Historically, from Gandhi’s Fight For India’s Independence to Martin Luther King’s Civil Rights Movement, there has never been significant political change anywhere in the world, until people decide to organise, march and protest publicly. It doesn’t matter if it’s illegal or not, whether alone or in a group, Singaporeans have to be willing to hold up signs and march on the streets, and be willing to get arrested and go to prison. If you want the rich to pay more taxes, if you want Singaporeans to have free food, free healthcare and cheaper HDBs, if you want National Service to be removed, if you want less miserable work and school, and if you want equal rights for Malays and Indians in Singapore, we have to do this.
It’s incredibly naive to think we can change Singapore by never breaking the law. There will be no significant change by just ‘working within the system’, or making vague statements that are only slightly critical of the Government and waiting for the Opposition to win. In 60 years, the Worker’s Party has managed to gain 12 seats in Parliament out of 108, so at the rate they’re going, we’re not going to see a change in government until 300 years later.
You are absolutely punked if you think the current opposition parties can defeat the PAP. The Worker’s Party and Chee Soon Juan are not the future of Singapore. Stop relying on incompetent politicians and incompetent volunteers for opposition parties that have failed for the past 60 years. Put your faith in effective activists. With effective political protests, public pressure and demand for changes will be so intense that either the PAP will have to change the laws to appease the masses so that they don’t get voted out, or opposition members will emerge and campaign on the widely accepted policies that are being promoted. And in doing so, those opposition parties will win the elections, and the Lee Dictatorship will be no more. The people in the opposition who eventually do get a majority in the general elections, will likely not be any of the current opposition members.
Asking people to sacrifice their lives to publicly protest and get sent to prison, is not extreme advice. Every first-world country that isn’t a dictatorship guarantees the legal rights for people to gather and march for a political cause. Every political movement in history where public protests were illegal, did not succeed until people were willing to risk their lives, march, and get sent to prison.
Also, it is absolutely necessary that the protest is nonviolent. If the police arrests you or attack you, do not struggle, do not hit back, do not shout, insults at them. Let yourself get attacked, let yourself be the victim. The point is to voluntarily show your suffering to the world. From your agony of being beaten and being imprisoned, it expresses your determination for change, and that triggers the minds and hearts of people who otherwise wouldn’t care about politics. It will cause them to act, it will cause them to vote.
If protests in Singapore are ever violent, I will condemn it and disassociate myself from it. Historically, violent protests are cracked down by the police without gaining much public sympathy, because the protestors used violence. Or if violent protests do work, the tyrants that people protested against will just be replaced by another dictatorship. The protestors become the very monsters they once condemned.
The only reason why you shouldn’t publicly protest, is if you best serve a role where not getting arrested is strategic. Maybe you’re a reporter, or a content-creator promoting the protests, or you’re someone recruiting and organising protestors in the shadows. So you don’t go to prison yourself, but your contribution manages to get hundreds of other people to protest and get arrested. Though make sure if you do decide to stay out of prison, you make that decision not because you’re scared of imprisonment, but because you are actually most valuable outside. If you aren’t in prison, your contribution outside damn well better be worth it.
Publicly protesting is the most rational, strategic move for political change, and the only thing stopping people from admitting that is fear. I need tens of thousands of warriors who are free from the fear of death, willing to sacrifice their lives for the happiness and prosperity of all Singaporeans. If we don’t protest, cronies like Lawrence Wong, Shanmugam and Lee Hsien Loong stay in power, and the PAP dictatorship continues for another 200 years. If we do protest, the PAP will lose their majority in the elections, and the dictatorship can be toppled in 10
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