My awakening: political education of an ordinary Singaporean
-
My awakening: political education of an ordinary Singaporean student
May 27, 2010
By Natalie Koh, for the Singapore Democrats
27 May 2010I am an ordinary Singaporean student who, until now, has been brainwashed like many of you. Now I know the ugly truth. I’d like to share my experience with you about my struggle in taking off the blindfold the PAP has tied on me for years.
I believe it is about the same for most young Singaporeans as it was for me. The brainwashing starts at the secondary school level when most students still do not have the maturity to be able to accurately judge if what they read is true or false. Most of them would not even be interested in politics at that age.
Like some of you, I also viewed Social Studies and National Education as propaganda of the government. But for the sake of getting good grades, many just memorise the PAP’s version of Singapore’s past and regurgitate it when needed.Drilled into our minds from young that the PAP are the good guys and all who oppose it must be bad, more and more Singaporeans come to accept this twisted view without question.
The awakening for me came when I took up a political science module at the National University of Singapore where I’m now studying. It was about politics and governance of Singapore. That got me thinking about Singapore’s history and the role the PAP, civil service, and trade unions played in it. I also started to examine the subject of the PAP’s political hegemony.
When I signed up for the module, the first thing that I wanted to do was to find out the truth. I thought that in university, there would be more freedom to scrutinize criticize the Government and its policies. But, this turned out not to be the case at all.
The lecture notes given to students spoke highly of the PAP, and denounced the opposition. The lecturer himself, Dr Bilveer Singh, did not take an unbiased view. Whenever he mentioned the opposition, it was to criticize them and to emphasize that they were puny compared to the PAP.
I remember Dr Singh saying that Dr Chee Soon Juan is a symbol of blundering. I was thinking, “Okay, so where’s your evidence?” But he didn’t even bother to support his point and took whatever he as if it was factually true.
And most of the students just accepted it without questioning the accuracy of his statement.
In his textbook (which was a compulsory text for all of us), the lecturer wrote that Dr Chee had ousted Mr Chiam from the SDP. This was, of course not the truth, as those of you who have read Dr Chee’s detailed account of what actually happened would know.
But as this article is about how I discovered the truth about Singapore’s history and politics, I will not digress any further.
What jolted me to the truth was Dr Chee’s books, A Nation Cheated and The Power of Courage. What I read shocked me. I read and re-read it again and again to make sure I had read everything correctly.
The shocking truth has been scrupulously kept away from the eyes of Singaporeans. I am sure the majority of Singaporeans are blissfully unaware that Mr Lee Kuan Yew was not the hero who fought for Singapore’s independence. Rather the true hero was Mr Lim Chin Siong, who failed to become Singapore’s first prime minister only because he was continuously thwarted by Mr Lee Kuan Yew and the British.
The book documented from declassified papers that “it was Lim Chin Siong who insisted that Singaporeans’ freedom and independence were not for compromise.” And that was also why the British considered him such a threat to their colonial rule, and tried all ways to cripple him. Please refer to A Nation Cheated for more details.
Everyone knows that there were riots in Singapore’s history, and these riots were explained by the Government that the Malayan Communist Party “in charge of Lim Chin Siong” was behind the whole affair and that it was (Chief Minister) Mr Lim Yew Hock who purged Singapore of the troublemaking communists.
But I learnt from this book that “it was then Chief Minister Lim Yew Hock who had purposely provoked the riots to enable the detention of Mr Lim Chin Siong.” The colonial government and Mr Lee Kuan Yew (London’s “best ally”) had no qualms employing the tactic of provoking a riot and then using the outcome to “achieve a desired political result”.
Another shocking fact that A Nation Cheated reveals is that “Lee had 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.”
Another controversial issue was the clause the British introduced that would bar ex-detainees, or subversives, from standing for elections. It is revealed that “Lee Kuan Yew was secretly a party with Lim Yew Hock in urging the Colonial Secretary to impose the ‘subversives ban’.”
Yet, in Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s memoirs, he wrote “I objected to [the introduction of the clause] saying that ‘the condition is disturbing both because it is a departure from 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.”
Mr Lee pretended to be the good man by pushing all the blame to the British. It was written that “Lee told Britain’s Seceretary of State, ‘I will have to denounce [the clause]. You will have to take responsibility.’”
