Singapore is committed to supporting Palestinians to build their capacity and skills, and will double the sum of its enhanced technical assistance package from S$5 million to S$10million.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong made this commitment at a meeting with Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah in Ramallah on Wednesday, Mr Lee’s press secretary Chang Li Lin told reporters after the meeting.
Mr Lee, the first Singapore prime minister to visit the Palestinian Territories, also encouraged the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) to resume negotiations to find a just and durable peace in a two-state solution – with Israel and Palestine living side by side.
Under the package, Singapore has hosted study visits for Palestinian officials in areas such as education, anti-corruption reform and economic development.
Singapore will also share its experience in vocational and skills training.
“PM Hamdallah welcomed this as the Palestinians valued their friendship with Singapore,” Ms Chang said. “He expressed appreciation for Singapore’s assistance as education was a key focus for the Palestinians.”
Dr Hamdallah received Mr Lee at his office in the Palestinian Territories on Wednesday morning.
Both men then visited the mausoleum of Yasser Arafat, the first president of the Palestinian Authority, where Mr Lee laid a wreath before Mr Hamdallah hosted him to lunch.
Dr Hamdallah welcomed the first visit by a Singapore PM to the Territories and conveyed the warm greetings of President Mahmoud Abbas, who is overseas.
Mr Lee invited Dr Hamdallah to make a reciprocal visit to Singapore, which he accepted.
Mr Lee also reiterated the standing invitation for President Abbas to visit Singapore.
Dr Hamdallah briefed the Singapore delegation about the situation in the Palestinian Territories and reaffirmed the PNA’s commitment to the two-state solution.
PM Lee had, at a meeting with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, reiterated
Singapore’s hope that the Israelis and Palestinians can restart talks for a two-state solution.
It was a point he made again when Israel’s Leader of the Opposition Isaac Herzog called on him on Wednesday morning.
Both men had an exchange of views on developments in Israel and the region, Ms Chang said.
“Mr Herzog agreed that the two-state solution remains the only viable option to achieve a just and durable peace for Israel and Palestine,” she added.
Mr Lee also visited the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in the morning and Muslim leaders showed him around the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque.
If u are agitated or angered by the picture of the youth who showed his middle finger to the Quran n mocked Muslim prayers, remember the story of a man who tugged Prophet Muhammad’s (Peace Be Upon Him) shirt..
The Prophet once took a loan from a Jew in order to help a group of villagers who were in financial difficulty..A few days BEFORE the promised date of settlement, the Jew came to the Prophet while he was with his companions. When the Jew got close to the Prophet, he tugged the Prophet’s shirt holding him by the neck and shouted in the Prophet’s face “I didnt know from amongst the family of Banu Abdul Muttalib are those who would delay their repayment of loans!”
Saidina Umar stood up and was about to beat up the Jew when Prophet Muhammad stopped and said “We do not need this from you O Umar. In fact I need you to counsel me to repay the loan in a good way n for u to advise him to claim his loan to me in a gracious manner! Now please help me to bring him to where I have prepared the amount to repay him n u are to add to the amount that I am repaying him for the trauma that you have caused him from your action!”
Saidina Umar then acceeded to Prophet’s request and brought the Jewish man to where the location of the repayment is. Along the way the Jew asked Saidina Umar “O Umar do you know who I am? I am so and so”. Saidina Umar then said “Arent u the famous scholar of the Jewish community? Why did u act like that towards the Prophet?” The Jewish scholar said “I have observed many sign of Prophethood in Muhammad but I have yet to observe one sign with my own eyes! That sign is the more ignorance n evil is thrown at him, the more gracious he shall be and today I have witnessed it.. Bear witness O Umar that I testify that there is no God but Allah n I bear witness that Muhammad (PBUH) is His messenger..
KUALA LUMPUR — The Malaysian Deputy Minister in charge of Islamic Affairs on Tuesday (April 19) defended the country’s decision to allow controversial Islamic scholar Zakir Naik (picture) to conduct his recent week-long lecture series on religion following an uproar from various quarters, including the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) component parties, because Dr Zakir is a “voice of moderation” for Islam.
