This reminded me of a movie about the yakuza where they said "there is no crime in Japan" because "No one would report it as a crime, but instead as an accident" This opened my eye to news and statistics.
I recall reading an article about slavery in Niger with a similar energy. When the government banned slavery in 2004, a Tuareg elder announced he was going to make a big show of releasing all his slaves, and the police came by to tell him not to, because "there is no slavery in Niger, it's been outlawed"
It's also worth mentioning that many people's positive perception of Singapore is when they are welcomed to the country through Changi International Airport, consistently ranked the world's best airport for features like the Jewel. This also doesn't mention how the government has tried to stamp out southern Chinese varieties and Singlish from being spoken in the past. A great example of the rivalry between Malaysia and Singapore is Singapore's Rail Corridor, a 26 km long right-of-way that used to have trains to Malaysia that's now a trail. There used to be six times daily intercity services between Tanjong Pagar and Kuala Lumpur, with Bukit Timah station as an additional Singapore station, but service was truncated to Woodlands Checkpoint as a shuttle between it and Johor Bahru (replaced by a rapid transit link in 2026). Under the Railway Act 1918, the land that made up the railway was given to the Federated Malay States government from the Straits Settlements for a period of 999 years. So basically, even after Singapore was kicked out of Malaysia in 1965, this land would still be owned by the Malaysian government. Singapore wanted the land returned to them. Singapore moved their immigration/customs from Tanjong Pagar to Woodlands in 1998, but Malaysia insisted on keeping theirs at Tanjong Pagar. In other words, people were granted entry into Malaysia before clearing Singaporean immigration, which made no sense. To circumvent the problem, Malaysian officers didn't stamp the passports, but by doing this...Singaporeans were arrested in Malaysia because they weren't stamped, thus bringing to light the issue of Malaysia keeping their customs/immigration at Tanjong Pagar. Malaysia and Singapore finally agreed to scrap the Railway Act at a leaders' retreat in 2010 (they first did so in 1990, but there was a deadlock), where Malaysia was allowed to remain at Woodlands Train Checkpoint while the rest of the line would be truncated and become a rail trail. Bukit Timah station remains conserved, while Tanjong Pagar station is preserved.
@schrodingerskatze2162truu esp. on the comics, TLOK, and some unnecessary demonization on those who fight the oppression head on and not by ~peace and love~ I love the show to the moon and back but damn the creators do be sneaky af on using asian and indigenous complex sociopolitics only to go "excuse me do u have time to choose white liberalism as ur savior" on us 😩
the reverse case happens with Sweden, they have the most robust sexual assault laws in the world, and as a result has one of the highest reported rapes in the world (their definition of rape is much wider and they take it more seriously), but instead of realizing that in other countries rape is under-reported, anti-immigrant grifters pretend that Sweden's white women are being mass raped by Muslim brown men
@SivalinPutherythere’s no way to have a sincere debate here to be had, they’re only willing to source information that serves their agenda, and discredit the voice of others Singaporeans using the Zhu Di caricature to dehumanize us
Hello! Singaporean here. Thank you. It's especially hard for us to be critical about this place because there are literally laws that allow the government to just take down anything they deem as misinformation. It's incredibly frustrating being here - in a place so unapologetically capitalist and prejudiced, full of people who don't care because they've been taught not to. It genuinely keeps me up at night. I have a lot of unkind things to say about this place and at 30 I've come to accept that I don't think there is a place on Earth where I'll feel at peace.
Right, i agree. I hope it gets better tho esp with the rise of more politically active youth and progressive underground activist and organisation circles becoming more active and people becoming more aware.
@@peekaboopeekaboo1165 ah yes. Their lives are shitty, so mine has no right to be. Understood. I'm only allowed to feel bad if I'm the most marginalised person on earth cause someone else always has it worse. Please tell me more. Also so what if they're Islamist? Edit: you know what, don't answer that. I don't want to talk to you. Have a good day.
adding some stuff as a social worker in singapore: we are severely understaffed, almost always, and we earn barely enough (2k a month, i myself need 1.8k per month for expenses). we're usually looked down upon, and it's really prevalent when we see the government handing out social service funding like prize money instead of like. an actual necessity. "meritocracy" is a concept held in the hands of the government and the ruling class
understaffed, underpaid, under-appreciated. & maybe the entire structure of it all is colonial/patronising too. TCJ calling Jamus for being "fucking populist" when Jamus suggests merely making the process less Byzantine. Why is it so difficult to understand ppl are trying their best in the ways that they can? When you understand how much medical trauma there is buried in this country, ppl will understand that "meritocracy" is a lie. So many ppl are walking around with missed diagnoses & struggling their whole lives, not understanding why. so much medical "unknown unknown" still
Thank you for all the hard work you're doing. You're criminally underpaid considering how expensive Singapore is to live in... I recently visited Singapore for the first time and it was really fascinating, but it definitely reminded me a little of (a cleaner) new york city, where the wealth disparity is jarringly obvious and exploitation of workers is high.
Underpaid, under appreciated and over worked seems mostly universal for social services :( thank you for everything you do to help people! Social workers are the modern hero’s :)
There's more to the Singapore in Malaysia part than that. Lee Kuan Yew's party People's Action Party believed that Singapore's future lay with Malaya because they believed that reuniting with Malaya would benefit the economy by creating a common market, alleviating unemployment woes. But the communist wing of PAP was against this, and so they split off and formed the Barisan Sosialis party in 1961 (which later merged with the Workers' Party in 1988). In 1956, Lee supported a purge by the Labour Front of suspected "leftists" in the aftermath of the Chinese middle school riots, with arrests including his PAP rival Lim Chin Siong (in 1963, Lee launched Operation Coldstore to round more communists up). The ruling party of Malaya, the United Malays National Organisation or UMNO, was staunchly anti-communist and while initially skeptical of merger due to distrust of PAP and concern that the Chinese Singaporean population would alter the racial balance in Malaya on which their political power base depended, became supportive due to fear of communism. UMNO supports Malays being granted special rights, while Lee Kuan Yew coined the term "Malaysian Malaysia" for his stance of a Malaysia for everyone, distinguishing nationality from ethnicity. When the federation was proposed in 1961, UMNO leaders believed that the additional Malay population in the Bornean territories would balance Singapore's Chinese population. Indonesian president Sukarno however opposed Malaysia's formation and launched Konfrontasi. In March 1965, a bomb planted by Indonesians at Singapore's MacDonald House exploded, killing three people and injuring 33 others. Even after the merger, the Singaporean government and the Malaysian central government disagreed on many political and economic issues. Despite an agreement to establish a common market, Singapore continued to face restrictions when trading with the rest of Malaysia. In retaliation, Singapore did not extend to Sabah and Sarawak the full extent of the loans agreed to for economic development of the two eastern states. Talks soon broke down, and abusive speeches and writing became rife on both sides. This led to the 1964 race riots you mentioned, and thus seeing no alternative to the intense situation, Malaysian parliament voted for Singapore to be expelled in August 1965.
So this is obviously not an issue that only happens in Singapore, but there is an overall hostility towards the arts here - if not hostility, then it's definitely looked down upon. Lee Kuan Yew famously said "Singapore doesn't have the luxury of poetry", and it seems that attitude has never really gone away (ironic because there is a stage musical about Lee Kuan Yew called LKY the Musical). There is an arts scene, and there are many very talented people here, but they often have their aspirations crushed out of them early. As in all capitalistic societies, there is a fixation on income as a gauge of a person's worth - to many people here, it's the only gauge of a person's worth. You're looked down upon if you aren't in medicine, law or finance (the finance industry being especially fetishised here now). So "you can't make money in the arts" becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Recently, Singapore struck an exclusivity deal with Taylor Swift to ensure she would perform in Singapore and in no other Southeast Asian countries on the Eras Tour, so Singapore wants the economic results of the arts, but doesn't want the arts themselves. The arts exist to the extent that they can serve the government and disseminate their message: anyone working in the arts in Singapore will have directly or indirectly worked for the government, and most filmmakers have made films and short films commissioned by the government even if they don't agree with the government. There is also at least some connection to how artists can have dissenting ideas and can present them effectively and persuasively, which is something the Singapore government wants to tamp down as much as possible, as mentioned in the video in the context of Operation Spectrum.
i agree. I was an aspiring art student that wanted to learn something along the lines of graphic design and etc but i was put down, judged and questioned alot by my family members so i had to take a turn into architecture which isnt that bad but not what i really wanted. Many look down on our local art and media scenes and its really sad because there are some really talented people that wont be able to shine here. Its always STEM areas that parents want their children to be in and many singaporeans hence never came to appreciate the arts
This addition veers a bit away from Jedd's point, but something I feel important to note to is that Singapore-produced media is very heavily regulated since the major film corporation in Singapore, Mediacorp, is state-owned. It's very easy, especially for the elderly that probably only scrolls through Channel U or Channel 8 to only consume what the government allows. Similarly, our newspapers, the second source of information, is also, surprise surprise, state-owned. There's a lot of control the government have in the soft powers they have towards the mindsets of Singaporeans (because of the we believe what we consume yadda yadda) so sometimes when they say one thing, like "we don't care about people's personal lives" in reference to the lgbt folks, they can very discretely prove otherwise by slapping mature warnings over any lgbt media, even if it's the smallest of things (buzz lightyear movie getting a NC16 warning because of "portrayal of homosexuality" when it was really just a 3s background kiss scene at the end of the movie), just to blow the "severity" of the situation out of proportions and make it worse/more vile than it seems. But of course, because of how controlled the media produced by Singapore is, the products that come out of Mediacorp has kind of a "bad" reputation (plays very safe, even when it comes to film technicalities like scriptwriting, choice of angles, editing etc etc) so many creatives looking for work tend to not want to work for them either (in the film industry here in singapore, it's an insult to have your film be compared to mediacorp), but they don't really have much of a choice anyways because the art industry is very unstable here in Singapore. The pay is low, and the only major player in this industry which can at least guarantee some pay is Mediacorp so 🤷♀. In addition to this, there's this odd mentality Singaporean has that anything western/east asian is better than locally made products, so even when there are good locally produced films, it does poorly within the country (again, points back to the point raised by Jedd of how the government's rather anti-art mentality trickles down to its citizens). I'm just really lucky to have been born into a family who has found success in their respective creative fields. Honestly, if it wasn't for their own experiences, I don't think I would've been given this chance to continue following my passion till this day (current an art student in uni).
@@Glibbard Thank you for adding this context. I think the points you made about how difficult it is to make films and TV series in Singapore and how most local audiences' perceptions of local productions are primed to be negative are really good. It just feels like a self-perpetuating cycle that's difficult to escape from. The entities in Singapore that should be helping to nurture it instead seem to function mainly to curtail it. I think another thing that's funny is that there are two main media entities, MediaCorp and Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), both of which are state-owned. MediaCorp mainly focuses on TV and film while SPH mainly focuses on publishing and publishes the main broadsheet newspapers, but there are overlaps (both operate radio stations and have news arms). There is a rivalry between them (SPH radio DJs cannot host the National Day Parade, which is broadcast by MediaCorp) when most people wouldn't even treat them as separate companies because both are controlled by the state.
well-put. don't forget the infamous IMDA (infocomm media development authority; essentially the government media censors) which have policies in place that disallow favourable portrayals of LGBTQ+ people in local media and who read through theatre scripts before they reach production to make sure they don't contain inflammatory material -- alfian sa'at has a great play out about IMDA censorship singapore theatre going on right now.
tw: sexual assault i'm a singaporean citizen, and the story abt harvey reminded me of my own sexual assault case. when i approached the police, they at first turned me away. they didnt want to entertain my report. but i kept coming and coming, adamant about reporting my perpetrator. when i reported it, i was basically asked really victim blamey questions, like what i was wearing, how did i found myself in that situation, etc. the actual investigation process stretched out for nearly two years, and when i had to testify in court, i was retraumatised again by the judicial system while trying to testify my story against my abuser. in general, sexual assault is really not taken seriously in sg. on the surface sg seems safe, but hell for women and minorities.
Not down playing your SA. But if you think it is "hell for women and minorities" in Singapore, may i know which country would you ever feel safe? Also, Singapore has recently convicted a few false SA accusers for trying to destroying their former partner's lives. Hence, there is more caution in their investigations whenever a SA case is reported. That said, "what you were wearing" and "how did u found yourself in that situation" are pretty valid questions to ask, no? You can't expect the police to solve the case if you refuse to answers questions the event that you specifically come to the police station to report.
@@pingdragonify That’s not okay though. The question “what are you wearing?” doesn’t matter, it’s shifting blame of the horrendous crime to the victim, that’s not an appropriate question. It also implies that it’s her fault a man SA’d her 🤨 Men are NOT rabid, wild dogs with no self control, it’s not hard to keep your hands to yourself. In her account , the police weren’t taking her seriously and ignored her repeated attempts to report it. She should be afforded the same courtesy that every citizen has, the police sound corrupt and uncaring here. Just because a couple people have lied about SA doesn’t mean the authorities should just automatically assume she’s lying for money and/or attention, that’s basically stereotyping ALL victims.
@@pingdragonifythanks for saying “not trying to downplay my SA” while effectively downplaying my experience. no one should ever come to you for support because of your devils advocate personality u got going. why don’t you put urself in my shoes for a second: if you fell down, let’s say, and your knees bled. someone knocked you over and you got injured. you go to the doctor, someone who you would trust will help you through your injury. and instead of immediately helping to treat you, the first thing they decide is to ask you: what did you do to make your knees bleed? what did you do to make this person knock you over? would you feel taken care of? would you feel safe in that moment, if your knees continued to bleed and the doctor is only asking you questions and dismissing your injury? as for my comment abt singapore being hell - i still stand by that, because you clearly have never experienced discomfort in ur own home country. women in singapore are harassed and assaulted constantly. just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. as a matter of fact you denying this reality for me is literally contributing to the problem. our cases are always dismissed, made fun of, we are manipulated and gaslighted into singapore’s safety that women do not want to speak up about it. obviously there are worse places to be in i don’t deny that but understand that this is a reality we go through. you are clearly an insensitive and entitled person and i hope you think twice before speaking if someone is sharing their own experience on something as serious as sexual assault. i was a minor when my abuser did it and still the police dismissed me. a minor. a child. do i need to pull up my police statement for you to believe me? do i need to give you my clothes, show you my abusers track record of horrendous crimes and abuse? what will qualify my experience for you valid? please let me know.
@@duniaghaibkuYour analogy makes 0 sense. A doctor has 100% valid reason to ask you where you got your injury. I fell down Vs I got bitten by a dog. Fine, let's say the police are in the wrong here. How would you have approached the victim to get information from the SA they are reporting? How will you question them knowing that false SA accusations is also a possibility? We literally have a 12 year old falsely accusing his father of SA here in a recent case. There are also 3 cases on the top of my head where the women were convicted for lying to court about their false accusations of SA. You are a strong person that managed to follow through with your case, make no mistake, but the police and the courts needs as much information as possible to help you. A plain accusation without proof or evidence is not enough to convict. That said you did go to court in 2 years after reporting the incident, which is pretty fast. If the police were dismissive to your case, would you think that you saw justice in 2 years? Also, no my question wasn't if you think Singapore is a safe place (u already made up your mind). My question is which country on earth would you feel safe in if you think Singapore is hell on earth?
@@PurpleNoirthe investigation was closed after 2 years with the culprit getting convicted. As someone with friends with a former IO, that is very fast especially for a SA case. If the police were indeed corrupt or uncaring she wouldn't have seen justice and her abuser would be walking free right now. That was the whole point, the question posed by the police helped her case. The only failings I see here is that the police were cold and tactless in their questioning of the victim.
Singapore and Dubai have alot of parallels. When I lived in Dubai, one of my close friends was Singaporean Tamil and Kashmiri muslim. He served in NS in the undercover department as well and would tell me about the blatant racism he'd face from the ethnic chinese majority for his dark skin within the force. I was speaking with my wife just the other day about the "maids" situations in both Singapore and Dubai. Alot of our friends had live-in maids and we always wondered how their own kids were faring. It was one of the long list of things i never accepted about Dubai.
hey I dont live in dubai but my mom grew up in apartheid south africa and brought that mentality when highering for the woman that raised me, I no longer speak to my parents, it nauseates me how they treated and thought about people, and due to that mentality child abuse for them became a lot easier, so it also gave me quite a bit of PTSD, remember if the culture acts like that, the whole idea of personhood gets denigrated and kids become pets, and people mistreat their pets all the dam time
@@AnthemUnanthemed really happy for you recognizing this humanity that others were blatantly overlooking in front of you :) sorry to hear about the challenges you face due to that upbringing. But hope you find some happiness and peace in knowing your kindness towards others✌🏼
Yeah I hope to find more resources on the Dubai issues as well! I thought about the labor force struggles and discrimination of Dubai a lot when watching this video. Seems the two small countries have ended up in pretty parallel situations despite being across the world. I know many countries have these struggles passed down especially from colonialism. But seems these smaller wealthy countries are able to be pretty blatant a with classism, racism and exploitation of different groups.
yepppp sgreans (esp teens) display blatant racism with no shame since they’re very exposed to socmed and don’t face the consequences they should be since there’s really no one around to educate them. Casual racism is so common here.
As someone who’s thinking of moving abroad, it’s a futile exercise because dealing with bigotry is a universal experience. Also, I’m constantly thinking about brain drain.
Move abroad from where? Bigotry might be a universal thing, but there are places that are better than others. I’d like to believe my home country is pretty good.
Yeah, the whole Singapore trip my family and I went to was based around “So clean, so safe, no chewing gum” And then I saw the non-affluent South Asians so I knew what was up.
