PM Lee Hsien Loong at the East Asia Summit Symposium on Religious Rehabilitation and Social Reintegration

Ambassador Ong Keng Yong, Executive Deputy Chairman, RSIS

Ustaz Ali and Ustaz Hasbi, Co-chairmen of the Religious Rehabilitation Group

Distinguished guests from many countries around the world, friends, ladies and gentlemen.

I am very happy to join you this evening at Khadijah Mosque to mark the close of the East Asia Summit (EAS) Symposium on Religious Rehabilitation and Social Reintegration. All of us, from different countries, face one common problem of jihadi terrorism. Its latest manifestation is ISIS, which claims to be fighting to establish an Islamic caliphate in Syria and Iraq.

And Syria and Iraq are faraway from most of us, but even so, we are all affected. We are affected because quite a number of people from all over the world have been taken in by the slick propaganda of ISIS, and have gone to Syria and Iraq to fight for this misguided cause. Others have, in the name of ISIS, perpetrated terrorist acts in their own home countries. Some are returnees from Syria and Iraq. Others have been brainwashed without going there, and persuaded to do heinous deeds. So it is naïve for any country to think that we can keep our heads low and the threat will pass us by on the other side. Therefore, we are all grappling with this same problem.

The circumstances in each one of our countries will be different, therefore every society has its own values, social structure, religious mix, location, demographic and geographic distribution of the population. For example, some societies are highly integrated while others live apart in a very segregated way. But there is one important feature of this problem that we all share in common. And that is while we need security actions and operational capabilities to counter the threat directly, we also know these are not enough. We must go beyond that, to the religious dimension: to rehabilitate apprehended terrorists so that they understand the error of their ways and can be safely released from prison or detention, and they do not fall prey again to a warped version of Islam. We also need the social dimension: to reintegrate the former extremists back into society, so that they have family, friends and support, they have a job, they have a home, their next meal is seen to and are not ostracized or left at their wits’ ends, and therefore vulnerable. 

So we have to deal with the religious and social dimensions in dealing with terrorism. And we also have to deal with the religious and social dimensions in our broader approach to this problem. Muslim communities need to be guided and work has to be done to prevent perverted and dangerous ideas from catching on. We have to work to build an integrated, harmonious, multi-religious society so that we avoid problems of marginalisation, religious enclaves, misperceptions and resentments, which can feed on themselves and generate religious extremism and terrorism.

That is why we organised this symposium in Singapore to bring together international experts, policy-makers and religious leaders from many fields and I am heartened that 600 participants from more than 30 countries, including 18 East Asian nations, have taken part. We have shared our experiences and expertise with one another, we have picked up each other’s ideas, and hopefully will adapt and apply what we have learned when we go back home.

Singapore is especially honoured to host this symposium because while the jihadi terrorism threat affects all countries, here in Singapore we take it especially seriously. We have been sensitive about race and religion for a very long time, because of our history. We are a multi-racial society, we have experienced racial tensions, religious riots in the past, and as a country, we are founded on the fundamental principle of multi-racialism – which is one of the cardinal ideals of the republic. In any multi-racial and multi-religious nation, race and religion are natural fault lines. According to Pew research, Singa¬pore is the most religiously diverse country in the world, and they surveyed 224 and they came to that. In particular, we have a substantial minority of Muslims in our midst, living peacefully with other races and religions. So any terrorist attack invoking the name of Islam in vain will have grave consequences for us. Not just that there will be physical casualties, people maimed or killed, but that it will create anger and mistrust between Muslims and non-Muslims, raise social tensions and quite possibly break apart our society. 

Fortunately, for nearly 50 years, our different races and religions have lived in peace and harmony. It is the result of a conscious and sustained effort to build trust and mutual understanding, to foster accommodation and give and take, to create extensive and strong personal links across racial and religious lines. So that should a terrorist attack ever occur, our society will hold together, and people will stand united. We have worked hard to build trust between our ethnic and religious groups. We require, for example, our public housing estates, where 80% of our population live, to be ethnically integrated. Every block of flats, every neighbourhood has a dozen blocks, must have a certain minimum proportion of Chinese, Indians, Malays, which are the main racial groups in Singapore. Thus we do not have ghettos, banlieus which are mono-racial, we do not have communities living separate from another, generating a sense of siege and neglect, of us against them, we all live together, work together.

After 9/11, when we discovered and broke up the Jemaah Islamiyah group (an offshoot of Al Qaeda) which was planning a major attack in Singapore, multiple suicide bombs, we brought community and religious leaders together from all the different groups, spoke candidly, explained the facts, discussed the problem so that everyone knew “We are in this together”. Everybody could understand where everybody else stood, built trust and dispel any misunderstandings. 

We also celebrate happy events together, in an ecumenical fashion. Few days ago I attended the Taoist Federation’s Silver Jubilee, Taoists make up 10 percent of our population in Singapore. On my table, and it was a very big table, there were representatives of all the world’s major religions – ten different faiths in Singapore. So I posted some pictures on my Facebook page. One showed the Rabbi of Singapore sitting next to the Mufti of Singapore, sitting next to the Sikh leader who is chairing the Inter-Religious Organisation. They were sharing a meal, sitting side by side. Each had food which met his religious requirements, but that did not stop them from breaking bread together. Another cuter photo was of the Mufti taking a selfie with the Rabbi! Smiling broadly, both of them, if you go to my webpage you will see it. It is a most unusual and remarkable state of affairs!

