I'm responding here to your reply in the other thread for better visibility for others to read. I wrote most of this before blahs comment.
Here’s the thing yes I’m an anglo so I really don’t care about “respecting” discrimatory elders or non elders for that matter.
You don't respect our culture or our right to self-determination. Why should I listen to a chauvinist?
The language thing is a holdover of colonialism, as are the discrimatory laws. Singapore being a major trading hub has people and cultures of like a dozen Asian countries over there. My comment was about queer rights not the langauge. I’d imagine it is convenience having a common language to speak and the nature of the nation being an international trading hub and finance center. Malaysia has it’s own human rights issues. .
But you are not connecting what I am saying to the wider sociopolitical context of Singapore and Southeast Asia. In my OC I didn't mention anything about queer rights either. My point is that you can't insult the old people when they are more materially more progressive than the so-called "youth" by rejecting Western imperialism and I try explaining why through Singapore's language policy. It is not black and white and I refuse to stoop to the Amerikan analysis of the "liberal-conservative" dichotomy.
Also, why are we utilizing Amnesty International as a source when it has been repeatedly shown to be aligned with US imperialism? This was what I was referring to in the first place. Malaysia is said to be backwards compared to Singapore and yet it's language policy is infinitely more progressive than Singapore. I am trying to explain the complexities that makeup Singapore-Malaysia relations and history, which I think is essential in understanding both nation's modern politics.
A nation under threat or percieved threat will shore up their religous base in nationalist conviction and reduce rights. A nation not under threat or percieved threat tends to expand rights in relative safety. Singapore is not under threat or percieved threat and you see less crackdown on minorities and expansion of rights.
Singapore does see itself under threat. Its whole existence is being the West’s glorified military base and tax haven. It is a small island city-state with a Chinese majority surrounded by large Muslim-Majority states that is more anti-West and Pro-China than itself. The anglophile national bourgeoisie is threatened.
The nation betrayed the internationalist cause and decided to build it’s own city state (by negotiating with the Malay comprador feudal class) and ensured it's viability towards that goal by making English the main language. It was a part motivated by practicality, but also part motivated by this reason, which all fits into the comprador class' interests and not the masses.
It denied its own “Asianess” for a Singaporean identity. Singapore as a country is proud that it was colonised.
Because of this selfish nation-building, it has created a rift in Singaporean society in which it superficially upholds it’s Asian heritage while aligning itself with the West throughout the Cold War and afterwards.
It is this rift that the West exploits for its own gain. Now it has to deal with the repercussions of its internationalist betrayal, with the people down below caught in the crossfire.
It is up to the masses to correct this historical wrong.
As even with all the anti foreign laws in attempt to degrade the movement, Singaporians showed up in support.
According to Ipsos, support FOR Section 377A is still a plurality and only 27% believe same-sex couples should be allowed to marry (which is not the be end and end all of LGBT liberation in the first place...).
Pink Dot SG has done it’s job for destabilisation. So much for liberal activism that can never reach broad, mass support and consensus.
If Pink Dot SG was truly grassroots, it wouldn’t ever have approached nor accepted sponsors from Western corporates. If they were grassroots someone would have definitely told them that corporate sponsorships would have been perceived negatively.
So even if they were able to rally local sponsors afterwards, this issue showcases a complete disconnect of the NGO from the masses themselves. And they were forced to find local sponsors - the government banned foreign corporate sponsorships of events in the Speaker's Corner after this whole fiasco happened in 2016.
What kind of impact would that be for Asia as a whole if a major economic center in Asia is to progress on this end?
You rightfully point out that Singapore is and continues to be an essential part in the imperialist machine.
And so here’s where I disagree - even if Singapore became a Queer paradise, it won’t have any effect on LGBT “rights” across Southeast Asia at best and if anything, it may actually actively harm LGBT “rights” elsewhere.
Southeast Asians themselves know about the westernised, “cosmopolitan” comprador city-state of Singapore. A championing of “lgbt rights” in Singapore will actively antagonise LGBT rights as a Western plot AGAIN - and they would be right (see my other comment).
You keep mentioning Section 377A, and of course for a postcolonial country that never actually had a war of independence, the laws in the country would be colonial in origin.
To say that this law is the origin of “queer”phobia and by abolishing it will automatically improve the quality of life of queer Singaporeans and those abroad is incredibly naive. They will continue funding anti-LGBT outlets abroad. Just like how the USA funds both anti-LGBT and pro-LGBT organisations depending on circumstance.
They weren’t aiming to do a regime change
You underestimate USA psychological warfare. Regime change agent cells are activated when the time is right. We all know that just because you are an ally of the USA that doesn’t mean you are exempt from their intelligence services. It is precisely before light is cast onto the Empire’s enemies that we should be more vigilant about the information we read about them.
And you yourself admit that Singapore, despite it's history, will drift eastwards - one of the West’s darlings - drifting back to Asia. So I am doubly confused why you’d think that the USA wouldn’t fund anything or conduct psychological warfare as a means of destabilisation and control.
The US especially has an extensive history of operations in Southeast Asia. Lee Kuan Yew himself admitted that the CIA tried bribing him.
As for the hyperlink, it links to a sci-hub.ru page of the journal article. On my end I don’t see any request for a passcode.
Read this response first if you want full context.
