The AWARE Saga: Civil Society and Public Morality in Singapore

Chapter 3 Not Quite Shutting Up and Sitting Down: The Singapore Government's Role in the AWARE Saga

36 Azhar Ghani and Gillian Koh 36 C H A P T E R 3 C H A P T E R 3 Not Quite Shutting Up and Sitting Down: The Singapore Government’s Role in the AWARE Saga Azhar Ghani and Gillian Koh Introduction Introduction An internal matter. Not a “national issue”; a “domestic dispute” even (The Straits Times 20 April 2009; 25 April 2009). Early descriptions of the leadership tussle at the Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE) by politicians and media pundits alike clearly indicated that they did not think much of it at the time. Yet, after five weeks, it became the topic that months later, many were hoping the Prime Minister would address in the most important speech in Singapore ’s political calendar.1 Before the saga was highlighted by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in his National Day Rally speech on 16 August 2009, other government leaders had already signposted its importance. Their concerns centred on the role played by religion — in this case, Christian opposition to homosexuality, as acted upon by a group associated with Josie Lau that eventually took over AWARE’s executive committee (Exco) after its March elections. Religion and homosexuality can become a particularly volatile mix, given that the acceptance of homosexuality is a valuebased decision that could be informed by one’s religion, or deeply held moral and political inclinations. The robust parliamentary debate in Singapore Government’s Role in the AWARE Saga 37 2007 over a parliamentary petition to repeal Section 377A of the Penal Code, thereby legalising homosexual acts, and the public debate outside the House, were a clear testament to the potential of this issue to polarise society even when there had not been any overt references to religion. This could only be exacerbated if the impression, whether formed by media reports or from other sources, founded or unfounded, was that one side in the saga had been motivated by their religious conviction to take over an established secular organisation to change its agenda on homosexuality. Keeping “religion” and “politics” separate is a key rule of political engagement in Singapore. In a speech after the resolution of the saga, Nominated Member of Parliament Thio Li-Ann argued that despite the rule, the Singapore model of secularism was not anti-religious and that religion had been allowed to play a role in public debate (Thio 2009). Indeed, in the past, leaders of religious umbrella groups had made the views of their respective faith communities known to the government and the public through statements and letters on issues of gambling, censorship and bioethics. In all these cases, there was overt association of the advocacy on the issues with religious values. This role of religion is, however, circumscribed by the Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act (MRHA),2 the Sedition Act,3 the Internal Security Act (ISA), and parts of the Penal Code,4 and supplemented by informal rules of political regulation that we have come to know as OB (out-of-bound) markers. To understand this framework of rules, one has to look back on the so-called Marxist Conspiracy of 1987, which resulted in the MRHA being formulated in 1990. In the 1987 incident, a total of 22 individuals were detained under the Internal Security Act (ISA) for what the government believed to be attempts to subvert existing social and political order, and to establish a Marxist state. The Internal Security Department (ISD) said the case demonstrated how religion could be used for subversive purposes. Those detained either worked full time or volunteered in Catholic Church-affiliated organisations that dealt with the rights and welfare of workers, both local and foreign. The White Paper on the Maintenance of Religious Harmony Bill which was tabled in Parliament in December 1989 provided key references for what the government would accept as the role of religion in public debate. It referred to the President’s Address at the opening of Parliament on 9 January 1989 that “religion must be kept rigorously separate from politics, [for] in a multi-religious society, if one group 38 Azhar Ghani and Gillian Koh violates this taboo, others will follow suit, and the outcome will be militancy and conflict”. In addition, it detailed the government’s position on religion and politics, that Singapore “must be a strictly secular state [where] … the government must claim ultimate political authority from the Constitution, and not...