Jaundiced Lenses

Legitimized Corruption Understood

2005-08-07T01:59:00.000+08:00

Singapore Review : Legitimized Corruption Understood
From: Carl Kapeland
To: Mellanie Hewlitt

Dear Mellanie
In the latest developments the entire National Kidney Foundation Board and its CEO have taken the easy route out and resigned. That's leadership for you, when things get messy, just get up and leave the mess for someone else to clean up.

But I don't think the new CEO or Board will do much cleaning up. Looks like they are replacing one bunch of rotten apples with another bunch of potentially more rotten apples. It does not address the real problem.

WHAT IS THE REAL PROBLEM?
There are several recurrent issues here. Singapore is in this current mess because Lee's PAP Government has forgotten that not everything can be reduced to money. You cannot throw money at all your problems and expect it to magically disappear.

The material base that motivates Singapore's "leaders" is only too evident when the NKF's transit CEO (Gerald Ee) hinted that "SGD600,000/- may not be sufficient for the new replacement to take office"!!! Money is the only motivating factor and if they have elected a leader and a board who is motivated only by money, its only
a natural and unavoidable result that they will end up with an organization which has forgotten its once noble purpose and replaced it with more materialistic pursuits.

Have they (Singapore) appointed a Wolf in sheep's clothing to guard their precious flock? For positions like these in charity organizations, THE CHIEF MOTIVATING FACTOR CANNOT BE MONEY! as they are not running an investment bank. The same applies senior public service positions and for ministerial positions. NOT EVERYTHING CAN BE REDUCED TO MONEY. But Lee's PAP Ministers have used this holistic approach to address any and all issues under the sun.

Lee and his ministers simply CANNOT RUN A COUNTRY THE SAME WAY THEY RUN A COMPANY. Why? Because a country comprises of flesh and blood and spirit. A company is merely a corporate vehicle that is often set-up for the sole purpose of reaping a monetary profit.

SINGAPORE AS A COUNTRY, IS NOT SINGAPORE INC!!!! And even if it is, its directors (and that means Lee and his million dollar cabinet) have to remain accountable to the shareholders (Singapore citizens). Singapore MINISTERS have to be transparent, and they are not especially as regards their salaries and the management of the
country's reserves.

Consider this, the NKF was originally set up as a supposedly charitable organization. In form and function it appeared above board and reputable. But in actual practice it had a hidden agenda to siphon wealth from the public into state coffers. And what happens to all this money (all SGD200 million of it?) No body knows.

These same similarities in the NKF saga are reproduced on a grander scale in overall state administration in Singapore. Whether its the CPF, LTA, GLCs, Temasek etc they all relate to the the same basic issue. It goes back to the same bunch of corrupt leaders paying themselves and their cronies humongous rediculous salaries, approved
and legitimized under a set of bogus laws that they legislated in the first place.

But even before this NKF scam, transparency issues have dogged Singapore's state administration for decades and repeated requests by the World Bank, IMF, FTA and other NGOs for greater accountability and transparency have basically fallen on deaf ears.

These are basic transparency issues which plaque management of public moneys by all state entities (whether its the CPF Board, GLCs, Temasek, LTA etc). There is massive deception on a grand scale and I suspect the latest NKF debacle only surfaced due to internal friction within Singapore's "inner-circle of elite politicians." Perhaps
someone amongst Singapore's Ruling Elite wanted a bigger portion of the loot.

Think about it. Durai commenced his latest law suite on the confident assumption that it would be a "no contest" walk-over like his two previous suites. But whilst the Singapore sham courts had no problems finding in his favor in the 2 previous suites (which were taken against private individuals and a volunteer who correctly questioned his lavish spending), the latest suite was against another state
bureaucracy. And it was inevitable that the sham court found in favor of the bigger devil. So even amongst the thieves there is a power struggle over who gets a bigger piece of the loot.

So this then is justice ala Singapore styled. Who you are and who you are connected with ultimately decides the outcome of the law suite.

The material facts of the case (and legal premise) have little relevance in the kangaroo's court final assessment.

But by far the most troubling problem is that of Legitimized Corruption. You (Mellanie) have used the term "Legitimized Corruption" very accurately, but failed to elaborate on its true meaning and implications.

Legitimized Corruption means essentially that the corrupt act itself is made perfectly legal. That is why there is a possibility that the external audit on NKF may turn out nothing because Durai and his actions may have been all perfectly legitimate and authorized according to the internal constitution of the Board.

In a normal organization with bona fide controls in place, the Board would not have approved and allowed such unreasonable and lavish expenditures. However, in Singapore's setting where "anything goes" it is possible that the board were within their discretionary powers to authorize such lavish expenditures. Mind you these are
expenditures which (by any ordinary definition) would have amounted to an immoral mis-management of public moneys for unauthorized applications. But if the internal rules of conduct of NKF allowed the Board to act in this manner, it would then be an authorized and legitimate act.

So even after the process of audit has concluded it is perfectly possible for the auditors to conclude that the use of donor funds for;

a) Durai's pay of SGD600,000 and his salary of SGD1.8 million;
b) All expenses and application of donor funds used for purchase of SGD990/- god taps;
c) All expenses for first class air travel;
d) The levying of a 30% Admin Fee;
e) The hiring of personal drivers and limos.

All of the above are authorized and legitimate.

Anyway we all know that the so called "audit" of the NKF accounts is merely a publicity stunt to show case to the world that the current government and the new board is taking steps to remain accountable.

But does this make the above acts any more acceptable and morally correct. NO! Of cause not. An atrocity is still an atrocity even though it is legitimized.

One clear example is prostitution in Singapore. It is legal and the fact that it is legal does not detract one iota from the fact that it is still immoral, depraved and inhuman.

Of cause there are critics who will argue that moral values are to subjective concepts and we cannot always use these imprecise measures to define what is right or wrong. And I concede that there is some truth in this as we live in a world coloured in grey.

However, there will always remain some acts which are so blatantly wrong that they remain morally objectionable and immoral by any standard and yardstick. And the NKF scam (as well as Singapore ministerial salaries) fall within this category. It is morally wrong by any measure and this is not a grey area at all.

This same logic applies on a larger scale as regards ministerial salaries and the process that is orchestrated to "approve" such unreasonable and lavish salaries (amounting to millions of dollars per minister).

Legitimized Corruption works much like Money Laundering, but is worse. In essence Legitimized Corruption is corruption which is made legal. These perpetrators attempt to do what drug cartels and money launderers do;- basically "launder" the money (or the dishonest act) and make the final product appear nice and clean.

But senior politicians differ from your average drug lord or mafia boss in one important respect;- these ministers are much more sophisticated. They know the system (and probably designed it) and know how to manupulate and tweak the system so that they can have access to the ill-gotten gains without getting their hands dirty.

Next to them, Gordon Gecko and the God-Father look like novices and vestal virgins.

However make no mistake the underlying act itself remains wrong, dishonest and morally objectionable but is hidden under a cloak of legitimacy. Drug money (and money from dishonest trades) is still ill-gotten loot. Behind this elaborate sham are a host of corporate and state entities (GLCs, state owned entities and yes, charitable organisations) which are set-up to place a corporate veil between the
real perpetrators and the morally objectionable and dishonest transaction.

The fact that it is perfectly legitimate does not itself make it MORALLY CORRECT.

This is especially the case when you have a legislature that is totally removed (and remains out of touch) with the moral values and aspirations of the people it is supposed to serve and protect.

In fact, this kind of legitimized corruption is the worst possible kind as it means the corruption has infiltrated the most senior ranks of management (and the political leaders).

Compared to this elaborate deceit, the more obvious corruption in Indonesia are crude by comparison and far easier to identify and correct as it is acknowledged that such objectionable acts itself are WRONG and are not endorsed by the country's laws.

How do you ask a cop to catch a thief when the cop himself is a thief?

Legitimized Corruption by its very nature is more sinister and difficult to identify. For instance, a government official who accepts bribes worth $1.6 million a year is guilty of corruption. But what happens if this same official or minister receives this money as part of his "LEGITIMATE" salary.

In both cases the act itself is the same unconscionable and immoral act. But in the later case, there is no need for the official to hide his ill-gotten gains as it is
formally endorsed by an equally corrupt legislature/parliament who has a hand in the ill gotten gains.

The definition of a Parasitic Leech is as follows: "leech: a follower who hangs around a host (without benefit to the host) in hope of gain or advantage"

The kind of legitimized corruption already endorsed and prevalent in Singapore's state machinery is far worse. It is a cancerous malice which is more surreptitious and insidious.

The festering rot is not immediately apparent to an external casual observer but is eating away the core of the its host. Left unchecked, such parasites will consume a once healthy body before discarding the empty shell and relocating to another unwary host.

Legitimized Corruption is also like cancer. It is a chronic ailment which rooted itself very deeply within the host (and the state machinery). Such a chronic ailment did not occur over night but took place over decades of accumulated unchecked accesses.

Durai himself was in the NKF for over 30 years and it is no mere coincidence that
Singapore has been under the same government (and people and family) for over 30 years.

This is precisely the reason why in the US and other bona fide democracies there is a mandatory change in administration every 4-8 years. A new administration brings forth a completely new government which will was away unchecked accesses and commence things tabula rasa.

But somehow in Singapore it appears that only families starting with the Lee sirname or who are closely affiliated with this first family are the only candidates who qualify for election.

What a quaint and family friendly arrangement! Its just too bad that the average
Singaporean is excluded from this elitist inner-circle.

However, Singapore's Ruling Elite also have to be wary of the accompanying dangers of in-breeding which can occur from a small and exclusive gene pool. Cancerous deformaities can result after generations of in-breeding.

And the Cancer has many signs and symptoms. There have already been many evident tell tale signs of the internal rot and its accompanying putrid stench. However, Singaporeans in their numbed state of awareness may be mistaking the over-powering stench of decay for sweet perfume.

The entire state machinery is orchestrated to maintain this state of illusion and deception.

In the normal mechanics of an open and transparent state legislature and government, the moral values of the mans on the street is reflected (although not perfectly) in the policy formulation process.

This is not the case in Singapore and your "leaders" know it. Just challenge them to run a referendum regarding their salaries and it will be evident that 90% of the population are totally disgusted by such blatant acts of greed.

Of cause the local state owned media will somehow always paint the picture of an adoring and obedient public as part of an elaborate charade. So the truth never ever gets out.

Corruption of this scale starts form the top and slowly works its way down the ranks to pollute every senior arm of the state machinery from the Judiciary to Legislature to the Executive and especially to a docile and compliant state managed local press.

It cannot be stopped easily without external intervention.

Slowly but surely what started off as a morally unacceptable issue becomes part and parcel of "accepted norm" which is disguised behind a pile of state endorsed laws and bills.

Even the once sacred document, the Constitution, is not spared and is re-written to the whims and fancies of those they serve. How many Singaporeans are aware of the fact that the country's Constituion has been amended to allow state owned entities and GLCs easier access directly to the country's reserves?

And it also does not take a genius to work out that it is the close affiliates of the Ruling Elite who sit on the management boards of these state owned entities and GLCs.

The following is a fascinating observation. The exact size of Singapore's foreign exchange reserves and the management of thses funds is designated as a STATE SECURITY FOR INTERNAL SECURITY REASONS.

Is it mere co-incidence that the conservative ball park estimate of the net worth of the Lee family is roughly equivalent to your country's reserves? (USD130-140 billion?)

What you have in Singapore are a bunch of hired mercenaries who are ripping off the very people they are supposed to look after.

Singaporeans. This is your country and your life. If you continue in this state of drugged apathy, you will cease to have any control over your own faith and destiny.

Do you really want to hand over your life to the devil?

Do you want to have a Singapore with No Singaporeans?

Its time to wake up from your state of denial and confront the harsh reality before your very eyes.

Yours faithfully
Carl Kapeland
Ohio State

Devan Nair on JBJ

2005-08-06T02:47:00.000+08:00

A SERIOUS threat of closure faces the Workers' Party led by Mr J. B. Jeyaretnam because of failure to pay the forbidding damages awarded against the Party by a court in Singapore. One hopes against hope that this might be avoided at the last minute. It is a slim hope. The world has come to assume, rightly or wrongly, that the political tactics used by the governing PAP against opposition politicians have for some time come to include suing their pants off, forcing them into bankruptcy and losing their seats in parliament as a result. Now the same device is resorted to against opposition political parties themselves, as registered institutions. The onus of proof is on the government of Singapore - not on global public opinion.

Nothing that smacks of opposition seems safe in Singapore any longer. Singaporeans must sooner or later come to realise the harsh truth that nobody in Singapore is truly saved unless ALL are SEEN to be saved. The post of no return has long passed for Singaporeans, and one fears they will perforce learn this lesson the hard way. In the ultimate analysis, this is probably best. The more painful the price paid to learn basic human lessons, the more firmly might they become embedded in the national fibre. A free Singapore will arise and justify the sacrifices and efforts of undaunted Singaporeans, now including the courageous Chee Soon Juan, who had immolated themselves on the altar of freedom. Phoenix-like, their dreams will rise once again from their ashes. Were this process not true, the world would have come to an end long ago.

It is just as well that I release this requiem now. If not timely yet, it will be soon enough. Here goes, for good or ill to myself:

Some months after I was kicked upstairs to the presidency of the republic of Singapore in October 1981, there was a by-election in the parliamentary constituency of Anson, which I had held prior to my ill-fated elevation. I had won that seat with a comfortable majority of some 80 percent of the votes cast. The PAP's candidate in the by-election was a relative unknown, while the Workers Party put up J.B Jeyaretnam. To the consternation of the PAP, Jeyaretnam won.

The day after the by-election verdict was declared, I had lunch with the Prime Minister. I was amazed at how he fretted and fumed like a caged fury. As I saw it, Jeyaretnam constituted no threat at all to the PAP whether in parliament or outside it. For one thing, despite Jeyas courage, he displayed a woeful lack of economics. He clearly never knew at any point of time how Singapore clicked economically. And it was as plain as a pikestaff to me that in five years of free performance in 'parliament against the likes of Dr Goh Keng Swee, Mr Lim Kim San et al, he would stand exposed in public for his abysmal ignorance of economics.

In truth, if I had to cope with J.B Jeyaretnam as a hostile delegate at regular National Trade Union Congress (NTUC) Delegates Conferences, I would have given him all the rope and more he wanted to hang himself with. And after free and open arguments over three days of conferencing, I would have beaten him hands down at the ballot box. I knew this, as did the workers. For they knew that in the colonial days, Jeyaretnam had never stood on a picket line. I had, not once but several times, not only stood on picket lines, but also bedded down for the night on the gravel with the workers whom I led.

I told all this to Kuan Yew. Nothing I said sank in. He fretted about a potential critical percentage drop in PAP votes across all the constituencies that could eventually bring the PAP government down, and he wouldn't stand for it. Only later did I realise that this was the moment that started his formidable brain box ticking away furiously at the fecund gerrymandering schemes he was to introduce later to ensure that all opposition parties would be put in a Gordion bind that would make it impossible for them to ever achieve control of parliament, unless an Alexander came along. Such a possibility appears impossible now, unless it takes the awesome shape of shattering geo-political circumstances already building up around Singapore.

Immediately, however, Kuan Yew's attention was concentrated on how he would deal with J.B Jeyaretnam in parliament. I was quite alarmed at some of the things he told me at that lunch. "Look," he said, "Jeyaretnam cant win the infighting. I'll tell you why. WE are in charge. Every government ministry and department is under our control. And in the infighting, he will go down for the count every time." And I will never forget his last words. "I will make him crawl on his bended knees, and beg for mercy."

Jeyaretnam was made of sterner stuff. To his eternal credit he never did crawl on bended knees, or ever begged for mercy. And it is to Lee Kuan Yew's eternal shame that Jeyaretnam will leave the political scene with his head held high, enjoying a martyrdom conferred on him by Lee. Lest I be misunderstood, let me state that Jeya more than deserves the crown of the martyr for his indomitable courage and dignity in the face of the vilest persecution.

Even greater human spirits than Jeyaretnam had refused to bend their knees to Lee Kuan Yew. It is my considered view that the greatest human being living in Singapore today is one who declined to surrender to the intimidation of prolonged incarceration and restrictions imposed on him without trial for a total period which exceeds that suffered by Nelson Mandela. And here was the mark of true greatness. He emerged from the experience like a god unembittered. His name is Chia Thye Poh. And it is Lee Kuan Yew who emerged from the episode as the knave and fool of his own mindless vindictiveness, while the real conqueror smiles benignly - unnoted, of course, by the local media. For only sound waves from the Istana Annexe are picked up and regurgitated by His Master¹s Voice.

There is no political justification for obliging the Workers' Party to close down. And not a shred of moral justification. What lies behind the move is among the most brazen vindictiveness ever shown in the political life of Singapore. It merely adds one more nail in the coffin of the PAP's reputation when the true history of the party will be exposed to the world, as it surely will be one day in the coming decades of the third millennium. As mankind accelerates to the abyss, the shining memories of the past will certainly not include Lee Kuan Yew and the department store dummies he boasts today as his acolytes. He clearly does not possess the foresight to avoid such a fate.

I gladly salute J.B. Jeyaretnam and the Worker's Party at this highly deserved requiem, even if I never once had shared their platform.

C. V. Devan Nair.
Former President
Republic of Singapore.
March 26, 1999

Did Loong Slap Dhanabalan?

2005-08-02T02:50:00.000+08:00

In his National Day Rally speech on 17 Aug PM Goh Chok Tong,when
officially stating that DPM Lee Hsien Loong will succeed him as PM, said "You may also have heard this old story about Loong {Referring to DPM Lee}. In case you have not, I'll tell you now. Back in 1990, Loong had a quarrel with Richard Hu. S. Dhanabalan sided with Richard. Loong lost his temper. He reached across the table and gave Dhanabalan a tight slap. The whole Cabinet was thrown into commotion. I then forced Loong to apologise. I must be suffering from amnesia. I just cannot remember this incident. Now you know how creative Singaporeans are."

In trying to dismiss this "slapping incident" as just a rumour by
"creative Singaporeans" PM Goh sought to dispel it but by relating the "slapping incident" quite a number of Singaporeans who had heard his speech and/or read it in the local newspapers were confused.

People began to wonder if the incident had really happened and why PM
Goh mentioned it in the first place. According to PM Goh, it did not
happen but here's an extract from a recent book by Ross Worthington
entitled "Governance in Singapore" about this "slapping incident."

Now, why aren't the Lees suing Ross Worthington? You go figure.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Excerpt from book:
A major issue that has shaped bureaucratic/ministerial relationships
for much of the past 10 years is the place and power of Lee Hisen Loong within the ministry and his possible future.

While Lee has many supporters, he has also alienated many because of
what is seen as his arrogance and the autonomy he demonstrates in his
relationship with other cabinet ministers; characteristics which, seven years after he joined the cabinet under Goh's sponsorship, he had not
curbed.

One significant example of this was consistently reported by several
respondents. In 1990, an incident occurred in a pre-cabinet meeting which was the beginning of entrenching further among the many in the core executive, resistance to Lee Hsien Loong's long term ambitions for prime ministership. Prior to this meeting Lee Hsien Loong had gone to the office of Richard Hu, the Minister of Finance, and removed a number of files without Hu's permission. At that time Lee's office was on the 48th floor of what is now Temasek Tower and Hu's was on the 50th floor.

At the pre-cabinet meeting Hu took Lee to task for doing this and was
supported by Tony Tan. Lee's response was aggressive and insulting, he directly insulted Tan and Hu, a man of his father's age. This was a double insult to Hu, who was Lee's superior in cabinet and a person of an age who should of itself deserve respect in Chinese society. Suppiah Dhanabalan intervened and chastised Lee for his behaviour, demanding that he apologise to Hu, withdraw his remarks and not interfere in other minister's portfolios. A heated exchange occurred into which a number of other issues intruded and eventually Lee lost his temper, and reportedly reached across the table and slapped Dhanabalan across the face.

This caused an uproar in the cabinet and Lee was severely chastised by Goh Chok Tong. Dhanabalan stormed out of the room and did not return for some time. Lee, in response to a demand from Goh, subsequently apologised to Dhanabaln, Hu and Tan. Hu, Dhanabalan and Tan all initially stated that they would leave the cabinet as a result of this incident. Goh later took up the matter with Lee Kuan Yew who reportedly verbally thrashed his son over the matter.

This was apparently followed by a more sober, educational but equally
critical assessment from Lee Hsien Loong's mother, a talented though
background political adviser. Lee Kuan Yew reportedly met later that day with Hu, Tan and Dhanabalan apologised for his son's behaviour and requested that they not resign, supported by a similar request from Goh Chok Tong.

All held out for some time, but eventually Hu agreed to stay, but
Dhanabalan and Tan both resolved to leave. This they did the following August 1991 elections, all without a public word against Lee Hsien Loong, continuing to subscribe to the tenet of all secrets staying within the PAP family.

While this is reportedly Lee Hsien Loong's worse outburst in cabinet
and he has obviously learnt from the experience by somewhat moderating his behaviour among the political leadership, he has reportedly not done as much in his dealings with the civil service. Every senior public sector official with whom I discussed the succession issue, off the record, rated Goh above Lee in terms of being of prime ministerial calibre and rated Goh as having far more support than Lee, although Lee has probably been more successful at developing support within the civil service than elsewhere.

Devan Nair

2005-07-06T02:49:00.000+08:00

Globe and Mail. Canada. March 29, 1999
BY Marcus Gee

IN the Singapore of the early 1980s, Lee Kuan Yew was the captain and Devan Nair his loyal lieutenant. Mr Lee, independence leader, then prime minister and now senior minister of the tiny Southeast Asian city-state, laid down the law. Mr Nair followed it. As head of the national trade union congress, then president of Singapore, he loyally parroted the "LKY" line on the importance of social order, the dangers of Western-style democracy and the evils of littering.

Then, in 1985, came a shocking break. Mr Lee told Singapore's parliament that Mr Nair had resigned because he was an alcoholic, a charge Mr Nair now calls a baseless slur. Three years later, he left Singapore for good after publicly quarrelling with Mr Lee over the arrest of a well-known government critic. Then he dropped from sight.

For the past few years, Mr Nair has been living quietly in Hamilton, Ontario. He has given no interviews and made few public statements. "I thought it was unseemly for a former president to go whacky-whacking his country," he says.

Those days of silence are over Mr Nair has decided to speak out against the continuing suppression of legitimate dissent in his country. And so, last week, he sat down in the sun-lit drawing room of a friend's house near Hamilton to talk about Lee Kuan Yew, how they drew apart and what he thinks of Mr Lee's Singapore today.

Now 75, Mr Nair is a compact man with a mischievous smile. Sipping a glass of water, he speaks in a plummy baritone that commands attention.

Mr Nair got to know his "captain" when the two were fighting to free Singapore from British colonial rule in the 1950s. A teacher whose father emigrated from India, Mr Nair taught Shakespeare while he was a member of the Anti-British League, an irony he still savours. When the British threw him in jail as a subversive, holding him for a total of five years, Mr Lee was his lawyer.

