Malay integration: MM stands corrected
Lee Kuan Yew backpedals on his controversial earlier remarks. ST:
MINISTER Mentor Lee Kuan Yew said on Monday he stands corrected on how well-integrated Malay-Muslims are in Singapore.
He issued a statement late last night, referring to comments he made in the new book, Lee Kuan Yew: Hard Truths To Keep Singapore Going, and the reactions that followed.
‘Hard Truths was a book based on 32 hours of interviews over a period of two years,’ he said.
‘I made this one comment on the Muslims integrating with other communities probably two or three years ago. Ministers and MPs, both Malay and non-Malay, have since told me that Singapore Malays have indeed made special efforts to integrate with the other communities, especially since 9/11, and that my call is out of date.
‘I stand corrected. I hope that this trend will continue in the future.’
Filed under: Newspaper, Quotes | 15 Comments
Tags: integration, islam, lee kuan yew, muslims, singapore
Me thinks due to advance age, MM Lee has forgotten to update himself.
Hope our Malay Fellow Countrymen will understand and not take his words to heart.
patriot
That is a good thing indeed that different communities are living happily in Singapore.
He should resign as mentor, since he is teaching the wrong things.
Indeed we all “hope that this trend will continue in the future.”
There is some good that come out of this issue, and that is we have greater understanding & trust of each other now.
Look at us world, this is the Singapore Way.
‘I stand corrected. I hope that this trend will continue in the future.’
yes and we hope this trend of apologising continues in the future.
He’s already said it no matter if its 2 years ago that he wrote the book. Lesson is to tread carefully when dealing with race and religion. What he said was a prejudice and unfair statement. Shouldn’t have said it in the first place. What was he thinking?? On the outside, it seems that everyone is living in harmony, but deep down, there are deep-rooted racial issues. Look beyond skin colour!
damage has been done,just like you hit a guy and after that you say sorry,
Opinions expressed with appropriate words and at appropriate times do build up society in countless positive ways.
And speaking of build up, let us look at how we can contribute to our recent disaster stricken neighbours i.e. New Zealand, Japan, China & Indonesia.
God bless our effort.
Didn’t he check his work for accuracy of facts first before going to the print? Didn’t his 15 personal assistants also checked for him too ?
Nah, it has got nothing to do with facts. It was just plain opinion. Being the racist that he is he just stated blatantly without any fear what his impression was of the Malays here. His “retraction” (not apology, for since when has he apologised for anything?) now is just damage control because elections are just round the corner and he now realises the Malay votes may tilt the balance in favour of the opposition.
A Singaporean Muslim’s response to LKY’s statements about Islam and Muslims in his book ” Lee Kuan Yew : Some Hard Truths to Keep Singapore Going ”
http://asingaporeanmuslim.blogspot.com/2011/03/real-hard-truths-open-letter-to-mm-lee.html
This response was sent as an Open Letter via email to LKY, Members of Parliament, other individuals in the Singapore Government & members of the Singaporean Muslim community.
Our local artists should have the initiative like their foreign counterparts to start a campaign to help Japan rebuild their nation. So here’s calling Jack Neo, Mark Lee, Christopher Lee, Fan Wong & company to step forward with perhaps the support of MediaCorp and SPH to lead the way.
Talking to Charlie Rose, MM literally withdrew his “stand corrected” retraction in last week’s interview of MM by Charlie Rose shown in the Bloomberg Channel (Ch 708 Starhub) on March 30th and 31st (repeat). When asked about the subject issue and whether he or his son PM who disagreed with him was right about his remarks in his book, it was clear from the way MM crafted his reply that he was unrepentent about what he had said in his book and that his “stand corrected” retraction was insincere. I think no one seems to have picked this up yet as no comments have appeared so far and the Press have been silent about the interview.
now all malays hates PAP
Wow! What an asshole. Has he forgotten Singapore’s geographic location?