Op-Ed

Acclaimed Singaporean playwright Haresh Sharma was due to teach a play-writing course at the National University of Singapore (NUS), but five days before the start of the new school semester he was informed that NUS did not approve his appointment but he was not given any reason. We call on NUS to provide a clear and satisfactory explanation for this abrupt and late cancellation.

As independent media organisations and practitioners, we stand in solidarity with Ariffin Sha, the founder and administrator of online news platform Wake Up Singapore (WUSG), as he faces a criminal defamation charge for publishing falsehoods in 2022 about KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital (KKH).

What will be the impact of the headlong rush to implement AI in business products on Singapore literature and culture? Or on Singapore’s economy, in particular, on jobs and employment? For instance, will the rapid implementation of AI nip the nascent activity of literary translation in the bud, or even devastate the sector of commercial translation? These are not wild surmises but hotly debated questions in the global literary community. More cultural, economic, and sociological research needs to be conducted and examined, in addition to the focus on technological advancement and business efficiency.

We, the media and advocacy organisations of Singapore, support the Singapore government's call for a humanitarian truce in Gaza. We also call on the Singapore government to reverse its blanket ban on peaceful public assembly, and focus on resolutions for a better future for all in the region.

Hard on the heels of the election of former Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam to the Presidency of Singapore came the outrageous sentencing of rapper Subhas Nair to six weeks’ imprisonment for attempting to “promote ill will” between different races in Singapore. His crimes? Making four social-media posts that called attention to the different responses of the authorities and the media to wrongdoing by perpetrators of different races.

One of the effects of the July 2023 scandals that hit the Singapore government is the state’s loss of control over the narrative around the upcoming Presidential Election. The Elected Presidency, an invention of the governing party, has come under strong fire for being a flawed institution that was created out of political maneuvering and expediency.

We are deeply dismayed by the United States Supreme Court’s decision last Thursday (July 29th) to strike down race-conscious admission programs at colleges and universities across the country.