The two remained close after Singapore won its freedom from Britain. Together, they fought off an attempted communist takeover, weathered Singapore's ejection from the neighbouring federation of Malaysia and transformed their country from a run-down sea port to an economic dynamo bristling with skyscrapers. "I supported him because he was an eloquent champion of the dreams I had for Singapore," Mr Nair says.

But as Singapore grew prosperous and stable and the communist threat faded, Mr Nair began to have doubts about his captain's iron-fisted methods. Perhaps sensing his ally's doubts, Mr Lee asked Mr Nair to leave his power base as head of the trade union congress and move into the presidential palace. As Mr Nair puts it, "He kicked me upstairs."

Being president, he says now, was "the silliest job in the world. All you had to do was cut ribbons." His frustration grew.

But before he could speak out, Mr Nair found himself at the centre of a rumour-mongering campaign that labelled him a drinker and womanizer. He says he was neither, and he suspects that Mr Lee had government doctors slip him hallucinatory drugs to make him appear befuddled. "Lee Kuan Yew decided: This man is going to be a threat, so I'd better begin a total demolishment of his character. He's very good at that."

A case in point: the recent battering of Singapore's most determined dissident, J. B. Jeyaretnam. Singapore doesn't lock up its critics any more; it sues them, instead. Mr Jeyaretnam has faced countless libel suits from Mr Lee and other members of his government. If the party doesn't pay the damages in the most recent suit, the government hints it will ask the courts to shut it down, a move that would oust Mr Jeyaretnam from parliament.

That, says Mr Nair, is an outrage. Mr Jeyaretnam has shown "indomitable courage and dignity in the face of the vilest persecution."

Why didn't Mr Nair challenge his leader at the time? That question has haunted him ever since. "I was prone to hero worship and he was our captain," he says, lowering his head. "Even when I began to feel uneasy, loyalty to the captain superseded all other feelings. That was my weakness."

Mr Nair is not bitter. He gives Mr Lee credit for making Singapore a wealthy, stable place, an accomplishment in which he is proud to have shared. But how much greater that accomplishment would be if Singapore were a wealthy stable democracy. To him, Singapore today is a soulless place whose only ideology is materialism. Whether he could have changed that, Mr Nair wishes now he had spoken up earlier.

Litigation as Defense Against Charges of Nepotism

2005-05-21T04:34:00.000+08:00

Melbourne
September 22, 2004
SINGAPORE

MICHAEL BACKMAN

"Uncompromising views, without fail" promises the Economist magazine in its advertising. Well, the Economist has failed.

On August 14, the London-based magazine published an unremarkable piecetitled First Singapore, next the world on Temasek Holdings, theSingapore Government holding company that controls some 40 listed companiesin Singapore. These companies have a market worth of around S$60 billion(A$51 billion), about a quarter of the local stock exchange's market capitalisation.

In turn, the companies have assets in Australia. Among them are theelectricity transmission network for the entire state of Victoria and Optus,the country's second biggest telecommunications operator.

The Economist said in its piece that Temasek lacks transparency,that listed Temasek companies have significantly underperformed the stockmarketand that they typically operate in protected markets with favourable regulation.All of that is true. It also said that Temasek operated with a "whiffof nepotism". That may be true too, but who is to say?

Two weeks later, on September 1, the Economist printed an apologyto the Lees. The offending article, the magazine explained, could havebeen taken to mean that the new Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and/or Lee'sfather Lee Kuan Yew were responsible for having Hsien Loong's wife, HoChing, appointed to head up Temasek, not on merit but "for corruptnepotistic motives for the advancement of the Lee family's interests".It went on to apologise and mentioned that damages had been paid to LeeHsien Loong and Lee Kuan Yew. Those damages totalled an astonishing S$390,000.

Personally, I would not have said that Ho Ching's appointment owes anythingto nepotism because I have no evidence that it does. The Economist wascareless to suggest it. Ho Ching is certainly well- qualified. It mightbe fair to question whether nepotism played a role in her appointment butnot fair to assert it.

But whether the assertion of nepotism is worth S$390,000 particularlywhen the Prime Minister, the Minister Mentor (as Lee Kuan Yew is now known)and the head of the Government's main holding company are all close relativesis another matter. The issue did not go to court. Lee family lawyers complainedto the Economist and within two weeks the magazine had paid up.By any measure the sum is obscene. And ridiculous.

In Australia this inference of nepotism would be taken as fair comment,particularly with politicians for whom public scrutiny is part of publicoffice. It would also need to be demonstrated that the Economist hadbeen acting maliciously. Of course it was not.

In 2002, the two Lees and then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong picked upS$595,000 from the Bloomberg wire service in settlement over anarticle that the men had deemed offensive. It was on the same matter -Ho Ching's appointment to Temasek. Other media organisations have alsobeen threatened with defamation. Several have paid out.

Huge out-of-court payments such as these are now part of the cost ofdoing business in Singapore for news organisations. Principle has beensacrificed for commercial considerations.

If the Singapore Government is not appeased then the risk is that mediaoutlets' distribution in Singapore will be curtailed. Several prominentforeign newspapers and magazines learned the hard way in the 1980s and'90s when their distribution in Singapore was cut back.

Not surprisingly, the Economist is not commenting on the matter.Perhaps it is embarrassed. It ought to be. At what point does an out- of-courtpayout become a pay-off?

Britain has made it illegal for its registered companies to make improperpayments to foreign officials. It would be interesting to know whetherthe payments to the Lees, which appear to be excessive, are not court-awardedand which appear to be made to head off controls on the magazine's distribution,would constitute bribery of foreign officials under British law. What wouldbe made of a western company (which is what the Economist is) givingsuch a large sum without apparent consideration to say, a pair of Indonesianministers? There wouldn't be a whiff of nepotism so much as the stenchof corruption.

Singapore Government officials defend their right to take defamationaction and to be awarded huge payouts on the basis that their personalintegrity is vital. But acting like sensitive control freaks would detractfrom their integrity such that over time, compensation for damage to theirreputations should decline with the value of those reputations.

No doubt media organisations will defend their payouts to head off legalaction by saying that legal costs in Singapore can be enormous. Certainlythey are, and the Lees themselves have been significant beneficiaries.Lee & Lee is one of the largest law firms in Singapore. It's littlewonder that litigation has become a powerful tool for the family. It'swhat they know best.

But the real problem is that foreign news organisations allow themselvesto be so readily picked off by the Singapore Government. Multinationalcompanies have started to initiate joint strategies to combat intellectualproperty rights abuses. It's about time that foreign media organisationsdid the same to combat the litigious excesses of the Singapore Government.

The Singapore Dream

2005-05-17T23:33:00.000+08:00

Extracted from Find Singapore.net.

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I am 55 this week. An Arian Tiger.

My name is Lai Chee Fan. It means “Struggling with Ambition”.

Born a British Subject, a Singaporean, then Malaysian and Singaporean.
Perhaps ASEANian in 2015?

From the day I started work as a 15-year old apprentice on 04-April-1966 at H. M. Dockyard till today, I considered myself blessed to have ample opportunities for me to seize to improve my life.

But I am weary,
I see nothing ahead of me but another 10 more years of toils.

Before I vanish from the page of history, I would like to take this opportunity here to voice my life, my frustrations and anguish over the direction that Singapore is taken.

I trust that young lot of Young Punks will have an inkling of what 2nd Generation had gone through….and I consider myself amongst the luckiest of the whole bunch, fortunately enough to work towards middle-class whereas lots of my contemporaries are still in working class, grinding out a living.

The Beginning

I was born in 1950 at Chong Pang Village in Sembawang. I guessed my mother made the right choice and determined to give birth in Singapore instead of her hometown in Johor.

Flashes of my toddler memory:
- I think I was about one year old, just sitting on a linoleum floor playing with a ball. I think, how nice it is to throw the ball far far away and watch uncle pick it up and return to me. I threw the ball.
- Thrown tantrum, want bus ride. Remember only I was dozing on father’s shoulder.
- As a 2-year old toddler, just managed to standup, went to Johor uncle place, a packed earth floor. What is that yellow stuff? Pick it up, put in mouth to taste it. Funny taste, a bit salty.
- Why is all aunties shouting and talking what. I don’t understand.
- Friends, in my case, it is proof that those little rascals can think once they are able to sit up.

Those early days, babies were with a thin rice gruel, a bit of toman (snakehead) and once in a rare while, lean pork.
MY parents were impoverished; father an odd-job laborer cum handyman, and work where works are available.

No Western medicine available, for the first 8 years of my life, it is Chinese medicine from the local sen-seh or well-known herbalists to cure your flu, chicken-pox, ring-worms, tape-worms, earth-worms, ulcers, etc.

Nutrition came from Scotts Cod Liver Oil and that Butterfly-brand starchy baby-food to feed babies and toddlers……and of course, nestle milk powder and Milkmaid condensed milk.
Bread, if you can afford it, is from the local bakery.

You live in an attap house, partitioned into small rooms of 3.6m by 3.6m, for rental to about 6 to 8 families. My family of 6 (2 adults, 4 children) occupied one of these rooms. A common kitchen served all families.
Toilets facilities is an outhouse, with nightsoil carriers changing the “pan” daily.
You use well water to bath.
But there is a PUB (Water) standpipe, about 100 metre, serving the whole village.

No electricity, no telephone, no streetlighting, just a mud-track. After dark, it is real darkness as there are no artificial lights.
Light source is an oil lamp; or if you can afford it, a single candle light.
The common verandah is lit up by a kerosene lamp,….you know, those type, you need to “pump” to get it to brighten up.
Entertainment is listening to Rediffusion (Lei Tai Soo) or the Senior Elder Lady will regale us with traditional Chinese folktales from China.
Therefore, Lee Kuan Yew’s much vaunted “Chinese traditions” by mandarin is all rubbish as he is an Elite and did not understand that for the 2nd Generation, our immigrant forefathers’ values and traditions are actually passed down to us verbally by our Village Elders and our parents in DIALECTS. And not some forcefully imposed “values” via a Northern Barbarian tongue called Mandarin.
And that is the perception of a young Cantonese boy, so influenced by stories from all these Cantonese elder ladies in my village. And they hardly spoke a word of Mandarin to me.
That is, for the first 5 years of my life, I was totally immersed in a Cantonese enclave, hardly heard any dialects (until I began to listen to Redifusion), Malay or English. We are that insular at that period of time.

It is bed-time at 8pm…as most of them need an early start at 4am or 5am to tend their farms, get ready for market, or to travel “long distance” to city to work……or if you are lucky to work at nearby H.M Naval Base, from 7am to 4pm.

There is little racial intermingling, only at workplace or market.
Each and everyone of us stayed within your racial enclaves.
Cantonese here, Teochew and Hokkien there, further away are the Hainanese, somewhere is a Malay kampung,….and Indians somewhere.

Landlord and Grocer

Our Landlord is also our Grocer. It is a self-help group and very shrewd business practice., basing on the Chinese traditional practice that the whole family honored the debts.
You can buy all your staples on credit…..and you joined “tontines” to borrow when you are desperately short of funds.
All debts to settle before Chinese New Year as a matter of honor.

It is a family’s honor to settle all debts incurred by family members. Even when my father passed away in the 70’s, my mother was still paying my late father’s gambling debts for the next few years after his death.

We were fortunate because my mum’s Johorean family is considered well-to-do as small rubber estate stakeholder. Again, we survived through the generosity of my maternal uncles that loaned money and provided “live” chickens for our Lunar New Year celebrations.
That is, I was eating kampung chickens, about 3 or 4 times per year.. That is, during Chinese festivals only.
Pork? Once in a rare while.
Duck? You are lucky if you had tasted it once a year.
Mutton and Beef? Never heard of it.

At one time, a neighbouring house caught a 1m long monitor lizard and it is a delcacy when cooked with Chinese herbs.
A local coffeeshop owner (they were the Elite those days) purchased a slaughtered tiger, perhaps from a circus, and it took him a week to “cook” it with a large steaming wok…everything, right down to the bones, until nothing remained.

You protein comes from ikan bilis and the local black-colored swamp carps (about 100 to 150mm long) which has a muddy taste…..and only once a week.
Your meals comprise of rice, vegetables and more vegetables.

When my father managed to secure employment at HM Dockyard, and as pay-day was every Friday, we had streaky pork on every Friday without fail. It was tough and those fats, nauseating, and I hate it even now. Until I discovered the braised version at Teochew or Taiwanese porridge.

Chinese New Year?
All tenants at each attap house combined their effects to make cookies and rice cakes. I remembered that we used to help to grind all those rice into powder, and then steamed it.
Delicious!!! Nothing like home-make rice cakes…which I still missed them.

CRIME IN THE 50’s
There was hardly any crime in my village. Never heard of anything being stolen even though all rooms remained open and unlocked all the time.
Of course, one must avoid the coffee shops after dusk, as it “belongs” to the local gangsters during evening and nights. Frights frequently broke out as early as 8pm. It is part of out nightly “entertainment” from a safe distance, of course.

If you are eating at a coffee shop and there is a sudden blackout, you will hear this message:
“Those that they did not walked the road should not be afraid and should remain seated.” You sit still immediately.
Then, gangsters will come around and check each person by torch lights.
If you ran or move or from different gangs, you are slaughtered.

Law & Order?
Everybody is suspicious of all those Malay policemen and we knew that they were all corrupted and cannot be trusted. Everybody knew that this village is protected by so-and-so gangster and it is his territory.
When you are in trouble, you go to seek help from the local Big Brother, certainly not the corrupted police force. But we still retained our Chinese insularity and prejudices, suspicious of all “outsiders” who are not from the same village.

I think in the mid-50’s, a curfew was imposed on the whole area (Maria Hertogh rioting) and we were all confined in our room. You can sensed the fear permeating into the atmosphere and from our parents. You heard those old ladies speaking reassurance that: “Don’t worry. The local Big Brother would protect us from harm”.

There is a certain “code of honor” that the gangsters would not “disturbed” the impoverished working class. After all, we are all their “customers” patronizing their opium dens and gambling dens.
No, there was no brothel in out village. It was situated in some other place conveniently situated to cater to all those British sailors and soldiers.

I vividly remembered an incident where I was out of nights with my friends, and noticed that a group of street urchins were pestering two drunken sailors. Every now and then, these two sailors laughingly tossed out a handful of coins and there was a mad scramble to gather these coins.
During that time, an ice-ball costs 5 cents and F&N bottled drink costs 15 cents.

I was scolded by my father as he warned me that should the sailors turned violent and used us as punching bags, it is within their “rights” and there is no appeal and they would not be charged at all.
After all, the death of a few local natives is meaningless to the British colonial masters. Those Whites are a law onto themselves.

Opium den?
I can remember vividly (I was 6 or 7 years old then) bringing lunch to my paternal granduncle smoking opium for the whole day…..a kind of funny smell, not unpleasant…..and no, I was not stoned.

Gambling den?
Right in the open, with police patrol, if they ever appeared, just passes by.

Early Schooling

During those days, teachers were at the top of the totem in prestige. The local schoolteachers are well respected and woe betides those naughty boys during conversation between teachers and parents at the wet market.
Indeed, it is always a closely knitted community where everybody knows everybody, and every one of us is extremely conscious of our social status and leave the “rich” well alone. We dare not even aspire to visit their homes or even talk to them unless spoken to.
Peasant mentality brought from China to Singapore. Our parents keep reminding us “never to “disturb” or played with those rich children”. That is, we must “know” our place in the Community.

At 6-year old, I was “forced” by my father to attend the local private Chinese school. All a blur to me and I flunked the end-year exam, and got whacked by father.
I repeated the course, and surprise of surprise, amongst the top student, won a prize. When you got up to the stage, bow to that guy handing out the prize, collect it, turn around and bow to the audience.
Well, father’s whacking certainly concentrated your attention (of course, no distraction like TV, radio, MP3 or PC) and blessed with a retentive memory, was able to memorize the complete multiplication tables from 1 to 12 (those that are behind all exercise books) by the age of 7! Talk about “hot-housing” and “advanced preparation” by a demanding father!
Those Chinese teachers were brutal at that time. They think nothing of slapping, rapping your heads with a hard rulers and rapping your knuckles as well. Parents were not complained and instead, you got a second whacking at home because you are deemed to be in the wrong when you got whacked in school, never mind if on that day, the teacher got out of the wrong side of the bed.

For those “senior” practicing on a large abacus hanging on the blackboard, your knuckles got a hard rap every time you made a wrong move!!!

All parent at that time believes that it is a slight to family’s honor should their child misbehaved in school and receive punishment; and worse of all, the whole village knew about it.

I guess that the high esteem that our parents hold for teachers may perhaps due to their subservience behavior as peasants in Feudal China.

PAP Arrives!

Weary of corruption and deprivations, those old ladies were discussing politics and talked of a new young man who is serious and they think can change things around. And they will have better infrastructures.
Therefore, do not sniff when politicians promises, because it worked as deprived people were always grasped at “star dusts” thrown at them. They always live in hope of a better life. What else is left for them at the bottom except a wish for a ladder to climb out?

The late Ahmad Ibrahim (our first Health Minister), accompanied by Chinese helpers came a calling, everybody were impressed and all I saw was a smiling, quite shy actually, smallish dark-skinned man standing there with all his helpers talking.

A few months later, we shifted to worker quarters inside H. M. Naval Base.

A footnote.
Lee Kuan Yew was campaigning one night within HM Naval Base along Canberra Road. I was amongst one of the numerous street urchins that mobbed his lorry. He was pressing flesh and I was one of them. It was fleshy, warm and dry. And I can still remember that handshake’s feeling even today.

English School

We moved to Block 14, Kowloon Road in 1959. Just 3 blocks away from the footballing Quah family.
Paradise!!! Free electricity, free piped water,and modern sanitary squat-pan. No more open nightsoil pan!!!!
Free filament light bulbs as well, all provided by HM Naval Base.
That my friend is socialism at work where the proletariats are provided with “basic necessities” and they worked to earn their keep.

Colonial Government built Canberra Primary School, West Hill Primary School and Naval Base Secondary School in Chong Pang Village. Vacancies galore.
My father insisted that I must attend English school for my future well being and dragged me “screaming” out of the Chinese school.

I was advanced of my classmates due to my Chinese Education and topped my forms. I was completely submerged in an English-language environment and start to lose my “Mother Tongue”. There was no 2nd Language Teacher till Primary 4.

In 1958, I was attending West Hill Primary School in the morning (it was single session then), dismissed at 1pm, had a quick lunch and dashed off to attend the Chinese School till, I think, 6pm.
No problem at that time, there was little or virtually no homework. A few months of these until Government said that a child can only attend ONE school at a time.
I left the Chinese school.

Blessed with a retentive memory, and you know, our examinations are merely a test of memory, and I topped the standards virtually every year, the worst is 2nd place.

Even at Sembawang, our parents were talking of “Raffles Institution” as the best secondary school, and every primary school aspired to study there. Every girl aspired to Raffles Girl School.
They spoke of ACS as a “rich man’s school”, not suitable for people like us at Sembawang.

During my cohort, only two of us were chosen to study at RI. It was celebration time by our primary school form teacher. A proud achievement by him, especially the whole “A” class scored a 100% pass rate in PLSE…the first 100% achievement.

During my time, being prefects were hazardous to one’s health. After PSLE, there is usually a gang of ruffians, hanging outside the school-gates to bash-up any prefects. Well, I was of the kampung, and they were my kaki, I was their “gang” and therefore, escape a bashing.

And if there is any “disagreement”, fistfights were organized after school by the residing “headman” or bully in schools.

In those days, you better “belong” to your neighborhood “gang” of boys from the same kampung or same street for protection.

And all these rascals had grown up to be respectable citizen.
Except for one guy who was addicted to horse punting.

Chia Ho Bee (that guy that sold all those motivation courses) was my primary school mate and considered one of those “rich”, son of that famous open-air Sultan Cinema owner.

Well, every Friday is payday, and his father shrewdly showed western action movies (mostly Cowboys & Indians, war, action, etc) and we spent 50 cents to watch this movie.

During these periods, my father enrolled me in an English Language class ran by an Indian-English clerk. Boy, how he exploited us when we got to pay 50 cents for end-of-class celebration and served sweet potato soups. Hey, during that time, sweet potato soup costs only 5 or 10 cents from street-side hawkers.

And of course, his brat of a son, by the name of Peter, became a schoolteacher, flaunted his superior command of the spoken English and taunted us on our inability to pronounce proper English. My friend wished to smash him up and left the class. We endured because it is our parents’ wishes. It was torturing with laughter and sneer accompanying our poor spoken ability, heavily Chinese dialect accented.
And that was the beginning of my intense hatred against this kind of white man trash and calling Eurasians as 2nd Class Eurpoean.

Raffles Institution

In 1962, I was allowed to travel alone to National Library at Stamford Road. Bus fare only a mere 25 cents from Chong Pang Village to Beach Road Satay Club (now Shaw Tower). It is a 45 to 60 minutes Tay Koh Yat bus journey.

I am not joking when I said that I saw my very first horse-drawn carriage at Bras Basah Road in 1962!!!
Moreover, STB was operating the electric trams at that time.
A dazzling sight for a kampung boy.

AT that time, my mother managed to secure a job with a British family as a washerwomen at S$50 per month. (one sterling pound = S$10). The work is in the morning.
But I got to watch over my younger sisters and brothers and cooked my owned lunch before dashing off to catch the public transport to school.
Where got school bus at that time?
If she is late, I asked the neighboring housewife for help when I need to leave the house.

During the 60’s racial riots, I can remember that on 2 occasions, schools ended early and we all rushed home to beat the curfew deadline. At that time, there is no racial animosity at all amongst students, but we tend to congregate amongst our own race. Very little inter-racial mingling amongst students.

All, during the monsoon period, where there is flooding at Nee Soon,..where there are literal miles of traffic jam due to flooding..and it was fun for us students returning home and arrived at Chong Pang near to mid-night.

It was during that time that William Phua, Chan Peng Mun and Kwan Yue Yong were Pre-U (or JC) students and rugby players. A closed-knitted group.
I discovered athletics and Patrick Pestana discovered me. Mr. Puhaindran was my form teacher.
RI opened its doors to female Pre-U students during my time.
And it was during this time; it reinforced my hatred against Eurasians that I considered white-man trash.
One particular “turn-coat” was from SJI, I got picked by him for a “grilling” session at the canteen (near the famous banyan tree) to entertain his surrounding female “admirers”. I dunno why, but perhaps to show his “European” superiority to us local natives.

And no, it did not enter in my mind then as to whether it is racism or not. Just plain hatred against Mat’s Salleh.

A footnote: Dileep Nair (if I can remember correctly) and Mak Yew Thong were, I think one year my senior, and they were top students and were head-prefect and assistant head-prefect.

