Ethical foreign investors and businesses should avoid Singapore

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Today foreign American European and Japanese investors and businesses have a choice where they want to invest. It is not necessary to invest in brutal regimes or countries that deny basic human rights even though wages may be low as the consumers of today do care where their products are manufactured. A product made in say Taiwan, a country which respects worker's rights has better marketability than say a product made in North Korea which suppresses its people.

Last month the world has seen what sort of country Singapore really is. It is a country that has no minimum wage laws which means workers can be paid anything the employer wants; a country that has no independent trade unions and a country that jails workers if they went on strike for better conditions.

Last month about 200 Chinese nationals who worked as bus drivers in the island had gone on a peaceful strike for better pay and working conditions. Citing a lame excuse that bus driving is an occupation that impacts national interest which is clearly nonsense, and therefore requires a 14 day notice which they did not give, five of them were arrested and thrown in jail.

In a seperate incident, almost at the same time, two workers had perched on top of a crane and refused to come down unless they were paid. They too were immediately arrested and treated like criminals.

In Singapore workers have no rights whatsoever. Employers often fail to pay wages, and if anyone complained, their work contracts are cancelled and they are promptly shipped home. In fact the moment they arrive in Singapore, their passports are held by their employers to make sure they work without complaints.

Thousands of maids from Philippines, Indonesia and other countries work for Singapore families. In their case they don't get even a single day off work at all and like other workers, their passports are taken away from them by their employers.

Almost daily you read of cases of maid abuse in the island's state controlled newspapers. The maids are beaten with sticks, hot water is poured over them and they are stabbed with kitchen knives. The employers although charged in court, usually get away with a small fine because of an excuse such as being under stress or depression.

There is no need to invest in a country such as this. I would urge all foreign investors to avoid investing in Singapore Island. Not only will you feel better in your heart, your customers for your products in America, Europe and elsewhere would appreciate it too.

I certainly would avoid buying anything made in Singapore knowing how badly their workers are treated.

Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in exile
Fremont, California USA
Tel: 510 491 4375

Singapore will descend into chaos when it's ruler, 91 year old Lee Kuan Yew dies

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Some say he's 89 and others say he is 91 but whatever the number; it is pretty near the time to die for human beings. That is how old Singapore's all powerful leader Lee Kuan Yew is, the person who is credited with all sorts of achievements, all of it imaginary I might add, including creating modern Singapore is.

But here lies the problem. Regardless of what people may say, Singapore just as Nazi Germany under the Fuhrer Adolf Hitler, Spain under Franco and Italy under Mussolini are all dictatorships, fascist dictatorships to be exact. It is a country where everything and everybody accept rules and laws laid down by the dictator, some because they have no choice but to obey and others because they are opportunists and see gain in such obedience.

These laws and rules laid down in these dictatorships do not necessarily follow any particular political philosophy, not entirely capitalist, not entirely socialist and even not entirely logical, acceptable or even lawful. They are just edicts or orders from above which inevitably become law.

Singapore is a tiny island city state, not even a quarter the size of New York. Only about a decade ago, it had no more than about 3 million people, all local born citizens. Suddenly today, it has more than 5 million, half of whom were recently bought in by the decision made by the dictatorship to expand the economy. The local population which had been about 3 million in the past has declined to 2.5 million and steadily continues to decline today. The birth rate is almost zero and the existing Singapore born population is dying from old age.

The reason for the massive immigration imbalance between local and migrant workers was the unwise decision by the dictatorship to expand its economy at any cost, which meant unrestricted immigration.

But just as in all dictatorships, the people are forced to accept laws and rules which are clearly illegal but are incapable of questioning. Take the salaries of Lee Kuan Yew and each of his party politicians. They each pay themselves $5 million a year or some other ridiculous figure. As if that was not bad enough, they corruptly pay themselves even more undisclosed amounts in government company dividends and other sources. Surely this is corruption of the worst kind, even to beat that of the former Congo leader Mobuto who stole the countries diamonds. But just as in Mobutu's Congo, Singaporeans are not allowed to complain. If they did, they would be sued for libel in his corrupt courts, jailed and bankrupted.

