ST: My Space (Youth Ink) (Nov 29)

Nov 26, 2007
MY SPACE
We are free to love and hate - and not afraid to say it out loud
Five of YouthInk's top writers talk about living in and liking
Singapore. This week, Edward Choy contemplates personal happiness
THE Section 377A debate was really what defined this year for me.

As an actor, theatre student and writer, I have many friends and
acquaintances who stand firmly against Section 377A and believe it to
be a gross violation of human dignity and freedom.

Because of my faith, I have many friends and acquaintances who firmly
support 377A and believe it to be a vital pillar of our nation's moral
values.

But as a Singaporean, I am delighted at the amount of interest and
discourse generated by the issue.

For now, the dismissive cries of apathy from the pockets of civil
society that exist in Singapore have been silenced. They have been
replaced by heartfelt and often well-considered calls for the people
of this island to rally to their side of this issue.

Even the supposedly silent majority has been spoken for - with
Professor Thio Li-ann bravely wandering into a minefield of passionate
opinions.

Still, I believe that as the majority, there was never a real need for
those in favour of keeping 377A to take action, not least in the
manner that those opposed to 377A felt they needed to in order for
their opinions to be heard.

The debate has been vital to Singapore, but it remains to be seen
whether the momentum generated will energise future issues of contention.

Take the reaction to the goods and services tax rise this year and the
hike in transport fares. Or rather, the lack of reaction.

It seems as if Singaporeans have come to accept that the Government
knows best when it comes to handling our money.

This is exemplified in the simmering discontent over the pay of
ministers, evident in the discussions of many Singaporean netizens,
coffee-shop uncles and taxi drivers.

To the leaders of Singapore: It is hard for the people to hear or read
that you earn a million dollars a year when they are struggling to get
by on $50 a day.

Let us face it, statistics show there is a widening income gap in
Singapore. People get annoyed when they see fellow citizens driving
cars that cost more than their flats. They cannot help it, it is human
nature to be jealous. So please, do something about it.

On a more personal note, I made a conscious decision not to take sides
on the 377A debate.

I must confess, before I discovered my faith, I used to be homophobic
and bigoted. Now I have learnt to love and accept and cherish those
who are different from me.

This has really been a watershed year for me in terms of personal
growth. I look back on my hate-fuelled years and recognise now how I
was free to make decisions for myself every step of the way. I was
free to choose what to see, what to believe. I was free to hate, and
now I am free to love.

In comparison, I think of the indoctrination that creates cults of
personality for the leaders in countries like North Korea and Cuba.

I think of how the state-imposed religious rule of law makes life
difficult for women and religious minorities in many countries.

I think of people scrambling and fighting for scraps of rotten food in
slums all over the world, who cannot think past the piercing hunger
that haunts their every breath.

Now when I think of the fierce debate that raged across the media
barely a month ago on the 377A issue, I cannot help but smile.

Today, we are free to believe what we want, and not only that, to say
it boldly in a country where the rules exist to keep the hate out of
speech. Some might see that as a restriction on freedom of speech.

I honestly think it is good that we are not allowed to shoot our
mouths off and spread hate and intolerance.

Despite what anyone thinks about the education system, laws governing
speech and the media, there is a large number of Singa-

poreans who can think for themselves and are not afraid to say what
they think.

I am honoured to be part of a group of young Singaporeans who prove
this point every week in these pages.

We are freer than we think we are. The trick is whether you want to
concentrate on the few things you cannot do or the many things you can do.

The writer, 27, recently completed a master's in theatre studies at
the National University of Singapore

FREEDOM NEEDS RULES

Today, we are free to believe what we want... to say it boldly in a
country where the rules exist to keep the hate out of speech.

Some might see that as a restriction on freedom of speech.

I honestly think it is good that we are not allowed to shoot our
mouths off and spread hate and intolerance.

