Song of a Reformed Headhunter

 Weekly column written for the Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here . Singapore will soon take another step towards becoming a totalitarian state with the introduction of the Foreign Interference (Countermeasures) Bill, or FICA, in Parliament last Monday. Independent Singaporean journalist Kirsten Han analyzes the problems with the bill effectively here . As she summarizes, "The official narrative is that this law will protect Singapore from foreign meddling in our domestic affairs and governance. We’re told that it’s about safeguarding our political sovereignty. FICA, like the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA), will take on hostile information campaigns, so that Singaporeans can decide on Singaporean issues without the sneaky intervention or sabotage of outsiders. The reality, though, is that FICA is yet another vaguely worded piece of legislation, designed to give the authorities maximum discretion to cast a wide net over all so...

By closely examining five well-chosen case studies—the 1966 Vandalism Act, the 1974 Press Act, the 1986 Legal Profession (Amendment) Act, the 1991 Religious Harmony Act, and the 2009 Public Order Act—through the lens of critical discourse analysis, Jothie Rajah's Authoritarian Rule of Law: Legislation, Discourse and Legitimacy in Singapore shows how the Singapore state governs through the illiberal "rule by law" while claiming to do so through the liberal "rule of law." By legislating illiberal laws and dominating public discourse, the state has successfully silenced or co-opted, in turn, its early electoral opponents, the local press, the legal profession, the Catholic Church and other religious organizations, and local civil society--the major sources of non-state authority and mobilization. How then, Rajah asks, does the Singapore state construct and maintain its legitimacy despite such illiberal moves? The answer, implicit throughout the book, is articul...

Revised the Preface and the Afterword to Snow at 5 PM . Finished reading East West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity by Philippe Sands, recommended by Henry Abelove. Very well researched, it reads like a detective novel.  Watched Fire Song (2015), written and directed by Adam Garnet Jones, about a gay Anishinaabe teenager living in North Ontario and trying hard to get out of his small town. Andrew Martin, who plays the protagonist Shane, is a natural actor.