mollymeek

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I would like to apologize the Zaqy Mohamad and the mainstream media for satirizing their nonsensical and mutually contradicting rhetoric about press freedom—half a decade before they spewed them out recently.

In December 2004, Molly wrote in the spirit of parody, "A wide-scale survey conducted on countries around the world reveals that Singapore's Press Freedom has increased on a year-to-year basis. The nation state has been placed positions ahead of its neighbors like Malaysia . . . ."

About a year later, in October 2005, Today reported that "Singapore has inched up seven spots in the 2005 World Press Freedom Index". And it was parodied by Molly once again.

Molly feels obliged to offer her deepest apologies. If Molly had known that some people are utterly incapable of coming with new scents to mask the stench of old shit, she wouldn't have made fun of them.

Now Today wants us to think that Singapore's press freedom ranking has "rebounded" (as if it had dropped for a while after being quite high for a long period). But before you can start celebrating, Today quotes Zaqy Mohamad who wants us to believe that the low ranking (of course neither he nor Today calls it low) means that the local media is "credible" despite all those heretical bloggers who do not side with the PAP. (Huh?!)

From the phrasing of the Today article, one might think that he means that the 144th to 133rd "improvement" is something positive and means that Singapore's media have become more credible. On the contrary, he seems to think that the media has become a little less credible (because those crazy free press fanatics aren’t ranking it so low now). I believe the ever-reliable media might have misunderstood him somewhat. I think he really means that (insert sigh) the higher ranking isn’t something to celebrate, but is simply saying that at least the local media has (thankfully, phew) not gone too much in the way of those disgusting media in the West that do not know how to lick their governments' asses. Look at the Today article:

Mr Zaqy Mohamad, chairman of the Government Parliamentary Committee for Information, Communications and the Arts, said the improved ranking "underlines that our press remains credible especially in the face of challenges like the new media".

He says that the press remains credible (i.e. it’s still credible), not that it has become more credible. He seems to be suggesting that the better Singapore's media is ranked (better according to Reporters Without Borders, I mean), the less credible it is.

Admittedly, I can't really accuse anyone of misquoting him. This is all too ridiculously twisted to be properly articulated. One moment, you have to pretend to buy into Reporters Without Borders' ranking (or so it seems) and spin something positive out of the dismal ranking by calling Singapore's position this year an "improvement". The next moment, you are expected to do the usual nonsense of saying that the better Reporters Without Frontiers ranks the local media, the less credible the local media is, because (insert collective PAP gasp) surely the new ranking shows that the media is not as sycophantic as was a year ago . . .

I should refrain from accusing Zaqy Mohamad of bad rhetoric. Perhaps he wasn’t being rhetorical. I think he has simply internalized the idea that good ranking = bad press. (Any double entendre should be noted.) 

I wonder if he would see Today's failure to coherently adopt his ideological standpoint (but unwittingly contradict him instead) as a sign of the potential for a more disturbing (better? Worse?) ranking next year.

Once upon a time, there was a storyteller. The moral of his stories were invariably about harmony. One day, someone regurgitated his plots and spun them, perhaps unintentionally, into tales of equality. This enraged the veteran storyteller who threw a hissy fit and yelled, “You are telling my stories wrongly!”

As though the staleness of PM Lee’s National Day Rally about harmony (the racial and religious species, what else?) is not enough, many contribute their reverberations, adding stench to staleness. But suddenly, MM Lee seems strangely agitated about an NMP’s advocacy of equal treatment of all races.

Now, it might have seemed to many people to be quite politically correct to want all races to be treated equally. Surely, one might ask, the PAP which is so obsessed with racial harmony would have no problems with racial equality? As such, MM Lee’s strong reaction to Viswa Sadasivan’s view might seem rather odd at first. Is MM Lee against racial equality? Yes, if we assume that racial equality involves the equal treatment of all races. In a nutshell, MM Lee’s view is that the different races cannot be treated equally because the government has be sensitive towards minority races and take action or have policies that will reassure minorities that they will not be discriminated against.

And if we go on, we will be going in circles for the strength of Viswa Sadasivan’s point is precisely that if the government persists in the stance MM Lee has elucidated, racial categories will become further entrenched. And Sadasivan probably has a problem with this because the emphasis on racial categories will ensure that the consciousness of race and of the perceived differences will always be present. Understandably, for a government that has played the race card for its strategic political benefit, any call to eliminate the need for racial categories is a travesty.

