IPS On Diversity Podcast S1E1: The Cancelled & the Woke
To be woke and to cancel involve a heightened awareness of social injustice and the calling out of offending institutions or powerful people — like the Me Too movement which brought down Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. Largely attributed to today’s youth who are less afraid to challenge institutionalised norms, they level the playing field when it comes to justice. But they can also lead to polarisation.
In this debut episode, host and Institute of Policy Studies Deputy Director Ong Soh Chin chats with Lydia Lim, head of Schools and Education Projects at Singapore Press Holdings, and poet and writer Theophilus Kwek about the complexities of this new form of activism, whether being woke is exclusively for the young and how to take it to a better place for Singapore.
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About our guests:
Lydia Lim
Head of Schools and Education Projects at Singapore Press Holdings (SPH)
Lydia specialised in reporting and writing on Singapore politics and policy before moving to head editorial training in November 2017.
In May 2019, she took on a new role as Head of SPH Schools department, a team that specialises in producing News in Education products and services for students ranging from pre-primary through tertiary levels, across four languages.
She also writes a regular Sunday column in The Straits Times.
She joined Singapore Press Holdings in 1999 and was on The Straits Times’ political desk for 14 years, during which she covered general elections, Parliament sittings and two historic international court hearings involving sovereignty disputes between Singapore and Malaysia.
She is a co-author of two books, Lee Kuan Yew: Hard Truths to Keep Singapore Going and Struck by Lightning: Singapore Voices post-1965, and editor of Vintage Lee, a collection of 33 landmark speeches by Singapore’s founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew.
Before joining SPH, she worked in television as a current affairs producer and broadcast journalist at MediaCorp.
Theophilus Kwek
Poet and Writer
Theophilus Kwek is a writer, translator and editor, with an interest in migration and public policy issues. His poetry collections Circle Line (Math Paper Press) and Giving Ground (Ethos Books) were shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize in 2014 and 2018; while his pamphlet The First Five Storms, published in the UK, won the inaugural New Poets’ Prize in 2016.
His writing has appeared in The Guardian, Times Literary Supplement, The London Magazine and Columbia Journal, among other platforms. His most recent collection, “Moving House”, was published in July 2020 by Carcanet Press, also in the UK.
Theophilus holds a MSc in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies from Oxford University and has also written about questions of citizenship and migration for The Straits Times, South China Morning Post, Singapore Policy Journal, and The Diplomat. He supports various ground-up initiatives to empower and welcome the migrant community in Singapore.”
On Diversity is a podcast series of new insights and fresh discussions, inspired by IPS’ Managing Diversities research programme. In each episode, IPS Deputy Director Ong Soh Chin chats with guests to explore what diversity means to them, the changes they are making, and the changes they hope to see in an increasingly fragmented society.
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