24 April 2009

Pirate mother ship appears on horizon, guns blazing

Thio Su Mien reveals herself as the mastermind behind the AWARE putsch, but initially wanted to hide behind her hachet-women. She also concedes that it was her anti-gay agenda that drove her to this frenzy. Full essay.

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

i think the new Exco will be defeated. But if they are not, it is not a bad thing too. Bcos if these fundamentalists retain control of AWARE or have some representation in it, it means they r visible and can be monitored. To drive them underground can be worse as it will be harder to know what they maybe up to next!

ISD

Jackie said...

Heard on the grapevine: Thio Su Mien was asked to leave Drew and Napier when she forced junior pupils to attend her bible study sessions OR ELSE.....

Chee Wai Lee said...

Good grief! The old synopsis and new one for your talk on HIV are worlds apart!

They say the same thing but leaves a summary of the content to the actual talk ... seriously, if I had wanted to find out if I would be interested in attending the talk, the first synopsis would have piqued my interest more.

sy said...

Im reading this with a heavy heart. Aware was an inclusive, open organization.. honestly I was surprised to learn that they covered topics like homosexuality, I never knew they were so progressive. But it may all very well be lost now. I dont know how people can continue being so closed minded.
I have religious friends who can go on and on about unconditional love and agape but 5 minutes later they'll be shrugging off the guy selling pens for prison charity b/c "I dont support those types".
The irony is mind boggling.
I dont normally care abt such people and attitudes. But as soon as they start pushing their agendas and religious beliefs in a secular organization, thats when I sit up and take notice.

And I will not stand for any of that crap.
I have refused to donate money such organizations. I used to donate to a homeless shelter until I found out that people who use their services had to read from a holy book everyday and profess their belief in that religion. It was part of the "recovery process". Thats when I stopped donating to them and found another non-religious org to contribute to.

Anonymous said...

Thio must be chalking up how many Christian brownie points she won since that successful coup & her basking in the glory of her so called "Lords's work" judging from her appearance basking in a beatific glow like the Lord has blessed her!!!

But, there is such a thing called karma. You may not be a Buddhist, but still doing too many dishonest & shifty work in a multicultural & mutireligious world is not considered a charitable act by others not sharing your views.

In short, Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you. Its food for thought.

Anonymous said...

The compulsive evangelical Christianity is prevalent in many of their charitable organisations including a community hospital, nursing homes and as someone pointed out, half-way houses. There are Christian groups targetting the poor elderly in areas like Chinatown's Banda Street and Redhill Close. Once an elderly is "converted", a wooden crosses is "stamped" on the wall.
Just drop by Bethany nursing home and watch to see how many newcomers with "other religions" will eventually have wooden crosss above their beds.
I don't understand why this compulusion to convert others? Because they believe fervently in some parts of the bible? But historically and factually there are many discrepancies in the bible and there are more gospels than there are in this the present day bible.
So what exactly are "God's words"?
If God is truly compassionate, how can he punish anyone for not being "straight"?
Will a Christian parent sent his or her child to eternal damnation for not living up to what is "expected"? I mean ETERNAL?
Won't that be stained conditional love?
Please Christians, search your heart, not blindly follow the words in a book...written by MEN after all.

Anonymous said...

Read
The ChrysalidsPlot summary

A few thousand years in the future post-apocalypse rural Labrador has become a warmer and more hospitable place than it is at present. The inhabitants of Labrador have vague historical recollections of "The Old People", a technologically advanced civilization which existed long ago and which they believe was destroyed when God sent "Tribulation" to the world to punish their forebears' sins. The society that has survived in Labrador is loosely reminiscent of the American frontier of about the 18th century. The inhabitants practice a form of fundamentalist Christianity with post-apocalyptic prohibitions. They believe that in order to follow God's word and prevent another Tribulation, they need to preserve absolute normality among the surviving humans, plants and animals. Genetic invariance has been elevated to the highest religious principle, and humans with even minor mutations are considered "Blasphemies" and the handiwork of the Devil. Individuals not conforming to a strict physical norm are either killed or sterilized and banished to the Fringes, a forbidden area still rife with animal and plant mutations. Arguments occur over the keeping of a tailless cat or the possession of oversize horses. These are deemed by the government to be legitimate breeds either pre-existing or achieved through conventional breeding. The government's position is considered both cynical and heretical by the orthodox frontier community.

