As a Singaporean, I can confirm that there is no war in Ba Sing Se

This reminded me of a movie about the yakuza where they said "there is no crime in Japan" because "No one would report it as a crime, but instead as an accident" This opened my eye to news and statistics.

Watching Avatar as a kid really radicalized me tbh

"No reported crime!" 'Reported' being the key word here.

Hello! Singaporean here. Thank you. It's especially hard for us to be critical about this place because there are literally laws that allow the government to just take down anything they deem as misinformation. It's incredibly frustrating being here - in a place so unapologetically capitalist and prejudiced, full of people who don't care because they've been taught not to. It genuinely keeps me up at night. I have a lot of unkind things to say about this place and at 30 I've come to accept that I don't think there is a place on Earth where I'll feel at peace.

adding some stuff as a social worker in singapore: we are severely understaffed, almost always, and we earn barely enough (2k a month, i myself need 1.8k per month for expenses). we're usually looked down upon, and it's really prevalent when we see the government handing out social service funding like prize money instead of like. an actual necessity. "meritocracy" is a concept held in the hands of the government and the ruling class

So this is obviously not an issue that only happens in Singapore, but there is an overall hostility towards the arts here - if not hostility, then it's definitely looked down upon. Lee Kuan Yew famously said "Singapore doesn't have the luxury of poetry", and it seems that attitude has never really gone away (ironic because there is a stage musical about Lee Kuan Yew called LKY the Musical). There is an arts scene, and there are many very talented people here, but they often have their aspirations crushed out of them early. As in all capitalistic societies, there is a fixation on income as a gauge of a person's worth - to many people here, it's the only gauge of a person's worth. You're looked down upon if you aren't in medicine, law or finance (the finance industry being especially fetishised here now). So "you can't make money in the arts" becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Recently, Singapore struck an exclusivity deal with Taylor Swift to ensure she would perform in Singapore and in no other Southeast Asian countries on the Eras Tour, so Singapore wants the economic results of the arts, but doesn't want the arts themselves. The arts exist to the extent that they can serve the government and disseminate their message: anyone working in the arts in Singapore will have directly or indirectly worked for the government, and most filmmakers have made films and short films commissioned by the government even if they don't agree with the government. There is also at least some connection to how artists can have dissenting ideas and can present them effectively and persuasively, which is something the Singapore government wants to tamp down as much as possible, as mentioned in the video in the context of Operation Spectrum.

tw: sexual assault i'm a singaporean citizen, and the story abt harvey reminded me of my own sexual assault case. when i approached the police, they at first turned me away. they didnt want to entertain my report. but i kept coming and coming, adamant about reporting my perpetrator. when i reported it, i was basically asked really victim blamey questions, like what i was wearing, how did i found myself in that situation, etc. the actual investigation process stretched out for nearly two years, and when i had to testify in court, i was retraumatised again by the judicial system while trying to testify my story against my abuser. in general, sexual assault is really not taken seriously in sg. on the surface sg seems safe, but hell for women and minorities.

"Singapore is Disneyland with the Death Penalty" - William Gibson

Yeah, the whole Singapore trip my family and I went to was based around “So clean, so safe, no chewing gum” And then I saw the non-affluent South Asians so I knew what was up.

If anyone wants to learn more about Singapore's history, the graphic novel "The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye" is a fascinating read.

As someone who’s thinking of moving abroad, it’s a futile exercise because dealing with bigotry is a universal experience. Also, I’m constantly thinking about brain drain.

crazy how if an actual singaporean was the one who make this video they will definitely get in trouble 😭😭

Singapore and Dubai have alot of parallels. When I lived in Dubai, one of my close friends was Singaporean Tamil and Kashmiri muslim. He served in NS in the undercover department as well and would tell me about the blatant racism he'd face from the ethnic chinese majority for his dark skin within the force. I was speaking with my wife just the other day about the "maids" situations in both Singapore and Dubai. Alot of our friends had live-in maids and we always wondered how their own kids were faring. It was one of the long list of things i never accepted about Dubai.

As a Singaporean, I genuinely do think that while some of the points you made are good, you are brushing over a lot of rather important aspects of Singapore's development. Specifically, I feel like it's very 'hindsight-judgment', like, gazing upon Singapore being so 'successful' now and going, "Eh, LKY wasn't THAT important". But really, forty, thirty, twenty, years ago? Singapore was very different. Singapore was much poorer. It did take a lot of work for Singapore to become what it is today. I do sincerely believe that many of our harsher policies were necessary. Anyway, yea, I disagree with what I consider to be a view that can only be taken BECAUSE Singapore is successful, and not BEFORE Singapore was successful, but I still wholly approve of you making this video and casting a light on the flaws of Singapore.

