Safeguarding Secularism in Singapore

With the increasing religiosity in our society, pockets of self-righteous religious zealots who seek to impose their beliefs on others have also engendered. This is a cause for concern, for it threatens one of the fundamental tenets on which our society is built upon – secularism. It is not a fluke that Singapore has managed to come thus far and maintain racial and religious harmony. Rather, our harmonious multiracial and multi-religious society, which is the envy of many countries, is due largely to the fact that we have ensured secularism to be the prevailing tenor of our society. It is with this conviction with which I disagree with NMP Dr Thio Li-ann’s parliamentary speech “A Recipe for Disharmony”, in which she mentioned that “…militant secularism is an illiberal and undemocratic vice in seeking to gag religious views in the public square and so to privilege its atheistic values, as in communist state.” That Dr Thio made the speech not long after the AWARE saga seemed to imply that she has directed much of the vitriol to those were against the old ‘new guard’ exco of AWARE, though she did not explicitly mention this in her speech.

For those who have not been following the news, the AWARE saga started in April this year when a group of Christians hailing from the same church took over leadership of AWARE (a secular voluntary welfare organisation) by getting fellow church members to sign up as new members and vote the former in through sheer numbers. It is no surprise that the use of such underhand tactics to gain leadership of a secular civil group in Singapore has resulted in a public backlash. The old ‘new guard’ of AWARE led by Ms Jocie Lau claimed to champion for mainstream values such as ‘anti-gay’ notions. Nevertheless, the fact that her team only comprised of people from her faith and church begs the question of their true agenda. If what they were really pushing for were mainstream values, should they not have found it prudent to include people of other faiths and free-thinkers as well? Surely there is no dearth of capable people from other faiths in Singapore? The reticence of Ms Lau and her team in announcing their goals and directions for AWARE after gaining leadership only served to add to the public unease. It was even more astounding that Ms Lau had the temerity to suggest that the press harboured hidden motives in its reporting of the story when she and her team resorted to stealthy tactics of gaining control in an organisation and then keeping mum about their motives. People who live in glass houses should not throw stones. Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports, Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, has mentioned the importance of having a ‘rainbow coalition’, which means including people from various faiths and races, in political and civil activist groups which claim to be secular. Doing so would be far more effective in allaying public unease about the ability of the organisation to ensure that a plurality of voices and opinions of those from other faiths and races would also be heard and considered in the decision-making process, as compared to mere rhetoric.

It would be naïve to believe that religious tensions in Singapore are completely non-existent. The public backlash following the AWARE saga has showed us how easy it is to stress the fabric of our society’s cohesiveness. We need to exercise caution when dealing with matters of religion in the public sphere. Religious leaders must also be prudent when addressing their followers and not misuse the pulpit like what Pastor Derek Hong, from the same church as Ms Lau and the rest of the old ‘new guard’ exco of AWARE, did when he called on his fellow church members to rally behind Ms Lau and her team. While I agree with Dr Thio that “religiously-informed views” can contribute positively to public debate, we must not condone any self-righteous mentality by any particular religious group. No religious group should unilaterally claim that it alone represents the mainstream and impose its ideology and beliefs on others. Only then can we ensure a pluralistic society where religious freedom is the order of the day; a society where no one would be coerced into subscribing to beliefs and convictions imposed by others. It is reassuring to know that the various religious leaders in Singapore have readily come forth to express their commitment in upholding secularism in our society after the AWARE saga.

Incidents such as the AWARE saga serve as a timely reminder for us that politics and religion should be segregated instead of being conflated. Parents, schools and religious leaders have to inculcate in their children the importance of having respect towards those from other faiths. Only when the various religious groups discard the notion that their religion is the one and only one ‘right’ religion, or to paraphrase Obama in his recent speech in Cairo that “the measure of one’s faith (is not) based on the rejection of other faiths”, can true respect for each other’s faiths engender. Otherwise, the religious harmony which we have will only be skin deep and go no further than mere religious tolerance, without much understanding of the other faiths; it would only exist as a façade under which mindsets harbouring religious superiority and self-righteousness would take hold, and this would be the real “recipe for disharmony”.