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There has to be deep and ongoing everyday conversations on what it takes to maintain multiracial harmony in Singapore - beyond activities organised to promote it, President Halimah Yacob said yesterday.
Speaking to students from Anglo-Chinese Junior College taking part in a racial harmony programme at the Singapore Discovery Centre (SDC), Madam Halimah said students should ask themselves how they can contribute to racial harmony.
One way is to speak up against stereotypes that occur in everyday conversation, she said.
"In that process, what you're doing is preventing these kinds of misperceptions from spreading, and you're telling others that you're not going to be too tolerant of those who are having these kinds of conversations," said Madam Halimah to the group of junior college students.
Madam Halimah was at the SDC in Jurong to view the centre's racial harmony and national day programmes.
She toured its new interactive National Day exhibition We're SG, which encourages active citizenry and the kampung spirit.
The aim is to remind people of values such as multiracialism, inclusiveness and hard work, which have underpinned the founding of Singapore, said Madam Halimah.
DANGER
"The danger is, because we've always been a harmonious society, we can become complacent, we don't understand that there's a lot of work that we need to do in order to generate that understanding," said Madam Halimah.
She said relying solely on organised activities is insufficient to promote multiracialism.
"We do need to have deeper conversations about what it really means for us as a society, and as a people, to promote further multiracialism," Madam Halimah added.
First-year student R. Sharveen Ram, 17, said: "I usually laugh off racist comments or I fire back, but after what she said, I think it showed that laughing it off or firing back is just encouraging them to carry on doing this. So we should just put an end to it, be firm and say this is not right."
