Question 2)
What are the challenges of multi-ethnicity in Singapore?

The challenges of multi-ethnicity in Singapore is that the government have to meet the meets of people from all different races and religion so as to prevent conflicts and even riots.
Whatever the government can do, ultimately the responsibility is on us, singaporeans.
Therefore, all singaporeans have to work in hand regardless of race, language our religion :D

How religious issues could divide the people.
I different religion, they practice different practice and beliefs. If problems are not handed well, it could lead to riots and divide the people.


What were the events that led to the Maria Hertogh riots of 1950?


Legitimacy of the adoption of Maria Hertogh of many Muslims that lived in Malaya and Indonesia led to the riot.
Some people, like the Malayan nationalists wanted to use this incident as a chance to further weaken the colonial government's position of in the region.
This were the main events that led to the riot.



What were the causes of the Maria Hertogh riots?

Muslims were angered by the decision made by the court of giving the custody of Maria Hertogh to her biological parents even though she was raised as a Muslim by Aminah binte Mohamed.

Muslims also contributed to the riot as they gave their support, financial and moral to the organisations that were willing to fight for Maira Hertogh's stay in Malaya. The temptation of weakening of the colonial government's power was also the cause of the riot. This caused riots to occurred and therefore led to the Maria Hertogh riots.



What happened during the riot?

During the riot, the muslims attacked any Europeans and Eurasians they saw. Cars were destroyed and burned.
Police forces could not stop the mob attack. Until night, the riots then started to spread to other remote areas in the island. Some Muslims leaders also tried to voice over the radio for the riot to cease.
Police reinforcement arrived on 12 December. and were managed to control the situation only by 13 December.



What were the consequences of the riots?

18 people were killed, 173 were injured, many were suffering serious injuries, 119 vehicles were damaged and 2 buildings were being set on fire. 778 people were detained when the police set up a special investigation unit. Some were released and some were being sentenced to death.

What were the lessons learnt from the riots?


A riot can cause many innocent life to be lost and large amount of money is being invested into it and nothing is what they get back from the investment. Losing these important things were just to show their unhappiness and anger on a certain issues, hence all those time and efforts they put into the riot had gone to a waste.
The riot also teaches us how terrible racial riot would be. The importance of understanding each other's culture is therefore important.


Why do people react sensitively to religious issues?

It is because of the greed in them.
Everybody wished that their own religion or races to be treated as their way. Therefore if the government decided to use a different way that a religion appealed to treat a certain issue, the people of that religion will then want to change the government's way of doing. If the government persist, the people will then use violence to solve the problem.

Question2)





What are the challenges of multi-enthnicity in Singapore?


The challenges Singapore face is the ability to accept each and other from different
background. This is not the government's responsibility but each and every Singaporeans :D

How racial issues could divide the people

• What were the event that led to the race riots of 1964?

Events that led to the race riots of 1964 was due to a demostration protest and racial comments between the 2 races,Malays and Chinese, as the 'Chinese Secret Society takes the opportunity to stir up violence, to enforce the policy of Confrontation with the newly-formed Federation of Malaysia , a number of Indonesian activists had infiltrated into Singapore in attempts to arouse the religious fervour of the more fanatical Malays' .(taken from here) Another event was found out on 1971, when Lee Kun Yew found out that 'a sustained campaign in a Malay language newspaper,which falsely alleged that the rights of the Malay and Muslim minority were being suppressed '. (taken from here) The anti PAP campaign was another event trigger too, as it disturbed the trust of Singapoe malays towards PAP campaign.

On the birthday of Prophet Mohammed, the PaDang was filled with 25,000 people. The race riots were not due to policemen being beaten up but started due to Malays conflits caused by events and chinese groups who threw the bottle at the malay group. A curfew was hence imposed to lighten the grudges between the two races, but it ended up making the race riot worse, thus, on the 2nd curfew, a goodwill community of different racial groups were then set up to help prevent a third race riots. It was imposed till 2nd august 1964.

However, 1 month later,2 September 1964, a trishaw rider was stabbed, suspected the killer to be a chinese, thus, a racial riot stuck once more and last for 5 days and a curfew was imposed again.

Around a total of 34 people were dead and 563 people injured hiwle 1200 others were arrested or starting the rioting and breaking curfew on the third riot.

This was a painful lesson for Singaporean to learn that being a Singaporean is about respecting and understanding each other's religion.

Reacting to race issues sensitively is common as it's part of our instinct to protect our religion, just like how we would act when anyone else insulkts our family members. However, the way we deal with this 'insults' matter as different thought thinks of different ways by dealing with either violence or peace.

(credits to

http://www.sgwiki.com/wiki/1964_Race_Riots, http://www.sgwiki.com/wiki/1964_Race_Riots,

http://www.hsse.nie.edu.sg/staff/blackburn/oralhistory1964riotsMaleMalay.doc,

http://presspedia.journalism.sg/doku.php?id=1964_race_riots)

Question3)

What were the measures taken to foster social cohesion(unity among the people)in multi-ethnic Singapore?