Jesudason was the Principal and he caught my friend playing basketball in class (teacher had not arrived yet). Without a word, Jesudason gave him a tight slap and warned him: “You can get sack for this”. A few minutes of lecture and he walked out of the class.

Creativity?
Well, during an arts class in designing badges or symbols, one boy drew a lovely badge featuring the Beatles.
Immediately, the Arts teacher started condemning the “yellow culture”, ranting it is bad for youths and we should not listen to it. That poor boy got to redo his badge design again as it was rejected outright.
So much for CREATIVITY at ELITE SCHOOL.

My best achievement was being appointed Morrison House Captain (PM Session) in 1966.

HM Dockyard

In 1966, my father said that it is difficult for him to support four school-going children. He understands that HM Dockyard is conducting an exam to select apprentices from 16-years old; usually those that failed their “O” levels.

He pointed out that he could only supported me up to “O” level only. And the best I can hope for is to work as a teacher or a clerk. Why not learn a trade and work your way up. And if you are a top student, you will selected to work at Portsmouth and at the same time, studying for a HND (equivalent to a poly diploma) over there.

Patrick Pestana was trying to persuade me to stay in school, offered free athletic kits and a bursary. Unfortunately, for bursary, the cut-off level was S$200 pm income and my father was earning S$210 pm. So, disqualified!!!!!

I passed the exam and came in 7th. I selected Superintending Electrical Engineering Department.

I started work on 04-April-1966 as an indentured apprentice for the next 5 years at a princely sum of S$132 per month.

Tried to imagine, still a 15-year old boy, who lived a sheltered life, a lamb whose parents did not spoke to him on the “Facts of Life”, suddenly threw into the cauldron of life amongst 30, 40-years old uncouth and coarse shipyard workers that cheat, lie, smoke, drink, whore and gamble.
It is very corrupting and open my eyes to the seamier sides of life…………..where every Friday payday, fellow apprentices made a beeline to Desker Road, bars or organizing gambling activities.
JB was so nearby, same as Hatyai. This is where I discovered them talking about S$1 whore at Tanjong Pinang, Bintan.

I guessed the saving grace was that I am from a strictly traditional family and resisted these temptations because I had been taught it was wrong.
Moreover, I was a non-conformist, rather a loner and despise all those uncouthness and coarseness; which certainly did not make me popularly and of course, they picked me to bully.
And I understand the meaning of bullying. Tried to grin when a muscle-bound 20-something lout stepped upon your bare foot and grind your bare toes. And I am still 16 years old. You learnt to endure bruises and verbal abuses.

Well, there was racism. “White” and “Colored” toilets prominently featured.

Workers are allowed to eat at the “Office Worker” canteens. White-collared workers are predominantly English-speaking Indians and Eurasians. And their canteen has the best nasi briyani on every Fridays. We sent a representative to queue up outside the canteen to buy lunch for us at 50 cents only.

Anyway, we non-English speaking workers were “looked down” upon by all these superior English-speaking Indians and Eurasians.

Malay was the lingua franca as Indians and Chinese workers did not know even a smattering of English. Those that did are promoted to foremen or charge-hands or called “Number One”.

Again, at their HM Dockyard Technical College, I was either the top or 2nd boy in the Class. I was happy, as there is an extremely good chance that I will be one of the two boys selected to work and study in Portsmouth.

Toa Payoh and British Withdrawal

BANG!!! Harold Wilson announced British Forces withdrawal from Singapore and in 1968, HM Dockyard became Sembawang Shipyard SS). My dream of going to UK was shattered.

There was a mad scramble to replace all those departing British supervisors and managers. A classic case of a worker who only changed light-bulbs, but because he was a football referee and rubbed shoulders with all those Whites during friendly football matches amongst the Whites, he was promoted to Departmental Manager!!
I was curious and asked: Why?
Reply: because he threw Square Bottles. {Johnny Walker bottles were square in shape at that time.]
And yet during that time, there ugly rumors of those British supervisors “selling” their positions to locals.
I speculate that maybe this is one oft eh reasons as to why Sembawang Shipyard first HR Director was rumored to be an ex-CPIB personnel.

As a top student, SS sponsored my studies at Singapore Polytechnic and we gained direct entry into the 3rd year Day-Release Course due to our high standard at HM Dockyard Technical College. (My fellow apprentice topped the final year exam and was awarded the Certificate of Merit.)

My father discovered he had cancer. He knew that he might have to move out of the workers’ quarters soon. It was pretty considerate at that time for the Sembawang Shipyard Management to retain him as long as possible.
Not like the present brutal MNC management as reported in the press where pregnant women are “retrenched”.

We applied to HDB, bought and moved to a Toa Payoh 3-room flat at Lorong 7 in 1969. It costs S$7,800 and monthly mortgage payment was S$50, I think, for 20 years.

Well, I got to wake up at 5am to catch the 5.45am company bus every morning.

My 5-year apprenticeship is up to April 1971. During 70’s, QUANTAS was looking for trainee engineers and ESSO was looking for technicians to man their Ayer Chawan Refinery. It pays S$500 per month!!!!
But I got to break my bond to join them. But I prefer not and hope to finish my poly studies in 1972.
Well, I completed my apprenticeship in 1971 and was promoted to fitter grade..
I got TRIPLE Increment, that is, from 4 cents and hour to 12 cents an hour.
My take-home pay, excluding overtime, is S$210 per month.

AT that time, HDB was booming and my father insisted that I worked for his “friend” as a site supervisor at S$500 pm. But I insisted to complete my poly diploma studies in 1972.

AT the same time, shipping liners were hiring trained marine workers like us to be engineering officer on board ships at about S$600 pm, but plus overtime and allowances can be easily added up to S$1,500 to S$2,000 pm.

In the 70’s, employment galore for poly graduates at all industries, including as production supervisors in electronic factories at S$500 pm.
I heard that it is a dangerous occupation as all those female production workers are gunning for a “production supervisor” husband and woe to that poor chap who antagonize '’em as your production lines would have lots’ of “girl”problems.

Well, those production workers were earning S$50 pm during the initial period of Singapore industrialization.
Well, girls galore, but at your own risk. As the joke goes, technicians loved to work at production line, especially beneath those benches doing repair work.

National Services

I was called up on December 1967 as a 2nd Intake. I was granted deferment from full-time NS as I was the sole breadwinner. I deferred enlistment for 6 months and was called up in December 1968 and served in the Special Constabulary (SC) for 12 years, from 1968 to 1980.

It was tough, balancing working from 7am to 4pm, rushing for NS Training, rushing to attend night-classes at Singapore Polytechnic (Prince Edward Road campus); and spent whole weekend at Library catching up with tutorials.

During basic trainings and in-camp training, it is an eye-opener on how the rest of Singaporeans lived; and comparatively, I found that I am really living in a “cocoon”, well-protected by my parents and strict Confucian upbringing, not as “street-wise” as most of them and rather “naïve and honest” in my attitude towards life.
That is, I was brought up to believe “all human beings are good” whereas, well, you know those Ah Bengs and their attitude towards life.
As to whether you can resist the temptation to submerge into their World and became one of them, depend very much on one’s upbringing at home. As human beings are social animal, it is of course their natural instinct to belong to a Group.
Whereas what save me is my natural cynicism, my Confucian upbringing and of course my sheer stubbornness of being a non-conformist, that is, what you Young Punks called “doing your own things, my rules, my way”.

If you knew the trick, you will defer your annual in-camp training till December at Police Academy. There is where they will organize annual in-camp training at those “luxurious” police recruit barracks. You got to sleep on real beds, instead of planks at those archaic camps at Tanah Merah and elsewhere.
On Fridays, the curry chicken at the canteen is not too bad.
Those bread baked by prisoners? At your own risk as bits of stones and sands can be found in them. But only on a few occasions, generally it is coarse and not too bad.
Against UN Human Rights using cheap prison labor?

Quite an abuse.
Those that are “well-to-done”, actually booked hotel rooms at the opposite then Ladyhill Hotel (where Europa Club is).
I gave this as an example.
There was one chap innocently admitted he was a virgin and got ragged by one Gang Leader as “Virgin Boy” throughout our stay.
For being well behaved and following instructions smartly throughout our stay, we were given a night out during our penultimate night in camp.
My group went to Bugis Street to ogle “girls” and to eat those delicious half-raw cockles with the accompanying fantastic chili dips.

Next morning, roll call and there were sour faces and I asked what happened.
Well, Gang Leader dragged “Virgin Boy” along to a brothel. Everybody forked out money to watch Gang Leader demonstrating to “Virgin Boy” how it is done.
This is called a “Tiger Show”.
Half-way through the performance, “Virgin Boy” was so excited that he took off his pants and start to mount Gang Leader!!! He is a real “innocent”.
I dare not asked the conclusion of this hilarious episode.
But they told me: He is no more “Virgin Boy”.

SC was an abject failure from the very start as everyone thought it was a complete waste of time. Poorly led and poorly managed.
At that time, the police force was virtually Malay-dominated and Malay Language was acceptable in the daily log.
Well, as things go, our batch was selected for National Day Parade, and during practice, sometimes, Mrs LKY turned up in her cheongsum and slippers to watch.

I got posted to Radio Division and worked 3 eight-hour shifts every 2 months. Boy, did I really survey the whole of Singapore, discovering Malay kampung and brothels in ulu-ulu areas where we were served tea and chit-chat with those service workers.

NS men were carrying corpses, attended courts,..and performed the same functions as regular policemen.

During those tense period in the late 69, I draw a patrol to Geylang Serai in a jeep. Geylang Serai was all mud-track and kampung. I was the only Chinese in the all-Malay crew. Can’t remember clearly, but no racial tension, just an unfriendly atmosphere where even the Malay crew will not step out of the jeep.

Life as a policeman is not easy. When attending the morning shift (7am to 3pm), the worst duty is escort duty for ministers. Some ministers were reportedly scolded the crew for not sitting straight and will conduct their own “personal” inspections of the crew turnout.
But our hot and humid climate makes it torturous to patrol for hours on our packed and jammed roads.

Tan Soo Khoon was one of the two NS man promoted to Inspector at Radio Division (Pearl’s Hill), and a few month later, I was surprised to read that he was a “new” face in the 70’s Election.

Similarly, Special Constabulary had their “White Horses” which were stationed at the SC Headquarters at Police Academy. They were supposed to be the “Brain Workers” and we can see how successful they were when Government decided to scrap SC (NS) Part-Time.

A sigh of relief when I was finally discharged from National Service on December 1980, after fulfilling my 12-years of part-time service.

IT Industry

I graduate from the Singapore Polytechnic in 1972 and a few months later, I decided to work for International Computers Ltd. as trainee computer engineer at S$500 pm.
IBM offer came too late as I was slated to go to IBM Australia for training on the new on-line KRISCOM terminals for SIA at Paya Lebar International Airport.

Mine, how life is full of twists and turns.
If I had joined IBM, I may be an Australian citizen…..
If I had accepted Shell Brunei, I maybe in Brunei right now…
“If only…” that is life.

Sadly, my father passed away at Toa Payoh Hospital after a month in ICU.
Those days, medical care were free and I did not pay a cents at all for my father medical expenses. My father was unemployed at that time.
Isn’t socialism nice for Singaporeans at that time?
If my father had been ill now, it will literally bankrupt the whole family.

Ah, 1972/73 was when a 64-KILOBYTES MAIN FRAME ICL 1900 computer system needed a room as big as a HDB 5-room flat.
An a 16-kilobyte magnetic core memory bank (about the size of a desktop PC) costs S$500,000.00!!!
Drop it on the floor, and kiss that S$500,000 goodbye.

Well, I was stationed at Raffles Place where the stock-broker firm Fraser & Co were located at Boustead Building (now Tung Centre), in charge of maintaining those card-punches and card-verifiers.
Nice to talk to those female operators until the supervisor complained to my boss (guess she lost quite a bit of money on that day).
It was boom-time, with lots of inside trading.
A simple clerk can buy in the morning and sell in the afternoon and earned enough for a holiday in Taiwan.
They were working 2 shifts and the bloody machines keep breaking down…(British technology and no wonder IBM won hand downs) until Lee Kuan Yew made that famous speech in 1973 and the stock market collapsed.

I remembered that supervisor was talking of buying OCBC at S$50 and the very next day, it collapsed to S$47 and downwards all the way. Guess she deserved to lose her skirts and panties.

I was not selected for oversea (they selected my 40-year old supervisor, who was competing with me for this upgrading course, who did my appraisal and reported “Lai no good”) and left them.

Construction Industry

I began my career in the construction industry as a site supervisor at Holiday Inn at Scotts Road. Well, Ng Teng Fong was building the nearby Far East Shopping Centre and he as directly involved running the site work as well. I thought I got a glimpse of him as a “slim” man.

Well, as the story goes at that time, Ng Teng Fong borrowed so much money from Moscow Norondy Bank that they dare not foreclosed him for fear of bankrupting the bank!
And in 1978, Ng Teng Fong was saved by Lucky Plaza when the property market took off like a rocket. ANd he never looked back, successes one after another,..Far East Plaza, Far East Centre, etc.

It was “boom-time charlie” where jobs are available everywhere and your salaries accelerating upwards all the time.
That is, from S$900 in 1976 to S$2,800 in 1980 to S$3,500 in 1983.

It was during the mid-70’s that I mixed with the wrong crowd and developed my gambling habits. The behaviors of addicted gamblers are as follows:
1) Every night, without fail, there is a mahjong session. If you played overnight, the next morning, you reported to the office that you are “attending a site meeting”.
2) We were tough and can continue working till 3pm where really, you need lots of coffee then to survive till 5pm.
3) Friday nights are for overnight gambling until 3 or 4am.
4) Sleep and continue on Saturday afternoon till Sunday mornings.
5) At the average, I attended 4 or 5 mahjong sessions per week.

Put it this way, girlfriends are secondary to gambling and none of them will work out because I ignore them in favor of mahjong session with my groups.

Regardless of how well brought up you are, once you mixed with the wrong crowd and started to socialize and think mahjong is an innocent past-time, you will be surprise to note that once start, cannot stop.
You will miss that particular thrill associated with gambling,
The fun, the anticipation, the thrill and warmth glow of winning.
It is a drug that provides instant euphoria when you have a winning hand, very much better than sex.

Those days of wilderness came to an end when I went to UK in 1983.

University of Surrey

In 1978, my brother said he wished to be an Architect. Big Brother shot him down and said future is in the IT Industry and you go to Nantah and enrolled in their B.Sc in Computer science.

Well, he graduated in 1982, got a job with MINDEF, and Big Brother left Singapore in 1983 to fulfil his ambition to study in a university in England.

While, at that time, I need a guarantor for my study in England. True! I need to go to Public Service Commission to sign up all sorts of forms. That is when you need good friends who will be your guarantor. In fact, it is the millionaire brother-in-law of my good friend who acted as my guarantor!!

I landed in Guildford, stayed there from 1983 to 1986.
Man, it was sheer paradise just to study with no work pressure at all.
Waking up late on Monday mornings, jut skipped the 9am class.
Skipped Fridays class should you want a longer weekend.

Laboratory preparation works? Plagiarism is the name of the game.
You copied from the jotter books of previous students, go through the motion and the lecturers will usually mark a “C”. Good enough for me.
One Singaporeans got the temerity to query the lecturers why he was given a “B-“?
He was grilled by the lecturer and was unable to explain his preparation work.
Lecturer’s sarcastic reply: “I had been reading the same preparation work and conclusion for years. “ He was marked down to “C” immediately.

But the worst aspects of this is the behavior of Ugly Singaporeans who brought kaisuism into this University:
a) They had a dirty habit of reserving those standard textbooks, one after and another, so that perpetually, it remained in this group of 7 Singaporeans (one year my junior, and all ex-poly students) for the whole academic year.
b) They preferred to congregate into one group an always go early to lecture theatre and “chopped” the front row. All sit together and of course, the British resented them and made them convenient “paper bomb” targets.
c) Form tutorial groups amongst themselves, not willing to share their solutions with others.
d) So insular and “refuse” to mix with others socially and build up friendship with the local British. They came to UK to study, study and only study, nothing less than a 1-1 honors degree.

And all above incidents were reported to me by my British friends.

Racism?
There is no racism within the campus and generally in Guildford. I only encountered four incidents;
1) A 5-years old kid at the Cathedral greeted me: “Hello Chinky”.
2) A drunken started ranting on the street against foreigners, Chinese in particular. I showed him my middle-finger and walked away. He started pelting me with empty beer cans (thanks heavens, no bottles).
3) Late Friday’s night after 10pm, group of youngsters started to make funny “Chinese noises” and pulled their eyes into slits. It is dangerous for a foreigner to walk alone late at night after pub or disco closed. You tend to get pick on.
4) London Leicester Square beggars start shouting: Hey Chinky! Come here”. It is best to ignore them and away. Their passing comments: “F**king Chinky. Can’t understand English and speak Cantonese only.”
5) Always avoid trains on Saturday’s afternoon due to football fans traveling to and fro from games. Prevention is better than cure.

Havoc Singaporeans?
I admired those Hongkongers who are so steeped in their Chinese traditions and formed self-help groups to help ALL HONGKONGER students at the campus.
And yet they are so open-minded and assimilated into British lifestyle so easily. For example, one of my seniors had a different live-in girlfriend every year.

Orientation Week is the best time to scout for freshies. it is no joke to have live-in girlfriends because every weekends are for togetherness, Fridays night disco, cooking today for dinner, etc. It cramps my lifestyle and I forgo it.

Singaporean girls? Some succumb to the charms of those Hongkong buayas. And I believe one or two hotel manageress in Singapore will not care to look me in the eyes.

But I love the company of these Gen-X Hongkongers who know how to live, I mixed with them and they in turn called me “Uncle Lai”.

Drunkenness?
After my final exam last people, me and 3 of my British mates went on a drinking spree at 12pm. Nothing solids, just drink until the pub closed. We adjoined at one of their houses and continue drinking until the pub opened at 6pm.
Got kicked out of a pub when the bartender advised us to come back with our annual float procession.
Adjourned at a local bars and tried to pickup middle-age bored ladies.
11.30pm, standing outside disco, “disturbing” girls, almost got into a fight with their boyfriends.
Warned by the policeman to get off the street or else cool it in a cell.

Well, when waiting for result, it is one whole bash of drinking with my mates.
With girls we did not know when first started off, but when returning to the campus, we played a “catching” game, catch the girl and you got to kiss her.
Arrived at her room. We played “catching”.
Switched off the light and she grabbed the guy. The lucky one got to stay with her.
Pushed me in and they said: “Try a Chinese” jokingly.
I got out pretty quick and of course, her boyfriend was staying overnight.

Compared this to life at NTU or NUS Hostel? Can this wild celebration ever happen in staid Singapore? This is youthful celebration of life.

I vowed I will not return to Singapore and stayed there. I got a job but got cold-feet at the very last minute. I love the 4 seasons, the theatres, and weekend trips to London or elsewhere; happy with the lifestyle, but not really comfortable living with “angmoh”. Maybe, my hatred against 2nd Class Europeans, maybe my roots in Singapore.

I don’t know and return to Singapore in 1986.

CPF Contribution & Housing Mortgage Loan

When I was 40. and became eligible to apply fro HUDC apartments as a single.
To my fury, HDB changed the rules (again) and said we must ballot. Moreover, the HUDC Scheme was scrapped and transferred to HDB!!!
My fiancée and I applied for HDB 5-room flats; and we were unsuccessful after SEVEN attempts.

We discovered that the price difference between a Pasir Ris executive apartment and a 99-year old condo is only S$100,000.00.
In 1992, we bought a 141 sq.m. Elias Green condo unit at S$440,000 (S$290 per sq. ft.) whereas at that time, a Pasir Ris executive apartment costs S$350,000.00.

Again, after I bought this apartment, HDB changed the rule and said that unsuccessful ballots were be biased and given a higher probability of success after each balloting.

Boy, do HDB really changes rules at their whim and fancies and poor suckers like me have to live with it.

When our children reaches primary school age, we need to move near to my mum Bishan HDB flats. Because both of us are working, we need to “deposit” our children at my mum’s place, to watch over the children, as well as the maid.

Pretty lucky.
Sold away my Elias Green for S$640,000 and bought Springbloom at S$836,000 (S$495 per sq. ft)

CPF Contribution & Housing Mortgage Loan

During the 80’s, CPF contribution was at 20% with a limit capped at S$6,000 pm. That is, my employers contributed:
S$1,200 in the 90’s before PM Goh restructuring in 2003.
S$960.00 (16%) in 2003, capped at S$6,000 pm.
S$715.00 (13%) in 2004, capped at S$5,500 pm.
S$550.00 (11%) in 2005. capped at S$5,000 pm. (CPF rates for over-50 years old)
S$300.00 (6%) after April 2005 when you are over-55 years old.

And worse news, by 2006, the CPF maximum limit will be reduced from S$5,000 to S$4,500 pm.

And yet, my mortgage loan still remain at S$1,900 pm for the next 8 years, i.e. till 2013.

The Government policy is meant to restructure “High Cost” Singapore to regain their competitiveness against China, India and our ASEAN neighbors.
It was supposed to help those middle-aged workers to remain “employable” by lowering our operating costs BY LOWERING OUR SALARIES TO DEVELOPING COUNTRIES” WAGES LEVEL????

That is, I perceived this Policy as geared towards to help the “employability” of the majority of those 90% HDB dwellers who are of working class.

But how about the 10% of us Singaporean Baby-Boomers, who had attained middle-class, and wanted to maintain that lifestyle during our retirement and twilight years?

Well, what the Government is saying to us are:
a) You should be more prudent in your financial planning.
b) You can always downgraded to HDB 3-room flat.
c) Who ask you to marry late?
d) Well, I did said: A 3rd child if you can afford it.
e) Hey, nobody owes you a living. It is your personal responsibility.
f) You are collateral damage. I have to take care of the rest of the 90% HDB dwellers.
g) You can work beyond 62-years old, jobs will be created for you.
h) In this New Brave World, you pay for what you want.

Singapore Dream Shattered

Therefore, on Aug 17, 2003, when PM Goh Chok Tong announced that the Singapore Dream is no more and the Iron Ricebowl is no more, it is an acknowledgement of the failure of the 80’s Restructuring of Singapore Economy.

Dr. Goh Keng Swee Doctrine:
a) Restructure Singapore Economy from low-tech labor-intensive to hi-tech capital-intensive industries.
b) Increase wages by 20% per annum to force companies to invest in automation to improve productivity.
c) Drive out low-tech labor intensive industries like textile and electronic manufacturing assembly line operators.
d) Maintain Singaporeans work ethics by increasing HDB housing price to ensure Singaporeans will work for at least 20 years instead of opting for early retirements.
e) That is, that 20% NWC annual increment should not benefit Japanese appliance manufacturers.

