Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have always been surprised why the people of the tiny island of Singapore have put up with so much indignity to their person and their self respect and treated no better than slaves, by this dictatorial government of Lee Kuan Yew and now his son, and yet have done nothing to resist and demand their dignity; choosing instead to remain obedient and take the beating.
You have an island where Lee Kuan Yew, even in his death bed now, and his son whom he placed as Prime Minister and every other Minister, toady and bootlicker that run around them, pay themselves, (I think steal is a much better word) no less than $3.7 million a year.
An island where every single Minister and official is connected to the Lee Kuan Yew family either through affinity or consanguinity and nepotism is the word for official appointments.
Where the moment you open your mouth to complain, slapped with a defamation lawsuit and bankrupted before their Kangaroo Courts.
I ask myself, why do they put up with this.
Have they not a single ounce of courage in their veins?
Although there is an overwhelming outrage and anger albeit mostly incognito in the Internet and there are increasing instances of hacking of government computers lately, writing anti government graffiti on walls and outpourings of other forms of anti government sentiment, demonstrably it has not yet reached the extent of island wide street protests as you would have expected in Hong Kong or Tahrir Square, Cairo.
Even though the government has arrested and jailed every single one of these brave human rights activists, it has not stopped them.
In fact it has only increased the number of anti government human rights instances.
There is no doubt that there is growing anger that is simmering under the surface which is only waiting for a catalyst, a spark, to ignite the explosive.
And I think that spark for the island wide street protests is about to happen any time now, which is the death of our breathing cadaver, Lee Kuan Yew, now lying in a coma under life support at Singapore General Hospital.
A pathetic sight indeed of a man, now helpless at the mercy of his minders, who once strutted around his Singapore island chicken coop, bullying everyone in sight and sending Chia Thye Poh, his critic, to 31 years in prison! A man ugly in life and now ugly in death.
If there is one reason alone why the people would rise in indignation is the theft of taxpayers money that this half dead coot, his son the prime Minister and every one of their Ministers politicians friends and toadies pay themselves.
I don't have to remind you that each of them pay themselves, steal is the better word, officially, $3.7 million dollars a year which they conveniently call a salary. Very conveniently.
Even this is not enough. In addition they take about 7 months bonus every year and directorship fees that runs into even more millions.
This my friend is a total wholesale theft of the country's assets. This alone should be reason enough for public street protests the moment Lee Kuan Yew kicks the bucket. The theft is so large, it would have put what Robert Mugabe or Mobutu of the Congo stole small change.
Then you have other equally compelling reasons. What about the denial of every basic human right. No free speech expression or nothing. Just life as slaves. This should be another glaring reason.
Then what about the denial of the right of Hindu Tamils to practice their religion. On February 3, 2015, during the Hindu Thaipusam festival, 3 Indians were charged when they wanted to play religious drums, a requirement under Tamil Hinduism which was denied. The drums were confiscated and the 3 assaulted by Chinese and Malay policemen at a Hindu religious festival!
Additionally the wife of one of the Hindu religious observers was assaulted and pushed to the ground resulting in her suffering extensive injuries. It was either Chinese or Malay police officers who assaulted these Hindu Indians, obviously a racially motivated hate crime. Indians would I predict protest against this racial discrimination and police brutality and denial of their right to practice their religion.
Malays should be protesting against the racial discrimination against them by the Chinese where they are denied jobs and even thrown out of their jobs which are then given to the Chinese.
Lee Kuan Yew and his son have publicly also stated that the Malays of Singapore are good for nothing, undisciplined, stupid and not as smart as the ethnic Chinese of which the Lee family belongs. The Malays would clearly be protesting now against this Chinese aggression.
All in all, there are numerous cases crying out for justice and island wide street protests. If Singaporeans have sat quietly by so far, they may not be doing nothing any longer. They will be moved to action.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/singapore.dissident
Saturday, February 28, 2015
Thursday, February 26, 2015
The problems for the Peoples Action Party after Lee Kuan Yew
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Both the local and throughout the international media are replete with the big Singapore news of the day, Lee Kuan Yew aged 91 or whichever is the correct number in the island's secretive state controlled news is seriously ill with pneumonia in hospital under life support. He has been there for 22 days!
You can take judicial notice of the fact that he is dying just by looking at any of his recent pictures. What you see is the image of a corpse, albeit a breathing one, at least up till now. Surely there is not long to go. If you are a betting man, you will win nothing betting on his demise. And that is that.
The question is what happens to his party PAP's Singapore island.
Throughout the 50 years of it's entire history, the island has been governed by one man, the now dying Lee himself. Although he handed over the reigns during the past 20 years or so, first to Goh Chock Tong, although his tenure was intended only as a seat warmer for the real intended beneficiary, Lee Kuan Yew's son, who as planned took over some 10 years ago.
But the style of government whether it was Goh Chock Tong or Lee's son, as at present, it was always the style of Lee himself.
And Lee Kuan Yew's style or the Singapore model of governance was the Stalinist style, which is, you- listen- to- me- or- else. Although there is the Constitution, the requirement of rule of law and free and fair elections, these were nothing but niceties to him, all thrown out the window. None of this existed in reality.
He used to warn workers not to strike or they will be jailed. Students were not allowed to agitate or else they would be expelled. Workers were not allowed to criticize him or else they would lose their jobs and so on. Since the people were all afraid to lose their jobs, their livelihoods and their savings through bankruptcy, they all obeyed. Therefore was calm and quiet and fear across the island for the last 50 years.
And this Kim Jong Un style of government was copied to the letter by first Goh Chock Tong and later by his son, whom he placed as Prime Minister. They too felt an entitlement to the right to warn the workers not to agitate or else; the students to behave or else, and as expected everyone behaved out of a mortal fear of life and limb. But there is one important point here. While his handpicked Stalins and Mugabes were strutting around bullying their poor citizens, Lee who first thought of this style of governance, was still alive. And that made the difference.
As there is no doubt that his Prime Minister son intends to continue threatening his citizens into submission like his father did, question is, will it work even when the father is dead, which by all account will happen either today or tomorrow?
I think not. I think it will not work. And this is why. Although his father is undoubtedly a dictator, he is a dictator whom many held with some respect and awe. After all, he fought the Communists in the 1950s, he cleared the slums, he built the government flats where the fast majority of the people live. So although the man is a dictator, he his a dictator who has achieved some undeniable success.
To put it another way, when Ronald Reagan was asked why he was going around supporting Latin American dictators like Samoza of Nicaragua, he said "Samoza may be a son of a bitch. But at least he is our son of a bitch." So in the dying Lee's case, he may have been a dictator, but he was a dictator who undoubtedly did some good work.
But what about his son? Who the Hell is he? Did he fight the Communists? Did he move the mountain? Or did he do anything for that matter? The answer unfortunately for him is Zero.
The people know that he is simply there because of his father, period. So after his father's death, if he goes strutting around like a prize rooster, telling workers not to agitate or be thrown in jail, will they listen? If he tells the students to be quiet or be punished, will they listen?
We may have listened to the man who fought the Communists and moved the mountains, but who the Hell is this stupid son of his to tell us how to live, how to spit and why we shouldn't make noise in HDB flats. He is simply a handpicked son, no more no less, lucky enough to be born to his father, placed there by his father, a man who has not even won a single real election, which were all rigged by his father. He simply has no merit whatsoever. And why should anyone listen to person like him pontificating over us?
I reckon this poor clueless son of his is going to have a hard time behaving like his father once he is gone. And the problem is not just with this son of his, but with the entire government.
Every single Minister, Member of Parliament were all handpicked highly paid minions with powers to order and insult any citizen to obey or be punished.
As I said, it may be one thing for Lee Kuan Yew to behave like that, it is quite another for these minions of his to do the same. I don't think the people would put up with it anymore once the father has gone.
And if the people don't listen, then what happens? Do they call out the riot police to round up all of you and throw you in the can? And will that solve the problem? I think not.
I think Lee Kuan Yew's death is going to be a catastrophe for Singapore which was entirely of his own making.
For all the wisdom and the foresight attributed to him, he failed to realize that that the Stalinist style of government, may have worked for one man, himself. But the circumstances that existed in the 1950s and 1960s do not exist now, with these handpicked minions who run around obeying orders or to be giving orders.
Lee's failure was the inability to realize that for a stable and peaceful society, there has to be leaders, I mean real leaders whom the people respect and whom they represent, and these leaders must be accepted by the people.
By simply deputizing scholars into instant Ministers with powers to order you around, as is what happens now, to terrorize their people, is not the way to govern for 2 reasons.
Firstly these handpicked instant Ministers themselves, when Lee Kuan Yew is no longer there, would not have the confidence to be strutting around and giving orders and secondly the people will simply not listen to these characters who have no legitimacy whatsoever other than the sole qualification of having been selected by the erstwhile Lee.
To put it another way, why should I listen to someone simply because he has a double first honors from Cambridge?
Other than the ability to pass exams in school, what else can he do? Nothing, as far as I know. In fact I may have never even heard of this man before who is now telling me how to spit, how to walk and what I should think, just because he has a Cambridge degree.
I hope you see the point I am trying to make. This you-listen-to-me-or-else style of government by these politicians whom we had never heard before is simply not going to work. They have no legitimacy to be giving orders, they know it and I know it.
So then what? I suppose disobedience, protests, street protests, Malays protesting, Indians protesting, HDB tenants protesting, workers protesting, and simply chaos.
Civil society unfortunately does not exist in that island. There is no respect for the law (no rule of law), there is no respect for the elections (elections are rigged) and there is no respect for the civil service (they are not independent). Above all that there is no free speech, no right to assembly and you have a defamation of character regime dispensed by Kangaroo Courts.
The government's only way to stay in power in the post Lee Kuan Yew Singapore is repression, repression and more repression, simply because you have a system of government that the people simply cannot respect. And where there is repression, there is always resistance. That is the primordial law of nature that holds true in dictatorial regimes.
Well what is the answer? Can you now introduce civil society in an instant? Can you introduce an independent judiciary and free and fair elections? You can but you cannot do this overnight. Singaporeans have been brainwashed to accept their slavish lives and to suddenly expect people to think with their heads will not happen.
Singapore is going to be a ship without a heading. I hope eventually it will find it's true bearings. But by that time, for a tiny island like that with a even tinier population, no bigger than that perhaps a Pacific island atoll, it is probably too late.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/singapore.dissident
Both the local and throughout the international media are replete with the big Singapore news of the day, Lee Kuan Yew aged 91 or whichever is the correct number in the island's secretive state controlled news is seriously ill with pneumonia in hospital under life support. He has been there for 22 days!
You can take judicial notice of the fact that he is dying just by looking at any of his recent pictures. What you see is the image of a corpse, albeit a breathing one, at least up till now. Surely there is not long to go. If you are a betting man, you will win nothing betting on his demise. And that is that.
The question is what happens to his party PAP's Singapore island.
Throughout the 50 years of it's entire history, the island has been governed by one man, the now dying Lee himself. Although he handed over the reigns during the past 20 years or so, first to Goh Chock Tong, although his tenure was intended only as a seat warmer for the real intended beneficiary, Lee Kuan Yew's son, who as planned took over some 10 years ago.
