THREAD: It’s been an election of several firsts - our first pandemic poll, our first “virtual election” - but one first that’s interesting to me is that with @RaeesahKhanwpsg it’s arguably the first election where a new generation of young woke S’poreans steps into politics.

This is a group of extremely politically aware people who care intensely for social justice, and crucially, are unafraid to talk about race and class issues in frank ways that are completely unimaginable to most Singaporeans.

This is what I wrote last year for the BBC piece on the brownface saga: “This is a group that yearns for a franker and bolder conversation about race, and is frustrated with the careful tones of the discourse in the tightly-controlled local media... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-49205225

...They are not content with how mainstream society and the government get to impose a certain definition of racism, and rules on how Singapore should discuss race.”

Much of the language and tone used by these young Singaporeans is heavily influenced by US woke culture, and already there are calls to denounce and reject this “foreign import” and “AOC-style of divisive politics”. But such calls are probably futile - here’s why:

One: as long as Singapore remains an open society, it will always be influenced by the ebbs and flows of cultural globalisation. In short, this is unstoppable. Two, this is not some small insignificant minority. They are our youth - our sons, daughters, cousins, nieces, nephews.

This group is growing, it’s here to stay, and now it wants a chair at the adults’ table. It may no longer be a question of whether the rest of Singapore can or should resist them, but how it should accommodate them.

So @RaeesahKhanwpsg may be the first woke Singaporean to enter politics, but she probably won’t be the last. /END OF THREAD