At the Ong Teng Cheong Labour Leadership Institute’s graduation ceremony today (16 Nov), Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office Grace Fu, who was the guest-of-honour, told the audience that while the labour movement addresses the needs of the workers, there are some pitfalls that Singapore should avoid.

She then shared 2 examples from her recent visits to Sweden and Japan this year.

She said while Sweden has one the world’s most comprehensive collective agreements on remuneration, leave, working hours and pension scheme, including minimum wage, these benefits have led to a high cost of employment, loss of competitiveness of the companies and youth unemployment.

Sweden has one of the highest ratios of youth unemployment in Europe.

In Japan, despite the government’s support to bring foreign nurses to work in Japan to address the ageing population, the union resisted this, fearing that the workers’ pay will be affected.

As a result, the quality of healthcare has dropped in Japan, with long waiting lines in clinics and poor emergency health care.

In other words, she is implying that Singapore should carry on with its current pro-business policies of having lesser comprehensive protections for Singaporean workers and continual importing cheap foreign labour into the country.

In her example of poor quality of healthcare in Japan, a McKinsey study [Link] showed that it did not have anything to do with not importing cheap foreign nurses into Japan.

McKinsey said in the study:

Underlying the challenges facing Japan are several unique features of its health care system, which provides universal coverage through a network of more than 4,000 public and private payers. All residents must have health insurance, which covers a wide array of services, including many that most other health systems don’t (for example, some treatments, such as medicines for colds, that are not medically necessary).

The system imposes virtually no controls over access to treatment. There is no gatekeeper: patients are free to consult any provider—primary care or specialist—at any time, without proof of medical necessity and with full insurance coverage. Similarly, Japan places few controls over the supply of care. Physicians may practice wherever they choose, in any area of medicine, and are reimbursed on a fee-for-service basis. There is also no central control over the country’s hospitals, which are mostly privately owned.

These characteristics are important reasons for Japan’s difficulty in funding its system, keeping supply and demand in check, and providing quality care.

Hence, Ms Fu shouldn’t just jump into conclusion that poor quality of healthcare in Japan is due to the disbarment of foreign nurses to work in Japan.

TR Emeritus

*Article first appeared on www.TREmeritus.com

In most democratic countries, political parties are differentiated by their ideologies.   They are given labels like left wing, right wing, socialist, liberal, conservative etc. However, these  are not always accurate. The best way to understand a party’s true ideology is to look at the positions it takes on specific issues, particularly contentious ones where there is a genuine diversity of views.

In Singapore, things are rather different. The PAP forms the government and its decisions therefore reflect its position on issues.   So what is the ideology of the main opposition party, the Workers’ Party?  What is its position on tough issues? The record is clear – it sits on the fence.

It was for this reason that I found the debate on the Ashley Madison issue interesting.  Most will agree that it is an obnoxious website.  But blocking it raises questions of free speech and the role of the Government in regulating morality.  Opposition parties are constantly attacking the Government on such issues. So I was curious to know what the WP would say. They kept true to form. See for yourself:

First, this is Denise Phua’s question in Parliament:

Ms Denise Phua Lay Peng: To ask the Minister for Communications and Information if the Ministry will block the Ashley Madison website or other online services of the same nature which target persons already in relationships and openly glorify and promote infidelity including extramarital affairs.

It is clear where she stands – she wants the site blocked. Now, this is Pritam Singh’s question:

Mr Pritam Singh: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Development in light of the community reaction to the Ashley Madison website in Singapore, what is the Government's approach in dealing with societal agents and forces that harm the institution of marriage.

Can you make out WP’s position? Neither can I. Was this obfuscation deliberate?   Undoubtedly.  Why not make its position clear? Because the WP knows that either position it takes would put it at odds with one group of Singaporeans or another. So the safest thing to do is to sound like you are saying something without actually saying anything.  

Is this an exception?   Actually, it is the rule. On almost every contentious issue, where taking a position risks loss of support, the WP has either sat on the fence or has heavily qualified its position, while giving the impression that it has seriously considered the matter.

In the recent Bill to renew the Criminal Law (Temporary Provisions) Act and the power to detain without trial, Ms Sylvia Lim in her speech did not take a position, but when asked directly by Minister Iswaran, said that she supported its renewal “with a heavy heart”.   

On the current Hijab debate, the WP did not take a position, but called for “a public dialogue”.

On the repeal of s.377A of the Penal Code (which criminalises homosexual acts), Ms Lim said that the WP could not reach a consensus on the matter and therefore declined to take a position.

On the amendments to the Human Organ Transplant Act, the WP abstained on voting and called for the Bill to be referred to a Select Committee. 

One could go on.  What, for example, is the WP’s position on the allocation of COEs or Primary One places – issues where interests of different groups are seemingly irreconcilable?   There is none.  

Some might say say that this is a smart strategy – after all, why voluntarily give people reasons to oppose you? Because there are larger issues at stake -  our political development will stagnate if political parties avoid difficult issues.   Because there can never be freedom of choice unless people know and understand what their choices really represent.  

Because as one of the founding fathers of the United States, Alexander Hamilton, once said: "Those who stand for nothing, fall for anything."

Hri Kumar

PAP MP Bishan - Toa Payoh GRC

*Article first appeared on his FB page here.

Editor's Note: It would be interesting to see Worker's party response on this.

PAP MP and millionaire lawyer from Drew and Napier is one funny character.

In a baffling note, taking his cue from his colleague, Indranee Rajah, he berated the Workers' Party for allegedly "sitting on the fence" on various issues such as on Ashley Madison and not speaking up against the hacking incidents.

Leaving aside the merits of his vacuous argument, is he expecting the Workers' Party to voice out on every single issue and incident? Is he going to next berate Workers' Party for not speaking out on the ever crowded bus service 190?

Did he look into the mirror? What is Hri Kumar's stance on the Population White Paper? If he really has political courage, why didn't he vote against it?

What is his stance on ISA? If he has political gumption, why didn't he call for the abolishment of the hideous act?

What does he think of the grassroots system? Does he think it is ok for the losing PAP candidate to be interfering with the work of the elected MP? Does he think it is ok for the PAP to be using the premises of the PAP Foundation Kindergarten, a registered charity that is able to rent premises from HDB at a cheaper rate, to conduct Meet the People's Session?

By not speaking up, is Hri Kumar endorsing his Party's position or does he simply not have the courage? Or is he just sitting on the fence for political expediency?

The Alternative View

*Article first appeared on https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=608994589161877&set=a.598097686918234.1073741825.358759327518739&type=1

At a community dialogue in Joo Chiat today (17 Nov), Acting Culture, Community and Youth Minister Lawrence Wong cautioned against getting Singapore into debt as the government ramps up social assistance to help Singaporeans.

He said state spending has to be kept sustainable to avoid passing the burden to future generations.

Mr Wong was addressing calls for more subsidies in various areas from Joo Chiat residents. Although most all of them are living in private property, many are asset-rich but cash poor. They also do not have a steady income.

Although these residents could sell their property to downgrade so as to get cash out of it, many are not willing to because they do not wish to move out of Joo Chiat where they have been living in for decades.

Reverse mortgaging is another possibility but still, some want to leave the house to their children who themselves are having problems buying one.

Explaining to the residents, Mr Wong said that while more should be spent to help the needy, the challenge is to maintain a progressive tax system and avoid getting Singapore into debt.

He added that while some Western economies are debt-saddled, Singapore is fortunate it can draw about two per cent of the country’s GDP from its reserves to finance expenditure. He said that the figure is a significant sum – more than what the government collects through GST – with money going towards social assistance.

The fact of the matter is, Singapore’s current problem is not so much facing the danger of getting into debt any sooner. The problem is Singapore is generating too much surplus, which means Singaporeans are “over taxed” directly and indirectly. For example, HDB itself may be losing money building and selling flats to Singaporeans but SLA, which HDB buys land from, is laughing all the way to the bank. Indirectly, Singaporeans are financing a large part of the Singapore reserves through the HDB mortgages they are paying every month.

In fact, the surplus issue was such an “embarrassment” to the establishment that the Straits Times avoided mentioning it altogether in its recent report on IMF review of Singapore’s financial health (ST avoids mentioning IMF’s concerns over SG surplus).

In its review, IMF was concerned about Singapore’s huge current account surplus. It even suggested narrowing Singapore’s surplus in its review:

“(IMF) Directors took note of the staff’s assessment that Singapore’s external position appears to be stronger than warranted by fundamentals, suggesting the importance of further efforts to narrow the current account surplus over the medium term.”

International news agency Reuters even reported in its news article, ‘IMF says Singapore needs to narrow current account surplus‘:

Singapore needs to narrow its huge current account surplus further and the International Monetary Fund supports the government’s plans to raise public spending on infrastructure and social services, the IMF said on Thursday…

Singapore, unlike many developed economies, enjoys huge current account surpluses. This is partly due to the government routinely posting budget surpluses and its success in developing the city-state’s wealth-management industry, which has attracted large capital inflows.

Singapore is also Asia’s number one foreign exchange trading center as well as a key Asian base for commodities traders and fund managers.

The island, which has a population of just 5.4 million people, enjoyed a current account surplus of $51.4 billion last year, which was a massive 18.6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

With regard to this matter, popular blogger and financial analyst, Leong Sze Hian, felt that from a cashflow perspective, the government spends little on healthcare, CPF or HDB – building up huge budget surpluses and reserves. He estimated that the Singapore government has at least built up a minimum of $185 billion surplus over the last 7 years or so.

Hence, Mr Wong needs not worry about Singapore getting into debt. It’s the huge surplus that the government ultimately sucked out from Singaporeans that he needs to worry about.

TR Emeritus

*Article first appeared on www.TREmeritus.com

12 Leigh Road London, N5.
8 July, 1988.
 

AN OPEN LETTER TO LEE KUAN YEW For The Editor The Straits Times Singapore.

Kuan Yew, I will come to the crux of my case against you straight away. What is it that you are afraid of, and that impelled you to such a massive public exercise in the total denigration of a comrade of nearly thirty years?

What prompted you to stoop so low to an utterly shameless demolition effort, by way of the incredibly sordid White Paper tabled before Parliament on 29 June?

Your statement in Parliament the same day gave you away. It made it abundantly clear that you were motivated by political revenge. For you referred to my recent public statements on political developments in Singapore as having made necessary what you did. But legitimate political comment calls for a rational political response, not for political revenge by way of a revolting descent into the gutter. The entire exercise reeks of revenge, a motive which enabled you to throw overboard all ethical considerations, medical ethics, Confucianist, Christian, Hindu ethics, the whole lot.

According to your own panel of doctors, I suffered from a medical condition, not a moral or political one. Clinical tests clearly indicated a much enlarged liver, resulting in a state of acute confusion, bouts of giddiness, exhaustion and fainting spells, admittedly erratic conduct, and amnesia. We may differ about the diagnosis. Several doctor friends of mine in Singapore, let alone in the United States, have quite other notions about the diagnosis. For now, we will let that be.

But where in the civilized world is sordid political capital so shamelessly squeezed out of a medical condition? Where else would self-respecting politicians count obviously transient behaviour, proceeding from a critical medical condition, as a fundamental moral or political lapse? And where else is the sacrosanct confidentiality of medical reports, and of doctor-patient relations, so outrageously violated for a purely political purpose? You know the answers. Only in a society governed by a man like you.

All my comrades in party, trade unions and government, including you, have always known me (you often extolled me), as a highly moral man over nearly three decades of intimate comradeship in a common struggle for a common cause-the building of a nation. How does a clearly transient condition transform me overnight into a hopeless alcoholic, womaniser, wife-beater, among other lurid depictions of depravity? The data presented in the White Paper, in the form of my letters to you just before and after my resignation, and of Dr. Nagulendran's psychiatric report! to you (the use of which constitutes the most disgusting outrage on medical ethics imaginable), can only be seen in undistorted perspective, in the light of the most crucial data of all which, of course, has been carefully omitted.

You know very well that all this was done or took place when I was under extraordinarily heavy sedation, 125 mgs (yes, one hundred and twenty-five mgs) of valium daily, to be precise, for some ten days.

Thereafter, I was subjected to a slowly graduated decline in the dosage, until it ceased when I left for New York a few weeks later. My son Janadas [Nair] knew of this, but he was persuaded that this was normal for cases like mine. But doctors in the United States were astounded when I told them of this. Even Dr. Gitlow who looked after me in New York, was not told of the kind of sedation I was under, although he had asked for the information.

Such excessive sedation, enough to dope an elephant, makes not for clarity, but for hallucination and disorientation, and you had successfully pontificated to a man rendered highly suggestible by a psychotropic (mood-altering and mind-changing) drug. Further, psychiatric examination and assessment by Dr. Nagulendran was conducted when I was in a highly sedated state. In other modern societies it would have been an impartial medical inquiry that would have been called for, rather than a political White Paper, and the Government, not the patient, would have been in the dock for the scandalous appropriation of medical reports on a patient as state documents for shameless political use.

In addition, I believe that I would have been able to sue my Singapore doctors, in particular Dr. Nagulendran and Dr. Tambyah, alleging gross violation of medical ethics.

May I state, in addition, that neither I nor any member of my immediate family were ever shown any of the medical reports on me, with the outstanding exception of Dr. Gitlow who took pains to show me every single report of his, and to discuss them with me. He also took care to obtain my written consent to send his evaluations and test results to Singapore. But none of the doctors in Singapore bothered, at any stage of my illness, to show me their reports, nor to obtain my consent before they forwarded them to the prime minister. Indeed, the first time I saw these reports was in the White Paper. And thereby hangs a sadly significant tale.

Drug-induced confusion and suggestibility was enhanced by the near-absolute trust and confidence I had then reposed in the infallibility of your own judgments and actions. It is in this light that my letters to you reproduced in the White Paper should be seen.

How wrong I was, I know now.

A very good friend of mine, the Indian physiotherapist who accompanied me to Kuching, Mr. Kalu Sarkar, has been quoted against me in the White Paper. Again, a stupendous omission, equivalent to the omission of the Pacific Ocean from the map of the world. It was not revealed that Mr. Sarkar had been arrested, detained, cruelly treated, and released for return to India only after the ISD secured from him statements about me which he knew to be untrue. I discovered this when I met him in India on my way to the United States in 1985. Among other things, Mr. Sarkar vouched for the fact that when in Sarawak, I only rarely drink liquor in the daytime. Only in the evenings did I have my customary drinks. He therefore did not attribute my erratic conduct in the mornings and afternoons to alcohol. I learn that Mr. Sarkar, who is a respected member of his community, is preparing his own affidavit now, as a free man, and not as one of your detainees.

I have publicly acknowledged that my erratic behaviour in Kuching, although proceeding from a medical condition, was nonetheless unbecoming of a Head of State, and have more than once humbly apologised to the people of Singapore for having failed them. But the salacious slant of many of the reports in the White Paper is vividly illustrated by what my wife and son Janamitra discovered during a visit to Kuching in November 1985, in order to check on reports of my conduct there. This refers to the allegation repeated in the White Paper that I had made sexually suggestive remarks to Mrs. George Chan, wife of an assistant minister. I quote from Mitra's report to me: "I told him (Dr. George Chan) about the report that you had propositioned someone's wife while you were in Sarawak. He said this was the first time that he had heard this. He asked whose wife you were supposed to have propositioned. I replied, 'Yours!' Dr. Chan was surprised. He stated that you had been rude to his wife.