But the style of government whether it was Goh Chock Tong or Lee's son, as at present, it was always the style of Lee himself.
And Lee Kuan Yew's style or the Singapore model of governance was the Stalinist style, which is, you- listen- to- me- or- else. Although there is the Constitution, the requirement of rule of law and free and fair elections, these were nothing but niceties to him, all thrown out the window. None of this existed in reality.
He used to warn workers not to strike or they will be jailed. Students were not allowed to agitate or else they would be expelled. Workers were not allowed to criticize him or else they would lose their jobs and so on. Since the people were all afraid to lose their jobs, their livelihoods and their savings through bankruptcy, they all obeyed. Therefore was calm and quiet and fear across the island for the last 50 years.
And this Kim Jong Un style of government was copied to the letter by first Goh Chock Tong and later by his son, whom he placed as Prime Minister. They too felt an entitlement to the right to warn the workers not to agitate or else; the students to behave or else, and as expected everyone behaved out of a mortal fear of life and limb. But there is one important point here. While his handpicked Stalins and Mugabes were strutting around bullying their poor citizens, Lee who first thought of this style of governance, was still alive. And that made the difference.
As there is no doubt that his Prime Minister son intends to continue threatening his citizens into submission like his father did, question is, will it work even when the father is dead, which by all account will happen either today or tomorrow?
I think not. I think it will not work. And this is why. Although his father is undoubtedly a dictator, he is a dictator whom many held with some respect and awe. After all, he fought the Communists in the 1950s, he cleared the slums, he built the government flats where the fast majority of the people live. So although the man is a dictator, he his a dictator who has achieved some undeniable success.
To put it another way, when Ronald Reagan was asked why he was going around supporting Latin American dictators like Samoza of Nicaragua, he said "Samoza may be a son of a bitch. But at least he is our son of a bitch." So in the dying Lee's case, he may have been a dictator, but he was a dictator who undoubtedly did some good work.
But what about his son? Who the Hell is he? Did he fight the Communists? Did he move the mountain? Or did he do anything for that matter? The answer unfortunately for him is Zero.
The people know that he is simply there because of his father, period. So after his father's death, if he goes strutting around like a prize rooster, telling workers not to agitate or be thrown in jail, will they listen? If he tells the students to be quiet or be punished, will they listen?
We may have listened to the man who fought the Communists and moved the mountains, but who the Hell is this stupid son of his to tell us how to live, how to spit and why we shouldn't make noise in HDB flats. He is simply a handpicked son, no more no less, lucky enough to be born to his father, placed there by his father, a man who has not even won a single real election, which were all rigged by his father. He simply has no merit whatsoever. And why should anyone listen to person like him pontificating over us?
I reckon this poor clueless son of his is going to have a hard time behaving like his father once he is gone. And the problem is not just with this son of his, but with the entire government.
Every single Minister, Member of Parliament were all handpicked highly paid minions with powers to order and insult any citizen to obey or be punished.
As I said, it may be one thing for Lee Kuan Yew to behave like that, it is quite another for these minions of his to do the same. I don't think the people would put up with it anymore once the father has gone.
And if the people don't listen, then what happens? Do they call out the riot police to round up all of you and throw you in the can? And will that solve the problem? I think not.
I think Lee Kuan Yew's death is going to be a catastrophe for Singapore which was entirely of his own making.
For all the wisdom and the foresight attributed to him, he failed to realize that that the Stalinist style of government, may have worked for one man, himself. But the circumstances that existed in the 1950s and 1960s do not exist now, with these handpicked minions who run around obeying orders or to be giving orders.
Lee's failure was the inability to realize that for a stable and peaceful society, there has to be leaders, I mean real leaders whom the people respect and whom they represent, and these leaders must be accepted by the people.
By simply deputizing scholars into instant Ministers with powers to order you around, as is what happens now, to terrorize their people, is not the way to govern for 2 reasons.
Firstly these handpicked instant Ministers themselves, when Lee Kuan Yew is no longer there, would not have the confidence to be strutting around and giving orders and secondly the people will simply not listen to these characters who have no legitimacy whatsoever other than the sole qualification of having been selected by the erstwhile Lee.
To put it another way, why should I listen to someone simply because he has a double first honors from Cambridge?
Other than the ability to pass exams in school, what else can he do? Nothing, as far as I know. In fact I may have never even heard of this man before who is now telling me how to spit, how to walk and what I should think, just because he has a Cambridge degree.
I hope you see the point I am trying to make. This you-listen-to-me-or-else style of government by these politicians whom we had never heard before is simply not going to work. They have no legitimacy to be giving orders, they know it and I know it.
So then what? I suppose disobedience, protests, street protests, Malays protesting, Indians protesting, HDB tenants protesting, workers protesting, and simply chaos.
Civil society unfortunately does not exist in that island. There is no respect for the law (no rule of law), there is no respect for the elections (elections are rigged) and there is no respect for the civil service (they are not independent). Above all that there is no free speech, no right to assembly and you have a defamation of character regime dispensed by Kangaroo Courts.
The government's only way to stay in power in the post Lee Kuan Yew Singapore is repression, repression and more repression, simply because you have a system of government that the people simply cannot respect. And where there is repression, there is always resistance. That is the primordial law of nature that holds true in dictatorial regimes.
Well what is the answer? Can you now introduce civil society in an instant? Can you introduce an independent judiciary and free and fair elections? You can but you cannot do this overnight. Singaporeans have been brainwashed to accept their slavish lives and to suddenly expect people to think with their heads will not happen.
Singapore is going to be a ship without a heading. I hope eventually it will find it's true bearings. But by that time, for a tiny island like that with a even tinier population, no bigger than that perhaps a Pacific island atoll, it is probably too late.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/singapore.dissident
Sunday, February 22, 2015
Singapore "strongman" Lee Kuan Yew hospitalized in ICU, severe pneumonia, on mechanical ventilation, unable to breath. Will the island survive after him
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The news everywhere now is about 91 year old Lee Kuan Yew, the "strongman", hardly strong now, physically I mean, autocrat dictator of Singapore island since 1959, who has been hospitalized since Feb 5, 2015 for severe pneumonia but we were never told till yesterday.
This sort of secrecy only happens in dictatorships around the world. For instance in North Korea, although Kim Jong Il had died quite some time ago, the people were only told much later, a phenomenon where news is state controlled like Singapore and North Korea.
According to the Singapore's state news agency, Straits Times, he is unable to breath anymore and is on Mechanical Ventilation, which means air is forced into his body through mechanical means, without which he will die obviously a painful procedure.
Personally I don't think he will last beyond a few more days. This is my personal opinion and not based on any scientific or medical evidence. The ability to live long depends not only on one's health but equally important is his personal convictions and conscience. Or put in another way, is he at peace with his Conscience. Here we have an old man whose hands are clearly bloody, who has for his own personal interest kept an innocent man in prison for more than 26 years, Chia Thye Poh, one of a litany of his political victims.
Many others have suffered greatly under his tyrannical rule, not least Lim Chin Siong, JB Jeyaretnam and Dr. Chee Soon Juan of the SDP. He and his family who run the island as his fiefdom are also the most corrupt politicians in the world paying themselves each $3.7 million a year of citizen's tax payers money. He simply takes it because no one has the courage to stand outside Parliament House and complain.
Conscience can be as punishing as the most life threatening of deceases. When a 91 year old physically feeble man such as this having to endure the constant reminder of all the terrible evil that he has done, it is usually too much for any man. Hitler would not have lasted much beyond taking his own life if he had not committed suicide, and neither would Lee Kuan Yew.
When he dies, I think you could safely say that it was no less his Conscience as much as his poor health that killed this ruthless, merciless dictator of Singapore and a curse upon the short history of the island.
Next question, what happens to Singapore when Lee Kuan Yew is gone? This is the problem with that tiny island. Lee Kuan Yew and his political party PAP has run the island since 1959. They have made it clear that only they are capable of this task and no other. As a result, they single-mindedly have destroyed any real opposition. Any opposition politician worth his salt has been systematically eliminated in the Kangaroo courts through defamation actions and criminal charges. Today except for Chee Soon Juan of the SDP who has himself been repeatedly jailed and bankrupted and impoverished, but still standing, there is no one else willing to claim opposition politics.
Today you have an completely surveilled Stalinist island where the Singapore police, the Internal Security Department (state intelligence apparatus), grassroots organizations and both paid and unpaid informers keep an eye on every single resident in the island, their photos kept in files as the East German Agency STASI did, and where any oppositionist is monitored, harassed, victimized and persecuted. In this manner, every single resident is forced to vote for Lee's party under pain of reprisals.
The consequence of this is the dearth of political leaders, let alone anyone with any independent ideology to speak of. No one dares enter the arena because it is a sure path to defamation actions, criminal charges and bankruptcy for you and your entire extended family. Unless you are suicidal, it makes no sense to worry about opposition politics.
As a result of this sterile political atmosphere where only the ruling party holds a monopoly on politics, while the dissenting voices are not heard and not allowed to organize, there is in effect no real opposition capable of forming a government for a lack of opportunity and lack of expertise.
On the other hand we have the Internet. One look at it would convince you that almost 99% of Singaporeans are anti establishment, anti Lee Kuan Yew and anti Lee Kuan Yew's son the Prime Minister and their political party.
Singaporeans all know that Lee Kuan Yew's son is just a clueless dummy who was placed there by his father. If you look at his tenure in the last 10 years, you see nothing original, the policies are exactly those of his father, meaning repression, repression and more repression. That is all he is capable of. Nothing original.
Therefore I don't think I am wrong in saying that the average Singaporean to the last man has no respect at all for the son.
If they are still quiet, it is only because they are afraid of his father who is still alive, a person who they know wields great power, is capable of doing great harm even though he may be half dead.
When Lee Kuan Yew dies there becomes a vacuum. The question is who will fill that vacuum. It is quite clear that the Prime Minister does not instill any confidence in his people and is clearly incapable of that role. If he cannot do it, who then?
In most democratic countries with the rule of law, you don't face this problem. There are many leaders of men, respected by their people with different political ideologies who can easily stand in any election and be lawfully voted into government.
This is not possible in Singapore for several reasons. Firstly there are no leaders in the real sense, because Lee Kuan Yew and his PAP have disallowed any real leadership to sprout in the island. For instance JB Jeyaretanm was a political leader but he was promptly destroyed the moment he became a threat to Lee. So has every other leader in the history of the island, all sued for defamation and charged in the Kangaroo Courts and promptly destroyed.
Of course Lee Kuan Yew's political party have politicians who have been running the island for many years as Lee's minions. But are any of them real leaders? No, none of them are leaders in the real sense. Singapore's PAP politicians are not leaders of men, but mere handpicked scholars who have been given political positions and told to govern the country. These political appointments are then published in the state controlled newspapers with orders that the people should henceforth obey these new "instant" politicians. I don't think this manner of selecting political leaders is much different from what it was in Stalinist East Germany or Communist China of today.
But there is one problem with this arrangement which China and Stalinist East Germany did not face. In china today there are no elections. Under the law, the Chinese Communist Party is the eternal party to rule China and so it was in East Germany. Therefore in both these countries, one could not legally argue that there are no free and fair elections because there are supposed to be none.
