THE TEMASEK REVIEW

Other Brotherhood essays on AWARE: The day DBS read, “Don’t Be Silly! Volunteering is hazardous to your career! 

Written by Darkness of the brotherhood – I don’t know whether any of you are aware of what happened to AWARE recently – to cut a very long story short; it goes something like the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor – result: the old guard found themselves out in the streets; swapped out by a group of incumbents that came in from the sun – if you really want to know the details, do check this out, “Unknown Beats Veterans”.

Well first of all; let me just say – I’ve never even heard of AWARE till now, so what they do is really a matter that doesn’t really interest me in the slightest – from what I understand, they’re basically a female version of Yawning Bread (again, I could be wrong, as I’ve never ever read any of his stuff before, so if I mangle up the facts here – I am sorry)

My interest in what has happened to AWARE recently is basically ONLY this: what can we as netizens learn from this entire episode? How can we prevent a similar thing from happening in blogosphere?

To answer this question – it pays to dwell deeper in how a group of incumbents managed to blindside the whole leadership committee of AWARE and seize the levers of power so skillfully.

Granted, may look like sand box politics – but to the practiced eye, it bears all the hallmarks of a well organized power grab.

The mood of befuddlement and disbelief following this surprise caper is only too evident – prognosis: none of the old guards even saw it coming; they were completely blindsided and taken for six. See for yourself, if you don’t believe me:

‘How could a new member who had just joined for a couple of months, and whom we knew nothing about, be picked over someone who has been with Aware for more than 15 years?’ – Dana Lam an ex-Aware President.

‘We found that about 80 of the 102 who turned up were new members who joined between January and March this year.’ – Ms Tan Joo Hymn, another ex-President, commenting on the attendees of the AGM.

Mmmm….were the old guards just plain naïve? Were they perhaps even slightly complacent in their sense of security? That to me is really a sterile debate.

To me if you leave your back door open – then you’re fair game – you have no one to blame but yourself.

For our learning outcome on how to prevent this from ever happening in blogosphere –  the AWARE incident illustrates how the rule by statistical majority can be so easily weaponized to facilitate a surprise power grab – the best part was; it was even transacted constitutionally and according to the rules of the game i.e it’s kosher, nothing underhanded about it even – I took the trouble to check it off with Missy Dotty and she had this to say, ” they did it by the book.”

The lessons for all of us netizens are ONLY too clear – it doesn’t pay in the long run to create a committee to represent blogoland, if the imperative is to keep the internet free – that idea could really ONLY work, if you didn’t know democracy as an idea can all too easily facilitate a form of tyranny by leveraging on the power of the statistical majority

As the AWARE case study illustrates only too clearly what can and did happen when the old guards let their force sheild down – in other words, they became so bovine and complacent; they never once entertained the possibility of getting swapped out as even theoretical possibility. In short they left the back door wide open; and is it such a wonder a group of incumbents came in from sun and took them for six.

As I said, there are valuable lessons to be gleaned here - as I happen to know a whole lot about the art of war – infact, I’ve planned at least sixty campaigns to overun planets in the virtual, lost only two and in many cases even taken on forces 3 to 4 times bigger and better equiped – and let me share with you all a trade secret in warcraft: one of the best defense against an invasion is to keep everything up in the air – keeping it all formless, structureless and if possible even headless is key – and it remains one of the best defenses against being overunned, co-opted, unionized and getting the rug pulled under one’s feet – that’s one reason why the Russians were able to successfully blunt both Napolean’s and Hitler’s invasion – they used the vast Russian steppes to good effect - frequently drawing the enemy deeper and deeper in the gyre; all the while lulling them into a false sense of confidence by holding out the promise of victory on the cheap - everytime, they took a town, the Russians razed it to the ground – everytime, they encircled an army, the best divisions hightailed off – eventually the war of attrition left those invading armies with nothing except twigs and insects for grub; then the elements finished them off and they became easy pickings.

The lessons history holds out and what happened recently to AWARE are stark reminders – what can and will happen, when a group of people let their guard down; and that should prompt us all to be more mindful when some thing too good comes along – as it’s probably too good to be true; matters little what’s for sale; could be a blogo committee claiming to seed the good and drive out the bad currency in our net or some dream team who holds out the promise of leading us all to some mythical Jerusalem – my point is simply this: the risk of putting all the eggs into one basket; one structure; one hegemony; one group of people is never worth the risk despite the promise it holds out - as I said, it doesn’t always pay to assume a shape and form; not when so much is at stake; makes far more sense to break up the whole idea of power by assuming some shapeless glob like a fog, rather than fashioning a giant sitting duck - better still keep it all chaotic and in a constant state of flux – that should guarantee plenty of dead ends and hall of mirrors for anyone who thinks they can just come in and impose their reality on all of us.

That’s the strategic and tactical lessons that I gathered from this recent AWARE debacle.

Whatever these new changes bring for AWARE, I hope the new leaders will work for the interests of women folk without marginalizing anyone – that’s really the best we can all hope for, the day after the tanks roll in – that, I am afraid is as good as it will ever get - like I said, what did you really expect; when you leave the back door wide open?

It’s game over.

I am so sorry. Really I am.

Darkness 2009

Other related links taken from Sam’s blog:

Gays now facing backlash of its own doing?
Not Secular Feminists But Sectarian Fundamentalists: And They’ll Come For You Too
Pharaohs
Why recent events at Aware concern all of us
The crusade has begun…
The religious fundamentalist threat is real
Fundies in Singapore take over Women’s Group
Aware – What a brilliant coup!
AWARE AGM cat fight
Anti-gay lobby hijacks AWARE
Why AWARE was ‘taken over’…..
The Borg take over AWARE at AGM
Coup D’etat (or Organized Crime) of Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE)
The AWARE AGM 2009 — my personal take: beware of ST
Be Careful Gays, Aware Has Already Been Taken Over By People U Do Not Wish To Be In Power
Anti-gay Christian fundamentalists hijack Singapore’s women’s group
“Aggressive takeover” at AWARE?

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