By Andrew Loh
The controversy over Alex Au’s blog post has degenerated into accusations of Au and Function 8 “using the Church” for “political aims.”
Give the circumstances, however, one is left wondering how such accusations can stand up to scrutiny. Indeed, it does not and all we have are well, accusations – from the Ministry for Home Affairs and the Archbishop of the Catholic Church. Unsubstantiated accusations.
The real issue, however, is the opacity of how the Government has dealt with the matter – starting from when the Minister for Home Affairs, Teo Chee Hean, met with Archbishop Nicholas Chia, earlier this year. The circumstances around this are murky, opaque, and leave many unanswered questions.
Let’s rewind to the known facts.
Function 8, a group made up of former detainees of the Internal Security Act (ISA), had planned a commemorative event for the 25th anniversary of the alleged and so-called “Marxist conspiracy” arrests of 1987. The event was to take place on 2 June 2012.
Prior to that event, the archbishop had – unsolicited - evidently sent a letter of support to the group. A purported second letter from the archbishop was sent to Function 8 giving the group permission to make it known – at the event – that the archbishop had sent a letter, presumably of support.
Five days later, the Archbishop retracted the letter and asked for it (the original letter) to be returned to him.
Function 8 did as requested and returned the letter to the archbishop.
It is now known that the Minister for Home Affairs had met with the Archbishop – perhaps days prior to the event at Speakers’ Corner and presumably before the Archbishop’s retraction of his original letter. The Ministry, in a statement on 20 September, said “government ministers meet regularly with various religious leaders in Singapore.”
The statement does not shed any light on when this particular meeting took place, or who were at the meeting besides the minister and the archbishop, it also does not say what were said or discussed between the two men. In other words, the ministry’s statement revealed little.
What is notable is that the ministry’s statement does not refute the sequence of events leading to the archbishop’s withdrawal of his original letter, as laid out by Au in his original blog post. (See here.)
Au wrote:
“A few days later [after the archbishop had sent his original letter of support for the event], government officers, believed to be from the Internal Security Department, paid a call to the archbishop. It was apparently suggested to him that the church might be being made use of by Function 8…”
Sometime later, Au said, “the archbishop was summoned to lunch with Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean.”
“I don’t know what transpired at the lunch, but the result was soon apparent. A fresh letter from the archbishop was sent — this time by registered mail, no less — to Function 8, withdrawing the first letter and asking for it to be returned. It said that the first letter “does not express my sentiments” or something to that effect. What was particularly notable however was that this fresh letter was written in civil service style, with four numbered paragraphs and curt language.”
What has raised questions, and as Au had asked in his blog post, is whether the archbishop’s retraction of his original letter was decided on after the meeting with the Minister, that is, Teo Chee Hean. And if it was, what were the archbishop’s reasons? Also, what did the minister say, if he did at all, to the archbishop to result in the archbishop withdrawing his letter to Function 8?
To reiterate, the MHA’s statement on 20 September does not – at all – refute the sequence of events as reported by Au.
It does not even refute the accusation by Au, as reported by Today, of the “the Government's ‘arm-twisting’ of Archbishop Nicholas Chia.”
The archbishop has since accused Au and Function 8 of “irresponsible actions” in making known that he had sent a letter purportedly supporting the 2 June event which, incidentally, had also called for the abolition of the ISA.
It should also be noted, as some have indeed, that the archbishop’s statement was uncharacteristically strongly-worded. Some have observed that the tone of the statement bears a disconcertingly similar tone to the one issued by the MHA a day later. (See here.)
It is also puzzling why the archbishop:
1. Issued such a strongly-worded statement condemning former church workers who had acceded to his request to return the original letter and had not made it public at the 2 June event – and this after he had reportedly expressed his support for them.
2. Had jumped to the conclusion that it was Function 8 which had “used” the letter “in a manner which [he] did not agree with”, an allusion to the assumption that Function 8 had “leaked” the letter to Au. This despite the fact, as Function 8 later revealed, that the archbishop’s letter asking for a return of his original letter had also been copied to a third person. (It is unclear who this third person is, however, except that he is a male.] It was thus apparent that Function 8 was not the only party which would have known about the letter of support. What made the archbishop, a leader of a religious organization, make such an unsubstantiated accusation?
