| Yawning
Bread. 4 May 2009 Lessons for the PAP from the Aware EOGM
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At various points in the seven-hour meeting, the exco called on security personnel to evict disruptive members from the room, but with so many members on their feet expressing their feelings, it was impossible for the security personnel to do so. The meeting turned raucous very early in the proceedings. From what I have read and heard, it deteriorated into near hopelessness when Sally Ang, the then Assistant Honorary Secretary, whacked the crowd with "Shut up and sit down." Here is a video of that moment, at the start of the session. Josie Lau is up on the lectern trying to give her prepared President's speech but many members had no time for it. They had come to vote the exco out and they wanted to get to it.
After three minutes of Josie's speech, a member of the opposing camp, Margaret Thomas, went up to the microphone to say, "Point of order. Josie, I'm sorry, you are over your three minutes." The crowd responded noisily, drowning out Josie's first few words in response: "Margaret, ... the constitution, the president presides over the meeting." More reaction from the crowd. Sally Ang (in red): "No interruption, no disruption please. Shut up and sit down." From what I see of comments posted on the internet, opinions are divided. Some deplore the unruly behaviour of the supporters of the old guard (now the current Dana Lam exco); others say the passions represented true democracy at work, and were entirely justified by the behaviour of the Josie Lau exco right from the sneak attack at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) held five weeks earlier. Eventually, the motion of no confidence was carried by 1,414 votes to 761. * * * * * Firstly, while one third of the nearly 3,000 people in the room were supporters of the Josie Lau exco, they mostly sat quietly and kept to themselves. As described in a comment by Atensol on the blog Mr Wang Says So, they "resembled lifeless drones and clapped only after Josie and her team spoke." After voting on the no-confidence motion was done, around 4:30 pm, they gradually drifted away, as if uninterested in the results, which were not announced until 8:10 pm. Secondly, the way the Josie Lau exco carried themselves and their instincts from the head table. Thirdly, the performance -- and I do mean "performance" in almost a theatrical sense -- of Thio Su Mien, the self-styled "feminist mentor" of the group that seized control of AWARE at the AGM. I will ask what lessons this EOGM holds for the ruling People's Action Party (PAP).
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Sit still, listen to speeches, then vote
The broad consensus is that most of the supporters of the Josie Lau exco were like-minded Christians. Traditional Christians have a distinct behavioural pattern. There is an over-earnest politeness in speech and demeanour, punctuated by frequent invocations of blessings and goodwill. They also display great deference to rank and authority. See also box at right. They treat meetings like church services, sitting quietly, listening to authority figures, not speaking out of turn, rising, singing or kneeling (or voting) when called upon. In many ways, this resembles the People's Action Party's idea of what an ideal democracy should be. There should be no politicking between elections. Even during hustings, everybody should know his place, there should be no heckling, marches or demonstrations. The mainstream media should carry political leaders' speeches, but no editorial opinion. Private citizens' views are not welcome, thus the many restrictions on political content in films and on the internet. On polling day, go quietly to vote. Yet, the government keeps on harping about the need for Singaporeans to feel politically engaged, to have a passionate sense of belonging to Singapore. If the EOGM is any indication, passionate people will always want to speak up and do so at a time of their choosing, however inconvenient that moment may be to the powers on high. Quiet, sheep-like behaviour is a simulacrum of democracy. Many of the 761 supporters of the Josie Lau exco weren't even invested enough in the meeting to stay on to hear the result. It was as if they saw their role as that of filling the seats and voting dutifully, and when that was done, they could go. Worse, as demonstrated at the 28 March AGM, where about 80 similar supporters with little to say voted in the Josie Lau exco, such unquestioning attitudes and passivity enable cliques with hidden motives to seize power. If the government genuinely wants Singaporeans to feel passionate about Singapore, they had better reexamine what they mean by democracy. They need to stop trying to breed sheep, lighten up and learn to value more rambunctious citizens. The instincts of the Josie Lau exco were also interesting to watch. On the whole they were admirably scrupulous about the mechanics of membership registration and voting at the EOGM. There have been no allegations at all about cooking the membership register. Auditing firm Deloitte was hired to oversee the vote count and when the old guard wanted their representatives to oversee the count, the request was granted. This reminds me of the way elections are scrupulously conducted in Singapore. But where things went wrong was the failure of the Josie Lau exco to say upfront that they would respect the result of the vote on the motion of no confidence. Despite Gregory Vijayendran's advice that AWARE's constitution does not compel them to resign upon losing a no confidence vote, they should consider giving up, the exco seemed to resist. Vijayendran from law firm Rajah and Tann was hired by the new exco as AWARE's lawyer. Even when the result was announced, it took an inordinately long time -- an hour -- for the new exco to make up its mind about whether to step down. Wanting to rely on legalistic authority in the face of a moral verdict reminds me too of the People's Action Party's style. Whenever an election in any constituency produces an uncomfortable result, we see boundary changes and even the erasure of "problem" constituencies. The same parallel can be drawn with the frequent tinkering with laws on speech and assembly and the many prosecutions and defamation suits when what the defendants have spoken or demonstrated about had moral force. In the long run, it convinces nobody.
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Thio Su Mien's performance The most bizarre part of the EOGM was when Thio Su Mien rose to speak. Here is a video of it:
Thanks to Wayangparty.com, the audible parts of what she said were transcribed. Thio Su Mien: "Some of us live till 73 to celebrate feminism. We don’t go around shouting and shrieking. I believe I am a ‘feminist mentor’…QUIET please, because you have put me in your book. All of you have been asked to read about women who are first in their fields and I was so charmed to discover that I was in book on page 73. I was the first batch of law graduates and…SHOW SOME RESPECT TO YOUR ELDERS…." [Somebody from the crowd shouted "You have to earn the RESPECT!"] Lois Ng: "Ladies and gentlemen, please sit down, I have already mentioned to you about the house rules. We do not interrupt when somebody is speaking. There are many people here who wanted to speak." [The noise from the crowd continues to drown Thio Su Mien's speech] Thio Su Mien: "I was very charmed when I discovered I was in this book. Please show humility. I acted a point that I stand to stay something because it’s my desire, because you are women who are descendents of the pioneers of Singapore….I am disturbed, I was the first Law Dean, I was also the first to establish……YOU HAVE NO RESPECT FOR YOUR ELDERS" What was she trying to do? No more than to salvage her reputation after she herself had shredded it at the new exco's press conference held on 23 April 2009. There, she had crowned herself Singapore's "feminist mentor" and almost bragged that it was her who instigated the take-over of AWARE by members of the Church of Our Saviour and like-minded women. At the EOGM, she demanded respect. "I'm on page 73," she said to the crowd. "I was the first [female] Law Dean." (She didn't last long.) This appeal to citation and career success reminds me of the Singapore government's constant use of ranking and economic measures to justify their legitimacy. But sometimes, as in the EOGM, it only serves to outrage others even more. Feminism is not measured only in terms of career success, just as a nation's wellbeing is not just a matter of economics. There are issues of fairness, inclusiveness, support for the disadvantaged and liberty. When people are fired up over these ideals, rankings mean nothing. © Yawning Bread
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Footnotes None Addenda None
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By now, it's all over the Singapore blogosphere. The extraordinary general
meeting (EOGM) of AWARE, held last Saturday, was characterised by
impassioned speeches, booing and jeering from many members from the floor
against the Josie Lau executive committee (exco), which in turn brought remonstrative
outbursts by exco members at the head table.
