Links and Observations on the AWARE EGM
(The ones I didn't tweet because because they were too long and my text-fu is weak.)
Roughly in chronological order. Can be read alongside this quite detailed moment-by-moment page of updates from wayangparty.com.
The Queue
I joined the queue of existing AWARE members entering Hall 402 just before 1 pm. The hall was on Level 4, but the queue snaked down and stretched the length of Level 3. Must have been in the queue about an hour and 20 minutes. Along the way, saw a lot of red-T-shirt volunteers helping run the event and registering members.
The back of these red shirts said: "Pro Women Pro Family Pro Singapore" which just sent alarm bells ringing in my head--such slogans are right out of the right-wing US conservative playbook. (Too bad Singaporeans aren't more well versed in conservative-vs-liberal politics as played out in the US...and the statistics are eye-opening too. Religious conservatives like to claim exclusive privilege to "family values", but divorce rates are higher in religious and conservative states than liberal ones. Religious dogma and conservative ideology rarely have any common ground with reality. Hence the amsuing observation that "reality has a liberal bias".) This was when I tweeted "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel."
The red T-shirts vastly outnumbered the white-T-shirt We-Are-Aware volunteers handing out drinks, flowers, badges and placards. As things were in the queue, it was a little hard to tell apart the old guard and new exco supporters, unless they were wearing a badge or T-shirt that gave them away. Whipped out Joseph Stiglitz to read while in the queue. Short moment of entertainment near 2pm when one of the We-Are-Aware volunteers told the waiting crowd we would be seated in the hall, no problem, lots of empty seats still in the hall, she "just came out" [from there]. She caught herself, repeated the line with a laugh, and there were chuckles around.
Membership SNAFU
2:05pm when I reached the head of the queue. My membership had been submitted and paid for via Paypal on April 29th, and apparently I "wasn't in the database yet". I'd brought along my IC and a print-out of my membership email receipt, which had my full name and Paypal transaction ID on it--but apparently this wasn't enough to prove I'd paid for membership (!!!) and the red-T-shirts told me I had to re-register as a member and pay $40 again (cash) to enter the hall. They told me I should have printed out my Paypal receipt. (Hello, I had the Paypal transaction ID!) If their records later showed I'd paid twice, I'd be reimbursed. I didn't have $40 on me. I raised a stink. As a programmer and online seller with Paypal experience, I knew everything they were telling me was complete bullshit. Got shuffled between 3 counters trying to straighten this out. Argued at each one of them. I wondered if everyone in the same situation would be as persistent or savvy. Later did find out that some people left when faced with this obstacle.
Seating
We were told entering the hall that the white chairs on the left of the hall were for Associate Members only (ie. the men). The ordinary member seating was 2-thirds full. Picked my seat (on the right-most block, about 2-thirds back), which later turned out be nicely in the midst of 3 rows of old-guard supporters. Woohoo! Though, there was a sizable block of new-exco supporters right behind us. Telling the two parties apart would get easy when the EGM began.
The President's Address (or, Shut Up and Sit Down!)
Surprised to hear Josie Lau's voice. Sounded high-pitched and at times shaky, I had trouble believing the current President of AWARE was speaking. (I could hardly see the faces of the exco from where I was.) When it was obvious that Josie Lau's address was basically her new exco claiming credit for AWARE's 24 years of accomplishment, people were irate. It was obviously a waste of time, and the well-familiar info and hypocrisy was obvious to most, even though Josie kept claiming that the presentation was "for the new members". (Josie, we're not idiots, we know how to educate ourselves.) People were standing up, interrupting, and pointing out that the information (presented in point form on screens which everyone could read) was superfluous. The microphones on the audience floor were not switched on. There were yells for them to be switched on. Josie insisted she had the right to run the EGM and to give the address without interruption and that the mikes would be open to the floor "later". She constantly had to call for quiet, calling security upon audience members a few times. (Honestly, so much of her presentation was bullshit for her and the exco to take credit for...did she expect people to sit through such contentious points QUIETLY? Especially when all this info had already come out in the papers? We're not sheep. We will not swallow bullshit. And we will protest.)
