Singapore Struggle for Success by John Drylsdale

 John Drylsdale is a consummate writer.  There can be no distinguished author of lessen talent who could write such a beautiful and picturesque narrative on the Singapore Struggle for Success which gives such a vividly dramatic and animated description of the death-defying events from the time Raffles landed in Singapore to its world renowned metropolis today. For some esoteric reason I missed reading the magnum opus when it was published but it's better late than never.  It's such a consummate reader that one is taken through the history as if you are experiencing it and in such impeccable detail that it is amazing how John Drylsdale could have mustered all the sitmulating adventures leaving  nothing to imagination. It is obvious he admired Lee Kuan Yew's unflinching death-defying prowess almost to the point of idolising him.

So I come to the point where the author seemed to have inadvertently or indeed ignorantly failed to capture the political nuances on the ground. Lee Kuan Yew had very feeble, if any, mass base which was his greatest handicap when he began his political ambition and he saw Lim Chin Siong as a Godsend to provide him with this indispensable support. There was no question in his mind when he accompanied Lim Chin Siong to his regular CUF mass rally in the old Happy World Stadium where Lim invariably received a standing ovation as he entered the stadium. The immensity of the honour simply boggled his mind to the extent that it had become a spectre which haunted him throughout his political career. His pathetic state of mind could be seen on one occasion when he introduced Lim Chin Siong to his guests at a convivial gathering hosted by him as the future prime  minister of Singapore. If history had taken its natural course Lee Kuan Yew could have ended up languishing in prime minister Lim Chin Siong's gaol. It was Chief Minister Lim Yew Hock and the Special Branch who turned up as his benefactors and rescued him from an abject fate. Anyway John Drylsdale had portrayed him in the most heroic manner  which I think he deserved.

Lee Kuan Yew made sure that lee Hsien Loong to succeed him as prime minister to perpetuate the Lee Dynasty although the "wooden" Goh Chok Thong acted in the interim as a seat-warmer. Lee Hsien Loong may exhibit some merit in his performance but there is a corresponding lack of humanity in him. How on earth he and his equally greedy cohorts pay themselves millions of taxpayers' money allegedly for serving the people. Is not this a monstrosity of hoodwinking the people in order to enrich themselves, maybe for their scions to luxuriate in their livelihood which may last them for more than three generations?  How does Singapore compare with the United States of America? Its President draws one fourth of the annual salary of Lee Hsien Loong (USD 400,000 annual salary).  They may still be in some kind of slumber in not realising that they sit on their fat asses wallowing in their perks and luxuries of high office on the sacrifices made by civil servants like us in going through a life-threatening baptism of fire to bring this about. Can they survive the kind of baptism of fire that we went through?

For all our sacrifices we were awarded poverty-level pension when we retired and with the cost of living rising from time to time with our pensions remaining stagnant  I approached the humanitarian Lee Hsien Loong about raising our pensions to a little over the poverty-level so that we can have some breathing apace in our living. Just like what I mentioned above that he lacked humanity. He dismissed my appeal with some stupid excuse about being constrained by the Constitution. Whilst they wallow in the luxurious living by pocketing millions of people's money, do they know that  there are indigent Singaporeans who live on the starvation subsistence level and many others who have to sleep in the open? You want to hoodwink them to believe that Singapore is a democratic and egalitarian society? But then you still have some guillible Singaporeans who vote you in election after election. Will there be any amelioration of the status quo? Unless there is a miracle or if God intervenes.

It is expected that politicians, especially the prime minister, are fair games to be baited.  I thought it would have been amusing that I had challenged the redoubtable Lee Hsien Loong to an intellectual and political discourse recently.  I am not  Cambridge  educated and I may not better him but I can give him a vigorous run for his money which may dent his ego a little bit. I do not think he would have been disconcerted because he is, like his cohorts, so thick-skinned. His late  benign father Lee Kuan Yew had inflicted grave injustice against me and he silently refused to make a public apology when requested by me. Anyway, there is a saying that the evils that men do live after them.