What do you make of the proposed changes to Singapore’s elected presidency?
The impression I get is that it has been framed as a debate between the need for minority representation and an open system that would allow Tan Cheng Bock to possibly become President. And people are lined up on either side. But I do want to see a minority President. I think it is a very important symbol. But, precisely because I understand the importance of having a minority president, I’m disappointed in the way the government has gone about it.
The assumption seems to be that we don’t now have a minority candidate on the radar capable of winning the presidency in open competition. I think that is wrong. Halimah Yacob can win with no help or handicap. If they picked Halimah Yacob as a candidate, I don’t think they need to block Chinese candidates against her. She is enormously respected, she has extremely strong trade union labour credentials. She is respected by Malays as well as Chinese. This is one of those cases where the PAP as well as some other Singaporeans have a very dim view of Singaporeans, and that view is unrealistically dim. Yes, there might be some prejudice against Halimah on account of her gender, religion and race. But this prejudice probably does not amount to some kind of total trump card that will ensure her defeat. Those backing her might have to fight a little harder. But whatever kind of handicap she carries would just quantitatively amount to a tiny disadvantage. And I don’t see how that can compromise her track record. And I also cannot believe that the PAP with all its machinery and the union movement as well as many Singaporeans wouldn’t go all out to bat for her. After all, how wonderful would it be for Singapore to have a female, Malay, Muslim president?
I have total faith that there are enough male, Chinese, non-Muslim Singaporeans who will campaign for her. Unfortunately, many others do not have such faith. And I see it as a huge moment of opportunity for Singapore’s multiracialism. This is an opportunity to signal to the world, and ourselves, that after fifty years of nation building, we are ready to embrace a President who is not from the conventional mainstream.
Instead, what are we heading for? We’re heading for a situation where the PAP has decided to give a Malay candidate a walkover, which will taint the presidency forever. Whoever becomes the president next year will be a token president. Why taint it with the label of tokenism? It’s so unnecessary. I believe that if it were a straight fight between Halimah Yacob and Tan Cheng Bock, Halimah would win hands down. Source: www.mackerel.life
These women are all athletes and yes, they all wear headscarves too.
Their achievements are easily forgotten because people are so much more focused on what they choose to wear, even if they are breaking records on every level possible.
Let’s support these women by highlighting their sports performances and not just their religious practices.
She grew up poor, with her mother struggling to put food on the table after her father died when she was eight, and went on to build a storied career in the labour movement, politics, women’s issues and more.
But Speaker of Parliament Halimah Yacob, 61, said it would be harder for someone from a similarly poor background today to do the same. While most people started off “at a very low base” in the past, some families can now afford to give better access to opportunities and resources for their children, she said.
Singapore has to “keep an eye on things like making sure our inequality does not continue to widen” through important measures in education, healthcare and housing. “So our job is to make sure that all children are able to access these kinds of resources so they are not disadvantaged,” she said, adding that she was happy that the Government was now investing “upstream” in early childhood development.
The veteran politician was speaking during an interview with the media last week, ahead of her being conferred the Honorary Doctor of Laws by the National University of Singapore (NUS) in recognition of her distinguished career and service, particularly in the public sectors, where she has championed workers’ welfare, women’s issues, and family issues.
At the NUS Commencement main ceremony on Thursday (July 7), Mdm Halimah became the 26th person to be conferred the honour, which is NUS’ highest form of recognition for outstanding individuals who have had a significant impact on the community and NUS.
Other luminaries who have been similarly honoured include former Prime Ministers Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong, and Mdm Halimah, who holds a Bachelor and Master of Laws from NUS, said she was “deeply honoured and also very humbled” by the conferment.
NUS president, Professor Tan Chorh Chuan, said: “An NUS Law alumna, Mdm Halimah has made her mark through her commitment and dedication to the labour movement, and her strong advocacy of women’s rights and the Malay community.”
Mdm Halimah worked for three decades in the labour movement, and became the first Malay woman elected into Parliament in 2001, and later the first female Speaker of Parliament in 2013.
As a woman from a minority background, she has been lauded for breaking glass ceilings in Singapore, but Mdm Halimah said this was not something she deliberately set out to do; her focus was on doing her work well.
