Hong Lim Park turns pink
Sat, May 16, 2009
The Straits Times
By Nur Dianah Suhaimi
THE greens at Hong Lim Park were awashed in pink on Saturday when nearly 500 people turned up to participate in Singapore’s first ever outdoor gay protest.
Pink Dot Sg, a gay interest group, organised the event.
The group was lobbying for a ‘more inclusive Singapore’ as well as the freedom to love, regardless of sexual orientation. (taken from www.asiaone.com on 16/05/09)
The intense debates on the repeal of Code 377A (of which the State maintained its stand) reminds us of how homosexuality (or “alternative lifestyles”) is still being frowned upon in a relatively “straight” society. In the light of such constraints, the most surprising fact is that this event was actually given the “green light” to proceed. I make my stand clear: I am NOT an advocate of the alternative lifestyle, nor do I oppose it. As members of the human race, everyone has the right to choose the path that one feels one should take. To quote from Edward Sapir: “Genuine culture is one that gives the individual a sense of spiritual mastery.”
In this sense, if one feels that the alternative lifestyle appeals to his/her psyche, it is genuine beyond the shadow of a doubt. Proponents argue that alternative lifestyles erodes the values of society; values derived from the incredible consensus of individuals living within any societal context from time immemorial. However, as other scholars, notably Michel Foucault, Antonio Gramsci and Pierre Bourdieu have noted, the seemingly “unquestioned truths” that we know of today are remnants of the all powerful discourse, language being the most effective vehicle to disseminate these “truths” (or what Foucault referred to as the Power of Discourse). In this respect, what then is the extent to which these “truths” (that homosexuality is a deviation from normalcy, or in short, “abnormal”) are really “truths”? Reality, in all its objectivity, is really arbitrary. It exists insofar as one perceives it to be existent. The reality that one perceives are merely products of discourse and social construction (Read: Berger and Luckmann: The Social Construction of Reality). Durkheim, in his article “The Normality of Crime”, has noted how normality is itself a relative term. In order for normality to exist, there is a need for the existence of its antonym: abnormality. Again, the way in which normality is derived from is through the social construction of reality. In other words, normality is merely a constructed truth, disseminated through the everyday discourse.
With reference to the topic of alternative lifestyles, gender and sex are not the sources, but rather, the products of social interation and discourse. Judith Butler argued extensively on this, to the extent that the sexed bodies are products of discourse. In this sense, where there exist gender ambiguity, the issue at hand is not on the ambiguity as such, but rather on the existing discourse (in this case: males/females and masculinity/femininity dichotomy). As discussed in the preceding paragraph, the normality of gender and sex, in this respect, are constructed truths, thus making followers of alternative lifestyles, deviants. But whose to say that the mainstream rhetoric is “the only truth” and that any deviations are, in this sense,wrong? It is precisely due to the default cognitive framework of today’s society, which perpetuates mainstream school of thoughts and ideologies, that deviations are thus seen as incorrect/”untruths”.
Along a similar vein, Gellner argued on the supposed divide between “primitive” and modern modes of consciousness. The former is thought of as “primitive” as a result of the malevolent translations done by individuals whose modes of consciousness are invigourated with ideologies of modernity and rationality. Either way (“primitive” or otherwise), modes of consciousness are institutionalised patterns of thinking, requiring a high degree of perpetuation through education, both formally and informally. To the extent that there is the insistence on the “correctness” of one mode of thought over the other-mainstream heterosexuality over alternative homosexuality- acceptance of diversity still remains to be seen.
