The Capital: Volume Two

the social movements issue

in this issue...

the team

all in a day’s work

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Interview with Dr Woo Jun Jie

Jonah Foong Editor-in-Chief

features

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All the World’s a Stage: Performativity in Social Movements

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Fashion in the Civil Rights Movement

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Derailed Trains of Social Change: Social Media’s Catalytic Disruption

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Head and the Heart: Rationality in Social Movements

Evangeline Chow Deputy Editor

Nicole Wong Designer

letters to the editor

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Vox Populi

K.Kunthavi Writer

Sabrina T.A Writer

Sakhi Mehta Writer

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editor’s note What is identity really? There are many ways to explore its construct. But consider our world presently, with its pleasant surprises and machinations, does part of our identity manifest in the news that resonate with us? Or in the causes that so compel us to talk, tweet, and tag our friends in?

Where conviction and action meet, social movements form. And with social movements, change envisioned might just be attained. But our focus doesn’t just lie in sociopolitical change itself. We’re also interested in what goes into the making of these movements.

So we took this theme and ran with it.

This issue opens with All The World’s A Stage: Performativity in Social Movements. Borrowing the vernacular and lens of performance, it carefully capsulates how social movements boil down to the maneuvering of the self in front of an audience. We follow this up with two features that explore mediums through which individuals carve their identities into the social movements of modern history. In Fashioning the Social Fabric of Civil Rights America we look at an unexpected medium through which African American narratives were reclaimed and in Derailed Trains of Social Change: Social Media’s Catalytic Disruption we consider the accelerant and distraction social media can be as a medium for effective change.

For all the zest and vivacity that characterise the social movements of today, it’s easy to lose sight of the minute details that matter. And so in our closing piece, Head and the Heart: Rationality in Social Movements, we reel you back to reality by exploring the oft neglected, yet quintessential, aspect of social movements that we should be addressing for tangible change.

Perhaps, our identities are a curation of experiences. Just as much, social movements are constructed and perceived in the ways its members, all of us, collectively set them up to be. We only hope this issue gives you a basis to explore and question elements of social movements; to find your definition of its relevance to political change and your personal identities.

And should you find your solid ground, uphold it with sense as you should with your sensibilities.

Till next time, Evangeline

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Interview with Dr Woo Jun Jie Dr. Woo Jun Jie is an Assistant Professor in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the National Technological University of Singapore (NTU). Dr. Woo graduated from SIMUOL with a degree in Economics and Management in 2008 and continued to pursue his postgraduate studies in International Political Economy at NTU, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. He then went on to do his PhD in Public Policy at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. After completing his PhD, Dr. Woo went on to do two fellowships at Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities (SUTD) and the Harvard Kennedy School.

Writer K.Kunthavi Photos Nicole Wong

As part of our All in a Day’s Work interview series, I sat down with Dr. Woo to discuss academic strategies and tips when it comes to finding a job.

Hello Dr. Woo, thank you for taking your time to sit down for this interview.

No problem! Thank you for meeting me.

Being an alumnus, how was your UOL experience?

Any major takeaways?

I think it was a very positive experience. I learnt a lot from the lecturers in terms of economics, and I still draw some of the fundamental economic theories that I’ve learnt in SIM for a lot of my research. I’ve made very good friends that I still keep in touch with as well. The whole experience was very good, and what I found great about the UOL curriculum is that it gave me depth. It gave me the chance to go really deep into socio-economic principles and that gave me a very good foundation. The lecturers at SIM were really good, very nurturing and warm.

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Why did you decide to pursue your postgraduate studies?

There were two reasons. First, there was a very practical concern about how competitive my degree would be in the job market, so I thought I should get more annotations from a local university to help myself. Secondly, I had a deep interest in economic policies. My degree is in economics and management and it covered a lot of social and economic theories.

It focused more on macroeconomics, but not so much on policy. I asked myself, how do you apply these principles to regulating or governing an economy?

So I wanted to learn more about the politics and policy of running an economy, which is why I picked the International Political Economy programme for my masters.

How big was the jump from undergrad to postgrad?

It was huge. To be honest it wasn’t an easy time at all.

The readings in graduate school were significantly heavy, and RSIS actually set a limit on the number of pages of readings they could assign us. It was a

Dr Woo speaking at SIM on the topic of Singapore’s role in the global political economy.

give any more than that, though sometimes they did assign us close to 1000 pages of reading a week.

However, the toughest part was doing the thesis. As you know, being in SIM as an undergrad, you don’t get the chance to do a thesis. So when it came to my first time doing a research-based paper, I needed a lot of guidance. Professors at NTU did guide me a lot, and I also volunteered to do research work and be a research assistant in school. It was a big jump and took a lot of hard work for the transition.

So after you graduated from NTU what was the next step?

I liked teaching, so upon graduation, my first goal was to do my PhD. Some of my peers went into public service, EDB (Economic Development Board), etc. Some of them became economists for the government, and some of them joined the Ministry of Home Affairs. Some of my closest friends ended up in banking.

What factored into your decision of being a professor?

There were two factors. Yes, it was because I enjoyed teaching and I still do. It was something I wanted to pursue and I really wanted to teach things like economic policies and governance. These topics can be only taught at a university level, and at that time doing a PhD was a no-brainer. The other part was that I saw how my RSIS professors did their research and how they ran their research projects. And since I was young, I wanted to be a writer. In a way, being a professor gave me a chance to publish a book, which was something I had always dreamed of doing as well.

As an assistant professor, how does your schedule look like?

To be honest, the teaching (including teaching prep) itself only takes up 20% of the time. About 70-80% of my time is spent on research and writing – like putting publications together or going to meet people for interviews or going to survey people. The schedule of a typical professor is quite erratic – there are no office hours – and at night, I go back to writing. The thing

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that we seriously underestimate about professors is how much work seeps into your personal time.

There’s a lot of stigma surrounding a SIM graduate getting a job, what did you think of this common stereotype?

