Song of a Reformed Headhunter

 This book of essays by Singaporean journalist and activist Kirsten Han is informative, clear-eyed, and nuanced. Every Singapore should read it.

 Weekly column written for the Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here . In tropical Singapore we used to joke that we had four seasons, just like any temperate country, except that our seasons were hot, hotter, hottest, and shopping, which was all-year round. Underneath the joke is a tragic truth: the rapid economic development of Singapore, together with its urban transformation of the island, has desensitized us to the trade winds and the monsoons of the region. More, it has desensitized us to the dismantling of our basic human rights, free speech, free assembly, free and fair elections. Climate change in Singapore—not just rises in temperature but also more frequent flooding—has also been social and political. Jolene Tan, whose compelling essay "Out of the Well," kicks off our month-long series of writings on the theme of climate change, puts it this way: "... on this island, we enact routines especially distant from any self-sustaining equilibrium,...

 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...