In Singapore's education system, every single student will go through

• Civic and Moral Education,


• History


• Social Studies

Civic and Moral Education

Students will learn the correct ways to communicate and live together with people from different countries and races living together in Singapore.

This enables student to learn the correct attitude and values towards people of different backgrounds so as to achieve our peaceful multi-ethnic Singapore :D







History lessons


During history lessons, we learn about things, events that happened in the past.

For example: In our secondary 2 history education, we studied about the history of Singapore, how Singapore walked through her darkest time till how we managed to establish our modern city today.

We also learned about riots that took place in Singapore even before the times when we are born. Riots like the ....

• Maria Hertogh riots


• Hock Lee bus riots


• Chinese Middle School riots


• 1954 National service riots


• 1964 Race riots

All these happened and made the people living in Singapore now to realise the importance of accepting each other. During these riots, many innocent lives were taken away. This teaches us an important lesson, which brings us to LIVING IN HARMONY.

SOCIAL STUDIES

Now in social studies lessons, we learned about

• Singapore-A National In The World


• Governance in Singapore


• Managing Health care


• Conflicts In Multi-Ethnic Societies


• Bonding Singapore


• Managing Peace and Security

This gives us a clearer image of Singapore's past and present, enabling us to be certain about how government managing Singapore. To keep in contact us the society and current affairs.






RACIAL HARMONY DAY



In Singapore, every school celebrates Racial Harmony Day, which represents a day for schools to reflect on, and celebrate Singapore's success as a racially harmonious nation.






In schools all across the nation on that day, students are encouraged to be dressed in their traditional costumes and even crossing over to other costumes of other races.

Traditional delicacies are also featured in the celebrations.

Traditional games are played in schools especially in primary schools, where inter-class competitions are sometimes organised to educate us on the different cultures of different races.


On this day, we get to experience the great golden culture of other races :D





PLEDGE


In Singapore,

we practice the habit of reciting the pledge and singing the national anthem on every school days during the morning assembly. This not only made us memorise the sentences in the pledge but also understands the meaning the purpose behind it.

Reciting the pledge everyday enables us to start the day with a positive mind.

• We, the citizens of Singapore,
  pledge ourselves as one united people,
  regardless of race, language or religion,
  to build a democratic society
  based on justice and equality
  so as to achieve happiness, prosperity and
  progress for our nation.
  
  
  
  
  

4) Why is it important to foster social cohesion?

It is important to foster social cohesion is becuase Singapore is competing in this competing society against all coutries in the world. As Singapore is being named as " the red dot", Singapore does not have natural resources to support the country. Hence the only way to keep Singapore surviving in this competing society is to have unity among all citizens. Everybody in the world wished to be the best, and they may be even more educated than we Singaporeans. Therefore we should have unity, regardless of race and religion, in order to keep Singapore to survive and maintain what we have now in this competition.

It is also important to foster social cohension because singapore is a multi racial country and if there is no cohension between us problems like racial riots would resurface. If racial riots resurface the economy would drop because no tourist would want to come to singapore. We must be united also because singapore is a small country and if war breaks out people will not be united among other races therefore we cannot defend our country effectively.

In my own opinion , i feel that to foster social cohesion means that the country is untied together as one to do things and also overcome all the challengers that Singapore face together as '' one people , one nation , on Singapore " .
Also , it is also very important to foster social cohension in singapore . As singapore is just a little small dot in the Earth , all the people need to be untied together as one . By doing this , we would prevent the racial riots that happened in the past to happen again . If singapore were to have racial riots happening again , the economy of singapore will also slowly fall because tourists would not want to visit a country which has riots happening here and there and also a country which is not save to enjoy their holiday in.

Question 5)

Explore other ways to foster social cohesion in Singapore.

• In Community Centres

Since community centres are commonly found in all around Singapore, I suggest these community centres can organise actitivities that can bring people of different races together.

For example :

• Marathon walk


• CC tour to Malaysia


• Friendly tele-match competition


• Lessons understanding different culture


• Lessons on cooking different food of different culture

These activities can bring friends in that estate together as one, forming a more peaceful community.

• In Schools

Besides normal lessons, school can also organise lessons for all students which enables students to learn and know more about the culture and religion of other races.

In Singapore, majority of the parents woul enrol there child in neighbourhood primary school. Since those primary school do not restrict students of different backgrounds, this shows that each students will come across classmates of different race and culture.

Therefore, it is important for these children to understand and accept the different cultures. In this case, schools play an important role in educating the students the correct values.

School can organise activities like

• Tour around Singapore's different culture heritage


• Tour about Singapore's temples of different religions


• Students bringing food of different cultures


• Learning different language

This will allow students to understand more about their friends so as to create a peaceful society