Right, also as a singaporean holy shit the elitism is crazy, also racism. Its more implicit that goes into explicit, esp towards minorities who are non chinese or east asian or like even white western like eg, south east asian, south asian etc. Im south east asian and burmese at that so its like equally jarring cuz a lot of south asians and south east asians lead similar lives esp if they immigrated recently as labourers. My parents immigrated to sg pretty early so im fortunate enough to live a good life as a PR to naturalised citizen since i was born here but yeah the income disparity, elitism, and racism, and also exploitation of workers and justice system regarding foreigners suck. Like eg my parents cant get a divorce in sg since they werent married on sg soil so a lot of crimes that are commited against foreigners and even by foreigners wont be dealt with, esp if its against one another so foreigners or stuff like exploitation so if the foreigners are very very screwed since if they came from a bad bg they cannot get stuff done mostly since again, they cant go back, also recently a drag queen got beat up and the comments of the article posted to mainstream sg news is so scary but luckily our drag and queer and ballroom community are tight knit. Singapore had awesome infrastructure, good education, and great sights and cool people, but it also has systemic issues like everywhere else and MUST be addressed.
@@espeon871 I'm not really sure what the point of this video is. The things that Singapore does better than other places are its selling points. The problems that Singapore has - elitism / racism / cost of living are problems that also exist everywhere else. Migrant workers have a tough life but they'd have a tough life elsewhere too ie in Malaysia etc. If you were Burmese and living in Burma, you might have spent the last few years fighting a war. Singapore has real problems and does not hide away from the real problems that confront itself and the region. It actually conducts a conference and encourages the US and China to sit down and talk. What is the stunning discovery that was unearthed by this video?
@@espeon871 You are not entitled to other people's land. They clearly don't like you so why do you try to force yourself in their spaces like a psychopath?
@@sieteocho Some people think SG is a utopia and this video is geared towards them. If you already think that SG is not perfect than why are you even watching? Also its just dishonest to say SG confronts its problems. If it did, those problems would have been solved years ago because most of them have been around for decades. You're one of those SGeans who don't know how to check their privilege and it shows.
As a Singaporean, I genuinely do think that while some of the points you made are good, you are brushing over a lot of rather important aspects of Singapore's development. Specifically, I feel like it's very 'hindsight-judgment', like, gazing upon Singapore being so 'successful' now and going, "Eh, LKY wasn't THAT important". But really, forty, thirty, twenty, years ago? Singapore was very different. Singapore was much poorer. It did take a lot of work for Singapore to become what it is today. I do sincerely believe that many of our harsher policies were necessary. Anyway, yea, I disagree with what I consider to be a view that can only be taken BECAUSE Singapore is successful, and not BEFORE Singapore was successful, but I still wholly approve of you making this video and casting a light on the flaws of Singapore.
Putting mentally deranged people who think that injecting hormones and Putting on a dress makes them a woman (and the other way around for ftm) isn't a flaw. It's actually a good thing. His counter argument about the inherent inequality of humans is straight up garbage. The only thing that might be a flaw is the migration situation. I agree it's a problem there shouldn't be any migrants at all, they are clearly a tool of the elite and should not be exploited. The way to do that is with repatriation and a tighter grip on business and closed borders. Singapore did fine without them. At best they can have like a "we only allow Chinese and east asians in" migration policy. Overall the video is mid to bad.
@found13 From a moral standpoint, no. But it's really a question we only had the capacity to ask after being successful It's really easy to forget that even with favourable geography, Singapore wasn't guaranteed to have its success. "At what cost?" sounds deeply philosophical until you realise the turmoil and suffering a nation stuck in a vicious cycle can go through Over the decades, many countries resort to a charismatic authoritarian that promises to solve everything. Why? There's many things I'd like Singapore to reform, but I understand at least why the older generation was willing to make that tradeoff
It's not that great, the author was a Malaysian Chinese who has a chip on his shoulder. Paints the 'Chinese educated Chinese' as the biggest victims in Singapore when what they went through is nothing compared to what Minorities go through.
Well as someone that grew up in Singapore. I can definitely say that we are not oblivious to the problems. If there’s ever a country known for gossips and spreading of news is Singapore. The main issue isn’t solely the government, is also Singaporeans and I’m saying this as a Singaporean. We see the issues and the flaws in the system. However, majority of the nation just doesn’t care. As long as the government is taking care of 80% of the country needs, most citizens don’t care. We do voice out injustice through social media but then immediately go on with our day because all these issues don’t affect the average day Singaporean. Most of us are sympathetic but not empathetic in other words. Is Singaporean being like this the government fault, not really. I would say is the many generations before us aka our parents and our parents’ parents passing down the “Don’t kaypoh” (don’t bother with other people’s problems) mentality. Ba Sing Se maybe brainwashed but in Singapore we are taught to read between the lines, compare sources and to be critical or what we read or learn (Is a subject we learn in secondary school, social studies). We aren’t gullible pawns of the government, but we frankly speaking don’t want to actively make changes either because “their” problem isn’t “my” problem mentality. Which is perfect for what you would call a dictatorship. Of course if the problem effects us, we do voice it out and 9 times out of 10, if the problem effects majority of Singaporean it will be fix. The silencing of the minority isn’t done by the government, is more of other Singaporean inaction of pushing this issue to the government, because is not and immediate issue to us. Example of singaporean voicing out issues is the political issues ex transport minister S. Iswaran. If it effects us we care, if it doesn’t directly effect us we care but not enough to argue for it. This video is great, but is very one sided and biased. Which I believe is the intent, trying to show Singapore’s issues. These are problems that should be fixed and can be fixed if more Singaporean speaks up. (I’m also not saying that Singaporeans don’t want this issues to be fixed, we do but not everyone wants to actively take part in fixing it. Is like a case of oh dang someone littered on the ground, I pick up the trash and help dispose of it properly but nah) but nonetheless the video serves it purpose and serves it well. To educate those outside of Singapore that Singapore is not all rainbows and sunshine. Like every other country in the world is not prefect, is just better than most others. And also feel free to argue and share opinions, what I say is not true for everyone, that’s what I was taught in social studies, to critique and think for myself, so should you.
well... let's see if this new generation of PAP will survive... this is basically the first generation without the Pioneer Generation in the politics (LKY and GCT announced their retirement almost 10 years ago, pre COVID) to essentially hand hold them to success... As GE result goes, the popular vote for PAP is going down as a general trend, outside of factors like COVID and the passing of LKY. Much to see if the Opposition can become more developed and more successful, but not becoming like the American politics or western politics in general...
Was wondering how far I have to scroll down before I find a comment like this. This video is actually proof that Singapore as a country is doing well. Struggling neighbors in SEA don't have the luxury to complain about the "inequalities and injustices" covered here. I'm a public school teacher more than half of my teen students would trade a limb to be able to live in a country where 80% of their needs are well taken care of so long as they bear the daily grind. Hahahhahahahahhahaha!!! 😈 Oh. And Basing Sei didn't have the back story of being dirt poor, who, in less than a century, clawed its way up to become the great power it is.
So basically it’s a lot like the US. 80% of your needs are met so most people just don’t complain. We’re all pretty aware of a lot of the problems going on in the US but if it doesn’t directly affect a lot of people, nobody will care. We just have a lot more school shootings than Singapore does.
@@meownezzas a filipino-chinese raised in singapore, i can 100% confirm this. considering how much messier the political climate is in the philippines, many filipinos would prefer to live literally anywhere else in the world, and that includes singapore.
hey, i stumbled upon this video as a singaporean. i already knew around 60% of what you covered, but the 40% i didnt know was really eye-opening to me. especially operation high tide. thank you elliot, ori and carissa for this video ❤
@@thotslayer9914 nope i'm still here. but a lot of what was covered isn't featured on mainstream or other forms of accessible media. definitely going to try and find more platforms where these things are discussed!
@@thotslayer9914 the standard of living is high in singapore, all things considered. so i still consider myself very fortunate to be living where i am. i hope things get better for you :)
@@thotslayer9914😳 of course singapore has its flaws. glaring flaws. its honestly sickening to see some of the news and how certain groups of people are being treated here. all i’m saying is i recognize that my life has been very, very fortunate compared to other people. but i’ll always be fighting for better treatment of marginalized groups and for various systems to be changed. my country has been good to me, and i will strive to ensure it can be as good to others.
singaporean here. the thing is a lot of us know that singapore has a very dark underlying history and there are a lot of things wrong with it. but majority of people don’t want to fix. their mindset is as long as it doesn’t affect them they don’t care. this is an engrained and conditioned kinda mindset from generations and generations ago so is very hard to let go now. even as a youth i see other youth just perpetuating this no-care attitude and discriminatory behaviours. it makes me sad why are we as a people so selfish. if i could leave most likely i would. only good thing about this place is the public transport LOL
I think Asians generally are brought up to mind their own business more, which in some cases can be detrimental e.g. an expat was infuriated in 2009 when no one stopped a couple from fighting in public, but a passer-by stopped the expat from intervening. I also saw a classmate curse another classmate over some football club rivalry, & she told me "shut up if you don't know anything" when I mediated
as a singaporean, i fully agree, i feel like singaporean meritocracy is less of a measure of absolute talent and hard work, but instead a measure of how well a person fits in a certain government created mold
@@amazinggrapes3045 For perspective, in Shenzhen meritocracy manifest as the person who is the best at delivering what the market (customer) wants wins. It's about serving the market not conforming to a system. The cons are that people ignore IP and steal ideas in order to win.
As a Singaporean myself, I noticed that when Singaporeans are presented with arguments that go against their worldview, they become extremely defensive. Instead of engaging with the arguments and refuting them with logical rebuttals, the common emotionally charged refrain is "X is how things are done here. If you don't like X, no one's stopping you from leaving". Not only is that highly callous and dismissive (not taking into consideration that sometimes people just can't leave the country), it simply silences discourse. How is it that we can improve anything in Singapore if we keep accepting things for the way they are or telling people to leave if they don't like it here? There is this general attitude of defeatism and helplessness mixed together with this misplaced sense of gratitude and pride. Complaining = being ungrateful. This, I feel, engenders a very discouraging and toxic climate. It is an attitude that reinforces the dominant discourse, encourages conformity, and marginalizes minorities. Worst of all, it prevents change for the better as no one seems to want to even begin by acknowledging the flaws in our country, regardless of what they are. If we love our country, we should find ways of making it better together instead of coming up with reasons why it's already as good as it can get. I feel that the old adage of "pride comes before a fall" is extremely pertinent here. This, I feel, is one of the reasons many young Singaporeans feel like they don't have a stake in their own country. I just worry for our country, because many young Singaporeans, many who care, are indeed taking the advice and are leaving the country (at an alarming rate). Be careful what you wish for. Just had to get that off my chest, because I'm starting not to care too.
Singaporean in her mid 20s here, and i empathize with you! I personally know the kinds of people you were talking out, and then later complaining about the very things we have grievances for. They just don't want to put in the work, or are guilty they missed their chance and are too stubborn to pick stuff up now. But we mustn't give up hope. The key is finding people with the right mindset as you, and hopefully, those same people will give you a chance to share your voice in an avenue where you'll be heard. Honestly, even letting your thoughts be known publicly on social media is better than nothing. If we're being told by those weirdos to shut up and bear it, then the logical way forward is to keep making noise
It's always a good dictatorship when people can envision themselves on the side of the dictator and not as one of the victims. You'd think adults would have more self awareness, but apparently it's pretty rare.
@@IshtarNikeremember those adults may have grown up under the « dictatorship » of authoritarian parents and/or teachers, which may have normalized such things for them.
LKY had some dictatorial traits. But he was a well-meaning man, and I personally believe he did every second what he was convinced to be good for Singapore. If you did not notice yet, what is now is much softened already. I can not call it a dictatorship, it is what is called a strict democracy.
@@krollpeterreplace LKY with Hitler and Singapore with Germany and your comment would still be true, yk. Also wtf is a strict democracy? Either people are free to vote and voice their opinions and have all that stuff (democracy) or they're not (no democracy). A more fitting name would be "dictatorship with very occasional elections"
~8:00 "Coolie" is actually more neutral in India, it can be offensive in some contexts but is also still used as a job title for certain people, particularly people who transport luggage at train stations. It's a lot closer to being a slur in other countries where a lot of "coolie" laborers were imported, like South Africa and various Caribbean and Southeast Asian countries.
in indonesia the word coolie / kuli itself isnt exactly offensive. it sounds offensive just like the word janitor, etc because the job is mostly done by low-class people.
As a singaporean- dude, damn yeah. However we do have a good bds movement and a lot of underground activist circles and activity circles also, the most disheartening thing abt being from sg is how mainstream it is for people to have weird implicit biases abt minorities, also weird elitism and people treating foreign workers like maids like indentured servants. Esp as someone who a singaporean by birth but parents migrated here. Also foreign workers are exploited and treated like shit only for some losers to go and talk smack abt the foreign workers who took the jobs, and lower wage levels and higher work times, that no one wanted or is persuaded to do and become, only to be blamed for a lack of domestic manpower when the system incentivises white collar jobs and makes everyone since day one aim for it exclusively even with exclusive jc and uni affiliated sec schools. If ure a labourer in singapore ure seen in a very low light since ure seen as uneducated or cannot make it. Which sucks. All workers in sg deserve better treatment, esp foreign workers and blue collar workers, like live in maids.
@@thotslayer9914 I'm a singaporean who's been planning to move overseas during my college/uni years, but to be frank, it's not really that good because singapore has an amazing infrastructure. societal problems aside, there is merit when people say that singapore is good because the healthcare system here is amazing, their subsidies aren't as amazing but still offer the citizens an alternative to being in debt,, the public transport is very well funded and thus covers a good major chunk of our country, and the education system is probably one of the best (and stressful) of asia major as a whole. So I can see why another singaporean who carries the same dislike and distaste in the government as me but does not have the safety net of being from the upper middle class (which I admit I have) would choose to stay here. it's already pretty good here in comparison to another country like the US, which is well known for it's overly privatised healthcare system putting people into debt and lack of regulation in country-wide and even state-wide education.
"implicit biases" happen to every race, and also happen everywhere in the world. You must be pretty naive if you think some country is 100% free from this. Goes to show you probably never traveled the world. Also, proof that society "treats foreign workers like maids like indentured servants" is a bold and exaggerated claim from someone who knows nothing. 🤣
@@kv9016 no i dont think sg is the only place that has implicit bias but it is a place where some people are openly showing it, like when a malay person is like im from a jc or a top school people will be like proof? While a chinese person can say similar and no one will be like proof?? You seem to be fuelled by jingoistic pride rather than actual fact for this counter, when did i say sg was the only place with these issues?? Also foreign workers in singapore are treated poorly, read the news?? Read the actual reports on their poor treatment, also the way maids are treated by their employers like theyre just people always on stand by for them and not legit people doing a job is a very real thing, i saw with my two eyes and have read abt. The fact that theres multiple tragic stories of helpers and workers, although law eventually served them justice, it usually is too late, good on the system for coming in but bad that this work model and workers' rights in sg for some higly privatised fields is not to the extent where safety on the job is prioritised like in more regulated and public fields is concerning. Saying all this because i love singapore and i want it to be better, its great, so i want it to be greater for the people in the country who make it.
"When you expose a problem, you pose a problem." - Sarah Ahmed So true. I have seen this happen in my own country. People with hope to make life better either die or the hope in them dies. The power imbalance is too great. 😢
this reminded me of a critique i read a long time ago on how though _crazy rich asians_ is praised as a win for representation, it comes at the expense of the erasure of asian minorities in singapore. i didn't know anything about the country when i watched the movie, -- and of course i didn't see it as some sort of comprehensive education on the place -- but with my lack of understanding on class division in other parts of the world at the time of me watching it and my general lack of general inquisitiveness for some narratives i’d absorbed in my day-to-day life (especially in some media), had i not read that piece i wouldn't have thought that deeply about the movie's exclusion of the working class in order to tell its story and what effect that has on real people's perception of singapore. coming across that critique really opened my eyes to how it's so easy and subtle to influence people's understanding of other places and invisibilize marginalized classes, and helped me realize how important it is to always be challenging my own thinking. this topic/video also made me think about how you'll hear some (u.s. american) people laud canada as "better" than the u.s., but that comes at the expense of, for instance, invisibilizing its subjugation of first nations people; how nyc has a rep, especially online, as being a place only the ultra rich and influencer types can afford to live in, and this erases the existence of the many working class people who live here (there's a really good tiktok by @c.a.i.t.l.y.n that talks about this). it's just so interesting to think about how much visibility and lack thereof -- through interpersonal discourse, in movies, on social media, from the showboating mouths of politicians -- not only obscures reality but, in popular imagination, _creates_ it. all this to say, this topic/video was just a good reminder to be critical, to question the most dominant narratives, and to hold space for the fact that there are always people who are being oppressed. just because we can't always "see it" doesn’t mean they don't exist, and it's important to prioritize trying to give them that visibility, even if it's just to improve our own personal understanding. but yeah great video! and so much respect and appreciation to ori and carissa for sharing their knowledge and time.
As a South Asian who cried watching CRA because I could relate to the family dynamics so much, I also had to cry during the one moment of screen time that South Asian Singaporeans got-when Awkwafina’s character freaks out at the mansion’s security guards. On further reflection, I realized that the scene had the potential to critique the society of Chinese Singaporeans, because it was making fun of the overblown racist reaction. I felt so conflicted. On one hand, the movie and book are exactly what they say on the tin, focusing on the “crazy rich” folks. Honesty is better than depicting lies about how minorities are treated. On the other hand, the wildly xenophobic action is just laughed off, and no one treats her like a terrifying bigot or even asks her to change. It’s messy.
this topic/video also made me think about how you'll hear some (u.s. american) people laud canada as "better" than the u.s., but that comes at the expense of, for instance, invisibilizing its subjugation of first nations people; Well the US not only invisibilise First Nations it also has crappy everything else so yeah objectively Canada is better than the US.
