Singapore Government Press Release

Media Division, Ministry of Information and The Arts,

36th Storey, PSA Building, 460 Alexandra Road, Singapore 119963.

Tel: 3757794/5

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SPEECH BY DPM LEE HSIEN LOONG, DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER,

AT ONAM FESTIVAL, 20 SEP 98, 7.30 P.M., PEOPLE'S ASSOCIATION

 

  1. I congratulate the Malayalee groups for coming together to organise this year’s Onam celebrations. I also wish the Singapore Kerala Association every success on its 80th anniversary.

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  2. We meet in difficult times. The financial turmoil has caused uncertainty and hardship for peoples of the region. This has created political strains and forced open cracks in the societal fabric in many countries. Singapore is not immune from the region’s economic difficulties. Our close trade and investment links with the region means that we cannot avoid being pulled down to some extent. The tougher times will also put our social cohesion and national resilience to the test.

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  3. I am confident that Singapore will come through this testing period successfully. We have been systematically building social cohesion and national resilience in the 33 years since independence. This challenge should help our society to gel, to bond more closely as one nation, surer of our common identity and our shared destiny.

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  4. Singapore has emphasised social cohesion and racial harmony precisely because we are not a homogenous society. We come from different ethnic and religious backgrounds. Each group has its own proud heritage and culture. We have seen how disastrous racial or religious strife is, not just for the minority community, but for all Singaporeans. So we have worked strenuously to get the different groups to live together harmoniously in a multi-racial, multi-religious society.

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  5. Our ideal has never been a melting pot. We have not tried to amalgamate and assimilate the different communities into one. The US used to try to do this, but now even in the US the Blacks, the Hispanics, the Asians, and other groups all jealously guard their separate identities. This is why they call themselves not just Americans, which they all are, but African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Asian-Americans, and many other hyphenated Americans.

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  6. Singapore will never be a homogenous society. We have to acknowledge and accept this, and turn this diversity to our advantage. We have sought to harness the deep sentiments of race, language and religion through self-help groups like SINDA, MENDAKI, and CDAC, in order to tackle community problems more effectively, and help the less successful members of each community to uplift themselves. This strategy has worked. It has produced significant results, and given the communities well-justified pride in their own achievements.

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  7. However, one consequence of our diversity is that from time to time, our different communities see events around us with different eyes. We are not unique in this respect – every society of immigrants, and descendants of immigrants, acts like this. For example when Australia took immigrants from European countries, they brought with them the rivalries between their old countries. Whenever tensions flare up between the Greeks and Macedonians in the Balkans, similar tensions appear between the Greek and Macedonian immigrant communities in Australian cities.

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  8. Singapore has made progress in nation building. Differences in attitudes and perspectives have gradually narrowed, but they may never completely disappear. Two or three decades ago, the pulls of ancestral lands were sharp. The Cultural Revolution in China agitated Barisan Socialis supporters in Singapore to go on a mad rampage on our streets. Disturbances in the Punjab, after the Indian army sacked the Golden Temple, caused tensions between the Sikh and Indian communities in Singapore. And the May 1969 riots in Malaysia sparked a sympathetic riot in Singapore between Chinese and Malays.

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  9. Recent events have tested how far things have changed. Last year Malaysian politicians and media fiercely criticised Singapore after Senior Minister’s statement about muggings, shootings and car-jackings in Johor. Singaporeans of all races responded with the same robust attitudes. Letters in the Straits Times, Lianhe Zaobao, and Berita Harian all reflected the same sentiment – to stand up for Singapore. The same thing happened during the CIQ problem this year. Straw polls showed that similar proportions of different races supported Singapore’s stand.

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  10. The May riots in Indonesia, and the subsequent reports of violence against Indonesian Chinese shops, homes, and persons, especially the women, have been another test. BG George Yeo recently noted how the different language newspapers reported the unfolding events differently. The Chinese newspapers, especially Wanbao and Sinmin, highlighted the ethnic dimension of the violence, while Berita Harian downplayed it.

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  11. It was more than a difference in reporting style. Some Malays have told us that they felt uncomfortable, because some Chinese Singaporeans seemed to hold them vicariously responsible, even though what was happening to Indonesian Chinese had nothing to do with Singapore Malays. One Malay PAP activist told me she had been assigned to collect donations for Red Cross humanitarian aid to Indonesia. She approached a Chinese activist for a donation. He rebuffed her with the question why we wanted to donate anything at all. To her credit she persisted, and did eventually persuade him to make a donation.

