This one is not about whether being gay is morally correct or wrong but on how to further your own cause. Suppose I'm a fundamentalist right wing religious person who believes that God has spoken to me as he did to Noah - how do I go about to do what I believe is right and rid the world of sin. The answer I believe is in the movie Evan Almighty...the lesser sequel to Bruce Almighty. God spoke to Evan one day and told him about an impending flood. He tried his best to warn the people but all they do was laugh at him - it was a waste of time. Even his family couldn't believe and thought he was mad. He was only able to redeem himself when the flood came and he saved a group of people who actually turned up at his ark to mock him. If you want to bring people to your worthy cause who don't share your faith, you can only convince them with evidence. When the evidence is compelling like the flood in the movie your harshiest critics will become your biggest supporters. Regardless of how much you believe something is right and how much faith you have - the rest of the world needs evidence. The more you try to push your ideas without evidence, the more people will push back and they will laugh at you.....
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Lesson 1: There are very few people who can call themselves MENTOR without being laugh at. As one participant of the EOGM put it, respect is earned. You can't force people to respect you. You can make them fear you by force but respect has to be given. You can't make yourself mentor something just because you think you're somebody who deserves respect. The title "mentor" something is given when there is clear consensus about your status otherwise there will be some people laughing at you all the time.
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Lesson 2; Think ahead & do basic planning. Step 1 was takeover Aware....hmmm step 2?? Step 3? A Christian group taking over a secular organisation will definitely result in national scrutiny in Singapore. People will want to know why you're doing this...what is your justification and it better be compelling. They didn't even think of the immediate consequences of their act and look totally lost when the spotlight shone on them. When you do something like this you better have a dossier of solid evidence to justify it otherwise you end up getting condemned by the media and your opponents.
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Lesson 3: Start with the end. Before you do something, ask yourself what you're out to achieve. Then you try to get there with the least effort. Stripping away all the baseless accusations and suspicions, the main grouse was that Aware ran a CSE programme that has contents they didn't like. The easiest way to do get it fixed was to collectively complain that the contents were unsuitable and insensitive to people of their religion. You can be very sure the MOE will move to revise the content and Aware would be put on the defensive for having controversial contents in its CSE. No need to takeover Aware to get this done.
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Lesson 4: Know your opponents. The women in Aware were not the type to walk away quietly from a fight - they fought for a long time to set up the organisation and that required tremendous commitment. They have links to the media and allies in positions of power. They have helped thousands over the years and these people are looking for a way to pay them back.
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Lesson 5: Perception is important. No matter how they tried they cannot change the perception that this is whole thing was about a Christian group taking over a secular organisation to impose its own values on others. Its a case of "it looks like a rat, smells like a rat....".
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Lesson 6: Understand everyone's interests. Otherwise you will find yourself the enemy of many. When the CSE programme was dragged into the spotlight, MOE was forced to step in to explain and deny what was said hurting the credibility of the Aware exco and their mentor. National Council of Churches had to say that it did not support the use of the pulpit for social causes[Link] as religious harmony is one of its . That was a rebuke for the pastor who asked his flock to lend their support.
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Lesson 7 : Actions must reflect intent. Saying you're also inclusive but have members from the same small group is not convincing. Saying you're for feminist causes then sacking feminists in the organisation is not credible. Saying you're not anti-gay but having given speeches and written letters to public forums against gays makes it look like you're not telling the truth and cannot be trusted.
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Monday, May 04, 2009
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19 comments:
Even Lee Kuan Yew did not give himself the title of mentor. The title was technically given by Lee Hsien Loong, the prime minister.
hmmm, they did try to cripple AWARE financially. maybe thats the main intent
um. try this story. http://pensionpulse.blogspot.com/2009/05/dark-clouds-hanging-over-sunshine-state.html in your mind replace florida sba with temasek/gic..
Josie and gang were misguided and what they did were exactly opposite to what Jesus stood for.
Having said that,
do you really believe that the Thios (& their legal counsel) are morons?
do u really believe that it was the power of bloggers who mobilize the new voters?
do u really celebrate the power of the PAP gahmen to control church leaders?
Eh .. I guess the answer to all 3 qns is YES :-)
They should have held it at the Hong Lim Park (Speaker Corner), it probably cheaper or "free" than to host it at Suntec. Crazy people have too much money to spend. Oh wait not they are not folking out the money.
For mentor Thio, it is time for a reality check instead of thinking women of S'pore are crazy. Look it is not just women but S'pore society at large just don't condone the American-type steeplejacking takeover. If she does'nt believe, well she can check around.
Thio has all along been so successful and honoured that she is probably quite alienated from the real society and had not been able to comprehend straightaway how the audience could be so disrespectful of her, despite her age.
I can understand her incomprehension, especially given her shining career, as stated at her law firm website : "... holding Judgeships in the administrative tribunals of the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank for various terms. Very much a grand dame of the corporate legal scene (her looks, as you can see, belie her experience), she counts many of the country’s judges and high-ranking officials among her ex-students. " LINKI feel that she meant good but failed to see that her steeplejacking method actually scrambled up whatever merits her school of thought might initially possessed.
