Saza Faradilla

There has been much disquiet in Singapore recently. Inflation is rising incessantly, with cars now firmly out of reach of the middle class. Anecdotally, one hears of an increasing number of professionals, managers, executives and technicians (so-called PMETs) working in the gig economy.

As a survivor of sexual assault, I’ve learned that trauma, healing, and the memories of violence don’t operate within neat paradigms or conform to any intuitive, linear structure. I was raped a few years ago by a person I’ll call Sami, a software developer now based in Seattle. But I’d somehow been able to find some semblance of closure a lot more straightforwardly than the single time I got molested, almost a year after my encounter with Sami.

Dear reader, This is Abhishek, subbing in for Sudhir who is luxuriating in the mountains of northern Thailand. If you read last week’s newsletter, you’ll know Charmaine, Sudhir and I were in Chiang Mai for the Splice Beta media festival. It was, in a word, revelatory. We often groan about the lack of press freedoms and the commercial challenges of building an independent publication here. They’re justified.