Champions for Peace Regional Workshop

Distinguished guests,

Ladies and gentlemen,

1. Thank you for having me here today, I often speak about the ageing population of Singapore, so it is always nice to see a group of young people with much energy and dynamism.

2. Let me start by saying that the inaugural Champions for Peace Regional Workshop this morning is indeed a milestone and I’m happy to be a part of it. I wanted to congratulate our organisers, hash.peace, together with KRIS for Peace Philippines and the Kofi Annan Foundation. I must make a special mention to the supporting partners – Temasek Foundation, Nagulendran Philanthropy Alliance, and the Diana Koh Fund. This is what makes the effort deeply special. That it’s not only by the folks with the ability to mobilise, but the ability for us to coordinate as a society, as a community, together with like-minded partners, donors, and supporters. So, to the donors and supporters, thank you very much. Let’s give them a round of applause.

3. I’m very inspired by what I’ve heard so far and what I’ve read, that bringing together the young minds, both within Singapore and regionally, has a very powerful and snowballing effect.

4. But before I go into the happy bits, let me highlight the not so happy bits. The geopolitical situation that we see around the world is not what was expected a couple of years ago. And perhaps this was something that the founders of The International Conference on Cohesive Societies (ICCS) in 2019 must have seen. Back in 2019 – before the previous wars, either in Gaza, Ukraine, and most recently even in Venezuela – the most concerning of which are the threats to multiculturalism, multilateral system that we have. We notice that leaders of the world using words like ‘Europe doesn’t look the same’, indicating that there’s an influx of people who are not quite the same as they are – whatever ‘they’ mean.

5. Many countries including Singapore are a collection of migrants, that (have come in) over the generations. So, it’s important for us to realise that the world is indeed a melting pot. We have the travel connections and the ability for many people to move from one state to another, one country to another, and that allows for diversity and do we need to celebrate that.

6. Unfortunately, multiculturalism seems to be on a retreat, and it is not the way it was a couple of years ago. It seems to me that it will potentially be the trend, at least for the short-to-medium term. It really depends on youth leaders like yourselves, to then determine what is the world you want to live in and grow up in. I must say that Southeast Asia is unique, and perhaps quite extreme in diversity – that we have over a thousand language that are spoken, almost all the religion in the world can be located in Southeast Asia. And most importantly, if we take a wider lens of Southeast Asia, quite a young population. I look at both India and some parts of China, you do see that it is indeed a young area and youthful collection of countries, which is very much unlike Europe and other parts of the world. And that may be a strength for which youth leaders like yourselves can play a tremendous role in.

7. Enduring peace does not happen by chance, but by collective action by all of us to ensure that we are able to maintain and foster the right level of ease. It starts from the basis of multiculturalism. And here, I’d like to offer three ideas for all of us to think about.

   1. First, is the idea of mutual respect, and I think that is the fundamentals of ensuring that we can have respect for one another and for those who may not look the same as we do.

   2. Second, for us to be understanding and to build the active ways of which we can foster that understanding, perhaps through networks and networks of trust.

   3. Third, for us to have dialogues, effective dialogues and most importantly, for those dialogues to then translate into actions.

8. Let me start with mutual respect. The first Prime Minister of Singapore, Mr Lee Kuan Yee, said that Singapore will not be a Chinese nation, not a Malay nation, or not an Indian nation – reflecting the three main races that we have, with Chinese as the super majority – but this would be a country for all Singaporeans. From the starting days of Singapore, he has highlighted the fact that we do need to have mutual respect with one another, because it wouldn’t be one race governing the other. Those were prophetic, long-term, visionary words that have stood the test of time to where we are today. And again, it’s an issue that all countries would have to grapple with at some point in time – for us to have mutual respect, for one group to start talking to the other as equal peers, not as superiors speaking to subordinates. When that happens, we start to see a very different perspective in the world. Imagine if the Israeli and Palestinians were talking to each other with mutual respect, I think we wouldn’t see many of what we’ve seen over the last couple of years.

