quick updates

1. My kids in the Storytelling class that i've been teaching had too much candy or something this Tuesday, cos they were being really cheeky and noisy, refusing to listen to anything that i was saying and as a result the class was really chaotic. I know it's partly cos i'm such a pushover when it comes to kids and am really bad at disciplining them, but that couldn't have just been it. It was so frustrating. Once again, my heart went out to all the teachers in Singapore. How do they do it? One teacher to a class of 40 kids with no teacher's assistant or any other kind of support.

2. Found out that i got a job working at a bookstore, but it only starts March 6.

3. Later that same day, found out that i got a job working for a medical journal. I started on Thursday. It involves some editing, but also a lot of data entry, photocopying and other such fun stuff.

4. I have the flu, again.

5. I spent 2 days at a new job doing a bad job of pretending not to be sick.

6. Went to a forum today (see previous post). It was awesome, depressing and exciting all at the same time. Singapore political prisoners shared stories about their lives and struggles in student politics, opposition party politics and as political prisoners. Michael Fernandez showed a notebook that he compiled of his writings in tiny tiny print on toilet paper...the only way he found to write cos writing implements were not provided (even though political prisoners are technically entitled to those privileges). He also demonstrated how he was force-fed while on a hunger strike. The discussion revealed simmering discontent among many. It felt like a slow rumble, very gradually gathering strength.

7. More filing tomorrow. Good night.

Free all Political Prisoners!

forum

Detention - Writing - Healing
@ M1 Singapore Fringe Festival

26 February 06
3 - 5.30pm
Esplanade Recital Studio

Little is known about Singapore’s ex-political detainees – the events surrounding their detention, as well as their lives after detention. This forum is a landmark gathering of some of Singapore ex-political detainees, including Michael Fernandez, Said Zahari and Tan Jing Quee. All three will talk about their experiences, as well as share some of their writings. Joining them will be Robert Yeo, discussing his trilogy, Changi. Tan Chong Kee will be facilitating the discussion.

Michael Fernandez was a former trade unionist, activist and political detainee. The lead character in Robert Yeo's plays, The Singapore Trilogy, Reginald Fernandez, was loosely based on Mr Fernandez's life.

Said Zahari, a retired journalist, was one of the longest detained political prisoners in Singapore, having spent 17 years under detention without trial. His new book is entitled Seventeen Years in Changi.

Tan Jing Quee is the writer of a recently published collection of poems, Love's Travelogue. He is a lawyer and former political detainee, with a strong and abiding interest in politics, history and literature.

Robert Yeo is a playwright, whose works include Are You There, Singapore?, One Year Back Home and The Adventures of Holden Heng. He has also published a poetry collection entitled Leaving Home, Mother.

Founder and coordinator of Sintercom, as well as a founding member of The Working Committee, Tan Chong Kee has been actively involved in social activism in Singapore. He has edited various publications, including Ask Not: The Necessary Stage in Singapore Theatre, Building Social Space in Singapore, and Soc.Culture.Singapore: The Unauthorized Version.

For more info, visit www.singaporefringe.com

"I could bang my head against this wall all my life and yet never make so much as a dent."

- Sirshendu Mukhopadhyay
Waiting fcr Rain: a novel
translated from the Bengali by Nilanjan Bhattacharya

what to say?

Sometimes it seems so trivial to blog about my life when there is so much shit happening in the world. Is this it? Is the US gonna invade Iran, attack their nuclear facilities, and start a nuclear war or at least cause enough damage to the Middle East in a Hiroshima/Nagasaki sequel with 3 times the special effects and made for comfortable reality tv viewing pleasure?

I really need to stop reading the newspaper, or at least stop taking it so seriously. I don't know why i can now read the Canadian newspapers with such detachment, but still feel so invested in the alarmist language and skewed, mostly conservative, perspectives expressed in the Singapore papers.

Talking about which, i had a huge argument about politics with my dad this morning. We mostly ran words around in circles...how can he so strongly believe everything that the government and the newspaper tell him? Either that or he's simply defeatist about the possibility of change.

How can i be so patient and non-judgemental with other folks i don't agree with, questioning their ideas so calmly, but get so hysterically wrapped up in 16-year-old-style "you don't understand anything!" rebellion with family. How do we find the right ways to change the fucked-up-ness of the ways we are, the roles we take on and how we love and hate?

Rang De Basanti

Wow. How did this movie get past the Indian censors?

The basic premise is that a white British woman, Sue, is inspired by her grandfather's diary from when he was a jailer in colonial India and came across important freedom-fighting political prisoners. She wants to make a movie about these freedom fighters so badly that her production company's budget cuts don't stop her from paying her own way to India to make the film. She finds the perfect group of young-ish folk to cast. They're outta college but still hanging around college, not ready to face the world types. Problem is, they don't relate to the history at all and just fool around most of the time. But when their lives become directly affected by the corruption and bureaucratic mess of the Indian government, they suddenly start to make the connections between past and present, history and today.