Although Singapore has a Constitution which gives the people their rights, in fact they have none. The Constitution is a fraud. There is no freedom of speech, expression, assembly, free press, rule of law, simply nothing. The island is a one party police state run by Lee Kuan Yew and his family, as simple as that.

Why then you may ask hasn't Singapore just collapsed? Why then you may ask has there not been a revolution like there was in 1917 in the Red Square, Russia. Well for the time being just as in all dictatorships, despite the illegal laws and policies, people can somehow make a living. There are thousands and thousands who serve the dictatorship in his political party, as civil servants and as grass roots organizations such as the Peoples Association and Residents Committees. They have secure jobs, and get paid totally for pushing the policies of the dictatorship, regardless of right or wrong.

Then you have the thousands of taxi drivers, the food sellers, the sales girls and office boys who all have families and survive working in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore. Any attempt by them to question his authority would mean possible demotion or even losing one's livelihood. For them too regardless of how unacceptable the rules are, questioning authority is not a sensible option.

But then what happens when the 91 year old leader Lee Kuan Yew dies, the person from whom all wisdom was derived (I mean wisdom sarcastically of course)? Will the people be willing to follow another leader such as his son, who is now the presently the Prime Minister when the people already know that he is nothing but a mere follower of his father.

History has shown that dictatorships only last as long as the dictator, unless it happens to be a closed society like North Korea, which Singapore is not. I don't think Singapore will last beyond the 91 year old man. The basis upon which the island rests is one big fraud. No one will accept paying its political leaders $5 million a year each and a further unknown amount secretly. No one will accept the government denying every single human right in the Constitution. No one will accept a situation where a foreigner has more rights in the tiny island than the locals. The Malays will not accept being second fiddle to the Chinese. The Indians will not accept being treated as if they did not exist.

The clock is ticking fast for the 91 year old Lee Kuan Yew. His triple A battery is about to go dead. The last time I made a hoax about his having suffered a heart attack resulted in the Singapore stock market falling and islandwide pandemonium even resulting in my being condemned in the island's Parliament, even though I revealed it as a hoax the very next day.

If this was the colossal reaction to my blog post about a year ago in this blog, imagine the turmoil and upheaval when he really does die, which is surely not too long away.

My advice to everyone and anyone, both local and foreign, having anything to do with tiny Singapore Island is to keep this fast approaching occurrence on your horizon. The tiny island is simply too small to ride such a catastrophic occurrence. A prudent investor will keep this in mind and always have plan two in place. Lee Kuan Yew's son will be unable to hold tiny Singapore island together, a place which relies almost entirely of foreign investment. At the first sign of unrest, there goes the capital.

Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in exile
Fremont, California, USA
Tel: 510 491 4375

Singapore Island. The self inflicted labor crisis

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The problem with Lee Kuan Yew's tiny Singapore Island is not like that of most other countries, not a shortage of jobs but a shortage of people to do them.

In this Bloomberg article of Nov 02, 2012, headed
"Singapore managers turn deliverymen in labor crunch: Economy" it talks of Managers of a food business themselves having to deliver their products because they cannot find enough workers. Several other cases are reported in this article describing the severe labor shortage in Singapore of today.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-02/singapore-managers-turn-delivery-men-in-labor-crunch-economy.html

It is, just as many of Singapore’s far too many problems with no answers, simply self inflicted.

Here is the problem with Lee Kuan Yew's tiny island. It always had a tiny population of no more than about 2.5 million people mainly reliant on tourism, some small industry and banking and insurance. Nothing much more than that. After all what could a small tiny population in a tiny island be capable of.

One would have thought any capable competent government would have realized the slogan "Cut your shirt according to your cloth" fundamentally important in Singapore’s case.

Not so in Lee Kuan Yew’s megalomania.

Lee Kuan Yew and his minions at the top thought, as always, that they alone know best about everything. You see there is no democracy in the island and contrarian view is shouted down, and the perpetrator arrested, sued for libel and bankrupted. There is only the voice of Lee Kuan Yew. And we all know that unless he is God, he can’t know everything.