“Sometimes we worry too much about disadvantages, hurdles, whether you’re a woman or come from a certain family background. Frankly speaking, my life has not been easy … but I never believed that hurdles and obstacles are problems or disadvantages that should be viewed negatively … they help to spur and motivate me,” said Mdm Halimah, who added that adversities help “develop capabilities, resilience and abilities”.
Nonetheless, she acknowledged the “deep-seated prejudices against women” that still prevail in many places, during her speech at the ceremony yesterday. Noting that women politicians in other countries have been criticised on the basis of their gender, such as a woman who was deemed “emotional” because she was unmarried, Mdm Halimah said: “By all means disagree with her policies if you wish to, but don’t try to diminish her by trivialising her role because she is a woman.” The lesson she had learnt, she added, is “never to let anyone or anything define you as that means ceding your choices to others and limiting yourself”.
She also urged graduates to remember to give back to society.
“Remember that we are where we are today because we have the support of so many people along the way,” she said. “Let’s have the humility to accept that not everything that happened to us was because of how smart or how good we are, but because we had a lot of help.”
This year, 10,395 students graduate from NUS, among them 6,491 who will receive bachelor’s degrees. A total of 23 commencement ceremonies will be held at the NUS University Cultural Centre over eight days, from Thursday till July 14.
Feminism does not belong in Malaysia as it is causing women to neglect their husbands and children, choosing instead to work and socialise, Islamist group Ikatan Muslimin Malaysia (Isma) said today.
It’s president Abdullah Zaik Abd Rahman said that while Muslim women are allowed to work, they should still prioritise the household before anything else.
“I believe that Asian women, especially Muslim women who still hold on to the principles, know that the main priority of the woman is at home,” he said during his keynote address at the Isma Women’s forum today.
“That (feminism) has a negative impact if it’s not filtered by culture or religion.
“The function of women, even though they can enter all career fields, they cannot prioritise it more than their basic roles because if this is to continue then there will be an extraordinary void in our family institutions where the children that need the love and attention of their mothers,” he added during a press conference, also noting that while feminism is appropriate in the West, it was not appropriate in Malaysia.
He explained that one of the most pivotal roles of women was maintaining a household and raising successful children, something that many are no longer seeing as a priority due to feminism.
“(Women) have a specific responsibility to educate their children. But the situation now needs to be re-examined as the lifestyle of women today are wholly influenced by feminism.
“(Women working) will create an emptiness in (children) that is very extreme for the next generation. And they will try to fill the void with other things that may happen irresponsibly and may affect the development of their character,” he said.
He added that feminism has also given women too much “space” and in turn robbed men of theirs as there no longer are gender-specific careers.
“Unlike before, when some fields are done by men and cannot be done by women, today women can enter all fields; in fact some women are considered more competent. Women can enter all fields and this constricts the space for men to function and there are no longer fields specially for men or specially for women,” he said.
He suggested that women instead only be allowed to work for half a day so that they can return to their families and prioritise the household.
“If we reduce their workday to 6 hours or half day but same salary we can save the family institutions,” he said.
It’s afternoon rush in Los Angeles, and Yuna is cruising through Mid-Wilshire in a black SUV with the windows rolled down. At a stoplight, the singer-songwriter, who left her native Malaysia for the land of movie stars and pricey green juices in 2011, cues up Snapchat and flips the camera to selfie mode. “Some guy on the street just shouted, ‘You’re beautiful!’ ” she says, letting out a pinched giggle. “That just made my entire day!”
Los Angeles looks good on Yuna, even if she doesn’t fit the Hollywood standard for pop star — hair always wrapped in a hijab (she’s a devout Muslim); a stylishly chaste wardrobe that covers her from turtleneck on down; a label home, Verve, known for legacy jazz and adult contemporary artists like Barry Manilow. The 29-year-old born Yunalis Zarai is a long plane ride from her homeland, where not so long ago she posted shy folk-pop songs to MySpace and, warmed by the feedback, hit the reset button to move to America and meet her mentor, Pharrell Williams. Today, she’s markedly different: Her third and best album, Chapters (May 20), is edgy alt-soul featuring Usher,Jhene Aiko and DJ Premier. The songs — including “Crush,” her first Billboard chart hit — are inspired by a wrecked relationship and powered by Yuna’s new confidence in herself and her opinions. “I was a timid girl before,” says Yuna hours earlier, perched at a table in a warehouse photo studio and dressed in all black. “A lot of people said, ‘Your problem is always holding back.’ I didn’t want to hold back anymore.”
