong, he is violating the Constitution, that what he is doing is illegal and to say that Singapore does not have democracy and it is high time to introduce it.
The vast number of Singaporeans would consider my writings a total waste of time and would be wondering why I did not do as everyone else, kept my mouth shut and made a good living in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore, because it serves no purpose to get into trouble.
Why cause trouble and misery upon myself when one could have lived a comfortable life under Lee Kuan Yew and Son in stable peaceful clean uneventful boring Singapore. After all, if you don't bother the Lees, they very seldom bother you!
I trust you see the reasoning, which surely makes a great deal of sense. And in the Singaporean sense, I have to be a bloody fool doing all this!
If everyone in Singapore is merely a follower, then you may well ask, who does the thinking? Well the ones who do the thinking are the professionals. In Singapore, it is a select few, you could say "licensed thinkers" who are allowed to think and formulate opinion.
This is how it is done.
Children whose parents are government supporters are given government funded scholarships to study abroad. Those selected are carefully chosen.
Applying nepotism, relatives and friends of the Lee family are given preference but others also have a chance. These students are promised top government appointments upon return at salaries of several millions a year.
After they study abroad and receive international exposure, they will return, contest elections which they invariably win, made ministers in the government and from then on licensed to formulate policies and laws which other ordinary mortals have to obey.
The state controlled newspapers, which work more like a company bulletin, will regularly publish the new laws and why they are enacted. The average man is not encouraged to question these laws but simply follow them. Which is why life in Singapore is so boring because there is nothing one can do except obey.
You could also clearly see the consequence of the islanders total subjugation through their inaction to the injustices done to men such as JB Jeyaretnam.
Although it was crystal clear that all he suffered at the hands of the government and the Kangaroo courts was downright wrong, no one came forward to openly show him support. There were no mass demonstrations in his support, simply nothing.
Singaporeans reactions to Chee Soon Juan was even more telling. Not only did no one come forward in his support, he could not find a single lawyer in the entire island to represent him. In the end, all he could find is a Singaporean Indian lawyer suffering from serious bipolar disorder who apparently doesn't know in which world he is at any one time. A total mad hatter.
In Singapore, everyone is a mere worker and nothing more. He has no interest in politics except to show his support for the ruling party in the hope of getting favors. He does not know much history unless he is a history teacher. He has no interest in philosophy because it doesn't serve any purpose. He is simply an automaton who goes about his life today as he did yesterday hoping that nothing will upset the serenity and calm of his boring life.
I personally don't think a country like this can hope to go very far.
Caveat: The reader should be aware that the only reason why I can write this without being instantly arrested by Lee Kuan Yew police is because I am physically writing from Fremont, California USA. Had I now been within Singapore, arrest and imprisonment is certain.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Monday, March 10, 2014
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 wing probably ripped off in mid- air
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Although this aircraft may have crashed for a multitude of reasons, my guess is that the probable cause for this accident is the wing being ripped off the aircraft. This is why I say this.
The events so far, which we all know, are that there was no distress call and the plane suddenly disappears from radar, indications of a sudden catastrophic event.
According to the information on this particular aircraft, it appears that " a minor incident while taxiing at Shanghai Pudong International Airport in August 2012 resulted in significant damage to one of it's wingtips which broke off while striking the tail of another plane" See Wikipedia "Malaysia Airlines Flight 370" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370
It is very likely that if the repairs to the wing in August 2012 was incorrectly or incompletely done, although the aircraft had successfully completed many flights after the incident, over time the improper repairs may have caused increased metal fatigue to the joints connecting the wings to the fuselage.
This may have resulted in the wing finally giving way and breaking off from the fuselage. This is especially so in the case of the wing which has to withstand a great deal of stress, in flight and turbulence.
Although initially after the repairs, assuming they were faulty, the wing was able to hold, the repeated flights after the repairs in 2012 may have increased the damage due to the initial incorrect repair.
An example of this was in the case of Flight JAL 123. In 1978 this Boeing 747 Jumbo suffered a tail strike (pilot raising the nose of the aircraft too high during take off resulting in the tail hitting the runway) while take off from Osaka International. The flight was successfully completed without incident and the aircraft was sent in for repairs. These repairs were done incorrectly, but even so the aircraft managed to fly without incident for the next 7 years until 1985.
In 1985, 7 years after the incident, it was scheduled to fly from Tokyo Haneda to Osaka International. About 12 minutes into the flight, the aft bulkhead gave way and the aircraft lost pressure. The tail (vertical stabilizer) was ripped off. Unable to maintain level flight, the plane crashed killing over 500 passengers.
Subsequent investigation revealed that the damage to the tail of the aircraft was directly attributed to the earlier faulty repairs. Here too, although this aircraft had managed to make many successful flights over the 7 years since the faulty repairs, eventually the damaged area got worse and it blew off. See wiki Japan Airlines Flight 123 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Airlines_Flight_123
This accident pattern appears directly similar to that of MH 370. You have a catastrophic incident, indicating a probable wing being ripped off in mid air.
Additional information also increases this possibility. It appears the pilot of MH 370 tried to turn around, presumably to head back to Kuala Lumpur. This is probably because his cockpit instruments may have indicated a damage to the wing, and since he is only an hour or so from Kuala Lumpur, he may have tried to head back. This probably increased the chances of the accident.
An aircraft wings while banking increases the stress on the wings, unlike in level flight. And furthermore, in his hurry to turn back, he may have entered a steep bank which increases even further the stress on the wings. This turning may have been the straw that broke the camel's back resulting in the wing being ripped off entirely. Perhaps it may have been better for him, on hindsight, instead of turning, to hope for the best and continue on level flight to Beijing and request a straight in approach for landing.
I think what the authorities should be doing now is to look into the maintenance records of this aircraft to see if the 2012 wingtip incident at Shanghai was properly repaired.
I guess either the pilot did not have the time to radio the distress call or the accident was too sudden he simply did not realize the impending catastrophe.
