By Angela Oon
The recent case of Nizam Ismail and his resignation from the AMP got me thinking, again, about the kind of single-identity politics that keep getting shoved down our throats. It's the you-are-your-affiliation card.
The crazy idea is that if you are a member of any organisation, you then wear that organisation's hat wherever you go and whatever you do. You are no longer a private individual. Nor can you even be an individual who wears multiple hats.
This idea is illogical and absurd. We all know that.
In our lives, we wear many hats. We are fathers, employees, friends, daughters, heads of corporations, Sunday school teachers, charity workers and so on. We find ourselves in different positions at different points in time. We all understand how that works.
There's no confusion because that's how life is. My husband is a businessman. He has friends who are business partners and friends who are clients. When they do business, he wears his businessman hat. When they go out for drinks, he wears the friend hat. That's how we all keep sane.
But the government is telling us that we can only have one identity. That if we join a political party, we are politicians everywhere we go and whatever we do. If we are a member of any group, that becomes our be-all and end-all identity.
They tell us that we cannot speak at any functions as ourselves. Apparently, there's no longer such a thing as "me". I have become my position as part of a larger organisation.
We are also sold on the idea that any contact at all with an opposition political party immediately makes us 'political', and makes everything we do 'politicised'.
According to this logic, if I'm a member of a society that's devoted to the welfare of oysters, and I'm invited to speak at an opposition party event, that immediately 'politicises' my oyster-loving society! Our oysters are now anti-PAP! Now when we champion for the rights of oysters, we might be subject to ministers calling us up to threaten to hold a free-for-all oyster buffet!
---------
But what is even worse is that apparently, these standards don't hold if you're a member of the PAP. But as sensible people know, you can't have it both ways.
Let's say we all decide to swallow this koyok, that if we join a political party or any other organisation, we can't wear any other hats. In this scenario, I'll forever be the "oyster girl". Fine.
Then let that be the case for everyone, not just me. No member of the PAP can divorce their PAP identity from anything else that they do. If they sit on the board of directors of a company, then they are there in their capacities as PAP members or MPs or ministers. The company then, necessarily, becomes affiliated with the PAP. If bad advice is given, then the PAP has given the company bad advice.
If a PAP member serves oysters at her child's birthday celebration, she has to expect my Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Oysters to complain that she's politicising her son's birthday by using the PAP to endorse the eating of shellfish.
From now on, if we hear of any PAP member claiming to speak "in my personal capacity" at any event, let's call him or her out on it. Point out that his or her identity as a PAP member politicises everything, since that is how 'politicising' works. If this is how they want to play it, then everyone can play at the same game.
-------
I'd like to end on a philosophical note. We are all bigger than ourselves. We all hold multiple identities within us. This makes us human, and it makes us capable of living with other human beings. It allows us to identify with others, and to take on various roles that multiply the good we can contribute to the society we live in.
We are mature enough to understand and accept that people have public and private lives, public and personal selves.
It's insulting for our political leaders to try to stifle our participation in multiple organisations by saying that we can't be both politicians and caring human beings. And, of course, it's even more insulting how they claim that this rule doesn't apply to their own party members.
The PAP should take a leaf from Walt Whitman's book (below) and acknowledge what all Singaporeans already do - that we are a mature people who can wear different hats at different times. Even if those positions sometimes appear to be in conflict. After all, sons can teach their fathers and good leaders follow, not lead.
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
- "Song of Myself", from Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
--------------------
Angela Oon writes here in her personal capacity. (Yes, there really is such a thing.)
She tries to write in simple language that is accessible and unpretentious. She agrees with Clarence Thomas that "there are simple ways to put important things in language that's accessible".