Volume 42, Number 16 · October 19, 1995
The Singapore Way
By Ian Buruma
To Catch a Tartar: A Dissident in Lee Kuan Yew's Prison
by Francis T. Seow
Yale Center for Southeast Asian Studies, 293 pp., $22.00
Dare to Change: An Alternative Vision for Singapore
by Dr. Chee Soon Juan
Singapore Democratic Party, 156 pp., $13.00
It could have ended like any number of squalid murder cases in Southeast Asia—with an execution and no fuss. In 1991 a Filipina maid called Mrs. Maga was found dead in Singapore with her ward, the small son of a Singaporean-Chinese family. Another Filipina maid was accused of the murders. She was arrested. She confessed. And in March 1995, she was hanged. So ended the life of Flor Contemplacion, one of 100,000 women and girls imported to Singapore from poor countries around the region. Some are sent by local contractors, others are attracted by ads like this, in The Straits Times of Singapore: 'No day off. Filipino. $300. Indonesian. Hard-working. $320.'
Review, 7364 words
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