What we have are simply two positions but an uncannily common standpoint at their core. While Sadasivan talks about equality, MM Lee talks about non-discrimination, which in fact draws from discourses of equality. One says that there is no true equality if race continues to be visible, if the walls of race continue to be painted and repainted. The other says that, in practice, we cannot simply pretend that we have attained the ideal situation in which no one is bothered by what they consider to be race.

Perhaps it is not the difference in the two men’s positions that is significant. Perhaps the issue of equality as articulated by Sadasivan threatens to hit a sensitive spot in the discourse of harmony as propagated by the government. Suddenly, Singaporeans might be reminded that harmony is different from equality. It is possible for me live harmoniously with you even if I am (or you are) suffering social injustices. At the same time, you and I might be equals but we squabble from time to time. Which do you find preferable? (I do not mean that any racial group in Singapore is suffering injustices. This is just an illustration to distinguish the ideas of harmony and equality.)

Difference is an essential precondition of harmony. We can harmonize because there is you and I, because there is an other. With harmony is always the possibility of discordance; there is always a threat of sorts. If no one perceives difference, then the notion of harmony has to go. How painful that would be for someone who has built an entire city on that notion, who has made skyscrapers from the bricks of difference! More tragically, what would happen if people living in these glittery skyscrapers suddenly reject the buildings, the apartment-compartments, that have been built for them and in which they have been placed with a heavy hand. Worse, what if the inhabitants of the harmonious city decide to hire architects of their own?

Never throw away a child’s Lego set. It is devastating.

But is harmony not just harmony? Of course, but perhaps not. Perhaps harmony is not even harmony. The moment harmony is divided into types, with most types being invisible, there is silent disharmony. Or silenced disharmony. Racial harmony. Religious harmony. Why not gender harmony, for instance? Because, as a storyteller explains, many years ago, there were racial riots. And people died! So racial issues must be handled sensitively. Someone ought to send that storyteller to jail for sedition. For surely he is inciting riots on the basis of gender. What else? If we accord “racial harmony” importance because of racial riots, what is there to stop people from starting gender (or any other kinds of riots resulting in violence and deaths, something we fear so much? 

A time to celebrate, a time to deplore. There are those who are determined to infantilize the collective, choreographing empty pledge recitations, tribal face-painting, mumbling songs designed to for the practice of false love for a mythical nation. And there are those who feel a sense of belonging by participating in the unspoken dread of the idiocy ritualized annually.

How could August 9 be known as National Day if there’s nothing tangibly national to speak of, when the dominant tales of the nation alienate all but those who have been successfully infantilized? In other words, what is national day if the widely circulated notions of nationhood are held with contempt by those who persist in their (in)sanity while being repeated ad infinitum by those who seem to find delight in lip-synching to delirious gibberish about harmony, overcoming crises together, Lee Kuan Yew the Greatest, Goh Chok Tong the Great, hegemony our pride?

The nation, as the political power-authors of Singapore articulate it, is anti-nation. This is not to say that there is anything necessarily desirable about being a nation. But if we understand a nation as a group of people, the anti-nation of Singaporean nationalism may be said to be anti-people. The nation as it is orchestrated by the state goes against the very people it claims to be working for. It is invariably a collection of tales about achievements together with cautionary tales of crisis. Your unhappiness is forbidden. Be happy like the blessed infantilized whose sole mission in life seems to be to recite the pledge, riding it of signification whilst clenching fists at their chests, wringing your heart.

Don’t be unhappy. Don’t protest.

The PAP is not the nation, the argument goes. Love the nation even if you hate the PAP. But August 9 is a time of mourning precisely the PAP has made itself national. There is only loss, no love. Premature loss before love could even exist. You can’t trick me into loving the PAP, fools.

If there is anything national to speak of, it has to be the deformity born out of the collective trauma of 44 years (and counting) of disfigurement. Singapore is a mass of scar tissue, aching with dying life. Eternally dying to die. It is the trauma of the oppression that has taken place under the pretext of nation-building, the constant assault on our minds and common sense by omnipresent propaganda.

