Ladies and Gentlemen,
If we can accept the simplistic definition of a fascist state, it is one where all organs of control, the rule of law, the courts, the civil service, the newspapers, the trade unions, everything is under the control of the state. If anyone who knows Singapore, he would call Singapore without hesitation Fascist. In Singapore the legal profession, which democracies would proudly proclaim to be free and independent is under the direct control of the Peoples Action Party government; so are the judges, handpicked for their unquestioned loyalty to the ruling party; the civil service, the unions, everyone is directly under state control.
And the state like the Orwellian Big Brother is personified by Lee Hsien Loong the son of Lee Kuan himself Singapore's first dictator. All power emanates from Lee Kuan Yew, now deceased, but immortal through his son the present Cesar.
As in all Fascist states the truth really does not matter. What matters is what the dictator says which becomes the truth, when people no longer care for the real truth. For example the state puts out the trumpet that the island was a swamp 50 years ago and it is they who brought it in one generation to today's glistening glass palace. And they repeat it ad nauseum. And the rider to that is they alone can carry you through to another 50 years to even more glass towers and skyscrapers because their opponent cannot. Rationally this argument is unsound. Any other civic minded educated group of people should be equally capable if not more but that is not what the state wants to hear and that is what Singaporeans accept as true.
Hundreds if not thousands of Lee's political opponents have been cruelly and viciously destroyed for no rime or reason. JB Jeyaretnam committed no wrong. His only crime, challenging the Lee's. His punishment through the Kangaroo courts, repeated million dollar libel awards, bankruptcy and imprisonment. It is not that the people don't know that this was an abuse of legal process, but in a fascist state they have begun to believe that JB Jeyaretnam was a criminal after all, since that is what their leader (dictator) says. The same can be said for every single destroyed opposition politician, Chee Soon Juan, Teo Soh Lung, Tan Wah Piow, Lim Chin Siong, Chia Tai Poh etc etc. Every single Singaporean knows that great injustice is done to every single one of them but over time the injustice appears to fade and people finally accept that Big Brother was right after all.
Singapore's law make so many things criminal, things would be nowhere else be considered so. Even a one man peaceful protest even though you harm no one is illegal, chewing gum is illegal, openly criticizing the government is illegal, to yell at a police officer is illegal, to own a printing press is illegal, to distribute anti government literature in public is illegal and the list goes on. You don't need to be overtly brilliant to know that this doesn't make any sense and that is the truth. But the real truth is wiped out by the Fascist truth which is all this is perfectly fine; and the people simply accept it.
In Fascist Germany Hitler came out with venom against the Jews blaming them for everything, for the economy, for unemployment for everything. Germans knew this was false but they went along. Had Hitler told them that Jews were responsible for the weather, they would have believed it too.
And the bad news is this is what industrialists like. Industrialist would prefer fascism because they destroy trade unions, and thereby suppress wages. Hitler told his industrialists that he would leave them alone as long as they left him alone. And so it was boom time for Messerschmitt, Krupp's, and Daimler Benz, thanks to Adolf Hitler. And suddenly industrial production picked up and Nazi Germany became the economic powerhouse of Europe in the 30s and 40s. The same thing is happening is Singapore. For western investors the island is paradise, no strong trade unions, no minimum wage laws, a weak powerless labor force.
This may be good for the dictatorship temporarily but the size of the island and qualities of the population pose a long term threat to this dictatorship. It can be simply put in one sentence. Education, especially an English education works against dictatorships. The more people are educated, the more they travel overseas to the West, the more they begin to find life in dictatorships intolerable. If you have an education and a capacity to think for yourself, you are able to earn a living anywhere in the world, and need not submit to this "you listen to me or else" tiny one party police state. And what makes it easier for people to leave is the worldwide acceptability of the island's passport. You can travel to almost any country visa free.
More educated Singaporeans have left for Western democracies and continue to leave the island. Once those have settled in their new homes, they encourage their relatives and friends to do the same. Even more leave. I left Singapore finally in December 1991. It was the best decision I ever made. And ever more because I chose the United States, which I consider the best country in the world. Best because it is one country which recognizes that you are a human being and you have a head on your shoulders.
The other silver lining is Singapore's lowest birth rate in the world which stubbornly refuses to rise. This leaves them no choice but to bring in plane loads of Communist Chinese nationals to make up the numbers. But they too are poised to leave once again, once they have learned some English to Australia and the West.