Time: A Passionate Poet from Straitlaced Singapore (Nov 28)

Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2007
A Passionate Poet from Straitlaced Singapore
By Ishaan Tharoor

It is one of the more delicious workings of karma that Singapore, which criminalizes homosexuality, should have as its leading young poet an openly gay man. But while Cyril Wong relishes waving "a purple flag" in socially conservative faces, his work expands beyond simple sexuality — being "just a gay poet," as he puts it — to embrace themes of love, alienation and human relationships of all kinds. His latest volume of verse, Tilting Our Plates to Catch the Light, is due to be published this month, hopefully to burnish further the international reputation that the previous five collections have established for him.

Wong, 30, burst onto the scene in 2000, with Squatting Quietly. It was, like many debut collections, a document of rebellion — in this case, against the values of his Christian, middle-class Chinese upbringing, and the social alienation that his sexuality entailed. Much of the latter had been brought into stark relief during 21/2 years of national military service, during which, he jokes, he was "too campy in the camp." His natural levity masks the loneliness and vulnerability he felt in the barracks. But ultimately it was poetry, rather than humor, that gave Wong a means of working through the frustrations driving him, at times, to a suicidal state of mind. "It helped me wash my dirty linen in public," he says.

In this respect, Wong's poetry differs from that of older Singaporean poets such as Edwin Thumboo and Lee Tzu Pheng, who typically concerned themselves with questions of national and cultural identity (indeed, Thumboo has spoken of Wong's "remarkable inwardness"). Wong worries less about his cultural provenance and more about his own isolation amid the boom and bustle of the cityscape. In one poem, he bemoans his distance from his mother: she "sits in front/ of the television every day,/ afloat in a dress too large/ for her body, fanning herself/ with a magazine, feigning contentment." He compares his father, who has refused to accept Wong's sexuality, to a cockroach hiding in a chair. "We are furniture to each other," says Wong. (The two men still don't speak.)

Some of Wong's rawness was tempered in Unmarked Treasure (2004) and Like a Seed with Its Singular Purpose (2006) — two volumes praised for their probing, reflective study of love and desire. In the poem "Practical Aim" from Like a Seed, Wong asks: "After deep loss, what does the heart/ learn that it has not already understood/ about regret? When all light finally/ forsakes a room, do we take the time/ to interrogate the dark, and to what end?" Other poems simmer with sexual energy; an aircraft landing on the tarmac becomes heady foreplay with the "slow lick of its wheels/ against the runway's/ belly."

Wong ran afoul of Singapore's censors when they threatened to pull National Arts Council funding from his second volume due to the gay content of some poems. But he learned to cope with the restrictions, and they haven't prevented him from attaining mainstream acceptance, represented by his winning the Singapore Literary Prize in 2006. If he's proud, Wong doesn't show it. Self-deprecating and mirthful, he describes himself as lazy, living off his partner's patience and generosity. Though he cites the succinct, confessional styles of American poets Sharon Olds and Raymond Carver as his most direct influences, he feels little in common with contemporary American poetry, which he sees as solipsistic. "There's a boring sameness to it all," he says. "I wish they would stop harping on about their penises and their nose hairs."

Not that Wong has been above some of that in the past. But his recent work strikes boldly into new territory. Tilting the Plates emphasizes the musicality of poetry rather more than his previous collections, while taking as its core a love story between two shape-shifting Hindu deities. Like those beings, the poet also enjoys inhabiting different avatars. At literary festivals from Adelaide to Edinburgh, Wong, a trained opera singer, has been known to "invoke Whitney Houston," belting out renditions of I Will Always Love You that leave stunned fellow authors wondering how they are going to follow on. If straitlaced Singapore is unhappy about being represented by charming camp like that, well, you could call it poetic justice.

FCC Service: Transformation Series, Speaker: Gary Chan (Nov 25)

SUNDAY SERVICE (ENGLISH)
25 Nov 2007 (Sun) - 10.30am
All are welcome!

