Commentary – Rony Tan (II)

Rony Tan is in the news again. This time, he was reported to the police for comments which offends homosexuals in another sermon video.

The video, which is believed to have been uploaded to the church’s website in May last year but was removed from the homepage just one day after the apology was issued, had a new lease of life after it appeared on a blog maintained by Kenneth Tan (no relation to the pastor), a Singaporean working in Shanghai. In the video, the pastor attributed childhood abuse as a cause of homosexuality and linked homosexual people with paedophiles.

He further linked homosexuality with bestiality saying: “If you allow [homosexuality], next time people will want to get married to monkeys. And they will want rights. They’ll want to apply for HDB [a colloquial term to mean a government subsidised flat]. With a donkey or a monkey or a dog and so on. It’s very pathetic.”

Even though I don’t believed in it as a Christian, I joked with my friend that Rony Tan this year 犯太岁 (meaning: in conflict with the Chinese deity ‘Tai Sui‘) considering the kind of ‘bad luck’ he is getting. I even jokingly mentioned that he should hire the services of old ladies in Hong Kong to 打小人 (literally, ‘beat the vile character’) – a pagan ritual in which a paper effigy is beaten with wooden clogs and cursed. In fact, I even wondered if he was born in the year of the Tiger.

But jokes aside, I haven’t watch the video and I don’t intend to. After all, it is not uncommon for Christian pastors to speak out against homosexuality. From just what is quoted, it would appear to me that to accuse him of linking homosexuals with with paedophiles is a deliberate mis-interpretation of his words. The argument that the acceptance of homosexuality will open the door to the acceptance of paedophilia, necrophilia and bestiality has been a common point for many pastors, Christians and conservatives. Everyone should be aware that if Rony Tan is convicted for such an argument, everyone who has presented this argument in their rejection for more rights to homosexual, bisexual and transgendered (HBT) people will be in danger based on precedence.

While I do not know the entire context of his sermons, I will leave my comment regarding this remark at this. He could have been mean in presenting his views or even dismissive HBT people, but I do not intend to join the chorus of condemnation. Beyond that, I will question the motives behind digging out a 9-month old sermon, hot on the heels of his recent ‘coffee meet’ with the Internal Security Department [ISD]. As a Christian, I cannot help but feel there is a political agenda and objective here. Unlike what happened in AWARE which was a clear cut ‘power grab’ by Christians, this is outright persecution of what Christianity can teach as moral or immoral.

I believe the person who pirated the video from the Lighthouse Evangelist site and posted it on Vimeo also made the following commented on Fridae.com to justify his action:

“The Sedition Act prohibits speech that promotes ‘feelings of ill-will and hostility between different races or classes of the population of Singapore’. This will be a good opportunity to test the government just what it means by ‘different classes’. Are sexual minorities considered ‘class’?”

Perhaps. But this person should be wary that everything can cut both ways. Someone jokingly commented after he read this comment: ‘They’re considered a criminal class, last I checked the statutes…’ While I do not endorse this statement, I do however find it funny when I considered it in the context of Section 377A – a law against sodomy between two males. Anyway, I am not sure whether anyone charged under Section 377A will be considered a criminal.

Now that I am on the point of sodomy (and in particular male sodomy), I must point out that fellow Christians generally loses the argument against the HBT activists the moment they are rapped with a discrimination clause. Though Christians won’t go so far as the Free Community Church in their view on homosexuality, most Christians failed to stand firm and argue that Christianity does not discriminate against homosexuals. It simply has a very strong moral stand against the act of sodomy. I will not go into specifics, since one can easily obtain these so-called ‘hateful’ Bible verses on pro-HBT websites on the topic of ‘homophobia’. (A word which I consider a misnomer since homo as in homo sapiens simply means man. I am not afraid of all mankind and homosexual-phobia would have been more apt.)

To put it in an analogy, I do not discriminate against smokers, but I am certainly against (and I object to) second hand smoke being blown in my face. In a debate on smoking, am I thus discriminating if I stand and speak up for policies that limits or prohibits smoking? Similarly, we must not discriminate against Muslims when we speak up against the acts of terrorism committed by terrorists and extremists who profess to be one. (Not that I even consider the terrorist a person practising Islam to begin with!)

