Prof. Tan Sor-Hoon is a Professor of Philosophy at Singapore Management University, the Academic Director of Politics, Law and Economics (PLE) major, and a Lee Kong Chian Fellow. She writes primarily on Confucianism and democratic theory. In this finale of a two-part series, The Diacritic’s Wang Xing Hao speaks to Prof. Tan on her life’s work reconciling Confucianism with democracy….
The fire had a vehemence to it; roaring with unmitigated fervour, echoing the chants of the Parsis in attendance. Although only present through teleconferencing, I couldn’t help but be enthralled by the prayer house as the prayers and chants commenced at the Parsi Zoroastrian Association of Singapore. The room was ornately decorated: the floor was covered with what seemed to resemble Iranian antique Persian rugs, and the walls were inundated with portraits of their transcendent creator deity, Ahura Mazda. Notably, the ornamentations that were used to furnish the prayer room shared a striking similitude—they all depicted the natural world….
On 29 October 1967, Singaporean men abruptly began clutching their groins, seized by a sudden panic that their genitals were irrevocably retracting into their bodies. This trickle of cases soon turned into a torrent, with daily cases at the Singapore General Hospital peaking at 97 on 3 November. The total caseload amounted to 469, with the vast majority of the afflicted (97%) being male. While the general populace initially believed the source of contagion to be pork contaminated by a swine flu vaccine, authorities issued repeated reassurances that this was not the case, instead proposing psychological factors for the outbreak. The public debunking of the vaccine theory was apparently enough to curb the epidemic, with case numbers dropping by half just a day after the Singapore Medical Association’s public announcement….