But he dismissed the whole incident as 'small.' He said that you had called him the next day and asked to speak to his wife, whom you promptly apologised to. He said his wife never thought anything about it. He also said that as a doctor, he knew there was something wrong with you, and those times in which you behaved strangely and in confusion were completely uncharacteristic."

A humane response to the deviant behaviour of a sick man also came from Tun Abdul-Rahman bin Ya'kub, the then Governor of Sarawak, in whose residence I was a guest during my visit, and whom I met in London in November 1985. He told me that he had flown hurriedly to Singapore on hearing of my hospitalisation in order to see me. He was not allowed to do so.

Instead, he was taken to your office, where you wanted to know whether he had any complaints to make. He told you quite categorically that I had done nothing to complain about.

When I asked the Tun to tell me frankly whether there was any substance to rumours that I had molested ladies in Kuching, he assured me that no such report had come to his attention. But he said that he was very concerned for me as a very ill person, as evidenced by clearly uncharacteristic erratic speech and conduct. For example, he was startled when I wanted the Malay orchestra to play Indian music. I don't recall this at all.

The Tun also vigorously denied rumours circulating in official circles in Singapore to the effect that the Malaysian Government had complained to the Government of Singapore about my behaviour in Kuching. He said that this was entirely baseless, for the good reason that there was nothing to complain about.

They were only concerned about the obviously ill visiting President they had on their hands. Dato Musa Hitam, the Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia at the time, confirmed this when I met him in Manila in November 1986.

Next, what disturbed me most about the visit to the Iban longhouse was not so much lubricious reports about having fondled Iban ladies on my lap, but the fact that I have only the haziest recollection of the visit.

Understandable, because I was told that I had collapsed at least twice on my way there, and once in the longhouse itself. As for the Iban ladies, Tun Abdul-Rahman bin Ya'kub told me that there was nothing untoward about what was reported to have happened. It was customary longhouse practice. But you know that customary practice or not, I would not have allowed it if I had been in a normal condition. In any case, I had not spent the night in the longhouse, as many other visiting dignitaries had done, including Mr. Malcolm Macdonald, the Governor-General of the British South East Asia in colonial times.

Other reports in the White Paper allege uncharacteristically crude behaviour on my part with nurses and other ladies. I have no means of checking on the veracity or otherwise of these allegations. I simply cannot recognize myself in them. It may be that in the deplorable amnesic condition I was in, I did perhaps behave offensively. All that I can do is apologise for the unpremeditated behaviour of an amnesic person.

I offered apologies to Tun Abdul-Rahman bin Ya'kub when I met him in London if I had behaved offensively to anyone. His response was that no apologies were necessary from a man who was as obviously unwell as I was. But I would still apologize as I did to the people of Singapore.

The White Paper has maligned a thoroughly respectable married German lady with children, whom I had first come to know in Europe several years ago. Incidentally, she had nothing whatever to do with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, one of the numerous misstatements of simple facts in the White Paper. I had only helped her with an academic assignment, as I had helped so many others, and I am angered by the suggestion, without proof whatsoever, that my relations with the lady were improper in any manner. I never went into her room at the hotel where she first stayed. I only rang for her from the lobby where she joined me. Nor did anything improper happen between us when I visited her in a private home, nor in Changi Cottage where I had taken her for a swim. My wife will speak for herself on this and other matters in which she has been so unpardonably misinterpreted. But you do jump to the worst possible conclusions about people, specially if you have fallen out with them.

The way you dramatically embellish your facts when it suits you takes some beating. Where on earth did you get the idea that I had consumed a bottle of whisky every night for a few months before my visit to Kuching? The Istana wine cellar count you had asked for surely revealed to you that I did not order anywhere near 120 bottles of whisky over a period of, say, 4 months. And I never did buy any liquor from outside the Istana. How could you have brought yourself to make such an obviously misleading statement? Even on the occasions I had abused alcohol, polishing off one bottle at one sitting at any time is a feat which I could not possibly have managed. And every night for months in succession? Come off it, please!

In the eagerness to prove that my powers of perception and judgment have suffered permanent impairment as a result of irreparable brain damage, the final authoritative evaluation by Dr. Gitlow of all the test results he presided over in New York is pointedly ignored or understated.

Before forwarding his evaluation to Singapore, which was with my explicit consent, Dr. Gitlow informed me that the psychometric tests showed that I was "inordinately bright," with an exceptional command of language. And his considered professional evaluation of all the test results was that all my brain functions were within the range of normality for a person of my age, He also wrote to me later that "it is essentially an evaluation that fails to reveal any significant abnormality." He also told me in writing: "Medical personnel are not only trained to note minutiae, but to realize simultaneously where they properly fit within the variable limits of 'normal.'" But I have noted a mischievous and certainly politically inspired interpretation in the Straits Times of July 2, of the brain scan done in New York on June 17, 1985 by Dr. Robin J. Mithick. Dr. Mithick said the scan showed "frontal and mild cerebellar atrophy." The interpretation did not come from Dr. Gitlow, but from somebody in Singapore.

Perhaps you might know who planted this "expert." This is how the politically motivated interpretation goes: "This (brain scan) means that the brain tissue in the front part of the brain (the cerebrum), which controls the higher faculties such as language, reasoning and judgment, had deteriorated. There was also mild degeneration of brain tissue at the rear part of the brain (cerebellum) which controls the sense of balance, and co-ordination of physical functions. The degeneration is permanent and irreversible." Who said so? I challenge you to show that Dr. Gitlow said anything like this. In fact, all this was the "minutiae" Dr. Gitlow referred to in his letter to me. Deterioration in language? Dr. Gitlow told me that the finding of another test was exactly the opposite.

I now understand why Brigadier General Lee told the BBC in a recent interview that my recent political criticism of the Government "showed impaired judgment."

So legitimate criticisms of some of your disastrous policies are the result of the impairment of perception and judgment on the part of the critics? In which case innumerable Singaporeans who feel the same way as I do, not to mention your growing number of critics elsewhere, are all loony bins?

Again, come off it, please!

Talking about "command of language," Dr. Nagulendran's psychiatric assessment could have avoided grievous errors of interpretation if he had some command of language himself. His rendition of the Tamil word my wife used, "that tu," meaning a light tap on the head, was "hit."

This was how I came to "hit" my wife once. You improved considerably on the psychiatrist by saying that I "beat her often," a vivid example of the geometric progression of exaggeration in your hands. You want another example?

To the psychiatric's question whether members of my family drank, my wife's answer was "yes." This became in your hands, "Your two brothers and three sisters, your father, your mother, and two uncles, they all had alcoholism." This atrocious libel on an entire family was later retracted, according to James Fu's letters to the Far Eastern Economic Review, which stated that the prime minister "withdraws. Unreservedly" his "lay rendering of the family-history part of the medical report on Nair" (FEER, 5 March 1987). You no doubt consider it safe now to resuscitate the libel in the White Paper, under cover of parliamentary privilege.

A few words about the alcoholism diagnosis. I do not blame Dr. Gitlow at all for reporting that the "presumptive" diagnosis was alcoholism. He could not have done otherwise, for two reasons. 

One, I was sent to him for treatment, not for diagnosis, which was done in Singapore.

Two, "the patient was yet to liberate himself from the enormous influence you still exercised on his thinking and attitudes, and was convinced that his amnesic condition and breakdown in Kuching could only be explained by the diagnosis of alcoholism." Nothing more was needed for Dr. Gitlow's "presumptive" diagnosis. Only a few months later did the scales begin to fall from my eyes, slowly and painfully. There was a direct correspondence between my discovery of myself and my discovery of you.

The final certitude that I was never an alcoholic only came when I went to reside in Indiana as a Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Indiana University. I asked for and obtained a copy of the medical report of the extensive and thorough-going medical examination I had undergone in 1984 (about a year before my Kuching visit) in the Indiana University Teaching Hospital-clinical, radiological, neurological, brain scans including an NMR scan, the whole works. The Dean of the Medical School, Dr. Ward B. Moore and another doctor who went through the entire report told me that they found nothing to suggest alcoholism, nor did they discover any sign of brain damage. They also expressed the view that it was not credible to suggest that I had become an alcoholic or had suffered brain damage within a year of such comprehensive tests. Experiential knowledge since has also convinced me that the alcoholism diagnosis you continue to cherish no longer holds water.

You delude yourself if you believe that the disgusting concoction of misinterpreted truths, half-truths, and untruths, not to speak of gaping omissions, in your parliamentary statement and in the White Paper, will enjoy more than a passing season. Nearly thirty years of struggle and effort in the service of the people of Singapore, in intimate comradeship with you and others, are not wiped out so easily. Not even the formidable intimidatory apparatus of power and systematic misinformation you have assembled can forever stifle the truth. What will ultimately prevail is the season of truth. And the total truth, many-sided and whole, will include the virtues and defects, successes and failures, prides and shames of all of us, including you and me. In short, total truth has an infallible way of debunking the debunkers.

Your genius for sticking labels on people does Singapore no good.

The truth of things often requires the removal of the labels on them. Nowhere more so than in the brand of politics you have developed. Thanks to you, Singapore has rapidly become a vivid illustration of the political adage: "Give a dog a bad name and hang it."

If our nation is to survive as a credible entity in the modem world, we need to unstick the labels you have so tirelessly fixed on people and opinions you disapprove of. Honest, educated young professionals, who had the temerity to develop social ideas of their own, suddenly found themselves arrested and labelled "Marxist conspirators."

A former solicitor-general who entertained rather nebulous notions of leading a small opposition group in Parliament was labelled an instrument of an unlikely Machiavelli in the U.S. Embassy. Now I am the latest victim of your label-fixing genius-brain-damaged alcoholic, wife-beater and what not.

Memorable words of your own, uttered 27 years ago, will attest to the fact that this is not the first time I have been the victim of a total smear, a furious attempt at utter demolition. I quote from a radio talk you gave to Singaporeans in 1961, when you and I were fighting real enemies, and not tilting at windmills as you are doing today.

"Lim Chin Siong ... (the most important open-front leader the M.C.P. had built up) ...was once Devan Nair's closest open-front comrade. Devan Nair was his constant guide. But when Devan Nair decided that the M.C.P. was wrong in continuing the armed struggle after independence in the Federation and not coming to terms with Malayan nationalism, Lim began to fight Devan Nair relentlessly and ruthless, by fair or unfair methods, by smears and intimidation, to destroy every influence that Devan Nair had with the workers and the unions. His personal friendship for Devan Nair meant nothing. I knew that this was what one must expect of a good Communist."

Well, the Lim Chin Siong of 1961 turns out to be an incompetent juvenile in the art of demolition compared to the awesome efficiency displayed by the Lee Kuan Yew of 1988.

If I had been less naive and gullible than I was I might perhaps have perceived a possible danger signal in an informal and personal exchange that took place between us some three or four months before I resigned as President in March 1985. You will recall that I had made it clear to you then that I did not wish to renew my presidency when my term expired in October 1985.

I was surprised to learn from you that it was not considered desirable for me to retire in Singapore after I stepped down as President. You suggested that I accept an ambassadorship. I declined, saying that I did not relish the life-style of an ambassador, involving as it did the treading of an endless cocktail circuit, picking up the latest gossip, and sending it off as a dispatch to the Foreign Ministry. I told you that I would prefer a readership in the National University instead, which would enable me to do my own writing and to relate to our students. You did not seem to particularly like this prospect.

When we met again the following week, you told me that the younger ministers were disappointed that I had rejected an ambassadorship. 

Surprised, I asked why. I was dismayed to learn that some of them thought that if I remained in Singapore, I might be tempted to interfere in the political process. I assured you that I would not interfere in any way, and certainly not with the trade unions, which was probably what some persons might have been nervous about. In any case, I had believed what you told me. Indeed, I was prone to repose uncritical belief in you most of the time. I no longer do. I was perhaps blind then to what might have been an unmistakable writing on the wall for me.

It is not possible, in the course of a single letter, to reply in full to the massive public onslaught you unleashed on me with your speech on 29 June, and the accompanying White Paper, which I am confident will be judged by history as a product of acute political dementia.

Some might even say a terminally diseased spiritual condition. The political disvalues you have come to pursue, the perils that the nation faces as a result, the circumstances of my resignation, and above all what I consider the betrayal of the multiracial revolutionary movement which made Singapore, are the subjects of a book I am writing on.

I am most grieved by the wrong you and Dr. Nagulendran have done to my wife, than by the harm done to me. She has been shockingly and disgustingly misrepresented as a witness against her own husband. In your system, it seems that anything goes. Members of a single family are made to bear witness against each other, not to speak of doctors bearing witness against their patients. Are these the "Confucianist" values you prescribe for Singaporeans? My wife will make her own response. My sons, too, who were witnesses of the circumstances surrounding my resignation, will bear their own witness to the unfolding truth as they saw it.

For the rest, we have not seen the end of the play. The last Act of the tragi-comedy you began has yet to be played out. I wish you good luck.

(Sgd.) C. V. DEVAN NAIR 

Reform Party recognises the importance of the Hijab for Singaporean Muslims. We believe every person has the right to profess and practise his religion and to propagate it as enshrined in article 15 (1) of our constitution.

The PAP government’s reason for not allowing the hijab is to maintain social harmony. The reason they have given is that allowing the Hijab is ‘problematic’ for some jobs. We find this to be without basis as they have not provided any references or evidences to support this claim. Since pre-independence days Muslims have been well integrated into the community. Singaporeans have grown accustomed to seeing Muslim women wearing the Hijab in every part of the society and have no problems interacting with them.

On the contrary, the Government’s refusal to remove this discriminatory practice will in fact harm the social cohesion that has developed over the years. The need to promote and build an inclusive society should not be at the expense of one community.

Reform Party fully supports the call to allow the Hijab at every workplace. Allowing the Hijab does not encroach on any individual rights. As such, we urge the Government to do the right thing and meet the aspirations of the Muslim community in Singapore.

As a small country, it is inevitable for Singapore and our citizens to feel the full impact of Globalization. It is inevitable for us to bring in more foreign workers, be it talents or otherwise, to supplement our workforce which will face contraction due to aging population caused by low fertility rate. 

However, we must always remember that for whatever policies the ruling party of the day make, it must be solely for the benefits of our citizens. Thus, Singaporeans' interests must be the FIRST PRIORITY of ALL policies made by the government. 

1) We are against the over-liberal FT policy which has compromised not only the wages of Singaporeans but also job opportunities for Singaporeans. 

2) Foreign Labour from Third World developing countries can afford lower pay because of their lower cost and standards of living in their home countries but Singaporeans have to bear FULL impart of the higher cost of living for them and their families in Singapore. Cheap labour substitution by companies should be prevented by legislative and administration means by the Government.

3) We are just a tiny little island and any big influx of foreigners will definitely push up our land and property prices which will in turn inflate our rents and eventually prices for all goods and services. We are against mindless population targets set by the ruling party PAP which will eventually cause high inflation and push up our cost of living in Singapore.

