Thursday 20 June 2019

NEW INTERVIEW: My first interview with Prabu Ramachandran (Civil Society Activist), 20 May 2019.

Activists, Joo Chiat Road. Dan De Costa, Kieran James, Prabu Ramachandran, Jeanne Ten, Anonymous, 20 May 2019.
My new interview with Prabu Ramachandran (Singaporean Civil Activist)
Date: Monday, 20 May 2019.
Location: Al Falah Barakah Restaurant, 363 Joo Chiat Road, Singapore.
Interview Time: 90 Minutes.

Jeanne Ten: How did a policeman become a social activist?

Prabu Ramachandran: I served two years’ mandatory National Service in the police-force, didn’t want to be a career bureaucrat.

Dan De Costa, Khush Chopra, Jeanne Ten, Kieran James.
JT: What made you change to the other side?

PR: Because politics in this country is a one-way street; I wanted to make it a two-way street, there should be more than one view or argument, the world moves in 360 degrees. There needs to be discussion, dialogue, debate; people need to be free to speak about anything without fear hanging over their heads. Many issues are not being discussed. The ruling elite are doing things with very little consultation.

JT: They always said they know better and have your best interests at heart…

PR: How do they know the experiences of ordinary people? Most of them have never done a real job in their lives. They assume that average people have similar experiences to themselves. But they are totally disengaged.

JT: What do you feel that you can bring to the table?

PR: Direct democracy; voting on issues regardless of who is the leader or ruling-party. The BREXIT referendum really inspired me. People should have the right to vote on issues not just people.

Kieran James and Prabu Ramachandran.
JT: BREXIT lost Britain friends overnight…

PR: Most of their trade is outside the EU. They have more friends out there in the big wider world. Only 15% of their trade is with the EU.

JT: For Singapore, what can we learn from BREXIT?

PR: Democracy for starters; justice and equality. Everyone, rich or poor, gets the right to vote on the issue.

JT: Who is your model in Singapore? Who is a good politician that you admire?

PR: Nowadays there is no-one I look up to but in the past David Marshall. He showed that we [ethnic minorities] don’t need a GRC system to get elected. He is a minority within a minority.

JT: Thanks for confirming that there is no credible opposition.

PR: I didn’t say that. We should have a referendum on GST – should we keep it, should we increase it? And CPF withdrawal age and ministers’ salary. It’s ridiculous that in a country of five million, ministers get a higher salary than Donald Trump or the U.K. PM. We should vote on issues that affect people – cross-border tariffs, water, and electricity. We had one referendum in 1963 – to join Malaysia. But we never had a Leave referendum. We did respect the will of the people to join but the choice should have been given to leave or remain. Since 1963 there has not been a single referendum.

JT: How do you take it from here?

PR: The Anti-Fake News law has been passed. It has been said that the majority of people want that law but it has not been proven. If there was a referendum, I would campaign against that law.

Anonymous: What do you think about the issues of foreigners working in Singapore, education, and housing?

PR: The cost of building public housing has to be broken down to the public to give the cost of each individual unit. We don’t know what profit is being made by HDB. We don’t have any numbers or breakdown.
The education system has to create a system of readers. We don’t have thinkers. They, academics, give textbook answers and not real solutions to practical problems. They are just reading it out of textbooks rather than giving their solutions to real issues.
We need to make sure that our population is over-employed (full-time job plus part--time job). Only then should you open up to non-Singaporeans, non-PRs, and immigrants. Many graduates now can’t find jobs in their specialty area.
We are ranked 153rd in the world in press freedom, it is shameful. Israel ranks higher than us in press freedom and the democracy index. My aim is to get Singapore Number 1 in the press freedom index and Number 1 in the democracy index. We should open up and give more licences to organizations to open more newspapers. It will create more media jobs and improve our press freedom index. We need less regulation from the government.

Anonymous: Do you have reason to believe that the judges side with the ruling-party?

PR: We must ask who the judges are accountable to. We need mechanisms to make judges appointed and removed easily by the public.

Kieran James and Dan De Costa.
Anonymous: What do you think of the Little India riot? Did Indians live up to their stated reputation?

PR: You answered the question yourself. In any other country the police leader or Minister for Home Affairs would have been fired or resigned. We need an accountability check please.

Anonymous: Can you comment on transport fees going up but more breakdowns?

PR: I think it should be privatized and there should be more small private bus companies up in the market. They should challenge for the lion’s market-share. One of the foundations of democracy is private ownership of income-generating assets. I would like privately-owned taxis and buses owned by individuals and not by big business. I believe that assets such as hawker stalls should be privately owned rather than owned by big business or REITs.

JT: How will you get this to happen?

PR: Heavily tax big business and ultra-rich; progressive taxes rather than regressive taxes such as the GST. It should be abolished and we should move to a more progressive tax system. Taxes should rise for big property owners and high-income earners. Most taxes should be aimed at millionaires with assets of S$100 million and above.

JT: Singapore is now a tax-haven for the rich. But it is known as clean and incorrupt. What is happening?

PR: We can afford to charge the rich under the current system because the heavy tax is on everyone else. The rich gets tax discounts and tax breaks. We are doing reasonably well in the corruption index but we are not Number 1, New Zealand is Number 1. There is no accountability and more deniability. These statements are made famous by Ms Jeanne Ten.

JT: I like that statement.

PR: Look at NUS as a public institution today. It took a victim to come out and run a social justice campaign. We need a proactive police-force and Establishment.

Anonymous: What can we learn from Malaysian election?

PR: You vote for who you like. If people are not working in your favour you vote them out; that’s the beauty of democracy. You should be able to vote out people who are not doing well in [their] positions.

Kieran James: Your comment about Workers’ Party’s performance?

PR: They could start speaking about issues such as the unelected grassroots people you can’t get rid of. Hougang and Aljunied MPs should be able to use grassroots facilities such as Citizens’ Consultative Committees. Only the ruling-party can use taxpayer-funded assets. Elected MPs should be the grassroots leaders not the ruling-party candidates. WP should be speaking on issues such as this.

Anonymous: Why do you think Singaporeans do not want to vote for opposition?

PR: Look online. A poll was conducted by Wake up Singapore; 63% of people are afraid to speak up about their political views; that says a lot anyway. In a proper democracy you praise them for their good acts and criticize them for doing the wrong things. This is why I disagreed with Nicole Seah when she said that we should not criticize PAP.

Anonymous: What will you do with your minister’s salary? Give us a breakdown.

PR: There is no answer to that.

Dan De Costa: The scariest thing right now is that none of us in opposition can read the ground anymore.

PR: They are scared of my idea of giving the people a referendum.

JT: Singaporeans don’t understand that concept. They think that ministers should decide.

DDC: The people want Tharman as their PM; it is the PAP that is racist.

PR: If we were ready in the 1950s for non-Chinese leaders (e.g. David Marshall, Othman bin Wok, E.W. Barker), why not now? The argument is on both sides. Michael Palmer and Murali Pillai got elected against majority candidates.

DDC: One Chinese woman said that 80% of Jurong voters voted for Tharman so the racists must come from somewhere else. I thought that was very cool.

[Note: The conversation continued for a while longer but became more and more scattered and informal so I stopped taking notes at this point.]

*****THE END*****

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