Dear reader,
“Singapore This Week”. In our weekly digest, we talk about S Iswaran’s guilty plea; youth mental health concerns; declining discrimination in the workplace; attempts by the legal fraternity to improve work-life balance and access to justice; the Genealogy Society of Singapore’s donation to the National Library Board; the impending closure of Epigram’s bookstore; the shuttering of Deliveroo’s cloud kitchens in Singapore, and more.
Essay: “The young activists fanning the flame of democracy”. Today, Robin Vochelet, in his first piece for Jom, has written a series of vignettes about four important civil society organisations: the Community for Advocacy and Political Education (CAPE), Lepak Conversations, SG Climate Rally, and SG Mental Health Matters.
We consider this both a companion piece to Isaac Neo’s earlier essay on activism, “Pragmatic resistance: adaptation or co-option?”; and part of our pre-election coverage, which we’re slowly ramping up. Robin chose these organisations because they’re each, in their own way, helping to raise civic and democratic awareness amongst the electorate. (Of course, they do much else too.)
Robin writes: “Mainly, these various grassroots efforts are evidence that, even in a country as socially engineered as Singapore, people find ways to ensure voices on the ground are given a platform, and that issues pushed to the margins are brought to the public’s attention.
“In doing so, these bottom-up efforts also challenge the elitist notion that democracy only happens once every five years at the ballot box; it is instead practised on a daily basis, by a plethora of actors who need not be highly educated, white-collar politicians.”
Robin moved to Singapore from Canada a few years ago. His piece is a reminder of the growing vibrancy in our activist space, and the fact that non-Singaporeans such as himself are also increasingly engaged with important issues in this place that we all call home.
Jom bergabung,
Sudhir Vadaketh
Editor-in-chief, Jom
Behind Jom’s art, with Charmaine Poh
Accompanying Robin Vochelet’s piece this week are illustrations by Mirza Jaafar. You might have already seen his work in the form of illustrated movie posters for The Projector, where he works. We discussed having an approach that could showcase different voices while maintaining sight of a larger vision; Mirza suggested the wonderful metaphor of a photography shoot, where various, specific tasks contribute to an important whole. With his signature gentle touch, Mirza offers us a way to visualise activism as part of the Singaporean fabric.
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