by Chong Ailing/ Photo by Joshua Chiang
Dr Chee receiving the award from LI President Hans Van Baalen
A few years ago, after picking up his children from a well-to-do friend’s birthday party Dr Chee Soon Juan’s eldest child turned to him and asked if they were rich. It took him a while before he answered, “Yes we are rich and you know why? Because we have you.”
Dr Chee, who is also Secretary-General of the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) shared this story towards the end of his acceptance speech after being awarded the Prize of Freedom 2011 by The Liberal International (LI) on 3rd November 2011. Past recipients include Sam Rainsy of Cambodia, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and former president of Ireland and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson. Dr Chee was given the award for his work in “tirelessly advocates for democracy in Singapore, engaging civil society and campaigning for democracy and the right to speak freely”, according to LI.
Speaking to a packed room comprising of members of the SDP, Presidential candidate (and former SDP member) Mr Tan Jee Say, representatives from LI as well as prominent members of Singapore’s civil society, Dr Chee drove home the point that the real riches that mattered most cannot be measured by material wealth, but “by the number of minds that we unfetter, the number of young lives that we give hope to and the number of the poor whom we empower.”
Unfortunately, the Singapore Government had adopted the worst that the West offers in terms of greed and exploitation but rejects the good that it espouses in the values of human rights and democracy, he said. These negative values fosters Singapore’s pursuit of riches, consumerism, and materialism, but have also made a society bankrupt in morality.
“We pursue everything except that which makes life worthwhile,” he added.
Citing two examples on the non-reaction of Singapore – allowing the entry of Robert Mugabe and Burmese generals to shop, rest and recreation regardless of their merciless actions in their homeland, Dr Chee concluded that “as long as there is money to be made, nothing else quite matters, does it?”
However Dr Chee was quick to point out that the SDP is not opposed to wealth, but “wealth inequality.” Singapore’s widening income gap will harm the common good and create a highly polarized society. In order to demonstrate that egalitarianism is a more effective way to organise economic society, there is a need for a “national conversation on morality.”
“The case for a more egalitarian system where the laws are not stacked in favour of the rich and where society is less economically polarised must be vigorously advocated,” he continued.
But in order to achieve that, Dr Chee said, people must be willing to speak out without fear of marginalization and being seen as confrontational or worse, destructive.
“We have enough politicians in Singapore, what we need now are leaders,” he added.
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Read the full transcripts of Dr Chee’s speech here.
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@CSJ Income
You ask how CSJ “manage to get by all these years”. Do you yourself understand what is ‘getting by’? This infers basic living. Of course he needs funding to live & feed & shelter his family. As a voting citizen, I won’t hold anything at all against him even if foreigners funded his basic living. Foreigners everywhere have been funding victims of society to help them live.
If we start to see Chee living in a mansion guarded by gurkhas, zipping in & out in chauffeured driven Jag, then I am all for poking into his financial background. Then I will not hesitate to think that foreigners who funded him are expecting to gain from his political struggle. As it is, there is absolutely no grounds whatsoever to nail him.
@Ray
Some of your postings are fit for the gay.
It is great some people with passions and anti gay have voice out their concern on your lust for CSJ.
…………..
You seem to be anti-CSJ. You talk about passion, lust and gay. I thought of righteousness and redemption also said good there is a ray of hope for he now is more forgiving of CSJ. Now what else did you say..gay lust or was it referring to what I told Puthucheary about M/W GRC rear entry?
@ Thinking Citizen,
Having foreigners helping victims of natural disasters, the poor etc is fine. But having our local politicians supported by foreigner is not fine. Politicians and victims of natural disasters are totally different.
Definition of getting by is subjective. “i am getting by with a small car” is very different from “i am getting by with one meal a day”. Which category is he in?
Lastly, will you be happy to have our politicians do the bidding for foreign government or organisation?
@ Robert Tay,
Be careful as there are two Rays here. There is one lunatics who could not hold proper discussion. Hope you know the difference.
Have a good day
@Ray
“…our politicians do the bidding for foreign government or organisation?”
Seriously, I am so glad you brought this up. This is whats been happening with the present team in power, that is why Sg is in a mess now.