@@sasentaiko My relative was also likely disappointed that Crazy Rich Asians was probably guilty of Orientalism, like older Western-made movies about Asia, with some decor in the houses being more traditional/over the top than what Singaporeans expect. Might be a reason that SIA didn't want to be featured in this movie, with the aircraft featured in the movie branded as "Pacific Eastern Airlines" instead
I think the lack of representation from other Asians is spot on with the story itself. CRA is a story about a bunch of rich elitist specific type of asians who not only look down on other asians but even one of their own, just bc she's a poor ABC raise by a single mom
I view that the explanation of the exit of Singapore from Malaysia was a bit too simplistic. It was far more than just Malaysia not wanting to accommodate Singapore but rather the fear that LKY’s populist stance would threaten the Malay hegemony in Malaysia. The irony however was that the decision of Tunku Abdul Rahman to remove Singapore was in order to reduce tendencies of racial tensions. Between those who supported LKY’s multiracial stance (the Chinese) vs the pro-Malay hegemony stance (the Malays), the consensus was that by the 1969 elections, LKY’s populist idea,a would have caused too much tension between the Chinese and the Malays. Yet in 1969, the same populist ideas were propagated by Gerakan (a Malaysian party) which resulted in riots anyways. LKY by no means truly wanted for a fair and equitable society for the races in Singapore, but one thing for sure is that he was a populist and at the time there was genuinely a divide between multiracial Malaysia and a Malay Malaysia and Singapore was of the former. But the true irony is how LKY enabled majoritarian politics which has trickled down into a privileged Chinese class, not so different than the privileged Malay class in Malaysia. Hence you see the stark differences between Chinese Malaysians and Singaporean Malaysians.
TBH the pre-merger part was often overlooked. Even on the social studies textbooks... it's almost always "something something Malaysian Malaysia something something" and ... the end.
As a Finn I can attest to the neutralizing effect of having your sense of self tied to your country being the paragon of peace and virtue. We are conditioned from childhood to firmly believe in our social democracy being the best framework there is, or ever could be. It doesn't help when foreign socdems point to us as the ideal. The conditioning is so deep that someone suggesting otherwise feels like a personal assault. Our current regime, a natural alliance between rabid neoliberals, ethnonationalists and Christian conservatives, is hurrying the decades-long project of dividing and conquering the people with inhuman cuts, but criticism of these policies or the ideology behind them is widely considered unpatriotic. I imagine Singaporeans, also in a country that serves as a capitalist lackey at the edge of the Empire, might be in a similar trap of deliberate cultural conditioning. Capitalism makes all societies milkshakes made with feces; social democracy and its ilk make us compete on who has the most sprinkles in an effort to keep us from deciding that milkshakes shouldn't contain any feces. The struggle is international, and thanks for shedding more light on it!
My entire grandma's side of the family are Indian Tamils who migrated in the early 1900s to Malaysia and Singapore, but my grandma's dad, who worked on rubber plantations there, and later as a bank teller, eventually decided to move his family back to India, although my grandma's extended family were still in Malaysia and Singapore, and remain there to this day. I was always fascinated by this side of my heritage, since my family never talks about what life was like in Malaysia and Singapore. So thank you for making a video shedding a light on the situation in Singapore. I found it very educational.
Some other problems of singapore include: 1. That one time in 2021 when a trans student named ash Lee was forbidden from socially transitioning despite (not allowed to use female bathroom and low-key forbade from going to school). When people brought it up it turned out that the school policy is to our students to their parents (though anecdotally not all teachers follow this rule). 2. When a couple of people protested the treatment of Harvey and operation high tide at pink dot 2023 (Singapore pride) pink dot shut them down and released a statement that implied that they were homophobic, which is very in line with you “there is no war in Singapore “ thesis. 3. In April 2022 the state executed a severely mentally disabled man for being a drug mule. 4. The ministry of education recently forced schools to do a presentation on the situation in Gaza and spread the misinformation that Hamas did not recognise Israel and wanted it gone. Excellent video. Thanks for shedding light on the situation. Side note: One of the Singaporean churches (Church of our saviour specifically) mentioned in the operation high tide thing once tried to infiltrate the biggest local woman’s rights organisation (luckily they failed) to make it more homophobic and used to run pray the away conversion therapy (though they always denied that what they did constituted conversion therapy).
Re: 4, well yes it's an illegal entity, an occupier, a gen 0 cider. Which is why we say from the rvr to the seeaaa, falasteeeeen will be free, free free.
Yep, thats very unfortunate, also shows how messed up biases and systemic injustice in sg is, luckily, we have a lot of underground and strong activist circles in sg that are actively uncovering this and reporting and protesting against it. So its not that singaporeans dont care, people care but not enough care, its changing but the government and people on top need to care as much and want to change but since sg is a country thats very nationalistic too like their citizens, pr and foreigners get like diff brackets, and also capitalistic, im not so sure abt the change. However on a positive note, on of our ex presidents are very vocal abt palestinian liberation. Sg is gorgeous with great people and nature and sights and transport, so i want it to be better for all not just selected people who happen to have the privilege to go on with life here w/o visible or active oppression. Thus, we need to address and talk abt the systemic issues.
Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam was not mentally disabled. His own psychiatrist testified in court that he was not mentally disabled. Can you radical leftists leave Singapore alone. We don't like extremists on both the left and right, you guys are always unobjective and too biased to form reasonable opinions on how society should function.
My friend just did a study abroad in Singapore. She didn't really say much about it, but I assume she didn't have a bad time for the few months she stayed. I want to send this to her in case she has anything to add, I don't hear a lot about Singapore in my day to day life, so this is so interesting.
just to add that Malaysia as a political project was, and still is, fraught with severe discriminatory practices against minorities, enshrined in the constitution, so... there is nuance with Singapore's ouster from the formation of the Malaysian state
Just a clarification of the timeline for those that don't know about the history of the region. At least, the part of the history that is probably relevant. As such, I'll start from when the first part of what is now Malaysia gained independence in 1957. 1957 Malaya gains independence. Malaya is what is now modern day West Malaysia. Note that this does not include Singapore, which was broken off from the Straits Settlement when the rest of the Straits Settlement was merged with Malaya so that the British get to keep a colony there. 1963 after a whole lot of things happened in the past three years, (it's a lot, but it doesn't involve exchange of territory so I'm leaving it out) Malaysia was formed by the merger of all of the British part of Borneo with the exception of Brunei (what is now East Malaysia) and Singapore. (what is now still Singapore) The Sultan of Brunei decided not to join in the formation of Malaysia and will remain a British colony for the next few decades. Yes, decades without exaggeration. 1965 Singapore was ousted from Malaysia as a temporary measure due to a matter I'm not too sure of. It may have had to do with Lee Kuan Yew's party joining elections outside Singapore. It may have been something else altogether. Present The temporary measure has long been forgotten by the mass populace to be a temporary measure.
Oh no, the reason was race riots, and it was not temporary. When Malaya was granted independence in 1957, the Malay majority were allowed a provision in the constitution to enact "privileges" for Malays and aboriginals over other races. Singapore was petitioned to join Malaysia for historical cultural ties, and finally joined in 1963, but had problems with the Malay Supremacy clause due to its Chinese majority population. Race riots broke out, and Singapore was ejected due to irreconcilable differences, the divorce of the century. (Malaysia would break out its own race riots at the end of the decade for the same reasons.)
@@fangjiunnewe3634 From what I know, both leaders at the time considered reuniting the newly split countries sometime in the future, but it never happened.
@@fredrickcampbell8198 I don't recall that at all, and being a Malaysian who went to school in Singapore, that's something that at least one side would have made a lot of hay out of. Look up the Albatross Files btw which was recently declassified (10 years ago) which detailed how both sides already came to agree that a split was necessary and secret negotiations took place before the "tearful televised explosion announcement by LKY". They were pretty clearheaded on the futility of the union.
@@notarabbit1752 The icy silence after said that was hilarious and authentic because talking communism is one way to get in big big trouble in most SEA countries to this day
I think most people in South East Asia already knew LOOONG time ago that Singapore is a police state. They made a shirt about it as souvenirs. You barely see them but they are always watching.
50:48 It would be amazing if you could talk about the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. I'm Chilean, and today a lot of right-wing politicians and commentators are pushing the idea that Pinochet's rule was justified and beneficial. Eitherway, awesome video. Thanks for bringing awareness to issues of this sort.
same with the Trujillo Dictatorship and really how it paved way to 20th century dictatorships like Pinochet I know Elliot being from a Dominican background like myself would like to talk about it
same with the philippines and ferdinand marcos's martial law during the 70s. it's mostly the masses who think that his rule was justified and beneficial as well.
Read that younger people in the Phillippines & Indonesia might also have a more favourable interpretation of past dictatorships (Marcos & Suharto), maybe due to the economic growth then, allowing Marcos Jr. & Prabowo (who was a general during Suharto's rule & suspected to be behind the disappearances of some people) to win their latest presidential elections
For a start, I feel our migrant workers seriously need more rights and protection. Other than 1 day off a week (which can be bought out), I just learned live in domestic helpers are only entitled to 7 hours of uninterrupted rest each day. My own 9-6 sometimes already drive me up the wall, having to be on standby to serve my employer for 17 hours is so unfathomable.
I had a friend from Singapore who is ethnically Malay, and the stories she told me about her school sounded so fantastical that when I was younger, I just brushed her off as exaggerating (we were preteens, after all) until we were in high school and she had to go back (something to do with her mom's immigration; I can't remember) and she would do video calls and send pictures for a while and I realized she wasn't exaggerating. The wealth disparity was just normal for her, so she didn't think to explain anything because she just saw it as a fact of life. It wasn't until I got to college that I realized that her situation wasn't unique to Singapore. I made a friend from South Africa who told me an almost identical story about being from a relatively middle-class background, getting a scholarship to attend a "good" high school, making friends with, and getting bullied by "rich" kids. Girls from Brazil, Ethiopia, and a guy from Uruguay had very similar stories. After college, when I joined the workforce, I realized these instances of wealth inequality and rigorous enforcement of education standards with false promises of meritocracy aren't limited to the global south. It happens in America, too. Because of who my parents are and where I was born and grew up, I wasn't exposed to this until after I was an adult. Of the people I mentioned, all of them have desperately tried to stay in the U.S. because the opportunities promised them at home didn't actually exist but because they attended University here, they've been able to build small but stable networks. There are people I've met through work who have similar experiences all over the U.S. They've worked hard, but are aware that the opportunities they've had make them the lucky ones. Their stories can be used as examples of meritocracy at work, but they all can name childhood friends who were just as if not more smart or hardworking who weren't given the same opportunities and suffered for it. There is a war in Ba Sing Se. There is a war in Singapore. There is a war at home. I find myself thinking a lot these days of two poems I read in high school for a WWII history class. "First They Came" by Martin Niemöller and "The Hangman" by Maurice Ogden. I hope we don't let history repeat itself again.
hi. as someone that knows Harvey personally(i even created this account to not be identified by her and her “friends”), she is not all innocent here. while i empathise on her imh r-word case, she has made many threats to many people. calling the cops on people who oppose her, actually planning to send anthrax/drug packages to her now ex-friend’s parents and threatening violence to people whom she deems traitorous. this is just my personal experience with her and her group.
Idk bout anyone else, but I noticed the same trend over and over again when it comes to male trans. Was he/she really r word or was it one sided love? I wonder I wonder 🤔
@@adambasri3397 for her r-word case, im treating it as if she really was. im just mostly here to highlight that she doesnt deserve the traction she’s getting because shes a horrible person. she does not deserve praise when she does things that she condemns.
Well, I mean you can't exactly put victims up a pedestal either. She needs to work out on her issues. I still sympathise with her r-word case, but she really needs to improve as a person.
I feel bad for her and i hope she gets justice but while fighting for her justice its good to recognise that her as a person isnt someone to be put on a pedestal, and i hope she reflects or someone intervenes before it escalates, although we shld all still fight for justice for her tho since it means justice for all.
As a Singaporean, I want to thank you for making this video. Our government puts great importance on maintaining Singapore’s shiny reputation, but a veneer of ignorance disguised as peace isn’t real peace. I’m disappointed in things we and our government have done, but I’m also hopeful that, with more people becoming aware of issues and speaking up, we can change our future for the better.
hi elliot. i stay in singapore and having found out about operation high tide when it happened, i felt like speaking out was dangerous and humiliating. ur work is so important
As a Singaporean living in her undoubtedly greatest town named Yishun, there is no better place to call home. All of us are satisfied. There isn't any other opinion. We are all happy. There's nothing else we should be feeling.
What a fantastic video!!! Great summary of complex history, great balance of facts and humor, great use of visuals, great explanation of how its history ties to the modern culture. SUCH great work!
last thing I expected to see today was a video from elliot about my country lol. thank you for using your platform to highlight the issues that our own people have been grappling with for a long time. i hope that fellow Singaporeans and others alike can gain some education on our past and present through your video and be inspired to do their own research!
Goes to show how exaggerated this is lol. Just go on social media and you can see so many citizens shittalking abt govt and PAP but they didnt mysteriously disappear or get sued did they?
@@aaastooges what's up with all the singapore hate? I get that it's the subject of the video but you would think it was the next china with all the fearmongering
@@lordbored7006 Coz the video has 0 nuances and a lot of his talking points are missing a ton of context. His only perspective of Singapore is from a very very marginalised group (Trans) that even the most liberal western countries are struggling to accept. Is it no wonder he believes Singapore is like Ba Sing Se?
The Singapore Govt probably wont give you a citizenship after this, but I'd still buy you a kopi here if you visit as a tourist. Singapore is not a perfect utopia and much beauty foreigners see is thanks to our tourism board. In reality, despite relatively low crime rates and peaceful circumstances, Singapore is still a nation under construction. Now that there's gonna be a change in leadership, much remains to be seen and I'm excited (kind of).
@@Redl1me_ Yea and I'll be sure to violate the Geneva (Suggestions) and every other human rights convention, because Singapore is considered a western country.
@@PrograError as long as you've never lived a week in SG. Yea, we're a communist special administrative province. Senator Tom Cotton was right btw, so you guys dont deserve TikTok.
I think there's a lot of problem with building the Singapore story on cherry-picked examples. It is often said that if you want to find out what a man is, give him power - and by that metric Singapore could have done a lot worse than LKY.
As someone who has firsthand experience of being in a anti- LGBTQ church in Singapore, I think it's pretty safe to say that, yeah, the bias is still there and the government doesn't care about the issues we face XP
Correction* coolie is not used as a slur in India infact it has been celebrated in many movies in the light of average hardworking honest men and even today coolies exist in india and it is not slave labour, it is basically another word for baggage handlers for railways
Regarding the part in the Anthony Bourdain clip where every household has a maid, it reminds me of how most South Asian and SE Asian households have "help". Not that I don't think it causes an issue of inequality, but I think it's also very cultural and prevalent in the countries surrounding Singapore too. My Bangladeshi friend said she had a maid when she was a child and treated her horribly, and so did everyone else in her family.
I agree with you. Even I, a Filipino, grew up with househelps who do most of the chores while my parents are at work. Historically speaking, pre-colonial Philippine society is stratified, which includes serfs or servants at the bottom rung. It has been carried on even through colonial and post-colonial times.
It’s the same in Pakistan and it’s really awful. I hope we see a shift but I really don’t see a way out in the foreseeable future, even if only because I wouldn’t know where to begin between that and all of pk’s other blatantly terrible issues
Late comment but this was really incredible. I grew up with the Michael Fay case fresh in my mind (American who was canned by the Singaporean government) so I've always thought of it as a strict government. A few years ago I met a couple from Singapore and the way they spoke about the government was eerie.
About a year ago, I made a post on r/askSingapore talking about a few xenophobic, slightly racist encounters I had in Singapore as a South Asian tourist. My post got taken down despite not having violated any subreddit guidelines and I wasn't even given a reason. But the post gained a lot of traction and people shared their own experiences of racism and xenophobia. However I had a lot of sweet encounters there as well. It's definitely a mixed bag, much like any country. Edits: Grammar and Sentence Structure
@@WastedBananasyou’ve got to be dumb as rocks cause how are we literally on the continent of Asia and not Asian but Japan is fully detached from the continent and is Asia…….
Thank you for this!! Any country that has become very successful under capitalism has done so through extreme exploitation and inequality - so I always side-eyed Singapore but never looked into the history. Super informative! :) Also the people in the Anthony Bourdain clip made me sick to my stomach.
@@april9242 i think all major asian hubs of capitalism are similar just with some differences, they have a lot of cool and as much of uncool, and similar histories except maybe jp cuz jp did a lot of colonialism and kr did too for a bit, but it was also colonised.
I would go so far as to say every country that becomes successful economically does so via extreme exploitation and inequality, though such exploitation is not strictly necessary to achieve success (as in many highly productive areas of modern economies). It's less a function of economic system, and more a question of institutions and their inclusivity (mostly in terms of social mobility). I would highly recommend Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson for a further look into a framework that looks at institutions more than specific economic systems. Probably the biggest change to my understanding of national success. Of course, I'm also a liberal, but I eagerly await the successor ideology to liberalism, and think socialism was insufficient and we have yet to see something better. In general, I think liberalism's adaptability let it absorb the most salient points of socialist critiques (labor rights, toxic effects of increasing inequality), and incorporate them into its own mixed market economies, while avoiding the pitfalls of authoritarianism that plague socialist reality across the world.
