Calling them 'dirty' is an exercise of power

My contribution for Wild Rice's verbatim theatre piece on Sungei Road Market 

Woon Tien Wei, 43 years old

Artist, People’s Voices of Sungei Road Market, Save Sungei Road Market Facebook Group and Post-Museum

Calling them 'dirty' is an exercise of power 

If you look at past contested spaces in Singapore,

Sungei Road is actually a very successful case, despite the outcome.

We organised public tours, guerilla art hunt, pop up exhibitions to raise awareness and let artists contribute.

 

The key is Mr Koh.

Yes, some vendors have may have issues with him.

We can't deny that he captured the public's imagination. 

Mr Koh who kept saying that he is old and not 'educated'.

Yet he is articulate and confident.

As the association’s chairman, he spoke directly to the government, media and people.

Without fear. I met many Singaporeans who have seen him online would then travel across the island to Sungei Road to support him.

Their struggle has meaning beyond sungei road.

The vendors themselves learnt to become better.

Others will learn to become better in future contests.

In fact, the government had also become better.

Bukit Brown, Dakota Crescent. They learnt to actively engage with us, with civil society.

However, it was not the same for Sungei Road.

The association sent more than twenty letters seeking dialogue and three proposals for redevelopment.

Muted response from the government.

They relied on words like “disamenities“, “poor hygiene”, “pollution”, “fire hazards“ in their few statements.

As if they were illegal hawkers in the 60s.

Calling them 'dirty' is a subjugation - an exercise of power where the clean exert their demands on the unclean.  

It reveals the government's position.

It is not how they see the land, but how they see the people at Sungei Road.

They see the people at Sungei Road as poor, underclass who does not know any better. 

Without engaging them, they decided the vendors deserve much 'better' - real jobs and hawker stalls. 

The vendors felt left out and unwanted as they felt that they are not worthy of a proper response.

Parliament: Five Sungei Road rag-and-bone men likely to move to hawker centres in city area

How is this article even illuminating what is going to happen to the original permit-holders?

Doesn't this give you more questions than answers? Perhaps, that is how media makes us critical animals.

You can refer to the article and study it. It will be helpful to comment with more mysteries uncovered. haha.

Do that on the Save Sungei Road Market page. http://www.facebook.com/savesungeiroadmarket/

Thank you!

Parliament: Five Sungei Road rag-and-bone men likely to move to hawker centres in city area

by Melody Zaccheus.



SINGAPORE - Five of the 11 original permit-holders at the Sungei Road flea market have indicated interest in operating stalls at Golden Mile Food Centre and Chinatown Market.

All 11 vendors were given the option of renting stalls at selected hawker centres in the city area at subsidised rates after the market’s last day of operations on July 10, said Environment and Water Resources Minister Masagos Zulkifli.

He told Parliament on Monday (April 3) that, as a show of goodwill, vendors will have their rents waived for the first year and receive a 50 per cent rebate off their subsidised rent for the second year.

Nominated MP Kok Heng Leun asked how Sungei Road vendors have been helped, with the hawking zone due to be closed “to facilitate future residential development use”.

Mr Masagos said at least one of the original vendors has been granted financial aid. Other vendors who are not original permit holders will be given information on financial and employment aid, as well as ways for them to continue their trade, he said.

The 11 vendors are from a pool of 31 rag-and-bone men who, “because of their chosen trade”, were excluded from a government programme to resettle street hawkers in purpose-built markets and hawker centres in the 1970s and 1980s.

Mr Masagos said the authorities have accommodated hawking at Sungei Road until the area was required for redevelopment, despite it causing inconveniences like obstructing public roads.

Mr Kok also asked if the authorities would engage the Association for the Recycling of Second Hand Goods, which represents about 70 vendors, on possible alternative outdoor sites. He noted that, as the last free hawking zone in Singapore, the market is integral to the country’s cultural landscape.

In response, Mr Masagos said the country’s needs must be taken into account. The authorities also have “to be fair to the many, many other hawkers who have moved on” to hawker centres and markets.

He added: “The time has come and we have engaged enough. To meet them again is to almost promise that we will change our stance and that redevelopment will not start... There are alternatives. But should we put up another site like this which is deemed to be like Sungei Road but not at Sungei Road? I don’t think this is something we want to dwell (on) further.”

The association’s president Koh Ah Koon, 76, has been rallying the public to sign a petition to conserve the market, or for an alternative site. He told The Straits Times he has collected 4,000 signatures so far, and  will continue to canvas support for it.