You are looking in the wrong place for the right shit. I don’t mean any offence, I just tell it as it is.
@ Ray.
Then you expect CSJ to admit that he has powerful backers. Why is he still in such a weak position after all these years? Slow progress by CSJ or efficient cancelling-out exercise by ruling clique?
Don’t you think it is a bit too much to draw parallels from the Iranian Shah and Noriega and powerful US Democrats or Republicans.
A little bit airy fairy don’t you think?
@Ray
You miss the elephant in the room & go after an ant (in financial might).
if Sporeans contribute to CSJ’s fines & living expenses, will ST publish it like they publish this:-
“China supporters raise one third of Ai’s tax bill”
(BEIJING (AFP)- http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Asia/Story/STIStory_731381.html
@PUTHUCHEARY AVOIDED NS. CSG and JBJ are equal in their contribution to Singapore. Because they bore the savagery of the Courts to equal extent. Recall that they were bankrupt by LKY’s judges at the prime time of their political career as opposition to the PAP. I had read the superb speeches of Chiam and others, but they remain speeches and lived for the duration it took to read them. No fire energised the speeches to action beyond the sounds of their being spoken. LKY and his cohorts must have noticed that they have insufficient fire in their bellies to rock his hegemony. So he let them be working quietly in their wards. Neverthe less they did keep a small flame alight so that it blazed in the Internet Age. We are lucky to have lived in the Age where electronic communication was invented and took hold of the world leading to the Arab Spring. If not for the Internet, LKY’s calculation that the opposition as exist before the last election is too docile to shake him out of his reign would be correct and today we will not have Aljunied as an opposition ward. In Muslim lore, those who went to battle against the enemies of Islam is valued higher than those who stayed back mending the fences.
Gadhafi never entertained giving up his crown until he was dragged out from the sewer. Put this fact in the context of our struggle in Singapore against a political party sucking at the honeypots of the country, earning colossally absurd salaries and having an army of thugs in the ISD and in the Courts to do their bidding. We will never shake off this tyranny by long talk in Parliement alone.
Some readers may feel that to say that the Singapore Government is pimping for China, India etc is too extreme an expression. Let us look at Brunei for instance. This country has a large proportion of foreign labour and professionals. But no one amongst the foreign workers can ever dream of becoming a citizen. The foreign professional is always stagnated at the same post on entry. Same goes for the Gulf States with substantial proportion of foreign workers. I put it to you my fellow citizens that this Government if not pimping, has made a huge and irreversible MISTAKE in opening the floodgates to foreigners, conferring citizenship freely without heed of consequences to the indigenous population and the demographics tomorrow. Such stupidity in management is the criminal negligence of Lee Hsien Loong’s Cabinet.
Zero,
You should use commonsense and why waste time to justify for CSJ? All of us know him too well and he has been rejected by Sinkies in all elections until today. None of the SDP candidates or Dream Team had entered Parliament either by front or back door. He should get a Distinguished Award for this too!
hello devagi
long time no see.
It is a very dangerous thing to use the word ALL when you mean SOME. You said ALL of us know him (CSJ)…etc. Speak for yourself and a couple of others here, only.
Admit it, about 60% of the readers here have views different from yours, so please dont be a fake hero and say ALL as if you are a unifying force.
CSJ team didnt do well in the elections, and will never ever do well, as long as there exist a biased media and people of the type who do not believe in Yellow Ribbon. I still see people mentioning about his fraudulent taxi fare claim 25 years ago which caused him his job.
It’s like condemning a kid to death when all he did was steal a can of Pepsi Cola from 7-11 shop when he was 17 years old. Open your eyes and go read some of his writings in his website and give him a proper character evaluation minus the burden of the past which is coloured by external forces.
zero
“fraudulent taxi fare claim”
If only the ‘authorities’ can dig claims of Ministers & MPs too. Ah but they could always say the developer wants to give discount for the unit, it is up to them. Or, it is between the giver & their children, they do not interfere. We are talking $’000 of $’00,000 of $’,000,000, but seems like people are more concerned about taxi fare.
