Ladies and Gentlemen,
Ever since the full independence of Singapore first from British and then from Malaysia, it has been a one party authoritarian dictatorship. Today there is no free press, no right to free speech, assembly or association and the judiciary are bunch of Kangaroos carrying out their leaders dictates. Naturally the intention of these dictators was of course that if you remove all critics, silence the opposition, you can continue to rule as corruptly as you want forever.
But it usually doesn't turn out that way. For every action there is a reaction. For every attempt to silence dissent, there are similar numbers acting against you. In the end common sense would always win. No one likes a repressive government. The people would retaliate and the state will slowly unravel. It may take some time but it will always happen. This is exactly what is happening to the one party authoritarian dictatorship of Singapore island today.
Singapore is too tiny to be able to withstand a sustained depressed economy. For a tiny island, if you do not have vibrant economic growth, you don't have the buffer that larger countries have to avoid collapse. Any major fluctuation will be the end.
In the 1980s the Lee Kuan Yew one party government of Singapore began their campaign to silence me. I had joined the opposition Workers Party and openly proclaimed my opposition to the regime. This is not ordinarily done. Most people in that island are afraid to openly state their opposition. And the Lee administration had to make sure that others will not be emboldened to do what I did. So they had to publicly destroy me through trumped up criminal charges and law professional discipline.
Not wanting to give the Lee administration the pleasure of abusing my rights, I chose to leave Singapore permanently for the United States. The effect of their actions actually backfired. Many lawyers were outraged by the abuse of legal process employed in this case. They could also witness the abuse of law against JB Jeyaretnam, the famous Lee opponent and more recently Chee Soon Juan. As a result of the indignation of anyone with common sense, and a sense of decency and fair mindedness, many lawyers and other professional left Singapore in disgust. In fact these actions intended to silence me and others has resulted and in fact continues to the be cause of one of the highest levels of brain drain in the world from the island of Singapore. The attacks against me has hurt the one party state in Singapore far more damage than it has cause any of us.
The one party authoritarian city state of Singapore I am sure were taken aback and surprised that I refused to crawl and submit in the face of their repression. Their experience in most cases had been that anyone who faced trumped up charges simply rolled over and crawled. Instead of pleading guilty to their trumped up charges to their utter surprise, I defended my self against every charge every time, and this put them to even more embarrassment in the eyes of their citizens who could clearly see the drawn out battle between them to unjustly punish me and my determination to resist at any cost.
The fact that I now live in California allows me to continue to criticize the Singapore government and invariably continue to hurt this regime. Reading this blog, even more Singaporeans leave the island, those already settled in the West continue to persuade others to join them. The end result is that the very best and brightest, since you need skills to settle abroad, leave the island leaving behind only those inferior and incapable of leaving Singapore island. My attacks against the Singapore administration has in fact resulted in the reduction in quality of the residents in Singapore island since those remaining behind are far inferior to those who have left. Because so many highly educated Singaporeans leave with no one to do the jobs, the administration is forced to bring in plane loads of Chinese national every year to fill the blanks. These new immigrants are given instant citizenship and made to feel Singaporean when in fact they are neither Singaporean or anywhere similar. For them it really doesn't matter if a donkey is the President since after all they are only there for a few more dollars. In 2015 elections 70% of the citizens in Singapore voted for this one party police state dictatorship. Since no one with any self respect or any intelligence would do that, it proves that the quality of citizens has so much declined that you have now citizens who really don't mind how they live.
There are many other ways in which this decay in the government is manifested. For the last decade you have seen economic growth either stagnant or a mere 1% or 2%. Why is it today so low as compared to the double digit growth numbers we had seen in the past. It is the same for the same reason. When you abuse your citizens' rights you get a bad reputation. And when you get a bad reputation, many countries with a sense of moral responsibly don't want to have anything to do with you. Many Scandinavian countries, bastions of freedom and democracy are fully aware of the repressive style of government in that city state and in fact some countries given a choice would prefer not to trade with Singapore at all. This explains partly why the economy continues to decline and hovers at the 1% or 2% growth rate maximum. And I take pride in continuing to make known to the world through these writings what Singapore really is and which has an adverse long standing effect on that Singaporean economy.
Another consequence of the repression is that today the island of Singapore has the lowest birth rate in the world. This happens to be major worry for these dictators who know that the rapid extinction of the Singaporean race through the lowest birth rate in the world and a very large elderly and dying population, would not bode well for Singapore. Without Singaporeans, they know that Singapore will be over. But despite all sorts of persuasion by dictators through tax incentives, large cash payments for childbirth and extended paid vacations for mothers, showing porn on state TV, instead of the birth rate rising, it is in fact falling and fast heading to near zero birthrate! Yes I take credit for this too, since it is the dissemination of the facts of the deplorable state of human rights in the island that has created the present dire situation and I intend to continue to write to expose this regime. I don't intend to stop.
Today the island struggles economically to survive thanks to my writings and the various efforts of other opposition advocates who result in exposing this administration for what it is.
I have been writing to encourage Singaporeans who have been persecuted for their political beliefs to seek a new life abroad in the West. Since I myself had obtained asylum in the US, I am a strong example for others to follows. I have been the contributory cause of many who have applied for asylum abroad. Recently we have had Amos Yee Pang Sang, a young man who had insulted religion with bad language in the island and has been granted asylum in the US. I know that he was encouraged to do this by reading my blogs. At present I am representing 3 other Singaporeans who have all applied for asylum in the US and all have told me that it was my blogs that made them do it. Han Hui Hui, a young woman who was repeatedly harassed victimized and persecuted has recently left for an unknown West European country for asylum. My blogs had an effect on her actions too. These are the people I know, whereas there are many others who have left Singapore on account of reading my blogs whom I do not know.
So on balance, if you ask who is hurt more out of this, me or the Singapore government, I can assure you that the Singapore government is hurt far more and will continue to hurt from the pages of these blogs. It is true that my writings have not created a revolution in the island but victory need not necessarily come out a revolution, it can also come from a slow and steady attrition to a steady downward slope towards eventual collapse.
I will continue to write exposing this regime. In the end, if given a choice of who you want to deal with, a democracy like Australia or New Zealand or a banana republic like Singapore, I think more countries slowly over the years would realize that it is morally comforting to and also economically safer to be dealing with democracies with the rule of law rather than to deal with banana republics which denies the rights of their citizens through corrupt state compliant Kangaroo courts.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont San Francisco California
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
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