PJ comments on the oppression of peaceful climate change activists, Lee Hsien Loong's continued teasing of us about an election amidst the coronavirus crisis, and sex with a condom; and continues his explanation of how the electoral system is deeply unfair. The historic use of arrests and lawsuits, the threats of punishment, and the slanted media coverage create an atmosphere of fear in which people are afraid of voting against the governing People's Action Party. Lisa the Clairvoyant Malayan Sun Dog then predicts the result of the next Singapore General Election. For the full video, please visit https://youtu.be/ysPRlRIUO7I.

For some reason, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong wants to call an election in the middle of the coronavirus crisis. Historian Thum Ping Tjin (“PJ”) comments on this and explains how the electoral system is deeply unfair. It is designed to maximise the seats and votes for the governing People’s Action Party (PAP), and the point of the system is to legitimise PAP rule, not to reflect popular will or ensure democracy. Recorded 28 January 2020, Aired 27 March 2020. Please join New Naratif as a member: newnaratif.com/join.

Thum Ping Tjin talks to Tan Wah Piow about childhood, his time in the University of Singapore, his activism, his fraudulent conviction and the PAP government's attempted abuse of the National Service Act against him, his subsequent flight and exile from Singapore, all the people who helped him along the way, and his reflections on Singapore’s politics and political activism today. Recorded 13 November 2019.

A recording of a conversation between sociologist and author of This Is What Inequality Looks Like, Teo You Yenn, and New Naratif's Editor-in-Chief, Kirsten Han, about their writing process, and what it's like to do the work they do in Singapore.

In a speech in early 2019, then-British Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt extolled Singapore as a model for the UK post-Brexit. This idea has persisted throughout the Brexit campaign and the debate over the future direction of post-Brexit UK. Implicit in these models is a vision of Singapore as an economically liberal, “low-tax, low-spend, low-regulation” environment that appeals to many anxious over Brexit. This is underpinned by a myth of Singapore having successfully transformed itself from a small fishing village into a gleaming, modern, cosmopolitan, and prosperous society while uplifting its people from poverty into a country with one of the world’s highest per capita GDP. But how accurate is this vision of Singapore? In this talk, given at Oxford on 21 November 2019, Dr PJ Thum unpacks the common myths and misunderstandings surrounding Singapore, explains the economic, political, and social mechanisms used by the ruling People’s Action Party to achieve its aims, and offers potential lessons for a Britain searching for its role in post-Brexit world.

Across the world, young people have stepped up to lead social movements and speak out on a range of causes, from the climate crisis to gun control in the US.

In Singapore, young people have also stepped up to take action, whether it's pressuring their university to reform its sexual harassment policies, or take part in organising the country's first ever climate rally. But there's also been less-than-happy conversations about young people and social movements, given the recent cancellation of a "Dissent and Resistance" programme at Yale-NUS.

What is the the role of youth activism in society? What is the state of student activism in Singapore? Following a democracy classroom on the same topic, New Naratif's Editor-in-Chief Kirsten Han sits down with Kristian-Marc James Paul (SG Climate Rally), Mandy Chng (Sayoni), and Rocky Howe (Cassia Resettlement Team).

One year ago on 29 March 2018, PJ Thum went before the Singapore Parliamentary Select Committee for Deliberate Online Falsehoods, or “fake news”, to use the common shorthand. To his surprise, instead of speaking about his submission to the Committee, he was ambushed with a six-hour interrogation about a paper he published in 2013—or, to be more precise, about one paragraph in that paper, about Operation Coldstore, the 1963 arrest and detention without trial of over 112 opposition politicians, trade unionists, and activists.

Why did the Minister for Law and Home Affairs torpedo the Select Committee, destroy its credibility, and waste all this public time and money over what he wrote? In this lecture at the University of California, Berkeley, he explains how historians understand Operation Coldstore and the historical evidence surrounding it, how this relates to the mechanisms of and justifications for social control in Singapore, and the hierarchy of priorities that influence decision making for the governing People’s Action Party leaders.

It's been about a year since Singapore's Select Committee on Deliberate Online Falsehoods held its open hearings. Although no Bills have yet been tabled, Singapore is expecting legislation to deal with "fake news" and foreign interference. But what would their impact be?

In this episode, we talk to political scientist Ian Chong and Editor-in-Chief of The Online Citizen Terry Xu about security concerns and the impact on free speech in Singapore.

The legend and myth of Lee Kuan Yew looms large, not just over Singapore but over many countries around the world which aspire to emulate his achievements. But who is Lee Kuan Yew, and what exactly did he accomplish? The very first book to try to tackle Lee using a rigorous research-based approach was James Minchin’s No Man Is An Island: A Portrait of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew. As a researcher, Minchin was given incredible access to the upper echelons of Singapore’s elite. He interviewed cabinet Ministers, senior officials, close associates and former adversaries of Lee, both in Singapore and Malaysia. When the book came out in 1986, it was revelatory, detailing both Lee’s spectacular successes and his failures and serious misjudgements, including his abuses of power, his shabby treatment of his colleagues, and his dangerous dependence on prescription drugs which impaired his judgement at a critical time. Minchin’s portrait was not challenged by Lee, but the book is next to impossible to find in Singapore and years later, Minchin himself was banned from entering Singapore. He remains banned to this day.

On 15 November 2018, PJ Thum sat down with James on one of his frequent visits to Kuala Lumpur. They spoke about his life in Singapore, his experience writing the book, his ban from Singapore, and his reflections on Singapore’s politics today.

On 28 January, Singapore’s Ministry of Health revealed that the personal data of 14,200 people living with HIV had been leaked. The news has drawn attention to both the stigma against HIV and concerns over data collection and protection in Singapore. In this episode, we speak to Avin Tan of Action For AIDS and software engineer Chong Kai Xiong.