Zero
To add to the point made by you, use of majority-controlled parliament to write their own million-dollar cheques and appoint all the cronies into positions of power in all the government departments and GLCs also known as legalized corruption among the people is now more acceptable to many people now it seems than taking or accidental use of a office stamp to send out a personal parcel.
@Thinking citizen
“As a voting citizen, I won’t hold anything at all against him even if foreigners funded his basic living. Foreigners everywhere have been funding victims of society to help them live.”
Even you alluded to the possibility that CSJ may be supported by foreigners to help him get by. Now, different type foreigners help out for different purposes. There are foreigners who help the poor out of altruistic reasons, but the type who may have extended help to CSJ will probably have a political motive that they want CSJ to advance.
There is another who commented that there are many well-wishers out there who help extend help to CSJ willingly. If this is so, why does CSJ not get help from them to settle his lawsuits so that he can contest in the next election???
I am not pro-PAP but I will also at the same time not supported anyone who is against the PAP blindly. You have to examine the motives behind his actions.
to csjincome
well you are a good auditor. You asked why he could not settle the lawsuits from his wellwishers. In fact, it is precisely because of this that i think most likely CSJ does not have foreingers backing. Why i say this?
CSJ owes LKY and gangmembers something like $300,000 if i am not wrong, because of those lawsuits. If its the americans who keep Csj on puppet string with their funds, this 300K would have been secretly settled prior to GE2011 so that CSJ would be propped up to support your “american agenda”. These american contacts have money and power, what is 300,000 to them if it advance their “causes”.
But because CSJ is probably getting the money in small tokens here there and everywhere, mostly from family and local friends/realtives, and not foreingers, CSJ is still a bankrupt unable to pay $300,000. Here is some circumstantial evidence which makes me satisfied that the “foreign funding” bogeyman is just a bogeyman thingie to malign CSJ, as usual.
Mr. CSJincome, i tell you, both of us have no proof either way. We are getting nowhere playing this guessing games.
Why dont you spend your time auditing bigger things. You will do well as a good Singaporean should to trace the source and disbursement of State Funds rather than to go after an honourable Singapore Citizen who is disgraced just because he challenged the regime.
zero
All those who grudge CSJ his meagre existence and wonder how he can even drink water without signs of any source of income are enraging themselves to annihilation point. I suggest they go to Bedok Reservoir to vent their anger on CSJ once and for all.
@CSJ Income
“I am not pro-PAP but I will also at the same time not supported anyone who is against the PAP blindly.”
Question: Do you mean that every Singaporean is happy with PAP Govt except CSJ?
“You have to examine the motives behind his actions.”
Yes, I have examined, CSJ motive is to expose the wrongs or injustice PAP Govt do to majority of its people.
Foriegn intervention:-
Are you worried after watching foreigners finish off Saddam & Gaddafi? Do note that their people celebrate the liberation though. I am saying this not that Sg leeder is like them but this is the only cause for worry on foreign intervention.
If you worry about foreign intervention for economic reasons, open your eyes wide, it is already happening, Sg is half gone! Don’t miss the elephant please.
It seems to me that the sycophants of LKY are not satisfied that CSJ is already destroyed by the most august of State Institutions, the legal system. They begrudge him his meagre existence and scratch their pates for his source of subsistence. I say to them, go vent your fury in Bedok Reservoir, after which George Yeo will come with his band of robed and turbaned men to sooth your raging souls.
Today we are facing such an influx of foreigners that have wll nigh destroyed our sense of nationhood. We are ruled by a ravenous gang of thugs who use the secret police and the Courts to such effect that no consequential opposition politician has survived the ordeal. We need the likes of CSJ more than ever as we proceed into the next half century of PAP hegemony.
Zero,
All of us includes you. If you do not know him too well, commonsense will tell you that you are in no position to write anything about him! Commonsense will tell you that you cannot differentiate what is All of you and what is 60% views and opinions. Ha, ha, what a joke. It appears that the media and everybody in politics is against him. If WP can be elected into Parliament, everyone can be elected too. You don’t need excuses. Remember, you said ruling party will be overthrown in the May general elections and yet 60% disagreed with you. Any commonsense excuses?