The inland rural settlement of Waknuk is a frontier farming community, populated with hardy and pious individuals intent on reclaiming land from the Fringes. Ten-year-old David Strorm, the son of Waknuk's zealous religious patriarch, has inexplicably vivid dreams of brightly lit cities and horseless carts that are at odds with his pre-industrial experience. Despite David's rigorous religious training, he befriends Sophie, a girl carefully concealing the fact that she has six toes on each foot. With the nonchalance of childhood David keeps her secret. The subsequent discovery of Sophie's mutation and her family's attempted flight causes David to wonder at the brutal persecution of human "Blasphemies" and the ritual culling of animal and plant "Deviations". David and a few others of his generation harbor their own invisible mutation: they have strong telepathic abilities. David begins to question why all who are different must be banished or killed. As they mature, David and his fellow telepaths realize that their unusual mutation would be considered a "blasphemy" and they carefully conceal their abilities. That their mutation cannot be directly detected allows their unusual abilities to remain undiscovered for a time. Eventually the group is exposed and David, his half-cousin Rosalind and younger sister Petra flee to the Fringes. Through the unusually strong telepathic abilities of Petra they make contact with a more advanced society in distant "Sealand". David, Rosalind and Petra elude their would-be captors and are rescued by the Sealand mission to discover the source of Petra's telepathic transmissions.

Though the nature of "Tribulation" is not explicitly stated, it is implied that it was a nuclear holocaust, both by the mutations, and by the stories of sailors who report blackened, glassy wastes to the south-west where the remains of faintly glowing cities can be seen. Sailors venturing too close to these ruins experience symptoms consistent with radiation sickness. A woman from Sealand, a character with evident knowledge of the Old People's technology, mentions "the power of gods in the hands of children".

Anonymous said...

Hey man, by and large I agree with u. But I u think u should wait for more provocation, stronger evidence, before declaring war? It would strengthen your case in the public eye.

Anonymous said...

Now my fear is whether such narrow-minded myopic bigoted Christians have infiltrated into our parliament. What will become of secularism if the next PM is a Christian? Will we go the way of South Korea where buddhist sites were left out on the map?

Anonymous said...

I think a key point regarding the new Exco may be that they may have acted in "bad faith" as regards the organisation, and have deliberately sought to damage its reputation.

They are plainly not interested in the purposes and aims of it, just one narrow issue that they disagree with, its neutral stance on homosexuality.

They are also clearly acting on instructions from outside the organisation, and not taking decisions themselves. I'm guessing this may be against some law or regulation relating to NGOs.

They have taken an antagonistic stance to the traditional membership.

If bad faith is apparent with regard to the organisation they are supposed to be running, there may be legal remedies, on top of the EGM resolutions.

I'm sure they will be taking lots of legal advice on the issues.

Regarding the comment in the sidebar, I think the de facto president ("mentor") simply doesn't understand that the word "homosexual" refers to both male and female same- sex attraction.

Mumu said...

Who burned that woman's bra to make her a Feminist Mentor?

Anonymous said...

Hi Alex,

Thought I'll let you know that it was YOUR particular talk back in 05 at that HIV forum, that made me realise how the "ABC" message was not enough, and could even be dangerous at times.

I was that member of the audience who related her friend's story you mention here http://yawningbread.org/arch_2005/yax-475.htm . (She's now married and pregnant with the same guy by the way = ) )

Your message at that particular forum was one of the major factors why I decided to sign up with AWARE's HIV subcom, on that particular day. That was the first step I took to the journey that led me to being AWARE's Comprehensive Sex Ed trainer that I am today.

Funny how things come around eh?

The other factors that contributed to my decision that day : The appalling state of Singaporean womens' knowledge ( eg. the nurses at the polyclinic!) , the abortion statistics and HIV statistics --- There was just that obvious need for something to be done!

And the final factor that contributed to my decision --- my Christian belief that meeting people's needs were part of social justice, and that it was a worthy cause to work towards.

It's such an irony that today, my work with AWARE and CSE is coming under fire by Christians. It's even more ironic, because the Christian verses that inspired me to join AWARE's HIV-subcom and later to do CSE, are the very same ones Thio, Josie et al. are hiding behind.

