Lee Wei Ling: no confidence in brother who abuses power

Lee Wei Ling, sister of Lee Hsien Loong, the current Prime Minister of Singapore, has issued a joint statement with her brother, LHL’s sibling, Lee Hsien Yang, to express ‘no confidence’ at LHL’s leadership and governance, fear and being monitored to the extent of wanting to leave the country to seek refuge, among other things.

They also pointed out an allegation of abuse of power by LHL:

“However, we believe that Hsien Loong and Ho Ching are motivated by a desire to inherit Lee Kuan Yew’s standing and reputation for themselves and their children. Whilst our father built this nation upon meritocracy, Hsien Loong, whilst purporting to espouse these values, has spoken of a “natural aristocracy”. Hsien Loong and his wife, Ho Ching, have opposed Lee Kuan Yew’s wish to demolish his house, even when Lee Kuan Yew was alive. Indeed, Hsien Loong and Ho Ching expressed plans to move with their family into the house as soon as possible after Lee Kuan Yew’s passing. This move would have strengthened Hsien Loong’s inherited mandate for himself and his family. Moreover, even if Hsien Loong did not live at 38 Oxley Road, the preservation of the house would enhance his political capital.

What has been distressing are the lengths to which Hsien Loong and Ho Ching have gone and are willing to go to get what they want. On Hsien Loong’s insistence, Lee Kuan Yew met with the Singapore Cabinet on 21 July 2011 to discuss the fate of his personal home. Wei Ling met Lee Kuan Yew on the steps of their home as he returned from that meeting. He was anguished and despondent and told Wei Ling “I should not have listened to Loong and gone to meet Cabinet.” He was pained that Hsien Loong, his own son, opposed his wishes in this manner.

Lee Kuan Yew believed that Hsien Loong and Ho Ching were behind what was represented to the family as a government initiative to preserve the house. In due course, Hsien Loong himself made his position clear to Lee Kuan Yew. On 3 October 2011, Lee Kuan Yew wrote: “Loong as PM has indicated that he will declare it a heritage site.”

Lee Kuan Yew specifically inserted into his will his wish for 38 Oxley Road to be demolished so as to make it difficult for Hsien Loong to misuse the Cabinet to preserve it. He also removed Hsien Loong as an executor and trustee of his will.

The wish, which was instructed to be made public as needed, was Lee Kuan Yew’s direct appeal to the people of Singapore. It was his only request of them on his passing.

At the reading of Lee Kuan Yew’s will, Hsien Loong was very angry that the will gave Wei Ling the right to remain living in the house and that it made clear Lee Kuan Yew’s wish for its demolition immediately upon her passing or relocation. Hsien Loong threatened us and demanded our silence on our father’s last wish. He wanted to assert in Parliament that Lee Kuan Yew had changed his mind, hoping to inherit the faith Singaporeans had in Lee Kuan Yew through the visible symbol of the house. We refused and fought to release our father’s wish to demolish the house as instructed. We succeeded in making Lee Kuan Yew’s wish public in Singapore only after the international press carried the news. Hsien Loong was therefore forced to state in Parliament that, as a son, he would like to see the wish carried out. He wanted to appear filial in public whilst acting to thwart our parents’ wishes in private. However, Hsien Loong and Ho Ching did not abandon their plans. Hsien Loong took steps to try to frustrate our publicising Lee Kuan Yew’s wish. We executed a Deed of Gift in 2015 with the National Heritage Board for the donation and public exhibition of significant items from our parents’ home, with a stipulation that Lee Kuan Yew’s wish for the demolition of 38 Oxley Road be displayed prominently at the exhibition.

However, after the gift’s acceptance we soon received letters with spurious objections from Hsien Loong’s then personal lawyer, Lucien Wong. Lucien Wong was made Singapore’s Attorney-General in January 2017. We were shocked to see that Hsien Loong had used his position as Prime Minister to obtain a copy of the Deed of Gift from Minister Lawrence Wong, which Hsien Loong then passed to his personal lawyer to advance his personal agenda. The exhibition only proceeded months later in a diminished format after considerable struggle on our part.”

