The Ghost of Sakthivel Kumarvelu

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Introduction to the 2020 Singapore Literature Festival in NYC (Oct 1-3)

I am haunted by the ghost of Sakthivel Kumarvelu. As an economic migrant, he found his way from India to Singapore in the hope of a better life. His dream was crushed in 2013 when he was killed by the private bus that whisked him and his fellow workers away from downtown to distant dormitories, out of the sight of Singaporeans. He died of a traffic accident, some say. It is more accurate to say that he died of a world of social and economic inequities. Or as Bangladeshi poet Muhammad Sharif Uddin, also a migrant worker in Singapore, puts it in his powerful elegy for the dead man, “Velu was trapped in a labyrinth of laws.”

Velu’s death sparked off—what should we call it? The official version of events calls it a riot. We might call it something else—an uprising. Certainly the violence was caused by deep and justified grievances. Also certainly the authorities responded with oppressive measures that targeted the South Asian migrant worker community. The same logic is at work during this pandemic. When COVID-19 broke out in the workers’ dormitories, the official response was to lock the workers up in their cell-like living spaces and give the key to the dormitory operators. In at least one documented case, this arrangement was not a metaphor.

Those of us living through the current anti-racist uprising in the United States will find ready analogies to the American political situation. George Floyd, the Black man who was murdered by the cops in May, moved from Houston to Minneapolis in search of employment. Sparked by his death, the uprisings throughout the country (Sharif: “Repressed anger unchained in an inspired moment”) have been met by police brutality and racist rhetoric. The main demand for racial and economic justice is ignored in favor of broadcasting the violence of the fringes.

These analogies are not fortuitous. We see them everywhere, in India, the Philippines, the UK, France, and Brazil. They pertain to mature democracies, which falsely legitimize the racial and economic inequities through the ballot box. To respond to what scholars and activists now call racial capitalism, we need not just national movements, but international solidarity. Scholar, writer, and activist Angela Davis insists, “I do not believe we can create viable and potent movements if we neglect the global context within which we work.” Neither Singapore nor the US can afford to ignore its impact on other countries and peoples.

Through the Singapore Literature Festival in NYC and other activities, Singapore Unbound hopes to play its part in building such an international coalition. The festival brings together Singaporean and American thinkers and writers for readings and conversations, in what the Martiniquais poet and philosopher Édouard Gliassant called the poetics of relation, and not the poetics of hierarchy. For the first time, a pair of keynote talks bookend the festival. Singaporean historian PJ Thum opens the festival with his thoughts on the prospects of democracy beyond the nation-state that birthed it. To close the festival, American poet, scholar, and activist Jackie Wang speaks on the future of prison abolition, an approach to liberation that impacts not just physical incarceration, but every aspect of our constrained lives. Between these two talks are a series of panels that examine the relation of literature to the politics of hope from different angles. The festival authors and artists believe in social change.
 
We are grateful to our donors and co-presenters for their belief in our mission. Your unwavering support over the years has inspired and energized us to fight for what is right. We are able to publish independent voices and speak out against injustice because of you. Going digital for the first time, this festival would not be possible without the talents and commitment of the steady band of volunteers who make up the organizing committee. All of us, all contributors in our different ways, are united in our passion to seek out the radical possibilities in literature, for our time demands it.
 
Yes, I am haunted by the ghost of Sakthivel Kumarvelu. In a powerful echo of Eric Garner’s last words, Sharif writes of his fellow worker Velu, “His youth wiped out, his breath erased.” In elegizing the dead man so eloquently, Sharif tells us that the dead are not yet dead. They move among us, listening in with great intent, and with their breathless breath they say: Resistance is possible. Solidarity is possible.

View festival program and RSVP.  All events are free and open to everyone.

Jee Leong Koh
Founder and organizer, Singapore Unbound
September 10, 2020

 



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