Date : 10 February 2006
Synopsis
At a dialogue with community leaders and students on 9 Feb 2006, PM Lee urged Singaporeans to think about 3 approaches: (1) widen and deepen linkages among our people, (2) government to give more support and coordination for CEP, (3) stay vigilant over the long term.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and four ministers held a dialogue yesterday with 1,700 community leaders and students on how Singaporeans can hold together and not fall apart in the event of a terror attack. We produce extracts from his speech before the 2-hour dialogue
WE ARE gathered this evening for a serious subject, which is to discuss the Community Engagement Programme (CEP). Four years ago, on Sept 11, 2001, there was a terrorist attack in the United States. We looked at it from a distance. A few months later, we discovered to our shock that we had a terrorist network in Singapore, the Jemaah Islamiah (JI) network, which fortunately we disrupted before they could do anything to us.
Our concern was not just to deal with the terrorists but to manage the worries and the alarm on the ground quickly and effectively. So, then-prime minister Goh Chok Tong held dialogues with the grassroots leaders and the community leaders, religious leaders, to discuss openly our concerns so that we can understand what the problem is, share our views and know where one another stands.
One of the dialogues we had was here. It was a very candid and sharing session, at the end of which I think we all went away relieved that we could trust one another and we knew where one another stood, and we were going to stand together. We recognised that this was going to be a long struggle, one which would threaten our social cohesion because we didn't see the terrorism problem going away quickly. So we responded vigorously to protect ourselves. We protected our key installations...We hardened hotels, public places...Holland Village.
And we worked with senior managements of businesses, transport operators, even taxi drivers and security guards to step up security on the ground everywhere. Then we conducted regular exercises among the security agencies, Exercise Northstar I, II, III, IV and the most recent one, Northstar V, about a month ago in January. And for every major gathering where our people gather, we've major precautions: scans, checks, cellphones, so forth. It's become a way of life.
At the same time, we also took social and psychological measures. So we set up the Inter-Racial Confidence Circles (IRCCs) and the Harmony Circles. We connected on the ground promoting community interactions, strengthening community ties. We set up Security Watch Groups with business clusters in commercial districts. We kept Singapore safe, we held everybody together.
It's now four years...time to take stock of the progress we have made, to reassess the terrorist threat, how it has evolved, update our response to this terrorism problem. Fortunately for us, in four years, we've not had any attacks in Singapore. But we must not think that we didn't have the problem or that the problem has gone away. The threat of terrorism remains. It's real, it's serious and in some ways, we are more concerned today than we were back in 2001. Let me sketch the broader picture for you and explain its implications.
Threat of terrorism on Singapore
FIRST, what's happened in this region. The JI is still there, it's been crippled. Many of its key operatives have been killed or captured. Azahari Husin was killed late last year in Indonesia. Mas Selamat Kastari was captured by Indonesia some time ago and has now been expelled and we've got him, the Internal Security Department (ISD) knows exactly where he is. But some dangerous people are still at large. There's Noordin Mohammed Top, who's one of their masterminds, the motivator and recruiter of suicide bombers.
He's a Malaysian but lives in Indonesia. And there's Dulmatin, Indonesian, believed to be somewhere in the southern Philippines, another bomb-maker. And these people have splintered. JI's broken up...It's like cancer cells...little spots grow in remote areas, recruiting new members, indoctrinating them, mobilising them, getting them to mount suicide attacks like the Bali bombing last year.
Apart from the JI, there are other militant groups which continue to operate in the region. It's not just in Indonesia but also in the southern Philippines. There's the MILF, which is the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. There's the Abu Sayyaf Group. And Singapore remains a key target for these terrorist groups. How do we know? Because we know they've tried to mount operations, some of which we've stopped, and because they have said that Singapore is one of their targets.
So within this region, we remain on guard.
Beyond this region, if you look at Europe, there's been terrorist attacks. The Madrid bombing in March 2004; last year, in July, the London bombing. Both were attacks on train systems. And they had major impact in both countries, not just the people who were killed or injured, but the backlash against the Muslim community.
And the distrust and suspicion was especially deep in the United Kingdom.
Despite strong statements by community and religious leaders, hate crimes against Muslims went up because the London bombings were a great shock to the British. They expected an attack on the tube system, they prepared for it... they responded well. But they did not expect the suicide bombers to be British. Young people, no criminal record, no known links to Al-Qaeda or to other terrorist organisations, what the police called 'clean skins'. It was a chilling demonstration of how ordinary people born and bred in Britain could get drawn in and caught up in the terrorist cause.