After I first read the book, I was thinking “no, no way, this can’t be the truth, everyone knows that Lee Kuan Yew was the founding father of Singapore.”
But after I reread the book repeatedly, I finally accepted the concrete evidence. And after the initial denial came the horrid shock. We have been emulating and glorifying this person all this while.
I told my mom what I had read from the book. She got very angry with me and scolded me harshly. She said that I should not get involved in politics, and implied that I (and everyone who wants to stay safe) should just turn a blind eye to the truth.
I was thinking, “This is injustice!” My mom got angry with me that day. I was afraid that she might throw away my copies of Dr Chee’s books.
Now that I know the truth, I feel burdened. I cannot continue to propagate the stand that Lee and the PAP are righteous without lying to myself. I was also scared because what I wanted to tell others was akin to blasphemy, heresy.
I thought of people like Dr Chee who know far more about this subject than I do would feel much more aggrieved because not only do most people not believe us and may even say we are subversive and spreading lies about the Government, but the authorities will also do everything to hide the truth and fool the people.
Even now, I still need to mince my words whenever I discuss politics and Lee Kuan Yew in my family. Youths are forced to self-censor and cannot say much in public because we do not have any freedom of speech (unless it’s about singing the Government’s praises).
What has become of our so-called “democratic” country? I urge all of you, for the sake of your own honor and integrity, to please read and find out for yourselves the truth.
Natalie Koh is currently studying Chemistry at NUS.
-
It is the duty of those who had woken up from PAP propaganda to wake those who are still controlled by PAP propaganda.
What they must know first is the true history of Singapore, not the lies of PAP and Lee Kuan Yew.
"I saw Britain and I saw the British people as they were. And whilst I met nothing but consideration and a certain benevolence from people at the top, at the bottom, when I had to deal with landladies and the shopkeepers and so on, it was pretty rough.
"They treated you as colonials and I resented that. Here in Singapore, you didn't come across the white man so much. He was in a superior position.
"But there you are in a superior position meeting white men and white women in an inferior position, socially, I mean. They have to serve you and so on in the shops.
And I saw no reason why they should be governing me. They're not superior. I decided, when I got back, I was going to put an end to this."
http://angeleong.tripod.com/leeky2.html
After his education in Britain, Lee Kuan Yew returned to Singapore in 1949 to practise as a lawyer in the law firm Laycock and Ong.
He became the honorary legal adviser for several trade unions after being acquainted with their leaders (in 1951) and subsequently caught the public eye in February 1952, when the Postal Workers Union succeeded, with his guidance, in obtaining important concessions from the colonial government.
According to his memoirs and this website, Lee Kuan Yew then proceeded to form the PAP with the help of the communists.Yet these sources conveniently neglect to mention Lee Kuan Yew's involvement in the Singapore Progressive Party in the 1951 legislative elections.
In fact, Lee acted as the election agent for his boss John Laycock, helping him to manage his campaign and canvass on his behalf. (See here and here for proof) He had thus entered into politics even before he became involved in the trade unions' dispute with the British. (Polling day for the 1951 legislative elections was on 10 April, we can assume that his political activities with the SPP started months before that)
If I may speculate, LKY joined the SPP initially to build up his political career there.However when the Rendel Constitution expanded the electoral rolls to include all local-born as voters, resulting in a significant increase in Chinese voters, LKY decided to jump ship and formed the PAP in 1954 because he saw that the SPP lacked the support of the Chinese working class. (So the next time LKY condemns politicians who change political parties, you know where he's coming from)
Yet the problem isn't solely that LKY jumped ship and didn't care to tell anyone about his great experience in his memoirs.The bigger problem lies in the fact that LKY supported the SPP despite the fact that it was
A) pro-British in both its policies and in its composition of members (mostly English-speaking upper class professionals)
B) unsupportive of achieving independence (it merely paid lip-service to the idea by declaring in October 1952, its objective of Singapore achieving independence through a Singapore-Malaya merger without setting a target date)
Lee Kuan Yew's miraculous change of heart on these issues when he joined the PAP only demonstrates how the pursuit of power can sometimes make one very flexible about their beliefs. Unfortunately for us, this flexibility of LKY's did not extend to the area of political freedoms.http://us.asiancorrespondent.com/secret-blog/2009/09/is-lee-kuan-yew-more-interested-in.html
"Because people had to live, you've got to submit. I started off hating them and not wanting to learn Japanese. I spent my time learning Chinese to read their notices.
