We could all come together to honour you better, for instance, make sure your commandments are better observed, the Seven Deadly Sins are less frequently committed. We could start with a proper formalisation of this promise, in order to monitor things properly, such as start an organi...
Turning 70 was for me both exhilarating and alarming, for I suddenly realised that: 1. I had attained the biblically revered milestone of Three Score and Ten 2. I had left the delectable-sounding league of Sexagenarians to enter that of the rather grim-sounding Septuagenarians 3. I ha...
Below is the full transcript of my acceptance speech on being awarded the ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ by the Online Citizen on the occasion of its 5th Anniversary, on 13 January 2012. Following the shock results of the General Election of 2011 (GE 2011) there was, as expected, a flur...
The policy related to the Internal Security Act (ISA) which allows the government to arrest and detain political dissidents; between the 1960s and 1980s, there were waves of arrest. When the Malaysian Prime Minister announced recently that he would scrap the country’s ISA and replace ...
The policy related to the Internal Security Act (ISA) which allows the government to arrest and detain political dissidents; between the 1960s and 1980s, there were waves of arrest. When the Malaysian Prime Minister announced recently that he would scrap the country’s ISA and replace ...
The policy related to the Internal Security Act (ISA) which allows the government to arrest and detain political dissidents; between the 1960s and 1980s, there were waves of arrest. When the Malaysian Prime Minister announced recently that he would scrap the country’s ISA and replace ...
The term ‘new normal’ has been used to describe the new political reality in Singapore, including the changes following the General Election of 2011 (GE 2011). Less dramatic and romantic than the other descriptions of ‘a Singapore Renaissance’ and ‘a Singapore Arab Spring’, it neverth...
When in 1991, the People’s Action Party (PAP) leaders decided to change the system of a government-appointed President of Singapore to that of a popularly elected one, they could never have foreseen the electoral chaos their decision would cause twenty years later. For at that time, t...
There was an obvious symbolism about PM’s decision to make the announcement of the review only at the very end, and thus on a climactic note, highlighting its primacy in the post GE 2011 ‘soul-searching’ . Observers would not have missed the special care he took to dispel all doubts a...
It is a measure of my continuing fascination with Lee Kuan Yew that I wanted to explore one aspect of his post GE 2011 situation that can never be represented through formal exposition. This is the psychological dimension which is clearly the most complex—and the most engrossing—becau...
A great article. Was LKY solely responsible for the great achievements of Singapore ? Were Goh Keng Swee, Rajaratnam, Devan Nair, Bakar,Byrne, Jek Yuen Thong simply functionaries who deserve no credit ? It seems to me that Singapore’s strategy was devised on very simple premises. A hi...
One of the greatest surprises of GE 2011 was the people’s unequivocal rejection of the PAP style of government. But none could have imagined that the biggest casualty would be Lee Kuan Yew, one of the founders of the PAP, Singapore’s first prime minister and subsequently, de facto Chi...
I have been most encouraged by the great response to my first article on GE 2011, and have written another. Indeed, the historic election had so many different aspects worth exploring that I am inspired to do a few more to share my thoughts and musings with readers. GE 2011 sprang so ...
I had been following the General Election of 2011 with intense interest, right up to the announcement of the results in the early hours of 8 May. There had been much to amaze me, and I just had to write down my thoughts and share them with my readers. For 17 years, since 1994, I had b...
It must be the pre-General Election fever that’s suddenly stimulated my already over-active imagination to come up with this little tale. I do hope it will afford some comic relief from the pre-GE angst that seems to be increasing by the day! The Party is in a panic. A week before the...
But it was about the Muslim community, not the Malay community. As a non-Malay Muslim, I’m quite fed up about how the issue has been hijacked. While his comments weren’t entirely accurate, there was some truth to it. Religion is always going to be separate and distinct. That’s why you...
On 3 March I wrote to the Straits Time Forum to seek clarification on a certain point regarding the review of my novel—why, in an otherwise detailed and competent analysis, the reviewer had virtually disregarded the most significant component in the novel—the political theme which I t...
The Straits Times has at last reviewed my latest novel ‘Miss Seetoh in the World’, and, oh dear, it’s the worst review in my 30 years as a writer. I certainly hope to do better with them the next time! Catherine Lim’s new novel lacks the challenging touch of her short story collection...