It was during this chaos that the words "Shut up and sit down!" (here's the video) (here's the T-shirt) burst out from Sally Ang's lips. They were quite stunning to hear. (I know many people had the "Did I hear correctly?" reaction. And an "Ohhhhrrrrrr" went out from the crowd.) The EGM up to this one was really one of the exco dealing with a crowd impatient with their propoganda. They were at a loss in everything they handled--interruptions (response was always to sic security on them), questions (dodging, missing the point, telling long irrelevant stories), and reactions from the audience (everything, including snickers, was labeled "harassment" and old-guard supporters were called hooligans). Exco speakers could only keep yelling "Quiet!" and "Can you please stop interrupting?" and "I was just getting to the point" (which they weren't). Even when the crowd was fairly calm, the call for order was patronizing. These speakers would have fallen flat in the classroom as teachers. At some bizarre points, exco were also questioning why the questions and interruptions on the floor were only coming from old-guard supporters and would pause to ask if they could hear some comments from the "other side" (ie. theirs). But none of their own supporters would go to the mike on such prompts. If you've read in the papers that the COOS and new-guard supporters were mostly quiet...yep, they were. They would only clap. No verbal responses. To me, they seemed mute.
In fact, to be utterly honest, the difference between the two camps were like between the living and the zombies. One side was alive, electrified and eloquent. The other was quiet, and what supporters they had who took the mike had bizarro rambling speeches and speaking skills that left a bit to be desired. It was very marked ( tweet) and to me felt embarrassing for the new guard supporters.
Voting
Honestly, why wait for this item on the agenda? People had been pointing out (very early) that with the legitimacy (or at least, the authority) of the exco was in question, the no-confidence vote should be moved up, shortening the president's address and Dr Thio Su Mien's (again weird) long spiel about her "feminist" career history ("I'm on page 73!") (here's the T-shirt) that was really apropos of nothing. Tweet. Exco overall just seemed to be ducking and stalling and ridiculously deferring everything to their legal counsel when they were stumped. "Competency" didn't quite jump to mind with Josie Lau and her gang, and many some speakers from the floor rightly pointed this out.
Sitting and waiting for the no-confidence vote to be taken, I was still unsure if the old supporters outnumbered the new exco supporters. The old guard supporters did seem louder, and the energy was all quite breathtaking. I couldn't wish to be anywhere else in the world.
Explanation on how to use the voting ballots felt like it took 20 minutes even though the forms were VERY straightforward. Exco truly was treating everyone like idiots on the basis that so many of us were "new". (We can read, and we passed out comprehension tests when we were in school, thanks very much.)
Was a relief to finally put my ballots in the box. Accomplished what I came to do! Yay! Tweet.
The Long Wait
Really not much to add at this point. There was a long queue of people from the floor waiting to take the mike. The new exco wanted to move the agenda on to the new AWARE constitution. There was tussling over that ( tweet, tweet) with new exco insisting on it being voted on today, with old guard supporters unwilling to handle the new Constitution with the authority of this exco in question. So, to wait for the vote count, more people (both sides now) took the mike either with questions for the exco (old guard supporters), or new guard supporters would lecture old-guard supporters on how noisy, rude, and childless they were.
I left at 6pm, just minutes before the $90,000 announcement, and on getting home, would watch the vote count and further drama unfold on Twitterfall (much like the Search function on Twitter, but no need to keep hitting buttons for new updates).
More Links, Further Reading
1414 & MORE FOR AWARE: A PHOTOESSAY OF THE MAY 2ND EOGM Photos!
An open letter to new AWARE president Dana Lam and her team
Steeplejack of AWARE (women's org) in Singapore by Joel's Army church
AWARE: Proof that sometimes the good guys win. More fantastic muckraking from dogemperor
Carafa's Eye READ ALL THE COMMENTS
What happened inside Aware office a day before the EOGM Hilarious. Kudos to the creator of this one.
