The Random Seditious Conversations of Law Students

A random MSN conversation between me and zixian, who is going away on exchange to China next sem.

zark: if they make me do maoist thought
zark: then i will come back a full fledged communist
zark: then you will have to try to get me habeas corpus
zark: and argue Chng Suan Tze
me: well dear, you know the situation here
me: NO JUDICIAL REVIEW

zark: *weeps*
zark: I IS JUST A KPOP IDOL LOVING UNIVERSITY STUDENT
zark: i will be deprived of my 2pm if i am locked up
zark: *weeps*
zark: then i will have to escape while limping
zark: with a flotation device
me: yeah you will break that leg when you land on a pile of toilet paper
zark: yeah
zark: then i’ll swim to malaysia
zark: and then they’ll catch me, and kill me
zark: then i will weep because i went to hell without hearing 2pm’s new album

me: no, they’ll just extradite you back here
me: where you will be subjected to intense airconditioning
zark: then i still won’t get to listen to 2pm
zark: maybe you can visit me with a contraband 2pm album

P.S. “2pm” is a korean pop group

Quotable Quotes: Freedom of Fashion

Me: [posts article about a campus in USA banning cross-dressing]
Rach: Well if they banned leggings as pants in law school you’d be happy
Me: I am a liberal. I will fight to the death for your right to wear things that are an eyesore to me

Mandatory Updates Part II

Because I feel like I owe my readers an update: all 5 of you.

• I’ve dropped regulatory theory and am going with Corporate Governance in Singapore – because I realised how heavy it was going to be, since my PIL + Islamic law + Comparative Consti combination was already a killer
• Which means I have a 2-day week (Mon + Wed) and Sat morning classes now that Islamic law classes are over. Yes, you can throw the rotten tomatoes at me.
• Now that Islamic law is over, I am really really missing it. I actually really love the subject. Which is kinda funny because the central premise of Islamic law is diametrically opposed to my central philosophy as a person. Islamic law dictates that God has a right path for us, and there is a right way to do every conceivable act. I personally don’t believe in a sentient god, and I think if there is a entity beyond the realms of our understanding, it is a passive one that doesn’t set down any laws except the laws of physics. But there is something very academically compelling about it. Too bad it is not an economically viable specialty unless one goes into Islamic finance.
• Economically unviable also describes Comparative Constitutional law and Public Int’l Law, to a limited extent. Clearly this semester I am just indulging my own interests before I bow into pressure and take some really boring modules which will help me get a job
• And clearly by economically viable, I mean something that can exist outside academia
• I love Scrivener. Love it love it love it. If you are a mac user and you are a law/arts student, get this today. If you are a writer, get this. If you work extensively with words, get it. It is soooo awesome. What’s that? You are a windows-user? Not to worry, there is a Scrivener look-alike: Page Four
• Am I dating anyone? The answer can change month to month, so don’t expect anything permanent. I am honestly tired of dating at this point, and just want to focus on my studies for the next 2 years.
• Am I happy? Content is more like it. I’m just very focussed on what I want and need to do.
• Am I going on too long? Yeah, I am, so I am going to go back to my workspace.

Indignation: United We Fall, Divided We Stand?

Date: Saturday, August 29, 2009
Time: 2:00pm – 5:00pm
Location: 72-13 Theatreworks, Muhamad Sultan Road.

View map

RSVP on Facebook

LGBTQ – an umbrella term that seemingly unites us, in our diversity. We automatically assume that our non-heterosexuality means we are one community, with common goals and a common space. But are we really? Can men and women really work together in the gay rights movement? Are our differences too great, or are our common goals sufficient to keep us united?

A panel of men and women experienced in working with the community take on this question in a debate format, exploring the questions from different angles and perspectives. Expect a night where we confront the dust bunnies under our carpet, and hopefully emerge with a better understanding of where we can head.

Family & Homophobia

Everyone knows about my love for babies and children. If someone hasn’t heard me go *squee* at a cute baby, they don’t really know me.

So when I heard my friends in New York just had a new baby, my ovaries were positively tingling (to borrow a mysogynistic phrase). K & T are the most loving lesbian couple I know (and will probably exist). They have been through a lot of crap from the beginning that has very little to do with their sexuality, but just the general way life tends to throw you smelly dungbombs. So to have gone through all that, and still be together, and happy, and in love, and have a happy family with two beautiful children… there is nothing in the world that gives my cynical hardened heart more hope than that.