It’s a fear that’s not unfounded. It’s also a fear that I empathise with. When it comes to higher education in Singapore, there is some sort of pecking order in place. When it comes to job opportunities, other reputed local university graduates tend to get the bigger share. That’s to be expected I guess. There is some kind of biasedness in the system, and that kind of bias is something we can’t do anything about - it is systemic. And I know how frustrating it is. When I first graduated from SIM, I didn’t exactly go to graduate school immediately. I put out about 1617 job applications, after which I got back about 10 replies and one interview. Of course, you had to bear in mind that was during 2008.

So for SIM graduates I think the only advice I could give is, you do have to work very hard. As an undergrad, I studied really hard. It wasn’t easy to get that first class honours or even get that top student award. It was something I sacrificed a lot for, social life and even relationships. And also finding internships. I

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tried to enter the job market in any way possible, even by finding a part-time job, which was what a lot of my peers did. A friend of mine started off by working parttime in Standard Chartered and now he’s a personal relationship/funds manager. He was from the same course as me. I tell my NTU students the same thing, there’s a pecking order and you have to make the best out of the system. You just have to keep fighting.

For current SIM undergraduates that want to do well in their studies, what advice do you have for them?

Learn how the exams are structured, know the pattern and know what to expect. It’s not so much about spotting the questions but keeping yourself psychologically prepared when you enter the exam hall. Secondly, do not be afraid to ask your lectures questions. I really badgered my lecturers a lot as a student. Thirdly, read widely. Read beyond what is given by your lecturer’s reading list. Let’s say you’re studying International Relations, go to Google Scholar - find out what’s the latest kind of research that’s going on. Remember these references, so that when you go for exams you could include some of these references. That makes a difference between a first class and a second upper, being able to draw information from current research.

Some of these LSE or UOL professors they really want to see that and it makes all the difference.

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Sometimes you have to trust your gut feeling.

If you feel like you have what it takes, if you feel like it’s something you want to work really hard for, you should just go for it.

What are some tips you have for SIM graduates who are deciding on what to do after graduation?

My advice is first, to think very clearly. Discern for yourself what your interests are, what your passion is.

Whether this job is something that would make you really unhappy, that you have to drag your feet every day to work? Or is it something tolerable until you slowly discern what you want to do for the rest of your career. Don’t be afraid to try any industry that comes along, and also don’t be disheartened if your first job doesn’t seem to be something that makes you happy.

Just stick to it and gain the experience; there’s always something to be learned.

Lastly, what tips do you have for UOL graduates who want to pursue their post-graduate studies?

First and foremost, you must read widely so that you have a wide breach of knowledge. When you apply for the postgrad studies they want to see your interest in a particular research topic. But they also want to see that you’re able to engage with theoretical frameworks from a broad range. You got to stand out, to show that you have a diverse range of interests. On top of that, you should get a lot of referral letters from your professors.

When I applied for my PhD the requirement was 2 referral letters. So I went out, I canvassed and I went to every professor that ever taught me. Always go

above and beyond the requirements. If they ask for, as I mentioned, 2 referral letters, give them six. If they ask for a research statement, give them something a bit longer than what is required. This is a habit I picked up as a SIM student and also as a local PhD graduate.

I think based on my experience, I would urge that our SIM UOL students shouldn’t be restricted by any limitations people might place on them. Which was why I applied for graduate school as an SIM UOL graduate.

A lot of the times, many things that the general consensus tend to believe in is not entirely accurate.

Sometimes you have to trust your gut feeling. If you feel like you have what it takes, if you feel like it’s something you want to work really hard for, you should just go for it. If I listened to any of those voices at any point in time, I wouldn’t be able to achieve the dreams I wanted to. There’s always, always a way. At any point in career or studies, the idea is always to ask yourself “Do I have a perspective that stands out, that is different from others?” I think that’s important for SIM UOL students, for students that think the system is not advantageous to them.

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All The World’s A Stage: Performativity in Social Movements Where performance and protest coincide, a social movement is born.

Writer Evangeline Chow

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merican football has been divisive, political almost, as far as its illustrious history goes.

Between the initial barring of African American players from playing football to the African American Patriots skipping the visit to the President after their Super Bowl win, football has been suffused through and through with politics.

And so on a fateful September afternoon, it came as no surprise when San Francisco’s beloved home team took to the field and the narrative pivoted to the political. In fact, it wasn’t due to a heated game between the 49ers and their opponents that set off the ire of fans nationwide. Rather, it was the seemingly peculiar act of a star athlete taking a knee.

Colin Kaepernick entered the field determined.

Squaring his shoulders, and setting his eyes straight down the field, he lowered his 6 foot 4 frame unabashedly. As the beginning notes of the national anthem enveloped his stature, Kaepernick knelt on one knee and made his stand. A bold statement to some; a transgression to others, it was, nevertheless, an act akin to a swan song. It is especially poignant considering it saw to the premature end of his NFL career.

If Kaepernick’s act seemed like a drop in the ocean, his dismissal from being a quarterback was the crack in the sociopolitical dam. And what a crack it was as it brought about a new wave within the movement against systemic inequality.

In fact, within weeks, a Georgia Tech cheerleader joins the revolution. A speck of bright yellow lighting up in a field of green; Raianna Brown scored the home run with her tribute to Kaepernick as she took a knee as well. It was a solitary act, in a moment of sheer

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braveness, as she broke away from her yellow-jacket sisters to join Kaepernick. Little did Brown know, but she was to become the leading lady of a movement that will sweep through Twitter. Her tweet with the picture of her kneeling has since racked up 36k retweets, 130k likes, and then some.

But what is this significance? While Kaepernick’s act was only recognised in September this year, he had spent a year, since August 2016, committing to taking a knee during the national anthem. He may have been a solitary act then. But as his teammates joined him to pay respects to African American lives lost in the name of inequality, they are now part of a growing movement. In that moment, no matter their identities, they have transcended past labels and associations to now become part of an ensemble. It is in this collective chorus against systemic inequality, ringing an octave above the dissent that is growing, that struck a chord with people worldwide.

THIS IS PERFORMATIVITY To kneel while the national anthem plays is a bold statement in itself. In fact, it has polarised debates on the legality of such an act. However, as we watch the argument untangle itself - and as the President calls for Kaepernick’s removal on Twitter - the epicentre of the social ire becomes that much clearer. The most striking element of this movement going viral lies not in the questioning of its legality, but in the execution of the act of kneeling. Specifically, it lies in the seeming deviance of the performed act.

