Response to parliamentary question on Suara Musyawarah Committee

Question

Dr Intan Azura Mokhtar: To ask the Minister for Communications and Information and Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs in view of the report submitted by the Suara Musyawarah Committee, whether there are new areas of concern that the Malay/Muslim community will need to particularly focus on and address. 

Response

Minister Yaacob Ibrahim: I had announced in my Hari Raya speech in August last year that an independent committee would be set up to engage members of the Malay/Muslim community. The Suara Musyawarah Committee, chaired by Haji Sallim Abdul Kadir, has since completed its work and handed me its report on 7 July 2013. The report is a compilation of the Committee's findings on the Malay/Muslim community's main areas of interest and concerns today, as well as their hopes and aspirations for the future.  

I would like to commend the Committee for their dedication to this challenging task. In a short span of seven months, they worked tirelessly to dialogue with more than 500 members of the Malay/Muslim community from all walks of life, be they residents in rental housing, single mothers or professionals. For a small, independent committee that had to work within a tight timeframe, this extensive outreach is remarkable and it has initiated conversations with people who otherwise might not have come forward to share their stories and their views. 

On the whole, the report reflects the positive ethos that the Malay/Muslim community sees itself as part of the broader Singapore community and has the desire to move forward and do better. I am also heartened by the report's comprehensive scope, which covers issues ranging from education as a conduit for upward social mobility to social consciousness. 

As the report aptly points out, the passionate conversations on how to move the Malay/Muslim community forward pre-date the Committee and should continue well into the future. Pragmatically, the community recognises that we should leverage on collective resources to improve outreach efforts, as well as programmes and services for vulnerable segments of the community in particular. 

This report sends an important signal that even the less advantaged among us are hopeful that they can do better than the previous generation. Vulnerable families whom the Committee spoke to are clear that they are not looking for hand-outs but prefer to be given appropriate opportunities to achieve self-reliance and upward mobility. This is the kind of active participation that our community needs to be open to and ready for. With greater community and national-level support to optimise the potential of vulnerable groups, the next phase of our community's development will be to contribute even more significantly to Singapore's continued success. 

To this end, our community should also embrace a broader definition of success beyond academic achievement. The Committee recommends media engagement to disseminate the message that the pursuit of excellence in all that we do is an Islamic virtue. We have to strive for peaks of excellence where individuals are passionate about and rise to the top of their respective fields. Indeed, it would bode well for the Malay/Muslim community in the long term to adopt this new mind-set and develop talents in diverse arenas to serve our community and society at large.  
Other recommendations in the report are also worth exploring further. I encourage organisations that have a keen interest in uplifting the community to study the report fully and develop appropriate programmes that are able to lead the community to greater progress.