A rant in the museum

Rant mode: Am I the only person on the planet who actually likes the National Museum? Or am I simply one of the few people who've actually spent more than 20 minutes in it? Seriously, half the criticsms I've read are by people who don't seem to know what was going in there.

I don't think the exhibits were perfect. I think there's area for improvement. I can name one, actually. But some of the criticisms that the NMS has received simply aren't justified. And for that matter, I've seen perfectly blah exhibits in some of the "world class museums".

I'm quite tense this today, so I'm definitely overreacting. But I can't help feeling that the NMS is going to have to face the problem of having to be all things to everyone.

Screw them. Heh. I need to put my head down and get some perspective. I suppose if people perceive it to be a problem, then there is a problem, whether I think it's there or not.

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testing in progress | i *am* alarmed

This is a test. How about that??

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The rude(?) Singaporean

Last Saturday, the MRT was crowded - not quite peak hour crowded, but the next best thing. The average person there was carrying shopping bags galore - it was the coming-home-from-Xmas-shopping crowd - the kind that clears out of Orchard so that the heading-out-for-dinner crowd can move in.

Two senior citizens got on. Senior with an S - white hair, pajama top and polyester print - not one of those can-withdraw-CPF sort of senior citizen, the kind that doesn't quite identify themselves as senior citizen until financially or morally convenient.

The seats filled as usual.

Pause.

Two people - under 30 - got up and gave their seats to them. Both of them were carrying bags as well, and looked slightly knackered from a day of shopping. One man, one woman, not together.

I remember the man's face - vaguely uncomfortable at reaching out to another person in the potential breach of a social contract that sacralised personal space in the crowded MRT in lieu of not actually having any, slightly awkward because god forbid he should actually draw attention to himself, wanting to go unnoticed while at the same time needing to get the senior's attention.

The elderly man sat down, and smiled in thanks.

The younger man gave a slight grunt and nod of acknowledgement, and quickly turned away. I fancied there was a tinge of pink to him now.

It's not the first time I've seen it happen - enough for me to question the maxim that Singaporeans are innately rude and uncaring, or that young people have no breeding. Granted, I've never taken the MRT at the real peak hours, where I'm sure all the real shit takes place. Still, it makes me wonder if the whole "rude Singaporean" meme is an overreaction to the official line that Singapore is a gracious society.

I don't think we're particularly gracious, nor are we particularly rude. I think we're not very good at standing out from the crowd, whether it's to do the right thing or the wrong, thing, and we're more likely to bitch that something went wrong than when something went right. I think we're human, with all that entails, and all the variations between.

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Law! Huh! What is it good for! | absolutely everything

A little kerfuffle - or lack thereof over the MHA Women's Focus Group Discussion session. The topic was about article 375 (marital immunity) and article 377 (homosexuality).

Sayoni have done a great job of covering the event, so there's not much to say (especially since I wasn't there.)

There's just thing I want to bring up. During the session, Ms Indranee Rajah had this to say:

Indranee: Logic has little to do with whether the law stands or not… It is more about maintaining the status quo. [follows up with point about religious groups being upset]

Indranee: You are right, it does not have a physical impact on them. But it is more of an emotional impact, and what kind of message we are sending by removing the law. We have to look at parents. They might be afraid that their children will turn gay, if they see other people being gay, and they think it is okay to be gay

I actually have a soft spot in my heart for Indranee Rajah - and maybe even a hard spot somewhere else. She has an awesome car, fills out a T-shirt really well, and generally comes across as quite sensible. I don't agree with what she says, but I can appreciate that she's damn good at spinning the party line.

And smart chicks = hot. Chicks that spend their careers with their heads up the patriarchy's backside = so not hot, and yes, I'm looking at you, beyotch.

So anyway - I am willing to believe that Indranee doesn't believe everything she says. That being said, I don't have her personal LJ account (screw the p65 rubbish, indraneerajah.blogspot is where it's at!) , so all I can crit is what she says publically.

No, the law isn't about maintaining the status quo. It's about protecting rights, rights that were laid out in the constitution. In fact, the law should never be used to maintain the status quo, because more often than not, the status quo is stupid.

From Pandogan.net

The more things change, the more they stay the same, huh? Reading those above pullquotes back to back confirms why civil rights for gays and lesbians should never be decided at the ballot box. Bigots of all stripes, indeed the public at large, are never comfortable — and more often than not are hostile — when it comes to granting rights to an oppressed group.

Time eventually reduces the hostility over time, but in the end, it is the courts that end up protecting and establishing rights when people cannot do the right thing because of fear and prejudice.

The sad difference today in the struggle for gay civil equality is that both political parties at the national level have accepted and promoted the proposition that it’s fine and dandy that our rights should be determined by the American public.

That’s shameful

I am not a political activist, or if you chose to call me one, I'd be a pretty poor one. I don't "get" politics in the sense that I don't know how to get things done. So that's my caveat and disclaimer - I may be wrong about what's happening in Singapore.

