sharing this essay i wrote on corruption ("Elite Entrenchment and State Capture in Singapore") in Singapore cos i believe that political education is important && i tried to keep this straightforward. goes into Sinicisation & megachurch Christianity too
don’t let this fly under your radar. this is violent and can be arbitrary cos who decides what “mental disorder” looks like + there is a eugenicist implication that people with “mental disorders” = dangerous. *anyone* can be a threat. radicalisation is about power, not the psyche
i think that moralising Singapore as exceptionally terrible (especially without drawing a distinction between the state and the people) in the entirety of Southeast Asia is dangerous breeding ground for different nationalisms lol
sg contemporary culture
- nguan photography
- overutilised & fetishised chij uniforms
- kurt tay
- drop drop drop like grapes
- mak kau hijau
- insurance/credit card commercial featuring old grandparent alone n sad during festive season before the entire family suddenly shows up
Culture consists of many aspects of a particular social group:
1) Customs, social behaviours
2) Attitudes, Ideas
3) Aesthetics
Compared to our neighbours, SG has only existed independently for ~60 years. There aren't many traditions we claim as our own because-
Singapore: “both sides!”
Singapore: [fails to back South Africa’s case @ ICJ re: Israel’s genocide]
Singapore: [participates in US-led Op Prosperity Guardian against Houthis, who are pressurising Israel via an ultimatum that they’ll stop if Israel stops committing genocide]
me when i was much younger asking a civil servant who studied postcolonial literature "isn't it bad/violent that we got colonised" & getting "depends" in response. depends on WHAT
a lot of people dunking on this thread aren't reading it properly lol the point isn't to deny sinophobia -- it's to highlight the hypocrisy & ignorance of chinese singaporeans coming back 2 singapore thinking racism doesn't happen here *only because it doesn't happen to them/us*
insanely annoyed hot take: i do *not* trust the vast majority of chinese singaporeans complaining about how bad it was to be in america/UK and how unsafe and dangerous it is, *for them*
no fr i think it’s crazy that all it takes is some tape to demarcate how we interact with space. ofc this is backed up by punitive smoking laws, but it’s still interesting the way our bodies are reconditioned & regulated into compliance in such daily & casual ways in Singapore
Whatever Singapore’s been up to over the past 50 years to lead to smokers voluntarily smoking neatly in an invisible box, give me that. All of it.
Cc
@DrDzul
y'all know that it's not just Singaporeans who abuse workers right. & all of it is in all measures fucked up. but it's not a specifically Singaporean characteristic. esp domestic labour -- it's gendered & even in trade unions gender-marginalised people are thrown under the bus
spoke for an hour to a “idc about politics i just care about my bread & butter and minding my own business” Singaporean and i genuinely think that most “apathetic” Singaporeans just haven’t met a socialist. cos everything ab that conversation was political
everyone keep tabs on this case cos the "woman" in question is a "digital wellness educator & mental toughness coach" who's been blatantly transphobic, e.g. recommending "Irreversible Damage" by Abigail Shrier to trans youth. it's concerning that she has a wide reach & platform
here’s a reminder that Singapore purchases spyware from Israel and i don’t particularly see what’s stopping the state from deploying this tech against its own citizenry/civilians or migrants esp as Trace Together x Safe Entry data has already been questionably used before
it's not just this. social work & psych *as institutions* ultimately rehabilitate individuals into systems of oppression + redirect/disarm collective action precisely thru individualising problems & pathways to "liberation"
do u all understand why i constantly criticise NGOs (and Singapore’s activism scene) as counter-revolutionary or should i do a proper explainer? i feel like sometimes people assume i just think that NGOs are “inadequate” when in fact i think that NGOs are HOSTILE to liberation
how can you stop being so afraid of my pet dying? hes fine but sometimes i sob just thinking about it happening, … — this feels like something only richard siken can answer
i was fr just thinking this… is there any nation with a “culture” that isn’t just a hegemonic state-endorsed choice that erases/oppresses other cultures living on the same land/within the same demarcated national boundaries lol
uniqlo casualwear is a more truthful, authentic, organic expression of SEA (high-income urban) culture than fake "traditional outfits" originating from 20th century state authorities' regularization of "cultural heritage" that no one actually wears
acts of violence like this should not be attributed to medical causes cos active internet/social media radicalisation pipelines exist outside of disproportionate islamophobic fearmongering. when is Singapore going to take the alt right as a political terror threat seriously
lol ok i read this article n it’s just sloppy journalism conflating (1) “cancelling” because of prejudice with (2) “cancelling” as a pushback against prejudice
fucking Singapore govt infantilising its population for decades but can’t even steer the ship correctly mfing technocratic bullshit. just pissing our neighbours off left right center knn second hand embarrassment Fatal flaw is not just the violence its also the CRINGE
once again, in Singapore you have customers squabbling with hawkers instead of both realising that their economic issues are connected... rent! taxes! bills! produce prices! etc.
