SINGAPORE – Beyond tolerating different habits and cultures, there is a need for deeper understanding of one another’s cultures in the next phase of Singapore’s development, said Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam.
He was speaking at the event, Embracing And Harnessing Multi-Racialism To Drive Business Growth, held on Friday at the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCCI) Building in Hill Street to mark Racial Harmony Day.
He said: “In our next phase, let’s deepen our understanding of each other’s cultures. Do it by participating in each other’s cultures, not just tolerating the fact that we are different.”
He added: “Have our children grow up mixing with each other more and deepen our identity. It will give us confidence in a future that’s going to be more troubled than we have seen before.”
The seminar was organised by the SCCCI, the Singapore Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SICCI) and the Singapore Malay Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SMCCI).
Mr Tharman said Singapore is a multiracial society not just because of population diversity but through careful planning and active coordination, be it at housing estates, schools or at work.
“Not many countries have achieved it, but we have to make sure that this remains fundamental to our future,” he said.
The 66-year-old presidential hopeful and former senior minister said Singapore’s multiracialism is built on two spaces.
The first is Singaporeans’ own cultures and languages, which give them emotional identity.
The second space is the common one where each community has to make some compromises, such as in schools and a large part of the public space.
But there is also a need for a third space, where Singaporeans participate in one another’s culture to deepen understanding, he said.
This does not mean a fusion of all the cultures, though, he said.
Rather, one must remain faithful to the foundational traditions, and evolve the boundaries of these traditions by absorbing something from one another to enrich the traditions.
Mr Tharman, who has an interest in Chinese calligraphy, cited examples such as the Nanyang art movement, which combines Chinese and Western aesthetics with circumstances in South-east Asia to create fresh ideas and attract new audiences.
During the question-and-answer session, Mr Tharman said Singapore has to venture out into the region and the world in the next five to 10 years.
He added that the country has the advantage of being part of South-east Asia and Asean, which has an openness to trade and investment and a desire to grow.
To understand and work with the region, Singaporeans need to acquire some fluency in languages like Malay and Mandarin, he said.
Even in schools under the Special Assistance Plan (SAP), which is for children academically strong in both Chinese and English, the students can learn other languages, such as Malay.
Singapore should also make more use of the school clusters by, for instance, having co-curricular activities (CCAs) together, and training and competing on a constant basis, he added.
Mr Tharman said his four children, who studied in SAP schools, also went out of their way to make non-Chinese friends through their CCAs and after school.
On SAP schools, he said: “Don’t change the foundational traditions, but we can innovate at the boundaries.”
