Freedom of Speech in Singapore

I think that both authors’ views each have their own valid points for how freedom of speech should appear. Therefore I feel that for a multi-racial society like Singapore, we should adopt both authors’ views and strike balance between them.

Firstly, the fact that Singapore is a multi-racial society makes focusing on social responsibility important. For example, if the Danish cartoon, which is mocking Prophet Muhammad, were published in Singapore’s newspaper, there would be guaranteed mass protest and anger in the Muslim community. Conflicts, resulting in riots, might also arise as the Muslims may feel that they are being discriminated. Therefore Singapore must be very careful with situation like this or history would repeat itself (1960s racial riot).

Secondly, I also feel that freedom of speech should not be limited to a large extent. As raised by Singer, “ We must be free…to criticize the teachings of Jesus, Moses, Muhammad, and Buddha, as reported in many texts that millions of people regarded as sacred. Without that freedom, human progress will always run up against a basic roadblock.” I do agree with him that we should be free to criticize the teachings of other religions so that the human race can as a whole improve. However, there should also be a limit on how we criticize them. Criticizes should be generalize in such a way that they do not offend the affected people of that particular religion. There should be a limit to the doubts raised when discussing such issues as the use of wrong words can easily offence another community.

In conclusion, for a multi-racial society like Singapore, democracy should be preserved by allowing freedom of speech to a certain extent that do not result in conflicts among different races. Thereby focusing on social responsibility also.