More links may be added to this post as they are found.
Roughly in chronological order. Can be read alongside this quite detailed moment-by-moment page of updates from wayangparty.com.
The Queue
I joined the queue of existing AWARE members entering Hall 402 just before 1 pm. The hall was on Level 4, but the queue snaked down and stretched the length of Level 3. Must have been in the queue about an hour and 20 minutes. Along the way, saw a lot of red-T-shirt volunteers helping run the event and registering members.
The back of these red shirts said: "Pro Women Pro Family Pro Singapore" which just sent alarm bells ringing in my head--such slogans are right out of the right-wing US conservative playbook. (Too bad Singaporeans aren't more well versed in conservative-vs-liberal politics as played out in the US...and the statistics are eye-opening too. Religious conservatives like to claim exclusive privilege to "family values", but divorce rates are higher in religious and conservative states than liberal ones. Religious dogma and conservative ideology rarely have any common ground with reality. Hence the amsuing observation that "reality has a liberal bias".) This was when I tweeted "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel."
The red T-shirts vastly outnumbered the white-T-shirt We-Are-Aware volunteers handing out drinks, flowers, badges and placards. As things were in the queue, it was a little hard to tell apart the old guard and new exco supporters, unless they were wearing a badge or T-shirt that gave them away. Whipped out Joseph Stiglitz to read while in the queue. Short moment of entertainment near 2pm when one of the We-Are-Aware volunteers told the waiting crowd we would be seated in the hall, no problem, lots of empty seats still in the hall, she "just came out" [from there]. She caught herself, repeated the line with a laugh, and there were chuckles around.
Membership SNAFU
2:05pm when I reached the head of the queue. My membership had been submitted and paid for via Paypal on April 29th, and apparently I "wasn't in the database yet". I'd brought along my IC and a print-out of my membership email receipt, which had my full name and Paypal transaction ID on it--but apparently this wasn't enough to prove I'd paid for membership (!!!) and the red-T-shirts told me I had to re-register as a member and pay $40 again (cash) to enter the hall. They told me I should have printed out my Paypal receipt. (Hello, I had the Paypal transaction ID!) If their records later showed I'd paid twice, I'd be reimbursed. I didn't have $40 on me. I raised a stink. As a programmer and online seller with Paypal experience, I knew everything they were telling me was complete bullshit. Got shuffled between 3 counters trying to straighten this out. Argued at each one of them. I wondered if everyone in the same situation would be as persistent or savvy. Later did find out that some people left when faced with this obstacle.
Seating
We were told entering the hall that the white chairs on the left of the hall were for Associate Members only (ie. the men). The ordinary member seating was 2-thirds full. Picked my seat (on the right-most block, about 2-thirds back), which later turned out be nicely in the midst of 3 rows of old-guard supporters. Woohoo! Though, there was a sizable block of new-exco supporters right behind us. Telling the two parties apart would get easy when the EGM began.
The President's Address (or, Shut Up and Sit Down!)
Surprised to hear Josie Lau's voice. Sounded high-pitched and at times shaky, I had trouble believing the current President of AWARE was speaking. (I could hardly see the faces of the exco from where I was.) When it was obvious that Josie Lau's address was basically her new exco claiming credit for AWARE's 24 years of accomplishment, people were irate. It was obviously a waste of time, and the well-familiar info and hypocrisy was obvious to most, even though Josie kept claiming that the presentation was "for the new members". (Josie, we're not idiots, we know how to educate ourselves.) People were standing up, interrupting, and pointing out that the information (presented in point form on screens which everyone could read) was superfluous. The microphones on the audience floor were not switched on. There were yells for them to be switched on. Josie insisted she had the right to run the EGM and to give the address without interruption and that the mikes would be open to the floor "later". She constantly had to call for quiet, calling security upon audience members a few times. (Honestly, so much of her presentation was bullshit for her and the exco to take credit for...did she expect people to sit through such contentious points QUIETLY? Especially when all this info had already come out in the papers? We're not sheep. We will not swallow bullshit. And we will protest.)
