Ups and Downs of writing in the pandemic year
Note: Amid this flight from the Facebook/WhatsApp empire, a quick note that I also have a Telegram channel: SudhirTV.
It has been a fun, fulfilling, rewarding year being a writer and commentator in Singapore. Thanks so much for following my work. I’m feeling more enthusiastic about Singapore’s social, political and literary climate than I ever have. It’s a terribly exciting time to be living and working here.
Nevertheless, I thought it might be good to spend some time going over some of the hurdles independent writers here face, something that I’m regularly asked about.
So, treat this for what it is, a reflective, end-of-year piece for the benefit of readers and young writers in Singapore interested not only in the product but the process.
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Singapore’s leadership crisis: Lawrence and Pritam
This is the last of five in a series on Singapore’s prospective next prime minister. If you have enjoyed this series, please consider making a donation here to support my future work.
The pandemic has been tragic. Yet the assorted losses and disruptions to ordinary life have also prodded many Singaporeans to think about better ways of doing things, of living the good life.
Some are enjoying more time with old friends and family; others have opened their hearts (and wallets) to migrant workers they hitherto ignored.
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Singapore’s leadership crisis: Shan, the phenom
This is the fourth of five in a series on Singapore’s prospective next prime minister. See here for the third, on Tharman Shanmugaratnam.
Kasiviswanathan Shanmugam, 61, minister for law & minister for home affairs
It may seem odd to include Shanmugam, never touted as a potential leader of the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP), in this series. Yet he is clearly a, if not the, power behind the throne. And observers do wonder if he harbours even greater ambitions.
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Singapore’s leadership crisis: Ong Ye Kung and Chan Chun Sing
This is the second of five in a series on Singapore’s prospective next prime minister. See here for the first, on Heng Swee Keat.
Ong Ye Kung, 51, minister for transport
To his fans, Ong Ye Kung (centre) is precisely the sort of leader Singapore needs in these uncertain times. Somebody who is affable and politically savvy; and who is able to listen to diverse views and then act quickly and decisively, with a conviction steely enough to fend off naysayers.
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Singapore’s leadership crisis: will Heng Swee Keat be our next PM?
If you think the pandemic has left your own plans in tatters, spare a thought for poor Lee Hsien Loong (middle), Singapore’s sixty-eight-year-old prime minister.
Recently on the verge of stepping down after sixteen years at the helm, he now does not know when he can.
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Why are there so many Champagne (Panettone) Socialists in Singapore?
Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and Bernie Sanders, US politicians and self-described Democrat Socialists, have in recent years been lampooned as Champagne Socialists.
Among AOC’s sins include her fourteen-thousand dollar ensemble for a recent Vanity Fair cover, one merely borrowed for the shoot. (Did she dance in those Louboutins?)
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Forty-three
From Atalanta to Atlanta
In some strange way my birthday seems to have lasted five days, bookended by the Blues and the Reds going at each other.
I woke early on the fourth of November to watch Liverpool FC whip Atalanta FC five zero in a Champions League game, a sublime performance that made a good Italian team look like a schoolboy side.
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The last time Liverpool won the league
The last time Liverpool won the league I had just entered secondary school in Singapore. And my dreams of playing football were about to be crushed.
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A free ride: Singapore’s prime minister in a muddle
Often when Singaporean politicians stray from the script, they produce gems, phrases for the ages, words destined for internet meme stardom.
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Why always Indians?
Anti-Indian sentiment is rising in Singapore; opaque data fuels it; Singaporeans deserve transparency and inclusive public discourse.
“Oh no, we don’t mean you! We like Singapore Indians. It is the India Indians who are the problem.”
I have long heard some form of this and it always makes me a bit uneasy. Continue reading “Why always Indians?”