TIL Singapore basically helped prop up apartheid South Africa + possibly resold weapons to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, which eventually gave rise to al-Qaeda & ISIS
is LKY in the room with us right now to resolve our economic & geopolitical issues when we move into a labour & rental crisis in a world where the balance of powers is shifting & arming up
Singaporeans: (1) if mass student protests were to break out at your school campus and (2) you had to outsmart law enforcement trying to shut you down & conduct mass arrests, (3) how would you defend the fort? (4) what architecture/topography would you leverage or be careful of?
the sleight of hand here is that the groups are flipped: in the UK it was white supremacists (dominant group) attacking immigrants (subjugated group), whereas the last “riot” we had in Singapore was the Little India Riot in 2013, arising from migrant workers (subjugated group) /+
it would do anti-death penalty activists in Singapore good to repivot to interrogating (1) what *really* happens to the drugs that get seized esp since it's a lucrative commodity (2) what *underground* links the ruling class in Singapore has to the global drug trade esp Burmese
🧵
#PopeinAsia
Pope Francis will arrive in
#Singapore
tomorrow. Thousands of volunteers are involved and there's already brisk sales of papal visit souvenirs.
But will anyone in the room—any room that the Pope ends up in—bring up the
#deathpenalty
?
got called down for a police interview about this. if there’s no news/updates from me by Tuesday please know that it prob means i’m in trouble + contact
@quantumcatgirl
or
@omyhangu
(whether you’re Singaporean or not)
On 31st March 2024,
#TDOV
, I protested in front of the Singapore's Attorney-General's Chambers and State Courts over the unjust treatment of transgender women in remand and prison. I was arrested, held in custody for about 10 hours, and released at around 1am on 1st April.
[1/2]
a General Paper teacher:
“It’s also an opportunity to model for them how we can feel strongly about an issue and still respond in a measured manner, being sensitive to those around us. We can acknowledge the atrocities of war without picking a side”
the SG govt enables the Tatmadaw’s killing of peoples of Myanmar, Indo’s dispossession of indigenous folks in Batam, sand mining in Cambodia, labour exploitation of migrant workers from the Philippines, etc.
solidarity with the region & world
#DoMoreSingapore
#MilkTeaAlliance
New Campaign!!
18th Oct (Today!!) till 31st Oct!
@bloodmoney22222
@mtealliance
& many more friends pushing the
#doMoreSingapore
Campaign to demand that the gov't of Singapore take more action to enforce their commitments!