BRAND NEW LOCATION!
FCC Main Hall
56 Geylang Lor 23
Level 3, Century Technology Building


Speaker
GARY CHAN
Transformation Series

Worship Leader - PAUL WANG
Keyboards - VICTOR LEE
Vocals - SHANE LOO, WAILING LIONG
Guitars - KELVIN NG
Drums - JIMMY TAN
Sound - QING LONG LUO
Video - FOO KEONG YAP
Prayer - JORG DIETZEL
Communion - JONATHAN FOONG

Service Pastor - PETER GOH

ST Insight: Secularism - not from theory but bloody history (Nov 24)

Nov 24, 2007
THINKING ALOUD
Secularism - not from theory but bloody history
By Janadas Devan

MY COLLEAGUE Chua Mui Hoong wrote an invaluable piece last week, 'Rules of engagement for God and politics' (ST, Nov 16).

She argued that the only basis upon which the religious of different faiths, as much as the non-religious, can intervene in discussions of public policy is to appeal to a 'public reason' common to all.

Religion may influence one's view on an issue, Ms Chua, a person of faith herself, acknowledged. 'But when arguing your case in the political arena, you need to present arguments understandable and acceptable to those of different faiths.'

Like Assistant Professor Tan Seow Hon, who wrote a piece last month making a similar point, Ms Chua quoted the American philosopher John Rawls, who first used the term 'public reason', as authority. As authorities go, the late Professor Rawls, who died in 2002, is impeccable. That people of different faiths - Ms Chua, Prof Tan and I
- can find common cause in the centrality of 'public reason', testifies to the theoretical scope and force of his arguments.

But it is important to note, too, that secularism is not just theory. Theory is important - and some political theorists, like Prof Rawls, are especially important - but secularism did not issue from theory. Nor did it issue from the debate on Section 377A of the Singapore Penal Code. Nor did it issue from Mr Lee Kuan Yew asking the late Mr S. Rajaratnam one day to pen the Pledge - 'We, the citizens of Singapore, pledge ourselves as one united people, regardless of race, language or religion.'

There is a history, a politics - bloody experience - behind the secular state. If we forget that history, the most finely wrought theories would be worse than useless. Like the 'strongest oaths', they would be like 'straw to the fire i' the blood', as Shakespeare put it.

In Singapore's case, the founding generation's uncompromising commitment to the secular state arose from their experience of the terrifying race riots of 1964, which were not totally unconnected to religion, and the searing two years Singapore spent in Malaysia.

They also remembered the Maria Hertogh riots of 1950, sparked by a court decision to return custody of Maria, then aged 13, to her biological Catholic Dutch mother after she had been raised as a Muslim by her adoptive Malay family. Eighteen people were killed in those riots.

And that was a minor tempest compared to what happened in India in 1947-48, just three years earlier. Singapore's founding generation came to political consciousness in the 1940s. Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, when the British Raj began to be dismantled and people long suppressed found utterance. Singapore's founding
generation witnessed Jawaharlal Nehru - a much admired figure in the anti-colonial movement and a forceful advocate of secularism - being stunned by the absolute ferocity of the Hindu-Muslim riots that accompanied the partition of British India. An estimated one million people died.

And behind all this searing direct experience, there is the history of the longue duree. How did secularism arise in the West? Not from theory.

It emerged out of the Peace of Westphalia (1648), the treaties which ended the Thirty Years' War (1618-48) and the Eighty Years' War (1568-1648), pitting Catholics against Protestants. The Westphalian system established the principle of cuius regio, eius religio - 'whose the region, his the religion' - which stopped the carnage; and that
principle slowly gave rise to freedom of religion being enshrined as a human right.

And what carnage it took to get to that point! Historians estimate that in 1618, at the beginning of the Thirty Years' War, the population in the territory that now constitutes Germany was roughly 21million. By 1648, it had shrunk to about 13million.