What oppression? The question is bound to crop up. One shall not answer a question which, by answering it, would subject one to further assault. Yet, by not answering, one subjects oneself to further accusations. Irrational. Biased. Imbalanced. Insane. And this is perhaps the essence of the national trauma brought about by a group of people’s (or perhaps one man’s?) nation-building. To articulate the trauma is perhaps one way of imagining the nation, not against the people, for once. Perhaps this is why one sees the urgency with which the social engineering project of infantilization is carried out. Make them idiots from a young age. Rather they paint their faces red than they see red. Obscure the trauma forever with a mask of glittery enjoyment. Let everyone recite the pledge at 2022, let their hysterical voices conjure the horrors of the Japanese occupation and institute it as The Trauma, sitting on the actual trauma of the people.

Let those who cannot be made happy leave or be consigned to eternal suffering-silence.

Unfortunately, every day is national day.

What day? I’ve forgotten. What day I can’t forget.

The Homosexual Agenda according to a certain feminist mentor whose own agenda and sanity I highly question:

1. decriminalisation of sodomy [big deal?]

2. equalization of age of consent for heterosexual sex and homosex [so what?]

3. anti-discrimination laws e.g. equality in sex education which should cover heterosexual sex and anal sex [sounds reasonable]

4. same-sex marriage or civil union [what's wrong?]

5. homosexual parenthood and adoption rights [cannot meh?]

The Fundie Agenda according to Molly:

1. Capitalize on existent homophobia to criminalize homosexuality by aligning it with pedophilia and other forms of sexual behavior deemed unacceptable

2. Removal of age of consent laws to allow sex only after marriage

3. Oppressive laws that ban contraception and abortion

4. Invasion of fundie morality on all behavior on all heterosexual relationships

5. Sectarian State


The Bimbotic Kitten Agenda:

1. To pee on someone's grave [Er, stray cat pee on grave not against the law hor?]

To be absolutely truthful, it is clearly possible for homosexuality to be promoted, whether through sexuality education programs or in other ways. The great minds of people like Dr. Thio Su Mien are certainly right to believe that homosexuality can be promoted, although this does not mean that it has been promoted through AWARE's sexuality education program. I doubt, though, if there are many people whose passion in promoting homosexuality are as intense as the passion of those who promote heterosexuality. After all, the same crusaders against the promotion of homosexuality are promoting heterosexuality and have managed to convince a number of homosexuals to become straight―or at least behave as though they are. And since heterosexuality can and has been be promoted, why should we pretend that homosexuality can't?

It is not whether homosexuality has been promoted through sexuality education in schools. I doubt even Dr. Thio (either of them―the mother or the daughter) would believe me if I were to tell her that teenagers became lesbian because AWARE told them that being lesbian was fun. What the likes of Dr. Thio are concerned about is really a group of people who are encountering uncertainty about their sexuality. They might observe their same-sex peers being interested in the opposite sex and feel that they have different inclinations for some reason. Given the way the world is today, most teenage students would know what “gay” and “lesbian” refer to. But when they find themselves possibly being described as “gay” or “lesbian” (words often used derogatorily, with the assumption that being gay and lesbian is abnormal), they are likely to begin facing self-doubt and guilt. Their psychological health is inevitably affected in some way.

Dr. Thio clearly does not simply want people to stop themselves from telling others to become lesbian.  (Pardon me if I give the impression that I'm trying to use her as the avatar of bigotry. I could very well use a certain Pastor or many of his followers, but none of them has ever claimed to be a feminist mentor.) What she―and her allies―want is something more. She does not even condone neutrality. Pastor Derek Hong of Church of Our Saviour apparently believes that they cannot be neutral and that is fine. No one is obliged to be neutral. But one cannot stop others from being neutral about issues to do with homosexuality. And this is the impulse of the opponents of AWARE's sexuality education. For the sake of what they believe God wants, they righteously go out and stop people from being neutral. No, you cannot be neutral. You cannot say that I have no issues if you are lesbian. God forbid. 

So homosexuality has got to remain taboo, and when it ever has the audacity to sneak into conversations, judgment has to be pronounced. Negative judgment, of course. If you do not turn homosexuality into a taboo, or if you do not condemn homosexuality (it's probably optional to claim to love homosexuals after the condemnation), you must be a promoter of homosexuality. I suppose only God can decide if these people are promoting perverse wisdom Which isn't really wisdom, of course, but we don't really have a good word for it. It's perverse but the moment it establishes itself in enough minds, it becomes conventional wisdom; it becomes irrefutable.

