invisible monsters

there are monsters. monsters that walk and dwell amongst us... and often we do not or worst, we choose not to see and acknowledge its existence. and when the monster finally consumes us, it is too late... i call these the invisible monsters...

this was the case when there were signs of ideological extremist who used islamic teachings as a platform to mount a terrorist war that resulted in 9/11. did we not see it coming? did we not pick up all the indicators? and regrettably, the peaceful religion of islam was dragged in and it soon developed into what some called a war between christianity and islam. how more wrong can this be? and of cos, it did not help when we have a highly developed country trying to impose it's form of democracy on another country that is totally not ready for it. look at where iraq is today? closer to home, just take a look at philippines. it has all the same structures of what would be seen as a western democratic country - a senate, a president, etc etc etc... but is philippines able to achieve a high quality of life for its people as compared to the western countries? of cos it has all the mechanisms of a full democracy, but so what? many of its people are still living in poor conditions and that living standards are not progressing as fast as some of its asian neighbours.

closer to home, the recent 377a debate showed up something more disturbing. looking and comparing the postings in repeal377a.com and that of keep377a.com websites, it is hard not to observe the following trends:

• profile. the profile of people posting in 377a includes a wide spectrum of the population across race, religion, sexuality, age as well as marital status. however, postings in the keep377a website seemed to be more skewed towards a more christian, married and straight segment of the population.

• confidentiality. ironically, there tend to be more people who indicate a proper name (i would assume it is the name of the person making the posting) in repeal377a.com. comparatively, most of the postings in keep377a.com tend to be under some form of pseudonym. and i don't understand this. if being straight and married is the norm, why the need to hide in the first place? i would have expected a higher percentage of pseudonyms in repeal377a.com instead. no?
  

• tone. the tone of the postings in keep377a.com tend to be very much emotional and dwells on the `what ifs'... comparatively, those who post in repeal377a.com seemed to be more composed and less emotional. and if being emotional is one of the traits of insecurity, then can we say that the postings in keep377a.com suggest that the people who post in the keep377a.com are very insecure?
  

• religion. and one extra worrying trend that i was able to observe is that there is a rampant use of the christian god (compare to the god/s of all other religions) to justify why 377a should be kept in keep377a.com. comparatively, those who post in repeal377a.com seemed to be more arguing from the point of equality and citing objective examples. there is a lot less posting in repeal377a.com about god (or any god for that matter). and to top this off, i see spin off websites/blogs that advocate the use of god's institutes (namely the church) to stage events and protests. ultimate of it all was that there are some posting that uses the christian god as an excuse to express their hatred thereby turning this debate into a hate campaign.

there are many other observations that i have made and i do ask - did the 377a episode unveil a more disturbing observation that in singapore, there is indeed a trend towards christian extremism and religious intolerance in our midst? there was one person that even went to the extent of proclaiming singapore as a christian state, that women should not be allowed to vote, that women should remain subservient to men, etc... looking at the profile of our population, are we seeing an elitist, christian-fanatic group of people that is totally intolerant to other non-christians growing in our midst? i am worried.

i also ask a more fundamental question - in our nation-building efforts that focused so much on racial and religious integration (esp after 9/11), have we missed somethings? have we inadvertently portrayed the threat and focused our attention towards our muslim citizens to the extent that we missed out other religious groups? what and where is our check system?

whatever the outcome of the 377a debate, the whole process is in itself a huge boost and success insofar as raising the awareness of gays and their plight in singapore is concerned. most importantly, to me, the biggest takeaway for us as a society, if i may suggest, is the revealing of the many monsters that exist in our midst; and that, if not nibbed at its bud, might tear our society apart eventually. i really think the authorities better look and scrutinize some of these issues than just treat this as a gay rights/ equality issue.