In Singapore, to succeed, support the Lee family and their ruling party

Ladies and Gentlemen,

In Singapore island, one thing that everyone knows is this. If you wish to succeed, you have to actively support the Lee family and their ruling party, the PAP which has been continuously in power the last 50 years. Anyone with ideas of his own is persecuted by not getting good jobs, not being promoted in their careers and failing in life.

But supporting the Lees and their ruling party is difficult for anyone capable of thinking. The Singapore government is a one party authoritarian police state. There are no individual human rights, no freedom of speech, expression or assembly. There is no free press since the entire media is government controlled. There is no rule of law as judges are mere minions of the establishment who rubber stamp the government's orders.

To enable the citizens to show their support to their government and their ruling party, the state has created an organization called the Peoples Association. It is directly run and controlled by the state. It is an umbrella organization under which there are numerous sub organizations such as Citizen's Consultative Committees and a dozen other organizations. Citizens who wish to succeed in life make it a point to join these organizations and actively volunteer in their activities. The state monitors these organizations and their members to see who they are and how loyal they are. It is from these organizations that senior government officials are selected and anyone can hope to aspire to high office if they are lucky in being recognized. And even if they are not selected, for special treatment, the state will make sure that they are protected in their jobs and when promotion time comes, they are the ones to benefit.

As a result of such a system, the state and the ruling party, the Peoples Action Party are one and the same. The state is the party and the party is the state. Just as in Nazi Germany, the Nazi Party is the State and the State is the Nazi Party. Or in Communist countries, the Communist Party is the state and the state is the Communist Party. In China today, if you wish to succeed, you better be seen as a Communist Party supporter or in Stalin's Russia, you better be a Soviet Communist.

This sort of thought process in Singapore makes almost everyone a hypocrite. Every single member who volunteers at these government grassroots organizations personally disdains the ruling party. The leaders are seen by everyone as simply corrupt by paying themselves literally millions of dollars which they conveniently call a salary. No one can question them. They are also aware that citizens of Australia and the West are lucky to be living in free democratic societies which they are denied. They are unhappy with their lives but because you need to support the rulers to advance, even to simply survive, they engage in this play acting to please their masters.

This sort of culture is exactly why societies like Russia failed. You had Russians praising Stalin when they personally knew that he was killing millions of their citizens. But in order to succeed or even survive in Stalin's Russia, you had to join the bandwagon or else.

Singaporeans today are facing their worst economic downturn in history. Every single sector of economy is failing. And in a tiny island with a tiny population such as Singapore, simply joining the bandwagon is the worst recipe one can imagine. For small islands like Singapore with a tiny population, you need to have every single citizen to be an independent thinker, with creativity and new ideas to drive the economy in new directions. What you need in any society is change. And change can only come about if individuals are allowed to formulate ideas of their own and exploit them. This is not possible in Singapore.

Anyone who openly suggests that Lee Hsien Loong, the Prime Minister, who is the son of his father the previous Prime Minster is corrupt is going to face fire. He will instantly be sued bankrupted and jailed. Anyone who openly propagates freedom and democracy is punished. This way the society does not develop any differently. Lee Hsien long, the son of Lee Kuan Yew is there to stay, whether you like it or not. Their party the Peoples Action Party will rule over you forever whether you like it or not. There will be no freedoms whether you like it or not. You will do as you are told whether you like it or not.

One can see why the Soviet Union, East Germany and other communist regimes collapsed. It is because you have entire populations simply joining the bandwagon where new ideas are simply impossible.

Singapore's economy has many similar characteristics  from that of the Soviet Union. It is a centrally planned economy. The government had decided on certain sectors for economic activity, such as the oil and gas industry, commodities trading, bio technology, tourism and casinos. Unfortunately for them, every single one of these industries is failing due to external competition. Since the citizens are incapable of thinking on their own, they are simply waiting for the state to decide for them what economic activity is going to replace these failed ones for their jobs and their survival.

The government, we are told has now created various committees and sub committees to study the situation and come up with new ideas to grow the failing economy; just as in the Soviet Union they came up with plans every 5 years. But the citizens have no part to play in this. Their brains are incapable of doing anything on their own. Their main principle activity is to impress their rulers by their hard work in the Singapore People's Association a branch of the ruling Peoples Action Party.

Singaporeans are therefore incapable of any creativity or independent thinking since these things are frowned upon. The tried and tested means to success is the lifelong goal to keep your mouth shut and join the bandwagon by volunteering at the government's Peoples Association to impress Lee Hisen Loong, the son of Lee Kuan Yew and his peoples Action Party. Hopefully the powers above will take notice and you never know, you may be even selected to serve the Prime Minister himself. Just as an erstwhile Romanian would have thought, you could even be selected to be the right hand man on Nicolai Ceausescu if you played the cards right.

Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
Fremont (San Francisco) USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com