Dear Popagandhi.com readers, you have all been good to me over the years. You already know my stand on certain things, namely feminism, sexuality, and Being Singaporean. Despite all that, I never cared much for activism either. I’d dipped my toes into those murky waters very briefly in my younger days, and never cared to go back into it.
It’s about to change.
AWARE (Association of Women for Action and Research) has been the foremost voice for women in my country, Singapore. Despite its shortcomings (and there are many), we have always been able to count on it for one thing: it was non-partisan. It spoke for all women, regardless of religion, sexuality or race. That’s especially important in a country like ours that lacks a culture of civil participation.
Although I am now many miles away travelling the Middle East (Beirut, if you must know), I am deeply concerned by the recent hijack of the organization’s leadership by what we believe to be fundamentalist Christians.
Yes, AWARE’s constitution was lacking, and its leadership perhaps too complacent in not being able to prevent such a thing. Yes, that sort of thing can happen. And maybe AWARE does need new blood. Whatever the case is, the facts are there and it’s up to you to decide. The circumstances in which the new leadership gained power were more than suspect — most of its members were new, and the new committee, beyond being more unproven in civil society, were complete strangers whose only claims to fame were militantly homophobic letters to the national press, and a shared membership in a certain actively homophobic church (which, if you must know, is Church of Our Saviour — the one that once audaciously hung the dastardly “Gay But Not Happy?” banners on their grounds along the MRT).
I don’t care what you think about homosexuals or about homosexuality. But I think we can all agree that an organization who speaks for all Singaporean women would suffer under such a leadership. The noted playwright Ovidia Yu mentions in her blog that “At least two people mentioned receiving emails warning them that to protect their daughters from the lesbian influences they should join Aware & and help vote out the old committee”. My personal sources within the NGO movement have enough grounds to fear that the organization, under such a leadership, will actively seek to overturn any progress we have made as a society for our women — in particular on sexuality and reproductive rights.
One important note. AWARE is not, by any stretch of imagination, a campaigner of gay rights. They have never once stood up for lesbian or bisexual women. (See this for more background reading.) We are interested because if you have been around Singapore often enough you will know that the militancy of the fundamental Christian right has, in recent years, been shockingly antagonistic, not only towards gay people, but towards anyone who didn’t fit their ideology. And that is dangerous. (Note: if you want to quibble on religion, forget it — I have been and am Christian all my life. And the Christians I grew up around are nowhere like this bunch. Anyone with a problem with my sexuality and my religion would do well to read their own Bible, short of telling me to read mine.) You need to be concerned with this if you believe, like I do, that our NGOs and bodies of governance need to be secular. And that if they are not, they need to explicitly state who they are, and what their aims are.
Here’s what you can do, if you care enough. Please pass this on. (Ripped off from Pat Law from here on, since she has all the details.)
There will be an Extraordinary General Meeting (EOGM) come 2 May, Saturday, where all AWARE members will get a chance to vote. I won’t instigate for you to cast a no-confidence vote against the new administration but I’d like to urge for you to get that voice back together with all of us concerned citizens of this country. After all, we’ve lost our voice once. Let’ not lose it again.
Sign up today as an AWARE member in order to vote and drop me a comment at the end of this blog post with the message you want displayed on the wallpaper. Remember, every vote counts.
Details of the EOGM is as follow:
Date
2 May 2009, Saturday
Time
1400h – 1700h (do not be late else you might not get a chance to vote)
Venue
First Choice Auditorium
3 Lorong 6 Toa Payoh
#01-01 HSR Building
Singapore 319378
Other things to note:
1/ Only FEMALE members who are Singaporean & PRs above 18 years old are allowed to vote. However, men who are associate members are welcome to come and observe the proceedings.
2/ Sign up at www.aware.org.sg
3/ For those who signed up online and did not receive their membership card, please print out your confirmation email and receipt and bring it along for the EOGM.
