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The Straits Times (Singapore) May 6, 2009 Wednesday

Need for deliberative democracy

SECTION: REVIEW - OTHERS LENGTH: 263 words

Mr Alex Tham, 30, is a research associate at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. THE Aware saga bodes well for democracy in Singapore. Singaporeans have been criticised as apathetic and uninterested. Some of these criticisms are justified. But a neutral observer of last Saturday's events would have gained a very different impression. The new guard took over Aware's committee via legitimate means. In doing so, they exposed the old Aware's weakness. The old guard's liberalism judged each individual in terms of her own merits, not in terms of her culture or sexual orientation. This was praiseworthy. But the old guard's emphasis on individual rights suffered from a lack of emphasis on collective solidarity. Consequently, membership was low and the organisation was vulnerable to a hostile takeover. The new guard had a strong collective will but they viewed others as either friend or foe. They were ostensibly for equal opportunity, but they seemed to value homogeneity over pluralism. Last Saturday, Singaporeans said no to exclusion. Procedure-wise, the new guard was voted out as constitutionally as they had been voted in. But the voting was merely an indicator. More importantly, the public deliberated on what it means to be a Singapore woman. The result was an auditorium occupied by women of diverse cultures, ethnicities and beliefs. It is important that the old - now new - guard continue to engage their new members and the public in a form of deliberative democracy. Only in this way can they ensure a collective identity capable of accommodating diversity. LOAD-DATE: May 5, 2009 LANGUAGE: ENGLISH PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

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