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By Elaine Ee

Human rights lawyers in Singapore are a rare and precious breed. In a republic where political, press and civil liberties are only just starting to look up, fighting for human rights was, and still is, a noble but extremely difficult cause. What kind of person then goes down this path and sticks to it?

A person of extreme courage, conviction and compassion.

One of these gems of a lawyer is M. Ravi, known to the community as the lawyer who fought against the mandatory death penalty and who represented Dr Chee Soon Juan and his sister Chee Siok Chin against the formidable Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong. And this at a time when no lawyer in Singapore would touch the Chees with a ten-foot pole. M. Ravi reveals in his personal memoirs Kampong Boy, his experiences with these cases—and others—and what shaped him as a young man and turned him into the lawyer that he is today.

By Elaine Ee

Things are getting ugly online again. Read almost anything that has to do with immigration, population, jobs, housing, transport or any current socio-political issue and you’re likely to stumble upon some anti-foreigner comment, sometimes expressed in a most offensive way.

We know what triggered this wave of xenophobia—government policies that have led to a sudden population increase fuelled by mass immigration, infrastructure that used to comfortably support us now bursting at the seams, rising cost of living, wages that can’t keep up, the widening gap between the haves and have-nots … this list is now a well rehearsed litany.

But I think the roots of the xenophobia we see now go further back. I think they sank their feelers into the ground in the nationalism that was laid down as the bedrock of modern Singapore society decades ago.

By Elaine Ee

In the past 18 months, a wave of change has swept across the political landscape of Singapore. One general election, one presidential election and two by-elections saw the ruling People’s Action Party’s hegemony in the political sphere eroded in one under-performance for them after another. Riding the crest of this wave is The Workers’ Party, with their historic win of Aljunied GRC, then holding on firmly to Hougang and now—in another stunning win—taking Punggol East from the PAP.

The people’s loss of faith in the PAP under Lee Hsien Loong’s leadership is clear. As is their increasingly lack of fear to vote against the PAP, as the stigma of being associated with opposition disappeared with the ‘old normal’ and was replace with a new found street cred or sign of courage in the ‘new normal’.

Also clear is that people disillusioned with the PAP are pinning their hopes on the WP.

By Elaine Ee

You know a bad relationship when you see one. The parties involved bring out the worst in each other; they blame each other; they can’t see eye to eye; pull each other in different directions; bicker, squabble, fight—and yet they cannot let go. They keep returning to each other like an addiction that can’t be shaken off; and hobble along, caught in an unhealthy knot of co-dependency.

Given some of the things that have been happening in Singapore recently between the People’s Action Party (PAP) and the public, I’m beginning to feel that this is the case here. In the 2011 General Election and Presidential Election, now somewhat behind us, there were massive cries for PAP reform, for a fairer, more inclusive, more open society.