Introduction
1. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for inviting me here today for this event.
2. This has always been an extremely important issue for us and in the context of what’s happening in the rest of the world, it’s become even more important. Because of tensions along ethnic lines - we see the serious consequences if they are not dealt with.
3. In that context, I will cover three broad areas.
4. First, the experience of some countries with ethnic hostilities. We look at them as being illustrative for us to learn from, or what not to do.
5. Second, in that context, how their experience compares with ours.
6. Third, some future challenges that we will have to deal with.
Experiences From Other Countries
7. Let me start with examples of countries where ethnic hostilities and religious differences have led to really unspeakable violence, extreme violence. You can see and I think it’s useful for us to see, if left unchecked, the extent to which men can go to in killing other men, in the name of race, religion, or sometimes both. Even if it is far removed from our situation, I think it’s worth looking at it to see what the extreme situation is like, and then you can see what led to that, and what not to do.
8. Take the ongoing crisis in Sudan – specifically the Darfur region, far removed from our mindset, both geographically and in our mental map.
9. The region has around 80 different tribes and ethnic groups living with each other. But frankly, they are more alike to each other than our major ethnic races in Singapore. And they’ve lived longer together than we have.
10. But the ethnic tensions had been bubbling, simmering for many years. About 20-21 years ago, the situation got worse. Rebels, unhappy with the unequal distribution of economic resources, attacked the Government. And you see this very often, and you will continue to see this very often because when people are discriminated on the basis of opportunities - whether it is in Sri Lanka or Myanmar, very close to Singapore geographically or further away – these things happen.
11. The Government then fought back. An Arab-dominated militia group, the Janjaweed, supported by the Sudanese Government, attacked three non-Arab tribal communities in Darfur.
12. They killed more than 300,000 people. There were reports of mass killings, sexual violence, total destruction of villages.
13. The International Criminal Court has since charged the then-President of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, with genocide.
14. Fast forward 20 years, the conflict continues. Millions have been displaced from their homes, face acute food insecurity. Reports from refugee camps describe children dying of malnutrition every two hours. You know, there are some other conflicts that impinge on our minds today. But the situation and the crisis in Sudan - not many people are shedding tears.
15. The UN has said that the country “continues to spiral into chaos”. I don't understand that because it seems to be already in chaos.
16. Closer to home, in Myanmar, ethnicity religion – and tensions arising from that – you have the Rohingya crisis.
17. More than one million Rohingya Muslims, have been forcibly displaced. These are large numbers.
18. Tensions between Buddhist and Muslim communities in the Rakhine state escalated after Rohingya militants attacked military and police outposts in 2017.
19. This resulted in a severe military response and widespread violence against Rohingya Muslims.
20. Tens of thousands of them have been killed. Credible reports of arson, summary executions, gang rapes, infanticides, amongst others.
21. Radical Buddhist monks have also incited violence. They claim to be defending Buddhist Myanmar against Islamisation.
22. Myanmar continues to struggle with governing its multiethnic society: There is an ongoing civil war between the military junta and the anti-junta resistance which includes several ethnic armed groups.
23. These conflicts show us the scale of violence that can result from ethnic tensions.
24. People here in Singapore may be dismissive because these countries are different from us, and their experiences are so far removed that we only read about them and it seems like it has nothing to do with us.
25. I would not be so dismissive. Because you have to ask – “Why are we different?”. It’s different only for one reason - we could have been anywhere in the continuum – we are only different because we understood the causes of these problems, that these problems can arise and what could cause them; and worked very hard to prevent those causes from arising. And it's always a work in progress. To illustrate that you move from these extreme situations, leave out Sudan, Somalia, and Myanmar. You move from those two countries to the developed world; you also see what happens when you take a laissez fare attitude towards ethnic relations, and what happens when you believe that hate speech – speech attacking different ethnic groups - should be allowed in the name of free speech.
26. This great ideological belief that a lot of debate produces understanding and tolerance; a lot of heat produces light - I do not believe that when it comes to these sort of issues, a lot of heat and a lot of debate just spirals downwards into more and more extreme speech.