9. Second, the need for understanding and to build active multiculturalism. And again, I think Singapore is but one example, there are many models across the world. But Singapore’s model has always been that of tough policy. This is inclusive of – for example – the Ethnic Integration Policy in our public housing estate, where the distribution of residents has to mirror the national population and the races of Singapore. So, you wouldn’t see enclaves forming within Singapore. We have the notion of our schools which are open to all religions, races, and cultures, and all of us sit together in a classroom and learn. And of course, national service, where our males, would be either in the police, civil defense, or military, and they work together as cohesive teams. These are policy levers that have been put in place to ensure that we are cohesive, and we continue to remain multicultural.

   1. But at the same time, there are self-help groups. And these are ethnically-based, either the Chinese – Chinese Development Assistance Council (CDAC), Malay – Mendaki, or Indian – Sinda, all of which are supporting the various races, to allow for ground-up initiatives, where the self-help groups would be in the best position to understand the needs of their respective communities.

   2. And a small role that MCCY is playing to create Harmony Circles, to bring together as a lateral bridge, both the policy implements, ground-up initiatives, and to ensure that everyone within the community are sitting down and speaking to one another.

   3. All these then foster understanding among each other, and this would be one major area for which conflict will be reduced and peace can be maintained.

10. Of course, I mentioned the point about dialogues, and I’m very pleased to note that ICCS – the International Conference for Cohesive Societies – that was founded in 2019 by our then-President, Madam Halimah Yacob, has been a useful platform for interfaith, multicultural dialogues, foster collaboration and most importantly to inspire the next generation of youth leaders. I’m blessed that this has made a positive impact on many of us here today. As of the last ICCS conference in 2025, we have about 3,000 top leaders, policy makers, community practitioners, and youth leaders from 52 countries joining us in discussing this. Now why is ICCS important?

11. ICCS is important for allowing dialogues to happen, not just nationally, but also regionally, and at some point internationally too. It would be a big difference in ensuring that the whole notion of multiculturalism and peace, and the voices get translated from Southeast Asia to the rest of the world.

12. I also understand that the Champions of Peace initiative was founded by Ms Arizza Ann Nocum, Co-founder for KRIS for Peace foundation, and she gained inspiration from the Young Leaders Programme (YLP) which was inaugurated in the first ICCS conference. This allows positive dialogues and turns them into action. Ms Arizza wanted to empower young Southeast Asian leaders to address the social and environmental challenges through peace building which requires tremendous efforts. I remember her speaking in 2025 about this project and I’m very happy to be here and seeing how she has grown from strength to strength. Thank you very much Arizza.

13. We can therefore see that when young people take ownership of the issues, in the spirit of ICCS, either in your schools, communities, or in various networks that you’re in, real change on the ground can take place.

14. Now, when I look around this room, I see many young faces and I know that there are multiple WhatsApp chat groups probably started already, some chat groups from the past. I encourage you to have more of such chat groups, because it builds bridges among each other. You’d never know if there are solutions in a different part of Southeast Asia for the problems you are facing. And I think this whole notion of being able to form links, networks, and networks for action is a very powerful and important one that we like to see, to build multiculturalism and a more peaceful society.

15. Again, it is important to realise that this is a very important, diverse, and precious group of people coming together for the purpose of peacebuilding and making sure that we remain a multicultural Southeast Asia. As you know, with the diversity that Southeast Asia has, it’s not very difficult to break it apart. And hence, it is important for all of us, especially our youths, to be able to come together, form very tight and close links with one another, regardless of race, language and religion, and regardless of nationality as well. To be able to show the world that we have a useful and workable brand of multiculturalism that results in peace, when we can very easily be at each other’s throats.

16. And with that, I wish you the very best and I hope that this conference, this collection of youth leaders, will become a shining node for the world to know what peacebuilding in multiculturalism is all about.