Up until now, we have predominantly heard about Medea’s case from her perspective and the perspective of the chorus. Ironically, this disincentives the audience from being inclined to believe Medea as the way she acts, screaming and cursing, harms her credibility. Therefore, the audience enters the duologue between Medea and Jason in Episode 2 with skepticism instead of bias. The nature of the duologue provides an opportunity for the integrity of Medea’s cases to be proven if they can withstand the onslaught of rebuttals from Jason. From the duologue, we are able to gain a deeper insight into what possess Medea to have such negative views of Jason. The duologue begins with Jason attempting to diminish the victimhood that Medea possesses by placing the blame of exile entirely on her “intransigent temper”. He attempts to improve his self-image and nobility by mentioning that he “constantly tried to assuage the passions of the rulers in their angers” and tries to ascend the moral high ground by not being able to “think badly of you”. Furthermore, he emphasises his compassion for both Medea and her boys by stating that he “cares for their well-being”. With such a statement that contradicts the personification of Jason as a lazy, ungrateful and unfaithful husband by portraying him as calm, collected and mindful. However, Medea’s immediate rebuttal diminishes the legitimacy of his statements as dishonest and disingenuous. In all her anger, she is still able to construct a coherent, yet sarcastic, argument that conveys her dissatisfaction with Jason’s behaviour. Her mannerisms and tone do not diminish the coherency of her argument. Medea describes Jason as “vile”, lacking “manliness”, “shameless” and a coward. She also describes in deeper depth the actions she undertook for Jason. These included saving him from “fire-breathing bulls”, killing a dragon, betrayed her father and home and killing Pelias. These acts of violence and treachery demonstrated her undying loyalty to Jason yet he is not willing to reciprocate it by granting Medea permanent residency. Despite all the trauma she has been through safeguarding Jason from these threats, Jason does not regard them in the slightest and stands idly as she is exiled. Sarcasm is used expertly to convey the absurdity of the situation that Medea has been placed in as enabled by Jason. Sarcasm comes in the form of optimism that sadly conveys how disastrous her odds are of surviving outside of Corinth.
Author Archives: stroh33321@gapps.uwcsea.edu.sg
ELP: pause and reflect
How do we decide in our own lives who belongs and who doesn’t?
We decide who belongs and who doesn’t based on their ability to adapt/conform to our lifestyle, ideologies and perspectives (to an extent). Some people may enjoy the company of others even if they hold contradicting views but it is the norm that people surround themselves with supportive companions. We decide to eject people from our lives when their attitudes and behaviours incites intense amounts of internal strife to the point where their mere presence creates a sense of dread. That is the extreme but there may be other examples of people being given the silent treatment for reasons much pettier and unsubstantial.
What potential violence is there in drawing lines between those who belongs and who doesn’t?
The structural violence associated with categorising legal and illegal inhabitants is best exemplified by the opportunities people can access, safety, discrimination and stability. Illegal immigrants have little opportunities to work or make purchases on a large number of goods and services as those require a form of identification that they likely don’t have. These purchases/transactions may include loans, a house, a car, a bank account, etc. There low-income is also exacerbated by the inability to sign up for social services such as national insurance, free education, healthcare, food stamps, etc. Furthermore, the only work available for illegal immigrants are those that are low-wage and exploitative as the illegal immigrants have little recourse to report workplace abuse without being deported. The status of being a illegal immigrant means being treated as lesser and not being able to fulfil your potential. Finally, the most physically violent experience that a illegal immigrant may encounter is being forcefully separated from their family and deported back to their country of origin. These raids by immigration authorities have proved to be both mentally and physically damaging. This is especially considering the conditions that illegal immigrants are held in during processing.
More broadly, who constitutes “we”, especially when it’s so difficult to arrive at and locate a common voice, stance or attitude on a given issue?
