Song of a Reformed Headhunter

 Weekly column written for the Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here . According to VICE , Singapore is Myanmar's largest foreign investor. If you're Singaporean, please join me in writing to your MP to urge him to speak up about the crisis in Myanmar, and Singapore’s part in propping up the perpetrators of the coup, whether intentionally or not. I also call on the Singapore government to make clear if our government-linked companies, or Temasek-linked companies have dealings with the Myanmar military and its network of companies, and whether the government will set an example for other Singaporean businesses by divesting from such ventures with the Myanmar military. You may use this thoughtful email template , if you wish. Singaporean democracy and labor activist Jolovan Wham has been imprisoned for holding a peaceful public protest back in 2017. Now Spoke & Bird Open Mic and the Transformative Justice Collective are working together on the online project...

 Weekly column written for the Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here . Thanks to you, last summer we raised USD500 from the sale of Gaudy Boy books for the Black Lives Matter movement and donated it to VOCAL-NY , a statewide grassroots membership organization that builds power among low-income people directly impacted by HIV/AIDS, the drug war, mass incarceration, and homelessness. VOCAL-NY Action Fund has just announced the first round of its 2021 NYC Council endorsements. If you live in the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, check out these progressive candidates: Lincoln Restler (District 33), Sandy Nurse (District 37), and Tiffany Cabán (District 22). The Singapore government has again made itself a laughing stock around the world for charging labor and democracy activist Jolovan Wham for illegal assembly. What danger did Wham pose to public order? Why, your Honor, he held up a picture of a smiley face . To show solidarity with Wham, online citizens are posting...

 Weekly column written for the Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here . "The prison sits at the nexus of white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism," begins Judy Luo in her essay, a summary of her study of carcerality and freedom at New York University's Gallatin School of Individualized Study. If, like me, you need a précis of current thinking about prison abolition and its antecedents, you can do worse than read Judy's thoughtful argument about the convergences of criminality, immigration, care work, and property rights. The American immigration system is broken, and here to cast a new and personal light on the problem is poet Jan-Henry Gray, the very first feature of the new season of our Second Saturdays Reading Series. His award-winning book Documents is rooted in the experience of living in America as a queer undocumented Filipino, and maps the byzantine journey toward citizenship through legal records and fragmented recollections. You can read ...

Weekly column written for the Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here . Holding a one-person protest for just enough time to take a photograph gets you into trouble in Singapore. This, labor and rights activist Jolovan Wham learned, when he did just that . His action was undertaken in support of two young climate activists who are being investigated by the police, and it landed him in a police station too. The Public Order and Safety (Special Powers) Act, which took effect in 2018, is the draconian legislation that authorizes such anti-democratic measures against peaceful protests. To show support for Jolovan Wham, a few friends posted on social media photographs of themselves holding up the same smiley face as he had done. The posts have since started a movement of sorts, with posters not only hashtagging themselves #smileinsolidarity but also expressing their thoughts on why freedom of speech and assembly are so vital to a true democracy. Jolovan is compiling these photograp...

Weekly column for Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here . Because like most Singaporeans l have been inducted into the cult of personality. I have been indoctrinated, I mean taught, from young the history of Great Men, so I petition Parliament to preserve the shrine of Jolovan's HDB apartment, even if it's against his wishes, after he joins our Lord. Because he is super tech savvy, as a Singaporean should be. The cops confirm it after they arrested him for holding an indoor Skype meeting with a democracy activist from Hong Kong, another tech-savvy city. The courts confirm it by convicting him of public disorder and sentencing him to 16 days in prison. See how powerful techies are! Because every national day I am brainwashed by songs on radio, TV, and in shopping malls telling me charity begins and stays at home, and Jolovan Wham is a labor activist belonging to HOME . Because I won't give up my Chinese privilege and two Chinese men make more privilege...

The column below is written for Singapore Unbound's weekly newsletter. Sign up here .  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 focu...

A weekly column written for Singapore Unbound's e-newsletter. Sign up here .  Dueling Narratives About Colonial Rule In the early morning of September 28, 1901, Filipino revolutionaries, led by local police chief Valeriano Abanador, attacked the American garrison stationed in Balangigi, on the island of Samar. They killed 36 and wounded 22 in action. In retaliation, the Americans swept through the island, burning villages and killing anyone, men and women, above the age of 10. Their order was to make Samar "a howling wilderness." Estimates of the number of casualties range from 2,500 to 50,000. In her new novel INSURRECTO, Gina Apostol approaches this historical incident of colonial brutality through the dueling narratives of an American filmmaker and her Filipino translator. In the process Apostol also tells the stories of women artists and revolutionaries, daughters and lovers, coming to an understanding of the truth of their lives, including one Casian...