It is different in Singapore. Singapore has a Constitution based on the British model. In it is required free and fair elections and the rule of law. So when Lee Kuan Yew denies the opposition a role in politics, it is constitutionally wrong. It is wrong in law. Singaporeans can therefore cry foul when they do this, which they cannot in East Germany or China. Unless Singapore officially abrogates the Constitution, which they cannot politically do, they have to continue this hypocrisy where they claim to act constitutionally but they are not, where they claim to have rule of law but they don't and where they claim to have human rights but they do not.
And this is the very reason why more and more Singaporeans are protesting against the denial of their rights to speak freely, to assembly freely, to have freedom of thought and the rule of law which the government finds more and more difficult to suppress.
If the political vacuum cannot be filled by Lee's son, then by whom? We have several other people in today's government who have all been placed in their positions of authority by Lee Kuan Yew and his son, none of whom can claim any worth on their own for leadership. We have the sleepy eyed sycophant and minion Teo Chee Hean made Deputy Prime Minister by Lee's son and several others who run around crawling and fawning at his feet. But if they are able to force their power over the people, it is only because of the fact of Lee Kuan Yew himself. It is as if their power is acquired vicariously through delegation from above. Without Lee Kuan Yew around, I don't think anyone is going to give any of these crawlers a second look.
Inevitably I think there will be a power struggle among Lee PAP members. As for the opposition there won't be any, since they don't have any power anyway. What this means is instability, with a situation where no one knows who is who and what is what. Somewhat like Libya or Iraq on a lesser scale without the fighting and the murders.
And the bad news is that Singapore relies almost entirely on foreign investment and foreign enterprises. And we all know that the moment there is instability, the first to abandon the island are the foreigners and their capital. With a run on foreign capital, there will be a run on the banks with Singaporeans taking their money and leaving on the first flight out. Among the Singaporeans to leave, I bet the first to leave would be Lee's bootlickers with their money, tons of it.
I checked the latest Singapore stock exchange results. It does not appear that stocks have fallen on the news of Lee Kuan Yew's hospitalization. I am sure that if the man is going to remain in hospital much longer in a semi-coma state as he is now, you can expect the stock exchange to dip and if his condition persists, to collapse entirely.
What is my advice to Singaporeans now? I seriously don't believe Lee Kuan Yew will last much longer. I think it will only be a few more days. He himself has said he does not not want to live too long as an invalid and has asked the doctors to pull the plug if necessary. At his age, if he is himself determined to die, what hope does he have to live?
Singaporeans should take their money out now and make arrangements to emigrate before it is too late. Foreign companies in Singapore should do the same. You don't want to wait until you have lost everything and the Singapore dollar is worth no more than Monopoly Money.
Am I surprised with all this? None at all. History has shown that dictatorships have never lasted and never had a happy ending. Lee Kuan Yew may have built glass towers along the island's waterfront and made many foreigners and his personal entourage very rich. But for the vast majority of the average local Singaporean he has been a disaster and a nightmare. He has turned them into modern day slaves to enrich him and his family which is literally Singapore Inc. Rather than having built the island as the not-too-enlightened foreigners would like to say, he has in fact destroyed it. He has deliberately failed to leave behind a civil society and civil institutions that can enable the country to last beyond a government like the Western democracies have.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/singapore.dissident
The news everywhere now is about 91 year old Lee Kuan Yew, the "strongman", hardly strong now, physically I mean, autocrat dictator of Singapore island since 1959, who has been hospitalized since Feb 5, 2015 for severe pneumonia but we were never told till yesterday.
This sort of secrecy only happens in dictatorships around the world. For instance in North Korea, although Kim Jong Il had died quite some time ago, the people were only told much later, a phenomenon where news is state controlled like Singapore and North Korea.
According to the Singapore's state news agency, Straits Times, he is unable to breath anymore and is on Mechanical Ventilation, which means air is forced into his body through mechanical means, without which he will die obviously a painful procedure.
Personally I don't think he will last beyond a few more days. This is my personal opinion and not based on any scientific or medical evidence. The ability to live long depends not only on one's health but equally important is his personal convictions and conscience. Or put in another way, is he at peace with his Conscience. Here we have an old man whose hands are clearly bloody, who has for his own personal interest kept an innocent man in prison for more than 26 years, Chia Thye Poh, one of a litany of his political victims.
Many others have suffered greatly under his tyrannical rule, not least Lim Chin Siong, JB Jeyaretnam and Dr. Chee Soon Juan of the SDP. He and his family who run the island as his fiefdom are also the most corrupt politicians in the world paying themselves each $3.7 million a year of citizen's tax payers money. He simply takes it because no one has the courage to stand outside Parliament House and complain.
Conscience can be as punishing as the most life threatening of deceases. When a 91 year old physically feeble man such as this having to endure the constant reminder of all the terrible evil that he has done, it is usually too much for any man. Hitler would not have lasted much beyond taking his own life if he had not committed suicide, and neither would Lee Kuan Yew.
When he dies, I think you could safely say that it was no less his Conscience as much as his poor health that killed this ruthless, merciless dictator of Singapore and a curse upon the short history of the island.
Next question, what happens to Singapore when Lee Kuan Yew is gone? This is the problem with that tiny island. Lee Kuan Yew and his political party PAP has run the island since 1959. They have made it clear that only they are capable of this task and no other. As a result, they single-mindedly have destroyed any real opposition. Any opposition politician worth his salt has been systematically eliminated in the Kangaroo courts through defamation actions and criminal charges. Today except for Chee Soon Juan of the SDP who has himself been repeatedly jailed and bankrupted and impoverished, but still standing, there is no one else willing to claim opposition politics.
Today you have an completely surveilled Stalinist island where the Singapore police, the Internal Security Department (state intelligence apparatus), grassroots organizations and both paid and unpaid informers keep an eye on every single resident in the island, their photos kept in files as the East German Agency STASI did, and where any oppositionist is monitored, harassed, victimized and persecuted. In this manner, every single resident is forced to vote for Lee's party under pain of reprisals.
The consequence of this is the dearth of political leaders, let alone anyone with any independent ideology to speak of. No one dares enter the arena because it is a sure path to defamation actions, criminal charges and bankruptcy for you and your entire extended family. Unless you are suicidal, it makes no sense to worry about opposition politics.
As a result of this sterile political atmosphere where only the ruling party holds a monopoly on politics, while the dissenting voices are not heard and not allowed to organize, there is in effect no real opposition capable of forming a government for a lack of opportunity and lack of expertise.
On the other hand we have the Internet. One look at it would convince you that almost 99% of Singaporeans are anti establishment, anti Lee Kuan Yew and anti Lee Kuan Yew's son the Prime Minister and their political party.
Singaporeans all know that Lee Kuan Yew's son is just a clueless dummy who was placed there by his father. If you look at his tenure in the last 10 years, you see nothing original, the policies are exactly those of his father, meaning repression, repression and more repression. That is all he is capable of. Nothing original.
Therefore I don't think I am wrong in saying that the average Singaporean to the last man has no respect at all for the son.
If they are still quiet, it is only because they are afraid of his father who is still alive, a person who they know wields great power, is capable of doing great harm even though he may be half dead.
When Lee Kuan Yew dies there becomes a vacuum. The question is who will fill that vacuum. It is quite clear that the Prime Minister does not instill any confidence in his people and is clearly incapable of that role. If he cannot do it, who then?
In most democratic countries with the rule of law, you don't face this problem. There are many leaders of men, respected by their people with different political ideologies who can easily stand in any election and be lawfully voted into government.
This is not possible in Singapore for several reasons. Firstly there are no leaders in the real sense, because Lee Kuan Yew and his PAP have disallowed any real leadership to sprout in the island. For instance JB Jeyaretanm was a political leader but he was promptly destroyed the moment he became a threat to Lee. So has every other leader in the history of the island, all sued for defamation and charged in the Kangaroo Courts and promptly destroyed.
Of course Lee Kuan Yew's political party have politicians who have been running the island for many years as Lee's minions. But are any of them real leaders? No, none of them are leaders in the real sense. Singapore's PAP politicians are not leaders of men, but mere handpicked scholars who have been given political positions and told to govern the country. These political appointments are then published in the state controlled newspapers with orders that the people should henceforth obey these new "instant" politicians. I don't think this manner of selecting political leaders is much different from what it was in Stalinist East Germany or Communist China of today.
But there is one problem with this arrangement which China and Stalinist East Germany did not face. In china today there are no elections. Under the law, the Chinese Communist Party is the eternal party to rule China and so it was in East Germany. Therefore in both these countries, one could not legally argue that there are no free and fair elections because there are supposed to be none.
It is different in Singapore. Singapore has a Constitution based on the British model. In it is required free and fair elections and the rule of law. So when Lee Kuan Yew denies the opposition a role in politics, it is constitutionally wrong. It is wrong in law. Singaporeans can therefore cry foul when they do this, which they cannot in East Germany or China. Unless Singapore officially abrogates the Constitution, which they cannot politically do, they have to continue this hypocrisy where they claim to act constitutionally but they are not, where they claim to have rule of law but they don't and where they claim to have human rights but they do not.
And this is the very reason why more and more Singaporeans are protesting against the denial of their rights to speak freely, to assembly freely, to have freedom of thought and the rule of law which the government finds more and more difficult to suppress.
If the political vacuum cannot be filled by Lee's son, then by whom? We have several other people in today's government who have all been placed in their positions of authority by Lee Kuan Yew and his son, none of whom can claim any worth on their own for leadership. We have the sleepy eyed sycophant and minion Teo Chee Hean made Deputy Prime Minister by Lee's son and several others who run around crawling and fawning at his feet. But if they are able to force their power over the people, it is only because of the fact of Lee Kuan Yew himself. It is as if their power is acquired vicariously through delegation from above. Without Lee Kuan Yew around, I don't think anyone is going to give any of these crawlers a second look.
Inevitably I think there will be a power struggle among Lee PAP members. As for the opposition there won't be any, since they don't have any power anyway. What this means is instability, with a situation where no one knows who is who and what is what. Somewhat like Libya or Iraq on a lesser scale without the fighting and the murders.
And the bad news is that Singapore relies almost entirely on foreign investment and foreign enterprises. And we all know that the moment there is instability, the first to abandon the island are the foreigners and their capital. With a run on foreign capital, there will be a run on the banks with Singaporeans taking their money and leaving on the first flight out. Among the Singaporeans to leave, I bet the first to leave would be Lee's bootlickers with their money, tons of it.
I checked the latest Singapore stock exchange results. It does not appear that stocks have fallen on the news of Lee Kuan Yew's hospitalization. I am sure that if the man is going to remain in hospital much longer in a semi-coma state as he is now, you can expect the stock exchange to dip and if his condition persists, to collapse entirely.
What is my advice to Singaporeans now? I seriously don't believe Lee Kuan Yew will last much longer. I think it will only be a few more days. He himself has said he does not not want to live too long as an invalid and has asked the doctors to pull the plug if necessary. At his age, if he is himself determined to die, what hope does he have to live?
