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Category: Opinion

A faded and worn poster in the style of vintage travel posters is peeling off a wall. The poster shows the planned Garuda-like national palace in Nusantara with light rays streaming from it. In the foreground, smiling men, women and children wave Indonesian flags.
Posted inOpinion

Peeling Back the Facade of Indonesia’s Colonial New Capital

Avatar photoSahnaz MelasandyAvatar photo by Fadhilah Fitri Primandari, Sahnaz Melasandy and Konijn Sate 3 March 20228 March 2022

Indonesia’s decision to move its capital from Jakarta to a new city in East Kalimantan excluded local and indigenous communities from the planning process. Now, Nusantara—an internal colonial project in disguise—threatens their land, culture and livelihoods.

A shirtless fisherman wearing a ball cap holds up a fishing net and pulls out tiny silver fish caught in the Tonle Sap Lake in Siem Reap Province in December 2017. Roun Ry
Posted inOpinion

To Save a Dying Lake, Mekong Nations Must Act as One

abby seiff headshotlen leng headshotroun ry headshot by Abby Seiff, Len Leng and Roun Ry 9 February 202228 February 2022

Mekong nations must act collectively to preserve Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Lake, its fisheries and the livelihoods that depend on them. If not, human-made problems of illegal fishing, hydropower dams and climate change will spell disaster for millions.

To access this post, you must purchase a Membership or Membership – ID.

Anti-coup protesters hold placards, many depicting detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, on a Yangon street in February 2021.
Posted inBook Review

Myanmar’s Poets and Protesters “Write Democracy in Gore”

Ben Dunant headshot by Ben Dunant 1 February 202211 February 2022

A year on from a military coup, a new book of Myanmar poetry and prose captures the rage and resilience of a people locked in a fight against dictatorship.

To access this post, you must purchase a Membership or Membership – ID.

A male hawker interacts with a woman standing at a food stall counter in Singapore. joyfull/Shutterstock
Posted inOpinion

Why Singapore’s Hawkers Should Be Paid S$1 More Per Plate

Avatar photo by Lim Tse Wei 30 November 202130 November 2021

New data on household budgets in Singapore shows that in order for hawker food culture to thrive, and for stall owners to earn more than a subsistence income, they must be paid about S$1 more per plate.

Posted inOpinion

Killing Vulnerable People Won’t Protect Singapore From Drugs

Kirsten Han headshot by Kirsten Han 8 November 202116 November 2021

Singapore is set to execute Nagaenthran K Dharmalingam in two days. If we don’t succeed in halting his execution, he will be the latest person with a cognitive impairment to be killed in Singapore’s war on drugs.

Cutout figures of Asean leaders with crossed arms shaking hands in a Bangkok park in 2018. Figures include, from left to right, Malaysia’s Mahathir Mohamad, Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi, Vietnam’s Nguyen Xuan Phuc, the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte and Singapore’s Lee Hsien Loong.
Posted inOpinion

The PAP’s Long and Bloody History of Foreign Interference

Thum Ping Tjin headshot by Thum Ping Tjin 14 October 202115 October 2021

Singapore’s PAP government has long meddled in the domestic affairs of its neighbours. If the Foreign Interference (Countermeasures) Act (FICA) applied to PAP activities abroad, most of its efforts would be illegal. This is hypocrisy of the highest order.

Tedjabayu handling a theodolite measuring tool with the Buru land survey team in the 1970s. Courtesy of Tuti Pujiarti
Posted inBook Review

In Suharto’s Anti-Communist Purge, Prisoners Made an Island Bloom

Warief Djajanto Basorie - New Naratif by Warief Djajanto Basorie 4 October 202131 January 2022

In his 2020 memoir “Pearls on the Prairie, A Survivor’s Story”, the late author Tedjabayu recounts his 14 years as a political prisoner and shares part of Indonesia’s history that government-sanctioned schoolbooks do not tell.

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K Shanmugam, then Singapore’s minister for foreign affairs and minister for law, addresses the CSIS Banyan Tree Leadership Forum in June 2015.
Posted inOpinion

Shanmugam’s Stealth Coup in Singapore

Thum Ping Tjin headshot by Thum Ping Tjin 29 September 20217 July 2022

The Foreign Interference (Countermeasures) Bill will give Minister for Home Affairs K Shanmugam the power to demand information about any Singaporean’s private life and finances, all based on the suspicion of foreign interference—no evidence required.

A wall of Pudu Prison in Kuala Lumpur, before the prison complex was demolished beginning in 2009. Kojach/Flickr
Posted inOpinion

Malaysia’s Drug Law Condemns Vulnerable Women to Death

Ngeow Chow Ying headshot by Ngeow Chow Ying 21 September 202123 September 2021

Most women on death row in Malaysia have been sentenced under a strict drug trafficking law that fails to take their vulnerable socioeconomic realities into account. For justice to be possible, this law needs to change, writes Ngeow Chow Ying.

Collage portrait of Kem Ley
Posted inOpinion

The Anti-Vietnamese Legacy of Kem Ley

Headshot of Tim Frewer by Tim Frewer 16 July 202125 January 2022

There were two sides to Kem Ley, the beloved Cambodian activist who was murdered five years ago: the calm, insightful public intellectual, and the hyperbolic nationalist who wanted to rid Cambodia of “illegal Vietnamese immigrants”, writes Tim Frewer.

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