Singapore seeks more cohesion

Singapore seeks more cohesion

Brig. Gen. (ret) Lee Hsien Loong is almost certain to become
Singapore's next prime minister, replacing Goh Chok Tong after
the next general election which is likely to take place late this
year or early in 2001. In this article, BG Lee, as he is
popularly called, talks about his vision and the challenges
facing his country. Following is an excerpt of the interview with
a group of Indonesian journalists in Singapore on Saturday:

How do you sustain racial harmony in Singapore?

We have to build on what we have achieved. We have not done
badly. When we started it off, we have three separate, very
distinct communities and not very much interchange. We had some
race riots in the 1960s. From that base, we have been able to
build up and achieve some integration of the different
communities, not an assimilation into one, but an integration in
the sense that we are mixed together; we go to the same schools,
we serve national service together, we live in housing estates
which are integrated and we have friends among the different
ethnic groups.

Would the racial and ethnical tensions in Indonesia and
elsewhere in the world affect that harmony?

Our race relations are inevitably influenced by events
outside. It's not just race relations but also religious
relations. In Singapore, race coincides with religion with the
Malay Muslim community. We have to be cognizant. Each of the
different communities has got some reference points outside. The
Chinese with China, the Malays with Indonesia, the pribumis
particularly in Riau and Malaysia; and the Indians with events in
South Asia.

Inevitably there are some relationships which you cannot
completely detach. It is discernible. With the Chinese community
in the old days, the Chinese-educated in particular would have
identified strongly with what happened in China. There was one
famous occasion when there was a pingpong team which came down
(to Singapore), with the Singaporeans cheering the Chinese side
instead of our own players. That was about 20-odd years ago.

Today, this has changed because there's a new generation and
people have visited and know what China is like, and we're
different. But these ties of race and religion cannot totally
disappear for any of the racial group. You have to accept that
and at the same time we have to build up within Singapore to
widen the areas of overlaps and common ground between the
communities. That's what we're trying to do.

What do you consider as the biggest challenge facing
Singaporean society?

The challenge is to strengthen our cohesion beyond the first
generation in the face of a globalized environment. When talent
can go anywhere, if many of our bright people travel overseas,
and work overseas and become entrepreneurs, and you don't have
enough staying in Singapore to form the core of our society and
our political system, then the quality of Singapore will go down.
We have three or four million Singaporeans, but you depend on a
few hundred people to maintain the system and to bring out the
best in all of our population. In this global environment, to
keep our best and to commit them, to feel that sense of
responsibility, I think that's a big challenge.

A society is cohesive enough when you feel you're a part of
one society, whether you're very very successful and you made it
big starting a company, or you are just an ordinary worker, doing
a job. You feel you're one society in a certain personal link
between one with the other. If the successful only feel for
themselves, and the workers say that he doesn't care for me, then
you don't have the base for one society, then you will divide and
split and you'll have problems. But if we can get people to feel
together as a Singaporean community, then you can react
cohesively.

If we are unable to manage, society will divide. Also in
Singapore, if we're not careful, it may divide along racial
lines, which will compound the problem.

Do you consider cross marriage as a means to strengthen
cohesion?

It's not for the government to encourage these things. These
are very personal decisions.

There is some cross marriage but there are three ethnic groups
and each wants to retain its identity. The government's policy
has been integration, which brings them close together, and not
assimilation which means mixing them all up into one. I think if
we went for assimilation, we would have a lot of trouble and
resistance and it would be quite a disaster. We're not trying to
make everybody one. It's not possible. We just accept that these
are differences. We're not totally the same but we're all
Singaporeans.

Are you preparing your next generation of leaders?

We have to find people. We have some young people in the
Cabinet. But we have to continue to bring people in, because
regeneration is never a one-off. Every year that passes, we have
a bit more gray hair. And after five years, there's a lot more
gray hair. In every election you must have a substantial number
of new faces from the next group which are coming along.

It is one of the major preoccupations that we have in between
the elections in preparations for the next one to find these
people, to test them out and be able to field and present them to
Singaporeans: Here are some potential reinforcements to the team.

Who are they? They will have to be people in the late 30s or
early 40s, if we can find some even younger that's better but
it's not easy to find people even younger than that. Because they
don't feel that they're ready in their careers, and looking at
them we also cannot tell yet because they have not been tested
in a broad enough range of jobs or senior enough positions for us
to know enough about the person. (emb)