How Gaza isn't far from Southeast Asia, who's shopping for arms and our elected autocracies
A lot of donations for Gazans have been coming from Singapore.
8,000 kilometres - that’s how far Southeast Asia is from the occupied, and now ruined and starving, Gaza Strip. But news of the horrors there, rushing in real-time through our devices, are bringing that part of the world much closer to us.
Due to the stream of bad news as Israel continues its destruction of Gaza and its people, many people are looking for ways to help out - and Southeast Asian communities are a meaningful part of this response.
As expected, the region's Muslim-majority countries - Indonesia, Brunei and Malaysia - have been active in sending assistance to Gaza and especially during Ramadan. (Some 42% of Southeast Asians are Muslims, and the region is home to one-fourth of the world's Muslims.)
But Singapore, too, has been sending aid to Gaza. On 20 March, Singapore's air force carried out an airdrop of aid to Gaza, in coordination with Jordan, while Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan was on a trip to the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Qatar, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
In Amman, a 6.1 million Singapore dollar (4.5 million USD) cheque was given to the UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian Refugees. This was part of the 8.1 million SGD raised by the Singapore charity Rahmatan Lil Alamin Foundation for Gaza, whose head, Muhammad Faizal, described "this incredible sum" as the biggest it has raised for a humanitarian effort.
Singapore had earlier sent two batches of aid, during the November 2023 pause in hostilities in Gaza.
There are other channels too. Private donations of all sizes from people in Singapore - from various faith communities and fundraising activities like running to selling used items - have been going to a charity group called Love Aid Singapore.
Donations have exceeded 1.1 million Singaporean dollars (about 817,000 USD) as of late March, says Gilbert Goh, the Singaporean leader of Love Aid Singapore.
He was “definitely surprised” by the huge donations, says Goh, who says he has been working with Palestinian and Syrian refugees for eight years.
“I believe Singaporeans are kind-hearted and strong enough to take a stand when it counts especially if it revolves round humanity issues, and for that we must be proud,” he said in an email interview. “By cowering in fear and neutrality, we hide ourselves in the history of non-involvement which will come back to haunt us surely in future.”
In a 26 March post on Instagram, Goh said he has used 44,000 USD in donations to fund a new solar-powered system to get electricity back up at the Kamal Adwan hospital in north Gaza (44,000 USD).
A few days earlier, Goh said that a food kitchen in Jabalia refugee camp - among the initiatives supported by Love Aid Singapore and its partner, the International Relief Organisation (which operates inside Gaza) - was functioning again and safe. In early March, nine workers in their food kitchen in Jabalia were killed in an Israeli airstrike, prompting the groups to take more safety measures.
In frequent updates on social media, Goh tells followers where their donations are going - the purchase of mobile toilets and tends, support for orphans in Gaza, and the use of 4,400 USD to cover the cost of kindergarten teachers' salaries at a school for refugee kids in Shatila, Lebanon.
All these are interesting too when seen against the backdrop of Singapore's long-time official and military ties with Israel, which go back to 1969, soon after its birth in 1965.
It has been common to hear of their shared perceptions as small nations surrounded by not-so-friendly neighbours, especially in the political context decades ago. (In "once-secretive" ties - after Israel responded to the young city-state's call for help to set up its armed forces - Singapore officials were calling the visiting military advisers from Israel 'Mexicans'. 'Beating the Odds Together', a book on 50 years of bilateral ties, came out in 2019.)
Then, there is the fact that Singapore does not recognise the State of Palestine.
But the humanitarian response to Gaza drives home the life-affirming point that the desire to ease the suffering of others goes beyond religion, politics and interests that nation-states may define at certain points in time.
So, the real distance between Gaza and Southeast Asia in these dark times? That's determined by our humanity.
Goh's updates also give an idea of the inflated cost of everything at this time. For instance: running a food kitchen in Gaza - 30,000 USD a month and 50,000 USD if meals include animal meat; a full-size cow: 9,000 USD; a small goat: 700 USD; one mobile toilet: 1,500 USD (Love Aid Singapore will get 22 units).
Elsewhere, aid from Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei has been in media reports.
On 18 March, 11 medical workers from Indonesia's non-government Medical Emergency Rescue Committee (MER-C) arrived in Gaza - no easy task given Israel’s blockade and restrictions. After waiting for a month, they went in through the Rafah crossing with Egypt, with the World Health Organisation's support. They joined two other MER-C workers previously in Gaza (the Indonesia Hospital is in ruins after being bombed by Israeli troops).
The hardest part of this effort, MER-C head Sarbini Abdul Murad told Tempo, was "diplomacy permission from Israel" since Indonesia has no official ties with Israel.
Indonesia had sent two aid shipments earlier on. In February, an Indonesian hospital docked in Egypt with more aid for Gaza, the Jakarta Post reported.
Malaysia got two truckloads of aid into Gaza in February, after Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim phoned Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. In March, 100 containers of emergency items, donated by various Malaysian groups, were being arranged in Egypt for sending overland to Gaza.
In mid-March, Brunei’s donations of 5,920 food packages were in the airdrops carried out by Jordan. These came from a fund for Palestinians in Gaza, whose collections reached 1.26 million USD in early December.
But a lot of 'aid to Gaza' still means aid lined up at outside the Rafah crossing from Egypt, as famine sets in. (UN data on truck entries here.)
Meantime, today's wars called my attention to arms transfers, which the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has just issued an update on. Who's buying arms in Southeast Asia, and from where? Check out 'Data Box' below.
Johanna, founder/editor of the Reporting ASEAN series
1 DATA BOX
The 2 visuals highlight the Southeast Asian angles in the new SIPRI fact sheet on arms transfers.
Below - A report by V-Dem or the Varieties of Democracy project (at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden) says most countries in the region are autocracies - of the elected and closed kinds.