hey, i stumbled upon this video as a singaporean. i already knew around 60% of what you covered, but the 40% i didnt know was really eye-opening to me. especially operation high tide. thank you elliot, ori and carissa for this video ❤

NOT ANTHONY BOURDAIN GAGGING GUESTS WITH THE BOURGEOIS CALL OUT

Well as someone that grew up in Singapore. I can definitely say that we are not oblivious to the problems. If there’s ever a country known for gossips and spreading of news is Singapore. The main issue isn’t solely the government, is also Singaporeans and I’m saying this as a Singaporean. We see the issues and the flaws in the system. However, majority of the nation just doesn’t care. As long as the government is taking care of 80% of the country needs, most citizens don’t care. We do voice out injustice through social media but then immediately go on with our day because all these issues don’t affect the average day Singaporean. Most of us are sympathetic but not empathetic in other words. Is Singaporean being like this the government fault, not really. I would say is the many generations before us aka our parents and our parents’ parents passing down the “Don’t kaypoh” (don’t bother with other people’s problems) mentality. Ba Sing Se maybe brainwashed but in Singapore we are taught to read between the lines, compare sources and to be critical or what we read or learn (Is a subject we learn in secondary school, social studies). We aren’t gullible pawns of the government, but we frankly speaking don’t want to actively make changes either because “their” problem isn’t “my” problem mentality. Which is perfect for what you would call a dictatorship. Of course if the problem effects us, we do voice it out and 9 times out of 10, if the problem effects majority of Singaporean it will be fix. The silencing of the minority isn’t done by the government, is more of other Singaporean inaction of pushing this issue to the government, because is not and immediate issue to us. Example of singaporean voicing out issues is the political issues ex transport minister S. Iswaran. If it effects us we care, if it doesn’t directly effect us we care but not enough to argue for it. This video is great, but is very one sided and biased. Which I believe is the intent, trying to show Singapore’s issues. These are problems that should be fixed and can be fixed if more Singaporean speaks up. (I’m also not saying that Singaporeans don’t want this issues to be fixed, we do but not everyone wants to actively take part in fixing it. Is like a case of oh dang someone littered on the ground, I pick up the trash and help dispose of it properly but nah) but nonetheless the video serves it purpose and serves it well. To educate those outside of Singapore that Singapore is not all rainbows and sunshine. Like every other country in the world is not prefect, is just better than most others. And also feel free to argue and share opinions, what I say is not true for everyone, that’s what I was taught in social studies, to critique and think for myself, so should you.

Had a friend who wouldn't shut up about moving to Singapore wondering if they were an example of a "good" dictatorship 👍

As a singaporean- dude, damn yeah. However we do have a good bds movement and a lot of underground activist circles and activity circles also, the most disheartening thing abt being from sg is how mainstream it is for people to have weird implicit biases abt minorities, also weird elitism and people treating foreign workers like maids like indentured servants. Esp as someone who a singaporean by birth but parents migrated here. Also foreign workers are exploited and treated like shit only for some losers to go and talk smack abt the foreign workers who took the jobs, and lower wage levels and higher work times, that no one wanted or is persuaded to do and become, only to be blamed for a lack of domestic manpower when the system incentivises white collar jobs and makes everyone since day one aim for it exclusively even with exclusive jc and uni affiliated sec schools. If ure a labourer in singapore ure seen in a very low light since ure seen as uneducated or cannot make it. Which sucks. All workers in sg deserve better treatment, esp foreign workers and blue collar workers, like live in maids.

Bourdain was NOT joking at 17:10 😂😂 informative and excellent video as always man

It's also worth mentioning that many people's positive perception of Singapore is when they are welcomed to the country through Changi International Airport, consistently ranked the world's best airport for features like the Jewel. This also doesn't mention how the government has tried to stamp out southern Chinese varieties and Singlish from being spoken in the past. A great example of the rivalry between Malaysia and Singapore is Singapore's Rail Corridor, a 26 km long right-of-way that used to have trains to Malaysia that's now a trail. There used to be six times daily intercity services between Tanjong Pagar and Kuala Lumpur, with Bukit Timah station as an additional Singapore station, but service was truncated to Woodlands Checkpoint as a shuttle between it and Johor Bahru (replaced by a rapid transit link in 2026). Under the Railway Act 1918, the land that made up the railway was given to the Federated Malay States government from the Straits Settlements for a period of 999 years. So basically, even after Singapore was kicked out of Malaysia in 1965, this land would still be owned by the Malaysian government. Singapore wanted the land returned to them. Singapore moved their immigration/customs from Tanjong Pagar to Woodlands in 1998, but Malaysia insisted on keeping theirs at Tanjong Pagar. In other words, people were granted entry into Malaysia before clearing Singaporean immigration, which made no sense. To circumvent the problem, Malaysian officers didn't stamp the passports, but by doing this...Singaporeans were arrested in Malaysia because they weren't stamped, thus bringing to light the issue of Malaysia keeping their customs/immigration at Tanjong Pagar. Malaysia and Singapore finally agreed to scrap the Railway Act at a leaders' retreat in 2010 (they first did so in 1990, but there was a deadlock), where Malaysia was allowed to remain at Woodlands Train Checkpoint while the rest of the line would be truncated and become a rail trail. Bukit Timah station remains conserved, while Tanjong Pagar station is preserved.

