Snowball: letters by Singaporeans

source: SiGNeL, second week of December 2004

Again we hear about the moral values of a large majority of Singaporeans.

The word morals have the same root word as mores. Mores refer to a collection of strongly held norms or customs. These derive from the established practices of a society rather than its written laws.

But do the Police, whose mission is to uphold the law, have the right to, mind the pun, police moral values?

Morality is the imposition of the will of the majority on the minority. What is the norm, but the mean, the average, an established pattern, form, a way of behaving or believing that is normal for a group or culture?

If the Police find, based on their press release, that cross dressing is objectionable, they should tell it to Moses Lim and Jack Neo with their cross dressing skits on national television.

And what about the ladies of the night who line the streets of Geylang? I am sure that they are against the moral values of a large majority of Singaporeans. Shouldn’t they take action as well?

If culling of cats is against moral values, should the Police take it up against the AVA?

What about the topless revue at Neptune? Don’t they need a public entertainment licence? And isn’t a topless revue against public morals?

The Police force should be doing what they ought to do – uphold the law. But moral values? Is that under their jurisdiction? It’s a scary thought – that our Police policing moral values. Talk about a police state.

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Letter by Chris Low to the press and government agencies:

I refer to the news report that the Snowball.04 party was rejected on the grounds that Singapore is largely a conservative and traditional society.

I find this strange because what does being a conservative and traditional society have to do with granting an entertainment permit. Since this is a ticketed event, only the persons who are actually interested would buy the ticket, as such the segment of society that are in attendance cannot be considered conservative or traditional.

I bring a similar analogy, recently the "Bringing Lourdes to Singapore" was held recently at the Singapore Indoor System. If all things are equal, the police should have that event on the basis that singapore is still largely a non catholic society. or perhaps the police will only act if someone complains about the openly catholic acts being performed.

I also do not know the relevancy about the "complaints" about openly gay acts. If they are not illegal (which I know kissing in public or dancing with the same gender aren't), then those "complaints" are baseless. That the complainants having foreknowledge about the segment of society that would be in attendance, chose to purchase a ticket, attend and then make a spurious complaint, seems to me to be a act of sabotage and a deliberate wasting of police resources.

Thus it is my opinion that any claims of not discriminating against gays do not hold up.

I expect the Police to deny license to all casino related matters as well, as they also do not hold true if we are still a "largely a conservative and traditional society". furthermore, explanations that singaporeans are mature enough for a casino must also be outright rejected because as a "largely conservative society", no deviation from the mean of societal mores must be tolerated.

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Letter by Eugene to the press

When 8000 people are told that their celebration of their selves is "against public interest", I am alarmed. I am alarmed because 8000 people have been told that they are not a public and their voices and their humanity does not matter. 

Complaints from a few members of the larger public have been cited as reasons not to grant Snowball its license. I want to know how many. 1? 2? 8000? How many who complained attended? 

I am alarmed because 8000 people have been told that their identities are really not identities, they are "tendencies". By that same logic, I have a Chinese tendency, unfortunately no amount of my denying it has changed that I am essentially yellow of skin and slanted of eye. 

I am alarmed because the Prime Minister before this one said it himself, some people are "born that way". 

This Prime Minister has had an appeal sent to him. He has voiced his desire for a more open Singapore, a more vibrant Singapore. The ball is in his court. 

So far, this is not my Singapore. Not a stayyer, not a quitter, but a person living in total disbelief, disillusionment and frankly, disgust.

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Letter by Andrew ki to the Prime Minister

I am a Singaporean Student doing my honours in Australia and I identity as a gay male.

Recently my auntie found out about my sexuality and she said that I shouldn't run away. I was incredulous thinking that I didn't have anything to run away from. Singapore to me was a great place. My friends, my family and a homeland that was efficiently run and where great cusine could be found. Though I had toyed with the idea of applying for Permanent Residency here in Australia, eventually I decided that at the end of my honours or perhaps my PHD I would return to the island in which I was born in.