In that defining moment that Kaepernick took a knee, he became a leading man - the poster child - of a new social movement. And later, as his teammates and other sports teams around the world joined

Kaepernick playing for the San Francisco 49ers.

(Photo: The Football Schedule)

Brown kneeling during the playing of the national anthem.

(Photo: Raianna Brown’s instagram)

his ensemble of taking of knee during the national anthem, the act becomes a performance in itself.

Performativity here is witnessed in the structured behaviour and uniformity of dropping to one knee as the national anthem plays. What we can then glean about social movements is how individuals, no matter their background, shed their identities momentarily as they perform a new role. The replication of the act, and its consequent installation into our socialisation, elevates it to a level of greater social consciousness.

We see this is in the growing online traction and the explosion of articles discussing the politics of sports.

in their vehemence against systemic inequality, have slipped into a brand new identity to legitimise their narratives.

While there are different ways to analyse this phenomenon, viewing it through the lens of performativity allows us to debunk a key element that characterises social movements that stand the test of time. And it boils down to the actors in the movement. It is the ensemble whose chorus of voices modulate the key in socio-political discussions.

Because more so than anything, this falls under the larger realm of identity politics. These individuals,

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF PERFORMATIVITY If we inspect the roots of taking a knee, it brings us to the Civil Rights Movement when Martin Luther King Jr. knelt during the titular Selma march. It was a statement. Without having to breathe a word, the significance of that act resounded with the crowd in its sole reverence for racial equality. Today, the movement may have changed its tone, but it retains its heart even as generations have come to past. With police brutality taking the forefront of our media consciousness and reinforced by the growing dissent culminating in the Black Lives Matter movement, the gravitas of the act endures.

Renowned professor Marshall McLuhan once highlighted in his titular theory that ‘the medium is the message’. While McLuhan probably never would

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have intended for his theory to be adopted with reference to social movements, the consideration of this theory prompts us to recognise that the medium is an important part of the process of delivering the message. When we apply this view to performativity in social movements, what we are led to see is how the human body becomes the medium through which the message against inequality is communicated.

When Martin Luther King Jr. knelt, and later as he marched, he used his physical frame to resist the injustice he felt was doled out to the African Americans. In other words, he used the body as a medium for articulating his message. Visually, it sticks the landing. Beyond his speeches, it’s the pictures of him on his knees and of the iconic Selma march that we still recognise today. When we choose to embody the message with every sinew and fibre of our being, it not only encompasses but it also legitimises the self.

It is the translation of thought and experience into the visual, tangible field. And when that is accomplished, we are now able to see the change that we want and truly become it.

Perhaps, one of the biggest and most iconic examples would be the African American Civil Rights Movement. As espoused by American philosopher and academic, Judith Butler, for any action that aims to be subversive it has to ‘mime and displace its [current] conventions’. When we apply this to the Civil Rights Movement, with its aim to subvert social conventions that inhibited the progression of African Americans, it suggests there is a need to mime and play a role.

And play a role they did.

In the iconic Selma to Montgomery march, women showed up with well-coiffed hair, dressed in tweed, and adorned with pearl necklaces. Men wore their best suits and matched their shoes. And as a collective, they mimed their White American counterparts by dressing up in their Sunday Best. It is easy to dismiss this as an attempt for social approval.

But consider the image they conjured. The march, progressive and peaceful, displaced conventions and subverted stereotypes that they were uncouth. And

Martin Luther King Jr. marching through the streets of Alabama during the American Civil Rights Movement.

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(Photo: Jack Rabin collection on Alabama civil rights and southern activists, 1941-2004 (bulk 1956-1974) , Historical Collections and Labor Archives, Eberly Family Special Collections Library, University Libraries, Pennsylvania State University.)

significantly, it communicated a sense of middleclass respectability.

TEASING OUT THE FINAL ACT An affront to social class and its implicit norms, we are left to witness and reckon with the power of performativity. It’s an interesting thought but it doesn’t end here. Consider other movements that have performativity intertwined between them. The Umbrella Revolution campaigning for democracy in Hong Kong with their unmistakable umbrellas.

The peace sign imprinted on signs, shirts, and bare skins throughout the peace movements in the 60s.

And even in the donning of pink knitted beanies as a sign of solidarity during the Women’s March earlier this year.

While they all have different end goals, there is one thing that binds them together. The use of props, fashion, and the human physicality, all points to the underlying performativity of social movements.

Perhaps, we can then contend that social movements are, inherently, a performance. Consider how, in certain movements, people show up to shared spaces to march, or rather, to engage in structured behaviour.

Does this sound familiar? Because, it shares similarities with the theatrical and the vernacular of performance.

BEYOND THE CURTAIN CLOSE When Kaepernick first knelt, as accounted in his feature with GQ Magazine, he announced that ‘he wanted to reclaim the narrative of his protest’. And yet Kaepernick values his silence especially as it helps to ease his transition from football legend to social activist. So how does he reconcile his penchant for silence and his duty to represent his people? The answer lies in his choice to let his actions speak above the clamor of detractors for him.

But given that we live in a world increasingly intertwined with social media, silence isn’t necessarily upheld as much. The performative, therefore, starts to seep into the digital sphere. With a single tweet, the picture of Kaepernick’s act became the shot heard (or rather seen) around the world. Indeed, the sphere of our identity has expanded. An interesting

view to consider would be how the performance of our identities in the digital arena might just become a gatekeeper for the spread of social movements.

Even now, the sharing and retweeting of Kaepernick and Brown kneeling, accompanied with the #TakeAKnee hashtag, have catapulted them to international spotlight.

The audience, as we know it, is expanding. Moving forward, perhaps the performative in social movements will transcend the physical world into the digital space as we become more integrated. And with the extension of technologies, perhaps physical distance will be a thing of the past and we will be able to experience social movements in real time. But for now, as audiences to the growing social movements, our performativity might just mean settling for 280 characters and a myriad of filters to join the ensemble and show our solidarity to the world, as we know it, today.

