ALTHOUGH the different races here have grown closer over time,
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong does not think Singapore will ever
become a kopi susu nation.
As with the world, there are different races and religions here, so
people must not pretend they are not there, he said.
Lee was replying to a grassroots leader who had asked if, in the
future, the fault lines of race and religion could be
blurred.
It is a goal which Singapore is working towards, 'but one country
completely homogenised, served together like kopi susu, I don't
think that's going to happen,' he said to laughter during a
dialogue, referring to the local term for coffee with milk.
The meeting with about 1,700 community leaders and students was
held on Thursday to discuss Singapore's new Community Engagement
Programme.
It seeks to build a network of people from all races and groups so
that Singapore will hold together and not fall apart in the event
of a terror attack.
Lee, in his reply, felt 'people want to keep different religions,
different customs'.
Until all the world religions become one, we will have more than
one religion in Singapore,'' he added.
He also did not agree with some community leaders who felt
Singapore could be made race-blind by erasing it from the identity
cards and job applications.
It will not work, said Lee, citing the French experience and the
discrimination Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew faced as a student
looking for housing in Britain.
He believes it is better to acknowledge the realities of race,
religion and language.
In Singapore, we deal with realities but we move to make progress,
to make this a more integrated and more united society. I think
that's a practical approach.''
Pointing to France, he noted that the word race'' is not seen
anywhere and the official government line is that everybody's
French.
You can't say you're a Frenchman from Algeria, Frenchman from
Morocco. You're a Frenchman,'' said Lee, who visited the country
last November.
Yet, the reality is far from the ideal.
Frenchmen of different races and religions live in different areas,
with the people of African and Arab origins congregating in the
ghettos of Paris.
The people who live in the down-and-out places say this is
make-believe. We are not all the same. You pretend that we're all
the same
France was rocked by three weeks of riots last November when youths
of African and Arab descent torched cars, looted and clashed with
the police across the country.
To aggravate matters, Lee said, the French do not have statistics
and data to help them identify the problems because it is illegal
to collect statistics by race.
He also recounted MM Lee's experience when he was a student in
Britain looking for a place to stay.
He would call up and say he was Mr Lee''. As some Englishman also
share the same surname, the landlords would think he was
white.
'When he shows up, they tell him, sorry, no flat, no vacancies,
because actually they saw him: He's a Chinese.