I guess a reason for Singapore being ambivalent about Japan was also because their companies were among the 1st to invest in Singapore after they gained independence. Their expats also appear more low-key than those from Western countries & you don't see so many headlines of them getting into trouble today
the migrant domestic workers thing reminds me of the situation in taiwan, as well as the "well it doesn't affect us attitude" I've encountered here, especially when it comes to stuff like blackface in the cosplay community (and on halloween but that's not every day so). I brought it up in a seminar talking about the differences between social policing in our own countries and in taiwan and then my lecturer brought up the example of a singaporean official doing brownface and then the people who called him out on it being labelled racist instead of the actual perpetrator, so this video was very interesting to get a wider picture on the context of that incident's reaction
Born and lived here my whole life Singaporean here (been 2 America twice so far), that whole clip of the maid thing with Anthony Bourdain was an exaggeration, not every Singaporean can afford a maid and my family never personally have one (my mom does the chores ^_^). However my Aunt did suffer a stroke back in 2021 so we were forced to hire a maid from Indonesia to take care of her as a necessity.
Its not an exaggeration, its a fair generalisation of the reality of MOST singaporean families ; having a maid to do chores. No one is pointing fingers at specific families.
The clip makes me so pissed which I know isn't really the point of the vid. But just seeing how proud those people are about being able to push their chores to some underpaid help and stating that's the reason women are able to have time to join the workforce. Like no, a lot of us are just poor and have to have every one in the family work just to survive. And do all our own chores. What a poor representation of Singaporeans
@@lucylucyinred Its simple economics. They make more money working than doing the household chores by relegating that part of the job to someone else. If you made 10k a month would you give up your well paying job to take care of your children full time or just get a maid? What you see in the clip is simply children being spoilt by their parents, absolutely nothing to do with maids
"that whole clip of the maid thing with Anthony Bourdain was an exaggeration", and also hired underpaid maid from Indonesia sponsored by the CCP itself
As a Singaporean, i can say that it is not a great place to live in. Yes it is safe, yes we are rich, but there is nothing to do other than partake in endless conspicuous consumption. Classism is extremely rampant, if you are not rich you are not a respected member of society.
@@thotslayer9914The question is how? when everyone is conditioned to think that this place is "safer" than any other place on earth. And when everyone on school jokes about school shootings in America, who would think of ever leaving? And the Singaporean passport, of course. you can travel almost anywhere with one, how convenient (I'm sarcastic). Do you see now? We are like people in ba sing se in a way 😂😂
Touching on the topic of racism; the government always preaches to people how people in Singapore are united no matter race/ethnicity but one step into a public school in Singapore you can hear students yelling racial slurs (or even slurs in general) at eachother that they can’t even reclaim.. and this even happens in public too amongst adults. There’s no real solution to racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia etc.. (and I KNOW that sg is trying to solve problems like this) but maybe they shouldn’t bloat about being such a ‘united’ country if stuff like this happens so often! Sg isn’t a racial friendly country, it’s like ANY OTHER country in the world regarding problems like the ones stated… ://
The fact that that lady said with her whole chest "Everyone has a maid" is what's the most insane about all of this. The elite class are so idly brainwashed to accept that what they have is normal. EVERYONE has a maid? (cut to: The Maid)
This isn't really far off in many countries in Southeast Asia. It's actually common for families (especially wealthier ones) to hire maids to do house work. Now the problem comes from how they're treated. Unfortunately, certain people are ungrateful and instead of thanking their maid and paying them well, they just outright abuse them.
Hello, I'm a Burmese that has been raised in Singapore by immigrant parents from childhood. The case you brought about the Burmese worker is extremely disheartening(my family at the time were extremely sad to hear that it happened to a burmese national who worked as a maid), but you portray it as if every single house worker is abused in that way. I have had family friends who had to work as maids to support their families and improve their incomes. However, very rarely they are abused by their Singaporean employers. I feel like this is a little disingenuous to do. It would have been more appropriate to list worker that work in construction. I am not educated enough to talk about construction, but from rumours of my local area, there has been a death in a train line which halted construction for a while. I agree with most of the video's reports on crimes and I agree with the fact that Singapore doesn't necessarily have the medium to freely speak your opinion. Although I do not quite understand the cult following of the late Lee Kuan Yew, he led Singapore through tumultuous times after separating from Malaysia. His policies were there as a response to the communist insurgency in Malaysia at the time. In the case of a country that had recently been seperated from Malaysia and diplomatically tense with its neighbours, it moved towards some would call a 'dictatorship', enacting policies that took away rights and having a lot of rules in place. "Safety" back then was being an anti-communist and having anti-communist policies. You can argue if this is still relevant today, but most of the laws date back to this era. (To note because this may be a point of bias; I am not a fan of communists. I'm Burmese.) Despite this, the government introduced a lot of quality of life infrastructure and policies that helped the average Singaporean (eg. easy scanning of passport when you're entering and leaving Singapore to name an example from the top of my head). This led to Singaporeans obviously being reliant on their governments or people of authority to do the work that most people deem a 'hassle' for them. The example you list of the four people in the hawker centre conversing about doing laundry and their lack of ability of knowing how to do so of comparing it to the 'communist party' is quite interesting to me because of that. This just means Singaporeans are just not independent as compared to western countries. The quote from Lee Kuan Yew in 1983 was; "What we discovered in the 1980 census, which I think has to be brought out, is that we are really discarding our able parents in the next generation and doubling the less able." This sounds horrible on a vacuum. But if you know a little bit of Lee Kuan Yew's philosophy, he sees Singapore as having no natural resources, nothing in particular. It is primarily getting its resources from imports, even its water. Singaporeans themselves are the Singaporean's valuable resource. “The only resource we have is our human capital. This remains the most important and single most crucial resource for us. We will continue to invest heavily in workforce development by equipping all our workers with relevant skills to meet the demands of the changing economy while providing additional holistic support to uplift more vulnerable workers.” This is not said by Lee Kuan Yew himself, but the party that he founded, specifically by the Minister of Manpower. Do note that the practice of Eugenics was still being done in 1979 in California. Although it stopped in the same year, it would not be a surprise to say that Lee Kuan Yew, with his all-divine-thinking thought that this practice would still be acceptable if brought to Singapore. Obviously, this speech still blemished his party's ratings for quite a while, but understand his philosophy before misconstruing it into thinking that the Singaporean government hates poor people. You can criticise the average Singaporean for being too reliant on the government and having other people to do their jobs for them. You can criticise the education system for being too hard or tough. I wouldn't have an issue about that. But this video has underlying tones of misrepresenting LKY's equality quote (without full knowledge of his philosophy), misrepresenting the housemaid incidient and LKY's policies is what is not quite convincing me. The research is done well, but you might have rushed your conclusions.
Nvm I just saw the Bibliography you used and its Wikipedia and actually listed it as a primary source jokes on me for saying the research was done well, it would seem that you already had an agenda and used any evidence you could find to support your view
Thank you! As a Singaporean, some of the things he said rlly confused me, but I think this critiques this vid very well. Even though I do agree with some of the things he raised, such as racial discrimination, lgbtq+ discrimination, sexual harassment (even though I don't believe that any society can completely prevent these things) he was def missing a lot of points from the other examples he gave. I also just thought the LKY example was out-of-touch? considering LKY stepped down in 1990 and Singapore has def changed over the course of 34 years not being under his leadership. Singapore has def taken steps to be more inclusive abt minority groups (heck we basically have to support ppl in the lower tax bracket) + Our law and order has improved, workplace safety has improved and anti-corruption practices has improved. So it's rlly not that bad as he explains it!
I didn't know all this about Singapore in the past. I also had an idealized view of the place based on mainstream media and movies, but now it makes sense. I really enjoyed the insight into Singapore.
Reminds me of our family from Barisal and Dhaka getting land schemes in Andaman and Nicobar Islands after partition. I didn't knew Bengalis even went to Singapore!!!😮
I agree with the points you brought up about Singapore's issues, but if I can make one criticism, the ATLA framing was really jarring in a video about a real life country. Also someone has probably warned you already, but Singapore is very online, so apologies in advance if you start getting angry Reddit users in the comments.
That whole conversation at 17:00 was so insane, everything from "I know how do my laundry in theory" to "Moving clothes from my washing machine to putting them in the dryer is therapeutic"
What you're saying is true, because in 2018 I started my internship at Singapore, where my manager assaulted me & when I filled to the police they didn't do anything to the manager, told me to forget what happened & forgive him, I was 19 years old.
First of all, I DID remember that from the beginning of the vid. Don't judge me. Second, this was something I didn't realize I needed to know. I was born in the 80s so there were pieces that I do remember, but I haven't given Singapore or it's role much thought in my adulthood. Thanks to you and your friends for bringing it back to my awareness. (All hail ATLA references 🙌🏾). And lastly, this is a very nice look on you 👌🏾 😊 See you next time!
Your videos have high quality information, presented in a clear and engaging format. Today as I listened, I was thinking… I wish some of my university professors had lectured as eloquently as you do. Best of luck and maximum success to your channel!
actually coolie isn't really a slur anymore in India. It refers to the people who carry your luggage, mostly for transporting luggage from trains to the cars.
when i found out that in singapore you get a cainning along with a prison term i was like huh something is not right, and after this essay im not surprised but also still genuinely appalled. keep staying informed guys and join your mutual aid
@@ca-ke9493 BROO I think I've walked past seeing some of the students being prepared to get caned in my old secondary school (not the one I graduated out of) when I was walking into the GO for suspension and I still remember the odd feeling that I got that day very distinctly.
@@teddiespicker TBH canning in school is for the worse stuff that are below juvie, and are really rare... (presuming near indoctrination to submission and the like) also, canning is nothing like the western kind of canning (slave canning). The apparent process is that the person is strapped up, the “conductor” use a thick rattan stick to dish out the lashes on the butt. If the person faints or anything, it's stopped. The procedure is to be done in one-go, with the person getting some sort of medical treatment for the soreness after (I believe) also the prison system is more like the Norwegian system where rehab is the way, even if the general complex design is more American...
Let this be a random comment to remind you for no reason that there was that one American politician who believed that the CEO of TikTok is from China despite claiming that he’s Singaporean 7 times. Like I said, for no reason. 🙂
12:00 The real reason that they ousted singapore was because at the time the amount of chinese people in singapore suddenly becoming malaysians would have caused the malays to no longer be a majority of voters. He was also really popular among the malaysian chinese and his party taking over the whole country was a real threat.
First result from google: Lee Kuan Yew, the first Prime Minister of Singapore, cried in 1965 during a press conference when he announced Singapore's separation from Malaysia. This emotional moment was a result of the deep disappointment and sadness he felt over the separation, as he had worked hard to build a unified Malaysia. The separation was a result of political and racial tensions between the Chinese-majority population in Singapore and the Malay-dominated government of Malaysia. It was a difficult and emotional decision for Lee Kuan Yew, as he had envisioned a different future for Singapore as part of a larger Malaysia.
I'm a little bit worried about El Salvador for just the same thing. I'm super happy that they are more safe now but I'm still scared of the unbalance of power that could be used wrong
hey elliot, singaporean here! i rly love a lot of the points you made here especially about lee kuan yew and our anti-protest laws, but i would love if you'd took a deeper dive into the harvey movement, and the narrative they have crafted around harvey's case. what happened to harvey was unjustifiable. but some of the stuff the movement has accused the state of doing, like how a legal official allegedly mixed methyl iodide (rarely used as poison, boils at 43 degrees C) into someone's coffee... yea. from what i see of it, i think it's important to separate the harvey movement (and the alleged operation high tide) from the rest of singaporean lgbtq+ activism, and i think it's important to dive into the details of this movement before platforming them on your channel
if you ask this question, then you must ask yourself, how much of a deep dive is enough for you? have you considered that "what I see of it" is never going to be 100% conclusive? Ok, even if you say "alleged operation high tide" - it's demonstrable fact that the AWARE takeover happened, that didn't just come out of nowhere. none of this is coming out of a vacuum. maybe it's always been here. Operation Spectrum happened. did we watch the same thing? or are you just looking at "lgbtq+ activism" - itself, very limited/curtailed, where PD can "take security staff for keeping us safe". Stonewall was a riot. these are just historical facts.
The thing is, SG is connected umbilical to the "west", it was so weird when last time Russia invade Ukraine, SG follow suit to sanction the Russia, but then when You-know-who doing the "g" words, SG need to self-censor, even Malaysia can say bluntly to the German PM, and to some extend Indonesia.
Thank you so much for makeing this video about Singapore, i feel like there really isn't a lot of English speaking political overview videos of Singapore at all, and have been looking for something like this for a long time
subbing from this !!There are a lot of parallels to dubai/the UAE as a whole with the whole "safe country" narrative. I was told the UAE was the safest place in the world growing up. It would be really cool (if you havent already) to hear you talk about the state of the UAE and the oppresive structure of the country
there is also a recent event about Kira Moon, A Drag Queen in Singapore that was assulted physically but the police "could not arrest" people that assulted her despite evidence and she had to push for her case in order to have something done while meanwhile other people were getting arrested left and right without reasons which includes sex workers etc. Being a Singaporean myself I really agreed with your video (and zuko) with Singapore feeling like a prison. We get so much praise about how good our city is and how safe it is but I nvr really felt safe, being trans myself, and I cant escape this city if I have no money. It really feels like we r trapped in a prison that from the outside is seen as a free country and all that jazz. Amazing video!!!
As a Singaporean, I can confirm that there is no war in Ba Sing Se
The emperor invites you to yishun
@@kittiecandy747 not yishun☠
@@kittiecandy747 yishun gang, you either follow the govt or sent to yishun
Yishun is the Bronx of sg
yes there is no war in ba sing se,
only in yishun
This reminded me of a movie about the yakuza where they said "there is no crime in Japan" because "No one would report it as a crime, but instead as an accident"
This opened my eye to news and statistics.
I recall reading an article about slavery in Niger with a similar energy. When the government banned slavery in 2004, a Tuareg elder announced he was going to make a big show of releasing all his slaves, and the police came by to tell him not to, because "there is no slavery in Niger, it's been outlawed"
what movie you are talking about, I want to watch
@@terrivelmentegerundio.3927Tokyo Vice, highly recommended
it's a game series@@terrivelmentegerundio.3927
@@jhawk1229average nigerian
It's also worth mentioning that many people's positive perception of Singapore is when they are welcomed to the country through Changi International Airport, consistently ranked the world's best airport for features like the Jewel. This also doesn't mention how the government has tried to stamp out southern Chinese varieties and Singlish from being spoken in the past. A great example of the rivalry between Malaysia and Singapore is Singapore's Rail Corridor, a 26 km long right-of-way that used to have trains to Malaysia that's now a trail. There used to be six times daily intercity services between Tanjong Pagar and Kuala Lumpur, with Bukit Timah station as an additional Singapore station, but service was truncated to Woodlands Checkpoint as a shuttle between it and Johor Bahru (replaced by a rapid transit link in 2026). Under the Railway Act 1918, the land that made up the railway was given to the Federated Malay States government from the Straits Settlements for a period of 999 years. So basically, even after Singapore was kicked out of Malaysia in 1965, this land would still be owned by the Malaysian government. Singapore wanted the land returned to them.
Singapore moved their immigration/customs from Tanjong Pagar to Woodlands in 1998, but Malaysia insisted on keeping theirs at Tanjong Pagar. In other words, people were granted entry into Malaysia before clearing Singaporean immigration, which made no sense. To circumvent the problem, Malaysian officers didn't stamp the passports, but by doing this...Singaporeans were arrested in Malaysia because they weren't stamped, thus bringing to light the issue of Malaysia keeping their customs/immigration at Tanjong Pagar. Malaysia and Singapore finally agreed to scrap the Railway Act at a leaders' retreat in 2010 (they first did so in 1990, but there was a deadlock), where Malaysia was allowed to remain at Woodlands Train Checkpoint while the rest of the line would be truncated and become a rail trail. Bukit Timah station remains conserved, while Tanjong Pagar station is preserved.
holy shit no wodner my parents kept telling us to check whether the officer stamp our passports wen we were younger. yoo thts so slimy
I hated that airport lol
Watching Avatar as a kid really radicalized me tbh
i think it unironically made me a better kid
Genuinely made political and historical concepts so much easier to learn and comprehend
@schrodingerskatze2162 could you elaborate?
@schrodingerskatze2162truu esp. on the comics, TLOK, and some unnecessary demonization on those who fight the oppression head on and not by ~peace and love~
I love the show to the moon and back but damn the creators do be sneaky af on using asian and indigenous complex sociopolitics only to go "excuse me do u have time to choose white liberalism as ur savior" on us 😩
@schrodingerskatze2162 legends of korra was def heavy with the liberalism but not so much with the first series
"No reported crime!"
'Reported' being the key word here.
The biggest criminals are the legals ones, much like the US Lobbyists
the reverse case happens with Sweden, they have the most robust sexual assault laws in the world, and as a result has one of the highest reported rapes in the world (their definition of rape is much wider and they take it more seriously), but instead of realizing that in other countries rape is under-reported, anti-immigrant grifters pretend that Sweden's white women are being mass raped by Muslim brown men
As long as inequality exists there will always be crime
The garment has never ever since I am here 1995 reported there is no crime.
@SivalinPutherythere’s no way to have a sincere debate here to be had, they’re only willing to source information that serves their agenda, and discredit the voice of others Singaporeans using the Zhu Di caricature to dehumanize us
Hello! Singaporean here. Thank you. It's especially hard for us to be critical about this place because there are literally laws that allow the government to just take down anything they deem as misinformation. It's incredibly frustrating being here - in a place so unapologetically capitalist and prejudiced, full of people who don't care because they've been taught not to. It genuinely keeps me up at night. I have a lot of unkind things to say about this place and at 30 I've come to accept that I don't think there is a place on Earth where I'll feel at peace.
While i like where i live, if my family and friends were taken care of i would like to try living in Rojava or Chiapas.
Right, i agree. I hope it gets better tho esp with the rise of more politically active youth and progressive underground activist and organisation circles becoming more active and people becoming more aware.
