🙋🏻‍♀️ k i r s t Profile picture
Sep 10, 2020 9 tweets 4 min read Read on X
Thank you @heatherchen_ for asking me for my views about @ITV's #TheSingaporeGrip and the foregrounding of white experiences during a very painful point of #Singapore's history. vice.com/en_asia/articl…
I'd like to acknowledge that Singaporeans in #Singapore aren't very much affected by #TheSingaporeGrip since it's not being aired here. Those most immediately affected by the failures of representation are East Asians and Southeast Asians in the UK, as highlighted by @BeatsOrg.
In defending #TheSingaporeGrip, Christopher Hampton pointed out that it's based on the satirical novel by JG Farrell, which he describes as "perhaps the most celebrated attack on colonialism by a British novelist in the 20th Century". bbc.com/news/entertain…
I hear his point, but while Farrell's work has its place in English literature, his novel was published in 1978. It's now 2020. We've long moved on from any need for white British people to attack or criticise colonialism on the behalf of the colonised.
Whether it's in terms of language and translation, movement and access, technology and know-how, there's no reason why the peoples of former colonies need white proxies to speak on our behalf. We're more than capable of criticising colonialism ourselves, clearly and directly.
This is not to say that white people aren't allowed to comment on or talk about colonialism at all. But the point is that it's high time for space and platform to be given to those whose stories have been neglected, sidelined, erased and actively suppressed for generations.
Even if what JG Farrell had to say was considered progressive and subversive in 1978, it's no longer progressive or appropriate in 2020 to privilege the stories and experiences of colonisers over the realities of the colonised. #TheSingaporeGrip doesn't acknowledge this.
Hampton, in defending #TheSingaporeGrip, appears to believe that as long as they aren't explicitly cheerleading for colonialism then it's not problematic. But privileging the stories of colonisers, however reluctant, over the realities of the colonised, is still colonialism.
In 2020 saying "the Brits fucked up in #Singapore during WWII" is not good enough. Expecting cookies for pointing this out, while relegating the pain of the colonised to the background, is out of step w/ how far we've come in conversations about colonialism, race, representation.

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More from @kixes

Nov 8, 2022
🧵 on Twitter and Mu*k, from the perspective of a journalist/activist from #Singapore (me)

1/ I am from a country that has significant issues with civil, political, and human rights. But my government also puts significant effort into public relations to bolster its reputation.
2/ I'm constantly meeting people who have no idea that, in #Singapore, you can be arrested for holding up a placard in public. That 11 men have been executed this year for #drugs. That we have serious issues with press freedom and media diversity.
3/ In this context, Twitter has been, and is, an extremely valuable tool in allowing me — a freelance journalist and activist with limited resources and no big institutional backing — to talk to people outside of #Singapore about our problems.
Read 16 tweets
Aug 21, 2022
As expected before #ndr2022:

#Singapore will finally repeal Section 377A (which criminalises sex between men), while also undermining the main point of repealing Section 377A by enshrining the discrimination against #LGBTQ people elsewhere

channelnewsasia.com/singapore/ndr-…
Once the Constitution is amended it's going to be freakin' hard to change it again. And as Lee himself points out, this is not just about marriage. It affects housing, education, who gets to be recognised as next-of-kin, even advertising and film codes (media censorship).
Right now, Section 377A is not enforced. So the reason it should be repealed is not 'cos gay men are getting arrested for having sex, but 'cos 377A exists as a signal that #LGBTQ people are different and less acceptable and therefore can be discriminated against.
Read 10 tweets
Aug 4, 2022
🧵 I’ve been sharing updates but wanted to put together a thread covering the substantive points of the Court of Appeal hearing today (well, yesterday now) involving 24 death row prisoners in #Singapore

#DeathPenalty #StopTheKilling
On 1 August, 24 death row prisoners filed an originating claim against the state, in relation to their right to access to justice. They claimed that the practice of handing out punitive cost orders against lawyers have deterred lawyers from taking on late-stage capital cases.
Due to this fear, they say that they’ve faced difficulties finding lawyers to represent them. Therefore, this practice of imposing cost orders has affected their constitutional rights in relation to access to justice.
Read 44 tweets
Aug 4, 2022
It’s 8:51pm and the judges haven’t returned yet. There was just an announcement that it will be about 20 minutes or so longer. 😣

Lots of anxious families right now, none more so than Abdul Rahim’s loved ones, who are waiting to find out if he will be granted a stay.
We’re still waiting here. It’s 9:33pm.
Read 10 tweets
Aug 4, 2022
It’s been about an hour since the court stood down to deliberate the appeal brought by 24 death row prisoners against the High Court striking out their civil suit relating to their right to access to justice. The hearing is conducted on Zoom so the 24 are calling in from prison.
On multiple screens in the courtroom you can see the Zoom gallery. 24 of those little rectangles are the death row prisoners, representing themselves because they don’t have a lawyer to represent them in this application.
It took some time to bring them all into the Zoom room and make sure they were all connected, audio working, etc. So instead of putting them in the waiting room like it usually does, they’ve just been left in the room while the judges were put in the waiting room.
Read 4 tweets
Jun 24, 2022
Okay, finally got access. If I understood what happened to me in interrogation correctly, after this morning there are now *more* offences that @justanotherock and I are on the hook for. Just going to sum it up as best I can…
The original 2 alleged offences that @justanotherock and I were questioned for this morning were: (1) when 4 of us hung out outside Changi Prison chatting the night of Kahar was executed, and (2) when we took photos outside of prison a couple of nights before Nagen was hanged. Image
However, ‘cos @justanotherock and I were wearing (different) T-shirts with anti-#deathpenalty slogans today, the police claim that we have committed another offence of “illegal procession”, ‘cos we walked from the market across the street to the police station this morning.
Read 13 tweets

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