There is also a report from an unidentified pilot in the vicinity that at the request of Vietnam Air Traffic Center, he did make contact with the KH 370 requesting that he make contact with Vietnam's ATC.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California, USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Although this aircraft may have crashed for a multitude of reasons, my guess is that the probable cause for this accident is the wing being ripped off the aircraft. This is why I say this.
The events so far, which we all know, are that there was no distress call and the plane suddenly disappears from radar, indications of a sudden catastrophic event.
According to the information on this particular aircraft, it appears that " a minor incident while taxiing at Shanghai Pudong International Airport in August 2012 resulted in significant damage to one of it's wingtips which broke off while striking the tail of another plane" See Wikipedia "Malaysia Airlines Flight 370" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370
It is very likely that if the repairs to the wing in August 2012 was incorrectly or incompletely done, although the aircraft had successfully completed many flights after the incident, over time the improper repairs may have caused increased metal fatigue to the joints connecting the wings to the fuselage.
This may have resulted in the wing finally giving way and breaking off from the fuselage. This is especially so in the case of the wing which has to withstand a great deal of stress, in flight and turbulence.
Although initially after the repairs, assuming they were faulty, the wing was able to hold, the repeated flights after the repairs in 2012 may have increased the damage due to the initial incorrect repair.
An example of this was in the case of Flight JAL 123. In 1978 this Boeing 747 Jumbo suffered a tail strike (pilot raising the nose of the aircraft too high during take off resulting in the tail hitting the runway) while take off from Osaka International. The flight was successfully completed without incident and the aircraft was sent in for repairs. These repairs were done incorrectly, but even so the aircraft managed to fly without incident for the next 7 years until 1985.
In 1985, 7 years after the incident, it was scheduled to fly from Tokyo Haneda to Osaka International. About 12 minutes into the flight, the aft bulkhead gave way and the aircraft lost pressure. The tail (vertical stabilizer) was ripped off. Unable to maintain level flight, the plane crashed killing over 500 passengers.
Subsequent investigation revealed that the damage to the tail of the aircraft was directly attributed to the earlier faulty repairs. Here too, although this aircraft had managed to make many successful flights over the 7 years since the faulty repairs, eventually the damaged area got worse and it blew off. See wiki Japan Airlines Flight 123 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Airlines_Flight_123
This accident pattern appears directly similar to that of MH 370. You have a catastrophic incident, indicating a probable wing being ripped off in mid air.
Additional information also increases this possibility. It appears the pilot of MH 370 tried to turn around, presumably to head back to Kuala Lumpur. This is probably because his cockpit instruments may have indicated a damage to the wing, and since he is only an hour or so from Kuala Lumpur, he may have tried to head back. This probably increased the chances of the accident.
An aircraft wings while banking increases the stress on the wings, unlike in level flight. And furthermore, in his hurry to turn back, he may have entered a steep bank which increases even further the stress on the wings. This turning may have been the straw that broke the camel's back resulting in the wing being ripped off entirely. Perhaps it may have been better for him, on hindsight, instead of turning, to hope for the best and continue on level flight to Beijing and request a straight in approach for landing.
I think what the authorities should be doing now is to look into the maintenance records of this aircraft to see if the 2012 wingtip incident at Shanghai was properly repaired.
I guess either the pilot did not have the time to radio the distress call or the accident was too sudden he simply did not realize the impending catastrophe.
There is also a report from an unidentified pilot in the vicinity that at the request of Vietnam Air Traffic Center, he did make contact with the KH 370 requesting that he make contact with Vietnam's ATC.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California, USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Thursday, March 6, 2014
Singaporeans in a fascist state kept in line to please Chinese millionaires.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Singapore is a pure fascist state. Fascism is a political system where every pillar of power is controlled by a single dictator or an oligarchy, a situation which exists absolutely in Singapore.
To survive there one has to join the establishment, period. Any independent mind has no place in the island whatsoever.
The newspapers, one of the pillars of any free society is both owned and controlled by the establishment which requires that every single paper has to report only the government's line. Therefore people can only read what the government has decided for you. No investigative journalist can come along and report that Lee Kuan Yew's son is a queer even if true,
Newspapers are used to push government propaganda, government plans, and discredit and malign it's critics, if there are any left.
Teachers in schools are all government employees and ordered to ensure their students are politically obedient. Using the carrot and the stick principle, students who support and joint he government are given good jobs. Those who don't are victimized. As a result the knowledge that you can succeed only by worshipping the government line leads to students to actively be seen as government supporters.
Judges are carefully selected for their loyalty to the establishment. Those who go out of the way to harshly punish government critics and always defend government policies see quick promotions while those who don't are dismissed.
Lawyers who are connected to the establishment and volunteer their time at government organized grass roots organizations are given top jobs in top law firms and lucrative government contracts. Those who don't have to scrape a living doing poorly paid cases.
The police and civil servants are told to favor government supporters and deal harshly against those seen as non supportive.
The government through their large secretive network on the ground and from identity card information keep careful surveillance on every citizen in the island so much so that they know each and every citizen almost as well as he knows himself. This information is daily reported to the police and civil servants who go out of their way to deny privileges to contrarians and favor those who support them.
Singapore's large business community of small shopkeepers and stall holders, and big businessmen all know that their profits depend on their outward showing of support to the authorities. As a result they have either praise or nothing to say about anything political.
Several Indian businesses in Serangoon Road in the island display portraits of Lee Kuan Yew and his son on their premises, thereby making doubly sure that there is no doubt as to whom they support. In reality of course, these businessmen not only have no knowledge of politics, and neither do they care one way or another.
The average Singaporean is even careful what he says to whom, out of fear that anything said which is derogatory of the powers up there can land them in big trouble. So why court danger for nothing.
