To Redeem the Pledge
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Social change activists are often perceived as trouble-makers. This happens not only in Singapore but all around the world. However, this wrong perception is even more egregious in Singapore because Singaporeans have forgotten or suppressed their own local tradition of activism. The mistake is thus prevalent and stubborn. To unearth the history, theory, and practice of Singaporean activism, the news magazine New Naratif interviews former student activist TAN Tee Seng and civil rights activist Jolovan WHAM in their podcast series Political Agenda.
In the interview, New Naratif's THUM Ping Tjin referred to a theory of activism propounded by Bill Moyer. This is not the beloved American political commentator. This Bill Moyer (without an 's" at the end of his last name) was a United States social change activist who influenced Martin Luther King Jr. and James Bevel to focus the Chicago Freedom Movement on open, integrated housing. Inspired by the Quaker philosophy of non-violence, Moyer distilled his experience from organizing many campaigns into his Movement Action Plan.
The theory describes four different roles played by activists in successful campaigns. The Advocate communicates with the people whom Moyer called "the powerholders." The Helper provides direct social services to the people in need. The Organizer brings people and resources together to multiply the effects of the campaign. The Rebel sees the problem or injustice and makes a commotion to force change. Ideally, the same person plays all four roles, but this is rarely the case as the roles demand different temperaments and aptitudes.
New Naratif's Kirsten HAN lamented during the interview that Singaporean activism is weakened by its own internal divisions. The Rebel accuses the Advocate of hobnobbing with the powers-that-be. Usually working behind the scenes, the Organizer charges the Rebel of seeking publicity for its own sake. The Helper, faced with immediate needs, ignores the Organizer's spreadsheets and timelines. The Advocate condescends to the Helper. What everyone needs to do, says Han, is to unite behind the campaign goals in order to confront the powers that preserve the status quo.
Throughout the interview, the older activist TAN Tee Seng is especially impassioned about free speech and civil rights. Little wonder for he was one of the activists detained without trial by the government in 1987 on the trumped-up charge of being Marxist subversives. He is rightly indignant that the founding promises of the country have been so betrayed. Every Singaporean schoolchild knows the National Pledge, which they recite at the beginning of every school day, but how many take seriously the daily oath "to build a democratic society, based on justice and equality"? When activists take the Pledge at its word, why do these grown-up children brand them as trouble-makers?
Singapore's National Pledge has the distinction of being penned by a literary man, whose short stories garnered the attention of E. M. Forster and George Orwell. S. Rajaratnam wrote short stories about rural life in India and Malaya, and the stories were deeply concerned with social and economic justice. He would go on to become Culture Minister, and then Foreign Minister of the newly independent country, and later, Deputy Prime Minister. In the process he gave up his fiction writing. What the governance of Singapore gained, the literature of the nation lost. NYC-based Singaporean writer Manish Melwani reflects on the moment in history when Singapore was part of the Non-Aligned Movement and the fiction of S. Rajaratnam was making trouble for the oppressors, in a talk first given at the 3rd Singapore Literature Festival in NYC last October, and now published for the first time in SP Blog.
Jee Leong Koh
January 24, 2019
Social change activists are often perceived as trouble-makers. This happens not only in Singapore but all around the world. However, this wrong perception is even more egregious in Singapore because Singaporeans have forgotten or suppressed their own local tradition of activism. The mistake is thus prevalent and stubborn. To unearth the history, theory, and practice of Singaporean activism, the news magazine New Naratif interviews former student activist TAN Tee Seng and civil rights activist Jolovan WHAM in their podcast series Political Agenda.
In the interview, New Naratif's THUM Ping Tjin referred to a theory of activism propounded by Bill Moyer. This is not the beloved American political commentator. This Bill Moyer (without an 's" at the end of his last name) was a United States social change activist who influenced Martin Luther King Jr. and James Bevel to focus the Chicago Freedom Movement on open, integrated housing. Inspired by the Quaker philosophy of non-violence, Moyer distilled his experience from organizing many campaigns into his Movement Action Plan.
The theory describes four different roles played by activists in successful campaigns. The Advocate communicates with the people whom Moyer called "the powerholders." The Helper provides direct social services to the people in need. The Organizer brings people and resources together to multiply the effects of the campaign. The Rebel sees the problem or injustice and makes a commotion to force change. Ideally, the same person plays all four roles, but this is rarely the case as the roles demand different temperaments and aptitudes.
New Naratif's Kirsten HAN lamented during the interview that Singaporean activism is weakened by its own internal divisions. The Rebel accuses the Advocate of hobnobbing with the powers-that-be. Usually working behind the scenes, the Organizer charges the Rebel of seeking publicity for its own sake. The Helper, faced with immediate needs, ignores the Organizer's spreadsheets and timelines. The Advocate condescends to the Helper. What everyone needs to do, says Han, is to unite behind the campaign goals in order to confront the powers that preserve the status quo.
Throughout the interview, the older activist TAN Tee Seng is especially impassioned about free speech and civil rights. Little wonder for he was one of the activists detained without trial by the government in 1987 on the trumped-up charge of being Marxist subversives. He is rightly indignant that the founding promises of the country have been so betrayed. Every Singaporean schoolchild knows the National Pledge, which they recite at the beginning of every school day, but how many take seriously the daily oath "to build a democratic society, based on justice and equality"? When activists take the Pledge at its word, why do these grown-up children brand them as trouble-makers?
Singapore's National Pledge has the distinction of being penned by a literary man, whose short stories garnered the attention of E. M. Forster and George Orwell. S. Rajaratnam wrote short stories about rural life in India and Malaya, and the stories were deeply concerned with social and economic justice. He would go on to become Culture Minister, and then Foreign Minister of the newly independent country, and later, Deputy Prime Minister. In the process he gave up his fiction writing. What the governance of Singapore gained, the literature of the nation lost. NYC-based Singaporean writer Manish Melwani reflects on the moment in history when Singapore was part of the Non-Aligned Movement and the fiction of S. Rajaratnam was making trouble for the oppressors, in a talk first given at the 3rd Singapore Literature Festival in NYC last October, and now published for the first time in SP Blog.
Jee Leong Koh
January 24, 2019
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