Full campaign pack here:
we begin Pride Month with fascism! i wish it were just mere conservatives but these are actively hostile transphobes, in trend with the assault on trans existence across multiple countries. i’m tired of trans women & kids getting scapegoated, raped, murdered or driven to suicide
The Science Centre organised a session with a panel discussion to discuss the difference between sex and gender. It was to be held at the Projector Cineleisure, was for 18+ and participants would have to sign up. Unfortunately, conservative loons got to it! FB comments below 1/4
SG govt damn well knows it’s not a religious matter but a geopolitical one. the Daddy State is just trying to baby everyone into staying in our local bubble by insisting we think in terms of the “domestic” and not analyse foreign policy and SG’s diplomatic relations lol
thinking about the time i said "Kuan Yew" conversationally and my teacher stared at me in shock cos he'd never heard anyone refer to LKY like that before
- film scene of family eating dinner: "爸。妈。吃。"
- cringing at The Noose
- haji lane kena gentrified
- cats at void decks
- bored go LAN
- being able to tell when someone went to an all-girls school, e.g. milotruckdreams
- gurmit singh still culturally relevant after decades
condemning Singapore w/out linking analysis to present day *imperial struggle for ultimate global hegemony* actually permits a form of self-resignation that *upholds* an imperialist world order favouring states & capital over ppl & land. it is an anti-internationalist position
i haven't seen this on twitter yet but TOC just did an exposé: "Minister K Shanmugam transfers Astrid Hill GCB to UBS Trustees for S$88 Million following Ridout Road controversy"
every portion of space here is demarcated & designated a function by the govt or capital. i think if indigenous communities like the Orang Laut & Orang Pulau esp had land back (i.e. ownership & determination) things would feel a whole lot less sterile & vacuous
Singapore is the only ASEAN country that this joint statement. we need to do better as a key member of ASEAN -- with & for the people of ASEAN + with & for the broader peoples of the world being slaughtered, suppressed &/or exploited by Amerikkka's capitalist imperialist project
sometimes, Christians weaponise the language of "safety" and "protection" to conceal their very insular socialisation processes that create conformity and compliance to hierarchy -- so identity formation is filtered thru the boundaries & frameworks they approve of, & ideology
On 1st Oct, Singapore announced Smart Nation 2.0.
Skimming through the Smart Nation 2.0 document, on page 45 they seem to platform known Christian far-right affiliated groups like Focus on the Family, which works closely with government-linked groups such as Families for Life 1/
these state sanctioned events legitimise lip service & the world of symbols, stabilising & rewriting the state’s role as something that *appears* to be less violent & more capable of morality than it actually is
when i was helping out w mutual aid i was rushing essay deadlines while trying to contact a man i’d met for lunch to check on how he & his infant were doing. after several attempts to contact him finally his brother using his phone told me he was in jail probably for $ reasons
once you see everything happening, from gaza to myanmar to even the everyday in singapore... just having a normal, human reaction to loss & violence can make us seem crazy in a world built off of ignoring & committing such violence.
sorry but tested publishing slides how/where/when?
beyond that the point of publishing slides of ALL levels is so there is transparency + to avoid misinformation from circulating
why wont this “do justice” if by their word teachers are not allowed to deviate from the slides?
are all these mass vape raids/clampdowns in Singapore happening because of the govt's inability to know how to tax (& thus extract $$ from) vapes... due to the vape distribution & supply being more decentralised (versus cigarette industry being more oligopolistic in structure)??
this is only gonna worsen as the xtian far right declares "culture wars" against us and the alt-right & populist right join in, blaming their (economic, political, social, emotional, relational, whatever) problems on us as convenient scapegoats
homophobia is still a huge thing in Singapore do not fucking forget that
Even with sufficient evidence the police could not arrest this guy
this is a hate crime
Beat up your local homophobe
actually we should all just agree that singapore's housing policy (on which individualistic economic strategy might rely) sucks for most of us working class people, straight & queer, just in different ways. lmao
Queers in Singapore need to organise against fascism (which includes being politically educated about trends and tactics + building victim-centred care that deals with harm), instead of solely prioritising event-planning & incremental policy change (tho these have a function too)
i hope more LGBTQIA+ people in Singapore see this as a real act of war, not drama or some so-called usual state of affairs. they have been waging war, using real funding, against our communities in LGBTQIA+ spaces for decades since the 1990s (post-Billy Graham). we need to fight.
this is a fucked up new law -- if you understand the state to be the institutional patriarch, with its moral monopoly on (1) what "justice" entails & looks like, (2) what is "disruptive" to social order, and (3) what procedural violence the "guilty" are subjected to
lol the more i notice it the more clear it becomes to me that the SG state is throwing a tantrum. the signals have been chapalang for months, & i’m not just referring to July 2023’s eruption of scandals. it’s the projection of control via exercising a lot of symbolic violence
this is why we need to abolish not just specific policies & laws but the monopoly on violence as a whole… else the state will just keep doing what it’s designed to do, including in its being arbitrary
Disappointing but not surprising: Singapore police are looking into this to determine if it was an illegal procession under Singapore's extremely broad Public Order Act, which criminalises public cause-related activity w/o a police permit.
