Fridae

We were there. A hundred of us, at the Singapore Botanical Gardens. On the green next to Symphony Lake, between 4.30 and 6.30pm on Thursday, 9 August 2007, National Day.

Scattered in an archipelago of picnic blankets, we wore pink T-shirts, pink caps, pink shoes, and carried pink parasols. We shared pink foods: smoked salmon, watermelon, cherries, strawberry-flavoured Pocky and Yan Yan, san char balls, pink agar-agar jelly and beng kueh, ruby grapefruit juice, guava juice, raspberry 7-up, ros� wine.

Why were we there? Well, there'd originally been an event entitled "In the Pink", a gay-themed picnic planned for Singapore's IndigNation pride season. We were invited to dress in pink, and bring pink food to eat. But on Monday 6 August, activist Alex Au was informed in a government letter that the event (as well as "The Pink Run," a planned 5-km run in the park) was forbidden, these were "organised gatherings," and such events would require permission from the National Parks Board (NParks).

In an interview with The Straits Times, spokespersons of National Parks elaborated that "The Singapore Botanic Gardens is a premier botanical institution. We do not want it to be used as a venue for interest groups to politicise their cause... Let's keep our green space as areas for relaxation and recreation."

Organiser Miak Siew officially cancelled the event, but noted that before the ban, few people had expressed interest in attending. Now, everyone wanted to come.

So we came. Men and women; gays, lesbians, bisexuals and straight allies; adults and children.

Social services worker Leow Yangfa brought his 8 and 10-year-old nieces. SAFE (a parents, families and friends of LGBTQ support group) co-founder Dr Khoo Hoon Eng brought her goddaughter, American expatriate couple Anne and Shannon, just off the plane, brought their own children, 3-year-old Ayden and 6-year-old Sydney. One supportive straight couple brought their baby in a stroller, clothed in pink.

Miak, who identified himself as a non-organiser of this non-picnic, estimated 100 people in the field - a prodigious turnout for a non-event. Activist Alex Au estimated even higher - 150.

"In the Pink" was no longer happening, after all - (no-one even called it that dreadful name) - this was, for the sake of argument, a perfectly legal phenomenon, where a hundred Singapore citizens and friends had, almost by coincidence, decided to celebrate our National Day with a picnic in pink.

"My mum was actually afraid to let me go because she thought I'd get arrested," a girl named Vanessa Wong told me. I'd had fears of police intervention myself - I'd attended the flashmob protest against the firing of blogger Mr Brown, and uniformed police had been all over the place on that occasion to intimidate us.

This time round, however, all we got were discreet plainclothes policemen - assuming we identified them correctly. Two gay men described a man in the white tank top with a sling bag who'd acted suspiciously; two lesbians talked about two men in black polo tees, reading newspapers and observing the scene; the girls purposefully sashayed in front of them and began holding hands and were rewarded when the unsuspected undercover cops began snapping pictures.

The vast majority of the afternoon, however, was spent in utter peace - police were probably busy doing crowd control at the National Day Parade, so we were more concerned with escaping the heat than with government reprisals. In any case, contrary to the expectations of National Parks, we had never intended to use the picnic as an opportunity to talk politics and plot the gay takeover of the world. Instead, we were there for the very "relaxation and recreation" they recommended - we ate, we drank, we gossiped, took photos and played board games. No sex or nudity or public displays of affection, either - it was an ordinary picnic.

In fact, the very borders of the picnic were unclear. In between our blankets, other families set up their picnics and played ball; children came up to us and asked to play with our dogs. Grown men and women and little girls from other families would confuse us by wearing pink T-shirts - and not all of us queers were in pink, either; some of us dressed in brown and blue and black and white, and munched on distinctly un-pink foods - satay, otak-otak, beehoon, potato chips, brownies, green tea.

Sure, more than half of us wore pink, but the outsiders didn't bat an eyelid - as a straight friend commented, we just looked like a breast cancer benefit with an unusual number of supportive men. After all, we were a decent, well-brushed group of people - a survey of occupations revealed bankers, engineers, IT professionals, teachers, designers, journalists, consultants, accountants, police officers (yep, there are queer police officers), civil servants, NSFs (national servicemen) and students. We weren't raising hell or making trouble. We were picnicking.

But still, a tinge of paranoia persisted in the atmosphere. A truck rolled up, and we thought it might be a police van - but no, it was just the park cleaners, who have come to pick up our rubbish.

Even now, I am wondering what the government might choose to do with our photographs; whether it'll pull out more stops to prevent the Pink Run this Saturday morning, organised by gay sports group ADLUS, now shifted to a location away from the Botanical Gardens,

Primarily, I am amazed that so many of us had the guts to come down and risk legal repercussions for the simple pleasure of having a picnic - that we stood together and told the government that it's absurd, insane, undeserving of their dignity to ban a picnic; that it was a ruling so ridiculous we could not obey it.

It is an unusual thing to see this many Singaporeans mobilised in a political act. And yes, at the risk of inviting danger, I'll say it was a political act.

Remember, so many everyday activities - watching movies, laughing at jokes, having sex - are not political in themselves. But when a higher power forbids them, they become political - reminders of how authorities attempt to control our bodies.

I can't say if this two-hour gathering is going to have any impact on the progress of gay rights - who knows, it might just invigorate anti-gay conservatives, and not all of the attendees will engage in future activist events. This was, in the end, an afternoon of simple pleasures - food and friends on a holiday afternoon, sandwiched between working days.

But come what may, it is important to remember this:

We were there. One hundred of us.

And that is the true meaning of Pride.

UPDATE: The Pink Non-Run

While the "Pink Run" was officially cancelled in Singapore, a "Run-of-People-Dressed-Mainly-in-Pink" occurred on Saturday morning, 11 August in the Clarke Quay area.

At 8.30am, approximately 35 ADLUS members and friends gathered outside the Singapore Tyler Print Institute, together with ten plainclothes police officers, including one wielding an intimidatingly large video camera. The spokesperson was Mr Kelvin Yeo from the Compliance Management Unit of Tanglin Police Division, who confirmed with ADLUS administrator Dr Ethan Lim that the run was not allowed and advised them not to continue with the event.

When pressed, he could not quote the precise law that was being infringed. Dr Lim then officially called off the event, took a group photograph and handed out T-shirts, and told us we could run individually as we liked. Police did not interfere while the runners ran the route. Additionally, Mr Kelvin Yeo was polite enough to provide me with his name and to accept my business card.