- THINGS TO READ If you are interested in this topic and would love to further your reading, here are some articles for your consideration: 1. Performance, Politics, and Protest (Marcela A. Fuentas, Northwestern University) discusses the functionality of performance in protests.

2. The Performativity of Social Movements (Mark Carrigan, 13 May 2014) uses social network analysis to explore the significance of performance in spreading the reach of social movements.

3. Embodying Protest: Culture and Performance Within Social Movements (Jeffrey Juris, 15 November 2014) delineates various types of social movements with reference to performativity and culture.

4. Performing Politics: Judith Butler and the Struggle for the Street - Hans Rollman (PopMatters, 16 November 2015) sheds light on and explores the significance of performativity in public spaces.

5. Politics Has Always Had a Place in Football - Samuel G. Freedman (The New York Times, 24 September 2017) highlights the symbiotic relationship between politics and football.

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Fashioning the Social Fabric of Civil Rights America Understanding the role of fashion in the American Civil Rights Movement

Writer Sakhi Mehta

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arching, chanting, waving posters, calling for equality.

‘Segregated schools must stop now!’

‘Police brutality must stop now!’

‘Equal rights for all!’

These were the battle cries of the American Civil Rights Movement. From 1954 to 1968, we saw African Americans fight for the end of racial segregation and discrimination against the white majority. When we think back to the movement, we think of Martin Luther King to Rosa Parks; we think of March on Washington to Selma-Montgomery Marches. In these iconic movements, we are often washed away by the chants and the posters. But we often fail to give recognition to fashion – particularly to what was worn during the Movement. And why should we?

Often construed as materialistic, many do not believe fashion could have possibly played a significant role.

That isn’t true.

Fashion is a venue for self-expression. It empowers men and women to be truly be themselves, to represent themselves, to decide for themselves how they want the world to view them. There are religious, cultural and political connotations that fashion represents.

This is why we can’t shrug off the importance fashion has played in the Movement. If we were to truly inspect the movement, fashion was the visual communicator of what the African American population represents.

HEAD TO TOE Let’s wind back the clock to the 15th century, where hairstyles used to indicate a person’s marital status, religion, ethnic identity and wealth within the community. When enslaved, African American hair became more a matter of the labour they did. For example, field slaves often had to hide their hair, whereas on the other hand, house slaves were forced to wear wigs similar to their slave owners, who also adorned wigs during this period. With legislations that mandated African Americans to ‘tame’ their ‘nappy’ hair and laws such as the Tignon Law, it is clear that

natural hair was outright shunned by society. ‘Taming’ their hair meant African Americans were forced to straighten their hair, and that led to the creation of products such as the ‘hot comb’ as well as the ‘relaxer’.

Although these procedures were often expensive, time consuming and painful, a large number of African American women were conditioned to believe that their natural hair was ‘uncivilised’ and they had to tame their hair. To truly understand the significance of this, the very acceptance or rejection from certain groups and social classes boiled down to the way their hair was styled. Can you imagine losing all chance at a career just because your natural locks were deemed offensive? And yet they bit their tongue for the most part of history as these laws, as did the rest of society then, impose their narrative on the African American identities.

But it wasn’t just hair that was politicised either. With the Movement gaining momentum, the community underwent a fashion journey of self-discovery. When Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, in December of 1955, the state of Alabama went on to call her a ‘radical’ demonstrator. It’s easy to borrow these words and construct an image of Parks as someone whose violent and aggressive personality got the better of her. And yet, at the time of her arrest, Parks donned her ‘Sunday Best’ – a buttoned-up waist whittling, broad shouldered bar blazer. She had a flower tucked into her hair and a pair of thin spectacles perched on the bridge of her nose. All in all, she wasn’t what one would expect from a ‘radical’ demonstrator.

And that was the goal – by subverting the very perception of what the public believed a disrupter looked like, the Movement was able to regain control of their identity and deliver their message. It is no wonder then that ‘Sunday Best’ look was de rigueur at nonviolent protests during the Civil Rights era. As African Americans were supposed to be at the bottom of the social order, dressing nicer than the White Americans was an act of defiance. Although there was no formal dress code, wearing their best attire was the way the Movement was able to relay their seriousness and importance. It forced people to look beyond their prejudices and stereotypes of their African American counterparts.

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THE FASHION REVOLUTION: PHASE I: DENIM AND NATURAL HAIR The Sunday Best came with many successes. But as it is with fashion and identities, style is never a onesize-fits-all. Naturally, this meant that it was not the fashion norm everyone within the community could subscribe to. Recognising this, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), a studentled organisation, stepped up to change the focus.

They sought to move the Movement away from the Sunday Best. Taking inspiration from African American farmers, they chose denim to be the new representative uniform of the movement. Aside from its durability and functionality, denim was also the bridge to including poor African American farmers who could not afford to dress in the Sunday Best.

From this switch, SNCC’s bold political stance was able to gain them the support and participation from a wider population of African Americans. In adopting the clothing of African American wage labourers, SNCC was consciously re-evaluating the politics of respectability.

What is interesting is that the impact these fashion choices do not stop here. In fact, they had gone on to make important impacts in other movements too. Due to denim’s functionality and durability, it was also taken to represent gender equality as SNCC members used this fashion to reclaim pride of labouring women.

These women were constantly scrutinised for the way they carried themselves. Their natural hair was heavily frowned upon, with numerous products created to ‘manage’ the hair into styles that were deemed more ‘respectable’. But like wearing denim, donning natural hair was a matter of practicality. SNCC women who had devoted themselves to the Movement full-time had very little money for food – much less any spare change to get their hair done. Such was the poverty they experienced that trips to the salon were both a rarity and a luxury often deemed frivolous. That being said, wearing natural hair in public was not becoming to African American women. Having been conditioned their entire lives that their ‘unkempt’

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hair was a ‘disgrace’, the acceptance of their hair in its natural state required progression. When they finally started donning natural hair in public, it was more about the political message they wanted to send.

Wearing natural hair was an outward manifestation that these women had broken away from traditional norms and would no longer abide to segregation.

Rejecting processed hair was the community taking a political stance. It was a coming together of the African Americans in the realisation and empowerment that they would no longer be subscribing to bourgeois beautification, or whitewashed standards of beauty.