And because of this Doctrine, today, we are suffering from 20-30 years HDB mortgage loans for even a basic 3-room or 4-room HDB flats.
As I posted at FBU on a 30-year old mother who seek my advice but still proceed to abort her SECOND CHILD in February 2005 as she said she simply couldn’t afford a second one.
Own 4-room HDB Flat, still servicing 20-year mortgage loan.
35-year old husband, an NTU graduate, earning S$3,000 pm.
She is a poly graduate, earning S$1,100 pm.
They have one 6-year old child, attending kindergarten.
This couple had suffered TWO retrenchments within the last 5 years; and at one time, it was so bad that they had their electricity and water supply cut-off due to non-payment.

Comparatively, I am extremely lucky and has a comfortably life, as compared to this Gen-X couple who can afford only a HDB 4-room flat.
As they had been educated to tertiary level, shouldn’t this couple be classified as the top 25% Elite of Singapore?

When Gen-X couples decided to abort their Second Child due to economic reason, what ails Singapore?

Everything went wrong when Singapore became too dependence on MNC to grow jobs; and worse of all, the failures of all those GLC or TLC to grow regional and globally before Singapore Economy got hit by the Triple Whammy:
- 1997 Asia Financial Crisis
- 9/11 and Bali Bombing
- SARS and Bird Flu

We did not recovered at all and limped along till today.
Therefore, Government reverted to the time-honor practice of how to be competitive by:
- cost-cutting
- down-sizing to reduce overheads, i.e. retrenchment.

Well, in 2003, during FBU Public Forum hosted by Dr. Amy Khor, I told her that PM Goh speech “was a betrayal of my Singapore Dream”.
Well, I was given a 10-seconds flash on CAN and so nervous that I merely mumbled my speech. Friends, it is no fun to appear live on TV, you became extremely nervous and tongue-tied all of a sudden. Time seems to move in slow motion with your mind blankety-blank.
Guessed Amy got a walloping from PM Goh for using the word “Betrayal” in Parliament. But then, isn’t it her job as a MP to feedback honestly to Parliament on what Common People like me felt about PM Goh’s NDP Rally speech, “A Betrayal of Our Singapore Dream”.

Boy, isn’t it hypocritical of our Leaders when they claimed thyme were in favor of “open consultations”; and when you tell them the unvarnished truths, warts and all, they turned around and bit your heads off.

]My Financial Health

During Feedback Unit (FBU) Public Forum on the high-cost of medical-care in Singapore, The Straits Times gave my quotation as “one man said he will rather die than pay to stay alive” and of course in April 2004, The New Paper did an article on me and my family as the “$7,500 Man”, where I detailed all my family expenses to demonstrate the problem faced by the “Sandwich” Class in Singapore. Basically my problems are:
- Married in my 40’s and have 3 children.
- That is, Government said I am stupid and should remain a DINKIE (Double Income No Kid).
- As I am middle-class, I can afford it.

Well, friends, I started work on 04-April-1966 as a 15-years old, I am 55-years old now, and here is the latest financial statement after almost 40 years of working in Singapore:

ASSETS
a) 154 sq.m. 4+1 Springbloom 99-year leasehold condo………… S$836,000.00
b) CPF Ordinary Accounts………………………………………………S$ 75,000.00
c) CPF Special Accounts………………………………………………..S$ 62,000.00
d) CPF Medisave Accounts……………………………………………..S$ 32,000.00
e) SGX Shares and Unit Trusts (bought with CPF Funds)………….S$286,000.00
f) Life Insurances and Endowments …….......................S$120,000.00
(maturing in 7 years time)
g) Children education insurances @S$20,000……………….S$ 60,000.00
h) Cash in POSB and other bank accounts……………………S$ 35,000.00

LIABILITIES
a) Outstanding mortgage loan: S$234,000 at S$2,660.00 pm for next 8 years.
b) Outstanding Nissan Sunny loan: S$50,000 at S$852.00 pm for next 5 years.

FUTURE INCOME
a) Praying to earn S$100,000 per annum for the next 10 years until 2015.
b) IR will help me to gain employment in the construction industry.
c) Pray that my share portfolio (properties & GLC) will quadruple in 10 years time.
d) That is, by 2015, I should be grossing S$2 million from salaries and share portfolio.

FUTURE EXPENDITURE TILL 2015
Household expenses are still at S$3,000 per month.
That is, by 2015,
my gross household expenses totaled up to S$720,000.00.
Plus S$100,000 per child for education, books, cloth, etc……..S$300,000.00.

Then, really, after 2015, my retirement funds depend very much on my share portfolio to double, triple or quadruple to enable me to have funds of S$250,000 (worst case) to S$1 million (most optimistic) for both ME AND MY WIFE to retire.

No, it is not whining. I am blessed and I considered myself as one of the lucky few who can still retired in 2015.
But what the average working-class Singaporeans?
Can they still do it or got to live from “hands to mouths” like British pensioners who survived on cats and dogs canned food and begged on the streets from foreign students to buy them a cuppa of coffee?

After 2030, when I am 80-years old with no medical-care insurance coverage, and when I am struck with a catastrophic illness, wouldn’t it will be cheaper for me to die, rather than be crippled by 6-figures medical bills that will wipe out all the pension funds for both my wife and me?

Friends, I am serious on my proposal for s Singapore Euthanasia Centre for 80-years old like me in 2030.

I had been asking this question:
I had put all my trust in Lee Kuan Yew and the Old Guards that “Give me Obedience and I will take care of you for Life” and felt betrayed when Singapore Dream was shattered.
Or is it that the Old Guards meant for Life to stop at 80-years old?

A nation I love and yet, I asked in anguish:
What has Singapore become where loyal service do not count, once you not economically productivity, you are discarded like an empty husk.
A nation that had become soulless which dictates that it is cheaper for the Aged, Infirm and Unproductive to die.

PURSUIT OF PERSONAL HAPPINESS

And it is not my intention to “extort” maintenance costs from my children under the Family Maintenance Bill. I believe firmly that my children should be independent, solely concentrate of taking care of their immediate family and I will never want to pass to them my traditional burden of being the eldest and filial son of taking care elderly parents at the expense of immediate family, and the pursuit of my very own personal happiness.

How nice is it to walk away from my mother, brothers and sister in the 70’s and go to UK to pursuit my personal happiness of living, studying and working there?
Or in 1976, when I was match-make with an Australian Chinese and must leave my family to stay “permanently” in Australia.
But I cannot.
Filial piety was so ingrained in the 2nd generation Singaporeans that Eldest Son will unquestioning bear this onerous burden to support the family first, put all your brothers and sisters through the universities (if they are able to gain a place), and then only when the younger siblings are able to take up the slake, you will start to think on your personal “pursuit of happiness”.

And there is the reason why only in 1983 was I able to fulfill my life ambition:
To study in a British University.
Funnily enough, it was my second full-time education; the first being my primary school years.
I left secondary school during my Secondary Three.
I did my “O” levels part-time with the Adult Education Board then.
I studied part-time at Singapore Polytechnic.

And why I postpone love and marriage until I fulfill my first ambition:
To study in a British University, not American, not Australian, not Canadian but British.
Guess I was “brain-washed” by the Royal Navy to become an anglophile.
And I owe the Royal Navy my everlasting gratitude for my engineering education and skills.

And I am still beholden to Lee Kuan Yew and the Old Guards for the economic opportunities that they created for 2nd Generation Singaporeans like me to grow from a kampung boy living in an attap house to become a UK graduate living in a modern 1st World Singapore condominium.

And yes, I had tasted and consumed the Fruits of Success as planted by the Old Guards and sown the Seeds of our own destruction.
PM Lee is harvesting this bitter crop now. But will he has the gumption, stamina and vision to destroy this bitter crop, plough the land and replant another Successful Crop, which inherently contains its own Seeds of Destruction as well?

It is beyond my Time, and this burden is passed to Gen-X, Gen-Y and Gen-Z.
Good luck then to you lots of Young Punks.

MY CHILDREN

Ah, my three burdens of joy.
There are in Primary 6, Primary 4 and Primary 3 respectively.

In Singapore context, it costs parents about S$277,000 (2003 cost of living) per child to “rear” them from conception till they graduate from a local university.
And this is based on university tuition fee of S$5,000 per annum; and not the expected increase to S$12,000 per annum in the near future of say, within 10 years time.

I will promise them an oversea university education if they so desired.
I would like them to emerge from this coconut shell called Singapore, to open their eyes and realized that there is a very much bigger world out there; and their Vision should not be confined to what they see within their confining “coconut shell”, imposed onto them by our education system, our nurturing in Singapore “Values” devoid of religious guidances, and by our very own successful lifestyle.

I want my children to live a whole life, and not live to exist.
I want them and their children to be able to stroll in the woods, smell the flowers by the many paths and have the courage to travel on the “paths least traveled”.

I will not wish them to repeat my mistake of “having no choice but to live here”, but to give them an alternative choice:

To stay here or live elsewhere if they so desire.

That is the best gift I can give to my children:
Learn to live here or elsewhere.
But do not exist here in Singapore Limited like mere beasts of burden and in the fields.

CONCLUSION
I am dog-tired, physically and mentally exhausted, and everyday it is so hard to wakeup and start the daily grind all over again….ad infinitum.
I am working 6-day week, from 8am to 6pm.

I ask myself: Is this the meaning of Life?

And I am so tired of Life.
And all I see there is still ten more years of toils ahead of me.
When will it all ends?

Now, this bell tolling softly for another, says to me: Thou must die.

Perchance he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill,
as that he knows not it tolls for him;
and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am,
as that they who are about me, and see my state,
and may caused it to toll for me, and I know not that.

The Church is Catholic, universal, so are all her actions;
and that she does belongs to all.
When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me;
for that child is thereby connected to that head which is my head too,
and ingrafted into that body whereof I am a member.
And when she buries a man, that action concerns me:
all mankind is of one author, and is one volume;
when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book,
but translated into a better language;
and every chapter must be so translated;
God employs several translators;
some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness,
some by war, some by justice;
but by God’s hand is in every translation,
and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again,
for that library where every book shall lie open to one another.

As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon calls
not upon the preacher only,
but upon the congregation to come,
so this bell calls us all;
but how much more me,
who am brought so near the door by this sickness.

The bell rings out, and tells me in him, that I am dead.

John Donne: From Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions. (an extract)

LKY on Race

2005-05-05T01:31:00.000+08:00

LKY on race. Article published in an academic journal.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Lee Kuan Yew: Race, Culture and Genes

by Michael D. BarrDepartment of History, University of QueenslandJournal of Contemporary Asia v29, n2 (1999)

*The author wishes to thank Dr Martin Stuart-Fox. Professor Robert Cribb and Fr. James Minchin for their advice and assistance.

"Three women were brought to the Singapore General Hospital, each in the same condition and needing a blood transfusion. The first, a Southeast Asian was given the transfusion but died a few hours later. The second, a South Asian was also given a transfusion but died a few days later. The third, an East Asian, was given a transfusion and survived. That is the X factor in development."

Lee Kuan Yew at the University of Singapore 27 December 1967, as reported by Chandra Muzaffar in his letter to the author. 14 August, 1996.

Racism is rarely far from the surface of Asian societies, and this is especially true of those multiracial societies that feel the need to promote racial tolerance as part of official ideology. Yet even in these cases, promoting racial tolerance does not necessarily imply the promotion of racial indifference. Singapore's multiracialism, for instance, encourages a high consciousness of one's race even as it insists on tolerance. Further, it has been considered by many as a covert form of discrimination in favour of the majority Chinese and against the minorities, especially the Malays. This article is an attempt to advance our understanding of Singapore's idiosyncratic version of multiracialism by casting new light on the thinking of its primary architect, Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew.

Despite official denials there can be little doubt that there is an unofficial pro-Chinese bias in Singapore, and that in spite of the structures of "meritocracy" and sometimes because of them, the Malay minority in particular has suffered structural discrimination. Even a cursory survey of recent history confirms this impression. For two decades after separation from Malaysia in 1965, for instance, the Singapore government had an unofficial policy of excluding Malays from the Singapore Armed Forces and the police force because of concerns about their loyalty. Not only did this practice deny Malays a traditional source of employment, but it made other employers reluctant to hire them because they were, technically, still eligible to be called up. (1) At the same time, the government exaggerated, possibly unintentionally, the structural impediments to Malays' educational advancement. At the time of separation from Malaysia, Malay students in Singapore had already been disadvantaged inadvertently because they were streamed through Malay-language schools which were staffed by under-qualified teachers, and which used substandard Malay-language text books. (2) These schools had very high attrition and failure rates from the beginning, but after separation even the successful students faced unique linguistic and academic hurdles in their pursuit of higher education. After separation, not only did the Malays find that their language had little economic value, but they discovered that their schools had not prepared them for tertiary education in the new Singapore. The first problem was that unlike Chinese-educated Chinese attending Nanyang University, and English-speaking Chinese, Indians and Eurasians attending the University of Singapore, the Malays had no tertiary institutions in which they did not face a language barrier. In fact Malay students' command of English was so poor that they alone were required to take an oral examination as part of their entry requirements to university. Further, as part of the push for national and economic survival in newly-independent Singapore, university scholarships were restricted to those students pursuing technical and science disciplines, and the inadequately staffed and poorly resourced Malay-stream schools had left their students singularly ill-equipped to qualify or compete for these scholarships. (3) The Malay's problem was compounded by their continuing socio-economic marginalisation, (4) and by the near-universal perception that their underachievement reflected their racial and cultural defects: that they had grown up in the "soft," lethargic Malay Culture which did not encourage studiousness, enterprise or hard work. Between their educational and employment disadvantages, and the psychological impact of being told that their problems were the result of their ethnic culture, it is not surprising that Malays are still at an economic disadvantage today.

Perhaps the most revealing aspect of the saga of Singapore's Malays, however, is not the actual discrimination, but the fact that Singapore's multiracial meritocracy has provided the rationale for its justification, and that this rationale has been effective to the point that even Malay teachers have come to accept this "cultural deficit" explanation of Malay underachievement. (5) The perception of the cultural deficiency of the Malays is, to some extent, a continuation of the prejudices fostered by the British colonial authorities who regarded the Malays as slow and lazy because they preferred their agrarian kampong lifestyle to working in tin mines for money. (6) This interpretation, however, ignores the role of former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew in moulding the ideological and social perceptions of Singaporeans. Although no nation's history can ever be reduced to the story of one man, Lee Kuan Yew had such a paramount role in making modem Singapore that an understanding of that society cannot be complete without an attempt at understanding Lee himself. The remainder of this article is devoted to contributing to our understanding of Lee's views on race.

Lee Kuan Yew

Understanding any aspect of Lee Kuan Yew's career requires a syncretic approach. but fully understanding his racial views stretches holistic analysis to new limits. Lee's views on race have been a matter of much private, but little published comment. This now changes with the publication of his authorised biography, Lee Kuan Yew: The Man and His Ideas, (7) in which Lee speaks about race with unprecedented candour. Upon close inspection, Lee's racial beliefs prove not to be an aberration or idiosyncrasy in his thinking, but the consummation of his world view and his political thought.

Until the late 1990s, Lee rarely allowed his public record to be sullied by any explicit statement that could be construed as racist, though on occasions he has come close to doing so. He has, for instance, argued that there are links between economic performance and race. In 1993, Lee wrote an article for The Economist in which he speculated on the state of the world in the twenty-first century, with special emphasis on Asia. (8) Lee put his own views into the mouth of a fictional Chinese Singaporean, Wang Chang, who then discussed his views with his friend, Ali Alkaff. Lee painted a picture of a prosperous twenty-first century East Asian industrial belt consisting of Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and coastal China, while South and South East Asia (except for Singapore) languished by comparison. Singapore, although geographically part Of South East Asia, was economically on a par with the more prosperous East Asian region. (9) In the subsequent "discussion" of these predictions, "Wang Chang" made it clear that race was a factor in his assessment, since he based his forecasting "on a people's culture, heredity and organisational strengths." (10) A few years earlier, Lee used his 1989 National Day Rally address to defend the Government's programme of encouraging Chinese immigration from Hong Kong on the basis that the birth rate of Singapore's Chinese is lower than that of the Indians and Malays. The numerical preponderance of the Chinese must be maintained, said Lee, "or there will be a shift in the economy, both the economic performance and the political backdrop which makes that economic performance possible." (11) Lee enumerated several reasons why maintaining the Chinese proportion of the population at current levels was necessary for economic prosperity - including the "culture" and "nature" of the Chinese. Without a hint of irony, Lee also took the opportunity to assure Malays that they need not fear Hong Kong immigrants taking their jobs because the immigrants will all be high income earners. In 1977 Lee treated Parliament to a four hour post-election victory speech which could best be described as "uninhibited." In this speech, Lee told the multi-racial chamber, "I understand the Englishman. He knows deep in his heart that he is superior to the Welshman and the Scotsman.... Deep here, I am a Chinaman." (12) In recent times, Lee has not only been more forthright about his racial views but he has also confirmed that he held them at least as early as the beginning of the 1970s. In October 1989, in an interview with Malaysia's New Straits Times Lee revealed that after he read Mahathir Mohamad's The Malay, Dilemma (13) in 1971 in 1971 or 1972, he found himself "in agreement with three-quarters of his analysis of the problem" of the economic and educational under-performance of the Malays. (14) According to Lee and Mahathir, the problem was both cultural and genetic. (15) Lee noted with approval that Mahathir's views were the "result of his medical training, and... he was not likely to change them." (16)

Indiscretion

While Lee has been moderately circumspect in most of his public statements on race, there have been rare occasions on which he has shown less discretion than usual. The earliest such documented occasion was on 27 December 1967, when Lee addressed a meeting at the University of Singapore. (17) After his speech there was a question and answer session, in which a question was asked about "the most important factor, the X-factor, in development." (18) Two members of the audience have given the author independent and almost identical accounts of Lee's answer. According to Chandra Muzaffar, Lee responded in these terms:

"Three women were brought to the Singapore General Hospital, each in the same condition and each needing a blood transfusion. The first, a Southeast Asian was given the transfusion but died a few hours later. The second, a South Asian was also given a transfusion but died a few days later. The third, an East Asian, was given a transfusion and survived. That is the X factor in development." (19)

Herman Paul independently gave the following account of Lee's answer: "There were 3 women, one of them from East Asia, another from South Asia and the 3rd from S-E Asia. They were admitted to the Singapore General Hospital. Their condition was precarious, and they all received blood transfusions. The woman from S-E Asia passed away. The woman from East Asia survived. The woman from South-East Asia (20) passed away. " (21)

Each listener took the Southeast Asian to be a Malay or perhaps a member of one of the aboriginal races of the region. Each of them took the South Asian woman to be an Indian, and the East Asian who survived was Chinese, or perhaps Japanese or Korean. Lee revealed in this speech, as reported by Chandra Muzaffar a perception of a racial hierarchy of Asians, in which the Chinese and other East Asians are at the top, Malays and other Southeast Asians are at the bottom, and Indians and other South Asians are in between. On this occasion Lee made no attempt to disguise his views on race with discussion of related factors, such as culture. He was talking about the inherent, genetic, strength and weakness of the different races. The emphasis that Lee has placed on culture and race in economic development has varied over the years. Only 27 months after Lee argued that race is the "X-factor" in development, Lee credited "ethnic factors" with being one of the variables in economic development, though on this occasion he contradicted his December 1967 statement by arguing that these "ethnic factors" were a minor consideration compared to "cultural factors." (22) Regardless of the balance between the two factors in Lee's thinking, there is no room to doubt that both race and culture play related if different roles in Lee's political thought.

Hierarchy

The hierarchy of races revealed in Lee's December 1967 parable helps to explain a similar hierarchy of humiliation to which Lee referred four years earlier, when he said, "Humiliation and degradation by foreign European powers is bad enough. It was worse at the hands of a conquering Asian nation like Japan - and it will be even worse if it should be by a neighbouring power in South-East Asia." (23) In fact, Lee's racial hierarchy is much more complex than he indicated on either of these occasions. In 1982 he revealed his belief that Jews share with East Asians a place at the top of the racial pyramid. and that both occupy a higher place than Americans:

"Let us not deceive ourselves: our talent profile is nowhere near that of, say, the Jews or the Japanese in America. The exceptional number of Nobel Prize winners who are Jews is no accident. It is also no accident that a high percentage, sometimes 50%, of faculty members in the top American universities on both the east and west coasts are Jews. And the number of high calibre Japanese academics, professionals, and business executives is out of all proportion to the percentage of Japanese in the total American population." (24)

More recently, commenting upon Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein's The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life, (25) Lee told his authorised biographers:
"The Bell curve is a fact of life. The blacks on average score 85 per cent on IQ and it is accurate, nothing to do with culture. The whites score on average 100. Asians score more... the Bell curve authors put it at least 10 points higher. These are realities that, if you do not accept, will lead to frustration because you will be spending money on wrong assumptions and the results cannot follow." (26)

A reading of the evidence cited above suggests that Lee has always had an agenda based on the racial and cultural superiority of Singapore's Chinese population. If this analysis is accurate, however, it requires a complementary argument which accounts adequately for the fact that Lee did not begin acting on these beliefs until the late 1970s. On the surface, such a line of argument appears plausible, since there are no shortage of external factors which could have restrained Lee's sinocentric bias until the early 1980s. His early hostility to Chinese education, culture and language, for instance, can be explained by the fact that Lee regarded Chinese culture as a threat to Singapore's stability because it was so closely associated with Chinese chauvinism, Chinese communism and loyalty to the People's Republic of China. (27) As well as these internal communal factors, it is known that Lee considered that allowing even the appearance of creating a sinocentric culture in the 1960s or 1970s would have heightened tensions between Singapore and its Malay neighbours. (28) These were sufficient reasons for Lee to continue his campaign of gutting Chinese education and building a communally neutral multiracialism. By 1979, however, Singapore's political and regional landscape had been totally transformed. Chinese culture was succumbing to the constant incursion of English language education and Western influence through the media. Nanyang University, almost the last institutional bastion of Chinese culture and Chinese communism. was demoralised, (29) and the Chinese-educated were on the verge of becoming a minority in the electorate. (30) This meant that Chinese culture was no longer seen as a major threat to Singapore's internal stability. Furthermore, Singapore's relations with both Malaysia and Indonesia had reached a new high thanks to the spirit of regional solidarity within ASEAN, prompted by the fall of Vietnam in 1975. (31) The post-separation siege mentality towards the Malay world was now redundant, if it had ever been valid. This development coincided roughly with the retirement, enforced or otherwise, of most of the "old -guard" of PAP leaders. By the mid-1980s Lee had surrounded himself with younger second generation leaders Substantially dependent upon his patronage, thus relieving Lee of another constraint. The sinicization of Singapore was now a political possibility for Lee, and according to the logic of this argument, he then took the opportunity to act on his racial beliefs.