27. Then you have actors who come in and who take advantage of the situation for a variety of reasons. One common reason is politics. You appeal to people along racial lines, ethnic lines, religious lines - It is identity politics. You see that happening all over right now, right today. Look at the headlines – Who is winning elections in Europe? Who is leading in the US? Politicians, leaders who work along ethnic lines, who work to divide communities.
28. If you look at Gallup survey 2021. Only 42% of Americans, a minority of Americans, felt that relations between Black and White Americans were ‘somewhat or very good’. That means 58% didn’t think so. Hate crime incidents, targeting people because of race are going up. Communities are segregated along economic lines, which frequently means ethnic lines too.
29. The US is also dealing with far-right extremism involving white supremacist beliefs.
30. President Biden has called white supremacy “the most dangerous terrorist threat” in the US. This audience will know the examples, I actually don’t need to cite to explain the racial divide in the US – it’s far deeper and manifests itself in many ways. I think a key reason has been that people have been allowed to have in-groups and out-groups, and have a lot of societal rhetoric along ethnic lines. That has inevitably led to hate speech, which has then led to a very high degree of violence. In the ways in which the entire society reacts to institutions, the Police, officials, the judiciary. Trust in society has fundamentally fractured and one of the reasons is the differences in ‘Us versus Them’ attitude. Today, I think the number who trust Congress or the presidency or the judiciary are all in the low teens, sometimes single digit figures. That‘s how trust in the US is in the government
31. Turning to the UK: Between April 2022 and March 2023, the Police in England and Wales recorded over 145,000 hate crimes, with the majority (70%) motivated by race or racial differences.
32. A 2023 study also found that more than a third of people from ethnic and religious minorities in the UK have experienced racially motivated physical or verbal abuse.
33. The number of antisemitic incidents has reportedly more than doubled, since the Israel-Hamas conflict.
34. Move across the channel to France, hate crimes have also spiked.
35. Law enforcement found that there were nearly 9,000 victims of racist behaviour last year. That’s only what was reported. Foreigners of African descent were the most targeted victims.
36. Last year, riots erupted after a 17-year-old boy was shot to death by a Police officer.
37. The riots were seen as an outpouring of anger towards the state from those living in France’s multiethnic suburbs, the banlieues.
38. One of the anti-racism activists who was interviewed said: “These are things that happen when you’re French but with foreign roots. We’re not considered French, and they only look at the colour of our skin, where we come from, even if we are born in France.”
39. People in Singapore – one of the things that they often say is “Why does your IC (identity card) have the CMIO classification. Why don't you do away with it? Surely, you know we can do away with it”, and I, amongst others, tell them that I am now responsible for the policy which was set by others.
40. You know, in France, everyone is a Frenchman. There's no difference. You're not supposed to look at whether you are a Frenchman from Algeria or Frenchman from Nice. They are all French but how does it work in theory? Does that mean that there are no differences in the employment rates, where you live in, how you're treated in society? Isn’t it better to understand that there are differences, and then deal with those differences, and accept that we are different, but try and have our individual identities, but at the same time, capture the data, see the progress of the different communities, try and bring everybody up and at the same time, overlay it with the Singaporean identity? And aren't we stronger for that? So, people misunderstand the CMIO classification. It is not there to create divisions. It is there to make us understand, deal with, and the CMIO classification helps us, and build a stronger more united society and reduce ethnic tension. I'll explain that in a minute.
41. Move to Sweden, usually the Nordic countries are seen to have paradigms of social equality and egalitarian societies: you have a series of Quran burnings which took place in 2023, last year. In fact, they have been having them for some time, one of which was carried out just outside a mosque.
42. The Police had initially refused to allow two such burnings, but then, people went to court and the Swedish courts overruled the Police on the basis of free speech.
