Singapore education system condemns twelve year old children to a life of mediocrity and hopelessness

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Singapore's has an education system which decides whether a 12 year old child will spend the rest of his life as a menial lowly paid worker, an inconsequential nonentity or a successful professional.

In Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore a child's future depends on how well he does in his PSLE (Primary School Leaving Examination) at 12 years of age.

This is how it works.

From age 6, like anywhere else, he begins primary school. At 6th grade, at age 12,he takes the PSLE. If the child does well, he graduates to a Secondary School to study for his ordinary level (O level) exams at 10th grade at age 16. This O level program is the premier education stream.

If he doesn't do well at 6th grade PSLE, he will attend the normal level (N Level) stream. This program is inferior  compared to the O level stream. In this stream, after his 10th grade, he is eligible to enroll only in the ITE (Institute of Technical Education) where he is taught a trade like being a carpenter or air conditioning technician, and that too will depend on whether he wishes to do it. Most simply drop out and join the huge pool of unskilled workers; literate but without any skill.

And this is like a death sentence on the child. He is left with no hope of any real success, no hope of any real advancement, because in the Singapore workforce, technical workers or tradesmen are paid pittance compared to professional white collar workers walking around in white shirts and ties in the humid tropical midday sun.

On the other hand the student who did well in O levels, the premier stream, goes on to Junior College which is similar to High School, after which if he does very well, and I repeat only if he does extremely well, will he go on to one of the handful of Universities or colleges to study for a degree.

These students graduate into the white collar professionals, engineers, doctors and lawyers. But the truth is, only about 20% or so of these students manage to get places in the handful of universities.

The rest simply end their education at the age of 18 after Junior College. They leave without any particular skill or vocation and are useless in the workforce except as clerks in offices, since the O level courses and Junior College are purely academic.

Coming to the boy who did badly at age 6, he has almost no hope at all. Being in the N level stream, he is looked down upon by his school mates as dumb and stupid, and in all likelihood will drop out of school at 10th grade, with no real skills whatsoever, except being able to read and write. His failure is boosted by a psychological block which he feels as someone who is not good enough.

The Malays who form a minority of the population usually make up the largest proportion of those in N level classes. They are the disadvantaged minority. This phenomenon is reinforced by the general perception among the citizenry that they are lazy and stupid, a feeling encouraged by the government who appear almost to want them to fail, presumably to provide sufficient numbers necessary for menial jobs.

This shepherding of a handful of young 12 year old children into future successful careers and profession while the others, the vast majority, to a life of mediocrity and hopelessness is a great injustice.

The fact that a child at a tender age may not be hardworking but would later change and have ambitions of greatness is totally ignored. If a child of 12 who did not do well at his PSLE but later wakes up and wants to be a brain surgeon, why shouldn't he be given a chance?

The government fails to appreciate that children are humans and not machines which can always perform like clockwork. Sometimes humans fail and at other times they pick up. But to condemn a child for life just because he did badly at age 12 is criminal.

It is a system where the 12 year old is given just one chance in life and his entire future is decided by that one miserable exam he takes when he is 12.

One can begin to ask why does a government which apparently has highly qualified bureaucrats in all sectors would deliberately come up with a system such as this.

One answer that immediately comes to mind is this.

Singapore is a one party police state that is run like a fiefdom by the Lee family. They don't want too many educated citizens because education emboldens people. It gives them ideas. They begin to question how they live. And a questioning people is a danger to any totalitarian state. Better to keep them dumb and submissive. Just as the wise man once said, the best way to rule is to keep their stomachs full and their heads empty.

My own case is in point. Had I lived my life in Singapore, I would probably have ended up a  dumb clerk pushing a pen in some office with nothing in my head. I would never have been a lawyer or an eternal thorn on the side of the Lee dynasty as I am now.

When I was 12 in primary school, I did well, I must confess. But after I went on to Raffles Institution, Singapore's premier school, for my secondary education at age 13, I became totally distracted, my mind was totally elsewhere, and I completely failed my O levels. True, I took it again and did very well getting Grade 1, top marks. But after that at 12 grade, I again went off on a tangent and I did so badly, I failed it altogether. I was not given another chance in school.

I was only saved because I was determined to succeed. Since I had henceforth no chance anymore in Lee's Singapore, and was destined to be another digit pushing a pen in some office somewhere, no more than a clerk, I packed up and went to England.

It was not because I had money that I could go to England; I didn't. Although I was unaware at the time, they were giving grants to university students which enabled me to study at government expense. I had to pay only for my high school education for 2 years which wasn't much.

In England I had a chance to do my 12th grade again, I passed and went on to University and finally qualified as a barrister.

Honestly had it not been for England, I would have been another of Lee Kuan Yew's subjects, obedient, docile, submissive and most importantly ignorant, his model citizen.

Had it not been for England, a country to which I am eternally grateful and respect, I would have been nothing, as is the average Singaporean who runs around doing Lee's bidding.

And my case with its ups and downs, describes any other ordinary human being's development. One is not always perfect. Sometimes one fails. Other times one improves. At the end of the day, it is what the child aspires to be that should decide his future, not some tin pot tyrant like Lee Kuan Yew when he is age 12.

Lee does not want people like me. They are too much trouble. They can be a very bad thorn on the side. Which is why he would prefer only a select few to get a real education. Others should be content to do as they are told in the jobs that they manage to find.

It is almost criminal to condemn a little child to a life time of mediocrity like this. And that is what happens in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore of today.

