As an opinion piece, I need to express where I stand on the matter. I do not condone the harsh treatment the group was subjected to. But let me be clear. I am not against harsh treatment as an interrogatory process by security agencies where national interest is at stake. In this incident, it was apparent from the very beginning, the youngsters were innocent of the claims against them. However, I feel strongly that Lee Kuan Yew was absolutely correct in his assessment of the potential of an underlying national threat.
After all these years, my younger brother recently quibbed that he squirms at my long winding perihrastic way of telling a story. No one was kind enough to ever tell me the errors of my ways. I had always find it a necessity to mesh and weave connected thoughts to project a narrative for more perspective and flavour. So here I am, trying to share some personal views and I need to link Klaus Schwab, Operation Spectrum, and Liberation Theology into a whole.
This image of Klaus Schwab has been floating across social media platforms. Millions simply rely on what their friends share as the truth, that the father of the World Economic Forum chairman is a high ranking Nazi German officer. In other words, he is from a scumbag family.
From my research, this much I know. Klaus is not what he pretends to be - part of a world leadership class trying to build a brand new world for the betterment of humanity. During the war years, his father Eugen, managed a Swiss-owned company called Escher-Wyss. The company was headquartered in a town called Ravensburg in Germany. It was a golden model company in Hitler's very good books because they produced critical military hardware parts and huge hydrogenerators for the Third Reich. One very dark side -- they produced hard water that was necessary for the making of plutonium. So Eugen Schwab almost could have helped Hitler to produce the nuclear bomb and won the war. On top of that, Eugen Schwab was using slave labour from Nazi prisoners-of-war. The fruit didn't fall far from the tree. As a brilliant engineer, Klaus eventually worked in his father's company. There he managed a secret project that helped apartheid South Africa to develop 7 nuclear weapons in contravention of UN sanctions. (In 1989 South Africa voluntarily gave up their nuclear capability after having achieved it). The Schwabs have no qualms in helping genocidal and intensely racist regimes to develop nuclear capabilities. Does a man who heck cares if the world gets blown to bits in a nuclear holocaust really concern himself with climate change issues? Does a family who supported a diabolical maniac in pursuit of genocidal acts against their own race hold any values of compassion for humanity?
And I shall return to Klaus Schwab, bear with me.
Things are never what they seem. It's true of Klaus Schwab, and so too Operation Spectrum. The 22 so-called Marxist subversives were not even actually one organised group, but youth social and church workers from different Christian organisations. The authorities claimed one Vincent Cheng was the group leader, and the mastermind was Tan Wah Peow.
Tan is an ex-president of the Singapore University Student Union who fled the country in 1976 after a trumped up charge of rioting. It was a celebrated case where Tan suggested the main witness was a corrupt National Trade Union chief Phey Yew Kok who fabricated the charge. Incidentally, Phey himself eventually fled the country under suspicious circumstances. Tan lives in exile in London. The curious case of pulling in Tan's name was, I suspect, to build credibility to the claim of a plot to agitate the ground. Tan was a student leader who in his hey days championed workers' rights too aggressively, to the chagrin of an authority that puts industrial peace on the altar of economic advancement. The years preceding the arrest was a time of economic slow down, with rising unemployment and workers being let go. Some of the 22 youngsters were actively representing workers' grievances just like Tan was doing some 10 years earlier. Industrial unrest is the one thing the government will muster all it can to nip in the bud.
Practically no one in Singapore to this day believes Vincent Cheng and Tan were leaders of a subversive group. In any case, this is passe although we do still see the un-informed griping in social media about the non-Marxist connection. Lee Kuan Yew himself said he knew they were not subversive elements, but a group of 'do-gooders' who unknowingly got entangled in a bigger and dangerous agenda. LKY also dismissed Vincent and Tan as naive parties. The fact remains these social workers were detained for months and intensely interrogated, and some claimed they were tortured. Confessions were extracted for early release. To add to the high drama, 2 lawyers representing the detainees were arrested. One of these was Francis Seow, a prominent, eloquent and rising opposition figure, was arrested at the Internal Security compounds when he arrived to see his client Teo Soh Lung. Seow was himself thrown into the cells where he languished for more than 2 months. I think the arrest of Seow was simply political because Operation Spectrum had provided him a public platform, something that LKY will never tolerate.