"After six months, I learnt how to read Chinese, but I couldn't read Japanese. I couldn't read the Katakana and the Hiragana. Finally, I registered at a Japanese school in Queen Street.
"Three months passed. I got a job with my grandfather's old friend, a textile importer and exporter called Shimoda. He came, opened his office. Before that, it was in Middle Road. Now it's a big office in Raffles Place. I worked there as a clerk, copy typist, copied the Japanese Kanji and so on. It's clerical work. "But you saw how people had to live, they had to get rice, food, they had to feed their children. Therefore, they had to submit. So it was my first lesson on power and government and system and how human beings reacted.
"Some were heroic, maybe misguided. They listened to the radio, against the Japanese, they spread news, got captured by the Kempeitai, tortured. Some were just collaborators, did everything the Japanese wanted. And it was an education on human beings, human nature and human systems of government."
http://angeleong.tripod.com/leeky2.html
His ancestors were Hakka, the Chinese tribesmen who migrated from northern China to Fujian and have a reputation for pugnacity and clannishness. Lee was a third generation Straits Chinese, however, and grew up speaking Malay, English and the Cantonese dialect of his family's maid.
Ever the pragmatist, he was later to teach himself Japanese, Mandarin and Hokkien as the political situation in Singapore required. During the Japanese occupation of Singapore he worked for a Japanese government propaganda department...
http://www.time.com/time/asia/asia/magazine/1999/990823/lee1.html
"Now, from all the already released records in London as well as other historical researches, it is clear that in launching Operation Cold Store, Lee Kuan Yew was serving the then strategic interests of Britain which wanted Singapore to continue to provide a forward military base in Southeast Asia," said Lim
"It is also now an undeniable fact that Lee worked earlier for the Japanese military during the Occupation making Britain's English materials available in Japanese-language for the occupiers," he added.http://www.singaporedemocrat.org/articlelimhocksiew.html
-
this book is a bit dated but I find it pretty useful.
-
Where can I get the book?
The thesis presented here will not only change the way in which we understand contemporary Singaporean society and the relationship between the state and its citizens, but will also provoke a debate about the social costs of economic development in other parts of the world, and the future security of the island republic - increasingly a Chinese enclave in a Malay sea - in the twenty-first century.' - Peter Carey, Trinity College, Oxford
This study examines the development of Singapore's complex system of social regulation in relation to the phases of its economic strategy and political transition.
It focuses on the way social control works through public housing and welfare, education, parliamentary politics and the law.
It draws out the implications of such comprehensive control for political conflict. Popular explanations for Singapore's success and its status as a model for other developing countries are brought into question.
-
Originally posted by Vote PAP OUT to Save SG:
Where can I get the book?
I borrowed it from the national library years ago. guess you can do that or buy it online.
-
Originally posted by av98m:
I borrowed it from the national library years ago. guess you can do that or buy it online.
I think they removed the book from the catalogue.
They usually don't stock such books.
-
All these idiots has nothing whts known as patriotism in the right sense.Give them $1000 and they will all vote for u!
-
If PAP gives me 10K, I will vote for them in next elections.
-
Every kid is brainwashed without realising it. Me included. This has to be credit to old man's vision.
-
I was lied to by Lee Kuan Yew.
He lied to me that he was a hakka chinese.
He lied to me about Lim Chin Siong.
He lied to me that he fought for Singapore independence against british colonialism.
He lies and lies and lies and lies.
I don't like being lied to or manipulated by others.
Lee Kuan Yew, he flat out lied to me and manipulated me to support him and PAP.
-
Originally posted by Vote PAP OUT to Save SG:
If PAP gives me 10K, I will vote for them in next elections.
i really speechless
you really no principle
unless 7 digit in sing $
-
Originally posted by Vote PAP OUT to Save SG:
I was lied to by Lee Kuan Yew.
He lied to me that he was a hakka chinese.
He lied to me about Lim Chin Siong.
He lied to me that he fought for Singapore independence against british colonialism.
He lies and lies and lies and lies.
I don't like being lied to or manipulated by others.
Lee Kuan Yew, he flat out lied to me and manipulated me to support him and PAP.
