Ladies and Gentlemen,
When one becomes educated, with it comes responsibilities. And it
is dishonorable for the educated to remain silent when a dictator
misleads, deceives his fellow citizens but yet remains silent; even
though he knows the truth. Even though, by virtue of his education,
he is in a position to stand up to the dictator and stop him from
carrying on with the mischief.
Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore runs the country as a dictatorship even
though it was meant to be a democracy. Singapore has a constitution
which gives citizens their basic fundamental rights. A constitution
which guarantees the citizens rights against excesses by the
government. A constitution which is meant to allow the citizens
through elections to change the government. A constitution which
guarantees a free press, free speech and expression; which
guarantees the rule of law and the right to equality among people;
the right to be protected from racial and religious discrimination.
The citizens of Singapore have the right to live as free men and
women. This is the right that they are guaranteed under the
constitution.
Before their very eyes, deliberately and without any shame, Lee
Kuan Yew has denied the citizens of Singapore each of these rights,
making the citizens of Singapore live at the whims and fancies of
the supreme dictator, Lee Kuan Yew. All these guarantees in the
constitution are openly and shamelessly broken and violated. There
is no free speech. To speak you need a license and if it is speech
that the government does not like to hear, you will not get the
license. And not getting the license, you will be arrested, sued,
impoverished and bankrupted in that order, by a pliant and corrupt
judiciary, if you did speak.
Although the constitution guarantees the right to assemble, a
license is needed to do it; if it is an assembly to criticize the
government, no license will be granted and if you assembled anyway,
you will be punished in the above order; even though the assembly
did not even hurt a fly.
Every aspect of freedom is denied; if the intent is to criticize
the government. In Singapore people are permitted to go about their
lives, do their work, go about their occupations and recreations,
go about their living, but with one caveat, which is this. Do not
criticize the government. Do not complain even if Mr. Lee Kuan Yew
and his son steals $3.7 million of your money each year, for each
of them; which by the way he does claiming it to be a salary.
If you wish to live in peace, do not criticize if the government
refuses, as they do now, to pay your retirement CPF money when you
reach 60 years; which by law they are required to do.
You have no right to criticize if the government is building
gambling dens next to your homes which they intend to do. You have
no right if the government permits prostitution in Geylang by the
massive influxion of Peidu Mama, single mothers from Communist
China whose children are given scholarships at government
expense.
You will be punished if you complained about racial discrimination
and ethnic rearrangement though the massive importation of
Communist Chinese so as to maintain the illegal racial quota of 75
% Chinese.
To put it simply, the Constitution of Singapore is a dead letter.
It is intended to fool the rest of the world and Singapore citizens
into thinking it is a Constitutional Parliamentary democracy.
Nothing can be further from the truth. Singapore is nothing more
than a country run by the Lee family, the Lee Kuan Yew family,
assisted by their corrupted minions, who decide what the lives of
an average Singaporean will be, day by day.
I know this fact, the fact that it is nothing more than a
dictatorship of Lee Kuan Yew. But I am not the only one who knows
this fact. Every educated person, if he bothers to find out, knows
all that I have said. Every educated person in Singapore knows that
Lee Kuan Yew has brought Singapore to what it is now; a place where
he and his family can make as much money as they want without
complaint from anyone. A place where decisions are made by them and
them alone. A place without any set rules for government, the rules
being made by the Lee family as time goes on. A place where the
people have to live entirely at the mercy of what Lee may or may
not decide tomorrow.
Every educated Singaporean knows this. They know that their rights
have progressively been diminished over the years until today, when
they have none. A self respecting Singaporean would feel outraged
at this denial of his rights which are guaranteed to him under the
Constitution. Any self respecting Singaporean should take back his
rights that Lee has stolen; how dare Mr. Lee Kuan Yew take away the
rights that belong to them. The educated Singaporeans should ask
who this man thinks he is is. God? Any self respecting Singaporean
should not tolerate this. They should demand redress. They should
demand the right to live as men again, not sheep.
There are those whom Lee has deliberately kept only partially
educated and who may not be aware that they have more power than
they think. If these people did not see their lives being in
bondage, it is possible to understand. But how can one forgive
those with an education, those who are aware of the damage being
done, and yet remain silent. These people cannot be forgiven. These
are shameful people, fearful people who do not have the confidence
to stand up to a tyrant, so they continue with their sheepish
lives.
Within this group of shame; that is the educated people who lack
the courage to do thief right thing; I include the lawyers, all of
them; I include all the other professionals; I include the
professors and lecturers at the universities who claim to have a
lot of gray matter in their heads but not the courage to stand up
to tyrants; I include the school teachers, the engineers, the
scientists; in fact I include everyone with any amount of tertiary
education.
If I know this much, they too know this much. If I know Lee Kuan
Yew is a thief, they too know this. If I know that all their rights
are denied, they too know this.
I know of a professor at the SMU who was my classmate at Raffles
Institution. I should not say too much about him; so as not to give
away his identity. Needless to say, he lives in fear of Lee Kuan
Yew. He reads a lot, literature, poetry and English. He wants us to
believe that he is a man of letters. He even wrote a comical poem
to me once. He even told me once, how far true I do not know, that
he had lunch with Vaclav Havel. He attends theatrical performances,
symphony performances. In other words he wants me to believe that
he is part of the educated polished elite. But in spite of all
this; in spite of all his accomplishments; in spite of the fact
that he knows full well that in Singapore, he is nothing more than
Lee Kuan Yew's subject to do as he pleases; this professor does not
dare to raise a single complaint, openly against this dictatorship.
It is such people who live lives in disgrace, in denial and in
cowardice. He knows that if Lee so desires, his entire career, his
wine sipping and theatrical performances would disappear overnight.
So like a cowardly goat, he remains silent as Lee rules over
him.
Not only him, the entire educated class deserves contempt. Contempt
because they as citizens of Singapore, are prepared to stand idly
by, as Lee and his family continue to steal from them at will;
steal their money, their rights, their everything.
As for me, I have a stake in Singapore. I was born there. My father
spent almost his entire life in Singapore, building up the country
to what it is today. I have a right to complain and to expose these
dictators. And like myself, I ask others in Singapore and elsewhere
to cry out against these dictators and these tyrants.
The wheels of change have begun to turn. The Lee government is
finding it impossible to stifle the criticism that is outpouring
against this dictatorship; but so far, except for a few, the
criticism has been only incognito, hiding behind pseudonyms and
false pretenses. The educated should stand out now, openly
identifying themselves in criticism. Being educated, they will
always manage to survive. Therefore they should have more courage.
Remaining silent is not an option in these circumstances.
The professor at the SMU should not only be writing poetry, but
like Vaclav Havel, be a beacon for truth and freedom. Like it was
in Czechoslovakia.
These blogs that I write and others write will continue to prick
the minds of their readers, and even if a single person was moved
into some thought process to demand change, even in a very small
way; this blog would have served its purpose.
Each reader even in a small way can be part of the movement for
change by small efforts, such as distributing these blog posts to
others and disseminating the information in them throughout the
island. These small efforts by all of us combined will help towards
political change in Singapore.
Gopalan Nair
http://singaporedissident.blogspot.com/2008/02/singapore-education-comes-with.html