In the end, this sort of island wide conformism leads to a very quiet uneventful society. The only people doing any thinking are those at the very top, by which I mean, Lee Kuan Yew's son and his trusted lieutenants, most of whom are related to him (nepotism) who make the policy and hand it down the hierarchy for the press to report it and the civil servants to obediently enforce it. As far as the average citizen is concerned, he has nothing much to do except obey whatever is thrown at him on a daily basis. His views are irrelevant, unless of course it is the same as that from the top.
Reading the main state controlled newspaper the Straits Times is like reading a company bulletin. It tells us what new policies have been implemented, who has gone to jail, who has been promoted and who demoted and the latest message from Lee Kuan Yew's son on the virtues of hard work. Other than that there is nothing much more.
It is a life where you have no choice but to sit back and wait for what next is being done in your name. And people just breeze through their lives, day after day, just waiting to be told what next to do.
The reason for the oligarchy's preference for such a regimented obedient society is two fold. One is obvious. If the people are forced to obey, it makes the hold on power by the oligarchy much more secure. An empowered demanding and engaged population would be risky for the rulers.
Second, the Chinese millionaires who park their money in Singapore after embezzling Chinese state owned corporations need a country which is stable without the uncertainly of democracies and changes in the power structure.
Realizing this fact, the government of Singapore ensures that they alone will stay in power, their policies will be the same as before with no changes, the workers will be kept on a tight leash and obedient, and there won't be any calamity or catastrophe whatsoever. These are ideal conditions for any investor but not so ideal for anyone with a head on his shoulders or a conscience in his heart.
The millionaires in Singapore are by the way, only third rate, mostly Chinese crooks who have just cheated state-owned companies. They come to Singapore mainly because Chinese is spoken there, and they can feel at home. There are very few Americans looking for low tax jurisdiction in the island as the new laws in the US make it unprofitable to cheat the US taxman. I know there are some similarly crooked Indian millionaires but other than these two nationalities, both equally crooked, I don't think there are many other nationalities there.
All said, it is a society which caters to the rich, with the Singaporean seen only as their servants to pamper their needs. Singapore itself does not produce great thinkers, scientists or even great businessmen. Anyone seen today with any ability is probably a foreigner running a large bank or big business. It does not cater for those who have big dreams to make a castle out of their own will and their own spirit. This is not possible in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore, a fascist state controlled by the Lees for the last 52 years since independence.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California, USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Singapore is a pure fascist state. Fascism is a political system where every pillar of power is controlled by a single dictator or an oligarchy, a situation which exists absolutely in Singapore.
To survive there one has to join the establishment, period. Any independent mind has no place in the island whatsoever.
The newspapers, one of the pillars of any free society is both owned and controlled by the establishment which requires that every single paper has to report only the government's line. Therefore people can only read what the government has decided for you. No investigative journalist can come along and report that Lee Kuan Yew's son is a queer even if true,
Newspapers are used to push government propaganda, government plans, and discredit and malign it's critics, if there are any left.
Teachers in schools are all government employees and ordered to ensure their students are politically obedient. Using the carrot and the stick principle, students who support and joint he government are given good jobs. Those who don't are victimized. As a result the knowledge that you can succeed only by worshipping the government line leads to students to actively be seen as government supporters.
Judges are carefully selected for their loyalty to the establishment. Those who go out of the way to harshly punish government critics and always defend government policies see quick promotions while those who don't are dismissed.
Lawyers who are connected to the establishment and volunteer their time at government organized grass roots organizations are given top jobs in top law firms and lucrative government contracts. Those who don't have to scrape a living doing poorly paid cases.
The police and civil servants are told to favor government supporters and deal harshly against those seen as non supportive.
The government through their large secretive network on the ground and from identity card information keep careful surveillance on every citizen in the island so much so that they know each and every citizen almost as well as he knows himself. This information is daily reported to the police and civil servants who go out of their way to deny privileges to contrarians and favor those who support them.
Singapore's large business community of small shopkeepers and stall holders, and big businessmen all know that their profits depend on their outward showing of support to the authorities. As a result they have either praise or nothing to say about anything political.
Several Indian businesses in Serangoon Road in the island display portraits of Lee Kuan Yew and his son on their premises, thereby making doubly sure that there is no doubt as to whom they support. In reality of course, these businessmen not only have no knowledge of politics, and neither do they care one way or another.
The average Singaporean is even careful what he says to whom, out of fear that anything said which is derogatory of the powers up there can land them in big trouble. So why court danger for nothing.
In the end, this sort of island wide conformism leads to a very quiet uneventful society. The only people doing any thinking are those at the very top, by which I mean, Lee Kuan Yew's son and his trusted lieutenants, most of whom are related to him (nepotism) who make the policy and hand it down the hierarchy for the press to report it and the civil servants to obediently enforce it. As far as the average citizen is concerned, he has nothing much to do except obey whatever is thrown at him on a daily basis. His views are irrelevant, unless of course it is the same as that from the top.
Reading the main state controlled newspaper the Straits Times is like reading a company bulletin. It tells us what new policies have been implemented, who has gone to jail, who has been promoted and who demoted and the latest message from Lee Kuan Yew's son on the virtues of hard work. Other than that there is nothing much more.
It is a life where you have no choice but to sit back and wait for what next is being done in your name. And people just breeze through their lives, day after day, just waiting to be told what next to do.
The reason for the oligarchy's preference for such a regimented obedient society is two fold. One is obvious. If the people are forced to obey, it makes the hold on power by the oligarchy much more secure. An empowered demanding and engaged population would be risky for the rulers.
Second, the Chinese millionaires who park their money in Singapore after embezzling Chinese state owned corporations need a country which is stable without the uncertainly of democracies and changes in the power structure.
Realizing this fact, the government of Singapore ensures that they alone will stay in power, their policies will be the same as before with no changes, the workers will be kept on a tight leash and obedient, and there won't be any calamity or catastrophe whatsoever. These are ideal conditions for any investor but not so ideal for anyone with a head on his shoulders or a conscience in his heart.