That’s how it was in Stalinist Russia and so it is now under Lee Kuan Yew's one party state. What you have in Singapore is state central planning just as you had in the Soviet Union. And you know what happened there.

Well, Lee Kuan Yew and his friends who decided the way to principally enrich themselves, and a few crumbs for the people, was to expand the economy any way they can, and if possible into as large and that of the UK economy if possible!

But since Singapore had not enough people, the land area nor the skills needed for it, they opened the island to the entire world. Singapore was fair game for all. Anyone in the world could simply come to Singapore and set up shop and do any kind of business they wanted. Not only that, they can bring along as many of their countrymen as they wanted to work in the island.

So you have the setting up of the casinos, about which no Singaporean had any idea, the setting up of offshore banks hiding laundered money for foreign thieves, and small scale industry reliant on cheap labor. To work these businesses, they brought in millionaire bankers from Switzerland, Las Vegas croupiers and $2 dollars an hour cheap labor to work at the assembly lines.

While all this was happening, Lee silenced and destroyed any political critics, because he thought an intimidated work force is the most easily governed work force. He thought perhaps that if all opposition is silenced, foreign companies would come to invest in ever increasing numbers to take advantage of helpless cheap workers without a voice.

Unfortunately the old crafty Lee miscalculated on all scores. Instead of being intimidated, young English educated Singaporeans were repulsed and outraged by the lack of freedoms, free speech and the lack of rule of law. The already tiny numbers of educated from the already tiny population decided to leave in increasing numbers for settlement abroad, mainly to Australia. This put even greater pressure on the work force resulting in best and brightest, the very ones the island desperately needs, merely packing and heading out.

Over the years, and because of the speed and efficiency of mass communication and Internet, the world has become increasingly reminded of the repressive labor practices and denial of human rights in the island. There is no minimum wage which means workers both local and foreign can be paid anything that the employers wanted. There are no free and independent trade unions as they all protect employers, not the other way around. Last week Chinese bus drivers who had staged a peaceful strike for better wage and working conditions were arrested and jailed. So was another 2 just 2 days ago who perched themselves atop a crane and refused to come down until they were paid. They too were arrested and will shortly be sent to prison.

These arrests have sent alarm bells all over the world and Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore which he claims to have harmonious labor relations has been exposed as repressive regime which sucks the blood of helpless workers and jails them if they complain. This has resulted in even fewer foreign workers willing to come to the island to work, perhaps either staying home or going to other countries such as Malaysia which may treat them better.

Suddenly, as can be seen from the article, and as a result of other existing pressures from other sectors, the island simply does not have enough people to work. Presently at least one half of the people in the island are foreigners while the local population of just 2.5 million continue to shrink from massive rates of emigration, an almost non existent birth rate and an ageing population.

And now Lee Kuan Yew and his boys who thought they knew everything are in a bind. Either way they turn they are finished. If they increase the foreign labor force any further, there won't be any local born Singaporeans there anymore, except for Lee's toadies, minions, sycophants, bootlickers, and those without skills and incapable of leaving. It is not a population worth anything or capable of anything.

On the other hand, if he stopped further importation of people from abroad, businesses would simply close, thousands would be left jobless and the economy would crumple.

Singapore has simply got a bad name both at home and aboard and unless you are an opportunist without any principles, you wouldn’t want to call Singapore home. There is simply nothing to be proud about an island where a tin pot tyrant struts around his tiny chicken coop punishing anyone who so much whispers.

John Stuart Mill the libertarian had said, “A state which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes--will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished.”

Lee has made dwarfs of Singaporeans. I am afraid nothing much can be accomplished by men who have lost their voice and grovel in fear. You simply cannot make them men anymore.

Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in exile
Fremont, CA, USA
Tel: 510 491 4375

(Video of Singapore woman) Singapore. Chinese workers protests and Singaporean people's blind mindless submission to authority

Update Dec 10, 2012. Checking on the video link below, the Singapore woman who had ealier posted it has taken it off air. She might have been told how silly she looked. Well, there you have it. But I will leave this post up nevertheless

Ladies and Gentlemen,

In total contrast to the Chinese migrant worker's willingness to go on strike for equal pay and living conditions in Lee Kuan Yew's one party totalitarian police state, where there has not been a single labor strike in the last 26 years, last week about 200 bus drivers went on strike and yesterday 2 more perched atop cranes for unpaid wages, Singaporeans reaction to all this is unconfirmed one way or another.