To condemn Christianity for their moral stand against sodomy as being discriminating against the HBT, is the equivalent of meat eaters demanding from religions with teachings against killing animals not to discriminate against them. In short, HBT activists and lobby should stop taking Christians as a convenient punch bag to further their own personal agenda. Christians in Singapore have no quarrel (and do not intend to quarrel) with HBT persons. Simply, most Christians want to say is:

We fully respect those with homosexual (or bisexual / transgendered) tendencies who manage to withstand the great trial that we not required to stand, but we will not legitimize those who do not overcome their ‘instincts’.

On top of which, after the fiasco at AWARE, some Christians here are now increasingly wary and alert to some of the tactics used by the HBT activists and lobby in the U.S. Christians like myself will not yet claim persecution of Christians for the action taken against Rony Tan, but we will make no excuse to condone sodomy.

The HBT lobby in Singapore should be reminded that if they push the Christian community too hard, they might not like it when the Christian community collectively pushes back. Note that a collective effort by conservatives in the U.S. has resulted in 31 states repealing homosexual marriage laws.

I would like to remind my fellow HBT Singaporeans of the freedoms they already enjoyed in Singapore. Do not forget that other than Thailand, Singapore is probably the most HBT-friendly and tolerant in the whole of South East Asia. Take Rony Tan to task for all I cared, but be careful when you start questioning why no Christians object to it. After all, setting a fire may produce warmth, but when out of control a fire might also consume the person who set it.

Recommended Read:
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Terence69: Rights Aren’t Always Right

Singapore Seen – Trolley “Thieves”

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Well, the fact that NTUC Fairprice loses 200 trolleys a month came as no surprise to me. What came as a surprise to me was it took it so long to publicise the matter because I knew it for almost 5 years that inconsiderate people has taken the trolley not return them.

The picture on the left was taken around 5 years ago in the lift of the block I stayed. It is an utter disgrace that I actually lived in the same block as such an inconsiderate scumbag. The sad part is, only a few months ago I saw another trolley, this time at the lift lobby. Clearly, a leopard never change its spots.

The sad part is, the NTUC Fairprice in the nearest mall was only 200meters away. While I would not actually mind the person taking the liberty to use the trolley for his own convenience (since he might have bought a large quantity of groceries or daily necessities), I am utterly pissed that he failed to return the trolley and even irresponsibly left it in a public place. That’s not mentioning that he actually managed to recover the $1 coin from the trolley which suggest that the mechanism to retain the coin may have been damaged in the process. Simply put, that trolley is a complete write-off.

Why am I so upset with that when I have nothing to do with the profit and loss of NTUC (or any supermarket)? I am upset because such abuse would indirectly translate into cost for other shoppers. Even if maybe just one more cent on one item every year – why the hell should I be paying for someone’s selfishness? I would be happier dropping that one cent into my toilet bowl and flush it down, because I could at the very least imagined I was dropping a coin into a wishing well to make a wish! That’s not forgetting that the missing trolley means another shopper – which could be you and I – will be inconvenienced.

While I thought that this person at my block was just a rare specimen of some of the most selfish shitheads in the country, my friends ran into these two (see below) last Friday. They certainly have a lot of gall to do so right after the news was announced. Can’t they just take a freaking cab or something?

Perhaps, the NTUC Fairprice should consider offering a delivery service at a certain price for purchases above a certain amount. It is certainly fairer to have some income from elsewhere to recoup the cost for these lost trolleys than to have it being passed on to people who mostly buy one or two items once in a blue moon!

Commentary – Rony Tan

Some times, I get really annoyed with the actions of my fellow believers. First, it was Thio Su Mein and Josie Lau with their coup stunt at AWARE. Now, it’s Rony Tan with his offensive remarks of other religions.