Unity can take a ideological or behavioural form but the most basic way of organising people around a flag is a passport, a feeling of belonging and/or a long history of residency in that country. A countries population contain a wide variety of opinions on how the government should act in response to certain events, which policies should be prioritised, etc. While these are ubiquitous across many nations, except the most authoritarian ones, a sense of unity is still fostered through national pride and the celebration of a common culture. Even in a nation as diverse as Singapore, long-term residents, Permanent Residents and Citizens or anyone that feels a sense of belonging to Singapore can rally around common cultural aspects such as Hawker centres, Chicken rice, National day, the national sports teams and the flag.
Generally speaking, people most often group themselves based on umbrella concepts under which there are a greater variety of stances and attitudes to conform too. In American Politics, people may align themselves with the republican party but have diverse views on controversial issues such as taxation, the war on terror, abortion, gay marriage, etc. However, they all rally themselves under the elephant emblem.
How does this relate to Home Fire or Langston Hughes?
Home Fire spends a lot of time discussing how first-generation immigrants face discrimination even if they reside in the country legally and being a productive member of society, such as being a PHD student, and having a english passport. Racial profiling overlooks these factors and judges them solely on what is explicitly presented, a brown woman in a Hijab who also happens to have 2 Islamic extremists for a brother and father. Structural violence is also apparent as the British government refuses to repatriate the body of Parvaiz and airport security frequently pulls Isma for additional questioning. While these may not be preventing a person from meeting basic physiological needs, it does undermine their status as a citizen of that country.
Grade 11 CAS review
The activities and service that I undertook during Grade 11 were fulfilling and set the foundation of a successful CAS experience. I undertook new activities that I have never heard of before while undertaking old ones to demonstrate commitment and enact changes that I weren’t able to perviously due to my lower position. However, A few things did occur to me during the summer break that I wish to implement this year. The most prominent one is inviting more reputable and credible speakers onto the Ears of East political Podcast, a student-run podcast that typically features students as the speakers with the rare member of staff chiming in. That is how I noticed a gap in the guest speakers we invite. Therefore, I reach out to the alumni organisation who put me into contact with UWCSEA Alumni engaged in political issues. I can’t wait to complete this in Grade 12!
Sustainable Enterprise Consultants reflection #3
I started Sustainable enterprise consultants with the goal of taking more responsibility and initiative in the service. After several months, I believe that I have achieved that goal since I was responsible for creating a brand new infomercial-esque video describing the purpose and service that SEC provides. This video, in my opinion, is a much-needed improvement on the previous video which consisted of people sitting in front of a camera and speaking to it.
{LO5} Thirdly, making a film was clearly a collaborative process across all stages. I needed dedicated cameramen, actors and critics to ensure that the film was the best that it could be. The benefits of working with other people were that there were enough for a sufficiently diverse cast, they could give input and add improvements and they were an important source of morale. What made it easier to work together was the fact that we were all familiar and comfortable in each other’s presence which allowed us to work productively and exchange ideas casually. The challenges were that everybody had different opinions and some people become defensive when there acting was criticised. The fact that we were well-acquainted also means that there were several tangents that we could go off of, hindering our progress.
{LO6} Fourthly, I was able to include elements of global significance in my SEC infomercial. Given that SEC aims to combat worldwide issues such as sustainability, corporate social responsibility and consumerism on a college level, I had to ensure that the video remained true to SEC’s mission. I had a positive impact on this issue by including statistics about the amount of garbage that ends up in landfills and discussing the triple bottom line upon which our service is based.
{LO7} Lastly, I recognised the ethical implications of producing a comedic video by keeping it politically correct, omitting dark humour and ensuring that copyright music and footage was not used.
Engagement 6 – Interview with Sharmila Parmanand
My final engagement was a 52-minute interview with this last interview with Sharmila Parmanand who volunteers at GAATW. She is responsible for implementing two research projects with partners in South and Southeast Asia on issues concerning the social and economic inclusion of migrant and trafficked women returning from West Asia and Europe, respectively. Furthermore, she has a PhD in Gender Studies from the University of Cambridge and an MA in Development Studies from the University of Melbourne. Most of her research projects interrogate how development and state interventions targeted at women in the global south reflect and shape their lived realities, with a focus on gender and international development, the politics of knowledge production, and feminist entanglements with the state on issues of human rights and women’s precarious labour.