They wave Sodom and Gomorrah, but
“Sodom’s sin were pride, laziness, and gluttony, while the poor and needy suffered outside her door. She was proud and did loathsome things, so I wiped her out, as you have seen (Ezekiel 16 : 49-50)”

And in the same Proverbs 31 where the supposed perfect biblical woman is described,
"Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rghts of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy"


I believed that society was doing STI/HIV patients, single mothers, women who had abortions (more than 10,000 each year in Singapore alone!) such a great injustice by not equipping them with the info they needed to help themselves, and then by further unjustly victimising them with unfair laws and policies. These "poor and needy" were the product of social injustice, and I wanted to be part of the solution, not the problem.

I think your talk that day showed me the message I needed to bring across, and AWARE showed me the platfrom from which I could speak.


Thio was absolutely right --- Having the 'famous homosexual activist' Alex Au speak at AWARE's event clearly did influence young girls present. But you know what? I think that is something that both you and AWARE can be really really proud of.

maytaglady said...

One of those unprinted letters:

Dear Editors,

I heard on the News that Dr Thio Su Mein is appointed Aware Advisor.

Dr Thio Su Mein - and Dr Alan Chin, who did much of the votes tallying - belongs to the Tanglin Fellowship, operating under the auspices of the Church of our Saviour.

It is troubling that the new AWARE corp has included this member as adviser.

In an article published by the Church of our Saviour, a member testified of being brought up in an environment of ancestral worship and east asian piety. Su Mein then convinced her that she was under an 'ancestral curse' that required deliverance. (Source: http://www.coos.org.sg/saviourtimes/st2006/st_2006octdec.pdf).

Now, AWARE has a cadre of activists, most of whom belong to a certain church, and some of whom to this sub-group, which religious extremities are exemplified by Dr Thio's actions.

These group of people cannot be trusted to continue the inclusive and secular tradition of AWARE. In fact, the issue now is more that one that polarizes the conservatives and the liberals, the christians and the homosexuals. Here, we are dealing with one person whose personal views and private actions can challenge the delicate mutual friendliness between different religious groups.

Aware has to be reformed.

Wormi said...

maytaglady,

Something in the article you linked to made me laugh very hard:

"I attended the first Fellowship on the 14 February 2003, Valentine's Day. The speaker was Pastor Maureen Onion. As she was delivering her sermon, she walked up the passage towards my son who suddenly slid off his chair to the floor. He was slained into deep sleep and laid there for about 15 minutes."

"Slain into deep sleep"? More likely, the poor boy just fell asleep from sheer boredom and slipped off his chair. It is astounding how Christians are trained to leap to the supernatural conclusion when it comes to matters of their faith.

Alan Wong said...

Come to think about it, if our daily lives are to be ruled by some ancient teachings, this is what is going to happen :-

1) Changi prison would be full of prostitutes, gays & unwed mothers
2) Any doctor carrying out abortion would be charged with murder
3) All pregnant unwed women would have to go to prison to give birth
4) If you have a fling with someone's wife, husband, boyfriend or girlfriend, you will either be stoned to death or drowned in the pig's cage.
5) All GLBT will be prosecuted under some ancient law
6) There will be no IR casinos, prostitutes, gay saunas, pubs, discos in Singapore.

Then there will be no need to argue on 377A and no need to grab power in Aware.

Then there is really nothing holy about all our ancient holy books. We might as well die early.

The said...

/// Mumu said...
Who burned that woman's bra to make her a Feminist Mentor?
25 April, 2009 20:15 ///

I think calling herself Feminist Mentor is abusing and misusing the word "Mentor", and cheapening Minister Mentor. More like mastermind or manipulator.

Actually, the supreme irony of this whole sorry episode is that the new Exco team and This Su Mien are the best thing that happened to the hypocrisy and irrational fear of LGBTs. They have single-handedly promoted LGBTs and swung sympathies to LGBTs amongst otherwise neutral parties.

God works in mysterious ways indeed.

Xtrocious said...

Interesting morsel of information...

Someone told me that both Claire Nazar and Thio Li Ann belonged to the same church - but not COOS

Robert L said...

The one glaring position of the Christian Taliban is their advocate on Pro-life. That means denying women the choice of terminating undesired pregnancies such as those with abnormal foetus, or pregnancies arising from rape by strangers or by incest. This impose a burden on the position of women and is clearly opposite to what one would expect of AWARE.

For anyone who comes from leadership in a Christian Taliban church and still calls herself a Feminist, she must be delusional to the point of insanity. Have lost her thinking capacity.

The said...

THIOLOGY and THEOLOGY - what a potent and portentous mix.