Apart from these specific terrorist attacks worldwide, there are many extremist groups purveying radical ideas. They mix religion with violence, which is a volatile combination. They operate sometimes openly, sometimes covertly. They spread their message of hate and violence through sermons, lectures, videos, on the Internet. Not all of them are terrorist organisations. Some of them can be thought of as a conveyor belt for terrorists. They draw people into their net to expose them to the ideas, to suck them into the social groups and then they move on. It's like taking soft drugs on the way to taking hard drugs - heroin.
So, you see, for example in the UK, there's one character who's just been convicted for inciting murder and racial hatred, Abu Hamza Al-Masri. He preached for many years in the Finsbury Park Mosque in London and produced brilliant stuff, tapes, CDs. The police took a long time to gather the evidence before they could move against him. By then, much damage was already done. So with this environment it's easy for young people without a good knowledge of Islam (to)...be drawn to them and become radicalised.
So that's the global backdrop for terrorism, for extremist groups.
But more broadly, there are tensions between Muslims and non-Muslims in other parts of the world.
For example, last November, there were riots in Paris, in the suburbs where many of the immigrant communities live, overwhelmingly North African Muslims, unemployed, without hope, in despair. And the young people, they torched vehicles. Thousands of cars and vehicles were burned.
Or last December in Sydney, on the beach, where there were fights and riots between the Lebanese population which live near there and the white population which resented the Lebanese for being there.
These are not because of extremist or terrorist acts but because of failure of integration of the communities, so generating a huge well of resentment among the Muslim youth due to economic poverty, racial and social discrimination.
Most recently you've read about the cartoons, the drawings depicting Prophet Muhammad published in the Danish newspaper and... which have offended Muslims worldwide and sparked off demonstrations and riots. Embassies and missions have been burned and destroyed in several countries. And in Afghanistan, demonstrations have become violent, shots have been fired, people have been killed.
It was provocative and wrong for the Danish newspapers to have published the cartoons as President Jacques Chirac of France has pointed out.
President Chirac got involved talking about this because the French newspapers also decided to reprint the cartoons, and some other European newspapers too, to show solidarity with the Danish newspaper. But it's wrong, it's provocative. We would not have allowed it in Singapore. We are a multiracial society, we must respect one another's religions, we must not deliberately insult or desecrate what others hold sacred because if we want to live peacefully together, then we must live and let live, there must be tolerance, there must be mutual respect.
We've not only advocated this but we've implemented this in our laws. So we have the Religious Harmony Act, we have the Penal Code, we have the Sedition Act and we make sure we hold the peace.
And so in 1989 when Salman Rushdie wrote a book, Satanic Verses, which many Muslims found very objectionable, we banned it. People say, 'where is freedom of expression?', we say maintaining harmony, peace, that's the first requirement.
So it was wrong for the Danish newspapers to publish the pictures, it was wrong for the other European newspapers to say, 'in solidarity, I will republish'. But it was also wrong to respond by rioting and burning embassies or for some countries now to say, let us publish counter-cartoons to satirise the Holocaust.
It's good that many responsible Muslim leaders have come out to say this clearly, to condemn the excesses. For example, the Organisation of Islamic Conference, the OIC, has made a joint statement denouncing the publication of the cartoons but also 'strongly condemned the deplorable attacks on diplomatic missions', and said that the 'aggression against life and property can only damage the image of a peaceful Islam'.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in Indonesia and Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi in Malaysia have both asked the Muslims in their countries to remain calm. In Singapore, Muis has stated its stand clearly last week. Pergas yesterday issued a good statement with other Muslim organisations, AMP, Perdaus and so on, saying that 'publishing the caricatures is utterly uncivilised and demeans Islam...We, however, object to any forms of violence by fellow Muslims who have responded emotionally to this issue...Being overly emotional and responding irrationally and violently will only intensify the negative image that others have towards Islam'. And today, Jamiyah has issued a very balanced statement together with the Buddhist Lodge and Hindu Endowment Board. So it's a multi-religious statement.
This episode will deepen the gulf between Muslims and non-Muslims in Europe. But in Singapore, we have to maintain our social harmony and religious harmony at all costs... As Ustaz Mohammed Suhaimi from Al-Istighfar Mosque said: 'We should be patient and not let what happened elsewhere disturb the harmony here.' So the statements by Muis, Pergas, Jamiyah and so on, have calmed the ground.
They've set the tone, guided the communities to respond maturely and rationally. And I commend the Muslim leaders' responsible approach to this issue. It's the right thing to do, it's the way we can protect ourselves.
Implications for S'pore
BUT these regional developments and global trends have confirmed our judgment that now we face a serious long-term problem. These are worldwide waves...which affect many countries and we will be pushed along by it. We will try our best to buffer ourselves, to anchor our position. But it'll be foolish to think that they will have no impact on us or to pretend that we don't have any potential faultlines.