this reminded me of a critique i read a long time ago on how though _crazy rich asians_ is praised as a win for representation, it comes at the expense of the erasure of asian minorities in singapore. i didn't know anything about the country when i watched the movie, -- and of course i didn't see it as some sort of comprehensive education on the place -- but with my lack of understanding on class division in other parts of the world at the time of me watching it and my general lack of general inquisitiveness for some narratives i’d absorbed in my day-to-day life (especially in some media), had i not read that piece i wouldn't have thought that deeply about the movie's exclusion of the working class in order to tell its story and what effect that has on real people's perception of singapore. coming across that critique really opened my eyes to how it's so easy and subtle to influence people's understanding of other places and invisibilize marginalized classes, and helped me realize how important it is to always be challenging my own thinking. this topic/video also made me think about how you'll hear some (u.s. american) people laud canada as "better" than the u.s., but that comes at the expense of, for instance, invisibilizing its subjugation of first nations people; how nyc has a rep, especially online, as being a place only the ultra rich and influencer types can afford to live in, and this erases the existence of the many working class people who live here (there's a really good tiktok by @c.a.i.t.l.y.n that talks about this). it's just so interesting to think about how much visibility and lack thereof -- through interpersonal discourse, in movies, on social media, from the showboating mouths of politicians -- not only obscures reality but, in popular imagination, _creates_ it. all this to say, this topic/video was just a good reminder to be critical, to question the most dominant narratives, and to hold space for the fact that there are always people who are being oppressed. just because we can't always "see it" doesn’t mean they don't exist, and it's important to prioritize trying to give them that visibility, even if it's just to improve our own personal understanding. but yeah great video! and so much respect and appreciation to ori and carissa for sharing their knowledge and time.

Quote of the day "imperial Japan, so many war crimes ya know, but Hello kitty does slap though" 😂

Also, "but Hello Kitty slaps" 😂

just to add that Malaysia as a political project was, and still is, fraught with severe discriminatory practices against minorities, enshrined in the constitution, so... there is nuance with Singapore's ouster from the formation of the Malaysian state

Some other problems of singapore include: 1. That one time in 2021 when a trans student named ash Lee was forbidden from socially transitioning despite (not allowed to use female bathroom and low-key forbade from going to school). When people brought it up it turned out that the school policy is to our students to their parents (though anecdotally not all teachers follow this rule). 2. When a couple of people protested the treatment of Harvey and operation high tide at pink dot 2023 (Singapore pride) pink dot shut them down and released a statement that implied that they were homophobic, which is very in line with you “there is no war in Singapore “ thesis. 3. In April 2022 the state executed a severely mentally disabled man for being a drug mule. 4. The ministry of education recently forced schools to do a presentation on the situation in Gaza and spread the misinformation that Hamas did not recognise Israel and wanted it gone. Excellent video. Thanks for shedding light on the situation. Side note: One of the Singaporean churches (Church of our saviour specifically) mentioned in the operation high tide thing once tried to infiltrate the biggest local woman’s rights organisation (luckily they failed) to make it more homophobic and used to run pray the away conversion therapy (though they always denied that what they did constituted conversion therapy).

There's more to the Singapore in Malaysia part than that. Lee Kuan Yew's party People's Action Party believed that Singapore's future lay with Malaya because they believed that reuniting with Malaya would benefit the economy by creating a common market, alleviating unemployment woes. But the communist wing of PAP was against this, and so they split off and formed the Barisan Sosialis party in 1961 (which later merged with the Workers' Party in 1988). In 1956, Lee supported a purge by the Labour Front of suspected "leftists" in the aftermath of the Chinese middle school riots, with arrests including his PAP rival Lim Chin Siong (in 1963, Lee launched Operation Coldstore to round more communists up). The ruling party of Malaya, the United Malays National Organisation or UMNO, was staunchly anti-communist and while initially skeptical of merger due to distrust of PAP and concern that the Chinese Singaporean population would alter the racial balance in Malaya on which their political power base depended, became supportive due to fear of communism. UMNO supports Malays being granted special rights, while Lee Kuan Yew coined the term "Malaysian Malaysia" for his stance of a Malaysia for everyone, distinguishing nationality from ethnicity. When the federation was proposed in 1961, UMNO leaders believed that the additional Malay population in the Bornean territories would balance Singapore's Chinese population. Indonesian president Sukarno however opposed Malaysia's formation and launched Konfrontasi. In March 1965, a bomb planted by Indonesians at Singapore's MacDonald House exploded, killing three people and injuring 33 others. Even after the merger, the Singaporean government and the Malaysian central government disagreed on many political and economic issues. Despite an agreement to establish a common market, Singapore continued to face restrictions when trading with the rest of Malaysia. In retaliation, Singapore did not extend to Sabah and Sarawak the full extent of the loans agreed to for economic development of the two eastern states. Talks soon broke down, and abusive speeches and writing became rife on both sides. This led to the 1964 race riots you mentioned, and thus seeing no alternative to the intense situation, Malaysian parliament voted for Singapore to be expelled in August 1965.