What about the young people going through sexuality education then? If they happen to have any inclinations towards homosexuality, they must be told by the seeming authorities that it is wrong. And the people who are judgmental might ironically think that they are not being judgmental. A fictitious conversation:

Girl: Dr. Thio, I think I'm lesbian.

Dr. Thio: Oh . . . Are you sure? What makes you think so? Maybe it's a passing phase―maybe you just admire some of your peers and and you mistake it for love? There's a chance you are not . . . you know . . .

Act non-judgmental―after judging with your heart, mind, and soul. From the fictitious conversation above, it is clear that no one has even said that homosexuality is sinful. But it is the assumption. Even if you tell someone, “I think I support the opposition over the PAP,” I doubt people will say, “Are you sure? Maybe it's a passing phase. Maybe you are really a PAP supporter like the rest of us.” To say so would be to assume that it is rather strange (if one tries not to use the word “abnormal”) to support anyone else but the PAP. And one doubts that the screwed-up but screw-loose person who might think it sinful to support the opposition would have a similar reaction if you say, “I don't do politics.”

So what? Don't people have a right to be homophobic? Sure, they do. As much as I have the right to use Dr. Thio as the avatar of bigotry, she has the right to do the same to, say, Alex Au. But the concern is really what sorts of effects there are on those affected by sexuality programs. Dr. Thio may or may not know this, but what she wants is for those having issues with their sexualities to feel obliged to change, to feel abnormal until they do something to convert, to feel rejected despite having the supposedly unconditional love of Dr. Thio, her pastor and her mentees. Never mind if these students don't believe in God and are going to hell anyway, according a much less debated Christian concept.

And beyond the relatively small number of people affected by the issue of homosexuality, there might be those who engage in premarital sex. It is very strange, but I have no idea why no one is saying that the premarital-sexualites promote a premarital-sexual lifestyle or have some kind of premarital-sexual agenda to prevent righteous laws banning premarital sex from being implemented. (Hey, if the Public Order Act can be implemented in Singapore, is there anything that can't?)

In the world of the passionate conservatives (otherwise known as fundies, but I prefer to be neutral and I hope no one has issues with my neutrality), it is probably wrong to teach people about the various methods of contraception―even if they are not against contraception, they would probably see no reason to teach teenagers about contraception when they are not supposed to be having sex until after they get married many years later. Surely to talk about contraception is to promote premarital sex. And to talk about abortion is surely to promote murder―the murdersexuals must be promoting a murderous lifestyle and have some sinister murdersexual agenda and must be stopped.

What do the passionate conservatives eventually want then? Lots of miserable people. People who feel miserable for having homosexual inclinations, people who feel dirty for having had sex before marriage (don't ask me how much sense it makes to insist that atheists have sex only after they get themselves legally married despite not believing in any god that would make the marriage sacred). People who are constantly haunted by selective specters of Sin. And what might they get? People who simply stop having faith, disenchanted people for whom there is no negotiation or discourse. If they get what they want, our society might get what it doesn't want.

According to more optimistic bloggers than Molly, the recent AWARE saga is an indication of how mature Singaporeans have become and how civil society has developed. But it is actually a purely political process that is located outside of the realm of politics proper. Against the conservative takeover of AWARE, the only discourse we seem to have recourse to is that of neutrality. To make matters worse, the mainstream media was clearly not in support of what they called a coup―not because they are not conservative, but because their politics is the politics of the PAP. In other words, the politics of claiming tolerance, harmony and neutrality. The results of the AWARE EOGM that had Josie Lau and her conservative team losing to those they ousted became a triumph of neutrality and tolerance in Singapore. It could very well have been seen in terms of confrontation rather than tolerance. What we need is not imposed neutrality and enforced tolerance. What we need is for everyone to have the equal freedom to be non-neutral and confrontational, though this might make Molly sound somewhat too subversive for her own good. But confrontation is not anarchy and it certainly does not preclude peace. What has happened after the EOGM? AWARE politely stated that it would review its sexuality education program. And people have managed to manipulate the Ministry of Education into suspending the program―simply by complaining and complaining passionately.

What we are now left with is the unequal freedom to be non-neutral. When you are seen as “mainstream”, you have more power to make noise about the sexuality program. I cannot say for sure, but I really doubt that the MOE would suspend a sexuality education program if lots of gays and lesbians start complaining that despite claiming to be neutral, it is actually discriminatory towards homosexuality and there is a need for tolerance.

