The “War on Drugs” waged over a year now by Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte is not about addressing drug crime at all. It’s the use of violence for political control and it’s happened before—in Davao City.
Singaporean cartoonist James Tan’s unnamed fictional protagonist explores what it means to be a Malay in the modern world.
New Naratif’s Editor-in-Chief Kirsten Han on why we need you to join us in creating space for Southeast Asia and Southeast Asians to speak for ourselves.
How did the name New Naratif come about? Our Managing Director Thum Ping Tjin shares its origin story.
With Singapore’s first racially reserved Presidential election looming, historian Thum Ping Tjin observes that the government’s much vaunted “Chinese-Malay-Indian-Others” model of managing race has historically increased racial tension and strife. So why do they cling to it?
Singapore’s long-cultivated image of being colour-blind meets its greatest challenger with the country’s first racially-predetermined presidential election.
Penurunan aktifitas yang dirasakan dalam penggunaan bahasa Hokkien Penang di kalangan generasi muda mengancam kelestarian dialek unik ini.
How we imagine people—their capacities, values, and moral worth—shapes how we treat them. The myths, imaginations, and assumptions about poverty, wealth, welfare, and wellbeing in contemporary Singapore are important to confront because they affect how people are oriented to each other in society, how problems are defined and consequently how they are dealt with or overlooked.
Sabah and Sarawak’s long journey to autonomy is one which even its proponents say is doomed to failure.
Singapore, as a society, is not able to properly comprehend, let alone address, the precise problems facing migrant workers, because of three pervasive myths about low-wage temporary migrant workers.
The decline in the use of Penang Hokkien among the younger generation threatens the continued appreciation of this unique dialect.
Malay identity is vast, multifaceted and diverse, but you wouldn’t know it from the recent controversial debates over the Presidential election.
Citra Singapura yang telah lama dibudidayakan sebagai negara yang buta warna, menemui tantangan terbesarnya dengan pemilihan presiden pertama dimana kedudukan posisi tersebut sudah di tentukan sebelumnya.
Perjalanan panjang Sabah dan Sarawak menuju otonomi adalah sesuatu yang diyakini oleh para pendukungnya sekalipun untuk gagal.
To work on multiculturalism in Singapore is to wander in a wondrous maze of diversities and their limitless combinations and exchanges. However, it is also to walk into a minefield of complexity, challenge and conflict in which one can easily get confused and lost, encounter misunderstanding and misjudgement, and experience uncertainty and anxiety.
Both the British colonial government and the post-independence People’s Action Party government have used the same three myths to justify their policies. But how true are these myths?
In emphasising racial differences, we are also denying our commonality as members of the same nation. Being Chinese, Malay or Indian, means that we cannot just be Singaporean.