singaporean here. the thing is a lot of us know that singapore has a very dark underlying history and there are a lot of things wrong with it. but majority of people don’t want to fix. their mindset is as long as it doesn’t affect them they don’t care. this is an engrained and conditioned kinda mindset from generations and generations ago so is very hard to let go now. even as a youth i see other youth just perpetuating this no-care attitude and discriminatory behaviours. it makes me sad why are we as a people so selfish. if i could leave most likely i would. only good thing about this place is the public transport LOL

As a Singaporean myself, I noticed that when Singaporeans are presented with arguments that go against their worldview, they become extremely defensive. Instead of engaging with the arguments and refuting them with logical rebuttals, the common emotionally charged refrain is "X is how things are done here. If you don't like X, no one's stopping you from leaving". Not only is that highly callous and dismissive (not taking into consideration that sometimes people just can't leave the country), it simply silences discourse. How is it that we can improve anything in Singapore if we keep accepting things for the way they are or telling people to leave if they don't like it here? There is this general attitude of defeatism and helplessness mixed together with this misplaced sense of gratitude and pride. Complaining = being ungrateful. This, I feel, engenders a very discouraging and toxic climate. It is an attitude that reinforces the dominant discourse, encourages conformity, and marginalizes minorities. Worst of all, it prevents change for the better as no one seems to want to even begin by acknowledging the flaws in our country, regardless of what they are. If we love our country, we should find ways of making it better together instead of coming up with reasons why it's already as good as it can get. I feel that the old adage of "pride comes before a fall" is extremely pertinent here. This, I feel, is one of the reasons many young Singaporeans feel like they don't have a stake in their own country. I just worry for our country, because many young Singaporeans, many who care, are indeed taking the advice and are leaving the country (at an alarming rate). Be careful what you wish for. Just had to get that off my chest, because I'm starting not to care too.

~8:00 "Coolie" is actually more neutral in India, it can be offensive in some contexts but is also still used as a job title for certain people, particularly people who transport luggage at train stations. It's a lot closer to being a slur in other countries where a lot of "coolie" laborers were imported, like South Africa and various Caribbean and Southeast Asian countries.

50:48 It would be amazing if you could talk about the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. I'm Chilean, and today a lot of right-wing politicians and commentators are pushing the idea that Pinochet's rule was justified and beneficial. Eitherway, awesome video. Thanks for bringing awareness to issues of this sort.

SINGAPORE MENTIONED 🔥🔥🔥

Since you said we could comment about places we would like you to cover... could you talk about Haiti?

Thank you for this!! Any country that has become very successful under capitalism has done so through extreme exploitation and inequality - so I always side-eyed Singapore but never looked into the history. Super informative! :) Also the people in the Anthony Bourdain clip made me sick to my stomach.

My friend just did a study abroad in Singapore. She didn't really say much about it, but I assume she didn't have a bad time for the few months she stayed. I want to send this to her in case she has anything to add, I don't hear a lot about Singapore in my day to day life, so this is so interesting.

I feel like with Lee Kuan Yew, it's important to keep in mind that he and his administration were exceptional in the context of others in his era. Singapore *did* achieve outstanding things compared to it's peers. Of course he made mistakes (there is no success without occasional failure), and had erroneous ideas, but it is what he and Singapore *were* able to do in spite of their mistakes that makes Lee Kuan Yew and Singapore so impressive. There are many countries who were similarly positioned as Singapore in the 60's, but only few were able to achieve something comparable to Singapore.

I think there's a lot of problem with building the Singapore story on cherry-picked examples. It is often said that if you want to find out what a man is, give him power - and by that metric Singapore could have done a lot worse than LKY.