Singaporeans should take their money out now and make arrangements to emigrate before it is too late. Foreign companies in Singapore should do the same. You don't want to wait until you have lost everything and the Singapore dollar is worth no more than Monopoly Money.
Am I surprised with all this? None at all. History has shown that dictatorships have never lasted and never had a happy ending. Lee Kuan Yew may have built glass towers along the island's waterfront and made many foreigners and his personal entourage very rich. But for the vast majority of the average local Singaporean he has been a disaster and a nightmare. He has turned them into modern day slaves to enrich him and his family which is literally Singapore Inc. Rather than having built the island as the not-too-enlightened foreigners would like to say, he has in fact destroyed it. He has deliberately failed to leave behind a civil society and civil institutions that can enable the country to last beyond a government like the Western democracies have.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/singapore.dissident
Thursday, February 19, 2015
The next step in Singapore's political evolution. Street protests
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Yesterday, President Obama in the meeting with world leaders in tackling the curse of ISIS said one of the main causes is due to the lack of opportunities for dissent in totalitarian regimes. When people cannot change their governments through the ballot box, when dissent is crushed and when democracy is absent, that is when you see violence. What he said is equally applicable in Lee's Singapore.
Today Singaporeans have no means to dissent. There is no freedom of the press. It is not possible to print or disseminate newspapers where only state owned and controlled newspapers which contains only praise for the Lees is allowed. Additionally you cannot dissent through peaceful protests. That too is illegal.
To take its place came the Internet. It is strange that although the government is modelled to a large extent on Communist China's one party rule, for some reason they did not prohibit the Internet which has been to a large extent left alone.
Singaporeans denied the right to dissent in any other way, turned to the only avenue available to them, the Internet. Today I don't thing I am far off the mark when I say, 99% of the Internet is anti establishment. Over decades now, the Internet has become increasingly vocal in their criticism. Question is, what will happen next.
Singapore is not anything similar to the Middle Eastern countries where young people have no food, no education and hope, prime grounds for revolutions. Singapore does educate their young, and although there may not be as much hope as in the West, it is far better than being in Somalia or Yemen.
But hopelessness, lack of education and poverty are not the only causes for revolution, the reverse is also equally true. The more educated you are the more aware of your rights you become and the more likely you will stand up to repression. I think this is what is happening now in Singapore.
He is not only aware that he is denied his right to be free, the Singaporean is also aware that he has a right to freedom and democracy. He is very angry that his Prime Minister and his father are one of the most corrupt leaders if not the most in the world because each of them pay themselves $3.7 million a year of tax payer money.
Today the Singapore Internet is full of vitriol and hate directed to Lee Kuan Yew's son, the Prime Minister for suing people for defamation at the slightest criticism in his Kangaroo Courts, like his father, and denying any form of dissent whatsoever. But the people have not yet taken the next logical step which is peaceful protests and demonstrations. They have been content so far to show their anger only through the Internet.
But the years where the government has literally left the Internet alone has taken it's toll, has continued to embolden the citizenry. Twenty years ago, if you had uttered the slightest of criticism anywhere, you would have been arrested immediately. But today the Internet, you could say is almost free. It seems as if the people are not afraid anymore in the Internet.
The emboldened Singaporean Internet critic will, I believe take the inevitable next step which are street protests. Being educated they know that it is not wrong to peacefully protest even if the government makes it wrong.
Although this next step will inevitably happen sooner or later, let me persuade you to make it sooner. There are crimes and there are "crimes" conveniently labeled for the Lees to continue their grip on power. Simply because Lee calls it a "crime" it does not become one. To stand at Raffles Place at lunch time holding up a banner that reads "Democracy" is not crime. You haven't hurt anyone and none suffers a loss. Therefore you simply cannot call that a crime. You know this, I know this and Lee knows this. As long as Singaporeans understand this, you will have no hesitation to take to the streets in peace, demanding change.
No dictator in the world gave you freedom because you asked for it. They gave you freedom because they could no longer deny it to you because you forced it. Through peaceful protests in Singapore, you can get your freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law, all of which is denied to you today.
You have seen how desperate the Lees have become lately and have literally run out of ideas to silence even the handful of known critics who have dared to come out in the open. Roy Ngerng the blogger has been sued but we haven't seen much traction on the case.
It must be a slap in the face for the Lees when Ngerng has suffered no financial loss so far nor will he as a result because of the huge outpouring of financial support he received to pay the Lees Kangaroo Court judgment, whatever it may be. In the end, Ngerng would merely be taking money from his appreciative donors and handing it over to the Lees.
A couple of days ago the editor of The Real Singapore blog, an ardent critic of Lee's dictatorship was arrested. I expect as in every other case of dissent these days, all they can do is to just give him a slap in the wrist and let him go. They know that if they did anymore, it may well open the Pandora's Box and consequent street protests, which has hitherto not happened in the island, something the government is terrified of. The situation for this government is precarious.
For some reason they don't seem to understand that Singapore is not Saddam Hussein's Iraq. You cannot continue to rule an island like Singapore through repression. There will be a backlash which you already see today in the Internet where 99% of it is anti-establishment.
This Singaporean dictatorship will be similarly helpless if you took to the streets peacefully, something they dread. If they are already afraid to come down hard on a single blogger, what do you thing they would do to 10, or 100 or a 1000 protesters? Lock all of them up and throw away the key? Absolutely not. When you do this, you have won and they have finally lost, no doubt about it.
The reader should read my argument, and if you agree act upon it. At the end of the day, the question simply is this. Do you love your country or you don't. If you do you cannot sit around and wait for the next elections. You have to do something now. And that something is peaceful street protests.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont California USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/singapore.dissident
Yesterday, President Obama in the meeting with world leaders in tackling the curse of ISIS said one of the main causes is due to the lack of opportunities for dissent in totalitarian regimes. When people cannot change their governments through the ballot box, when dissent is crushed and when democracy is absent, that is when you see violence. What he said is equally applicable in Lee's Singapore.
Today Singaporeans have no means to dissent. There is no freedom of the press. It is not possible to print or disseminate newspapers where only state owned and controlled newspapers which contains only praise for the Lees is allowed. Additionally you cannot dissent through peaceful protests. That too is illegal.
To take its place came the Internet. It is strange that although the government is modelled to a large extent on Communist China's one party rule, for some reason they did not prohibit the Internet which has been to a large extent left alone.
Singaporeans denied the right to dissent in any other way, turned to the only avenue available to them, the Internet. Today I don't thing I am far off the mark when I say, 99% of the Internet is anti establishment. Over decades now, the Internet has become increasingly vocal in their criticism. Question is, what will happen next.
Singapore is not anything similar to the Middle Eastern countries where young people have no food, no education and hope, prime grounds for revolutions. Singapore does educate their young, and although there may not be as much hope as in the West, it is far better than being in Somalia or Yemen.
But hopelessness, lack of education and poverty are not the only causes for revolution, the reverse is also equally true. The more educated you are the more aware of your rights you become and the more likely you will stand up to repression. I think this is what is happening now in Singapore.
He is not only aware that he is denied his right to be free, the Singaporean is also aware that he has a right to freedom and democracy. He is very angry that his Prime Minister and his father are one of the most corrupt leaders if not the most in the world because each of them pay themselves $3.7 million a year of tax payer money.
Today the Singapore Internet is full of vitriol and hate directed to Lee Kuan Yew's son, the Prime Minister for suing people for defamation at the slightest criticism in his Kangaroo Courts, like his father, and denying any form of dissent whatsoever. But the people have not yet taken the next logical step which is peaceful protests and demonstrations. They have been content so far to show their anger only through the Internet.
But the years where the government has literally left the Internet alone has taken it's toll, has continued to embolden the citizenry. Twenty years ago, if you had uttered the slightest of criticism anywhere, you would have been arrested immediately. But today the Internet, you could say is almost free. It seems as if the people are not afraid anymore in the Internet.
The emboldened Singaporean Internet critic will, I believe take the inevitable next step which are street protests. Being educated they know that it is not wrong to peacefully protest even if the government makes it wrong.
Although this next step will inevitably happen sooner or later, let me persuade you to make it sooner. There are crimes and there are "crimes" conveniently labeled for the Lees to continue their grip on power. Simply because Lee calls it a "crime" it does not become one. To stand at Raffles Place at lunch time holding up a banner that reads "Democracy" is not crime. You haven't hurt anyone and none suffers a loss. Therefore you simply cannot call that a crime. You know this, I know this and Lee knows this. As long as Singaporeans understand this, you will have no hesitation to take to the streets in peace, demanding change.
No dictator in the world gave you freedom because you asked for it. They gave you freedom because they could no longer deny it to you because you forced it. Through peaceful protests in Singapore, you can get your freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law, all of which is denied to you today.
You have seen how desperate the Lees have become lately and have literally run out of ideas to silence even the handful of known critics who have dared to come out in the open. Roy Ngerng the blogger has been sued but we haven't seen much traction on the case.
It must be a slap in the face for the Lees when Ngerng has suffered no financial loss so far nor will he as a result because of the huge outpouring of financial support he received to pay the Lees Kangaroo Court judgment, whatever it may be. In the end, Ngerng would merely be taking money from his appreciative donors and handing it over to the Lees.
A couple of days ago the editor of The Real Singapore blog, an ardent critic of Lee's dictatorship was arrested. I expect as in every other case of dissent these days, all they can do is to just give him a slap in the wrist and let him go. They know that if they did anymore, it may well open the Pandora's Box and consequent street protests, which has hitherto not happened in the island, something the government is terrified of. The situation for this government is precarious.
For some reason they don't seem to understand that Singapore is not Saddam Hussein's Iraq. You cannot continue to rule an island like Singapore through repression. There will be a backlash which you already see today in the Internet where 99% of it is anti-establishment.
This Singaporean dictatorship will be similarly helpless if you took to the streets peacefully, something they dread. If they are already afraid to come down hard on a single blogger, what do you thing they would do to 10, or 100 or a 1000 protesters? Lock all of them up and throw away the key? Absolutely not. When you do this, you have won and they have finally lost, no doubt about it.
The reader should read my argument, and if you agree act upon it. At the end of the day, the question simply is this. Do you love your country or you don't. If you do you cannot sit around and wait for the next elections. You have to do something now. And that something is peaceful street protests.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont California USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/singapore.dissident
Monday, February 16, 2015
Singapore's betrayal of citizens through massive inflow of foreigners. A disastrous immigration policy
Ladies and Gentlemen,
If my parents wanted to live in a Chinese city in the 1930s when they left India, they would have gone to Beijing, China. They didn't. They came to Singapore, which was British Singapore, with a Constitution, the English Language, democracy and the rule of law.
However Lee Kuan Yew, the Singapore strongman who has ruled Singapore as his own fiefdom for the last 50 years had other plans. Through his weird harebrained ideas of racial superiority and mainly to maintain his own grip on power he decided long ago that the island should no longer be modelled on the Western concepts of Constitutional government and democracy that we know today, but rather on the Communist Chinese model, since the Chinese have, according to him, 5000 years of civilization whereas the Malays the indigenous people of the island were a bunch of layabouts and good for nothing while the Indians were a fractious people who are only interested in a bottle of Scotch and a good argument.