I do not know what goes on in their minds. Perhaps for Thio and Josie Lau, they felt themselves to be champions defending good Christian values against homosexuality. While I can understand the ends, I definitely cannot agree with the means. In the case of Rony Tan, perhaps he was overjoyed that someone has come to embrace the love of God and would like to show case it, but he does not need to sound like a jerk while doing so.

In my opinion, the result of the action of both groups had put all Christians in a bad light. Not only did it do nothing to further the Christian message, it is now a set back as more people will be convinced that Christians are religious bigots who are incapable of tolerance and condescending of other religions.

Rony Tan got off lightly just like the person who made offensive comics on Jesus Christ. The ISD merely slapped him on the wrist by warning him. He could have been fined (or jailed?) for sedition just like the couple who put offensive tracts into the mailbox of their Muslim neighbours. Fortunately for him, the magnanimous leaders of the other religious communities he so offended had accepted his apology. Unfortunately for the rest of us Christians, the general animosity against Christianity from members of other faiths probably raised a few notches.

Looking back at the entire matter, I had originally wondered why would Rony Tan made such offensive remarks to the general public. I then discovered that he did so to his congregation, and the video was then made available on the public domain – the church website. His biggest mistake was to believe that since this is meant for the consumption of his church members or other Christians, they would perhaps have found it inspiring or acceptable. Sadly, not only did he fail to consider the possibility that among the congregation there could be non-believing visitors invited by Church members, who would hope that they would be inspired by the message and turn to Jesus, he obviously also failed to understand anyone could have accessed the website to view those videos and make a copy due to the open nature of the Internet.

Though without a doubt his message was offensive in nature, I must also ask why a person who does not already agree with the Christian message is viewing the video on the church site. It would suggest to me the objective of this person was to clearly seek contention and clearly he ‘hit a gold mine’ this time. I absolutely question the intention and the purpose of the person reposting those videos to the Internet since some of the reaction would definitely not be directly at Rony Tan, but would spew over to the rest of the Christian community. But before I go further into that, I must point out that unless Rony Tan (or his church) was dumber than I thought, it is unlikely they would have given permission to post these videos on Youtube. As such, some copyright laws have already been broken in this case when the video was produced by and legally belonged to the church. The person who post it should be wary of this on top of the other associated troubles.

Now, back to the objective of the posting those videos on Youtube, I would hope that the intention is not sinister and solely for the purpose of getting Rony Tan to understand the seriousness and stupidity of his remarks. However, I wondered had the person first confronted Rony Tan directly, and only chose the drastic action of publicising the videos only after the pastor was unrepentant and uncompromising. After all, the videos on Youtube will now alert and even anger more people who would otherwise not have known of those offensive remarks.

Since Rony Tan has apologised and the leaders of the offended religious communities have accept his apology and even gone so far to declare they do not intend to unnecessarily pursue the matter any further, I cannot help but suspect there is a more sinister intent – to incite public anger targeted at the Christian community at large – for every other minute the videos remain online.

I believe the Internal Security Department (ISD), which is ever vigilant in preventing any outbreak of animosity between racial and religious communities in our country has already considered this and planned to take appropriate action. Otherwise, it would indicate to everyone that it is perfectly alright to incite anger and hatred against Christians when there is now no further purpose for the videos to remain online. Since the comments of Rony Tan are seditious, shouldn’t anyone who continue to publicise them now be considered an accomplice of sedition, no matter what his original intentions and purposes are? Just like when the Far East Economic Review (FEER) published the libelous comments of Chee Soon Juan, it was also sued for libel by our esteemed leaders of the government gahmen. To further elaborate, if these videos are allowed to stay on Youtube, does it not suggest it is alright for anyone else (or even me) to publish those tracts online even after the couple who distributed offensive tracts about the Muslim Prophet has been convicted by a court? I doubt the court would look at it kindly even if I argue (or justify) my intention as educating the public on what is offensive to our fellow Muslim Singaporeans.

