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2000
Where Have Eternal Life Banners Gone?
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Baden
Offord [1], a proud-to-be-queer Australian academic
whom
I know through email, asked me whether I thought Yawning Bread "has impacted
on Singaporean society, and if so, in what ways? ……. whether new
technologies and new media like the Internet and sites like Yawning Bread are
reaching back into societies like Singapore."
It’s a very good question. Most of the time, whenever we think about the impact of the internet, we look at how it opens windows for gay people here. Through the ‘net, they get to find each other more easily. They benefit from greater accessibility to the rest of the gay world. What is interesting about the question that was posed to me was that it asked how gay Singaporeans’ use of the ‘net has impacted Singapore in general. It’s a refreshing angle, though in trying to answer it, it may be hard sifting wishful thinking from the truth. The question posed stretches from the particular to the general. It may be easier if I started with the particular. Do I think Yawning Bread has had any impact? Yes, I do, a little bit. To put things into context first, Yawning Bread does not have a high readership, and most of those who visit are, firstly, themselves gay and secondly, regulars coming back. Preaching to the choir does not quite count as impacting on Singapore society. But there are tantalising clues that now and then, I reach out beyond the usual readership. For example, this year, I have given seven or eight interviews to college students. Typically, they have to write a term paper, or do a project, and so they go trawling through cyberspace to find something interesting. When, by chance, they hit upon Yawning Bread, some of them think it’s a pretty good possibility. Some students just crib from my articles. I’ve had a glimpse at some of their papers, and to be very honest, I don’t think they have really understood the issues. The more assiduous ones email me to ask for an interview, and I make it a point to grant them. When I do see them, I am sometimes disappointed at how little background research they have done before talking to me. The lack of preparation is obvious from their asking the most basic questions, or the simplistic way their questions are framed. It is difficult in one interview to give them any real appreciation of the issues if they start from such a poorly-informed base. I really wonder what they finally manage to produce for their project. (One student sent her questions to me by email. I had considerable difficulty answering the questions as posed. They were loaded questions, and I had to point out this starting impediment. Please see Beware the bias in your questions.) Other students though, ask truly pertinent questions, and I think they would be writing very good papers, but then I often get the impression they have an unfair advantage: they’re gay themselves!
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The
point, however, is not whether their papers are well written or not. The
point is that they are written, and I suppose they’d be discussed in
class. Therein lies the impact.
For a small fraction of an upcoming generation, namely, their peers in their class, homosexuality would be seen as a subject like any other, where you’d use the usual tools of intellectual enquiry to try to get an understanding of it. What are the empirical facts? What are the social, legal or psychological implications of these facts? What analogous situations are there that might help us weigh up the various aspects of the issue? Whatever opinions one might form about homosexuality after giving it some thought, it would not anymore be a taboo subject, entombed by religious injunctions and unspeakable embarrassment, repelling analysis and debate. I am confident that once people apply reason to the subject, there is no going back to blind homophobia. Through Yawning Bread opening a window for students, giving a tiny lift to term papers that spark some class discussion, maybe there is impact on a new generation of Singaporeans. Occasionally, it isn’t college students who email me after having come across Yawning Bread. It is journalists from international media, e.g. Asiaweek or the BBC. Many of them recognise that the gay issue is a legitimate social issue worth keeping abreast of. I’d like to think that by having a presence on the web, gay Singaporeans, not just Yawning Bread, contribute to media interest in how this issue is developing here. I can imagine if we did not show up anywhere in the internet, it would be hard for foreign journalists to get background, or to find leads into our local scene. One can see the outcome from the article Radio Journalists Ask the Gay Question. Through a little bit here and a little bit there, these foreign journalists keep probing our cabinet ministers for their responses to the subject. While we locals are sometimes frustrated by the way the questions are phrased, or not followed up, it is still useful that they are asked at all. Firstly, it helps that we get some kind of statement from cabinet ministers, however bland, however illogical. It gives us an idea of how they think. Secondly, it means we have something we can quote back at them in future, if they ever backtrack. On the other side of the fence, by having to face foreign journalists’ questions every now and then, our government is reminded that much as they may want the issue to go away, it will not. I hope, if they ever listen carefully to their own answers, they eventually realise that few are going to be convinced by their poorly founded case. In the meantime, ordinary Singaporeans, listening to these interviews, pick up the clues that the gay issue is here, as opposed to something that only afflicts Americans. This is not necessarily a good thing (‘good’ in terms of greater progress towards equality in sexuality). Taking the lid off can mean that people voice their homophobia more than they may do otherwise. Already we have a church in Singapore unfurling a huge banner saying "Homosexuals can change" in full view of a metro station. That’s a lot more truculent than typical church banners that say things like "Jesus is Eternal Life". A sharpening of the fault lines is an unavoidable result of increasing gay
visibility, even though gay Singaporeans, when setting up home pages, mailing
lists, bulletin boards or gay portals, do so primarily for their own personal
reasons. It’s no different from all other Singaporeans who use the web for
their private interests and dreams. Gay people may think it’s a low risk kind
of visibility, which indeed it is. It’s your ‘net persona that may get
noticed and flamed, comfortably removed from your real self and irreplaceable
limbs. But it’s visibility nonetheless, and if there are enough of us out
there, it should count for something, someday. © Yawning Bread
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Footnotes
Addenda None
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