It is not just our leaders that get together, but also our youths. Recently I had lunch with some young religious leaders, I was looking for the next generation, making contact with them and they told me that their youth groups in the religious organisations participated in the Harmony Games every year. It has been going on for eight years; each group takes turns to organise it. It is an occasion for youths of different faiths to come together, play sports and make friends. I asked one leader whether when the young people play sports together, they played in religious teams or mixed teams. He said, well so far we have played in religious teams. So you could have the Catholics playing against the Taoists. But I suggested that next year, perhaps we can do better and have mixed teams, more fun. 

One important reason we have been able to achieve peace and harmony here is because our Muslim community and Muslim leaders have supported this endeavour. 
This is an absolute requirement if we are to make any headway in the fight against jihadist terrorism. But it is not easy to achieve, because it depends on trust having already been established and where the trust is not yet strong enough, it is hard to get into a virtuous circle and to start building it especially when under stress. 
 
You have met the Religious Rehabilitation Group (RRG) over the past two days, Ustaz Ali and Ustaz Hasbi and their people and they have been doing sterling work since 2002. When we uncovered the JI in 2001, the Asatizahs the religious leaders came forward with no certainty of success, put their reputations on the line, worked closely with Government, and took the risk of being seen as doing the Government’s bidding. But they persevered and have done good work and they have established themselves and the community. And the proof is in the outcomes, when you lock somebody up for terrorism, you have to ask yourself – are you going to lock them up forever? It is not a punishment for a crime, it is a prevention against a future terrorist act. How are we going to let them out? You have to rehabilitate him, make him safe for release. Since 2003 when the RRG was established, we have released from detention 57 extremists who have been rehabilitated and who, at the point of release, no longer pose a security threat. That it was safe to release them. Of these 57, who have been released over a dozen years now, so far we have only one case of recidivism, where we had to bring the man back in. So I would count that a resounding success. 

Besides rehabilitating extremists, the RRG have reached out to the broader public through talks and the Internet to sensitise Muslims to the erroneous teachings of radical ideologues. The extremists the Jihadists, they have become skilful in using the internet, using social media to put out their poisonous propaganda, to mislead people and to bring in new recruits. On the side of the good people, we also have to be as skilful and efficient in using social media and the internet to reach out to people to counter the lies and make sure the truth prevails.

Here in Khadijah Mosque, they have set up a Resource and Counselling Centre, upstairs, which some of you may have visited just now, which provides information and advice and resources for anyone who needs clarification on radical rhetoric or material. And if you also want to study the radical material, it is also available here because you must also understand the opponents and the threat in order to be able to neutralise it. 

Other groups in Singapore have also played an important role in this effort - MUIS (the Islamic Council of Singapore) has implemented an accreditation scheme for religious teachers and scholars, the Asatizah Recognition Scheme (ARS), to reduce the likelihood of Singaporeans engaging in radical religious teaching. Also to reduce the likelihood of Singaporean parents engaging radical teachers for their children unbeknownst. The Mufti, the Islamic scholars and religious teachers association (PERGAS) have worked together with youths to counter extremist ideology through conferences and outreach efforts, We also have an Aftercare Group (ACG), a network of Malay/Muslim organisations, which provide support services to detainees’ families to help them cope with the detention, and also to help the families and the detainees find jobs and re-integrate back into society when they are released.

So I think we have been very fortunate in Singapore that our Malay Muslim community have come together and worked hard to prevent radical ideologies from taking root and spreading here, and for that, I give them my heartfelt thanks. 

We can count our blessings in Singapore that we have not been successfully attacked, that the ties between our different communities are strong and that our Malay / Muslim community has taken responsibility and acted to counter radical ideology and to sensitise the wider public, Muslim and non-muslim to this problem. It took a long time for us to get here. In the 1950s and 1960s we experienced quite nasty racial and religious riots.

But since then, we have enjoyed peace and harmony between the different faiths here. Every year, on 21 July, our schools celebrate Racial Harmony Day, our students come to school in ethnic dress and learn about our history and learn about each others’ practices, customs and beliefs. During the year, we have exhibitions and activities to help them understand what this is about. This is not a fancy dress day but there is a deeper meaning to it. One day, I visited such an exhibition in a school and the kids showed me around. They have been trained as docents, to understand what the panels were, what the exhibits were, what the photographs showed and which events happened which year and so on. They took me around and explained the exhibits most professionally. After that, I chatted with them and one student asked me “Sir, when you were a school boy, did you celebrate Racial Harmony Day too?” I said no, when I was in school, we had no racial harmony day.  In fact, on that date one year, there were racial riots!  That is why, you now celebrate Racial Harmony Day, so that you will learn why racial harmony is important, and so that we will never forget. I think we should count it as a blessing that young people have to learn these things by being taught, which is a hard way to learn it rather than by experiencing it, God forbid, which leaves an indelible impression on you. So we are enjoying a very special and unusual state of affairs in Singapore, we have racial and religious harmony.

I hope this symposium, and our collective efforts, we will make a small contribution to countering jihadi terrorism and keeping our peoples safe. Thank you very much.

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