good morning SG swifties 🦁🐟💥
last year, while Biden was sending bombs for Isr*el to drop on Palestinians, the US embassy of Singapore posted a video of them making friendship bracelets
let’s make friendship bracelets for what we ACTUALLY stand for 🇸🇬🇵🇸
#SwiftiesForPalestine
copaganda in Singapore fuses terror threats with justifications for increasing the authority & militarisation of the police. why do we outsource safety & security to an institutional body tho, instead of learning sense-making & defence skill sets & practicing it /+
Singaporeans newly learning “decolonisation” as a concept pls understand that this has also been weaponised by multiple local ruling elites to concentrate authoritarian power lol
a lot of violence that happens in singapore is banal & quiet but also part of necropolitics. it’s the slow crawl of death: of having your mental & physical health collapse as you’re chronically overworked &/or stressed over how to sustain a livelihood for yourself &/or family
talking with political correspondents who deal with US/China imperialism i realise i’m correct about how activism in Singapore is an undemocratic & centralised space cos its agendas are set by orgs like TJC/WMP which dictate which causes are worth legitimising/supporting or not
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong was visibly emotional towards the end of his address, where he announced that he will be passing the baton over to his successor Lawrence Wong before the next general election. "It has been my great fortune and honor to serve the country," Lee said.
it's the "colonialism helped Singapore progress and the Brits were nice colonial daddies" logic lah. i legitimately feel that Singapore has not processed our colonial traumas at all + historical amnesia is the coping mechanism for our pain & grief, in lieu of self-confrontation
SimplyGo data ➡️ chart out patterns/habits, generate consumer or (non)citizen profile ➡️ data is used for what, & goes where? we are seeing huge amounts & new types of data being centralised *while* the lines between public & private sectors are blurring. this is a security issue
times like this I’m glad alt pubs like ricemedia exist. they’ve been a lot better at reflecting public sentiment than mainstream publications, which seem to have been saddled with the responsibility of simply conveying the official rationale from gov pov
can someone more well-versed in this type of Christianity's belief in Israel & consequent BLOODSHED being crucial to their End Times prophecy, rapture/Revelations &/or the Second Coming of Jesus Christ elaborate on or explain what is going on <3
Hamas is a *separate* conversation from Israel’s settler-colonialism & genocide + military & financial & ideological support from various governments around the world. hope this helps
im starting a reading club series to read + discuss the military industrial complex in the context of Singapore. i know very little ab the historical n contemporary political economy & (a bit more but still little) geopolitical landscape wrt Singapore’s position in the global MIC
donations via humanitarian aid do not necessarily reach the ppl affected or meet the needs of liberatory struggle btw! aid comes w strings attached (whether that’s for diplomatic/foreign policy or capitalist interests) &/but also makes for good publicity 👍 it’s usually posturing
really refreshing when i meet someone who isn't activismpilled in Singapore independently critique the toxic positivity, coloniality and middle class consciousness of how activism & NGOs (v intertwined here) operate here
maybe don’t push your agenda & doctrine and meet people where they’re at, what they’re actually concerned about, etc. instead of asserting moral n woke superiority…
mainstream Singapore activists talk shit about my friends dealing with geopolitics yet remain silent & naive about foreign interference, espionage & clampdowns. not a peep from your local death penalty activists about
@HaseenahKoya
’s brother, which points to transnational issues
"Indonesia is poised to become the new Malaysia, selling off its precious natural resources at the expense of its own citizens’ national bounty [and] their safety. ... while Singapore expands [and] plays and wins according to its own rules ... by no environmental rules at all."
this takes cue from US Christofascists (Google Project 2025) && we shouldn’t be surprised that this is a form of imperialism, not just ideologically, but via capital flow & business relations, if you understand evangelical Christian global networks & interests
very recently, Protect Singapore has released a "family values" scorecard for various MPs in Singapore. the domain was registered on 27th May 2024. a workable hypothesis is that they worked on the scorecard in response to
@PinkDotSG
's 14th June scorecard.