Dear reader,
Another week, another Lee/Li. This time, there’s the news that Li Hongyi, son of Lee Hsien Loong and Ho Ching, has allegedly resigned as the director of Singpass. His apparently leaked resignation message is quite telling. We may write about it in more detail in a future issue.
“Singapore This Week”. In our weekly digest, we discuss the numerous ways in which Singaporeans have been lending support to Palestine, including a new Palestinian Scholarship Initiative; the latest on the house at 38 Oxley Road; animal abuse; a new book on traditional Malay metalsmiths; the many ways artists are engaging with archives; the appeal of ballet to seniors; and more.
“Essay”. Just days before a seminal US presidential election, Nigel Li offers us a Singaporean perspective, in “Postcard from Washington DC: American decline?”. This is the story of the hope invested by a young person in the American dream, in the ideals of democracy and freedom so familiar across the world—and what happens when that clashes with the reality of deep dysfunction, if not decline. Nigel describes the city’s unreliable buses, and a journey through the city’s Metro:
“By the platform, a hooded man stands still, then moves suddenly, flailing his arms. He freezes. His body shakes, an entire spasm runs through him. ‘He’s probably on drugs,’ a friend reassures me. There is not a look of disappointment, not even a sign of pity; only indifference. This is the heart of American democracy.”
It may seem trite for a Singaporean to comment on decaying public transportation systems and disregard for drugs in the West, though here it’s an essential scene-setter for Nigel’s broader explorations of American complexities: the insularity of local politics, of “parties who cannot see beyond blue and red”, denting the US’s ability to grapple with long-term national interests; “a society based on perpetual profligate consumption”, the demands that this creates for American, taxpayer-funded adventures abroad; the rise of the myopic “isolationists”; and the pretences of democracy and peaceful handovers being ripped apart by fears of your fellow citizens, of a repeat of January 6th 2021. This is, to be clear, not some eulogy to the US. Nigel interviews Kamala and Trump supporters, each with much empathy for the other side; and ends with a soulful anecdote that captures the enduring, effervescent, American spirit. Like all our postcards, this is a chance for you to see through the eyes of a Singaporean abroad, to imagine new possibilities there, and ultimately here. But this postcard is unique in its timeliness, its urgency—sent from a “newly-fabled Rome” just days before a major reckoning.
Read it in the coming days. The next time you hear from Jom, we’ll know the identity of the next, err, “Leader of the Free World”.
Jom fikir,
Sudhir Vadaketh
Editor-in-chief, Jom
Behind Jom’s art, with Charmaine Poh
This week’s postcard was illustrated by Mirza Jaafar, who also made the artwork for our essay on grassroots activism a few weeks ago. The unique challenge with visualising postcards is that they often present unfamiliar contexts to our readers; our illustrations aim to bridge that distance while recognising that these narrativised lenses belong to (outsider) Singaporeans. Mirza’s take on the troubling rifts within American society is captured in a single scene in which the quotidian and the visionary intermingle. Through details like the peeling corner of a poster, the shopper’s indiscernible expression, and the muddy reflections of the crowd outside the window, we are encouraged to see a place not for what it’s touted to be, but for its possibly tepid reality.
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