4) We are against of the aggressive population target set by PAP because this will cause great strains on all public services starting from public transport, public housing to public healthcare. 

5) We are against of the 6.9m population target because most of the foreign immigrants we are taking in are from Third World countries which have the very third world mentality and attitudes which are very different from ours. This will inevitably cause cultural frictions which may be a potential source of social tensions or even unrest if it is not managed properly.

6) There may be people who would accuse us of "Xenophobic" or even "Extremist" but we are not. We are just Nationalistic amidst the waves of Globalization and massive influx of foreign migrants, to defend the dignity, jobs and rights of our citizens, brothers and sisters of all races. 

7) On the contrary, we view PAP's liberal FT policy as extremism and ultra-capitalist that only takes care of the interests of big MNCs, GLCs and business interests but disregard the welfare, well being and interests of our citizens. Such policy has only helped to suppress wages of citizens and compromise citizens' job security and well being, aggravating income distribution in spite of high GDP growth. Such strategy of Growth at ALL COST coupled with a weak labour law and union have made most Singaporeans suffer the high cost of growth while a minority of people, including foreign MNCs, GLCs and business owners, to enjoy the fruits of growth. 

In fact, we are far from being Xenophobic as we are concerned and against the unethical modern slavery that has been practiced by some industry and businesses on low or unskilled workers from the Third World country. We are against of such modern slavery in Singapore which not only bring shame to our country but compromise wages of our Singaporeans in these fields as well. 

9) We demand FAIR WAGE for ALL, including foreign workers with priority given to Singaporeans First. We understand that if we do not enforce FAIR WAGE for Foreign workers, our local Singaporean workers will be displaced by CHEAPER foreign labour. 

10) As our national race strategy is to prevent the formation of "Racial Enclaves" in housing and such, we have observed that "Racial-National Enclaves" of foreign labour have formed in various sectors and industries. This has gone unchecked when the foreign migrants have started a quiet but deliberate effort to employ their own race or national origins for job openings when they have gained control of the hiring power within their organizations or companies. This is in effect an unhealthy development of Economic and Job colonialization by these foreign workers. This must be stopped. Any company in Singapore that do not employ at least 50% of Singaporeans will have little reasons to stay in Singapore as their presence will not benefit Singaporeans at all. 

11) Last but not least, we may welcome these foreigners to work along us or even become Singapore citizens eventually one day, but we must maintain that these foreigner should realize that they are guests while we are the hosts. They should respect and obey not only our laws but also our cultural practices and way of life. Foreigner should integrate into our core, learn and adapt the ways of our multiculturalism harmony and tolerance instead of trying to impose their own values and way of life upon us.

Goh Meng Seng

*The author is the former secretary-general of the National Solidarity Party.

Lim Chin Siong was really Singapore's true leader and should have become Prime Minister in 1959 - it is ironic that Lee Kuan Yew once introduced Lim Chin Siong as "our future Prime Minister" - instead the dictator Lee Kuan Yew stole power away from Chin Siong, who was bullied and conspired against by Lee,Lim Yew Hock and the British authorities. Lim Chin Siong was a great populist, a champion of Singapore students and workers - a Singapore nationalist - the George Washington of Singapore who wanted freedom from British rule and Democracy for Singapore's people. 

Declassified British documents reveal that he was not a communist as Lee Kwan Yew said he was, as is taught out of Lee's People's Action Party approved textbooks to Singapore school children.In a startling and revisionist essay, Dr GregPoulgrain of Griffiths University observes that the British Governor of Singapore and his Chief Secretary in their reports to London had admitted that the police could find no evidence to establish that Lim was a communist.

The British and Singapore Chief Minister Lim Yew Hock had deliberately provoked the students and unionists into riots at rallies that Lim Chin Siong was attending. Lee Kuan Yew later opportunistically used these incidents to persecute and imprison Lim as a communist (after Lim had formed his own political party because Lee had marginalized Lim and his supporters in the PAP) and then banish him to England after first courting Lim to be a co-founder of the People's Action Party because of Lim's immense popularity with the Singapore people.

Chin Peng the leader of the Malaya Communist Party said thatLim Chin Siong never admitted he was a Communist Party member and that the Malaya Communist Party did not controlLim Chin Siong and his Barisan Socialis party as Lee Kuan Yew stated they did.

While under detention and most likely torture (according to Amnesty International) in Singapore under Lee's rule he became depressed and tried to hang himself. He died of heart failure, a broken and disillusioned man in 1996. This is one of Singapore'ssadest stories. A movie could be made from this, although it would be banned in Singapore under the rule of the Lee family and the corrupt People's Action Party. 

Lee Kuan Yew should be prosecuted for TREASON against Singapore for subverting the Democractic system put in place by the British and used by Lee Kuan Yew to come to power. Lee should then have to suffer the consequences as set out by current law for treason in Singapore.

If the Attorney General of Singapore truly stood up for law he would act against Lee and his son who have turned Singapore into a dictatorship, the fact that the Attorney General does not prosecute Lee makes him guilty of not upholding the Democratic Constitution of Singapore.

Lee Kuan Yew subverted a functional democratic system with a strong opposition that actually could win an election if:

1) Gerrymandering of ridings and vote counting irregularities (as has been claimed by many sources) were not practiced by Lee and the People's Action Party.

2) The public was not threatened with withdrawal of financial support for their electoral riding as is done under the PAP's rule

3) Strong opposition leaders that made serious attempts to win a majority election for their party were not jailed and or bankrupted as Lee was not back in the 1950's when he came to power under the original British Parliamentary Democratic system.

4) The Singapore Media was not owned and controlled by the Singapore People's Action Party majority government - essentially making the main Singapore media a branch of the People's Action Party.

Any real democratic court in the world would rule that Lee KuanYew is a dictator that has demolished the original British Democratic system that was in place when he used it to attain power in 1959.

Singapore Elections Act states:

Undue influence
59. Every person who —

(a) directly or indirectly, by himself or by any other person on his behalf, makes use of or threatens to make use of any force, violence or restraint, or inflicts or threatens to inflict, by himself or by any other person, any temporal or spiritual injury, damage, harm or loss upon or against any person in order to induce or compel that person to vote or refrain from voting, or on account of that person having voted or refrained from voting at any election; or

(b) by abduction, duress or any fraudulent device or contrivance, impedes or prevents the free exercise of the franchise of any elector or voter, or thereby compels, induces or prevails upon any elector or voter either to vote or refrain from voting at any election, shall be guilty of the offence of undue influence.

Lee Kuan Yew and his Prime Minister Son Lee Hsien Loong are guilty of using Undue Influence in the Singapore Parliamentary Elections Act by threatening to withhold money to constituents who vote in an opposition politician and also by bankrupting and or imprisoning Singapore political leaders who make a serious attempt at winning a majority of seats from an election for members of Singapore's Parliament.

Lee Kuan Yew on Singapore's Criminal Law Legislation:
"The basic difference in our approach springs from our traditional Asian value system which places the interests of the community over and above that of the individual," Singapore's Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew said in a speech.
"In criminal law legislation, our priority is the security and well being of law-abiding citizens rather than the rights of the criminal to be protected from incriminating evidence."

By deceiving Singaporeans in order to gain political power LeeKuan Yew has placed his own interests above those of the communities Democratic rights. This makes his statement about his Asian values outrageous!

At the recent court trial against Dr. Chee Soon Juan, the judge and LeeKuan Yew's lawyer forcefully attempted to stop the information about the declassified British documents on what really went on in Singapore politics in the 1950's and early 1960's, this article contains much of what Dr. Cheetried to bring to light in Lee's corrupt court.

What follows came mostly from www.singaporedemocrat.org , other information has also been added to it.

http://www.singaporedemocrat.org/articlelimchinsionghistory_intro.html
Introduction
08 Jul 07

Schools teach Singapore children that Lee Kuan Yew heroically delivered Singapore from the evil clutches of the communists and gave us what we have today.

Whether such an assertion is historically accurate or not, the Government seems intent to seal this version in the annals of Singapore. When filmmaker, Mr Martyn See, released Zahari's 17 Years in which Mr SaidZahari talked about his 17-year detention, the Government promptly banned it.

It, it stated, "will not allow people who had posed a security threat to the country in the past to exploit the use of films to purvey a false and distorted portrayal of their past actions and detention by the government."

When Lim Chin Siong, another of Lee Kuan Yew's prisoners, died in 1996, the PAP was equally anxious to make sure that Lim's portrayal as a revolutionary communist remained etched in the minds of the people.

In response to a tribute that the SDP had written about Lim, the PAP through then MP Dr Ow Chin Hock, said that the Barisan Sosialis(Socilaist Front), of which Lim was its leader, fought the Government in 1966 "on the streets, according to the teachings of Mao Zedong in the Cultural Revolution."

It was a bald-faced lie. Lim was already in prison under ISA detention in 1966 and could not have led his party in anything.

This, it seems, was not the only untruth that the PAP has been telling us.

For example, Dr Ow pointed out that Lim was not fighting for a democratic Singapore (the cheek) but a communist one. Lim would have turned Singapore into "Mao's China or Ho Chi Minh's Vietnam", the PAP insisted.

Besides, it was the Internal Security Council (ISC) under the command of the British and not the PAP Government, who ordered the arrest and detention of Lim and colleagues.

This was because there were only three PAP representatives on the ISC and they were "outnumbered" by the other four members on the Council, three British and one Malaysian.

Nothing could be more untrue.

Top-secret documents held by the British Government, now declassified, reveal some jaw-dropping facts about Lee Kuan Yew and how he came to power.

Two history scholars studied these papers and presented their findings in the book Comet In Our Sky (available at Select Books at the TanglinShopping Centre).

The first is Tim Harper who teaches Southeast Asian history and the history of the British empire at the University of Cambridge in London.

The second is Greg Poulgrain, a professor at Griffiths University in Australia who has been researching Southeast Asian history for more than 20 years.

This SDP feature presents a summary of Dr Harper's and Dr Poulgrain'schapters. It contains some shocking archival material.

It also attempts to answer questions like who were people like Lim ChinSiong and Said Zahari? Did they really pose a security threat to the country? Were they communists hell-bent on undermining constitutional/democratic means of governance in Singapore? Was it really the ISC that was responsible for their arrest and imprisonment? Most important, is the PAP's version of history based on fact?

Remember, this narration is not the SDP's rendition of events past. It is a collective summary of the research done by two historians.

To ensure that this present essay remains faithful to Professors Harper's and Poulgrain's works, quotes from the historians' chapters are used liberally.

Still, don't take our word for it. Get a copy of Comet In Our Sky and read for yourself the real history of the PAP and Barisan Sosialis.

Why bother?

But why is this important? Why should Lim Chin Siong, a man who died more than ten years ago and who led a party which is now defunct, be relevant to the world in which we now live?

First, because those events are part of our history, and history defines who we are as a people and, more important, shapes the way we plan our future.

The textbooks that the Ministry of Education writes for our kids are not history but rather fables, starring Mr Lee Kuan Yew. We have a duty to teach our youths the truth.

Also, what happened in the 1950s and 60s continue to be relevant because many of Lim's colleagues are still alive and the sacrifices they made for the independence of Singapore have been all but erased. Their stories must be told and their honour restored.

Third, and perhaps most important, not only is the PAP's cloroxed account used to mentally condition (brainwash, if you prefer) our children, it continues to be used as a weapon to intimidate and silence voices of dissent.

If Lee Kuan Yew can manipulate the security apparatus for his own political ends in the 1950s and 60 as you will note from Dr Harper's and Dr Poulgrain's revelations, what does that say about the present use of the ISD to detain other Singaporeans? 
More ominously, what if the PAP feels sufficiently threatened politically and resorts to concocting another conspiracy to detain without trial more Singaporeans and opposition politicians like it did to a group of professionals in 1987?

Hard, historical facts are the greatest antidote to fear mongering by the state and to the use of national security as a bogey to suppress freedom and democracy.

Knowledgeable citizens with a keen sense of history are the best protection against acts of repression in the future.

So if you are a discerning Singaporean unwilling to let the authorities tell you what to think and how to think it, if you are one of those who don't want your mind raped, then introduce yourself to this four-part Special Feature and take part in the forum discussion.

Part I: Our man 
08 Jul 07 -
from - http://www.singaporedemocrat.org/articlelimchinsionghistory_part1.html

"The men who led Singapore to self-government and independence were swift to produce an authorized version of their struggle…,” historian T N Harper observes, "it began with Lee Kuan Yew's dramatic broadcasts as Prime Minister on Radio Malaya in 1961. The plot and the moral of this story are clear: by the political resolve and tactical acumen of its leaders, the fragile city-state weathers the perils of a volatile age and emerges into an era of stability and prosperity."

However, much to the discomfort of the Minister Mentor who hitherto has had a relatively free reign in portraying "the period as one in which LimChin Siong and the left were outmanoeuvred by the tactically more astute Lee Kuan Yew," Harper cautions that "authoritative new archival research sheds new light on the high politics of the period."

In other words, Lee's bravado with which he presently speaks covers up much that took place during those years.

In truth, Lim Chin Siong's fate was sealed right from the very beginning by the power of the British colonialists – and not Lee Kuan's political prowess. Lim Chin Siong was really the George Washington of Singapore, the revolutionary Singapore nationalist that wanted freedom from the British rulers and Democracy for his people.Lee Kuan Yew was nowheresin site at those public rallies because he did not want power for the people, he wanted it for himself and would go onto lure Lim Chin Siong into his clutches so as to ride on his popularity. Lee Kuan Yew is a clever and cunning sociopathic power monger that has proven that he has no conscience about destroying anyone who stands in his way. The British are to be blamed for letting their sociopath come to power and in the end they lost Singapore anyways.

At that time British authorities were already devising ways on how to stopLim's ascent in Singapore's politics. Southeast Asia historian, GregPoulgrain, writes that "In the Public Record Office in London are some of the observations and stratagems pursued by both the Colonial and Foreign Office – revealed now more than thirty years after the events – on how to deal with this rising star, Lim Siong Chin."

With Singaporeans becoming more educated and the advent of the Internet, events surrounding the heroics of Lee and his PAP during the period of independence and merger with Malaya "no longer looks so unilinear and uncontested."

The emergence of Lim Chin Siong

Harper recounts the "meteoric" rise of Lim Chin Siong as a student and trade union leader in the early 1950s who was at the heart of the anti-colonial politics that had erupted all over Asia following World War II.

By unifying the labour movement and galvanizing the overwhelmingly Chinese-speaking electorate through his formidable oratorical skills (he once told his massive audience: "Saya masuk first gear, lu jangan gostan!"– "When I go into the first gear, don't you go into reverse!"), Limcaptured the attention of the masses, and Lee Kuan Yew's too. This led to an association between the two men and the subsequent formation of the PAP. The anglophile Lee (Harry, as he once wanted to be called as his father pushed him to learn the rules of the white man's world, he later went back to using his Chinese name when it became apparent that his power would no longer be coming from the British) saw the power of his younger Chinese-educated comrade.

