House of Bali Aga, North Bali. Happy Tuesday, Reader, This newsletter arrives two days late because I didn’t want to rush the writing on Sunday. A slower pace and unplugging myself from the internet sometimes is needed :). I visited historical sites in Bali, Indonesia, and I attended a natural dye workshop. The places I visited are mentioned in Anne-Lot Hoek’s book The Struggle for Bali, about the island’s independence war against the Dutch between 1945 and 1949. Most people know Bali only as...
7 days ago • 3 min read
Singapore, the sunny side How is your weekend, Reader? Mine is slow, with family time with my sister in Singapore. The city-state is a complicated place. I love it for the calmness and convenience. At the same time, I’m worried about its death penalty policy and lack of press freedom. Singaporean journalist Kirsten Han writes about both topics regularly. It makes her an activist in many people’s eyes, whereas she is applying journalistic methods. In her 2024 essay A Real Journalist?, she...
16 days ago • 4 min read
Nothing beats an analogue newspaper in a newsletter about AI, right? Referring to this piece about Nepal: No News Is Good News Have you used any AI this week, NAME? About a quarter of the Dutch population actively uses generative AI tools (like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini), according to the Bureau of Statistics (CBS), and our prime minister is one of them, which caused a stir in the Dutch AI debate last week. Dutch writer Francis Esfandiari admitted in a controversial op-ed that she uses AI and...
29 days ago • 6 min read
You'll enjoy this Reel by Wang Ding Man, who quit his six-figure job after he was asked to develop robots for the arms industry. How many rabbit holes did you dive into last week, Reader? I’m asking because I realized I went down many! From climate colonialism to a network of underground fungi (did you know we know more about the deep sea than about our soil?!), to Dutch journalist Ruben Terlou, who talks about reversed culture shock and finds it harder and harder to return to the...
about 1 month ago • 5 min read
Watch Nepali Majid Ansari's message to foreign journalists. How has your week been, Reader? Reality can change in one moment, as you could see in Nepal and Tibet. What a weird time to be alive. Welcome to new subscribers. Please know that one click on the reply button gets you in direct contact with me, and I love to hear more about why you subscribed, so don't hesitate to send a message :)! Sanne DEEP DIVE Who gets to be “one of us” in the news? Last week, Al Jazeera's correspondent Step...
about 1 month ago • 7 min read
The monument of the Battle of Warns, 1345. Happy Tuesday, Reader, Welcome to a new subscriber from Germany this week. I love how this community is growing slowly but surely. Please share this newsletter with your network and ask them to subscribe. Sorry for sending it two days late; normally it arrives in your inbox on Sunday. Today's writing is the first in a series about white identities. It would be great to collect more identity stories; read more below! Sanne DEEP DIVE Investigating...
about 2 months ago • 5 min read
Friesian horses are native to the province of Friesland in the northern Netherlands. Sabah al-ward, Reader, It means "morning of roses" or "morning of flowers" in Arabic, and it's a poetic way of saying "good morning" to friends and loved ones. I learned it from Hassan Herzallah, who wrote "Palestinian Storytelling Before the World Called It News" for the second edition of Cracks Magazine: Download (free) If you've read it already, asante sana!, which means "thanks very much" in Swahili. And...
about 2 months ago • 7 min read
Hi, Reader, Welcome to new subscribers! It's cool that people sign up even in weeks where I didn't publish. If you like what you read, please share it on social media or ask a friend to sign up. They can also first read the archive; it's where the subscribe link is too. This one The refusal of BTS to participate in next year’s Grammy Awards, the tragic death of Nepali mountaineer Nirmal Purja, and an exhibition about colonial film led to today’s newsletter. Read more below. *) BTS = a famous...
2 months ago • 5 min read
With Sonia Piscayanti, founder of Singaraja Literary Festival. Hi from Amsterdam, Reader, The past few weeks have been busy and exciting, hence why I paused the newsletter. If you're a regular reader, you know about Inclusive Journalism's media partnership with the Singaraja Literary Festival in North Bali, Indonesia. The theme of last week's fourth edition was Stri Sasana, based on an ancient lontar manuscript and loosely translated as the role of women in society. I interviewed Balinese...
3 months ago • 5 min read