Which is why I love countries such as the USA, England, Germany, France and every other developed Western nation, with democracy, with the rule of law, an independent judiciary, and where children are given a chance to achieve their full potential, regardless of age. And that is why I detest the Singapore one party state government for what it does  to its people.

I know that the 6th grade exams which children are required to take is so hard, that kids almost have no free time at all, cramming to pass that exam which will decide their entire future.

In fact the standards are so high that a Singaporean 12 year old can write and read far better than many American students of even age 18. But this difficulty in the exam is not intended to produce better qualified students, there is a more sinister reason behind the test.

It is deliberately made so difficult so that many children will not do well in it however hard they try, enabling the government to channel increasing numbers into the second grade N level stream and limit those going into the better O Level stream.

And they do this to ensure that there are sufficiently large numbers that will eventually be available for the menial jobs, since after all, someone has to clear your rubbish or work as security guards.

And more importantly, it will continue to maintain sufficiently large numbers of dumb citizens who would be more pliable and obedient. For the Lee administration just as any other dictatorship around the world, the fewer troublemakers asking questions, the better.

Despite the more leisurely regimen of student education in the West, they eventually end up far more educated and capable than the Singaporean version.

This is because although an American or Australian student may start slow, with more time to play,(something totally denied a Singaporean child)  which is as important for children as an education, his interest in his chosen profession and calling, his independent mind, eventually makes him far more capable than any Singaporean who goes through life in horse blinkers.

I had a checkered past in my education, just as any other child anywhere else, but that has not made me any less a lawyer and a dedicated professional at that, just as anyone else.

What the Singapore system lacks in their education policy is honesty.

Despite the lip service of wanting to educate their students, for political reasons to create a submissive society, they calibrate the numbers being educated, leaving the numbers small, giving opportunities only to a handful of opportunists supportive of their one party state, to ensure the Lee family's hold on power.

It would have been far better for the government to say it as it is instead of claiming to have the interests of their citizens but instead doing everything to stifle their aspirations.  

A child should be allowed to dream to be whatever they want. It is criminal to allow a child's mind to waste.

And it should the state's duty to provide every opportunity to realize that dream.

Education is a work in progress, not something that stops someone at age 12 because of that miserable exam.

And this is why the citizens in the West love and respect their countries, while the average Singaporean is so unhappy with his, that according to a recent survey, the vast majority of Singaporeans have said, if given a chance, they would rather emigrate.

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

Worrying times for Singapore Lee Kuan Yew's henchmen, sycophants and bootlickers. Lawyer Davinder Singh and a disgraceful career

 Ladies and Gentlemen,

Tiny Singapore island is at a existential crossroad or will soon be.

The island has no more than perhaps 2.5 million or so native Singaporeans today although it's population stands at 5 million.

Through a thoroughly misguided policy of boosting it's Gross Domestic Product despite it's declining population, which is already lowest in the world, they began a mass importation of mainly Chinese nationals to fill up the numbers, immigrants who know nothing about Singapore's history or anything else about the island for that matter.

Lee Kuan Yew, just like any other dictator in the world, the late Saddam Hussein of Iraq being no different, naturally rewarded and appointed to powerful positions those who supported him, while persecuting and marginalizing those who didn't.

Although Singapore is predominantly an ethnic Chinese society made up of 75% Chinese, whose numbers are deliberately propped up by Lee Kuan Yew's government, now run by his son, regardless of the Constitution which requires equality among the different races; there are also a few non Chinese being rewarded as a means to show the Indians and Malays that they are not forgotten.

One such person is  lawyer Davinder Singh whose picture appears above. People generally know him as Lee's defamation lawyer.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that Singh is one of the most hated ( if not the most) Singaporean living today.

He has gone through an entire career of prostituting himself, his profession as a lawyer and his conscience by collaborating with Lee Kuan Yew, his son and other ministers of this one party police state to sue anyone who criticizes them in courts which can be described no better than Kangaroo courts like that you would read in Alice in Wonderland.

The leaders of Singapore who appear to have the most delicate nerves of any politician in the world, are offended at the slightest criticism which would have been normal in any other democracy and would immediately deploy this lawyer to literally lynch him in his court where the verdict is known even before anyone steps into the courtroom.

These defamation actions are simply used to silence dissent, not to compensate them for libel and slander.

You would be wasting your time if you took any bets, because like clockwork, the case is heard, the verdict is delivered, the poor victim is ordered to pay several hundred thousand of dollars to Lee Kuan Yew, the defendant naturally cannot pay and he is thereafter promptly bankrupted and harassed for life.

And for the dirty work that he does, he is paid handsomely in blood money.

And not just that, the next day the local state controlled newspaper the Straits Times lauds him as the greatest legal genius that civilization has ever known.

Since the verdict is so predictable and the merits of these cases so unworthy, Singh did not even have to be a lawyer to win every case hands down.

The only reason for Lee Kuan Yew and Sons to even use a lawyer for this lynching is to show some credibility to the whole exercise.

In fact they would have been far more honest if they did away with these Stalinist show trials and simply called the victim to Lee's office and ordered him to pay the millions.

I had practiced law in Singapore from 1981 to 1991 at which time I left for the United States.

I recall Singh being admitted to the Singapore bar about 2 years later, perhaps in 1983.

Although Singh could have taken the honorable path and stood up for the law and his profession, he instead decided to sell his conscience for money.

