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The Big Read in short: S’porean youth’s openness to extremist views

Each week, TODAY’s long-running Big Read series delves into trends and issues that matter. This week, we look at youths’ openness towards religious extremist views. This is a shortened version of the full feature.

According to a recent paper, almost half of young Singaporeans said they were open to religious extremists posting views online.

According to a recent paper, almost half of young Singaporeans said they were open to religious extremists posting views online.

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Each week, TODAY’s long-running Big Read series delves into trends and issues that matter. This week, we look at youths’ openness towards religious extremist views. This is a shortened version of the full feature, which can be found here.

SINGAPORE — A recent paper on religion in the Republic by researchers from the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) threw up a finding that was both surprising and disconcerting: Almost half of young Singaporeans said they were open to religious extremists posting views online.

The paper, released about a month ago, showed that nearly 46 per cent of the respondents aged 18 to 25 would allow extremist views that deem all other religions as enemies to be published on the Internet or social media.

Even so, almost all of this group (97.2 per cent), in responding to another question, said it was unacceptable for religious leaders to incite violence or hatred against other religions.

Still, the fact that young adults here are more open to religious extremist views online is a cause for concern since it could lead to undesirable consequences and may even have an impact on national security, some experts said.

The paper’s authors noted that the findings were “worrying”, though they said in a subsequent commentary published in TODAY that young Singaporeans are concerned about maintaining religious harmony, given that they similarly hold a disdain for religiously motivated hate speech.

Singapore Management University (SMU) law don Eugene Tan, who writes on race, religious and terrorism issues, said that being receptive to such ideology means people are potentially at risk of being on the “conveyor belt” to violent extremism.

WHAT YOUTHS SAY

While youths whom TODAY spoke to agreed that they are indeed more open to such views online, they said they have faith in their own and their peers’ ability to draw a line at views that incite hatred or violence.

They attributed their openness to their exposure to ideals of freedom of speech and expression — something that the IPS researchers also cited as an “important societal value”, especially to millennials.

Mr Jiang Haolie, 23, coordinator at student-led group Community for Advocacy and Political Education based in Yale-NUS College, said that just because many youths do not believe in the censoring of religious extremist views online, it “does not necessarily mean that they endorse such views”.

Young Singaporeans are mature and educated enough to discuss racial and religious issues, rather than “sweeping them under the carpet”, he added.

Mr Chun Win Ee, a psychology undergraduate at Nanyang Technological University, said youths here have been “desensitised” to such views, after enjoying freedom on the Internet and social media.

The 27-year-old noted that since many youths have seen people posting intolerant comments about numerous issues with no repercussions, this has led to them possibly thinking that religious extremist views are also the norm.

Ultimately, the youths interviewed generally believed that they are ready for open and honest conversations about race and religion. And to them, that is the best way to inoculate themselves against extremist views.

A WORRYING ISSUE WHICH NEEDS EXAMINING

While the youths interviewed believe that their generation is well-placed to handle such issues, some experts pointed out that discerning what are religious extremist views may not always be so straightforward.

Dr Paul Hedges, an associate professor in interreligious studies at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), said: “Extremist views are found online, and in many cases it is not too difficult to find them… As such, what needs to be done is for all people, not just young people, to be given the tools to critically analyse such views and see their deficiencies.”

Ms Sun Xueling, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Home Affairs and National Development, told TODAY that the paper’s findings reflect youths’ desires to view all types of information available, whether it is healthy and unbiased, or not.

“The belief is that everyone will be discerning, and will do the right thing regardless of the types of information he or she is exposed to… However, what we see on social media is that there are individuals who can be very biased when it comes to views on race and religion and who use the virality of social media to spread their biased and often hate-filled views,” added Ms Sun, who is also a Member of Parliament for Pasir-Ris Punggol Group Representative Constituency (GRC).

Still, National University of Singapore (NUS) sociologist Tan Ern Ser argued that the majority of young people, if given the opportunity to be exposed to different perspectives and openly debate issues, “could be persuaded to see that perpetuating hatred and killing innocent people is not the way to address legitimate concerns and perceived social injustices”.

Mr Mohamed Imran Mohamed Taib, director of the Centre for Interfaith Understanding, noted that the IPS paper’s findings show that young Singaporeans in general may not have sufficient understanding on what constitutes religious extremism.

He does not think young Singaporeans are more accepting than their older counterparts of violent extremism, but there “might be a gap in perception” of what non-violent extremism is.

TABOO NO MORE, BUT FAULT LINES REMAIN

Racial and religious issues have traditionally been taboo subjects in Singapore, especially after the racial riots that erupted here in the 1950s and 1960s.

The May 1969 racial riots, which spilled over to Singapore from Malaysia, leaving four dead, drove the point home further on the explosive nature of race relations.

More people have been opening up about such issues in recent years, especially as social media becomes more pervasive, but some fear that many Singaporeans have become complacent about race and religion being potentially divisive issues.

Some youths acknowledged that while they know of the racial riots through the education system — such as via Social Studies lessons — they may not have enough appreciation of the fragility of racial and religious harmony in Singapore.

Mr Chun said the lack of actual exposure to racial conflict in Singapore has “caused us to take our harmony earned through blood for granted”. “We don’t appreciate how such (extremist) posts can affect our community’s psyche. We are rather oblivious to them and take them lightly,” he added.

In light of the IPS survey findings, those interviewed suggested that more can be done to educate and engage young Singaporeans — perhaps even starting from the primary school level.

NUS’ Dr Tan said that education should start “the sooner, the better”. As children are already playing with others across ethnic and religious lines, he proposed that pre-primary and primary curricula reinforce messages of racial and religious harmony not only to children, but their parents too.

Nominated Member of Parliament Abbas Ali Mohamed Irshad, who founded interfaith group Roses of Peace in 2012 when he was an SMU undergraduate, pointed out that youths do not want to listen to lectures or talks about the theological aspects of religion or race.

Instead, the group’s forums rely on a curated list of panelists or speakers — from religious leaders to fellow youths — who can discuss how their respective faiths drive them to do social good. His method has worked, with more than 100 youths turning up for each session.

Mr Irshad settled on this format after noticing that forums discussing religious topics were usually attended mainly by older Singaporeans.

Moving forward, he has been invited to join a student advisory committee at a primary school in the western region of Singapore. Roses of Peace also plans to pilot a programme called Peace Education Through Altruism and Leadership, or Petal for short, in schools here.

He said the primary school’s aim is “to have an inclusive environment” which “focuses on race and religious harmony”. “Even at the primary school level, we’re looking to have conversations — even primary school kids are very open these days, they know a lot of things,” he added.

 

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religion extremism Youth

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