Singapore an 'outlier' for racial harmony, but is the approach being challenged?

Singapore's proactive approach in dealing with racial and religious division has made it an outlier, a cabinet minister has said, but observers warn that convincing the city's youth to accept the curbing of free speech in the name of social peace will be increasingly difficult.

Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam on Monday said Singapore had not taken a "laissez-faire attitude towards ethnic relations" like other developed countries in the West, and instead imposed stringent laws and intervened with social policies "which would be unacceptable in many other countries", including restraints on free speech.

Experts told This Week In Asia that giving up some civil liberties such as freedom of expression in Western societies was an increasingly harder price to pay for young Singaporeans.

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"It will be harder for the government to defend its approach as younger generations are not willing to make the same trade-offs and seek more civil liberties," said Zulkifli Baharudin, Singapore's non-resident ambassador to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and a former nominated members of parliament.

"It's a trade-off we must make because the risk of fighting among ourselves over race, language, religion is so big that it may permanently damage the very foundation of our society," said Zulkifli, who noted that the situation was complex in Singapore as it is a Chinese-majority state surrounded by Muslim countries.

Among the 4.15 million resident population in Singapore, which has a total land area of about 750 sq km, about three-quarters are Chinese, 13.5 per cent are Malays and 9 per cent Indians. The resident population comprises citizens and permanent residents.

Since independence, race and religion have been considered sensitive issues in the compact city state and closely managed by authorities through laws and policies.

Shanmugam pointed out in his speech that Singapore had fared well in global studies for its management of race relations. In a 2019 Gallup World Poll, Singapore was ranked top out of 124 countries for tolerance of ethnic minorities, with 95 per cent of respondents saying that for racial and ethnic minorities, Singapore was a good place to live. The global average was about 70 per cent.

He also cited a 2022 Pew survey, where more than 70 per cent of the 2,000 Singaporeans polled across various religions viewed Buddhism, Islam, Christianity and Hinduism as peaceful, while a 2014 Pew report ranked Singapore as the most religiously diverse country in the world.

According to 2020 census data, 31.1 per cent of the resident population are Buddhist, 20 per cent identify as having no religion, 18.9 per cent Christian, 15.6 per cent Muslim, 8.8 per cent Taoist, and 5 per cent Hindu.

In the United States, Shanmugam cited a Gallup survey in 2021 which showed 42 per cent of Americans felt that relations between Black and White Americans were "somewhat or very good".

"Hate crime incidents, targeting people because of race, are going up. Communities are segregated along economic lines, which frequently means ethnic lines too. The US is also dealing with far-right extremism involving white supremacist beliefs," he said.

In the United Kingdom, Shanmugam noted that between April 2022 and March 2023, police in England and Wales recorded over 145,000 hate crimes, 70 per cent of which were motivated by racial differences.

A study last year found that more than a third of people from ethnic and religious minorities in the UK had experienced racially motivated physical or verbal abuse, and the number of anti-Semitic incidents had reportedly more than doubled since the Israel-Gaza war.

Shanmugam recalled how police in Sweden granted permits to allow protests that involved the burning of the Koran after people argued it was in line with free speech.

"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," Shanmugam said.

"In Singapore if you try burning the Koran or the Bible or any religious book or symbol - your next appointment, and it will be involuntary, will be with the ISD," said Shanmugam, referring to the Internal Security Department that can indefinitely detain people without trial if they are suspected to be a threat to national security.

Experts who spoke to This Week in Asia said while such laws might be considered restrictive in other parts of the world, Singapore's implementation remained "sustainable".

"So long as we do not allow the seeds of polarisation to germinate, and certainly not allow them to take roots, our approach is sustainable. Polarising and divisive speeches and actions cannot be allowed to germinate with impunity," said sociologist Tan Ern Ser.

"We would prefer to be a positive example to the rest of the world of how to have free speech with limits. Rather than we conform to the rest of the world, we would that the rest of the world conforms to us in this regard."

Yet, there are factors that worsen the threat of ethnic hostilities and challenge Singapore's approach, according to Shanmugam, who listed online hate speech, disinformation and the different reactions to conflicts abroad.

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", he said.

Government polls showed not all groups felt equally strongly about the Israel-Gaza war, for example, Shanmugam noted, with the Malay-Muslim community "especially moved" by the conflict compared with the rest of Singapore.

He argued that it was more "adult-like" to accept that these divisions existed, even if that could "pull our population in different directions and make it more challenging for the government and society to hold together".

Bilveer Singh, a political scientist from the National University of Singapore, said: "[The war in Gaza] has led to the increasing racialisation and religionisation of an issue so far away but has been brought to Singapore in the most difficult way and has put the government in a difficult position," he said.

Younger Singaporeans had an "increasing propensity" for demonstrating on global issues, he said, but Shanmugam's speech highlighted the government's long-standing approach towards freedom of expression and matters related to race and religion.

"There is much uncertainty in the global world order and this is one reminder that Singaporeans should not play with fire," he said.

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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