PHASE II: ALL BLACK AT THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY Moving forward to the late 1960s, the decline in power of the SNCC led to the rise of the Black Panther Party (BPP). The BPP was a revolutionary African American nationalist and socialist organization whose aim was to arm its citizens’ patrols to monitor the behaviour of officers of the Oakland Police Department and challenge police brutality in Oakland, California. To unite the party, founders Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale developed a uniform for the Black Panther members to adorn. This uniform included a black leather jacket, powder blue shirt, black pants, black shoes, black beret, and optional black gloves. Newton and Seale decided that the black beret would be an essential part of the ensemble as they felt that it was a strong symbol of militancy that has since been embroidered into the fabric of the Black Panther Party.

With this uniform, they sent out a powerful message to society that African Americans fully embraced their ‘blackness’ from head to toe and that they were committed to their heritage and cause.

THE FINAL PATCHWORK As we begin to consider the Movement in its totality, it becomes clearer that fashion played a pivotal role in engaging and delivering the message of the African American community. Through fashion, for the first time in American popular culture, we see the acceptance and celebration of ‘Black is Beautiful’.

Truly, it was a subtle yet powerful means of altering the American consciousness. And in this inclusion and representation, African Americans were poised to greatly influence the future of American culture; or the world we see today. Fashion represented how the African Americans wanted to be remembered and seen. It was the medium to tell their story. And what a story they told.

American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos don the iconic gloves of the Black Pathers during the medal ceremony at the 1968 Summer Olympic Games in Mexico City.

This uniform unmistakably made the Black Panther members stand out and be recognised no matter where they were. Their appearance, to a great extent, helped them succeed in conveying their revolutionary ideal. And in powerfully subverting the very element that was used to subdue them, it conveyed the sense of African American pride and power. Through and through it echoed the ethos – ‘Black is Beautiful’

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Derailed Trains of Social Change: Social Media’s Catalytic Disruption The advent of social media has seemingly galvanised social movements like the Arab Spring and Black Lives Matter. But underneath all that gloss, does social media actually do more harm than good for the longevity of social movements?

Writer Sabrina T.A

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f you’re someone who has a pretty decent internet connection and spare time to kill, chances are you’ll probably find yourself in the ‘first-world problem pit’ of mindlessly scrolling through social media site after social media site. To its credit though, besides providing us a platform of perpetual mind-numbing entertainment, social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat are the new-age medium of curating and building a personal image and brand, while subliminally marketing oneself to followers.

For instance, Trump’s ‘Twitter politics’ which constantly has the entire twitter-sphere divided, or others annoyed and confused. But keep in mind, he isn’t the first US president to use social media as a political tool. Obama’s election campaign saw over 3 million individual donors and a resultant $500 million in donations all mobilised through social media sites.

Social media sites also aided in the creation and promotion of more than 200,000 offline events across the USA, as well as garnering over 50 million Youtube views on his campaign videos.

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Social media’s warp-speed content sharing effects make it such an impressive and attractive tool for political participation, so it’s no wonder that it’s become somewhat the bedrock for the promulgation of 21st-century social movement campaigns. Its wide network-sharing capabilities facilitates greater transnationalisation of social movements, allowing for real-time incubation of ideas as well as online coordination of protest activities.

Admittedly, as any experienced internet zombie will tell you, the hype never lasts long. Many a time, social movements are seen burning through the fasttrack of success in widespread awareness creation, sparking contagion effects and inspiring imitators; up till the point they burn out into remnants of smoke, struggling to maintain the short attention spans of netizens. Interestingly, what’s curious about all of this is that the exact qualities which make social media such an excellent accelerant is exactly what makes it such a terrible platform when it comes to the maintenance of the direction of social movements.

Occupy Wall Street protesters in Portland, Oregon.

TRANSNATIONALISATION AND CONTAGION One such quality is the virality of contagion effects.

The term implies that national protest movements are increasingly being communicated globally, spreading through direct global dissemination of news on the Internet especially through the increased use of online social networks. These modern communication technologies take on the form of vehicular accelerants which enable social movements the ability to find imitators more quickly than in the past.

An iconic case, The Arab Spring is an example of these dynamics at work. In the four months after the birth of the Tunisian protest movement on 17 December 2010, the Arab Spring protest movements emerged in 17 North African and Middle Eastern countries.

Researchers and journalists emphasise, in this context, that social media such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and pan-Arab TV channels such as Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya played a key role in spreading the protests to other countries.

The Occupy movement in the US spread with similar momentum. The protests – initially under the Occupy Wall Street banner – began on 17 September 2011 with an encampment in Zuccotti Park in New York’s financial district, following a global call for action on the Internet. The Occupy movement’s goals – to lessen social inequality and corporate influence in politics – were defined from the outset as global problems and

were communicated globally via social networks.

As a result, the movement spread very quickly, initially in the US and then to other countries. But what exactly makes ideals held by social movements such as Arab Spring and The Occupy movement so contagious? And considering how the Arab Spring has become the ‘Arab Winter’, why did social media fail to perpetuate its initial spark of success?

Dating back at least to the publication of Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther, it has been theorised that people are often exposed to ‘emotional contagion’ effects in which individuals seem to catch the ‘mood’ of those around them.

Social scientists have found evidence of contagion in everything from emotions to political references, effects that researchers often attribute to our unconscious tendency to imitate each other.

However, as much as emotional contagion may spread ideas, the fact of the matter is that without visible action, emotions are not able to tangibly push for social change. It’s in this pit which many social media led movements find themselves failing.

Take for instance, the viral video ‘Kony 2012’. Even though it aided the organisation Invisible Children in raising $28 million in 2012, it ultimately failed to ‘Stop Kony’. The world has evolved since, and perhaps it’s naïve to marvel at so-called ‘hashtag actvisim’ now in 2017. From #BringBackOurGirls to #CancelColbert,

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online campaigns are all over the place, covering a remarkably diverse range of issues. For better or worse, however, many of these social media campaigns have faced a similar problem to #Kony2012: Once you have online support, how do you use it for real world impact? It’s an important question, and if an answer can be found it may point to the sustained success of these movements.