Many of my friends, professional and blue-collar, thinks that Singapore is a horrible place to be in. They see it as a site of oppression, of draconian rules, of a place where one is unable to bloom. I would often contest their views because they know little about Singapore. They hear people talk, and they read the international news. They wouldn't go to Singapore either to work and bring their valuable expertise or as travellers which brings in foreign exchange. Rather, they would travel to Bali, to Hong Kong or to Thailand, places they believe that they can have a good time, that they can express themselves and be productive in. You may think now that I refer to gay or bisexual men and women only. Unfortunately I am not. You see, for many people in their twenties and thirties, people whom a maturing society is dependant upon, having draconian laws and adhering to zombie categories are signs of a society that is stagnant. They would not want to visit such a place much less live and work in. Such a place is anathema for many young people because the forces of individualisation have progressed through the western world. It has also progressed in Singapore, because it is a product of modernity and global capitalism. Singapore has many young adults such as myself around the world... in institutions of education, in multinational companies and in NGOs. We are worried by such actions that pander to conservative, and ultimately, morally dead interest groups. Worse when homophobia, racism and sexism is understood to come entwined together, a trinity of darkness, a trio of friends.

As I said before, I had expected to return to Singapore and contribute. Right now I am unsure. I question my place in a society that in the same breath that says that I am welcomed and I am a citizen, the same voice that says diversity and those who think outside the box are important, tells me that I cannot be gay and have the right to be happy. That is what the police is implying, that no gay person, or bisexual, or transgender, or perhaps anyone who does not fit into what is perceived as normal, has the right to be happy in Singapore. Perhaps that is true than Mr. Prime Minister, that we should not have the right to be happy in Singapore and that underlying the welcome mat is a rod seeking to make us fit into an idealised and ultimately impossible image of normality.

I am sad today for today I've been rejected. As a Singaporean I have been told that I am and will always be, regardless of the rhetoric, that I am and will ever be a second-class citizen. Perhaps the implied message for those like me, those who are difference, queer or otherwise, is that we should leave, and if we are already away, to stay away. To build our lives eslewhere because Singapore doesn't want us.

And for that minority in the population who hates anything that they do not understand or those who are like us but supress it deep beneath hatred, I have only one thing to say. It is not an appeal or a condemnation though I am Christian and the Lord says that He would curse those that I curse. Yet that is not the way that a good Christian or any religious person should behave. We live in a subjective world, a world where there are no absolutes. I would say only this, that we who are different, we who love and are loved; we are legion.

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(This is the published version, after a few editorial changes)

Last week, permission for a Christmas party oragnised by the gay community was rejected on the grounds that Singapore is largely a conservative and traditional society. 

In the public debates that have taken place in the past two years on the place of lesbian and gay persons in our society, this conservative position has been voiced loudly by well-meaning people with deep religious views, though they do not necessarily a large segment of our society.

I appreciate the authorities' position that, while subscribing to the ideology of the secular state, they have chosen not to ignore the concerns of faith-based communities. 

Our Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong envisioned for us an "open society which is welcoming of talent, which welcomes diverse views, is yet cohesive and has a sense of common purpose".

I applaud the police department's signal to these religious groups that their concerns matter.

Coercing people with deep-seated beliefs into accepting as fact that we are moving towards a more open society with elements that run counter to their values will invariably lead to the backlash that we fear.

This would make fundamentalists and potential fundamentalists even more extreme - as we have witnessed in the ascendancy of the Religious Right movements in the United States, since their public humiliation over the teaching of Darwinism in schools in 1925. 

We must have also learned our lesson over the heavy-handed treatment of the tudong/headscarves controversy in 2002. 

Further, When then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong revealed a policy of non-discrimination towards lesbian and gay men in public employment, this same backlash was organised --  with coordinated prayer meetings held on National Day that sought to move Singapore towards the embracing of Christian values in our policies and decisions.

The social contract that enables an open society is based on tolerance of other points of view. This is possible only when we share the same vision of a pluralistic Singapore. Only this can ensure that we have the social cohesion that stabilizes our society. 

I do not think our lesbian and gay constituents destabilise this cohesion. In fact, they have been made the scapegoat towards maintaining this cohesion -- a move that is both unfair to them, as they are also participants in our nation building, as well as impoverishing our diversity. 

Those among us who threaten to fuel this backlash will have to examine ourselves if we have taken too lightly our commitment to build a pluralistic society which 'welcomes diverse views'.

Let us dream and work towards a more compassionate Singapore with space and hearts large enough to accommodate our fellow citizens and fellow neighbours.

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