He lied to you personally? lol
-
Originally posted by CheckmateA1:
i really speechless
you really no principle
unless 7 digit in sing $
okay lah, if PAP gives me 1000K, I wiill vote for them.
-
Originally posted by Rock^Star:
He lied to you personally? lol
He lied to me through state media and school propaganda.
-
he never lie to me
many years ago, i stupid to believe what he said
then my pr friends tell me to go and fly kite
suddenly i woke up
-
Did he tell u he was a japanese lackey before?
-
My idea of having social studies and civil moral education in school stems from teaching our young teenagers the proper manners of a civilised society as well as to instill nationalistic fever into our hot-bod youngs. This will make them patriotic to Singapore.
The history of Singapore from developing to a developed nation with annual healthy GDP is by no doubt the credibility and hardwork of the PAP whom the citizens' voted for under the democracy system. Obviously under 40 years of PAP rule, the history of Singapore has nothing to showcase other than the political party in power. We can't always showcase how Raffles founded Singapore can we.
-
sporeans arent idiots......most are too afraid to act or even stand outside istana or even putting an angry face in front of parliament house for a few minutes....no comittment?too afraid???they think things would improve.....things wont improve and they have been going downhill since 1980s...
every dedade, salaries for most engineers seem to be going down to such a level that engineers or assistant engineers might as well pack up their bags and move off to malaysia or india or china if they are allowed in there!these are the people responsible for industrial output and how their systenm and gears function,,,the nuts n bolts that hold their growth together but their salries are so low....its a joke!
-
hmmmmm....social studies.....ahh yes.....whikle the japanese were busy screwing the sex slaves in some dungeon somewhere in spore...some dumb chinese kid wanted to learn chinese and japanese and translate them into english and vice versa....for what purpose???to buy more rice??rather not werk for the japanese in that case.go plant yer own yam or tapioca or something is better than werking fer japs who were incidentally beheading people,invaded manchuria and china and bombed the place u stayed in....
would u ever werk for people who did that??of course not,,,,but some people wanna make it big with the japs and perhaps do business with the japs 10 years down the road.however japs were thrown out....and imprisoned soon after.
would i ever go werk for the japs if i were in lky position at that time?
ans:i would think about it for 5~10 years....maybe i would...mebbe i wont....but i think ww2 would by then have ended and i wont look like a cannibal after the war.
-
Even in universities, one cannot openly discuss issues of public interest.
Haiz.
-
Originally posted by charlize:
Even in universities, one cannot openly discuss issues of public interest.
Lee Kuan Yew won't like it. Wait he exposed as political fraud how?
It's best to just brainwash the public through state media.
-
Originally posted by Vote PAP OUT to Save SG:
Lee Kuan Yew won't like it. Wait he exposed as political fraud how?
It's best to just brainwash the public through state media.
whitewash.
-
brainwashing process is not easy....as in hypnosis.it takes 2 to dance....the gov plus u if u even wanna dance wiv them.brainwashing process is easy...just resist brainwashing waltz and u are free.its that simple.
but appears majority of sporeans drag their feet to dance with gov.but they are still dancing.
while u dance a sad dance..the other dancer wiuth u is laughing and cheering from start to end of song!is that what u all need??really??a forced dance??is in a forced love?
but when the song ends............so does yer life sadly.
-
aiya, ching cai lah, they give you many kind of good foods, house to live in, nice parks, good road, medical care, safe and haromony society...what else do you want!!!???
bungalows and jaguar??? If you are cheap, learn to live in cheap, if you are faster, go ahead and be fast in your progress, and if you are better, so be it.
It all voice to what shakespear said..."to be or not to be"..you dun like it here, leave lah, you think this is brainwash, leave lah, life is up to you.
-
Originally posted by Terminator Hitman:
brainwashing process is not easy....as in hypnosis.it takes 2 to dance....the gov plus u if u even wanna dance wiv them.brainwashing process is easy...just resist brainwashing waltz and u are free.its that simple.
but appears majority of sporeans drag their feet to dance with gov.but they are still dancing.
while u dance a sad dance..the other dancer wiuth u is laughing and cheering from start to end of song!is that what u all need??really??a forced dance??is in a forced love?
but when the song ends............so does yer life sadly.
So Termie was brainwashed by George W Bush Jr into believing that Iraq has WMD stockpiles?Come on lah, don't act as if you are prescient.