While this thesis goes some way towards explaining Lee's actions, it faces serious problems. It is important. for instance, to acknowledge that not only did Lee show no signs of acting on Chinese racial or cultural supremacist beliefs until the very end of the 1970s, but for many of those years he was widely demonised as an enemy of Chinese culture. Alex Josey wrote in1974 that "within ten or fifteen years, Lee Kuan Yew expects the Chinese language to be unimportant, " (32) and this seemed a fair assessment. The majority of Chinese parents were choosing English as the first language for their children’s education since English was the language which led to good jobs and upward social mobility. (33) Nanyang University was struggling to survive and was under a continuing cloud of suspicion that it was fostering Chinese chauvinism and communism. This suspicion had lead the Government to "disperse" former communist Chinese-educated students to universities in Australia, Canada and New Zealand, rather than allow them to study at Nanyang. (34) In 1971 two Chinese language newspapers, Sin Chew Jit Poh and Nanyang Siang Pau were brought to heel for allegedly promoting Chinese chauvinism and accusing the government of killing Chinese education and the Chinese language.(35)

These factors by themselves undermine the thesis that Lee was always a closet Chinese Supremacist. Consideration must be given also to the testimony of Lee's close associates from those early decades, who flatly contradict the picture of Lee Kuan Yew as a Chinese cultural or racial supremacist. Goh Keng Swee was Lee's right hand man for twenty years in government, at one stage rising to the position of First Deputy Prime Minister. When Goh was shown Chandra Muzaffar's account of Lee's December 1967 parable, he was genuinely shocked and lost for words. Finally he stammered. "I can't imagine he spoke in such crude terms." (36)
E.W. Barker, a Minister in Lee's Cabinet for more than twenty years and his friend for more than two decades before that, was equally adamant in interview that "there was nothing of this race business in Cabinet. I wouldn't have served if it was a pro-Chinese government, but it was not." (37) While Lee believed in his heart that the Chinese were genetically and culturally superior, he separated this belief from his public policy. Only in the late 1970s did his racial beliefs begin to exert a noticeable influence upon public policy. The discrepancy between the picture of the Chinese, racial and cultural supremacist which we are able to paint from a collage of' Lee's words is barely reconcilable with Lee's public record up to the late 1970s and with the accounts given by his close associates of forty and fifty years. It is obvious that the thesis that Lee was restrained from acting on his beliefs by external forces is insufficient. As is the case with most aspects of Lee's career, the story is much more complicated, and requires a detailed study of the gradual development of his political thought.

Origins

At this stage it is important to consider the origins of Lee's racial views. It is natural to assume that Lee's beliefs stem directly from prejudices he learnt as a child. While there is a certain likelihood in this line of approach, Lee's own accounts suggest that he arrived at his racial views as a result of observation, empirical enquiry and study as an adult: "I started off believing all men were equal. I now know that's the most unlikely thing ever to have been, because millions of years have passed over evolution, people have scattered across the face of this earth, been isolated from each other, developed independently had different intermixtures between races, peoples, climates, soils. ...I didn't start off with that knowledge. But by observation, reading, watching, arguing, asking, that is the conclusion I've come to." (38)

Lee maintains that at some stage before the late 1960s he had acted under the assumption that all races were equal, but bitter disappointment convinced him that the reality was otherwise: "When we were faced with the reality that, in fact, equal opportunities did not bring about more equal results, we were faced with [an] ideological dilemma. ... In other words, this Bell curve, which Murray and Herrnstein wrote about, became obvious to us by the late '60s." (39)
The evolution of Lee's racism was a long process. According to Lee himself he began to form his views on race while he was a student in London. (40) He has described how his ideas firmed in 1956 on a visit to Europe and London, (41) and then reached their full force in the Malaysia period. (42) The details and implications of Lee's account of the development of his racial views are considered later in this article, but one must be sceptical that his adult mind was ever a tabula rasa on the question of race. Lee likes to consider himself a pure empiricist who can rise above preconceptions and prejudices, but it seems reasonable to assume that the very questions he asked as an adult, and his early fascination with questions of race sprang from an existing, possibly unconscious world view in which race was an all-pervasive feature.

In racially conscious Singapore it would have been difficult to have grown up without exposure to racial stereotyping. Further, the Chinese of Lee's parents' and grandparents' generations grew up in a culture which emphasised familial piety and ancestor worship and who were naturally proud of both their ancestry and their tenuous association with the glories of Chinese civilisation. Ethnic pride can slip easily into racial prejudice in the most racially unconscious society, and Singapore was and is anything but racially unconscious. We might believe Lee when he maintains that he had, at some stage in his early adult life, come to the intellectual conviction that all races are equal. His childhood, however, was steeped in racial stereotyping that meant that questions of race were never far from the surface of his dynamically inquisitive mind, and deep seated stereotypes were always ready to challenge race-blind explanations of the world. Hence, when he visited other countries, even as a student, he took his racial consciousness with him. He has told his biographers, "I visited Europe during my vacation (as a student) and then saw India, Pakistan, Ceylon, Indonesia, Japan, Germany ... You look for societies which had been more successful and you ask yourself why." (43) Note Lee's assumption that a society's "success" can be judged by a universal standard of progress and development.

For Lee it was natural to judge peoples according to the how high up the ladder of progress they had climbed, and his background made him prone to place people in racial and cultural categories when making such judgements.

Rationale

Lee may have brought the kernel of his racial prejudices intact from childhood, but as an adult he has woven an intricate argument to rationalise and develop his view. His argument rests on four pillars: an environmental determinism based upon a distortion of Arnold Toynbee's "Challenge and Response" thesis; a medieval scientism which gives an important role to ductless glands in determining a person's and a people's drive to achieve; a Lamarckian view of evolution; and a belief in culturally-based eugenics and dysgenics. The influence of Arnold Toynbee on Lee since the mid-1960s is well documented in speeches and inter-views. From 1967 onwards Lee acknowledged Toynbee as a source of his ideas. (44) It is less well-known that Lee began quoting Toynbee's "Challenge and Response" thesis in Cabinet meetings as soon as the PAP came to power in 1959, (45) and that Toynbee was widely read and vigorously discussed in Lee's circle of friends at Cambridge University. (46) The connection between Toynbee's thesis and Lee Kuan Yew's racial beliefs is convoluted, but it is the lynch pin of Lee's rationalisation of his Chinese racial suprematism.

Toynbee

Central to the thesis propounded by Toynbee in A Study of History, was the notion that societies and civilisations develop in response to certain challenges. Toynbee argued that "civilizations come to birth in environments that are unusually difficult and not unusually easy." (47) The Sinic Civilisation, wrote Toynbee, was nurtured in the north of China, where the climate was severe, and swamps and regular floods made agriculture difficult, and so it became a "hard" society. (48) Conversely, societies that were nurtured in easy environments, without challenges from people or nature are inherently weak. in Volume I of Study, Toynbee repeated a parable originally told by Ellsworth Huntington in his Civilisation and Climate. It was the story of a group of savages from the tropics who travelled north into the colder climate. Upon the onset of the first winter, some returned to the tropics, "resumed the old life and their descendants are untutored Savages to this day." (49)

All of the others perished except for one group which invented clothes, constructed shelter, learned to dry meat and store it, and discovered how to make fire. "And in the process of adjusting themselves to a hard environment they advanced by enormous strides, leaving the tropical part of Mankind in the rear." (50) No one should suggest that Lee, Toynbee or Huntington believed that this parable was literally true. The story does demonstrate, however, Toynbee's lesson of the importance of the challenge of climate and more generally, of the environment, whereby those people whose civilisations grew in the "soft" life of the tropics were left behind by their hardier cousins in harsher climates. Lee has taken Toynbee's arguments and used them to justify a dismissive attitude towards the Malayan and Indian Cultures. This logic explains the hierarchy of hardiness of the three women in Lee's parable. The Southeast Asian died first because she came from an easy tropical climate. The South Asian lived a little longer because the climate of the Subcontinent is less amenable than that of tropical Southeast Asia. The East Asian lived because she - or at least her ancestors - came from a very harsh climate which brought out tougher qualities in her people. With a harsh climate go many challenges which develop a plethora of cultural and racial characteristics in a people.

In 1965, in an interview on Australian television, Lee discussed the differences between the Malays and the Chinese in Malaysia: "One is the product of a civilisation which has gone through all its ups and downs, of floods and famine and pestilence, breeding a people with very intense culture, with a belief in high performance in sustained effort, in thrift and industry. And the other people. more fortunately endowed by nature, with warm sunshine and bananas and coconuts, and therefore not with the same need to strive so hard. Now, these two societies really move at two different speeds. It's like the difference between a high- revolution engine and a low-revolution engine. I'm not saying that one is better or less good than the other. But I'm just stating a fact that one was the product of another environment another history, another civilisation, and the other is a product of another different climate, different history." (51)

Lee found an unwitting ally for his views on cultural suprematism in the Scandinavian social scientist, Gunnar Myrdal. The connection was made by Lee himself in his 1971 commemorative lecture at his old college at Cambridge University, in which he argued this case at length: "It is in part the difference between the more intense and exacting Sinic cultures of East Asia and the less demanding values of Hindu culture of South and South-east Asia, that accounts for the difference in industrial progress between Eastern and Southern Asia. The softer and more benign Hindu civilisation spread through Burma, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, meeting the Sinic civilisation on the borders of Vietnam....

Gunnar Myrdal, in his "Asian Drama" (52) voluminously sets out the reasons for lower achievements amongst these peoples [of South and South-cast Asia]. He terms them "soft societies." Their expectations and desire for achievement are lower. Had he studied the Sinic civilisations of East Asia - Korea, Japan, China and Vietnam - he would have come to the opposite conclusions, that these were hard societies. (53)

While references to Gunnar Myrdal began only after the publication of Myrdal's Asian Drama in 1968, Lee had expressed similar views long before this. In 1965, at the height of both Indonesia's Confrontation with Malaysia, and Singapore's difficulties with Kuala Lumpur, Lee made a revealing speech in which he dismissed the threat from Indonesia because of the soft and indulgent nature of its culture, though at this stage the term "soft culture" was not part of Lee's vocabulary: "...these were not cultures which created societies capable of intense discipline, concentrated effort over sustained periods. Climate, the effects of relatively abundant society and the tropical conditions produced a people largely extrovert, easy-going and leisurely. They've got their wars, they have their periods of greatness when the Hindus came in the 7th and again in the l2th centuries in the Majapahit and the Srivijaya empires. But in between the ruins of Borobudur and what you have of Indonesia today, you see a people primarily self-indulgent." (54) These are merely two examples of Lee's many Myrdalian statements which express a condescending attitude towards the indigenous cultures of South and Southeast Asia.
Early in 1967, Lee expounded his views on the stultifying effects of living in the tropics, and explained why Singapore is the exception to the rule: "There is only one other civilization near the Equator that ever produced anything worthy of its name. That was the Yucatan peninsular of South America - the Mayan Civilization. There is no other place where human beings were able to surmount the problems of a soporific equatorial climate. You can go along the Equator or 2 degrees north of it, and they all sleep after half past two if they have had a good meal. They do! Otherwise they must die earlier. It is only in Singapore that they don't. And there were good reasons for this. First, good glands, and second, good purpose." (55)

There are three noteworthy points in this excerpt, apart from the confirmation of Lee's environmental determinism. First, the reference to the Mayan Civilisation is almost certainly derived directly from Arnold Toynbee's Study. (56) Second, Lee has either overlooked or dismissed the former greatness of the Javanese Culture, since acknowledging it would have qualified his theory of environmental determinism. Third, this quotation introduces Lee's idiosyncratic ideas about the role of glands, and allows Lee to take a deft step from justification by culture to justification by physiology and thus genetics.

Ductless Glands

According to Lee, ductless glands, especially the adrenal gland, play a crucial role in determining the drive of people, both as individuals and as races. In 1966, Lee told the Socialist International: "There are believed to be two influences on the efficacy of human resources.

First, biological, and second cultural factors.

Anthropologists all emphasize the cultural influence as the factor which causes variations in capacity between men, tribes and nations but they do not discount altogether the possibility of biological differences between man and man because of differences in their ductless glands. I would have certain reservations about attributing all differences completely to cultural factors for I remember the Australian aborigines, who, in spite of considerable exposure to a new, society they were suddenly confronted with, have yet been unable to adjust and to emerge as an equal in his new environment. As against that. we have the negroes in Africa transported into slavery in America who have emerged as scientists, doctors, lawyers, boxers, high jumpers, runners and so on." (57)

Leaving aside the question of Lee's ignorance of Australian Aborigines and Afro-Americans, this speech demonstrated that Lee perceived that there was a direct link between ductless glands, the drive to achieve, and race. In 1971, Lee explicitly linked his views on ductless glands to Toynbee's "Challenge and Response" thesis, and erroneously attributed his own ideas to Toynbee.

Describing the challenge of planning a reserve army after Singapore's separation from Malaysia, Lee said, "Toynbee's "Challenge and Response" summed up our position. If we did not have it in us, enough output from the adrenal and other ductless glands, we would have fallen flat on our faces." (58) The author's research has failed to uncover any reference in Study which could justify Lee's attribution of his views on glands to Toynbee, which is not surprising since, despite the impression created by Lee, Toynbee devoted sixty four pages of Study to arguing that race is not a factor in determining a civilisation's rate of development. (59) Lee, however, has taken Toynbee's views on the role of the environment. and developed a view of race based on a much stricter theory of environmental determinism than was ever advocated by Toynbee.

Lamarck

The connection in Lee's mind between race and the development of the ductless glands is based upon his adherence to his personal Lamarckian theory of evolution, according to which acquired characteristics can be inherited. Hence, "hard" and "soft" countries not only produce "hard" and "soft" cultures, but their people acquire "hard" and "soft" physiological characteristics. This explains why in Lee's parable of December 1967, the woman from the "hard" East Asian society lived after her operation, while the women from the "soft" South Asian and Southeast Asian societies died. The evidence for believing that Lee holds a Lamarckian view of evolution is found most overtly in a series of speeches In the 1960s. These speeches express his admiration for the energy and drive displayed by those of "migrant stock," who have inherited their "good glands" from their parents, and his peculiar notion of acclimatisation as genetically passed down through generations. The speeches also reveal a fear that he and the ethnic Chinese of Singapore will lose the drive which has made them successful, not only because they have left the "hard environment" of their forebears and are now living in the tropics, but because they are also living in a more prosperous, but "softer" and thus inferior culture. (60)

Migrant Stock

Lee developed, or at least rationalised, his Lamarckian theories during his two month tour of Australia and New Zealand in 1965, though his thoughts had been turned in this direction for some time. Soon after his return from the tour, Lee gave a lecture to public servants at the Political Study Centre. There he told his audience that he began his tour grappling with the problems of large scale migration. He was fascinated by the similarities between Australia, New Zealand and Singapore, in so far as they are all new communities built by migrants from nothing. (61) Throughout the tour, Lee's preconceived but unclear ideas were confirmed and he became increasingly convinced that the similarities between Australia, New Zealand and Singapore were of major significance in that each of them were migrant communities which were evolving further away from their original stock." (62) Lee opined that the tough migrant cultures of Australia, New Zealand and Singapore had produced societies with "a tremendous amount of enterprise" which he characterised as a "frontier spirit." (63) The problem in Lee's mind, however, was that as prosperity comes to a migrant people, life becomes easier, the culture becomes softer, and the genes "go down":

"We are not unlike the other migrant groups in the South Pacific. We share a lot of their characteristics. We share a lot of their problems. And one of these problems is to secure what we have created for prosperity. Which means, you and me, the genes going down. ...You have come with certain equipment. Your cultural values, your habit patterns, your techniques, the drive, the push, the thrust, to conquer nature and make a life. But in the process you become a different people." (64)

Migrants and their descendants, it appears, have tremendous reserves of stamina and determination, but they are constantly faced with the challenge of maintaining their genetic inheritance because they are now living in a culture and an environment different from the one in which their ancestors developed their good genes. Less than a week later, Lee resumed his theme with a slightly different twist at an Institute of Engineers' dinner after his hostess unwisely told him that she was thinking of migrating to Australia or New Zealand: I was spending the whole evening advising my hostess what a ghastly error it is for people to migrate... I told her of my experience. Three generations here, and I haven't got a climate I am used to yet." (65)

Lee believes that he is acclimatised to northern China because that was the ancestral home of the paternal line of his ancestors. For some reason, possibly related to the patrilineal nature of Chinese culture, Lee chooses to ignore the ancestors of his mother, who is generally thought to have been part-Malay. (66) He seems also to have forgotten the difficulty he had in coping with the cold of England while he was a student at Cambridge University. (67) It is tempting to discount Lee's words as an aberration, especially when taken in the context of the rest of this undisciplined speech, some of which is quoted later in this article. It is now known that earlier in the day, Lee sent a secret letter to the Australian Prime Minister, Robert Menzies, in which he expressed deep pessimism for the future of Malaysia, and pleaded with Menzies to speak to Tunku Abdul Rahman on Singapore's behalf. (68) There can be little doubt that the mood of despair expressed in the letter continued Into the evening, and was deepened when his hostess rather insensitively sought his advice about emigrating. It may have been Lee's black mood that prompted him to speak wildly on this occasion, but there can be little doubt that he was nevertheless conveying his true thoughts, since he presented the same argument in an interview with Gerald Stone seven years later: Lee: I'm extremely sensitive to changes in temperature, humidity, mainly because I think after four generations here I'm still not acclimatised.

Stone: You came from Northern China?
Lee: Mid-China, but the climate doesn't suit me. (69)

While Lee regularly complains about Singapore's stifling humidity, he wears his discomfort like a badge of honour. He believes that he does not belong in the tropics, but was "stranded" there by his great-grandfather one hundred years before he was born. (70) "My great grandfather came here with nothing," Lee told an audience in 1967. "He made something and decided to get out while the going was good! My tragedy started when he left his son behind ... and here I am." (71) In Lee's mind, finding the humidity uncomfortable is a sign that he still has the "good genes" and the "good glands" of his ancestors. The Chinese of Southeast Asia have yet another reason to be proud of their genes, because not only are they mostly Chinese, but they are of "migrant stock" which by its nature is more hardy and enterprising than the genes of those who accepted the world as it was and stayed at home:

"We came here into the mud flat, and built this out of the marshes. And I felt what they felt that if anybody feels they can come over in a canoe and take it over, then I say, over my dead body... That, I think, is at least one of the qualities of the migrant. He carries with him some of the qualities of the desperate circumstances which impelled his forefathers to leave their more comfortable societies and pit their luck and kill against unknown odds." (72) Two years later, Lee proudly proclaimed that "very few such cities on the equator the climate and the stupor, the heat and the humidity notwithstanding - have the cultural verve and dynamism of a migrant community which have made this place throb with life and vitality."(73) It is just as well that migrants' genes are hardier than average, because in other ways they are of a lower standard than those of their racial confreres, since they are descended from "peasant stock." (74) If he and other Chinese Singaporeans can maintain their genetic and glandular standards, it is good news for Singapore, but it is a constant battle against the climate and the environment. As Lee explained to a group of trade unionists in Adelaide: "The Chinaman who came out to Southeast Asia was a very hard working, thrifty person. I mean he faced a tremendous stride [sic] because he faced floods, pestilence, famine..., [but] we are getting soft. You know, all sunshine and bananas growing on trees and coconuts falling down by themselves - this affects people. To a certain extent, you can try and counter it.... Up to a point we can strive to lessen the burden.... This is a problem all migrants face. You are part of one culture, one civilization and culture. But it is a different climate." (75)

In fact climate is only one of the factors against which the Chinese had to battle in coming to Southeast Asia. They were also coping with the debilitating effect of moving from a superior to an inferior civilisation. At the Institute of Engineers' dinner in April 1965, Lee continued his dissertation on the problems of migrating to Australia or New Zealand: "I told my hostess that where I think it is a ghastly error all this large movements of human beings seeking a better life is that one has got to be quite sure that in the end [one] is going to offer a higher civilization. Otherwise, you end up just eating more beef steak and pork chops and mutton chops and what happens when people cease to want to buy your dairy produce and leave you stranded in the South Pacific as I am stranded in Southeast Asia. ...I advised her against settling in Australia and New Zealand because I am quite sure that her progeny will regret all this because they were unlikely to create a civilization vaster and greater than the one they left behind. I say, before you leave behind all these things just make sure you are going to create something better. And if you are not going to, then perhaps it shouldn't be done because this is the way I thought about my great grandfather leaving me here." (76) Lee argued that the debilitating effects of climate and moving to an inferior civilisation were too great to resist in the long term, (77) although measures could be taken to slow down their effects.

Cultural Eugenics

The last plank of Lee's racial logic is his view of cultural eugenics and dysgenics. Lee believes that some cultures have social customs which are naturally eugenic while others are burdened with dysgenic sexual mores. He believes, for instance, that the Catholic Church suffers from a dysgenic culture: "All the bright young men became Catholic priests and did not marry. Bright priests, celibate, produce no children. And the result of several generations of bright Fathers producing no children? Less bright children in the Catholic world." (78)

Of more practical relevance to the development of Lee's politic I thought is his view that the genetic quality of the Malays is low because of their dysgenic Culture. In 1989 Lee confirmed his general agreement with Mahathir Mohamad's The Malay Dilemma, which argued in part: "Malays abhor the state of celibacy. To remain unmarried was and is considered shameful. Everyone must be married at some time or other. The result is that whether a person is fit or unfit for marriage, he or she still marries and reproduces. An idiot or a simpleton is often married off to an old widower, ostensibly to take care of him in his old age. If this is not possible, backward relatives are paired off in marriage. These people survive, reproduce and propagate their species. The cumulative effect of this can be left to the imagination." (79)

Of these and other arguments which purportedly account for the supposed backwardness of Malays, Lee said: "From that book I realised that [Dr Mahathir] believed in it as a medical man - that these were problems of the development of the Malay race, Anthropological problems, and these were strongly-held views. Indeed, I found myself in agreement with three-quarters of his analysis of the problem - that the Malays had always withdrawn from competition and never really entered into the mainstream of economic activity; that the Malays would always get their children or relatives married off regardless of whether it was good or bad." (80)
The Ashkenazi Jews, on the other hand, are among an elite of races which have a thoroughly eugenic culture: "From the 10th to 11th century inEurope, in Ashkenazim, the practice developed of the rabbi becoming the most desirable son-in-law because he is usually the brightest of the flock. ... So he becomes the richest and wealthiest. He marries young, is successful, probably bright. He has large numbers of children and the brightest of the children will become the rabbi and so it goes on." (81)

The Chinese also have benefited from centuries of practising cultural eugenics, though his logic works only if you assume that a person's economic status directly reflects his or her-intelligence and energy: "In the older generations, economies and culture settled it. The pattern of procreation was settled by economics and culture. The richer you are, the more successful you are, the more wives you have, the more children you have. That's the way it was settled. I am the son of a successful chap. I myself am successful, so I marry young and I marry more wives and I have more children. You read Hong Lou Meng, A Dream of the Red Chamber, or you read Jin Ping Mei, and you'll find Chinese society in the 16th, 17th century described. So the successful merchant or the mandarin, he gets the pick of all the rich men's daughters and the prettiest village girls and has probably five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten different wives and concubines and many children. And the poor labourer who's dumb and slow, he's neutered. It's like the lion or the stag that's outside the flock. He has no harems, so he does not pass his genes down. So, in that way, a smarter population emerges." (82)

If Lee believes that this is the natural order of affairs for Chinese, it is no wonder that he raised the possibility of reintroducing polygamy as part of his eugenics programme. (83) Lee's propensity to identify intelligence with economic status seems to have been a deep-seated trait which had been with Lee since childhood. In his old age he told his authorised biographers, "In primary school, I had no trouble doing well. Probably because my fellow students were poor and they were not very bright and advantaged ... I had no trouble staying ahead of the class." (84) It must be acknowledged that Lee was speaking retrospectively, and that his words stop just short of explicitly drawing a direct, let alone a causal link between the economic status of parents and the intelligence of children. His words are not, therefore, unequivocal proof that Lee formed these ideas in childhood. They do, however, suggest that many of his ideas of the elite are built upon the prejudices associated with economic class. For all of Lee's supposed empirical reasoning and his theorising, his elitism and geneticism looks suspiciously like the conceit born of a pampered and privileged childhood.

