It is Friday night, 7.30pm, on Orchard Road in Singapore. The crowds are out. The wide pathways as well as the underground labyrinths linking the malls from Ngee Ann City to the new boringly glitzy, pseudo glamorous Ion are busy with people. Office workers are window shopping and looking for something to eat – the food courts are crazily busy. […]
Review: Michael Moore’s CAPITALISM: A Love Story
Last night, here in Singapore, I went to the cinema to watch Michael Moore’s latest film: Capitalism: a love story. I had read that morning a very negative review of the film in the Straits Times newspaper, the island’s man daily newspaper, owned by a government linked corporation. Apart from the reviewer’s frustrations with Moore’s […]
Documentary video material with social justice theme
Two very useful sites for video materials with a social justice and environmental theme are: http://www.engagemedia.org/ and http://directactionfilms.com/
Ominous news for Indonesian labour
“Other major concerns with investors — the country’s onerous labour laws and the “spectre of exorbitant costs” in cases where companies have to retrench — are also going to be addressed, Pangestu [Indonesian Minister for Trade] said, while still protecting workers’ rights.” “while still protecting workers’ rights” …. hmmmm The current minimum wage in Indonesia is set […]
AUSTRALIA: The fear of idealism, Rudd and refugees
78 Tamil refugees still refuse to leave the Australian customs ship which rescued them from their boat just under two weeks ago. They were heading for Australia but the Australian took them back to Indonesia. This is a part of the Rudd government’s plan for the “Indonesian solution” whereby more refugees trying to get to […]
Tribute to Rendra at Ubud – reflections
The first event at the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival that I was scheduled to speak at was the Tribute to Rendra, being held in the evening of the first day, immediately after the opening ceremony. Rendra, one of Indonesia’s most interesting, active, prolific and political playwrites and poets, had died a few weeks earlier […]
Bali, 1969, 1972
26 October, 2007 I have heard them referred to as “Hindu eyes” presumably a reference to some distant Indian originating Aryan genes. His eyelids were bigger than most peoples, kind of half shutting down over the eyeball. But they didn’t droop at all, it was just how they were. Steady half shut but big and […]
FARMERS AND FESTIVALS: Looking back at Ubud Writers and Readers Festival, Bali, Indonesia
Probably more than 500 people registered to attend the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival (URWF), held in Ubud, Bali, Indonesia in October. I think there were at least 100 writers also making presentations, participating on panels, and launching books. Included among the 100 writers were around 20 Indonesian writers, representing a steady increase in the […]
Joesoef Isak passed away, August 15, 2007
The Thinker: Joesoef Was Right Monday was Independence Day, the anniversary of the proclamation of independence by Sukarno and Hatta and the beginning of a four-year struggle by millions of Indonesians to prevent a colonial army from seizing back the land they had plundered for 350 years. “ Merdeka atau mati! ” (freedom or death!) […]
On Joesoef Isak
by Max Lane 14 September, 2006 On April 20 2004 in a gala ceremony in New York the American PEN Center honoured Indonesian publisher, Joesoef Isak, with the 2004 Jeri Laber Freedom to Publish Award. The award was given to Joesoef Isak in recognition of his long record of courageous publishing during the years of […]
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