Increasingly, it is seen to be of equal importance to bolster emotional contagion effects with (social) behavioural contagion effects to produce tangible action in the real world. Many cite the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi – generally regarded as the event that triggered the uprising in Tunisia – which found imitators in Algeria, Egypt, Mauritania, and Morocco, as a successful yet extreme example of behavioural contagion.

ONLINE COORDINATION: TALKING THE WALK While many proponents of the power of social media might argue that online coordination helps amplify contagion effects, they fail to see that it commonly leads to ‘keyboard warrior’ syndrome.

When channels of interaction between the public and government are blocked, the web can serve as an avenue for voicing dissatisfaction. Unwittingly though, this very online participation seems to have replaced taking action in real-life. As is the case with many movements that heavily rely on social media, the NATO (No Action Talk Only) club of keyboard warriors seem to dominate; preferring to take their support of the social movement as far as their computer screens will allow them, but nothing beyond. An intriguing question is ‘do online participants believe that their participation online exempts them from participating in real life?’

For instance, those involved in the exponential blow up of #Kony2012 did not have any real vested interest in the propagated issue. Unlike the Occupy movement or the recent Women’s March in January, the issues presented by movements such as #Kony2012 were not seen as global problems.

After all, an online video about crimes most people in the first world had never heard of, committed

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by a man they didn’t know, in a country few could place on a map, may incite great sympathy and a short moral-ethical tirade but did not provide any hefty expected benefit for collective action.

THE REAL-TIME PROBLEM: INFORMATION MANIPULATION Increasingly, we are exposed to injustices in realtime, where everything can be archived and discussed online. A major issue which surrounds this is that it can also lend itself to the spread of misinformation and propaganda. Quite truthfully, credibility and corroboration of information isn’t exactly something that online social movements excel at. Unless social media users have a real vested interest in the cause, it’s doubtful that they would spend precious internet surfing time to excavate through myriads of information just to find the truth. This inability to maintain the initial integrity of the movement often results in the changing of tracks of supporters of the movement.

What’s more, ‘real-time’ increases scrutiny, and raises the bar of expectations due to such great media focus.

Noelle West, the former communications director of Invisible Children, pointed to the remarkable backlash that had made it ‘easier for people to decide to sit on the sidelines rather than participate’. Within weeks of the ‘Kony 2012’ video going viral, the organisation was criticised for oversimplifying the conflict and for focusing too much on making films rather than finding practical solutions to the problem. As the entire campaign relied disproportionately too much on its online support base, this further exacerbated the problem and led to the eventual discontinuation of the Invisible Children project.

DOES IT EVEN MATTER? Ultimately, to effect socio-political change in the real world, movements such as the Arab Spring would have to have substantial policy implications.

It’s no doubt that the use of social media technology encumbers policy-makers response and clamp downs, especially when they utilise a standard toolkit or blueprint - such as the suppression of voices through imprisonment. The increasing transnationalisation

of political protest, particularly via online platforms, requires a global response by policy-makers that transcends national interests. In this sense, the use of social media in social movements raises a number of problematic issues for policy-makers.

But even so, social media’s lack of ability to translate numbers into offline activities is a hindrance. As evidenced by The Umbrella movement in Hong Kong, numbers without credible force means nothing.

The Umbrella Movement’s use of social media as a documenting function aided in coordinating and mobilizing protesters at several protest sites.

However, protests were met with the widespread deployment of policemen who used pepper spray, tear gas and batons to drive back protesters and no concessions were made.

Fundamentally, what underlies the greater failings of social change via social media sites is the fact that there’s no one to steer the train back on track once it derails. Social movements of the 21st century, while presented with a villain, do not have a ‘hero’ or ‘historic

persona’ like Martin Luther King or Gandhi to anchor movements. Instead, there are numerous ‘keyboard warriors’ with diversified opinions speaking from various experience and contexts. Without leaders, actions are uncoordinated. Without leaders, plans cannot move forward. As much as everyone loves how social media makes us all co-leaders in fights for social change, it is essentially not possible to achieve progress in this manner. Once one goal is achieved, many would be in dispute over the next plan of action.

Social media’s catalytic disruption of social change makes it favourable as an accelerant. But social change doesn’t just need an accelerant, it needs a conductor to keep it on track. Its successes can just as much be its failings if not properly utilized, and that’s a fine line to tread in determining its success or failings. In order to succeed, social movements have to recognise that the use of social media doesn’t immediately equate to a success; it cannot stop there, and progression must be properly calculated so as not to fall off track altogether.

Protesters of Hong Kong’s Umbrella Revolution dispersing after police deploy tear gas into the crowd. (Photo: Studio Incendio)

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Head and the Heart: Rationality in Social Movements Emotion has been a staple of social movements from as far back as the American revolution, but given the advent of social slacktivism in recent years, it has appeared to be more hindrance than help. Can social movements be more rational then, and if so, should they?

Writer Jonah Foong

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KONY 2012 posters in the streets of Amsterdam. (Photo by: Charles Roffey)

I

n his 1950 book Unpopular Essays, the great British philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote ‘‘It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.’

by grief. Can we humans be rational about the causes we care deeply, even emotionally about? And if not, should we?

The pithy remark was certainly written in jest, but there’s some truth amidst levity. From Napoleon’s long winter march to Trump’s Twitter feed, humans have a seemingly poor track record at being rational.

If Russell was right, then that would imply that we humans are still driven by our primal passions, rather than the calculated rationality that sets us apart from the common beast.

The question carries great relevance when it comes to social movements. From Thomas Paine’s revolutionary call to arms to Martin Luther King’s impassioned plea on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, emotion has played a defining role in all of the most successful movements in the past few centuries. But in the age of social media and real-time content sharing, emotion has in some ways become more of a hindrance than a help to the success of movements.