Singapore has not changed. It is exactly the same before and after the AWARE saga, though it provided for the usual dose of entertainment during the prolonged ennui of staying in Singapore. (Now move on to Mas Selamat.) Dark clouds gathered, but they were blown away before a storm could be brewed.  Black or white, everyone is in the same set of chess with less than two players. Perhaps your game is a programed computer demo. Sure, the AWARE coup was a travesty. But it wasn't disallowed in the script. It was not as if an ingenious hacker had changed the program to allow for possibilities it offers. Your apparent agency is never your own. Well, admittedly it is more exciting if you don't think too much. Forget yourself and not be aware and you might find fulfillment even without dignity.

“I don't understand what has sparked this irrational fear of us . . . and what hatred.” One might imagine someone facing severe discrimination, such as a victim of homophobia, to say this. But in a moment of supremely palatable irony complete with a lingering bitter aftertaste in the mouth, the current President of AWARE, Josie Lau, is the one saying this. (The Straits Times, New exco gets death threats) It seems to this irrational blogger that some people have such an irrational love for hijacking that they would hijack even victimhood.

It also seems to me that some people have rather liberal interpretations of religious texts. On the one hand, they would be fixated with a selected verse or two about the permitted sexual behavior of homo sapiens; on the other hand, they would totally disregard a commandment about being truthful.

From what I remember, Josie Lau claimed that the AWARE coup was not premeditated. Really, it must be the will of a wise divine being—residing somewhere in the dark recess of someone's sunless heart—that a few women attending the same church happened to want to take up key positions in the executive committee in AWARE, and these few people happened to be voted in. One has got to believe in miracles. Then righteous mentor Dr. Thio Su Mien decides to confess that she has been urging women to challenge what she perceived to be AWARE's promotion of a homosexual agenda. Perhaps the same divine being appeared before some people and said, “Thou shalt not lie.”

Or perhaps the act of coming out of the homophobic closet is a calculated act, now that there is an Extraordinary General Meeting coming? If those who are suspicious of the agenda of the new executive committee of AWARE could get people together, so could they. In fact, they could mobilize even more people. Recall the time when people signed a petition to repeal Section 377A of the Penal Code? Didn't some people manage to do the same thing and get even more people (rational or irrational) to petition against the repeal in the name of protecting their definition of marriage and family. Perhaps these people now believe that they need to defend their definition of equality for the benefit of Singapore. And what would work better than reminding like-minded (if “mind” is not an unfortunate misnomer here) people that they are under siege? Who really are the new members of AWARE, now that membership has shot up?

No one would disagree that the primary concern of AWARE has always been to promote gender equality, probably not even Dr. Thio Su Mien. But Dr. Thio would tell you that the old AWARE was promoting lesbianism. Which is to say that she thinks: if you happen to behave as if you are fine with lesbians when you are promoting gender equality, then you must be promoting a lesbian cause. Or perhaps one could say that one is suddenly obliged, in the world of Dr. Thio, to be against homosexuality, to be so wary of it that one cannot even screen a movie with a plot involving lesbians. Mandatory paranoia.

Any person of reasonable intelligence would likely find that any attempt to understand Dr. Thio's mentality to be as challenging as an attempt to chew a ball of tangle hair.

As far as I can see (but bear in mind that I'm irrational), the new exco of AWARE (or a few of its members anyway) are more interested in putting a stop to what they deem to be a homosexual agenda than in women's equality. Perhaps they would even go a step further and promote what one might (to learn from them) call a homophobic agenda. But, of course, it is not homophobia. These people love everyone, including lesbians. It is just that there is a need to protect the sacred institution of marriage as something heterosexuals (or perhaps bisexuals?) have an exclusive right to, is it not? And for this, one might also say that abortion is terrible. So is divorce. Or that gender roles contrary to what is prescribed by a particular religious text (or one interpretation of it) is abominable.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female. But perhaps there is lesbian or straight. There self-righteousness and decadence. There is heaven and hell, condemnation prior to judgement, redemption in idiocy, hypocritical love and sincere hatred. There is forgiveness and magnanimity, but rationality shuns them. Sin began with one woman and thanks to her we all must die.