Studying Community Relations

Summary

Dr Tan Ern Ser is confident that Singapore will remain peaceful after a terrorist incident because “we have been tested”. What he means is that Singapore's substantial Muslim population did not respond to terrorist incidents abroad like some Muslims elsewhere, whose sympathies were clearly with terrorists. Consequently, he says, “our Muslims will not be targets” in the aftermath of a terrorist attack, which occurred elsewhere. “Our Muslims are Singaporeans first and foremost”, he notes.

The Government deserves some credit for this attitude because its policies have enabled Muslim Singaporeans to feel at home in their country. For example, Singapore has good relations with both Israel and Muslim countries in the Middle East because it does not take sides in the Arab-Israeli dispute. Singaporeans understand and appreciate that lack of bias. The CEP contributes to this social resilience by demonstrating that peace and security are not only about law and order, about control and regulation, but also about people connecting with one another and collaborating on their own. This process is, of course, work in progress.

In 2010, the Institute of Policy Studies published a study, “Citizens and the Nation: National Orientations of Singaporeans”, based on surveys carried out the previous year. The fourth such survey in a series that tracks Singaporeans' emotional bonds with their nation, the study found that the sense of national loyalty and pride remained constant in spite of changes in economic performance and the social landscape over the years; that the norms of active political participation appeared well entrenched even if actual political participation was relatively low; and that, while Singaporeans' sense of community seemed to have strengthened, as seen in respondents' stated willingness to interact with and provide social support to fellow citizens, there was some concern about how the increased number of foreigners in Singapore might affect the sense of being “one nation, one people”.