Lim Chin Siong meets the Devil who would later go onto torture him by imprisonment.
As Chin Siong said, “The fact is that all of us were detained, without trial for ages. Not knowing when we would be coming out. That, I would say is a torture. A torture. You are detained for years, until such a time that you are willing to humiliate our own integrity. Until you are humiliated publicly. So much so, when you come out, you cannot put your head up, you cannot see your friends. Alright, then they may release you. It is a very cruel torture. It is worse than in Japanese time, when with a knife, they slaughter you. One shot, you die. But this humiliation will carry on for life. It is very cruel.”

From the above quote of Chin Siong you can see that what he meant is that after being locked away in a cell for years without trial, then it gets to the point that you will admit what the system wants you to admit in the hope that you can be set free. So he admitted back then that he was giving up politics for good and had repudiated "international communism" - he 'humiliated his own integrity' - meaning that he never was a communist to begin with and would not have given up politics if Lee Kuan Yew had not forced him to.

He died a broken man, 23 days short of his 63rd birthday in 1996 and forgotten by Singaporeans today.

"Arthur S.W.Lim, the well-known eye surgeon, recounted another experience of the youthful charisma and the powerful impact of ChinSiong's oratory of the period.
'There were 40, 000 people, each mesmerised by Lim ChinSiong's oratory. "The British say you cannot stand on your own two feet", he jeered, "Show them how you can stand!" And 40, 000 people leapt up - shining with sweat, fists in the air - shouting, Merdeka'..."
- Tan Jing Quee - From the book: Comet In Our Sky.

"My neighbour who was in her early 80's remembered Lim vividly. When I showed her the book, she immediately recognises him as Lim Chin Siong.She was telling me about the crowd that turned up at his rally, how hundreds and thousands of people waited along the road for his release from the prison."
"Lim Chin Siong would have been our Prime Minister if not for Lee KuanYew, I should say. However, if Lim were to become our PM instead of Lee, what will Singapore be? Is it going to be better or worse? Are we going to be more democratic as what we were deemed to be." Lee Lilian http://leelilian.blogspot.com/2007/09/lim-chin-siong-man-who-was-nearly-...

Even within the PAP, "Lim eclipsed Lee Kuan Yew and other leaders in the popular following he commanded..."
But in his memoirs, The Singapore Story, published in 1998 Lee Kuan Yew condescendingly described Lim as "modest, humble and well-behaved, with a dedication to his cause that won my reluctant admiration and respect."

The truth is that Lee didn't have much of a choice. Lim Chin Siong was at the front, back and center of a political movement that commanded national attention. From all accounts, Lee would have been marginalized if his parasitic instincts had not been so acute.
Popular as he was locally, Lim Chin Siong did not confine his politics to within Singapore. Despite British efforts to isolate the island from anti-imperial movements that engulfed much of Empire, Lim would draw inspiration from liberation movements elsewhere in Africa and Asia.

His speeches in the early 1960s repeatedly made reference to events in the colonial world as well as to South Africa, Korea, and Turkey. This sense of internationalism had a "deep resonance" in Singapore.

The colonial government countered by censoring imported reading material. "This," writes Harper, "would continue, even intensify, after self-government as the PAP government increasingly saw itself as pitted against what Lee Kuan Yew was to term the ‘anti-colonialism' of global liberation movements."

In other words, Lee was not the hero who led the fight for Singapore's freedom. This might come as a shock to some but as declassified documents reveal, it was Lim Chin Siong who insisted that Singaporeans' freedom and independence were not for compromise.
It was also "what really caused the British authorities to consider [Lim] such a threat."

The talks collapse…

When David Marshall became the chief minister after his Labour Front won the elections in 1955, he organised a delegation to London the following year to negotiate independence from the British. Marshall included both Lim Chin Siong and Lee Kuan Yew in his team.

The chief minister fought hard, some say too hard, to wrest power from the British in the internal affairs of Singapore. He opposed Britain's power to appoint the police chief who in turn had power over the Special Branch, as it was then known. It was the Special Branch that gave the authorities the power of detention without trial.

The idea of retaining the power of internal security whilst granting self-government, Marshall accused the British, was like serving "Christmas pudding and arsenic sauce."

Lim Chin Siong supported the chief minister on this and demanded a constitution that transferred power to the local government with only defence and foreign relations left in British hands.

The British refused the demand and the talks collapsed. Marshall returned to Singapore frustrated and, amidst condemnation by Lee Kuan Yew, resigned as chief minister.

...Lim Chin Siong is detained…

Lim Yew Hock took over the position and led another visit to London the following year, which again included Lee Kuan Yew. But this time, Marshall and Lim Chin Siong were not part of the negotiating team.

More accurately, Lim Chin Siong could not go because Lim Yew Hock, as chief minister, had placed him under arrest, ostensibly for instigating a riot.

The episode began when Chief Minister Lim closed down a Chinese women's group and a musical association. A week later, he banned the Chinese Middle School Union which provoked further unhappiness with the locals.

Undeterred he arrested Chinese student leaders and shut down more organizations and schools, including the Chinese High School and the Chung Cheng High School. Given the already tense situation between the Chinese-speaking people and the colonial authorities, this was a highly provocative act.

At that time any Singaporean leader worth his salt could not have sat by idly. And so Lim Chin Siong came to the fore and spoke up for the students. The late Devan Nair, former Singapore president, joined in.
A 12-day stay-in was organised at one of the schools and Lim Chin Siong was scheduled to speak at a nearby park one evening.

It wasn't long before the police appeared and ringed the crowd. Suddenly a mob started throwing stones at the police who then charged with batons and tear-gas.

Violence erupted and spread, with police stations being attacked and cars burned. By the end of the chaos 2,346 people were arrested and more than a dozen Singaporeans were killed.

The blame was squarely pinned on Lim Chin Siong who was arrested.
But did Lim Chin Siong really cause the mayhem? Who was the "mob" that started attacking the police?

At that time, Chief Minister Lim made no bones that the Lim Chin Siong was the front man for the communists who had started the violence. Lim was arrested by the Special Branch the following day. Lim vehemently denied this accusation and countered that the chief minister was a colonial stooge. As declassified documents now reveal, Lim Chin Siong was largely right.

Entitled Extract from a note of a meeting between Secretary of State and Singapore Chief Minister, 12 December 1956, the archival note recorded that it was Chief Minister Lim who "had provoked the riots and this had enabled the detention of Lim Chin Siong."

Poulgrain even documents that full-scale military assistance was requested by prior arrangement. Singapore Governor, William Goode, acknowledged that the colonial government was not beyond employing the tactic of provoking a riot and then using the outcome to "achieve a desired political result."

Indeed, Poulgrain noted that "[Public Record Office] documents show these were the tactics of provocation that were employed in the 1956 riots that led to Lim Chin Siong's arrest." 

A few weeks after Lim Chin Siong was behind bars, Lim Yew Hock visited London in December 1956 and was "warmly congratulated on the outcome by Alan Lennox-Boyd, Secretary of State for the Colonies."

And yet, in his memoirs, the Minister Mentor concludes that the Malayan Communist Party "in charge of Lim Chin Siong" were behind the whole affair and that Lim Yew Hock had purged Singapore of the communist ringleaders.
…and the (Singapore Independence) talks in Britain were resurrected.

Malayan Communist Party leader Chin Peng's testimony contradicts Lee Kuan Yew's assertion that the Malayan Communist Party was "in charge of Lim Chin Siong"...

Harold Crouch: What sort of relationship did the people who became the Barisan Socialis in Singapore have with your people in southern Thailand at that time? Had there been any contact at all?

Chin Peng: I think among them, there were some communists, there were some non communists, for example, Lee Siew Choh. We considered him as radical left.

Anthony Short: Lim Chin Siong never had any contact with the Party in southern Thailand, did he?

Chin Peng: I don’t think so. I don’t think so. Lim Chin Siong never admitted he was Communist Party member.
Anthony Reid: Was the Barisan Socialis under the control of the CPM (Communist Party of Malaya)?

Chin Peng: I don’t think we can control it from far away. It would depend on the man on the spot. They discussed among themselves and they coordinated their activities, not controlled from the Central. Take the case of the Singapore left wing, I don’t think they used the name of communists. They all regarded each other as left-wing figures, and then they discussed themselves, they coordinated their policy, and they decided.

Chin & Hack (eds)., Dialogues with Chin Peng,
(Singapore: Singapore University Press, 2004), pp. 190 – 192.
Chin Peng was the head of the Communist Party of Malaya

The above provides high level direct witness testimony that contradicts Lee Kuan Yew's assertion that: "The Malayan Communist Party in charge of Lim Chin Siong were behind the whole affair and that Lim Yew Hock had purged Singapore of the communist ringleaders."

And so in the 1957 with Lim Chin Siong under detention, Lim Yew Hock led the delegation to London. But during the negotiations, it was Lee who "played a crucial role in sweeping away the earlier obstacles to agreement on internal security by resurrecting the proposal for an Internal Security Council (ISC)."

The ISC was structured in a way that Britain and Malaya outweighed Singapore in the outfit. Why was the PAP supportive of such an arrangement?

Historian Simon Ball said it best: "Lee wanted an elected government but not one that could be blamed for suppressing its own citizens."

Even more damning was an archival "Top Secret" document that recorded: "Lee was confidentially said that he values the [Internal Security] Council as a potential ‘scape-goat' for unpopular measures he will wish to take against subversive activities."But the PAP continues the charade. Recall what Dr Ow Chin Hock wrote in his letter in 1996 about the arrest of Lim Chin Siong and other Barisan leaders: "The [ISC] had a British chairman, two British members, one Malaysian members and three Singaporean members. Together these four non-Singaporeans outnumbered the three Singaporeans on the council."

In any event, unlike the one led by David Marshall, the negotiations in 1957 had little spine and gave away too much of Singaporeans' rights. As a result, both sides expeditiously reached an agreement for self-government, an agreement that Marshall called "tiga suku busok merdeka" (three-quarters rotten independence).

But self-government was not the only subject being discussed. On the side, the British also wanted to introduce a clause that would bar ex-detainees, or subversives as the authorities called them, from standing for elections.

Lee supported such a move – one that he would surely have known would cripple party comrade Lim Chin Siong's political career.

In his memoirs, however, Lee Kuan Yew wrote: "I objected to [the introduction of the clause] saying that ‘the condition is disturbing both because it is a departure from the democratic practice and because there is no guarantee that the government in power will not use this procedure to prevent not only the communist but also democratic opponents of their policy from standing for elections'."

A declassified British memo contradicts this: "Lee Kuan Yew was secretly a party with Lim Yew Hock in urging the Colonial Secretary to impose the ‘subversives ban'."Perhaps this is not surprising as the British had noted that the "present leadership of the PAP is obsessed with the need to persuade the politically unsophisticated masses that the PAP is ‘on their side' and this involves demonstrating that the PAP is not a friend of the foreigner…"

And this is perhaps the reason why Lee told Britain's Secretary of State, Alan Lennox-Boyd: "I will have to denounce [the clause]. You will have to take responsibility."
London to the rescue…again

A few months after Lee returned from the constitutional talks in London in March 1957, the PAP conducted elections of its executive council. Lim Chin Siong was still under detention and could not challenge Lee for the party's leadership.

Lim's supporters, however, outnumbered Lee's rightwing faction and were elected to the executive council of the PAP. The British, through Lim Yew Hock who was by then "viewed as an altogether more compliant tool of the security apparatus," ordered the arrest of Lim Chin Siong's supporters, thereby securing Lee Kuan Yew's continued control of the party.

Harper records, that despite Lee's protests against the crackdown of his party's leftwing, "not all were convinced of his innocence in the matter."

In his 1998 memoirs, Lee Kuan Yew describes the fateful detention of the PAP's leftwing leaders by giving much prominence to Lim Yew Hock's decision while adroitly playing down the role of the British.

After the talks in 1957, and given the stubbornness of Marshall and Lim in the 1956 talks, the British were persuaded that Lee was their man.

Another set of talks were arranged in May 1958 and thereafter "there was an unspoken assumption that the PAP would govern after the 1959 elections."

Writer T J S George repeated this observation that "repeated [British] intervention to ensure Lee Kuan Yew's political survival confirmed the feeling that Lee was by now Britain's chosen man for Singapore."

Poulgrain recounted his own experience with British intelligence officers who were operating in Singapore in the early 1960s. One told him about a group of officers who were listening in on Lee Kuan Yew making a speech, railing against British imperialism.

"The diatribe," Poulgrain writes, "brought only a jocular response from this group, one of whom openly commented that Lee was going a ‘bit over the top' considering that he was actually ‘working with us.'" 
The historian states plainly that Lee Kuan Yew personified the essential long-term interests of the United Kingdom in Singapore.

Lee himself played up this position when he told the British government that the PAP was really London's "best ally."

The British agreed. Secret documents now show that London's assessment was that Lim Chin Siong was increasingly bringing pressure to bear on Her Majesty's Government and "unless forestalled by Lee, may well be able to make the pressure decisive."

Lee was grateful. He indicated that "he and his other reputed moderates in the PAP regard the continued presence of the British in Singapore as an assurance for themselves."

From then on, despite the British concerns of Lee's "totalitarian streak that rides roughshod over all opposition or criticism", Lee's PAP and London "became locked closer together."

The section below provides great detail of what happened within the PAP as the split between the right and left wing was happening, this section is taken from:

http://singaporegovt.blogspot.com/2006/01/part-1-history-and-founding-of...

(some of the original English grammar has been improved in this version)

The Dilemma and Shrewdness of LKY
In the run-up to 1959 elections, the PAP was in a dilemma. The Party was to be led into the elections by LKY and his Right Wong colleagues. But they needed the Left Wing leaders, who were in prison to attract the following of the masses.

“It was at that point that Kuan Yew played his political cards superbly,” remembers Devan Nair. “It was masterly. He is politically very, very shrewd. He came to the jail and told us, look, I’m not gong to stand for elections unless I am satisfied that you are really committed to the ideal of a free, democratic, socialist and non-communist Malaya. And you are committed to the policies of the PAP. So Chin Siong, Woodhull, Fong and so on, gave verbal assurances. We knew that if the PAP didn’t form the next government we would continue to be in the jug (aka jail). But if the PAP did win, in 1959 and if PAP formed the next government, then we would be released and we could start our union work again.”

“But Kuan Yew was too smart. He said, “No, put it down in writing.” And I (Devan Nair) told them, “Yes, if we are sincere, we ought to put it down in writing.” And the more important of which was The Ends and Means of Malayan Socialism”, said Devan. They all signed and committed themselves to the PAP. This enabled LKY to run for office on a platform which demanded their immediate release. The trade unions mobilized their mass muscles, putting the PAP into power by a landslide. The PAP formed the government with LKY as the Prime Minister.
Lim Chin Siong and his colleagues, released from jail amidst a flurry of doves, were tucked into obscurity as Political Secretaries in the Ministries.

Cracks and Split in PAP
As the PAP government settled into power, the uneasy union between the Left and Right continued. The first sign of trouble was Devan Nair’s resignation from the Education Ministry. “I went to Kuan Yew and told him, “Look, I meant every word of The Ends and Means of Malayan Socialism. But I am afraid that my friends are not sincere. I don’t want to be caught in a situation where I’ll be fighting with my friends. So I want to leave. I’m resigning.” He went to St Andrew’s School where he became a teacher there instead.