Great was the injustice done to the 22, but there was not a single voice of dissent from the ruling party. That is the danger of the moral hazard of million dollar salary elected officialdom. But I think, in all honesty, in their private discussions, there must have been some dissent. Minister Tharman himself was subjected to intense interrogation by ISD. Foreign Minister Dhanabalan, to his full credit, took the righteous step of resigning from his cabinet post because he felt strongly what was done was against his personal values.
"So you think you can take on and bully the second-generation leaders? Well, our job is to make sure that you do not succeed. We are here to neutralize. You know, to neutralize you!" (ISD to Francis Seow in his book To Catch A Tartar)If LKY himself had thought from the very beginning the 22 were innocent, why then the harsh treatment? For the answer, one needs to understand how LKY works. Lee is a cunning man and a man of strategy. He zooms in on the core issues and makes the primary decisions. Of the peripherals, he is basically hands off. He has said if you were his subordinate, you should know what he wants and act accordingly. You don't need to be told. If you don't know what he wants, you should not be deserving of the job. That discretion for underlings in a situation such as this, creates on the one hand, the drive for officials to do their best to do the worse to please the boss, and on the other hand, to absolve Lee on any legal challenge for abuse of human rights or other wrongful acts as no direct instructions came from him.
As far as LKY was concerned, his targets were 4 Roman Catholic priests. Edgar D'Souza, associate editor of The Catholic News and press liaison officer of the Church; Joseph Ho, chairman of the Justice and Peace Commission; Patrick Goh, national chaplain of the Young Christian Workers' Movement, and Guillaume Arotcarena, director of the Catholic Centre for Foreign Workers. These 4 held persuasions for what is known as Liberal Theology that was popular amongst progressive clerics. It would have been easy for LKY to simply demand that they be removed, but he had to consider backlash from the Christian community as well as many of the faith in both the party and the government. Francis Seow painted Lee a good Machiavellian, and true to form, the Prime Minister created the crime to fit the charges for the outcome he desired. Create a high drama of serious immediate Marxist insurrection to force the Roman Catholic Church to clean up their act, and provide the theatre to educate the populace. When the dust was settled, the 4 priests departed from Singapore.
Just what the heck is Liberal Theology all about. This lies at the heart of seminarians, a struggle to live a life in service of the Lord or to serve the poor and oppressed. Progressive clerics seek to apply religious faith by aiding the poor and oppressed through involvement in civic affairs. In basic terms, liberal theology is a process of conscientising, or raising the consciousness, of the poor, oppressed and marginalised to a level that they can understand the nature and extent of their marginalisation and oppression. It is a path that will traverse political trapdoors and inevitably to collision with the state. Indeed liberal theology led priests to take up arms against corrupt regimes in the jungles of Latin America in the 60's to 80's. Honorable their hearts may be, these progressives fail to comprehend the life of Jesus was all about saving our souls. He is clear about the difference of spiritual and temporal needs. Did He not chose to give to Ceasar what belonged to Ceasar? Unfortunately, the same lack of comprehension behind Judas Iscariot's disappointment in the Lord is driving the faithful in liberal theology in current times.
The political threat of liberal theology comes in 2 ways. One is decentralisation. It's doctrine is about living amongst the poor. The church need not be the focal. People should organise everywhere outside of the church and thus enhance membership numbers. The British Intelligence and LKY himself are too wary of what all these means. It is the same old community organisation of the Malayan communists of Chin Peng. Second is ideology. LKY himself mentioned there was no eminent danger in that there was no ideology behind the work these activists were doing. However, the danger laid in the capture of the organisation by ideologically driven interests which history provides ample examples.
LKY pointed to the People's Revolution of Philippines the year before. The Roman Catholic Church in Philippines, under the leadership of Cardinal Sin, had played a critical role in galvanising ground support amongst the laity. That the outcome of the revolution in displacing a despot is righteous, is besides the point. Lee was wary of liberal theology leading to un-elected political power of the church and its abuse of that power.
Without perspective, Singaporeans are generally unforgiving in my view that LKY's perception was right on the bull's eye. One of the organisations involved was East Asia Christian Conference. In the late 1960s EACC developed what it called Industrial Evangelism as a way to empower urban industrial workers. This was seen as a service to society and it required the setting up of many independently run Urban and Industrial Missions (UIM). To help organise themselves, EACC sought the assistance of Saul Alinsky who despatched his assistant Ron Fuyiyoshi. For those who do not know, Alinksy was a famous management guru well known for his social organising skills. He developed a technique he called Community Organisation. Alinsky gained fame for tactics that honed Barrack Obama's social organising skills which helped him win him the presidency. Hillary Clinton too had some tutelage from Alinsky. What was controversial about Alinsky was his confrontational and radicalism doctrine. Those from the political Right claimed Alinsky was basically a communist and his infamous book Rules for Radicals have been compared to the Communist Manifesto. Today, if you survey the US scene, much of the way of power-capture by the Democrats and Liberal Left, appear to have come right out of the radical teachings of Saul Alinsky. And behold the damage it is now causing the US.
