Pragmatic Resistance, Law, and Social Movements in Authoritarian States: The Case of Gay Collective Action in Singapore, Lynette J. Chua

Chua's study of gay rights activists in Singapore uncovers legal mobilization tactics that she describes as “pragmatic resistance.” These tactics partially resemble the everyday resistance of individuals (Scott 1984) - who hide their intention to challenge the dominant power - but, unlike Mrs.

Because gay activists in Singapore start out with repressive conditions that limit civil-political liberties, they initially adapt their strategy away from tactics that are public, overt and confrontational. Then they go through [a cycle] with each subsequent tactic, refining and improving their [strategic] dance. Even though this dance resists and challenges power, it is a pragmatic one with features that resemble everyday resistance. It has an eye on survival, and avoids direct confrontation with the state, or being seen as a threat to existing arrangements of power. Most of the time, these activists focus on immediate gains that change practice and informal policies, but not formal laws and regulations. On the rare occasions when they do seek legal reform, they also perform pragmatic resistance. The goal is to stay alive and advance with skirmishes, rather than court demise with open warfare declared on grander principles. Hence, whilst they fight the battle to improve conditions for gays in Singapore, they do not wage war for greater rights and democracy. With each tactical performance, they vary the dance a little to advance the movement, but do not transform it into a completely different dance altogether.

Dancing pragmatic resistance, thus, entails striking a balance between “pushing boundaries,” and “toeing the line,” terms that activists use to describe their tactics. Imagine the two as overlapping forces pulling in oppos­ite directions. The challenge is to stay within the area where the two forces overlap. Boundary pushing expands the cultural norms to accommodate more challenges of authority and possibilities of achieving change, whereas line toeing adheres to the limits of those norms to ensure the movement's survival. Toeing the line too much will achieve little progress, whereas pushing too aggressively on the other end may provoke state retaliation.

To strike this balance, gay activists execute a dance repertoire of moves that weave legal restrictions and cultural norms together. They obey the law so as to play to the norm of legal legitimacy; they get around legal restrictions to bring their actions beyond the law's reach, and thus avoid transgression. Or, they deliberately make use of legal restrictions and procedures, a move that plays to legal legitimacy, and enables them to do what they want within law's confines. They tend to focus on specific decisions or immediate issues, and thus avoid publicly questioning the larger order, or the repressive laws that curtail civil-political liberties. This plays to the norm of nonconfrontation, and preservation of the ruling party's monopoly. But when they do ask for legal reform, they usually downplay confrontation, and play up other norms, par­ticularly social stability. Adherence to the law is an important move, but it is not the sole determinant of finding balance. These activists understand the state to tolerate some rule bending, even contraventions. As a whole, so long as their tactics do not threaten the appearance of hegemonic control, the state tolerates them, and reciprocates by dancing to the socially constructed under­standings of pragmatic resistance as well. [...]

[Chua goes on to analyze pragmatic resistance tactics from the early days of the movement up to more recent times, exemplified by Pink Dot below.]

Since the year 2000, as part of the state's effort to contain dissent, public speaking at Hong Lim Park's “Speakers' Corner” has been exempted from license application.

Pink Dot's men and women play to, and earn the event cultural legitimacy by intentionally confining it to the exempted park, and following legal condi­tions. By obeying the law, they make use of it to push the boundaries of the norm against confrontation. Before Pink Dot, an affirmative, public gathering of gay people was perceived to be transgressive. Pink Dot organizers, as Winston points out, recognize the tokenism of Hong Lim Park, but they creatively use it to nudge the boundaries outward.

[Hong Lim Park's] about restricting the space available for free speech to this tiny corner. So in conceptualizing Pink Dot, we wanted to reverse all that. We wanted to do something that was in a way visually stunning, so that it breaks out of the confines of that space, something that's memorable, something that's in a way iconic.

(Interview, Winston, 30s, public school administrator, Singapore, June 2009)

Meanwhile, they play to the norm of social stability to deflect negative reactions from the state and the counter movement. Neither portraying Pink Dot as a demonstration, nor using it as a platform to demand for rights, they toe the line by minimizing perceptions of outright confrontation. Further, they carefully craft a publicity campaign to convey the message that accept­ance of diverse sexualities strengthens rather than polarizes society, and to avoid potential accusations by opponents that they impose Western values. For example, they circulated promotional videos on the Internet featuring local celebrities who identify as straight. They also crucially reinterpreted the meaning of the color pink. Instead of making the color's symbolic connection to discrimination or gay pride, they link it to a localized notion of diversity through the idea of pink as the product of mixing Singapore's national flag colors of red and white. They then point out that the color - the result of accepting diversity - is already part of what it means to be Singaporean, as it is also the color of identity cards issued only to citizens.

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