43. So, the Swedish police had to grant the permits, and at one such burning event, a violent riot erupted.
44. This tells you the classic argument between free speech and the limits of free speech. In the eyes of the court, everyone has the right to express their opinion. So, if you want to express an opinion about the Quran by burning it, you're entitled to. Somebody else, Muslims, should just accept that that's your point of view and they should deal with it by saying that that's what free speech is. But the reality, whether you're Muslim or Christian or Hindu, there will be parts of each of these communities, which would feel very upset and not find this as an acceptable form of free speech. Yes, you may not like my religion. I am a Hindu, but that doesn't mean you have to burn the gita outside the Hindu temple. You know, why should I exercise restraint? Why should the restraint be imposed on you? And why should you be allowed to express yourself, either in offensive words or offensive action and call it free speech? Who sets these limits?
45. A Swedish Muslim woman who was interviewed by the Guardian, said: “We are born and raised here over several generations, but they don’t talk about Muslims as if we are a part of Sweden.”
46. The effect of allowing these burnings, this sort of speech, is create an out-group and an in-group and try and mobilize white Swedish opinion into disliking and thinking of Muslims as a separate group. If we allowed this and hear Chinese or Indians going, burning Quran outside mosques, and Muslims burning Bibles outside the church - all of this is allowed in the US and allowed in Sweden and allowed in many parts of Europe - what do you think our state of race relations and ethnic relations will be?
47. How do we then, as a society, tell each other to have tolerance, have respect and harmony, you know, engage each other? It's not possible. So, this ideology of free speech has prevented people from thinking honestly, and sensibly about how societies, human beings actually behave. And it’s almost as if logic is suspended when you throw the term ‘free speech’, then you can stop all thinking and you just have to accept the ideology.
48. The great thing that Mr. Lee Kuan Yew did is that he never allowed logic to be suspended. He understood how human beings actually behave in society He said, well, the West may preach this. Free speech is important but restraints on free speech are also important.
49. So we see, across Europe, that there are tensions. In Singapore if you try burning the Quran or the Bible or any religious book or symbol – your next appointment, and it will be involuntary, will be with the ISD; and, if you are not detained, you are more likely to be charged for this and certainly you will see the insides of our prison. Free speech right notwithstanding. We draw the line firmly on this. Nobody even thinks of doing these things in Singapore.
50. And I don’t think we are therefore poorer in terms of the discussions we have. We have sensible discussions in schools, fora, here. And we deal with these discussions regularly. But we do it within a framework of respect. We talk about are we having our policies right? Should we do more? Should we do less? Are minorities adequately protected? Is the majoritarianism running through (policies) too much? These are all fair issues. There are ways of discussing without having to abuse each other, through actions and words.
Singapore’s Experience
51. When you look at the situation in Singapore and compare it with what is happening in the developed world – leave out Africa and some other parts of Asia – you will see that we are very much an outlier, a complete anomaly.
52. In a 2019 Gallup World Poll, 95% of respondents in Singapore said that “Singapore was a good place to live in” for racial and ethnic minorities.
53. We are ranked first globally out of 124 countries for this, even though 75% of our population is ethnic Chinese.
54. In a 2022 Pew Survey, more than 70% of Singaporeans across all religions view other religions as peaceful. Now that is a tremendous achievement, given how much religious divide is there around the world. It is also remarkable because another Pew Survey ranked Singapore as one of the most religiously diverse places in the world. So think of it – we are all packed together very densely, small place, one of the most religiously diverse places in the world, ethnically diverse with one ethnicity dominant, and yet the minorities, the different religions, denominations, groups, all think that we are peaceful, and they don’t just think we are peaceful, we are quite peaceful and harmonious.
55. So why are we such an outlier? Certainly not by chance. And how is it that we take this situation to be normal for us – which is totally abnormal elsewhere?
56. Because we have near zero tolerance for hate and offensive speech.
57. Let me just give you one illustration. Some of you will recall the incident of a former lecturer from Ngee Ann Polytechnic confronting a racially-mixed couple, an Indian man with an east-Asian looking lady, who were having an inter-racial relationship. The video went viral, he was charged, he went to jail, he lost his job. Those are the consequences in Singapore for something that passes by as par for the course in any other city in the world. If this had taken place in any other city in the world, it is just something that happens regularly outside every pub and outside every place where people walked. Those of you who lived in US or London, and lived there for some time will know. You would have been accosted in that way just for the difference in skin colour.