Take down anything? If you read the Singapore comments under CNA videos, the garment's tolerance is huge. Most of it is .... disturbing.
@@espeon871
Funny treasonous loon .
No need to go "underground" to setup civic groups .
@@peekaboopeekaboo1165 ah yes. Their lives are shitty, so mine has no right to be. Understood. I'm only allowed to feel bad if I'm the most marginalised person on earth cause someone else always has it worse.
Please tell me more.
Also so what if they're Islamist?
Edit: you know what, don't answer that. I don't want to talk to you. Have a good day.
adding some stuff as a social worker in singapore: we are severely understaffed, almost always, and we earn barely enough (2k a month, i myself need 1.8k per month for expenses). we're usually looked down upon, and it's really prevalent when we see the government handing out social service funding like prize money instead of like. an actual necessity. "meritocracy" is a concept held in the hands of the government and the ruling class
Thats actually so sad, i didnt know! Omg, thats so horrible for people who are actively helping people.
understaffed, underpaid, under-appreciated. & maybe the entire structure of it all is colonial/patronising too. TCJ calling Jamus for being "fucking populist" when Jamus suggests merely making the process less Byzantine. Why is it so difficult to understand ppl are trying their best in the ways that they can?
When you understand how much medical trauma there is buried in this country, ppl will understand that "meritocracy" is a lie. So many ppl are walking around with missed diagnoses & struggling their whole lives, not understanding why. so much medical "unknown unknown" still
Thank you for all the hard work you're doing. You're criminally underpaid considering how expensive Singapore is to live in... I recently visited Singapore for the first time and it was really fascinating, but it definitely reminded me a little of (a cleaner) new york city, where the wealth disparity is jarringly obvious and exploitation of workers is high.
Underpaid, under appreciated and over worked seems mostly universal for social services :( thank you for everything you do to help people! Social workers are the modern hero’s :)
Which makes me wonder how social work in poly has such a low cut off point with the low salary and all
There's more to the Singapore in Malaysia part than that. Lee Kuan Yew's party People's Action Party believed that Singapore's future lay with Malaya because they believed that reuniting with Malaya would benefit the economy by creating a common market, alleviating unemployment woes. But the communist wing of PAP was against this, and so they split off and formed the Barisan Sosialis party in 1961 (which later merged with the Workers' Party in 1988). In 1956, Lee supported a purge by the Labour Front of suspected "leftists" in the aftermath of the Chinese middle school riots, with arrests including his PAP rival Lim Chin Siong (in 1963, Lee launched Operation Coldstore to round more communists up). The ruling party of Malaya, the United Malays National Organisation or UMNO, was staunchly anti-communist and while initially skeptical of merger due to distrust of PAP and concern that the Chinese Singaporean population would alter the racial balance in Malaya on which their political power base depended, became supportive due to fear of communism. UMNO supports Malays being granted special rights, while Lee Kuan Yew coined the term "Malaysian Malaysia" for his stance of a Malaysia for everyone, distinguishing nationality from ethnicity.
When the federation was proposed in 1961, UMNO leaders believed that the additional Malay population in the Bornean territories would balance Singapore's Chinese population. Indonesian president Sukarno however opposed Malaysia's formation and launched Konfrontasi. In March 1965, a bomb planted by Indonesians at Singapore's MacDonald House exploded, killing three people and injuring 33 others. Even after the merger, the Singaporean government and the Malaysian central government disagreed on many political and economic issues. Despite an agreement to establish a common market, Singapore continued to face restrictions when trading with the rest of Malaysia. In retaliation, Singapore did not extend to Sabah and Sarawak the full extent of the loans agreed to for economic development of the two eastern states. Talks soon broke down, and abusive speeches and writing became rife on both sides. This led to the 1964 race riots you mentioned, and thus seeing no alternative to the intense situation, Malaysian parliament voted for Singapore to be expelled in August 1965.
Was thinking why Singapore didn't get independence together with Malaya on 31 Aug 1957, but instead got self-governance separately 2 yrs later
So this is obviously not an issue that only happens in Singapore, but there is an overall hostility towards the arts here - if not hostility, then it's definitely looked down upon. Lee Kuan Yew famously said "Singapore doesn't have the luxury of poetry", and it seems that attitude has never really gone away (ironic because there is a stage musical about Lee Kuan Yew called LKY the Musical). There is an arts scene, and there are many very talented people here, but they often have their aspirations crushed out of them early. As in all capitalistic societies, there is a fixation on income as a gauge of a person's worth - to many people here, it's the only gauge of a person's worth. You're looked down upon if you aren't in medicine, law or finance (the finance industry being especially fetishised here now). So "you can't make money in the arts" becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Recently, Singapore struck an exclusivity deal with Taylor Swift to ensure she would perform in Singapore and in no other Southeast Asian countries on the Eras Tour, so Singapore wants the economic results of the arts, but doesn't want the arts themselves. The arts exist to the extent that they can serve the government and disseminate their message: anyone working in the arts in Singapore will have directly or indirectly worked for the government, and most filmmakers have made films and short films commissioned by the government even if they don't agree with the government. There is also at least some connection to how artists can have dissenting ideas and can present them effectively and persuasively, which is something the Singapore government wants to tamp down as much as possible, as mentioned in the video in the context of Operation Spectrum.
i agree. I was an aspiring art student that wanted to learn something along the lines of graphic design and etc but i was put down, judged and questioned alot by my family members so i had to take a turn into architecture which isnt that bad but not what i really wanted. Many look down on our local art and media scenes and its really sad because there are some really talented people that wont be able to shine here. Its always STEM areas that parents want their children to be in and many singaporeans hence never came to appreciate the arts
this is very well written,thank you for articulating
This addition veers a bit away from Jedd's point, but something I feel important to note to is that Singapore-produced media is very heavily regulated since the major film corporation in Singapore, Mediacorp, is state-owned. It's very easy, especially for the elderly that probably only scrolls through Channel U or Channel 8 to only consume what the government allows. Similarly, our newspapers, the second source of information, is also, surprise surprise, state-owned. There's a lot of control the government have in the soft powers they have towards the mindsets of Singaporeans (because of the we believe what we consume yadda yadda) so sometimes when they say one thing, like "we don't care about people's personal lives" in reference to the lgbt folks, they can very discretely prove otherwise by slapping mature warnings over any lgbt media, even if it's the smallest of things (buzz lightyear movie getting a NC16 warning because of "portrayal of homosexuality" when it was really just a 3s background kiss scene at the end of the movie), just to blow the "severity" of the situation out of proportions and make it worse/more vile than it seems.
But of course, because of how controlled the media produced by Singapore is, the products that come out of Mediacorp has kind of a "bad" reputation (plays very safe, even when it comes to film technicalities like scriptwriting, choice of angles, editing etc etc) so many creatives looking for work tend to not want to work for them either (in the film industry here in singapore, it's an insult to have your film be compared to mediacorp), but they don't really have much of a choice anyways because the art industry is very unstable here in Singapore. The pay is low, and the only major player in this industry which can at least guarantee some pay is Mediacorp so 🤷♀. In addition to this, there's this odd mentality Singaporean has that anything western/east asian is better than locally made products, so even when there are good locally produced films, it does poorly within the country (again, points back to the point raised by Jedd of how the government's rather anti-art mentality trickles down to its citizens).
I'm just really lucky to have been born into a family who has found success in their respective creative fields. Honestly, if it wasn't for their own experiences, I don't think I would've been given this chance to continue following my passion till this day (current an art student in uni).
@@Glibbard Thank you for adding this context. I think the points you made about how difficult it is to make films and TV series in Singapore and how most local audiences' perceptions of local productions are primed to be negative are really good. It just feels like a self-perpetuating cycle that's difficult to escape from. The entities in Singapore that should be helping to nurture it instead seem to function mainly to curtail it.
I think another thing that's funny is that there are two main media entities, MediaCorp and Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), both of which are state-owned. MediaCorp mainly focuses on TV and film while SPH mainly focuses on publishing and publishes the main broadsheet newspapers, but there are overlaps (both operate radio stations and have news arms). There is a rivalry between them (SPH radio DJs cannot host the National Day Parade, which is broadcast by MediaCorp) when most people wouldn't even treat them as separate companies because both are controlled by the state.
well-put. don't forget the infamous IMDA (infocomm media development authority; essentially the government media censors) which have policies in place that disallow favourable portrayals of LGBTQ+ people in local media and who read through theatre scripts before they reach production to make sure they don't contain inflammatory material -- alfian sa'at has a great play out about IMDA censorship singapore theatre going on right now.
tw: sexual assault
i'm a singaporean citizen, and the story abt harvey reminded me of my own sexual assault case. when i approached the police, they at first turned me away. they didnt want to entertain my report. but i kept coming and coming, adamant about reporting my perpetrator. when i reported it, i was basically asked really victim blamey questions, like what i was wearing, how did i found myself in that situation, etc. the actual investigation process stretched out for nearly two years, and when i had to testify in court, i was retraumatised again by the judicial system while trying to testify my story against my abuser. in general, sexual assault is really not taken seriously in sg. on the surface sg seems safe, but hell for women and minorities.
Not down playing your SA. But if you think it is "hell for women and minorities" in Singapore, may i know which country would you ever feel safe?
Also, Singapore has recently convicted a few false SA accusers for trying to destroying their former partner's lives. Hence, there is more caution in their investigations whenever a SA case is reported. That said, "what you were wearing" and "how did u found yourself in that situation" are pretty valid questions to ask, no? You can't expect the police to solve the case if you refuse to answers questions the event that you specifically come to the police station to report.
@@pingdragonify That’s not okay though.
The question “what are you wearing?” doesn’t matter, it’s shifting blame of the horrendous crime to the victim, that’s not an appropriate question.
It also implies that it’s her fault a man SA’d her 🤨
Men are NOT rabid, wild dogs with no self control, it’s not hard to keep your hands to yourself.
In her account , the police weren’t taking her seriously and ignored her repeated attempts to report it. She should be afforded the same courtesy that every citizen has, the police sound corrupt and uncaring here.
Just because a couple people have lied about SA doesn’t mean the authorities should just automatically assume she’s lying for money and/or attention, that’s basically stereotyping ALL victims.
@@pingdragonifythanks for saying “not trying to downplay my SA” while effectively downplaying my experience. no one should ever come to you for support because of your devils advocate personality u got going. why don’t you put urself in my shoes for a second: if you fell down, let’s say, and your knees bled. someone knocked you over and you got injured. you go to the doctor, someone who you would trust will help you through your injury. and instead of immediately helping to treat you, the first thing they decide is to ask you: what did you do to make your knees bleed? what did you do to make this person knock you over?
would you feel taken care of? would you feel safe in that moment, if your knees continued to bleed and the doctor is only asking you questions and dismissing your injury?
as for my comment abt singapore being hell - i still stand by that, because you clearly have never experienced discomfort in ur own home country. women in singapore are harassed and assaulted constantly. just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. as a matter of fact you denying this reality for me is literally contributing to the problem. our cases are always dismissed, made fun of, we are manipulated and gaslighted into singapore’s safety that women do not want to speak up about it. obviously there are worse places to be in i don’t deny that but understand that this is a reality we go through.
you are clearly an insensitive and entitled person and i hope you think twice before speaking if someone is sharing their own experience on something as serious as sexual assault. i was a minor when my abuser did it and still the police dismissed me. a minor. a child. do i need to pull up my police statement for you to believe me? do i need to give you my clothes, show you my abusers track record of horrendous crimes and abuse? what will qualify my experience for you valid? please let me know.
@@duniaghaibkuYour analogy makes 0 sense. A doctor has 100% valid reason to ask you where you got your injury. I fell down Vs I got bitten by a dog.
Fine, let's say the police are in the wrong here. How would you have approached the victim to get information from the SA they are reporting? How will you question them knowing that false SA accusations is also a possibility? We literally have a 12 year old falsely accusing his father of SA here in a recent case. There are also 3 cases on the top of my head where the women were convicted for lying to court about their false accusations of SA. You are a strong person that managed to follow through with your case, make no mistake, but the police and the courts needs as much information as possible to help you. A plain accusation without proof or evidence is not enough to convict.
That said you did go to court in 2 years after reporting the incident, which is pretty fast. If the police were dismissive to your case, would you think that you saw justice in 2 years?
Also, no my question wasn't if you think Singapore is a safe place (u already made up your mind). My question is which country on earth would you feel safe in if you think Singapore is hell on earth?
@@PurpleNoirthe investigation was closed after 2 years with the culprit getting convicted. As someone with friends with a former IO, that is very fast especially for a SA case. If the police were indeed corrupt or uncaring she wouldn't have seen justice and her abuser would be walking free right now.
That was the whole point, the question posed by the police helped her case. The only failings I see here is that the police were cold and tactless in their questioning of the victim.
crazy how if an actual singaporean was the one who make this video they will definitely get in trouble 😭😭
well... according to the government as long as everything is factual you'd be safe from POFMA...
The video would magically disappear 👀
Singapore and Dubai have alot of parallels. When I lived in Dubai, one of my close friends was Singaporean Tamil and Kashmiri muslim. He served in NS in the undercover department as well and would tell me about the blatant racism he'd face from the ethnic chinese majority for his dark skin within the force. I was speaking with my wife just the other day about the "maids" situations in both Singapore and Dubai. Alot of our friends had live-in maids and we always wondered how their own kids were faring. It was one of the long list of things i never accepted about Dubai.
hey I dont live in dubai but my mom grew up in apartheid south africa and brought that mentality when highering for the woman that raised me, I no longer speak to my parents, it nauseates me how they treated and thought about people, and due to that mentality child abuse for them became a lot easier, so it also gave me quite a bit of PTSD, remember if the culture acts like that, the whole idea of personhood gets denigrated and kids become pets, and people mistreat their pets all the dam time
@@AnthemUnanthemed really happy for you recognizing this humanity that others were blatantly overlooking in front of you :) sorry to hear about the challenges you face due to that upbringing. But hope you find some happiness and peace in knowing your kindness towards others✌🏼
Yeah I hope to find more resources on the Dubai issues as well! I thought about the labor force struggles and discrimination of Dubai a lot when watching this video. Seems the two small countries have ended up in pretty parallel situations despite being across the world. I know many countries have these struggles passed down especially from colonialism. But seems these smaller wealthy countries are able to be pretty blatant a with classism, racism and exploitation of different groups.
yepppp sgreans (esp teens) display blatant racism with no shame since they’re very exposed to socmed and don’t face the consequences they should be since there’s really no one around to educate them. Casual racism is so common here.
I'm glad I wasn't the only one in the comments that noticed the parallels!
As someone who’s thinking of moving abroad, it’s a futile exercise because dealing with bigotry is a universal experience. Also, I’m constantly thinking about brain drain.
I see you everywhere
@@sahasraillindra Hello! Nice to meet you!
Move abroad from where?
Bigotry might be a universal thing, but there are places that are better than others.
I’d like to believe my home country is pretty good.
@@tikimilliewhat’s your home country?
@@PeoplepersonOG not about to dox myself but its in northern europe
Its cold as shit
Yeah, the whole Singapore trip my family and I went to was based around “So clean, so safe, no chewing gum”
And then I saw the non-affluent South Asians so I knew what was up.
Right, also as a singaporean holy shit the elitism is crazy, also racism. Its more implicit that goes into explicit, esp towards minorities who are non chinese or east asian or like even white western like eg, south east asian, south asian etc. Im south east asian and burmese at that so its like equally jarring cuz a lot of south asians and south east asians lead similar lives esp if they immigrated recently as labourers. My parents immigrated to sg pretty early so im fortunate enough to live a good life as a PR to naturalised citizen since i was born here but yeah the income disparity, elitism, and racism, and also exploitation of workers and justice system regarding foreigners suck. Like eg my parents cant get a divorce in sg since they werent married on sg soil so a lot of crimes that are commited against foreigners and even by foreigners wont be dealt with, esp if its against one another so foreigners or stuff like exploitation so if the foreigners are very very screwed since if they came from a bad bg they cannot get stuff done mostly since again, they cant go back, also recently a drag queen got beat up and the comments of the article posted to mainstream sg news is so scary but luckily our drag and queer and ballroom community are tight knit. Singapore had awesome infrastructure, good education, and great sights and cool people, but it also has systemic issues like everywhere else and MUST be addressed.
@@espeon871 I'm not really sure what the point of this video is.
The things that Singapore does better than other places are its selling points.
The problems that Singapore has - elitism / racism / cost of living are problems that also exist everywhere else. Migrant workers have a tough life but they'd have a tough life elsewhere too ie in Malaysia etc.
If you were Burmese and living in Burma, you might have spent the last few years fighting a war.
Singapore has real problems and does not hide away from the real problems that confront itself and the region. It actually conducts a conference and encourages the US and China to sit down and talk.
What is the stunning discovery that was unearthed by this video?
@@espeon871
You are not entitled to other people's land. They clearly don't like you so why do you try to force yourself in their spaces like a psychopath?
Yeah i been there with my family can’t spit on the streets can’t spit shewing gum and it’s so nice and safe
@@sieteocho Some people think SG is a utopia and this video is geared towards them. If you already think that SG is not perfect than why are you even watching?
Also its just dishonest to say SG confronts its problems. If it did, those problems would have been solved years ago because most of them have been around for decades. You're one of those SGeans who don't know how to check their privilege and it shows.
As a Singaporean, I genuinely do think that while some of the points you made are good, you are brushing over a lot of rather important aspects of Singapore's development. Specifically, I feel like it's very 'hindsight-judgment', like, gazing upon Singapore being so 'successful' now and going, "Eh, LKY wasn't THAT important". But really, forty, thirty, twenty, years ago? Singapore was very different. Singapore was much poorer. It did take a lot of work for Singapore to become what it is today. I do sincerely believe that many of our harsher policies were necessary. Anyway, yea, I disagree with what I consider to be a view that can only be taken BECAUSE Singapore is successful, and not BEFORE Singapore was successful, but I still wholly approve of you making this video and casting a light on the flaws of Singapore.
