The Singaporean solution to coexistence
Manama : Ng Eng Hen, Minister of Defence of Singapore, at the Manama Dialogue yesterday, shared his insights on how the Singapore government ensured social integration and coexistence.
“We made two assumptions when coming up with the solutions to integrate different races, the first was that people will gravitate towards their own ethnic groups when left on their own. Secondly you need to give people stake in the progress of the society for them to buy into whatever ideology you have.”
He further added that this ideology was translated into actual policies in the legal, social and political systems.
“We made laws which ensured that race and religion are respected. Secondly we knew that if you left people to make decisions on their own it was natural for people to gravitate towards groups of their ethnic backgrounds. So we had quotas in place to promote social mixing,” he said.
“Our elections ensured that all races were involved. An amendment ensures that after a certain time period if a minority race is not elected president then the next election is reserved only for minorities,” he added.
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