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  12. It is probably unavoidable that such sentiments exist, particularly among older Singaporeans, and that while all Singaporeans sympathise with the victims of the violence in Indonesia, Chinese Singaporeans feel this most strongly. The closer to home the events are, the stronger the primordial pulls are likely to be.

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  13. But we should remind ourselves that these are events in a different country, with different problems, no matter how near the county is. We should consciously strive to insulate ethnic relations in Singapore from external problems, or at least minimise their effect on us. We must reassure the minority communities that they have no need whatsoever to be alarmed or insecure about their place in Singapore society. The Chinese community, being the majority community, must make them feel at ease, not as guests, but as fellow Singaporeans.

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  14. We are quite different from many other societies. Our key principles are meritocracy, equal opportunity and multi-racialism. All Singaporeans have accepted these principles, sometimes without realising how precious and exceptional it is to live in such a society. Other societies often base themselves on completely different principles. Problems elsewhere are reasons to reaffirm our principles all the more strongly, not to weaken or change them.

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  15. After three decades of nation building, a Singaporean Malay has become different from a Malaysian Malay or an Indonesian pribumi, just as a Singaporean Indian is different from an Indian from India, and a Singaporean Chinese from a PRC, Taiwanese or Hong Kong Chinese. Singaporeans of all races will increasingly have more in common with each other than with those of their own racial group in China, India or South East Asia.

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  16. Each time outside events test our ethnic harmony and put stress on our common identity, the bonds that bind us will strengthen. In the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur, two of our Malay sprinters were booed when their names were called. The Malaysian crowd booed them for being Singaporean, even though they could tell from the names that these were Malay Singaporeans. The major newspapers, including Berita Harian, reported the story on their inside pages. But Sinmin and Wanbao carried it on their front pages together with colour pictures. This incident brought home a valuable lesson to the less-educated Chinese Singaporeans who read Sinmin and Wanbao: that in this period of difficult relations with Malaysia, Malay Singaporeans too are being targeted. Without intending to, the hostile crowd at the National Stadium in Kuala Lumpur helped our nation building efforts.

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  17. The Malayalee community is an exemplary example of a migrant community that has deep cultural roots, manages cultural diversity well and is a strong pillar of support for Singapore. The Malayalee community in Singapore has a long and illustrious tradition. The first Malayalees arrived in the early 19th century mainly as labourers. A great influx of Malayalees immediately after the war brought clerks or shopkeepers who found employment in British military installations. These early Malayalees brought with them a pioneering spirit and a thrust for education. Known for being amongst the most cultured and literate people in India, this tradition of education has been the basic building block for the success of the Malayalee community in Singapore.

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  18. Malayalees have made considerable contributions to Singapore society. They are well-represented in the professions, in industry and in government. The community has produced many prominent Singaporeans. However, perhaps the most noteworthy achievement of the Malayalee community is its ability to manage its own cultural diversity. Although the Malayalee community includes Hindus, Muslims, Syrian Christians and Roman Catholics, tolerance and mutual understanding underpin relations among them. Ethnic flare-ups are unheard of in Kerala, although ethnic and religious violence is by no means unknown elsewhere on the Indian subcontinent. In Singapore, the collaborative celebration of Onam by all these Malayalee groups evidences the strong social glue with keeps the Malayalee community intact and vibrant.

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  19. The Malayalee community has decided to launch an IT cooperative at this year’s Onam celebrations. Although the cooperative will be run as a business, selling upgraded personal computers, its mission is social: to equip every Indian household in Singapore with a personal computer, and to facilitate computer literacy as a follow-up. The core target group of the cooperative will be the lower income bracket of the Indian community, but in the spirit of multi-racialism membership of the cooperative will be open to all Singaporeans.

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  20. I congratulate the Malayalee community for this ambitious and worthwhile project. It supports our national objective of transforming Singaporeans into an Intelligent Island. We need to nurture and prepare our young for the Information Age. The government has introduced IT into the school curriculum, and equipped all our schools with computers and Internet access. This IT cooperative will ensure that Indian children are not left behind in this national objective. I wish the cooperative every success.

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  21. May I wish the Malayalee community a happy Onam celebration.