That is a casualty rate close to 40per cent, way beyond genocidal levels. Hitler, Stalin and Mao were prodigious monsters, but even they never quite came close, in proportionate terms, to inflicting on their societies the kind of destruction that warring Catholics and Protestants visited on theirs in 17th-century Europe.

The Enlightenment absorbed this history. The writers of the United States Constitution were the heirs of the Enlightenment. It was history that produced that first sentence in the US Bill of Rights: 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.' That was a tremendous thing that America's founding fathers did, for nobody anywhere had ever said anything like that before. Their vision came from experience. Theory was there, but it was informed by history.

To return to Singapore: People who argue - as some have in this paper, pressing for a greater role for religion in public policy - that Singapore is not as secular as the US do not understand either Singapore's history or politics.

In some respects, Singapore is more secular than the US. Singapore's Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act, for instance, explicitly bars religion from politics. Its Societies Act has been used to disband certain religious sects. The US State Department routinely utters a mild tut-tut for these 'restrictions on religious freedom' in Singapore. It does not understand religion can still be a 17th-century
affair in many parts of the world.

It is not possible in Singapore for any politician to go before the electorate and say: 'I'm a Buddhist, a Muslim, whatever - vote for me.' It is not possible for temples, mosques and churches to be mobilised for political purposes.

Nothing in the US Constitution prevents either. All it says is that Congress cannot establish a state religion. But US politicians can, and do, make religious appeals; and churches have been mobilised for electoral purposes - African-American churches for Democrats and evangelical churches for Republicans.

But in some respects, Singapore is less strictly secular. The state helps to fund mosque-building and mission schools, for instance. Such compromises arose from either pragmatic political considerations - to reassure Malay/ Muslims, especially after Separation; or from pragmatic public policy considerations - mission schools, among the best in Singapore, had to be incorporated into the public school system.

But even here, there are limits. For instance, Muslim girls have been barred from wearing the headscarf or tudung in schools, so as to maintain their 'common secular space'.

And in 1992, the Ministry of Education reminded mission schools of Article 16 (3) of the Singapore Constitution, which states: 'No person shall be required to receive instruction in or take part in any ceremony or act of worship of a religion other than his own.' Students cannot be compelled to attend religious service, mission school principals were told.

Why is it necessary to send such strong, unambiguous signals? Because religion is 'a very profound and fundamental tectonic divide', as MM Lee put it once. He did not learn that from Prof Rawls.

And because more Singaporeans are leaning towards 'strongly held exclusive beliefs' and 'this trend is part of a worldwide religious revival', as the 1989 White Paper on Religious Harmony put it. That did not come from Prof Rawls either.

To deny religion a formal role in either politics or public policy does not mean - can never mean - denying the religious of whatever faith a role as citizens. The secular state is neither atheist nor agnostic; it is simply neutral on questions of faith. And this neutrality must involve respecting the immeasurable value of each
soul, religious or otherwise, or neutrality would have no meaning.

But the secular state must also insist that every soul has to relate to other souls, within the common space shared by all, in terms, not of this or that faith, but of a public reason accessible to all.

It is absolutely crucial, though, to realise that this demand does not issue from theory. It is enforced by history, experience - and not mine or yours, but humanity's. There is an extraordinary wealth of bitter experience pointing to the ethical superiority of secular societies.

Those who forget this bitter experience will be condemned to retaste it.

janadas@sph.com.sg

AFP: Singapore OKs concert by US gay couple (Nov 23)

Singapore OKs concert by US gay couple

SINGAPORE (AFP) — In a rare move, Singapore has given approval for an American gay couple to perform next month as part of a concert to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS.

The Los Angeles-based Christian gay couple Jason and deMarco were barred in 2005 from performing in the city-state.

But the Media Development Authority (MDA) said it had approved a concert this time because organisers had given assurances that they aimed to highlight the HIV/AIDS issue.