58. The other point is that numbers of these such incidents have remained small. If we take police reports as a proxy for the way people feel and whether they feel that they have been abused. For the past five years, there are 199 reported cases relating to race and religion. So about 40 cases a year. We have about 1.2, 1.3 million households, of whom about 1 million are living in HDB households. So we are living cheek by jowl every day with great potential for disharmony and irritation and abrasions. And you have 40 cases a year. So do the maths – 40 over 1 million or so, if we disregard the private housing, where people are more closed off.
59. So, how have we been able to avoid the problems that you see elsewhere? Making the appropriate adjustments for the fact that we are a very small city relative to many other places. But at the same time, that imposes its own difficulties, when a lot of people live together in a very small and open society. I think the key difference is really the active approach that we have taken. I will describe that as falling into two big parts. One, our legal framework. Our legal framework is quite different from almost any other country that I can think of. Second, quite apart from the legal framework, our social economic development and approach towards race and religion.
60. First, on the legal framework, it's been underpinned by a simple philosophy. And that's what Mr. Lee famously said, on the day we became a sovereign state. And I quote – most of you know this quote – we are going to have a multiracial nation in Singapore. We will set the example. This is not a Chinese nation, not a Malay nation, not an Indian nation."
61. So the fundamental philosophy expresses itself with Mr. Lee's own understanding of how men tend to gravitate towards violence, if unchecked – sometimes, not all. Most men are sensible, but there will always be people who gravitate towards violence, either for criminal reasons or other reasons.
62. So we were committed to be multiracial, multi-religious, and treat all ethnic communities equally. That underlying fundamental principle idea of Singapore is what drives us in many of our policies today.
63. So going back to the legal framework, the Constitution provides that all persons are equal before the law, are entitled to equal protection under the law. The responsibility of the Government to care for the interest of racial minorities is enshrined in the Constitution.
64. We also have in place the Presidential Council for Minority Rights, which looks at every Bill that is passed in Parliament, to ensure that they do not discriminate against any racial or religious community.
65. And, you know, if you look at workplace, we are also strengthening our legal framework to prevent discrimination.
66. Today, what we have are the Tripartite Guidelines on Fair Employment Practices, employers must recruit and select employees on the basis of merit.
67. We are strengthening this by introducing legislation, which will be called workplace fairness legislation.
68. It requires employers not to discriminate against employees based on a set of protected characteristics, which includes race, religion and language.
69. We plan to introduce this in Parliament later this year.
70. It is an important piece of legislation.
71. It signals that employment discrimination along ethnic or religious lines is unacceptable. If employers breach that, there will be consequences.
72. We have also, of course, have a tough set of laws against the incitement of racial and religious hatred, including a strict approach towards hate speech.
73. I spoke about the lecturer earlier.
74. I’ll give you another example: A Chinese man who put up graffiti at an MRT station, and he wrote something like “Malay Mati”. Such graffiti is par for the course in most places in the world. He was charged, he was sent to jail, and he was caned for his actions. Only in Singapore.
75. Not all of these are Chinese. A Malay man was charged – he pretended to be a Chinese girl and warned all Chinese women to be careful about men who are darker skinned, particularly Indians. So Police investigated, they found this man, and he also went to jail.
76. And we have had Indians being charged. So whoever it is, we are colour-blind when it comes to this.
77. This is a very, very different approach from many other countries. If you sat down and spoke with your European friends, they will be shocked that we do this. But the number that actually fall foul on our laws are very small. The fact that we have these laws and we enforce them means that a large majority of society is protected.
78. And most of us, whether or not we have laws, we don't need these laws to prevent us from engaging in hate speech. But if you don't have these laws, some people will do – a small minority – and eventually they will set the tone for an increasing number in society, which is exactly the dynamic that you see in Europe.
