An excerpt of a piece I wrote for SEA Youth Say So.
It looked like Singapore was going to join in on the fun that was sweeping the globe. Yes, my little city-state, more known for being repressed (oppressed?) and “apathetic” was going to have its own Occupy movement. It was a thrilling notion.
The Facebook events page #OccupyRafflesPlace (since deleted) was set up by Occupy Singapore, encouraging Singaporeans to gather at Raffles Place on Saturday afternoon to call for more accountability and transparency from government-owned investment companies such as GIC and Temasek Holdings.
However, when Saturday afternoon came around, there appeared to be more photographers, journalists and plainclothes policemen than actual occupiers. Although organisers of #OccupyRafflesPlace later said that they had been there, October 15 went by with Singapore unoccupied, and the movement largely deemed a failure.
What went wrong?