There is also nothing in the world which intensifies my desire to have that family life, more than this happy story either. But of course, the problem being that it is probably not possible to have that life here. I don’t intend to hide my family or live a lie, like the local gay parents do, in fear of their children being taken away, just because they are gay.

What kind of twisted people would break up a happy family just because the parents are gay, in order to uphold their own ideals of what a family should look like? If the child is well-cared for, and lives in a happy loving home, there really is no ground for prohibiting gay parenting, in reliance of woolly unproven pop-psychology ideas of a child needing two parents of a different gender, or fears of the child “turning gay”. There is plenty of research which shows that children in gay families grow up just as well-adjusted as those in straight families.

What the conservatives and anti-gay people do not realise is that it is homophobia which destroys families, not homosexuality. When they beat the drums of intolerance, a parent in a home hears the beat and moves to reject his gay child who just came out to him. Family values are upheld by acceptance and love, not rejection and hate. If people think anti-gay vitriol does not have a negative impact, think again. When you say that gay sex is like sticking a straw up your nose, a teenager who is struggling with his sexuality hears it and hates himself even more. Yes, suicide rates are indeed higher in gay teens, and the reason isn’t too hard to find: rejection from peers and society.

So when you preach you have a right to spout anti-gay stuff and that we are restricing your freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Stop, and think, beyond the political ideas. Think about what you are doing to people. Think about what your words mean to a clueless parent, to a conflicted teenager. Think about the families and relationships you tear apart with your vitriol. Think about the effect of palpable hate surrounding you.

Because this isn’t just politics or ideology. These are lives. These are people.

I am part of a coup d’etat!

I cannot believe Mr I-made-up-a-foreign-sounding-name from a country-that-nobody-has-heard-of wants my help! Oh, the honour. Oh the joy in reading emails from the distant cousins of Nigerian millionaires.

Hello,

I am Abou Lansana Konte, son of the former ( Recently Deceased ) President of Guinea Conakry, General Lansana Konte who passed away due to series of illnes such as diabetes, Leukaemia etc. I and my Sister, Zainab Lansana Konte and our Mother ( Mrs Mariam Lansana Konte) needs your urgent assistance to recover part of my late father’s assets both in the Bank and Security Company that are left behind here in Burkina Faso to be transferred/shipped under your name and into your care before it get discovered by the present military government who seized power through a bloodless military coup d’etat immediately after the death of my father.

I will present you as my father’s friend, his confidant and our foreign beneficiary. I will mail you further details after recieving your affirmative response.

Thanks and God Bless you.
Sincerely,
Abou Lansana Konte.
For the Family.

My New Workspace

That’s it. There are no other windows.

Because I realised my computer, while being my greatest ally, is also my greatest enemy, being a treasuretrove of distraction: Instant Messaging, Twitter, Facebook, Feed Reader, Online Shopping, Email, Other More Interesting Webpages. Hence as an experiment to make myself be more focused, I created a new working account on my laptop and only allowed myself access to the files I need. I’ve switched to Scrivener from Socialtext recently as my workspace (I just settle for remembering to back up my notes once in a while), so that goes well with my switch to this workspace when I need to – everything I need to look at is in a single window (I shall wax lyrical about Scrivener another time). When I need to, I use using Safari with none of my bookmarks or passwords, so that’s a step of convenience removed.

Hopefully this is going to help me remain focused through the 3-hour seminars that dominate my timetable for this semester. Before you ask, it is Comparative Constitutional Law, Islamic Law, Foundation of IP Law, Public International Law, Beyond Law and Economics: Regulatory Theory.

Lets see how long I can hold out on adding more distractions to this workspace. I might just lock out Adium and put parental locks on my usual haunts. Harsh measures? This is just one step on my slow progress to being a more efficient person, which I absolutely need to be this semester. As it is, I have already quit WoW months ago, before exams. Lack of time meant I didn’t reactivate it during the holidays. Today I made my quitting absolutely final by removing the software from my laptop, which means I can’t just activate my account and start playing if I ever get the urge (which, trust me, I have, so many times but kept resisting). Now if I want to, I have to hijack the home computer or reinstall on my laptop(which takes about… 6 hours).

And hopefully, this will also explain to my befuddled friends why suddenly I cannot be found online half the time, or why I dont reply to emails as fast. So, now, the only devil that can really tempt me now is watching TV shows, which, I can only do at home.

Sayoni Coming Out Guide

Sayoni presents the first ever Coming Out Guide in Singapore. Please provide your feedback on the guide.