“Yuna thinks differently than a lot of people — she has something to say, and she won’t compromise,” says Verve chairman David Foster, who has won 16 Grammys producing and writing for Whitney Houston, Celine Dion and others. “I’m much older than her, but I relate to her lyrics, and my stepdaughters, Gigi and Bella [Hadid], they’re crazy for her too. She’s speaking to a lot of generations.”
“Trump’s out there promoting hate,” says Yuna Ramona Rosales.
Yuna was raised in Alor Setar, Malaysia, by her legal-adviser father and chemistry-teacher mother. “It was a very conservative environment — we watched what we said.” Yuna spent her childhood focused on her education, set on becoming a lawyer. As a hobby, in between poring over textbooks, she taught herself guitar watching YouTube, writing songs in both Malay and English, inspired by her heroes Lauryn Hill (“she was life-changing for me”) and Feist. Music started taking priority a year before she graduated from university in 2009, when she self-released EPs to local acclaim and won second place in a national songwriting contest. At first, she felt like an outsider in the country’s music biz. Malaysia may be predominantly Muslim, but much like in America, “women singers are seen as sexy here — you have to let your hair out and be beautiful,” she says. “I struggled with that.” Instead, Yuna shrouded her image in mystery, letting her music speak for her. “I didn’t put up a proper photo of myself — it was cropped, up until my nose. People didn’t know what I looked like until my first show. They were shocked in the beginning, but they accepted me.”
Her music began attracting international fans online as well — including her now manager Ben Willis, who encouraged her to chase bigger dreams and start over in Los Angeles. Things began quickly: Fader Label, the influential magazine’s indie imprint, signed Yuna and introduced her to Williams, who produced much of her 2012 self-titled global debut (it peaked at No. 19 on the Heatseekers chart). In 2013, Yuna signed with Verve and released Nocturnal, which featured cutting-edge R&B producers like Om’Mas Keith (Frank Ocean).
Yuna and Usher on the set of the video for “Crush.” Courtesy of Verve Music Group 2016.
But despite the warm welcome, Yuna still sometimes deals with criticism and condescension when it comes to her image. “People say, ‘You should let your hair out; you shouldn’t be oppressed — you’re not in Malaysia anymore. You should show your curves and be proud of it.’ But I am proud — it’s my choice to cover up my body. I’m not oppressed — I’m free.”
Yuna loves Rihanna‘s music, praising several tracks from Anti, but doesn’t feel the need to dress (or undress) like her. “It’s easier to just be me and not try to look like her,” she says. “I have nothing against Miley Cyrus onstage being herself, but girls like Adele andAndra Day, we don’t get enough credit. We have talent; we don’t count on the extra stuff. We just want to play music.”
Chapters is a breakup album, inspired by the crumbling of a real-life relationship, although Yuna doesn’t offer many details in person. On the album, however, she puts it all out there, wondering aloud how he’s moving on when she’s stuck behind — particularly on “Used to Love You,” featuring Aiko, who pushed Yuna to come out of her shell. “She’s very blunt and direct — she expresses what other girls are feeling,” Yuna says of Aiko. “I see her as a big sister. When I go through stuff, I listen to her music. The last two years of my life, she played a huge part in it.”
Suddenly alone in Los Angeles, Yuna had to learn how to be “more tough” like Aiko, she says. “I used to be dependent on my ex. I didn’t know how to love myself. So I made a mental note: ‘In 2016, I’m going to be single.’ When this album comes out, I want to be in a good place.”
Yuna smiles when discussing her plans to push Chapters on tour in Europe and the States through May, and just bought a piano for her apartment to start work on a new album, which she says won’t wallow in the sadness of the past. “Crush,” featuring Usher, is her first song to crack U.S. radio, rising 22-18 on the April 30 Adult R&B chart. She says she feels at home in the Los Angeles soul scene, and America overall — even as she warily eyes the anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim fervor stoked by Donald Trump and others. “He’s out there promoting hate, violence,” she says. “It’s really weird that this is acceptable in a modern, advanced country.
“But I’m not too worried about it,” she adds. “I think you can soften people’s hearts, even if they have a lot of hate. Music can do that, if it’s beautiful and honest. If I can do that — soften just one person’s heart — I consider myself successful already.”