And that was his disgraceful career ever since. Just as any other dictator around the world would do, Singh is amply rewarded for the dirty work. He gets a job in one of the large law firms and in return he sells his conscience to please his client, the Singaporean bully boy.

In any other jurisdiction, Singh would have been disbarred from law practice, struck off the rolls.

It is unethical under the Code of Ethics at the California Bar as well as in every jurisdiction in the USA and I would say, in any other country that claims to have the rule of law, for a lawyer to knowingly further the case of his client which he knows to be totally devoid of merit.

The Lee family's numerous defamation lawsuits against their citizens has simply no grounding under the law. Singh knows this very well. Yet he willingly and shamelessly abuses the law, using the island's Kangaroo Courts to further his client's cause.

Why I say that Singh should be worried now, if he is not already, is this.

Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's supreme leader who is either 90 or 95 (no one knows his real age) is already past it.

We have seen his pictures at the recent National Day parade. He can hardly walk and for all intends is bedridden and dying.

He himself as admitted that much. His ministers and powerful men are all his henchmen rewarded for their loyalty. When he dies, which is going to be soon, his ministers and these non-Chinese sycophants position becomes doubtful. There is likely to be a power struggle.

And in that power struggle, new contenders, younger men and women, who have no loyalty to these Lee Kuan Yew appointees, and who have no knowledge of Singapore's past history,  would seize leadership positions.

And these new politicians, younger men and women, who are going to be almost all ethnic Chinese are unlikely to know anything about Singapore's history or why these sycophants are given these positions.

The new ethnic Chinese rulers of Singapore who have no connection whatsoever to Lee Kuan Yew's reasoning to reward bootlickers such as these, would take the first opportunity to get rid of Singh and other non Chinese from positions of authority, since, after all any ethnic Chinese lawyer would be as capable of the job as this man could.

Singh may have backed the right horse while the going was good, with Lee Kuan Yew and the older generation around.

But the scene in going to change and change dramatically very soon. And Singh just as the several other non Chinese toadies who have benefited from Lee Kuan Yew's crumbs should begin to worry what is going to happen next.

Another reason why I say this is the island's tiny population.

With only 2.5 million locals which population is further declining rapidly, due to the it's world's lowest birth rate, the population that will replace them will be almost entirely recent immigrants from China who have no knowledge of Singapore at all. And they being entirely ethnic Chinese would see no reason to have this turbaned Indian running around claiming to be the world's best lawyer.

I would recommend that Singh get ready some body guards to make sure he is not beaten up by Singaporeans who are waiting for the day to get even. If he had done what he did in any Arab country, he would be wise to start arranging his own funeral.

I am not sure how this man is able to live with his conscience. Just to take two cases of the multitude of others who have been ruined by his disgraceful career is the late JB Jeyaretnam and Chee Soon Juan.

JB Jeyaretnam, the leader of the Workers Party, as we all know was a bitter political critic of Lee Kuan Yew. He was repeatedly sued by Lee Kuan Yew, bankrupted and jailed and eventually died, through Singh.

Chee Soon Juan, the leader of the Singapore Democratic Party, another of Lee's critics suffered the same fate.

Any person with even an iota of conscience or goodness in him, would find it hard to live with himself. But it appears, not so, in Singh's case.

Perhaps some have no conscience at all. How could Adolf Hitler have committed mass murder if he had any? It has been described as the banality of evil. Singh, it can be rightly concluded, has no conscience.

And one very interesting fact in this case of Singapore's foremost defamation lawyer is this.

He won't sue me for calling him dishonest and a prostitute to himself and his profession, even though he is ever ready to sue his fellow Singaporeans.

I am sure he will read this blog post just as thousands of other fellow Singaporeans would.

But he won't sue me, despite all his so called expertise in defamation law before his Kangaroo courts because he knows he simply cannot win outside the comfort zone of his Singaporean Kangaroo courts. And he has no shame either, despite his knowledge that his fellow Singaporeans are reading this and mocking him for what he is.

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 orders brutal beating (caning) of anti-government graffiti artist

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Despite the Lee Kuan Yew and Son government of Singapore's claims to first world city, in fact it's laws are the same, if not worse than Iran or North Korea.

Singapore's official state sanctioned punishment for government critics who write anti government graffiti, is beating them, which is officially called caning.

Singapore freely uses this barbaric punishment almost solely against government critics, aged 18 to 50, to beat them so hard, that they end up bloodied and suffer permanent injury, usually impotency as the beatings are inflicted at their naked buttocks with full force intending at each stroke of the cane to break the skin and to cause profuse bleeding.

The reason why the age limit for this punishment is 50, is that many in the past above 50 who were beaten died. To avoid such international embarrassment, they have limited it to those aged 50.

The intention of the government, although they won't admit is, is to permanently injure and disfigure the prisoner, both physically and mentally, so that he will never forget it for the rest of his life and also to literally take him out of society altogether so that he lives the rest of his life an invalid.

 

The latest victim is the man above. His name is Muhammad Quamarul Arifin Sa'adon, aged 23. His crime was to write anti government graffiti on a street pavement at Princep Link not far from downtown Singapore on August 5, 2014. It appears he wrote the words "We are one, we are legion, expect us" along a pavement. Please see state controlled Straits Times newspaper report of August 07, 2014 titled "23 year old man sentenced to 2 months in jail and caning for anti government graffiti" http://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/courts-crime/story/former-national-serviceman-faces-jail-and-caning-anti-government-g

No civilized government engages in this sort of barbarity more suited to uncivilized savages of the jungle, by beating someone in the buttocks as a legal state sanctioned punishment until he bleeds and becomes unconscious, for any crime whatsoever, never mind anti-government graffiti.

