Colour of November 2013 is PURPLE!

http://www.loveatsg.com/events/478/The-Purple-Parade-2013

The Purple Parade is a movement that supports the inclusion & celebrates the abilities of persons with special needs.

Starting in November, we are making a movement towards a more inclusive society, opening our eyes to the special needs people around us.

The logo for The Purple Parade is simply, a square; which represents equality thanks to its all equal sides. The nature of the shape also depicts the inclusiveness of any given society with special needs' people. The Square is also a strong building block, on which when many are placed together, there can be limitless structures.

Support the movement and create awareness!

Philippians 2:1-4; Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

Sadly the focus of this colour was diverted to a Military song, Purple Light. AWARE has successfully made a ban on this song, change its lyrics due to the "rape", "kill" words ("Purple Light" because the lyrics are degrading towards women). Quite frankly throughout my NS years, I have never sing or heard this song until this news surface. National Service is about protecting the Nation, Defence, so if one is unable to hold on to their loved ones what is the point of performing this defence? NS is more than creating lean mean killing machines, Soldiers. It give Male Singaporeans a focus point, the purpose of serving! AWARE what next? Ban Vulgarities, Hokkien dialect and stop labeling the rifle as "Wife"...

http://www.aware.org.sg/2013/11/the-perplexing-case-of-purple-light/

November 18th, 2013
The perplexing case of Purple Light

Image courtesy of Justin See(Thanks to all who have come out in support of the move against the problematic Purple Light lyrics. Please take the time to read Fikri’s post and Nicholas Liu’s letter on this subject.)

Note: the post below contains examples of abusive language.

“Booking out, see my girlfriend
Saw her with another man
Kill the man, rape my girlfriend
With my rifle and my buddy and me.”

It started simply. Several men at a workshop on violence against women told us of these lyrics in an NS marching song. They were disturbed by the attitude expressed toward sexual violence. In their view, such lyrics should not be part of the National Service experience.

We agreed and raised the matter in a letter to MINDEF and SAF.

MINDEF and SAF agreed and said that they would take steps to “immediately halt” the singing of these lyrics.

So far, so agreed. Yet our brief Facebook update on this generated an explosive reaction and spawned a thread of more than 700 comments.

Criticism of us quickly spiralled into extremely abusive language. We (and others who welcome MINDEF’s move) are, among other things, “sensitive little bitches” and a “useless bunch of morons” who run a “feminazi group” which is “pushing for female supremacy” through “nitpicking”. We should “get fucked”.

All because we think Singapore is better off without soldiers singing about their buddies and rifles standing by as they rape women, and we said so publicly.

We have also seen many positive and supportive messages from people of all genders, including men who were uncomfortable with singing the lyrics in NS. But the strength of the negative response is noteworthy. Why does this bother some people (mostly men) so much? This important question goes to the heart of why the lyrics are so problematic to begin with.

John 19:1-6
Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. 2 The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe 3 and went up to him again and again, saying, “Hail, king of the Jews!” And they slapped him in the face. 4 Once more Pilate came out and said to the Jews gathered there, “Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no basis for a charge against him.” 5 When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate said to them, “Here is the man!”

6 As soon as the chief priests and their officials saw him, they shouted, “Crucify! Crucify!”