| November 2004
The banished booth
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To
me, the most notable detail in the Far Eastern Economic Review's recent
cover story Gay Asia: Tolerance Pays (archived here)
was its mention of how the police
shut down the safe sex booth at the Nation '04 Party.
This is the kind of stupid action that typically arises when junior and middle-ranking officials have to operate within a framework of mutually contradictory policies. When Objective A conflicts
with Objective B, and Procedural Instruction C is incompatible with
Procedural Instruction D, and Department Head E this month is a more
risk-averse person than Department Head F last month (who anyway got
reprimanded for something, and then got transferred, so don't go out on a
limb like he did),
tragicomic results are assured. Petty officials -- even senior superintendents can be petty officials in Singapore's extremely top-down system -- will always tend to play safe. They will stick by the letter of law, or the fine print of the regulations. Give them the broad picture, ask them to use their own judgement, and unpredictable results may occur. We are not famous for our knowledge of the bigger world and our ability to think critically. Our government implicitly says
big gay parties are
all right (for they bring in money) [addendum 1]. They government says homosexuality is
still criminal. How to square the circle? You can be gay (and spend,
please), but you can't have sex. The government says we must combat AIDS. The government says the way to avoid HIV and AIDS is to get married and have sex only with your spouse. The booth here combats AIDS, but it doesn't encourage people to get married. It only distributes condoms, which, if you have a sexophobic mindset, equates with encouraging people to have sex. How to square the circle? Simple. Stop them from distributing condoms, with will stop people from having casual sex, which will stop AIDS. So safe policy in. Safe sex out. * * * * * |
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This kind of absurdity would normally have made a
great story for the press, except that the (local) press shied away from
mentioning the entire event. The Nation '04 Party was Asia's biggest gay event of
the year. The organisers claimed 8,000 attendees. Though most observers
thought that was an inflated figure, even half that would be a
considerable number indeed.
Certainly, it was important enough for the Singapore
Tourism Board to help promote it (abroad only, of course), but somehow, it
wasn't worth any of the local media's attention. No one can think the silence was purely accidental.
Myself, I have reason to believe that it was a consequence of a meeting
that outgoing Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong held with many media heads, in
the month or two before he left office. [2] At this meeting, which was a kind of farewell, he ran
through some of the issues raised by the media over the years through his
term of office. His comment about the gay issue was a mixture of praise of
the media's handling of it and cautionary warnings about not going
overboard. Tremulous servants seldom know what to do with
praise, but warnings they will take to heart, and amplify in their bosoms
to near hysteria. I am thus not at all surprised that in effect, all
editors have imposed a blanket ban on the gay issue for the time being. So the next time the Straits Times or Channel News
Asia boast that they're "quality media", or that they give
"balanced coverage", snort loudly and remind them about the Nation '04
Party and the case of the banished booth. * * * * *
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The new Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, held a
different kind of meeting recently. Following up on his point that our
youth are our future, and that he needed to understand their aspirations,
he invited a number of them to a dialogue at his office. Once again, the gay issue surfaced. In the box
alongside is a report about the gist of PM Lee's response. In effect, he was saying this is a contentious issue,
and some politicians in the West are promoting gay-friendly policies in
the hope of winning votes. Between the lines, he was saying he would lose
more votes than gain any, if he took the same route. The status quo was
not worth disturbing, he was reported to have said. So yes, there is unintended
admission that
grubby political considerations underlie the present PAP policy, despite
its claim to being a principled government that upholds justice and
equality. But, if the report is accurate, he also revealed his
ignorance. Firstly, the steady move towards equal treatment of
gay citizens in many countries is not merely a matter of buying off gay
and lesbian voters. If one looks at the rising acceptance of gay equality,
including same-sex marriage, in populations as a whole, this tidal shift
is a change of social attitudes generally. [See the article Acceptance
of gays on rise, polls show] It is another wave of social
enlightenment like the waves of anti-slavery, racial equality and women's
emancipation that have rolled through before. The issue is one of social justice, of removing bias
and exclusion handed down from history. If our Prime Minister cannot see
this context but imagines it as merely one of currying votes, then his is
a blinkered administration already. Secondly, he spoke of gay lifestyles and how that is
fine, but gay people should not impose their values on others. Has he even
thought about the matter for a good 60 seconds? Which direction does the imposition
take? Who is imposing what on whom? Start with Section 377 that
criminalises gay people. It's not a good sign that he has already begun to
parrot such nonsense. Lee also indicated that Singapore could not afford to
have such a contentious issue. But I'd ask, why not? Why are we afraid of
contention? I would argue that it is contention that propels
civilisation forward. When things that are taking for granted are
questioned anew, wrongs unearthed and abuses exposed, some people
somewhere will feel threatened and defensive. Contention is part of the
deal. It's when a society tries to smother contention
beneath the blather of peace and harmony, that it dies a slow death. The government says we need to remake Singapore into
an intellectually dynamic, creative society, capable of taking on the
world. At the same time, the Prime Minister suggests to our young
citizens, we can't afford to have contentious issues. Once again,
Objective A conflicts with Objective B. © Yawning Bread
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Footnotes
Addenda
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