Some comments on the Aware thing.

I see a number of comments in the blogosphere to the effect that Aware's 'old guard' did not achieve anything and were "just sitting there, getting fat". I think this is a very misinformed opinion. 

Aware has done a lot over the years, from campaigning against the Graduate Mother Scheme and quotas for female students in medical school; they've even gone so far as to table legislation in Parliament. I can't remember their other achievements off the top of my head, but see Diane K. Mauzy & R.S. Milne, Singapore Politics Under the People’s Action Party (London: Routledge, 2002) at 60, 159; Lenore Lyons, A State of Ambivalence [:] The Feminist Movement in Singapore (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2004); and Lenore Lyons, “Internalised Boundaries: AWARE’s Place in Singapore’s Emerging Civil Society” in Michael D. Barr & Carl A. Trocki, eds., Paths Not Taken: Political Pluralism in Post-War Singapore (Singapore: NUS Press, 2008) 248.

If you're wondering why Aware has done so much but you haven't heard of it, the answer has to do with the way civil society groups work in Singapore. You campaign for what you want, but only until the Government starts listening to you and realising that you're right. Then you back off and let the Government implement your proposals in the way they see fit. Then you let the Government take all the credit. The moment you start getting all media-whore-y and high-profile, your relationship with the Government is screwed. And you might even begin worrying about worse things (think 1987). Keep your head down, and you might just get more of what you want. These are the unwritten rules of engagement.

This is the reason why you don't hear about the successes of many other civil society groups either: The Nature Society, for example - see Cherian George, “The Nature of Politics and the Politics of Nature” in Singapore: The Air‐Conditioned Nation at 139‐143; and Suzaina Kadir, “Singapore: Engagement and Autonomy Within the Political Status Quo” in Muthiah Alagappa ed., Civil Society and Political Change in Asia (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2004) 324 at 337‐341.

Lots of people are also asking about what GLBTQ politics has to do with Aware. The answer: although sex between consenting women is not illegal in Singapore, the retention of 377A is a barrier to many other rights that lesbian women need to have - to marry, have kids, access social benefits, etc. It is also untrue that Aware has never taken a position on issues of homosexuality: Aware advocated repealing 377A in 2006, in a position paper on the proposed Penal Code amendments (which I can no longer find on Aware's website).

Lastly, people are saying that GLBTQ people are just being "sour grapes" and that the takeover was done legally etc etc. I don't think anyone is really being "sour grapes". People are just anxious, and feel that they might potentially be disappointed, because so many GLBTQ people have contributed to Aware in the past, and to see that it might all go to waste...well.

But the fight goes on. It always does.