Excerpt of PM Lee's speech on the PA Kopi Talk recently.
Over the last 52 years, we made significant progress in becoming one people – regardless of race, language or religion. We take pride in our country, and in our identity. We have worked together, built together, mourned together, and celebrated together as one people.
But you must remember that what we have here is not something natural, nor something which will stay there by itself.
It is the result of very hard work, a lot of toil and sweat, and the gradual education and bringing together of people.
It was also because of the gradual inculcation of shared values and attitudes that we came to have the confidence, trust and mutual respect to make us one people.
We brought people together and consciously created common spaces and opportunities.
We used English as our common working language, while ensuring a place for our mother tongues.
We mixed all races together in HDB estates, so that there are no enclaves or ghettos in Singapore.
In schools, we recite the Pledge every day. We created GRCs so that in Parliament we will always minorities represented. We came down hard on extremists – regardless of whether they were Chinese chauvinists or Malay, Indian or Hindu extremists – because they have to understand that this is what Singapore is, and this is how Singapore will act when racial chauvinists try to stir up sentiments against others.
Sometimes we think we have arrived, and that we can do away with these provisions and rules which feel like such a burden.
But in fact, it is the other way around.
It is precisely because we have these provisions and rules, that we have achieved racial and religious harmony.
We have not yet arrived at an ideal state of accepting people of a different race. Yes, we have made progress, but it is work in progress.
In climbing towards that ideal state, we need guide-ropes and guard-rails to help us get there and to prevent us from falling off along the way. The reserved election for the President is one such guard-rail.
We have to live it out daily, in little ways and big. You have a neighbour of a different race, and you can celebrate each other’s festivals. Share pineapple tarts, kueh dadar and murukku – many reasons to break your diabetes vows!
But it is also much more than that. It is about having colleagues and true friends from different races whom we laugh and cry with.
It is about being able to accommodate one another and to work through our differences.
It is about having the honesty to recognise that our multiracialism is not yet perfect, but having the courage and determination to take pragmatic steps to get there, step by step.
That is how we will continue to expand our common space, strengthen trust, and become one people, one nation, one Singapore.
http://www.pmo.gov.sg/
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