The next crack came when one of the most powerful members in PAP, Ong Eng Guan, the Minister of National Development and one of the three representatives on the Internal Security Council, published an attack on PAP. He accused the party leadership of being “undemocratic” and “dictatorial”. The Party responded by sacking him from the PAP and he was stripped of his seat in Hong Lim and all his other positions.

He defiantly stood as an Independent in the Hong Lim by-elections and gave the PAP candidate, Jek Yuen Thong, a sound beating. Ong was fluent in dialect and Mandarin; a rarity amongst the English educated. Despite the PAP sending the charismatic Lim Chin Siong to speak at the mass rally at Hong Lim, Ong Eng Guan still won.

This is not the end of the crisis for PAP. On June 1961, Lim Chin Siong wrote to Dr Toh, demanding the release of their Left Wing political colleagues. PAP could not agree to this with their prior agreements with the British. The beginning of the split between Left and Right was the Anson By-elections on July 1961. The Left demanded “internal democracy in the PAP” and the release of all political prisoners from detention. They were refused. The Left then threw their support to the rival candidate, David Marshall and he won.

The final split came just a few days later in the Legislative Assembly. Thirteen Left Wing PAP Assemblymen abstained from voting with the party line. They were dismissed from the PAP. In August 1961, they formed a rival party, the Barisan Sosialis, led by Dr Lee Siew Choh and Lim Chin Siong. They took 35 branch committees, 19 of the 23 organizing secretaries and an estimated 80 percent of the membership. PAP under LKY was a mere shell, according to Dr Lee.

The Last Breathe of Hope for PAP
The Singapore government was on the verged of being toppled. Every session, the opposition would motion of no confidence. But across the shores, the Prime Minister of the Federation of Malaya, Tengku Abdul Rahman, watched the events and feared that Singapore was about to become a Communist State, a “second Cuba” and a danger to Malaya. Thus, this was the start of the intense and frantic, Battle for Merger.

Barisan Sosialis held sway in Singapore but it knew that in a wider Malaysia they would be crushed. On the other hand, PAP needed Malaysia to break the Barisan’s hold on the Singapore Electorate. Thus, they enlisted Malayan Tengku and the British as allies, playing on their long standing fear of Communism.

On July 1962, the Barisan Sosialis, led by David Marshall and Dr Lee Siew Choh, appealed against the merger in the United Nations in New York. The Merger Referendum, issued in 1962, was testimony to the murkiness of the Battle. It was deliberately ambiguous. It asked voters to choose what kind of merger they wanted, not whether indeed they wished for a merger. All spoilt votes were to be counted as votes in favour of merger. With this controversial tactic, the PAP won the Battle for Merger.

Tengku then decided to clean out 'Communism' with “Operation Cold Store”. Hundreds of arrests were made and effectively decapitated the Left Wing Barisan Sosialis. A snap election was called, under the protection of the Malaysian Security Council,it produced a clear PAP victory. The Barisan, with most of their leaders in prison, garnered only 13 out of 51 seats. On September 1963, the PAP government had won its battle against the Left.

Part II: Get him!

In the next instalment read how an emboldened Lee Kuan Yew, with British backing, officially breaks with Lim Chin Siong. 

Preview:

In his memoirs, Lee wrote that "Lim Chin Siong wanted to eliminate the Internal Security Council because he knew that…if it ordered the arrest and detention of the communist leaders, the Singapore government could not be held responsible and be stigmatized a colonial stooge."

What the Minister Mentor did not say, but what Harper reveals in his chapter, is shockingly contradictory: "In mid-1961, therefore, to seek a way out, Lee suggested to the British that his government should order the release of all [the remaining] detainees, but then have that order countermanded in the ISC by Britain and Malaya."

Such a craven act was even rebuffed by the British. The acting Commissioner, Philip Moore, stated that the British should not be "party to a device for deliberate misrepresentation of responsibility for continuing detentions in order to help the PAP government remain in power." (emphasis added)

Part II: Get him!
9 Jul 07

After securing control of the PAP with the aid of the British, Lee Kuan Yew was still left with the problem of the detained Lim Chin Siong and his supporters. 

This was a source of embarrassment for him. Seeing this, Lee announced that he would secure the release of his party comrades before taking office if the PAP won the elections in 1959.

Behind the scenes, Lee negotiated and secured the private agreement of then British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan that the prisoners would be released by promising that he (Lee) would "move against them if they departed from the party line."

In return for promising to secure their release, Lee had secured Lim Chin Siong's and other detainees' pledges of allegiance to the party's manifesto.

In truth the PAP and the British themselves were playing fast and loose with the law. The affair confirmed suspicions that all the backroom dealings was for political ends, not national security.

In any event, Lee assigned Lim – who, if not for all the machinations, would have been the leader of the PAP and prime minister – the post of political secretary in the ministry of finance, the Siberia of politics at that time.

Following their election victory in 1959, the PAP government released eight left wing leaders, including Lim Chin Siong on 4 June 1959, after ensuring that they were excluded from participation in the parliamentary elections to the central committee. Five were appointed as political secretaries, but with little real substantial power to initiate or influence polices. More significantly, none of them were made cadre members, which meant that they would never be in any position to challenge the leadership in future party elections. When Chin Siong was released, he was only 26 years old.

Question: If Lim Chin Siong had really been the one who started the riots in 1956, shouldn't he have been charged and imprisoned, rather then released?

As blogger Thrasymachus said, from http://singaporegovt.blogspot.com/2006/07/history-of-pap-part-iv-lim-chi... , "Here, LKY played his political cards to perfection. Being the solicitor of the detainees, he was seen as the freer of the oppressed. Putting Chin Siong and the rest in political office, he could ride their popularity amongst the Chinese population without giving Chin Siong and the rest any power. In that, LKY would not be threatened by his popular rival, but not for long."

In the meantime, detentions without trial continued under the new Lee government and the ISC continued to be used as a front for the PAP's acts.

An indecent proposal

Fed-up with Lee's autocratic style and the delay of releasing the remaining detainees, PAP MP and mayor Ong Eng Guan denounced the government for its dictatorial methods and moved a motion in the Legislative Assembly to abolish the ISC.

Harper wrote that because of the secrecy under which the ISC operated "not all members of Lee's cabinet were aware that the Singapore government had not pressed for the releases since early 1960."

In his memoirs, Lee wrote that "Lim Chin Siong wanted to eliminate the Internal Security Council because he knew that…if it ordered the arrest and detention of the communist leaders, the Singapore government could not be held responsible and be stigmatized a colonial stooge."

What the Minister Mentor did not say, but what Harper reveals in his chapter, is shockingly contradictory: "In mid-1961, therefore, to seek a way out, Lee suggested to the British that his government should order the release of all [the remaining] detainees, but then have that order countermanded in the ISC by Britain and Malaya."

Such a craven act was even rebuffed by the British. The acting Commissioner, Philip Moore, stated that the British should not be "party to a device for deliberate misrepresentation of responsibility for continuing detentions in order to help the PAP government remain in power." (emphasis added)
Moore suggested that the best solution would be "to release all the detainees forthwith." Lee, however, "was unwilling to present the left with such a victory." 
In a most damning indictment, Moore said that Lee "has lived a lie about the detainees for too long, giving the Party the impression that he was pressing for their release while, in fact, agreeing in the ISC that they should remain in detention."

And if one thought that Lee Kuan Yew could not sink any lower, he did. He turned to his saviours and warned that should he lose in an upcoming by-election, he would call for a general election, which he fully expected to lose.

This was because he was facing defections in the Legislative Assembly on his refusal to release the remaining detainees. And should he lose the elections, he warned the colonial masters, David Marshall, Ong Eng Guan and Lim Chin Siong would form the next government.

This, he calculated, would be so distasteful to the British that it would rally them to his side.

He presented the scheme at a dinner with Commissioner Lord Selkirk, Philip Moore (Selkirk's deputy), and Goh Keng Swee: Lee would order the release of the prisoners, the British would stop it through the ISC, and he would then announce a referendum on merger with Malaya (the story behind merger is explained below).

This would provoke opposition from his party mates as well as Lim's supporters whom he would then banish to Malaya.

A 1961 memo between the then Commission in Singapore and the Colonial Office in London revealed that Lee calculated that this move "would force Lim Chin Siong to reveal his hand completely and resort to direct action, in which event the Singapore Government would relinquish power and allow the British or the Federation to take over Singapore."

In short, Lee was willing to sacrifice the efforts to secure the independence of Singapore to achieve his own political ends!As it turned out, Selkirk wanted to have nothing to do with the "unsavoury" proposal.

Merger – on one condition

At about this time, Malaya's Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman revived the idea of a federation of Malaysia consisting of the Borneo territories (now Sarawak, Sabah, and Brunei), Malaya (now peninsular Malaysia), and Singapore.

In exchange for territorial concessions in Borneo, the Tunku as the head of the federation would allow Britain to maintain a strategic presence in Singapore.

The proposal was put forward because the Tunku was having problems of his own with the left in Malaya. This was not helped by the strength of Lim Chin Siong's left in Singapore. Kuala Lumpur saw the necessity of crippling Lim's support and wanted Lee to be its hit-man.

For the British, the idea of a Malaysian federation was an acceptable compromise because it allowed London to maintain influence in the region while relinquishing its colony which it was going to lose anyway given the irresistible anti-colonial sentiment fanning the globe at that time.

As for Lee Kuan Yew, the idea was heaven sent. Harper documents that Lee saw the Tunku's concept of a "Malaysia" as crucial to his own political survival because of the growing strength of the left.

The left's strength was amply demonstrated when Lee's rightwing faction lost two by-elections in quick succession – the first to Ong Eng Guan in April 1961 (Hong Lim) and the second three months later to David Marshall (Anson).

Lee was rattled. Then PAP chairman, Toh Chin Chye, recalled: "He was quite shocked. He drew me aside after the results were announced and asked me what to do. I said, 'Hang on!'"

Toh also revealed that Lee had written to him that "the trade unions, the Middle Road crowd wanted him to resign" and that they wanted him to replace Lee as the prime minister. 
Toh did not recommend Lee's resignation. But the reason he gave was that it "would divide the government and it would appear to the people of Singapore that we were being unsteady," hardly a ringing endorsement of Lee's leadership.

These developments precipitated an open split between Lee and Lim Chin Siong. Lim's group suspected – correctly – that Lee was up to no good in his pursuit of merger with Malaysia and they openly called for the abolition of the ISC.

In July 1961, legislative assemblymen, parliamentary/organising secretaries, and members of the PAP split from the party and formed the Barisan Sosialis. Lee's party was shaved to bare bones.

At the time, Harper writes, "there was an immense political momentum, a sense that the future lay with the Barisan Sosialis."

Even then, Lim Chin Siong never wavered in his commitment to governing Singapore in a democratic way when he wrote in a press statement that "any constitutional arrangement must not mean a setback for the people in terms of freedom and democracy."
This contrasts with the PAP's demonisation of Lim as a front for the communist out to destroy the democratic way. 

Closing in on Lim

Meanwhile In Malaya the Tunku insisted that Lee re-arrest Lim Chin Siong before he would allow Singapore into the federation.

One of the reasons was because if the detention was conducted after merger, the Kuala Lumpur government would be responsible for it and it would be seen as cracking down on the Chinese in Singapore, increasing communal tensions.

As for Lee's part, he saw the detention of Lim as his trump card and wanted to secure the merger first before he moved against the Barisan leader; Abdul Rahman would have no incentive to proceed with merger once the threat of Lim was removed.

But the Tunku was firm: No detention of Lim, no merger. Lee knew he had to act.

And so a two-part plan was hatched to bait Lim and colleagues: "In the first phase, the Barisan would be harassed by the police and the government. This was designed to provoke it into unconstitutional action, which would initiate a second phase of detentions, restrictions and other actions to be sanctioned by the ISC."

Lim's opposition of allowing the British to retain powers of detention during the constitutional talks in 1956 rang truer than ever and Marshall's colourful description of "Christmas pudding and arsenic sauce" were beginning to sound very apt.

The diabolical scheme was vehemently opposed by the British Commission in Singapore. Lord Selkirk told his superiors in London that "in fact I believe that both of them (Abdul Rahman and Lee Kuan Yew) wish to arrest the effective political opposition and blame us for doing so."

In the months leading up to Lim's arrest, Selkirk wrote to his superiors in London again, imploring them not to cooperate with Lee:

"Lee is probably very much attracted to the idea of destroying his political opponents. It should be remembered that there is behind all this a very personal aspect…he claims he wishes to put back in detention the very people who were released at his insistence – people who are intimate acquaintances, who have served in his government, and with whom there is a strong sense of political rivalry which transcends ideological differences."

Contrast this to what Lee wrote in his memoirs in 1998: "Lim Chin Siong…knew that if he went beyond certain limits, [the ISC] would act…"

Lim need not have gone "beyond certain limits" as declassified documents now reveal, Lee was determined to put him in prison, communist or not, limits or no.

More shamefully, Lee will not admit that he was the one who had pushed for Lim's detention.

Selkirk's deputy, Philip Moore, reviewed intelligence reports and concluded that there were no security reasons to detain Lim Chin Siong: "Lim is working very much on his own and that his primary objective is not the Communist millennium but to obtain control of the constitutional government of Singapore."But London was determined not to allow democratic scruples from getting in the way of its strategic presence in Southeast Asia. It acquiesced to Lee's plan.

Part III: The end of Lim Chin Siong

The next instalment will examine the treatment of Lim Chin Siong in Lee Kuan Yew's hands. More evidence of Lim's persecution.

Part III: The end of Lim Chin Siong
9 Jul 07

In February 1963 the ISC, under the direction of Lee, ordered Operation Coldstore where 113 opposition leaders, trade unionists, journalists, and student leaders who supported the left were arrested. Top of the list was, of course, Lim Chin Siong.

Historian Matthew Jones recorded that the arrests "primarily reflected the imperative felt by the decision-makers in London to respond to the needs and demands of the nationalist elites."

Not for the first time, the British had come to the rescue of Lee Kuan Yew.

Behind bars, torture and psychological abuse were meted out in liberal doses. Amnesty International documented much of this in a report in 1981.
The state of Lim Chin Siong under detention makes for sordid reading. According to (the late) Dennis Bloodworth, Lim came close to taking his own life while in detention. He had gone into depression. In 1965, when he was at the Singapore General Hospital Lim tried to hang himself from a pipe in the toilet. He was rescued just in time. After he recovered he was sent back to prison.

His view on detention without trial is very disturbing, showing that Lee Kuan Yew's methods of ruling are barbaric:

“The fact is that all of us were detained, without trial for ages. Not knowing when we would be coming out. That, I would say is a torture. A torture. You are detained for years, until such a time that you are willing to humiliate our own integrity. Until you are humiliated publicly. So much so, when you come out, you cannot put your head up, you cannot see your friends. Alright, then they may release you. It is a very cruel torture. It is worse than in Japanese time, when with a knife, they slaughter you. One shot, you die. But this humiliation will carry on for life. It is very cruel.”