We understand that a poll taken by the government which expectedly is suspect, as very likely the government had asked a dozen or so of their diehard staunch supporters, predictably shows complete disapproval to the strike action. As to what the average person thinks in that tightly controlled island thinks is anyone's guess.

But one woman has made a video to show her total distaste to the strikes. Although she speaks English, or a form of it, it appears she is totally incapable of thinking independently except to simply regurgitate what she has been told by her rulers in her one party police state. Her entire argument against the bus drivers is simply that they have not followed the law of Singapore because according to them, this strike was illegal and her response is simply to say that because the state calls it illegal, therefore it is indeed illegal and no one should be challenging it.

She fails or is incapable of  considering:

1. Singapore is a one party state where elections are unreliable. The state manages to secure their chosen candidates in Parliament and true opponents are finished off through defamation actions. Therefore the laws themselves must be scrutinized before accepting it as illegal.
2. For a strike to require notice, it has to be such as to affect the island's security or safety in a significant way. Bus strikes do not come within this definition worldwide and therefore do not require the giving of notice. Jailing peaceful bus strikers is illegal, not the other way around.
3. She fails to consider or is incapable of realizing, that the harsh response from the government maybe because this government needs to deny worker's their rights so as to further profit behind their backs and secure themselves in power.
4. She fails to understand that merely because a law has been made; it does not make it right. If so, Hitler would have been right in killing Jews or sending them to concentration camps because that was the law of the land.
5. It appears she has not benefited at all from an education and if this is the sort of people you have in Singapore, living there would be like living in an island of robots.

I am attaching the link to the YouTube video below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SRZUuTDGkk

Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean by birth in Exile
Fremont, California, USA
Tel: 510 491 4375

Singapore's bus strike. Unlike Singaporeans, Hong Kong people have balls

Ladies and Gentlemen,

"Hong Kong Activists Stage Protests, Call for Release of SMRT Bus Drivers" reports Singapore’s state controlled newspaper Straits Times of Dec 05, 2012.

About 50 Hong Kong citizens, outraged by Singapore Island one party totalitarian police states action to arrest and prosecute innocent Chinese bus drivers in Singapore for having gone on strike have protested in front of the Singapore Consulate in Hong Kong demanding that they be immediately released and the law requiring the giving of notice before striking be forthwith rescinded.

But in Singapore itself, up till now, there has not been a single public protest from anyone.

See http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/asia/story/hk-activists-stage-protest-call-release-smrt-bus-drivers-20121205

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goIRtQdOgWQ

Which begs the question, what sort of people are Singaporeans anyway? Have they no guts at all to stand up to stand up to the injustice done to their striking bus drivers, and instead require having the people of Hong Kong to stand up for them? Have they no balls at all? Shame indeed!

About a week ago, about 200 bus drivers from China temporarily employed on contract in Singapore had staged a strike because they were being paid less than similarly placed Singapore or Malaysian nationals. The next day after threats of arrest and imprisonment and surrounded by an overwhelming armed police presence in riot gear, about a hundred of them gave in the next day leaving about 50 on the third day.

Of these, the next day, 26 were unceremoniously deported without any due process, 5 were arrested and charged with serious criminal offenses of which one was sentenced to 6 weeks jail while the other five are still in jail being tortured and continuously interrogated while denied legal representation.

The cause of these men was just. They were being unfairly treated while Singaporeans and Malaysians were given preferential treatment. Singapore’s argument for arresting them, which is totally without merit, is that they failed to give a 14 day notice because, according to them, transportation is an essential service.

Although there appears a great deal of hoo and ha in the Singaporean Internet, all anonymously I must add, from Singaporeans who claim to support these drivers, there appears no one, absolutely no one who dares to openly protest against this injustice.

All Singaporeans are capable of doing, it appears, is to proclaim their dissatisfaction on the Internet, and mind you even that anonymously.