The millionaires in Singapore are by the way, only third rate, mostly Chinese crooks who have just cheated state-owned companies. They come to Singapore mainly because Chinese is spoken there, and they can feel at home. There are very few Americans looking for low tax jurisdiction in the island as the new laws in the US make it unprofitable to cheat the US taxman. I know there are some similarly crooked Indian millionaires but other than these two nationalities, both equally crooked, I don't think there are many other nationalities there.
All said, it is a society which caters to the rich, with the Singaporean seen only as their servants to pamper their needs. Singapore itself does not produce great thinkers, scientists or even great businessmen. Anyone seen today with any ability is probably a foreigner running a large bank or big business. It does not cater for those who have big dreams to make a castle out of their own will and their own spirit. This is not possible in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore, a fascist state controlled by the Lees for the last 52 years since independence.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California, USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
Singapore. Absoutely disgusting story of people siphoning waste oil from sewage pipes to use as cooking oil in food stalls
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Warning: This is a disgusting story which may hurt your sensitivities.
There are several verifiable reports of recently arrived Chinese immigrants to Singapore using pumps to siphon oil from underground sewage gutters and after re-cycling it, selling it to food stall vendors as cooking oil.
Please see report here http://therealsingapore.com/content/gutter-oil-singapore-nea-investigates-men-seen-pumping-contents-sewers. Apparently this disgusting practice goes on in China where up to 10% of cheap street vendors food utilizes this disgusting stuff secretely.
Attached below are pictures from Singapore of people caught in the act of siphoning sewage oil and dirt. 
Of course with shocking and absolutely disgusting news like this, it would naturally put away anyone from ever eating in Singapore's food stalls which are found everywhere in the island.
To ally such fears the government's state controlled media has put out a report denying that any such sewage pipe oil was ever used to cook food and that the whole thing is one big lie.
Please see state controlled newspaper Straits Report of March 06, 2014 "Gutter Oil" not sent to hawkers" http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/singapore/story/gutter-oil-not-sent-hawkers-says-nea-20140306
The problem of course is that no one believes these Singapore government lame denials as the culprits were all found to be recent immigrants from China, not locals. With the governments huge push to populate the island with these Chinese immigrants, they are bringing their nasty habits to Singapore.
Pictures appearing in the state controlled newspaper are also attached below.
It appears that these reports of oil in sewage pipes being used as cooking oil in Singapore has naturally alarmed almost everyone in the island.
It has been reported to me by a number of Singaporeans that hawker food stalls at Toa Payoh, one of the public housing estates in the island appears almost deserted and hardly anyone can be seen eating there.
It transpires that several people had seen people next to the food stalls there using pipes to suck out the oil residue in the sewage pipes below, and the fear is that they had sold the dirty oil to food sellers there.
There have been reports of these disgusting sightings in several other parts of the tiny island.
It is very probable that food vendors throughout the island will suffer crippling losses and would be thrown out of business for the fear that the food has been cooked in sewage pipe oil waste.
Suspicions as serious as this, naturally, cannot be simply dismissed merely by the food seller or the government denying use of sewage waste oil in the food.
This sort of thing has never happened before in Singapore when Singaporeans were the island's inhabitants. Today when nearly half of all Singapore residents are recently arrived Chinese, Lee Kuan Yew's master race, and with more arriving in the pipeline, no pun intended, we will see more and more of these nasty behaviors that they practice in their impoverished China imported into Singapore.
This has to be the death knell for cheap hawker food in Singapore, and by extension, the very survival of Lee Kuan Yew and Son's island.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
(
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Singapore is just waiting for racial violence
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The tense calm that exists between the races in Singapore island will not be so calm much longer.
If multi racial Singapore was allowed to exist with equality among the races, it would not have been what it is today, of a overwhelming vast majority of Chinese with a handful of Malays it's original inhabitants.
Singapore dictator Lee Kuan Yew, completely ignoring the Constitution which requires equality among the races, decided a long time ago that the island will remain predominately Chinese, his own race, precisely comprising 75%, about 15% Malay and the rest Indian and a handful of other races.
If childbirth will not hold these percentages, he continues to bring in the necessary numbers from China to keep the Chinese at this majority. Since the Chinese have lower fertility compared to the Malays or even Indians, he has continued bringing in huge numbers of Chinese angering the Malays, Indians and even the local Chinese.
His reason for the Chinese preference is his Hitlerain belief that they are superior, more hardworking and responsible than the Malays for whom he and his son display derision and contempt. He characterizes the Malays as lazy and irresponsible and the Indians as unruly and troublesome almost taking a page out of Hitler's Mein Kamf.
And don't forget, all this he and his son, the Prime Minister do openly in total violation of the Constitution. Shows how much respect they have for their citizen's intelligence.
Since my earlier life in Singapore and since writing this blog, I have personally heard of numerous instances of racial discrimination against Indians and Malays in jobs, in housing and in career promotions, a problem compounded by the fact that most private businesses are in the hands of the Chinese.
This racial discrimination is prevalent in every aspect of both public and private life, including jobs both government and private, housing, and in every other manner that you could possibly think of.
Singapore's Malays and Indians simply accept this discrimination without complaint as there is nothing they can do. Those who can emigrate to the West, those who can't simply eat humble pie.
The unhappiness of the Malays and Indians in Chinese Singapore is simmering under the surface. It may be dormant but it is nevertheless there.
This new Singapore of majority Chinese immigrants with locals becoming the minority begs the question, will this explode into racial violence with foreign Chinese attacking the locals or the Malays attacking the Chinese?
I think it will.
If the Singapore Malays and Indians have been sufficiently intimidated not to create a revolution against the Chinese majority, they may very soon do it.
Remember, the Chinese from China are a very different animal from local Singaporeans. He has not been trained to be submissive and tolerant to other races, which are non existent in China. It has been said that the Chinese from China consider themselves superior to local Chinese, never mind the Malays or Indians.