However the problem I have with some of the arguments put forth by both sides of the gay rights discussion in Singapore is that it sometimes seems to be centred around the idea that people must be made comfortable, that people might complain. Govt says "People will hate it/religiousblahblah", Gay rights activists reply, "No they won't/who cares?"

You can't win with that sort of framework based around the idea that hypothetically someone might be offended. You can't win, because you can't prove that "No one will complain" or "no one will get hurt" or "society will stay intact".

Surely the argument should be based on demanding that the law protect your civil rights, rather than the non-existent rights of potentially non-existent groups to infringe on your rights? Why should the law care if the status quo isn't maintained? That's not what it's there for. For heaven's sake, the status quo also believes (or used to believe) that people shouldn't date interracially/inter-religiously. (remember the scholar who did not get his scholarship revoked despite writing disgusting racist comments in his blog? I swear, Singaporeans should grasp that there are scholars, and there are no-one-applied-to-that-organisation scholars.)

The law is there to protect the rights of the individual, not the prejudices of the majority.

I'm sure Indranee is aware of that. I just wish she could say so.

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In a more light-hearted mood, there's the kerfuffle US-side over Mary Cheney (right wing VP Dick Cheney's daughter)and her long-time partner Heather Poe's decision to have a baby. Some of the more hilarious nuggets that it inspired from the apoplectic religious right:

You got blood vessels and membranes in your behind. And if you put something unnatural in there, it breaks them all up. No wonder your behind is bleeding. It’s destroying us. Can’t make no connection with a screw and another screw. The Bible says God made them male and female. The Hebrew word Negade, which means complimentary nature - there is something unique to man and unique to woman and it takes those two things to compliment each other. You can’t make a connection with two screws. It takes a screw and a nut! (shouting)…”
–D.C. pastor Rev. Willie Wilson during a sermon.

And the responses on the internet:

look, God was a carpenter, so he’d understand this a hell of alot more than some pastor. a screw doesn’t go on a nut. it goes into wood. and you need at least two of them to make a connection, otherwise it’s just a pivot point which pries out. so two screws are good to go. two nuts also work fine, provided you have a medium for them to act through (generally a threaded shaft of some sort, but for people, hands, tongue, or gizmos would be fine.) so gays are good, and lesbians are fine, so long as they don’t exist in a vacuum. but I think other problems would introduce themselves there. like explosive decompressi.

and you can’t switch over to bolts and nuts (which do require one another) because they you gotta ask what the hell is the washer is. a condom? foreplay? your patriarchial metaphor would fall apart with either of those.

From Pandagon.

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Singapore Armed Forces According to Singaporeans | exam observations

This post could be massively unprofessional. Of course, it's definitely not on par with whiney brats who publicly undermine their companies and backstab their (named) colleagues, so by internet standards, this is probably alright.

I've been busy the last week or so with work. Namely, marking. There isn't a member of the faculty yet who faces a pile of undergrad exam scripts with joyous heart and jovial red pen. It's massively depressing - exams bring out the worst in students, and it makes you question the effectiveness of your teaching. Of course, the value of exams is questionable in its own right - I actually endorse the regurgitation factor when setting the questions - but that's a post for another time.

There are, however, highlights to these days of red ink and curve-creation. Exams bring out the worst in the students, but at the same time, it has a way of stripping arguments and thoughts to the bone. Few people have the luxury of inserting qualifiers, and often they fall back on trite phrases meant as shorthand for a larger, far less crude idea.

Because of that, it's possible to discern - or at least, it's very easy to think that you can discern - what students actually think about a subject, or their constructed impressions of certain institutions.

(And as you can tell, blogs bring out the diametric opposite of the exam shorthand..)

And finally, the subject of today's post:

Observations on the Singapore Armed Forces

A foreigner reading the exam essays would reach these three conclusions.

1. The SAF was created to be a bonding common experience for Singaporeans. Thus is the Singapore identity created. Singaporean males spend two years bonding with each other, learning about other Singaporeans. In short, National Service is a holiday camp, the kind your parents sent you to in December. Come to think of it, most of those were at army barracks. Presumable, at some point in time, someone whips out a guitar so that participants can sing old favourites while roasting pythons on the fire.

2. The SAF helps Singaporean females to bond and form the Singaporean identity as well, because they have fathers, brothers and boyfriends who serve NS. Presumably, lesbian orphan Singaporeans are discriminated against and cannot be part of the Singaporean Identity.

3. The SAF's function as an army is a pleasant bonus and afterthought. Side effects including boosting the economy. Its main purpose is to train Ministers.

If exams are a way to see into men's souls, then Singaporeans' concept of the SAF is worrying. What happened to the SAF as, well, an army? In a country that was never born in the revolutionary fires, how on earth did we end up with a military so all-pervasive as to become a major institution in constructing civilian rule and civilian culture?


I end with a last point that seemed very important from the undergrad's point of view:

The SAF is a poisoned shrimp.

Really.

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