While the ‘delivery method of the offense’ between the tracts and Rony Tan’s comments is different – the former being active (delivered to the doorstep), while the latter being passive (brought to attention by someone else), the question now would be who should now be held responsible for ‘delivering the offense when those video are left online after the culprit has admitted and apologised. Consider the scenario: When this matter has blown over, another person who may have no recollection of the entire affair may come across these videos several years down the road. Would it not then have caused continual distress and anger to this person, even when Rony Tan may no longer have made any such comments for a long time?

I would also want to point out, now that a pastor can be criticised for his message to his congregation, the pandora box is now opened for anyone to take any religious teachers to task using the same methods as long as they considered the remark offensive. While I am not suggesting that it is wrong to take Rony Tan to task, it is possible that instead of promoting religious tolerance the exact opposite is now achieved. It certainly implied to me that it is now ‘open season’ for anyone to criticise a teacher of another faith as long as he didn’t like what is spoken about his religion.

To think of it… atheists who considers all faiths to be hogwash and superstition should take note of the plight of Rony Tan and be wary whenever they mock believers of a religion.

Addendum: I was informed that one of the users have removed the video from his Youtube channel.

大象物语

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某一天，在某场地里出现了一头大象。大象的突然出现并不让人惊奇，甚至有的人还可若无其事的过日子。大象开始成了一个问题，是某天大象拉屎之后开始的。虽然清除大象的排泄对清洁工来说只是例常的工作而已，但是大象拉屎的次数频繁和其影响范围之巨让问题扩大。臭气熏天的场地开始令人无法容忍。随之而来的是清洁工的工作量开始升高，而原本若无其事过日子的人也开始投诉那 “臭” 的问题。

当然，”臭” 其实只是症状而已。真正的问题却是那头大象为什么出现在场地里。庞大的象，当然妨也碍了交通，甚至也对场地里的建筑构成了威胁。而这时负责交通舒畅和建筑管理的人却推卸责任和互相指责。建筑部认为，如果交通部门的路能好好的引导大象，建筑结构本身其实根本没有问题。而交通部门却认为，如果建筑没有阻挡着大象，那大象当然就不会故意去攻击建筑物。但双方似乎不觉得真正的问题是这头大象为什么会出现在场地里，而真正和最简单的解决的方法就是合力的把大象弄走！就算他们对大象无能为力，至少也应该找出可以把大象弄走的人吧？

就在这头大象已经把清洁工弄得焦头烂额的时候，又有另外一头大象出现了。这头大象给某建筑的人带来了很多不便，而主要的问题却是围墙阻挡了大象的去路。当有人建议开个洞让大象出去的时候，场地的保安政策却不允许围墙有任何的变动。

每个人或者部门，基本的方针就是自扫门前雪。完全不允许别人对自己的工作和范围有任何的建议和疑问。就算只是建议或者疑问就被认为别人在恶意攻击自己了！如果是批评的话，后果肯定不堪设想。

结果呢？场地里的大象越来越多，而拉的屎更是堆积如山！在场地里面的人无言忍受着痛苦，而清洁工们更苦不堪言。而领导的有什么解决的方法呢？别说了，唉！

The Elephant Story

One day, an elephant appear in a compound. The appearance of the elephant is not shocking, as some people can still go on with their lives as if it was never there. It start becoming a problem, after the elephant start shitting. Although clearing the elephant’s excretion is only part of the cleaner’s routine, the frequency of the elephant’s shitting and the area that it affected caused the problem to expand. The stench became intolerable. Following which, the workload of the cleaners start to increase, and even those people who would otherwise not notice the elephant starts complaining about the stench.

Of course, the stench is only a symptom. The real problem is why the elephant is even in the compound at all. A large elephant would naturally obstruct traffic, and pose a threat to structures in the compound. Yet at this time, those who are responsible for smooth traffic and structure maintenance refused to bear responsibility and blamed one another. The structure maintenance felt that if the traffic control department has guided the elephant properly, there is no issue with the structure’s integrity. But the traffic control department felt that if the structures were not in the way of the elephant, then the elephant will not deliberately attack the structures. Both sides seem incapable of understanding that the real issue is the elephant being in the compound, and the easiest way to resolve the issue is to get the elephant out! In fact, even if they cannot do anything about the elephant, shouldn’t they at the very least find out who can do so ?