Yeah. I think he did the impossible.
Putting mentally deranged people who think that injecting hormones and Putting on a dress makes them a woman (and the other way around for ftm) isn't a flaw. It's actually a good thing.
His counter argument about the inherent inequality of humans is straight up garbage.
The only thing that might be a flaw is the migration situation. I agree it's a problem there shouldn't be any migrants at all, they are clearly a tool of the elite and should not be exploited. The way to do that is with repatriation and a tighter grip on business and closed borders. Singapore did fine without them. At best they can have like a "we only allow Chinese and east asians in" migration policy.
Overall the video is mid to bad.
Sigipore is controlled by global captial
This is the most polite disagreeing comment I have stumbled upon on the internet. Kudos to you for being a stellar example of civil discussion 👏
@found13 From a moral standpoint, no. But it's really a question we only had the capacity to ask after being successful
It's really easy to forget that even with favourable geography, Singapore wasn't guaranteed to have its success. "At what cost?" sounds deeply philosophical until you realise the turmoil and suffering a nation stuck in a vicious cycle can go through
Over the decades, many countries resort to a charismatic authoritarian that promises to solve everything. Why? There's many things I'd like Singapore to reform, but I understand at least why the older generation was willing to make that tradeoff
If anyone wants to learn more about Singapore's history, the graphic novel "The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye" is a fascinating read.
Thanks!
It's not that great, the author was a Malaysian Chinese who has a chip on his shoulder. Paints the 'Chinese educated Chinese' as the biggest victims in Singapore when what they went through is nothing compared to what Minorities go through.
@@bmno.4565
Did the minority Malay experienced race riots in Singapore ?
@@peekaboopeekaboo1165 Yes, not that it's relevant to this discussion, but both race riots in SG involved Chinese and Malays.
@@teddiespicker It was never banned.
"Singapore is Disneyland with the Death Penalty" - William Gibson
Majestic fucking quote!
That's the best you got?
America is a big Luna hospital with guns!
America has disneyland Singapore does not. US also have the death penalty.
Disney is a multinational corporation that was started by fascists
Well as someone that grew up in Singapore. I can definitely say that we are not oblivious to the problems. If there’s ever a country known for gossips and spreading of news is Singapore. The main issue isn’t solely the government, is also Singaporeans and I’m saying this as a Singaporean. We see the issues and the flaws in the system. However, majority of the nation just doesn’t care. As long as the government is taking care of 80% of the country needs, most citizens don’t care. We do voice out injustice through social media but then immediately go on with our day because all these issues don’t affect the average day Singaporean. Most of us are sympathetic but not empathetic in other words. Is Singaporean being like this the government fault, not really. I would say is the many generations before us aka our parents and our parents’ parents passing down the “Don’t kaypoh” (don’t bother with other people’s problems) mentality. Ba Sing Se maybe brainwashed but in Singapore we are taught to read between the lines, compare sources and to be critical or what we read or learn (Is a subject we learn in secondary school, social studies). We aren’t gullible pawns of the government, but we frankly speaking don’t want to actively make changes either because “their” problem isn’t “my” problem mentality. Which is perfect for what you would call a dictatorship. Of course if the problem effects us, we do voice it out and 9 times out of 10, if the problem effects majority of Singaporean it will be fix. The silencing of the minority isn’t done by the government, is more of other Singaporean inaction of pushing this issue to the government, because is not and immediate issue to us.
Example of singaporean voicing out issues is the political issues ex transport minister S. Iswaran. If it effects us we care, if it doesn’t directly effect us we care but not enough to argue for it.
This video is great, but is very one sided and biased. Which I believe is the intent, trying to show Singapore’s issues. These are problems that should be fixed and can be fixed if more Singaporean speaks up. (I’m also not saying that Singaporeans don’t want this issues to be fixed, we do but not everyone wants to actively take part in fixing it. Is like a case of oh dang someone littered on the ground, I pick up the trash and help dispose of it properly but nah) but nonetheless the video serves it purpose and serves it well. To educate those outside of Singapore that Singapore is not all rainbows and sunshine. Like every other country in the world is not prefect, is just better than most others.
And also feel free to argue and share opinions, what I say is not true for everyone, that’s what I was taught in social studies, to critique and think for myself, so should you.
well... let's see if this new generation of PAP will survive... this is basically the first generation without the Pioneer Generation in the politics (LKY and GCT announced their retirement almost 10 years ago, pre COVID) to essentially hand hold them to success...
As GE result goes, the popular vote for PAP is going down as a general trend, outside of factors like COVID and the passing of LKY. Much to see if the Opposition can become more developed and more successful, but not becoming like the American politics or western politics in general...
Was wondering how far I have to scroll down before I find a comment like this.
This video is actually proof that Singapore as a country is doing well. Struggling neighbors in SEA don't have the luxury to complain about the "inequalities and injustices" covered here. I'm a public school teacher more than half of my teen students would trade a limb to be able to live in a country where 80% of their needs are well taken care of so long as they bear the daily grind. Hahahhahahahahhahaha!!!
😈
Oh. And Basing Sei didn't have the back story of being dirt poor, who, in less than a century, clawed its way up to become the great power it is.
@@meownezz The problem with Singapore isn't crime or poverty. It's that it makes Left fascists look bad.
So basically it’s a lot like the US. 80% of your needs are met so most people just don’t complain. We’re all pretty aware of a lot of the problems going on in the US but if it doesn’t directly affect a lot of people, nobody will care. We just have a lot more school shootings than Singapore does.
@@meownezzas a filipino-chinese raised in singapore, i can 100% confirm this. considering how much messier the political climate is in the philippines, many filipinos would prefer to live literally anywhere else in the world, and that includes singapore.
hey, i stumbled upon this video as a singaporean. i already knew around 60% of what you covered, but the 40% i didnt know was really eye-opening to me. especially operation high tide. thank you elliot, ori and carissa for this video ❤
@@thotslayer9914 nope i'm still here. but a lot of what was covered isn't featured on mainstream or other forms of accessible media. definitely going to try and find more platforms where these things are discussed!
@@thotslayer9914 i'm still a student. but if there's a chance i can work or study overseas, i'd love the opportunity :)
@@thotslayer9914 the standard of living is high in singapore, all things considered. so i still consider myself very fortunate to be living where i am. i hope things get better for you :)
@@thotslayer9914😳 of course singapore has its flaws. glaring flaws. its honestly sickening to see some of the news and how certain groups of people are being treated here. all i’m saying is i recognize that my life has been very, very fortunate compared to other people. but i’ll always be fighting for better treatment of marginalized groups and for various systems to be changed. my country has been good to me, and i will strive to ensure it can be as good to others.
singaporean here. the thing is a lot of us know that singapore has a very dark underlying history and there are a lot of things wrong with it. but majority of people don’t want to fix. their mindset is as long as it doesn’t affect them they don’t care. this is an engrained and conditioned kinda mindset from generations and generations ago so is very hard to let go now. even as a youth i see other youth just perpetuating this no-care attitude and discriminatory behaviours. it makes me sad why are we as a people so selfish. if i could leave most likely i would. only good thing about this place is the public transport LOL
I think Asians generally are brought up to mind their own business more, which in some cases can be detrimental e.g. an expat was infuriated in 2009 when no one stopped a couple from fighting in public, but a passer-by stopped the expat from intervening. I also saw a classmate curse another classmate over some football club rivalry, & she told me "shut up if you don't know anything" when I mediated
as a singaporean, i fully agree, i feel like singaporean meritocracy is less of a measure of absolute talent and hard work, but instead a measure of how well a person fits in a certain government created mold
You say that like you think there's a different kind of meritocracy out there
@@amazinggrapes3045
For perspective, in Shenzhen meritocracy manifest as the person who is the best at delivering what the market (customer) wants wins. It's about serving the market not conforming to a system.
The cons are that people ignore IP and steal ideas in order to win.
As a Singaporean myself, I noticed that when Singaporeans are presented with arguments that go against their worldview, they become extremely defensive.
Instead of engaging with the arguments and refuting them with logical rebuttals, the common emotionally charged refrain is "X is how things are done here. If you don't like X, no one's stopping you from leaving". Not only is that highly callous and dismissive (not taking into consideration that sometimes people just can't leave the country), it simply silences discourse. How is it that we can improve anything in Singapore if we keep accepting things for the way they are or telling people to leave if they don't like it here?
There is this general attitude of defeatism and helplessness mixed together with this misplaced sense of gratitude and pride. Complaining = being ungrateful. This, I feel, engenders a very discouraging and toxic climate. It is an attitude that reinforces the dominant discourse, encourages conformity, and marginalizes minorities. Worst of all, it prevents change for the better as no one seems to want to even begin by acknowledging the flaws in our country, regardless of what they are. If we love our country, we should find ways of making it better together instead of coming up with reasons why it's already as good as it can get. I feel that the old adage of "pride comes before a fall" is extremely pertinent here.
This, I feel, is one of the reasons many young Singaporeans feel like they don't have a stake in their own country. I just worry for our country, because many young Singaporeans, many who care, are indeed taking the advice and are leaving the country (at an alarming rate). Be careful what you wish for.
Just had to get that off my chest, because I'm starting not to care too.
Singaporean in her mid 20s here, and i empathize with you! I personally know the kinds of people you were talking out, and then later complaining about the very things we have grievances for. They just don't want to put in the work, or are guilty they missed their chance and are too stubborn to pick stuff up now. But we mustn't give up hope. The key is finding people with the right mindset as you, and hopefully, those same people will give you a chance to share your voice in an avenue where you'll be heard. Honestly, even letting your thoughts be known publicly on social media is better than nothing. If we're being told by those weirdos to shut up and bear it, then the logical way forward is to keep making noise
Wow, Singapore is just like my childhood home with my parents!
Had a friend who wouldn't shut up about moving to Singapore wondering if they were an example of a "good" dictatorship 👍
It's always a good dictatorship when people can envision themselves on the side of the dictator and not as one of the victims. You'd think adults would have more self awareness, but apparently it's pretty rare.
@@IshtarNikeremember those adults may have grown up under the « dictatorship » of authoritarian parents and/or teachers, which may have normalized such things for them.
LKY had some dictatorial traits. But he was a well-meaning man, and I personally believe he did every second what he was convinced to be good for Singapore.
If you did not notice yet, what is now is much softened already. I can not call it a dictatorship, it is what is called a strict democracy.
@@krollpeter I'm not even gonna argue with you lil bro. "Strict democracy" is crazy. Ngl tho I love the creativity
@@krollpeterreplace LKY with Hitler and Singapore with Germany and your comment would still be true, yk.
Also wtf is a strict democracy? Either people are free to vote and voice their opinions and have all that stuff (democracy) or they're not (no democracy). A more fitting name would be "dictatorship with very occasional elections"
~8:00 "Coolie" is actually more neutral in India, it can be offensive in some contexts but is also still used as a job title for certain people, particularly people who transport luggage at train stations. It's a lot closer to being a slur in other countries where a lot of "coolie" laborers were imported, like South Africa and various Caribbean and Southeast Asian countries.
in indonesia the word coolie / kuli itself isnt exactly offensive. it sounds offensive just like the word janitor, etc because the job is mostly done by low-class people.
NOT ANTHONY BOURDAIN GAGGING GUESTS WITH THE BOURGEOIS CALL OUT
That was funny AF lmfao
@PokhrajRoy
Honestly.
He _said_ he was kidding, but he was _just _*_mostly_* kidding... -right?-
@@ivoryas1696 He was definitely not kidding.
Ok but the scowls on their faceeee - sent me 💀
Bourdain projecting harder than a movie theater? Very common
As a singaporean- dude, damn yeah. However we do have a good bds movement and a lot of underground activist circles and activity circles also, the most disheartening thing abt being from sg is how mainstream it is for people to have weird implicit biases abt minorities, also weird elitism and people treating foreign workers like maids like indentured servants. Esp as someone who a singaporean by birth but parents migrated here. Also foreign workers are exploited and treated like shit only for some losers to go and talk smack abt the foreign workers who took the jobs, and lower wage levels and higher work times, that no one wanted or is persuaded to do and become, only to be blamed for a lack of domestic manpower when the system incentivises white collar jobs and makes everyone since day one aim for it exclusively even with exclusive jc and uni affiliated sec schools. If ure a labourer in singapore ure seen in a very low light since ure seen as uneducated or cannot make it. Which sucks. All workers in sg deserve better treatment, esp foreign workers and blue collar workers, like live in maids.
@@thotslayer9914 I'm a singaporean who's been planning to move overseas during my college/uni years, but to be frank, it's not really that good because singapore has an amazing infrastructure. societal problems aside, there is merit when people say that singapore is good because the healthcare system here is amazing, their subsidies aren't as amazing but still offer the citizens an alternative to being in debt,, the public transport is very well funded and thus covers a good major chunk of our country, and the education system is probably one of the best (and stressful) of asia major as a whole. So I can see why another singaporean who carries the same dislike and distaste in the government as me but does not have the safety net of being from the upper middle class (which I admit I have) would choose to stay here. it's already pretty good here in comparison to another country like the US, which is well known for it's overly privatised healthcare system putting people into debt and lack of regulation in country-wide and even state-wide education.
It's interesting that there are cool underground movements there! Hoping they score some victories!
"implicit biases" happen to every race, and also happen everywhere in the world. You must be pretty naive if you think some country is 100% free from this. Goes to show you probably never traveled the world. Also, proof that society "treats foreign workers like maids like indentured servants" is a bold and exaggerated claim from someone who knows nothing. 🤣
@Darkest_templar 💀
@@kv9016 no i dont think sg is the only place that has implicit bias but it is a place where some people are openly showing it, like when a malay person is like im from a jc or a top school people will be like proof? While a chinese person can say similar and no one will be like proof?? You seem to be fuelled by jingoistic pride rather than actual fact for this counter, when did i say sg was the only place with these issues?? Also foreign workers in singapore are treated poorly, read the news?? Read the actual reports on their poor treatment, also the way maids are treated by their employers like theyre just people always on stand by for them and not legit people doing a job is a very real thing, i saw with my two eyes and have read abt. The fact that theres multiple tragic stories of helpers and workers, although law eventually served them justice, it usually is too late, good on the system for coming in but bad that this work model and workers' rights in sg for some higly privatised fields is not to the extent where safety on the job is prioritised like in more regulated and public fields is concerning. Saying all this because i love singapore and i want it to be better, its great, so i want it to be greater for the people in the country who make it.
Every “utopia” is built on a mountain of bones.
"When you expose a problem, you pose a problem." - Sarah Ahmed
So true. I have seen this happen in my own country. People with hope to make life better either die or the hope in them dies. The power imbalance is too great. 😢
this reminded me of a critique i read a long time ago on how though _crazy rich asians_ is praised as a win for representation, it comes at the expense of the erasure of asian minorities in singapore. i didn't know anything about the country when i watched the movie, -- and of course i didn't see it as some sort of comprehensive education on the place -- but with my lack of understanding on class division in other parts of the world at the time of me watching it and my general lack of general inquisitiveness for some narratives i’d absorbed in my day-to-day life (especially in some media), had i not read that piece i wouldn't have thought that deeply about the movie's exclusion of the working class in order to tell its story and what effect that has on real people's perception of singapore. coming across that critique really opened my eyes to how it's so easy and subtle to influence people's understanding of other places and invisibilize marginalized classes, and helped me realize how important it is to always be challenging my own thinking.
this topic/video also made me think about how you'll hear some (u.s. american) people laud canada as "better" than the u.s., but that comes at the expense of, for instance, invisibilizing its subjugation of first nations people; how nyc has a rep, especially online, as being a place only the ultra rich and influencer types can afford to live in, and this erases the existence of the many working class people who live here (there's a really good tiktok by @c.a.i.t.l.y.n that talks about this). it's just so interesting to think about how much visibility and lack thereof -- through interpersonal discourse, in movies, on social media, from the showboating mouths of politicians -- not only obscures reality but, in popular imagination, _creates_ it.
all this to say, this topic/video was just a good reminder to be critical, to question the most dominant narratives, and to hold space for the fact that there are always people who are being oppressed. just because we can't always "see it" doesn’t mean they don't exist, and it's important to prioritize trying to give them that visibility, even if it's just to improve our own personal understanding.
but yeah great video! and so much respect and appreciation to ori and carissa for sharing their knowledge and time.
As a South Asian who cried watching CRA because I could relate to the family dynamics so much, I also had to cry during the one moment of screen time that South Asian Singaporeans got-when Awkwafina’s character freaks out at the mansion’s security guards. On further reflection, I realized that the scene had the potential to critique the society of Chinese Singaporeans, because it was making fun of the overblown racist reaction. I felt so conflicted. On one hand, the movie and book are exactly what they say on the tin, focusing on the “crazy rich” folks. Honesty is better than depicting lies about how minorities are treated. On the other hand, the wildly xenophobic action is just laughed off, and no one treats her like a terrifying bigot or even asks her to change. It’s messy.
this topic/video also made me think about how you'll hear some (u.s. american) people laud canada as "better" than the u.s., but that comes at the expense of, for instance, invisibilizing its subjugation of first nations people; Well the US not only invisibilise First Nations it also has crappy everything else so yeah objectively Canada is better than the US.
@@sasentaiko My relative was also likely disappointed that Crazy Rich Asians was probably guilty of Orientalism, like older Western-made movies about Asia, with some decor in the houses being more traditional/over the top than what Singaporeans expect. Might be a reason that SIA didn't want to be featured in this movie, with the aircraft featured in the movie branded as "Pacific Eastern Airlines" instead
I think the lack of representation from other Asians is spot on with the story itself. CRA is a story about a bunch of rich elitist specific type of asians who not only look down on other asians but even one of their own, just bc she's a poor ABC raise by a single mom
I don't know why anyone expecting a movie called "crazy rich Asians" not to be racist.
