Another clincher from the Ethos Books stable is “Eating Chili Crab in the Anthropocene: Environmental Perspectives on Life in Singapore” (“Anthropocene”) and it could not have come at a better time. Unless you’ve been hiding on your private island since about January 2020 (an indication that you might be one of them exploitative corrupt bastards that the world ought to hate), you would agree that the state of the world seems rather dire. Yet, not everyone feels the same way.
In some camps, what resonates is resignation that the world has gone mad and we might as well just enjoy it while we can. In other camps reside the people who are causing that resignation with projects that dig bigger holes in the earth and spit more poison into waterways whilst enslaving others and eating tigers’ penises for breakfast; the exploitative corrupt bastards hiding on their private islands right now waiting for the coronavirus to go away.
And in still other camps (just how many camps are there?!), there are people who harbour hope for change. Positive change.
“The sudden presence of crude oil in the Malayan imagination was likely related to the rapidly modernising city of Singapore. ” - Yogesh Tulsi, “An Oily Mirror: 1950s Orang Minyak Films As Singaporean Petrohorror”
Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, who edited Anthropocene, writes that the environment is “external, distant, beautiful, boring and seemingly irrelevant to our day-to-day lives”, which is certainly the case in Singapore. But, this collection of essays explores more than what most people would understand as “the environment” in very narrow and shallow terms.
Why has the world gone mad? Is it because we’re very close to having fished our oceans dry? Or that we’ve burned so much fossil fuel that summers are now winters and winters summers? Or is it because we’re choking our brothers to death with our knees and packing 12 guys into a room, providing one toilet for every 40 of them and blaming the incidence of COVID-19 among them on their poor personal hygiene habits?
Perhaps it’s all of the above and then some.
The contributors to Anthropocene suggest a much wider and broader view of “the environment”. In addition to the physical world, it includes an understanding of such fundamentals as culture, history, philosophy, sociology and values, which seem to be out of fashion these days.
It’s a great take on what could easily have been just another call for pro-environmental action because these fundamentals simply cannot be divorced from how we treat our physical surroundings and how we live.
“When you Google “chilli crab Singapore,” the first hit is often a list of the “die die must try” restaurants…” - Neo Xiaoyun, “Eating Chilli Crab in the Anthropocene: Nature, Culture and Care”
Anthropocene makes for an engaging read for two reasons. First, it’s varied in its esoteric approach to the environment. One essay considers the disposal and eternal burial of the legacy of the Orang Laut, arguably Singapore’s indigenous people, on Pulau Semakau, also known as Singapore’s national rubbish bin.
Another discusses tigers, which invites readers to think about man’s hunting – and consumption – of animals like the tiger to near-extinction for reasons steeped only in insecurity and superstition.
There is also a perspective offered on aviation and Jewel, a shopping mall built into Terminal 1 of Changi Airport, and its signature centrepiece, the HSBC Rain Vortex. Who knew that the airport sprawls across 13 million square feet?
Second, at the time of writing, all the writers are aged between 22 and 27 years. That is certainly cause for cheer and hope. Our youths really do give a toss. Our youths aren’t necessarily resigned to a world gone mad. Maybe because this isn’t their madness, so they won’t allow someone else’s madness to control them. And they’re making their intentions known loudly and clearly.
Which reminds me of Francis of Assisi, quite possibly the original hippie, the granddaddy of all eco-warriors. Francis reputedly addressed all living creatures as brothers and sisters, a habit that even today would attract comments like, “Oh, bless. He’s a little eccentric, isn’t he?” In his encyclical letter on the environment, Laudato Si’, Pope Francis is all praise for the other Francis: “Such a conviction cannot be written off as naïve romanticism, for it affects the choices which determine our behavior. If we approach nature and the environment without this openness to awe and wonder, if we no longer speak the language of fraternity and beauty in our relationship with the world, our attitude will be that of masters, consumers, ruthless exploiters, unable to set limits on their immediate needs.”
Those exploitative corrupt bastards on their private islands waiting for the coronavirus to go away.
“By contrast, if we feel intimately united with all that exists, then sobriety and care will well up spontaneously.”
It’s up to us and I, for one, am very happy to walk with our youths on this.
“Eating Chili Crab in the Anthropocene: Environmental Perspectives on Life in Singapore” is published by Ethos Books and is available for purchase online.
