Singapores Martyr, Chee Soon Juan
July/August 2006
By Hugo Restall
Striding into the Chinese restaurant of Singapores historic
Fullerton Hotel, Chee Soon Juan hardly looks like a dangerous
revolutionary. Casually dressed in a blue shirt with a gold pen
clipped to the pocket, he could pass as just another mild-mannered,
apolitical Singaporean. Smiling, he courteously apologizes for
being lateeven though it is only two minutes after the appointed
time.
Nevertheless, according to prosecutors, this same man is not only a
criminal, but a repeat offender. The opposition party leader has
just come from a pre-trial conference at the courthouse, where he
faces eight counts of speaking in public without a permit. He has
already served numerous prison terms for this and other political
offenses, including eight days in March for denying the
independence of the judiciary. He expects to go to jail again later
this year.
Mr. Chee does not seem too perturbed about this, but it drives
Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong up the wall. Asked about
his governments persecution of the opposition during a trip to New
Zealand last month, Mr. Lee launched into a tirade of abuse against
Mr. Chee. Hes a liar, hes a cheat, hes deceitful, hes
confrontational, its a destructive form of politics designed not
to win elections in Singapore but to impress foreign supporters and
make himself out to be a martyr, Mr. Lee ranted. Hes
deliberately going against the rules because he says, Im like
Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi. I want to be a martyr.
Coming at the end of a trip in which the prime minister essentially
got a free ride on human rights from his hostsNew Zealand Prime
Minister Helen Clark didnt even raise the issuethis outburst
showed a lack of self-control and acumen. Former Prime Minister Lee
Kuan Yew, the man who many believe still runs Singapore and who is
the current prime ministers father, has said much the same things
about Mr. Cheea political gangster, a liar and a cheatbut that
was at home, and in the heat of an election campaign.
Mr. Chee smiles when its suggested that he must be doing something
right. Every time he says something stupid like that, I think to
myself, the worst thing to happen would be to be ignored. That
would mean were not making any headway, he agrees.
But one charge made by the government does stick: Mr. Chee is not
terribly concerned about election results. Which is just as well,
because his Singapore Democratic Party did not do very well in the
May 6 polls. It would be foolish, he suggests, for an opposition
party in Singapore to pin its hopes on gaining one, or perhaps two,
seats in parliament. He is aiming for a much bigger goal: bringing
down the city-states one-party system of government. His weapon is
a campaign of civil disobedience against laws designed to curtail
democratic freedoms.
You dont vote out a dictatorship, he says. And basically thats
what Singapore is, albeit a very sophisticated one. Its not
possible for us to effect change just through the ballot box.
Theyve got control of everything else around us. Instead whats
needed is a coalition of civil society and political society coming
together and demanding changea color revolution for
Singapore.
So far Mr. Chee doesnt seem to be getting much, if any traction.
While many Singaporeans dont particularly like the PAPs arrogant
style of government, the ruling party has succeeded in
depoliticizing the population to the extent that anybody who
presses them to take action to make a change is regarded with
resentment. And in a climate of fearMr. Chee lost his job as a
psychology lecturer at the national university soon after entering
opposition politicsa reluctance to get involved is hardly
surprising.
Why is all this oppression necessary in a peaceful and prosperous
country like Singapore where citizens otherwise enjoy so many
freedoms? Mr. Chee has his own theory that the answer lies with
strongman Lee Kuan Yew himself: Why is he still so afraid? I
honestly think that through the years he has accumulated enough
skeletons in his closet that he knows that when he is gone, his son
and the generations after him will have a price to pay. If we had
parliamentary debates where the opposition could pry and ask
questions, I think he is actually afraid of something like
that.
That raises the question of whether Singapore deserves its
reputation for squeaky-clean government. A scandal involving the
countrys biggest charity, the National Kidney Foundation, erupted
in 2004 when it turned out that its Chief Executive T.T. Durai was
not only drawing a $357,000 annual salary, but the charity was
paying for his first-class flights, maintenance on his Mercedes,
and gold-plated fixtures in his private office bathroom.
The scandal was a gift for the opposition, which naturally raised
questions about why the government didnt do a better job of
supervising the highly secretive NKF, whose patron was the wife of
former Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong (she called Mr. Durais salary
peanuts). But it had wider implications too. The government
controls huge pools of public money in the Central Provident Fund
and the Government of Singapore Investment Corp., both of which are
highly nontransparent. It also controls spending on the public
housing most Singaporeans live in, and openly uses the funds for
refurbishing apartment blocks as a bribe for districts that vote
for the ruling party. Singaporeans have no way of knowing whether
officials are abusing their trust as Mr. Durai did.