I view that the explanation of the exit of Singapore from Malaysia was a bit too simplistic. It was far more than just Malaysia not wanting to accommodate Singapore but rather the fear that LKY’s populist stance would threaten the Malay hegemony in Malaysia. The irony however was that the decision of Tunku Abdul Rahman to remove Singapore was in order to reduce tendencies of racial tensions. Between those who supported LKY’s multiracial stance (the Chinese) vs the pro-Malay hegemony stance (the Malays), the consensus was that by the 1969 elections, LKY’s populist idea,a would have caused too much tension between the Chinese and the Malays. Yet in 1969, the same populist ideas were propagated by Gerakan (a Malaysian party) which resulted in riots anyways.
LKY by no means truly wanted for a fair and equitable society for the races in Singapore, but one thing for sure is that he was a populist and at the time there was genuinely a divide between multiracial Malaysia and a Malay Malaysia and Singapore was of the former. But the true irony is how LKY enabled majoritarian politics which has trickled down into a privileged Chinese class, not so different than the privileged Malay class in Malaysia. Hence you see the stark differences between Chinese Malaysians and Singaporean Malaysians.
TBH the pre-merger part was often overlooked. Even on the social studies textbooks... it's almost always "something something Malaysian Malaysia something something" and ... the end.
As a Finn I can attest to the neutralizing effect of having your sense of self tied to your country being the paragon of peace and virtue. We are conditioned from childhood to firmly believe in our social democracy being the best framework there is, or ever could be. It doesn't help when foreign socdems point to us as the ideal. The conditioning is so deep that someone suggesting otherwise feels like a personal assault.
Our current regime, a natural alliance between rabid neoliberals, ethnonationalists and Christian conservatives, is hurrying the decades-long project of dividing and conquering the people with inhuman cuts, but criticism of these policies or the ideology behind them is widely considered unpatriotic.
I imagine Singaporeans, also in a country that serves as a capitalist lackey at the edge of the Empire, might be in a similar trap of deliberate cultural conditioning. Capitalism makes all societies milkshakes made with feces; social democracy and its ilk make us compete on who has the most sprinkles in an effort to keep us from deciding that milkshakes shouldn't contain any feces.
The struggle is international, and thanks for shedding more light on it!
Oxymoron
👏👏👏
My entire grandma's side of the family are Indian Tamils who migrated in the early 1900s to Malaysia and Singapore, but my grandma's dad, who worked on rubber plantations there, and later as a bank teller, eventually decided to move his family back to India, although my grandma's extended family were still in Malaysia and Singapore, and remain there to this day.
I was always fascinated by this side of my heritage, since my family never talks about what life was like in Malaysia and Singapore. So thank you for making a video shedding a light on the situation in Singapore. I found it very educational.
Hmmm
Some other problems of singapore include:
1. That one time in 2021 when a trans student named ash Lee was forbidden from socially transitioning despite (not allowed to use female bathroom and low-key forbade from going to school). When people brought it up it turned out that the school policy is to our students to their parents (though anecdotally not all teachers follow this rule).
2. When a couple of people protested the treatment of Harvey and operation high tide at pink dot 2023 (Singapore pride) pink dot shut them down and released a statement that implied that they were homophobic, which is very in line with you “there is no war in Singapore “ thesis.
3. In April 2022 the state executed a severely mentally disabled man for being a drug mule.
4. The ministry of education recently forced schools to do a presentation on the situation in Gaza and spread the misinformation that Hamas did not recognise Israel and wanted it gone.
Excellent video. Thanks for shedding light on the situation.
Side note: One of the Singaporean churches (Church of our saviour specifically) mentioned in the operation high tide thing once tried to infiltrate the biggest local woman’s rights organisation (luckily they failed) to make it more homophobic and used to run pray the away conversion therapy (though they always denied that what they did constituted conversion therapy).
beauracracy
Re: 4, well yes it's an illegal entity, an occupier, a gen 0 cider. Which is why we say from the rvr to the seeaaa, falasteeeeen will be free, free free.
Yep, thats very unfortunate, also shows how messed up biases and systemic injustice in sg is, luckily, we have a lot of underground and strong activist circles in sg that are actively uncovering this and reporting and protesting against it. So its not that singaporeans dont care, people care but not enough care, its changing but the government and people on top need to care as much and want to change but since sg is a country thats very nationalistic too like their citizens, pr and foreigners get like diff brackets, and also capitalistic, im not so sure abt the change. However on a positive note, on of our ex presidents are very vocal abt palestinian liberation. Sg is gorgeous with great people and nature and sights and transport, so i want it to be better for all not just selected people who happen to have the privilege to go on with life here w/o visible or active oppression. Thus, we need to address and talk abt the systemic issues.
Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam was not mentally disabled. His own psychiatrist testified in court that he was not mentally disabled. Can you radical leftists leave Singapore alone. We don't like extremists on both the left and right, you guys are always unobjective and too biased to form reasonable opinions on how society should function.
Yea most sigipores don’t think those think are problem and it’s there country? Like most of the world doenst belive in tr7ansgenderism
My friend just did a study abroad in Singapore. She didn't really say much about it, but I assume she didn't have a bad time for the few months she stayed. I want to send this to her in case she has anything to add, I don't hear a lot about Singapore in my day to day life, so this is so interesting.
It is interesting. Me like the naturalistic parks with monitors and the big green towers of flora.
ur really good at talking about asian countries and cultures without being fetishy or doomeristic. loved the video! ❤❤
Right!
just to add that Malaysia as a political project was, and still is, fraught with severe discriminatory practices against minorities, enshrined in the constitution, so... there is nuance with Singapore's ouster from the formation of the Malaysian state
That's the point. The leftists that helped built up Singapore, knew Lee Kuan Yew's plans to join Malaysia would fail
Just a clarification of the timeline for those that don't know about the history of the region. At least, the part of the history that is probably relevant. As such, I'll start from when the first part of what is now Malaysia gained independence in 1957.
1957 Malaya gains independence. Malaya is what is now modern day West Malaysia. Note that this does not include Singapore, which was broken off from the Straits Settlement when the rest of the Straits Settlement was merged with Malaya so that the British get to keep a colony there.
1963 after a whole lot of things happened in the past three years, (it's a lot, but it doesn't involve exchange of territory so I'm leaving it out) Malaysia was formed by the merger of all of the British part of Borneo with the exception of Brunei (what is now East Malaysia) and Singapore. (what is now still Singapore) The Sultan of Brunei decided not to join in the formation of Malaysia and will remain a British colony for the next few decades. Yes, decades without exaggeration.
1965 Singapore was ousted from Malaysia as a temporary measure due to a matter I'm not too sure of. It may have had to do with Lee Kuan Yew's party joining elections outside Singapore. It may have been something else altogether.
Present The temporary measure has long been forgotten by the mass populace to be a temporary measure.
Oh no, the reason was race riots, and it was not temporary. When Malaya was granted independence in 1957, the Malay majority were allowed a provision in the constitution to enact "privileges" for Malays and aboriginals over other races. Singapore was petitioned to join Malaysia for historical cultural ties, and finally joined in 1963, but had problems with the Malay Supremacy clause due to its Chinese majority population. Race riots broke out, and Singapore was ejected due to irreconcilable differences, the divorce of the century. (Malaysia would break out its own race riots at the end of the decade for the same reasons.)
@@fangjiunnewe3634 From what I know, both leaders at the time considered reuniting the newly split countries sometime in the future, but it never happened.
@@fredrickcampbell8198 I don't recall that at all, and being a Malaysian who went to school in Singapore, that's something that at least one side would have made a lot of hay out of. Look up the Albatross Files btw which was recently declassified (10 years ago) which detailed how both sides already came to agree that a split was necessary and secret negotiations took place before the "tearful televised explosion announcement by LKY". They were pretty clearheaded on the futility of the union.
Bourdain was NOT joking at 17:10 😂😂 informative and excellent video as always man
lol he definitely just noticed he pushed it a little too far and was freaking them out when he said communist stuff
Bourdain was a real one. RIP
@@notarabbit1752 The icy silence after said that was hilarious and authentic because talking communism is one way to get in big big trouble in most SEA countries to this day
he went off on a crazy tangent, obviously people just laugh it off. i wouldn't even have heard half of it
@@seancatacombs
Mainly in Brunei, Malaysia and Indonesia .
I think most people in South East Asia already knew LOOONG time ago that Singapore is a police state. They made a shirt about it as souvenirs. You barely see them but they are always watching.
50:48 It would be amazing if you could talk about the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. I'm Chilean, and today a lot of right-wing politicians and commentators are pushing the idea that Pinochet's rule was justified and beneficial. Eitherway, awesome video. Thanks for bringing awareness to issues of this sort.
That is insane omg, i also do hope to see more chilean focused videos like this
same with the Trujillo Dictatorship and really how it paved way to 20th century dictatorships like Pinochet I know Elliot being from a Dominican background like myself would like to talk about it
same with the philippines and ferdinand marcos's martial law during the 70s. it's mostly the masses who think that his rule was justified and beneficial as well.
@@bohoasa he tried to fix hispaniola stay mad bro
Read that younger people in the Phillippines & Indonesia might also have a more favourable interpretation of past dictatorships (Marcos & Suharto), maybe due to the economic growth then, allowing Marcos Jr. & Prabowo (who was a general during Suharto's rule & suspected to be behind the disappearances of some people) to win their latest presidential elections
For a start, I feel our migrant workers seriously need more rights and protection. Other than 1 day off a week (which can be bought out), I just learned live in domestic helpers are only entitled to 7 hours of uninterrupted rest each day.
My own 9-6 sometimes already drive me up the wall, having to be on standby to serve my employer for 17 hours is so unfathomable.
I had a friend from Singapore who is ethnically Malay, and the stories she told me about her school sounded so fantastical that when I was younger, I just brushed her off as exaggerating (we were preteens, after all) until we were in high school and she had to go back (something to do with her mom's immigration; I can't remember) and she would do video calls and send pictures for a while and I realized she wasn't exaggerating. The wealth disparity was just normal for her, so she didn't think to explain anything because she just saw it as a fact of life. It wasn't until I got to college that I realized that her situation wasn't unique to Singapore.
I made a friend from South Africa who told me an almost identical story about being from a relatively middle-class background, getting a scholarship to attend a "good" high school, making friends with, and getting bullied by "rich" kids. Girls from Brazil, Ethiopia, and a guy from Uruguay had very similar stories. After college, when I joined the workforce, I realized these instances of wealth inequality and rigorous enforcement of education standards with false promises of meritocracy aren't limited to the global south. It happens in America, too. Because of who my parents are and where I was born and grew up, I wasn't exposed to this until after I was an adult.
Of the people I mentioned, all of them have desperately tried to stay in the U.S. because the opportunities promised them at home didn't actually exist but because they attended University here, they've been able to build small but stable networks. There are people I've met through work who have similar experiences all over the U.S. They've worked hard, but are aware that the opportunities they've had make them the lucky ones. Their stories can be used as examples of meritocracy at work, but they all can name childhood friends who were just as if not more smart or hardworking who weren't given the same opportunities and suffered for it.
There is a war in Ba Sing Se. There is a war in Singapore. There is a war at home.
I find myself thinking a lot these days of two poems I read in high school for a WWII history class. "First They Came" by Martin Niemöller and "The Hangman" by Maurice Ogden. I hope we don't let history repeat itself again.
What kind of stories did your Singaporean friend tell you?
hi. as someone that knows Harvey personally(i even created this account to not be identified by her and her “friends”), she is not all innocent here. while i empathise on her imh r-word case, she has made many threats to many people. calling the cops on people who oppose her, actually planning to send anthrax/drug packages to her now ex-friend’s parents and threatening violence to people whom she deems traitorous. this is just my personal experience with her and her group.
get this to the top ong
Idk bout anyone else, but I noticed the same trend over and over again when it comes to male trans. Was he/she really r word or was it one sided love? I wonder I wonder 🤔
@@adambasri3397 for her r-word case, im treating it as if she really was. im just mostly here to highlight that she doesnt deserve the traction she’s getting because shes a horrible person. she does not deserve praise when she does things that she condemns.
Well, I mean you can't exactly put victims up a pedestal either.
She needs to work out on her issues. I still sympathise with her r-word case, but she really needs to improve as a person.
I feel bad for her and i hope she gets justice but while fighting for her justice its good to recognise that her as a person isnt someone to be put on a pedestal, and i hope she reflects or someone intervenes before it escalates, although we shld all still fight for justice for her tho since it means justice for all.
I am a Singaporean and thank you for making this video to create awareness and giving voice to those who speak the unpleasant truth about Singapore. ❤
As a Singaporean, I want to thank you for making this video. Our government puts great importance on maintaining Singapore’s shiny reputation, but a veneer of ignorance disguised as peace isn’t real peace. I’m disappointed in things we and our government have done, but I’m also hopeful that, with more people becoming aware of issues and speaking up, we can change our future for the better.
Since you said we could comment about places we would like you to cover... could you talk about Haiti?
on the list, will have a haiti vid by the end of summer ak espwa
hi elliot. i stay in singapore and having found out about operation high tide when it happened, i felt like speaking out was dangerous and humiliating. ur work is so important
SINGAPORE MENTIONED 🔥🔥🔥
As a Singaporean living in her undoubtedly greatest town named Yishun, there is no better place to call home. All of us are satisfied. There isn't any other opinion. We are all happy. There's nothing else we should be feeling.
What a fantastic video!!! Great summary of complex history, great balance of facts and humor, great use of visuals, great explanation of how its history ties to the modern culture. SUCH great work!
"No reported crime" ohhhhhh you know it's going to get dark
last thing I expected to see today was a video from elliot about my country lol. thank you for using your platform to highlight the issues that our own people have been grappling with for a long time.
i hope that fellow Singaporeans and others alike can gain some education on our past and present through your video and be inspired to do their own research!
A whole day and this video is still available in Singapore! Amazing
watching this in singapore 😂🙏
Goes to show how exaggerated this is lol. Just go on social media and you can see so many citizens shittalking abt govt and PAP but they didnt mysteriously disappear or get sued did they?
6 days and counting lol
@@aaastooges what's up with all the singapore hate? I get that it's the subject of the video but you would think it was the next china with all the fearmongering
@@lordbored7006 Coz the video has 0 nuances and a lot of his talking points are missing a ton of context. His only perspective of Singapore is from a very very marginalised group (Trans) that even the most liberal western countries are struggling to accept. Is it no wonder he believes Singapore is like Ba Sing Se?
The Singapore Govt probably wont give you a citizenship after this, but I'd still buy you a kopi here if you visit as a tourist.
Singapore is not a perfect utopia and much beauty foreigners see is thanks to our tourism board. In reality, despite relatively low crime rates and peaceful circumstances, Singapore is still a nation under construction. Now that there's gonna be a change in leadership, much remains to be seen and I'm excited (kind of).
Dude should've known "drinking/buying a Kopi with you" means the secret police coming up to your doorstep to take you away in SG
@@Redl1me_ Yea and I'll be sure to violate the Geneva (Suggestions) and every other human rights convention, because Singapore is considered a western country.
so same as HK government huh? Art. 23
@@PrograError as long as you've never lived a week in SG. Yea, we're a communist special administrative province. Senator Tom Cotton was right btw, so you guys dont deserve TikTok.
@@campfiresnlasgunswhat did you expect from a Chinese city lol, capitalist or communist its gonna be a authoritarian social darwinian paradise
I think there's a lot of problem with building the Singapore story on cherry-picked examples.
It is often said that if you want to find out what a man is, give him power - and by that metric Singapore could have done a lot worse than LKY.
Also, "but Hello Kitty slaps" 😂
Yeewww...
As if there's no Chinese fictional characters to choose from .
Hello kitty is Taiwanese no?
@@nicholasas7786 The character Hello Kitty is created in Japan but she is British and was Born in London
As someone who has firsthand experience of being in a anti- LGBTQ church in Singapore, I think it's pretty safe to say that, yeah, the bias is still there and the government doesn't care about the issues we face XP
Correction* coolie is not used as a slur in India infact it has been celebrated in many movies in the light of average hardworking honest men and even today coolies exist in india and it is not slave labour, it is basically another word for baggage handlers for railways
aint no way, i just moved here for an exchange semester, and w/in the first week i was like this is so "there is no war in ba sing se" THIS IS WILD
as a singaporean and avatar-lover, i appreciate this deep dive and was so hyped when i saw the video title HAHAHA
Regarding the part in the Anthony Bourdain clip where every household has a maid, it reminds me of how most South Asian and SE Asian households have "help". Not that I don't think it causes an issue of inequality, but I think it's also very cultural and prevalent in the countries surrounding Singapore too. My Bangladeshi friend said she had a maid when she was a child and treated her horribly, and so did everyone else in her family.
I agree with you. Even I, a Filipino, grew up with househelps who do most of the chores while my parents are at work. Historically speaking, pre-colonial Philippine society is stratified, which includes serfs or servants at the bottom rung. It has been carried on even through colonial and post-colonial times.
It’s the same in Pakistan and it’s really awful. I hope we see a shift but I really don’t see a way out in the foreseeable future, even if only because I wouldn’t know where to begin between that and all of pk’s other blatantly terrible issues
Late comment but this was really incredible. I grew up with the Michael Fay case fresh in my mind (American who was canned by the Singaporean government) so I've always thought of it as a strict government. A few years ago I met a couple from Singapore and the way they spoke about the government was eerie.