A few nasty remarks to a Singaporean Malay, an insult here or a there against local Chinese Indians or Malays may ignite the individual confrontation in a sardine packed overcrowded island into bloody island-wide mayhem.
If this happens, the local Chinese, thanks to the Lees who think they are superior to the Malays and Indians may join the recent immigrant Chinese and you are looking at a bloodbath.
Already in the island, one hears on a daily basis of confrontations with these recent immigrants from China. If these incidents are not publicized, it is only because the local state controlled newspapers are not reporting it for fear that it may in fact induce further violence.
It is unwise for any country to indiscriminately import human beings from abroad not knowing whether their temperament comports with that of a tiny island which today has perhaps not more than 2 million people.
Can you imagine what England would be if they brought in 30 million Afghans tomorrow? In fact, relative to Singapore's tiny population, that is exactly what they have done.
Not only for fear of inter racial violence, it is a bad idea because it turns the character of Singapore into something it is not.
Chinese form China have not been given any sufficient instruction or training on the peculiar situation in Singapore where there are other races too.
The happening of racial violence is increased by reports of the local population having lost their jobs or unable to get them because employers prefer newly arrived Chinese immigrants who accept lower wages.
There is an article in the magazine The Diplomat (please see earlier blog post come for the link) of widespread sporadic instances of racial friction in public places, of insults and abuse thrown, not only at Asian immigrants but also Western immigrants.
There was one instance of Dutchman who had relocated to Thailand with his Thai pregnant wife after she was told that her unborn "whore" child is not welcome in the island. The report also talks of Caucasians being told at their workplaces to go back where they came from.
Anton Casey, an Englishman was faced with massive island wide abuse and insults and run out of the island when he wrote disparaging articles of the locals.
As time goes on, not only for the Indians and the Malays but also for the local Chinese, it is going to get harder and harder to find jobs so as to satisfy the government's determination to keep wages low to be competitive in the global market place, a thoroughly heartless policy.
I have no doubt that with each day passing, and with no sign that the government will reduce the flow of Chinese migrants, it is only a question of when, not whether, racial violence will erupt in Singapore. The racial policies of the Lee Kuan Yew and son regime has created a time bomb, waiting to explode.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California, USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
The tense calm that exists between the races in Singapore island will not be so calm much longer.
If multi racial Singapore was allowed to exist with equality among the races, it would not have been what it is today, of a overwhelming vast majority of Chinese with a handful of Malays it's original inhabitants.
Singapore dictator Lee Kuan Yew, completely ignoring the Constitution which requires equality among the races, decided a long time ago that the island will remain predominately Chinese, his own race, precisely comprising 75%, about 15% Malay and the rest Indian and a handful of other races.
If childbirth will not hold these percentages, he continues to bring in the necessary numbers from China to keep the Chinese at this majority. Since the Chinese have lower fertility compared to the Malays or even Indians, he has continued bringing in huge numbers of Chinese angering the Malays, Indians and even the local Chinese.
His reason for the Chinese preference is his Hitlerain belief that they are superior, more hardworking and responsible than the Malays for whom he and his son display derision and contempt. He characterizes the Malays as lazy and irresponsible and the Indians as unruly and troublesome almost taking a page out of Hitler's Mein Kamf.
And don't forget, all this he and his son, the Prime Minister do openly in total violation of the Constitution. Shows how much respect they have for their citizen's intelligence.
Since my earlier life in Singapore and since writing this blog, I have personally heard of numerous instances of racial discrimination against Indians and Malays in jobs, in housing and in career promotions, a problem compounded by the fact that most private businesses are in the hands of the Chinese.
This racial discrimination is prevalent in every aspect of both public and private life, including jobs both government and private, housing, and in every other manner that you could possibly think of.
Singapore's Malays and Indians simply accept this discrimination without complaint as there is nothing they can do. Those who can emigrate to the West, those who can't simply eat humble pie.
The unhappiness of the Malays and Indians in Chinese Singapore is simmering under the surface. It may be dormant but it is nevertheless there.
This new Singapore of majority Chinese immigrants with locals becoming the minority begs the question, will this explode into racial violence with foreign Chinese attacking the locals or the Malays attacking the Chinese?
I think it will.
If the Singapore Malays and Indians have been sufficiently intimidated not to create a revolution against the Chinese majority, they may very soon do it.
Remember, the Chinese from China are a very different animal from local Singaporeans. He has not been trained to be submissive and tolerant to other races, which are non existent in China. It has been said that the Chinese from China consider themselves superior to local Chinese, never mind the Malays or Indians.
A few nasty remarks to a Singaporean Malay, an insult here or a there against local Chinese Indians or Malays may ignite the individual confrontation in a sardine packed overcrowded island into bloody island-wide mayhem.
If this happens, the local Chinese, thanks to the Lees who think they are superior to the Malays and Indians may join the recent immigrant Chinese and you are looking at a bloodbath.
Already in the island, one hears on a daily basis of confrontations with these recent immigrants from China. If these incidents are not publicized, it is only because the local state controlled newspapers are not reporting it for fear that it may in fact induce further violence.
It is unwise for any country to indiscriminately import human beings from abroad not knowing whether their temperament comports with that of a tiny island which today has perhaps not more than 2 million people.
Can you imagine what England would be if they brought in 30 million Afghans tomorrow? In fact, relative to Singapore's tiny population, that is exactly what they have done.
Not only for fear of inter racial violence, it is a bad idea because it turns the character of Singapore into something it is not.
Chinese form China have not been given any sufficient instruction or training on the peculiar situation in Singapore where there are other races too.
The happening of racial violence is increased by reports of the local population having lost their jobs or unable to get them because employers prefer newly arrived Chinese immigrants who accept lower wages.
There is an article in the magazine The Diplomat (please see earlier blog post come for the link) of widespread sporadic instances of racial friction in public places, of insults and abuse thrown, not only at Asian immigrants but also Western immigrants.
