Singapores social cohesion has been achieved through deliberate government intervention I agree to this statement to a large extent.

Singapore is a multi-ethnic country with people from many different racial, cultural and religious backgrounds, a lack of tolerance by any group can result in conflict that Singapore can ill-afford. Therefore, social cohesion is very important in Singapore and this has been achieved mainly by effective government policies and programs. The purpose of these policies and programs are to, build a national identity, safeguard the interests of minority groups and develop common space. However, the people themselves must be co-operative and are willing to accept all other racial groups in order for social cohesion to be achieved. First, building a national identity is essential in promoting social cohesion in Singapore. One way the government achieved this is through the implementation of the policy of multi-racialism. This policy promotes equality among the races as the government is placed in a neutral position where legislation prevents acting in ways which cannot advantage any particular ethnic group, no special rights are granted to any particular racial or religious group. Singapore is a firm believer of meritocracy, everyone is rewarded equally according to merit and no racial group is treated better than the rest. Fairness to all the racial and religious groups in Singapore has enabled these groups to co-exist harmoniously as no group will be view as a lesser group. Another policy that builds national identity in Singapore is the bilingualism policy. The government introduced the policy of bilingualism to promote racial harmony and integration with the rationale that English is seen as the language of technology and management, and the Asian languages as the carriers of cultural values. The bilingual policy in education refers to the use of English with Mandarin, Malay or Tamil, depending on the mother tongue of the student. The bilingualism policy is seen as a bridge to the three cultural heritages in Singapore, and as such promoting a cohesive and stable society. Second, social cohesion is also achieved through safeguarding the interest of minority groups. The government has set up the policy of minority representation, which protects the interests of minority groups as they are given the right to have a say in

governance. One of the ways in which minority representation is assured is through the Group Representation Constituency (GRC) system (1982). Under this system, a few constituencies are regrouped into a larger constituency known as a GRC. Within each GRC, a maximum of six candidates is fielded as a team to contest in the General Elections. At least one of the candidates in the team must belong to the Malay, Indian or the communities. The GRC system ensures that the minority racial groups will be represented in Parliament. In this way, the concerns and needs of the minority groups are made known to the government. Furthermore, the system requires political parties to take a multi-racial approach when campaigning in the GRCs. Candidates from the different races in each team would have to co-operate with one another. This contributed to social cohesion as the minority groups can express what they want in governance, thus they will not feel left out nor treated unequally and different races are also given the opportunity to work with each other. Another way which the government safeguards the interest of minority groups is by setting up the Presidential Council of Minority Rights (PCMR). The PCRM is tasked to ensure that new laws passed by Singapore's Parliament are not discriminatory against any race, religion or community. It does this by scrutinizing all laws passed by the Parliament and reporting if any biasness is detected so that the law will be reconsidered. They will also investigate complaints as well as report any issues affecting the racial or religious community to the government. By setting up such a council, social cohesion is maintained in Singapore as fairness is promised to all racial groups and all benefit and are punished equally under the Singapore law. Third, developing common space also plays an important role in having social cohesion in Singapore. One way which the government has done this is by introducing the Ethnic Integration Policy (EIP). This policy was introduced in 1989 to promote racial harmony in HDB estates by preventing the formation of racial enclaves. Under this policy, there are maximum proportions of HDB flats for all ethnic groups in each HDB block and neighborhood. Once the quota has been reached for an ethnic group, there will be no further sale of HDB flats to the ethnic group in order to have a balanced mix of residents of different races in each neighborhood and block. By having such a policy, there will be a lot of interaction between people from different racial groups and through

this, races could learn more about each others culture and be more accepting of one another. In addition, activities are frequently conducted by the Inter-Racial Confidence Circles (IRCC) and Harmony Circles (HCs) to foster inter-racial understanding and bonding by providing a platform to interact and build friendship and trust. For example, they have recently organized a Yew Tee Passion Day 2011 which was a carnival meant to strengthen the relationships between people of different races by letting them play different games together. Through such events races could have the opportunity to understand each other better and also have more trust for one another, hence contributing to social cohesion. On the other hand, even if the government has placed many policies to ensure social cohesion, if the people are not cooperative and are unwilling to work with other races, social cohesion would not be maintained. For example, for the EIP, even though people from different races are living together in a HDB flat, if they are unwilling to interact with each other or only with their own race, it does not serve its purpose, worse still, there might be more disputes as races do no not tolerate and understand one another. Another example would be the bilingualism policy, even though all students are forced to learn English and their mother tongue, many students only converse with one language and treats the other as a burden, in this way, not only does the policy does not serve its purpose, it also makes student detest the other language. Therefore, the peoples cooperation in the governments policies plays a very important role in social cohesion too. In conclusion, the government has deliberately put in many policies, laws and programs to ensure that all groups are treated equally and that they work and live well with one another to maintain and strengthen social cohesion. However, this could not have been possible without the peoples actively participation and co-operation with the government.

References: 1. Inter-Racial Confidence Circle (http://www.ircc.sg) 2. Envisioning Chinese Identity and Managing Multiracialism in Singapore (http://www.iasdr2009.org/ap/Papers/Orally%20Presented%20Papers/Society%20in%2 0Design/Envisioning%20Chinese%20Identity%20and%20Managing%20Multiracialism% 20in%20Singapore.pdf) 3. The Presidential Council for Minority Rights (http://infopedia.nl.sg/articles/SIP_1605_2009-10-31.html) 4. SCS textbook