Report 03. Solidarity calls, forest-fellings, and a birthday
on our inner and outer weather, and knowing the power of that convergence
“The tendency is always to relate to a situation or to an object as if it is only outside of oneself. Whereas elsewhere, in Vietnam, or in other Asian and African cultures for example, one often learns to "know the world inwardly," so that the deeper we go into ourselves, the wider we go into society.”
Trinh Minh-Ha’s films films show us the importance of speaking from our internal experience of the world, to understand the outer world.
It’s been a rollercoaster month. Personally and outwardly.
In the past month, we’ve seen Myanmar go from democracy-in-name to an all-out coup. The same water cannons that we’ve seen in Thailand, Hong Kong, India, the USA, Germany, and Russia, are now being used in Myanmar.
(Russia’s mission to the OSCE has a video on this… thank you Russia.)
I’ve also been more involved than usual this month, with what I’d call simply, “perspective-taking” (which is a thing children learn around the ages of 4-6!). I think more of us will have to practise this in the coming years, because we are entering a pluriverse world :)
What I am learning from that situation though, is our need for greater emotional intelligence and knowing how to speak nearby to issues, rather than directly at them.
I’ve been taking part in the Signals and Storms “Making of Earths” workshops by Freeport Labs. It’s been great, and we’re at the halfway mark this week. We’re watching Trinh Minh-Ha films and others, and I’m marvelling at how I never really picked up on documentary film before!
‘Speaking nearby’, as Trinh Minh-Ha discusses, is a matter of not representing but encouraging ideas to emerge. It is in knowing that a proper representation cannot be reached. Only strived towards. It is in assembling the components needed to approximate meaning together.
SG - Kranji Forest
JTC Corporation has been making more marked errors of late.
People have gotten quite worked up about JTC Corporation’s erroneous clearing of land at the Kranji Forest.
The funny thing is this erroneous clearing of land has already happened at least one other time that I’m aware of, and not in such a public way.
In an unexpectedly nifty bit of reporting at The Straits Times, reporter Ang Qing has used Global Forest Watch’s map—an observatory tool combining satellite imagery and a web map service—to show that forested land has been disappearing since 1 March 2020 - a year as of today. It’s good to keep in mind that the JTC’s work is spread across departments, and that contractors work not always in tandem with their paying clients. And while the NParks is beginning to look into the matter, it’s high time for a proper look into how construction companies are regulated, especially given that land clearing potentially gives companies many (free) benefits—natural materials including topsoil (now rare in Singapore) and wood—and is often hard to check and audit.
Myanmar - Coup and banning of SG products
Citizens in Myanmar are calling for bans of Singaporean products. Why? One reason is elaborated fairly well here (by Wei Ting, writing this new Substack I’ve been introduced to!), though it may point to a larger set of economic investments - some dubious - that Singaporean or Singapore-based companies have in Myanmar.
Singapore is the second largest investor in Burmese products, second only to China. There’s been moderate to outright explicit warnings from politicians and commentators in Singapore - from Vivian Balakhrisnan (reiterating ASEAN non-interference and that the withdrawal of SG investments will only do Myanmar people more harm) to the Indonesian ex-foreign minister’s more urgent comments on the “grave consequences” Myanmar’s situation has for the region.
Russia has caved to UN pressure to call on Myanmar to stop.
China says it is internal politics.
It’s not fun to be a people that’s tasted democracy, caught in the midst of select circles of brokerage and interests.
As this continues and people make their way across the border to Thailand, Thai authorities are stepping up border control across the borders. What are they? Economic refugees, asylum seekers, climate refugees? They are people who know well what they are doing, many of whom share a politics you and I share, who seek freedom from authoritarian control, who are searching for safety.
Images of young protestors with the three-fingered Mockingjay salute are sitting on my mind.
Our inner and outer weather
In a recent conversation with a friend, it was observed that the Dover Forest has gained more popularity than usually given to “environmental” matters, given its proximity to the city. In other words, people learn best what is right before them. They connect best with it when it’s near.
The Kranji Forest is further from the city. Harder to visit or check in on.
Yet a mentality of out with the old, in with the new - of building from scratch, is a method of hurting and hurting wounds. What is the difference between this and a seasonal discarding of garden soil, purchasing of new soil?
The ‘polluted backwaters’ of Singapore is another image that hurts me to think about.
Colonial Singapore and nation-building Singapore presented its “natural environment” as unwanted, dirty, un-modern. Till today, this image persists. Reductively, if we gave these issues no more nuanced thought, the state and capital would have it all erased. Yet neither the state nor capital live off that land—only the people who work with and in them do.
The combined inner and outer weather does converge.
What we decimate or denigrate internally, we create as a model for other nations to copy. At vast scale. China’s use of surveillance on minority populations in Xinjiang is Singapore’s use of surveillance on undocumented workers in specific neighbourhoods—like Geylang and Little India (aka The Trouble-making Districts. Caveat, I’m being ironic!). China’s (and Indonesia, India too) use of clean and green campaigns borrows from Singapore’s clean and green campaign. So much of what’s being used at scale in China today is learnt from Singapore. Those decades of state visits in the 1980s paid off.
Smallness does not mean insignificance. My birthday wish is that more Singaporeans who hold power of varying degrees, can ask what power they hold, how far that power extends, and act with that knowledge in mind.
Myanmar news reads
(especially important to note the ethnic minority viewpoint on what freedom means):
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3122685/myanmar-coup-militarys-patience-wears-thin-call-prevent-further
https://www.newmandala.org/myanmars-coup-from-the-eyes-of-ethnic-minorities/
https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/myanmars-anti-regime-protesters-urge-asian-counterparts-unite-general-strike.html
On my mind this month:
Maps —> types of cognitive and satellite mapping of land
Spatial narratives —> via visual metaphors and 7vortex
Visualising collective voice —> 7vortex
Sound
Phew! That’s it this month - I have an interesting March coming up. If you liked this, forward it. If you want to subscribe for more agroeco reads and hinges, hit the button! Or, share this post elsewhere!