SDP - Mar 2015 - "Better to have anybody else other than Chee Soon Juan"

"Better to have anybody else other than Chee Soon Juan"


http://yoursdp.org/news/better_to_have_anybody_else_other_than_chee_soon_juan/2015-03-17-5977


Thinker, Teacher, Rebel, Why? Portraits of Chee Soon Juan is a new book written by several authors about Dr Chee Soon Juan to counter the decades of PAP smear campaign against the SDP leader.


One of the contributors, Ms Constance Singam, wrote in her chapter that during the 2001 elections,

Goh [Chok Tong] denounced Dr Chee as “a dangerous man” and an “incorrigible liar”. Asked if he was concerned if Dr Chee entered Parliament, Goh declared: “ ... we must deny him that. Better to have anybody else other than Chee Soon Juan.”

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Ms Singam also cited Mr Lee Kuan Yew calling Dr Chee a “political gangster” and noted in her chapter that

These strongly worded denouncements, coming from the most powerful individuals about one opposition politician who had neither the power nor the resources they had, should have led us Singaporeans to question the reasons for the attack.

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Another contributor Dr Wong Souk Yee, NUS lecturer, playwright and ex-ISA detainee, recounts in her chapter Dr Chee's fight for free speech and the establishment of Speaker's Corner at Hong Lim Park:

Lee Kuan Yew was quoted in the New York Times that “if everybody just turns up at a busy junction and makes a speech and runs around... there would be pandemonium. We are not that kind of society.” The interviewer William Safire then asked Lee if Singapore would set up a place like London's old Hyde Park Corner. To which, Lee unexpectedly, replied: “We'll probably do it.”

Soon Juan's first breakthrough came after eight years of roiling in Singapore's political quagmire when Speaker's Corner at Hong Lim Park opened on 1 September 2000.

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These and other chapters written by 10 contributors*** will serve to counter the PAP's demonisation of Dr Chee as well as provide insights into his actions in his fight for democracy in Singapore.

It should be read by all Singaporeans in the lead up to the next general elections. This is the first time the SDP secretary-general will be contesting after 15 years of being barred from running from office through a series of prosecutions and defamation suits brought on by the country's three prime ministers.

The book will be launched next Saturday, 28 March 2015, 3pm at the Six Flavours Restaurant, NTU Alumni Club Building, 11 Slim Barracks Rise, Ground Floor (see map below).

To pre-order and reserve a copy, please click here ( [B]http://yoursdp.org/index/buy/0-13#[/B] ) or email us at: [email protected]

The book is retailed at $20 and proceeds from the sales will go into the SDP's GE campaign. So get your copy and let's get Dr Chee and SDP into Parliament!

Dr Chee is the only one that during the erection rallies, when the people see him, they will shout his name and crowd around him and carry him, even though he is not campaigning.

Chen Siow Mao also can command this respect but see how quiet he has become after getting erected?

Hope Dr Chee will not go over the other side if he is erected.

As long as SDP commit to champion the CPF probe and dismantle Medisave and replace with a state-funded healthcare system and help those who fell through the cracks, you have my vote.

Dr Huang Chihmei wrote the introduction to the book Teacher, Thinker, Rebel, Why? Portraits Of Chee Soon Juan. Below is an excerpt:


For someone who has done a lot of talking and writing on various sociopolitical issues, Soon Juan has said very little about himself. I've read countless comments about his character in the more than 20 years of his involvement in opposition politics, many of which were, shall we say, less-than-flattering.

The most distressing part is that for a long time it was close to impossible to tell people that this is not who he is, it is not the man I am married to.

Through all these years, we were like living our lives inside a protective bubble, later joined by our three children, to shield ourselves from all the negativity that his political involvement attracted and not let his work drag us down. It worked to a degree because as arduous as things were, we were not unhappy as a family. In fact, we have found contentment in living a simple yet meaningful life.

I met Soon Juan when we were doing our graduate studies at the University of Georgia in the United States. When I was offered a scholarship to do my PhD at Pennsylvania State University in the north, I wanted to think it over. Having just met, we naturally wanted to be closer together, but Soon Juan encouraged me to pursue my doctorate. I still remember him saying, “You've got to have dreams in your life.”

“You've got to have dreams in your life.” It's the kind of things we write for the composition class in school – a cliché that we seldom actually believe in. It turns out that for Soon Juan, he meant it.

And it's not just the big dreams that he has for Singapore but the little ones that I've shared with him as we went through life's journey together – our children, our home and our lifetime of memories. It's a journey I'm glad to have taken, experiencing a world of new ideas as well as humanitarian values – and, in the process, become a better person...

It is this hope of a better Singapore, a more humane and compassionate Singapore, that drives Soon Juan on. I can only hope that we've turned the corner and that Singaporeans, through this book, will come to know the person he really is...