I felt that her perspective will offer a more academic insight into human trafficking given her experience and skillset. Her perspective could be used in conjunction with published works by other authors such as Sallie Yea to find the extent to which Singapore has been successful in tackling human trafficking. While she made clear that her expertise is not Singapore, I modified how I presented the questions by posing questions that applied to the Singaporean context or provided enough context for her to answer accurately. The perspective she offers is very valuable because it reveals the pro-human rights, liberal, worker’s rights and feminist perspectives. I first found out about her when asking Borislav Gerasimov if any members of GAATW specialised in human trafficking in Singapore.
Sharmila provided an extremely comprehensive and academic insight into some of the most pressing questions I had. For example, she explained how counterproductive a demand-side policy is by discussing the consequences of driving prostitution underground. While Singapore has publicly made a point of not making sex work illegal per se for that exact reason, they have criminalised several processes associated with sex work. Furthermore, her analysis of crime control centric approaches gave me a deeper insight into how the state demonstrates its commitment to prosecution rather than protection and the negative effects of this. She was also able to tie in political theories such as feminism, Marxism and workers rights into her arguments.
Engagement activity #6: Interview with Borislav Gerasimov
My second to last engagement is with Borislav Gerasimov, Programme Coordinator Communications and Advocacy and Editor of Anti-Trafficking Review at GAATW (Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women). I felt that his perspective could act as a foundation for understanding what NGOs most anti-trafficking NGOs wish to achieve and pursue. His perspective can be used to supplement published works and find out the extent to which Singapore has been successful in tackling human trafficking. The perspective he offers is very valuable as it shines a liberal and pro-human rights “light” on several strategies employed by other countries which are still applicable to the Singaporean context. I first found out about GAATW when researching John Gee’s published works in which he was mentioned as a contributor for GAATW’s anti-trafficking review which gathered researchers and volunteers from anti-trafficking NGO’s across the world to debate the most pressing issues in human traffickings such as migrant labour and technology. I contacted GAATW’s official email and received a reply from Borislav who was willing to accept my interview.
Despite the limited knowledge on human trafficking in Singapore specifically, he was still able to offer a valuable insight into the practical consequences of Singapore’s strategies in other nations such as Sweden and the United States. Many of the strategies that are employed, covertly or overtly, in Singapore are present in other nations and have been covered far more extensively. He was able to criticise those policies from a libertarian, human rights and cosmopolitan perspective. These are a helpful foundation for me to build secondary research upon and determine the shortcomings of the Singaporean strategy against TIP. These shortcomings cannot be explained by Borislav. However, reports by Sallie Yea, who has written extensively on the Singaporean government’s manipulation of trafficking victimhood to fulfil their self-interests, can explain Borislav’s statements.
Engagement #5 Interview with Professor Kumaralingam
My previous interview with an academic was not as fruitful as I wished it to be, given his reluctance to answer most of my questions and declining an interview (twice), I realised that I needed another perspective to voice their academic opinion on the question of Singapore’s successes and failures. This is why I reached out to professor Kumaralingam as he was quoted in an article about Singapore’s disapproval of the 2018 US DOS TIP report where he explained the reason for the conflicting views on the issue of trafficking in Singapore. He is a professor of law at the National University of Singapore in 2000 and has served as Vice Dean (Academic Affairs), Vice Dean (International Programmes) and Director, Asian Law Institute. He has participated in several conferences regarding human trafficking and wrote a chapter about the “Protection of Victims, particularly Women and Children, Against Domestic Violence, Sexual Offences and Human Trafficking” in the ASEAN Law Association’s 9th General Assembly – Challenge of Globalisation to Legal Services.