At that time there were many different races. Jews, Eurasians, Armenians, Parsis and even Hadramout Arabs. Except for a handful of Eurasians, they have all since left. I guess they wanted no part of Lee Kuan Yew's Communist Chinese paradise island.
If Singapore today has the lowest fertility birth rate in the world, where a couple do not have even one child to replace themselves, if the island has the world's largest rate of brain drain mainly to Australia and if the local miniscule population is dying away of old age and disappearing altogether, it his fault and his fault alone.
People of my father's generation came to Singapore becase they expected secure and Constitutionally protected lives, a life of freedom and democracy and rule of law, where every citizen's rights are protected against being trampled upon as in any third world dictatorship or in Communist China of today.
But Singapore's problems today of a disappearing local population is entirely of his own making. Which person who has even a modicum of self respect would want to live in a society where every single Constitutional protection is denied, no freedom of speech, no freedom of expression, no right to peaceful assembly, no free press thanks to their Newspaper and Printing Act and where the entire judiciary is packed with compliant judges who accept their appointments on condition that they would abuse the law to satisfy the Lee regime and destroy political opponents.
Naturally in a society such as this, where one has to take leave of their common sense and principles entirely and walk in tandem with government edicts, no matter how unreasonable is simply obnoxious to anyone with a thinking head on his shoulders. As a result as early as the 1970s up till now, there has been a relentless brain drain of anyone able to leave the country to the West which continues to this day.
From 1985 to 1991, I, a Singapore born citizen, was subjected to repeated government oppression, law suits, contempt of court charges and lawyer discipline designed to break my will and make me conform. I refused.
I also realized that not only my future but that of my children would suffer from the victimization that is the character of this regime. So what do I do? I leave with my entire family. And just like me hundreds of thousands of others have left and continue to leave not least because having to live under such conditions is detrimental to one's mental state.
Remember, Singapore is a small island. It is not the United States or Russia, small in space and in population. You cannot simply turn an ant into an elephant but that is exactly what this Lee regime has not only done but continues to do though their unrelenting importation of droves of Communist Chinese. They bring in massive huge plane loads of Chinese migrants from the Peoples Communist Republic of China in accordance with Lee's Hitlerian beliefs of Chinese superiority and an island in the image of any Communist Chinese city.
Although the government has the habit of repeating the nonsense that if immigration is not allowed the island's population would entirely disappear, it wouldn't. The only reason why the island continues to lose it's best people and is literally going extinct is simply because of their harebrained policies, principally I may add to prop themselves in their seats. If Singapore did not literally abolish all Constitutional rights, if it had freedom and democracy and the rule of law, not Kangaroo Courts, perhaps I wouldn't have left after all.
And so would thousands and thousands who would have stayed behind and made Singapore a better place for themselves and their children. More children would be born, more marriages and a local Singaporean would have been proud to call it their home instead of being ashamed of it as it is today.
Today not a single Singapore local is proud of his country. The fact that the Lee family which runs the island is thoroughly corrupt by paying themselves $3.7 million each which they call a salary with impunity is reason enough for them to leave on the first plane.
The tiny island of Singapore run by the Lees is simply a fraud, run under false pretenses. It does not have any real worth. It is touted to have the largest number of millionaires per capita but these millionaires are all crooks and embezzlers from Communist China parking their ill gotten gains after defrauding some Chinese state enterprise, driving around in their Ferraris and Lamborghinis.
They have no real interest in the island and many have said that they will go back to China when the time is right. Take the skyscrapers that is ubiquitous across the island. They are all owned and occupied principally by the Communist Chinese crooks who employ a handful of locals as secretaries to answer the phone. Other than that, locals get no benefit out of these glass towers.
And then they have their open door policy of allowing any number of foreigners to enter Singapore and start businesses, presumably to create employment but in fact simply to increase the GDP so that the Lees can continue to be corrupted and pay themselves the millions.
Today the Lee regime has totally destroyed the Singaporean identity culture and way of life. In fact the island has taken the identity of a Chinese man living the city of Shanghai in Communist China. These Communist Chinese have no tradition of democracy, they don't even have elections as the Communist Party is supposed to rule forever. They are a people who do not appreciate or even understand democracy quite willing to live under any dictator as long as they are left alone. The average Chinese person in Shanghai has no qualms of throwing litter anywhere they please polluting the island's legendary cleanliness, produce any amount of bogus credentials to obtain employment and do anything they want as long as they can get away with it. They generally are a people lacking class, boisterous, spitting and gesticulating anywhere they want and a people totally devoid of human social graces.
And as it is these who are now nearly the majority of Singaporeans today, by tomorrow, given the continuing emigration of the locals to the West, the world's lowest birth rate and the dying off of ageing Singaporeans, they will form the majority and it is their obnoxious ways, their willingness to accept any dictator and live as peasants, which demeans and degrades the quality of the Singaporean society who will become the average Singaporean.
Very soon even the heretofor, cultured and socially graceful Singaporean would begin to behave like them, spitting around, throwing garbage anywhere they want and even defecating and urinating in public as was the case of a Chinese immigrant woman caught on video at Clementi Subway station.
But unfortunately for Singaporeans it is too late to correct the demise of the Singaporean identity. The Lee regime has allowed in too many foreign businesses that regardless of what you do, the continuing massive influx of immigrants simply cannot be stopped, a problem caused by the Lee regime in the first place. This is because any attempt to stem the influx now would result in massive business closures due to lack of labor and a sure descent to economic depression. It is like Global Warming, no matter what you do now is not going to reverse the damage in the foreseeable future.
I correct myself. The fault is not entirely that the Lee regime. It also is that of the local Singaporeans themselves, who have stood idly by and complained on the Internet but have done nothing more. Singaporeans have to realize that if they love their country, merely complaining on the Internet is not good enough. And waiting for the next elections several years away is not good enough either. Democracy is not simply voting at elections and doing nothing for the next 5 years.
They only way any government will listen is if you force them. And the way to force them to listen to you is through street protests. Simply going to that secluded tree line spot called Speakers Corner at one corner of downtown Singapore, and talking away is not going to do any good. They will simply ignore you as they have always done. What you have to do is to protest in such a way that that it hurts them, like the protests in Madrid, Barcelona, London and elsewhere. You have to provoke them to arrest you. You have to force them to listen. The more they arrest you, the more difficult it becomes for them. With street protests, I can assure you this one, they will listen. That is guaranteed.
In the meantime while so-called loyal and patriotic Singaporeans sit around complaining on the Internet and nothing more, the identity and way of life as we knew is totally destroyed. You had better go learn Mandarin Chinese now and you can spit, gesticulate and defecate at train subway stations as the newly arrived Communist Chinese in Singapore do. Thank God I have left that Chinese island, I mean Communist Peoples Republic of China island.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont California USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email : nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/singapore.dissident
If my parents wanted to live in a Chinese city in the 1930s when they left India, they would have gone to Beijing, China. They didn't. They came to Singapore, which was British Singapore, with a Constitution, the English Language, democracy and the rule of law.
However Lee Kuan Yew, the Singapore strongman who has ruled Singapore as his own fiefdom for the last 50 years had other plans. Through his weird harebrained ideas of racial superiority and mainly to maintain his own grip on power he decided long ago that the island should no longer be modelled on the Western concepts of Constitutional government and democracy that we know today, but rather on the Communist Chinese model, since the Chinese have, according to him, 5000 years of civilization whereas the Malays the indigenous people of the island were a bunch of layabouts and good for nothing while the Indians were a fractious people who are only interested in a bottle of Scotch and a good argument.
At that time there were many different races. Jews, Eurasians, Armenians, Parsis and even Hadramout Arabs. Except for a handful of Eurasians, they have all since left. I guess they wanted no part of Lee Kuan Yew's Communist Chinese paradise island.
If Singapore today has the lowest fertility birth rate in the world, where a couple do not have even one child to replace themselves, if the island has the world's largest rate of brain drain mainly to Australia and if the local miniscule population is dying away of old age and disappearing altogether, it his fault and his fault alone.
People of my father's generation came to Singapore becase they expected secure and Constitutionally protected lives, a life of freedom and democracy and rule of law, where every citizen's rights are protected against being trampled upon as in any third world dictatorship or in Communist China of today.
But Singapore's problems today of a disappearing local population is entirely of his own making. Which person who has even a modicum of self respect would want to live in a society where every single Constitutional protection is denied, no freedom of speech, no freedom of expression, no right to peaceful assembly, no free press thanks to their Newspaper and Printing Act and where the entire judiciary is packed with compliant judges who accept their appointments on condition that they would abuse the law to satisfy the Lee regime and destroy political opponents.
Naturally in a society such as this, where one has to take leave of their common sense and principles entirely and walk in tandem with government edicts, no matter how unreasonable is simply obnoxious to anyone with a thinking head on his shoulders. As a result as early as the 1970s up till now, there has been a relentless brain drain of anyone able to leave the country to the West which continues to this day.
From 1985 to 1991, I, a Singapore born citizen, was subjected to repeated government oppression, law suits, contempt of court charges and lawyer discipline designed to break my will and make me conform. I refused.
I also realized that not only my future but that of my children would suffer from the victimization that is the character of this regime. So what do I do? I leave with my entire family. And just like me hundreds of thousands of others have left and continue to leave not least because having to live under such conditions is detrimental to one's mental state.
Remember, Singapore is a small island. It is not the United States or Russia, small in space and in population. You cannot simply turn an ant into an elephant but that is exactly what this Lee regime has not only done but continues to do though their unrelenting importation of droves of Communist Chinese. They bring in massive huge plane loads of Chinese migrants from the Peoples Communist Republic of China in accordance with Lee's Hitlerian beliefs of Chinese superiority and an island in the image of any Communist Chinese city.
Although the government has the habit of repeating the nonsense that if immigration is not allowed the island's population would entirely disappear, it wouldn't. The only reason why the island continues to lose it's best people and is literally going extinct is simply because of their harebrained policies, principally I may add to prop themselves in their seats. If Singapore did not literally abolish all Constitutional rights, if it had freedom and democracy and the rule of law, not Kangaroo Courts, perhaps I wouldn't have left after all.
And so would thousands and thousands who would have stayed behind and made Singapore a better place for themselves and their children. More children would be born, more marriages and a local Singaporean would have been proud to call it their home instead of being ashamed of it as it is today.
Today not a single Singapore local is proud of his country. The fact that the Lee family which runs the island is thoroughly corrupt by paying themselves $3.7 million each which they call a salary with impunity is reason enough for them to leave on the first plane.
The tiny island of Singapore run by the Lees is simply a fraud, run under false pretenses. It does not have any real worth. It is touted to have the largest number of millionaires per capita but these millionaires are all crooks and embezzlers from Communist China parking their ill gotten gains after defrauding some Chinese state enterprise, driving around in their Ferraris and Lamborghinis.
They have no real interest in the island and many have said that they will go back to China when the time is right. Take the skyscrapers that is ubiquitous across the island. They are all owned and occupied principally by the Communist Chinese crooks who employ a handful of locals as secretaries to answer the phone. Other than that, locals get no benefit out of these glass towers.
And then they have their open door policy of allowing any number of foreigners to enter Singapore and start businesses, presumably to create employment but in fact simply to increase the GDP so that the Lees can continue to be corrupted and pay themselves the millions.