Mandatory Update

Because I have been the laziest bum in the world when it comes to updating my blog, preferring to twitter my thoughts instead in micro-text forms that do not require thought and detailed arguments, without really checking grammar and syntax, and maintaining bothering to maintain a certain level of quality control. (Yes, you twitterati, you can follow me at twitter.com/pleinelune . Where else?)

Sometimes I forget I have a blog. Of course, its existence got rubbed in my face today when I went to visit my former boss at the law firm I was interning in. As I paused at the door and knocked, I noticed a Duplicity poster on his computer screen. Funny, I thought, he must be reading a Duplicity review. Then to the side of the screen, a familar tag-cloud, with words that really stick out, like “homosexuality” and “LGBTQ”. A green-white layout. The realisation crashes down on me like so many overstacked cartons at a supermarket.

He found this blog.

Now, I have nothing to hide, and I always took the brave risk that people I haven’t communicated my sexuality to, would find it and figure things out. After all, if he really wanted to, all he would have to do was do a google search before he hired me. That’s what being out means, you don’t care who knows. But I had not really made it an issue at my former workplace, since it was all so new, and I am a private person, and I did not know how people were going to react and treat me in a setting where I was the lowest on the food-chain. That applied not just to my sexuality and activism, but almost everything else related to my private life, that I did not talk to people at work about. The secretaries would constantly rib me about going out so often, wondering who I was dating. Nada, I still haven’t admitted that I do date.

(How did he find the blog, you ask? Oh, simple me, I added one of the partners on facebook sometime ago. See what new media does?)

Anyway, this is just to inform those of you who must be complaining about my lack of updates, that twitter might be better. I will still continue blogging, but with 5 modules this semester, on top of 2 research jobs, you understand why I won’t find the time.

Moral Absolutism and Religious Tolerance

A lot of things have clearly been pushing my buttons lately, so when this ridiculous letter came out, I just had to say something. Here’s another edition of a mangled letter to the forum which looks nothing like what I initially wrote. But at least the point is made.

MR GEORGE Lim in Monday’s Forum Online letter (“Let’s reinforce unity of purpose in fighting terrorism”) sayswe are not a morally relativist society, and argues that only good, absolute values exist in Singapore. How is that so when different religions have different ideas of morality and what is “good”?

Moral absolutism and religious tolerance cannot co-exist. If we are to be morally absolute, then there is no room for diversity or tolerance. For example, Mr Lim states that polygamy is wrong. Well, polygamy is allowed for Muslims in Singapore.

Also, religious freedom includes a person’s right not to be religious as well. If Mr Lim’s argument is to be upheld, what do we teach the children of parents who do not subscribe to a major religion? To describe a person who is non-religious as a heathen is wrong, and such a view has no place in a secular Singapore. It also contradicts Mr Lim’s calls for religious tolerance.

Indulekshmi Rajeswari (Miss)

And here’s the original:

I refer to George Lim’s letter “Let’s reinforce unity of purpose in fighting terrorism” on 20th July.
We can never overemphasise the need to remain vigilant against the threat of people who claim moral superiority over everyone else.
Firstly, George Lim says we are not a morally relativist society, and only good, absolute values exist in Singapore. I do not accept his unproven and extreme argument that we thrive on absolute morals. The fact is that different religions have a different ideas of morality and what is “good”. If we learn from our religious leaders, and since we are all learning different things, how do we draw the line between good and evil? Sure there are some overlaps, but there are differences. Moral absolutism and religious tolerance cannot co-exist.  If we are to be morally absolute, then there is no room for diversity or tolerance. For example, he says polygamy is a wrongdoing – whether or not he is right, he seems to be forgetting that polygamy is allowed in Singapore for Muslim men.

Secondly, religious freedom includes the right of the person to not believe in anything. What do we teach the children of parents who do not subscribe to a major religion? I take offence to his description of me as a “heathen”, just because I am not religious. He is creating dangerous boundaries between the religious and non-religious, setting this up as a war between the two sides. This is clearly against the Prime Minister’s objective to create a more harmonious society. Also, there is only one step from considering the non-religious as heathen, to considering everyone outside your religion as heathen. This attitude goes against his own calls for religious tolerance.

Thirdly, if I could remind George Lim teaching our children “values” through religion was already tried once in Singapore, through the Religious Knowledge program. This was wisely removed by the government after 6 years, as they acknowledged that the program was creating disharmony in a global and national climate of increased religious fervour.

Fourthly, abuse of human rights usually starts when one person or group starts considering themselves the morally superior group, and starts imposing their ideas on the rest. Do I need to bring up Nazis to make my point? I am pretty sure they thought they were being righteous, and exalting their nation.