While this one elephant has already put the cleaners in a terrible bind, another elephant appeared. This elephant caused a lot of inconvenience to the people of a particular structure, and the real cause is that the compound wall was in the way of the elephant. Someone suggested to open a hole to let the elephant out, but the security policy does not allow any changes to the compound perimeter.

It is clear that every person and department’s basic policy is to hoe one’s own row. They allow no suggestion or queries in their respective roles and responsibilities. And just merely suggesting or questioning would be considered as a malicious personal attack! I shudder to imagine the consequences if it had been criticisms.

The end result? More and more elephants are now in the compound, and their excretion pile up into little hills! People in the compound suffered in silence, and the hardship of the cleaners are beyond words. What about the leadership’s solution? It’s better not to say! *sigh*

Random Discourse – Daft, are we?

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The current contentious issue on the affordability of public housing was given another airing by Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew who cautioned Singaporeans not to cast a protest vote against the ruling party over this.

As Singaporeans lament rising flat prices, he said they ought to understand that the Government sells them at a subsidised price, below market rate, so that they can own an asset that will appreciate in value over the years.

It adds to their wealth and this is an asset-enhancing policy Mr Lee believes citizens should not find fault with.

If they do, they must be ‘daft’, he said, at a dialogue during a housing conference as part of a series of events to mark the Housing and Development Board’s 50th anniversary.

First, a subsidised price and subsidies are two matter entirely, not to mention that there is no such thing as a subsidised price. There is only discounts and subsidies. In our case, our so-called affordable public housing is really not subsidised, but rather just sold to us at a discount since this government gahmen would have you believe that they have given us a real and tangible subsidy simply because they couldn’t make the same amount of money out of all of us compared to a private developer. As to whether the Minister Monkey Mentor is wise (or politically correct) or not in calling those who cast a protest vote ‘daft’, I’ll come back to that later.

“But if you criticise without an alternative solution and sometimes you criticise without giving the full facts and the context, it is our job to point out that you are just giving wrong information and giving figures out of context.” – SM Goh

There used to be a time when I would have countered the part about providing alternatives as being a load of crap since I am not paid a million dollars like the Tali-PAP mini$ter$. Yet, these days I have written blog posts arguing against voting out the Tali-PAP for those without any alternative plan. My point has been: What then Blue Cow, after we vote out the Tali-PAP? The situation certainly won’t change for the better while they figure out a plan, yes? Not to mention it might become even worse as a result of a hasty plan or the long deliberation in coming up with a proper one.

As an individual criticising the gahmen, it is easy for me to just shoot off and not provide an alternative. But for an opposition party, providing alternatives would simply be for the sole purpose of making their vision competitive. Just like my friend pointed out in his courtship analogy: A guy can bad mouth his rival, or demonstrate why he is the better guy to convince the girl to choose him. The first method would simply make the rival look bad, but it goes nowhere to address the girl’s needs and concerns.

The girl in the analogy refers to the electorate. But what are the needs of Singaporeans?

Since I am not a complicated nor exceptional brilliant person and I tend to think of matters simply, I will attempt to explain using Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

Basically, the Tali-PAP gahmen has been successful in providing for the most basic of needs for Singaporeans – the physiological needs. Very few of us are starving or without a roof over our heads. That means, what really concern most Singaporeans would be the next level of needs above that: Safety (or security) needs, such as job security, property security, general security from crime and harm etc. For me, once these two levels of my needs are met, I am not really concerned whose is in power, or whose face or what is printed on the money – as long as that money would not suddenly become waste paper tomorrow.

After all, if that isn’t the case we won’t be complaining about the ever rising property prices, the prospect of an increase in crime or lawlessness as a result of the Integrated Resorts and foreigners, or losing our jobs to foreigners etc. Singaporeans generally are not very much concerned with democracy or even human rights, unless these matter translate into some form of monetary cost for each of us – for e.g. the failure to ensure the safety for foreign workers transiting on the roads (a matter of human rights) causing an increase of health subsidies paid out to foreign workers which translate to an increase of taxes or budget deficits. It is clearly obvious, that ‘security needs’ is the level that both the ruling Tali-PAP and the opposition parties cross swords and engage the electorate. Unfortunately, I personally don’t think I have seen much coming from the opposition to address these needs.