The Singapore Govt probably wont give you a citizenship after this, but I'd still buy you a kopi here if you visit as a tourist. Singapore is not a perfect utopia and much beauty foreigners see is thanks to our tourism board. In reality, despite relatively low crime rates and peaceful circumstances, Singapore is still a nation under construction. Now that there's gonna be a change in leadership, much remains to be seen and I'm excited (kind of).

ur really good at talking about asian countries and cultures without being fetishy or doomeristic. loved the video! ❤❤

I view that the explanation of the exit of Singapore from Malaysia was a bit too simplistic. It was far more than just Malaysia not wanting to accommodate Singapore but rather the fear that LKY’s populist stance would threaten the Malay hegemony in Malaysia. The irony however was that the decision of Tunku Abdul Rahman to remove Singapore was in order to reduce tendencies of racial tensions. Between those who supported LKY’s multiracial stance (the Chinese) vs the pro-Malay hegemony stance (the Malays), the consensus was that by the 1969 elections, LKY’s populist idea,a would have caused too much tension between the Chinese and the Malays. Yet in 1969, the same populist ideas were propagated by Gerakan (a Malaysian party) which resulted in riots anyways. LKY by no means truly wanted for a fair and equitable society for the races in Singapore, but one thing for sure is that he was a populist and at the time there was genuinely a divide between multiracial Malaysia and a Malay Malaysia and Singapore was of the former. But the true irony is how LKY enabled majoritarian politics which has trickled down into a privileged Chinese class, not so different than the privileged Malay class in Malaysia. Hence you see the stark differences between Chinese Malaysians and Singaporean Malaysians.

A whole day and this video is still available in Singapore! Amazing

I get the feeling Anthony wasn't just "Fucking with them" lol

I am a Singaporean. I was put in jail for 7 days, for eating a THC edible. The thing is, when I got arrested, they told me I was going to be in jail for 1 year at least. They put me in solitary confinement. There were no windows, no clocks, and they tied me to a metal bed. The lights were always on 24/7, and there is a CCTV camera pointed right at the bed. If I wanted to piss, shit, or drink water, I had to ring a bell and a guard would come. Sometimes when I rang the bell, nobody answered, so I soiled myself. This incident was 2 years ago, and I have been going for therapy every single week up till now to recover from the trauma I experienced. I am blessed to have not been fired from my job, and that I can afford a good therapist. Most of my colleagues are European, and cannot fathom being put in jail for marijuana consumption. I am now relocating to the Europe in hopes of a life with more freedom. I don't think I would ever want to come back to Singapore again.

hi. as someone that knows Harvey personally(i even created this account to not be identified by her and her “friends”), she is not all innocent here. while i empathise on her imh r-word case, she has made many threats to many people. calling the cops on people who oppose her, actually planning to send anthrax/drug packages to her now ex-friend’s parents and threatening violence to people whom she deems traitorous. this is just my personal experience with her and her group.

Singaporean here. Too many points to counter here to keep this brief enough. So all i will say is, of course there are problems in every country, but the problems raised here are mostly one offs. For example, maids getting abused, yes it happens, and when it does happen, the justice system kicks in and jailed the employer. The flip side of that is, there are thousands of maids working in singapore today that are not abused and get to earn a good salary to send back home to their families. The narratives that are pushed by this video are mostly just that, narratives. Singapore is a great place to live, where everyone is treated equally under the law and have a high standard of base opportunities to get started in life.

you forgot to mention that the main reason for seperation of singapore and malaysia were the racism between both countries, which led to a racial riot

Regarding the part in the Anthony Bourdain clip where every household has a maid, it reminds me of how most South Asian and SE Asian households have "help". Not that I don't think it causes an issue of inequality, but I think it's also very cultural and prevalent in the countries surrounding Singapore too. My Bangladeshi friend said she had a maid when she was a child and treated her horribly, and so did everyone else in her family.

I had a friend from Singapore who is ethnically Malay, and the stories she told me about her school sounded so fantastical that when I was younger, I just brushed her off as exaggerating (we were preteens, after all) until we were in high school and she had to go back (something to do with her mom's immigration; I can't remember) and she would do video calls and send pictures for a while and I realized she wasn't exaggerating. The wealth disparity was just normal for her, so she didn't think to explain anything because she just saw it as a fact of life. It wasn't until I got to college that I realized that her situation wasn't unique to Singapore. I made a friend from South Africa who told me an almost identical story about being from a relatively middle-class background, getting a scholarship to attend a "good" high school, making friends with, and getting bullied by "rich" kids. Girls from Brazil, Ethiopia, and a guy from Uruguay had very similar stories. After college, when I joined the workforce, I realized these instances of wealth inequality and rigorous enforcement of education standards with false promises of meritocracy aren't limited to the global south. It happens in America, too. Because of who my parents are and where I was born and grew up, I wasn't exposed to this until after I was an adult. Of the people I mentioned, all of them have desperately tried to stay in the U.S. because the opportunities promised them at home didn't actually exist but because they attended University here, they've been able to build small but stable networks. There are people I've met through work who have similar experiences all over the U.S. They've worked hard, but are aware that the opportunities they've had make them the lucky ones. Their stories can be used as examples of meritocracy at work, but they all can name childhood friends who were just as if not more smart or hardworking who weren't given the same opportunities and suffered for it. There is a war in Ba Sing Se. There is a war in Singapore. There is a war at home. I find myself thinking a lot these days of two poems I read in high school for a WWII history class. "First They Came" by Martin Niemöller and "The Hangman" by Maurice Ogden. I hope we don't let history repeat itself again.

