Month: January 2021
FORSEA Statement on Singapore’s Arrest of Peaceful LGBT Student Protestors
FORSEA, a Southeast Asia-wide network of democrats, scholars and rights activists, are deeply troubled by the news of Singapore arresting a small but unprecedented group of students who staged a LGBT-rights protest outside the Ministry of Education. We call on the authorities to release and drop all charges against these student activists, whose “crime” was a peaceful demand to repeal transphobic discriminatory policies and practices in Singapore’s schools.
Fighting and Winning the Struggle for Equality for All
The FORSEA Dialogue on Democratic Struggles Across Southeast Asia and Beyond: Inequality is an ever-advancing threat to the collective well-being of billions of people today. And yet we do live in a world with its unprecedented wealth which remains concentrated in a few hands. Ben Phillips, the author of and international campaigner, argues why winning the policy debate over how best to fight inequalities is no longer enough.
Are We as Area Studies Scholars Guilty of Negligence in Allowing Genocides to Happen in the Regions we Study?
Foreign scholars CAN help to prevent genocide again. If we're waiting for policymakers to prevent things on their own and save ourselves the trouble so that we can take a well-funded research trip and sit outside a coffee shop in Naypyitaw or Yangon, why should the rest of the world have any interest in reading anything we have to write? Scholarship and research should mean something.
FORSEA Dialogue on Democratic Struggles across Southeast Asia: Punk and Peace in Myanmar: Music for a Better Society
A film screening of Punk Rock Buddha (running time 26 minutes), The Good Road collection. The screening will be followed by a 30-minutes conversation (in Burmese) with Kyaw Kyaw, the film’s protagonist and lead vocalist of the best-known punk band Rebel Riot.
FORSEA Dialogue on Democratic Struggles across Southeast Asia: Film Screening – “A River Changes Course”
Film screening of "A River Changes Course", winner of the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize for Documentary at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, followed by dialogue with Executive Producer and renowned Khmer researcher of genocide, Mr Youk Chhang.
Sovicheth Meta, our new board member: Her take on Genocide Education and Empathy
As one of the generation born 20 years after the genocidal regime in my country, I am optimistic that peace, justice, and harmony will prevail when we stand in solidarity to speak out and stand up against all forms of hatred, discrimination, racism, and social injustice.
FORSEA Dialogue on Democratic Struggles across Southeast Asia: A Burma Film Screening and Reflection
Join a screening of Deafening Silence followed by a 20-minute dialogue between it's director, Holly Fisher, and the two activists from Burma, Naw May-Oo Mutraw and Maung Zarni.
Universities, Academic Censorship & Intellectual Un-Freedoms: How ASEAN States Make Their Peoples Unable to Think
This FORSEA Dialogue will explore the multiple ways in which ASEAN states execute the suppression of intellectual freedom, particularly within their state-run university systems, FORSEA’s in-depth dialogue series is bringing together a group of scholars who specialize in Southeast Asian affairs.
Condemning NUS Press for Obstructing Academic Freedom
FORSEA condemns NUS Press’ blatant censorship of a book critical of the Thai monarchy, and urges all members of the academic community who are involved with NUS Press to uphold the principle of academic freedom by refraining from lending their legitimacy and credibility to NUS Press as an act of scholarly solidarity.
China’s Debt Trap Diplomacy: Is ASEAN a Victim?
Is the China debt-trap diplomacy real in the form of a calculated move by China to seize strategic assets to further its geopolitical ambitions as an emerging superpower? Or is a misuse of language to describe a common phenomenon depicting the need and greed of financially incompetent borrowers?