But what exactly does it mean to be rational? In economic theory, rationality is the ability to make choices that result in the greatest amount of utility for an individual. In short, it’s a cognitively driven response to decision making as opposed to ‘gut’ or emotion. Most of us are rational about our everyday decisions, like paying off our student loan with our first paycheck instead of blowing it on the new iPhone, or staying home the night before a test instead of hitting the bar with friends. But what about those closer to the heart? All too often we hear of people who stay in harmful relationships longer than they should, or exhibit completely irrational behaviour when seized

THE HEART OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

Take Kony 2012 for example. In 2012, Invisible Children launched a social media campaign titled ‘Kony 2012’, which aimed to spread awareness of Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army, as well as harness the power of public outcry to bring him to justice. The campaign went viral instantly, with its eponymous documentary reaching 100 million views on youtube in just 6 days. The use of impressive visuals as well as tear-jerking narratives appealed to the hearts of millions, and soon the Twitter-sphere was teeming with righteous fury: How did he get away for so many years? What monster would abduct and recruit child

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soldiers? Unsurprisingly, even the celebrities soon jumped in on the act. In 140 characters, celebs like Justin Bieber, Kim Kardashian, and Oprah rallied their followers to ‘come together and #STOPKONY’.

Despite all the hype, Kony 2012 fizzled out miserably within months. Though some 3.5 million people pledged or signed up with Invisible Children for their worldwide ‘Cover the Night’ campaign, less than 50 in Brisbane turned up, and the number was even fewer in Vancouver with only 17 attendees. How did a viral movement like that collapse in such embarrassingly mute fashion? Social commentators pointed to a large number of reasons, but one contributing factor was its heavy emphasis on the emotional over the rational. Scientists have long divined that emotion especially short-term emotion - isn’t the best catalyst for sustainable change. While the ‘you too can be a force for change’ rhetoric appealed to eager armchair activists, many ended up being so drawn to the idea that they could and should save these children that they ended up failing to do the rational thing: sit, pause, and think. How legitimate is this Invisible Children organisation? Are there better ways to help these Ugandan children? Is Joseph Kony even a credible threat? Those who purchased the action kits might well have gotten a good night’s sleep, but it’s likely that many forgot about Kony by the next morning, save for their feelgood acts of altruism. Kony 2012 sure struck many hearts, but its reluctance to engage the head eventually led to it collapsing on its own sword.

EFFECTIVE ALTRUISM Granted, not every social movement is a Kony 2012, but it’s clear that 21st-century activism requires a more rational approach. But how does one bring cold rationality to what has traditionally been an emotionally charged playground?

According to philosopher Peter Singer, such a feat is possible, and it is in fact happening. Over the past decade or so, Singer - along with other notable individuals like Bill Gates and Facebook cofounder Duskin Moskovitz - has been promoting a movement known as Effective Altruism. Put simply, Effective Altruism is a philosophical and social movement that focuses on applying rationality to the often sentimental nature of altruism, in a bid to generate

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the largest amount of net ‘good’ in the world in the most efficient way. In a 2013 TED talk, Singer cited the example of providing a guide dog for a blind person.

While he says that it’s a ‘good thing to do’, he maintains that there are many better things one could do with the same resources.

‘It costs about $40,000 to train a guide dog and train the recipient so that the guide dog can be an effective help to a blind person. It costs somewhere between 20 and 50 dollars to cure a blind person in a developing country if they have trachoma. So you do the sums and...you could provide one guide dog for one blind American, or you could cure between 400 and 2000 people of blindness.’

‘I think it’s clear what’s the better thing to do.’

To the effective altruist, that ‘better thing’ is always the most rational thing, or whatever brings the ‘greatest happiness of the greatest number’. To truly understand how stone cold rational the movement is, one only has to look at the ethical positions of Singer himself. Deeply controversial, Singer goes as far as to espouse selective infanticide for children born with severe disability, or euthanasia for adults with similar conditions, all of which frees up public health resources for society’s ‘abled’.

That’s as cold as rationality gets, and is in stark contrast to the emotional activism of movements past. While Singer’s views may be a little extreme, it’s astounding just what a small injection of rationality can do; charity rating organisations like GiveWell estimate that some charities are a thousand times more effective than others. In the case of philanthropic altruism, rationality forces you to consider not only if you are giving to a just cause, but if you are giving to a right cause.

Of course, we can understand how it’s easier to make rational decisions when it involves dollars and cents.

After all, facts and figures leave less to the vagaries of interpretation. In fact, organisations like GiveWell have complex algorithms that help calculate indices like ‘cost per life saved’, but unlike philanthropy, the unquantifiable nature of activism precludes it from having any kind of mathematical sophistication.

But this doesn’t mean we can’t aspire to rational emotion in social movements that give it the power to activism. While raising banners isn’t the same as harness the public-spirited in our ranks. raising funds, the rational activist can still make calculated decisions on which course of action would So where does that leave us? Social movements need to generate the most benefit for a movement. Want to be more rational, but they cannot completely abandon help faraway Ugandan children? emotion. Ultimately, movements Perhaps buying a Kony 2012 action require both the head and the heart To the effective altruist, - the latter to provide the initial kit isn’t the best course of action. that ‘better thing’ Interested in environmentalism? spark and the former to sustain There are better ways to do it than it. It’s not a dichotomy per se, but is always the most just clicking switches for Earth an unwieldy marriage between rational thing, or Hour. Being rational forces us to sit two seemingly contradictory whatever brings the down, think hard, and formulate persuasions. ‘Emotions pervade our options, before choosing the all social life, social movements ‘greatest happiness of best one from an array of them, included,’ writes sociologist James the greatest number’. rather than leave ourselves swayed Jasper. ‘There are positive emotions by human ‘gut’ and emotion. Given and negative [emotions], admirable the great leaps in technology and all things good, the and despicable ones, public and hidden ones. startling lack of rationality is still a pervasive, and Without them, there might be no social action at all. even harmful drag on the strivings of humanity. Many To categorise them as rational or irrational is deeply people champion causes that are close to their heart, but wrong headed.’ there is a need for movements to be closer to the head as well.

Perhaps Nietzsche said it best: ‘One ought to hold on to one’s heart; for if one lets it go, one soon loses control THE HEAD AND THE HEART of the head too.’

