On 8 March I wrote the following letter to the Straits Times Forum, on a recent political issue which I had been following with interest and concern. Since it has not been published, I am putting it on my site, to share my personal views with readers.

I refer to the report ‘Malay integration: MM stands corrected,’ (The Straits Times, Tuesday March 8, 2011)

As a long-time observer of the extraordinary impact that MM has on the Singapore political scene, I would like to comment on his change of position with regard to the failure of the Malay community to integrate with the rest of the society.

The shift bears all the marks of a constrained rather than a spontaneous change of mind and heart. Firstly, the terse statement ‘I stand corrected’ is far short of a genuine apology and may even exacerbate rather than assuage hurt feelings. Secondly, the explanation of an oversight of the community’s successful efforts at integration in the last 2 years, is unconvincing, given MM’s sharp, meticulous thinking and observation. Thirdly, the statement, coming so long after the comments (first reported in the Straits Times on 3 January, 2011) and presumably very soon before the coming general elections, smacks of an opportunistic move.

It is tempting to conclude that this reversal of position is a consensus decision of the PAP government, rather than a conviction decision by MM himself.

Singaporeans like myself, who admire MM for the boldness of his convictions even if we disagree with them, would have preferred to see him maintain his unique role of telling hard truths and taking responsibility for them, rather than give the impression of taking a position so at odds with his strong personality and forthright style.

That way, we are not confused by the sending out of mixed signals.

My letter to the Straits Times Forum, along with Ms Nanda’s reply and two letters from readers, was published on March 5. Another reader’s letter was also published in Straits Times today. The letters are reproduced below.

I refer to the review of Catherine Lim’s book, Miss Seetoh In The World.

I have always thought that it was my “fault” for not being an enthusiastic supporter of one of Singapore’s most popular writers.

After reading your comments, I began to un- derstand where the fault lies. I agree with you that Lim’s writing is “competent and grammatical, if… mechanical”.

— Michael Yap Guan Kim

Truth be told, Catherine Lim’s writing has been on the decline, starting with Unhurried Thoughts At My Funeral in 2005.

It was obvious that she was simply filling up the pages and throwing chunks of stuff into the book indiscriminately, never mind that they were not related to the book.

— Deborah Hsu

After reading the review and the two readers’ letters published in LifeStyle and Life!, I find myself feeling a little sorry for Catherine Lim.

Whatever the perceived literary quality of Miss Seetoh In The World, Lim deserves more courteous and more carefully considered responses from both reviewer and readers.

I also beg to differ with Ms Akshita Nanda’s later reply to Lim’s claim that Ms Nanda had failed to address the ‘political theme’ in Miss Seetoh.

From the beginning, Miss Seetoh is shot through with politics, starting with brief, seemingly playful, allusions to Shakespeare’s republican tragedy Julius Caesar, and continuing with Maria Seetoh’s head on collisions with and reflections on national policies and issues including social engineering (of which Seetoh’s disastrous marriage to the malevolent toady Bernard seems a result), local school classroom and staffroom culture, the teaching of English Language (big L) and literature (small l), censorship, the 5 Cs, Singlish, social inequality and injustice, and domestic surveillance.

But perhaps most telling is Lim’s representation of the life and death of the prophetic figure V.P. Pandy, clearly a portrait and an elegy for the late former Worker’s Party of Singapore Member of Parliament for Anson, J.B. Jeyaretnam.

Ms Nanda asserts that Lim fails to develop these political engagements beyond ‘observations’.

Perhaps, but Lim’s representation of the newly politically engaged Seetoh as little more than a spectator of (and grumbler at) political events in Singapore can be construed as an understandable strategy. In 1994, a series of articles by Lim published in The Straits Times critical of government policy provoked a very public, sharp retort.

Ms Nanda writes that she finds Lim’s satirical style ‘grating, having never been fond of the coy invention of names—Mr TPK our great Prime Minister and The National Times—or recasting of incidents that local readers will immediately match to real-life counterpoints.

However, writers such as Jonathan Swift and Charles Dickens were obliged to similarly mediate their critiques of society in Gulliver’s Travels and Little Dorrit.

I am disappointed by Ms Nanda’s failure to acknowledge and respond to Lim’s first overt and sustained fictional engagement with Singaporean politics and political issues.

Ms Nanda’s glossing over of these issues may mean Lim has been unsuccessful in this experiment. Conversely, the same evidence may also suggest that Lim has been all too successful. Little Dorrit it is not. However, I humbly urge readers to read Lim’s hot mess of a novel and judge for themselves.

— Angus Whitehead

I was interviewed by the BBC in What Can I Say?, a four-part audio documentary exploring freedom of speech and democracy in South East Asia.

On 3 March I wrote to the Straits Times Forum to seek clarification on a certain point regarding the review of my novel—why, in an otherwise detailed and competent analysis, the reviewer had virtually disregarded the most significant component in the novel—the political theme which I thought would be the most interesting to Singaporean readers. She has since emailed back her response. Reproduced below is the exchange of our letters.

Dear Sir/Madam

I refer to Ms Akshita Nanda’s review of my novel ‘Miss Seetoh in the World’ in the Sunday Times, 27 February, 2011.

I would like to comment that while the review was very detailed, analytical and competent, it was incomplete, because it made hardly any reference to the political theme in the novel. The omission was surprising because:

1. it was the first time, in my 30 years as writer, that I had written a political novel
2. the political theme was a major component in the novel, setting its tone and direction right from the beginning
3. Singaporean readers would have been most interested in the reviewer’s analysis or criticism of it.

I would appreciate very much if Ms Nanda could explain this rather glaring omission.

Sincerely,

Dr Catherine Lim

Dear Dr Lim,

Thank you for your feedback. To address your query, my review of Miss Seetoh In The World did refer to the novel’s description of political conditions in Singapore. I’m afraid that I did not and do not think the political themes needed further discussion, or even that they set the tone and direction of the story.

From the very first chapter, the strongest engine driving the novel is Miss Maria Seetoh and her evolution, which is what the review explored.

Thank you for writing in.

Best wishes,

Akshita

Dear Ms Nanda

I was hoping you would see that the evolution of Maria Seetoh was very closely linked with the political conditions in Singapore, in particular her relationship with the opposition member through the various reverses of his career, the political nature of the novel’s climactic incident, and the very note on which it ended. Therefore I do not agree that the political theme deserved the very scant attention you gave it. However, I respect your position as a reviewer to stand by your explanation.

Sincerely

Catherine Lim