Lee Kuan Yew and his Son, who run Singapore are so insecure and so afraid there will be a revolution, that he resorts to this sort of heinous barbarity of beatings to suppress any anti government sentiment against him.

The fault of this young man was not only that he wrote anti government graffiti, it is also that he is a Malay and not Chinese. The Malays although the original native citizens of Singapore before the Chinese and Indians even came to the island, are repressed, discriminated and treated as second class citizens by the majority Chinese. Had he been ethnic Chinese like Lee Kuan Yew and his son are, he would probably have been spared the beatings. But since he has not only dared to write anti government slogans and to make matters worse, he happens to be a Malay, meant that the Chinese judge in this case had to order the severest punishment possible. In this case it was not only 2 months jail but 3 beatings of the stick (caning).

In Singapore it is bad enough for an ethnic Chinese to criticize them, it is unthinkable for Malay to do it; even though a Malay is an equal citizen under the Constitution.

Any Singaporean will tell you that it is terrible to be beaten. The exercise is intended to cause the most pain possible and the most blood extracted.

After one stroke (one beating), this 23 year old man would probably become unconscious. There would have been a pool of blood on the floor with a prison warden on standby to mob up the blood and a doctor to make sure he is not dead or if unconscious, to awaken him with smelling salts.

Then the second stroke, resulting in even more blood on the floor. The beater deliberately strikes on the earlier wound of the first stroke, so as to cause the maximum pain and the maximum blood.

If this man is still conscious, he would be screaming in pain but he cannot escape, he is strapped to a trestle, naked. After the second beating, even more blood, mopped up, and then then third stroke.

I have been told after the beatings, he cannot lie on his back for several months. His buttocks are swollen like a huge balloon. He cannot go the toilet. The doctor puts iodine on his wounds to cause even more pain. Because the nerves of his genitals are near his buttocks, he usually becomes impotent after these beatings. The deep scars of the beatings remain for life and cannot be removed.

And all this pain and brutality is inflicted just because this 23 year old man in 21st Century Singapore wrote some anti government slogans! Did he have to deserve this pain and brutality? He did not kill anybody. He did not rape anyone. He did not rob anyone. And even if he did all of the above, he does not deserve to be punished like this.

Today more and more Singaporeans are angry that this government resorts to this brutality against it's own people. This government doing this sort of thing cannot last. The 90 year old dictator, Lee Kuan Yew under whose auspices such brutality is committed, is about to die after which Singaporeans are going to demand their rights. They are going to kick out these thugs who beat their own people and replace the island with a true democracy. It won't be long.

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 useless education system

Ladies and Gentlemen,

If an education system is intended to produce thinking individuals, Singapore fails miserably. It simply produces robots trained only to obey orders.

The underlying reason for this miserable education system is Lee Kuan Yew's master plan, the man who created Singapore according to his idea, which is, to ensure he alone, and his proxies thereafter, will govern the island in perpetuity.

And to enable his plan, it wasn't a good idea for his subjects to be going around having ideas of their own, which would threaten his hold on power.

To achieve his purpose, the first thing he does is to systematically instill a sense of fear in the island.

Every citizen, no matter whether in government or in private business was made to understand that criticizing the government would result in consequences.

Every civil servant wanting to keep his job or his career was expected to support government policies and never to publicly proclaim his own views.

Every school teacher, every businessman, every worker was made to feel that the only way to be safe was to toe the government line.

This fear was real, not imaginary.

The citizens were aware of numerous instances where civil servants were demoted, fired from their jobs for having dared to publicly criticize the government.

There was a real fear among the people that the fifth column of spies and informers were spread out throughout the island, watching your every move and reporting on you.

At any one time, you never knew who was your friend and who was an informer.

In an island where there is no rural hinterland, where the entire island in one big concrete jungle, where your existence depends on government housing, where nearly 99% of Singaporeans live, where according to the terms of the leases, you could be thrown out of your apartment for any reason, where your jobs depended on your political opinion, it is simply not safe to have views contrary to that of Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore.

And what is Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore? It is an island where the entire media and newspapers are all controlled and owned by the government. Free speech and expression is illegal. Where the state is a defamation regime where critics are sued in the Kangaroo courts and crippled with humongous court awards and either bankrupted or jailed.

Where there is the stick for opposition and carrot for support. Where the only means to success and glory was through being a sycophant and a bootlicker, there is no avenue to think and form any independent ideas even if you wanted to.

In any case curiosity and a desire to think and formulate ideas of how one lives in society or how to better it, is simply of no use in the island, as it brings you no good.

Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore has no objection if you became a skilled carpenter and excelled in it. Lee would be very happy if you spent your time learning motor mechanics and became expert at it.

Singapore would be very happy if you spent your time being a good mechanic, a good carpenter, a good painter, a good doctor or whatever other profession you may be in. But what they do not want you to do is to question them, question whether it is right to deny a free press, to deny free speech, free expression, assembly, or when you question how people should live as free men and not slaves.

But such things is exactly what an education is intended to do, to question; which in Singapore under Lee Kuan Yew's ideology, happens to be taboo.

Lee's plan was to create a person who will not question things that govern the way they live, and simply accept what is planned for them.

Instead they should simply go about their jobs and accept that these things planned for them are actually good for them. Simply put, Lee is telling his people that he knows best how they live, while their duty is simply to go about their own business.