My entire grandma's side of the family are Indian Tamils who migrated in the early 1900s to Malaysia and Singapore, but my grandma's dad, who worked on rubber plantations there, and later as a bank teller, eventually decided to move his family back to India, although my grandma's extended family were still in Malaysia and Singapore, and remain there to this day. I was always fascinated by this side of my heritage, since my family never talks about what life was like in Malaysia and Singapore. So thank you for making a video shedding a light on the situation in Singapore. I found it very educational.

Correction* coolie is not used as a slur in India infact it has been celebrated in many movies in the light of average hardworking honest men and even today coolies exist in india and it is not slave labour, it is basically another word for baggage handlers for railways

You’d think there’d be a thriving queer scene in Singapore because it feels like a fun place.

People usually don’t realize that Singapore is not actually a democratic country

As a Finn I can attest to the neutralizing effect of having your sense of self tied to your country being the paragon of peace and virtue. We are conditioned from childhood to firmly believe in our social democracy being the best framework there is, or ever could be. It doesn't help when foreign socdems point to us as the ideal. The conditioning is so deep that someone suggesting otherwise feels like a personal assault. Our current regime, a natural alliance between rabid neoliberals, ethnonationalists and Christian conservatives, is hurrying the decades-long project of dividing and conquering the people with inhuman cuts, but criticism of these policies or the ideology behind them is widely considered unpatriotic. I imagine Singaporeans, also in a country that serves as a capitalist lackey at the edge of the Empire, might be in a similar trap of deliberate cultural conditioning. Capitalism makes all societies milkshakes made with feces; social democracy and its ilk make us compete on who has the most sprinkles in an effort to keep us from deciding that milkshakes shouldn't contain any feces. The struggle is international, and thanks for shedding more light on it!

7:43 Shoutout to the Natives of Bengal. We do get around.

Thank you for this. No one is talking about it and it’s driving me crazy.

That whole conversation at 17:00 was so insane, everything from "I know how do my laundry in theory" to "Moving clothes from my washing machine to putting them in the dryer is therapeutic"

I think most people in South East Asia already knew LOOONG time ago that Singapore is a police state. They made a shirt about it as souvenirs. You barely see them but they are always watching.

Oh my goodness!! The Kontinentalist's shoutout!!! I love their writing. thanks for making this video!

actually coolie isn't really a slur anymore in India. It refers to the people who carry your luggage, mostly for transporting luggage from trains to the cars.

For those who don't have a background with genetics I want you to know that the UN in the 1950s have said after world war 2 that the ideas of race are a social construct and not based on scientific evidence. For one random mutation to occur in a population it takes roughly 70,000 years. So therefore, a population has to be genetically isolated for millions of years to have differences appear but something as nebulous as having a "smarter" race cannot exist within the species (we are all one species for a reason). For biological differences that we can measure and do see in real life, tibetan people tend to have larger lungs and higher counts of red blood cells. So that means the differences we see in life about how "smart" you are, are instead based on our environment/culture/experience. We even learn our environment has an effect on our biology as well when we started researching about epigenetics, microbiomes (did you know some viruses infect cells but actually help them?). The culture and idea of lineage and heritage often arise from cultures with a "noble" class to rationalise their superiority. The idea of family changes, families don't even necessarily exist? You could just as easily find every single life part of your family. It's hard to realise just how much your culture/experiences affects the way you think.

Crime is everywhere, especially where you dont see it

Singapore doesn't hide it's colors. It's actually telling everyone that she plays by her own rules or go somewhere else that sucks.

Ayyyyyy! I didn't ever think Singapore would get a video on this channel

16:07 Yeah, this feels eerily familiar to us in India too.

great video! as always

Haven’t watched finished yet but as a Singaporean was surprised to see the title will watch Soon I am excited

Born and lived here my whole life Singaporean here (been 2 America twice so far), that whole clip of the maid thing with Anthony Bourdain was an exaggeration, not every Singaporean can afford a maid and my family never personally have one (my mom does the chores ^_^). However my Aunt did suffer a stroke back in 2021 so we were forced to hire a maid from Indonesia to take care of her as a necessity.

I agree with the points you brought up about Singapore's issues, but if I can make one criticism, the ATLA framing was really jarring in a video about a real life country. Also someone has probably warned you already, but Singapore is very online, so apologies in advance if you start getting angry Reddit users in the comments.

