Something needs to be done beyond removing the sexually objectifying poll of female Asatizahs (religious teachers). The poll itself was a ranking of women in relation to a sex act too vile for me to reproduce here. More importantly, here are some suggestions for accountability: Creators of the group/poll must face the fullest extent of …
Evan was 16 and doing well in school when he decided that he wanted to die. Years of enduring slurs such as “pondan” and “bapok” (derogatory terms in Malay for transvestite) and his effeminate ways had left Evan (not his real name) despondent and he finally cracked. In March 2004, he told a friend it …
Acting on faith: LGBT Muslims and Christians in Singapore forming their own spaces Read More »
IT WAS a tough Ramadan month. First came the Manchester Arena bombing just days before the start of the fasting month on May 26. Children as young as 8 were among the dead. Then the truck bomb that killed 90 in Kabul three days into Ramadan. The day after, a car bomb ripped through an …
NO FOOD, no water. Dawn to dusk. A knot of apprehension starts to form but the azan (call for prayer) cuts through my thoughts. It’s time to pray. I rush to join the growing prayer congregation, reminding myself to give my best and leave the rest, as they say, in God’s hands. My head bowed …
THE kerfuffle up north, between the Johor Sultan Ibrahim Ibn Sultan Iskandar and constitutional law expert Abdul Aziz Bari, on Arabisation and its effects on Malay culture has piqued interest here at home. Non- Muslims and even non-Malay Muslims, like me, are observing keenly. But let’s not dance around the issue. Public interest on the …