View the entire public statement posted here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByodqaSLlpPIWHdRdFE2QlZYbzg/view

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Shuqun ex-principal takes issue with The Middle Ground and MSM for bullying case coverage

In the New Year facebook post by Mr Chia, he referred to the “deliberate and irresponsible decisions made by the media”, particularly the mainstream media (controlled by the PAP) for reproducing from the exclusive interview done by online blog, The Middle Ground, itself started and owned by former SPH boot-licking journalist, Bertha Henson, which was extremely selective and biased in its reporting, that put the school authorities in bad light, neglecting to report on quick and successful follow-up actions, and remorse and reconciliation acts by the students involved.

His post in full:

Page changes stance and now says ‘Yes’ to an overpopulated Singapore?

On May 1 Labour Day this year, this Facebook page called “Say ‘No” to an overpopulated Singapore” made an announcement, which it had a few days ago said two times that it would make, that it “no longer holds such stance”, ie. it “is no longer against the 2013 Population White Paper and its main objectives” and, as it adds, “not against the fundamentals of our government’s population and immigration policies”, before going on to give a write-up about how our country needs immigration, blah blah.

It would be very interesting to note if this page now is no longer against “an overpopulated Singapore”?

Some commenters have asked the page to change its name, or even close itself down, so as not to mislead readers of its “no longer true stance“. Some have called them “turncoats“, while others were quick to say “unlike and unfollow“. But there were also those (probably IBs) who said: “You have waken up. Good for you. You finally see it.”

What prompted the page to abruptly change its stance? And not just change, but to make a calculated, timed, pre-announced, announcement on Labour Day, a relatively active day in civil activism (although there is close to none in Singapore)?

A scroll down the page reveals that the page had taken sympathy with Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s death earlier on in March.

Going so far as to post a black screen on the day of his death:

Could this be a reason for the stance change? After all, we know how this “one” solo event had probably magically shifted many hearts and won back a lot of sympathy and support for the ruling party away from the alternative ones.

Were the admins of the page but easily-swayed Singaporeans who vouched for Mr Lee right after his death, and shifted entirely towards the ruling government and its policies, disregarding all else that they previously held strongly against? Or were they just closet white supporters at heart who realised their true right-wing/left-wing inclinations after the grand master’s death?

Or was the page just an IB page (not surprising too)? After all, there was a previous unhappy incident with the very organisers of the real “White Population Paper protest” at Hong Lim Park. We will not know.

What we do want to ask is: how many more such easily-swayed fellows are there hiding behind the computer screens? Such seemingly extreme, but when truth comes to fold, switch sides to the benefit of the PAP, mocksters behind the fake pages.

Whatever it is, good one, PAP! You managed to get us with this one. And with many others, we really don’t know how many votes you managed to con over.

But worst of luck the next time round!

PS: To end off, a National Day greeting from the very same page:

On Lee and the communist connection

I refer to TOC’s question as posted here: https://www.facebook.com/theonlinecitizen/photos/a.310010691382.184332.14440041382/10153012507941383/?type=1&theater.

1) Lee was right that he is no communist. But he made use of the “pro-communists” to gain power, and then evicted them. After which, he arrested and locked them up before they could win back power from the PAP.

2) China today is also not communist. It is a state corporatist, or fascist regime, just like the PAP’s. That means capitalism + state power, or state-controlled capitalism, state-owned capitalism, whereby the govt makes tons of money, virtually monopolising the economy, and yet does not conduct a welfare society.

3) The Communist Party of Malaya may have been a violent, terrorist organisation, but Lee told us that the alternative was his “democracy”. Where is the “democracy” now? Could a Soviet republic that later gives way to some citizen autonomy even be more democratic than the Singapore Lee managed?

