MM Lee has once likened the people as fishes in the ocean - the
big fish will eat the smaller fishes and the smaller fishes will
eat the shrimps.
Lately he had confirmed in his dialogue with the 10 journalists on
TV: "Does My Vote matter?, that there is no fairness in this world.
This ocean parable probably revealed the true insight of his way of
thinking and governing the country.
He perceives people as fishes in the ocean and deal with them
according to the degree of threats. If anyone simply talks and give
ideas, no matter how true or how good is an idea it is of no value
to him. Unless the person concerned is a bigger fish, he would not
listen to him. So this ocean threat parable indeed is the very
realistic way of looking at how he runs the country.
People talk often about good ideas and how to solve certain
problems and suggested to him many time to be more proactive and
caring. Will he care about such problems? Look at how he replied to
people's complaint about high costs of living being created by his
high-wage push over the 1970s-1990s. But to him : government is a
big fish and people and oppositions are all small fishes so why
should he listen to them?
So by the fish parable, he would not change his past tax and
recover policies allowing HDB to double-charge on land or LTA to
triple-charge on vehicles after the COE was supposed to replace the
past system of charging for vehicles.
So would he give way to opposition politicians and would carry on
with defamation suits to check them for any fishy stories so it is
a matter of who is a bigger or smaller fish in the ocean.
So big fishes like Port Palepas and USA and China souzhou local
authority will make him change not all the smaller fishes swimming
in the ocean. If the smaller fishes talk about high utility and
high land charges and these are the problems alright but the fishes
are too small and would be ignored.
So what if the CEOs of NKF, PSA or Comfort Taxi, essentially
superannuated ex-government officers are overpaid he would not
bother with the small fishes. He must see some big fishes in the
ocean e.g. Maersk Lines or port palepas or Air Asia then he would
make some changes to his old policies.
Problem is : people are not yet politically matured or
sophistication to become big fishes in the ocean so there will be
no change to old policies.
If Singaporeans understand the importance of their votes and not
give in on all the GRCs and gerrymandering they would not have to
suffer the dropping wages and rising costs while the government is
denying their complaints.
It is the real ocean we are living in and people must understand
enough about the fish parable before there can be a change.