Singapore—Ho Ching, the wife of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Chief Executive Officer of sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings, is known to post prolifically on Facebook.
Her posts cover a whole range of topics, from Singapore’s current events, quite naturally, to science, history, cooking and even her favourite music videos on YouTube.
However, at times Madam Ho writes posts that are not always easy to understand.
On Tuesday morning (Aug 25), she posted a link to a story from CNN concerning American evangelical figure Jerry Falwell Jr, who has been in the news lately, along with a rather cryptic caption, which reads,
“Humans
They come in all shapes and sizes
They may not do what they preach
The ugly may be kind
The pretty may be poisonous
We can be one kind one day
and the other the next
And some of us
can be fooled.”
Madam Ho may have been in a creative mood as her post was written poetry-style in lines, instead of sentences in a paragraph.
The context of her caption is Mr Falwell’s resignation as president of Liberty University after news had broken out late on Monday (Aug 24), of an affair between Mr Falwell’s wife and a former business partner, which was published as an exclusive by media company Reuters.
However, previous to the news breaking out, Mr Falwell had already taken “indefinite leave” from the university, after he had posted, and then subsequently removed, a racy photo of himself on a social media account.
Mr Falwell is the son of noted American evangelist and preacher Jerry Falwell, Sr, most famous perhaps for being the co-founder of the Moral Majority, a political organization that was established for the advancement of conservative social values. While the Moral Majority was disbanded in 1989, it cemented the alliance of the religious right with the Republican Party and became a force to reckon within US politics, which eventually helped catapult President Donald Trump to power in 2016.
The senior Mr Falwell founded Liberty University in 1971, one of the biggest evangelical schools in the US. His son has been an outspoken supporter of President Trump from the time of his candidacy.
And, while Madam Ho had posted the article with the original title “Jerry Falwell Jr resigns as president of Liberty University,” the story was later updated to say that Mr Falwell had changed his mind. The title of the article is now, “Liberty University says Jerry Falwell Jr. agreed to resign as president but then withdrew his resignation.”
What exactly Madam Ho meant by her caption remains a mystery, at least for now. Was she, as many have done, calling Mr Falwell out for hypocrisy for not practicing what he preaches as an evangelical Christian? Is he the “pretty” that “may be poisonous” who “fooled” others?
Until she sheds light on the matter, we’ll just have to see what Madam Ho will share next. —/TISG
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