Four years later after suffering in Lee's prison, he penned a letter to his former comrade-turned-arch-enemy and capitulated, saying that he had "finally come to the conclusion to give up politics for good" and repudiated the "international communist movement."

Siong remained in jail and suffered severe depressions, until physically broken and mentally traumatized. After he announced his decision to quit politics and was exiled in London (in 28 July 1969), his physical health ruined and his political life destroyed, he married Wong Chui Wan in London, in 1970,they had two sons. He struggled earning a living doing odd jobs and would continue to suffer bouts of depression. He never recovered. In 1979, he decided to return to Singapore and stayed in Serangoon Gardens until his death in 5 February 1996.

Even then, Lee banished Lim to London in 1969 and allowed him to return to Singapore only ten years later.What kind of treatment Lim received at the hands of his foes that turned him from a spirited and charismatic national leader who walked tall among his people into a forlorn political non-entity, Singaporeans can only imagine. For Lim is not talking, he passed away in February 1996, forever carrying his secrets with him to his grave..

Lim Chin Siong, right, selling fruits in Bayswater, London, 1970s. If he really was a communist why was he working in private enterprise selling fruits and vegetables, why didn't he go to China and join Mao Tse Tung?

It was not Britain's finest hour. Far from the honest-broker that everyone had expected Britain to be, the UK Government had actively engineered Lim's downfall and Lee Kuan Yew's capture of the prime ministership.

As it is, the historic account is hardly a heroic tale of the PAP's courageous triumph over the Barisan, as official accounts would have us believe.
Instead, declassified documents now show that it was a sad tale of private dealings and cowardly machinations for the attainment of power. 

At his funeral which overflowed with his former Barisan comrades and supporters, eulogies recounting Lim's selfless dedication to a free and democratic Singapore were read. As his casket was pushed into the furnace, a thunderous and defiant applause resounded.

Referendum: To merger or to merge?

After having fulfilled his promise to Tunku Abdul Rahman to arrest Lim Chin Siong before merger, Lee set his sights on taking Singapore into Malaysia. He called for a referendum to obtain the people's mandate for the move, a decision that Britain and the Tunku objected to.

A referendum was hardly necessary as Lim and other Barisan leaders were behind bars. One suspects that a vote was needed to give the PAP the mandate to move in this direction.

Indeed Lee, with not little false bravado, wrote in his memoirs: "I remained determined that there should be referendum."

Democratic? Hardly. Instead of asking Singaporeans to vote for ‘yes' or ‘no' to merger, Lee proposed a ballot that allowed the people to vote only for merger under three options:

Do you want merger?
A. in accordance with the white paper, or
B. on the basis of Singapore as a constituent state of the Federation of Malaya, or
C. on terms no less favourable than those given to the three Borneo territories?

And so after the referendum in September 1962, Singapore moved one step closer to becoming a part of an independent Malaysia.

Regrettable but necessary?

Lee Kuan Yew, would have us believe as he wrote in his memoirs, that the use of detention without trial was "most regrettable but, from my personal knowledge of the communists, absolutely necessary."

Harper dismisses this argument: "It was…inadmissible to argue, as Lee Kuan Yew did, that the exercise of these powers was ‘regrettable', but dictated by historical necessity."

The truth is that "through this adversity…the Barisan Sosialis still adhered to constitutional tactics."

Indeed, in the entire campaign to cripple the opposition, Lee Kuan Yew and his rightwing PAP faction has repeatedly resorted to using desperate measures of detention without trial, brazenly accusing his opponents of being a front for the communists.

Harper makes it even more explicit:

"After 1959, Lee Kuan Yew had urged the necessity of defeating the radical left through open democratic argument, whilst trying to provoke them into extra-legal action. The left, however, had not been deflected from constitutional struggle. Therefore, from mid-1962 at least, Lee concluded that this confrontation could only be resolved by resort to special powers that lay beyond the democratic process. This merely exposed the extent to which the crisis, as the British argued, a political one, and not a security one."

The last chapter

Lim Chin Siong's fight for Singapore may have come to a close, but another one is just beginning – the fight for history to be written the way it should be.

Declassified secret papers are beginning to provide a glimpse into what really took place during the 1950s and 60s, especially in the behind-the-scenes dealings.

Beginning with Comet In Our Sky more will be revealed. But as Harper tells us "many files remain closed and many files that have been released have had key documents ‘retained' by the original government department." These include key documents on Lim Chin Siong's detention in Operation Coldstore in 1963.

As the real story emerges, the Singapore Democrats will play our part to urge this process along – in cyberspace – thus ensuring that the memory of Lim Chin Siong and what he and his Barisan colleagues did for Singapore will forever remain with us.

End of a Great Singaporean

This is crucial as our past is still our present. Lim had argued that arbitrary powers of detention without trial, in whoever's hands be they white or yellow, will continue to make Singapore unfree and our struggle for independence elusive.

"The people ask for fundamental democratic rights," he argued, "but what have they got? They have only got freedom of firecrackers after seven o'clock in the evening. The people ask for bread and they have been given stones instead."

More than half a century later, can any Singaporeans say with hand on heart that Lim Chin Siong was not right? 

Chin Siong - Malaysia 1995 - a few months before he died. At his funeral his children were surprised at government officials showing up to pay tribute, which shows that Chin Siong never talked to his children about his fame and adornment from the Singaporean people when he was a young man. Once Lee Kuan Yew's thugs got hold of him for years in prison, they obviously 'demolished' (a term Lee likes to use in referrence to his treatment of any challengers to his power) his essense, destroyed his spirit - no doubt through similar methods that lawyer Gopalan Nair experienced in June 2008 when he was put into Lee's prison where he had to sleep with a bare light on 24 hrs, on a hard cold floor (no bed) and no blanket, leading to shivering and on top of this, Chin Siong would have had to endure psychologically abusive interrogation and maybe even physical beatings - the end result was that for the rest of his life he was afraid to even talk to his own children about how great he had once been. Sad, very sad.

For another very good article on Lim Chin Siong also see: http://singaporegovt.blogspot.com/2006/07/history-of-pap-part-iv-lim-chi...

Comet in our Sky: Lim Chin Siong in History
Editor: Tan Jing Quee & Jomo K. S.
Publisher: Selangor Darul Ehsan (Malaysia)
170 pp. B&W photos.
Paperback
ISBN: 983-9602-14-4
Available: Select BooksThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

This is a compilation of several efforts to critically understand and appreciate the significant role and legacy of the late Lim Chin Siong in the political history of Singapore. He was undoubtedly the most prominent left wing leader in Singapore in the 1950's and 60's. Academics and close political friends in Malaysia and Singapore attempt to give a balanced and objective account of Lim's contribution to post-war history in Singapore and Malaysia.

Comet in our Sky brings together a collection of twelve essays, poems and memorials offering a multi-faceted view of the life and times of the late Lim Chin Siong, Singapore's former trade unionist and socialist parliamentarian whose political career was first curtailed and then cut short by arrests and detention under the Internal Security Act (ISA).

Book Review by Francis Seow: Comet In Our Sky: Lim Chin Siong

Important Book with a Tale to TellBook Review:
by Cheah Boon Kheng
The New Straits Times (Malaysia)
21 Jul 01

Lim Chin Siong, the vanquished other hero of Singapore's political history. A man who stayed true to his cause and an architect of our struggle against colonialism. In his honour, KS Jomo and Tan Jing Quee have edited a book which is a collection of essays, poems and speeches in a tribute to a great leader who never got true recognition in our history books. History will be re-written for you cannot keep the truth from surfacing forever. Read this review and buy the book, we believe only in Malaysia. But we will try Borders and tell you the results.

Lim Chin Siong - our other hero In place of a full-length biography, these separate individual accounts and memoirs from Britain, Australia, Malaysia and Singapore represent a composite story of Lim's life and politics, especially when he was a young rising star in Singapore's political firmament in the 1950's and 1960's.

Lee Kuan Yew, who had founded the People's Action Party with Lim Chin Siong, introduced him to David Marshall, then Singapore's Chief Minister, as "our future Prime Minister" in 1955. Lim's bright career however, was abruptly destroyed before he could realise its full potential.

It was during his third imprisonment, says his friend Dr M.K. Rajakumar, that Lim was "destroyed, both psychologically and politically". He had a nervous breakdown, became depressed and suicidal. In 1969, in this state of depression, he was released from detention after announcing that he would quit politics.

He was allowed to leave for exile in London, and did not return to Singapore again until 1979. He died of a heart attack in 1996 at the age of 62.

Essays by Lim's close friends, especially Tan Jing Quee and Dr M.K. Rajakumar, add an intimate touch and tell an inspiring story of his rapid climb to popularity and as undisputed leader of Chinese workers, trade unions and Chinese middle school students in the 1950s.

He is described as a slim, youthful figure, selfless, dedicated, with a handsome boyish face whose oratory as a speaker in Hokkien among the Chinese masses was legendary.

In his political memoir The Singapore Story, Lee offered ungrudging praise to Lim's "hypnotic" oratory: "...a ringing voice that flowed beautifully in his native Hokkien. The girls adored him, especially those in the trade unions. Once he got going after a cold start at the first two meetings, there was tremendous applause every time he spoke. By the end of the campaign, Lim Chin Siong was seen as a charismatic figure and a person to be reckoned with in Singapore politics and, what was of more immediate concern, within the PAP."

In 1955 Lim had been elected as Singapore's youngest parliamentarian. However, a year later, after widespread riots involving industrial workers and Chinese school students, he was arrested and imprisoned on charges of being one of the leaders of the "communist united front" alleged to have been behind the riots.

Lim's own reputation was a further casualty to the riots' mayhem and bloodshed, and he was detained without trial. He denied charges that he was a communist, charges which remain unsubstantiated.

In a startling and revisionist essay, Dr Greg Poulgrain of Griffiths University observes that the British Governor of Singapore and his Chief Secretary in their reports to London had admitted that the police could find no evidence to establish that Lim was a communist. 
Poulgrain claims it was actually Singapore's then Chief Minister, Lim Yew Hock, who had deliberately "provoked" the bus and other industrial workers and Chinese middle students to riot in 1956 in order to have Lim Chin Siong arrested.

Lim Yew Hock's own admission to responsibility for the riot appears in an official report to the British Government which Poulgrain found in the Colonial Office records in London which are now open to researchers.

"Lee Kuan Yew was secretly a party with Lim Yew Hock," adds Poulgrain, "in urging the Colonial Secretary to impose the subversives ban in making it illegal for former political detainees to stand for election."

In 1959, while Lim was in prison, the PAP won the general elections under which Lee became Prime Minister, and Singapore was granted self-government by the British in all matters except for internal security, defence and external affairs.

Although Lim and other leftist political detainees were released from prison, their co-operation and alliance with Lee ended in 1961 due to disagreements over policies and strategies.

Until then the media presented the PAP as a leftwing party, indicating the pervasive and dominant influence of Lim's faction within and outside the party. Their rivalry was intense and ideological. Lee finally resorted to arrests to remove Lim and his faction.

When Lim and other political detainees such as Fong Swee Suan and S. Woodhull were released, they were appointed Political Secretaries. But the honeymoon was soon over.

The PAP split in 1961 saw Lim taking away with him almost the entire PAP branches and personnel to form and lead a new party, the Barisan Socialis (Socialist Front).

Not long after this, the Barisan campaigned to oppose the formation of Malaysia which involved Singapore's merger with Sabah, Sarawak and Malaya on the grounds that Lee Kuan Yew had not sought more favourable terms for Singapore.

The Malaysia plan, mooted by Malaya's then Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman, was endorsed by the British Government which had agreed to relinquish its rule of the other three territories.

Fearing the increasing communist influence said to be behind the Barisan, Lee and the Tunku put pressure on the British authorities to arrest Lim and other leftists in Singapore for their opposition to Malaysia. On Feb 2, 1961 the police, under Operation Cold Store, detained over 100 people, including Lim.

In another essay British historian Dr T.N. Harper discloses that these arrests were initially opposed by top officials in the British Commission in Singapore during meetings of the tripartite Internal Security Council with representatives from the governments of Singapore, Malaya and Britain.

The British Commissioner in Singapore, the Earl of Selkirk, and his deputy, Philip Moore, had argued that such arrests would not only be undemocratic and unfair, but also failed to take into account that Lim and his party had been engaged in constitutional struggle.

The Commissioner's arguments for democracy and fair play were quite extraordinary and out of line with London's official thinking, but were eventually rejected by superior officials in London, especially the British Secretary of State.

The mood at the time of Lim's arrest during Operation Cold Store has been likened to "white terror", vividly described in a dedicatory poem by Tan Jing Quee, a former trade unionist who is now a lawyer and who himself was later detained on charges of being involved in communist united front activities:

On the second day of February thunder raged through frightened streets lightning blighted all lamps

In essays by other close friends, especially those by Dr M.K. Rajakumar, A. Samad Ismail, A. Mahadeva, Dr Lim Hock Siew and Said Zahari, details of Lim's personal health, suffering, character and political past are brought to light, especially his kind, friendly, charming and charismatic qualities.

To most Singaporeans, their memory of Lim is that of a broken man, a rising star that burnt out. But Tan Jing Quee recalls that Lim "pulled himself out of the depths of despair. Unknown to many people, he made a remarkable recovery."

One cannot help but be moved by Lim Chin Siong's tragic story in Comet in Our Sky, where he appears as Singapore's alternative hero to Lee Kuan Yew.

Source: Singapore Democracy Archives

The recent dialogue over the hijab issue has revealed significant differences in the way PAP and the opposition parties tackle difficult issues, said MPs Indranee Rajah and Hri Kumar Nair in separate postings on their Facebook accounts.

Both noted that the Workers' Party (WP) have refused to take a clear stand on this issue - as well as on several other potentially thorny matters - but have preferred instead to "[straddle] both sides of the fence and merely [call] for public dialogue"

"This does little to help resolve a delicate and difficult national issue and runs the danger of encouraging groups, including those from other communities, to take rhetorical positions and make public demands which they may then find difficult to move from, " said Ms Indranee.

In his post, Mr Nair said: "On almost every contentious issue, where taking a position risks loss of support, the WP has either sat on the fence or has heavily qualified its position, while giving the impression that it has seriously considered the matter."

He pointed out that "the best way to understand a party's true ideology is to look at the positions it takes on specific issues, particularly contentious ones where there is a genuine diversity of views."

Explaining that Singapore's political development will "stagnate if political parties avoid difficult issues," Mr Nair warned: "Those who stand for nothing, fall for anything."

Their full postings on Facebook are as follows:

Ms Indranee Rajah:

I am heartened by how the government and the Malay community are approaching the hijab issue, through calm and constructive dialogue. The issue is a difficult one. While I fully understand the desires of many Muslim Singaporeans, we also have to consider carefully its impact on our racial integration and harmony.

Two opposition parties - the NSP and WP - have made statements on this issue. Unfortunately, they have presented it as a simple, straightforward matter, with no trade-offs or downsides. If it were that easy, we would have been able to solve it long ago, and countries like Turkey (even with a government led by an Islamic party) would not be grappling with similar difficulties.

