Woman whose wedding photo was used in Hari Raya standee calls PA’s cancellation of meeting ‘disappointing’

Singapore—Ms Sarah Bagharib has responded to the People’s Association’s June 14 statement with a short social media post, calling the organisation’s decision to cancel the meeting with her and her husband “disappointing.”

The meeting, which should have been about the unauthorised use of the couple’s wedding photo with their faces cut out as a Hari Raya standee at Radin Mas last month, had been scheduled for Tuesday (June 15), which is when Ms Sarah penned her post.

“While there was an infringement of our privacy and intellectual property rights, our intentions have always been clear from the start – to be active citizens and to positively contribute to making Singapore a better, more inclusive home for our daughter,” she added.

Her brief statement was in contrast to the lengthier posts she made on May 28, after she discovered that the photo had been used, and on June 1, after the PA made a public apology.

In these posts she brought up not only the inappropriate use of their “wedding photo as a caricature of Malay people”,  as well as the “larger issue affecting the wider Malay/Muslim community.”

“As a Singaporean, I’d like to help hold our leaders *tangibly* accountable as it’ll show that there is an interest in learning and unlearning, and sincere appetite for correcting mistakes,” she wrote on June 1.

On June 14, almost two weeks after Ms Sarah responded to the post, the PA revived the matter.

In a lengthy Facebook post, it wrote that it wished “to clarify our position, elaborate on the steps we have taken to prevent such incidents from recurring, and hear her suggestions of how we might improve at the meeting”.

It tackled the issue of racism, writing, “However, Ms Sarah has shared claims that this incident ‘perpetuate the racist culture’. She characterised this incident as ‘racist’. In her interview with Walid J. Abdullah, she also insinuated that our staff and volunteers did not find anything wrong with the standee as they might be ‘blind to racism’.  

“These are accusations we reject. While the error was culturally insensitive, it was certainly not racist. It is not right to raise the allegation of racism, without basis, to stoke emotions and sentiments.”

The PA went on to say that since Ms Sarah had called for others to “share your messages/suggestions to PA here and we’ll share them”, therefore elevating the discussion beyond the wedding photo standee incident, it saw “no point in proceeding with the meeting”.

The organisation’s defensive stance has been widely criticised online, with many commenters calling the PA “tone deaf” in its response, at the very least.

One of the critics of the PA’s response has been playwright Alfian Sa’at, who has come to Ms Sarah’s defence.

The playwright looked closely at PA’s statement, and pointed out that the quotes it attributed to Ms Sarah had been very short ones that needed to be understood in their larger context.

In a widely-shared Facebook post, Mr Sa’at wrote, “I think if you wish to build a case against someone it is always important to be able to reproduce what they said in full,” and added clarifications to the statements attributed to Ms Sarah.

“Talk about missing the point. I think Ms Sarah has been at pains to assert that all Singaporeans, and not just minorities, are stakeholders in the issue. Hers isn’t some kind of minority grievance whose aim is to indict an entire majority community,” he wrote.

/TISG

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