Today the Lee regime has totally destroyed the Singaporean identity culture and way of life. In fact the island has taken the identity of a Chinese man living the city of Shanghai in Communist China. These Communist Chinese have no tradition of democracy, they don't even have elections as the Communist Party is supposed to rule forever. They are a people who do not appreciate or even understand democracy quite willing to live under any dictator as long as they are left alone. The average Chinese person in Shanghai has no qualms of throwing litter anywhere they please polluting the island's legendary cleanliness, produce any amount of bogus credentials to obtain employment and do anything they want as long as they can get away with it. They generally are a people lacking class, boisterous, spitting and gesticulating anywhere they want and a people totally devoid of human social graces.
And as it is these who are now nearly the majority of Singaporeans today, by tomorrow, given the continuing emigration of the locals to the West, the world's lowest birth rate and the dying off of ageing Singaporeans, they will form the majority and it is their obnoxious ways, their willingness to accept any dictator and live as peasants, which demeans and degrades the quality of the Singaporean society who will become the average Singaporean.
Very soon even the heretofor, cultured and socially graceful Singaporean would begin to behave like them, spitting around, throwing garbage anywhere they want and even defecating and urinating in public as was the case of a Chinese immigrant woman caught on video at Clementi Subway station.
But unfortunately for Singaporeans it is too late to correct the demise of the Singaporean identity. The Lee regime has allowed in too many foreign businesses that regardless of what you do, the continuing massive influx of immigrants simply cannot be stopped, a problem caused by the Lee regime in the first place. This is because any attempt to stem the influx now would result in massive business closures due to lack of labor and a sure descent to economic depression. It is like Global Warming, no matter what you do now is not going to reverse the damage in the foreseeable future.
I correct myself. The fault is not entirely that the Lee regime. It also is that of the local Singaporeans themselves, who have stood idly by and complained on the Internet but have done nothing more. Singaporeans have to realize that if they love their country, merely complaining on the Internet is not good enough. And waiting for the next elections several years away is not good enough either. Democracy is not simply voting at elections and doing nothing for the next 5 years.
They only way any government will listen is if you force them. And the way to force them to listen to you is through street protests. Simply going to that secluded tree line spot called Speakers Corner at one corner of downtown Singapore, and talking away is not going to do any good. They will simply ignore you as they have always done. What you have to do is to protest in such a way that that it hurts them, like the protests in Madrid, Barcelona, London and elsewhere. You have to provoke them to arrest you. You have to force them to listen. The more they arrest you, the more difficult it becomes for them. With street protests, I can assure you this one, they will listen. That is guaranteed.
In the meantime while so-called loyal and patriotic Singaporeans sit around complaining on the Internet and nothing more, the identity and way of life as we knew is totally destroyed. You had better go learn Mandarin Chinese now and you can spit, gesticulate and defecate at train subway stations as the newly arrived Communist Chinese in Singapore do. Thank God I have left that Chinese island, I mean Communist Peoples Republic of China island.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont California USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email : nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/singapore.dissident
Friday, February 13, 2015
Singapore attempts to silence dissent by misrepresenting the legal principle of Sub Judice
Ladies and Gentlemen,
On Feb 11 2015, there appears an article in Singapore's state controlled press Straits Times titled "AGC (Attorney General's Chambers) reminds public to refrain from making comments related to 3 men charged in Thaipusam incident" http://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/courts-crime/story/agc-reminds-public-refrain-making-comments-related-3-men-charged-t
I reproduce the entire Straits Times report here:
SINGAPORE - The Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC) has reminded the public to refrain from making comments regarding three Singaporean men charged with offences allegedly committed during a Thaipusam procession.
An AGC spokesman noted that various comments have been made on the Internet pertaining to the three men - Ramachandra Chandramohan, 32, Jaya Kumar Krishnasamy, 28, Gunasegaran Rajendran, 33 - who were charged on Feb 7 with various offences which had been allegedly committed by them during a Thaipusam procession on Feb 3.
"As criminal proceedings are currently before the Courts, we would like to remind the public that statements made may be sub judice contempt of court, if the statements are calculated to affect the judicial process and there is a real risk of prejudice being caused to the ongoing proceedings," the spokesman said in a statement on Wednesday.
"All parties are advised to refrain from making any public comments, or posting any statements on the Internet on these matters which may have that effect, pending final determination of the legal proceedings by the Courts," the statement said.
It added that the AGC takes a serious view of statements made which are calculated to interfere with the integrity of the administration of justice. Anyone who has information on the case should send it to the Police.
A brief background. During an annual Hindu Tamil procession of Thaipusam held on Feb 03, 2015 where Hindu Tamils engage in self flagellation by piercing themselves with skewers and carrying milk pots or Kavadis which are decorated structures in honor of the Hindu god Murugan by walking from one temple in Serangoon Road Singapore to another some 5 miles or so away. Traditionally and according to Hindu doctrine, they were accompanied by flutes, horns and drums, although the Singapore government had recently banned musical instruments entirely presumably to prevent the crowds from turning into anti government protests, given the huge groundswell of dissatisfaction against the regime at present.
Anyway the above 3 gentlemen had arranged for a drummer to play in accompaniment of their relative who was performing the Hindu ritual. Police in plain clothes had tried to stop the drummer from playing, resulting in tempers rising, angry words being exchanged between them and the policemen in disguise and an accusation that the gentleman on the left, Ramachandra Chandramohan had punched a police officer.
Since the arrests came to light, there has been an overwhelming outpouring of support for the three accused in the Internet, all of it accusing the government of high handedness and abusing legal process. Realizing that the anger of Singaporeans has now become too great, the government has, according to the above report threatened the public to not comment anymore on pain of arrest and prosecution because it is sub judice.
The Singapore government is clearly misrepresenting this legal doctrine and sub judice has no application whatsoever in the Singapore criminal legal system.
The legal principle of sub judice prohibits anyone from commenting on ongoing criminal legal proceedings because juries comprised of laymen who are deputized to decide on the guilt or innocence of the defendant at trial may be swayed and influenced by what they have read in the newspapers instead of the evidence presented, thus compromising the integrity of the criminal trial.
But Singapore has long ago abolished the jury system. Today judges alone decide on the guilt or innocence of the accused and they, by reason of their legal training are more than capable of disregarding anything that is said in the newspapers. Since there is no likelihood of any judge being influenced by anything that is said outside of the courts and are fully capable of deciding the case purely on the evidence, the principle of sub judice has no application whatsoever to criminal trials in Singapore.
I would advice Singaporeans to totally ignore these threats by this government and continue adding to the growing ongoing protestations against the this government in the Internet and tell them that you know the law and sub judice does not apply to Singapore. The Lee PAP government is obviously getting more and more uneasy with the growing anger against their repressive regime which is why they have resorted to tell a shameful blatant lie about the legal principle of sun judice in the hope that you will be silenced through your ignorance. Please don't fall for it.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont California USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/singapore.dissident
On Feb 11 2015, there appears an article in Singapore's state controlled press Straits Times titled "AGC (Attorney General's Chambers) reminds public to refrain from making comments related to 3 men charged in Thaipusam incident" http://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/courts-crime/story/agc-reminds-public-refrain-making-comments-related-3-men-charged-t
I reproduce the entire Straits Times report here:
SINGAPORE - The Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC) has reminded the public to refrain from making comments regarding three Singaporean men charged with offences allegedly committed during a Thaipusam procession.
An AGC spokesman noted that various comments have been made on the Internet pertaining to the three men - Ramachandra Chandramohan, 32, Jaya Kumar Krishnasamy, 28, Gunasegaran Rajendran, 33 - who were charged on Feb 7 with various offences which had been allegedly committed by them during a Thaipusam procession on Feb 3.
"As criminal proceedings are currently before the Courts, we would like to remind the public that statements made may be sub judice contempt of court, if the statements are calculated to affect the judicial process and there is a real risk of prejudice being caused to the ongoing proceedings," the spokesman said in a statement on Wednesday.
"All parties are advised to refrain from making any public comments, or posting any statements on the Internet on these matters which may have that effect, pending final determination of the legal proceedings by the Courts," the statement said.
It added that the AGC takes a serious view of statements made which are calculated to interfere with the integrity of the administration of justice. Anyone who has information on the case should send it to the Police.
A brief background. During an annual Hindu Tamil procession of Thaipusam held on Feb 03, 2015 where Hindu Tamils engage in self flagellation by piercing themselves with skewers and carrying milk pots or Kavadis which are decorated structures in honor of the Hindu god Murugan by walking from one temple in Serangoon Road Singapore to another some 5 miles or so away. Traditionally and according to Hindu doctrine, they were accompanied by flutes, horns and drums, although the Singapore government had recently banned musical instruments entirely presumably to prevent the crowds from turning into anti government protests, given the huge groundswell of dissatisfaction against the regime at present.
Anyway the above 3 gentlemen had arranged for a drummer to play in accompaniment of their relative who was performing the Hindu ritual. Police in plain clothes had tried to stop the drummer from playing, resulting in tempers rising, angry words being exchanged between them and the policemen in disguise and an accusation that the gentleman on the left, Ramachandra Chandramohan had punched a police officer.
Since the arrests came to light, there has been an overwhelming outpouring of support for the three accused in the Internet, all of it accusing the government of high handedness and abusing legal process. Realizing that the anger of Singaporeans has now become too great, the government has, according to the above report threatened the public to not comment anymore on pain of arrest and prosecution because it is sub judice.
The Singapore government is clearly misrepresenting this legal doctrine and sub judice has no application whatsoever in the Singapore criminal legal system.
The legal principle of sub judice prohibits anyone from commenting on ongoing criminal legal proceedings because juries comprised of laymen who are deputized to decide on the guilt or innocence of the defendant at trial may be swayed and influenced by what they have read in the newspapers instead of the evidence presented, thus compromising the integrity of the criminal trial.
But Singapore has long ago abolished the jury system. Today judges alone decide on the guilt or innocence of the accused and they, by reason of their legal training are more than capable of disregarding anything that is said in the newspapers. Since there is no likelihood of any judge being influenced by anything that is said outside of the courts and are fully capable of deciding the case purely on the evidence, the principle of sub judice has no application whatsoever to criminal trials in Singapore.
I would advice Singaporeans to totally ignore these threats by this government and continue adding to the growing ongoing protestations against the this government in the Internet and tell them that you know the law and sub judice does not apply to Singapore. The Lee PAP government is obviously getting more and more uneasy with the growing anger against their repressive regime which is why they have resorted to tell a shameful blatant lie about the legal principle of sun judice in the hope that you will be silenced through your ignorance. Please don't fall for it.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont California USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/singapore.dissident
Thursday, February 12, 2015
Singapore punishes Tamils for practicing their religion
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Singapore's state cotrolled newspaper Straits Times of Feb 07, 2015 has this report "three Signaporean men charged with disorderly behavior attacking police at Thaipusam event" See http://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/courts-crime/story/three-singaporean-men-charged-disorderly-behavior-attacking-police
The picture above shows the three men arrested, from left Ramachandra Chandramohan, 32,
Jayakumar Krishnasamy and Gunasegaran Rajendran in their 20s.