It was during this chaos that the words "Shut up and sit down!" (here's the video) (here's the T-shirt) burst out from Sally Ang's lips. They were quite stunning to hear. (I know many people had the "Did I hear correctly?" reaction. And an "Ohhhhrrrrrr" went out from the crowd.) The EGM up to this one was really one of the exco dealing with a crowd impatient with their propoganda. They were at a loss in everything they handled--interruptions (response was always to sic security on them), questions (dodging, missing the point, telling long irrelevant stories), and reactions from the audience (everything, including snickers, was labeled "harassment" and old-guard supporters were called hooligans). Exco speakers could only keep yelling "Quiet!" and "Can you please stop interrupting?" and "I was just getting to the point" (which they weren't). Even when the crowd was fairly calm, the call for order was patronizing. These speakers would have fallen flat in the classroom as teachers. At some bizarre points, exco were also questioning why the questions and interruptions on the floor were only coming from old-guard supporters and would pause to ask if they could hear some comments from the "other side" (ie. theirs). But none of their own supporters would go to the mike on such prompts. If you've read in the papers that the COOS and new-guard supporters were mostly quiet...yep, they were. They would only clap. No verbal responses. To me, they seemed mute.
In fact, to be utterly honest, the difference between the two camps were like between the living and the zombies. One side was alive, electrified and eloquent. The other was quiet, and what supporters they had who took the mike had bizarro rambling speeches and speaking skills that left a bit to be desired. It was very marked ( tweet) and to me felt embarrassing for the new guard supporters.
Voting
Honestly, why wait for this item on the agenda? People had been pointing out (very early) that with the legitimacy (or at least, the authority) of the exco was in question, the no-confidence vote should be moved up, shortening the president's address and Dr Thio Su Mien's (again weird) long spiel about her "feminist" career history ("I'm on page 73!") (here's the T-shirt) that was really apropos of nothing. Tweet. Exco overall just seemed to be ducking and stalling and ridiculously deferring everything to their legal counsel when they were stumped. "Competency" didn't quite jump to mind with Josie Lau and her gang, and many some speakers from the floor rightly pointed this out.
Sitting and waiting for the no-confidence vote to be taken, I was still unsure if the old supporters outnumbered the new exco supporters. The old guard supporters did seem louder, and the energy was all quite breathtaking. I couldn't wish to be anywhere else in the world.
Explanation on how to use the voting ballots felt like it took 20 minutes even though the forms were VERY straightforward. Exco truly was treating everyone like idiots on the basis that so many of us were "new". (We can read, and we passed out comprehension tests when we were in school, thanks very much.)
Was a relief to finally put my ballots in the box. Accomplished what I came to do! Yay! Tweet.
The Long Wait
Really not much to add at this point. There was a long queue of people from the floor waiting to take the mike. The new exco wanted to move the agenda on to the new AWARE constitution. There was tussling over that ( tweet, tweet) with new exco insisting on it being voted on today, with old guard supporters unwilling to handle the new Constitution with the authority of this exco in question. So, to wait for the vote count, more people (both sides now) took the mike either with questions for the exco (old guard supporters), or new guard supporters would lecture old-guard supporters on how noisy, rude, and childless they were.
I left at 6pm, just minutes before the $90,000 announcement, and on getting home, would watch the vote count and further drama unfold on Twitterfall (much like the Search function on Twitter, but no need to keep hitting buttons for new updates).
More Links, Further Reading
1414 & MORE FOR AWARE: A PHOTOESSAY OF THE MAY 2ND EOGM Photos!
An open letter to new AWARE president Dana Lam and her team
Steeplejack of AWARE (women's org) in Singapore by Joel's Army church
AWARE: Proof that sometimes the good guys win. More fantastic muckraking from dogemperor
Carafa's Eye READ ALL THE COMMENTS
What happened inside Aware office a day before the EOGM Hilarious. Kudos to the creator of this one.
More links may be added to this post as they are found.