Dr Petra Leuschner, State Secretary, Senate for Integration, Labour and Social Affairs
Fellow distinguished speakers
Ladies and Gentlemen
It gives me pleasure to be here today. I would first like to thank the Office of the Governing Mayor of Berlin, Dr Heidi Knake-Werner, the Senate Department for Integration, Labour and Social Welfare, the Commissioner for Integration and Migration of the Berlin Senate Mr Günter Piening, and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation for organising a workshop on Muslim Integration in Singapore and Berlin.
2 The world of today is rapidly changing and increasingly interconnected. While globalisation has connected people of different cultural and religious beliefs to live together in mixed societies, we have seen the process of integration proceeding side-by-side with the process of fragmentation. Incidents such as the London bombings in the post-September 11 years have shown us that we cannot take racial and religious harmony for granted. As much as diversity has made our global societies culturally rich, it also presents us with a global challenge which we cannot ignore--the challenge of finding a meaningful way in which diverse communities can live side by side peacefully and harmoniously.
Singapore's Experience
3 Singapore is a multi-racial and multi-religious society. Our three main races are the Chinese, Malays and Indians. Many foreigners also live and work in Singapore. Taoists and Buddhists make up 51% of our population, Muslims 14%, Christians 15% and Hindus 4%. The rest of our people either have other religions or none. Like many nations with such diverse populations, Singapore has not been spared from the possibility of ethnic or religious strife. The racial riots of the 1950s and 1960s will always serve as a reminder of the fragility of racial harmony in Singapore and how this harmony could be easily shattered.
4 Having experienced at first-hand the crippling effect which communal tensions can have on our peace and prosperity, Singapore has placed utmost importance on promoting and maintaining racial and religious harmony. Over the years, we have adopted a pragmatic attitude and taken a practical approach towards building the Singapore nation. The social harmony we enjoy today is a conscious contract that we have constantly built on and renewed. The core principles that were laid down by our first generation leaders - multiracialism, tolerance, equal opportunity, and meritocracy - form the basis for organising Singapore society. Using these guiding principles in our multiracial policies has helped us build mutual trust and understanding between Singaporeans of different races and faiths.
5 Our approach to multiracialism stems from the understanding that the different ethnic groups would not want to lose their respective ethnic identities. As such, we have allowed each ethnic community to preserve and practise its own culture and customs by adopting an overlapping circles approach. Each community is like a circle with its own values, beliefs and culture. Where the circles overlap is the common space where all Singaporeans work and play together. We are constantly trying to expand and maximise this space, but at a pace which is acceptable to everyone. The space which does not overlap is the community's own playing field. This is the space where people are free to speak their own language, practise their own religion and have their own way of life. Through our overlapping circles approach, each community is therefore able to retain its distinct identity and yet remain bonded to other communities as Singaporeans through shared national values.
6 In practical terms, we translate the concepts of meritocracy and overlapping circles into three levels of policy--legislation, national institutions, and community engagement.
7 In Singapore, no one is discriminated against, in any way, on the basis of his or her ethnic or religious identity. Instead, every Singaporean progresses and is rewarded according to his or her own merit. This is enshrined in our Constitution. Within this framework of meritocracy, we have put in place legal measures to help prevent religion or race from being used to incite hatred. In 1990, the Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act was introduced to give the Government powers to issue restraining orders and to take stern measures against individuals who stir up hatred between our ethnic and religious communities.
8 Apart from legislation, different institutions also contribute towards the goal of racial harmony. Our national schools, for instance, provide a common platform for children of all races to be exposed to and interact with students from various backgrounds. While Singapore recognises four official languages, we have English as our common language. Similarly, with more than 80% of Singaporean living in public housing, we try to provide opportunities for Singaporeans of different races to interact with one another through our housing policy by introducing an ethnic quota scheme. The scheme, which sets out guidelines on the ratio for races in each housing estate, also helps guard against the formation of racial enclaves. Further, our electoral system, based on the Group Representational Constituency (GRC) scheme, ensures equitable minority representation in Parliament. Under the system, political parties contesting for GRC seats in parliament are required to field at least one candidate from the ethnic minorities. The system also forces political parties to practise multi-racial politics rather than to campaign on a particular race or religion.