In fact today Lee has absolutely succeeded in brainwashing his people into total obedience. Like a well trained dog, Singaporeans have accepted their fate in life, which is to simply to mind their business and go about their lives.

And it is in this atmosphere that young children grow up and are educated. Singapore's teachers are warned that they should never encourage individual thinking. Their job is simply to ensure that the students are taught literacy and a trade thereafter. They should ensure that their students should not be allowed to develop radical ideas opposed to that of the regime.

As a result Singapore students go through the motions of book learning. The purpose is simply to pass exams and get the right answers about mathematics, biology and physics. They are almost entirely devoid of curiosity. They also generally lack courage. There is not a single young person in the island who believes that men should be able to challenge authority, or the belief that free speech is a right, or the right to protest is a right; let alone anyone daring to actually break the law and actually do it.

Western teachers unlike the Singaporean ones go out of their way to encourage individual thinking.

They tell their students that it is good to form individual opinions, it is good to be creative and good to push your agenda, whatever it may be, if you believe in it.

An American teacher would encourage her students to protest outside the White House for whatever cause they may have, even if it was contrary to the prevailing line.

It is this encouragement to develop one's individual beliefs that produces greatness in America and Europe. It is this philosophy that produces Bill Gates, the Noam Chomsky's and Bertrand Russell's of the developed world.

Because of the years of mental repression that Singapore students undergo, they end only as followers, never leaders.

A Singapore student can be very good at book learning and will pass all his exams. But he will never be able to be a leader of anything. He is always looking for someone else to lead so that he can dutifully follow and be rewarded for it.

A look at Singapore society amply demonstrates this. A student passes his exams and looks for a job in which he hopes to please his boss who will reward him for his loyalty and diligence.

He simply cannot and will not do anything different from what his boss expects of him since in his mind, this is not the way to succeed.

This way of thinking stifles ingenuity, creativity and invention. On the other hand an American worker might think there is another way to do things, tell his boss to change and if that doesn't happen to walk out and find another job if need be, something that a Singaporean would never even imagine.

There are a few Singaporeans who have emigrated to the Bay Area of San Francisco, California where I live. But you never hear of them.

None of them have ever succeeded in becoming leaders in this society. You can see why this is so.

Unlike an American young man or woman, a Singapore individual is afraid, lacks confidence and has no capacity to think outside the box.

He sees no reason to question the way one lives, no concern whether he lives as a slave or a free man, no opinion whatsoever on whether the Gazans are right or the Israelis are right, and even if he knew he doesn't care.

Lee Kuan Yew's society and education system produces boring, half-dead, half-witted, mindless conformists only capable of following but never leading. An individual with no views of his own but only that of a regime which tells him that state controlled newspapers are good, restricting free speech is good, denying the right to protest and assemble is good, and obeying the government at all times is very good.

If Gorge Orwell was alive and visited Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore today, he must have said "I told you so"

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 Lee Kuan Yew's handpicked leaders who sprout out from the woodwork

Unemployment here is low, and the strong growth figures should remain that way for the near- to medium-term, said Manpower Minister Tan Chuan-Jin on Thursday, Aug 7, 2014. -- ST PHOTO: NG SOR LUAN      

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The man in the picture is Tan Chuan Jin, just like his other minions in Lee Kuan Yew's ruling party leadership, a handpicked minister to rule over his people. A quick look at his profile in Wikipedia goes something like this. He went to Anglo Chinese School, was a government scholar sent abroad for an education, returned to be appointed into high office in Lee Kuan Yew's military, stood for elections in circumstances where it was impossible for him to lose, after which he was promptly made Minister and allowed to pontificate and lecture to his people in Lee Kuan Yew's state controlled press at periodic intervals. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tan_Chuan-Jin.

To call him a leader is to do grave injustice to the very word.

In the article in the state controlled press Straits Times he is giving unsolicited advice on why "opportunities are created for people", "why continuing education is important"  "why people should seize opportunities" and other obvious nonsense which any 10 year old would also know. See state controlled Straits Times article of August 07, 2014 here http://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/more-singapore-stories/story/continuing-education-needed-help-people-seize-opportunit

Except for Lee Kuan Yew himself, Singapore's supreme dictator, who is now comatose and 92 years old, and about to die any minute, there are no leaders to speak of. Lee's idea of leadership was to choose selected candidates, usually scholars who have passed exams, field them in elections where it is impossible for them to lose, and thrust them upon the Singaporean society as leaders who will thereafter lecture you on how you should live.

None of them have any real support on the ground. They are merely bureaucrats. And the entire population have no respect for any one of them. They are seen simply as opportunists who view politics as a means of self enrichment. Each one of them is corrupt to the core, as they pay themselves no less than $3.7 million a year and much more secretly, thanks to their benefactor, Lee Kuan Yew. One wonders if any one of them would be even around if not for their huge incomes.

As for independent views, they have none. All they are capable of is to parrot the government line. And what is Lee's government? It is a government that denies a free press, denies freedom of speech, denies freedom of expression or assembly. It is a government that denies democracy and the right to criticize. And just like the architect of this dictatorship, Lee, Mr. Tan too stands for the same. He has obviously no views of his own and even if he did, he won't say it, lest it jeopardizes the $3.7 million a year he gets.

The entire government is corrupt to the core. Corruption and repression is the basis and foundation of Singaporean society. In addition to the denial of individual freedoms, the judiciary has no respect whatsoever among the people. Judges are seen simply as a rubber stamp for the government. Anyone who the government does not like is promptly put away by these Kangaroo courts.