If she reforms her take on society, she might even become a powerful force for good in our society. She just got to get away from high society, from all the right-wing American Christian thinking for a while, if service to our own society is really in her mind.
They should learn from the PAP lah. Do you know how they vote the PAP CEC? Only cadre members (specially chosen) are allowed to vote the CEC. Not any Tom, Dick or Harry PAP members.
AWARE should change its constitution to follow the PAP way. Or maybe should try GRC way also. Or if possible throw some lawsuits (never mind may not win, unlike LKY's) just to frighten people.
Hi Lucky, this is my take on what happened:
Most likely, they never even knew or cared about AWARE's existence until the Section 377a saga. That was probably when Thio Su Mein's attention turned to it. She then sent out an email to the unsuspecting Josie and friends. They believed everything TSM wrote and did not question it, after all, it was consistent with their worldview.
After taking power, they set off to purge the promotion of lesbianism. Except they did not know where to begin! So they went looking for targets. They could not trust the old guard because they believed that they were the enemy who was promoting lesbianism in the first place.
When the press got hold of them, they panicked and cited the incompetence of the old guard as a generic and, hopefully, passable response. Randomly discounting 24 years of solid contributions by smart and connected women was a stupid mistake. They were outclassed when the old guard finally had their say.
I believe that their motivation behind disbanding CEDAW was that they mistakenly believed it had something to do with lesbianism (it says 'all women' on the tin).
CSE was post-hoc justification. I doubt they even knew AWARE had a sexuality education programme in the first place. Only then proudly announced their true intent, believing that the public would back them.
The spending? Most likely they didn't know that they were overspending. Honest mistake, folks. Can't receive help from the old guard either because they are evil lesbian promoters, remember?
In my opinion, even if Josie & friends won the EOGM, they would have quickly realise that they did not know what they were doing stepped down on their own accord.
Running an NGO is hard. Let's go shopping.
-RSE
I find it hard to believe the thought of going back to their feminist mentor's legal firm for pro-bono or free legal advice did not cross the minds of these educated women.
They were also unusally calm and stoic throughout the long drawn out EOGM, a marked change from their fumbling press conference jsut a week earlier. In fact I think they did rather well under Sat's circumstances. I am inclined to suspect they have unrevealed agenda and are being coached.
There should be a thorough investigation of COOS' involvement in this saga to send out a strong message that there is no place for religious fundamentalism in secular civil society.
Thio, Josie & gang are just like the right-wing Bush Administration that brought the United States to its knees.
Make out a story that Iraq has Weapons of Mass Destruction, wreak havoc on the country, cause wide-spread miserable, only to find there is nought.
Thio, Josie and the COOS sama sama as Bush.
They got off too easily. They need some rubbing.
Can start with Thio Li-Ann. Anyone?
Anyone who has been through OCS will hate "mentors" with a vengeance...
They certainly make mockery of the word...sigh
Now we have a "FM"? Sheesh...
Last February, a USSPN Washington Regional Coordinator was present during a report given by an international lawyer from Singapore, Thio Su Mien (Su), who is gifted in prophetic intercession and healing. She shared about some of the things going on in the area of Indonesia before the tsunami.
She explained how the SARS virus hit Singapore a year prior to the earthquake/tsunami. The Lord alerted the intercessors and told them that if they did not get on their faces and repent on behalf of their nation's involvement in abortion as the contraceptive of choice, that the land would suffer from His hand of judgment.
Because they saw how devastating the SARS virus had been, the intercessors immediately took action to seek His mercy and forgiveness. Singapore was not touched by the earthquake disaster. The Malaysian intercessors joined them in diligent prayer and also opened healing rooms in Kuala Lampur. The area on the Northern Coast of Malaysia was hit hard. There are amazing stories of God's grace and mercy in saving souls and lives there.
It was the prayers of the intercessors that had saved the disaster from affecting an even larger area. She emphasized that the intercessors crying out with repentance and asking for mercy, along with declarations of the Word of God over the land (both written and rhema), released the curse upon the land and the people were spared. It was a plea for intercessors to step up to the plate and continue to press into God for mercy from judgment coming.
http://www.elijahlist.com/words/display_word.html?ID=2997
Please, if there is God,
Singapore wouldn't be that fucked up already. So many poor and hungry citizens around!
Not to mention having expensive monkeys up there!
God either doesn't exist, or, is one fucking huge ass lazy bastard.
I have lost hope in both God and Singapore.
god rested on the seventh day, does it mean anything to you people?
anyway, interesting tidbits - if it's true that is :)
The elijahlist.com looks more like a website for conmen and nutcases.
If you believe them, good luck to you.
if any god can justify the suffering and death of innocents, IT is not moral.
or are people pawns..
Have it ever occurred to anyone that the Churches may actually be competing with one another to expand their congregation & con new converts into parting with their hard earned monies for the eventual promise of a guaranteed place in heaven ?
I suppose if someone were to look at the actual distribution of their tithes collection, I may not be surprised that the bulk of it may have ended paying for someone's private investment or condominium apartment, something similar to Joakim's case.
It's no wonder that nowadays Churches are getting bigger because someone is actually paying for it but the name of the asset is not in the name of the payee.
Any skeletons or scandal, I just wonder ?
Quite useful info, thanks for this article.
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