Date : 3 September 2011
A very good morning to all of you.
Let me first thank the organisers for working hard behind the scenes to put together this important and significant event. Thank you also to the chairmen and members of the many IRCCs present today for your work all these years, building trust and confidence.
Also, let me welcome the youth from the various ethnic and religious organisations participating in this workshop for the first time. I also welcome the students from Nanyang Junior Collage for joining us this morning. I cannot say enough how important your role is in this endeavour. I will talk more about this later.
Ladies and gentlemen, compared to many other places in the world, Singaporeans live in relative peace and stability. We do not have to worry about racial strife, nor worry about being discriminated or victimised because of our race or religion. We do not have racial or religious enclaves that people from other races or faiths would fear or tremble to walk into. We may almost be lulled into complacency, believing that the absence of evidence on such issues is actually evidence of absence.
For many of you who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to uphold our social and religious harmony, you will know that “racial and religious harmony” is not a noun, but it is more of a “verb” – always a work in progress, something fragile that we always need to nurture and never take for granted. Let me sketch out the environment and three key challenges confronting us, even as we celebrate our relative success in managing racial and religious harmony.
First, the world is seeing greater religiosity on one end of the spectrum, and non-religiosity on the other end. It threatens to pull society apart in opposite directions. Singapore is also not immune to such forces.
The fast pace of development will inevitably mean that many will seek to find their anchor in race or religion. There is nothing wrong with being more religious or being more aware of one’s racial and cultural heritage. However, we hope that as people become more conscious of one’s race and religion, they will not turn inward or become more exclusive towards others of different races or religions.
On the other hand, for those who do not subscribe to any religion, we also hope that everyone will continue to be open and receptive towards those who do.
We need to constantly defend and enlarge the common space, especially for us, living in a compact urban environment like Singapore. We need to constantly encourage greater understanding, appreciation and tolerance of differing habits and practices. Otherwise, diversity would cause tension and mistrust.
Second, in an increasing globalised economy like ours, there will be an intense process of interaction with foreign races, religions and culture. With the inflow of foreign workers, new immigrants and even tourists, we will be subject to many forces that challenge our racial and religious harmony and test our social fabric.
Sometimes, differences can lead to misunderstanding, which then lead to tension. Occasionally, they spill into the media – be it mainstream media or social media – and then it can spark off unnecessary tension. It can also undo many years of hard work building our racial and religious harmony.
We cannot close ourselves to the world and shut off all influences foreign to us. What we can do, is to imbue ourselves with the necessary strong values of mutual tolerance and respect, for us to navigate in such challenging circumstances.
Third, the advent of social media on the internet is accelerating the pace of information transmission. The ease of making spontaneous comments and remarks can also inadvertently cause us to be much more impulsive in our reactions. Insensitive remarks expressed by an individual or minority can ignite much angst, sow discord and even erode confidence among us. Proselytisation and indiscriminate circulation of sensitive or offensive materials by one racial or religious group can also cause concerns for other groups. These are not unique to Singapore. If not properly managed, they can threaten the racial and religious harmony that we have so carefully nurtured over all these years. These bring us to the point that the work of our IRCC is more important than ever before in this changing circumstance.
So what is our solution to all these problems before us in these challenging times? To me, the key have to do with our leaders and the leadership of all of us present today.
As the religious become more religious on one end, while many others become non-religious, we must constantly work to preserve and enlarge the common space. We must remember to not plant stakes on the ground to circumscribe other’s actions. But on the other hand, we must constantly work to enlarge and defend the common space that we all enjoy today. The IRCC can and will certainly work to promote mutual understanding and respect in an increasingly diverse society.
Leadership does not just refer to the current generation of leaders. Leadership is more for us to build the next generation of leaders. I would like to acknowledge the efforts of the current generation of leaders across the racial and religious bodies to groom the next generation of leaders.
A few weeks ago, I attended the Harmony Games, where I saw youth of different races and religions come together to participate in the Harmony Games. This is a significant effort. Even though this is a small gesture, I am confident that when our youth of different races, different religions grow up together, interact with each other, understand each other, respect each other, then we have the sow the seed for the next generation of leaders to be developed. The next generation of leaders that will continue to inspire confidence and trust among the different community.
On this note, the youth leaders who are with us here this morning, including the students from Nanyang Junior College, I want to acknowledge your efforts to come forward to take ownership of this whole process to develop the next generation of leaders for Singapore, so that we can continue to build a better society for all of us.
We also have to continually challenge ourselves to come up with new ways to reach out to people from different communities and to engage our different groupings. True leaders are those who will make a stand to help enlarge our common space, promote trust, build confidence and reach out to others from a different race or religion.
Next, we must also continually challenge ourselves to come up with new ways to engage our different groupings. The IRCC Guidebook that has recently been produced is an example of such good work by the IRCC members. It offers useful advice to IRCC members on crisis management, and their roles and responsibilities.
Beyond books, we must also see how we can leverage the new media environment to promote trust and understanding, reach out to others, clarify our positions and defend against falsehoods. The internet is but a medium, what content we put out is the key. The internet can be a powerful tool to help us spread positive messages.
For the youth leaders here today, your presence is testimony to your commitment to carry the torch of racial and religious harmony forward. The future belongs to you all, to build, to bond and to blossom. You have the talent and energy to harness the latest technology and ideas to take us forward. In you, we place our hope for a better future. I look forward to hearing the ideas from all of you.
I am sure there will be many more ideas that we can come up with to overcome the challenges facing us so that we can all have a better tomorrow. I hope this seminar will be a useful platform for us to exchange ideas and bring our racial and religious confidence building to the next higher plane.
I wish everyone a fruitful seminar ahead. Thank you
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