If the government continues to maintain order, it is not because the people respect the government. It is because of brute force violence and repression that they remain in control. Anyone who criticizes faces a defamation action, imprisonment and bankruptcy, not to mention being victimized for the rest of their lives.

I am not sure if this order based on repression can outlive the old and dying 92 year old Lee Kuan Yew. Any country to survive has to have identifiable leadership around which the people can gel. Leaders with courage; with independent views. Leaders who the people can at any time identify with certain causes and certain beliefs. Singapore has no such leaders. Every single government minister's duty is simply to press the views of Lee Kuan Yew at any one time, which presently is a society which denies every single civil liberty which people around the world take for granted.

What does one do if Lee Kuan Yew dies? Rally around this man Tan   Chuan Jin because he has great wisdom? Or has he? Does he know anymore than any one of us? Does he have any burning cause which appeals to any section of society? And the same applies to every single one of his other minions, who run around making any speeches they want anytime they want and expect us to listen?  It will bore you to death.

Singapore is an artificial island state created under force compulsion and repression. Even if we do not agree with Lee Kuan Yew, none can deny that he was a man of his own. He had his own head, with his own ideas. This cannot be said of any one of these minions who hang around for the $3.7 million a year.

And this lack of real leadership will result in Singapore descending into total chaos and disorder after Lee's parting. Because Lee has not allowed any real leaders to form, finding it safer to have handpicked bureaucrats such as these instead, none of them would be able to command the respect of Singaporeans. Unless and until you allow real democracy and allow the people a real stake in the way they are governed, the island has simply no hope once Lee Kuan Yew dies.

It is simply far too small and far too dependent on foreign investment to withstand even the slightest unrest.

In this event, I expect to see even more of local educated and skilled Singaporeans departing for settlement to the West and the miniscule local population will decline to zero. What you will have left is the large numbers of Chinese human imports who will babble all day in Mandarin Chinese as well as the foreign bankers making money serving a handful of Chinese money launderers and tax cheats.

Even Tan Chuan Jin might pack up after saying enough is enough.

Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com

Singapore an intolerant fascist racist state below it's outward appearance

Ladies and Gentlemen,

If a fascist society is one where every pillar of government works to serve one leader alone and his dictates, then there is no doubt, Singapore is a classic fascist state, under it's supreme leader Lee Kuan Yew and by extension today his son, the Prime Minister.

The system of real parliamentary democracy has been dismantled long ago. The constitution has been amended to reflect the ideas of Lee Kuan Yew. There is no rule of law. The courts are politicized and function to further Lee Kuan Yew and his ruling party's interests.

There is no right to free speech, expression, or assembly. Everyone except government supporters need permits to engage in any of this. If your intention is to question authority, no permit is granted. Government supporters on the other hand are freely given permits anytime they want.

The only voice heard is that of Lee and his supporters. Any other voice has no chance whatsoever. 

Any criticism against the ruling Lee family, his government, their judicial system or their policies will result either in criminal prosecution or defamation actions which usually results in bankruptcy. The idea is to force you to accept the government line. As a result no one dares to criticize. Praising the government of course is not only welcome and rewarded which everyone who desires success does.

In order to please the powers above they join the ruling party and volunteer at their grassroots organizations as the sure path to success. The Peoples Association is one of their largest organizations. Joining it and being noticed always leads to career advancement in both government and private employment. Businessmen supporters of the government are given lucrative contracts and financial rewards.

To put it another way, Singapore is a bootlicker's paradise, the boots of Lee Kuan Yew, that is.

As a result, the average Singaporean sees no advantage in claiming an independent mind. Since supporting Lee and his ruling party brings benefits while thinking and speaking independently always results in pain, why would anyone want to openly criticize. There is simply no advantage in it.

Any student of Singaporean history is fully aware of the many who have suffered unimaginable suffering for standing up to the regime. Chia Thye Poh was in jail longer than Nelson Mandela, the late JB Jeyaretnam was repeatedly sued, bankrupted, jailed and removed from office. Several lawyers and other professionals were labeled Marxists jailed without trial and tortured. Many have gone into exile.

For having openly dared to join an opposition party and stand up to them, I was repeatedly harassed, denied a living, initially suspended from practicing law for 2 years in Singapore, then fined for contempt of court. Even after I left the island for America, in 2008 during a brief visit to the island, I was charged for insulting a judge for something I wrote in this blog, imprisoned and deported. Even after having left the island, I was disbarred from practicing law in Singapore for refusing to submit to them.

They simply, it appears, will not accept anyone who shows defiance to their authority. Their argument is, that if you are defiant, they will lose their respect and therefore lose their authority to rule. As if to say, they alone hold a license to rule from God and no one else is allowed any contrarian opinion.

On the other hand those who support them are rewarded with unimaginable riches. Every minister is paid millions; yes I mean it, millions. Singapore's minister for law, a Tamil, who would ordinarily have been no more than a mediocre backlane lawyer, lives an opulent lifestyle, thanks to his disgusting unconditional political loyalty. Another Tamil, SR Nathan who was Lee's sidekick since early days was made President and paid millions if not billions.

Not only this Tamil president, but his daughter, whom no one would have bothered to even notice is made the CEO of the Courts where she spends most of her time on the phone with her friends, when she does bother to turn up for work, or throwing lavish parties for other of Lee's cronies to wine and dine which happens more often than any work.

