Dear reader,
How should we talk about complex social issues, from migration and race to transgender rights? At what point does an individual’s right to free inquiry and speech threaten the safety of vulnerable groups in society?
This is one of the thorniest issues facing open societies. And I think it’s the main reason the assassination of Charlie Kirk, US right-wing activist, has enlivened commentators in Singapore. We explore the different facets of this in our weekly digest.
- Is the NMP scheme still popular?
- Charlie Kirk’s legacy in SG
- Which local dishes use sustainable fish?
- SG’s red hot electric vehicle market
- Submarines in South-east Asia, from the time of Srivijaya
- Ken Liu and RF Kuang at the Singapore Writers Festival
- Experiments in dance at Esplanade
One-week merch sale ends tonight. Totes are now S$19 (from S$26); and our two print issues are now S$29 each (from S$36). Prices include domestic shipping. Whether for yourself or friends, now’s the time to grab them.
Essay: “Tracing ancestral roots: adoption, belonging and identity in Malaya” by Sudarshana Chanda
September 16th, as Grace Fu, minister for sustainability and the environment, reminded us this week, is the birthday of both Lee Kuan Yew (in 1923) and the ministry she runs (in 1972). “53 years ago, Singapore was one of the first countries to form a Ministry of the Environment (or ENV) to tackle issues such as pollution control and environmental health,” she wrote.
Less discussed here, let alone celebrated, is the fact that it’s also Malaysia Day, an important milestone in Singapore’s decolonisation journey. Singapore joined the Federation of Malaysia on September 16th 1963, along with Sabah and Sarawak, after a highly contentious vote, thus loosening the yoke of the British Empire. (British forces mostly left only by 1971.) The socio-political complexities of the moment, and the reasons for the apparent amnesia here, are captured in this piece in The Online Citizen. In Kuala Lumpur, by contrast, there are assorted festivities, including the Keretapi Sarong, sarong train, a multicultural jam of colours and dress, now in its ninth year.
At Jom, we felt we could commemorate the day by sharing a story of a very Malayan family, one whose unique, cross-cultural, multi-layered identity could have been forged perhaps only in British Malaya. Sudarshana Chanda, a historian of empire, migration, and family in the Indian Ocean in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, unravels the ancestral roots of this family she interviewed and studied. After reading the story, I started interrogating many parts of my own being and identity: what it means to be “Indian” and “Singaporean”, the contrast between my inner and outer selves, and between my own nature and nurture.
There are intriguing twists along the way, so I’ll share just the opening.
“ABC. The letters drummed into Natasha when she was young stand for ‘Australian born Chinese.’ She felt confused by the phrase; something about it didn’t sit right with her. Under the umbrella term ‘ABC’ is a mélange of mixed identities, from those whose families emigrated directly from China to those whose ancestors came via a third place: Mauritian Chinese, Fijian Chinese, Cambodian Chinese, and more. Why were these specificities glossed over? Growing up in Australia with a Chinese-Malaysian father and an Indian-Malaysian mother, Natasha didn’t really feel ‘ABC’.”
Read it now to appreciate the human complexities of our wonderful Malayan land, and the agency you have to determine who you want to be, to shape your own identity.
Jom baca,
Sudhir Vadaketh, editor-in-chief
Jom
Behind Jom’s art with Charmaine Poh
This week’s essay called for an approach that critically considers history while weaving in the tenderness of personal identity. Lou Shenna’s delicate hand-drawn illustrations embrace it. The header references both Tamil and Chinese daily tear-sheet calendars—a nod to the passing of time and a sense of destiny—upon which are intricate scenes referenced in the essay. The spot centres the narrative on the present-day, implicitly depicting the bedroom of the protagonist, Natasha. On the bedside table sits “a cluster of lotuses”, the meaning of Sarojini, her grandmother’s name. Through its sophisticated use of metaphor, texture and colour, Shenna’s work offers us an intimacy with history.
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