Thank you so much for makeing this video about Singapore, i feel like there really isn't a lot of English speaking political overview videos of Singapore at all, and have been looking for something like this for a long time

been thinking about some of this stuff lately ima give this a watch

hi elliot. i stay in singapore and having found out about operation high tide when it happened, i felt like speaking out was dangerous and humiliating. ur work is so important

as a singaporean and avatar-lover, i appreciate this deep dive and was so hyped when i saw the video title HAHAHA

Well edited Well spoken Well researched, learned a lot !!! Keep doing what you’re doing

Hello, I'm a Burmese that has been raised in Singapore by immigrant parents from childhood. The case you brought about the Burmese worker is extremely disheartening(my family at the time were extremely sad to hear that it happened to a burmese national who worked as a maid), but you portray it as if every single house worker is abused in that way. I have had family friends who had to work as maids to support their families and improve their incomes. However, very rarely they are abused by their Singaporean employers. I feel like this is a little disingenuous to do. It would have been more appropriate to list worker that work in construction. I am not educated enough to talk about construction, but from rumours of my local area, there has been a death in a train line which halted construction for a while. I agree with most of the video's reports on crimes and I agree with the fact that Singapore doesn't necessarily have the medium to freely speak your opinion. Although I do not quite understand the cult following of the late Lee Kuan Yew, he led Singapore through tumultuous times after separating from Malaysia. His policies were there as a response to the communist insurgency in Malaysia at the time. In the case of a country that had recently been seperated from Malaysia and diplomatically tense with its neighbours, it moved towards some would call a 'dictatorship', enacting policies that took away rights and having a lot of rules in place. "Safety" back then was being an anti-communist and having anti-communist policies. You can argue if this is still relevant today, but most of the laws date back to this era. (To note because this may be a point of bias; I am not a fan of communists. I'm Burmese.) Despite this, the government introduced a lot of quality of life infrastructure and policies that helped the average Singaporean (eg. easy scanning of passport when you're entering and leaving Singapore to name an example from the top of my head). This led to Singaporeans obviously being reliant on their governments or people of authority to do the work that most people deem a 'hassle' for them. The example you list of the four people in the hawker centre conversing about doing laundry and their lack of ability of knowing how to do so of comparing it to the 'communist party' is quite interesting to me because of that. This just means Singaporeans are just not independent as compared to western countries. The quote from Lee Kuan Yew in 1983 was; "What we discovered in the 1980 census, which I think has to be brought out, is that we are really discarding our able parents in the next generation and doubling the less able." This sounds horrible on a vacuum. But if you know a little bit of Lee Kuan Yew's philosophy, he sees Singapore as having no natural resources, nothing in particular. It is primarily getting its resources from imports, even its water. Singaporeans themselves are the Singaporean's valuable resource. “The only resource we have is our human capital. This remains the most important and single most crucial resource for us. We will continue to invest heavily in workforce development by equipping all our workers with relevant skills to meet the demands of the changing economy while providing additional holistic support to uplift more vulnerable workers.” This is not said by Lee Kuan Yew himself, but the party that he founded, specifically by the Minister of Manpower. Do note that the practice of Eugenics was still being done in 1979 in California. Although it stopped in the same year, it would not be a surprise to say that Lee Kuan Yew, with his all-divine-thinking thought that this practice would still be acceptable if brought to Singapore. Obviously, this speech still blemished his party's ratings for quite a while, but understand his philosophy before misconstruing it into thinking that the Singaporean government hates poor people. You can criticise the average Singaporean for being too reliant on the government and having other people to do their jobs for them. You can criticise the education system for being too hard or tough. I wouldn't have an issue about that. But this video has underlying tones of misrepresenting LKY's equality quote (without full knowledge of his philosophy), misrepresenting the housemaid incidient and LKY's policies is what is not quite convincing me. The research is done well, but you might have rushed your conclusions.

As someone who has firsthand experience of being in a anti- LGBTQ church in Singapore, I think it's pretty safe to say that, yeah, the bias is still there and the government doesn't care about the issues we face XP

For a start, I feel our migrant workers seriously need more rights and protection. Other than 1 day off a week (which can be bought out), I just learned live in domestic helpers are only entitled to 7 hours of uninterrupted rest each day. My own 9-6 sometimes already drive me up the wall, having to be on standby to serve my employer for 17 hours is so unfathomable.

First of all, I DID remember that from the beginning of the vid. Don't judge me. Second, this was something I didn't realize I needed to know. I was born in the 80s so there were pieces that I do remember, but I haven't given Singapore or it's role much thought in my adulthood. Thanks to you and your friends for bringing it back to my awareness. (All hail ATLA references 🙌🏾). And lastly, this is a very nice look on you 👌🏾 😊 See you next time!