NSP, at least, have stated their stand. WP avoids stating clearly their position on the issue. It sounds sympathetic, but if you read the statement carefully, WP straddles both sides of the fence and merely calls for public dialogue. This does little to help resolve a delicate and difficult national issue and runs the danger of encouraging groups, including those from other communities, to take rhetorical positions and make public demands which they may then find difficult to move from.

Mr Hri Kumar Nair:

In most democratic countries, political parties are differentiated by their ideologies. They are given labels like left wing, right wing, socialist, liberal, conservative etc. However, these are not always accurate. The best way to understand a party's true ideology is to look at the positions it takes on specific issues, particularly contentious ones where there is a genuine diversity of views.

In Singapore, things are rather different. The PAP forms the government and its decisions therefore reflect its position on issues. So what is the ideology of the main opposition party, the Workers' Party? What is its position on tough issues? The record is clear - it sits on the fence.

It was for this reason that I found the debate on the Ashley Madison issue interesting. Most will agree that it is an obnoxious website. But blocking it raises questions of free speech and the role of the Government in regulating morality. Opposition parties are constantly attacking the Government on such issues. So I was curious to know what the WP would say. They kept true to form. See for yourself:

First, this is Denise Phua's question in Parliament:

Ms Denise Phua Lay Peng: To ask the Minister for Communications and Information if the Ministry will block the Ashley Madison website or other online services of the same nature which target persons already in relationships and openly glorify and promote infidelity including extramarital affairs.

It is clear where she stands - she wants the site blocked. Now, this is Pritam Singh's question:

Mr Pritam Singh: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Development in light of the community reaction to the Ashley Madison website in Singapore, what is the Government's approach in dealing with societal agents and forces that harm the institution of marriage.

Can you make out WP's position? Neither can I. Was this obfuscation deliberate? Undoubtedly. Why not make its position clear? Because the WP knows that either position it takes would put it at odds with one group of Singaporeans or another. So the safest thing to do is to sound like you are saying something without actually saying anything.

Is this an exception? Actually, it is the rule. On almost every contentious issue, where taking a position risks loss of support, the WP has either sat on the fence or has heavily qualified its position, while giving the impression that it has seriously considered the matter.

In the recent Bill to renew the Criminal Law (Temporary Provisions) Act and the power to detain without trial, Ms Sylvia Lim in her speech did not take a position, but when asked directly by Minister Iswaran, said that she supported its renewal "with a heavy heart".

On the current Hijab debate, the WP did not take a position, but called for "a public dialogue".

On the repeal of s.377A of the Penal Code (which criminalises homosexual acts), Ms Lim said that the WP could not reach a consensus on the matter and therefore declined to take a position.

On the amendments to the Human Organ Transplant Act, the WP abstained on voting and called for the Bill to be referred to a Select Committee.

One could go on. What, for example, is the WP's position on the allocation of COEs or Primary One places - issues where interests of different groups are seemingly irreconcilable? There is none.

Some might say say that this is a smart strategy - after all, why voluntarily give people reasons to oppose you? Because there are larger issues at stake - our political development will stagnate if political parties avoid difficult issues. Because there can never be freedom of choice unless people know and understand what their choices really represent.

Because as one of the founding fathers of the United States, Alexander Hamilton, once said: "Those who stand for nothing, fall for anything."

Source: People's Action Party website

The Malay Mail Online 

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 19 — Minister Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim today sought to fend off allegations of excess in Putrajaya’s use of private jets, claiming it would cost more to follow Singapore’s choice to charter flights for government leaders.

Saying that Pakatan Rakyat lawmakers were misguided in praising Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong for choosing travel on a commercial airliner on his way to a recent summit, the minister in the Prime Minister’s Department said the flight was chartered and could not be considered commercial.

“They say the Singapore PM uses a commercial flight; that’s not true. If you look at the summit at the airport you see his plane parked with the rest. That means he chartered the plane and not fly on a commercial flight like what is claimed.

“To charter the plane is more expensive than to use your own plane,” he told a press conference in Parliament here.

Yesterday, PR lawmakers were up in arms over the cost to maintain the government jet ACJ319, the private aircraft used to fly the prime minister and other government officials, much like the Air Force One in the US.

On October 3, it was disclosed in Parliament that Putrajaya spends RM28.8 million in annual rental and RM5.5 million to maintain the jet.

On top of that, as much as RM44 million in taxpayers’ funds were used to fund the prime minister’s overseas travel since 2008.

The revelation came amid Putrajaya’s call for the Malaysian public to adapt to subsidy withdrawals as the government aims to trim its ballooning debt.

Opposition MPs have branded the call hypocritical, accusing government leaders of living lavishly as seen from their hefty allowances and huge monthly pay.

But Shahidan claimed it was wrong to assume that there was abuse in the use of the private jet or in the prime minister’s travel expenses, and called on detractors to “repent”.

“It’s not nice to make such allegations. There was never any power abuse in this case... so I advise those who exploit this issue to repent. Repent before god makes you repent,” he said.

*Article first appeared on http://sg.news.yahoo.com/minister-insists-singapore-pm-flights-costlier-...

The government has released its latest Town Council Management Report and graded Workers’ Party’s Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol East Town Council with the only “red” grade in the entire report.

Worker’s party received “red” in the area of collecting Service and Conservancy Charges (S&CC) as it had more than 5% of households which were in arrears for more than 3 months.

The report was released today (21 Nov) and was an assessment of the 15 town councils in Singapore for their performance for 1 year ending in March 2013.

The areas assessed in the report were cleanliness, maintenance, lift performance, S&CC arrears and corporate governance. Generally all towncouncils did well in most areas except for maintenance.

Workers’ Party’s wards as well as 9 other PAP wards received a yellow grade in maintenance.

Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol East Town Council was the only one to score red in S&CC charges, Potong Pasir Town Council received a yellow grade for S&CC arrears. All the rest of the categories for all town councils was green.

It is curious that the government’s report was so harsh on Worker’s Party’s ward.

Could this be another attempt to ‘fix’ opposition by broadcasting to Singaporeans that the Town councils run by WP were the worst in the MND report?

Everyone is well aware of the PAP’s attempts to politicise anything that works in their favour, such as the recent raising of cleaner’s wages only within PAP wards. (Only cleaners under PAP town councils to get pay rise).

Is this report by another government and PAP run body really reliable?

Using visual cues such as green, yellow and red grades, it may give the impression that WP town councls are doing very badly.

In actual fact, the figures themselves are not nearly so frightening. The report indicated that only 5% of households were in arrears for over 3 months. While clearly the PAP town councils have much lower numbers, using “red” to label this situation makes it look much worse than it is for people simply glancing through the news.

Presenting the data in this was likely a deliberate choice. 

Singapore has been under “cyber attack” since early Nov. Going by the commentaries and reports and the many people I have talked to, it gives me great comfort to know that many Singaporeans have taken a stand against those who threatened our country’s computer systems and websites – your support is much appreciated. 

Many of our agencies, including IDA, have worked hard in the past weeks to strengthen the security of our computer systems and websites. In recent days, those responsible for the recent attacks have been arrested or are being investigated. 

Any forms of cyber attacks or threats are actually threats on the people regardless if the intent was malicious or mischievous. These include curious netizens who claimed to have followed instructions found online – It is irresponsible and does not bring about any positive outcome. 

Such acts are like someone coming into your home uninvited. They snoop around, leave their mark or steal your valuables. They damage your property, and violate your personal privacy.

At the minimum, hacking inconveniences the government and the public. But it can also damage computer systems, cause uncertainty and create havoc in society and at its worst, even endanger lives. We can see this from other news reports about the harmful impact that hacking has caused in other countries. 

We should not condone such acts and I would like to urge Singaporeans to continue taking a stand against these threats.

Yaacob Ibrahim

Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts

The government has released its latest Town Council Management Report and graded Workers’ Party’s Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol East Town Council with the only “red” grade in the entire report.

Worker’s party received “red” in the area of collecting Service and Conservancy Charges (S&CC) as it had more than 5% of households which were in arrears for more than 3 months.

The report was released today (21 Nov) and was an assessment of the 15 town councils in Singapore for their performance for 1 year ending in March 2013.

For full background story refer to: MND REPORT CARD: ONLY WP’S TOWN COUNCIL GETS "RED" GRADE FOR S&CC ARREARS

Below is Worker's Party full statement on this issue:

TOWN COUNCIL MANAGEMENT REVIEW PUBLISHED 21 NOV 2013

The Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol East Town Council (AHPETC) notes that MND has rated our town council comparably with the other town councils in the areas of Estate Cleanliness, Estate Maintenance and Lift Performance in the latest Town Council Management Report (TCMR). We also note that AHPETC is banded red for S&CC Arrears Management and has a ‘pending’ remark for Corporate Governance.

In the area of S&CC Arrears Management, we are closely monitoring the situation and have initiated several steps to recover the outstanding arrears since 2012.  We have stepped up enforcement measures including court prosecution where other measures have failed. We are processing the arrears cases in batches. While some residents can settle their arrears within a short period of time, others may need more time to do so and we have assisted them with instalment plans. Improving the arrears situation is an ongoing process and will take time to effect.

In the area of Corporate Governance, our banding is listed as ‘pending’ mainly because our auditors are still in the midst of finalising our FY12 financial statements. We understand that the issues being addressed include complexities resulting from the handover legacy, classification and treatment issues, year-end adjustments, and others. We appointed the auditors in early May 2013 and we hope the audit will be completed soon.

Going forward, AHPETC will continue to work hard to provide a pleasant living environment for our residents.

SYLVIA LIM
CHAIRMAN
ALJUNIED-HOUGANG-PUNGGOL EAST TOWN COUNCIL

In a facebook post yesterday evening ahead of the release of PSLE results today, PM Lee wrote that students should not worry too much about their PSLE result as they will still be able to continue education in a “good school”.

Seeing as there are some schools that have minimum PSLE result requirements, it can only be assumed that PM Lee means to say that every school is a good school.

It seems that PM Lee is also touting the PAP’s new favourite line when it comes to education.

Does he honestly believe that every school is a good school? If he did, why did he and his children attend ‘elite’ schools?

As the Vice-Principal of Jurong West Secondary School said recently:

“How many of our leaders and top officers who say that every school is a good school put their children in ordinary schools near their home?”

(See: Jurong West Sec VP openly criticises ministers who say ‘every school is a good school’)

In his post, PM Lee had highlighted that every school has dedicated teachers and he also reminded children and parents to put more emphasis on holistic learning.

"Above all, I hope you will grow in resilience, drive and determination. For when all is said and done, these will help you succeed in life." He wrote.

Many people have associated the SDP with democracy, human rights and civil rights. Some have denigrated us for promoting these values, others have lauded us. Regardless – that's what we will continue to do. We're proud that we are bringing the language, the discourse into the political arena in Singapore.

However, it's also important to understand why we do so. Many think that politics and human rights are separate issues. They are not. They are inherently linked. Human rights is good social policy. Policies are made to better the lives of people. They are made to benefit the citizenry.

Human rights is about the right to enjoy these sound policies when they are enacted. For anyone to say that politics does not mix with civil and human rights is to say that politics is only about power and self-preservation. That is not what the SDP is about.

Because human rights have always been at the heart of what our party stands for, and are reflected in all that we do and propose to Singaporeans, we believe that time will show that we have set the country on its proper course. It certainly hasn't been easy, but nothing good achieved ever is. And that's okay, because we're content to know that as pioneers of social justice, our reward is to know that we have given of ourselves to improve the lot of our fellow Singaporeans.

Rewards of power and prestige mean little compared with a healthy society, where the poor and elderly are properly taken care of, where children grow up in a society that nurtures creativity, where one's whole life is not in service of re-paying huge mortgage and absurdly high COE, where the quality of a happy life, a good life is the true objective.

So when people look at our social policies, policies that cry out for a better health care system, more creative schools, lower housing costs, a better transportation system, workers' rights, and civil liberties for all – in short – a higher quality of life that reaffirms the basic rights of everyone living in Singapore, it is about human rights.

Our words are consistent with our deeds. Our deeds are consistent with our policies. Our policies are consistent with our commitment to enriching the lives of those who call themselves Singaporeans.

And that's what the SDP has always been and will always be about – a party that stands up for the rights of our fellow Singaporeans. 

Chee Siok Chin is a member of SDP's Central Executive Committee and head of its Training and Development Unit.
 

Source: YourSDP.org

Dear Nicole,

You may find it ironic or even feel that I am just being "sarcastic" but I have to congratulate you of crossing the most critical point of your life. Contrary to what you and many other people think, I think 2013 is the best year you could ever have in your life.

From what I have read from your post “Ground Zero”, 2013 is the year that provides the most important opportunity of metamorphosis for you, both in terms of personal as well as political advancement.

Although I hardly write to you about anything but in private, I have raised the concerns of your early political fame. Especially when you are blown out of the sky by the initial political fame gained with so many people flattering you, there lies the very danger of a devastating fall and destruction by the overinflated ego.

There is a Chinese saying, “少年得志大不幸”,literally means that most of those who have early fame or success in life, will probably end up with misfortune later. Right after GE2011, I actually felt guilty for transforming you into a “famous young Star” by urging you to stand for elections in Marine Parade which will inevitably put you into this dangerous path of “early fame”. As I watched over the days, months and years of how you have set your feet onto the sweet coated poisons of flattery and ego trips, I felt even worse. When I was persuading you to stand for elections in Marine Parade GRC, I have told you that you will definitely become famous or even a star, due to Tin PL factor of contrast and comparison. However, somehow I have left out the most important part of the potential danger lying ahead after becoming famous.

I didn’t write to you earlier because I know, there and then, you will not be able take criticisms constructively when what you heard most, was flattery. Pride and prejudice have become the biggest hindrance of your life. Anybody at your age if put into your shoes, would inevitably become so.

When I witnessed how you tripped and fell along the way with the various blunders you made publicly in forums, talks or in private, I thought to myself, all the efforts would be a waste after all. One will fall the hardest after he or she has climbed to the highest of the ego ladder. This is a historical lesson I learnt; the most effective way of destroying your opponents is to fan their ego to the highest and then after, give them the hardest blow to make them fall the hardest. They will never be able to stand up again to fight you. Strength comes not from your physical construct, but rather, from your mind and soul. Once your mind is destroyed by the fall from the ego ladder, no matter how strong you are in physical terms, you will lose the will to fight again.

When I read what you have written in this article “Ground Zero”, I feel so glad and happy for you. You have finally gone through the most difficult part of this process of transition. Not many people can overcome this transition, a ruthless metamorphosis that will strip you of mind and soul. Some have even perished, taken their own lives for they cannot take the humiliation that comes from the fall from the ego ladder.

Thus, I have to congratulate you for making it through such enlightening process. However, I still hope that you can reconstruct your mind and soul to continue the political path which you have chosen to walk, with more wisdom and patience. Intelligence alone is not enough for one to walk the difficult, risky and uncertain path of opposition politics. You need wisdom, tact, patience, learning, hard work, team play and building, apart from charisma and stardom, to sustain and be successful in opposition politics. 

When you and other ex-RP people joined NSP and perform well in GE2011, I was extremely happy. However, I am utterly disappointed on how you guys run the campaign and later, demonstrate the impatience to take over the leadership of the party. I have no problem to hand over the SG at all but I guess it is the wrong thing to do after all.