It gets worse. Mr. Durais abuses only came to light because he
sued the Straits Times newspaper for libel over an article
detailing some of his perks. Why was Mr. Durai so confident he
could win a libel suit when the allegations against him were true?
Because he had done it before. The NKF won a libel case in 1998
against defendants who alleged it had paid for first-class flights
for Mr. Durai. This time, however, he was up against a major
bulwark of the regime, Singapore Press Holdings; its lawyers
uncovered the truth.
Singaporean officials have a remarkable record of success in
winning libel suits against their critics. The question then is,
how many other libel suits have Singapores great and good wrongly
won, resulting in the cover-up of real misdeeds? And are libel
suits deliberately used as a tool to suppress questioning
voices?
The bottling up of dissent conceals pressures and prevents
conflicts from being resolved. For instance, extreme sensitivity
over the issue of race relations means that the persistence of
discrimination is a taboo topic. Yet according to Mr. Chee it is a
problem that should be debated so that it can be better resolved.
The harder they press now, the stronger will be the reaction when
hes no longer around, he says of Lee Kuan Yew.
The paternalism of the PAP also rankles, especially since
foreigners get more consideration than locals. The World Bank and
International Monetary Fund will hold their annual meeting in
Singapore this fall, and have been trying to convince the
authorities to allow the usual demonstrations to take place. The
likely result is that international NGO groups will be given a
designated area to scream and shout. So we have a situation here
where locals dont have the right to protest in their own country,
while foreigners are able to do that, Mr. Chee marvels. Likewise,
Singaporeans cant organize freely into unions to negotiate wages;
instead a National Wages Council sets salaries with input from the
corporate sector, including foreign chambers of commerce.
All these tensions will erupt when strongman Lee Kuan Yew dies. Mr.
Chee notes that the ruling party is so insecure that Singapores
founder has been unable to step back from front-line politics. The
PAP still needs the fear he inspires in order to keep the
population in line. Power may have officially passed to his son,
Lee Hsien Loong, but even supporters privately admit that the new
prime minister doesnt inspire confidence.
During the election, Prime Minister Lee made what should have been
a routine attack on multiparty democracy: Suppose you had 10, 15,
20 opposition members in parliament. Instead of spending my time
thinking what is the right policy for Singapore, Im going to spend
all my time thinking whats the right way to fix them, to buy my
supporters votes, how can I solve this weeks problem and forget
about next years challenges? But of course the ominous phrases
buy votes and fix them stuck out. That is the kind of mistake,
Mr. Chee suggests, Lee Sr. would not make.
Hes got a kind of intelligence that would serve you very well
when you put a problem in front of him, he says of the prime
minister. But when it comes to administration or political
leadership, when you really need to be media savvy and motivate
people, I think he is very lacking in that area. And his father
senses it as well.
However, the elder Mr. Lees deathhe is now 82is a necessary but
not sufficient condition for change. Another big factor is how
civil society is able to use new technologies to bypass PAP control
over information and free speech. The government has tried to
stifle political filmmaking, blogging and podcasting. Singapore
Rebel, a 2004 film about Mr. Chee by independent artist Martyn See,
was banned but is widely available on the Internet.
Meanwhile, pressure for Singapore to remain competitive in the
region has sparked debate about the governments dominant role in
the economy. Can a top-down approach promote creativity and
independent thinking? The need for transparency and accountability
also means that Singapore will have to change. That is the source
of Mr. Chees optimism in the face of all his setbacks: I realize
that Singapore is not at that level yet. But weve got to start
somewhere. And Im prepared to see this out, in the sense that in
the next five, 10, 15 years, time is on our side. We need to
continue to organize and educate and encourage. And it will
come.
He doesnt dwell on his personal tribulations, but mentions in
passing selling his self-published books on the street. That is his
primary source of income to feed his family, along with the
occasional grant. As to the charge of wanting to be a martyr, once
he started dissenting, he found it impossible to stop in good
conscience. The more you got involved, the more you found out what
theyre capable of, it steels you, so you say, No, I will not back
down. It makes you more determined.
Perhaps its in his genes. One of Mr. Chees daughters is old
enough that she had to be told that her father was going to prison.
She stood up before her class and announced, My papa is in jail,
but he didnt do anything wrong. People have just been unfair to
him.
Mr. Restall is editor of the REVIEW.