What does this mean then? Should the rational activist check his emotions at the door? After all that’s been said, the unfortunate answer is well, not quite. Singer’s approach may have revolutionised the act of giving, but a terminally rational approach would only serve to strip away the emotion necessary for the performance of any kind of good. According to Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational and Professor of Psychology and Behavioural Economics at Duke University, too much rationality can actually be a recipe for disaster.

‘The key to action is not thoughtful deliberation,’ he says. ‘If we get to think in a calculated Mr. Spock kind of manner, we would do what economic theory tells us; we would be selfish, we would just care about ourselves and not care about everybody else.’

In the case of effective altruism, critics have accused it of devaluing the emotion - particularly empathy - that makes giving charitably possible in the first place. The Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant once argued that passion was incompatible with moral action, but the reality is that no movement can be sustained by a pure appeal to the cerebral; it is the

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vox populi letters to the editor

MAYBE WE ARE MISSING THE POINT RE: ‘Impeachment’s Creed’ [Vol 1, Oct ’17]: In no uncertain terms, the exaggerated focus on the removal of Donald Trump has been diverting our attention from more vital concerns. In the face of the generous use of misunderstood terms, including ‘impeachment’ and ‘to void the presidential election and to call for a re-election’, I appreciate that the former was rectified via this article. To comment on the latter – well, it is at best, politically impossible.

Even if Trump is removed, are we happy with ‘Pence for President’? Perhaps, focusing on setting the 2020 presidential election right and more urgently, putting pressure on Trump to tackle the underlying problems that contributed to the rise of Trump itself, such as the shrinking middle class and the resulting wage gap, the rise of nationalism and racism, is more pressing.

Maybe we have to face this reality, that Trump is here, perhaps here to stay - even for a couple more years.

However, like the article mentioned, the masses do hold the power to make something consequential happen (take the case of DACA), maybe we have to use that, not to reiterate and re-tweet the possibilities of his removal but to mend the cracks on our political/ social landscape that led to his rise in the first place.

Anjhana Damodaran, UOL Alumni Program and Research – Associate Institute for Societal Leadership Singapore Management University

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CREDIT MUST BE GIVEN WHERE IT IS DUE It was just over a year ago when we were warned of the ‘next Great Depression’ that might result should he win the presidency. Yet the Dow Jones Industrial Average has surged to record-breaking heights since Trump emerged victorious.

Nor has Trump been the fascist or tyrant as suggested.

For someone who is arguably the most powerful man on Earth, Trump has surprisingly abided by the decision of the courts regarding his proposed ‘travel ban’ – at least for the time being.

Under pressure from Trump, NATO allies of the US have boosted their defence spending. This was something the Bush and Obama administrations have tried to do to no avail.

Even in his hometown of New York where it was famously predicted that tourism visits would plummet, the Big Apple remains the most top destination in the Americas with the number of visitors posed to spike.

Granted, Trump remains far from faultless. Yet the present situation is a far cry from the ‘end of the world’ as naysayers suggested.

It is time that credit be given where it is due, and President Trump does deserve some credit for what he has achieved.

Ken Chan, UOL International Relations, Year 3

COMING IN CONTACT

THE ‘WORLDS’ WAR

By now, everyone would have heard of the disastrous train crash that resulted in the injury of 36 Singaporeans. Or as SMRT would put it, when the trains ‘came in contact’ with each other. And perhaps it is now where the national mood can finally find itself receptive to a proper conversation on the efficacy of government, a conversation we have decided for far too long ought to be put off in favour of shoring up its efficacy.

As an ardent reader of The Capital, it is most gratifying to share my views on a subject of personal concern.

Once, our ministers extolled the virtues of seeking for our nation a ‘Swiss standard of living’, but it is now much more common to see narratives insisting we ought to be content with our present situation. Our approach to the march of progress is now coloured heavily with pessimism, in contrast to the optimism enjoyed in past decades.

The underlying problem, quite frankly, is the fact Singaporeans have found it much simpler to adopt a devil-may-care approach to matters of state, delegating those responsibilities to our ‘betters’. And what luck for rulers that men do not think.

Success is built upon the result of all past failures, for in failure one finds a solution and a lesson. But, first step in solving any problem is recognising there is one.

And unless we start doing so, at all levels of society, we must surrender our fates to that most unreliable temptress - Lady Luck. We simply cannot release statements saying that our transport system is a ‘first class’ one, and hope it is enough to lay everything to rest.

French Philosopher Joseph de Maistre once said, ‘Every nation gets the government it deserves’ - a quote that I have taken quite to heart. Not only politicians, but the people should be held to account. I choose to see democracy as a great responsibility that has been bestowed upon us, and we should take an interest in helping steer our nation in the direction that best suits her interests.

Brennan See, UOL International Relations, Year 3

It is no secret that we inhabit a world of contrasts and dichotomies, against a backdrop of ‘political correctness’. However, when it comes to drawing the line between the ‘rich’ and ‘poor’ nations, the irony of ‘correctness’ sticks out like a sore thumb.

The neat categorisation of countries as either ‘First World’ or ‘Third World’ may seem innocuous at face value. After all, they were originally meant to distinguish Western allies from the East during the Cold War. Reality check: the War is long over, but the lingo still thrives in the legacy of its hangover.

The enduring use of the ‘Worlds’ to conveniently compartmentalize two vast regions into opposite bastions of development is deeply problematic. It not only masks a sense of Western superiority over the perceived internal decadence of the South, but also ignores contradictions embedded within the individual mosaics of each bloc.

Whether it is rampant urban poverty in the US, systematic discrimination against minorities in Western Europe, or political corruption in the Western corridors of power, these ‘chinks in the armour’ threaten the exclusivity of the ‘Third World’ (read: Third Place) epithet to the South. In other words, it is no longer valid to claim “the West is the Best”, whilst dismissing the staggering economic growth and the concomitant rise of the middle classes in China, India and the like, who often exhibit more ‘First World’ qualities and trends than those “born” with the glorious cachet on their foreheads.

Finally, in the absence of terminology that better appeals to the sensibilities of the misrepresented, the term ‘developing world’ seems like a safer option, as it suggests an ongoing process of reaching the top, rather than being forever confined to a box of vintage Cold War cargo.

Ali Jaishan Amir, UOL International Relations, Year 3

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