Instead, they see sex and promiscuity.

In November 2004, the Minister of State for Health, Balaji Sadasivan, began to speak more openly about the growing threat of HIV and AIDS in Singapore. He wanted to destigmatize the disease, so that greater efforts can be made to combat it.

But he ruled out any major campaign to promote condom use.

AFP reported that,

Despite facing an "alarming AIDS epidemic," Singapore will not go on a publicity blitz to promote condom use out of respect for residents who hold conservative views on sexual behaviour, a minister said.

"To educate people you don't have to be offensive," Senior Minister of State for Health Balaji Sadasivan was quoted as saying on the website of ChannelNewsAsia, a Singapore-based regional broadcaster.

"We must recognise there are conservative people in Singapore and there's no need to say the only way to educate people is to try do it in an in-your-face approach," Balaji said late Saturday.

-- 'Singapore will not promote condom use publicly to fight AIDS: report', AFP, 14 Nov 2004

Thus, the thrust of the ministry's message has been abstinence and testing. They don't want any publicity that involves condoms, unless it is very narrowly targetted so that conservatives will not see such campaigns. So, no posters, no giant condoms walking down the main shopping streets like in Bangkok, and no handing out of condoms in public spaces. All such tactics would be too "in-your-face".

Just about everybody outside the ministry who is concerned about AIDS think this is unbelievably unhelpful. Perhaps some inside the ministry too, but as I will discuss below, they can hardly speak up.

* * * * *

A few weeks ago, condoms started to appear on 1.8-metre high posters around Singapore. They were mounted at strategic locations, such as bus stops and pedestrian intersections.

In addition, postcards (identical to the posters) were being given out, one of which I scanned. The words may be too small to read, but what they say is this:

You can't teach them to play it safe 
Keep male and female pets apart

And at the bottom,

A pet is for life
AVA

A friend told me he saw a TV commercial too. "It had a tomcat pawing a condom," he said, "and then a tabby came along and they kind of cruised each other."

The message was the same, he said. "Your pets don't know how to play safe."

Clearly, the campaign's message is not to let your pets breed like, well, rabbits. You are responsible not just for them, but for their offspring too. You can't chuck them out if they've become too numerous for you to handle.

Indeed, it's an important message, which alas, too many still do not pay heed to. But what is more interesting is how creative the advertisement is in seizing one's attention. Kudos, then, to the Agri-food and Veterinary Authority (AVA), and its advertising agency.

The AVA is not under the Ministry of Health, although its mission is one of public health. It comes under the Ministry of National Development, the body we normally associate with urban planning, conservation, housing and parks management.

How is it that they can use condoms in publicity materials, even on television, and the Ministry of Health feel they cannot? Does this not make a mockery of the latter's rule that condoms must stay out of the public view?

What this shows is that government policy can vary a lot depending on who is formulating it. One ministry may tremble in fear of conservatives, while another team does not give them a thought. One side may use the "conservative" excuse to justify what may in fact be their own Judeo-Christian inhibitions, while the other side may feel more free to get to the point.

Another take on it may be that showing condoms as a tongue-in-cheek message in relation to animals is not controversial, unlike condoms in relation to humans. It's a known fact that animals engage in sex without much inhibition; it is a fact of (animal) life. But we are not supposed to promote sex and promiscuity among humans, and since condoms means just that (to some), we are therefore not supposed to promote condom use among humans.

Alright, it has its own internal logic, but it begs the question, why are we not supposed to promote sex and promiscuity among humans? Why are they considered bad?

There is no answer to this question without making reference to partisan religious values, as only the Abrahamic religions are conflicted about sex. That being the case, does aligning government policy with the demands of "conservatives" suggest a privileging of one religious viewpoint over others, even in a supposedly secular state?

Frankly, our analysis doesn't even need to get so far. It is enough that AVA's advertisement undermines the Health Ministry's claim that publicity for condoms will upset many Singaporeans, for Singaporeans have just taken AVA's campaign in stride. As far as I can see, there have been no outraged letters to the press.

At the same time, in another direction, our analysis can go further, for the fact that the AVA's condom campaign contradicted the Health Ministry's blanket rule says something about democracy, constitutional and human rights in Singapore.

* * * * *

 
From a broader perspective, this is just one more example of untenable and conflicting policy positions piling up.

Simon Tay, a law academic, wrote in Today newspaper, 20 December 2005, "some will not understand why a nude revue like Crazy Horse is allowed while gay parties are refused. Or why films on politicians are illegal, when nudity is allowed in other films." [1]

More recently, Human Rights Watch (HRW) in a report, criticised Singapore over the lack of legal protection for foreign domestic maids here, including the absence of a legal requirement to give them one day off a week. The government responded prickily that maids were well-treated and that while they do not come under the Employment Act,  we have another law to cover these workers [2]. Actually that law does not mandate a minimum number of days off though the government didn't highlight that. But HRW probably noticed and retorted that that answer merely reflected "extremely low expectations rather than the Government's guarantee of working conditions that are appropriate to an advanced economy like Singapore's."

Susan Long, a journalist with the Straits Times, in a recent column [3] noted that actually, HRW's report "comprehensively pulled together what civil society activists here had been saying for some time now". How embarrassing for the government, you might think!

The government gets itself into these awkward, and to many observers, ridiculous, positions, because they tend to make each policy in isolation. There is no sense of overarching principles to provide clear direction -- principles such as true secularism, freedom of expression and human rights. Without guiding principles, decisions can easily be based too much on the minister's or senior civil servants' kneejerk views. Without a culture of respect for constitutional values, civil servants below them find it hard to get their dissent taken seriously.

How many civil servants feel empowered to tell their minister, "your directive to ban condom campaigns is illegal", or "Minister, your insistence on keeping domestic workers outside the ambit of the Employment Act violates the human right to equal protection of the law"?

They can only do that if there is a culture that places rights and constitutional principles such as the freedom of expression (which includes the freedom to conduct in-your-face condoms campaigns) as values higher than any minister's say-so.

Such a culture may be much less deferential than our government likes, but will be good for Singapore when it compels policy to be made with a wider frame of reference, with more engagement with stakeholders and greater consistency with international norms of good governance. That wider reference and engagement lessens the chance of inconsistent and indefensible decisions coming through.

Simon Tay argued in his article that the government needs to have a "dialogue on issues", though he noted that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong "has not thus far made a clear declaration towards deepening democracy or promoting human rights".

This dialogue, he said, must not be "a closed debate among a handful of Government mandarins". Yet public involvement, to be useful, has prerequisites, namely that "information and discussion on the subjects of democracy, constitutional and human rights, especially, should be more widespread. These should not be taboo subjects."

But because they are, the Health Ministry thought nothing of enforcing a ban on condom campaigns, for fear of offending "conservatives", only to look ridiculous when the AVA used a condom in their campaign. 

© Yawning Bread