The opposition clearly also does not think that it is in the position to take over the reins of gahmen and appears to be contended to address our security needs by suggesting that as long as we keep the Tali-PAP in power, but lower their majority – those needs ‘will not be harm’. It is sort of like a guy telling a girl to marry the other guy so she can get her luxuries, and she could still enjoy all those by going to him for sex.

In another discussion with another friend, he mentioned said that if the opposition really wants to convince him, it should already act like it is in the position to take over. He pointed out that even before the Manchus established themselves as rulers of China, they already have officials and departments mirroring those of the Ming. In his opinion, that is why even when the the foreign (or ‘barbarian’) Qing suddenly found itself in place of the Ming, it lasted more than two and a half centuries in China while the Yuan didn’t even last one! It certainly makes some sense though I have yet been able to find the historical records to support his assertion.

Anyway, I am not suggesting that Singaporeans do not aspire for the higher levels in Maslow Hierarchy of Needs. Political participation would be social needs – the next higher level, and many Singaporeans try for personal glory (and thus self-actualisation) in the form of Gold Medals in sports meets, climbing Mt. Everest or even going to the South Pole.

However, the extent that of our political participation is generally limited to grumbling in taxis and coffee shops, venting our anger on blogs or forums, going to election rallies even when our constituency is a walkover, or at the very most voting in the General and Presidential Elections when required. Very rarely do Singaporeans forming interest groups in an attempt to effect / affect political outcomes. As enthusiasm and the level in participating in the political process is directly proportional to how much one can effect / affect a political outcome, the ruling Tali-PAP has been very successful in dampening political participation by refusing to bow to social pressures. It is my considered opinion that even though the opposition may attract some seemingly talented people right now, these people will fade from the scene within a decade if they do not start winning seats. Few people would have persisted like the late JB Jeyaratnam or even Chee Soon Juan.

Now, dampening the desire of Singaporeans in participating the political process is only one aspect of the ruling party’s strategy in staying in power. The other aspect of it would be making Singaporeans believe that voting for the Tali-PAP is in their own best interest, and that brings me back to the ‘daft’ remark recently made by Lao Lee.

Frankly, I do not really think giving Mah Bow Tan Mabok Tongue the boot would seriously affect property prices (since another Tali-PAP man will just take over to continue those policies). No one will be selling their house because Mabok is voted out because we still need a roof over our heads. That’s not mentioning, if everyone is trying to sell, where are we going to find buyers? So, even though I have called the housing policy Singapore’s version of modern slavery, as an existing house owner I still wouldn’t like the idea of a new policy that might caused the value of my property to start depreciating.

As such, Lao Lee’s comment has not only appealed to the self interest of people like me, it had created a pseudo-interest group that even though not led or organised by any one, would hesitate to cast a vote against (or even prefer to vote for) the Tali-PAP. The opposition may be in denial of this, and choose to believe public outrage at Lao Lee’s ‘inconsiderate or politically incorrect comment’ would give them votes, but the fact is that this pseudo-interest group would have a pronounced effect on the political outcome in the favor of the Tali-PAP.

Many will still disagree with my assertion. But let me just point out that just like the bread winners of the household would be the ones with a final say on all decisions in the home, the people who are now earning the money and paying to maintain their houses will be the very ones who would decide whether it is in their best interest to vote for the Opposition. While I am concerned about the threat to my job and financial security as a result of the current policies, the very idea that those who oppose the current policies don’t have an alternative is even a more dreadful prospect. In fact, while I still dislike the fact that I am working my ass off to pay for the remainder of my housing loan, I definitely wouldn’t want to end up with the group that currently complain that houses will soon be out of their reach. On top of that, it would be ironical and utterly unpleasant if it was my vote that result in that predicament!

One can be idealistic when one has completely nothing to lose. At this moment, I do not yet have that luxury.

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