Saturday, May 2, 2009
NO CONFIDENCE FOR JOSIE LAU
Josie Lau and her fellow sisters should perhaps been humbled by the event in the last few weeks. It’s time for her to move on and the public should reflect on the chain of events and how such unpleasant saga could have drag in the religious fraternity as well as the government. It should be an eye opener for all who aspire to aim for higher office or who had the divine calling to serve the community.
Winning election does not necessary earn respect. Election is about numbers. Rallying short term support to gain office does not guarantee and sustain long term survival. This has happen in many temples, clans club and associations committees before.
When she took over the as president, she didn’t have any comprehensive plan to remake AWARE at all. As a very senior executive in a bank, and surprisingly, she had no good plan to handle the public and the medias. Instead, she depends on a few issues to justify her actions. It’s not convincing at all. Then when news filtered out that she and her group had come under a feminist mentor, further public cynicism was created. Was she a pawn or a leader? That was here first mistake.
Holding a press conference to justify her position was a big gamble. The media cut both way and she miscalculated. The media needs to be balance and satisfy the public expectation. Because she and her group have affiliation with the church, it was impossible for the media to support her in a multi-religious country. Instead, the press took it as a fodder for sensational news. Subtlety, the press put up pieces of news daily, and when all the news are pieced together, it looks like a conspiracy engineered by her church’s pastor and some members. That was her second mistake, allowing or believing that the press can speak the truth for her.
Her third mistake is to attack the school sexual awareness program as 'promoting lesbianism and homosexuality'. This has polarised the pro family and pro choice lobbies. Her argument is rather out of context and seems dramatising on a small portion of the program that may be contrary to her personal faith. This unwittingly, alienates the schools and the education ministry and compels them to respond. Arguing such issues in public also antagonises certain quarters of the country.
Her fourth mistake is a total miscalculation of the current ground sentiment and under estimating the public support that the old guards still command. She strokes the fire on the sexuality issues but the fires burnt out of control and spills into sensitive arena of religion. Even ministers had to weigh it to calm matters. The president of NCCS had to step out to warn that “pulpit should not have been used in this AWARE saga”. This was followed yesterday by the church pastor to publicly apologise for misusing the pulpit to give backing to Josie and her group and encouraged female churchgoers to support Josie Lau and “her sisters”. Ironically, that was to be Josie’s ‘waterloo’. The battle has been effectively lost. What surprises me was her stubbornness and tenacity to fight on.
As the heat turned on during the initial days, a number of unnecessary events like firing staff, changing locks, shouting matches and many petty stuff that breed more dissent and disquiet. These further erode her integrity and lost the respect of those that may have given her the benefit of the doubt. With the press not so friendly, she further lost credibility.
Josie and her exco members have now decided to step down after this marathon EGM and wishes all the best for AWARE. To me it was a saga that had been dramatised by the media. But Josie and her group was equally at fault for dragging this into public arena. It could have been avoided if only they allow common sense to prevail. As I have said in my previous blog on April 25, the honourable thing to do is to resign. Now she has to be booted out by a non-confidence vote.
Nevertheless, this saga will blow over as fast as it comes. This is because there is more urgent news on Swine Fever and the economic recession that is gripping Singapore and the rest of the world.
Winning election does not necessary earn respect. Election is about numbers. Rallying short term support to gain office does not guarantee and sustain long term survival. This has happen in many temples, clans club and associations committees before.
When she took over the as president, she didn’t have any comprehensive plan to remake AWARE at all. As a very senior executive in a bank, and surprisingly, she had no good plan to handle the public and the medias. Instead, she depends on a few issues to justify her actions. It’s not convincing at all. Then when news filtered out that she and her group had come under a feminist mentor, further public cynicism was created. Was she a pawn or a leader? That was here first mistake.
Holding a press conference to justify her position was a big gamble. The media cut both way and she miscalculated. The media needs to be balance and satisfy the public expectation. Because she and her group have affiliation with the church, it was impossible for the media to support her in a multi-religious country. Instead, the press took it as a fodder for sensational news. Subtlety, the press put up pieces of news daily, and when all the news are pieced together, it looks like a conspiracy engineered by her church’s pastor and some members. That was her second mistake, allowing or believing that the press can speak the truth for her.
Her third mistake is to attack the school sexual awareness program as 'promoting lesbianism and homosexuality'. This has polarised the pro family and pro choice lobbies. Her argument is rather out of context and seems dramatising on a small portion of the program that may be contrary to her personal faith. This unwittingly, alienates the schools and the education ministry and compels them to respond. Arguing such issues in public also antagonises certain quarters of the country.
Her fourth mistake is a total miscalculation of the current ground sentiment and under estimating the public support that the old guards still command. She strokes the fire on the sexuality issues but the fires burnt out of control and spills into sensitive arena of religion. Even ministers had to weigh it to calm matters. The president of NCCS had to step out to warn that “pulpit should not have been used in this AWARE saga”. This was followed yesterday by the church pastor to publicly apologise for misusing the pulpit to give backing to Josie and her group and encouraged female churchgoers to support Josie Lau and “her sisters”. Ironically, that was to be Josie’s ‘waterloo’. The battle has been effectively lost. What surprises me was her stubbornness and tenacity to fight on.
As the heat turned on during the initial days, a number of unnecessary events like firing staff, changing locks, shouting matches and many petty stuff that breed more dissent and disquiet. These further erode her integrity and lost the respect of those that may have given her the benefit of the doubt. With the press not so friendly, she further lost credibility.
Josie and her exco members have now decided to step down after this marathon EGM and wishes all the best for AWARE. To me it was a saga that had been dramatised by the media. But Josie and her group was equally at fault for dragging this into public arena. It could have been avoided if only they allow common sense to prevail. As I have said in my previous blog on April 25, the honourable thing to do is to resign. Now she has to be booted out by a non-confidence vote.
Nevertheless, this saga will blow over as fast as it comes. This is because there is more urgent news on Swine Fever and the economic recession that is gripping Singapore and the rest of the world.
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