It's not a new problem. It's happened to other communities as well in the past, not just to Muslims.
For example, in the 1950s and 60s, communism in China greatly influenced the Chinese community in Singapore. They thought that what was China was relevant to us. When there was Cultural Revolution in China, our gangs here, Barisan Socialis also put up...red signboards and banners and flags and had a mini Cultural Revolution of its own. But today's security problem is by far the most serious since the 50s and 60s. Because if there's a terrorist attack in Singapore and a Singaporean is involved, the damage will be enormous. It's not just the casualties and the physical damage, which we can deal with, but the impact on our social fabric which will be severe and long-lasting. So we have to do our utmost to prepare ourselves now before anything untoward happens.
What must we do? We have to educate our people, prevent them from being led astray. We have to be prepared and respond to any attack. Immediate response would be emergency services. And we have practised that at Exercise Northstar, fine-tune our response plans. And a community response, which is even more critical in the long term, to hold our society together, to keep up morale and confidence, to carry on with our lives and not curl up and die because after an attack, life goes on and we pull together and march ahead.
This is something which the Government can't do alone. We've got to have the community act and take ownership of the issues.
Already the community is doing many things. Muis and the Muslim community is taking the lead. For example, Muis has asatizah recognition scheme, it's got schemes to track students doing religious studies abroad, it's embarking on the Singapore Muslim identity project to distinguish the unique attributes of our Muslim community in multiracial Singapore from other societies.
And we have the religious rehabilitation group, in which Islamic teachers voluntarily step forward to counter the wrong interpretations of Islam, set up the right doctrine, counsel those who have gone astray and teach the right moderate peaceful way to the community in Singapore. But we must know that this is not a Malay-Muslim problem. This is a national problem and non-Muslims also have to play a part.
For example, by preserving the space for minorities in a majority Chinese society, by upholding the ideals of meritocracy and equal opportunity and treatment regardless of race, language and religion. And by clearly distinguishing the small number of extremists who are a threat to us, from the majority of moderate, rationale, loyal Muslim Singaporeans with whom we work together to tackle the shared problem.
This way, we can build confidence and trust between the different communities and the best time to do that is now when we don't have a crisis. Because building trust takes time and requires frequent interaction between leaders and members of the public and between leaders of different groups.
And it underlines the importance of our integrating our housing estates, our schools, national service and everyday life.
Therefore, we have this dialogue to explain the threat we face, discuss how we can work together to develop a comprehensive Community Engagement Programme and to follow up on the discussions which you've had with different groups on what the CEP should involve so that there's a general understanding and consensus that we move ahead.
I would suggest three broad approaches to think about.
First, we've got to widen and deepen the linkages among our people, to involve more people, build up the networks which have been developed by the IRCCs, the Harmony Circles, to cover more groups, the grassroots, the religious and community organisations, schools, businesses, unions, media - all the key institutions and organisations in our society.
Then we can grow and nurture the links at many levels and encourage initiatives from the ground up so that people will take ownership of the issues and not simply leave them to the Government to solve.
I'm very happy when I ask people, 'What do you think of terrorism?'. They say, 'We have full confidence in the Government'. But then they may say, 'Therefore, I leave it to you whenever the problem comes'.
It's good to have confidence but better work at it because we have to do this together. Then over time, we can have a strong, resilient and comprehensive community network.
Secondly, we've got to provide more support and coordination for the CEP...We are going to set up a ministerial committee on Community Engagement. I've asked DPM Wong Kan Seng to chair it and oversee the CEP.
The Government will help to facilitate, coordinate, support the initiatives from the ground. So if you want to do something, you need resources, information, we can be there to support you.
Thirdly, we have to stay vigilant over the long term. This is a marathon. It's not going to be easy to keep up our guard for the long term. We can be at high level for one day, two days, one week, maybe a month, but for months and years...it's like what the SAF has to do to be operationally ready even though we've not gone to war for 40 years. That's the challenge.
So we've got to keep the network ready...For example, you've got to exercise the members and their linkages. So, they can provide accurate feedback on what's happening on the ground, things which can affect community relations. And we need 'drawer plans' - plans to deal with a crisis...which, in case something does happen, we can take out... be ready to go.
We've got to understand the seriousness of this problem but we must not be intimidated by it. We will preserve the harmony and trust between our different communities. That means constant care and attention by the Government and the people and it means working together which has enabled us to live in peace and harmony in a multiracial and multi-religious society.
That is what makes Singapore special and one oasis in a troubled world which is peaceful, tranquil, harmonious and which is our home. This is the basis on which we can build a safe, strong, united Singapore for many years to come.
(With thanks to SPH - StraitsTimes.com)
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