At the beginning of the interview, Professor Kumaralingam admitted that his knowledge of human trafficking in Singapore is a bit rusty which explains why he often drew comparisons between the prosecution, partnerships, protection and prevention involved in human trafficking to other issues that the Singaporean government is tackling. For example, he justified Singapore’s crime-control approach against human trafficking by giving a general overview of Singaporean judicial practices. He says that Singapore has begun to shift from more punitive and crime-control approaches to one that embraces the due process model, which is based on the principle that a citizen has some absolute rights and cannot be deprived of life, liberty, or property without appropriate legal procedures and safeguards. He used this example to explain the shift from prosecution to greater victim-centrism in legislation against Trafficking in Persons. The non-trafficking examples that he used to substantiate his claims about trafficking made the rationale’s of the Singaporean government appear as a trend that extends to anti-trafficking legislation.
Overall, Professor Kumaralingam analysed several aspects of Singapore’s strategy against human trafficking and offer insight into why Singapore was eventually receptive to the suggestions outlined in the USA’s TIP report. He was also able to draw comparisons and find similarities between Singapore’s strategy against TIP and other political issues that they have faced.
Engagement 4 – Interview with Ronald JJ Wong
I am interested in receiving the opinion of an academic on the issue of Human trafficking in Singapore. Given that it was a global politics essay, the writing must be composed of much more than a narrative description of the issue. Therefore, after reading 2 papers co-authored by him titled “A critique of international and Singapore legal treatments of Trafficking in Persons” and “the prevention of human trafficking act 2014: legislation comment”, I decided that he would be a suitable stakeholder for me to interview.
What I wished to learn from Ronald are certain comments he made in the writing that he co-authored. I asked him to elaborate on the NGOs involved in the drafting of the Palermo protocol, the conflation of legitimate sex work with sex trafficking and the ambiguity of international conventions. The papers he wrote were published in 2014 and 2018 but despite this, he did not offer any comment for a lot of my questions. He alleged that he didn’t have the most recent information or details to comment on. Even when he does gives answers, they aren’t specific to my question and pretty generic for a lawyer. Oftentimes, the questions I ask have more words than his responses despite my questions being quite open-ended. For example, when I asked him the extent to which “Singapore should be subject to monitoring to point out the effectiveness, or ineffectiveness, of State mechanisms to safeguard and promote human rights through TIP legislation”, hoping to get an answer that broadens my understanding of sovereignty, realism, universalism and human rights, Ronald simply replied by stating the 2 organisations that facilitate such monitoring. I would have preferred if he elaborated on how exactly these organisations monitor Singapore and the extent to which Singapore recognises those suggestions.
Despite this, I still got information that can act as a launchpad or foundation for opinions from other stakeholders. For example, I did learn how Singapore handles democratisation and the rise of civil society, the way trafficking indicators and standards differ between the government and non-state actors and the gendered perceptions of victims of human trafficking. This can be supplemented by additional information found in textbooks and academic sources such as chapter 4 of Bilveer Singh’s “Understanding Singapore Politics”, “Trafficked enough” and “paved with good intentions” by Sallie Yea.
Engagement 3 – Interview with John Gee of TWC2
A key engagement that likely opened my eyes the most to the shortcomings of Singapore’s strategy against TIP is interviewing John Gee, Former president and Head research of TWC2 (transient workers count too). I was referred to John Gee by a professor at NUS who stated that an interview with him would be far more constructive given his experience in researching and writing articles about human trafficking in Singapore. After finding and reading some of his articles, I knew that his perspective and opinions would provide a stable foundation for which I can supplement his views with secondary research and political theories. His perspective contrasted with stakeholders who did not care to elaborate on how specifically the Singaporean government can improve its strategy against TIPThis is why I chose to have an hour-long interview with him regarding the success of Singapore’s strategy against TIP and their agendas or priorities that stood in the way of a completely victim-centric approach. From the interview, he was very eager to voice his opinion and came extremely prepared, sometimes pausing to refer to his notes so that he can quote certain articles properly.
