April 2005

When misleading becomes part of governance

    

  

 
We have had a recent spate of bad news for gay people in Singapore. Since early 2004, the government has not given an inch. But this is actually progress -- of a sort.

You see, bad news is better than no news. There is bad news simply because gay people have been pushing, rather than giving up and not raising questions. And every push has revealed more absurdities in the government's position. Like the way tectonic plates slowly press on each other, stresses build up, and at some point, the plates will move. We call it an earthquake. And the geography changes.

innocent_floozy said in a posting to SiGNeL [1], referring to the junior health minister's recent remarks about AIDS, "Balaji's continuous recanting/clarifying/digging himself into a hole can only have come about because the 'gay community' got pissed off enough to yell right back."

I will illustrate the digging of ever-bigger holes with two examples below. But also, look at the bigger picture: they reveal serious questions about the honesty and integrity of our civil servants. In that sense, while the cases started off gay issues, they end up as wider questions about the quality of our police and civil service.

 
The banished booth

The banishing of the HIV prevention booth from the Nation 04 party was first reported by the Far Eastern Economic Review late 2004. See the article The banished booth. This year, when minister Balaji began to say that gay people were not concerned enough about AIDS, People Like Us reminded him in all our statements that very often, idiotic government policies and actions got in the way. This incident of the booth illustrated it all too well.

It took 2 weeks before Balaji responded to this point. In his speech on 23 March 2005 in an AIDS dialogue session with women's groups, he said,

Many aspects of society are being blamed for the spread of AIDS. Some individuals have made a big deal about an incident at the Nation party where the police did not allow obscene material to be distributed. The obscene material had a crude slogan which could be considered as an AIDS prevention message. The increase in HIV infection will not be stopped even if obscene material could be distributed. Handing out pornography is not the solution. The solution to the problem of AIDS must be based on individual responsibility.

"What crap has he been fed?" I asked myself when I heard it. Our understanding was that Action for Aids set up the booth to distribute condoms and give out safer-sex advice. They had some literature, postcards and posters which contained artistic nudes (no frontals), the kind of images one sees all the time being used to signal gay-identification.

These postcards had been widely distributed for months before, without much trouble, except for one occasion when a mother wrote to the press saying she was shocked to see her son bring such postcards home. (Something in me says, she was probably shocked to discover her son was gay, and like all people in shock, blamed external factors, in this case the postcards, for his "turning" gay).

Following that letter, some government department, either the Media Development Authority or the Health Promotion Board, raised the issue of the images with AfA, and I understand there was some compromise about containing the distribution of these postcards to gay places only [2]. But the point is, the materials were not recalled.

More importantly, those who were there at the Nation Party and at the booth were quite certain the police didn't specifically say the postcards or posters were the reason for their demand to shut down the booth. 

Stuart Koe and Jim Chow of  Fridae.com and Jungle Media were the organisers of the Nation Party. Jim recalls that the police "considered AfA's distributing condoms and flyers at [the] party that night, [as] promoting sex."

Jim tried to tell them "about the importance of AfA's presence and function at my parties, but they will not hear of it."

"They ordered it shut down, failing which, they [would] shut down my party."

So Jim had no choice but to go up to the booth and ask AfA to pack up.

Jim's report clearly indicates that the police took the view that distributing condoms and talking about safer sex encouraged homosex. 

 

The postcards in question

See the images in perspective. Don't judge them by a preacher's moral standards, because sexually active gay men are unlikely to subscribe to the same standards. The images are meant to appeal to gay men, and thereby make it more likely for the messages behind to be absorbed. Also, the cards are more likely to be retained rather than thrown away, given the attractiveness of the images.


Front: Top or bottom?


Back of Top or bottom? - it tells you that anal sex is high risk, and how to use a condom correctly. It warns against being drunk or 'high'. And where to get an anonymous HIV test.

 


Front: Spread no evil


Back of Spread no evil - it tells you how to treat those who are HIV+ with respect and dignity, and how to protect yourself if you have sex with someone whose serostatus is unsure.