Analysts, however, told TODAY the Malaysian government’s endorsement of Dr Zakir — including a meeting between the preacher and Prime Minister Najib Razak — was aimed at appealing to the Malay voter base, marking another level at which the country’s main ruling party, the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), is using religion to shore up its political position.
In an interview with business radio station BFM on Tuesday morning, Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Asyraf Wajdi Dusuki said the India-born preacher was needed in Malaysia to counter the rising extremist voices in Islam. “Islam is a misunderstood religion, and there are many voices that are perceived as being extremist. We need a voice of moderation,” said Mr Asyraf . “He could represent a voice of moderation, not only among Muslims, but especially non-Muslims.” Mr Asyraf said Dr Zakir was capable of convincing non-
Muslims that Islam is a “religion of moderation”. “We are facing plenty of problems right now with extremist groups. This is why we need iconic personalities to change this perception,” he added.
Mr Asyraf was among those who lobbied for Dr Zakir to be allowed to speak in Malaysia, despite objections from BN’s senior partners, Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) and the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA), as well as from numerous non-governmental organisations.
NGO Hindu Rights Action Force had accused Dr Zakir of encouraging discord by allegedly promoting terrorism and criticising the various faiths practised in Malaysia. The preacher is controversial for his views, among them his support for Al Qaeda jihadists and Osama bin Laden, after, in a 2006 lecture, he called for “every Muslim to be a terrorist”. However, Malaysia’s Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi has defended the Islamic televangelist and even described the latter as a “very wise man”. During his week-long tour, Dr Zakir spoke in Kuala Lumpur, Terengganu and Malacca, after being given permission to do so by the police and the government.
Dr Lim Teck Ghee, director of the Centre for Policy Initiatives in Kuala Lumpur, told TODAY that the government’s move in greenlighting Dr Zakir’s speaking engagements was to appeal to the Malay-Muslim support base. “It is to make sure this audience continues to see the government as protecting Muslim and Malay dominance and hegemony,” said Dr Lim.
“The past two elections have shown that UMNO’s hold on power is precarious. Distracting the Malay Muslim audience with religious issues, which make it appear as if UMNO is the champion of Islam, is a straightforward and sure-to-win method to retain Malay votes; perhaps even a majority.”
Political analyst Wong Chin Huat noted the issue is about domestic positioning, to “lock in” Muslim voters who are eager to see Islam or Muslims emerging triumphant in any zero-sum game with other faiths or religious communities. “It’s a sign that the government is using the religious card to shore up its political position,” the head of political and social analysis at Penang Institute told TODAY.
In the space of three short months recently, Singaporean society witnessed outpourings of concern over the planned public performances of two major international stars: Adam Lambert and Madonna.
Last November, an online petition that objected to Lambert’s “promotion of a highly sexualised lifestyle and LGBT rights” collected about 20,000 signatures. In February, it was reported in the news that eight pastors representing various Christian denominations met Home Affairs and Law Minister K. Shanmugam to express concerns over possible religiously offensive content in Madonna’s planned concert.
In each case, heated discussions followed everywhere online as ordinary Singaporeans argued for and against the merits of these objections.
These events point to two interesting features of current Singaporean politics.
First, while once communal concerns over issues of public morality were largely dealt with behind closed doors, over the past 10 years or so we have begun to see public lobbying over moral and cultural issues such as LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual) rights, “sanctity of life” issues including abortion, the death penalty, euthanasia and others like the decision to build integrated resorts.
Second, social media platforms have become part of our public political space – an important outlet for people sharing political news and opinions – but some of this public interaction has historically been less than civil.
It was a product of these two observations that the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) recently carried out a study on “The New Singaporean Pluralism”. This involved closed-door focus group discussions and individual interviews with many prominent public advocates on all sides of the issues of LGBT rights and the “sanctity of life”.
