March 8, 2011
Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew has retracted controversial remarks against his country’s minority Muslim-Malays in his latest book out earlier this year, after an outcry from the community.
“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have indeed made special efforts to integrate with the other communities, especially since 9/11, and that my call is out of date.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,” Singapore’s Straits Times cited the 87-year-old as saying in its report today, headlined “Malay integration: MM stands corrected”.
The book “Lee Kuan Yew: Hard Truths To Keep Singapore Going” was published in January by Straits Times Press and features a series of interviews with the island republic’s minister mentor between December 2008 and October 2009.
The book, based on interviews Lee gave to a team of seven journalists from The Straits Times, was published by Straits Times Press and launched on January 21.
In it, Lee was quoted saying, among other things, that: “Muslims socially do not cause any trouble, but they are distinct and separate.
“Be less strict on Islamic observances and say, ‘Okay, I’ll eat with you’,” he replied when asked what Muslims could do to integrate.
Lee’s remarks drew a storm of protests from Singapore’s Malay-Muslim communities who said they were baseless, and wanted him to publicly apologise.
While he said the remarks were outdated, Lee did not offer an apology in his statement.
Singapore’s general election is widely expected to be called before June and its government led by Lee’s elder son, Hsien Loong, has been seen to be eager to placate the Malay-Muslim group who form a still sizeable 15 per cent of the five million total population.
Lee’s statement was issued last night, just hours after a handful of its MPs defended the growing racial unity in Singapore’s Parliament.
*Article first apperaed on http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/kuan-yew-i-stand-cor...
Note:
While Mr Lee retracted his statements his book continues to be sold in book stores with the retracted statements still present and with no further clarifications.
Mr Lee issued the retraction after he received a lot of negative feedback. If it is so easy to brush away the feelings of those offended with a statement, why are we today still persecuting people like Amos Yee?