79. What starts out as an extreme viewpoint slowly gathers momentum through missteps by the government – center-right, center-left governments – on immigration, on how they integrate immigrants and minorities. Over time, you see how the so-called far-right parties have developed tremendous strength, basically, on a variety of factors, including an anti-immigration and anti-minority sentiment.
80. And if you look at our approach, and you contrast with what the US Supreme Court has said that inflammatory speech – even speech advocating violence by the Ku Klux Klan – is protected in the US. And the Supreme Court says, unless the speech is directed, inciting or producing imminent, lawless action – that means the prosecutor has got to prove that this speech is going to immediately cause violence. Otherwise, you can say what you like. You can call minorities all sorts of hate terms. You can call them pigs, you can call them what you like. You can, in general, say they should be chased out of the country, and they don't deserve to be here. None of that comes within this test, because it's not immediately inciting violence. Unless you can point to and say, I am telling you tomorrow we are all going to come together and let's go and kill some Muslims or Whites or Jews. Unless you can show that; you don’t need to say that to incite violence.
81. So our approach is different.
82. For example, since 1990, we've had the Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act, which provides for powers to maintain religious harmony in Singapore.
83. It was amended by me in 2019 to respond more effectively to incidents, which may detract a religious harmony.
84. Under the MHRA, we have powers to issue a Restraining Order against, say, clerics who engage in this sort of speech in the first place.
85. The way it works is, for example, when a Christian pastor went on YouTube to say some things about the Buddhists and Taoists – he said Buddhists and all these superstitions and so on. He had coffee with ISD and after that, he apologised and we have not had an incident.
86. In the 34 years of the Maintenance of Religious Harmony act, we’ve got this big act, big powers, we’ve never had to use it. No one has fallen foul of it. And that, I think, is the beauty of the framework. And the way that we have managed it.
87. Sometimes, they will have chats - people understand, they back off, and they say “Okay, Singapore is different, we won’t say these things”.
88. So, the point is this: you can believe that in societies, you can leave it to people to exercise restraint, behave properly, treat each other, including people of different ethnicities and religions, with civility and courtesy.
89. And that will be largely true of the significant majority in every society. But there will always be a minority who will be nasty towards people with different characteristics. And if you don’t deal with those people with a set of laws, eventually, they will set the tone for an increasing number. May not be the majority, but an increasing number. Enough to polarise society, and upset the tone of society. And enough for there to be violence. As is happening in Europe, the US, right in front of our eyes, right now. In a small place like Singapore, when that happens, a very large group of society will be affected.
90. When people are repeatedly exposed to hate speech, latent prejudices and biases can accumulate, and eventually ignite violence.
91. Let me refer to Myanmar again. Prior to the height of the conflict in 2017, anti-Rohingya narratives flooded Facebook, Twitter, and other online and offline news sources.
92. The leader of one of the movements, a Buddhist monk, called mosques "enemy bases". They urged Buddhists to boycott Muslim businesses and not have inter-faith marriages. I have spoken about the scale of violence that has resulted. Under the test set out by the US Supreme Court, none of that speech would be prohibited.
93. In Singapore, we don’t face this. And when we see something, we take action.
94. One example, a slightly worrying trend, is that we issued a Restriction Order under the Internal Security Act this year, against a 16-year-old boy.
95. He was Chinese, but identified himself as a white supremacist.
96. He was exposed to violent, far-right extremist material online in 2022.
97. Within a year, he developed an intense hatred of African-Americans and Arabs. This is the impact of the Internet – it’s not as if we have a large African-American or Arab community in Singapore. But he sees it online, he develops it, he believes that they should be driven away from white-majority countries. He even planned to conduct a mass shooting in the US in some years.
98. I have set out some of the legal framework we have. But I said that there are two parts to our strategy. One is the legal framework, but the law can only tell you what you can or cannot do.
99. It cannot make you be in a harmonious situation, or like your fellow Singaporeans of a different ethnicity or different religion. The law can’t make you do that. The reason why we are so successful is because that was clearly understood. You need the law, but that’s only one part. The law tells you what you can’t do. It keeps people within a certain framework. But within that framework, once you keep people within that framework, you got to actually do a lot more things to make people live with each other, with a degree of positivity.