Before I start, I want to preface this by saying that even though it may not be obvious to foreign observers, believe me when I say that the rhetorics and contentions you all have has already been extensively discussed and debated by anti-imperialists in the Global South. It may not be in English, it may not be available in neat and easily read blogs, essays and articles, but it has been discussed and taken into account.
Have a little faith in the Global South, okay?
Starting with the first article, it's a reddit post. I am not bothered enough to even begin to engage with that. It's reddit.
Second article - okay so some random guy swooped in and said some wrong things about sexuality and got barred as a result.
Okay so no one here denies discrimination exists and sex education is lacking. What I am against is the use of this unforunate circumstance for psyops and NGO infiltration. We don't need an NGO to say that we lack good sex education policy.
Third article - that is all completely true.
Fourth article - random culture war bullshit that was imported into Singapore by the West in which the article itself notes that the chances of any law proposal coming into fruition amounting to zero.
Fifth article - this is where it gets more serious and has some interesting stuff I want to highlight.
Firstly let's talk about the website. "Express your heckin’ LGBTQ+ identity." Ok some random company that profits off LGBT suffering by selling LGBT themed pins and apparrel and then funnels it into some other LGBT NGOs (more on this below). Yeah, seems about right.
I can talk a lot about the individualization, commodification and liberalization of "LGBTQ+" "identity" and it's harmful impact on Global South gender and sexual diversity but I'll not mention it here so it doesn't lead to an essay.
On the article itself :
First few paragraphs, nothing of use, just the event that the first article covered and a high school level statistics course I guess.
It then discredits some pop science transphobic authors which I agree with.
The article mention two authors which is supposed to indict Singapore's LGBTphobia because they were invited into a webinar?? Ok so some people thought these frauds had something valuable to say, doesn't really signify much about the quality of life of LGBT people in Singapore.
And then it tries to scaremonger about “misinformation”. Hmm where have I heard this term before? Oh right, western liberal circles.
The article is very liberal because it reeks of the short-term sightedness present in all liberals, whether Amerikan or their comprador counterparts. We have been suffering with "misinformation" for 500 years under colonization and imperialism.
I do not care about the article's scaremongering and pathetic elaboration on "muh SCIENCE!!!!". The East doesn’t really treat Science as some sort of sanctimonious and immutable ideology to bully others for wrongthink. That's why traditional medicines still exist.
And the article’s whole tangent on vaccines misunderstands the entirety of the US situation aswell. Perhaps the history of colonized people and US culture where large vaccination drives, quarantines and mask-wearing cultures isn't the norm may lead to many Yankees resisting when the government forces people to do it. It is not just evil Trump ignoring ScienceTM.
In the section about Quentin Van Meter, this paragarph stood out to me:
Ok that's an interesting NGO I never heard of before. Let's look at their website.
So a random website made by some volunteers. Seems innocent enough.
Then I look at their collaborations.
On the first home page:
Ah the infamous Asian Pacific Transgender Network.
Some of their sponsors include the Robert Carr Fund and the Global Equality Fund.
Robert Carr Fund gets its money from:
I searched the Global Equality Fund and found it on www.state.gov of all places. Oh very nice.
It's nice that Google also funds APTN to really drive home that the US is a dictatorship of Capital.
The rest of these orgs:
TheProjectX - an NGO that wants to legalize sex work lol. No further comment.
The T Project:
and ILGA World
Their other Co-Sec General: "Global Interfaith Network on Sex, Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Expression (former Co-Chair)" the org in which has funding from:
Oogachaga has this to say about their own website:
Yes, the NGO is sponsored by the High Commission of Canada and is transparent about it.
The jokes write themselves. It's like a russian nesting doll of NGO and Western fuckery.
Sex education is an important issue that gets hijacked by "civil society" that politicizes and polarises the people. I have not read the book and it's use of "civil society" in the title discourages me from ever touching it.
I'm sorry that Singapore isn't an Orientalist Authoritarian Despotic State that will restrict anyone from entering if they are speaking anything that someone else would disagree with. (And this isn't even the case - it's just a random online webinar.)
It is argued that anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric is entirely imported (which I agree) but seemingly when I say that pro-LGBTQ+ rhetoric also comes from the West it is somehow belittled.
I expect that for the comprador liberals who doesn't even know about their own colonial history but I am a bit dejected that this same rhetoric is also conveyed in an "anti-imperialist" site.
Perhaps it is a means to divide the people and cause instability like I said in my previous comments? So yes, I will call it western cultural imperialism when Christian sodomy laws were enacted that restricted Global South cultures to the Eurocentric gender binary but I will also call it western cultural imperialism when these liberal NGOs faff about “queer theory”, "intersectionality" and “lgbtqia+ rights”,.
This is because it all inevitably came from European Enlightenment epistemology (which itself stems from Western Philosophy), reeking with self-centered individiualism that can not facilitate and forment lasting gender and sexual liberation.
We survived 500 years of onslaught and invasion. We will develop our own path to liberation.
I recognise that life is, perhaps, awful, but that won’t make me give colonizers an inch when they WILL take the whole mile.
I wrote these two long effortposts with the acknowledgement that it may just be disregarded as a slight of hand and all my time invested here may just be wasted. But I'll say this: this perspective I am saying right now isn't fringe. It may not be directly structured into the sentences I formulated in these two posts, but it is more common than you think. I'm going to take a long break after this. This has exhausted me.