5 Years of the Community Engagement Programme

The Community Engagement Programme (CEP) is in its 5th year. I was there when the concept was first mooted. Then, the world just saw one of the most horrific suicide attacks in New York by terrorists. Not soon after, we discovered the militant JI cell in Singapore and crippled it. While we took decisive and concrete measures to tighten our borders and harden our defence, we soon see ethnic relations starting to become a problem in many parts of the world, even developed ones. Such a tear in the social fabric made it all the more easy to sow the seeds of hatred and spread the idea of radicalism. Bali, Madrid, London, Jakarta, Mumbai were consequently hit by terrorist groups. Singapore has not been hit by terrorist in recent times, but we are no stranger to race and religious riots. Mutual respect and tolerance for different beliefs and religions has been the social glue that binds us together.

Five years ago, our primary challenge was how to maintain communal harmony in Singapore if a terrorist strikes. Five years later, we have gone a long way. The various clusters have worked hard. One participant lauded how Singaporeans have already imbued the essence of integration into their daily lives. But there is more to be done. PM uses 道高一尺，魔高一丈 to describe how we should always to ready to deal with a terrorist who strive to outsmart you. During the dialogue, Minister Lim Swee Say used the analogy of a ball, and said how Singaporeans should prepare ourselves to bounce back swiftly like a rubber ball during a crisis, and not a glass ball that shatters into pieces.

This is apt. I have said many times that we have a daunting task. We have foiled many terrorists’ attempts to strike Singapore. But they only need to succeed once. The challenge now is whether Singaporeans can rally together and pull through such a crisis when the time comes. I want to believe we can.

From CEP

From CEP

Here are more pictures of the National CEP dialogue that was held on 19 March:

http://www.hometeam.sg/multimedia.aspx?mda_sid=201103201rdrHk0GB2XB