One of the key debates that I am planning to draw out is universalism versus relativism. I am trying to find the underlying political ideologies, theories and norms that are driving both sides of the debate towards cooperation and conflict. From my interview with John Gee, I learnt the extent to which Singapore’s demographic and economic imperatives have influenced the formulation of their strategies against TIP. For example, he brought up an interesting point about Singapore’s meritocratic society resulting in a general weariness towards providing broader protections and guarantees for victims of labour trafficking. This links to relativism as the universal human rights dictating the right to employment and social services is being affected by the agenda of the national government. The contrasting agendas can be exposed by using political theories such as realism, development, immigration and liberalism. I also learnt about a wider debate which is security versus a victim-centric approach. John Gee was very vocal about how the Singaporean government treats human trafficking punitively and through prosecution and less so through protective measures that can affect the desirability of the economy to foreign investors. Lastly, I learnt about the consequences of failing to distinguish the victims of human trafficking and victims of lesser crimes given the confusing nature of trafficking indicators and trafficking. This can be supplemented by further research such as Sallie Yea’s “trafficked enough” which explores how Singapore manipulates these trafficking indicators to determine if people are worthy of protection and support.
Engagement 2 – Interview with Camy Low, Marketing Communications Director at HAGAR
HAGAR is an organisation that is committed to providing support for those that have experienced forced labour, abuse or slavery. Naturally, they would be highly qualified in speaking about the success of Singapore’s Anti-TIP strategy. HAGAR has been essential to the Singaporean government’s strategy against TIP as they provide essential victim care and support and also advise the government on several matters. Therefore, after a series of emails exchanges that also gained the opinions of HAGAR on the nature of Trafficking and its presence in Singapore, I finally managed to acquire an interview in which I spent 50 minutes discussing the treatment of victims of trafficking and the Singaporean government’s success in promoting HAGAR’s activities and furthering their positive impact.
The interview allowed me to receive explicit answers to questions I had that would be difficult to gauge through simply searching the internet. She brought up several examples of trafficking victims that have not appeared on the news given the government’s stance on keeping victims anonymous for their safety. Throughout the interview, the core global politics concepts and theories revolved around human rights, Human rights, victim centrism, victimology (how the experiences of the victim affect the fulfilment of their human rights), feminism, interconnectedness, pragmatism, Rights-based approach, development, inequality and the legitimacy of NGOs especially in “constructive processes”.
Human rights are considered a cornerstone of tackling TIP which is seen as an infringement on fundamental and universal human rights of freedom from bondage and acting against one will. Hence, it was only natural that these universal values will be at the forefront of benchmarking Singapore success in tackling Human trafficking. Unlike my first interview with Christopher De Souza, the time between the initiation of the engagement activity and my interview with Camy gave me sufficient time to pose more difficult questions based on prior criticisms such as the Prevention of human trafficking act not legislating the safe return of victims to their home country, not hard-coding victim-centric measures in the legislation, lack of cooperation with NGOs, etc. Hence, the questions I asked allowed me to gain insider insight into how and why the Singaporean government has been cooperating with NGOs. I learnt that Singapore takes a more pragmatic and discretionary approach to allocating victim-centred provision. Theoretically, they are not willing to hard-code such human rights as the right to employment, shelter, social care, etc because practically, they want such measures to be at the discretion of the authority in charge. While Camy Low did bring up examples of the government enabling or promoting the rights of victims, literature from Sallie Yea state that the Singaporean government’s approach to victim-centred provisions is based on obscurification and discretion. Furthermore, she did not have anything critical to say about the Singaporean government. She spoke very highly of their efforts and going as far as to say that they have a “healthy working relationship”. Maybe it’s her role as a marketing director rather than research that gives her this impression. However, in contrast to Christopher De Souza, she does side more with the universalism of human rights and the importance of international conventions.
