To my fellow writers, Dealing with censorship isnt easy. Especially when it comes from people whose narrow lives have no space for literature. Especially when it seems as if a public institution that is supposed to protect books would rather collude with bigots in their destruction. And we are all poorer for it. As writers, we probably feel doubly diminished. But please don’t stop writing. Even if you think that any country that bows to its fundamentalists does not deserve your writing. That where dogma thrives then literature dies. They want us to be silent. Either that or use our pens to celebrate and affirm their ‘social norms’. But the truth if we ever subscribed to the ‘social norms’ in this country we would never have become writers in the first place. So please do continue writing. Every piece of your writing says, ‘this was how we lived’. And given the charged politics of the day it also says, ‘this was our struggle’. It doesn’t matter if the library doesn’t carry our books. It doesn’t matter if the library betrays us, over and over again. Our works will outlive us. They will also outlive those who have tried to silence us. And in the future a different Singapore will greet our writings. This I believe.
Posted on: Sat, 12 Jul 2014 02:10:06 +0000