4/ Join the Facebook group for more updates
possibly related
Possibly the Most Difficult Post I Have Ever Written /
A Wedding in Manila /
15 Steps To Sapphic Bliss /
Thanks to Melissa Fryrear /
The UnXpected@Zouk /
Stop the AWARE Hijacking
Dear Popagandhi.com readers, you have all been good to me over the years. You already know my stand on certain things, namely feminism, sexuality, and Being Singaporean. Despite all that, I never cared much for activism either. I’d dipped my toes into those murky waters very briefly in my younger days, and never cared to go back into it.
It’s about to change.
AWARE (Association of Women for Action and Research) has been the foremost voice for women in my country, Singapore. Despite its shortcomings (and there are many), we have always been able to count on it for one thing: it was non-partisan. It spoke for all women, regardless of religion, sexuality or race. That’s especially important in a country like ours that lacks a culture of civil participation.
Although I am now many miles away travelling the Middle East (Beirut, if you must know), I am deeply concerned by the recent hijack of the organization’s leadership by what we believe to be fundamentalist Christians.
Yes, AWARE’s constitution was lacking, and its leadership perhaps too complacent in not being able to prevent such a thing. Yes, that sort of thing can happen. And maybe AWARE does need new blood. Whatever the case is, the facts are there and it’s up to you to decide. The circumstances in which the new leadership gained power were more than suspect — most of its members were new, and the new committee, beyond being more unproven in civil society, were complete strangers whose only claims to fame were militantly homophobic letters to the national press, and a shared membership in a certain actively homophobic church (which, if you must know, is Church of Our Saviour — the one that once audaciously hung the dastardly “Gay But Not Happy?” banners on their grounds along the MRT).
I don’t care what you think about homosexuals or about homosexuality. But I think we can all agree that an organization who speaks for all Singaporean women would suffer under such a leadership. The noted playwright Ovidia Yu mentions in her blog that “At least two people mentioned receiving emails warning them that to protect their daughters from the lesbian influences they should join Aware & and help vote out the old committee”. My personal sources within the NGO movement have enough grounds to fear that the organization, under such a leadership, will actively seek to overturn any progress we have made as a society for our women — in particular on sexuality and reproductive rights.
One important note. AWARE is not, by any stretch of imagination, a campaigner of gay rights. They have never once stood up for lesbian or bisexual women. (See this for more background reading.) We are interested because if you have been around Singapore often enough you will know that the militancy of the fundamental Christian right has, in recent years, been shockingly antagonistic, not only towards gay people, but towards anyone who didn’t fit their ideology. And that is dangerous. (Note: if you want to quibble on religion, forget it — I have been and am Christian all my life. And the Christians I grew up around are nowhere like this bunch. Anyone with a problem with my sexuality and my religion would do well to read their own Bible, short of telling me to read mine.) You need to be concerned with this if you believe, like I do, that our NGOs and bodies of governance need to be secular. And that if they are not, they need to explicitly state who they are, and what their aims are.
Here’s what you can do, if you care enough. Please pass this on. (Ripped off from Pat Law from here on, since she has all the details.)
There will be an Extraordinary General Meeting (EOGM) come 2 May, Saturday, where all AWARE members will get a chance to vote. I won’t instigate for you to cast a no-confidence vote against the new administration but I’d like to urge for you to get that voice back together with all of us concerned citizens of this country. After all, we’ve lost our voice once. Let’ not lose it again.
Sign up today as an AWARE member in order to vote and drop me a comment at the end of this blog post with the message you want displayed on the wallpaper. Remember, every vote counts.
Details of the EOGM is as follow:
Date
2 May 2009, Saturday
Time
1400h – 1700h (do not be late else you might not get a chance to vote)
Venue
First Choice Auditorium
3 Lorong 6 Toa Payoh
#01-01 HSR Building
Singapore 319378
Other things to note:
1/ Only FEMALE members who are Singaporean & PRs above 18 years old are allowed to vote. However, men who are associate members are welcome to come and observe the proceedings.
2/ Sign up at www.aware.org.sg
3/ For those who signed up online and did not receive their membership card, please print out your confirmation email and receipt and bring it along for the EOGM.
4/ Join the Facebook group for more updates
possibly related
Possibly the Most Difficult Post I Have Ever Written / A Wedding in Manila / 15 Steps To Sapphic Bliss / Thanks to Melissa Fryrear / The UnXpected@Zouk /