The Anthropologist

Lee's racial hierarchy appears to have been based initially on his interpretation of Toynbee, but Lee needed to confirm his theories by observation. Speaking of his racial views in the 1990s, he told his biographers: "This is something which I have read and I tested against my observations. We read many things. The fact that it's in print and repeated by three, four authors does not make it true. They may all be wrong. But through my own experience, meeting people, talking to them, watching them, I conclude yes, there is this difference. Then it becomes part of the accepted facts of life, for me." (85)

We will probably never know all of the experiential factors which fostered Lee's perception of racial differences, but he has intimated that his travels in Europe during the 1940s and 1950s contributed to a perception of a European racial hierarchy similar to that which he revealed for Asia in the 1960s. His reminiscence also indicates how little it took to convince Lee that he was correct once he had already made up his mind:

"On my first visit to Germany in 1956,we had to stop in Frankfurt on our way to London. We had [earlier] stopped in Rome. This languid Italian voice over the loudspeaker said something ... And there were Italian workers trundling trolleys at the airport. It was so relaxed, the atmosphere and the pace of work. Then the next stop was Frankfurt. And immediately, the climate was a bit cooler and chillier. And a voice came across the loudspeaker: "Achtung! Achtung! " The chaps were the same, porters, but bigger-sized and trundling away. These were people who were defeated and completely destroyed and they were rebuilding. I could sense the goal, the dynamism. ... I also visited Switzerland when I was a student in '47, '48, on holiday. I came down by train from Paris to Geneva. Paris was black bread, dirty, after the war. I arrived at Geneva that morning, sleeping overnight. It was marvellous. Clean, beautiful, swept streets, nice buildings, marvellous white pillowcases and sheets, white bread after dark dirty bread and abundant food and so on. But hardworking, punctilious, the way they did your bed and cleaned up your rooms. It told me something about why some people succeed and some people don't. Switzerland has a small population. If they didn't have those qualities, they would have been overrun ...(86)

Lee did not spell out explicitly the logic of environmental determinism, but this passage reveals an emerging pattern in Lee's thinking. First, he is apparently blessed with the ability to determine a culture's character from an airport stopover or froma short holiday. Second, cultures which evolved in cooler, harsher climates were more worthy of his admiration than those which developed in warmer and more sultry climes. Although he did not highlight the climatic difference between Geneva and Paris, as he did between Frankfurt and Rome, it is unlikely to be a coincidence that in both instances Lee perceived the harsher, cooler climate as having produced the "people who succeed."

Climate

The logic by which Lee synthesised his first principles is now evident. We know that Lee took Toynbee's "Challenge and Response" thesis and turned it into a theory of environmental determinism whereby the characteristics of a people, both cultural and physiological, are largely the result of environmental influences. In his own mind, Lee has obscured the division between culture and genetics. As he told his authorised biographers, the "drive to protect your own offspring is ... in the genes. And built into that is a certain cultural pattern, which varies from society to society." (87) He considers those peoples who evolved in a harsh climate, such as the Chinese, to be tougher, more resolute and more innovative than those who evolved in tropical climes. The effect of the environment on people was thus comprehensive. It affected both the character of the civilisation which they created, and their physiology, because inherited characteristics can, in Lee's Lamarckian view of evolution, be inherited. This means that people who lived in an environment which required more stamina to survive and flourish passed oil to-their offspring some of the improvements that they inadvertently made in themselves: better genes and better ductless glands. Those of "migrant stock" have particularly good genes because their forefathers must have had exceptionally good glands, otherwise they could not have braved the unknown and made a new life for themselves. Lee's great fear, however, is that the good genes which developed through living in a harsh environment can be lost through living an easier life in a softer climate.

Lee's perception of the migrant's good glands is actually critical to his racial hierarchy as it applies in Singapore, since most Singaporean Chinese are descended from illiterate peasants who, in China's culturally eugenic society, would normally be "neutered." Lee's emphasis on the migrant's good glands flatly contradicts his elitism, the logic of cultural eugenicism, and his usual practice of blindly equaling economic status with talent and intelligence. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that it is a rationalisation developed specifically for the "benefit" of Southeast Asia's Chinese population who, on the basis of his usual logic, should be dumb and slow. The fact that Lee resorts to such a deft piece of sophistry supports the argument that his racial world view, as explained and defended in adulthood, is an attempt to justify his preconceived notions of the racial hierarchy, rather than the result of dispassionate logic applied to empirical evidence. While his adult experiences probably did influence the development of his world view and his political thought, the essence of his conclusions regarding the hierarchy of Asian races owes more to the prejudices he learnt as a child than it does to his observations of the porters at Rome and Frankfurt airports, or to his reading or Arnold Toynbee and Gunnar Myrdal. (88)

Not a Social Darwinist

This article has described in detail the character of Lee Kuan Yew's racial views substantially using his own words as evidence. After a lifetime of being circumspect on the question of race, Lee has finally spoken openly, revealing himself as doctrinaire racist. Yet it would be a mistake to condemn Lee as a hard line racist in every sense of the word. Such a characterisation of his views would be a distortion of both his logic and his natural disposition. There can be no doubt that Lee is a racist in the sense that he believes that some races and some ethnically-based cultures are inherently superior to others. His own words leave no doubt about this assertion, though it should be recognised that this in itself hardly makes him remarkable in Asia. He is also a racist in the sense that he has integrated his racial views into his political agenda and he has created a regime which accentuates racial categorisation. This assertion, too, is beyond dispute, yet it should be acknowledged that affirmative action programmes in the United States and Australia are based upon racial classifications and are widely accepted as part of modem liberal orthodoxy. Of equal significance to our study of his political thought are the aspects of political and personal racism that Lee has avoided by his eclectic approach. Lee's idiosyncratic rationalisation of his racial views, for instance, has undermined the tendency to dismiss any race as being irredeemably inferior, or unchangeably superior. He has not conceived of any race as being supreme, even though some are more intelligent and hardier than others. Unlike Social Darwinian racists, he does not base his views on the assumption that any race is a lower or higher evolutionary form of humanity. He sees no unbridgeable divide between races. Although his environmental determinism, Lamarckian view of evolution and cultural eugenicism may explain the higher intelligence and better glands of those who hail from a "hard" society, they also create a firm line of continuity between the different races, and give each race the capacity to change for the better or the worse: hence Lee's efforts to "improve" racial communities by "tinkering" with their cultures. (89) The result has been that despite instances of overt racial discrimination by Lee's government, and more common occasions of discrimination in Singaporean society, Lee has created a society which has a relatively low level of racial tension, despite having a high level of racial consciousness. Considering his own racial views and the nature of the society he inherited, this is a remarkable achievement which, despite its shortcomings, should be acknowledged.

Our understanding of the nature of Lee's views on cultural and racial evolution now enables us to perceive a new depth in Lee's public policies and in the development of his political thought. More significantly, it gives us a fresh insight into the deep fears which have driven Lee throughout his public life, and especially since his sinicisation in the late 1970s Lee has married pessimism, progressivism and geneticism to produce a vision of a horrible world where every step on the road to progress creates new problems which will drag civilisation down to the depths again - unless the elite takes charge and applies itself creatively and scientifically to overcoming these challenges. (90) Such an attitude is, of course, the height of hubris, but this does not concern Lee. By the late 1970s Lee was very comfortable with hubris. He had been almost single-handedly transforming and re-transforming the physical, political, linguistic and cultural landscape of Singapore for nearly two decades. He had been making and breaking careers and industries, politicians and ideologies, and setting patterns of work, procreation and education for about two million people. He had assumed more control of his countrymen's lives than the Pope claims over the lives of Catholics. Furthermore, by the early 1980s ill health and old age amongst his colleagues meant that he could now foresee the day when he would be the last of the "old guard" left in Cabinet a paramount leader without rivals, rather than a primus inter pares. Lee himself spoke of the difference this set of retirements has made to Cabinet. The old guard leaders were never compliant and were forthright in their opposition to many of Lee's policies. (91)

After their retirement, however, he did not "waste time taking opinions all around" the Cabinet, but simply told his colleagues what he wanted and it was up to them to disagree. (92) One does not have to be a Western liberal to see that this near-omnipotence and unrivalled pre-eminence is not healthy for either the nation or the leader. Lee's new freedom, combined with his perception that cultural and dysgenic disaster were imminent seem to have been at the heart of Lee's quixotic approach to politics in the 1980s. His eugenics policies and the sinicization programme converged as the complementary answers to the challenge of the West, degenerating genes and the search for talent.

Red Pill - Blue Pill

2005-04-29T14:25:00.000+08:00

Extracted this from an Internet Forum a few years back. I thought it described the political awareness (ignorance) of Singaporeans in general pretty well when I first read the post.

So which category are you in?

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Are Singaporeans Living in a Matrix?

"Between being loved and being feared, I have always believed Machiavelli was right. If nobody is afraid of me, I'm meaningless." (Lee Kuan Yew (1998) The Singapore Story)

The Matrix is certainly a great movie, with a lot of philosophical and religious themes. "The One" seems to refer to the Messiah Jesus in Christianity while I like what the boy in the Oracle's house teaching Keanu how to bend a spoon: realize that there is no spoon in your hand, only electrical impulses in your brain, and then it will be yourself that bend and not the spoon. James Gomez has recently released his book, Self Censorship: Singapore's Shame. In that book, he explained very concisely how the notorious climate of fear works in Singapore. This made me recall The Matrix once again. As I recalled, The Matrix mainly examines the question: What if what we believe is reality is actually a dream, and reality is actually a nightmare we'd rather not have to deal with?

As I was recalled the movie, I saw for myself its relation to Singapore. It is amazing how the themes spoke to me about the 'climate of fear' that is present here. I could now understand better how it is possible for some people to feel this cognitive dissonance about Singapore when the majority of the Singaporeans do not seem to feel it. I remember watching the National Day parade each year, observing so many Singaporeans in the National Stadium displaying such a deep sense of pride in Singapore and I was wondering to myself, "You mean they don't realize the truth?"

The objective of this article is to give my personal and hopefully unique review of the Matrix and how Singapore, to me at least, is so much similar to the movie. I will be using what I learnt in the movie to come up with a model that explains Singaporean's political behavior, hopefully enhancing what James Gomez has said in his brilliant book.

Basically, the 'Matrix model' divides Singaporeans into three different categories. Through the interactions of Singaporeans belonging to the different categories, I hope to be able to offer insights to the political behavior of Singaporeans. I shall be using quite a few quotes from the movie as I explain. Of course, I do not expect others to see it the same way as I do. I think the directors of The Matrix wanted each of us to interpret for ourselves whether we truly live in a Matrix. This article is my interpretation.

Three categories of Singaporeans

"Repression, Sir is a habit that grows. I am told it is like making love-it is always easier the second time! The first time there may be pangs of conscience, a sense of guilt. But once embarked on this course with constant repetition you get more and more brazen in the attack. All you have to do is to dissolve organizations and societies and banish and detain the key political workers in these societies. Then miraculously everything is tranquil on the surface. Then an intimidated press and the government-controlled radio together can regularly sing your praises, and slowly and steadily the people are made to forget the evil things that have already been done, or if these things are referred to again they're conveniently distorted and distorted with impunity, because there will be no opposition to contradict." (Lee Kuan Yew as an opposition PAP member during 1956 speaking to David Marshall)

For those of you who did not manage to get his book, James Gomez has written an online article that summarizes it. He has explained very well how is it that many Singaporeans are immediately disturbed whenever one of them try to discuss politics in a critical manner. I have experienced that for myself when I discuss such issues with my own friends so I can vouch for that. After watching the Matrix, I begin to classify Singaporeans into three categories.

Category One: The people living in the Matrix

The first category, which I think form the largest majority, is similar to the many people living in the Matrix. The majority of the Singaporeans, in my opinion, do not realize or have never found out the truth behind the PAP's control over their lives, the media and the law society. The actual events of the 1987 Marxist conspiracy and what happened to Francis Seow were also hidden from them. I think this probably categorize those people who cheered with such pride during National Day. In my opinion, I cannot imagine anyone feeling such pride for Singapore if they bother to research into these events.
For these category of Singaporeans, whenever they hear someone like Chee Soon Juan, whom I put as belonging to the third category of Singaporeans, telling them about the truth behind Singapore's Micropolis disaster or the Suzhou Industrial Park Fiasco, they may be thinking, "What is this ingrate saying? I am proud of Singapore and to me, the PAP is the only party capable of leading Singapore." At this point, Morpheus made an insightful remark about the Matrix:

Morpheus: (Talking to Keanu) Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.

Thus, for this majority group of Singaporeans, nobody can make them realize what is really going on in Singapore. Until they witness first-hand for themselves, they will reject any thesis that tells them they have been misled. Furthermore, they may not appreciate realizing the truth because once they do, they are very likely to move into the next category of Singaporeans, which I would describe below as a very disturbing phase. Keanu Reeves himself initially did not appreciate Morpheus trying to free his mind, Morpheus later remark to Keanu:
Morpheus: I feel that I owe you an apology. There is a rule that we do not free a mind once it reaches a certain age. It is dangerous. They have trouble letting go. Their mind turns against them.

How true that is for this category of Singaporeans! I will describe later in the end how I came to "free my mind".

Category Two: The blue pill (Ignorance is bliss)

Morpheus: (Talking to Keanu) You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and you believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.

In the above scene, the blue pill was offered to Keanu such that, when he takes it, he will return to the Matrix world and remembers nothing. Keanu, and apparently, all the other people of Morpheus's gang, chose the red pill to begin their battle against the Matrix.

The second category of Singaporeans, to me, are those who may have 'taken the red pill' and found out about all these events. They might have realize that, you cannot possibly be happy living in Singapore knowing all these information. Thus, they begin a process of trying to expel the knowledge from their mind. When I saw the character, Cypher, in the Matrix, it suddenly dawned upon me that he represents this particular category of Singaporeans. Let's take a closer look at his words:

Cypher: (Talking to Keanu) I know what you're thinking, because I've been thinking the same thing. Actually, I've been thinking it ever since I got here. Why oh why didn't I take the blue pill?

Later in the movie, Cypher was talking to those sentinel agents, planning to betray the rest. These are his words:

Cypher: (Talking to Agent Smith) I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, do you know what I realized? Ignorance is bliss.

Ignorance is bliss! "How true that is in context to the climate of fear in Singapore," I realized. Therefore, these Singaporeans are perhaps thinking to themselves, "Why must I know all these? Is it not easier to accept the PAP's rule and focus on making money and in raising up a happy family? Who cares about freedom of speech and transparency when we have safe streets in Singapore?"

Agent Smith: Then we have a deal?

Cypher: I don't want to remember nothing. Nothing! You understand? And I want to be rich. Someone important. Like an actor. You can do that, right?

From my own experience, I am aware that there are Singaporeans whom I speak to in typical 'coffee shop talk' who might have the same perspective as Cypher. It always amazes me that, whenever I bring up any social issue that attempts to question the way the PAP is running Singapore, I can clearly see that they are very uncomfortable. It is written all over their faces!
I used to wonder why are they always so quick to change the topic or so quick to contradict whatever I say with a display of blind faith in the authorities. After watching and hearing Cypher, I begin to realize that they are only rational in doing so. I believe that they are well aware of the real danger if they ever were to pause to seriously consider such issues, which I will describe below

To these Singaporeans, whenever anyone, Chee Soon Juan for example, tries to tell these Singaporeans the truth, it is immediately rejected, not because these Singaporeans do not believe it, but because they chose not to. These Singaporeans may have attended the many political meetings in NUS, where opposition members like J B Jeyaratnam and Chiam See Tong constantly urge them to take the lead to change the climate in Singapore. Although they realized what is going on, the vast majority would not bother entertaining such thoughts. They have learned from their own cognitive dissonance that such thoughts would only cause them perpetual discomfort.

Thus, if they continue to feed on such thoughts, they may eventually have to act on it. Examples were made out of Chee Soon Juan and Tang Liang Hong to illustrate to these people that acting on such thoughts are likely to result in huge losses for themselves and their families. Since they have made the choice to stay and make a home in Singapore, they do not want to remember anything else other than the apparent prosperity that they see around themselves.

These Singaporeans will not be seen in the National Day Parade cheering for Singapore, unlike those in the first category, because they still, in some sense, know what is going on. In my opinion, it is impossible to expel such knowledge completely; I have tried to do so myself without much success. There is a philosophical saying, Better Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. Better a man dissatisfied than a pig satisfied, that might be applied here.

These Singaporeans are what Catherine Lim described as those who possess a "Great Affective Divide" for Singapore. The term that was recently initiated by the PAP, 'cosmopolitans' could also apply to these people.

Category Three: The red pill

Now, this last category represents people like J B Jeyaratnam, Chee Soon Juan, Francis Seow and all the other exiles from Singapore. I could include Dr Toh Chin Chye in it as well. All of us are aware of the history of the first two and we clearly do not envy them. The supposed 'climate of fear' that exists in Singapore politics is a very scary force to change. Those who really want to change this climate, must be prepared to free himself from this fear and live with whatever consequences that might happen. Keanu Reeves himself have to overcome many of his own doubts about him being 'The One', even dying before being resurrected, before he can unleash his full potential. Too bad real life is not like a movie, or is it? :-)

My own testimony on how I taken the red pill

I ask myself, "Which category do I belong to?" I would say I am somewhere in between the second and the third one. I am clearly not someone willing to pay the price like Chee Soon Juan and yet I am clearly not contented to take the blue pill and forget everything.

I remember the period when I first took the red pill and found out for myself about this climate of fear. It was my first year in NUS. I attended this closed door Philosophy seminar where the topic was on the role of Philosophy in Singapore. I think Cherian George was also present in that seminar, somewhere in July 19XX. The discussion turned into an issue about whether the government is open to the idea of Singaporeans thinking for themselves. As a "newbie undergraduate", I tried to make a point then that Singaporeans have no freedom of speech and the government does not want us to contribute to policy making. I think it was Cherian George that later asked me, "If you think freedom of speech is so important, why didn't you parade with banners in Singapore urging for a change?" I remember replying, "Look what happen to Chee Soon Juan."

At that point of time, there was a combination of chuckling and some silence, but I did not know why. After the seminar, I met up with some of my friends who gave me a rather stern look and said something like, "Why did you say things like that? Didn't you know that S Vasoo was among the audience?" To be frank, at that time, I did not know who S Vasoo was. Later I found out that he was the PAP MP who sued Dr Chee Soon Juan in court in 1992-93.

And guessed what? I felt scared! I really did feel fearful. I went back home and started wondering, "Oh no! What have I done?" I begin to wonder whether my grades would be condemned from now on, whether my future will be ruined and so on. Looking back, I guess I was too fearful, for my situation now would not have been so if they really kept tabs on me. But the point is still that, for the first time in my life, I experienced for myself the climate of fear in Singapore. Ironically, I originally wanted to be a journalist in the Straits Times. After swallowing that 'red pill', I begin to research more into the history of the press in Singapore. It was then that I found out what happen to the Singapore Herald and the Far Eastern Economic Review. I guess I kissed that dream goodbye after that.

I also began researching into Singapore's history in 1987, not the official government version, but one told by Francis Seow in his book, To catch a Tartar. After finding out what really happened in the 1987 ISA arrests, I was shocked. I cannot believe that, during that time, I actually ran in front of the TV then whenever they started playing the patriotic songs, Count on Me Singapore and We are Singapore, to sing those songs with a great sense of pride. I guess if any of my friends tried to tell me then what really happened in that year, I would have rejected everything they say completely. Thus at this present moment, I can understand the reaction I get from my friends whenever I try to discuss about politics, after all, I was in their shoes before.

Conclusion

I love The Matrix so much for giving me the inspiration to come up with this article. If you were to ask me whether I regretted having taken the red pill, I would say, "No!" I always believe it is better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. But I understand that my fellow Singaporeans are only rational in remaining apathetic, because if you want to settle down and make Singapore your home, having these thoughts will be very harmful to your mind.

That is an important reason why I need to get out of Singapore, temporarily at least, for now. I am not willing to pretend it does not affect me. And I know that, the longer I remain here in Singapore, the more I will have to expel all these thoughts out of my mind. I would hate it if I one day have to put the cross on the lightning symbol of the PAP, during the elections if I get to vote, for 'fear' that my career would be affected if I did not do so; that is a real possibility if I were to settle down here. I do not want my kid to come up one day and ask me, "Daddy, why didn't you stop the PAP earlier from making Singapore to be a city of fear," because I will not know how to answer him.

I thank God that he has given me an opportunity to experience life in another culture. I want to find out for myself whether I am better off being a second class person in a racially discriminating society like in the US, or being a second class person in a politically discriminating society like Singapore (Of course, Singapore, in my opinion, also practice racism. It is just that I belong to the majority race so I have to look closely to feel it, you can read my viewpoints towards racism in Singapore here) I may not be able to fly like Keanu Reeves did in the last scene of the movie, but I am certainly looking forward to a different environment here.

A Letter to Tony Blair

2005-04-28T14:04:00.000+08:00

Received this in my mail several years ago...

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Dear Mr Blair,

Just a mere few weeks after you took office, Lee Kuan Yew came a-calling to offer his unsolicited advice in all unseemly haste. And, no doubt, also to wrangle an invitation to the Great Hongkong Handover. But that is really him. That man has made a calling of giving advice to all and sundry, considering himself an experienced statesman of world standing while you, in his eyes, are an untried, inexperienced beginner who doesn't have the benefit of his wisdom.

Also, he knows that you're young and all your adult and formative years have been spent in a post-Empire Britain in which the 'Great' has become a mere echo of greatness past. Also, you made the mistake, like Patten, of calling upon him to seek illumination, thereby reinforcing his patronising proclivities. So, in the tradition of Lee, here's some advice to you on how you can make Britain***a***'Singapore'.