According to the state controlled media, the incident happened on Feb 03, 2015 along Serangoon Road during the Hindu religious festival of Thaipusam. Thaipusam is a religious festival celebrated by Tamil Hindus in India, Singapore Malaysia Mauritius, French Reunion Island and other areas where Hindu Tamils live. The beliefs behind this religious festival are many with different versions but simply this is what it is. Murugan who is one of the Gods had retired to a hill upset at his father Shiva who had favored his brother Ganesh (the Elephant God) over a challenge in which Ganesh in fact lost.
Idumban who is a half human daemon of sorts climbs the hill and claims it, not knowing that Lord Murugan is in fact it's owner. In a confrontation between Murugan and Idumbanm, Murugan defeats Idumban and Idumbi, his wife begs Murugan to spare her husband and in return Idumban would do penance every year for Murugan by piercing himself with skewers suffering pain carrying a Kavadi, a decorated structure on his shoulders, and dance up to the hill of Murugan.
Accordingly in observance devotees fast by not eating meat or engaging in any pleasure such as sex for 3 months devoting themselves entirely to Lord Murugan. At the end of the period, they pierce themselves with skewers through their tongue and all over the body dancing while carrying the Kavidi. In Singapore they walk with their Kavadis from Perumal Temple (also known as Lord Vishnu ) in Serangoon Raod to Subramanian (also known as Murugan) Temple in Tank Road a distance of about 5 miles.
Kavadi in Tamil is also referred to Kavadi Attam literally translated as the Kavadi dance. Dance is an inherent part of Thaipusam. Kavidis were accompanied by music of drums and flutes which is not only required in the religion because Lord Murugan requires the devotees to dance while being pierced all over their body but also for obvious reasons, since a person who is suffering pain being pierced with numerous needles would need the distraction of drum music in order to withstand the ordeal.
Obviously dancing to music is much easier than dancing to silence.
But Lee Kuan Yew's government, predominantly ethnic Chinese, have decided for their own interests that Kavadis in Thaipusam are not allowed any musical accompaniment. I am not even sure if they have taken the trouble to understand Thaipusam.
If you knew the mentality of this government, you would know why. The reasons put forward for want of a better reason is safety. But anyone with even half a brain can see that there are no safety concerns whatsoever from Hindus playing drums at their religious festival.
The real reason is not security at all. The government is aware of the huge groundswell of dissatisfaction against their repressive regime. With the Prime Minister and his friends open corruption in which they pay themselves no less than $3.7 million a year, and much more, with the lack of human rights, with Indians and Malays openly discriminated by the majority Chinese population, the Indians are boiling with anger against this administration.
And if they are allowed to congregate in large numbers playing music and drums in a carnival atmosphere, singing religious songs, they may begin instead to chant slogans against the government. If this happens, they fear in a very crowded island like Singapore, the dissatisfaction may spread into a riot and their grip on power may be lost.
Anyone can obviously see that there is no safety issue by Hindus playing drums at this festival. If there is an issue, it is a political issue that the government fears may endanger their ever weakening grip on power, which they realize today is getting more and more tenuous.
While a relative of Chandramohan was carrying a Kavidi, he had arranged for Hindu classical musicians to accompany him with drums. The police who were not in uniform, and Mohan did not know they were in fact policemen, had asked them to stop playing and manhandled his wife. Since no one was harmed by the drum music and his wife was assaulted before his very eyes Mohan reacted. Any other man would have done the same in the circumstances. In the melee, there may have been an exchange of bad language between the police and Mohan and perhaps he may have pushed someone who claims to be a police officer. Clearly in these circumstances using prosecutorial discretion, no police force should bring charges. But not in Singapore.
The three men have been charged with assaulting and insulting a police officer. In fact it was the police officer acting under false pretenses disguised in civilian clothes who had assaulted them. In any democracy, police get yelled at everyday and incidents such as this are expected in any demonstration or protest, let alone a religious occasion such as this; not something to attract criminal charges.
The reaction of the police is more akin to North Korea or Communist China, not something one would expect in so called first world Singapore.
I would urge these young men to fight these charges on constitutional grounds and not admit guilt which is what this government wants. The government in this report through their state controlled press are threatening to cane Mohan. This is a clear attempt to threaten and intimidate him in the hope that he would plead guilty. I urge Mohan not to be afraid and fight the charges. By the publicity generated by the trial, Mohan would be a hero to all other Singaporeans who are fed up with this regime and will help to encourage and inspire others to resist the repression.
I would be pleased to help and advice Mohan and his friends if they need my help. Please call me at 510 491 8525 California time and I would do all I can for you.
Also the reader should contact their lawyer James Selvaraj 101 Cecil street, #14-05 Tong Eng Building, Singapore 069533 Tel 6562215856.
Finally the important thing to realize is that Lee's PAP government is facing overwhelming opposition on the ground. Just read the Internet. They know they are severely weakened and fear every moment whether island-wide protests would topple them any minute. Therefore Singaporeans of all races, not just Tamils, who see the injustice should now protest publicly against the injustice outside the Subordinate Courts (which has now been upgraded to the name State Courts) and challenge them to arrest you as well. And then there will be even more outrage on the ground and this government would have travelled a few more inches to the precipice.
Don't protest at Hong Lim Park the Lee government designated place for protests. The Singapore constitution has no such requirement of protesting only there, and as long as the protest is peaceful you should do it in front of the Courts where Mohan and his friends will be tried.
Friends, justice is on your side. The Internet has literally finished this government and they are now clutching at straws. Make capital of their weakness. Strike while the iron is hot.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/singapore.dissident
Singapore's state cotrolled newspaper Straits Times of Feb 07, 2015 has this report "three Signaporean men charged with disorderly behavior attacking police at Thaipusam event" See http://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/courts-crime/story/three-singaporean-men-charged-disorderly-behavior-attacking-police
The picture above shows the three men arrested, from left Ramachandra Chandramohan, 32,
Jayakumar Krishnasamy and Gunasegaran Rajendran in their 20s.
According to the state controlled media, the incident happened on Feb 03, 2015 along Serangoon Road during the Hindu religious festival of Thaipusam. Thaipusam is a religious festival celebrated by Tamil Hindus in India, Singapore Malaysia Mauritius, French Reunion Island and other areas where Hindu Tamils live. The beliefs behind this religious festival are many with different versions but simply this is what it is. Murugan who is one of the Gods had retired to a hill upset at his father Shiva who had favored his brother Ganesh (the Elephant God) over a challenge in which Ganesh in fact lost.
Idumban who is a half human daemon of sorts climbs the hill and claims it, not knowing that Lord Murugan is in fact it's owner. In a confrontation between Murugan and Idumbanm, Murugan defeats Idumban and Idumbi, his wife begs Murugan to spare her husband and in return Idumban would do penance every year for Murugan by piercing himself with skewers suffering pain carrying a Kavadi, a decorated structure on his shoulders, and dance up to the hill of Murugan.
Accordingly in observance devotees fast by not eating meat or engaging in any pleasure such as sex for 3 months devoting themselves entirely to Lord Murugan. At the end of the period, they pierce themselves with skewers through their tongue and all over the body dancing while carrying the Kavidi. In Singapore they walk with their Kavadis from Perumal Temple (also known as Lord Vishnu ) in Serangoon Raod to Subramanian (also known as Murugan) Temple in Tank Road a distance of about 5 miles.
Kavadi in Tamil is also referred to Kavadi Attam literally translated as the Kavadi dance. Dance is an inherent part of Thaipusam. Kavidis were accompanied by music of drums and flutes which is not only required in the religion because Lord Murugan requires the devotees to dance while being pierced all over their body but also for obvious reasons, since a person who is suffering pain being pierced with numerous needles would need the distraction of drum music in order to withstand the ordeal.
Obviously dancing to music is much easier than dancing to silence.
But Lee Kuan Yew's government, predominantly ethnic Chinese, have decided for their own interests that Kavadis in Thaipusam are not allowed any musical accompaniment. I am not even sure if they have taken the trouble to understand Thaipusam.
If you knew the mentality of this government, you would know why. The reasons put forward for want of a better reason is safety. But anyone with even half a brain can see that there are no safety concerns whatsoever from Hindus playing drums at their religious festival.
The real reason is not security at all. The government is aware of the huge groundswell of dissatisfaction against their repressive regime. With the Prime Minister and his friends open corruption in which they pay themselves no less than $3.7 million a year, and much more, with the lack of human rights, with Indians and Malays openly discriminated by the majority Chinese population, the Indians are boiling with anger against this administration.
And if they are allowed to congregate in large numbers playing music and drums in a carnival atmosphere, singing religious songs, they may begin instead to chant slogans against the government. If this happens, they fear in a very crowded island like Singapore, the dissatisfaction may spread into a riot and their grip on power may be lost.
Anyone can obviously see that there is no safety issue by Hindus playing drums at this festival. If there is an issue, it is a political issue that the government fears may endanger their ever weakening grip on power, which they realize today is getting more and more tenuous.
While a relative of Chandramohan was carrying a Kavidi, he had arranged for Hindu classical musicians to accompany him with drums. The police who were not in uniform, and Mohan did not know they were in fact policemen, had asked them to stop playing and manhandled his wife. Since no one was harmed by the drum music and his wife was assaulted before his very eyes Mohan reacted. Any other man would have done the same in the circumstances. In the melee, there may have been an exchange of bad language between the police and Mohan and perhaps he may have pushed someone who claims to be a police officer. Clearly in these circumstances using prosecutorial discretion, no police force should bring charges. But not in Singapore.
The three men have been charged with assaulting and insulting a police officer. In fact it was the police officer acting under false pretenses disguised in civilian clothes who had assaulted them. In any democracy, police get yelled at everyday and incidents such as this are expected in any demonstration or protest, let alone a religious occasion such as this; not something to attract criminal charges.
The reaction of the police is more akin to North Korea or Communist China, not something one would expect in so called first world Singapore.
I would urge these young men to fight these charges on constitutional grounds and not admit guilt which is what this government wants. The government in this report through their state controlled press are threatening to cane Mohan. This is a clear attempt to threaten and intimidate him in the hope that he would plead guilty. I urge Mohan not to be afraid and fight the charges. By the publicity generated by the trial, Mohan would be a hero to all other Singaporeans who are fed up with this regime and will help to encourage and inspire others to resist the repression.
I would be pleased to help and advice Mohan and his friends if they need my help. Please call me at 510 491 8525 California time and I would do all I can for you.
Also the reader should contact their lawyer James Selvaraj 101 Cecil street, #14-05 Tong Eng Building, Singapore 069533 Tel 6562215856.
Finally the important thing to realize is that Lee's PAP government is facing overwhelming opposition on the ground. Just read the Internet. They know they are severely weakened and fear every moment whether island-wide protests would topple them any minute. Therefore Singaporeans of all races, not just Tamils, who see the injustice should now protest publicly against the injustice outside the Subordinate Courts (which has now been upgraded to the name State Courts) and challenge them to arrest you as well. And then there will be even more outrage on the ground and this government would have travelled a few more inches to the precipice.