Meanwhile in Singapore, Fuyiyoshi had his work cut out for him. Sometime in 1971 Vincent received coaching from Fuyiyoshi on Community Organisation. In latter days, Vincent in turn passed on Alinsky's teachings to other activists. In 1973, the government refused to renew Fuyiyoshi's visa. The government's displeasure with UIM was quietly relayed to the church which eventually discontinued the enterprise. In the aftermath of Operation Spectrum, EACC was also banned from Singapore.
Looking at the political, social, cultural and economic dysfunction in the US today, of which Alinsky's teachings that advanced radicalism and social divisions, lies at the very heart, LKY's tough love, the ability to see danger 3 to 4 steps in advance, and the gumption to make tough and unpopular decisions, has probably spared Singapore much problem.
No inference is made to lay the blame on the Roman Catholic Church of Singapore. It is a case of Father, they know not what they do.
The term liberation theology came from Peruvian priest Gustavo Gutiérrez, who wrote A Theology of Liberation in 1971. The book became the guiding light for an increasing number of progressives within the church. But what kicked off this explosion of liberalism was the Second Vatican Council between 1962 to 1965. Some see the outcome of Vatican II as the Roman Catholic Church trying to grapple it's role and engage with the modern world, some see the germination of socialist idealism the result of infiltration by communist elements. Vatican II was a paradigm shift in church thinking with a pivot towards embracing the temporal. Liberation theology and its way of community organisation took root in many poor third world countries and those under oppressive regimes, with some local deviations. Mexico, Latin American countries, India, South Korea, and Philippines all have their versions of liberation theology.
“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.”To circle back to our story, I now spotlight one key character - Bishop Helder Camara. It is always sexy to talk about helping the poor. Heck one can even put on a great show of living amonst the poor, of championing the poor against the guns of generals. That's the public persona of Father Camara. Remember, things are always never what they seem with all these public figures. Early public life in 1930s before WWII, Camara was a senior official in Acao Integralista Brasileira, an intergralist movement with fascist tendencies. They were ultra right militants that marched in the streets apeing the Nazis in Germany. At Brazil Catholic Centre, he influenced the organisation to flip to the Left. He was enthusiastic of the success of the Cuban Revolution. He sang praises of Mao Tse Tung and proposed the admission of China to the UN at the expense of Taiwan. In 1969 at a Catholic convention in New York, he chastised the anti-Soviet stand of the United States. It was from this event that he earned the nickname The Red Bishop. He protected Belgian priest Joseph Comblin in a huge scandal in 1968. Comblin was based in Brazil and working in a seminary in Recife under the auspices of Camara. Father Comblin had written a plan on subverting the government and creating a new state of the people. This was leaked to media. Not surprisingly, details sounded familiar to soundbites coming from the World Economic Forum, such as abolishment of private property, total equality thus no organisations of hierachy allowed (means classless, means abolishment of church), a dictatorship of the people with power to muzzle the indolent (means if you don't toe the line, your're out, if you are retarded, sickly, incapable of work, you're out -- remember Hitler?), media censorship, abolish the army, establish peoples' court (remember the excesses of Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot?), use of violence if necessary to execute objectives, etc. (I have not been able to authenticate these details). Camara has voiced his disagreements to the stand of the Catholic Church on key issues of divorce, women priests, and contraception.
―
The magisterial documents that came out of Vatican II incorporated much of Camara's views on reforms for the church. The Liberals won and the Conservatives lost. On the last days of the Second Ecumenical Council of Vatican meeting in Rome, Camara led 42 liberal priests into the secret underground of the Vatican City to sign what is called the Pact of the Catacomb. The priests pledged to live a life of poverty and renounced material attachment. It was a pledge against worldliness. Remember, it is never what it seems. It was a side promotional stunt demonstrating Camara's view that Vatican II did not go Left far enough to put poverty in the center of church's mission. Pope Paul VI did not want to have anything to do with Camara's stunt because it was in effect an attack against Capitalism.
I know your impatience. Wait, what has these all got to do with our story? Well, dear readers. Here's the thing. Camara, one of the most radical and controversial Roman Catholic bishop, who was extremely impressed and influenced by Father Gustavo Gutiérrez's A Theology of Liberation, is himself adored by the most troublesome man of our times.