Yet, Balaji's remark focussed on the "obscene material". Let's apply some intelligent analysis here. If the police's objections had been centred on that, all they needed to do was to seize the materials and arrest the booth volunteers for an offence of distributing pornography. They need not have stopped the distribution of condoms since there is nothing illegal about distributing condoms in Singapore. 

That the police didn't seize the "obscene material" or arrest anyone for distributing porn undercuts Balaji's explanation.

Russell Heng commented on this disjoint:

Let's try and piece together what happened over the past few days. PLU issued a press release which highlighted the AfA kiosk incident at Nation. Balaji, who probably did not know about that incident, then asked the police for an account of what happened.

What can we expect the police to say? Of course they have to provide an account that vindicates their action. So they tell the Minister the material were obscene. Balaji, who is hellbent on telling the gay lobby to shut up, is more than willing to take the police report at face value.

In short, the police are revising history to justify their abuse of power. They do something wrong, outside their scope of powers, and then when asked, they concoct an excuse.

At this point, it is no longer a gay issue. At this point, it becomes an issue about the integrity of the police and the State. Are we so determined to stamp out homosexuality, that we would gladly countenance the corruption of State institutions to achieve that end?

 
 The Jason and deMarco Concert

In the article Sirenes who will turn you gay, you will see the full story about the aborted concert that would have featured Jason and deMarco. 

When the Media Development Authority (MDA) -- a very Orwellian name for what is in effect the Government Censors -- refused to grant a licence for this concert, Dickson Yeo shot off a letter to Today newspaper. It was published on 24 March 2005. See Dickson's letter in JdM concert: press reports and letters

The MDA replied to the press on 31 March. One paragraph there needs a closer look. Koh June May, Senior manager, Corporate & marketing communications, Media Development Authority, said:

The MDA had taken the decision to disallow the concert after having consulted members of its various advisory panels.

The implication here is that the decision came out of a consensus among its advisors, who are supposedly drawn from members of the public. 

However, inside information gave quite a different story. When the application was circulated among the advisors for comment, the great majority had no objection. The application proceeded normally until an anonymous email -- from a free email account, with no identifiable name, only initials -- came into the MDA's inbox making a big deal about the fact that Jason and deMarco were a gay couple.

Beside the dubious issue of whether the MDA should take anonymous emails so seriously, the point to keep in mind is that the MDA eventually acted contrary to the consensus of its advisors.

The letter to the press is technically true - "taken the decision to disallow.... after having consulted", but the implication is deliberately misleading.

Is this good governance? I'm not suggesting that advisory panels' views must necessarily be followed, for I am just as wary of common prejudice articulated as consensus. What I am pointing to is that when the MDA or the minister responsible chooses to ignore advisors' advice, then own up. Don't create this smokescreen.

It shows an acute awareness that the decision they took might be indefensible. In trying to defend the indefensible, civil servants chose to mislead the public.

On the one hand, from the gay perspective, it indicates how stresses are building up within our government as they twist and turn, trying to justify their decisions. On the other hand, once again this gets beyond the gay issue. Like the less-than-truthful excuse about the condom booth, it raises a question about the integrity of our civil service. 

© Yawning Bread 

 

 

Why I say the police exceeded their authority. 

Condoms are legal in Singapore. They are sold by 7-Elevens and countless other shops. 

Talking about safer sex is legal in Singapore. 

If something is legal, it cannot be the basis for threatening action against an organiser. Thus the police exceeded their powers. 

One might say that homosex wasn't legal. 

To that the first counter argument must be it was far-fetched to make the connection that distributing condoms and flyers about safer sex encouraged homosex, and the second counter-argument must be that the police have no powers to intrude and stop something BEFORE a crime has been committed. They should act after there is a report of a crime. 

Hence, on this score too, they have exceeded their powers. 

In addition, it is well established government policy not to prosecute for consensual homosex. The policy is to close an eye, so even if homosex was a possible consequence, it wouldn't be a pursued matter, so where is the basis for taking such heavy-handed action to prevent something they don't prosecute anyway?

 

Footnotes

  1. SiGNeL is the gay and lesbian email listserv for People Like Us.
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  2. This was pieced together from bits and pieces that people told me in passing over the previous months, so my account or recollection may not be entirely accurate.
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