Of course no one would dare to criticize her. After all she is the daughter of one of Lee's staunch supporters.

You can imagine what sort of society this reward for obedience and punishment for disobedience creates. Like a dog, the average Singaporean realizes that it is good to jump whenever his master demands. No dog wants to be called a bad dog.

So you might wonder why is it that a seemingly modern educated and affluent society would rather live as Labrador Retrievers and not human beings? Why do they accept a life where they have to live no better than slaves, where they have no rights and completely at the mercy of a dictator?

One may argue that as the vast majority are ethnic Chinese and they by nature prefer to accept authority than challenge it, this explains their subservience. But this argument fails. Hong Kong is Chinese too but they have repeatedly shown that they refuse to be pushed around by the Communist Chinese mainland government under which they live. The Taiwanese too have guts.

Having been born and having lived in the island most of my life, I will tell you why. The ethnic Chinese, the majority race, originally came from the Southern port cities of China to find work. Most of them were illiterate and could not distinguish freedom from a donkey's backside. Their children who went to school had only a Lee Kuan Yew style education, which is, to pass your exams and get a job and keep your mouth shut. You have a entire society of mindless conformists where any original thinking is almost a crime.

The Malays and Indians who settled there are inherently a more freer people but since they are today such a small minority, their thinking is naturally overtaken by the particularly Singaporean Chinese culture of submission and obedience.

Remember the Singaporean Chinese is a special creation of Lee Kuan Yew and in no way equated with their fellow Hong Kong Chinese.

Racism is openly practiced and well entrenched. In both government and private sector everyone in authority has to be ethnic Chinese. If Malays and Indians are employed they serve under a glass ceiling of Chinese rule. Since they have nowhere else to go, they simply suffer in silence. There are no race relations laws to which they can turn since officially, there is no racial discrimination in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore.

This total submission to authority, regardless whether through ignorance or fear or opportunity, may be good in one sense, as it results in peace and stability. There is no mass protests for freedom as you would see in the Arab Spring. But it is also a sterile boring and dull society where the people simply follow. They have no minds of their own. This results in stagnation, boredom and a society which has no novel ideas at all. There is no doubt, it is a society that will be slowly left behind the vibrant free democratic societies of the world, where man live as men and not Lee Kuan Yew's Labrador Retrievers.

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

Israel, a tragedy of history

update:07/21/2014
Ladies and Gentlemen,

The Roman Empire, which stretched from the British Isles in the West to North Africa in the East to the Mediterranean in the south, across the length and breath of Europe, before Christianity was pagan. They had all sorts of Gods and the Emperors themselves were Gods, and the people were required to worship them or else be fed to the lions in the arena.

Then comes Jesus Christ and Christianity which was becoming far too popular and widespread. Unable to subjugate the mounting numbers of Christians, Emperor Constantine, the Roman Emperor does the next best thing. Since he cannot subdue the growing numbers, he himself embraces Christianity in AD 300, moves the capital of Rome from Rome to a city which he built for himself, Constantinople at the mouth of the Bosporus, in Turkey, todays Istanbul, and renames his empire the Christian Byzantium empire with its seat in Constantinople.

You could say the problems of the Jews started from the day Constantine became a Christian. According to the Bible, it was Judas Iscariot, a Jew who betrayed Christ resulting in his crucifixion. And therefore the Jew was the enemy of all Christians, to be persecuted, discriminated and punished. Although wise historians would rightly argue that it was not just Judas who was to blame but also the High Priests in the Jewish temples whose tax revenue was diminished by the popularity of Christianity as well as the person who ordered the crucifixion, Pontius Pilate, the governor of Judea, it became convenient to blame it all on Judas and hang the Jew.

A student of history would realize that  the enemy of the Jew was historically never the Muslim Arabs, but the Christians. There were laws throughout Christian European nations that discriminated Jews. In England, Jews, were not allowed to hold professions. they were not allowed to be lawyers, doctors or the other professions. They were not allowed to own land. Only menial jobs such as musicians were allowed them. This was the case across Europe for centuries.

And then there was Theodor Herzl and the advent of Zionism. Herzl was a Austro Hungarian Jew, a scholar and journalist. In 1895 he writes the Der Judenstaadt (the Jewish State) in which he outlines his idea of Zionism, the idea of Jews returning to Biblical Palestine and argues that unless the Jews have a state of their own, they would forever suffer the curse of being a Jew wherever they are. He advocated the mass emigration of Jews to Israel.

In the meantime, the Byzantium Roman Empire with its seat in Constantinople, present day Turkey lasted from AD 300 to 1453, when Sultan Memhet II, the Ottoman Turk and Muslim sacked the Christian city of Constantinople and renamed it Istanbul in present day Turkey. And thence, the Christian Roman Empire becomes the Islamic Ottoman Empire again stretching across the length and breath of Europe, North Africa and all of the Mediterranean, the same extent as that of the Roman Empire.

Wanting to escape the persecution in Christian Europe, many Jews emigrated to the area we now call Palestine which was now under the Muslim Ottoman Turks. The Jews had no problem moving to Palestine. It was merely a case of Jews contractually buying land from the Arabs who were already there, and these contracts were honored by the Ottoman government. Therefore the Jews had no problem settling peacefully in Palestine under the Ottomans. Also it has to be stressed there was no discord between the Muslims and recently arrived Jews who lived with each other in perfect harmony as they have done for thousands of years. In fact the Jews were much more comfortable under the Muslim Ottomans than they ever were under Christian Europe.