My first piece of advice is "Never take any advice you have not paid good money for." That applies to my advice, of course. Free advice is not worth the money it's not paid for.

A further disclaimer. I know little of world, British or even Singapore affairs, not having the time nor interest nor presumption to make it a full time job to read all that stuff generated by academics, newspapers and diplomatic attaches. Unlike Lee, who has no other job at all, though he's the highest paid Minister in the land and probably the world, too. All he does nowadays (and for a long time, too, when he was Prime Minister), is to follow world affairs assiduously while dismissing Singapore's affairs as being too trivial to justify his attention.

Also, you get tired of running such a small country. Also, you run out of ideas, especially when you're not very creative to begin with and your only claim to success is, in truth, dumb luck, in being in the right place at the right time to catch the Asian tide of 'economic miracle' success. Like Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and lately, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines and Indonesia. Especially Hong Kong, which has done better than Singapore. All these countries do not have the dubious benefit of a Lee Kuan Yew at the helm. Yet they are doing well, most posting 6% or better GDP growth rates consistently, some even bettering Singapore, which has been declining of late.

The main reason why Lee is so highly regarded is that he has been around the longest unlike the case in all the other economic miracle countries, which have had numerous changes of Prime Ministers. Hong Kong, for instance, has had a dozen Governors during Lee's long reign. If it had had just one Governor presiding over its development, that Governor would today be hailed as a 'miracle worker' greater than Lee.

Of course, it helps that Lee also speaks the best English of all these Premiers, spicing his speeches and grand pronouncements with pithy quotes from Confucius to Samuel Huntington. He works at it, knowing that the Western media, which makes or breaks reputations, places great store on wit and grand speeches while actions, which are supposed to speak louder than words, are boring and difficult to document. That also explains Lee's reputation while the many nondescript now-forgotten PMs who masterminded the growth of the other miracle economies are now unremembered.

He has few original ideas. In a speech decades ago, he exhorted his Ministers "not to try to re-invent the wheel but to go to the developed countries where they have had similar problems, and copy the solutions". That has taken his administration very far, until now, when unique problems have begun to surface that have no parallel in the developed countries and hence, leave the 'best brains' of the country nonplussed. Many of the 'original' ideas they have tried to come up with have proven incredibly stupid, some even being the 'brainchild' of PAP Ministers with impressive Colombo Plan and Cambridge degrees.

So how do you make a 'Singapore' out of Great Britain?

To begin with, think small. Singapore has 3 million people in 225 square miles of land. There are more psychiatric patients in Britain alone than that. And as for area, some airports coming up in the region are bigger than this island. Case in point; it takes a mere 30 minutes to drive from North to South and 40 minutes from East to West, under normal traffic conditions.

That means you'd have to hive off most of Britain and govern over an area and population roughly the size of Greater London. Like a Lord Mayor of London except that you'd have all the taxation and law-making powers of the House of Commons. With only 2 Opposition MPs from the Conservatives to contend with. Suddenly, you begin to have an inkling of Singapore's unique circumstances. And its 'success'. There must be at least 50 cities -- and I don't mean countries -- in the world with people and land area bigger than Singapore's.

Next, you'd need 'political stability' to attract foreign investment to your 'city'. Much can be justified in the name of that hallowed concept, including a harsh definition of democracy. That is partly why Democracy in Singapore is such a pale version of the real thing, so pale it's like an Albino standing in stark contrast next to a group of normal people. An Albino Democracy, in short. Or God's grotesque mockery of human pretensions.

'Political stability' is accomplished through several inter-related measures, the first of which is to eliminate the Opposition. That means you must sack all Conservative members who are working in your Labour Government, including the Public Service, Universities, Government-linked Companies and even Private Corporations over which you have influence. One Opposition Leader, Dr Chee Soon Juan was thus summarily sacked from his University Lecturer post several years ago by his Department Head, who, no surprise, is none other than a Peoples' Action Party MP, Dr Vasoo.

(Note that Lee, who founded the PAP, one of the earliest political parties, never even thought of naming the party 'Democratic' or 'Independence', two very worthwhile goals in Colonial Singapore. His calling it "Action' indicates that his Party was formed to further his personal ambitions and not for the good of the people. What is 'Action'? Until now, nobody, not even Lee, can explain what it stands for).

Till today, Dr Chee cannot find himself a decent job befitting his PhD qualifications, so great and pervading is the PAP's influence. That is something you'd have to develop your stomach for, a kind of total viciousness and determination to utterly stamp out any Opposition, however minor. It is so easy to control the Universities here because there are only two. That means you'd also need to hive off all the other universities under your administration and 'concentrate' on just two.

Furthermore, to eliminate all Opposition, you'd have to successfully sue, even bankrupt and sack from Parliament any Opposition Leader who seems capable enough to be a threat to Labour's hegemony. This means you'd have to monitor every word spoken or written by William Hague and his team and successfully sue for slander and libel over even the most indirect and innocuous remarks and implications that you can twist to fit into an unboundedly wide net of catch-all legal definition of slander or libel -- with your own very sympathetic judges to interpret the law as you will.

Please note that you will never fully understand the legal climate here (or the political climate either) but you can begin by realising that there is no jury system in Singapore. The jury was abolished with hardly any debate or second thoughts long ago. The reason is simple. A jury composed of citizens picked at random only for the one-time purpose of hearing the evidence, deciding guilt and awarding punishment, is almost impossible to influence or intimidate. That is the genius of the jury system.

Lee recognised that, which is why he abolished the jury and created a system whereby only the judge in the case will rule. This judge, being in the employ of the Government, is like all employees of the Government in Singapore, extremely sensitive to coercion. When a judge knows that his next pay-cheque or promotion depends on his 'performance', it clarifies the mind wonderfully. Which suits Lee just fine as events have proved. It is a system you will have to adopt if Britain is to succeed a la Singapore.

This legal aberration explains what exactly happened to another Opposition Leader, former judge and senior member of the Bar, lawyer Mr J B Jeyaratnam. He has had to pay fortunes in damages, suffer the ignominy of being evicted from Parliament and the dubious distinction of having the PAP Parliament pass a law specifically tailored and backdated for him, to hound him from Parliament and public life. And when his period of disqualification was almost over, found that the PAP timed the General Election so that he would miss it and thus be unable to contest for another 5 years. One judge, a Daniel probably, though his real name is Michael Khoo, was demoted for being 'too lenient' in deciding one of the cases against Mr Jeyaratnam. He could only resign and is now a lawyer in private practice.

Another very senior member of the Bar, a lawyer, this time a former judge and ex-Solicitor-General no less, Francis Seow by name, who stood as an Opposition candidate in a General Election, found himself incarcerated without trial under the infamous Internal Security Act, suffering physical and mental abuse, which included ice-cold air-conditioning blasts of air without a stitch of clothing on, with cold water thrown over him repeatedly to increase the distress, forced to stand for days without respite, while facing unceasing 'interrogation' and verbal abuse.

They knew he had a heart condition so maybe it wasn't the worst they could do to him. He escaped later to write a book on it and is currently a Harvard Fellow in America, unable to even return, thanks to a very 'creative' use of the Inland Revenue Authority, which found him liable for 'tax evasion' (a common tactic used repeatedly against 'enemies of the Reich').
This IRA tactic was used last year against yet another Opposition Leader, Tang Liang Hong, a senior member of the Bar and a successful lawyer. (See the pattern?) He was accused by the PAP as an (variation on a theme) "anti-Christian Chinese Chauvinist" who would upset Singapore's 'political stability' and was sued when he tried to explain to the Election Rally crowd why he was not (with facts like, 'his own daughter being a Christian and that he spoke fluent Malay and had learned Indian Temple Dancing in his youth' so he could not be what Lee insisted he was).

The PAP leaders led by Lee in effect turned around and bit Tang viciously, saying that these self-defence statements of fact imply that the PAP men were lying in their accusation, thereby and therefore Tang was slandering them (see the pattern?) A quick few months later, with summary quick execution of 'justice' Singapore-style, Tang was ordered to pay $8 million in damages. The IRA also confiscated his law firm files 'for investigation' to disrupt his practice. He fled. To this day, he has become another exile.

Another exile, even earlier, is Tan Wah Piow, who had the temerity two decades ago, as President of the University of Singapore Students Union, to participate in a trade union strike. He found himself jailed for 6 months for 'rioting' even though he was nowhere near the office where he was supposed to have 'broken some chairs' -- but the word of the PAP MP, Phey Yew Kok, now a fugitive in Taiwan, carried the day. The judge chose to believe Phey. When sentence was passed, Tan Wah Piow congratulated the judge, Sinnathuray, on his "future promotion to the High Court". Prophetic words and very prescient, too.

Tan served the sentence and upon release, was immediately driven to an army camp for 'national service', during which blatant victimisation can happen. His family begged for a day of reunion, which was grudgingly granted, and he escaped to Britain without a passport where he was granted 'student status' by the government of the day. Today, he is a lawyer and a British national. All you have to do is to call him in for half an hour's chat and great illumination will befall you.

Meanwhile Phey had graduated from perjury to embezzlement and had escaped prosecution to live the good life in Taiwan with his ill-gotten fortune. Another corrupt PAP man, a Minister no less, Teh Cheang Wan, conveniently committed suicide with an overdose of sleeping pills to avoid a prolonged PAP scandal. Lee denies suggesting that Teh avoid a scandal thus but it seems to be a pattern to avoid scandals when PAP men are involved.

Another case of corruption 'quietly handled' was the Commandant of my national service Vigilante Corps. He was from the Peoples' Association, a PAP organisation. Nevertheless, he took the national servicemen's pay to gamble on the stock exchange. He was only asked to resign, his past loyalty counting for much. There was no publicity.

(Generally, cases of individual corruption do not harm the body politic. Corruption of the system do, as has happened in Singapore in which all major institutions are systemically 'corrupted' to keep the PAP in power and to reap the riches of the land, in the form of high Cabinet Salaries and even things like the building of a whole Junior College, staffed by hand-picked Teachers, for Lee's elder son, Loong, when he was in school. Lee treats Singapore like his personal fiefdom because he considers that that is his 'right' because he 'single-handedly' created modern Singapore).

Of course, a token few, very few, Opposition MPs are grudgingly allowed, to gloss over the harsh reality of politics in Singapore. These men are carefully analysed and judged to be no threat to the PAP -- indeed, some are an actual disservice to the Opposition cause -- and hence 'tolerated'. We in Singapore also have 'Nominated MPs', that is, MPs not voted in by the people but appointed by the PAP! Their objectivity, motivation and integrity are anybody's guess.
This use (or better, abuse) of the legal process has not escaped notice by the braver observers. One wrote about the "compliant judiciary" here -- an expatriate academic by the name of Christopher Lingle, in an international newspaper of standing, I forgot which -- probably the International Herald Tribune. He was also sued for libel and of course, successfully. All these mean that in order to emulate Singapore's 'success', you'd have to find a way to appoint your own man to be Chief Justice, who can then cast his long pall or judicial cloak over all the rest. In Singapore, this man is Yong Pung How, a classmate of Lee Kuan Yew (what a coincidence! But curiouser and curiouser is to come).

For example, when considering Singapore's unique circumstances, please note that there are no more than several hundred legal practitioners here in the employ or self-employ of less than 120 law firms (just flip through our Yellow Pages) chasing less than a billion dollars worth of business. This means that it's darn easy to monitor and control them. The PAP has men in all the large firms (and all the other professional bodies, too), numbering about 20, which know well which side of their Goh Chok Tong sandwich is buttered. So, if the firms want to contend for a piece of the billion dollar action, they know what they must do. Or, more often than not, what they must not do.

In any case, the largest law firm in the country is, surprise, surprise, Lee & Lee, the law firm of Lee Kuan Yew and his wife. Which so happens to employ Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong's wife as a lucrative 'partner'. Returning the 'favour', PM Goh chose Lee's eldest son, Brigadier-General Lee Hsien Loong, as Deputy Prime Minister and designated successor. The other illustrious son in the illustrious Lee Family is also, surprise, surprise, a Brigadier-General, Lee Hsien Yang. Apparently, Loong didn't take very 'loong' to make General and Yang became General at a very 'yang' age.

Loong's rocket-straight ascent to the PMship began when he was just a Colonel. During the Sentosa Cable Car mishap, in which several tourists and Singaporeans drowned when the cables snapped and their cable cars plunged into the sea, Lee seized the opportunity to place his son in the limelight by appointing him to be Commander of the rescue effort to save the remaining cars, with trapped passengers, still dangling on the cables. That Loong was inexperienced and certainly not the best man for the job was obvious to all.

There were higher-ranking officers with better qualifications, not to mention the other minor consideration of the lives of those at stake. But these were unimportant in the 'grooming' (of the public -- not Loong, who was long groomed from birth) of the next PM. The Government-controlled press (consisting of just one broadsheet daily in English, Mandarin and Malay; one afternoon tabloid in English; and an English Business broadsheet) dutifully splashed page after page of minute-by-minute interviews with Colonel Loong. So did the Government-controlled TV Station -- note the 'singular' -- there's only one. I'm surprised that the sycophantic TV Station hasn't produced a Serial on the Great Hero, Colonel Loong, who 'saved' several lives at the great sacrifice of his time and his well-appointed air-conditioned office, in the Sentosa Cable Car Saga.
The other son is also groomed as a kind of PM in reserve. Yang is now CEO of Singapore Telecom, one of the largest corporations here, and could make it to the Cabinet if he chose. Or if his father chose for him. Lee's two sons learned English, Mandarin and Malay from young so that they could become Ministers and Prime Ministers. Lee saw to the former and still sees to the latter.

All these mean you have much to learn and adopt. Your children must be 'groomed' to be Generals, CEOs and PMs. You must have a law firm of Blair & Blair that is the largest in the country, with a monopoly of the business, including Government business. And you must employ in your firm, the wife or wives of your successors so that, in time, when your children are ready, your successors will return the favour and make your children PMs.

Since your firm of Blair & Blair will be the biggest, most profitable (Lee commiserated once that his wife's earnings make him seem like a 'kept' man despite his $2.5 million annual salary) and most prestigious, it is only inevitable that many of the country's judges will come from it. In Singapore, one that we recently know about (many others we don't), is High Court Judge, Lai Kew Chai. He presided over Tang Liang Hong's case (surprise, surprise) and Tang's argument asking him to 'disqualify himself' was that Lai was a former long-time employee of Lee & Lee and so close to them that Lee, Loong and Lai had all three bought new, multi-million dollar condominiums all on the same day in the same development, near each other and had obtained unusual discounts from the developer, tycoon Ong Beng Seng, who knows Lee.

This but emphasises that there are financial benefits in knowing the right people -- meaning Lee, his family and the PAP. Case in point, even the Spouses get into the action. Ho Ching, current wife of Loong (the first wife committed suicide for giving birth to an Albino and couldn't face her husband and father-in-law who believed in superior genes and that PMs are descended from PMs, a belief which was discredited by the unfortunate birth) is CEO of Singapore Technologies and a prospective Minister.

Last year, she gave one of her cronies an overly-generous 'Bonus' of $1 million. Nobody dares ask why. From what little I know, Lee's kin occupy high positions. Kwa Soon Bee, for example (Lee's wife's brother), was for long, Permanent Secretary for Health and even in retirement, still wields considerable influence over the Ministry. Another kin that I heard of from colleagues in Batey Ads where I was once a junior copywriter was the powerful figure of a Patricia? Lee, sister or sister-in-law of Lee and a Director in the Singapore Tourist Promotion Board. She was not highly regarded by my colleagues for her brains but she nevertheless drew a high salary and occupied a powerful post. Coincidence? The natural consequence of a multi-talented family? Unbelievable? It gets curiouser and curiouser.

Time and time again, we are told that 'political stability' is the key to Singapore's success. But what does it really mean? We've seen that its central tenet is the ruthless elimination of all Opposition. Another dictum is control of the press. There is no free press in Singapore. Instead, the tiny number of publications allowed (others have been closed down long ago) enjoy monopolies so that they can concentrate on Government propaganda, working hand in glove with the PAP, instead of having to compete like Fleet Street papers for circulation. Instead of a multiplicity of voices which can sound confused and discordant, there is the co-ordinated chorus of a conducted choir led by a PAP Conductor.

This monopoly means that the Straits Times Group of newspapers is rich, which means it pays its people well -- Lee once boasted that the local press pays its people the highest salaries in the region -- which means that its staff have a lot to lose by being too outspoken or vocal on issues not to be commented on. In other words, the press people become slaves to their high salaries, knowing full well that they lose it all if they are denied promotions or are sacked like Dr Chee Soon Juan.

The viciousness of the PAP Government's 'all-out' co-ordinated campaigns against its critics like Dr Chee can be explained by the Chinese saying "Punish one to scare a hundred". One ex-columnist suffered the full penalty of her mildly critical piece and no doubt, a hundred others learned the lesson quickly and in no uncertain terms. She is Catherine Lim, one of the very few 'literati' in Singapore -- we produce less than a dozen works of novels, plays or poems a year, a veritable literary desert. Ireland, which has the same population as us, is a lot more creative -- something the Government recognises Singaporeans are not.

Catherine used to have a column in The Straits Times until one 'slightly critical' piece offended the PAP. (She was never a political commentator -- just a 'social commentator'). The Government jumped on her with the full force of its awesome machinery. Her column was stopped. Thereafter, her new books were rejected by the Group's publishing company and BookShop chain.

Being in a position to deal with news, local journalists are also sensitive to all the undercurrents of political life and know precisely what is allowed and what is not. In any case, the Straits Times Group has a PAP ex-Minister as Chairman and PAP members across the whole rank and file.
There has never been a tradition of press freedom. That tenuous tendril of life had long been stamped out under the jackboot heel of Lee; and business and making profits replaced it. That is precisely why the late David Marshall, first Prime Minister of Singapore, eminent lawyer and former Singapore Ambassador to France, called The Straits Times "poor prostitutes of the PAP". He was wrong only about the "poor" part.

If anything could be, the TV Station is even worse. It is even more under the constraints of PAP men and women in its rank and file. Like the press, the Station has an atmosphere of cloak and dagger secrecy and national purpose like MI5 and MI6. All the media in Singapore operate under conditions like that of a Secret Service, in which job applicants are thoroughly vetted before they are hired, carefully monitored at work and in private life, subject to the control of PAP bosses and having to hew to the PAP line in every piece of job they do. They'd better if they know what is good for them.

When I was a junior sub-editor in The Straits Times, (the job lasted just 3 months but the consequences, a lifetime), my boss was Chief Sub, Roger Yu. Leslie Fong was an Editor. One night, Leslie came over to Roger and casually told him that he had a call "from Upstairs, not to overplay or underplay" the visit of a China Delegation (that was end 1975 or beginning 1976). Yu instantly knew what to do. This is all very normal and not worth commenting in the workings of the local media. Another time, we were sitting around when someone ventured that the Business Times (the Business broadsheet then in its early years) might have to close because of poor reception). Someone, Editor Seah Chiang Nee, I think, obviously much better informed than us, retorted that "the Government would never let it go". The reason? The Government was trying to make Singapore a financial centre and no financial centre worth its name was without a 'business paper'. Which was why most of the business news then carried in The Straits Times was 'moved' to the Business Times to fill its pages.

This 'all together now, let's work together with the PAP' is, I must stress, the unthinking norm although it's so very different from Fleet Street that you'd probably never understand its extent. However, to be less charitable, one could accurately describe the local media as long-time prostitutes in a large brothel who have gotten so used to their way of life that they do not even think that what they are doing is anything unusual or out of the ordinary. This 'innocence' (the 'innocence' of prostitutes) largely pervades all the important institutions, corporations and public life over the entire 225 square mile island.

Since freedom of the press is one of the major underpinnings of Democracy, it is important to note that you will have to systematically stifle the high journalistic standards of Fleet Street. Let me explain. In Singapore, journalism is not a calling but a well-paid job. So there is no Woodward and Bernstein determination, dedication and deviousness to unearth official wrongdoing. Fleet Street works with the Government some of the time, but always with a wary and critical eye to maintain its jealously-guarded independence. The local media works with the Government, period.

This means an uncritical, apologetic, cringing and fawning posture towards officialdom. In practice, local journalism is nothing but minor editing of newswire reports for overseas news and palming off of Government press releases as local news. This is much easier and more profitable than hard legwork and research. Even now, if you would pick up a copy, you'd see that The Straits Times devotes 70% of its pages to overseas news. Is it because readers are so desirous of being well-informed on international matters? The answer is no. Most simply scan the headlines and move on. So how do we explain the preponderance of foreign news?

The answer is simple. Lacking the tradition of Fleet Street, and fearing to dig too deeply or even commenting on local issues lest it treads on some Minister's toes, the local media plays it safe by turning all its attention to news abroad. This is accomplished simply by printing what comes from Reuters, AP, AFP and other news agencies. Easy job. Even easier money. The thick pages of The Straits Times thus filled, for example, offers advertisers many pages to spend their money. A real cash cow. All the newspapers published by the Group suffer from this 'cash cow disease'.

Of course, to (unsuccessfully) put a 'local spin' on things, there is a futile effort to re-write the newswire reports by combining them, so a news item may attribute the source as "Reuters, AFP & AP". This allows a little room for re-writing. About 5 years ago, the local media started sending staff overseas so that it could byline its reports "From our Bangkok Correspondent", etc. But a closer reading of the following news story would show that it's probably obtained from the major news agencies, so easy it is in the world of the Internet and so difficult it is to really obtain the news first-hand and be able to seize and report its significance, given the limited resources.

This leads to the amusing spectacle of the Leaders in the Editorial Page always commenting on events abroad while turning a blind eye and a closed mouth to events at home. As for home news, it's basically Government press releases, add a dash of interviews with an official, throw in a pinch of comments from the public and off to the presses.

This re-writing is practised across most of the local publications. It is simply too much work and manpower-intensive to create original columns of stories. One issue of "Her World" Magazine went on and on about how to meet men at parties. This is strange. I must explain. In other countries, women do meet men at parties but not in Singapore. This is due to another unique peculiarity of the local condition. About 85% of Singaporeans live in Government flats.
These are affordable housing but occupants must meet tough conditions. They must be a family of at least two, i.e. a married couple. This means that within the average 900 square feet flat, you'd usually find Parents and Siblings to spoil your party. What with the cramped conditions, neighbours 'not only next-door but next-wall -- just 5 inches away on the other side' and relatives around, no party would be successful.

Private flats for bachelors are prohibitively expensive and the few community halls are no fun besides being difficult to rent. So why did the magazine write about parties as though it were commonplace? Aha. That article and practically all others like it are the result of Re-Writing, probably from "Cosmopolitan", which is banned in Singapore. The same thing with computer supplements. These 'borrow' heavily from established international magazines like PC Magazine or Internet resources. Although we seem to have many of the institutions of developed cities, there is no real 'depth' in all of them.

