Diary of an Island

A historic event happened on Sunday afternoon in the form of a Singapore Fringe Festival forum. In the Detention - Writing - Healing forum held at the Esplanade Recital Studio, ex-political detainees Tan Jing Quee & Michael Fernandez joined playwright Robert Yeo in a discussion about their detention experience and life after release. Robert Yeo spoke about his experience writing The Singapore Trilogy, a set of three plays (You There, Singapore?, One Year Back Home, & Changi) written and staged over a period of x years. The plays were loosely based on Michael Fernandez's story. Said Zahari was to have been part of the panel but was unfortunately too ill to travel. Hopefully he will be better in time for the launch of the second volume of his memoirs, Dark Clouds at Dawn, and Marytn See's documentary, Zahari's 17 Years. As Said Zahari was reported to have said, "'Such an event would not have taken place in the country even five years ago," (Kwek, Ken. 'Ex-detainees to speak at local forum'. Straits Times. 7 Jan 2006). The event was organised by The Necessary Stage and Tan Chong Kee chaired the session.

The Associated Press report filed by Gillian Wong ends a quote from a member of the audience that I thought summarised the forum:

Melanie Hui, 24, a Singaporean who works with a nonpolitical private group, described the talk as "illuminating."
"I left the forum thinking that there is such a big gap in our understanding of that era, especially for people in my generation," Hui said. "I think it's a really historic event, and it's about time."

For such a historic event, both blogs and newspapers have remained relatively silent. The event was mentioned in Straits Times articles on 7 Jan (Ex-detainees to speak at local forum), 14 Jan (2006: Politics increases its stage presence?) & 18 Feb (Telling the Singapore storyies). Online, I found only reproductions of the 7th Jan Straits Times articles on Singabloodypore and OB Markers for Singapore Filmmakers.

Today (27th Feb), the Straits Times carried one article about the forum: 'Ex-political detainees want their story told'. Online, I spotted a good account of the forum posted on Singabloodypore by 'Charles' titled 'Ex-political detainees break silence at forum'. A shorter blog entry was posted by 'perrin' onto Sintercom by 'perrin' titled 'Detention-Writing-Healing'.

This leaves me wondering - is the subject considered irrelevant for today's Singaporean? However, the forum was well attended with many young people in the audience. Will wait to see if this turns out to be a non-event.