It took the brave people of Hong Kong, in spite of being under the yoke of the Communist Chinese government, to do the right thing, by protesting in front of the Singapore consulate in solidarity with their fellow Singapore workers.  

The unfortunate consequence of such inaction by the people of Singapore sends an unfortunate message not only to their repressive government but also the world that Singaporeans actually condone such injustice being perpetrated against their workers. It also sends an unfortunate message to global employers that Singapore Island is the one place to come to exploit cheap compliant and submissive labor force.

The Singapore Democratic Party, one of Singapore’s opposition parties have numerous articles in their website, The Singapore Democrat, about a pattern of exploitation of the low income workers and the plight of the poor in the island. All very good, thanks very much, but surely merely writing about this stuff repeatedly is not enough. Surely they have to do something more than that, at least like what these people in Hong Kong have done, by getting off their backsides and publicly and openly proclaiming that this is wrong and will not be tolerated.

Alas, it appears, that the courage of Singaporeans and that of the so called opposition Singapore Democratic Party only extends to writing articles condemning the injustice but it appears they don't have what it takes to do anymore.

Alas, this is not good enough either for Singapore, for me or for anyone else who has any interest in the future of the island city state governed by the Lee Ruling Family as a totalitarian police state for the last 55 years.

Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California, USA
Tel: 510 491 4375

Singapore Islands' most valuable commodity, an ignorant, cheap and submissive labor force

Ladies and Gentlemen,

In Lee Kuan Yew's tiny island tin pot dictatorship there has not been a single worker strike for the last 30 years, except for one surprisingly by Chinese migrant low wage bus drivers which expectedly didn't get anywhere. Five of them were charged criminally, one was sentenced to 6 weeks jail, the other four are waiting in jail for their sentence and 26 were deported to Communist China.

In Singapore Island, there are no minimum wage laws which means you can pay a worker $2 a day if you like, labor unions are managed by the government which protect employer's interests rather than the other way round, workers have no way to further their interests under the law, and the ethos in the labor market is simply, take it or leave it.

Throughout the island's state controlled newspapers the past few days (there is no independent press) the government has repeatedly referred to the strikers as having destroyed Singapore’s world famous "industrial harmony" by going on strike.

So in effect Singapore is selling to the world a cheap, conformist, ignorant workforce, by telling them Singapore is a marvelous place for investment, since they cannot complain even if you paid them pittance. Singapore is also telling the world that it it's citizens and workers are simply dumb and a bunch of spiritless, gutless people who, like robots, will obey their masters without complaint.

Therefore, it is telling global companies that with this totally submissive workforce, they could make tons out of their backs.  

Selling such a slavish workforce does not speak well of the employers who take advantage of them and neither does it speak well of the workers for being shamefully spineless and willing.

In Singapore Island, you end up with an unscrupulous bunch of employers who take advantage of helpless union-less workers and a disgraceful bunch of workers who allow themselves to be willingly abused this way. Not an honorable way to sell a country or to make a living, either by employers or workers.

Gopalan Nair
A Singaporean by birth in Exile
Attorney at Law
Fremont, California
Tel: 510 491 4375

Singaporeans should show solidarity for arrested Chinese bus drivers

Ladies and Gentlemen,

All Singapore's state controlled newspapers including the Straits Times have been giving full coverage to the recent arrest of 5 Chinese national migrant worker bus drivers for staging a strike against their Singapore Island state controlled bus company SMRT for equal pay and living conditions.

They were among a group of 200 of their countrymen, working in the low pay job of bus drivers in the island city state when they were threatened and intimidated by the state police of impending arrest, torture and long terms of imprisonment, after which about 100 of them gave in out of fear and the possibility of deportation.

As a result about 2 days later another 50 or so gave up under the constant threat of being arrested, beaten and even shot at by armed riot police with guns and truncheons leaving only about 50 left.

Yesterday 26 of them were promptly deported to their homes in China while 5 of them have been charged with criminal offences which will render them liable to jail up to a year and substantial fines.

Every single day for the last 5 days, the island’s state controlled newspapers, TV and other media have been showing pictures of them in handcuffs being led off by armed police, at other times within police vehicles and at other times being led into police vehicles with large numbers of uniformed and armed policemen in helmets, rifles and riot gear on hand.