There was one instance of Dutchman who had relocated to Thailand with his Thai pregnant wife after she was told that her unborn "whore" child is not welcome in the island. The report also talks of Caucasians being told at their workplaces to go back where they came from.
Anton Casey, an Englishman was faced with massive island wide abuse and insults and run out of the island when he wrote disparaging articles of the locals.
As time goes on, not only for the Indians and the Malays but also for the local Chinese, it is going to get harder and harder to find jobs so as to satisfy the government's determination to keep wages low to be competitive in the global market place, a thoroughly heartless policy.
I have no doubt that with each day passing, and with no sign that the government will reduce the flow of Chinese migrants, it is only a question of when, not whether, racial violence will erupt in Singapore. The racial policies of the Lee Kuan Yew and son regime has created a time bomb, waiting to explode.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California, USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Monday, March 3, 2014
Singapore's useless "lawyers"
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is not an understatement to say that the entire legal profession of Singapore are simply useless if your case has anything to do with your rights.
An oxymoron but true, since you probably go to a lawyer for none other than to defend your rights, and not to repair your car.
In fact, never mind the lawyers being useless, in Lee Kuan Yew and his son's one party police state, you won't get any lawyer to even represent you.
For the last 50 years of Lee Kuan Yew's rule and now by extension, that of his son whom he placed as Prime Minister, the government's principle intention was to silence the lawyers.
With Lee's determination to rule the island according to his will, not according to any Constitution, he knew that any threat towards his one party dictatorial rule would probably come from the lawyers.
After all, the British who gave independence to the island also gave them a Constitution, replete with human rights, right of free speech and expression, right to a free press and other normal rights expected of any democracy.
As Lee had no intention whatsoever of a democracy, he had to silence particularly the lawyers, since it is they who know about such dangerous things as freedom of speech.
As a result systematically he has successfully behavior trained the lawyers, repeatedly intimidating, arresting and bankrupting any lawyer in the island who is foolish enough to talk of such things as democracy and human rights, as to effectively send a chill down their spine of even uttering such things.
In fact in Singapore, any mention of such rights, which by the way are clearly enshrined in the Constitution are simply taboo and never even mentioned.
You can find this out yourself by trying to engage any lawyer there into a conversation about such things. I can bet you, you would probably draw a blank.
The way this was done was by successfully persecuting and destroying any lawyer who dared to utter such unmentionable things.
This had a double effect of not only destroying the perpetrator (the lawyer who was foolish enough to defend such a client), but also creating a fear in every other lawyer that it is best to stay as far as possible from any client who had such unwholesome ideas.
One such victim that will come to everyone's mind is JB Jeyaretnam. He was a prominent lawyer and an opposition politician. He was for more than 30 years, a thorn on the side of Lee's one party dictatorship. (Please Google JB Jeyaretnam for his full story).
He was repeatedly sued for defamation of character for even the most innocuous statement one could have made, hauled before Lee's Kangaroo judges who are his rubber stamp, and ordered to pay up to a million dollars if not more in damages.
Not being able to pay, he was bankrupted and jailed. He has since died of a heart attack.
Another iconic victim was Chee Soon Juan. (Please Google Chee Soon Juan for his story).
A former professor at the local university, his mistake was to stand for elections and question the one party dictatorship.
Being a clever man, like JB Jeyaretnam, he had to be silenced. If allowed to continue agitation, he would undoubtedly topple the dictator and his government.
So he had to be silenced using the island's Kangaroo Courts. He too, like JB Jeyaretam was repeatedly sued for millions, bankrupted and jailed.
Today except for writing his blog, he has been effectively destroyed. If you didn't read his blog, the Singapore Democrat, you wouldn't know he existed. By design, the state controlled media has blacked him out.
The problem that Lee has with men such as JB Jeyaretnam and Chee Soon Juan is that they are simply right and Lee is wrong.
The Constitution of Singapore demands a democracy, not a dictatorship which is what Lee has turned the island into. And anyone who can read can plainly see that Lee's government is simply illegal and contrary to the Constitution.
And therefore since any free debate on the issue would dethrone the government instantly, the only way to rule is to use force, or in Lee's case, through the abuse of the legal system to arrest and bankrupt you to silence dissent.
The Constitution of Singapore, just as any other Constitution, guarantees the people of Singapore, the right to free speech, expression, assembly and a free and independent press. In addition, the Singapore Constitution specifically provides that any interpretation of the terms will be according to the law of England.
A reading of today's Singapore Constitution shows that every single right of the people has been effectively abrogated. The right to free speech has been negated through the requirement of a government permit, without which the citizen is liable to arrest. And by the way, even if you did apply for a permit, it will never be granted.
The same goes for the right to assembly, which requires a permit which will never be granted.
The newspapers have all been hijacked through the Newspapers and Printing Presses Act which requires a permit to circulate any newspaper in the island. In fact under the law even possession of a printing machine without a license is illegal!
The effect of this licensing requirement is to ensure that ever single paper is owned and controlled by the state thereby effectively criminalizing any independent newspaper.
It is not much different form the newspapers of North Korea.
The daily news is censored allowing only news that the state will allow to be made public.
Naturally you hear good news on a daily basis and just as in North Korea, it's pages are used to defame and malign those who are the government's critics, such as JB Jeyaretnam, Chee Soon Juan or myself, Gopalan Nair.
Although the law allows for the government to amend the Constitution if they have a two thirds majority in Parliament, which they have, English law, which is supposed to apply to Singapore only allows the Constitution to be amended in extreme exigent circumstances.
In Singapore, in violation of the law, as there are no exigent circumstances to amend the Constitution, Lee has gone ahead and done away with every single citizen's right under it, only because it has a two thirds majority in Parliament.
In fact even the majority that Lee has in Parliament is illegal, since every election that the island ever had was rigged and unfair.
Lee rigs the elections to obtain his desired result by intimidating and threatening everyone in Singapore so much so that no one in his right mind would want to stand against him.
