Question: Minister, could you share your thoughts about this event?
Minister: You know as I said in my speech, during this season, we exchange season’s greetings, we say Merry Christmas, Happy New Year. But if you are in Gaza, it is not a very Happy New Year. And likewise, in some parts of Ukraine, Sudan, Yemen, millions of people are affected, hundreds of thousands are killed. And focusing specifically on Gaza, 90% of the houses have been destroyed or damaged. More than a million people, maybe closer to two million have been displaced. 70,000 have been killed. I think 80% or so require some sort of relief, and they face food insecurity. So you can go on, it is a very difficult situation, and we are doing what we can. Humanity Matters has been at the forefront. This is the fifth time they are organising. Others have come forward, ground-up, to provide relief and supplies too. You are getting collapsible jerry cans, food, easy-to-eat food. They have engaged over 30,000 volunteers and partners through these years since October 2023. And I think if more is needed, Singaporeans will be willing to do more. I think the issue is not so much whether we can raise more, it’s whether it can get to the people on the ground, and Jordan has been very helpful. But you know, it is not within complete control of Jordan. There have been difficulties in trying to get relief supplies onto the ground.
Question: Minister, in light of recent events, overseas incidents, also domestically, how do you think we can keep that social cohesion in Singapore?
Minister: By domestic events, I assume you mean the events where pork was sent to some mosques, the bomb hoax at St Joseph’s Church, what looks like vandalism at Salvation Army - I think they are quite different in Singapore compared to Bondi Beach. Bondi Beach was based on what the Australian Government has said, it is out and out a terrorism event. The number of people who have died is serious. In Singapore, so far, we take a zero-tolerance approach, and from the events where pork was sent to the mosque, from what I know so far, he hasn’t been sentenced yet, he has been charged, it doesn’t look like an incident where he was targeting the mosque. He was targeting somebody else. So in that sense, it wasn’t an intended attack on a mosque. The target was somebody else, with some other motives. The vandalism event, we are still investigating. The bomb hoax, it speaks for itself.
I will take one step back and really put it this way. If you look at advanced developed societies, Australia, UK, and so on, many long periods of coming together as a country, as a community, as a society, with a strong set of values on what their country means to them, and an ability, therefore, to be able to engage in very robust speech which can cross racial and religious lines. But in the last two decades, three decades maybe, they have been facing up to an environment that is different, because of social media, international events and hate speech around the world, and ideas from around the world penetrate immediately into the society, plus immigrants and others with different viewpoints come together, and the original value systems are being buffeted by these forces. And they are trying to find the framework for free speech within this context. You’ve seen the Australian Government saying they are going to have to take steps. If they had tried this earlier, I am sure many people would have organised themselves to say, no you shouldn’t do this.
So, Australia, UK, they are all trying to deal with this, whereas our situation is slightly different. Our birth circumstances, if you go back to 1965, a little bit earlier, our birth circumstances were racial riots, religious confrontation; and we had a set of leaders who, taking that into account, put in place a framework, when it comes to free speech and hate speech drew very clear lines - no hate speech that crosses or attacks another race, another religion. Over the years, we have strengthened that framework, we put in more laws. I myself have put in legislation with the consent of Parliament under the Ministry of Home Affairs.
So our situation is different. We are small, multi-racial at birth, multi-cultural at birth, with a very different set of circumstances that led to becoming an independent nation. And within that framework, I think we have done reasonably well. But we take lessons from what happens elsewhere. When Paris shootings happened in 2015, we said okay, there was a kinetic response, how do you respond to such shootings across the city; and there is a philosophical, psychological response - how do you make sure our society does have the necessary defence mechanisms to be able to resist this sort of thing. But you know, we have to develop and we have to feel our way, and find our way, and this is the conversation we have to have with our own population. Thank you.
