The Straits Times
25 November 2014
- RSIS
- Media Mentions
- The Year of Bans and Boycotts
The Year of Bans and Boycotts
Two “B” words marked the cultural scene this year.
One was “ban” – no censorship decision in recent memory has quite galvanised Singapore society like the National Library Board’s decision in July to remove and pulp three children’s titles featuring same-sex couples and alternative family units.
After a heated few weeks in which a few hundred young parents staged a “read-in” of those titles to their children at the main National Library and thousands signed petitions for or against the National Library Board’s move, the board restored two of the titles to the adult section of the library.
The other high-profile ban this year was of local film-maker Tan Pin Pin’s documentary feature on political exiles, To Singapore, With Love, for how her sympathetic portrayal of them allegedly legimitises violence and subversion in politics.
…One incisive comment I have read on Tan’s film comes from veteran diplomat and academic Barry Desker in an interview with this newspaper earlier this month.
RSIS / Print / Online