The government is clearly trying to portray these men as common criminals when all they had done was to stage a protest, something which happens all over the civilized world. This sort of behavior by this one party state’s police thugs is cowardly, unfair and counter productive.

If they thought that the few minuscule remaining native born Singaporeans, no more than 2.5 million in the island, are going to be intimidated by this, they have something else coming. I can assure you this is only going to further antagonize right thinking Singaporeans who are going to feel a sense of revulsion and outrage to this sort of bullying.

This is will further increase the large numbers already emigrating for settlement abroad and it will work towards further lowering the already minuscule birth rate in the island. The Lee Ruling Family has amply contributed towards the near total extinction of native born Singaporeans in their own island.  Just like I, Gopalan Nair, who has left for the US, thousands and thousands will leave for the US, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere, wanting to have nothing more to do with Lee Kuan Yew’s tiny island city. There will soon come a time when he has no one else left to bully, except foreign migrant workers.

Please see the following reports from the island's state controlled newspaper: http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/singapore/story/fifth-smrt-bus-driver-pleads-guilty-instigating-strike-20121203

http://www.straitstimes.com/the-big-story/smrt-bus-driver-dispute/story/all-29-ex-smrt-bus-drivers-china-repatriated-today-20121

The cause of these heroic workers who have dared to stand up against this totalitarian one party police state run by the Lee Kuan Yew family, made up of the father and his son is just and honorable. Singapore citizen bus drivers and Malaysian nationals who do the same work for the same number of hours are paid more than Chinese nationals. Their strike was only to ask for equal treatment at par with the Singaporeans and Malaysians.

The argument for arresting them by this bullying dictatorship was that the bus drivers had failed to first give notice of their intended strike before they carried it out. The government says because bus driving involves an important national interest, such a requirement of notice is necessary.

But this government argument flatly fails. It would have been all right in a democracy with the rule of law. But Lee Kuan Yew's tiny Singapore Island is not a democracy. It is a one party totalitarian police state. Its judges are not independent, and giving notice in such circumstances would only mean their repatriation on the next plane home the next minute, as we have already seen with the 29 drivers.

Since the process laid down in law provides no real remedy for the workers, such a requirement is unjust, void and without effect. The workers are absolved from complying with the rule in these circumstances.

We have heard a great deal of support for the drivers from concerned Singaporeans in the Internet. We should thank them for it. But may I remind them that simply voicing your outrage incognito on the Internet is not enough. This is a time that other Singaporeans should openly come out in support of these men. Singaporeans should show their solidarity, stand shoulder to shoulder, with these heroic Chinese national bus drivers in the island. I ask ever single Singaporean who feels a sense of revulsion, injustice and a burning desire to tell this repressive government that it can no longer rely on intimidation and bullying to get its way; to come out openly and state it.  

Singaporeans should organize peaceful protests and demonstrations outside the Central Police Station with placards demanding their immediate release. They should do the same outside the Subordinate Courts where they are being charged with these Kangaroo court charges.

I particularly call upon the Singapore Democratic Party and Dr. Chee Soon Juan to organize similar protests in support of them.

Men such as these and any other person who is abused in this way by these tiny tin pot dictators should know that Singaporeans have a heart and will stand by them in solidarity in their time of need. Such a feeling would go a great way in giving a sense of hope and will drive home the knowledge that their efforts have not been in vain, that they are not alone, and that caring concerned Singaporeans among their midst will stand with them in their times of sacrifice and suffering.

In 2008 when I was arrested in Singapore during a short visit there, by this government for writing a blog critical of the judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean, members and supporters of the Dr. Chee's Singapore Democratic Party stood vigil outside the Central Police Station jail where I was being held. This act of kindness went a long way in telling me that I was not alone and that others did care. I hope Dr. Chee will do the same this time for these men.

Please do not abandon them in their time of need. They should not be allowed to think that their actions were useless.

Gopalan Nair
A Singaporean by birth in exile
Attorney at Law
Fremont, California, USA
Tel: 510 491 4375