This way, his candidate just breezes through and is elected each and every single time.
In the last election, the Workers Party, a so-called opposition party which won a number of seats is in fact a red-herring.
Realizing that more and more citizens are disgruntled with their government, Lee's PAP have effectively hijacked the Workers Party who today masquerades as an opposition party but are in reality representing Lee's PAP.
For the past decade or so, Workers Party have not championed a single cause for freedom in the island and today they do nothing more than running their town council, which by the way, the government can do just as well.
The government's aim was to hoodwink their citizens into thinking they have an opposition but in fact they are no more than Lee's PAP under a different hat.
Coming to the lawyers, they are a useless lot of people.
None among them has the courage to represent anyone who may have a grievance pertaining to his rights or a grievance against the government.
This is because not only would the litigant be foolish enough to take on such an un-winnable case, the lawyer who represented the client would also be in trouble, or his career brought to an abrupt halt.
This is why if you were to scour the entire courts in the island, you would never find even a single case involving a client suing the government or a case involving his Constitutional human rights.
As for Lee's judges, they are carefully handpicked to ensure that they will always find in favor of the government against any citizen regardless of the law.
As an example of this abuse of judicial office, I would mention Chee Soon Juan's numerous cases when he was repeatedly charged for peacefully speaking in public even though he had done no harm to anyone, and was merely exercising his constitutional right.
When he argued that he had a right under the Constitution of free speech, Lee's judges parrot-like retort was that he was guilty because he did not have a permit.
When Chee correctly pointed out that he had applied for that permit which he did not receive, and in fact pointed out that no permit has ever been granted throughout the history of the island, the judge's response was that he did not care.
As long as he did not have a permit, he was guilty! The judge turned out to be a broken record!
In Singapore today, you would never find any lawyer to represent you if your rights were violated or if you had a case against the government.
Singapore lawyers are only available for commercial cases between businessmen and these too are always decided in favor of the government supporter and against someone with any opposition leanings.
The end result of this is that Singapore lawyers are ashamed of themselves and have resigned themselves to a life of being unable to truly be a lawyer in the normal meaning of the word.
A lawyer should be someone who comes to the profession knowing his duty to defend his client's interests even if it means that their own interests may be prejudiced.
A true lawyer has a duty not only to his client but also to the law to ensure that a government does not deny the rights of its people.
Unfortunately the entire island of Singapore does not have a single lawyer who has such noble aspirations.
These disgraceful circumstances reduces the entire legal profession in the island as one spineless gutless bunch of cowards, not someone whom one would label a lawyer anywhere else.
The knowledge of the helplessness of the legal profession under Lee's one party police state is taking its toll.
Many who would have otherwise entered the legal profession are simply staying away.
Today, the island, which has no less than 5 million people, has no more than 4,000 lawyers and their numbers are dwindling fast; a number totally inadequate for a city state of 5 million, especially one that claims to be a commercial city.
Sustained attempts by the government to encourage more students into the profession continue to fail.
Today, the entire legal profession in the island is discredited.
Lawyers are by an large looked upon as gutless hypocrites who masquerade as legal professionals to make as much money as possible, peddling commercial cases, and judges are seen as Kangaroos who preside over cases only to find in favor of the Lee Kuan Yew government and their policies.
As a result, one has to be a particularly dishonest opportunist lacking in any principles or an independent mind whatsoever either to go into the law and especially to accept a judicial office.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California, USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email:nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
It is not an understatement to say that the entire legal profession of Singapore are simply useless if your case has anything to do with your rights.
An oxymoron but true, since you probably go to a lawyer for none other than to defend your rights, and not to repair your car.
In fact, never mind the lawyers being useless, in Lee Kuan Yew and his son's one party police state, you won't get any lawyer to even represent you.
For the last 50 years of Lee Kuan Yew's rule and now by extension, that of his son whom he placed as Prime Minister, the government's principle intention was to silence the lawyers.
With Lee's determination to rule the island according to his will, not according to any Constitution, he knew that any threat towards his one party dictatorial rule would probably come from the lawyers.
After all, the British who gave independence to the island also gave them a Constitution, replete with human rights, right of free speech and expression, right to a free press and other normal rights expected of any democracy.
As Lee had no intention whatsoever of a democracy, he had to silence particularly the lawyers, since it is they who know about such dangerous things as freedom of speech.
As a result systematically he has successfully behavior trained the lawyers, repeatedly intimidating, arresting and bankrupting any lawyer in the island who is foolish enough to talk of such things as democracy and human rights, as to effectively send a chill down their spine of even uttering such things.
In fact in Singapore, any mention of such rights, which by the way are clearly enshrined in the Constitution are simply taboo and never even mentioned.
You can find this out yourself by trying to engage any lawyer there into a conversation about such things. I can bet you, you would probably draw a blank.
The way this was done was by successfully persecuting and destroying any lawyer who dared to utter such unmentionable things.
This had a double effect of not only destroying the perpetrator (the lawyer who was foolish enough to defend such a client), but also creating a fear in every other lawyer that it is best to stay as far as possible from any client who had such unwholesome ideas.
One such victim that will come to everyone's mind is JB Jeyaretnam. He was a prominent lawyer and an opposition politician. He was for more than 30 years, a thorn on the side of Lee's one party dictatorship. (Please Google JB Jeyaretnam for his full story).
He was repeatedly sued for defamation of character for even the most innocuous statement one could have made, hauled before Lee's Kangaroo judges who are his rubber stamp, and ordered to pay up to a million dollars if not more in damages.
Not being able to pay, he was bankrupted and jailed. He has since died of a heart attack.
Another iconic victim was Chee Soon Juan. (Please Google Chee Soon Juan for his story).
A former professor at the local university, his mistake was to stand for elections and question the one party dictatorship.
Being a clever man, like JB Jeyaretnam, he had to be silenced. If allowed to continue agitation, he would undoubtedly topple the dictator and his government.