About a year ago, I made a post on r/askSingapore talking about a few xenophobic, slightly racist encounters I had in Singapore as a South Asian tourist. My post got taken down despite not having violated any subreddit guidelines and I wasn't even given a reason. But the post gained a lot of traction and people shared their own experiences of racism and xenophobia.
However I had a lot of sweet encounters there as well. It's definitely a mixed bag, much like any country.
Edits: Grammar and Sentence Structure
there's no such thing as a "South Asian" you're not asian no matter how much you beg
@@WastedBananasyou’ve got to be dumb as rocks cause how are we literally on the continent of Asia and not Asian but Japan is fully detached from the continent and is Asia…….
Everything you touched on here is 100% applicable in Vancouver, BC. Right down to the perps and root causes.
Also congrats on another banger of a vid
Thank you for this!! Any country that has become very successful under capitalism has done so through extreme exploitation and inequality - so I always side-eyed Singapore but never looked into the history. Super informative! :) Also the people in the Anthony Bourdain clip made me sick to my stomach.
whats happening in singapore is similar to whats happening in s.korea too, even down to the history... like you said it's all curse of capitalism
@@april9242 i think all major asian hubs of capitalism are similar just with some differences, they have a lot of cool and as much of uncool, and similar histories except maybe jp cuz jp did a lot of colonialism and kr did too for a bit, but it was also colonised.
I would go so far as to say every country that becomes successful economically does so via extreme exploitation and inequality, though such exploitation is not strictly necessary to achieve success (as in many highly productive areas of modern economies). It's less a function of economic system, and more a question of institutions and their inclusivity (mostly in terms of social mobility). I would highly recommend Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson for a further look into a framework that looks at institutions more than specific economic systems. Probably the biggest change to my understanding of national success.
Of course, I'm also a liberal, but I eagerly await the successor ideology to liberalism, and think socialism was insufficient and we have yet to see something better. In general, I think liberalism's adaptability let it absorb the most salient points of socialist critiques (labor rights, toxic effects of increasing inequality), and incorporate them into its own mixed market economies, while avoiding the pitfalls of authoritarianism that plague socialist reality across the world.
Yeah I wonder what would be the balance of capitalism if it's even possible
Quote of the day "imperial Japan, so many war crimes ya know, but Hello kitty does slap though" 😂
@Darkest_templar we can never criticize the poor japanese people - dont look up the rising imperial japanese "cult" uprising there
.. atleast japan is there for the girls nd they gays eheheeh
I guess a reason for Singapore being ambivalent about Japan was also because their companies were among the 1st to invest in Singapore after they gained independence. Their expats also appear more low-key than those from Western countries & you don't see so many headlines of them getting into trouble today
16:07 Yeah, this feels eerily familiar to us in India too.
the migrant domestic workers thing reminds me of the situation in taiwan, as well as the "well it doesn't affect us attitude" I've encountered here, especially when it comes to stuff like blackface in the cosplay community (and on halloween but that's not every day so). I brought it up in a seminar talking about the differences between social policing in our own countries and in taiwan and then my lecturer brought up the example of a singaporean official doing brownface and then the people who called him out on it being labelled racist instead of the actual perpetrator, so this video was very interesting to get a wider picture on the context of that incident's reaction
Born and lived here my whole life Singaporean here (been 2 America twice so far), that whole clip of the maid thing with Anthony Bourdain was an exaggeration, not every Singaporean can afford a maid and my family never personally have one (my mom does the chores ^_^). However my Aunt did suffer a stroke back in 2021 so we were forced to hire a maid from Indonesia to take care of her as a necessity.
Its not an exaggeration, its a fair generalisation of the reality of MOST singaporean families ; having a maid to do chores. No one is pointing fingers at specific families.
@@q38333" MOST" , it is still a minority that has a maid in their household
The clip makes me so pissed which I know isn't really the point of the vid. But just seeing how proud those people are about being able to push their chores to some underpaid help and stating that's the reason women are able to have time to join the workforce. Like no, a lot of us are just poor and have to have every one in the family work just to survive. And do all our own chores. What a poor representation of Singaporeans
@@lucylucyinred Its simple economics. They make more money working than doing the household chores by relegating that part of the job to someone else. If you made 10k a month would you give up your well paying job to take care of your children full time or just get a maid? What you see in the clip is simply children being spoilt by their parents, absolutely nothing to do with maids
"that whole clip of the maid thing with Anthony Bourdain was an exaggeration", and also hired underpaid maid from Indonesia sponsored by the CCP itself
As a Singaporean, i can say that it is not a great place to live in. Yes it is safe, yes we are rich, but there is nothing to do other than partake in endless conspicuous consumption. Classism is extremely rampant, if you are not rich you are not a respected member of society.
@@thotslayer9914The question is how? when everyone is conditioned to think that this place is "safer" than any other place on earth. And when everyone on school jokes about school shootings in America, who would think of ever leaving? And the Singaporean passport, of course. you can travel almost anywhere with one, how convenient (I'm sarcastic). Do you see now? We are like people in ba sing se in a way 😂😂
Touching on the topic of racism; the government always preaches to people how people in Singapore are united no matter race/ethnicity but one step into a public school in Singapore you can hear students yelling racial slurs (or even slurs in general) at eachother that they can’t even reclaim.. and this even happens in public too amongst adults.
There’s no real solution to racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia etc.. (and I KNOW that sg is trying to solve problems like this) but maybe they shouldn’t bloat about being such a ‘united’ country if stuff like this happens so often! Sg isn’t a racial friendly country, it’s like ANY OTHER country in the world regarding problems like the ones stated… ://
The fact that that lady said with her whole chest "Everyone has a maid" is what's the most insane about all of this. The elite class are so idly brainwashed to accept that what they have is normal. EVERYONE has a maid? (cut to: The Maid)
This isn't really far off in many countries in Southeast Asia. It's actually common for families (especially wealthier ones) to hire maids to do house work.
Now the problem comes from how they're treated. Unfortunately, certain people are ungrateful and instead of thanking their maid and paying them well, they just outright abuse them.
Hello, I'm a Burmese that has been raised in Singapore by immigrant parents from childhood. The case you brought about the Burmese worker is extremely disheartening(my family at the time were extremely sad to hear that it happened to a burmese national who worked as a maid), but you portray it as if every single house worker is abused in that way. I have had family friends who had to work as maids to support their families and improve their incomes. However, very rarely they are abused by their Singaporean employers. I feel like this is a little disingenuous to do. It would have been more appropriate to list worker that work in construction. I am not educated enough to talk about construction, but from rumours of my local area, there has been a death in a train line which halted construction for a while.
I agree with most of the video's reports on crimes and I agree with the fact that Singapore doesn't necessarily have the medium to freely speak your opinion. Although I do not quite understand the cult following of the late Lee Kuan Yew, he led Singapore through tumultuous times after separating from Malaysia. His policies were there as a response to the communist insurgency in Malaysia at the time. In the case of a country that had recently been seperated from Malaysia and diplomatically tense with its neighbours, it moved towards some would call a 'dictatorship', enacting policies that took away rights and having a lot of rules in place. "Safety" back then was being an anti-communist and having anti-communist policies. You can argue if this is still relevant today, but most of the laws date back to this era. (To note because this may be a point of bias; I am not a fan of communists. I'm Burmese.)
Despite this, the government introduced a lot of quality of life infrastructure and policies that helped the average Singaporean (eg. easy scanning of passport when you're entering and leaving Singapore to name an example from the top of my head). This led to Singaporeans obviously being reliant on their governments or people of authority to do the work that most people deem a 'hassle' for them. The example you list of the four people in the hawker centre conversing about doing laundry and their lack of ability of knowing how to do so of comparing it to the 'communist party' is quite interesting to me because of that. This just means Singaporeans are just not independent as compared to western countries.
The quote from Lee Kuan Yew in 1983 was; "What we discovered in the 1980 census, which I think has to be brought out, is that we are really discarding our able parents in the next generation and doubling the less able." This sounds horrible on a vacuum. But if you know a little bit of Lee Kuan Yew's philosophy, he sees Singapore as having no natural resources, nothing in particular. It is primarily getting its resources from imports, even its water. Singaporeans themselves are the Singaporean's valuable resource.
“The only resource we have is our human capital. This remains the most important and single most crucial resource for us. We will continue to invest heavily in workforce development by equipping all our workers with relevant skills to meet the demands of the changing economy while providing additional holistic support to uplift more vulnerable workers.” This is not said by Lee Kuan Yew himself, but the party that he founded, specifically by the Minister of Manpower.
Do note that the practice of Eugenics was still being done in 1979 in California. Although it stopped in the same year, it would not be a surprise to say that Lee Kuan Yew, with his all-divine-thinking thought that this practice would still be acceptable if brought to Singapore. Obviously, this speech still blemished his party's ratings for quite a while, but understand his philosophy before misconstruing it into thinking that the Singaporean government hates poor people.
You can criticise the average Singaporean for being too reliant on the government and having other people to do their jobs for them. You can criticise the education system for being too hard or tough. I wouldn't have an issue about that. But this video has underlying tones of misrepresenting LKY's equality quote (without full knowledge of his philosophy), misrepresenting the housemaid incidient and LKY's policies is what is not quite convincing me. The research is done well, but you might have rushed your conclusions.
Nvm I just saw the Bibliography you used and its Wikipedia and actually listed it as a primary source jokes on me for saying the research was done well, it would seem that you already had an agenda and used any evidence you could find to support your view
@@iphacus bruma bros
Thank you! As a Singaporean, some of the things he said rlly confused me, but I think this critiques this vid very well. Even though I do agree with some of the things he raised, such as racial discrimination, lgbtq+ discrimination, sexual harassment (even though I don't believe that any society can completely prevent these things) he was def missing a lot of points from the other examples he gave.
I also just thought the LKY example was out-of-touch? considering LKY stepped down in 1990 and Singapore has def changed over the course of 34 years not being under his leadership. Singapore has def taken steps to be more inclusive abt minority groups (heck we basically have to support ppl in the lower tax bracket) + Our law and order has improved, workplace safety has improved and anti-corruption practices has improved. So it's rlly not that bad as he explains it!
This was an insightful video, thank you. Love the ATLA reference.
pleasure as always fancy!
I didn't know all this about Singapore in the past. I also had an idealized view of the place based on mainstream media and movies, but now it makes sense. I really enjoyed the insight into Singapore.
TBH the government very proactive in promoting the positive parts only... and negativity gets a hard slap...
7:43 Shoutout to the Natives of Bengal. We do get around.
Yes!
Reminds me of our family from Barisal and Dhaka getting land schemes in Andaman and Nicobar Islands after partition. I didn't knew Bengalis even went to Singapore!!!😮
I agree with the points you brought up about Singapore's issues, but if I can make one criticism, the ATLA framing was really jarring in a video about a real life country. Also someone has probably warned you already, but Singapore is very online, so apologies in advance if you start getting angry Reddit users in the comments.
I respect your right to have an opinion. I find it extremely apt, as a real life person in that real life country
This is stupid no Singaporeans are patriotic enough to get angry lmfao
Oh my goodness!! The Kontinentalist's shoutout!!! I love their writing. thanks for making this video!
PLEASE DO A VIDEO ABOUT ROMANI CULTURE. their history is very interesting, because they have been oppressed for centuries all over europe
That whole conversation at 17:00 was so insane, everything from "I know how do my laundry in theory" to "Moving clothes from my washing machine to putting them in the dryer is therapeutic"
bourdain said nothing wrong.
One of my mom's friends lives in Singapore. Also Miles Taylor of Miles in Transit has been promoting Manta for awhile, so I caved immediately
you forgot to mention that the main reason for seperation of singapore and malaysia were the racism between both countries, which led to a racial riot
Yeah
It was literally mentioned at 12:05
@@youtubesewersocialist glossed over
What you're saying is true, because in 2018 I started my internship at Singapore, where my manager assaulted me & when I filled to the police they didn't do anything to the manager, told me to forget what happened & forgive him, I was 19 years old.
Hey Guys! The president of singapore just invited me to Lake Lougai! i’m excited to accept his invitation
First of all, I DID remember that from the beginning of the vid. Don't judge me.
Second, this was something I didn't realize I needed to know. I was born in the 80s so there were pieces that I do remember, but I haven't given Singapore or it's role much thought in my adulthood. Thanks to you and your friends for bringing it back to my awareness. (All hail ATLA references 🙌🏾).
And lastly, this is a very nice look on you 👌🏾 😊
See you next time!
Your videos have high quality information, presented in a clear and engaging format. Today as I listened, I was thinking… I wish some of my university professors had lectured as eloquently as you do. Best of luck and maximum success to your channel!
Thank you for this. No one is talking about it and it’s driving me crazy.
actually coolie isn't really a slur anymore in India. It refers to the people who carry your luggage, mostly for transporting luggage from trains to the cars.
i used to hate ur videos, but overtime i realized that theyre bangers.
waiting for the day ill start hating your videos :PPPP (jk) (i hate everything) (not jk)
Y did u hate them?
when i found out that in singapore you get a cainning along with a prison term i was like huh something is not right, and after this essay im not surprised but also still genuinely appalled. keep staying informed guys and join your mutual aid
(you don't want to know what happened in our schools then) :))))
@@ca-ke9493 BROO I think I've walked past seeing some of the students being prepared to get caned in my old secondary school (not the one I graduated out of) when I was walking into the GO for suspension and I still remember the odd feeling that I got that day very distinctly.
@@teddiespicker TBH canning in school is for the worse stuff that are below juvie, and are really rare... (presuming near indoctrination to submission and the like)
also, canning is nothing like the western kind of canning (slave canning). The apparent process is that the person is strapped up, the “conductor” use a thick rattan stick to dish out the lashes on the butt. If the person faints or anything, it's stopped. The procedure is to be done in one-go, with the person getting some sort of medical treatment for the soreness after (I believe)
also the prison system is more like the Norwegian system where rehab is the way, even if the general complex design is more American...
Let this be a random comment to remind you for no reason that there was that one American politician who believed that the CEO of TikTok is from China despite claiming that he’s Singaporean 7 times.
Like I said, for no reason. 🙂
Westerner stupid sia
The same politician people like him made fun of, what's your point here lol? 😂
fun fact: there are way too many teenage males in Singapore who use the N word casually because there arent many black people here.
Any chance you could cover other countries like this in the future? This was really interesting to know.
He said he could, just comment your country and what you want him to talk about exactly
12:00 The real reason that they ousted singapore was because at the time the amount of chinese people in singapore suddenly becoming malaysians would have caused the malays to no longer be a majority of voters. He was also really popular among the malaysian chinese and his party taking over the whole country was a real threat.
First result from google: Lee Kuan Yew, the first Prime Minister of Singapore, cried in 1965 during a press conference when he announced Singapore's separation from Malaysia. This emotional moment was a result of the deep disappointment and sadness he felt over the separation, as he had worked hard to build a unified Malaysia. The separation was a result of political and racial tensions between the Chinese-majority population in Singapore and the Malay-dominated government of Malaysia. It was a difficult and emotional decision for Lee Kuan Yew, as he had envisioned a different future for Singapore as part of a larger Malaysia.
I love this super long form content by you ❤ Super interesting, well researched and lots of new intakes :)
I'm a little bit worried about El Salvador for just the same thing. I'm super happy that they are more safe now but I'm still scared of the unbalance of power that could be used wrong
hey elliot, singaporean here! i rly love a lot of the points you made here especially about lee kuan yew and our anti-protest laws, but i would love if you'd took a deeper dive into the harvey movement, and the narrative they have crafted around harvey's case. what happened to harvey was unjustifiable. but some of the stuff the movement has accused the state of doing, like how a legal official allegedly mixed methyl iodide (rarely used as poison, boils at 43 degrees C) into someone's coffee... yea. from what i see of it, i think it's important to separate the harvey movement (and the alleged operation high tide) from the rest of singaporean lgbtq+ activism, and i think it's important to dive into the details of this movement before platforming them on your channel
if you ask this question, then you must ask yourself, how much of a deep dive is enough for you? have you considered that "what I see of it" is never going to be 100% conclusive?
Ok, even if you say "alleged operation high tide" - it's demonstrable fact that the AWARE takeover happened, that didn't just come out of nowhere. none of this is coming out of a vacuum. maybe it's always been here. Operation Spectrum happened. did we watch the same thing?
or are you just looking at "lgbtq+ activism" - itself, very limited/curtailed, where PD can "take security staff for keeping us safe". Stonewall was a riot. these are just historical facts.
The thing is, SG is connected umbilical to the "west", it was so weird when last time Russia invade Ukraine, SG follow suit to sanction the Russia, but then when You-know-who doing the "g" words, SG need to self-censor, even Malaysia can say bluntly to the German PM, and to some extend Indonesia.
Thank you so much for makeing this video about Singapore, i feel like there really isn't a lot of English speaking political overview videos of Singapore at all, and have been looking for something like this for a long time
What are you talking about? There is no crime in singapore…… there is no crime in singapore……..there is no crime of singapore
Yep the worst crime here is....
... chewing gum
subbing from this !!There are a lot of parallels to dubai/the UAE as a whole with the whole "safe country" narrative. I was told the UAE was the safest place in the world growing up. It would be really cool (if you havent already) to hear you talk about the state of the UAE and the oppresive structure of the country
there is also a recent event about Kira Moon, A Drag Queen in Singapore that was assulted physically but the police "could not arrest" people that assulted her despite evidence and she had to push for her case in order to have something done while meanwhile other people were getting arrested left and right without reasons which includes sex workers etc.
Being a Singaporean myself I really agreed with your video (and zuko) with Singapore feeling like a prison. We get so much praise about how good our city is and how safe it is but I nvr really felt safe, being trans myself, and I cant escape this city if I have no money. It really feels like we r trapped in a prison that from the outside is seen as a free country and all that jazz. Amazing video!!!