What Chee would write to Obama

Chee Soon Juan wrote an open letter to Obama to congratulate him when he was inaugurated as President of the USA in January. Of course, it turned out to be more a complaints letter.

Dr Chee would probably be recycling this idea when President Obama drops by next month. Not My SDP would like to postulate what the new letter to Obama will look like with the following parody.

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President Obama,

I heard that you will be popping by next month for APEC 2009. That is why I am writing yet another open letter to you.

When you were inaugurated as President earlier this year, I also composed a letter to you. I couched the letter in the form of a congratulatory note, but it was more to air my political grievances to you and everyone who bothers to read my endless ramblings.

But you did not even deem it necessary to reply me. Of course, I was very devastated then. My disappointment only ceased after much soul searching. I finally consoled myself that you must have been too busy improving your basketball skills or pulling strings for the Nobel Peace Prize to write me a reply.

I have decided to forgive you, but I hope you will be more sensitive to a fellow freedom crusader's feeling in future. It really made me look bad in front of my supporters to be ignore. Please remember - no one ignores Chee Soon Juan.

Nevertheless, I am not known around Singapore as Mr Politically Persistent for no reason; hence this second attempt at an open letter. Initially, I was hoping to repeat most of the points I had made in my previous one, since you missed them anyway.

But I've been rather busy lately. I also am to lazy to regurgitate the same points I had made previously, even just for the sake of the President of USA. So I hope you don't mind reading them over here at this URL (http://yoursdp.org/index.php/news/singapore/1782-democrats-message-to-president-obama).

Since politically nothing much has changed here in Singapore, my letter would have been about the same old stuff - lack of civil, human and whatever rights here; Singapore PM is earning bigger bucks than you; many poor Singaporeans, not unlike the homeless ones over there in USA, and so on.

The only additional point I would have made is that our government here is trying to deprive the citizens of their wet-markets that the old folks are very sentimental about. . My party is pretending to fight for these and trying to impress the voters in a constituency we hope to contest soon. Don't underestimate people's passion for stinky and humid markets.

In Jan, I even made a video then, to enhance the emotional impact of my messages. The video is more intended for the lazy Singaporeans who prefer something more multi-media. You see, it's hard to compel them to read my long essays, and that is also why my party website has seen a big drop in readership. What to do, have to pander to the electorate's idiosyncrasies, right?

To cut to the chase, I have run out of ideas what else to do here. I like the catch-phrase you used very much - "Yes we can", I thought my party can too, but apparently we just can't think of any new ideas to get into parliament. Maybe you can lend me your campaign manager, that David Plouffe guy. He's quite good; at least better than the rag-tag team I have who simply echoes whatever I say.

Anyway, when I heard you were coming by, I could not decide whether to rejoice or feel downtrodden.

I rejoiced because I might have the opportunity to meet you personally when you are in Singapore. Imagine you and I rubbing shoulders together. It would give me much political mileage amongst my potential voters whom I regret to say, are very indifferent. And ignorant, if I may add.

Perhaps there would be some photo-op too. Then I can embellish my party website with pictures of you and I standing shoulder-to-shoulder not only physically, but against the tyranny of the autocratic governments around the world. I was told you are quite a tall guy, so I hope you won't mind if I stood on a small stool for the pose in front of the cameras. Our statures would then be more or less equal. A politician craves for some limelight, no?

Unfortunately, it's unlikely I'd even get within 10 miles of your entourage. Those pesky policemen will be tailing me and ensuring that I don't even get near to SUNTEC where the meetings will be held. So my colleagues and I are planning to deliberately break some laws by having some demonstrations.

I can't give any details of our plans here, since they are meant to be secret. I hope the noise we make won't interfere with the conference. Anyway, I heard nothing usually comes out of APEC meetings. So no loss. At least we would provide the international journalists something interesting to write about, and my international profile will be raised. It's good for me, because I'd be invited to seminars and talks overseas, and more importantly, get paid money which I quite desperately need.

At the same time, I have reasons to be sad by your attendance of APEC 2009. Perhaps simply out of courtesy, you probably be singing praises of your host, whom you should know by now are my political arch-enemies. It's a moral betrayal I'll have to bear for the duration of the conference. I'll just hope you won't carry it overboard, otherwise I'll stop writing to you in future.


Your Fellow Crusader for Freedom,

Chee Soon Juan (Dr)