So he had to be silenced using the island's Kangaroo Courts. He too, like JB Jeyaretam was repeatedly sued for millions, bankrupted and jailed.
Today except for writing his blog, he has been effectively destroyed. If you didn't read his blog, the Singapore Democrat, you wouldn't know he existed. By design, the state controlled media has blacked him out.
The problem that Lee has with men such as JB Jeyaretnam and Chee Soon Juan is that they are simply right and Lee is wrong.
The Constitution of Singapore demands a democracy, not a dictatorship which is what Lee has turned the island into. And anyone who can read can plainly see that Lee's government is simply illegal and contrary to the Constitution.
And therefore since any free debate on the issue would dethrone the government instantly, the only way to rule is to use force, or in Lee's case, through the abuse of the legal system to arrest and bankrupt you to silence dissent.
The Constitution of Singapore, just as any other Constitution, guarantees the people of Singapore, the right to free speech, expression, assembly and a free and independent press. In addition, the Singapore Constitution specifically provides that any interpretation of the terms will be according to the law of England.
A reading of today's Singapore Constitution shows that every single right of the people has been effectively abrogated. The right to free speech has been negated through the requirement of a government permit, without which the citizen is liable to arrest. And by the way, even if you did apply for a permit, it will never be granted.
The same goes for the right to assembly, which requires a permit which will never be granted.
The newspapers have all been hijacked through the Newspapers and Printing Presses Act which requires a permit to circulate any newspaper in the island. In fact under the law even possession of a printing machine without a license is illegal!
The effect of this licensing requirement is to ensure that ever single paper is owned and controlled by the state thereby effectively criminalizing any independent newspaper.
It is not much different form the newspapers of North Korea.
The daily news is censored allowing only news that the state will allow to be made public.
Naturally you hear good news on a daily basis and just as in North Korea, it's pages are used to defame and malign those who are the government's critics, such as JB Jeyaretnam, Chee Soon Juan or myself, Gopalan Nair.
Although the law allows for the government to amend the Constitution if they have a two thirds majority in Parliament, which they have, English law, which is supposed to apply to Singapore only allows the Constitution to be amended in extreme exigent circumstances.
In Singapore, in violation of the law, as there are no exigent circumstances to amend the Constitution, Lee has gone ahead and done away with every single citizen's right under it, only because it has a two thirds majority in Parliament.
In fact even the majority that Lee has in Parliament is illegal, since every election that the island ever had was rigged and unfair.
Lee rigs the elections to obtain his desired result by intimidating and threatening everyone in Singapore so much so that no one in his right mind would want to stand against him.
This way, his candidate just breezes through and is elected each and every single time.
In the last election, the Workers Party, a so-called opposition party which won a number of seats is in fact a red-herring.
Realizing that more and more citizens are disgruntled with their government, Lee's PAP have effectively hijacked the Workers Party who today masquerades as an opposition party but are in reality representing Lee's PAP.
For the past decade or so, Workers Party have not championed a single cause for freedom in the island and today they do nothing more than running their town council, which by the way, the government can do just as well.
The government's aim was to hoodwink their citizens into thinking they have an opposition but in fact they are no more than Lee's PAP under a different hat.
Coming to the lawyers, they are a useless lot of people.
None among them has the courage to represent anyone who may have a grievance pertaining to his rights or a grievance against the government.
This is because not only would the litigant be foolish enough to take on such an un-winnable case, the lawyer who represented the client would also be in trouble, or his career brought to an abrupt halt.
This is why if you were to scour the entire courts in the island, you would never find even a single case involving a client suing the government or a case involving his Constitutional human rights.
As for Lee's judges, they are carefully handpicked to ensure that they will always find in favor of the government against any citizen regardless of the law.
As an example of this abuse of judicial office, I would mention Chee Soon Juan's numerous cases when he was repeatedly charged for peacefully speaking in public even though he had done no harm to anyone, and was merely exercising his constitutional right.
When he argued that he had a right under the Constitution of free speech, Lee's judges parrot-like retort was that he was guilty because he did not have a permit.
When Chee correctly pointed out that he had applied for that permit which he did not receive, and in fact pointed out that no permit has ever been granted throughout the history of the island, the judge's response was that he did not care.
As long as he did not have a permit, he was guilty! The judge turned out to be a broken record!
In Singapore today, you would never find any lawyer to represent you if your rights were violated or if you had a case against the government.
Singapore lawyers are only available for commercial cases between businessmen and these too are always decided in favor of the government supporter and against someone with any opposition leanings.
The end result of this is that Singapore lawyers are ashamed of themselves and have resigned themselves to a life of being unable to truly be a lawyer in the normal meaning of the word.
A lawyer should be someone who comes to the profession knowing his duty to defend his client's interests even if it means that their own interests may be prejudiced.
A true lawyer has a duty not only to his client but also to the law to ensure that a government does not deny the rights of its people.
Unfortunately the entire island of Singapore does not have a single lawyer who has such noble aspirations.
These disgraceful circumstances reduces the entire legal profession in the island as one spineless gutless bunch of cowards, not someone whom one would label a lawyer anywhere else.
The knowledge of the helplessness of the legal profession under Lee's one party police state is taking its toll.
Many who would have otherwise entered the legal profession are simply staying away.
Today, the island, which has no less than 5 million people, has no more than 4,000 lawyers and their numbers are dwindling fast; a number totally inadequate for a city state of 5 million, especially one that claims to be a commercial city.
Sustained attempts by the government to encourage more students into the profession continue to fail.
Today, the entire legal profession in the island is discredited.
Lawyers are by an large looked upon as gutless hypocrites who masquerade as legal professionals to make as much money as possible, peddling commercial cases, and judges are seen as Kangaroos who preside over cases only to find in favor of the Lee Kuan Yew government and their policies.
As a result, one has to be a particularly dishonest opportunist lacking in any principles or an independent mind whatsoever either to go into the law and especially to accept a judicial office.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California, USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email:nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
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