Don't protest at Hong Lim Park the Lee government designated place for protests. The Singapore constitution has no such requirement of protesting only there, and as long as the protest is peaceful you should do it in front of the Courts where Mohan and his friends will be tried.
Friends, justice is on your side. The Internet has literally finished this government and they are now clutching at straws. Make capital of their weakness. Strike while the iron is hot.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/singapore.dissident
Sunday, February 8, 2015
Singapore's reluctant opposition politicians
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Singapore's state controlled government newspaper Straits Times has the story "Lawyer Tan Lam Siong elected new Secretary General of National Solidarity party" which is supposedly an opposition party, but in reality nothing of the sort, Jan 26, 2015 See report here. http://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/more-singapore-stories/story/lawyer-tan-lam-siong-elected-new-secretary-general-nation
The picture shows this lawyer Tan Lam Siong, extreme left, who is standing next to another lawyer also of the party. Someone not accustomed to Lee Kuan Yew's ruling PAP who have been the government for the last 50 years might go away thinking that Singapore has after all a multi party democracy with these supposedly opposition parties allowed to operate freely without being thrown in jail as they do in North Korea.
Nothing of the sort is true. In Singapore there is more than meets the eye.
In fact there is no real opposition whatsoever to Lee Kuan Yew and son's one party police state. If these people in the photograph have any interest in furthering the cause of democracy in the island, they would have been locked up long ago, sued for defamation of character and bankrupted into penury, usually in that order.
The only reason why they are allowed to not only claim to be opposition politicians but also allowed to appear in the state controlled press grinning from cheek to cheek is simply because they are just impostors and frauds who willingly play the game of the ruling party by claiming to be one thing while at the same time making sure you are no different from the Lee's government, which is exactly what the Lee government wants.
Singapore has several so-called opposition parties. But, notice, none of them have any particular political ideology. They don't claim to be against the ruling PAP on ideological grounds, the PAP being a dictatorial regime while they do not claim to oppose the dictatorship. All these so called opposition political parties do is to merely criticize particular government policies, such as the massive immigration into the island, or issues relating to the state retirement fund known as the CPF but nothing more than that. They carefully leave alone the fundamental problem of the ruling party, which are the lack of any human rights, no free speech, no free expression or no right to peaceful protest.
Being lawyers, 2 of them in this picture at least, they well and truly know that Singapore is nothing but a dictatorship run by the dictates of the ruling elites completely devoid of any constitutional human rights whatever. I suppose they know, as lawyers should, that the Constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech, expression, assembly, the absence of a free press and Kangaroo courts make a mockery of the claim that Singapore is a democracy.
These people know exactly well that they are living under a tyranny no better than slaves where any attempt to exercise their universally declared rights would land them in jail and their livelihoods destroyed. But they make no complaint about any of this. Periodically they will make some fuss about the immigration policy or the high cost of living but when it comes to what really matters, which is basic human rights, they have no intention whatsoever of complaining. You should know why they are this way in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore. One wrong move and Lee and his son will make mince meat out of them.
We all know that it may be detrimental to your livelihood if you stand up to the Lee government. But that is exactly what true opposition leaders should be prepared to face. If you are not willing to face the hardships of standing up to your beliefs, assuming you had any, then why are you claiming to be opposition leaders? You should simply go away and admit that you are no better than the average Singaporean sheep next to you and be quiet.
By their refusal to do anything about their lives as peasants under the Lee regime, they are in effect disgracefully furthering the cause of the ruling PAP since their claim to be a political party in effect lends support to the lie that the Lee regime wish to propagate, which is, that they are indeed a full fledged multi party democracy.
I am not sure what sort of legal education these people have as any rudimentary knowledge of Constitutional law would tell you that it makes no sense to argue about immigration policy when you lack your basic rights such as free speech and expression. It simply means that you can speak only as along as the government permits you.
Without freedom of speech, assembly and expression, arguing about Lee's immigration policy will get you nowhere.
If you say anything that the government does not like, you are punished in more ways than one; you may one the one hand face actual legal charges or you may be victimized through loss of job, loss of career or other forms of harassment. So what sort of a freedom is that.
It riles me to see these gutless cowardly characters parading as politicians in Lee's state controlled press, when they have no courage whatsoever to serve their people as true opposition politicians and standing up to the this one party police state. They are afraid to truly oppose the ruling party because of what will happen to them; yet they want to claim that they are opposition politicians. This is the height of hypocrisy and cowardice.
At the end of the day, the question simply is this. Do you want to live in a free society or are you content to live under some dictator. These people in the picture make it very clear that they are content to live under a dictatorship and a life where their extent of freedoms is not because of any law but at the pleasure of the Lee government.
In the end there are no 2 ways about it. You either have freedom or you don't. You either have a Constitution or you don't. And if you think that freedom is the prerequisite before anything else,. then they should demand it. If the government will not yield, they should break the laws and insist that their rights be restored.
Every single one of these people you see are cowards and hypocrites only capable to make any amount of noise as long as they are safe from the clutches of the Lee Kuan Yew regime. None of them have any leadership qualities as one would expect in the rest of the world where people stand up to what they believe and no tin pot tyrant like the Lees will stand in their way. But with people like these in the picture, you can be rest assured that before anyone runs from dictators, they would running the fastest.
You would be wasting you time voting for characters such as these who occasionally put out statements about Singapore's immigration policy which the government is quite happy to print in their newspapers, as long as you don't demand freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, free and fair elections or the rule of law.
Simply cowardly bums, that's what they are. And I pity Singaporeans. You simply have no leadership material whatsoever. A leader is one who has certain beliefs and will fight for them regardless of the consequence. You are safe with such men because they are leaders. In Singapore on the other hand, alas, you have characters such as these who do very well for the ruling Lee Kuan Yew dictatorship and for themselves.
Don't bet on any of these characters standing up for you. At the slightest sight of trouble, they would be the ones running the fastest.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/singapore.dissident
Singapore's state controlled government newspaper Straits Times has the story "Lawyer Tan Lam Siong elected new Secretary General of National Solidarity party" which is supposedly an opposition party, but in reality nothing of the sort, Jan 26, 2015 See report here. http://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/more-singapore-stories/story/lawyer-tan-lam-siong-elected-new-secretary-general-nation
The picture shows this lawyer Tan Lam Siong, extreme left, who is standing next to another lawyer also of the party. Someone not accustomed to Lee Kuan Yew's ruling PAP who have been the government for the last 50 years might go away thinking that Singapore has after all a multi party democracy with these supposedly opposition parties allowed to operate freely without being thrown in jail as they do in North Korea.
Nothing of the sort is true. In Singapore there is more than meets the eye.
In fact there is no real opposition whatsoever to Lee Kuan Yew and son's one party police state. If these people in the photograph have any interest in furthering the cause of democracy in the island, they would have been locked up long ago, sued for defamation of character and bankrupted into penury, usually in that order.
The only reason why they are allowed to not only claim to be opposition politicians but also allowed to appear in the state controlled press grinning from cheek to cheek is simply because they are just impostors and frauds who willingly play the game of the ruling party by claiming to be one thing while at the same time making sure you are no different from the Lee's government, which is exactly what the Lee government wants.
Singapore has several so-called opposition parties. But, notice, none of them have any particular political ideology. They don't claim to be against the ruling PAP on ideological grounds, the PAP being a dictatorial regime while they do not claim to oppose the dictatorship. All these so called opposition political parties do is to merely criticize particular government policies, such as the massive immigration into the island, or issues relating to the state retirement fund known as the CPF but nothing more than that. They carefully leave alone the fundamental problem of the ruling party, which are the lack of any human rights, no free speech, no free expression or no right to peaceful protest.
Being lawyers, 2 of them in this picture at least, they well and truly know that Singapore is nothing but a dictatorship run by the dictates of the ruling elites completely devoid of any constitutional human rights whatever. I suppose they know, as lawyers should, that the Constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech, expression, assembly, the absence of a free press and Kangaroo courts make a mockery of the claim that Singapore is a democracy.
These people know exactly well that they are living under a tyranny no better than slaves where any attempt to exercise their universally declared rights would land them in jail and their livelihoods destroyed. But they make no complaint about any of this. Periodically they will make some fuss about the immigration policy or the high cost of living but when it comes to what really matters, which is basic human rights, they have no intention whatsoever of complaining. You should know why they are this way in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore. One wrong move and Lee and his son will make mince meat out of them.
We all know that it may be detrimental to your livelihood if you stand up to the Lee government. But that is exactly what true opposition leaders should be prepared to face. If you are not willing to face the hardships of standing up to your beliefs, assuming you had any, then why are you claiming to be opposition leaders? You should simply go away and admit that you are no better than the average Singaporean sheep next to you and be quiet.
By their refusal to do anything about their lives as peasants under the Lee regime, they are in effect disgracefully furthering the cause of the ruling PAP since their claim to be a political party in effect lends support to the lie that the Lee regime wish to propagate, which is, that they are indeed a full fledged multi party democracy.
I am not sure what sort of legal education these people have as any rudimentary knowledge of Constitutional law would tell you that it makes no sense to argue about immigration policy when you lack your basic rights such as free speech and expression. It simply means that you can speak only as along as the government permits you.
Without freedom of speech, assembly and expression, arguing about Lee's immigration policy will get you nowhere.
If you say anything that the government does not like, you are punished in more ways than one; you may one the one hand face actual legal charges or you may be victimized through loss of job, loss of career or other forms of harassment. So what sort of a freedom is that.
It riles me to see these gutless cowardly characters parading as politicians in Lee's state controlled press, when they have no courage whatsoever to serve their people as true opposition politicians and standing up to the this one party police state. They are afraid to truly oppose the ruling party because of what will happen to them; yet they want to claim that they are opposition politicians. This is the height of hypocrisy and cowardice.
At the end of the day, the question simply is this. Do you want to live in a free society or are you content to live under some dictator. These people in the picture make it very clear that they are content to live under a dictatorship and a life where their extent of freedoms is not because of any law but at the pleasure of the Lee government.
In the end there are no 2 ways about it. You either have freedom or you don't. You either have a Constitution or you don't. And if you think that freedom is the prerequisite before anything else,. then they should demand it. If the government will not yield, they should break the laws and insist that their rights be restored.
Every single one of these people you see are cowards and hypocrites only capable to make any amount of noise as long as they are safe from the clutches of the Lee Kuan Yew regime. None of them have any leadership qualities as one would expect in the rest of the world where people stand up to what they believe and no tin pot tyrant like the Lees will stand in their way. But with people like these in the picture, you can be rest assured that before anyone runs from dictators, they would running the fastest.
You would be wasting you time voting for characters such as these who occasionally put out statements about Singapore's immigration policy which the government is quite happy to print in their newspapers, as long as you don't demand freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, free and fair elections or the rule of law.
Simply cowardly bums, that's what they are. And I pity Singaporeans. You simply have no leadership material whatsoever. A leader is one who has certain beliefs and will fight for them regardless of the consequence. You are safe with such men because they are leaders. In Singapore on the other hand, alas, you have characters such as these who do very well for the ruling Lee Kuan Yew dictatorship and for themselves.
Don't bet on any of these characters standing up for you. At the slightest sight of trouble, they would be the ones running the fastest.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/singapore.dissident
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