There is a reason for this cordiality between the Muslims and the Jews. In Islam, the Jews, as are the Christians were considered people of the Book, meaning they worshiped the same God except their path to God were different. Therefore although the Muslims did not treat the Jews as equals, they were at least left alone as long as they paid their taxes.

As an example of the Muslims accommodating the Jews, Maimonides, a great Jewish philosopher, born in Cordoba Spain under the Islamic Moorish Caliphate was in fact the principle advisor to the Caliph, none other than a Muslim. He had no problems living under the Muslims. His problems started only after the Christian Crusaders invaded Spain resulting in his having to flee, first to Muslim North Africa and then to Egypt.

Everything began to change in Palestine in 1914, with the advent of the First World War. The Ottoman Empire began to crumble, with almost every subject state demanding independence. The Arabs living under the Ottomans were no different. King Hussein, the King of the Hejaz, present day Israel and Palestine too had ambitions of independence.

At this point, the Ottomans under the persuasion of a man named Enver Pasha persuades the Ottomans to join the War on the side of the Germans, on hindsight a terrible mistake. By an uncanny coincidence, the British at this time who were fighting the Turks became aware that across Arabia, under their feet there was a sea of oil, worth a treasure.

So the thinking was, if the British could driver the Turks out of Arabia and Palestine, they would have all that wealth in oil.

So they send an Englishman, Thomas Edward Lawrence, commonly known as Lawrence of Arabia to convince the Arabs that if they would allow the British to help them drive out the Turks, they would give them independence. Of course the British had no such intentions, but we are not sure whether Lawrence too was part of this betrayal. The British arranged a treaty between Sir Mark Sykes, British civil servant and Francois Georges Picot, a French civil servant in Paris in 1916 and plan to divide the entire Middle East between the British and the French. King Hussein and his Arabs got nothing.

Anyhow the British manage to kick the Turks out of Palestine in the war which ended in 1918. Just before it ended, a man named Arthur Balfour, British Foreign Secretary, makes that fatal statement that was the beginning of all the Arabs and the Jews problems. That statement is the famous Balfour Declaration. In 1917, Arthur Balfour declares that in consideration of all the help the Jews, and in particular the financial help received from the British Jewish banker Rothschild, he will give a homeland to the Jews in Palestine.

Mind you, his promise did not extend to giving them a country. All it said that Jews from anywhere in the world are allowed to come and settle in British controlled Transjordan, within a small area set aside to be called Palestine.

You can imagine what followed. All the persecuted Jews from across Europe were heading in refugee ships to sea ports on the Mediterranean coast of Palestine. Naturally as too many were coming, the British had no choice but to renege on their promise and began turning these Jewish refugee ships back principally to Cyprus where they were detained.

Now the British themselves became the brunt of the hatred both of the Jews for stopping Jewish immigration and from the Arabs unhappy that too many Jews were allowed to come. As a result from 1918 to 1947, the British found themselves having to fight both Jews and Arabs.

Lawrence at this time was clearly against creating this Jewish homeland. He correctly predicted then that the Jews in this so called homeland would only be able to survive through the use of continued violence and force which we see today.

In 1947, unable to contain the problem any longer, the British hand over their Palestine mandate over to the United Nations which becomes a UN mandate until 1948. In 1948, the Americans table a motion at the General Assembly in the United Nations for partition and the creation of a Jewish State. Through some arm twisting and threats of economic sanctions, many countries initially opposed to partition eventually come around and on May 14, 1948 at midnight, the state of Israel is born.

And ever since then, Israel has not had a single day of peace. And I reckon they never will.

This is how I see it. The Balfour Declaration should never have happened and secondly the state of Israel should never have been created. The Jews should have been allowed to come to Palestine but they would have to live among Arabs in a secular state with all races living in harmony, as it was so for millennia. By creating a Jewish state and the resultant deportation of thousands of Arabs from their homes where they lived for millennia, you simply leave no prospect whatsoever of peace.

And this is what you see today. Continuous bloodshed, war and violence, which has gone on since 1918 and which will go on for another hundred years and more.

And today, there simply is no solution. Too much blood has been spilled to satisy the Arabs for any settlement.

Today every single Arab no matter where he lives, bitterly hates Israel. And the Jews have only themselves to blame. It is because of what they have done to the Arabs. In 1948, with the creation of Israel, thousands were deported from their homes in which they have lived for thousands of years, leaving them to live as refugees in today's Jordan or the occupied West Bank. In 1967 war, they have occupied the West Bank, land which does not belong to them and not only continue to occupy it in violation of UN resolutions, they continue to build settlements there to take it permanently. And as for Israel itself, a country which did not exist before 1948, a country which was created by fraud and deception of the world powers, Britain and France.

In 2003, I travelled to Jordan in my client's interest. In Amman, I met my client's father, an old man who was kicked out of his orange grove in Haifa, within present day Israel, in 1948 by the Jews at gunpoint. He tells me, no matter how long he lives, he is determined to get his orange grove back! He will never rest until that happens!

Another anecdote which has some similarity comes to mind. Ho Chih Minh was reported to have told a French Army officer just before the fall of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. He said "For every French soldier who dies, 10 Viet Minh will die. But in the end, we will win and you will lose". As was said, the Viet Minh Army defeated the French, a far superior force in Dien Bien Phu, 1954, Vietnam, resulting in the Armistice.

I fear the same could be said by the Arabs to Israel.

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