The realities of women not being able to meet men is vividly revealed in the creation and functioning of the Social Development Unit. This organisation exists to match-make graduate women with graduate men in subsidised junkets (although the majority of taxpayers are non-grads), Lee having decided that brains are inheritable and Prime Ministerial quality inherited. (A belief that led him and his son Loong to perjure themselves in court that Loong's Generalship and Deputy PMship owed nothing to Lee's influence -- the two men didn't have to lie in court but they wanted to "for the record" -- this is another example of the 'innocence of prostitutes' syndrome. In other words, Lee and son 'honestly' believed themselves. This can be explained by psychologists. When you've been in power so long, hearing only what you want to hear, with everyone deferring to you, scraping and bowing, you begin to develop a sense of self that is at odds with reality or how others see you. Lee and Loong really, really possess the self-deception and self-delusion that allowed them to perjure in court without the slightest sense of wrongdoing).

The peculiarity of cramped, high-rise living also explains Singapore's 'low crime rate'. This is more apparent than real. For criminals to flourish, there must be the cover of darkness, hideouts, 'safe houses' and places to congregate. In Singapore, there is none. With the entire 225 square miles almost completely filled with high-rise flats all lit at night, and the standard flat housing at least 3 to 4 family members, there simply aren't places for criminals to meet and plan. The default meeting place for these low-life scum is the neighbourhood coffee-shop, which is well-monitored by the secret police, who look, act and behave like the scum they monitor.
Also, every block of flats has at least one policeman family and/or CID family plus several national servicemen families thanks to a 'priority scheme' for these applicants. There are also some 'Block Representatives' who are the grassroots organisation who watch what goes on around the neighbourhood and relay or help to enforce the Government's latest campaigns. This means that the 85% of the population living in flats are under the watchful eyes of at least some of their neighbours. Because your people do not live in uniform blocks like us, with the same neighbourhood shops and amenities, living the same humdrum lives, you cannot duplicate this part of our social organisation. The actual coercive pressure may not be apparent but it contributes to a cowed and intimidated population.

Can you duplicate Singapore? When you began reading this letter, you probably harboured an admiration for Lee and a desire to emulate his 'success'. These feelings probably began vaporising paragraph by paragraph as the realisation began to sink in that Singapore and Lee are not what they seem. But read on. There's much more.

For example, to succeed like Lee, you'd have to develop Lee's deviousness. It is instructive to see how Lee paved the way for his son Loong by removing the Deputy PMs. His long-time Deputy PM was Goh Keng Swee. Then Lee 'persuaded' him to 'retire' and go to China as 'economic adviser'. After rotting there for years, accomplishing nothing because the Singapore Model is not duplicable, he came back to find himself effectively sidelined. Another Deputy PM was 'persuaded' to run for President. Despite running against a nobody who didn't want to be President and protested publicly as much, Ong Teng Cheong is now President by a slim 51% to 49% majority. When there is no 'Government Flats Upgrading' at stake, as in last year's General Election in which this 'bribe' to the people was the major issue, the people vote with their hearts and the PAP was lucky to get the 51%.

The success of the PAP also owes itself to a kind of low cunning in that every institution is consistently 'warped' to serve PAP interests. Take National Service, for example. In Singapore, males who reach 18 serve national service for 2 to 2.5 years. They then go into the Reserve where they are still liable for about a month's Reservist training a year plus occasional Call-Ups during which they have to report at a few hours' notice. They are not free from 'official reporting and duties' until they are in their forties.

So far, this may not seem much different from the Israeli model on which it is based. But the effect of national service on the males, their wives and families, is that they'd better toe the line because at any time from 18 till their forties, their lives can be made difficult by a higher officer, who can interrupt their private or working life by a summary order to report for some duty. And that officer has to report to an even higher officer, who could do the same. And it ends up high in the chain of command right at the Deputy PM, Brigadier-General Loong. Now you know why Lee's 2 sons are Generals. The only military coup possible in Singapore will not be one that overthrows the Lees but one that the Lees stage in the event of an Election upset. Everything has been planned and pre-ordained.

If control of the military is important and resides in Lee's 2 sons, control of the 2 Universities is equally important. Here, you need to realise that higher education is not like in Britain, a birthright enjoyed by citizens as a natural fulfilment of their lives and intellectual potential. Education has to serve the State, and the State is Lee and his heirs. Disciplines pursued meet national requirements, hence the emphasis on Science and Technology.

For a long time, language studies were de-emphasised by the Lees until they realised that the average Science and Technology graduate could not think and, with the dawning realisation that language is the basis of thought, the wheel came full circle and language studies were re-instated. But in one respect, the system is still flawed. Most schoolchildren have to learn two languages (some even learned a third dialect when young). This produced several cohorts of minimally bi-lingual students but with very few excelling in any language. This must have a deleterious effect on the brain-power of the present and coming generations who are not good in any language.

This serves to show that whatever (dangerous) notions emanate from the Lees become public policy without debate (currently, Loong is sounding off on the teaching of history, with the total confidence of a man who doesn't know what he is talking about), a state of affairs you do not and cannot enjoy. It is but one example of how total (as in 'totalitarian') the Lees' control is and how subservient the rest of the Government and people are -- something the British people are certainly not.

Another dangerous notion is Malaysia. Lee Kuan Yew never forgot how he was thwarted in his ambition to become PM of Malaysia, a desire that resulted in the eviction of Singapore. So Lee went on to institute National Service and to build up probably the most formidable Armed Forces in the region. The 2 natural enemies are, of course, the neighbours, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Indonesia is the greater threat because it is so much bigger and its Government and political system inherently 'unstable'. Not to mention that during President Sukarno's era, he had waged an armed conflict against Singapore, then in Malaysia. But the build-up of the armed forces is targeted against Malaysia, which does not have an elaborate armed forces. This anti-Malaysia bias infects the whole armed forces through 'political studies'. Indonesia is not targeted as a dangerous enemy. Malaysia is.

National Service per se is OK. Building up a strong defence is OK. But when it allows the leaders (meaning the Lee-ders) the luxury of military adventurism, it is dangerous. For example, Lee has been stationing a strong, well-equipped contingent of troops in Brunei to defend it against Malaysia, which surrounds this small Kingdom. It is, by any context, laughable for a 3 million people state to play US-style geopolitical games but the Lee bias against Malaysia blinds him to reality.

It is also dangerous to overestimate the power of the Singapore armed forces because the Generals are untried and the ranks inexperienced -- intensive training notwithstanding. (No soldier or General in our history has ever fired at a target that could fire back).
The vagaries of a real war are also unpredictable, especially in an offensive drive against Malaysia. But the paper strength (as in 'paper tiger') of the Singapore armed forces has led the leaders to continually take a belligerent stance against its neighbour instead of diplomacy, in a Cabinet of hawks, currently with 2 Generals and an Admiral. The entire Civil Service is also full of Colonels, Majors, Captains, etc. This makes Singapore even more militaristic than Israel, its military model.

By no coincidence, national service and university education come together in the case of male undergraduates, which by now you know also involves intimately, their girlfriends, families, etc. Under the Lee administration, the target of its policies (or spite) is scatter-shot at the target's family as well. The whole family is implicated. Innocent women and children are as much victims as the target.

How are the male undergrads controlled? Firstly, they would have served national service before they even applied for a university course. After 2 years in the army, they are very receptive to control. They have a Pavlovian tendency to snap to attention and shout "Yes, Sir," the instant they smell an Officer around. To reinforce the conditioning, they also have to obtain a 'Certificate of Suitability' meaning (political) suitability, to enrol. Although few are turned away, this none too subtle reminder of the Lees' power successfully keeps all the students cowed. In Britain, if you even so much as suggest this Scheme in Parliament, you'd face an outcry that could drop you 10 points in the popularity polls overnight. (There has never been an on-going 'Satisfaction with the Government' poll here because it would expose the Government's unpopularity).

Further control is established through the fear of future inability to find good jobs. Every undergrad knows that a university education is not pursued for its own sake but as a means to a good job which then opens the door to a good life. In short, if they misbehave (slim chance given the climate and natural, cowardly reluctance to take on the authorities like Tan Wah Piow did) or do not obey their orders, they may not get good jobs with the Government, Government-linked companies or even private companies over which the PAP has influence (many PAP men sit in the management of large private corporations, of which there aren't many). Could you institute this climate of fear in Britain? If you cannot, you cannot even begin to duplicate Lee's success.

Since Tan Wah Piow was mentioned, perhaps it is fitting to relate how much things have changed since his participation in the union strike. There has hardly been any strike since Tan. In the last 2 decades, there hasn't been a single strike -- this says much about the labour movement here. This is part of the hallowed concept of 'political stability' and an important proviso in attracting foreign investment. Your Labour Government rose to power partly through your Labour franchise. But in Singapore, the unions are under an umbrella body called the National Trades Union Congress. And the top man is always a PAP Minister. The last one, Ong Teng Cheong became (narrowly) State President. Which affirms (rightly) that he was a featherweight whose only job was to control the Union Body. A better man would have become a real Deputy PM and thus bad for Loong's intended succession to the PMship.

Not only is the NTUC PAP-controlled, it hardly busies itself with the non-existent labour movement. Instead, it has become a big employer engaging in big business (Insurance, Supermarket Chain, Taxi Fleet Operations, Holiday Resorts, etc) with tens of thousands of employees. It no longer 'fights' for employees but stands right on the side of the PAP Government. This effectively pre-empts any Labour Party in Singapore.

In your emerald isles, you have a hallowed Constitution, in part written, in part powerful, unalterable tradition that the people, press and other institutions will never allow infringement of. But in Singapore, there is no Constitution. This was the astonishing conclusion of the Vice-Dean of the Law Faculty of the National University of Singapore, Walter Woon, in an uncharacteristically unguarded moment.

He came to this sorry conclusion because of the many instances in which the Constitution was 'amended' to further entrench PAP rule. Here, I must explain. For the last 25 years, the PAP has had much more than a two-thirds majority in Parliament (ever since the Opposition Barisan Socialis abandoned Parliamentary struggle for protests outside of it) and it fights tenaciously to keep it that way. This means that amending the Constitution is as easy and 'uncontroversial' as passing a No-Littering Bill and evokes just about as much notice from the Press and the People. Enviable? It's only one of the many, many ways in which the Lee System of Democracy differs from yours.

One example of this playing fast and loose with the Constitution is the Group Representation Constituency scheme. When outside observers with not very keen observation powers see that the PAP has such a vast majority in Parliament, they naturally conclude that the people are solidly behind the Government. That is precisely what the Government and its minion media want to project. The truth is, nothing can be further from the truth. The GRC Scheme is responsible for much of the lopsided PAP representation in Parliament. It works like this.
Suppose you won your constituency with an overwhelming majority but many of your Labour MPs barely survive their polls. You then change the Constitution to create at will, GRCs. This is done by carefully studying the voting patterns and ongoing polls. You then create a GRC by 'merging' your constituency with that of, say, 9 others to form a huge constituency of 10 members including yourself.

This way, 'strong' Labour wards can 'piggyback' weaker ones so that when the electorate votes a strong Labour candidate in, they vote the other 9 candidates in as well. Thus, you and all your top Ministers can be the 'anchors' to 'piggyback' many others into office for a huge Labour win in any General Election.

Is the GRC unconstitutional? Firstly, remember that there is no constitution (to quote Walter Woon). Secondly, there is no framework for the guarantee of civil liberties. Thirdly, we do not have the democratic practice of always offering the people the right to vote in an alternative, viable party as Government. You had a Westminster Office even in Opposition. The symbolism of that Office is that you were a potential Prime Minister waiting for the people's call. Here, Opposition Leaders cannot even scrounge together enough funds for a small Party Headquarters to meet.

The poverty of our political life is largely due to the poverty of our Opposition, who not only have to work hard full-time for a living, but also do not enjoy the generous cash donations given to the PAP party, which has a huge war-chest that sustains full-time party workers and facilities.

There might have been a proper Constitution had Lee adopted the one crafted by an eminent British legal expert and one of the finest legal minds in the world. What happened was, Lee commissioned him to draft a Constitution. When it was done, Lee read it and threw it away, dismissing it as 'too liberal', explaining that the learned expert 'did not understand our unique circumstances'. Meaning that Singaporeans 'naturally prefer good or strong government rather than democracy'. And that, 'like an old shoe', the old Constitution 'was more comfortable than a new one'.

It is sad that the constitutionality of the GRC Scheme was never challenged in court. There is probably a case to be made. At least, it would have served to highlight the inherent unfairness of the scheme. But such is the climate of jurisprudence here that the all-too-often aforeseen verdict discourages even the most obstinate Opposition. They also don't have the money. The Courts here have never challenged the Government on any issue in the long reign of Lee. They are not likely to.

Another peculiarity of our 'unique circumstances': Every General Election sees the standard bogeys trotted out to frighten the electorate. These are usually described melodramatically (like the TV Station's usual 'cheap and nasty' melodramas, notorious for their lack of action -- no effects, car chases, explosions, stunts, gunfights or even fisticuffs) by the PAP themselves, as "the twin evils of communism and communalism".

As for Communism, in the early history of our Republic (independent only since 1965), Lee had jailed Opposition Leaders without trial under the infamous Internal Security Act, claiming they were 'communists' or 'pro-communists'. But with communism, especially Chinese Communism, mellowing into 'Socialist Capitalism', this bogey could no longer justify detention or the kind of all-out, utterly vindictive, demolition campaigns the PAP invariably mount against opponents (none of your measured speeches in Commons debates). It was never a gentlemanly disputation on how best the country should proceed but more like a thug wielding a baseball bat at a victim (Lee once admitted that he was astonished how like a thug he looked on TV when television was first introduced).

So, in the case of Tang Liang Hong last year, the other bogey was used -- Communalism. Hence the PAP charge of "anti-Christian Chinese Chauvinist" and that "Tang is a dangerous man who can undermine racial harmony", which, of course, implies that even the most vicious PAP response is totally justified.

That General Election was also notable for another development. The issue of 'upgrading' of Government flats. With everyone, except the very rich, living in flats, this was a major Bribe and Threat (simultaneously) that no one could ignore. The PAP promised that precincts which voted PAP would be 'upgraded' while those which did not will see their flats and neighbourhoods degenerate into slums, drop in market value, unable to obtain funds and even important services (like Emergency Lift Rescues), all of which would have to be supplied by the Opposition MPs the people are foolish enough to vote in.

As for the Bribe part, it was dishonest of the PAP to promise what it could not possibly deliver. And stupid on the part of the voters who thought it could. This is because it took 30 years at a frenetic pace to build all the flats that now house 85% of the people and there simply isn't enough money (even if all the Reserves are used) to remodel the old flats into bigger new ones with better amenities, as promised. It is also a mind-boggling exercise to move out sections of the population at a time so that their flats can be remodelled, even assuming there is somewhere they can live during the two years that will be needed.

And as for the Threat, it was typical PAP 'victimisation'. For some years now, the handful of Opposition MPs have had to struggle with the limited budgets for their little townships' maintenance (limited on a headcount basis) while PAP MPs could obtain additional funds from the Government -- even though the additional funds come from all the taxpayers, including those living in Opposition townships.

Sadly, this two-pronged approach of carrot and stick worked, reducing the pitiful handful of Opposition MPs to just two. The people, who proved so susceptible to the carrot and stick are, of course, donkeys. If the results are repeated in the next GE, then they must be asses. (That is another advantage the PAP has which you do not, i.e. having unthinking asses as voters).

Upgrading is, no doubt, important, because it enhances the flats' value and selling price. So voters were voting directly for their pocketbooks, cynically so. Which means that any PAP claim that the voters 'chose' them over the Opposition cannot wash. To date, only a very few precincts are 'upgraded' as promised. The others which show some signs of 'upgrading' merely have had their lift lobbies re-tiled, or some such little improvement.

You can certainly learn much from the PAP's Upgrading Bribe/Threat. With your present overwhelming dominance of the House, you are indeed in a good position to implement the PAP One-Party Rule.

If this has been a long letter, far longer than intended at the outset, it's because there was simply so much to tell and it cannot close without mentioning the Central Provident Fund scheme in which you were interested enough to come to Singapore to learn about.

That the CPF scheme has been 'successful' here so far is entirely because of several reasons which militates against your implementing it in Britain. What are they?

Firstly, it is a 'good' scheme only if you've no other scheme to begin with. If you already have a comprehensive National Health Service and Unemployment Benefits, replacing these with a "Pay Everything Yourself' Compulsory Saving Scheme like the CPF is a retrograde step. And one that the Conservatives will have a field day picking out the drawbacks.

This CPF 'Pay Everything Yourself' scheme pre-supposes one critical condition -- that there will be full employment to start with and full employment in the next 10-15 years of implementation. If you cannot achieve that, you cannot adopt the CPF scheme. This is because the scheme is based on forced contributions from salary. Meaning that if you've no salary, you drop out of the scheme and its intended benefits. With your unemployment rate hovering about 6%?, this means that 6% of your labour force or several millions will be unable to contribute any forced savings.

It will also fail if you ever have a prolonged recession that throws millions out of work. That it hasn't happened yet in Singapore does not mean it never will. Also, creeping or recession-inflicted 'sudden' unemployment will hit our CPF scheme less than it will hit you. The reason is, most households in Singapore are double-income. Both husband and wife work, contributing to their CPF which pay for their house, while maids or grandparents look after the children. When one is out of work, the other can continue the house instalments.

Then, too, the Scheme has been around for decades, so most Contributors have enough savings. If you're just starting out, at a few percent, you do not enjoy this luxury. There is also the question of social justice. Every civilised society has tried to tax from the rich to give to the poor, the basis of your Robin Hood legend. The CPF scheme is the opposite, 'every man for himself', in that you look after yourself because nobody will. What kind of statement about a society's values this says, will be interesting comment from your philosophers.

There is another insidious effect of the CPF. By forcing so many percent of the peoples' salaries into the CPF, then allowing their CPF money for housing, people tend to buy better housing than they can actually afford if they have to pay in cash. This may be good for property developers and the Government housing authority but it means that CPF distorts spending. People, knowing they cannot touch their money until the age of 55, use much of their CPF money for housing while using their cash savings for cars. There is also the 'pyramid' effect. As long as there is full employment, as long as people contribute to their CPF, everything is fine. But once there is unemployment, the 'pyramid' collapses.

Anecdotal evidence: My father's tiny 2-bedroomed flat cost just $7,800 in 1969. He sold it in 1995, 26 years later, for $100,000. My present 3-bedroomed flat cost $89,000 in 1985. Today, 12 years later, it is worth $450,000. This, despite the official inflation figure of about 3% a year. Thus, the CPF scheme leads to two effects. One, people buy bigger houses, thereby spiralling up property prices. Two, they spend all their spare cash on the other desirable, a car. This is why car ownership here is the costliest in the world and leads the Government to impose bigger and bigger car taxes, to no avail.

Thus, the net effect of the CPF is that money is diverted into housing and cars, leaving the retail, insurance and other sectors poorer and less dynamic than they could be. If you have a developed insurance industry, for instance, it will weaken because the CPF will force contributions into health care and retirement savings, reducing the need for private insurance. Your retail sector will also suffer because CPF will reduce discretionary spending there.
How does the CPF scheme really work in practice as against theory?

Firstly, everyone must work. If you've no salary, you don't have CPF contributions to make. Since the contributions are compulsory and their use controlled, it is as if you pass legislation on how a large part of every worker's take-home salary and savings may be spent i.e. a certain part on housing, others on health insurance and even some on certain 'approved' shares. I think you have many economists who will tell you that 'forced and controlled' expenditure is bad.

Then again, unemployment must be measured not only in percentage terms but also in absolute terms. Remember that Singapore's total labour force is only 1.6 million people. Your unemployed alone is several times that. This means that you have several millions who will not contribute to CPF and hence cannot enjoy its benefits. This several millions will not only have no salary to live on but cannot pay for housing or medicine. This can be a huge social problem that your present system addresses well enough.

Also, if they have a job then lose it, the blow will be harder because they will not only have no CPF but also no cash to pay in lieu, a Double Jeopardy situation. Your present Unemployment Benefits are a lot more humane in that it allows that unemployment is not necessarily the fault of the person unemployed, which is the underlying basis of the Singapore system and explains why the Social Welfare pittance for the destitute person is set, punitively, at just $180 a month -- if you can qualify under the harsh conditions.

(Just as the notoriously severe laws on everything from spitting to drug use is indicative of the Paragons of Virtues' inability to understand anyone different from themselves, which has led to their pitiful attempts to legislate human behaviour into unthinking, robotic versions of what they imagine human beings should be).

This letter must come to an end eventually and this is as good a place as any. So, to conclude, I hope you will analyse the CPF scheme and the social and political context in which it can be successful and not just be swayed by the PAP's bragging. But before I end this missive, a disclaimer. This letter is born not out of research or the grapevine of privileged connections. It is entirely the result of what has been reported in the papers but interpreted between the lines, through a jaundiced eye, if you will. In the future, some academic will produce a scholarly tome on the evils of the Lee system and it will be a damning indictment of the PAP. Until then, this letter must serve as a mere introduction.

Yours sincerely,

Anthony Lim (pseudonym)

Born Out of Exasperation

2005-04-27T10:51:00.000+08:00

The creation of this blog was motivated by frustration and disappointment.

The tip of the ice berg was when the story broke that A*Star threatened legal action towards AcidFlask, a PSC scholar who broke his bond and who had the audacity to air dirty laundry of the officialdom in the Singapore blogosphere.

Too long have we lived under an high-handed regime which treats its citizens like kids, digits, and peons.

A system which and snuffs out political opposition ruthlessly; which numbs its citizens with propaganda and curtailed alternative perspectives; which explains its actions with excuses dressed as pragmatic justifications; where certain groups of people accrued a dispproportionate amount of power and wealth.

It is sickening to see objective, rational and critical alternative views being curtailed because of direct high-handed intervention or coerced self-censorship. It is sickening to see history being whitewashed and written as HIS story. It is sickening to see the restricted availability of information for my fellow citizens. It is sickening to adhere to the rules of the critical dialogue discourse, using tact and subtle language, for fear of incurring the wrath of the Powers to Be. It is sickening to see and live in the carefully constructed environment that breeds ignorance and apathy.

It's increasingly hard to believe that the official stance of "opening" up was sincere. For too long, their actions simply do not match their words. The preaching of responsibility in free speech, insistence of identity disclosure when making critical comments, are but means of control and ensnarement. Indeed, the administrator of New Sintercom was wise and prudent in his decision to remain anonymous.

Contrary to the tone above, this is not a Singapore-bashing blog. This is merely a place where alternative opinions and resources on the history, current affairs and politics concerning the little red dot will be posted.

This blog will strive to maintain a high level of factual and historical accuracy where events and facts are concerned, but opinions will not be censored. You will find mostly critical and controversial pieces here. However, it is not the agenda of this blog to spread dissent and partisanship. Singaporeans are already seeing through rose-tinted glasses from the biased media every single day. Hopefully, the materials on this blog will provide a pair of jaundiced lenses for a more neutralized and balanced vision.