4) So, technically, Lee did not lie. And he did not contradict himself when allying the Chinese. But he did always ally with dictators, be it the Chiang regime of Taiwan before Taiwan democratized, or now the “Communist” regime of China that refuses to democratize.

5) What we need to understand is, while Lee did help us fend off the “violent” communists, he also made sure he had no opponents to counter his rule, itself a violently maintained and violently fought one. While he banished the communists, he did not act less than the communists themselves.

6) What is important and worth supporting, is not whether one is communist or not. What is more important is whether one is dictatorial, and if one allowed freedom and democracy, and on that count, Lee failed miserably.

7) So say all you want about helping to fend off the “Old Communists”. But what about the “alleged communists” – the “communist sympathisers” of the 1963 Operation Coldstore who were but members of the Opposition Barisan Socialis, and worse, the “Marxist conspirators” of the 1987 Operation Spectrum who were but members of the Catholic Church? Those were perfectly and completely peaceful and legal parties and people, who were “wrongfully” (in our perspective) (and even, illegally) detained and made to lose power, so that there was to be no Opposition at all to the PAP’s totalitarian and authoritarian rule.

8) So if we now look around the world, there are communist parties in the most capitalist of countries, like Japan, the United States and India. Not to mention France and Germany, etc. These are legal parties, working within democratic frameworks.

9) So it is really not about “communist” or “non-communist”, but about “fascist” or “non-fascist”, about “democratic” or “autocratic”, “open and free” or “authoritarian and repressive”.

10) Singaporeans should know the answer.

First posted on my fb profile page: https://www.facebook.com/notes/albert-tay/on-lee-and-the-communist-connection/741218175970870?pnref=story

Sun Yat-sen’s speech on dictatorship and the family regime

《走向共和》最后一集被大陆中共CCTV删掉的孙中山演讲

Scene in the CCTV TV serial, For the Sake of a Republic, which dealt on how Sun Yat-Sen painstakingly wanted to establish a republic in China, in the midst of all the in-fighting and corruption with the government, with people even trying to overthrow the democratic throne and become Emperor.

While you watch the interesting speech, you should turn on captions (CC) for English subtitles.

Ngiam not the only PAP insider to criticize the PAP

This was not the first time Ngiam Tong Dow had critiqued the PAP leadership. In 2003, he asked for more competition for PAP elites. His retraction is a desperate play of power by PAP, it may even be LKY bleeding for retraction. Given what Ngiam had said earlier in 2003, his retraction cannot be sincere.

1. About political competition.

“It is the law of nature that all things must atrophy. Unless LKY allows serious political challenges to emerge from the alternative elite out there, the incumbent elite will just coast along.

At the first sign of a grassroots revolt, they will probably collapse just like the incumbent Progressive Party to the left-wing PAP onslaught in the late 1950s.

I think our leaders have to accept that Singapore is larger than the PAP.”

2. Spreading of top talents between government and private sectors.

“When ten scholars come home, five should turn to the right and join the public sector or the civil service; the other five should turn to the left and join the private sector.”

3. Economics.

“Take our industrial policy. At the beginning, it was the right thing for us to attract multinationals to Singapore.

For some years now, I’ve been trying to tell everybody: ‘Look, for God’s sake, grow our own timber.’ If we really want knowledge to be rooted in Singaporeans and based in Singapore, we have to support our SMEs.

I’m not a supporter of SMEs just for the sake of more SMEs but we must grow our own roots. Creative Technology’s Sim Wong Hoo is one and Hyflux’s Olivia Lum is another but that’s too few.

We have been flying on auto-pilot for too long. The MNCs have contributed a lot to Singapore but they are totally unsentimental people. The moment you’re uncompetitive, they just relocate.”

