An open letter to Ms Josie Lau
Written by Ng E-Jay
29 April 2009
Dear Ms Josie Lau,
In your letter to AWARE members dated 28 April 2009, you wrote of your wish to “honour and celebrate the achievements of first generation Singapore women and to emulate their spirit of perseverance and to learn from their experience and vision”. You also put forward your rhetoric that “AWARE belongs to you”.
Yet all your actions thus far have been in contradiction to your supposed ideals. You used stealth and subversion to invade AWARE, you got your supporters to vote your team into office despite not having made any contribution towards women in Singapore, you unceremoniously displaced the Old Guard, and you spread vicious lies about AWARE’s Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) programme. Your contradictions have been exposed one after another, yet you persist on your sordid path, pretending to bury your head in the sand.
You tell readers that you wish to honour those who had served before you. Yet you sacked Braema Mathi in the rudest way possible and removed the subcommittee chairs the moment you took office. You say that AWARE belongs to all, yet on the other hand you attempt to impose your own values and beliefs upon others, and ostracized the Old Guard at your press meetings. If this is your definition of inclusiveness, you are making a mockery of the English language.
You claimed in your letter that you want to make a positive difference and help women in distress. Yet your abrupt and disruptive actions over the past few weeks have caused many genuine seekers of help to be neglected, due to the organization being caught up in the conflict that you have engendered.
You claimed that you are seeking to serve other women in Singapore, but all I can see is that you are serving your own bigoted cause. Your resume posted on AWARE’s website lists an impressive array of corporate credentials, but unfortunately it also reveals that you have never been involved in feminism or helping women. In the absence of any track record of feminist work, we have to judge you based on your words and deeds over the past few weeks. Your behaviour speaks for itself.
It is interesting you spent two full paragraphs of your letter discussing CEDAW, but mentioned nothing about the CSE programme that you and your motley crew have raved and ranted about. Perhaps you finally came to your senses when even the Ministry of Education had to step in to rebut your lies concerning CSE. Or perhaps after having laid your hands on the data and research that AWARE has painstakingly accumulated over the past decade, you are now ready to take over the work which rightfully belongs to others.
You said in your letter that “we should not be passive where we can band together to work for positive change”. On May 2, I am quietly confident that concerned members of AWARE will band together to reclaim the organization and the values that they cherish.
To use your own words, that is something worth protecting and fighting for.
Yours truly,
Ng E-Jay
http://forums.delphiforums.com/sunkopitiam/messages?msg=27734.169
No comments:
Post a Comment