It confirms my belief that there is a gag order in force, as it is consistent with bits and pieces of inside information that my friends and I have received about newsroom instructions. Cold reporting about things gay yes, discussion about the merits of policy (or absurdities of same) no.

You see, if the Forum editor was really prepared to have a thread in his page about the government's decision, he would have kept letters pending for a while. He would wait and see what letters come in over a few days and select the best among them (if any are good enough). Only then would he send out rejection slips to those he couldn't find space for.

Sending me a rejection slip within hours was an unmistakable signal.

Below is my letter to the newspaper, which they rejected:

9 June 2005

Dear Sir,

I refer to "No licence, so gay party moves to Phuket" (ST 9 June 2005).

What Singapore has gained by banning the party, leading the organisers to move it to Phuket, is hard to fathom. Our economy has certainly lost what tourism earnings we could have enjoyed.

Your story mentioned HIV concerns, though the licensing authorities have never cited that as a reason for the ban. Their objections have been couched in the name of morality.

However, even if epidemiological concerns are real, the same concerns must remain whether the party is here or in Phuket. Thousands of Singaporeans are likely to head there, and, as many people have observed, reckless behaviour, straight or gay, tends to be greater when one is away from home. Perhaps because with greater anonymity, inhibitions are lower.

It would have been better if the party were here where at least some intervention regarding drug abuse or unsafe sex could have been undertaken, besides enjoying the tourism revenue.

The decision to ban gay parties was a mistake, and it's time we realised it. It's no use trying to be insular amidst a globalising world.

 
* * * * *

Well before November, there will be another big gay event in Bangkok. It is the first international conference of the Asia-Pacific Queer (APQ) network. This is a serious academic event spread over 3 days (7 - 9 July 2005), with over 200 research papers listed. It is so big that most of the time, the papers will be presented in parallel streams spread over six conference rooms. To accommodate this large event, the 1,000-room Ambassador Hotel was selected as the venue.

This conference will draw in academics and activists from half the globe. They will come from China, Japan and Korea in the Northeast, from India, Pakistan and Iran in the West, and from Australia, the US and Canada across the oceans. There will also be papers and participants from Europe.

Among the papers scheduled, I can count about 10 that will be presented either by Singaporeans or researchers based in Singapore.

The topics cover a vast field, from constructions of gender in different cultural contexts, to emotional biases against transgenders, and the way gays and lesbians are represented in film. There is even a paper about heterosexual males at the service of lonely females in a Tokyo host club.

The thesis behind this paper is truly interesting! It is that in marketing themselves, these heterosexual males are aesthetisised in ways that one would normally associate with 'queer', yet the aim is to please the female customers. Thus by this, the 'queering' of the males is being deployed to reinforce heteronormativity, not to subvert it!

As for papers from Singaporeans, the most eye-catching is one by Chris Tan Kok Kee. In the abstract, Tan says he intends to critique the "survivalist strategies of Singapore’s 2003 statement that promises equal employment opportunities to gay civil servants". It appears he will argue that such a "neoliberalist" attempt is "not only ineffective because of its inherent contradictions, it is also politically problematic", since the State continues to "demonize homosexuality as a symptom of Western decadence as it valorizes the heterosexual patriarchal family".

If he tried to write that in a letter to the Straits Times, he would probably get a rejection letter the next morning too.

Many friends of mine are heading up to Bangkok for the conference, as will myself. With the program crammed into six streams spread over 3 days, we need only spend 4 nights, so it's quite affordable.

Yet 4 nights is twice as long as the average stay of tourists in Singapore.

We like to boast about how we get 7 million visitors a year, which isn't too far from Thailand's 12 – 13 million, but the average number of nights spent per visitor to Thailand is 6.5, whereas in our case, it is barely 2 (and falling!)

That is one of the reasons why the Singapore Tourism Board has spoken about attracting MICE (meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions) as one of their key planks in turning around our sick tourism industry. Staying 4 or 5 nights is quite typical if you're attending a conference. That alone doubles the visitor's contribution to the local economy, compared to the holidaying tourist's 2 nights.

But the point of attending a conference is to hear new, unconventional, even subversive ideas. Would an APQ conference be permitted in Singapore? Would papers touching on the nexus between sexuality and politics, sexuality and religion be "too sensitive" and "contrary to moral values" in Singapore?

How many other fields of enquiry are out of bounds? Capital punishment? Human rights? Banking, money laundering and support of Burmese dictators? Media censorship and journalists' integrity? Trends in jurisprudence towards holding governments to international norms of behaviour?

It's all very well to task bureaucrats with attracting more MICE to Singapore, but somewhere someone should ask, wouldn't we be more persuasive if our potential customers could be assured of freedom of expression?

And since we like to measure everything here by yardsticks of efficiency, won't the money we throw at promoting Singapore to MICE organisers be more efficiently spent if the world didn't have reason to think of us as a police state? 

© Yawning Bread