I’m a foreigner living in China, and I think a huge aspect missing here was how obviously some of Lee Kwan Yew come from a Chinese perspective. Even the anti-Marxist obsession is almost certainly at least partly a result of the Malay Emergency when almost all ethnic Chinese were suspected as potential Marxist rebels. How could that still be relevant into the late 80’s? Because LKY and other elite were still running things 30-40 years later. Mostly though, Lake Laogai is barely even a reference to 劳动改造 it’s just the standard name. It’s the system of labor camps across China. There seems to be this notion that Singapore is a mostly western entity in Southeast Asia, which you push back on partly. Parallels to modern China and Chinese history are also very important to understanding Singapore. Singapore is multiethnic but a large ethnic Chinese community (which official policy unites into a single group) is a basic fact shaping many aspects of the country which can’t be ignored.

the migrant domestic workers thing reminds me of the situation in taiwan, as well as the "well it doesn't affect us attitude" I've encountered here, especially when it comes to stuff like blackface in the cosplay community (and on halloween but that's not every day so). I brought it up in a seminar talking about the differences between social policing in our own countries and in taiwan and then my lecturer brought up the example of a singaporean official doing brownface and then the people who called him out on it being labelled racist instead of the actual perpetrator, so this video was very interesting to get a wider picture on the context of that incident's reaction

Everything you touched on here is 100% applicable in Vancouver, BC. Right down to the perps and root causes.

What are you talking about? There is no crime in singapore…… there is no crime in singapore……..there is no crime of singapore

12:00 The real reason that they ousted singapore was because at the time the amount of chinese people in singapore suddenly becoming malaysians would have caused the malays to no longer be a majority of voters. He was also really popular among the malaysian chinese and his party taking over the whole country was a real threat.

when i found out that in singapore you get a cainning along with a prison term i was like huh something is not right, and after this essay im not surprised but also still genuinely appalled. keep staying informed guys and join your mutual aid

The thing is, SG is connected umbilical to the "west", it was so weird when last time Russia invade Ukraine, SG follow suit to sanction the Russia, but then when You-know-who doing the "g" words, SG need to self-censor, even Malaysia can say bluntly to the German PM, and to some extend Indonesia.

As a Singaporean, i can say that it is not a great place to live in. Yes it is safe, yes we are rich, but there is nothing to do other than partake in endless conspicuous consumption. Classism is extremely rampant, if you are not rich you are not a respected member of society.

i used to hate ur videos, but overtime i realized that theyre bangers.

This was an insightful video, thank you. Love the ATLA reference.

the crossover i never knew i needed ❤ (Singaporean and major ATLA fan)

Let this be a random comment to remind you for no reason that there was that one American politician who believed that the CEO of TikTok is from China despite claiming that he’s Singaporean 7 times. Like I said, for no reason. 🙂

Whenever someone is claiming a country is perfect, the economy is blooming, i will look at eonomical diversity, education stree, youth mobility and birth rate to question, Is it that good?

2:44 Sultan Mosque is even more beautiful IRL

I'm a little bit worried about El Salvador for just the same thing. I'm super happy that they are more safe now but I'm still scared of the unbalance of power that could be used wrong

As a Singaporean living in her undoubtedly greatest town named Yishun, there is no better place to call home. All of us are satisfied. There isn't any other opinion. We are all happy. There's nothing else we should be feeling.

Lmao. When i saw the headline i thought the main reason why singapore isnt ba sing se is cause we singaporeans love to complain. Its as if it our hobby lol

there is also a recent event about Kira Moon, A Drag Queen in Singapore that was assulted physically but the police "could not arrest" people that assulted her despite evidence and she had to push for her case in order to have something done while meanwhile other people were getting arrested left and right without reasons which includes sex workers etc. Being a Singaporean myself I really agreed with your video (and zuko) with Singapore feeling like a prison. We get so much praise about how good our city is and how safe it is but I nvr really felt safe, being trans myself, and I cant escape this city if I have no money. It really feels like we r trapped in a prison that from the outside is seen as a free country and all that jazz. Amazing video!!!

Thanks for making this video Elliot, great critical uncovering of a topic that a lot of people are not familiar with, but is so relevant!

Just wanted to say that the Graduate Mothers Scheme was taught to me in school as objectively as possible. There was no attempt to hide it. Students decide for themselves if it was good or bad.

Can you talk about the diverse citizens ( multi ethnicity) of Saudi? And how two sides can have harmful views that parallels Western racism (unironically from both sides lol) and the government not really attempting to look into that. And how governments ignoring issues doesn’t help the citizens at all.

PLEASE DO A VIDEO ABOUT ROMANI CULTURE. their history is very interesting, because they have been oppressed for centuries all over europe