See how Klaus Schwab literally gushed over Camara. The Red Bishop had a profound impact on the man who is trying to change the world today. Schwab has brought Camara to speak at WEF conferences at Davos many times. And the rich and famous have since then all fallen in love with The Red Bishop. But wait, how can Liberal Left godless money-centric elites love a poor man of God? They like his ideas of Liberal Theology.
Now I want to bring you readers all back home. And the point I want to make is this:
BACK IN 1987, LONG BEFORE LIBERAL THEOLOGY DID HARM IN THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH AND SAUL ALINSKY INSIDIOUSLY COLLAPSED THE GREAT USA, LEE KUAN YEW HAULED UP 22 INNOCENT SOCIAL ACTIVISTS AND CAUSED 4 PROGRESSIVE PRIESTS TO LEAVE SINGAPORE BECAUSE HE SAW THE DANGER AND ACTED LONG BEFORE ANYBODY ELSE.
BUT TODAY, OUR GOVERNMENT IS GOING TO BED WITH THE GLOBALIST ELITES OF WEF AND KLAUS SCHWAB WHO HAVE MADE IT PUBLICLY CLEAR IN THEIR SPEECHES AND WEBSITES THAT THEY PURSUE AN AGENDA THAT IS BASICALLY SIMILAR TO THE SAME UNDERLYING DOCTRINES THAT LKY THREW OUT IN 1987.
Conclusion:
I think the harsh treatment of the 22 young social activists in 1987 was wrong. I think the arrest and detention of Francis Seow was politically-motivated and unconstitutional. However, I think LKY assessment of the danger was spot on. Operation Spectrum was a counterinsurgency operation but not against an immediate plot. I think LKY considered the unfortunate circumstances of the 22 activists as a sacrifice to resolve the wider issue of real potential national security, which at it's core, was a Marxist threat. And lastly, I think what the government is doing today in cozying up to the globalist WEF is a total betrayal of the sacrifice of the 22.
In case anybody has the notion the idea of Liberal Theology is some crap talk by some creepy folks in medieval frocks, I'll leave you with some words, in these creepy folks' own words, what it's all about:
Brazilian Father Leonardo Boff : “What we are proposing is Marxism and historical materialism in theology.” (In case you don't know, 'historical materialism' is a core Karl Marx thingy)
Peruvian Father Gustavo Gutiérrez : “What we mean here regarding liberation theology is the involvement of the revolutionary political process....... Only by going beyond a society divided into classes. ..... Only eliminating private property of the wealth created by human work, will we be able to lay down the bases for a more just society. It is for this that the efforts to project a new society in Latin America are tending more and more towards socialism”.
Well I don't really know much, except that every time I hear demagoguery about a brand new world, nothing good comes out of it.
And Vatican II pure and simple, is a turning away from the spiritualism of God and towards anti-Ceasarism, under the guise of 'living with the poor', to create a new world order similar to what Ceasarism is all about - an authoritarian or autocratic political philosophy. See what I mean? Nothing is what it seems.
It is well known then Bishop Ratzinger opposed a lot of the socialist ideas in Vatican II. Perhaps the growing power of progressive Bishops eventually forced Ratzinger, as Pope Benedict XVI, to resign in 2013. In came the Jesuit priest Francis, the Pope of the poor. It then becomes clear all the crazy stuff that Francis has done and continues to do. Francis has now aligned the church with the Great Reset agenda of the globalist technocratic elites. Just as in the US, the reticence of the conservatives for decades allowed the advancement of liberalism and their capture of entertainment, educational, and federal agencies, the Roman Catholic Church has a parallel journey. The conservatives lost and progressive liberal clerics won. Today, Pope Francis is Camara's man in Rome. He is aligning the church with the Great Reset of Klaus Schwab. The Pope of the Poor has turned the Roman Catholic Church into what Michael Matt from Remnant TV calls a 'soup kitchen church'. If you were to google Camara, you will see the horror. Big tech, media, liberal clerics are pushing for the beatification of Father Helder Camara, The Red Bishop.
Are you sure the 22 are activities? or you are also con by the media controlled by lee con u..
ReplyDeleteAre they not social activists and social workers?
ReplyDeleteWhat are they then?
You are entitled to your views which very unfortunately you do not wish to educate me since I am so stupid and yet you explain nothing. The space here is free. Kindly elaborate in full.