Guarding Singapore’s Unique Religious Harmony

The Straits Times

13 December 2016

Barry Desker

The recent United States presidential election featured the rise of the “alt-right” movement, which pushed for a Christian, White America.

In Syria today, a bloody civil war pits Shi’ite against Sunni and has led to the enslavement of minorities such as the Christian Yazidis.

Nearer home, the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has attracted radical Muslim extremists in South-east Asia, who have convinced more than 1,000 men, women and children from the region to proceed as warriors or supporters to the battle zones in Syria and Iraq.

… Barry Desker is a distinguished fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University. An earlier version of this article was presented at a seminar hosted by the European Union in Singapore to mark Human Rights Day last Friday.

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