100. That is our approach to social development as well economic development.
101. Equality of opportunity, regardless of race, language, or religion, is fundamental.
102. If people believe that they are being kept out of the system, because of their skin colour or their religion, eventually they will have trouble. And this applies to housing, education, healthcare, public policies and services. And we always have to be mindful of this.
103. That put us on a very different path from many other countries, where so much of economics and social life is organised and is based on some form of ethnic hierarchy.
104. The Government could have taken the easy route and appealed to 75% of the population. In most countries that will happen, and that is what happens. But thankfully, we did not follow that path.
105. Separately, we also intervened heavily to ensure social cohesion. We intervene in ways in which would be unacceptable in many other countries with a more laissez-faire approach.
106. But we refuse to take a laissez-faire approach to ethnic relations that you see elsewhere.
107. While we are committed to equality, I said earlier, we are not “race-blind”.
108. We have to accept that people are different, and their performances are different, whether in school or elsewhere. And that is the way in which we push people up to try and equalise performances, or try and help people.
109. One example is the Ethnic Integration Policy in our public housing estates.
110. We are probably the only Government in the world which has a policy to ensure that every estate should have a certain percentage of Malays, Indians and Chinese. So that you don’t get ethnic enclaves, and no ghetto areas.
111. Suppose the Government had left it to market forces, even in public housing. What would you see? You would see places like Ang Mo Kio, Bishan, the more expensive flats – it would be 90% or 95% Chinese. And then you would see Malays congregating in some areas, Indians congregating in some areas. And they would only be able to sell to other Indians, and only be able to sell to other Malays. So this would be the natural cause of events, you know this to be true. At some political cost, we swim against that, and we have rules for a long time that when the Malay numbers in any estate falls below a certain percentage, we will only allow the Malays to sell to another Malay, not to a Chinese.
112. The Malay, at that point, who wants to sell his flat, feels aggrieved, because if he sells to a Chinese, he will get a higher price. If he sells to a Malay, he will get a lower price. So, for him, it’s better that we allow him to sell to a Chinese. But for the Malay community as a whole, is it good? That is the point. But people mischaracterise it, and say that this is against minorities.
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113. You leave it to market forces. Of course, the local city officials had something to do with it. But essentially if people choose where to live, and there should be a large degree of freedom, then the natural consequence will be segregation along ethnic lines, and of course, that means that the schools in those areas will become segregated over time. And your focus of integration will be affected.
114. So, we have a broad parameter in public housing estates we can intervene. So, we put a certain minimum number in every estate and that ensures that there are Indians, Malays, Chinese. We are forced to live with each other in our public housing estates. And that then feeds into the fact that our schools are by and large, integrated.
115. At the community level, there are racial and religious harmony circles in every constituency.
116. They bring leaders from different ethnic and religious communities together to organise common activities for Singaporeans, building mutual trust, and something that happens without most Singaporeans understanding or noticing - the grassroots citizens consultative committees, the residents’ communities, every week across Singapore.
117. Hundreds of events are organised across constituencies to bring people of different ethnicities together, celebrating each other's festivals. Sometimes they are not celebrating festivals, we have big events. But you see Malay faces, you see Chinese faces, you see Indian faces. And, you see the organisers are also multi-ethnic, so it involves thousands of people being put together. Week in week out, with the government pushing it. The importance of this huge effort in creating a certain mind map and a certain tolerance, certain harmony, is I think now, hasn't been studied, and it's hugely underappreciated. I think it's an area that is worth studying.
118. If we didn't have it, what will happen? People will retreat into their own families, and perhaps the people that they are comfortable with, which would often be along ethnic lines. So when people do things together, weekly, they rub shoulders together, celebrate each other's festivals, you’ll get a greater appreciation for others, and you reduce the potential for hostility.
