Dear reader,
Letters to the editor. Thank you, anonymous Jom reader who works at a government agency, for your response to “From Punggol with love: tracing the origins of the Hougang Spirit” by Kelvin Yap. They said that “...even when marginalised groups are left behind by unthinking and capitalist models of development, community and care bonds are not so easily broken.”
It’s unfortunate that they didn’t feel confident enough to publish it with their name. It just speaks to this environment of chronic censorship that affects us all, which we hope letters like this will slowly help change. Read it; and if so inclined, write your own response, to anything at all at Jom.
“Singapore This Week”. In our weekly digest, we discuss Narendra Modi’s visit to Singapore; the PAP’s push for more female candidates; many Singaporeans’ indifference to blackface and other forms of racism; the improved handling of sexual assault cases by our criminal justice system; the importance of Sim Chi Yin’s interdisciplinary performance, “One Day We’ll Understand”; an art installation at Bukit Brown Cemetery; horror stories from actors about life behind the sets; and more.
Essay: “Kishore Mahbubani tries to be undiplomatic”. Today, Cherry Tan has reviewed the memoir of one of Singapore’s most well-known diplomats. I remember, as a young boy, seeing Mahbubani’s name on the wall in St. Andrew’s School; and then later, in university, reading Can Asians Think?, a work that I believe inspired many in the “Global South”.
Mahbubani has been all over the local and global news this past month, as publications have offered mixed reviews of his memoir. In late July, Sumiko Tan wrote a (what else) glowing review of both him and it, wrapped in one of her typical lunch interviews in The Straits Times. In true Singaporean fashion, it featured an extended discussion about how much money Mahbubani makes from selling books.
Then in mid-August, Tunku Varadarajan, a British writer, wrote one of the most scathing reviews I’ve read in recent times, in the Wall Street Journal. Several Singaporeans forwarded me the same last few lines, worth repeating here just because they offer a rare insight into the relationships between our Singaporean elites.
“He [Mahbubani] writes that some years later, at a private dinner, Lee Kuan Yew ‘sharply put me down when I asked him a question,’ and he attributes this hostility from the former prime minister to the fact that Lee only made the Foreign Policy greatest-thinkers list in 2008, three years after Mr. Mahbubani. Was the most powerful man in Singapore’s history envious of the highflying upstart? Who can really know? But for Mr. Mahbubani to think so tells us as much about his excess of self-regard as it does about his lack of self-awareness.”
Varadarajan’s critique may have been a bit too acerbic for some, so I’m glad that on the same day, Viswa Sadasivan, former nominated member of Parliament, published one of his Inconvenient Questions videos, where he’s interviewing Mahbubani. They seem like old friends who enjoy their banter. Sadasivan pushes Mahbubani in several ways, at one point asking him: “Are you being smug?”
What’s been missing, of course, is a young person’s view of Mahbubani and his memoirs. Which is why we’re all thrilled that Cherry has written this piece for Jom. Cherry, who worked briefly in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and is a prolific “bookstagrammer”, has chosen to focus on issues hitherto unexplored.
What are some major Singaporean incidents that Mahbubani chose to leave out? Is it fair for readers to judge memoirists on their curatorial choices about their own lives? And, the interrogative thread of her review, how might the very meaning of the word “undiplomatic”—what Mahbubani aspires to be in his memoir—have changed over time and across generations?
Read Cherry’s breezy piece now, and if you’re eager for more on Mahbubani, work your way through the rest of these reviews.
Jom baca,
Sudhir Vadaketh
Editor-in-chief, Jom
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