Ngiam Tong Dow is not exactly alone among the insiders to criticize PM LHL’s government in recent years.

a. Dr Tommy Koh had called the income inequality as socially unconscionable.

b. Professor Lim Chong Yah, had a dramatic proposal to narrow the economic gap – raising low-level salaries by 50 per cent over three years and freezing top-end incomes for a similar period.

c. Yeoh Lam Keong, former chief economist at the Government Investment Corporation (GIC) headed by Lee Kuan Yew:

“What we need to do is to be much more stringent on admitting such unskilled labour. We’ve really got no excuse to be so relaxed about this kind of immigration.”

At every level of society, nothing is quite right for PAP. Even the insiders who are closely related to PAP feel that the policies are alienating people from the government. And Ngiam has correctly pointed to the way a closeted culture without competition had made the PAP too comfortable.

Contrary to their insidious assertion that Singaporeans are becoming too ‘dependent’, PAP is the one that is uncompetitive, unimaginative and relying on a compliant citizenry to have an easy life.

Well, no more! No more.

BK, on TRS

New National Stadium pitch criticised heavily for poor grass

By Loh Lin Fhoong, for TODAY

The brickbats came fast and furious, first from Juventus coach Massimiliano Allegri who blamed the National Stadium’s pitch for his decision not to field superstar forward Carlos Tevez for Saturday’s game against the Singapore Selection at the S$1.33 billion Sports Hub.

A mini-tournament held the next day also saw ex-national and S-League footballers expressing their surprise at the pitch’s condition, which was patchy at best. This despite the 55,000-seater National Stadium boasting a state-of-the-art Desso GrassMaster system, a combination of synthetic fibres woven into natural grass to make it more durable. Costing an estimated €500,000 (S$833,000), the hybrid turf is also used in London’s Wembley and Emirates stadiums.

The National Stadium’s first event late June — the Rugby World Club 10s — saw teams kicking up sand clouds, though many had expected the grass to be in tip-top shape for the Juventus visit over a month later.

LionsXII assistant coach Nazri Nasir — who captained the national team from 1997 to 2003 — got his first taste of action on the grass at Sunday’s mini-tournament, and he told TODAY: “I was surprised that the pitch was not ready yet. It was very soft, very sandy and uneven. Maybe the artificial grass needs time to set in and hopefully, it will be better in one or two months.

“The grass might be used at Wembley, but they only have summer for two to three months and the temperature is cold the rest of the time, so all these things need to be looked at. (If not), the speed of the game will slow down, the movement of the ball will be affected, and you won’t get the best ball intensity.”

Added former Home United midfielder Rhysh Roshan Rai, 29, who also got a run on the field on Sunday: “I am surprised because you would have thought the pitch would be one of the priorities. It is a fantastic facility and everything is brand new, but the pitch is in bad state.”

Local football fans who caught the Juventus vs Singapore Selection “live” in the stadium and on television were equally appalled. TODAY reader Mohamad Farid Harunal Rashid said he came away disappointed from his experience at the Sports Hub.

“While the physical structure of the stadium was impressive, the pitch was quite clearly below par,” he said. “It was sandy with far too many barren patches, not at all like a turf maintained by a state-of-the art system at high cost, as has been widely reported.”

A “lacklustre” showing by the Singapore side and half-filled stadium — 27,338 spectators turned up for the game — also added to the disappointment, as Farid added: “Football games must be first and foremost about pitches and players that are up to the mark, and facilitating fan involvement in every way feasible.”

There are doubts now as to whether the pitch will be in top shape for November’s 2014 AFF Suzuki Cup, with Singapore hosting Group B here from Nov 23 to 29. Before that, an international football friendly between Brazil and Japan is scheduled for Oct 14, followed by the Mariah Carey and Jay Chou concerts on Oct 24 and Nov 8, and a rugby match between the Asia Pacific Dragons and Maori All Blacks on Nov 15.

Full article here:

http://www.todayonline.com/sports/national-stadium-pitch-under-fire