"In 2005, a similar concert featuring the pop duo was disallowed because the concert was open to general members of the public," the MDA's deputy director for arts and licensing, Amy Tsang, said in a statement Thursday.

She said concert organisers have "given the assurance to MDA that the concert is targeted at the high risk groups.

"The organiser has also assured MDA that the aim of the concert is AIDS education and HIV prevention," she said.

The duo is to perform on December 13, the Today newspaper reported.

Vivian Balakrishnan, Singapore's second minister for information, communications and the arts, has said the city-state was liberalising but retained a very strong conservative core.

As part of major revisions to the Penal Code approved by parliament last month, Singapore legalised oral and anal sex between heterosexual couples but retained a law which criminalises intercourse between gay men.

TodayOnline: Once-banned gay pop duo given green light for concert here (Nov 22)

Once-banned gay pop duo given green light for concert here

Thursday • November 22, 2007

Alicia Wong
alicia@mediacorp.com.sg

IN A sign that authorities are prepared to work with civil society groups to tackle the HIV problem, a once-banned gay pop duo has been given the green light to take part in a concert here next month.

And the HIV Outreach, Prevention and Empowerment (Hope) Concert will have as its guest of honour, Dr Balaji Sadasivan, Senior Minister of State (Foreign Affairs and Information, Communications and the Arts).

The gay duo, Jason and deMarco, had a planned performance here cancelled two years ago after the Media Development Authority (MDA) rejected an application by the organiser, Safehaven, a gay-affirmative Christian support group, for an Arts and Entertainment Licence.

The MDA had then cited "alternative lifestyles are against the public interest" as its ground for rejection.

Explaining its change of heart, the MDA said that the organisers had assured the authority that the aim of the Dec 13 concert is Aids education and HIV prevention.

"The organiser for this concert has rated the performance R18 and has given the assurance to MDA that the concert is targeted at the high-risk group," said Ms Amy Tsang, MDA's Deputy Director (Arts & Licensing) of the Media Content Division in an email reply to Today.

Dr Balaji's scheduled attendance at the concert is not surprising since he had earlier touched on the need for the authorities and non-governmental organisations to work together in tackling the spread of HIV.

Out of the 357 new HIV cases reported in Singapore last year, 26 per cent were contracted through homosexual sex.

In an interview with this newspaper in August, Dr Balaji noted that in the Australian state of New South Wales, the number of HIV cases reported each year had, on the whole, been dropping over the past decade.

Dr Balaji had earlier went on a study trip to Sydney, accompanied by Ministry of Health (MOH) officials and representatives from Action for Aids (AFA), gay web site Fridae.com and Oogachaga, a local gay and lesbian affirmative counselling agency.

Referring to the Sydney trip, Mr Paul Toh, AFA's Director for fund-raising and programmes, said yesterday: " I guess the Government has learnt from other developed Western countries how they can cope in terms of managing the epidemics within the alternative lifestyle community."

Mr Toh said while everyone has a role to play in addressing the HIV problem, the Government "bears more weight" because it has the "political will to move things at a faster pace".

Jointly organised by AFA and Safehaven, the HOPE Concert aims to raise awareness on HIV and Aids in the gay community, said Mr Alphonsus Lee, the chairman of Safehaven.

The concert will be held at the Kreta Ayer People's Theatre, which can house a 1,100-strong audience. The one-night only performance will also involve local artists such as Chua Enlai as MC, Hossan Leong and Selena Tan.

Concert tickets are available only through AFA and restricted channels, such as nightclubs, saunas and gay website Fridae.com.

"We are very conscious of the mainstream view of such a concert and we would like to be respectful of their views ... So, we are willing to restrict ourselves," said Mr Lee.

Although this is a "once-off event the official nod for the HOPE concert is "good news" since it will help increase local Aids and HIV awareness, said Mr Bryan Choong of Oogachaga.