Vivian Balakrishnan: Some Suggestions for AWARE

Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports wrote this note in his Facebook account on 27 April 2009:

Some Suggestions for AWARE

Many people have asked me about my views on the current controversy surrounding AWARE. I thought it may be useful to share some edited excerpts of an interview with the press yesterday.

AWARE is just one of the many organisations advancing the cause of women in Singapore. This is a problem the exco and the members have to solve themselves. Let me state categorically that at this point in time, the Government has no intention of intervening. Let them settle this democratically, according to their own rules, abiding with their constitution. The most that I would do at this stage perhaps is to give them some advice, and not just to AWARE but to all Singaporeans.

First, don't let a single issue hijack the agenda. We live in a multi-racial, diverse society. There will always be some issues where you cannot get everybody to agree on. We must be able to learn to live and let live, to agree to disagree and to do so agreeably. Don't let this single issue polarise and divide us and become the be-all and end-all of your social activism or of your organisation. If you allow these single issues to dominate and hijack your agenda, I think you're not going to succeed – it will ultimately be counter-productive.

Second, I think it is worth reiterating that because we live in a multi-religious society, it is potentially dangerous for religion to descend into the fray of petty politics - and more important than that, because we live in a multiracial and multi-religious society, we want to protect and nurture the special place religion has in our society. We don't want our religious organisations to be compromised or be damaged by the 'hurly-burly' of politicking which occurs on the ground. It's not a good idea to mix the two.

The third piece of advice I would like to give to all Singaporeans is that if you want to make meaningful change to our society, in the case of Singapore, you must always build a coalition. You must always make sure that your group has representation from all the different streams and segments that constitute Singapore. This is the only way to make meaningful change which would benefit all Singaporeans.

I hope we will bear these three points in mind: - don't let a single polarising issue hijack the agenda, keep religion above petty politics and create a representative coalition. We can then have a more mature civil society in which people can take ownership of the issue to achieve the common good, and still keep the unique cohesion and security of our open, tolerant and secular society, without worrying about unnecessary angst and anger. I think it is still possible and I encourage everyone to pay attention to the long term, the more important issues. There are many more important challenges facing us as a country, there are many more fundamental challenges facing our women. It'd be good if we can focus on that and not be distracted. I hope good sense prevails.