In some ways the film was so revolutionary. Right at the outset we are told that funding for Sue's film is cancelled because "Gandhi sells" and folks like Bhagat Singh don't. When the group of friends begins to get politicized, they hold a demonstration where they face severe police repression, which then compels them to put their lives at risk and take direct action. By the end of the film, the film-maker makes very explicit connections between past and present oppression. There's even a scene where an image of a white officer shouting orders to shoot at unarmed peaceful gatherers at Jallian Vala Bagh shifts into an image of an Indian officer shouting orders to shoot at unarmed peaceful gatherers. The message is very clear: the face may have changed, but most of us are still looking at the barrel of the same gun.

Ofcourse the revolutionary message gets diluted; this is no surprise. We are told that we all have the potential to make change, and the ways we could do it are to join the civil service, join politics, etc. Officially the movie posed very individualistic solutions like these that merely encourage folks wanting change to become part of the system ofcourse, but while that is the articulated message, it is not the route that the group of friends choose for themselves. The movie has an agitational ending...it feels like the actions of these few young, formerly directionless friends, are radicalizing youth all over India.

I'm not saying the film doesn't have problems.
I find it interesting that the company Sue works for is World Vision. The whole premise of the movie is rather white-man's-burden-ish in a way because it's not the youth of India who are interested in their revolutionary history, it's a white woman. The youth must be taught by the white woman to appreciate their history; they require politicization from an outsider. Not just any ol' outsider, mind you, but the descendant of a colonial enforcer and employee of a Christian saviour-mentality charitable organization.

And then there's my favourite topic - the sexism. In the demonstration scene, two of the Indian female leads hold their ground and continue to sit on the street in protest while the police enact their brutality on the protestors. They continue to sit when even they themselves begin to be beaten. Except it looks like they're cowering. I just kept thinking, "hit 'em back, hit 'em back". Their inaction reinforces the image of the sati-savitri (pure goddess) peaceful demure Indian woman, and i hate that. I mean c'mon, ever heard of self-defense? The worst part is it's not even true. There were and are women all over India ready to stand up and fight back. It's funny how no matter how progressive a movie can get, representations of militant Indian women are still just too radical for the mainstream audience.

In general, though, what i really like about 'Rang de Basanti' is that it speaks to students and youth and has the potential to fuel young people into political action for change.

skewed logic

Can somebody please tell me what the hell is so great about having postage stamps that glow in the dark when 96% of your population supports the death penalty?

the danish cartoons

The media is increasingly becoming an agent for the communication of societal values. Those who control media are powerful because they are able to control the construction of representations and hence, of what is real. In a world of media spin-doctors, our awkward embrace of an ideal of objectivity can make us passive recipients of the news rather than aggressive analyzers of the inherent biases within it. So let us be clear that the Western media has predominantly used this religious doctrinal explanation- that the Prophet is not supposed to be pictorially depicted- not in an effort to offer a respectful and educational explanation to non-believers; rather it is used to suggest the rigidity and intolerance of the Muslim community in what has been dubbed the “clash of values- freedom of religion versus freedom of expression.”

- Harsha Walia
The Row over the Danish Cartoons

cut, paste, add, remove

I got a small contract to do some editing work this weekend. It's a shitty job. No, i mean, really. I'm editing a research report on sewage treatment methods. What a load of crap, eh?! Actually, it's not that bad. There's people doing all these different experiments to figure out which chemicals can best remove the sludge and grossness from sewage so that it can be recycled as industrial water and even possibly as drinking water (i know, sounds kinda ew). Water's pretty scarce in Singapore, especially considering the large population and small land mass, so this stuff is important in helping maintain at least some degree of self-sufficiency.

Editing is always harder work than i initially imagine it'll be. You'd think writing would be harder, cos you're actually creating something new, moulding language out of nothing (or at least out of the mess that's in your head). But rephrasing, cutting, reworking paragraphs can be hard work too, especially if the writing's bad (and with this report, the writing is real bad). Plus i'm always wary of editing too strongly. After all, it is someone else's voice you're changing.

Anyway, i should quit philosophizing and get back to work.

do you feel the heat?

You know what's great about tropical-ness? Everything's always, well, bustling. You wake up at 7:30 in the morning and the sun is up, the birds are already chirping, a dog is barking happily somewhere far away in another apartment, a kid is yelling at his mum that yes, he did indeed remember to pack his science textbook in his schoolbag as he rushes madly towards a sure punishment for being late for school. Everywhere is activity, everywhere people are together (hardly anybody eats out alone; there is always company).

Not anything like winter in Canada, where you wake up cold, bundle yourself up all day from the cold, and go to bed cold. Here, always warm, always the sun announcing its proud existence, always the ice-cream melting. And the humidity: wrapping itself like a blanket around you, making the sweat trickle down your back like a tear tracing its path along your body. The perfect weather for chocolate to melt just so putting it in your mouth means feeling a swirling mixture of sweet, sticky hardness and softness.

No jackets, no thermal underwear, free feet in open-(wiggly)toed sandals.

gawd i miss vancouver.

speech or silence; voice or quiet

Managing political dissent
by Catherine Lim
Jan 20, 2006

For a small island state eager to take its place among the most successful nations in the free world of practising democracies, one would have expected to see a steady increase in political freedom, an ascending line from its virtual non-existence in the rough early years of brute survival, to the emergence of incomplete but distinct forms in a still evolving ethos, to an end point of full functioning in a mature society.

But there has been no such clear path. Instead, we see only a thin ragged line, rather like a small weakly meandering stream that sometimes disappears into the ground.

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