This importation of Communist Chinese to replace English educated Singaporeans is obviously bad. They don't speak English and unable to behave the way acceptable in modern civilized society. You have heard of Chinese women openly defecating in public, spitting and other disgusting behavior. It will take years for them to become what a modern city like Singapore requires let alone any skill. It is a great loss to Singapore which requires the best skilled workforce to compete globally.
Today the hype and glory that one reads in the island's state controlled press has no bounds. One day it claims to have the world's longest Singapore Airlines flight, next day they have baked the world's largest pancake, third day they have cooked their largest number of Chinese noodles and so on goes their list of glory. But all this is simply nonsense. Having the longest flight does no good for your country. For things that matter, Singapore is last. It is last for freedom, last for having any people with courage, last for anyone with self respect and first place for sycophancy groveling crawling and licking boots.
There is hope after all my friends. Just wait. I too am watching.
If you like what I write please publicize widely thank you.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
San Francisco Fremont California USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
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5 comments:
Singapore is like a person who discovers that she can make easy money by being a prostitute. She then laughs at and looks down upon people who work for a living. She doesn't realize that she is a freaking prostitute.
Singapore is like a person with a stomach full of parasites. He is proud of this and boasts that once he reaches critical mass, he will have a self-sustaining system where the parasites that die provide him with free food for which he doesn't need to work. Everyone just rolls their eyes and wait for his stomach to split open and the parasites come flowing out.
Today, Singapore is a paradise for those who are mentally colonized. They take pride in this system because they have a job that pays and their property value keeps going up.
It is quite common in Singapore to see a seventy year old caucasian man who did not receive retirement benefits in his own company/country to be brought to Singapore just so they can take that person to lunch and giggle and admire at his every word for $500K/year or more.
Singapore despises people who actually have merit, work, produce and built the infrastructure for them. They are proud to dump those people and insult them. The prostitute analogy is quite fitting.
There was a recent bankruptcy of a company in the US called Gigawatt that worked in the bitcoin mining industry. What is interesting about this is that they are now being sued for millions by two companies based in Singapore with the same name. It appears that once again Singapore has blown millions of dollars just for the privilege of being swindled by their white masters. Even a teenage kid playing with bitcoins could have told to just buy some bitcoins and wait for the price to go up. Instead, they believed every word coming from the American shysters. They could not even raise the money in Silicon Valley and had to go to Singapore to find suckers.
Singapore thinks that they can just pay and pay for other people's names and let them do as they please and Singapore will rise to the top with them.
You say, "This importation of Communist Chinese to replace English educated Singaporeans is obviously bad. They don't speak English and unable to behave the way acceptable in modern civilized society. You have heard of Chinese women openly defecating in public, spitting and other disgusting behavior. It will take years for them to become what a modern city like Singapore requires let alone any skill. It is a great loss to Singapore which requires the best-skilled workforce to compete globally."
Wow, that is an amazing amount of racism for someone who seems to care about human rights and dignity.
Also, you say, "This may be good for the dictatorship temporarily but the size of the island and qualities of the population pose a long term threat to this dictatorship. It can be simply put in one sentence. Education, especially an English education works against dictatorships. The more people are educated, the more they travel overseas to the West, the more they begin to find life in dictatorships intolerable. If you have an education and a capacity to think for yourself, you are able to earn a living anywhere in the world, and need not submit to this "you listen to me or else" tiny one party police state. And what makes it easier for people to leave is the worldwide acceptability of the island's passport. You can travel to almost any country visa free."
Governments that aspire to be dictatorships don't educate their people, and don't make it easier for their citizens to travel elsewhere by making their passports widely acceptable for travel.
I do not agree that stating the fact of Mainland Chinese behavior is foreign to that of Singaporean character and will reduce the quality of the society is being racist. This is a fact, not racism. But I do agree with you that dictatorships and totalitarian states restrict passports and travel of their citizens which is not the case in Singapore. It is true that if Singaporeans want to leave they have ample opportunity. If they stay as do the vast majority, they accept their lives as it is. I have over the years begun to change my views about Singapore since living in USA and especially practicing immigration law which exposes me to the politics of a wide variety of countries sin the world. I have to some extent have a slightly less exalted opinion of even USA. The same thing happens here as in Singapore. For example Fox news and even CNN usually tilt the news and even sometimes outright lies to buttress the ruling class. the Straits Times does that in Singapore. Not much different. At the end I realize people around the world want peace, safety and bread and butter. You cannot create a revolution for demanding freedom of speech. Therefore I don't see Singapore becoming a carbon copy of the USA and time soon. In fact there is no reason for them to be. There is one place where life is perfect. That is Heaven. But until then we have to make do with what we have, as long as it is not as bad as Somalia
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