I’m back in Pittsburgh. Took a drive with some friends over the weekend to attend DiaSpura, a speaker series and musical organized by the Singapore club at the University of Pennsylvania. Was quite surprised at the number of Singaporeans studying at Upenn; the number of full time students is not a lot, just about as many as Singaporean students here in CMU, but there is a very big number of exchange students from NUS and SMU. In many ways, it was touching to see so many Singaporeans coming together to reflect on the Singaporean identity and to think about Singaporean art/film. There’s so much local artistic talent that we just don't hear about in the Straits Times and in the local media.The first keynote speaker was Prof Chan Heng Chee, our ambassador to the United States, who spoke about the many things we can be proud of about our country. Prof Chan is a noted academic and most people would have heard about her illustrious career in the Foreign Service; so I was more than a little relieved that parking woes and arriving nearly half an hour late for the event did not cause me to miss her speech. But perhaps because of the time constraint, I found that her speech did not quite cut into the issue of exploring the Singaporean identity. All of us would definitely have benefited from a discussion of the challenges that are shaping out government’s social policy. I am of the school that is prepared to accept the idea that given our vulnerabilities, certain freedoms cannot go unrestrained; so I was hoping that she would update our perceptions of the realities that confront Singapore and how these realities affect the social markers that the government draws. The audience was clearly eager for that level of intellectual engagement, so rehashing our country’s achievements did not impress me too much.
Meeting Dr. Francis Seow was definitely the highlight of the event. For the uninitiated to Singapore politics, Dr. Seow was a former Solicitor General, president of the Law Society, opposition candidate and now dissident in exile (definitely in a different league from Dr. Chee Soon Juan). He spoke slowly but in fine and polished English (a little too slow because the non-Singaporeans were nodding off). In fact, he spoke so slowly that he was only left with enough time to take one question. So, I sprung up my hand (was a rather cool moment), and asked him what cause he was fighting for (when he was incarcerated by the government, and when he stood for elections in 1988) and if that cause is still alive when he look at his audience of young Singaporeans. After I’ve finished my question, he boomed "for all of you..." (which drew some applause) and then he went on to relate several eyebrow-raising anecdotes about the workings of the Cabinet and the civil service. I spoke to him again while we were both waiting for the lift, and he was rather surprised I know about him running for elections in Eunos. Actually, a reason I had asked the second portion of my question (which he didn’t quite address) is the fact that I find it a pity most Singaporeans today have never heard about him and are apathetic to the politics of our government. Given a more opportune timing, it would definitely have been worthwhile to hear more about his side of the story.
With Dr. Francis Seow; Colin Goh from Singapore Dreaming is in the background. Here is a link to excellent photos taken by MingWei while we were in
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