We attempted to identify the specific basic points of contention and the objectionable advocacy tactics that have been used in recent years. But more importantly, we attempted to tease out the potential principles and practices of governance that may help maintain the civility of our shared political space so as to be able to apply them to future disagreements.
Some of the points of contention were expected. For example, LGBT rights advocates want the LGBT community to have protective rights because having an LGBT identity is not a choice, whereas anti-LGBT rights advocates think otherwise. They believe that even if same-sex attraction is not a choice, same-sex sexual behaviour is inescapably a choice. Whether LGBT identities are choices is an empirical question that scientists all over the world are still trying to answer, but since the issue is shifting towards behaviour rather than attraction, in the eyes of anti-LGBT rights advocates, even finding the gay gene may not be sufficient to convince them that LGBT persons deserve protective rights.
As for “sanctity of life” issues, it was perhaps also no surprise that each constituent issue revolved around contentions about how to measure the value of a life against other goods like autonomy or public safety, or how to measure longer lives against better quality lives. Of course, unsurprisingly, the role of the government and its ability to make final decisions in these areas is contentious as well.
These findings point towards a need for further research on the empirical claims of all sides of the two topics, but whether empirical evidence will settle these issues is an open question, because these types of disagreement are at bottom based on differences in how we value certain goods and principles. In order to maintain the civility of our political space, what we need are ways to manage these cleavages without either suppressing them or letting them boil over into violence.
Thus, it is heartening to note that there was a consensus against using hate speech, dehumanising speech and name-calling in public advocacy. It is interesting to note, however, the difficulties in the details.
First, there is little agreement on what exactly constitutes such unacceptable speech. Second, different groups and organisations have different levels of tolerance for these practices. And third, advocates can easily offend their opponents without meaning to. For example, the word “lifestyle” is intended by anti-LGBT rights advocates here to neutrally describe LGBT identities; however, the term is considered offensive in the LGBT community because the word implies that their identities are choices and it is taken as trivialising their identities.
Despite the kind of unsavoury language that might be used in online political discussions regarding moral and cultural disagreements, the majority of our participants valued the freedom of speech and information made possible by social media too much to try to institute further controls – though how effective communal self-policing can be going forward remains an open question.
It was nevertheless suggested that we would do well to teach civic and democratic values in schools. Our youth would learn not only how to comport themselves civilly in the unmediated realm of social media but also how to honestly negotiate democratic practices such as debating and lobbying for support. All these require them to develop the type of empathy needed to understand the perspectives of opponents even while fighting their own corner.
Additionally, the experiences we had in organising the focus group discussions were instructive on how we may be able to minimise the hostility and demonisation that often accompany such moral and cultural cleavages.
Beyond the more obvious principles such as having discussion platforms that are neutral as well as sufficiently authoritative to guarantee privacy and security, we learnt that having face-to-face meetings and the telling of stories help humanise each side to the other, impeding the tendency to demonise opponents and project sinister motivations on them. After all, in the new era of value pluralism, we cannot put the genie back in the bottle. Unlike the socio-economic issues that continue to dominate much of our local politics, we are seeing more and more disagreement regarding moral and cultural issues for which objective rational consensus is impossible.
In order to negotiate this new politics, we need new democratic tools. The sooner we learn how to talk among ourselves as well as with the authorities in multi-logical processes, the healthier our political space will be. We have to learn how to treat new laws and policies as provisional decisions still open to future challenge, because only then can losing sides have hope for the future and remain justifiably committed to the democratic process instead of using force. We have to learn to agree to disagree and take every loss on the chin, knowing that there will always be a rematch.
These new democratic practices are not perfect, but against a background of irreducible pluralism, they can help reaffirm a unity of purpose where a unity of views is impossible.
•The writer, Johannis Bin Abdul Aziz, was a co-investigator in the Institute of Policy Studies’ 2015-2016 project on The New Singaporean Pluralism. He has a PhD in political science from the University of California, Berkeley.