119. Now this is our current situation. Work in progress. Something that we can take some heart about. We can take some pride in, but knowing always that the challenge is always out there. Our approach has worked well so far. But I would invite the forum to consider if there are other factors that may hereafter worsen the threat of ethnic hostilities and challenge our approach.
Future Challenges
120. Let me set out two factors that I think we should be thinking about the first is the impact of technology and social media.
121. Online, hate speech can travel much faster and gain wider audiences than before. There is also disinformation widely in the online space including hostile information campaigns from foreign actors. The hostile campaigns can appeal to larger racial religious identities and can condition people to discriminate against other ethnicities. How can that affect our social fabric? It is obvious, we are a highly open digitally literate society. Technology permeates our lives. Many young Singaporeans spend more time online on social media than they do interacting with their communities and neighbours.
122. That's a phenomenon all over the world. We should ask ourselves, how are their worldviews and values being shaped by what they see online? What consequences might that have for our social fabric? The second factor is the different reactions to conflicts outside of Singapore. Different ethnic groups tend to react differently and such differences can also be exploited to stoke ethnic hostility. And this is often amplified by people subscribing to different sources of information, their own echo chambers, based on their own sympathies and affinities.
123. Take the Russia-Ukraine conflict, for most of us the facts are clear. The invader was Russia. The victim was Ukraine. The larger historical causes and so on, I have made speeches and others have made speeches. There can be differences of opinion on those. But the actual facts on who invaded whom I think is beyond argument. But, you know, there are many countries where that fact is not accepted as fact. There are many people around the world who believe that Ukraine invaded Russia. And there are people in Singapore who believe that too, depending on their news sources.
124. An MCI poll found that there was a clear, sustained difference in how older but actually higher educated Chinese viewed the conflict, compared to other demographic groups. The older, better educated Chinese were more likely to think that Russia's aggression is justified. More likely to blame the West for the conflict, and think that China's support for Russia is acceptable. Now, these are all I think, debatable. They're not as clear as saying who invaded who. That's factual. But whether Russia's invasion was justified, whether the West shares some part of the blame or all of the blame, that China's support for Russia is acceptable for geopolitical reasons. I don't think the aggression is justified. The government has made that position clear, but the reasons the historical reasons leading to the conflict, I think there can be differences of opinion. But the fact is older, better educated Chinese have a markedly different view, compared to the rest of Singapore.
125. At the same time, you look at the Israel-Hamas conflict. There are also differences in reactions along ethnic lines. This is a deeply emotive issue for many, but our polls show that there continues to be high awareness, interest, but not all groups feel equally strongly. The Malay Muslim community has been especially moved by the conflict and they have views which are much more impacted compared with the rest of Singapore. And I have no doubt if there is some issue involving India in the future, the Indian community in Singapore, Singapore citizens would take a view that is quite distinct from the rest of the society. These are facts of life, this will never go away. And it's always more adult-like to accept that these exist, and then deal with them. Rather than believe some of the stuff that you read - Oh, we are now all Singaporeans and you know, we all react in the same way. Do away with CMIO, you don't need self-help groups based on ethnicities. And we will all react to it in the same emotional way to conflicts outside and conflicts inside.
126. It is true for a significant part of us as education increases, but it's not going to be true for all of society, at least as of now.
127. So external events like this can pull our population in different directions and make it more challenging for the government and society to hold together in a united way to continue to move our society forward.
Conclusion
128. So, there are no easy answers to these questions, but I hope they will be the subject of some discussion in this fora and other fora.
129. Let me end by saying that while we have made tremendous progress in building racial and religious harmony over the last 50 years.
130. It is now a lived reality of our people. But it requires constant attention, constant effort, and the experiences of other countries, much more advanced than us, compared to where we started, offers us cautionary tales.
131. The Government will continue to do its part. We will continue to look at what else is needed again, and where laws need to be changed. We will change them and explain them.
132. And we will continue to look at our social policies but we can't do it by ourselves, without the mainstream of society, including the intelligentsia, including the academics, everyone coming together and thinking about these things and discussing honestly and sensibly.
133. So thank you very much for this invite. And thank you for organising this conference.