9 We have also established a multitude of platforms for the different communities to come together to work towards common goals and benefits. The People's Association (PA), established in 1960, manages more than 100 community centres which are distributed across the country to cater to the diverse and recreational needs of the population. In addition, Singapore is divided into 5 main districts managed by Community Development Councils (CDC) which function as the local administration within their respective Districts. To strengthen community bonding, the CDCs have initiated and implemented community programmes that residents can look forward to participating in. Most recently, the Joint Social Service Centre (JSSC), formed by Central Singapore CDC and the five ethnic self-help groups, was revamped into an organisation called OnePeople. OnePeople aims to promote racial harmony by implementing programme that encourage inter-ethnic interaction, and by being an important resource centre where people can get more information about inter-religious issues in Singapore.
10 At the same time, we recognise that a top-down approach of promoting racial harmony is not sufficient. It is also very important that we strengthen the threads that make up the social fabric of our city-state by engaging our communities to be actively involved in building social cohesion. The Community Engagement Programme (CEP) was hence launched to coordinate and mobilise the support of not just grassroot or ethnic groups, but also religious groups, welfare organisations, unions, and clan associations to sustain the social resilience of Singaporeans. At the same time, we also try to form a close partnership between the government and community leaders. This is critical as community leaders perform a crucial role in communicating and explaining decisions and policies affecting their respective communities. Such communications by these leaders can help ensure that the communities understand the larger context of the decisions and policies, and help assure that the policies are not targeted at them. As such, it is important that the government takes community leaders into their confidence in policy formulation and implementation.
11 Where a top-down approach is insufficient, we also encourage and welcome bottom-up initiatives. One key initiative by our local volunteer religious scholars and leaders is the Religious Rehabilitation Programme (RRG) which is essentially a religious counselling programme for the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) detainees and their families. The RRG has also undertaken numerous outreach efforts such as organising public forums on the dangers of terrorist ideology. Ustaz Mohamed Bin Ali, who is from the RRG, will be able to share more about the programme during the workshop later.
12 Singapore remains a safe and secure society only because it is our collective will to make it so. The social harmony we enjoy today is a conscious contract that we have constantly built on and renewed. The approach and system to maintain interracial harmony and social cohesion that we have developed in Singapore are largely possible fundamentally because of the trust and confidence the different communities have in the Singapore Government as a whole, and especially leaders from the various communities and faith groups represented in the government. The minority communities recognise that government policies are inclusive in their approach. This trust has been built over time, with our leaders being actively involved in the communities and efforts to uplift and improve the welfare of each community. In this respect, we were fortunate that at the country's inception, the government had understood the challenges of a multiracial and multifaith society and attached considerable importance to addressing these challenges in nation-building efforts.
13 As an open and cosmopolitan country, however, we will always be vulnerable to external forces and trends which can exert strong divergent pulls on different segments of our society. The international furore over the caricature of Prophet Muhammad in 2006 which was first published in a Danish journal has shown us how a local publication could have rippling effects across the world. As such, we cannot afford to be complacent, but instead must be vigilant all the time and be ready and proactive in responding to global events. The tragic events of September 11, the discovery of Jemaah Islamiyah members in Singapore, and the 7th July London bombings have given us the push and urgency to work even harder and in a more cohesive and collective way to forge ahead. That is the reason why we are constantly finding ways and means to promote inter-racial understanding as this will provide the foundation for trust that will not be shaken under duress. And it is only with understanding and trust could people of different races and religions strengthen social resilience and celebrate diversity. Let's move ahead together in harmony.
Thank you.