Provision Against Racist Comments
Subsection 3 of the Act describes the types of publication that have seditious tendency and these includes publication that "promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between different races or classes". Singapore takes social cohesion and racial harmony in the country seriously because of its multi-cultural makeup. About 40 percent of the population are foreigners, the sixth-highest percentage in the world. In 2009, 74.2% of residents were of Chinese, 13.4% of Malay, and 9.2% of Indian descent, while Eurasians and other groups form 3.2%.
Also contributing to the nation's sensitivity on racial harmony is its history of racial riots in the 1960s. More recent events of racial violence in neighboring Indonesia in the late 1990s and early 2000s also serve as reminders of potential inter-racial conflicts in the region.
Read more about this topic: Sedition Act (Singapore)
Famous quotes containing the words provision, racist and/or comments:
“The caretaking has to be done. “Somebody’s got to be the mommy.” Individually, we underestimate this need, and as a society we make inadequate provision for it. Women take up the slack, making the need invisible as we step in to fill it.”
—Mary Catherine Bateson (20th century)
“... contemporary black women felt they were asked to choose between a black movement that primarily served the interests of black male patriarchs and a women’s movement which primarily served the interests of racist white women.”
—bell hooks (b. c. 1955)
“Rather would I have the love songs of romantic ages, rather Don Juan and Madame Venus, rather an elopement by ladder and rope on a moonlight night, followed by the father’s curse, mother’s moans, and the moral comments of neighbors, than correctness and propriety measured by yardsticks.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)