3. Would withdraw his support, just days after purportedly expressing it, for the event when only last year, in a National Day message to church followers, he had said, "As Catholics, we have an obligation to raise our voices on behalf of those who cannot, taking action to correct injustices in our society..." Why would the archbishop apparently abandon his belief to “correct injustices in our society” in such a dubious fashion?
4. Why the archbishop had not sought to resolve things in a private manner with his former church workers, instead of issuing such a strongly-worded letter which made some serious but so far unfounded and unsubstantiated accusations.
But to point the finger at the archbishop would be to miss the real issue here – and this is the MHA’s opacity in revealing what really took place and its hand in the whole saga.
The MHA’s assertion that “[this] deliberate breach of the Archbishop’s trust confirms the objective of this group to publicly involve the Catholic Church and the Archbishop in their political agenda”, does not hold any water either, on close inspection.
For one, Function 8 did not solicit any support – in any form – from the archbishop or the Catholic Church for its 2 June event. Indeed, in the 25 years since their incarceration under the ISA, the former detainees have not sought any such support, as far as this writer is aware. How then could they be accused of wanting “to publicly involve the Catholic Church and the Archbishop in their political agenda”?
And what exactly is this “political agenda” which the MHA is accusing the group of?
Second, the archbishop’s original letter of support, as Au himself noted, was already known to some, including some outside of Function 8. Remember that the archbishop himself had copied his letter, asking for retraction of his original letter, to a third party, a male, who apparently was not a member of Function 8.
“We note that you have copied a Mr [----blanked out by organisers----] in your letter of withdrawal and are puzzled as to his role in this matter when he was not copied in the first letter,” Function 8 wrote on 1 June in reply to the archbishop’s request to withdraw his letter. (See here.)
Who is this rather mysterious third person? Is he the minister, or someone from the MHA or the Internal Security Department or is he someone who is with the Government or any Government department?
Why would the archbishop copy his letter to such a third party if it was a private correspondence resulting from his personal reflection on its contents, as the archbishop himself said in his statement:
“I had earlier decided to withdraw my letter to this group as, on reflection, its contents did not accurately reflect my views on the subject, and if used in a manner that I did not intend, may inadvertently harm the social harmony in Singapore.”
Wouldn’t it be a more rational thing to do to keep this correspondence private between himself and the group, especially when his decision to withdraw the letter is a result of personal reflection?
In any case, one wonders why the leader of such an august organization had, apparently, not thought through his actions, and would withdraw his views only days later.
There are many unanswered questions in the ongoing saga.
Questions such as:
What was in the archbishop’s original letter of support? Did it express support for the call to abolish the ISA? Did it express support for the former detainees’ seeking of justice for 1987’s detention?
When did the Minister for Home Affairs meet the archbishop? What prompted the meeting? Who were present at the meeting? Was the archbishop asked to go alone to this meeting? What was said at the meeting? Was the event of 2 June raised?
Was the archbishop asked or “advised” to withdraw his purported letter of support to the 2 June event? If he was, who asked or “advised” this? What were the reasons for doing so?
Was the archbishop given advice on writing his statement, released on 19 September, a day before the MHA released its own statement which, incidentally, cited the archbishop’s statement as well? Why does the archbishop’s statement bear such uncanny similarity in tone to the MHA’s statement?
Why has the Minister or the MHA not refute Au’s sequence of events and allegations of “arm-twisting” of the archbishop by the Government?
What is this “political agenda” which the MHA has accused Function 8 of?
The issue thus is not one of “mixing politics with religion”, as the Government would have us believe. For at no point did Function 8 or Au made any allegations that the Church was not supporting Function 8’s event or its cause, or that the Church should stand by its religious beliefs and teachings and confront the Government on its behalf. And above all, Function 8 did not solicit any support from the archbishop or the Catholic Church for its event or indeed its cause.
The issue here is one of the Government’s opacity in operating behind-the-scenes and not being accountable, leading to the perception that it is using fear-mongering tactics by invoking the “politics/religion” argument and accusation to silence legitimate queries into its actions.
In short, invoking “the need to keep religion and politics separate” without being transparent and open about its dealings is disingenuous. Keeping religion and politics separate also means necessarily, one might argue, that the Government explains in clear and simple terms its actions so that no doubts or “conspiracy theories” abound in the vacuum of clarity.
This opacity is, in fact and instead, what would cause social disharmony and social disquiet.
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Read also:
Function 8 and Archbishop Nicholas Chia: Truth Murdered.
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