Louis Ng and Louis Ng Kok Kwang: The complicated relationship between civil society and mainstream politics

Academic Views

Twenty years ago, Louis Ng was known as the passionate animal rights activist who personified the spirit of independent advocacy in Singapore’s civil society. Ten years ago, Louis Ng Kok Kwang was officially announced a ruling party candidate for the 2015 General Election. This year, he quit electoral politics. LIEW KAI KHIUN, an independent scholar […]

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Teh Tarik with Walid, episode 2: Gerald Giam


GE2020, Interviews

Assistant Professor Walid Jumblatt Abdullah of Nanyang Technological University spoke to then MP-elect Gerald Giam on 28 July 2020, a few weeks after GE2020, as part of his ‘Teh Tarik with Walid’ interview series. The video and transcript are found below. Walid Abdullah: Today we will be discussing the election. Obviously, so if the last […]

2020-09-05

Teh Tarik with Walid, episode 1: Yaacob Ibrahim


GE2020, Interviews

Assistant Professor Walid Jumblatt Abdullah of Nanyang Technological University spoke to former Minister Yaacob Ibrahim on 16 July 2020, shortly after GE2020, as part of his ‘Teh Tarik with Walid’ interview series. The video and full transcript are found below. Walid Abdullah: And I think let me just get to it. Let me firstly welcome […]

2020-09-05

Let us have data for breakfast together


Academic Views

Shannon Ang, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Nanyang Technological University, is hungry for more data — here he suggests how we can better harness it for Singapore’s collective good. How likely is it that children of poor parents in Singapore are also poor when they grow up? Is it true that companies who hire primarily […]

2020-08-29

The Middle East: A useful foil for thinking about Singapore’s past and present


Academic Views

Koh Choon Hwee, Visiting Assistant Professor at NUS LKYSPP and a historian of the Ottoman Empire, highlights Singapore’s forgotten connections to the Middle East and shows how polarised narratives and misrepresentations about this region—some of which are deeply Islamophobic—are already present in Singapore, posing a threat to social justice and harmony. As recent explosions in […]

2020-08-25

Politically apathetic no more? Young Singaporean perspectives on race and civil liberties


Academic Views, GE2020

Saleena Saleem (a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology at the University of Liverpool) and Adi Saleem Bharat (an LSA Collegiate Fellow in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Michigan and the co-founder and coordinator of the Jewish-Muslim Research Network) consider the implications of the […]

2020-08-05

A vocabulary of our own


Academic Views

Nazry Bahrawi, senior lecturer of world and comparative literature at Singapore University of Technology and Design, and member of the international advisory board of Critical Muslim, a UK-based quarterly of global Muslim cultures, argues for blending global and organic vocabularies to tackle issues of race and religion in Singapore. Singapore prides itself on being a […]

2020-07-20