Let me explain why I think you and others who are new to NSP are extremely politically naive and amateurish when you guys tried to take over the party. And why I decided to let Hazel become SG and allowing my membership lapsed as well.

Politics is not just about Stardom or Fame, not even about “talents”, be it “scholars” or whatever it means. It is about numbers and people management. Apparently, all of you have underestimated the strength of the “veterans” or “original members” of NSP. All you have focused is about what you want but nothing about the feelings or other people’s thinking or perception.

When I first join NSP way back in 2007, I didn’t even want to hold any position in CEC, although I was co-opted into it. But I still spent lots of effort and time to help Law Sin Ling, the then SG of NSP in various work; discussion of press releases, editorial of North Star, ground work as selling North Star etc. I wasn’t interested in taking up the SG post even after Law left. Not even when the veterans persuaded me to take over. The reason is simple: I was simply not ready to take up the SG because I have yet to gain confidence of the members. It will take time for anyone who wants to lead a whole group of people who are mostly older than you, to understand them better and find out more about each and every one of them. Else, any rush into such leadership position will be suicidal.

Anyone who tries to push you to take over such leadership position prematurely will definitely have ulterior motive or hidden agenda. It is actually a DEATH TRAP because once you take up that position, most probably you will not able to perform well because you lack the basic understanding of each individuals in the party, least their full support, trust and confidence. Positions aren’t there for good showing only. They come with great responsibility and you will be putting your own credibility to great risk if you do not have the right conditions to excel.

Thus, it was only after Ken Sun stepped down and knowing the GE was near, I took up the post of SG. However, it is not without obstacle. There will always be others who want to be difficult and try to undermine your authority. There was one veteran who wanted to contest for the SG post. I told everyone, including him, right before the CEC elections that if he can find two congress members to propose and second him to contest for the SG post, I would decline nomination and let him be SG. He could only get one member to nominate him but no other to second him. The rest is history.

The point I want to show through my own experience, is that never underestimate the people around you. In politics, you cannot cherry pick but have to work with people whom you may not like at all. This is what team work all about. As long as they are not there to destroy or sabotage the whole platform, you will have to play ball as a team player with them.

But when I saw how impatient the whole lot of you was rushing into demanding leadership position, especially the SG post, I could only laugh at such naivety I could have contested against Hazel and by now you should realize, most probably Hazel won’t win if there was a contest between us. But I didn’t. I empathized with your group’s plight, especially Tony and Hazel who have hopped from WP to RP and last (hopefully), NSP. They felt helpless of such “party hopping” because they felt that the main problem is that they do not have absolute control of their destiny via controlling the party platform. Furthermore, most likely if Hazel didn’t become SG there and then, your whole group would most likely leave NSP. Your group will become “political nomads”, so to speak. It will be a lose-lose situation for everyone of us. Even I won the SG post, the whole party would still lose because we would lose the whole bunch of good, though politically inexperienced people.

However, I also foresaw that Hazel and the rest will not succeed basically because she won’t be able to commit the kinds of time and efforts demanded from a SG. Furthermore, taking up such position prematurely without even first knowing the whole party well inside out, will definitely handicapped her effectiveness as SG. Running a party of ALL volunteers is MORE demanding than running a company. This is because for a commercial entity, you can just hire and fire but not for a political party of volunteers. You will have to spend triple effort in managing PEOPLE, human beings who have different egos and characteristics.

This is the reason why I have to let my membership lapse because of this predictions, I do not want to be made the scapegoat for being blamed for Hazel’s failure. True enough, from extraordinary long time in publishing the first issue of North Star right after GE2011, to lack of leadership on the ground work front and such, my predictions came true. It is just a matter of time before she fell from that position.

I have spent so much writing on these because I want to let you know, it will do you no good to be impatient in taking up political positions in NSP CEC when you cannot commit that level of effort and time needed to be effective. Most important of all, you will need to spend more time to understand everyone in the party, not restricting to CEC members only. Else, even if you manage to get whatever position you aim for, you will find yourself stonewalled and frustrated all the time.

The other point which you have raised in your article Ground Zero, is that you realize you are not expert in everything. The truth is, if you want to be a politician, a MP, you will have to know everything with certain depth, though not to the expert level. It is good that you have such realization but you are still young. You could still put effort in learning more policy matters; enrich yourself with the learning of Economics, statistics or even sociology and technology. This is an ever learning path for politicians.

Last but not least, I do have confidence and hope in you to progress into an even more potent political force after this great year of 2013. I always remind myself: one learns nothing from being blown out of the sky by ego fanning but only from setbacks and failures in life, one will get valuable lessons to prepare for the future. 

All the BEST to you in your future political battles.

Goh Meng Seng 

*The author is the former secretary-general of the NSP.

Dear Contributors,

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued support and your participation in our REACH Discussion Forum (DF).

Over the years, I have enjoyed reading the many insightful comments penned on the REACH DF and found them useful. While the discussions have generally been respectful and robust, the forum has seen some cases of less than desirable online behaviours from anonymous users, which affect discussions among contributors.

Some contributors have suggested that REACH not allow anonymous comments. They have urged REACH to introduce some form of identification for participation in the DF to promote civil, engaging and healthy conversations amongst contributors.

Following these suggestions, we will introduce a Facebook login function for the REACH DF from 12 Dec onwards. This is similar to general practices adopted by major and popular websites, such as YouTube and various mainstream media websites, where only registered users are able to post comments.

We hope this enhancement will strengthen trust within the REACH community and further enhance REACH as a safe harbour for discussions to take place. I would like to assure you as always, that REACH will continue to listen to your views and suggestions, and convey your sentiments to government agencies and policy makers.

Thank you.

Warm Regards

Amy Khor

REACH Chairman

Source: https://www.reach.gov.sg/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=kfnXEMSY-D0%3d&tabid=230&mid=609

People usually write these things at the end, or the beginning of the year, but I just had to say this - I'm all of 27 years old, but can safely say that 2013 has been the worse year of my life thus far. 

Yes, I can already imagine the older folk rolling their eyes. Let me carry on first lah! 

Post-General Elections 2011, life took a sharp detour. People were more interested in what I was doing politically than professionally, which was annoying because I was doing pretty well at work. There were expectations to be as active as an elected MP. All eyes were on you. You either impressed them to the sky or got brushed off as a load of hogwash. 

It derailed me from my larger purpose. I started taking on opportunities with the thought in my head "Would this help me get elected in 2016?"

Needless to say, when you start thinking about your life in 5 year blocks, you start to get equally myopic about the way you do things. And you start walking in the wilderness, with no larger goal in mind. 

I carried on with my nose to the grind, feeling exhausted every day just going to work, going for house visits, walkabouts, feeling like I was reading off a script every time I met a new resident because my brain was so dead I was on auto-pilot. 

I felt even more helpless every single time I met a needy person, knowing that other than referring them to CDC or a private charity, it was completely limiting because there are just only so many hours in a day to really help or invest in someone, especially when you're holding down a day job with no support or mentors. 

I was naive, arm-twisted into making some pretty bad decisions (Yup, the Presidential Elections was one of them. Terrible, irreversible mistake, completely underestimated what my lobbying could do).

I felt like a fraud being invited to speak at conferences everywhere. I mean, I do have an opinion on some things, but I'm not an expert on everything or anything as of yet.

I felt extremely self-conscious about the need to appear or look a certain way, just so people wouldn't walk away feeling they've been cheated. I was only cheating myself. 

Got played out dating 2-3 men who were obviously more interested in my public profile than who I really was as a person. 

Feared for my family's safety because I was constantly being stalked with rape threats, death threats, people knowing my exact address. 

I was on the verge of snapping. That was when my meltdown began. 

Was working in a great agency with some really fantastic, hilarious, brilliant people. I couldn't live up to expectations. Was a cultural misfit. Self-esteem took a dive, professionally lost, complete lack of confidence. Affected my work. I was working through Christmas, New Year, churning 6am all-nighters because there just weren't enough hours in a day and I was burning out from all ends. 

Then came Feb 2013 - The day I found out grandma was diagnosed with third stage stomach cancer. Something in me snapped and I had a physical panic attack. I still remember standing at the first floor of my office, leaning against the wall, body shaking, suddenly unable to breathe or walk. Blacked out on the spot. 

I went on 2 months of medical leave, never to return to the agency. Contracted dengue. Sat on a chair in Changi General Hospital, extremely weak, on drip and unable to move for 10 hours because they didn't have a bed for me to lie on. 

Another offer came along to work with companies in India. The boss promised me I would make it big, get lots of equity, become a business woman of substance under his tutelage. 

That didn't work out as well. In fact, I got fired right after I came back from London. With no one-month compensation as stated in my contract. Singapore, what employment rights? The icing on the cake was a carefully-timed string of nasty emails that followed. 

My health took another dive. I was hospitalised for 18 days this time, and spent most of my birthday lying in bed alone. No income for another 1.5 months. Practically subsisted on crackers and water because I was too weak to eat anything else. 

-- 

Yeah, it all sucked and I was moping for a bit, but so what? 

I'm grateful, because I learnt a couple of lessons along the way. 

1) Life is 50-50. You can't control most of it, but you can control how you respond to it, and whether you want to make things work. 

2) Learn to let go. Many things are like sand. If you hang on too tight, you end up losing all of it. 

3) Love unconditionally. It's the hardest skill to master but it sets you free when you don't expect anything, or don't receive anything from the other person. 

4) Love yourself, but also pick your battles. And only pick the larger ones. If someone treats you with anything less than an ounce of dignity or respect, have the balls to either give it to them, or turn the other cheek and walk away. 

5) Be true to yourself and what you like. So what if digital planning or ad optimization isn't cool? I love interpreting stories from hard data. Don't fall into a mould of what other people expect you to be. 

6) Traveling out of a suitcase for months and being in hospital made me realise I don't need many material things. I'm selling off 90% of my clothes and shoes to make a bit of income, and going to subsist on 10 outfits for work. That's all I need. Stop shopping. Stop reading fashion magazines. They make you want to buy things you don't need, or feel like you have to dress in a certain way to look good. 

7) Stop taking shortcuts, you only shortchange yourself. The interwebz has made us attention-deficient. We hanker after lists like "7 ways to improve your love life", "5 ways to get a promotion". We think Ted talks are life-changing. But at the end of the day, THERE IS NO SHORTCUT.

Read as much as you can, fiction and non-fiction. By read, I mean physical books that you actually hold. Synthesise knowledge on your own. Make your own insights. The biggest challenge here is to be your own thought leader. Don't parrot what other people say. Your brain is yours to keep. 

9) Remember what you used to love as a child, before the world changed you. Go back to that. For me, it was archaeology, a little homemade science lab, books, theatre, my violin, Aztec, Mayan, Egyptian ancient civilisations, sitting at a makeshift table reading off the Straits Times and pretending I was a newscaster. Find the joy in those memories and never lose them. 

10) When you have a larger purpose in mind, remember that the road to achieving it is a marathon for life. Don't ever lose sight of it, but don't expect success to come to you as quickly as you want it to. In fact, let go and embrace the fact that success may never even come to you, no matter how hard you try. But at least you did. 

The fear of failure is a social construct. My mom is going to kill me when she finds out I told the interwebz I was fired from my last job. But you only learn through failure. 

Lastly, whenever you're down and out, remember that the biggest blessing from here on is this - The only way now is to go up. 

Nicole Seah

*Article first appeared on her personal FB page here.

Dear Nicole Seah,

I refer to your self reflection piece: "NICOLE SEAH: GROUND ZERO"

Long time no see, this is Alex Tan previously from SPP. I read about your little revelation and would like to share my part what happened after the GE2011. Like you, I was the youngest candidate in GE2011 and I’m now 26. There are a lot of expectations from us young politicians and it is indeed suffocating hearing advice from different well-intended people.

But unlike you, I resigned from SPP and do not wish to commit myself to the party, because that means a lot of walkabouts, meeting the people, writing stances, expressing opinions and basically just doing anything to get popularity. Hah. It’s a drag, and honestly I am not a committed person like you and I’ve tried for a month or so, it’s tiring. We are not elected MPs, we don’t draw a salary and everything we do is out of goodwill. Simply put in, we are just like volunteers.

But like volunteering, we could only afford spare time and resources. I notice you have made it a full time job with a tuition centre and NSP matters. Like you, I teach tuition too, but I charge a fee and it is at my own leisurely time. Perhaps it boils down to our primary purpose, for mine is just to remove the PAP out of power, contesting in GE2016 or not does not matters to me; whereas for you, is to get voted in by next election.

I received a lot of threats and tonnes of trolling too, from both pro-PAP supporters, Opposition supporters and even foreigners.

I even have stalkers befriending me, downloading all of my photos and creating a fake profile to make seditious comments:

All these are people with their political agenda trying to affect us mentally. You could ignore these threats because most of them amount to nothing at the end of the day.

For my personal life, I faced the same problems as you when I date Singapore girls. They all know what I’ve been up to and the topic will just go round and round about current affairs and politics. I realized that soon enough and chose to date a foreign girl. And it was great, she befriended me and love me as a person. We got engaged last year and we are planning to leave for Australia.

When it comes to employment, I encounter many differences with people and threw resignation letters changing between 3 competitors of the same engineering industry just in 2013 alone. Now I am comfortable with my current one, and it surpasses in terms of remuneration and relations as compared to the other companies. You should never stop seeking to settle down. Since hire and fire is part of Singapore’s employment culture, job hopping and moving to greener pastures should be the natural response.

For politics, I choose writing. I believe Singaporeans will change if they are exposed to both emotional and rationale articles in addition to the traditional way of walkabouts and meeting the people to garner support. However, despite the different approach we have taken, both of us have the common goal of wanting Singapore to be a better place for Singaporeans. I have instead dedicated my time in constantly writing articles for The Real Singapore despite not being paid a single cent as well. 2013 is great for me because I am getting my degree and driving license soon too, but it wasn’t that smooth. I had my brief period of unemployment, like 3 weeks, and at the same time my mom was on wheelchair for 2.5 months over a fall and I had my exams to clear. Throughout the difficult period I just soldiered on, and it worked out.

Keep calm and carry on doggedly. Everything will fall right in place. You might have seen this video from Steve Jobs but it never fails to inspire me everytime. 2016 is within sight, the ground is very bitter now, go for a SMC, and you will become a MP sooner than you think.

“Sometimes life can hit you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I convince myself the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You got to find what you love.”
~Steve Jobs

Alex Tan Zhixiang

*The author is a former member of the SPP and he contested in Ang Mo Kio GRC in GE2011.

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.

He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:

- Knowing when to come in out of the rain;

- Why the early bird gets the worm;

- Life isn't always fair;

- and maybe it was my fault.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children.

It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims.

Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.

Common Sense was preceded in death, by his parents, Truth and Trust, by his wife, Discretion, by his daughter, Responsibility, and by his son, Reason.

He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers;

I Know My Rights

I Want It Now

Someone Else Is To Blame

I'm A Victim

Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone.

Tan Chuan Jin

*Article first appeared on his FB page here.